Kaitlin Sheaffer

the one with the cookie platter

Friday night I made some cookies...yum. I have been craving a lemon cookie of some sort for weeks now and found a recipe online that was perfect. At the end of this recipe it says "pack the cookies into a decorative container".

Yeah, I guess...in a perfect world. 

But 1. I don't have a decorative container...I don't even have a platter to put cookies on. 

and 2. A lot of the cookies were gone before they got a chance to cool. 

Cookies don't last in this house (unless you hide them- and even then not so much). 

So, then I got to thinking I really need a pretty plate to put cookies and things like that on. Because basically right now I will have so many cookies at the end of baking I have to either use several plates or containers or put them on some sort of cooking rack or cutting board and cover them. Not a fun way to dress up cookies. 

I don't have an Anthropologie nearby. Poor me. Well, there is one about and hour and a half away. That is not too far- but it is not exactly something you can just drop by and see what they have going on in the store. The first time I went into Anthropologie many years ago I wanted to live there. Really who doesn't? I mean, I would have tried to hide myself somewhere so I could stay longer- just to absorb everything. There is so much in an Anthropologie store to absorb.  As soon as I walked out I wanted to turn around and go back. 

Anyway, this beautiful little platter would be perfect for showcasing these lemon ricotta cookies with lemon glaze... and my mom would love it too (she loves fleur de lys)...and don't even get me started on the matching pieces to go with it.  

In reality though, by the time the cookies cooled and I the glaze was firm I was able to fit them all on a dinner plate ;) 

 

time for a giveaway...and a freebie for stopping by

Check out Ali's blog today for the giveaway...

This is my last hurrah before I go on maternity leave. I am at 36 (1/2) weeks now so technically I might be a bit of a risk taker even with doing so much. 

Well, maybe a lot of a risk taker. So far we have a crib set up with bedding and some tape masking off what areas I would like painted in the baby room. A few days ago we ordered a bureau (dresser as most would call it I guess) and just yesterday I ordered a high chair. Of course I have other things I received as gifts from my baby shower. This weekend I am planning on going to pick up the remainder of the items I need (including paint for the walls) because really we are at serious count down time now-and it was not until this week I really sat down and thought- whoa...I still have so much I need to buy. Babies are expensive ;) 

Because my due date is February I am getting a lot of 'Valentine' baby talk. Which could be likely if he comes a week and a few days early. On the other hand if he is like Reiley (a week late) he will be a March baby. February only has 28 days you know and I am due 5 days prior to the end so I am thinking it could swing either way. 

Okay- enough baby talk.... how about a download? I haven't done that in a while. 

 
 

I made up these little 'love flakes' some time ago and thought they were just so sweet. I know...love flakes might be an odd name...but I liked it so I stuck with it. Sure, you could use them year around- but for Valentines they and perfect! What I love about them is that where I am there is still lots of snow. So, as much as I want to feel spring and move on to pastels or bright colors...it might take a while for me to see that outside my door. In fact- I still have snow on my driveway from December...it makes me so sad. These remind me of snowflakes or maybe doilies. They cut out with a 1- 3/4" circle punch really well (as long as you print the pdf without any shrinking). I think they would be perfect on little treat boxes for Valentines! 

You can download the little suckers here: Download Loveflakes

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On a side note- I have had a lot of requests for digital work (which is so sweet!) I myself am just starting to really dive in to the digital side of scrapbooking and truly every bit I learn I love it more! That being said, I want to be a little more comfortable in my own digital scrapbooking before I start offering items of that nature. I guess I want to make sure I understand when I am designing something what different uses for it might be and perhaps that will even help me to design items better (that is a confusing explanation). Anyway- I am hoping on my maternity leave I can dig a little deeper into digital. So hopefully I can offer something soon. I am starting quite a collection of digital items as there are so many lovely items out there and I love the flexibility of these items! So much fun- and one more thing I can add to my stash!

 

wedding

This last weekend my bigger little sister Ashlyn got married. The wedding was beautiful and my family was very excited to make her fiance, Tanner, part of our family. 

 

I did not manage to get many photos...as I was perhaps distracted quite often. Also, because I just have not learned to deal properly with backlighting and right behind the altar was a huge window with bright sun shining through and reflecting on the snow...not good for me. I am better taking photos of objects standing still and that can be rearranged I realized. Reiley loved being a junior bridesmaid (any excuse to put on a dress just makes her so happy) and I was reminded quite often how outgoing she has become compared to when she was a toddler and was quite shy. The photo above is Reiley with my little, little sister (who is Reiley's best friend). 

 

I think Reiley's favorite part of weddings has to be the toasts/speeches (especially funny ones). She just gets a kick out of them. I have a very similar photo from our wedding when the best man was giving his speech. 

See. She can hardly handle it. Here Tanner is reading a journal entry that Ashlyn wrote about him when she was in ninth grade. When you are in ninth grade everything is quite dramatic...as was this entry about how Tanner had broken up with Ashlyn and she was very distraught. Apparently Tanner was preoccupied with basketball at the time (as most guys are) and Ashlyn was upset because he would not man up. 

