Hello Weekend

Image via Lonny

If you think that is my office, sadly you are so so wrong. I'm about up to my eyeballs with life. Things are busy around here with my two little girls, my oldest turned two a couple of weeks ago and my youngest is eight months old. Plus, my husband is away for work for ten weeks. Yes, you read that right, I'm solo parenting for ten whole weeks. 

Lucky for me, our families are amazing and didn't turn me down when I asked them to adopt my girls for the weekend.  I'll be at home organizing, hanging art, cooking a few things and doing our taxes, I promise it's not all glamorous folks.  I've been on the hunt to find some home office photos that inspire me to finally get my act together in there. Here are a couple lovely offices that I crossed paths with. 

Image via Lonny

 Image via House Beautiful

And because I like to keep it real around here (remember my introduction post pointing out that I am a disorganization nightmare), I'm posting some pictures of the current state of my office. Honestly, the mess from Charley's party last month hasn't been completely cleaned up. And Charley is a walking tornado so that doesn't help matters. Wish me luck in my organizing adventure this weekend. 

Here are the before pics of my office. (I cannot believe I am sharing these with the world)

What are your tips for keeping your life organized, especially if you have young kids? I could definitely use some advice or maybe I just need to permanently confine Charley, that would make cleaning up easier.

DIY Fabric Flower Cupcake Topper

Photo courtesy of Sprout Photography

Charley's monkey party was a huge success and I can't wait to share the pictures with you next week. I've got some really exciting things coming up for Paiges of Style. When I was mapping out the dessert table for Charley's party, I wanted something original and handmade to adorn the cupcakes. I was inspired by this fabric flower garland over on Once Wed but made a couple of tweaks to turn it into a cupcake topper.  I think these might just be the newest trend in cupcake toppers. Get your glue gun out and get your craft on, these are so fun and easy to make.

Step One- Gather your supplies. You will need fabric, scissors, a pen or pencil, needle, thread, glue gun, a circle to trace and a lollipop stick or wooden coffee stir stick.

Step Two- Trace your circles. I used a circle that was 2.5 inches diameter to trace mine. You need 16 total per cupcake topper but you only use 8 at a time.

Step Three- Cut out your circles making sure to cut off all pen marks.

Step Four- Fold your first circle in half.

Step Five- Fold in half again. Using your threaded needle, stitch the needle into the corner of your folded circle.

Step Six- Repeat with remaining 7 circles so that there are a total of 8 folded circles threaded onto your needle.

Step Seven- Pull your thread all the way through so the knotted end of the thread is tight against your bottom circle.

Step Eight- Take your needle back through the first folded circle like pictured above to complete the flower.

Step Nine- Pull your thread as tight you can and watch your flower come to life. Tie a couple of knots to secure the flower in place. The back of the flower is pictured in this step.

Step Ten- Admire your cute little flower. Then repeat steps 1 through 9 so you have two of these.

Step Eleven- You should have two flowers by now. Use hot glue and sandwich the stir stick or lollipop stick in between the flat sides of each flower.

Photo courtesy of Sprout Photography

Photo courtesy of Sprout Photography

If you plan to make these with patterned fabric, the instructions are slightly different. For each half flower, cut out 10 circles. You should have 20 circles total per cupcake topper using patterned fabric. Pair up two circles with the wrong sides facing each other (so the pattern shows on both the top and bottom of the pair of circles) and then fold in half and in half again. Doing this step ensures that you have the right side of the fabric showing as much as possible. Thread onto needle as pictured in step five above.  Continue the pairing of wrong sides together and threading onto needle until you have all 5 pairs on the needle and continue steps 6-11 until you have a completed flower cupcake topper.  Repeat all of the same steps so you have two half flowers and glue a stick between the two halves. 

Projects in the Works

I'm up to my eyeballs in custom design work and I'm loving every second of it. If I can't be the one throwing the party, I will gladly help design for the party. I'm addicted, seriously!

Here is what I am working on right now. 

The train invitation has just been added to my shoppe, check it out here

Apparently I like diagonal stripes! I have an amazing DIY tutorial coming up tomorrow, you won't want to miss it. Trust me!

SOS (for my camera!)

I have a teeny tiny little secret to share that I am particularly proud of. In college, I minored in History of Art and Architecture (but that's not the secret) which was such a lovely break from my "real" classes in Business/Economics. I was lucky enough to get a highly coveted spot in a History of Photography class. It was incredible, so full of beautiful inspiration and amazing history. I sat in the front row every day and never missed one session, and probably looked like a drooling idiot (still not my secret!). I was in awe, I wanted to drink it all in and savor every moment of this class. I think the professor caught on and she rewarded me with an A+, that's my secret. I didn't know you could even get an A+ in college but I happily took it. Unfortunately, it was the only one I received in college.

While I can identify and appreciate good photography, my skills at taking photos are seriously lacking. I've recently armed myself with just about everything I can to remedy this. Here's what I will be reading over the next couple months. 

 

When I was at Alt Summit (a design blogger conference in Utah), I was able to take a photography class by Nicole Hill Gerulat. She is an incredible photographer who runs www.nicolesclasses.com. I learned more about photography in one hour than I have learned the previous year so I'm hoping her books can do the trick.

I had already ordered these two books before I met Nicole, more information can't hurt, right? 

My dear friend Marla of Sprout Photography suggests another tried and true method, PRACTICE! Truthfully, I wanted an easier answer. She told me she took over 17,000 images last year, that is almost 50 per day, yikes!

What do you suggest for improving your photography skills? Fill me on in your tips and tricks. I'm getting desperate!

DIY Valentine's Advent Calendar- Counting Down the Ways I Love you

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To me, Valentine's isn't about chocolate and flowers. And I don't really feel the need for gifts so closely following Christmas (but I certainly wouldn't turn a gift away)  What I do love about this holiday is the love note that my husband writes to me each year. He has a special talent for writing cards, I cry every time I read own of his sappy love letters.

Start the countdown to Valentine's on February 1st with this {sweet} advent calendar. On the inside of each envelope, write a love note and tell your sweetie what it is about them that makes you smile. For my girls, I also wrote out a fun valentine's activity that we can do that day. We'll be baking cookies, drawing hearts and taking bubble baths. Let me know what you will be doing with your sweeties!

Follow these DIY instructions and make you own sweet calendar. 

Here are the supplies you will need:

1. Download the 14 envelope files here, you will need to sign up for a Scribd account to download

2. White Cardstock

3. Scissors

4. Glue

5. A cute way to display your cards, I used ribbon and mini clothespins

  Download all 14 of the envelope files first- get them here

 Print the files onto white cardstock

 Cut out the outline of the "envelope"

Fold all four corners of the "envelope" into the center

Write your love note or activity in the center

Fold in two triangles that are opposite each other and dot with glue. Repeat 

with the two remaining sides (make sure that the side with the 

number on it is the topmost triangle) Next, place the "envelope" underneath something heavy while it dries.

They should look something like this after the glue sets

Aren't they adorable?

You're done! Now display them!

I hung mine up on gorgeous ruffled ribbon with mini clothespins.  Mine went up in completely random order. We're learning our numbers over here so this will help Miss Charley in identifying numbers and learning to count.

See, isn't this ribbon amazing?

Leave me a note about what you'll be writing to your sweeties and how you plan on displaying these. Happy Valentine's Day!!!