Send a Free Card to Your Kid from Santa! {Sponsored Post}

Santa's finishing up his summer vacation. Before he heads back to the North Pole, we heard he’s sending special cards to all the good boys and girls. Can you imagine the look of excitement on your kid's face when he or she opens a personalized letter from Santa in the middle of summer? So cute! Look at this one Jacinda made up for Clare...

Tiny Prints will let you customize a card and send it off to your kiddo for free. I love Tiny Prints – I even used them for Scarlet's birth announcement three and a half years ago. Three friends with big dreams and a passion for beautiful paper started "Tiny Prints" as a line of birth announcements, photo books and baby shower invitations featuring adorable babies. Today, Tiny Prints offers high quality products like chic photo cards and personalized stationery with stylish design supported by exceptional customer service.

So to send a free card to your kid from Santa, head on over to Tiny Prints where you'll be asked to "Like" tiny prints on facebook to get your code and order your card. A few days later, a special delivery from Santa will make it's way to your tot, customized with his or her name!

Matryoshka Madness!

In keeping with our current Giveaway of Matryoshka Measuring Cups from Fred M I compiled 10 inexpensive (yet adorable) babushka cuties, check 'em out here: 10 Nesting Doll Themed Products for under $25.

DIY Fancy Feather Quill Pen

Here's a quick & cheap gift for the writers in your life. Make your own feather quill pen and package it with a bottle of fun ink.

This is ridiculously simple and totally fun. Get the DIY Fancy Feather Quill Pen Tutorial after the jump...

And remember that all comments may result in snowfall at your house, in the form of beautiful vinyl snowflakes made by Jacinda!
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Quinn's Farm-tastic First Birthday: Thank you cards

What's the rule with thank you cards for a kid birthday party? If they open the gifts at the party, you don't have to send them? If they open them later, you do? But either way, it's a nice thing to do?  Let us know your thoughts in the comments.

And also, when is it OK to send them a month after the party? Never? oops.

Well, they are late but aren't they cute? Here's how I did it...

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Custom Invitations

Isn't this invitation to Scarlet's Indian Elephant Party the cutest? It was designed by the super-talented Kelly of Yes, Please Design, and she takes custom orders! She can print them for you or design graphics for you to print yourself.

If you're curious about what this year's April Fools was (after last year's faux IRS audit) you'll just have to wait till next year! Visit Yes, Please Design here to sneak a peek at her stylishness and order your own custom invites!

The Finest April Fools Joke Ever with Free Downloads

I am a master of the April Fool if I do say so myself.  The day is rapidly approaching so before I jet off to see Jacinda in Dallas I wanted to share with you the goods from last year's tomfoolery in hopes you might spread the joy.  My dear daughter was born on April Fools, a fact which caused many to pity her or us.  I have no idea why; she's happy, healthy, and now her birthday will always be hilarious.  We can't very well fool HER every year, that would be mean!  Instead we play a little joke on our close friends and family in honor of her birthday.  So I present to you, the April Fools Faux IRS Audit birthday invite.

Carleton and I actually were audited, and boy, that was no fun.  BUT it did supply me with the necessary documents to recreate and scare our loved ones, also known as "material".  After the jump you'll find my re-creations ready for download and customization; simply replace the names, addresses, and identifying details (every number on there relates to her birthday in some way, make sure you change all the dates and initials and what not).  Head to Staples or Amazon and pick up some w2 envelopes (the ones that say "important tax documents enclosed") and stuff them.  We added a third page that was her circus-themed birthday invite (which you can check out here along with pictures of the party), so the scare only lasted a few minutes:  just the right amount of time to avoid making anyone really angry.  But definitely take them to the post office and have them run through the postage meter instead of stamping them for maximum scare-impact.

Get the full April Fools Audit packet and read the HILARIOUS responses after the jump...  And if everyone you know reads Prudent Baby, you might just have to email me and maybe I'll send you the top secret docs for this year's prank...

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Spring Critter Bookplates - Free Download

My mom sent the girls an Amazon Gift Card for Valentine's Day with instructions for me to pick out a few new books. Score! We picked up a copy this amazing Peter Pan pop-up book and the last Pigeon book that we were missing. Then my mom suggested that we needed to add bookplates so they would know they were from her! Genius! So here are the spring critter bookplates that we made. They are designed to fit on Avery Label 8164 which makes a 4"x3.33 bookplate (quite large.) I simply printed them at 75% on my favorite high quality printer paper, ran the sheet through my Xyron 900 and cut them on my paper cutter. Then I rounded the little corners with scissors.

Click here to download FREE BOOKPLATE Template

Color-in Valentine's Day Cards: Free Download!

My friend Asia at The Design Pocket created these insanely adorable valentines that you can print out and have your kids color in!  I had to share them with you because they would be perfect to send off to the family, the right combo of high-design cute and kid-made loveliness, AND they make a great kid-mom activity, which is always a huge bonus.

There are four per page and they say adorable things like "Owl be your Valentine!" Get the Free Downloadable Valentine's Day Coloring Cards here.

And the free downloadable Valentine's Day Coloring Book is available here!

DIY Birth Announcement with FREE downloads

I can't believe Quinn is 9 months old. Crazy! To celebrate her 3/4 year birthday, I thought that I would share her birth announcement, complete with the artwork files. Funny story, The announcement I sent to Jaime came back to me (return to sender) like 3 months after we sent them out. She never got one and was feeling neglected but never mentioned it. AS IF I would leave Jaime off the list!

Find the details on this easy DIY Birth Announcement and the Free Downloads after the jump.

