Gilbert Turkey Trot...

Here's my latest design project:

For those in the area, the Gilbert Turkey Trot takes place Thanksgiving morning and it's not too late to sign up. I know there are a lot of trots out there, but this one is near and dear to my heart as 100% of the proceeds go to charity. But not just any charity, they go to my niece's charity, the I love Lucy Project.

Lucy has a syndrome called Bardet-Biedl (BBS) which causes blindness, obesity and many other health issues.

Lucy is one of thousands of children who's families are fighting to find cures for this debilitating syndrome. The goal of the "I Love Lucy Project" is to work with doctors and scientists to stop the effects of BBS before it's too late.

So come and join us for the 1 mile family fun run or if you're feeling more ambitious run the 5K to burn off all the calories you haven't eaten yet! For more information or to sign up go to www.gilbertturkeytrot.com. Hope to see you there!

Circus Birthday Party Invite...

I figure by the time my kids are old and no longer loving my carefully planned themed birthday parties, I will have the largest selection of random themed invites to remember each party by!

Lego Party Details...

This is how a Lego party goes down at our house. Both Hallie and Hunter had helped on decor and treats the week before but when they got off the bus and saw it all put together there was a lot of excitement. Hunter exclaimed, "This is the best party ever." I love that my six year old is as enthusiastic about parties as I am.


When friends arrived they each colored a Lego mini figure. Not surprising all but one chose to make it look like Emmet or Wild Style from the Lego Movie.



We had a photoshoot with our Emmet photo board for each kid.

We also had each kid build a rubber band lego car. This took much longer than I expected but they were the perfect ages for the activity. We raced them and tried different sized rubber bands to see what changes it had. The thinnest rubber band gave the most favorable results!




This boy was on cloud nine. We took his favorite toy and mixed that with his favorite people and he was beyond happy. His friend asked if we could keep everything so he could have it for his birthday party in a couple months. Flattery from a six year old is priceless!


Source List:
Lego Invites with printable
Lego photo board
Yellow Cups - draw faces with marker
Gift bags - White bags from Target (comes in pack of 8 for $4) with a yellow lego head cut out and "thanks" written on it.
Lego Candy
Bags for lego candy - 1" x 8"
Sparkler candle - Party City
Lego Jello Mold
Yellow tablecloth roll
Happy face balloons
Blue Legos hanging above table - blue poster board with foam adhesive behind circles
Red/white checked background - wrapping paper
Duplo Legos built around cake and candle

Lego Birthday Treats...

The key to throwing a party is to enlist the troops - even when they're six and eight and even when the party is for them!

I had Hunter and Hallie stuffing little bags of lego candies - making patterns - we should've just counted it as homework for the day!






We also wrapped chocolates for the gift bags - which ended up not going in the gift bags until they were going home because it didn't cross my mind that the chocolates would melt in our warm fall weather!




The biggest hit was the lego jello. My kids love jello molds and we have them for all the holidays. I saw these on Amazon and I was skeptical that they would actually work - they were awesome! Besides, jello always tastes better when it's in the shape of something cool.

Lego Birthday Invite...

These are about as easy and inexpensive as they come. Print off some blank lego guys (download here)


Then download a lego font and type up your details. (I found LegoThick here) Connect them with a color brad and they are good to go!

2015 Young Women's Theme; Free Printables...

This year's theme for the Young Women/Men for our church is "O ye that embark in the service of God, see that ye serve him with all your heart, might, mind and strength that ye may stand blameless before God at the last day."

I've designed an 8.5x11 binder cover, 5x7 photos, a 24x36 poster and logos in a couple different color schemes. Feel free to use as you please. Find previous years here, here and here.



Download All O Ye That Embark Materials as a ZIP file
Download O Ye That Embark Aqua 5x7
Download O Ye That Embark Aqua 8.5x11
Download O Ye That Embark Coral 5x7
Download O Ye That Embark Coral 8.5x11
Download O Ye That Embark Gray 5x7
Download O Ye That Embark Coral 8.5x11
Download O Ye That Embark Yellow 5x7
Download O Ye That Embark Yellow 8.5x11
Download O Ye That Embark Logo Grayscale
Download O Ye That Embark Logo Color 1
Download O Ye That Embark Logo Color 2
Download O Ye That Embark Logo Color 3
Download O Ye That Embark Poster 24x36

50th anniversary shirts...

Catch up on the anniversary fun in part one, two and three. As well as our shirt design here.


You might have noticed from some of my previous pictures from the big anniversary weekend that at one point we all had our matching charcoal gray shirts on. (Let me remind you that all those people are immediate family - Steve's parents, siblings and siblings children) We thought it would be fun to have a shirt to commemorate our celebration (similar to the shirts I designed for the last big family reunion.)

