Bits of Cheer

I don't know why, but I find this moment quite sweet. 

My little LE just after her long midday nap, curled up on the chair, sitting quietly eating a snack and looking out the window into the snow covered backyard. I love how the glass door lets in so much sunlight, especially when it reflects off of the white snow. On particularly cold days, little bits of cheer-- like the clementines in the teal bowl and the potted bright green parsley in the sunlight-- offer a quick boost of spirit that makes me smile to myself every time I stop to notice.

Elf on the Shelf Idea Roundup

Like many of you, we have Elf on the Shelf. LE doesn't understand the concept this year, so for now, our unnamed elf sits on the same shelf every day.

Those of you who have been doing this every day this December probably got all of your good ideas done in the first week. And those of you who have done this for multiple years... I'm sure you are done thinking of new hiding spots and mischievous antics!

Well... you're in luck!

I did a little searching around, and here's a big roundup of ideas for you. It's amazing what people think of!

Elf on the Shelf Roundup


If your kids are past the age of elf magic, you could still join in the fun by making elf cookies, like Bridget at Bake at 350.


From Living Locurto,  you can download a PDF of 25 ideas. Those little donuts are made with Cheerios.

This Flickr pool has 510 photos uploaded from a variety of people. Loads of ideas! Here are three from the pool.

Full Plate Cooking Antics has 16 ideas listed, most are cooking related (if not all... I didn't go through them all).

Living Locurto gives the script and details on how to pretend that your elf "grew" gingerbread cookies from chocolate chip "seeds."

Lil Blue Boo's ideas are a lot of fun. 

My favorite is probably the one of her elf sipping syrup:

I like the idea of putting little elf tracks to help give the kids clues when it's an especially tough hiding spot:

Oh, and she has some rated PG-13 and "almost R-rated" part 1 and part 2. 

Another flickr pool has over 520 submissions! Of course, there are duplicate ideas, but at least you can see them in thumbnail form.
From an elf planking (not sure if a toddler will get it. Maybe a hip toddler.)

to classic elf angels

to graffiti on photos

You'll find a big variety there.


Jen McKen photography documented their first few nights with their elf. I laughed when I saw their elf on the toilet. This one of the elf making s'mores is well done, too.

Of course, the Elf on the Shelf Facebook page has a bajillion photos linked up. This is one of the more original ones that I saw of elf rocking baby Jesus:

Ray of Light Photography has loads of great ideas that are really well photographed. My favorite is of their elf painting the noses of the kids while they were asleep. Then, when they woke up, they found the elf with a paintbrush.

Imagineate Photography (A step inside blog) turned her milk green. Gross.

Hot air balloon elf from Paint the Moon.net

Chubby Cheek Photography has shared only a few of her ideas. I like the idea of a marshmallow snowman.

Then, when December has come and gone, if you're really with it, you could put together a decorated box for your elf, like Ellie G from less cake {more frosting}, so that your little elf can rest for the year and then return in style.

Ok, I think that's all I've got for ya! Have you done anything special with your little elfie?

Photo Books with Shutterfly

For almost LE's first year of life, I put together photo books every two months or so with Shutterfly. We switched from Blurb books due to the quality and ease of making the books. Blurb's system was way too buggy for Macs when I made the switch (which is rumored to be fixed now).

With Shutterfly, it is easy to make the layouts in InDesign and upload the jpegs into a blank book. They have layout options for those who don't have design programs or who want to use the cute designs that they prepare for you. The issue I had was when I wanted to add photos in a certain way and wasn't able to change it up the way I wanted.

Inside look at one of the books we did using Shutterfly's design

Recently, Shutterfly made their online system completely customizable. You can go on their website, use their designs, and completely manipulate the photo layouts to however you want. It's a great option for those who don't want to start from scratch but have an opinion on how they want it done.

Of course, Shutterfly has products other than photo books. I've used them for their photo prints picked up at Target (same quality as places like Walmart and Snapfish); greeting cards; baptism invites; Christmas cards; and large poster prints for a banquet. Quite honestly, Shutterfly's designs and card quality aren't my favorite; I prefer to use Tiny Prints for that, though, interestingly, Shutterfly did just acquire Tiny Prints this year.

Baptism Invite

Christmas Card 2010

I must say that my favorite part about Shutterfly is their customer relations. They give promo codes galor and have great on-site sales. I've also called customer service multiple times, and I have nothing but good things to say about their customer service.

Speaking of promos... though all of these opinions are my own, Shutterfly has offered me one free photo book in exchange for a blog post. 

Put your handwriting font to use

Remember a few weeks ago when I posted a tutorial on how to make your own font using your handwriting? Here's a snippet of a flyer that I did for our local Young Life area that uses my handwriting font:

If you have Illustrator and want the vector images for the notepad pages, click here. 

Spice Racks as... spice racks

Last week, I posted about how we used IKEA's spice racks as inexpensive forward-facing bookshelves in LE's room.

I'd be remiss to leave out that we used the spice racks as... wait for it... spice racks! Once again, 16 months ago I spent waaaay too long searching for the perfect spice rack from places like Home Depot, Menards, Target, Amazon, and more Amazon.

I settled on these spice racks, and, I must say, I'm so glad that I did!

Even where there are jars that are not flush to the railing and door/other bottle, I swung the door open and closed as hard as I could repeatedly without it budging. That was my biggest fear.

What I liked even more about these is that they are on individual rows, so I could completely customize how many we have based on our spices. As you can see, we have a large variety of spice brands-- Penzeys, Market Pantry, McCormicks, Tony's, and a Dijon mustard jar that I keep our Emeril's spice mixture. All types of the bottles fit nicely.

The best part of it all? Using the unused space on the back of the door opened up 2/3 of a pantry shelf.

It's so simple to do! All 4 shelves took about 20 minutes to hang. If you want to replicate it, I found that the appropriate space is 4 1/2 inches measuring from the bottom of the upper shelf to the screw hole for the shelf directly underneath.

Quick Tip: Wash Fewer Paint Brushes!

Don't wash your brushes between coats!

I'll share with you soon what we were working on last week, but to give you a hint... it involved multiple coats of paint.

In general, I prefer to brush on paint as opposed to spraying. There are less fumes, even coats, and less of an overall mess. The one downfall is saving the brush from drying out in between coats.

Introducing: ziplock baggies! You could use plastic wrap if you prefer. 

Place your paintbrush into the bag, squeeze as much of the air out as possible, and seal the top. This will keep your brush from drying out in between coats. I left my brush in there for 24 hours without consequence.

Happy painting!

It's amazing what a little time does

I forgot my laptop at home when we drove to St. Louis this past weekend, so I took a little unexpected break from the blog. Hopefully, I'll have a new post up tomorrow.

Hope everyone had a great holiday weekend! I transfered the photos onto my laptop from our little point and shoot camera, and here's what I found:

LE and John are standing in the same place in our yard. The angle is different, but they are essentially in the same spot. It's amazing what a few months can do!