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Best. Gift. Ever.

Fellow Stationery nerds, you must get your hands on a Return Address Blind Embosser. Mine was a Christmas gift, purchased from Paper Source. The quality is very nice, and I got to pick from a bunch of pretty fonts. This is an excellent gift idea! In fact, you may want to drop a v-day hint.

DIY Cupcake Toppers

Nothing says "I'm a failure as a mother and a human being" like some supermarket desserts. HA! Just kidding. Homemade-organic or on sale at Target, give your treats the handmade touch with these super cute dessert toppers that you can whip up in about 5 minutes, with stuff you probably have at home.


Get the Dessert Topper DIY after the jump

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DIY Children's Bathroom Step Stool

BEFORE:

AFTER:

Well, I didn't make the stool itself.  I bought it forever ago, I think at Target, for under $10.  But it was plain white, so after the fun I had with the DIY Matryoshka and Owl Coasters I decided to spruce it up with some mod podge and pretty paper to match the bathroom!

Make your own kid's step stool personalized or give a gift stool that will be the hit of the shower by using their name, their favorite words, or just some pretty paper.  It's SO EASY and has such fun results!

Get the full DIY Kids Bathroom Stool tutorial after the jump...
And thanks for the post OhDeeDoh!
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Wicked Crafty Award

My friend Erin gave me this amazing award for my birthday!  I was totally going to do a DIY but then I decided that would be obnoxious (read the award).  You can get your own from Ghost Academy on Etsy here!

Recycle Baby Shower Cards: 4 Ways

Our friend Robyn came to Prudent Baby with a great crafty question...

"Do you know of any good projects that use all the cards we got for Zane at his baby showers?"

So in addition to our recent DIY for origami boxes, we pulled together a few more ideas.

If you are a sentimental nerd AND a stationary geek (like me) you might not want to actually cut your cards. Simply display them on a ribbon or bakers twine with tiny clothes pins. These are from Paper Source, but I recently saw them at Michael's, in the wood isle.

If you can bear to take to your cards with scissors (or have a copier, he he), here are three more...

Take this tip from Amesh and glue your cards to wood (or cardboard) blocks. You can also mix it up and add some baby photos and pretty decorative papers. Mod Podge would also be excellent for this but beware of using mod Podge with the (typically) water-soluble ink in home printers, it will run.


Make a mobile. Punch your art out of the cards using a Large Craft Punch. Glue circles of decorative paper to the back side with ribbon sandwiched in-between. Tie the ribbons to an embroidery hoop covered in decorative paper.


Or use the circle punched cards sandwiched with ribbon and make an adorable garland.

Does anyone have other ideas for Robyn?

DIY: Origami Gift Boxes

 My mom is in town with lots of crafty ideas. She reminded me of these little gift boxes that we made by the dozen when I was a girl. Totally addicting (or is it addictive?) to make. You can use greeting cards, old maps, last year's calendar, children's art, scrapbooking paper... really anything works!

Find the DIY after the jump and get folding. So fun for a relaxed New Year's Day.

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Prudent Tip: Ribbon Gift Label

Here is a quick way to use a scrap of ribbon to fancify a plain gift label. Extra nice for flat shipping (no smushed bows) and a thrifty way to stretch out a roll of ribbon.


The paper is from Old Navy, the labels are a few years old from Paper Source.

Handmade Gift Labels in New Colors!

Prudent Baby's very own "handmade" gift tags are going to be included in the gift bag at this fabulous event tonight. Don't they look cute all tied up in a bow? Thanks Jaime! In the process of deciding what color to do (these things are important) we created a few new colors. If you are looking for turquoise, pink, purple or black, you can find them here.

Giveaway: Letterpress Yard Fauna Cards

We have a winner! Thanks for entering!! We're very excited about this first giveaway from Krank Press. Krank Press is going to give one lucky winner a set of their adorable (and a bit funny) Yard Fauna Cards.

Description:
Set of 5 different urban animals (all of whom have made appearances in our yard: raccoon, bushtit, coyote, kestral and baby opossum) letterpressed from hand-carved linoleum blocks onto blank A2 size cards (5 1/2" X 4 1/4"), with 5 matching 100% recycled kraft paper envelopes.

Cute right?

Here's how it works:

1. Head over to Krank Press and peruse their wares, SUCH AS THESE AMAZING CALENDARS!!


2. Come back here and comment on this post. Tell us the weirdest creature you've seen in your yard or neighborhood.


On Monday, December 14th at Midnight CT we will close comments and select a winner using Random.org! We have a winner!!


We're PRETTY EXCITED!! If only we could enter... sigh. But you can (if you live in the US), so please do! And if you have some gifts to buy, please support these amazing sellers and buy handmade. YAY!

Handmade Gift Labels

We cracked ourselves up making these little gift tags for your homemade holiday gifties. You can print them out on a lightly patterned paper (I used some Amy Butler scrapbooking paper from Michaels) or sheets of adhesive stock and then cut with a paper trimmer, x-acto blade or scissors. Do you have a Paper Trimmer? If not, you should totally ask for one for Christmas. They are awesome.




There are 10 different labels and there are downloadable PDF files for 8 different color versions (because we know you are already planning your wrapping color scheme!) after the jump.

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Baby's First Thanksgiving Card (as if you don't have enough to do)

Want to stand out from the pack of Christmas cards? Send a Thanksgiving card! Here is an easy and super-cute version that long-distance Grammie will love. Long-distance Grandpa will say that it looks like baby smeared poo on a piece of paper. Long distance grandpa is classy like that.
DIY after the jump
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