Walking for Autism Awareness

My family and I are participating in the Georgia chapter Walk Now for Autism Speaks this May. We are so lucky to have the resources we have but more research means even better resources for our little boy and for the countless other little boys and girls who struggle in the same way. The icon below will take you to Alexander's individual donation page. Please take a moment to consider donating in support of his walk. Any amount you can offer will be appreciated! 

Season's Greetings!

How I Roll

Last week I took my boys on a flight to Kansas City. I've actually flown alone (no other adults) with my kids several times in the past few years and I've got the procedure down pretty well, I think. When I saw a post on myautismteam.com asking about taking a 3 year old on a plane trip (and whether or not it's worth it to bring a car seat along), I found myself composing quite a lengthy response. Once I hit the 5th paragraph, I decided it might be more efficient to turn that comment into a blog post and just link to it on myaustimteam. So here it is!

I would absolutely recommend bringing a car seat for your 3 year old on a plane. For one thing, the familiarity and a feeling of security help a lot (this is especially true for children with Autism). And, at least for my son, who is very small for his age, the lap-only belt on the plane seat wouldn't do a ding dang thing to hold him in place, whether the cause of sudden movement was hyperactivity or turbulence.

First thing to do if you're going to bring her car seat is find the notice on the car seat that says it's certified for use in motor vehicles and aircraft. Make a mental note where that sticker is located because there is a chance you will encounter a snotty flight attendant who will try to tell you that you can't use a car seat on an airplane. Then you can politely tell her that yes, yes, you can, because there is a law saying qualified car seats must be allowed and here's the sticker saying this particular seat qualifies.

Since I occasionally (more often than not) travel alone with my kids it would be physically impossible for me to carry a car seat in addition to holding onto my two boys AND carry-on bags. So, I bring a regular stroller with me and I use the toddler car seat's "latch" straps to hang it off the back of the stroller. This is not for a child to ride in, it is just to carry the car seat through the airport. Most airlines allow you to check a stroller at the gate at no additional cost and you'll get it back as soon as you get off the plane. You will have to unlatch the car seat at security and put it and the stroller on the belt for the x-ray scanner with everything else. (Side tip: The weight of the car seat *will* tip the stroller over if the stroller is empty, so unlatch the car seat before trying to take your child out if you want to avoid embarrassment and frustration.) 

I also accept help whenever I can get it. If someone notices that I'm struggling at the bottom of the gangway, juggling two small kids (one who doesn't want to get out of the stroller and one squirming to get down off my hip), a car seat, a back pack and a huge diaper bag, and offers to carry something on board the plane, I let them. If no one offers, I ask a flight attendant. It sounds like you'll have adult help already and I would advise you to depend on them. 

Whether I bring a car seat or not, if I'm traveling with kids, I bring the standard boredom busters and snacks. (Playing movies on our iPad allows me freedom our fore-mothers couldn't even dream of.) Of course, I give myself extra time to get through security and I don't even attempt to be the first person off the plane. If I'm not in a rush I'm almost guaranteed to work more efficiently and therefore, in the end, more quickly. It also helps my kids' tantrums not to escalate as quickly if I make a conscious choice to be calm and nonchalant. This last trip I was literally the last person off because I waited patiently for everyone else to make room for the flight attendants to get to me and carry the things I didn't have hands for. 

I may be the nightmare of the business man who is used to booking it through security (Hi, Dad! ☺) but this is what works best for me and my boys. If I'm holding you up, Mr. Late For His Flight, offer to fold my stroller for me and be grateful that Alexander is the one having the meltdown because MY meltdowns aren't as sweet.

FlyBaby

Lately I've been working on refocusing my energies on my family and our house. I still need to be able to take time and recharge my own batteries and cultivate some "non-essential" talents. But I'm trying to go about daily life more on purpose than I used to. Basically I was miserable for about two months after we got Alexander's diagnosis. Then I realized that a lot of my old habits just aren't sustainable amidst these new challenges (ex. sitting on facebook for extended periods of time does not give me a boost of energy or help me feel motivated to "get back to the day." It sucks me in and I'm lucky if I resurface before the boys have added 25 more things to my cleaning list.) I simply have to grow or I'm going to be crushed by the onslaught of "stuff I have to do" and suffocated by my own feelings and reactions. This does not mean that all of the sudden, two weeks ago, I became a perfect, glorified being. Everybody else, even Kevin, may not have noticed that big a difference in me from February to March. But I've noticed a difference. I'm not "happier than I've ever been" but I'm definitely happier than I was a month ago.

