Birthday to do list among other things on my mind

My darling Olivia (who is not so darling at the moment due to a persistant tooth trying to poke through) is going to be 1 yr old on Aug. 11th. I am trying my best to make it an awesome birthday party on limited funds so, I have gone searching in blogland and here is what I have found:



great idea! My hubby has a ton of butcher paper since he runs a meat dept!


How darling is this???



Love these invitations, so beautifully homemade and organic looking




what great decor is this!

All of these fantastic party ideas came from the wonderful, talented Cottage Mama

I am doing a sesame street theme while still keeping the party cute and girly. I am doing fabric invites that are all going to be different from very cute $0.99 fat quarters from Joann's and I am hanging a sign that is going to say

This birthday party was brought to you by the number 1 and the letter's O-L-I-V-I-A

Just like on sesame street!

I am going to order a cupcake tray with one small cake on top for the bday girl, and I am in the process of making her a birthday dress.

I also love these ideas for birthdays:



I love this, and I knew those empty formula can would come in handy.

These ones are made by Sumo over at Sumo's Sweet Stuff but it originated at Fireflies and Jellybeans.



How awesome are these bday favors, pretty cheap too with a dollar store trip and a little DIY.

For more bday awesomeness, check out The Girl Creative's link up

Now, I must say that I am feeling inspired and ready to work!!!

But alas, I have some family news that I am quite excited about and just have to share. After a recent family vacay back home, the Hubba Wubba and I have decided that we HAVE to move closer to our families. I am so homesick, and I want nothing more than to be able to raise our daughter close to her 3 sets of grandparents!

So instead of living a whopping 10 hours away from our family we will soon be uprooting our family about 2 hours away from our parents. I must say that I am quite excited about this which is making all the more homesick and ready to just pack up and go. I can't wait to be able to have weekend visits with our family, and holidays together, and no more teary good byes because we can see them whenever we have a few spare hours in the day :)

Don't get me wrong, I love where we live but family is truly the most important thing to us and what's the point of living that far away from the thing that means the most to you if you don't have too??

Wish us luck, because we are about to write a whole new chapter in our lives!!!

by the way, I am open to birthday party ideas, and links if you know of any good ones.

Thanks!!

My scrapbooking awaits me

I have oodles and oodles of scrapbooking stuff and just never have finished. I prefer the old fashioned way more so than digital scrapbooking because I enjoy the 3-d elements you can add along with the texture it creates. But, I have a problem. I lay everything out but I can never make myself glue it on there and make it permanent because I am so worried that I can do something more to it to make it better. I know, I know I am the worst perfectionist ever because nothing ever gets done because I am worried it's not going to perfect the way I want it to be, so I just don't do it. Well I am jumping out of my comfort zone and just doing it, first project will be Olivia's birth and newborn days. I will keep you updated as to how it turns out, this is what my mess looks like right now.

These are the websites I am going to use for inspiration and motivation

http://projectcenter.creativememories.com/traditional/project-ideas.html- this one is project ideas for traditional scrapbooking and is very neatly organized by category to help you pick a layout idea

this one is a really great scrapbooking blog with a ton of links at the bottom for even more ideas- this one is a favorite
traditional scrapbooking blog