8 Freezer Paper Stenciled... BEANBAG!

OK, here's the deal.  I ordered a PINK Twill Bean Bag for my Daughters first birthday and had it shipped to store (3 weeks in advance).  I then got an email stating it wouldn't be in until AFTER her birthday.  I contacted the store and talked to them about how it had said it would be here in time but now they are saying it won't, etc, etc, etc.  I ended up telling them to cancel the order. 

2 HOW-TO: Adding an image header

Agape Love Designs & Photography wanted to know "how to get a custom banner on my blog! I know how to make/design one. I have one ready! I just don't know what code to use to put it on my blog!"
SO, if you already have a jpg, gif or png image ready to use as your header (Blogger recommends a width of 600 px - but you will want wider for a three column blog. I don't recommend going beyond 200 px high), go to your blog Layout tab. Click edit in the very top box (where your blog name appears).

To add your header click Browse. Select your image. For placement choose Image instead of title and description. If you already sized your header image properly then do not click Shrink to Fit. If you are unsure if it will fit properly you can go ahead and click it.

 

Click save and you are done!

 Happy Blog Clean-Up!Keep the questions coming! Is there anything you've been wanting to do?  Saw something cool on someone else's blog but can't figure out how to do it on yours?  Send me an email and maybe you'll see a tutorial on your subject!

10 Father's Day Card - A GIVEAWAY!

I already shared this a while ago, but it wasn't a post of it's on and this card was a hit so I am sharing again! Yes, that is my FIL's face on Superdad!  It took him a moment to realize it (had to pull out his glasses you know!), but once he did, he busted out laughing.   I made one for my Father last year as well and it is still displayed in my parents house. ;) So, do you want to win one so you can show your dad how Super he is?  Good, cause I'm giving one away!There is some leg work though, so if you plan to enter you need to know the following: I will need a pictures of you (and whomever else you want included on the front of the card).  You all need to be pointing or looking up like you see above.  Really we can fit as many people as you want.I will also need a high-res image of your father.  It needs to be a nice clear shot of his face with him looking straight on.  Search through your pictures, your bound to have one or two, if not it wouldn't be too obvious to take a picture of him... I always place a kid with my Dad when I need a picture because then he can't complain! LOL. The card will be printed on cardstock using a production quality Xerox machine and will come in a white envelope. To enter to win:MANDATORY: Leave me a comment telling me why your dad is super!Optional: Fan seven thirty three on Facebook and leave me a comment telling me you have done so.Follow seven thirty three This giveaway will end on June 2 at 11:59 EST.  A winner will be picked randomly via random.org and I will announce the winner during the weekly What are little boys made of? Link Party. If you don't want to wait to see if you win, you can purchase the card for $8.  Send me an email. Good luck! 

34 CANDY SHOPPE FIRST BIRTHDAY PARTY

Sorry to keep you guys waiting, but I have the photos of my daughters first birthday party and I am so excited to share!

It was a great time, rain and all and I am thrilled with the end result.

1 FFF: DIY Scratch Off Father's Day Card

Design Dazzle has this amazing card (with tutorial) for download on her site!  Make your dad a one-of-a-kind card this year!  Instead of a craft stick you can always include a coin to use as a scratcher.  Show Dad how much you care this year.

Come visit me over at Aly&Ash today and learn how to make these:

3 What are little boys made of? Weekly Link Party

Grab the button!

Copy and paste into your blog.

<center><a href="http://733blog.blogspot.com"><img src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_yA_6K7ea4aE/S2MN8810hYI/AAAAAAAABXo/fW6dM7Ksyos/s320/WALBMO.jpg""/></center></div>

The two most popular posts from last week were: 

I Am Momma's quest for the perfect playroom!  Check out the whole series of posts here. Those are some lucky kids! 

And check out these Magnetic Busy Boards from Scraps N' Strings!  Just amazing!  She even has the drawings available for download. YOUR TURN!  What have you been making this week? First, the guidelines: 1) please link to your blog post (not your blog main page) so people can go directly to your project and 2) Enter your blog name and in paranthesis add the name of your project so we can clearly see what it is 3) Don't forget, these should be BOY RELATED (Big Boy projects are accepted too)! AND PLEASE grab my button!

6 Sugar & Spice Weekly Link Party

MAKE SURE TO COME BY ON SATURDAY LADIES!  I have the details of Livie's Candy Shoppe Party for you. I really can't wait till you see everything.

Grab the button!

Copy and paste into your blog.

<center><a href="http://733blog.blogspot.com"><img src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_yA_6K7ea4aE/S6130M3H_II/AAAAAAAABuI/Sl7dtOkX0C4/s320/SugarSpice.png""/></center></div>

It's that time of the week again! Here are a couple of the popular links from last week (everyone had teachers on the brain!):

Goldilocks Creations was very busy creating a TON of Teacher Appreciation gifts!  Make sure to stop over and check them out.  She has a lot of great ideas.

Kaysi at Keeping It Simple made these adorable picture holder for her son's teacher.

And the guidelines: 1) please link to your blog post (not your blog main page) so people can go directly to your project and 2) Enter your blog name and in paranthesis add the name of your project so we can clearly see what it is 3) Don't forget, these should be GIRL RELATED (can be for us grown up girls too)! AND PLEASE grab my button and add it to your post so that other crafty ladies can come join the fun.

5 Friendly Tuesday :: Aly & Ash

Bandanna Shirt with  Aly&Ash

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Hello fabulous 733 readers! I'm so excited to be guest posting over here today! My name is Jax! I am a "SAHM" of an adorable little big and oh so cute 7.5 month old boy (Ash) and have a photography business {DoChara Photography}! In my "free time" I love to make all kinds of crafts, mostly things for for Me, Ash or Aly (my niece) to wear! And then I share all my templates and tutorials on my blog {Aly&Ash}! So let's get to it shall we and make this cute Bandanna shirt! I got the idea when my friend Denise from Wallflower Grown Wild posted this awesome Bandanna Bib Tutorial

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What you'll Need:

Bandanna

T-Shirt

Embroidery Floss

Wonder Under

Iron & Ironing Board
Pencil & Scissors

Step One:
Measure your bandanna. Just eyeball it, it's supposed to be messy. Trust me!

Step Two:
Now you want your bandanna to have movement, not be "glued" to the shirt. To accomplish this place bandanna right side down on your ironing board and mess/crumple up slightly. Now iron your wonder under rough side down onto your messy bandanna.

Step Three:
Trim your bandanna to the appropriate size, flip back over and pin to the shirt.

Step Four:
Turn inside out and use a pen to trace where you want it to be on the collar, unpin and cut!

Step Five:
Peel off the backing of the Wonder Under, place on shirt, cover with a damp cloth and iron on.

Step Six:
 Hand stitch around the edge with the embroidery floss and you're done! I chose not to seal the edges of the bandanna with fray check because I want it to fray a little...y'know go along with the whole "messy" thing!

Simple, easy & cute! I can't wait for Ash to wear it!
Well thanks for having me! I hope to see you over at {Aly&Ash}!
Here are a few other projects you might like:

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Jax comes up with some of the most adorable items for kids!  That shirt is so cute.  And one of my favorite projects is that hand towel cake! Thanks for sharing with us today Jax!

1 What would YOU like to see in my shop?

I would love to hear from my readers what they would like to see in my shop, reallyCRAFTYstudio. As you can tell from the button above, my shop features AFFORDABLE personalized printables AND MORE!  Currently I have some invitations, meal planner and recipe books and pretend checks.  What type of items are currently on your list of purchases to make?  I'm thinking some party items would be fun to add - cupcake toppers, labels - water, soda, food, etc.  Also, maybe a book to record all those birthdays happening in your life..  So what do you think?

6 hello baby! banner with coffee filter "flowers" tutorial

In case you missed my guest post over at A Little Tipsy on Friday, here it is again!

Look what I have in store for you today:

Can you tell what it is made from? 

Tourist maps, scrapbook paper, coffee filters and jute!

I am hosting a camping themed baby shower for my SIL in June and wanted a rustic banner to hang above the food table.  As I was brainstorming I was wishing I had a map because I thought it would lend itself perfectly to the camping theme... then it hit me!  I drive past a Rest Area EVERY DAY.  They would have FREE maps.  So I stopped on my way home from work and picked up a few maps.  The rest of the items I had in my home.

I used my Cricut to cut the maps into 5.5" circles.  The brown scrapbook paper was cut into 4" circles.  I used my Make the Cut software to cut the letters on my Cricut.  I punched two holes in the top of each set of circles so that they could be threaded onto the jute.  Following me? All pretty standard, right?

Now onto the coffee filter "flowers".

Flatten the coffee filter.

Fold it in half and then fold it in half again (see the arrow?).  This will give you the center point of the filter.

This was hard to get a picture to describe, but basically pinch the center and push everything up, and then fluff it out into a circle shape continuing to pinch the center.  I then twisted the center "nub".

When you come over to visit you will see I do most of my crafting at night or during naps so I have limited time.  I tend to use whatever is around me - so although I used a piece of pipe cleaner to secure my "nub" (ewww!  I don't like that word!) you can most certainly use tape.

Here is how it will look when you are done with it.  Now punch two holes in the top so you can string it onto the jute (do this carefully so as not to tear it).

And here is the finished product:

Happy Creating!

5 HOW TO: Receive comment email notifications

These tips are for Blogger users.

 Rhiannon sent in this question:  "Can you change the setting of your comments so you get notified when someone has left a comment on your blog ?" Yes, Rhiannon, you can and the good news?  This is SUPER easy, no screenshots necessary! From your Blogger Dashboard click on Settings, Click on Comments. Scroll ALL the way down and enter your email in the Comment Notification Email Box. Now click Save Settings.  That's it.  I receive comment notifications and it is great because you can reply to the comments via email!  And to make sure people can reply to your comments, check out THIS post from last week.

Since you're on this page already, here are a few other useful tips and this will answer Miss Corner Cape's question: "how do you change where people post. some say fun things like "talk to me" or " leave me some love". mine is all, comment here or something. " (I think she is talking about the comment form message - #2 below):

Under Comment Form Placement: You can choose to have the comment form embedded beneath the post (like on my blog) or have it as a pop-up window.

Comment Form Message: If you want to have a message above your comment form you can put it in this box. A lot of people say Thank you for leaving me a message, etc. Mine says Creative People Say...

Comment Moderation: Turn this on if you want to review messages before they are published.

Word Verification: TURN THIS OFF! It is just annoying and some people won't comment if they have to go through it. I have only had 3 spam comments in the 10 months I've been blogging and I just deleted them.  AND if you really want to verify that no spam is being published just turn on your comment moderation (I have mind on for posts 7 days or older). 
 
Happy Blogging!

1 Turn your little one into a CandyLand Pawn

In the beginning of the planning stage of my daughters First Birthday I was thinking of doing a Candyland Theme and came up with these little guys to print onto labels and add onto white favor bags.  I ended up going with a Candy Shoppe theme instead, but since I already put these together I thought I would share for anyone else who may be planning a Candyland themed party!

 

Add your little persons picture and you are on your way!  Click HERE to download the file.

Happy Playing!

10 FFF: PEE-PEE TEEPEE!

 

I have seen these VERY CREATIVE PEE-PEE TEEPEE's in several places, INCLUDING at Babies R Us, but while blog hopping I came across Make It and Love It's Wee-Wee Wigwam and found Ashely's tutorial extremely easy to follow.  Since my SIL is having a baby boy this July and her shower is coming up, I thought these would be a fun addition to her gift.  And I know they are going to get a good laugh, how could they not? It took me less than an hour to make 5 of these... and they didn't cost me anything because I used scraps of boy fabric that I have used in past projects!   Here are mine:

I placed them inside a ziplock sandwich bag and then printed on a piece of cardstock (total dimension was 7.5" wide x 8.5" long - front flap was 1.5" and the fold down to the bottom of the back was 8").

The poem reads:

Changing a baby girl is not all glitz and glory;

Changing a baby boy is another horror story!

You hold his feet with one hand

and the diaper with the other;

The whole time praying,

"Please, don't pee on your Mother!"

I found the poem at Beba Bean... and can I say I wish I had some Weiner Dog fabric?  How hilarious is that?!?

So whether you call it a Pee-Pee Teepee or a Wee-Wee Wigwam, head on over to Make It and Love It to make your very own set!  Let's protect all the mama's (and dada's) of the world from getting pee all over themselves! 

NOTE: OF COURSE you can just place a diaper over your little man's wee-wee, but seriously, how fun is that?  Come on ladies, this is so cute, and if you read the comments in Ashley's post you will see that there are other uses for these little cones when you are done with their original use!

Happy Creating!