new for fall!

petite bee is debuting a few new designs for fall, and i'm so excited to show them to you! my absolute favorite, is of course, the pumpkin:
a sweet blue sailing boat:
a little red umbrella:
and a "birthdot" in both pink and blue, perfect for your little one's birthday or lucky number! yay!

treasury!

a petite bee bib was featured in an etsy treasury this week! thank you lc's cottage for including our cupcake in your kitchen!

info photos.

i am terrible about remembering details... terrible. which is probably why i take so many photos, so that there will be lots of photographic hints to help me remember where we were & what we were doing. the only thing about that is, then i have files and files of photos on my computer that need organizing or worse, stacks and stacks of printed photos from the pre-digital days.

recently i've been seeing in lots of places fun ways to put your info right into the photo while you're taking it. sure, it takes a little more planning ahead, but how perfect is that when you're going back later and trying to remember how many weeks pregnant you were in that picture, what year that first-day-of-school picture was from, or which birthday you were celebrating? i love anything that saves a step and makes things easier later! also, i like to make shutterfly photo books instead of scrapbooking much anymore, and this would eliminate so many steps.

the one idea i immediately stole from two friends of mine is holding up the number of fingers to indicate how many months pregnant you are in the photo! [of course, this also means i must stop taking these really bad mirror self portraits and ask my completely willing-to-help husband to take them instead so i'll get a halfway decent one].

so it will be so much easier to remember how many months pregnant i am here:

and once the baby gets here, i'm totally stealing this super cute idea from the young house love "youngsters" to document the baby at each week or month.

they even have a full post about how they do it. they genius-ly took their baby's monthly pics in a plain white onesie and added the numbers by computer later [i'll totally be using picnik!] LOVE that blog.

as we keep celebrating little birthdays i think it would be great to hold up a little number sign for the birthday boy or girl [remember the cupcake 1st birthday? i already have a frighteningly large 'idea file' for her 2nd one coming up!]. i'm wishing i had done that last year, but no harm in starting this year, right? here is a cute example from blonde designs:

and when my kiddos inevitably grow up & get big enough to go to school, i think this idea for the classic first day of school photo with your child's school year, school name, and teacher's name all included is so cute! [and just the sort of thing i will need to help me remember]. borrowed from the super organized and inspiringly simple blog of shim + sons:

i've been thinking too that if you were in a pinch for time or had no way to make a pretty sign ahead of time, you could also have your child hold up a blank sheet of cardstock or plain ol' printer paper and add the information later. again... picnik. amazingly easy!

i was just sorting through several boxes of old photos that i inherited from my parents after my mom died [inherited isn't quite the right word. we're sort-of babysitting them] and there are so many that i don't know the details of... sometimes the year is printed or written on the back, but that's the only clue... nothing about what town we lived in, why we were living there at the time, what schools we went to, or what in the world some of them are. i hope to start taking incorporating a couple of these types of ideas into our family pictures to keep myself straight!

[photos are thanks to each individual blog, except for my pregnancy one. please visit their blogs for more info!]

i'm a wanderer.

i have to admit that sometimes my mind wanders. i sit at the computer thinking ok, i will check my email, maybe one or two other websites, and then be done! suddenly, i log off the computer an hour later because one cool thing i clicked on led me to another... and then another...

i am especially bad about this with crafty websites. there are just so many awesome craft blogs out there with great ideas and amazing tutorials! i can't stop at just one. i'll give you an example of how it happens with me.

i've been looking at birthday ideas for my soon-to-be-two-year-old [eep!] and saw on a friend's facebook page a completely darling balloon wreath she made for the front door of her daughter's first birthday party. so i started googling "diy balloon wreaths" and decided i definitely must make one:

balloon wreath from how does she

then i started thinking about how i want to do a candy shop theme for her party and about those cute gumdrop wreaths i've seen around blog-land... now where were those? oh, here we go:

gumdrop wreath tutorial on kiddley

then i started thinking about the peppermint centerpiece i made at christmas last year and how i have 2 big bags left over and that i could do the same thing with peppermints... how cute would a peppermint wreath be? then in searching for the wreath, i found these peppermint stick candles [or vases] and peppermint tree centerpieces:

candles and trees from let's entertain

and suddenly my mind is frantic with ideas... what other edible things could you make a wreath out of? cookies? candy corn for fall? and christmas ideas... oh i have so many things i want to make for christmas!

and suddenly i'm lost in a sea of handmade ornament ideas. i feel inspired, excited, and slightly panicked. where do i start?

a little amour for a friend.

it has admittedly been quite awhile since i have made any jewelry to speak of. it's sad too because i love making it, and rarely have any made & ready to go when i get dressed [that forever happens on sunday morning when i get dressed up for church]. maybe i just need to organize what i have a little better- i'm a person that needs to have all her options visible at one time to be able to effectively pick!

but all this week i've been thinking about one of my best childhood friends, an amazing woman who now lives in new york city and is pursing an acting career, and really missing her. and i got in the mood to make her a little something to say hello and for her to wear and be reminded of how cool i think she is. so last night i got to work down in my craft room [ahem... basement] and made her this little bit of amour:
it makes me think of a ring around the moon & reminds me of her. the top loop slides back and forth, and the little stone rotates inside the ring. and the little leaf at the clasp is just for fun. and it is tucked into my favorite little tiny brown paper bags and ready to be mailed to brooklyn.

so here's to good friends even though they're far away, and here's especially to finally getting back to making!

preschool crafts!

my little one is growing up faster than i can believe, and is not so little anymore! she is outgrowing the crafty projects i have in mind to make for her faster than i can get them made. some days i feel like a lazy mom because i want to do fun things with her like finger painting, but all i can think about is the ginormous mess there will be to clean up after probably about 5 minutes of actual painting. but she's super smart, and i do feel like she's almost to the age that she needs a little more structure [ie: learning!] to her play rather than me expecting her to entertain herself for any given amount of time with a stack of blocks or something.

so, off to google i went to see what kinds of preschool toddler-appropriate semi-educational crafts i could find. here are some things i can't wait to try with her!

sensory tubs
knowing me, i probably like this idea because you can theme- and color-coordinate them, and they look so fun! the only downside is i can see these being way more fun to dump out and walk away from than any actual sorting or "sensing."

child art quiet books
my almost-2-year old is probably a little young for this one too, but i love the idea of making a quiet book out of pictures the children have drawn themselves. you know i love me some quiet books of all kinds [i hope to one day have a little army of them] and you could even go soulemama-style on them and embroider the drawings first!

photo flashcards/word book
i think this would be a great way for a little one to learn words- by pairing them with photos you've taken yourself so that the image that goes with the word is familiar to your little one. flash cards are a great idea, and making them into a first words book would be fun too!

many of these ideas i found on a great website called the crafty crow by clicking on the category 18 months to 2 years old. seriously don't click unless you've got an afternoon to spend browsing... there are lots and lots of great ideas to be found there! the rest of the ones i liked seemed to all do with painting of one sort or another:

potato printing

magic line painting

word silhouette painting

tin foil printmaking

super sized marble painting

dot stampers

i also have a fun idea for how to display kids' artwork that i'm hoping to incorporate into a toy storage organizer i'm working on finishing up! can't wait to get that one done!

[photos in this post are thanks to each individual website. please check out their lovely blogs for more great ideas!]

beachy white.

just when i'm convinced my home is boring & colorless, i see something like this & i suddenly want to paint everything in my life white:

design*sponge

not to mention, move to the beach too. such lovely, cool pictures in the midst of back-to-school when it still feels like summer outside!