still cleaning

my scrap room. We're not getting along right now but I think we're ready to call a truce! lol I'm trying to rearrange it so that my kids can be in here with me, coloring, "crafting", playing on the computer, whatever (and I still have space to do my own stuff). Now my room is a mess....again. Just when I had it straightened up!! Oh well, I'm going to work on it a little bit and then take the kids swimming. After all, it is supposed to be 96 degrees out today ~ again. Ugh...that heat smacks you right in the face!!! About the only outdoor activities you can do right now must involve water.

Have a great day everyone :) I'll have more to post once my room is back in order!!

sweet little boy...

I recently came across the blog for a sweet little boy named Parker. When you read his story your heart will go out to him and his family. They've gone through more in his short little life than most of us will in a lifetime. Please do what you can! Click here to check it out.

not much, just a couple layouts

Don't have a lot to say today. It's gonna be another hot day here so I think we're gonna go swimming in a little bit. And then I need to seriously clean up my scrap room. It's stressing me out!!!! I hate working on a table that's filled with clutter. I have an idea to turn things around so that my kids can be in here "creating" with me so if that all comes together I'll share a couple pics. It's hard to make room for everything when you have the smallest room in the house! But like I've said before, I'm thankful just to have my own room :) So I'll leave you with a couple layouts I did at my scrappin' retreat a couple weeks ago. My goal was to try and catch up on my kids' baby pics, especially my daugher's...and I'm happy to say that I'm well on my way!!!


Have a blessed day everyone!!

Helloooo Sunshine!!

Last night I was playing with the new Cosmo Cricket Hello Sunshine papers. All I can say is {{Fun}}!!! At first I though it might be difficult to come up with something since the papers have such bright patterns to them. But as soon as I took them out I thought of some photos I had taken last month and they worked perfectly. I'm thinking some of these would be good for Xmas photos, too, like the Berries paper. And how about the Bubbles paper for fall pics?! Anyway, here's what I came up with...


I have a couple more of the blackboard books left, so I'm thinking I'm going to use the leftovers to make another mini-album. I love mini-albums :)

fun stuff from today...

Today was a fun but very relaxed day. We spent the day at a friend's neighborhood pool. The girls had countless rounds of jumping into the pool!


Ben was happy to just swim around in his floatie!

On another note, here's a sneaky peaky of my summer chipboard album for my class on July 12th. This is a super easy book so anyone can take the class. It's designed to just be a fun little book to hold your summer photos. I think I'm only going to have room for 8 people in this class (because of supplies) so if you want to make this one be sure and sign up! There won't be anymore of these cute papers left at the Shoppe!!!

I have a few layouts that I'll share in a separate post. I'm off to get ready for our neighborhood yard sale tomorrow. I just hope that the 90+ degree weather holds off til after lunch!!!

And I just got back from the Shoppe where I bought some new Cosmo Cricket Hello Sunshine {big grin} and Making Memories Noteworthy papers {another big grin} so I'll be playing with those later, too!! Cheryl got lots of other neat papers in today so be sure and swing by!!! She has a crop tonight and you know what happens when there's new stuff on a crop night.....bye bye!!

Chat later everyone :)

strike!!

Proper bowling etiquette, as shown by my son Ben:

First, throw the ball down the lane (and I mean "throw"!)


Then, put hands on top of your head and hope the ball hits some of the pins


If that doesn't work, squat down and send vibes down the lane to direct the ball where you want it to go


Do the "YES!!" stance when the ball hits the pins!!!

a few Disney layouts

I hope you all had a wonderful Father's Day! We went to church and then came home, grilled some burgers, and spent the day at home together. It was a nice Sunday afternoon :) I don't have much to share today, just working on some samples for my upcoming classes that I just added. I've got a summer chipboard book and a Pages in a Snap class on July 12th. Check out the descriptions under 'Class Schedule' on the right-hand column. So I thought I'd share a few of the Disney pages I made during my cropping retreat.

I got the idea for this one from a fellow 2Peas member. She used blue paper but as soon as I saw her layout I thought these papers from Scenic Route would be a perfect compliment for Nemo pics! (It's hard to tell in the photo but the scallop circle is raised with pop-dots.) Just a simple beginning page to our photos at Epcot :)

And here are a few of my favorites of my son and Buzz Lightyear. He couldn't wait to meet his hero!!


Well, I'm off in just a little bit to take the kids to Ben & Jerry's. Mmmmm, ice cream!!

tunes!

I added some tunes to my blog today. That seems to be what everyone's doing these days! Just a few of my favorite songs. I know there's more but I'm drawing a blank right now. I'm sure I'll add more later. Scroll down if you want to change the song :)

beach mini-book

This is fun little beach "brag" book I finished last weekend that I'll be listing on ebay tonight. I had fun adding glaze and glitter accents to the cover along with different parts inside the book as well.

I also added a "see-through" page that has a seagull cutout. I love pages in books that you can see through to the next page!!

I'm still trying to unpack from my cropping weekend. Believe it or not, even after 3 straight days of scrappin' I still can't go more than a day or two without working on something! You'd think I'd be scrapped out!!

page redo

Do you ever get finished with a layout and ~ at first ~ you like it, but then the more you look at it the more it bugs you and you just have to redo it? That's how I feel about one of my Disney layouts that I finished a couple months ago.

