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      6 Stunning Photos You Would Never Guess Were…

      February 11, 2019

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      Simple Tips For Editing Snow Photos On Your…

      December 13, 2018

      Photography

      I Wrote A Photography eBook And This Is…

      December 6, 2018

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      Creative Lighting Ideas To Help You Take Great…

      November 27, 2018

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      Learn How To Take And Edit Photos On…

      November 19, 2018

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      December 19, 2018

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      October 1, 2018

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      Finally! Jeans For My Jean-Averse Kids!

      August 22, 2018

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      August 13, 2018

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Work Smarter, Not Harder- This Service Will Design Photo Books For You!
ParenthoodPhotographyReviews

Work Smarter, Not Harder- This Service Will Design Photo Books For You!

by Jill April 27, 2017
written by Jill


I have pictures of my mom with my kids, starting from the minute my oldest was born. Well, okay… a few minutes after he was born, as she looked over him in his Isolette.

Shutterfly's Make My Book Design Service will design photo books for you! | BabyRabies.com

The post is sponsored by Shutterfly. Make this Mother’s Day with a personalized gift that says it all.

It is not lost on me how fortunate we are to have her there for so many big and little life events, and I am also super lucky to have so many great pictures of her with the kids. But, despite how much I treasure them, I hardly have any printed.

Getting pictures off of my phone and computer and into the real world in some tangible form is always a struggle. I get so overwhelmed. I don’t know what to do with them! I don’t have the space to put all of them in frames, and photo books? I do NOT have the time these days!

She’s always saying (or commenting on my Facebook) “I want this one printed!” And I’m always making a mental note, “Hey, just print these pictures for her and your Mother’s Day gift is complete!” But then life happens, and I don’t have the time to curate all the pictures and organize them. I have this problem where if I think I can’t do something perfectly, I just don’t do it at all.

What if someone ELSE could do it perfectly for me, though? And what if it wasn’t hard to get the pictures to them, and they did all the organizing and designing? That’s EXACTLY what Shutterfly’s Make My Book Service does, and that’s exactly what they did for me.

Shutterfly's Make My Book Design Service will design photo books for you! | BabyRabies.com

Y’all, look at this lovely photo book of nothing but pictures of my mom with my kids!

It’s a real, paper book with real pages that don’t live on the internet! It’s that one thing I’ve wanted to do for her for so long, and it took me 15 minutes.

Shutterfly's Make My Book Design Service will design photo books for you! | BabyRabies.com

You read that right. FIFTEEN. MINUTES. I uploaded the pictures from Facebook and my computer, then quickly made sure they were in chronological order. I picked a theme for the book and sent a little note that I wanted the pictures to remain in chronological order and events grouped together.

Shutterfly's Make My Book Design Service will design photo books for you! | BabyRabies.com

Then a real person and professional designer took it from there. They chose the layouts and added the pictures, adding design elements throughout, too. Within a couple days, I had a draft ready to approve. I did go in and make a couple quick changes, rearranging a few pictures, but it only took a few minutes until I was 100% happy and clicked the purchase button.

Shutterfly's Make My Book Design Service will design photo books for you! | BabyRabies.com

The Make My Book Service is only $9.99 (plus the cost of the book), and you only pay it if/when you decide to order the book. There isn’t any cost to get started and see what they design for you. And while you’re on Shutterfly, you can check out all the other great, personalized stuff they have for mom.

Shutterfly's Make My Book Design Service will design photo books for you! | BabyRabies.com

I always thought I’d be the scrapbooking kind of mom, but it turns out I’m the Shutterfly Make My Book Service kind of mom. (Have you seen that Pinterest/Amazon Prime mom meme? So funny.)

I love that the end product is exactly what I’d get if I spent hours creating a personalized gift for my mom, just without the hours spent. Of course, my mom never misses a blog post, and it’s not quite Mother’s Day yet, so obviously SPOILER ALERT, MOM. Love you. See you soon. Hope you enjoy your book! (We’ll have more surprises for you.)

Please tell me I’m not the only one who thinks it’s about time we can pay someone else to design photo books for us! Work smarter, not harder, friends.

April 27, 2017 3 comments
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How To Personalize A Cutting Board (Great Housewarming Gift)
Crafty!

How To Personalize A Cutting Board (Great Housewarming Gift)

by Jill October 23, 2014
written by Jill

We are in the thick of the moving/buying/selling chaos. Everything is up in the air right now, and it’s so stressful. Honestly, it makes me really happy we didn’t try to do this last year with a newborn, like the original plan was.