I went with something simple yet meaningful to the family. Of course the 50 is there for 50 years of marriage. The orange symbolizes Arizona and their upbringing (Steve's parents LOVE oranges and have many trees in their yard) and there are 9 slices in the orange, one for each kid.




The shirt is amazingly soft and might be my kids new favorite...until they grow out of it!

Fun last day of school photo...

We're gearing up for the last day of school around here. Hallie comes home each day and proudly announces how many days she has left and we are now in the single digits. How did summer sneak up on me so quickly??

I wish I could say I was planning a stellar end of the year party...but I'm not.

I wish I could say I have great plans for how to entertain them once school is out...but I don't.

You know what we do have plans for - Hallie's end of the year music program, Hunter's preschool graduation and this photo on the last day of school (I'll probably throw in a sno-cone as well...got to love low expectations):


If you've got a first day of school photo and a frame and some version of Photoshop/elements you can whip this picture up in 5 minutes.

Take a picture of your child holding a frame and open in Photoshop.

Duplicate your photo layer.

Delete the inner contents of the frame.

Place the first day of school photo into the document and resize so it fits slightly larger than the frame.

Move the first day of school layer below the top layer.

Done.

I've created a detailed tutorial over at howdoesshe.com to walk you through it step by step.

It's also the same tutorial you'll need for a photo documenting a blessing, baptism and one day a wedding.

Baby Boy Birth Announcement...

I always feel the need to promptly design a birth announcement with my kids - however getting them sent out seems to stretch out for far too long. Some got sent with Christmas cards, others were hand delivered this week and I still have some sitting on my desk for a few more locals not within walking distance. He's already four months old; he doesn't even look like this anymore, but what can you do?! Its fun to remember a not so distant past...a simple reminder that they grow too quickly!

Kid's Valentine Card Printables...

Valentine's day is just around the corner - Hallie asked me the other day what her valentine is going to be this year. Good Question. Haven't put any thought into it. Then in my inbox this week I had several people request last year's valentine printable. Which means there's a whole group of people out there already on the ball. I'm typically that person - this bathroom remodel is knocking me off my game!

Here's last years cards: I don't go overboard with these little things (lets be serious, the kid receiving it quickly removes the candy and tosses the card!) - the simpler the better and I make the kids work on them; cutting out or attaching candy. Once I design it, I can use it for another kid the next year which helps me out. By the time Cannon is passing out cards he'll have a library to choose from.

Here are links to the cards above.

Download Airhead Valentine

Download "Write" Valentine


Speaking of Valentine's Day - does a card box get much cuter than this. (here) There's no way she's beating that this year.

More Valentine's fun here and here.

Wedding fun...part one...

Tossed in with the fun of our anniversary, Christmas, my birthday and New Years - we also attended the wedding of our oldest niece Brimley (and our oldest nephew ties the knot in just a few short months, so fun!) To say that I completely adore this girl would be an understatement and watching her get married made me feel older than I really am. (Just another perk of marrying the second youngest in a family of nine siblings - you have nieces and nephews not too much younger than you.) At college, Brimley found a real gem, Scott, and I not-so-secretly wished they lived much closer. They're fun, energetic and they've got all sorts of style. Love that they found each other. They were married in the Mesa temple and had a reception at their house the same evening. I can't wait to see all their gorgeous photos, but of course I couldn't help but snap a few myself. It's in my blood. The beauty from the day:

Each table had random facts about the bride and groom - which made me walk around to each table to read them all, some were quite funny. The reception had a waffle bar and other breakfast related foods including donuts, so of course guests had to go home with fine label "McGrath" syrup. The donut cake was a work of art (didn't manage to get pictures of that before people started diving in) and I caught Brian working on the "groom's" donut cake. His and Her cups to toast their new life together. More pictures to come...

First Journal...

I love to journal; which is evident by this on-going blog. I love to collect thoughts, impressions, projects and of course photos.

My first journal was pink with a teddy bear on it that my grandma had given me as a gift. I loved that book. Over the years I collected more and more journals which eventually led me to scrapbooking where I spent a lot of time and money. (but of course I could never keep up with the amount of pictures I took!)

When I married Steve, I took a look at his old journal and fell in love with him all over again. The stories and thoughts...they're priceless. I'm really hoping to instill the love of writing in my children - so years from now they can look back and marvel at how simple life once was when hearing your name on the intercom at school was a really big deal. Childhood is awesome.

When Hallie was baptized, we gave her her first of many journals, personalized just for her. We ask her 2-3 times a week to take some time to write the best part of her day, or any feelings she might have. It's funny how at such a young age those thoughts and feelings are very private and personal. When I asked her to bring me her journal so I could take a picture of it, she wanted to make sure I wasn't going to read it! Probably won't be the first time I hear that. I printed it through blurb (considered their "trade" size in paperback). I designed it in InDesign and made most the pages lined - but then sprinkled in several of her baptism photo shoot pictures. Hopefully this will be one of many books she fills.