I signed up at FlyLady.net and diligently implemented the first two baby steps (Shine Your Sink and Dress to Shoes). Since then I haven't even visited the site again but I also haven't needed to. I have NOT kept my sink shiny-clean the way she says to but I have embraced the Getting Dressed to Shoes concept. It really is just like she says, I think twice before laying down for a snooze on the couch if I have my lace up shoes on. And I don't have any excuse for not going outside to play with the kids, or running to the store, or walking the trash can to the curb. Once again, people may not notice a difference when they come to my house in the level of its cleanliness, but I feel like there's a difference. I've gotten several Spring Cleaning/Organization projects done and I really feel like I owe it to my shoes. The dishes and laundry still pile up a bit but I feel slightly more empowered to handle it. And let me just tell you, spiders don't give me quite the same panic attack when I'm wearing my sneaks.

There's also a different mindset that comes with getting fully dressed as if I was really going to work (teeth brushed, makeup and deodorant on, the whole nine yards). I get in a groove, I put on my Hilary Weeks or Josh Groban Pandora station. I'm better at plowing through the chores and minutia and just getting it over with instead of letting it take up the whole day. This obviously leaves more time for other more pleasant endeavors. I've played outside with my kids more in the past couple of weeks than I ever have before. The early arrival of Spring, I'm sure, has also contributed to this development, but I'm just more motivated in myself than I've been in a while.

I guess you could say I look at all of this as evolution. My to-do lists have changed, my goals have changed, even my prayers have changed. They kind of just had to. And I'm grateful for the grace I know I've been given. I couldn't have gotten even to this point on my own.

"I ain't as good as I'm gonna get, but I'm better than I used to be."

Mamas' gifts

This is the post where I got the idea for my mom's and mother-in-law's Christmas gifts. I liked the idea of the plaques and the book page backgrounds. Scrapbook paper ended up being the way to go for the backgrounds though because I couldn't decide on which book pages to use (words are a big deal for me)! The silhouettes themselves I cut out in vinyl with my Silhouette machine after using Photoshop to outline the people's faces. I did all of my mom's 6 kids and my mother-in-law's 6 kids. Would've done the grand-kids but there are just too many of those (and more on the way)! I forgot to take a picture of my mom's finished plaques but here are the ones we gave Kevin's mom Christmas day.

Both moms seemed to really like their gifts so of course I'm pretty proud of my little project. Stay tuned for more post-Christmas-surprise insights!

Merry Christmas!

Calling all children's story authors!

Hey all! I hoped you've already checked out knowonder like I told you to a few weeks ago. If you haven't then pleeeease do so now! My sister and I both starting working for the magazine and have had stories published recently. My story was just posted today so go read it and let me know what you think! It's a little Halloween story called Wait Til Simon Comes. My sister's story was posted a couple of weeks ago and it's called Matchless Melanie.

The magazine can always use new authors. So spread the word and get working on your own material to submit. Go back and read the archived stories to get a feel for what we're looking for and then get writing! Can't wait to hear from you!

My "Done List"

I've been spending a lot of time on Pinterest lately. (I know I'm not the only one!) That site has got to be one of the most addictive things ever! At least for an OCD *nut* like me. I finally decided that I needed to make some "rules" for myself to channel my pinning obsession. My main rule includes the use of my "To-Do List" board. It's a board where I repin things I've pinned onto my other boards that I would like to actually do or make in the immediate future. This gives me easy access to my immediate goals so when I'm in a productive mood, I can cut right to the chase instead of getting lost in an endless sea of pins. The "rule" I've been trying to live by is that I'm not allowed to pin anything new unless I've done something off my "To-Do" board in the last week. In other words, if I go a whole week without actually USING the resources I'm pinning, I'm not allowed to waste time adding more. 

