sharing an olympics freebie

I adore the olympics and I'm so excited to watch them with he kids this year now that they're a bit older and can pay closer attention. I created these 3x4 cards because someday, I will catch up with my project life and will want to document our love!

If you can use them, grab them here :)

baby brother gets married

On Friday, July 13th, my brother got married. I know some of you saw snippets here and there on instagram of some of the festivities but I thought I'd share a few more here. The day after the wedding, I ordered a photo book for them with some of the shots I took so they could have something to look at when they returned from their honeymoon/before they got their professional photos. I just instagrammed my Canon pics so I could do it quickly and make sure they flowed well. The last shot I left in color - it's my favorite but I can't claim it as my sister took that one with her phone. (and for the record, the tiny cutie is my new sister-in-law's nephew and the bigger cutie with the long hair is my nephew, my brother's son, Tyler)

four. boom.

And just like that, my *baby* turned four. Crazy. Wasn't this just yesterday?

But alas, they grow up no matter how much you resist it. Izzy's birthday was the 16th - we just celebrated at home with some gifts in the morning and a cake in the evening (and balloons...lots of balloons.)

Her party was this past Sunday. She requested a robot party and I semi-cobbled one together (it's been a crazy month, ok?) There wee no complaints from her so I'm calling it a success.

The invitations:

I used this robot file (adding the cute little bow) and these papers (which I adore!)

The attire:

I used a small white t-shirt, the same robot file from above to create a freezer paper stencil (REALLY wanted to do an applique but time, that fickle bitch, just got away from me) and this tutorial to style the shirt. The neckline could have been better but I learned my lesson for next time around.

The goodie bags:

I sound like a broken record but I had so many little goodies planned for these bags...these cute little mini chocolate bar robots, tiny customized matchbook nootebooks, etc, etc. Instead, they were filled with bubbles, shiny robot stickers, glow in the dark stars, glow sticks, metallic party streamers, candy and a cupcake for the road. The tags are from these printables. I modified the little starburst element to add their names to each (and girlified the bags for Izzy and my niece) and attached them with metallic pipe cleaners.

The scene:

Please don't judge our yellow grass.

The gifts:

We've officially entered the Barbie phase.

The cake:

Uh, this cake was originally my inspiration but she ended up with eyes on a blue cake. And it was FINE.

Seriously. Can't handle the love I have for this girl.

sharing a template

I had the pleasure of putting together a few projects for BasicGrey as their blog guest designer for July...so fun to play with their digital designs! For the Scraplift This challenge, I created a layout with the shape-of-the-moment, hexagons.

If you click over to the BG blog, you can share a link to your project and possibly win a collection pack of your choice! Want it to be REALLY easy to do a layout based off this one? Download the template I created that coordinates with it ;)

(for some reason, I always pair hexagons with yellow...thinking it must be the honeycomb-bee connection that does it to me! and then I remembered this layout that I did for BHG a few years ago :)

a tiny share

You know, I have like 4 posts started and half-way done but I've had a hard time finishing and sharing them. Not good.

I do have a printable to share with you though...just another simple grid design with generic headers.

They are 3x4" in a single printable PDF. If you'd like it, grab it here!

coming tomorrow

I have these set to release tomorrow as part of our July Pea Soup collaboration.

I'd love to share them with you if you or your spouse is active/retired military! Leave me a comment if that's you and I'll happily send you the files.