While we’re in the process of all of this, we got some new neighbors. They are a lovely young family, with a toddler and another baby on the way literally any day now. I just… I can’t imagine the stress THEY must be going through.

So while we won’t be their neighbors for long (HOPEFULLY), I still wanted to do something to welcome them. After my husband and I both stopped by to introduce ourselves, offer up any tools they need, and let them know we’d happily haul away any empty boxes they have, I put together a little basket of goodies for them.

A Personalized Housewarming Gift- super easy!- BabyRabies.com

I was inspired to personalize a wood cutting board by this pin I ran across a couple weeks ago.

I have a simple wood-burning tool that I purchased to make a Father’s Day gift this year, and it’s (figuratively) burning a hole in my craft closet, begging me to use it more.

SUPER EASY personalized housewarming gift- babyrabies.com

It’s the Creative Versa-Tool, and you can get it from Amazon for less than $25. 

I purchased the cutting board from Target for $12, but any wood cutting board will do the trick.

SUPER EASY personalized housewarming gift- babyrabies.com

The only other stuff you need is Graphite Paper (transfer paper), which you can find at any craft store. And you’ll also need to create the design you want on the board.

I made a simple circular design in Photoshop Elements (using the text on shape tool) with their new home address- blurred out a bit here for obvious reasons. Then used a contrasting font to type Welcome Home in the center.

SUPER EASY personalized housewarming gift- babyrabies.com

Cut a piece of transfer paper just big enough to fit under your design (then store the rest for later projects because that stuff ain’t cheap). Tape both pieces down with low tack tape (like masking tape or painters tape), and trace over your design with a soft pencil.

Once you remove the papers, the design will be traced onto your board, and you can go over it with your wood burner.

SUPER EASY personalized housewarming gift- babyrabies.com

Admittedly, my wood-burning skills need work, but I was happy with the finished result.

SUPER EASY personalized housewarming gift- babyrabies.com

I put it in a basket (from the Dollar Section at Target) and included a couple of my favorite Mrs Meyers products, some flour sack towels, and a ball and bubbles for their toddler.

It only took me about an hour to complete this, design to finish.

Did your neighbors do anything to welcome you to your neighborhood? Have you done anything similar? I’d love to hear more ideas

October 23, 2014 4 comments
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School Age DaysStuff

A Teacher’s Gift: Feed Projects

by Jill August 29, 2012
written by Jill

I always struggle with what to get the kids’ teachers at the end of the year. How do you show your appreciation for them and not simultaneously load them up with a bunch of trinkets, crap and calories? I’ve done the gift card thing many times, and that seems like the safest route, but it leaves my creative side weeping.

I think I just found my new favorite place to shop for gifts, though, and wanted to share with you all. (I confess, I *just* gave my son’s teachers their end-of-year gifts… on the first day of the new year.)

This summer I saw a feature on FEED Projects on our local NBC channel.

FEED Projects’ mission is to create good products that help FEED the world… the impact of each product, signified by a stenciled number, is understandable, tangible, and meaningful. We take great pride in using environmentally-friendly and artisan-made materials, along with fair-labor production, in creating all FEED products. –via FEEDProjects.com

That’s it!

I ran to my computer to look at the bags and accessories and wound up ordering 2 FEED 10 pouches for the teachers who took such great care of Kendall the last school year.

Each will provide 10 school meals for children in need, and they are gorgeous. Really, I know they’re made from burlap, but they are beautifully lined with a substantial zipper. They would make great makeup pouches or even clutches.

I adore their mission, and I love their usability. Not a sponsored post (I really hate that I always have to clarify that), just wanted to share. Check them out next time you’re in need of a thoughtful and functional gift.

August 29, 2012 9 comments
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If I had a little girl, she’d wear pillowcase dresses.
Crafty!

If I had a little girl, she’d wear pillowcase dresses.

by Jill November 20, 2009
written by Jill

Hey, guess what! I finally had a little girl and she does wear pillowcase dresses! I updated this tutorial with instructions on how to make this dress with bias tape for the armholes and a couple other cute embellishments. You can read that here.

If you want the version that doesn’t require bias tape, then read on…

You know what’s funny? When I was pregnant it seemed like EVERYONE was having a boy, but after I had Kendall it seemed like the world is full of little girls. Case in point is our local playgroup. Out of seven regular members, only 2 of us have boys. And even as we’ve started to add new members to the mix, it seems like they ALL have girls.