This is an exclusively self-imposed rule. I really can't say if I've been officially sticking to the week time frame or not, but having this goal in the back of my head has helped at least some. The only real documentation I have so far of the things I've done is moving them from the To-Do board to my Tried It and Loved It or Experiences Worth Having boards. So I wanted to post more about it on here and motivate myself to keep going. So here are the things I've done since I started this goal-oriented approach to pinning. :-)

Recipes Cooked (with Kevin's help):

    

Long-term Project Begun:

Ingredients Purchased:

     

Family Activities Done:

(Link to pictures on family blog)

If any one happens to read this and is inspired to make a similar board (or just set more goals), I do have a piece of advice: start small. It's GOOD to put recipes on your "To-do" list that won't require major shopping trips; ones that use stuff you have on hand already. Pin things you're already planning on doing anyway, like I did with the Corn Dawgs family activity. This is NOT "cheating". This is just a way to find motivation by having linked resources handy and to aid in making your inner awesomeness an outer reality. The awesomeness is something you already have, the list is just a way to remind yourself. As my old buddy C.S. Lewis always says, "Do not mistake it for the thing itself: and if it does not help you, drop it."

Read to a Child!

You may have noticed the new button at the top of my right hand column. If you haven't already, you should absolutely check it out! It's a link to a free online magazine that features a new story to read to your kids every single day!

"knowonder!" magazine was founded by Phillip Chipping a few years ago and he just started it back up again last month. The site is full of awesome resources for kids and parents alike. And guess who's helping him lead the charge...?

My mom! (Check out the "Our Team" page)

The woman who read to me and made up stories so I could star in my very own fairy tales. I'm so excited for this new project and I'm hoping to be involved as much as possible with getting "knowonder!" off the ground for real. So go check it out! For me, for my mom, sure, sure; but mostly for YOU! Read to your kids! Submit your own writing! Get your child's stories published!

Move it people! Get that imagination going!

Reverse Life Cycle for Moms

There is a quote by a man named Robert Benson called The Life Cycle and I've seen it floating around the internet for quite a few years. This probably means you all have seen it already also but in case you haven't...drum roll please...

“I think that the life cycle is all backwards. You should die first, get that out of the way, then live twenty years in an old age home. You get kicked out when you’re too young, you get a gold watch, you go to work. You work forty years until you’re young enough to enjoy your retirement. You go to college until you’re ready for high school. You go to grade school, you become a little child, you play, you have no responsibilities, You become a little baby, you go back into the womb, you spend your last nine months floating, and you finish off as a gleam in someone’s eye!”

I thought this was quite amusing the first time I read it, probably 10 or 15 odd years ago. It still gives me a little chuckle but it occurred to me today that it was lacking a little in relatability to my own personal life. I spent most of today making phone calls and jumping through hoops and doing laps in preparation for jumping others in reference to my kids' various healthcare needs. I was feeling ever so slightly (intensely) exasperated by the fact that moms don't receive training for this stuff. I know that the idea that there isn't a manual is not original but I guess what I was really thinking about was a mommy internship. 

So here's my take on Benson's idea.

Reverse Life Cycle for Moms

“I think that the life cycle is all backward. You should die first, get that out of the way, then live twenty years in an old age home. You get kicked out when you’re too young, you celebrate 50 years of marriage. You receive diamond earrings from your husband, endless praise from your adoring children and go on a trip to Italy. You watch your grandchildren being raised until you know enough to raise your own children. Now you get a diamond ring to go with your earrings. You go to college until you’re ready for high school. You go to grade school, become a little child, you play, you have no responsibilities. You become a little baby, you go back into the womb, you spend your last nine months floating, and you finish off as a gleam in someone’s eye!”

Lost Child ID Tags

On our California vacation we visited 3 different theme parks in one week. Disneyland, Knott's Berry Farm, and Legoland. I had our whole itinerary planned weeks before our trip and let me tell you, I did puh-lenty of research!

During said research I came across the Legoland affiliated "Model Mom Mary" blog and this article: Five Safety Measures for Visiting a Theme Park.

Model Mom Mary describes a personal experience we all fear. She is obviously a regular at Legoland, but her 2-year-old daughter still managed to disappear for a brief time while they were there recently. This prompted her to write the article and share the following 5 Safety Measures

1) Have a photo of the child from that day so you can show people who are helping you look what the child looks like that day. This one is easy nowadays with the prevalence of smart phones.
2) Pin a piece of paper on the inside of your child’s clothes or write with sharpie on their stomach their name and all of your contact information.
3) Set an easily accessible meeting spot first thing upon entering the Park.
4) Introduce your kids to an employee upon entering the Park so that they can identify a safe person to approach for help if they are lost.
5) Wear bright colors. No need to bring back the 80’s with matching day-glo tees but bright, primary colors are much easier to spot in a crowd.

