After my mom and I spent some time hashing out ideas, she created this cute maternity top for me:

And it fits The Bump and I perfectly!

Tomorrow, I will be 33 weeks pregnant. If my mom’s prediction of Baby’s arrival time (read: early!) turns out to be correct, that leaves me only about 5 weeks before I’m officially on Mama duty.

And there’s still plenty to do, like finish setting up Baby’s space:

Get all of Baby’s clothes and diapers washed and ready to go:

Bake a bunch of lasagnas and quiches and other dinners that can be made ahead and frozen:

(Just because I’ll take a break from baking for clients doesn’t mean I get off the hook completely!)

All that to say, I am taking some time off from creating. A Baby Sabbatical, if you will. In fact, “sabbatical” is defined as “a rest from work, or a hiatus, often lasting from two months to a year.”

I can’t predict whether my break will be closer to the two month end or the one year end of that spectrum. That will depend mostly on Baby’s temperament and my energy level. (I sure hope it’s not a YEAR!)

But I can tell you this for sure: I finished my last cake order this morning and I’m only taking orders for custom books through TUESDAY, MAY 25th.

So…if you are planning to want a journal, photo book, or sketchbook made for an upcoming birthday, anniversary, or other special occasion, please order NOW. I want to be able to guarantee I can get it done for you before Birth Day!

In the meantime, I will continue posting about the projects I have completed…until the queue runs dry!

Thank you so much for your understanding and for your patronage over the past few years. Your loving support and sweet comments mean a lot to me!

–Abbi

When they had their ultrasound, they had the technician write the gender down and place it in a sealed envelope. Then they took the envelope to a cake baker, who made a cake revealing the baby’s gender. They borrowed the idea from a friend, and as a cake baker, I can only wish I would’ve thought of this! Perhaps one day someone will want me to bake them a special announcement cake like this. Enjoy the video:

Boy? or Girl? from Cheyenne Schultz on Vimeo.

Geoff and Cheyenne: I am SO THRILLED for you guys! You are going to make terrific parents!! Congratulations, again!

Things are crazy at Z as in Zebra lately (due to things being crazy in our life right now). I’m still growing a baby in my belly and creating projects for clients, etc…but on top of all of that, I am traveling this week to see my family before I get any bigger/more uncomfortable. THEN, after I return, my husband and I are moving to the country…which means packing, schlepping everything we own across town, unpacking, and organizing.

That said, there won’t be any new posts for the next two weeks. Feel free to spend some time perusing the archives OR come on back in May to see what’s new!

Here’s a little sneak-peek of what is yet to come:

SEE YOU ON THE FLIP SIDE!!

Some have been extra-tasty-ooh-let’s-make-these-again-sometime recipes while others have been ‘never-agains’. No matter how they taste once finished, each batch has taught me a little more about cooking (and myself). I’m telling you, there are life lessons to be learned in the kitchen!

You can find the corresponding post to each one of these batches here. Thanks for following along and commenting as I make my way through the book. The feedback I get from you makes this crazy idea all the more worthwhile.

Cheers,

Abbi

I LOVE making lots of books at once. It’s so satisfying to make an entire collection, knowing that although they are alike, each book will be given a different home.

I made six books for Sam and Candace: one for each of their 5 groomsmen and one for Sam himself.

The books were black suede covers with an antique crackle paper for the facing pages.

Each one had a personalized place inside the front cover with space for Sam to write a heartfelt note.

The inscription color alternated for each guy and coordinated directly with their ribbon bookmark.

The best part was seeing them all together and day-dreaming about all the amazing thoughts and observations that would fill their pages.

Sam and Candace: Thanks for asking me to make these. May they bless the guys who received them!

((Note: The Artist’s Way is NOT for the faint-of-heart or for people who are content to live their lives in a state of ‘comfortable complacency’. It’s terrific, but it’ll rock your world!))

Anyway, back to the point. Sam and Candace got engaged and in doing so asked me to make them a one-of-a-kind guest book as well as gifts for their groomsmen–come back tomorrow to see those.

I made a 6×6 hard-cover book with a photo of the couple on the front.

Their wedding date was showcased in a label holder–complete with heart brads, aww! ;) on the book’s spine.

Candace likes the type of floral patterns you’d seen on Anthropologie’s website, so I gave them several options and they chose a muted blue, green, and sage motif for the paste pages.

To match the paste pages, I used blue, green, and cream colored cardstock for the book’s guts.

A silver satin ribbon tie enclosure completed the look.

Sam and Candace: Thank you for allowing me to be a part of your very special day. I wish you all the best of God’s blessings as you two embark on this wonderful journey called Marriage together!

I made 48 cupcakes: two dozen vanilla and two dozen chocolate. The guest of honor loves cream cheese icing, so that was my frosting of choice. The project pretty much invaded my kitchen for the whole day as I got an assembly line going.

For every dozen, I made 6 chocolate and 6 vanilla with the same topping.

White swirl with pink sugar crystals.

Pink swirl with white nonpareils.

White iced with pink sugar pearls and pink jumbo heart sprinkle.

And pink sugar-crystal-coated with a white jumbo heart sprinkle.

I lined some Xerox paper box lids with heavy-duty foil so Felicia could easily transport the cupcakes to her office.

They all looked so cozy next to their cupcake neighbors.

