Baby's First Year Pre-Made Scrapbook Gift

 

I've made scrapbooks for several gifts and they are always a huge hit!  I've made them both with the pictures already in the scrapbook and I've also given empty pre-made scrapbooks so the receivers can add their own pictures. 

I made a scrapbook for my friend Staci for her birthday because she was going on a cruise.  She always complains about never taking pictures on trips.  I made the scrapbook with pages for each port and also included more general theme pages for beach and cruise pages.  The first thing she told me after she got back was how many pictures she took because she had the scrapbook.  She now has a beautifully filled scrapbook of pictures, mementos, and memories that she other wise wouldn't have had because she doesn't scrapbook.  

Giving an empty scrapbook to a non-scrapbooker is great because all they have to do is take the pictures.  They can personalize it by choosing the photos and by journaling on pages with stories and memories. 

Giving a filled scrapbook always gets a wow reaction (and sometimes even tears) when you give it to the reciever.   

Baby scrapbooks are a great gift for a shower or hospital gift.  Even if the Mommy is a scrapbooker, who has time to scrapbook during the first year?  The scrapbook can be laid out like a baby book. 

Here are photos of pages of a pre-made baby girl scrapbook that I made for a gift...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Each page contains a spot for one or two 4x6 photos.  When I give a scrapbook, I include a pack of acid free glue sticks so all the receiver has to do is get their photos printed and glue them in!

 

Microphone Cupcakes

Let me first just start off by saying that I probably will never make these again! This was one of those projects you see in a book and think, oh my gosh aren't those cute! Well they are cute but they were such a pain!  I will probably not make them again but I did want to show some of the trail and errors I wished someone had showed me prior to taking on this project.

The little girl I nanny for was going to the Taylor Swift concert for her birthday.  As a surprise her Mom asked me to make microphone cupcakes with a letter scramble that spelled "Taylor Swift".  After much trial and error and a few ice cream cone boxes and donut holes later...I finally did it and here is how...
(and my apologies for the terrible pictures...my camera battery was conveniently dead the day I made these!)

Apparently they make "kid cones" that are smaller but all I could find was the standard cones...after looking in 6 grocery stores, I was done looking! I had to settle for the standard cones that are too tall and too wide for the donut holes.  I had to cut off the top and play around with how much exactly to cut off to make the best fit. 

 Then I "spray painted" the cones with food safe paint.  This particular can came from Party City but craft and baking supply stores sell it also.  I sprayed the cones gold but you could use whatever color matches your theme. 

 Now this is where you have to play around to get the donut hole to fit snug in the cone.  At first I tried to use the Crispy Creme donut holes that you buy from the grocery store but they were not big enough and were also not very round. 
I also put M&Ms in the bottom of the cone before attaching the donut hole to help prevent it from being top heavy.  I'd also recommend doing this part in advanced and allow the icing to harden really good before doing the next step...

After allowing the donut hole to harden completely on top of the cone, I spread icing on the top and...

dipped it in silver cake decorating sprinkles. 

Then I poked a hole in the bottom to put in the "cord".  I used these long skinny Jelly Belly jelly beans but Tic Tacs would also work. 

I also had to use my hand to kind of cup it around the ball to make the top round after adding the sprinkles. 

Then I attached the microphones to the cupcakes while the cupcake icing before it hardened.  I used icing to write the letters "Taylor Swift" on the cones.