Salt Dough Footprint

Little princess' foot print.

This was my daughter's footprint at 3 months old. Hers turned out so much better than her brothers' foot/hand prints that I did years ago. I think it's because I didn't have a rolling pin back then, and I didn't have a good bowl/cutter to cut the dough with back then.

Same recipe, though.

SALT DOUGH RECIPE:

1 cup flour

1 cup salt

1/2 cup warm water

• Combine flour and salt in a bowl. Mix well.
• Make a well in the middle of the bowl of dry ingredients, and pour in the water. Mix and knead into a dough. Add water until desired texture is reached. 1/2 cup for me was good enough.
• Roll the dough into a ball, and flatten with a rolling pin until the dough is about 1/4 inch thick.
• Make the print. (For me, it worked better when I made the footprint first before cutting the dough).
• You can use a clear bowl (to see if the print is in the middle of the cut you're about to make) or cookie cutters to cut the dough.
• Either air dry the masterpiece, or put in the oven at 200°F for 1 ½ to 2 hours or more, depending on your oven.
• When done, you can either leave the dough as is or paint it (some say acrylic is best).

Our oven back when I made her brothers' prints didn't warm enough at 200°F, whereas our oven now got a lot warmer at that temperature and "baked" the dough perfectly, so just keep watch of yours.

Be sure to make a hole before leaving the dough to air dry or "bake" if you want to hang it somewhere. My boys' prints went inside a shadow box frame (as shown below) - before they broke into pieces. I think I made their dough too thick. Hopefully our little girl's print will be just fine.

The boys' foot prints from years ago.

Christmas Crafts 2014

So I haven't posted for a while, and then I remembered the crafts I made this month (both by myself and with our kids). These are all ideas from Pinterest.

 Craft #1. Original source here.

Paper star

Craft #2. Original source here.

Paper wreath

Craft #3. Original source here.

Snowmen (and girl) foot prints

I was also considering making paper snowflakes with C, and a "snowman" made out of boxes, but decided we can do them next year. I think we did a pretty good job making at least 3 crafts. That is more than I ever did in the past Christmases we had.

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

How was your Christmas?

Thank-You Cards

J turned one a little less than two months ago. His birthday was celebrated MUCH MUCH simpler than his older brother's first birthday. But the feeling's the same - we, as his parents, are happy and blessed to have him in our lives. He brings us so much joy and happiness everyday.

His awesome relatives didn't forget him on his birthday, though, despite the simplicity of his birthday celebration. My in-laws helped us with his birthday cake, and sent him some gifts, too. So did his cousins from my sister-in-law, and his great-grandfather (my mother-in-law's father). 

I haven't crafted in a long time, but I figured I wouldn't let this one pass without a thank-you note to all of them, for remembering our boy on his special day. So here they are:

For my in-laws.

For J's great-grandpa.

And for his cousins.

I tried hard to think that day on how to make them look great, but nothing came up in my mind. I guess I am out of practice. I made the butterfly one first, then the yellow card, and last the one with the bunting. The butterfly one wasn't actually blue/turquoise at first. The original card blended great with the red color, but as soon as I finished making it, I accidentally put my stamp pad upside down (which was open) on top of the card, and I didn't have anymore extra of the same color to use, so it became turquoise.

Making these in one day was therapeutic to me (it takes me hours to come up with a template/layout because I'm a visual person when it comes to things like this. I have to take all my things out and lay them out in front of me to see if this color goes with that, etc.). My husband even took the kids out to the park when they got up from their naps that day, so I could finish the second one I was working on then (the yellow one on the very top).

I love my family from my husband's side. They are really involved with us and our kids. I need to be better in sending out cards on special occasions just like they did for us.

Pinterest Find - Salt Dough Foot and Hand Print Keepsakes

I found several recipes for this awesome keepsake. It's so easy to mix and make. Unfortunately, neither of my two batches turned out well. I know it was just me. The first set (just my 12-month old's hand and foot prints) were fine pre-paint period. It baked all right. But the prints weren't deep enough so when I painted them with white acrylic paint, you could hardly see the prints.