And, being a lover of all things bulk, it makes my heart smile to see mass quantities of anything, especially cupcakes.

I LOVE LOVE LOVE the color of the hot pink ones.

All in a day’s work!

Want to know the upside to doing cupcakes instead of a regular cake at a shower or party?
1: You can have several flavors.
2. You can get various designs.
3: You don’t have to guess on serving size
4: You don’t need utensils or plates (which saves the hostess money!)

***

((I suppose since it’s February I should finally show you the cupcakes I made for Christmas.))

Ahh, fruit cake. It’s about as Christmasy as Rudolph and elves and icicle lights, is it not? So of course I had to try the cupcake version of the infamous cake that everyone re-gifts.

The first step was to soak candied fruit (is that stuff even really fruit?!) in rum for a couple hours.

Meanwhile, I mixed the dry ingredients…

…and the wet ingredients, including apricot jelly and orange zest (that’s the blob to the left of the yolk).

Then, dry and wet were combined.

Mesa, my chef-helper, wanted to make sure you knew she was in the kitchen with me that day.

After mixing the batter, we added in the rum-infused candied fruit…THE strongest-smelling cake batter EVER.

Since I’ve learned to make a few more than the recipe says, I ended up with 19 instead of 12. I guess the cupcake tins in France (where the author lives) are bigger than our American version…??

The spices and candied fruit did give the batter a really pretty coloring and great texture.

They even looked cute after they were baked.

Next, we mixed up the fondant…not the typical plasticy rolled fondant you buy in stores…this is more of a glaze.

As I glazed each cupcake, my lovely assistant added red and green Christmas tree sprinkles.

Not bad!!

But even if it was nasty (like fruitcake is rumored to be), it’d be pretty hard to re-gift it with a big bite missing.

The following book will be given away on her site by the end of the week. Pop on over for your chance to win!

As for the details: The book is classically bound.

The pages measure 8.5″ x 8.5″ square. Green satin ribbons function as tie closures.

The paper’s black areas are flocked (fuzzy), while the white areas are pearlescent (which, unfortunately, is hard to tell from the photo).

The inside paste papers are a simple textured paper in light gray.

And the roll of paper was leftover WALLPAPER from my Grandma’s house. It’s the exact same paper still hanging in her basement bathroom to this day. It’s so fun to be able to use the paper in a way other than the way it was originally intended.

And, honestly, what Black/White/Red bathroom would be complete without a toilet professing your love for the Nebraska Cornhuskers?!

She pretty much rocks. Thanks for the paper, Grandma!

Now, go try to get your hands on that giveaway!

EXHIBIT A: I’ve had tons of scrapbooking thing-a-ma-bobs in a shoebox for years, and I wanted to display them so I could quickly and easily see what I might be able to use for each project.

I also wanted a place (besides a junk drawer) to store my tools and a spot to hang to-do lists and inspiring images. So…I took some measurements and created a sketch and my wonderful husband Andrew built an art board for me! The top center panel is 4′ x 2′ pegboard (for tools), the bottom center panel is 4′ x 2′ masonite (into which I screwed many, many little white hooks) and the side panels are 18″ x 4′ sheet metal…perfect for inspiring images and cute magnets!

The hooks are perfect for displaying all my little embellishments.

But over the last few months, things have gotten a bit cluttered. The board itself isn’t a huge mess, but it could be better. And the space below my bookmaking table could sure use some tidying. There are various reams of paper just stacked up, spools of ribbon bursting from a too-full shoebox, a sack of fabric that needs a permanent home, a pile of 12 x 12 scrapbook paper that will eventually become paste pages but currently lies in wait, etc. And my organized artist self wants this space to be even tidier.

Cleanliness makes working in the studio that much more enjoyable…I can get right to a project rather than spending the first 30 minutes cleaning up and hunting for the tools I need.

Don’t even get me started on THIS mess:

Drawers full of crafting odds and ends. Some for card-making, some for sewing, some for stamping, some for decorating. Anything that doesn’t have a place to belong has ended up in these drawers.

All of this talk about streamlining naturally got me thinking about those pesky New Year’s Resolutions that so many of us make. And getting organized will be oh-so-helpful as I attempt to tackle the following 10 resolutions in ‘10:

1. Establish a more regular ‘quiet time’ routine concerning spiritual matters: Prayer, Scripture, etc.
2. Maintain a certain level of fitness and a healthy (yet no-more-than-necessary) weight gain during my pregnancy.
3. Do lots of experimenting and build up a book inventory.
4. Set up my Etsy website…I have already reserved my domain (abbiz), I just need to make some stuff to sell!!
5. Declutter the house and sell/donate/give away/use up stuff instead of having to move it when Andrew and I relocated to the country in the late spring/early summer!
6. Knock out some more cupcakes! Hoping to get about 20 more batches done before Baby comes…I have about 26 weeks til my due date, but babies’ exact arrivals are unpredictable. (I’ve done two batches since I originally wrote this list!)
7. Network more intentionally with other bloggers. Set up specific times during the week to surf, read, and leave comments, in hopes of creating more traffic on this blog in return.
8. Partner with other artists to create collaborative projects.
9. Dump photos to my Snapfish account and back-up DVDs monthly.
10. Try 2 new recipes per month.

How about you? Are you making plans for this new year that’s ahead of us? I’d love to hear what your hopes and goals are! Leave a comment!