She also points out that the best thing you can do is tell a park employee. Of course it's good because they can help you look but they can also radio to all other employees and have the front gate locked if need be.

Those exact same 5 tips can be found on multiple websites geared toward child safety and I think they're great for use with children who are able to effectively communicate with grownups and remember things like phone numbers or where we decided to meet. Knowing, however, that my toddler does not yet fall into that category of children, I was instead inspired to use the knowledge I have of my child to come up with my own ideas and plan for keeping him safe.

I really liked the part about putting our contact info on his person somewhere. For some reason I wasn't loving the idea of writing on Alexander in permanent marker (maybe it's just the OCD in me thinking it wouldn't look nice, what can I say?) It also occurred to me that pinning a piece of paper inside his clothes could turn into an immediate fail the second he started playing in any water (which is his favorite thing to do). So I took the basic concept and left off the specifics and decided instead to make little fabric tags to sew into the clothes he would be wearing at the parks.

Originally I was planning on sewing the tags on the inside of his collar where the sizing tag usually would be. Then I decided that if he wanders away and is actually noticed by a helpful adult, I wanted them to be able to find my cell phone number without having to look for it. One, they might not think to look for it at all; Two, if my son is missing from me, the 15+ seconds it would take a thoughtful person to look for some sort of ID, is 15+ more seconds that my phone is not ringing to tell me he is safe. Outside of right sleeve it is!

Slight side bar: I have read that putting a child's name too large, say on the back of their shirt (jersey style) isn't a good idea because then a "non-helpful" person could possibly use the information to act familiar with the child and lead them away with out them protesting. Alexander doesn't come when people call his name anyway so I wasn't overly worried about that but it was still a consideration. I wasn't planning on making huge tags but the thought did influence me to go even smaller.

There are lots of products out there that can serve this purpose if your child gets lost but I made these out of what I had at home. I typed up Alexander's name and both my husband's and my cell phone numbers in Corel in 10pt Arial font (nothing fancy, easy to read). I made it so 10 tags would print on one sheet so I'd have extras and printed them out on HP Iron-on Transfer Paper. I cut them out and ironed them onto some plain white fabric. One more round of cutting, then I sewed them on the sleeves quick quick like a bunny with my sewing machine.

To finish I'll share what happened while we were in Legoland. While Kevin sat with the baby at some tables nearby, I took Alexander to play in Hideaways (a huge jungle gym type play area). Alexander thought it was one of the best things ever and I was having a good time, too, watching him and climbing and sliding after him. Well, there was a climbing section that I was too big to follow him into and he got to it and started going down before I could stop him. I whirled around and shot down the nearest slide, hoping to meet him at the bottom. Well the slide came out on a different level than the rope course so I had to run up the regular stairs trying to find him. He wasn't there. The park had employees stationed on all the levels so I turned around and told the nearest one that I couldn't find my son. She asked me what he was wearing and I told her it was a yellow shirt with black stripes with his name on a tag on the sleeve. Hair color? Blond! I got his shorts color wrong (I said green instead of blue) but that employee found him (happily playing and completely unaware that his mommy was lost; he certainly wasn't lost, he knew right where he was - on the slide, silly mommy) in 10 seconds flat.

I didn't know where he was for a total of about 1 minute but let me tell you, knowing he had one of these tags on his shirt kept me from going from zero to hysterical in those same 60 seconds. Mind you, the tag didn't actually help the girl find him but it kept me sane enough to ask for help in the first place. Definitely worth the 30 minutes spent making them before we left.

Repeated, simplified, four (maybe five) step process:
1 - Create in word processor or graphics program
2 - Print on Iron-on Transfer Paper (follow package instructions)
3 - Iron onto plain white broadcloth or other fabric of choice (also following Iron-on package instructions)
4 - Cut out individual labels and sew into clothing (precise location is up to you)

Marriage Advice Printable

When Kevin and I got married we received an 8x10 framed copy of a "Recipe for 'A Happy Marriage." After my Seinfeld post last week I was reminded of that recipe (which we have hanging in our kitchen) and decided to re-vamp and share it. I've actually seen several other versions of this same idea but I think it bears repeating. 