So as birthday season approached this year (there was a stretch of 4 months where I swear we had at least 2 birthdays to attend each month), I had to get a little creative about what to give for birthday gifts, and after seeing so many pictures of adorable little girls wearing stylish pillowcase dresses, I set my mind on figuring out how to make them. They sell on sites like Etsy for $25+, but you can make one with less than a yard of fabric and a couple yards of grosgrain ribbon.

Now, pillowcase dress tutorials are not hard to find online. There are hundreds, or… I don’t know… maybe thousands? I looked high and low for the easiest one I could find. I ended up mainly following one from AndersonsPlace.net.  A few months ago a friend asked for a link to the tutorial, and when I went to send it to her I noticed the link was dead. It hasn’t come back up since, and AndersonsPlace appears to be blank.  Luckily, I printed out the tutorial long ago and it’s still readable.

So I’m going to just type out the tutorial below based pretty closely on what I printed off from AndersonsPlace.net If anyone from this website reads this, please contact me! I’m not trying to rip you off, and would LOVE to give credit. It was such an easy, helpful tutorial that I think it needs to be accessible again. The photos that I’m using are mine.

I always start with a yard of fabric and have never actually used a real pillowcase for one, but you can do it either way.

If you are using a pillowcase, cut it off, leaving the hemmed end, based on these measurements:

6 months -14 1/4″
12 months – 16 1/4″
18 months – 17 1/4″
2T 18 1/4″
3T 19 1/4″
4T 20 1/4″

If you are staring with a yard of fabric, cut it to the length specified above, and a width of 28″ for 6 months, up to 33″ for 4T (adding one inch in width for each size up). This, however, can really be based on your own judgement, depending on how wide you want/need the dress to be on the girl.

While you are cutting fabric, go ahead and cut one piece 1 1/2″ wide and 30″ long and set aside for later.

Fold up half an inch along the bottom of the large piece of fabric (will be the bottom of the dress), press with iron, and fold again. Stitch along the top fold to hem.

Fold the fabric vertically (lengthwise), right sides together, pin and stitch 1/2 inch from un-joined edge to create a tube of fabric.

Use pinking shears to trim excess fabric from the seam.

Lay the tube, seam side up, with the seam in the middle and press to one side with an iron.

Fold the tube in half vertically to cut the armholes. From the top (un-hemmed) edge, measure 1.5″ in and 3″down for sizes up to 2T. For 3 and 4T measure 2″ in and 4″ down.

Using your marked measurements, cut a J shaped armhole through all 4 layers of fabric. Don’t stress about perfection.

Okay, this next step, for me, is the most difficult, but once you figure it out, it gets much easier. (That’s why I included a ton of pictures.)

Unfold the dress (guess we can stop calling it a tube now) and line the 1.5″ x 30″ piece along one armhole, right side of the strip to wrong side of the dress (dress is still inside out at this point). Fold down the top of the strip about 3/8″ and meet the top of the fold with the top of the dress. Stitch the strip all the way around the armhole. I tried pinning this, but it’s really much easier if you just freehand it. Maybe pin the top to help you get started.

When you get close to the end of the armhole, cut off the extra fabric, leaving enough to fold down 3/8″. You will use the remaining fabric on the other armhole.

Fold down the 3/8″ and finish off the armhole.

Repeat on the other side, then turn the dress right side out.

Next fold the strip in half so the raw edge is touching the raw edge of the armhole.

Then fold again over to the other side of the armhole, creating a binding. Pin as you go along the entire armhole (I use about 4 pins and just keep most of it in place with my fingers while sewing).

Stitch along the binding and then do the same for the other side.



Turn the dress inside out again.

Fold the top of the front and back 1/4″ and then again 5/8″ and press with an iron to form a casing with no raw edges. Stitch along the bottom fold, similar to what you did for the bottom hem.

Thread 1 yard of ribbon (or less for the smaller sizes) through each casing. I like to pin a safety pin to one side and use that to guide it through the casing, then trim the ends of the ribbon when I’m done.

Gather the ribbon and tie bows on the shoulders and you’re done! You can also secure the ribbon by stitching it in the middle to the inside of the casing (wrong side of the dress) by hand.

Now, even though these dresses don’t make appropriate winter wear by themselves, they do look adorable over long sleeve shirts and jeans or leggings! So you can make and give these all year, even for the holidays 🙂

Hope this was clear! Please let me know if you have any questions.

November 20, 2009 208 comments
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