A Smashing Summer with Smashbooks

Another one of our summer projects was creating Smashbooks. 

You can get these wonderful books at Michaels or Target or pretty much anywhere that sells art supplies. I love the entry page as it says to use this book like a junk drawer, just smash in your memories. 

I got each of my kids their own book and I got a book for me to use too. The kids books were for their summer activities but mine is a book designed for a whole year of smashing (it is the 365 themed book). These books have colorful pages and every page is different. Some pages have designs, some have graph paper, some have places to make lists, and some have prompts already on them that get you creating and thinking. Here we are working on our books: 

We saved everything from the summer, movie tickets, theater stubs, receipts, stickers, ribbons, maps, and printed out lots of pictures. We made lists of places we visited, things we did, books we read, and books we would write if we were authors. 

And here is how Ford's book is turning out: 

And here is how Delaney's book is turning out: 

And finally, here are a few pages from my book: 

Making Gifts: Part 2

I've been eying these over sized Aztec clutches at Target all season. 

They finally went on sale for $5 each and I snatched them up. I'm giving them as gifts to all the girls in my family this year. I enhanced each one a bit differently with materials I found at craft stores. I used mostly felt flowers, buttons, and beads. 

Here's how they turned out. 

A Button Party

Well, yes, we did have two birthday parties this year. Delaney wanted to have a party for the girls in her preschool class so we had a Button Party. We got this great idea from a friend of ours who did this when her daughter was young. She got the idea from the September pages of "A Time to Keep" by Tasha Tudor, which was my favorite book when I was little.

We spent a weekend at the cabin making invitations and headbands for the party. We got a package of invitations from Walmart for under $5 and glued buttons on the front to follow our theme.



We bought packs of all colored stretchy headbands from Ross and sewed buttons on them for party favors. During the party, I stretched them around a big vase for decoration and then let each girl choose their favorite one at the end.


I decorated with a flag banner that I got from Target. I sewed buttons to the middle of each one. Then I enlarged pictures from each one of Delaney's past birthday parties and hung them on a clothesline with clothespins.


I love this picture of Delaney zooming around on her scooter waiting for all her friends to arrive.



The highlight of our party was the Button Store. Each girl received a little jar filled with buttons that they could spend in the button store. I filled the store with things from the dollar store and put signs on each item telling how many buttons it cost. I made each girl a shopping bag with their Initial on it made of felt buttons that I got from Oriental Trading.


While the girls took turns shopping in the button store, the rest of us made button necklaces with beads and buttons and hot pink plastic cord.


CamiCakes made our cupcakes and Delaney glued buttons onto flat wooden picks to decorate the tops.




Delaney was a lucky girl to celebrate with her friends and both of her grandmothers.

It was such a fun party. I love seeing the joy and celebration in the eyes of little kids and I have always thought birthdays should be the biggest and best day of the year. But now we are off to take a really long nap!!