Click. Save. Print.

This printable is formatted for a 4x6 card. You can try printing it larger but the quality won't be as good.

Digital scrapbook elements found at ShabbyPrincess.com - Holiday Recipe Collection

Seinfeldian Thoughts on Marriage

I heard a great talk at church a few weeks ago about marriage and things we can do to make it better. General kindness is a good one, communication is great, too. Sitting in the chapel, listening to this talk, I was reminded of Jerry Seinfeld. Might sound strange but Seinfeld has some of the best advice on marriage I've ever heard.

"Don't be such a good accountant."

I'm pretty sure the first place I heard him say this was over a year ago on an Oprah episode they did about Seinfeld's (then upcoming) show The Marriage Ref. Here's a link to the Oprah.com article about that episode. They mention this particular quote on page 10. He's talking to a woman whose husband "never" changes the toilet paper roll and he's basically telling her to chill. Don't count the number of times your spouse takes out the trash compared to the number of times you do. That's not helping anything.

Great advice. When it comes to little things like putting the empty ice cream container back in the freezer, is it really the end of the world? I know if I do something like that I'm not trying to annoy Kevin and I know the reverse is true and he's not trying to annoy me. So why should I try to make him feel bad about something that doesn't really add up to much in the long run? Is it worth picking a fight with your spouse when you could just as easily choose to get over it?

I'm obviously not a perfect wife but this is something I try to work on. I'm glad I have Seinfeld's voice in my head helping me be a better person. :-)

Happy {Early} Birthday to ME!

My birthday isn't the 21st but we kind of ended up celebrating over this past weekend instead. Being born in May generally means that when you become a mom your birthday and Mothers' Day will kind of blend together and make it a sort of whole month long thing. At least that's how it works in our house. This month things got especially jostled around because my hubby went down to Alabama to help with the disaster clean up on the 6th and 7th so his plans for spoiling me on Mothers' Day weekend went down the tubes. He got me flowers before he left and told me we'd move Mothers' Day to the next weekend.

So I had my Mother's Day on Saturday (the 14th). Kevin had gotten me a gift certificate to the nail salon down the street so I went and got a manicure and pedicure. The lady doing my feet sold me on an upgrade to a spa pedicure and it was soooo worth the 12 extra bucks. Foot scrub, leg wraps, hot stone massage, awesome. That was my morning and then we went to our niece's 3rd birthday party at the grandparents' house. In the end it also became phase one of my birthday because I found out what my birthday present from Kevin was.

That's right! iPad 2 baby!

Kevin decided to go ahead and give it to me since the surprise part was over. He'd left it at work though so I had to wait until that evening when we could drive over there and get it.

I've been telling Kevin I wanted to get an iPad for Alexander so he can use all the educational apps to help him learn to communicate. A friend of mine had shown me hers and let Alexander do The Monster at the End of this Book and he absolutely loved it! I really hadn't looked into too much as far as what I could do with it but I'm learning quickly that it rocks!

But wait, there's more! To add to the "it's my birthday" feel of the day, I got my piano too! I've been searching and searching on craigslist trying to find a piano someone was giving away for free (people do that all the time, they just want someone pick it up and take it off their hands). I hadn't had any real luck though. But then last week Brenda told me she'd offered the "piano in the basement" to Kevin's sisters and neither one wanted it. She wanted to know if I would like to have it. Heck yeah! So after the party, Kevin and his dad and brothers loaded it into their truck and brought it on over.

In our house

The piano isn't in tune and it would probably need some things fixed first to even make it "tunable." All the keys work though and I can use it the way it is for now. Happy day!

Of course all of this means we're not going to be doing much on my actual birthday but it's all good. If I could have an early birthday like this every year I'd definitely be down. Now to find apps and sheet music...woohoo!

I baked again...

I made these cupcakes again yesterday to take to my in-laws mothers' day dinner. I ran out of time so I ended up bringing the icing bowl with me and frosted them there. In all the rush I also forgot to grab the filling out of the fridge. So they were fillingless and without cookies on top (my son finished the mini cookies off days ago) but the point of this post is they were still a hit. Kevin even said he liked them better the second time around. I'm feeling better and better about my baking skills as I practice on this recipe. Probably doesn't hurt that I get to eat the icing as I go. That is some good icing, let me tell ya. You should make some, you know you want to...

