Love this charming, clever idea for business cards from Juicy Bits. Jessica (of Juicy) says, "I'm weirdly proud of them and simultaneously a little embarrassed by them.It's sort of like shouting out to the world "please read my diary!" Um, does anyone care?" I wouldn't be one bit embarrassed shouting with these business cards that "I'm a Creative" and look at what I do. Any other creative biz cards out there?

via Babble.com's EKSARRAN

DIY Wedding Favors • Children's Chalkboard Bags • In our planning the Groom mentioned that he had 35 nieces and nephews. 35! And most of them live locally and would be attending the wedding. So, we made sure we thought of them and did a couple of things. This was one of them and it's a totally easy project.

Supplies:
100 Wilton white favor bags (6" x 3.75") - approx $5
Adhesive backed chalkboard paper, 1 roll (like Contact® paper) - approx $8
Chalk (broken in half) - $.01 box of 12 found online somewhere

How to:
1) I cut the chalkboard adhesive back paper with a paper cutter. Peeled and placed it.
2) Stamped bird with white ink. We had to dap with a tissue to dry it out.
3) Hot glued a tiny branch found from the yard.
4) Placed chalk piece inside.

They could also use it to put treats in. Glad we did it.

Put these votives in the birdhouse windows on the wedding favor table. Here's the how-to -

Supplies: 
Basic Elements 16 unfilled Votive holders found @ Michael's - approx $10
18 battery operated "candles" @ WalMart - approx $15
A few sheets of velum printed on my ink jet printer - approx $2

How-to
Type quotes in a document
Print on velum, one sheet at a time
Cut, trim to size of votives

Today was round 3 of the engagement photos I've taken for my children. I'm not a photographer but I'm artsy and a DIY-er and I'm pretty cheap, like, free for them. So it works. Plus they get to tell me what they want. Sometimes they get it. Here's a photo of each couple.  

Here's the tip I want to contribute in photographing out of doors - watch for snakes. Unless of course you like them. Which I don't . Especially those inches from me. Luckily we had enough photos because that killed my creativity.

In the last photo, it shows a moment in which my daughter is mine in name only. I have never picked up a snake in my life. Never intend to. I do the screaming and jumping away. That's my job. Oh, and cropping, color correcting and coming up with engagement photos.

I teach young women (ages 12-18) at church and we give moral messages in the activities we do each week. We've been talking about weddings and marriage this last little while and I came across henna hand tattoos that are traditionally used at weddings. They are beautiful but our church recommends against getting tattoos. So, since I live the artsy life, I decided to tattoo a few other things - a notebook and tote. I also related it to the idea that everyone is a unique and integral part of  the group and life as a whole.

The girls really enjoyed the idea and the drawing. Here is a download link of the values lesson that goes along with the drawing. Here's a link to another tote in lime green.

If I were to do it over again, I would do a much smaller project for the girls than a tote lid. This lid took me 3 hours the next day. We had less than an hour of class to do and they were trying to fill up too much space for that much time. A notebook (or notebook size) would have been an easier start. Sometimes you don't know something until you do it.

Here's a little DIY wedding idea...

At many weddings not everyone can see what the couple are doing when they cut the cake. So I thought of the idea to put the mirror behind the cake to improve the view of the couple for the guests. Look past the couple you see the mirror** to the less obvious. I didn't realize, until looking at the photos, that you would be able see what the guests are doing. I love the looks on those kids faces - utter confusion and delight. And you can also see a little of the photographer. I like it. You might like to do something similar sometime and catch all the action going on.

**The mirror I picked up at a local Cameron antique shop for Christmas, for the daughter above. It was a great deal at $35. She painted the frame white, then used a robin's egg blue wash over it. It turned out beautiful.