That didn't stop me. I made another batch, this time I had enough for both kids. I got their prints done nicely and deep enough - thanks to my husband's help. He did the printing so much more efficiently with the second batch than I did with the first batch. I also tried a different recipe for the second batch. And the instruction said to either bake them or air dry them so I chose to air dry them - outside. Well the bottom remained a little doughy and soon enough, they started to crack. I couldn't be more disappointed.

But anyway, maybe you'll have a turn of luck unlike I did. Here are the pictures of the first batch and the second batch:

FIRST BATCH

I don't know why the picture turned out like this - like a negative side of the film. If you look to the left side of the saucer (top of the toes), the picture turns into how it looked like in real life (positive side of film kinda).

The recipe for this batch was:

1 cup plain flour

1 cup salt

1/2 cup warm water

Mix the flour and salt together and slowly add in water to get the right consistency - not too sticky and not to crumbly either. If it's too crumbly/dry, add some more water. If it's too sticky, add a little bit more flour. 

Use a shallow dish to use as a template for the dough. 

Bake at about 200ºF for 3 hours. Make sure the oven is not too hot or else the dough will rise and cook. If the bottom is still doughy, turn it over and bake it for another two hours. 

She said to use wax paper on the cookie sheet so the dough will not stick, but I think it's the culprit for my wet-bottom doughs that never dried (I used wax paper for both batches and both batches had wet bottoms that never dried). If you'd like to look at the main tutorial, here it is.

SECOND BATCH

J's hand and foot prints

C's hand and foot prints

 It's pretty obvious that C's feet was too deep. Anyway, my recipe for these was:

4 cups flour

1 cup water

1/2 cup warm water

I didn't use oil as the original recipe called for, and that's probably why these ones cracked. She also didn't mention about using wax paper underneath (since she used oil) and I did. 

Poke the doughs with straws prior to baking them or air drying them. 

She said you can put it in the oven at 150 degrees (didn't say if it was C or F) for an hour. Since I didn't know which temperature she used, I opted for the 24-hour air-drying - er... right. It became 72 hours actually since the bottoms were wet (up until now). Within the first 24 hours, I saw a crack in front of C's foot print. Three days after, all four prints had tons of cracks at the back. I almost cried. Maybe I should have used that oil and stopped using the wax paper! :(

Well, I'm going to try again next year on their birthdays and see if I get lucky with a decent recipe. 

Babies and a Tie

I almost forgot to post about the latest (and so far the last) handmade cards I made last month but it's never too late, right?!? :)

CARD #1: For my sister-in-law, Sarah:

She recently gave birth to a healthy 10 pound baby boy! CONGRATULATIONS!!!

Card #2: For a sister in our ward at Church, Elise Burnett:

Elise is due to give birth some time this month. It's their first baby so it's really exciting!

Cards #3: For Jesse (Father's day card)

I used to fold papers into a shirt like this back in high school and I almost forgot how to do it. The tie I used is from a Father's day sticker set that I got from Michael's. The next card was made by C, I only helped him how to make his very first handmade card:

He had so much fun tracing his hands with me, coloring the greeting card and the envelope, and adhering the "I heart my Daddy" printout onto another card stock paper. He was still kind of oblivious of what we were doing but I am just glad he was able to make it with me for Father's day.

Baby Card

One of the members of our ward's Relief Society presidency at Church 

is expecting baby number 2 - and they're having a boy!

(Their first is a girl).

She had her surprise baby shower recently

thrown by a sister in our ward (who is also expecting)

but sadly, I couldn't come because I got sick.

Anyway, I did have a gift for her

and my friend was kind enough to take it to the shower

for me in my behalf.

With that little gift, I also sent her this handmade

baby card that I made just the night

before I found out the changes in her baby shower's date:

Side note: whenever I include an envelope in my pictures,

that means I made the envelopes too.

I have at least 5 more handmade cards to make within just 2 weeks,

but I love making them.

I am sure it'll be a lot faster once I get those nice crafting tools

but they can always wait.

For now, I love spending 2+ hours (each) making my handmade cards

(I spend that much time hinking about the layout, the design, 

color theme, & finally making them).