My mom told me later that when they were staging everything- getting everyone ready to walk down the aisle that they had Ashlyn sit down against this wall so when they opened the door to the church nobody would see her and they could let the others walk down first. So, Ashlyn sat down in this chair which happened to be right next to a trash can. Reiley looked at the trash can and said, "Hey, they have you sitting down next to the trash can...and you are wearing white...so you must be white trash!" HA! The things kids say! Such a nice thing to say to your aunt on her wedding day right before she walks down the aisle ;) 

Hopefully it helped lighten the mood and got a few laughs. 
 

 
 

 

mobile

Last week Reiley and I plopped ourselves in my studio and had some fun while watching nature shows on PBS online. I never even knew you could watch so many videos on PBS online. It is really neat (we love nature shows around here). 

I won this book on Donna Downey's blog a few years ago. I have pretty much never won anything my entire life (besides this book) so it was quite exciting for me. Of course, I gave the book to Reiley and she was so excited to have won something also. In fact, she probably could not have picked a better recipient for the book because Reiley goes through it all the time and picks out projects she wants to do and we see what we have, what we need and she gets to work on them. She has several post it notes sticking through the top right now to bookmark her next project. 

This project was also in the book. Reiley always is complaining that we don't have most of the items to make the projects- but for this one we did. Go figure. 

 

For this project she used crayon shavings and sandwiched them in between two pieces of wax paper. Then we covered the wax paper with some 'parchment paper' (we did not have parchment paper so we just used some paper and ironed it on low to melt the crayon. I used the little Heidi Swapp iron and it worked perfect (it comes in so handy because I hate ironing normally). Then after she got quite a selection of these going we cut them out (her using scissors- I used an exacto knife for the center), punched a hole in the shop and tied them to an embroidery hoop. You could probably spray paint the embroidery hoop or pick up a cool plastic one...but Reiley is somewhat impatient like me and wants to see results fast. We can't wait on spray paint. 

 

She wanted it hung over her bed in front of her 'canopy'. Her canopy is made up of a couple of extra curtains and a curtain rod I had lying around. She is the type of kid who loves taking out massive amounts of blankets and building forts so I surprised her one day by using the curtains to create a canopy. She loves it...although I think something other than black would fit her room a lot better. 

All in all the mobile took us about one nature show (which is about 50 minutes long). Most of the time was Reiley making crayon shavings. After that it went fairly quick because I jumped in to use the iron and helped her with cutting and stringing. It looks really neat hanging and it is just below her light so it does look somewhat transparent. She was very happy with her creation and we have marked one more of the projects off her list. 

 
 

 

yay! new items up

 AND...paperchains are back and better than ever! All of the paperchains are printed on recycled cardstocks with soy ink using windpower...and have additional strips included now so they measure about four feet. 

Not too much Valentines this go around...but lots of color and kinda getting back to basics. Lots of color. When I was loading up the images it made me so happy to see so much brightly colored tags. I have had them hanging up on my inspiration board for a couple of weeks now and they just make me so happy...especially when I look outside and see so much snow. 

So, with this update I did a lot of basic tags. Tags that can be my go-to tags when I need them. Like I said...not much Valentines. Mainly because I am here on my last six weeks of pregnancy and I am a little nervous of getting left with a lot of Valentines tags in the event I have this baby early. But  what I did do for Valentines are very much everyday love items. Because you can pretty much use anything with "love" on it anytime right? 

 

Paper buttons are back. I did some reworking on them after coming up with a better way to package (and a cuter way). So, nobody I know ever heard of the saying "Sew buttons on your underwear". I know as a child this was a way popular saying so I went ahead and used it because I had it set in my mind already. But then everyone I showed had no clue what the heck it meant and thought I made it up... Oh well. 

 
 And here is the back of the packaging. I have been slowly reworking packaging and have it pretty much all done now so that every item has an additional tag you can cut from the packaging. With the buttons I did a cute little tag you can hang off your button jars. I love this one because I thought you could cut it out and sew a button on the little underwear on the tag before using it. 

 

The other buttons I did I named Mema's jar of buttons (after my grandmother who I call Mema). She had this huge jar of buttons when I was little I used to play with all the time.  She was the best  because she used to let me dump them all out all over the floor...did not worry one bit about them being picked up until later. I really wanted to use an image of a jar to 'hold' them in their packaging and all I could think about was this memory with her. 

 

Here is the back with the extra tag. 

Some more basic label tags- this time on a cut out sheet.  These are so bright and bold in person- I love them. I have a little pile of them I cut out sitting right next to me and the colors just make me smile. 

 

Another paper chain. This one is a basic chain. I have been wanting to do this one for a while but I just have not for some reason. I have so many ideas for this chain. I want to make one chain with a bunch of random and fun things hanging from it- kinda 3-dimensional. I was thinking of using stickers, rub-ons, stamps and different embellishments on each chain. Even hanging little die cuts from them. 

This would also be perfect for a guest book. I have a lot of requests to make guests books out of paper chains for weddings. I think that is a great idea and love the idea of building the chain as the guests arrive. I also thought it would be perfect to write a letter on the paperchain then package it up and mail it. The recipient would need to put it together (you could either number the chains or have it mixed up like a puzzle for them). 

