I Found My Excuse

This weekend I finished the article I was working on and moved on to my son's birthday party. It's on Saturday and I feel kind of nervous because I've never actually thrown a real to goodness birthday party for him before. I've done bridal showers, I've done weddings, I've done baby showers, and have had family birthday parties in the past but this feels somehow like the big time. And because I'm me, I tend to deal with any nervousness I feel by planning and constructing and organizing. So I started brainstorming and came up with an explorer theme. We sent out invites to the "birthday expedition" that were wrapped in little bits of map. I spent most of one day writing and then printing, and then rubbing them all with distress ink so they looked all rugged and distressed. I had some amazing stamps from Oxford Impressions that I got for a book project and they fit perfectly into the theme so I creatively hand stamped all 19 invitations as well. By now I had hands stained with ink, art supplies all over the place and I was just getting started.

Field Notes Collection

I am an artist and it's easy for me to get interested in something if it's a chance to be creative. But I do tend to go a little overboard. For instance, after the invitation deadline had been met I took a trip to my local scrapbooking store and bought myself one of We R Memory Makers new Cinch machines. Because wouldn't it be cute if they had little explorer journals. Oh and wouldn't it be cute if they had cute little explorer bags. Oh, and wouldn't it be fun if they got little flashlights and compasses and we checked them in when they arrive like it really is an expedition? So now all of a sudden my cuteness meter is going into overload and I really can't help myself- I need to make those notebooks. Plus I had a coupon. It was the double whammy. So I now have a cinch machine and I've now invested hours just in putting together on the computer little nature explorer activity pages that we can include in the journals.

At this point any right brained person is questioning my sanity. But you all know that the fun is in the details and really, hours spent creating are fun no matter what the excuse. But sometimes we do need excuses. I found mine for right now. I'm a mom with a birthday party to throw. Oh and it's gonna be so cool.