End of May Birthdays

Here are my new cards that I made a few weeks ago.

They are for two sisters in our ward at Church

who are both celebrating their birthdays on the same day

(end of May).

I was waiting for the days to pass by

(for when I actually can give them to my friends)

before posting them on my blog so they don't get a "spoiler"

of their handmade cards from me.. hehehe!

With these birthday cards, I found the template/inspiration/idea

(however you want to call it)

from Ruth Muzeen.

She has a crafting blog called, "Flower Sparkle"

I just love and adore all of her handmade cards.

These are her handmade birthday cards that I "copied"

(my first time copying somebody else's card ideas)

These are my version of those cards:

They are not as good as hers but I like them a lot.

I actually sent her a message

(through a comment on her blog post)

for her permission to post her cards here but she never got back to me 

(she did post my comment in her blog, though, 

but for some reasons I can't find that blog post anymore).

Knowing myself, I always like to decorate

the "dedication page" as well so for this one,

it's actually my own idea:

I just used a flower rubber stamp that my friend Shellanie

gave to me (thanks for all of them)

to use as embellishments.

Happy birthday to my friends, Erin and Brendi!

Stardust

I made this card for a family who are members in our ward at church. 

They're expecting to have their baby soon while we're gone.
I made this simple card last night 

so that we could give this to them today at church because 

today's PROBABLY the last time they'll see us before they have their baby.

The wording/sentiment is a Stampendous rubberstamp called Baby Stardust.

(Image from Stampendous)

I got it from the nearby Michael's store.

And since the sky blue rubber stamp ink that I bought a while back

 DRIED OUT before I ever even opened it,

I just used the extra fine tip end of a matching sky blue color 

double ended Le Plume marker 

(the other end is a brush tip, both great for rubberstamping), 

and wrote over the words again.

It actually took me a while to figure out the layout I wanted to do

because I made some errors here and there.

But it's good that everything worked out.

The "message page" was not so elaborately designed because

I was really sleepy last night but I think

it still turned out ok.

And towards the end, I figured I'd use a skyblue gel pen for the dots

of the wording because the "teddy bear" sticker/embellishment I used had glitter on it,

and I used that same gel pen to write my message.

Unfortunately my handwriting is like a first grader's when I use gel pens -

totally different from my normal handwriting... hehe!

Happy Birthday

Okay, so besides aspiring to become a professional photographer someday (which I am thinking of giving up on), I am fond of paper crafts, mainly making greeting cards. I still haven't perfected it that much, though. I'm not the kind of person who makes elaborate cards like those you see at Martha Stewart tutorials or what-not. I like my cards simple, not too heavy, and not too crowded. I still think that some of the elaborate cards I see online (like Scrapbooking.com, Twopeasinabucket.com, etc) were really cute and beautiful. I honestly want to be able to make something like those cards someday. I just love making our own greeting cards!

Things I like about handmade cards: First, it's much more personal/sentimental because you're thinking of the person while you are making it and at the same time thinking of the message that will go with it. Second, it saves us at least a little bit of money a year from constantly buying those readymade cards by Hallmark (though I love their cards!) and third, I'm enjoying doing what I do. It always makes me feel good being able to make something with papers, scissors, and adhesives. Oh, and rubberstamps and inks! :)

I use readymade cards every now and then, though, when I can't find the time to make one. This Christmas, I badly wanted to make our Christmas greeting cards but I didn't have enough things to make them (cardstock/paper-wise, sticker-wise, and stamps-wise). Maybe next year. 

It's been a long time since I made a greeting card because I just love playing with our son when he's awake (even though you see me online on Facebook, it doesn't mean I'm facing the computer the whole time). But lo and behold, a special occasion is coming up for a special someone in our lives. My mother-in-law recently celebrated her birthday. I was thinking about her ever since December hit the world and what I could make for her. Well, she always sends us cards for our birthdays and whenever there is a holiday, so I thought of sending her a handmade card. I made this simple card for her:

To the sweetest mother,

mother-in-law,

and grandmother that we know, Happy Birthday (again)!

We love you so much!