In Honor of Mother's Day

(I couldn't find a title or an author for this, it's been going around the web for years. If you know for sure who wrote it let me know, I'd love to give them credit.)

Untitled
Author Unknown

We are sitting at lunch one day when my daughter casually mentions that she and her husband are thinking of "starting a family. "We're taking a survey," she says half-joking. "Do you think I should have a baby?"

"It will change your life," I say, carefully keeping my tone neutral.

"I know," she says, "no more sleeping in on weekends, no more spontaneous vacations."

But that is not what I meant at all. I look at my daughter, trying to decide what to tell her. I want her to know what she will never learn in childbirth classes. I want to tell her that the physical wounds of child bearing will heal, but becoming a mother will leave her with an emotional wound so raw that she will forever be vulnerable.

I consider warning her that she will never again read a newspaper without asking, "What if that had been MY child?" That every plane crash, every house fire will haunt her. That when she sees pictures of starving children, she will wonder if anything could be worse than watching your child die.

I look at her carefully manicured nails and stylish suit and think that no matter how sophisticated she is, becoming a mother will reduce her to the primitive level of a bear protecting her cub. That an urgent call of "Mom!" will cause her to drop a soufflé or her best crystal without a moments hesitation.

I feel that I should warn her that no matter how many years she has invested in her career, she will be professionally derailed by motherhood. She might arrange for child care, but one day she will be going into an important business meeting and she will think of her baby's sweet smell. She will have to use every ounce of discipline to keep from running home, just to make sure her baby is all right. I want my daughter to know that every day decisions will no longer be routine.

That a five year old boy's desire to go to the men's room rather than the women's at McDonald's will become a major dilemma. That right there, in the midst of clattering trays and screaming children, issues of Independence and gender identity will be weighed against the prospect that a child molester may be lurking in that restroom.

However decisive she may be at the office, she will second-guess herself constantly as a mother.

Looking at my attractive daughter, I want to assure her that eventually she will shed the pounds of pregnancy, but she will never feel the same about herself.

That her life, now so important, will be of less value to her once she has a child. That she would give herself up in a moment to save her offspring, but will also begin to hope for more years, not to accomplish her own dreams, but to watch her child accomplish theirs.

I want her to know that a ceasarean scar or shiny stretch marks will become badges of honour.

My daughter's relationship with her husband will change, but not in the way she thinks. I wish she could understand how much more you can love a man who is careful to powder the baby or who never hesitates to play with his child. I think she should know that she will fall in love with him again for reasons she would now find very unromantic.

I wish my daughter could sense the bond she will feel with women throughout history who have tried to stop war, prejudice and drunk driving.

I want to describe to my daughter the exhilaration of seeing your child learn to ride a bike. I want to capture for her the belly laugh of a baby who is touching the soft fur of a dog or cat for the first time.

I want her to taste the joy that is so real it actually hurts.

My daughter's quizzical look makes me realize that tears have formed in my eyes.

"You'll never regret it," I finally say.

Then I reached across the table, squeezed my daughter's hand and offered a silent prayer for her, and for me, and for all the mere mortal women who stumble their way into this most wonderful of callings. The blessed gift of God - and that of being a Mother.


P.S. Yes, Kevin, I fall in love with you every time you reach for the baby powder. (So I love you a lot.) ~Amy

Put your photos on Canvas

There are a bunch of great online stores out there that will make your photos into books, print them on canvas and give you about 500 other fancy and fabulous options to display your favorite pictures. I've seen the occasional promo for getting one of these free (+ $6.95ish shipping). In reality that's probably a great deal but I'm one of those people who can't bear to pay shipping for anything (I call it the Amazon Super Saver complex). Add to that my major case of OCD indecision (should I use this picture or this picture or this picture?) Even if I could move fast enough, I wouldn't want just one canvas, I would want several and I'd end up spending more money than if I had never seen the promo deal in the first place.

Enter my sister, author of Fostered Attentions.

Becca found this ingenious tutorial on how to put any picture on canvas using your inkjet printer and tissue paper!

