{Documenting June 2011}

 June seems a long time ago now, but I'm pleased to have reached the mid-way point in the year! 

This month saw little man turning 8 months old, and becoming more & more cheeky by the day. These photos are just so typical - looking all cute & smiley, and holding the sign upside down! Another Shimelle starting point was the inspiration for this page.

I had to stretch a little bit to fill my mini pages this month. For some reason June was fairly sparse in activities - it was so hot I think we just chilled out at home & went to our baby groups, but I failed to get many photos. I know I was stressing about going back to work a lot this month. Still, I did manage to find enough to fill the gaps. So June saw the arrival of our first nephew Alexander, it saw Benjamin learn to kneel and pull himself to stand, it was our 3rd wedding anniversary (I love this block - the present theme is leather for 3 years, so I went to M&S and picked up a leather swatch from the homeware department to put on here), B sent happy birthday messages to his grandma & grandad, and my mum and dad went to Canada!

I have to say thank you to Shimelle for getting me out of my scrapping rut, what with the starting points that I love, and the new class Pretty Paper Party, which is where this page came from. This wasn't an event as such, just a sunny day messing about in the garden and taking silly photos of Benjamin in my sunglasses lol! He'll thank me for this when he's older I'm sure (hmmm). 

{The Party}

Benjamin's first birthday party was a small affair with just a few close family & friends, but I still wanted to make it cute & fun of course! 

We went with a monkey theme, since he's our "little monkey", and I kind of went a bit mad with balloons - I ordered 100 and strung them up all over the house! In fact they are still up now, I can't bear to take them down because B loves them so much! 

The lovely SJ made us some super cute invitations featuring an adorable little monkey with a cupcake - what's not to love?!

 Here are a few of the party details: 

1. Those balloons - I used an idea I'd seen on Pinterest and blew them up then threaded them onto a piece of thread and hung them all over the place! It worked great! I love that they aren't in your way on the floor, and no helium required - win! I will definitely be using this idea oevr & over again. 

2. The cake. The all important first birthday cake. I admit, I was nervous. I don't bake a lot, although I would like to. The cake was pretty simple really - a chocolate sponge with chocolate butter icing. I cut a alither away from the top semi-circle to give it shape, then added rolled icing for the face. The hair is made of matchsticks, the ears are jaffa cakes, the eyes are buttons and the nose chocoate coated raisins. I love how it turned out! 

3. I strung up all of Benjamin's monthly photos using little chalk hearts to mark the months. It was great to see them all together like that, so this series will definitely be making it's way onto a layout soon (if I can figure how to get 13 photos onto a page, maybe it'll have to be the first double I've done in years!).

4. A monkey party just wouldn't be complete without bananas. Both the fruit and the sweetie kind!

5. Just in case anyone wondered what flavour the quiche was, or which cheese was which I made little food flags for the buffet table. Quick, easy and effective. 

6. I can't claim to have made the napkins, but they were cute lol!

Finally to commemorate the little man turning one, we had a print made, again by SJ - see how well it coordinates with the invitation? Love that! These are a few of Benjamin's favourites at the tender age of 1. I would love to do something similar each birthday, it's such a nice reminder. 

If you love this, you can have of your own! SJ does Likes prints for individuals, families, and also family values prints. Great for birthdays, christmas or just because. Any age goes - I'm tempted to do one for myself! Take a look at her shop here.

{Documenting May 2011}

As promised, here are my pages for May in my Document 2011 album. I am so happy with the way this album is turning out, it's such a wonderful way to look back over the year. 

Benjamin's 7 months page was based on a starting point by Shimelle. I used a subtle grid paper for the main block so that I would have plenty of space for journalling! This month it was all about movement - he went from stationary to crawling in several stages over the month. Using a washing basket for the photos was my way of keeping him in one place although it was still hard work! The 'seven' letters are the same ones you can see in the photo to date it.

 Some of May's activities included a girly scrapbooking weekend away (half of the weekend was technically April, but I used creative license, since April was so packed already!), my 27th birthday, Benjamin loving the swings, teething (and the arrival of the first 4 teeth), lots of time in the garden, and little man's baptism.

For my focus page this month I used my favourite photo from Benjamin's baptism - it was such a lovely day. My sister did a great job with the photos - I love how Michael & I, and Father are all looking and smiling down on him, which is exactly what the whole day was about. I stuck to a fairly neutral colour scheme of pale yellow and grey, with a few splashes of green and blue. 

{Documenting 2011 - catch up!}

I've been way behind on my Document 2011 pages - April pages had been sat half done in my to-do pile since early May! A couple of weeks ago now I sat down and blitzed my way through them! I think because they'd been sat there so long I'd got a sort of scrappers block on them, and they just needed to be out the way!

Since then I've also completed May and June, and July is in progress, so I'm happy with that. With two scrapbooking weekends up and coming in November, I feel confident that I can get this project up to date. A massive photo order done yesterday should mean I can just grab it and go. In fact, I may not take anything else with me! 

Here are April's mini pages: 

April was a really busy month, with loads of days out and events to document. I prefer months like that, sometimes I have to work hard to fill the 18 squares! So in April we had my mother-in-law's 60th birthday party, easter, an ale festival, my first mother's day, a trip to the zoo, the royal wedding and a few random phone pictures of Benjamin.

This month was his half-year, and I LOVE the pictures from this month's photoshoot. He was at that lovely age where he could sit up, smile & laugh, but would stay still lol! I layered up lots of papers under the photo, and put my journalling both on the yellow die-cut piece and all the way around the edge of the page. The stars are embossed chipboard (I may be slightly addicted to Zing! powders at the moment!). There don't seem to be a huge amount of star shaped embellishments out there, but I love them for little boy pages. I'm in the market for a star punch if anyone knows of a good one?

...and then he was ONE

 

 My baby is one. Officially no longer a baby and more like a toddler. 

People are right when they tell you that time flies by so much more quickly when you have children. It really does. I don't think anyone really believes it until they experience it though.  

From this to this in 12 short months. I'm so proud of my little man.

The day started with presents of course, and the birthday boy sported mummy's new favourite stripey sleepsuit! See that stack of presents behind him? That has taken a long time to open, because he loves all his new toys so much he just wants to play with them & not open the next one!

 

Then off we went to the Sea Life Centre which was a huge success - he loved watching the fishes, and one particular playful penguin was captivating! 

Back home and time for a few photos. The balloon pictures didn't really work out since the weather was a bit rubbish, so instead we have cake photos for his one year pics. Since he won't sit still enough for a number prop anymore, I made a customised vest for him using photoshop and some t-shirt transfer paper - super easy & super cute!

Just out of interest, this is what hapens after you give a one year old a cupcake....

...sugar high! It was hilarious - he was dancing around and squealing at the top of his voice. Racing over to the window and slapping it whilst shouting at the garden. Rubbing his hands over his chest & belly like a man possessed lol!

Having recovered from the sugar rush, it was time to test out more new toys, here he is enjoying a couple of them - a cute wooden trike & a fun fire engine (I think I will hear nee-naw noises in my sleep!).

 

 

Last but not least the important family photo. Rubbish quality beacause it was getting dark & I had my ISO set wrong d'oh. But although it may not be great quality, it's us. Hopefully I'll be able to get some more family photos at the weekend when he has his little party & there's someone else to take our pics - much easier than doing it yourself!