Here is the chain example I did with stickers. 

 

And I added some buttons to another part as an example.

 I also did some scripture tags (which I have been wanting to do for quite some time). These are fairly large tags and would be perfect on cards or scrapbook pages. 

There are a few more new items in the shop- so head on over and take a peek and let me know what you think!

  

 
 
 

80-90-20 & coloring chipboard

 I scrapbooked. For fun. I already feel progress getting underway...

So, when Reiley was around four and five-ish she always used multiple digits to describe something of large value. For example, if she was talking about how much she loved something it was, "I love this 80-90-20!" We even told her we loved her 80-90-20 back. 

 

For this layout I used chipboard. I bought a lot of chipboard when it came out- A LOT. Too much maybe. Maybe. Around the time chipboard was becoming popular (a few years ago) I was also teaching at my local scrapbooking store. Sometimes I would use chipboard in the layouts and when I did I heard some complaints. Because chipboard is a pain to cover. Nobody really liked covering it with paper (it took way too long) and not everybody liked getting out paints. I never really liked doing either. So, because I had a gazillion markers from school I started coloring it in. Of course if you want a pale color markers don't really work. But I like that greyed out color. 

So, what I do is leave the chipboard in it's package and just color with my marker right over. I suppose this would also work really well with paint pens and such. It's not a new technique- but it is one that I use over and over again to save time and use up product. I like it because it is not messy and more often than not it works on a page better than other methods for me. If I really need it opaque and glossy I get out the paints. 

 

I used a marker to color all of the chipboard numbers on this page. I use my Prismacolor markers because that is what I have a lot of. I also have a lot of Prismacolor pencils and those work very well also to color because of their texture and opaque-ness (is that even a word?). 

What are your favorite methods for covering chipboard? 

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 I have been BUSY working on some new items for the shop. Hoping to have some sneak peeks this week and possibly have the new items available by the end of the week. This will be my last big update before I take a break around baby time so I am pretty excited!

 

2010

Last year I did not make any resolutions...or choose a 'word of the year'. I've never really done it to begin with. But recently, it is because in the year prior when I chose a word thinking 'everyone else is doing it'- it did not resonate with me. I did not give it a second thought after choosing it. But, that is just it with resolutions and choosing a word for the year- you have to mean it and follow through with action... and I didn't do either. 

So, at the end of this last year I was walking around my scrapbook room remembering that a few years ago my scrapbook room was also my bedroom and my daughters bedroom. Yeah, I had a lot stuffed into that little room as I worked my way through college living at my parents house. In fact- I remember the look on people's faces when they would come over and see it. I was pretty organized- but there was a lot of stuff in there and you cannot hide a lot of stuff in a room. I remember cringing at the thought of birthdays or Christmas and hoping everyone bought Reiley small useful gifts (which really is a good thing anyway). The only part about moving into our house that gave Justin some peace was he knew at one point everything I owned fit into that room. 

But I had some of the best and most memorable times in that cramped little room (filled to the brim with things). Reiley and I had movie nights and created with all the things I had accumulated until it was much too late at night for a little five year old girl. She still reminds me that one night we stayed up until 1:00 (gasp!). Hopefully those are memories she will take with her. She managed to fill up her own scrapbook album in the times we shared together (and although it is mainly a lot of pieces of paper with scribbles I love it) And- I remember thinking...someday- when I have my own scrapbook room and we can spread out I will really make progress. 

Now I have my own scrapbook room. I have more room than I ever thought I could spread out in. I have two tables with different heights to work at. I have more supplies than I will ever know what to do with...but this last year I stopped taking so many photos. I stopped scrapbooking like I used to. I managed to create maybe ten pages for myself (and I think I might be rounding up that number). I managed to start a handful of projects that were supposed to get me into scrapbooking again and I managed to forget about them anywhere from the first page to half-way through. (I did manage to finish my December Daily album...though). 

So, this year when I was reading everyone's resolutions and words they had chosen I thought- I just want to make sure I have this next year recorded well. I have so much going on right now and it blurs together real fast...right? All of the tools I need to record memories I have already (whatever those might be) plus I have all the extras. So- what am I waiting for? I even got the camera lens I wanted for Christmas and the point & shoot camera (so I don't have to take along my slr with me everywhere). 

This year my word is RECORD. No- not like a record player. Although I did attempt to think of another word that would at least sound different but have the same meaning to try to get around that double meaning for the same spelling thing. But in the end I realized I was making this too hard- over think much? Why yes I do.... 

I want to record all the memories that are happening now, ones that are to come and ones that have already passed. Lately I have been telling Reiley more and more stories about her as a baby as I try to get her ready for her little brother to come. She loves hearing about them- and she loves seeing photos go with them. But sometimes I don't have the actual stories written down (as I scrapbooked mostly events when I first started- which was when I was pregnant with her ten years ago). These are the things I want written down so we can look back on them. 

So- here is to a good start. I am not going to set any specific goals with this yet. Instead I am going to see how I do at first...and if I need to set specific goals later I will. For now I am just going to take it nice and easy...

Happy New Year everyone!