Now, between the original tutorial and my sister's blog entry you can definitely figure out how to do this yourself. I just developed some instructions of my own to add some extra advice based on my past 3 days of experience. I'm going to list the exact supplies I used so I can be extra specific with the shortcuts I share. We got everything that I didn't already have at home at Hobby Lobby. They had canvases 30% off and we brought two 40% off coupons and got a pretty good deal over all. I'll give you the complete price per finished canvas at the end of the post.

My Tip-Covered Tutorial

Supplies:
Mounted Artist Canvas (18x18)
Tissue paper (20inx20in sheets)
Regular printer paper
Krylon Workable Fixatif
Elmer's Multipurpose Spray Adhesive
Roll/large sheet of brown butcher/kraft paper
Scissors
A glue stick
An ink jet printer
CorelDraw graphic software

Note: Any graphic software will work, I just like Corel best. Use what you know. I was originally going to include all the details of how I worked in Corel for this project but I've decided I'm going to do a separate tutorial for that in a day or two for anyone who's interested.

Steps:

Choose a photo.

This step probably took me twice as long as all the other steps combined. Told you I'm indecisive.

If you haven't already edited for red eye and anything else you really want fixed, go ahead and do that now. It's never a bad idea to go ahead and save a copy of your picture before you start any editing. That way you can crop and segment and resize and generally experiment to your heart's content without worrying about destroying that precious original. I decided I wanted to put a stone wall from a different photo in to cover the trash cans for my canvas piece. I used Photoshop for this part. I rotated and cropped it just a little to get the wall to look right and then saved it as a new jpeg before I moved on to the next step.

Open a new blank document in CorelDraw and import your selected picture.

If you're not sure how to do these next few steps, I'm going to be including it all in the CorelDraw/General Graphic Software instructions but I'm only going to post that tutorial if people leave comments to let me know they want it.

Resize and Crop picture to 18.5x18.5 square.

Create a grid pattern and break your picture into pieces.
Since we're using a regular size printer for this, we need to make more manageable sized pieces for the printer to print. My printer will go all the way to the edge of an 8.5x11 but to be safe I wanted to leave a margin. So I made sure none of the sections were larger than 8x10.

Now it's time for a definite experience tip. For your grid layout: Make sure you do a regular grid pattern where the corners all meet at corners. Like this:

Do not, whatever you do, try to get creative and reinvent the wheel/grid and do something like this:

For some strange reason I thought my way would be better and I did my first canvas' printing like that. And getting the pieces to line up properly when I didn't have a single corner to work from was not fun. I made other mistakes on that one too and if you look at the end result (it's the black and white wedding shot), you can see lines where I had no choice but to overlap my pieces. I'm going to have to get an Xacto knife and do some tweaking when I get a chance. So there you go, random tip number one.

Assemble your tissue paper/printer paper combos for printing
In order to get your printer to print on the tissue paper, the tissue needs a backing to carry it through the machine. So that's what the printer paper and glue stick are for. You want to put glue just around the outer edge of the printer paper and then smooth on the tissue paper. This is another reason for leaving a margin around your pieces for printing. You don't need very much glue at all but you want to be able to peel up the tissue paper afterwards without worrying about tearing the part with the picture.

Random tip number two: Since you're going to need 6 separate sheets for your 6 separate sections, I wanted to share the bulk assembly system my sister had going. Instead of cutting the tissue paper out and then sticking it to the printer paper and then trimming around the edges, we spread our 20in square tissue paper sheet out on the table and did four at a time.
Like this:

Just lay out the tissue and then stick the printer papers (with their nice glue borders) in the absolute corners. This will mean you only have to cut out two sides for each paper. I also don't know how helpful it actually was but we folded part of the tissue over one short side of the paper and glued it down so it would have a better grip at the top (the end we were feeding into the printer first). It just gave it like a 1/4 in lip. Like I said, I don't think you really need to do that but it made us feel better. Plus our bulk system left the perfect little amount of tissue paper to fold over.

Print.
You'll want to change your print quality setting to High. I left my media type setting on Plain Paper, and it worked just great.

Print each newly segmented piece of your picture on a separate sheet of tissue/paper combo. Make sure you have it printing on the tissue paper side and not the regular paper backing.

And now random tip number three:
This is my brand and model of printer.

(Stay with me on this.)

See how it has a rear feed paper tray in addition to the bulk paper tray underneath?