Here's the original layout:

I think the biggest thing that I didn't like about this layout was the blue cardstock. Originally, I thought it'd look good because it matched the patterned papers I used. But the more I looked at it the more it bugged me! So, while I was on my cropping retreat I redid it and here's what it looks like now:

I think the black cardstock looks SO much better, don't you?!

Oh, and while I was gone last weekend I had some more goodies arrive :) My Becky Higgins school kits arrived along with my June Studio Calico kit. More goodies to play with!!

Back to reality!

Well, after 6 rolls of adhesive, 1 glue stick, 3 mini-albums, and 21 layouts...I'm home, back to the same ol' schedule...but that's a good thing! I spent 3 days of uninterrupted scrapping ~ no cooking meals, no stopping to let the dogs out, no one yelling to me to get something or breaking up little fights...just hours and hours of scrappin! The first night we stayed up til 7 am, went to bed then got back up around 10:30am. The next night we went to bed around 1:30am but then talked til around 2:30am. And the third night we were up til nearly 5am. So needless to say I was very tired when I got up this morning!!! I think my body was trying to catch up on sleep! I have so much to unpack so I do not have pictures of the stuff I finished yet.

But I'll share a few pics of where we stayed...here's the "barn" where we stayed for 3 days



Hard at "work"!

This is usually what our tables looked like at any given time throughout the weekend

And this is where we slept (the little bit of sleeping we actually did!)

And I just had to add this one...this is the back of Kellie's truck after she loaded up. I'm still not sure who brought more stuff, her or me. But it was pretty close!!
I do have one layout to share that I took a picture of while we were there. I did this layout:

And then Kellie decided to use my layout to create this one of her daughter (isn't she cute?!)


Well, that's it for now. I hope to have some pictures of my layouts to share with you all tomorrow :)

Having so much fun!!

I had a minute (from scrappin') and thought I'd say hi!!! I've had so much fun on my croppin' retreat. I can't believe we're going home tomorrow :( But I do miss my hubby and kiddies SO much so I'll be happy to see them again. I've talked to them several times a day and they just crack with the questions they ask me...

"what are you doing mommy?"

"where do you sleep?"

"you're sleeping in a bunk bed?! are you on the top bunk or the bottom bunk? well who sleeps on the top bunk?"

"what did you have for lunch?"

"what are you scrapbooking right now?"

They're just so facinated with what I'm doing here that it cracks me up. They've never been away from me for this long (except for being in the hospital) so this is new to all of us.
I hope you're all having a fabulous weekend. I'll have LOTS to post when I get back!!! (I've been very productive!) Elizabeth ~ you ARE coming with us next time!!!

Miss you BUNCHES Olivia & Ben!!!...you, too Dave XOXO

I'll leave you with something funny another gal here found on the web...

This one is for my kiddos...

Off to crop!!

In just a few hours I'll be leaving for my crop retreat!!! I'm so excited but I already miss my kids and I haven't even left yet. I've never been away from them. I mean, I've been away from them when I've been in the hospital but that's different cause I still got to see them every day. On this trip I won't see them for 3 days. A first for this mom!! You would laugh if you saw how much stuff I'm bringing with me!

Do you think I'm bringing too much paper?! lol

This is the basket with all my ribbon and a few wooden stamps


And I can't go to a crop without my "essentials" tote! I got this one from Hobby Lobby and I absolutely LOVE it. I keep it on my desk in my scrap room with all of my most used punches, scissors, pens, adhesive, etc. I like this one much better than others I've seen because it's very wide and easy to find everything.

These are just a few of the things that I'm bringing. I also have my big rolling tote, both photo boxes (you know, the big ones that hold like 2000 photos!) and a couple other bags of stuff. Oh, and LOTS of adhesive!!!

I had hoped to be more prepared and organized for this weekend but oh well. At least the retreat isn't full this weekend so I know I'll have a little bit of room to spread out. But I know I'll have fun and hopefully I'll get caught up on some of my older scrapbooks that have some gaps in them.

Have a great weekend everyone!! I hope to have lots to share when I get back!!!

Hello summer!

Even though it's been hot here for a while now, it "officially" feels like summer. The kids have been out of school for a couple weeks now, we've started going to the beach. And last weekend we opened the pool finally. We should have opened it weeks ago but with all the year-end stuff at school and other things going on it just didn't happen. But the kids are happy ~ they can sleep in, swim, and enjoy summer!

And check out this cute little wheelbarrow I found on clearance at Hobby Lobby yesterday! I don't have any flowers to put in it yet but I just thought it was too cute!


I'll leave you with a layout that I did the other night.


Have a great day everyone :)

Countdown to Crop!!!

Yep, in less than 4 days I will be at my cropping retreat ~ 3 whole days of uninterrupted cropping!!! I won't know what to do with myself. Well, yes I will! I just hope I don't spend so much time talking that I come home with only 2 layouts done! Those of you that know me know that could never happen! lol

Here's a layout I did with one of the past Studio Calico kits. I think it was April's kit but I can't remember! Good 'ol "mommy brain" at work (or not at work) again!

Well, I'm off to watch "The Next Food Network Star"!