First Week of August, 2013 - Baking and DIYs

 I've been making cloth diapers for our little one.  I've done a little research on the different designs.  The design I decided on is a little different, but similar to the Bum Genius brand. The biggest problem I have had with cloth diapers is that they either are thin, and leak, or overly bulky, but catch most everything.  I have been playing with the design to see if I can fix the problem and find a nice medium.  Any thoughts or advice, cloth diaper mamas?

(Most diapers look a little different than the finish product I'm showing here. This one is a size S while the rest I did with the one-size fit all idea, I'm liking them a lot more. I will post some pictures when they are all finished!)

My sewing buddy, Aja.  She knows she is not supposed to be on any tables, but she likes to be close to me so she jumped up on the table and tried to hide :-) lol.

I've been wanting to try this out for a while. I've had several wooden object (I got each for $1. Some are from dollar store some are from Joann's) that I planned on painting with chalk board paint (How to make your own, here). I've had the supplies for a while, just haven't set aside the time to try it out.  This past week I decided to make it happen, and I did! I'm really happy with how they have turned out, and I can't wait to do a few more fun things for around the home :-) (some may end up on my etsy site! :D)

I made these cookies TWICE this past week because they were so good!

Use your favorite chocolate chip recipe (you can try my favorite here) and add chunks of Reeses to it. SO YUMMY!

 And something new and fun; Homemade Carnival Corndogs! They were amazing! I've never been a big fan of corndogs, but for some reason I was craving them and wanted to see if I could make some, so I gave it a shot! Mission accomplished! These were soooooo goooood. (Planning on putting together a blog on the recipe I used ;-) )

Hope Monday has been easy on you! You can smile, it's over! Have a good rest of the week! You are one day closer to the weekend! ;-)

How To Make Your Own Printables! FREE!

You've seen printables everywhere. If you have photoshop (I should say, if you have it and know how to navigate the designing aspects of photoshop) then you can make yourself pretty much whatever kind of printable and design you like.  But, if you are like me, and don't own photoshop, then you have to get creative, and you wont have quite so many options. But, you can still make yourself some fun and lovely printables, and I'm going to show you how!

I do most of my design work through a site called picmonkey. There is a lot you can do for free. If you want to get full use of all their features then you do pay a little, but it is very inexpensive.

Here are a few examples of some very simple party printables that I did in under 5 minutes (each) using the free features. 

These are fun for snack or goodie bags.

They also have some cute things to make printables for boys.

Here is how to make your very own!

First, go to www.picmonkey.com

You will see that you have two options, you can 'edit a photo', or 'create a collage'.

If you want to add text to a picture, simply go to 'Edit a Photo' and upload the picture you want to work on.  Once it is on the site you will see all of your options for editing on the left side of the screen.

THE PHOTO EDITING ICONS
Click on the first icon to crop, rotate, re-size etc.
The Second to add an effect to the whole picture.
The Third icon allows you to do detail touch-ups, like teeth whitening and removing blemishes.
The Fourth is where you add text boxes. You can add as many as you like.
The Fifth is where you get shapes, labels and graphics.
The sixth allows you to add a border or frame to your picture.
The Seventh lets you change the texture.
and the Eighth lets you create a theme.

Now, if you want to completely use their graphics and create something new, go back to the main page and lick 'Create a Collage'.

There will be a default collage setting, but you can change that by clicking on the second icon and going through their options, or, you can scroll over that default collage and click the little "x" that is inside of each photo box (in the right corner) to delete some of the areas.  In a like manner you can add more pictures by dragging a picture next to one of the existing boxes and dropping it there (it will take up half the space of the box next to it).

If you scroll over the lines in the collage you will see that you can change the size of any box to suite your needs.

Back to the icons

THE COLLAGE EDITING ICONS
So, the first one is where you download the pictures you want to use in your collage.
And the second one is where you can choose a collage style.
The Third one has an assortment of swatches that can become the background to your collage.
And the Fourth one changes the color of the background (don't have to use a swatch at all), and the shape of the photo boxes (you can round the edges).

If you want to use a plain white background, don't do a thing to the collage. Simply add your photos and go ahead to the photo editing.  Likewise, if you want just a plain white surface to edit with graphics, then simply click 'create a collage' and then go straight to photo editing (don't even worry about sizing it here unless you want a specific size they offer).

To get to the Photo Editor from the Collage:
You will notice these options at the top of the collage page.

'Open' 'Save' 'Share' 'Edit' 'Auto fill' 'Clear All'

Cick 'Edit'. This will take you from the collage section, to the photo editing section.
You will see that you have a clean white board to begin your work.  You can re-size (first icon), add text (Fourth icon), place graphics (Fifth icon), or do whatever you like from here, and when you are done, simply save it to where you want it on your computer,
and Whala! You have your very own printables (or anything else you want to use it for!)

Hope this helps some of you busy budgeting mamas!  I know it can be frustrating to either not know how to make these fun things, or not have the means to buy them! I'm budgeting too!
Hopefully this will help some of you out!
If anything doesn't make sense or you need some additional help feel free to ask in the comments!
Enjoy!