We tried three different times to get the tissue paper sheets to feed through the rear tray. It did not work. It demolished the tissue paper, tearing it from the regular paper backing. You may be smart enough to have already figured out the reason but I can be kind of slow on the uptake at times. This step was actually why we originally thought of folding one of the edges over to give the tissue a better chance of hanging on. Well, I finally realized that the rollers for the rear feed tray are top rollers and they were pulling on the tissue without touching the regular paper at all. Now, I'm very fond of my rear feed tray. It makes me feel all professional when I'm printing photos on photo paper. However, the moral of the story we have before us is: Use the regular underneath bulk paper feed tray! Just open it up and leave whatever paper you already have in there and then lay your tissue/paper combo tissue-side down on top. The awesomely fabulous bulk paper tray rollers will now pull on the paper instead of just the tissue and zip your project right through the machine. Yeehaw!

Spray newly printed sheet with ink fixative.

As soon as a page is finished printing, pull it off the printer immediately and lay it printed tissue side up on a flat surface covered with butcher paper (newspaper or any other covering you don't care about will work as well). Shake your Krylon Workable Fixatif really well and spray a very light, even layer over the printed tissue. This will lock the ink in place so it doesn't run together or smudge badly. Let the Fixatif dry (the instructions on the can say let dry for an hour before handling). You can get all your pieces printed and sprayed while you're waiting for your first one to dry and then you can move on to...

Trim the printed images.
Once your pages are dry you need to very carefully trim away all the white (non-image) tissue paper from around the picture sections. You're not going to want any overlap or gaps between the tissue on your canvas so cutting exactly on the edge of your image is important so things will line up perfectly. At first I removed the tissue from the paper before trimming but after a couple fairly botched attempts at cutting a straight line, I discovered that leaving the paper backing in place (and holding it there once you've trimmed the glued edges off) makes for much less paper wiggling and made it easier for me to cut straight. (Random tip number four.)

Apply tissue to canvas.

If you haven't already been using a table as your "flat surface covered in butcher paper", you'll definitely want to be working at a (perhaps newly cleared off) kitchen table at this point. I did all the work for my first canvas on the floor of our computer room (so it can be done) but you'll be able to work more effectively at a table. Lay your canvas on the butcher paper and set your tissue pieces somewhere to the side but close at hand so you can work quickly. Break out your Elmer's Multipurpose Spray Adhesive. Shake well and spray an even, but not too heavy layer over your canvas. Start with a corner piece and remember we printed a 18.5in square picture so there will be a quarter inch to wrap around the edge of the canvas on all sides. Lay the tissue down, lined up how you want it. Gently smooth and pat the tissue to get rid of creases and bubbles. The Elmer's allows for repositioning so you can take a little time and try to get it just right. Just be gentle when you try to peel the tissue paper up if you want to move it. Tissue paper is pretty good about hanging on even to minimal tackiness but don't take too much time or you might have to start over and respray.

After all the pieces are stuck to the face of your canvas, take your glue stick and add glue to the sides of the canvas. Wrap your extra quarter inch border of tissue around the edge of the canvas and stick it down well to that glue.

Random tip number five:
I definitely agree with the original tutorial that having someone (like your awesome previously-an-architect-major-so-she-knows-her-way-around-a-straight-edge sister) to help you work and eyeball the straightness of your layout is a good idea.

Display your new artwork!

Project cost:
Money spent on stuff I didn't already have:
18x18 Canvas - $5.75 ($17.25 for 3)
11 oz can Krylon Workable Fixatiff - $7.59
11 oz can Elmer's Multipurpose Spray Adhesive - $6.99

Then we'll throw in a couple bucks to cover the ink and tissue paper and glue we used from our stash at home. I did three canvases so...$2.50 sound good?

So, since the Fixatif and Spray Adhesive still have a lot left in them and can be used for future projects, I think we can comfortably say that the cost for this project was a little less than $10 a pop. You could even go cheaper and easier by doing a smaller size canvas like Becca did. 18x18 is pretty big. I just needed a serious punch for where I'm planning to display these (more details to come on that later).

I hope you love your new display pieces! Now when people come over you can either: smile and just quietly let them think you're wealthy and can afford expensive mounted canvas artwork, or you can explain and wow them all with your savvy money-saving crafting prowess. Either way, people are bound to be impressed.

P.S. Can you say Mother's Day gift?

P.P.S. I'm linking up: