going green

I recently found this neat website through Praying for Parker:

You can click here to head over there cause I can't figure out how to link it to the picture! There's a lot of neat tips on there ~ except for the one I read about putting all of your photos in online galleries so that you don't have a "bunch of scrapbooks laying around" Huh?! Did she really say that??!

But like I said, there are a lot of good tips about going green. I've recently made some small changes in our house to do our part.

I have a small garden growing in the backyard...emphasis on the word small. Now I don't have nearly enough food there to feed even one of us, let alone our family. But my goal is to make it bigger and bigger each year. I didn't want to take on a huge project all at once. And if you read my previous post about the garden and weeds you can understand why! It's hard to get motivated to go out and weed your garden (or do anything for that matter) when it's 95 degrees outside!

I don't use plastic bags anymore when I go the grocery store. I take my bags with me wherever I go ~ to the grocery store, Target, even the mall. Yes, I occasionally get that "Ugh" look from the cashier at Walmart who doesn't want to use my bags because they're more of a pain since they don't fit in their little bag holder. Oh well!! I'm doing my part for the earth! I read somewhere that only about 5% ~ yes 5% ~ of plastic bags get recycled. That means the rest end up in landfills. And not to mention all the barrels of oil that are used to make these bags.

I've also stopped using bottled water, not that we used a ton to begin with. I plan on making some recycle bins for our house and teaching the kids what goes where since they're getting old enough to learn.

I've changed a few other things but I won't bore you with everything. Just a few things to do my part! Oh, and the 5 Minutes for Going Green also has sister sites like 5 Minutes for Special Needs, Moms, etc. Check it out, it's good reading :)

movie buddies

I had a minute so I thought I'd share a quick page I did for my friend Kellie. Our kids love to go to the movies together so I thought I'd make this layout of them when we went to see the Wall*E movie. They have so much fun together! I'm going to make another one for myself.

We're off this afternoon to take them bowling...a nice indoor activity in this 90+ degree heat! Oh, and it just started raining. Even better!!

just tired...

I've learned a few things the past few days...

gel clings on windows will eventually melt right onto the window and make a gooey mess

the fur on stuffed animals will melt when thrown into a light fixture and the light bulb is turned on (especially if mommy doesn't realize it for several hours)

a neglected garden will eventually be overcome with weeds

frogs like to jump into my pool...but then can't get out

i need caffeine in the morning...very badly

it's very hot in southern Georgia in July

my puppy can manage to destroy any kind of bone given to her, it's just a matter of time

That's just a few things we've learned at our house! I've been super tired the last few days. I honestly could have passed out at any point yesterday! But I'm better today so hopefully that tired spell is gone.

I'll leave you with a few layouts that I worked on from the Becky Higgins school kit and expansion kits. Have I said lately how much I *love* these kits?!! There's so much to work with and all of the coordinating papers and embellishments make it SO easy to get pages done. You will see that I shamelessly scraplifted Becky's sketches for the examples below! lol Enjoy :)

I copied Becky's layout exactly on this one. It worked so well, why change it?! And it worked perfectly with the photos I had. I'm sure on future layouts I will change it up a bit depending on what I want to add to the page and what photos I have.


I followed Becky's sketch on this one but changed a few things like the background paper and photo sizes. I summarized my son's entire preschool year in one 2pg layout.

My son's self-portrait...can't wait to pull this one out in 30 years!


I also finished the layout for the Croppin' Chics layout swap. But I can't show that one til I know she's received it in the mail. Til then it's a secret!!

Layout swap, yummy treats!

First things first, check out what came in the mail for me today!

The Croppin' Chics did a layout swap and my friend Tami created this one for me. Isn't it absolutely ADORABLE?!! I just can't wait to add some pictures to this! Thanks so much Tami ~ I love it!!!

Here's some more pics of the layout:


Other than that we haven't done a whole lot today, but we managed to make some yummy treats (I was having a major chocolate craving!) I got the recipe for these mini whoopie pies from the Dean Brothers Cookbook. There are lots of yummy recipes in there and this one was no exception! I don't normally like cookie recipes that have shortening instead of butter because you can usually taste the shortening too much (yuck!) But these were soooo good!! Messy, but good!!

Oh, and I added some of my favorite recipes on the right hand of my blog. Just click on the link and it'll take you to the recipe. I'm planning on adding recipes to the list as I find good ones. If you're like me you get tired of making the same 'ol thing day after day. We'll see if I can keep up with that one! The grilled ham is super yummy!! Well, I need to get back to straightening up my scrap room so I can finish my layout for the swap!

Back in town!

**Warning** This post is photo-heavy!!

We just got back from visiting our dear friends in TN. We were there all last week and had lots of fun! We hadn't been back to TN in almost 2 years so it was nice to get back there again. It's amazing how many things change but yet how many things are still the same. Our old house is for sale. Olivia asked several times if we could buy it! I wish I could have told her yes! Here's a few pics from our trip:

Eating "corn on the cob" (isn't this cute?! the "butter" is actually a semi-melted Starburst and the corn kernels are jelly beans!) My friend Donna had this cute little treat for the kids.


And then there was Sprout Studio for Ben (an interactive play place) and Hannah Montana dance camp for the girls

A trip to East TN wouldn't be complete without going to Gatlinburg!



Check out this bear skin that we got to see. The park ranger was standing outside the visitors center with it. It was from a bear that was about a year and a half old that was hit by a car. Ben was all about the bears on this trip. We just redecorated his room with a bear theme. So he was SO excited to find a stuffed animal and some bear posters for his room!

The kids had so much fun playing in this stream that ran alongside the trail we went on. They got soaked!!




Oh, and one last thing, on our way home I somehow missed one of the freeway signs and ended up going the wrong way....for about 60 miles til I realized it!!! It's so unlike me to do that. I guess I was tired! But, if I hadn't gone the wrong way I would have missed out on this gorgeous view


It's too bad it had rained which made the view a bit hazy. But it was still beautiful!

I've spent the last 2 days trying to get back to normal...washing clothes, grocery shopping, getting back to school stuff ready....blah, blah, blah! I'm hoping to get some of these pictures scrapped soon...I'm going through withdrawal. I don't think I've scrapped in nearly 2 weeks!!

Pages Class today

We had another great (and productive!) class today!! For those of you that didn't come to my pages class today, this time we did 5 double page layouts instead of 10 single pages. I think we finished in record time, too! As promised, here are my layouts from class to give you some inspiration in finishing your pages! (and excuse the lighting...by the time I got outside to take pics it was already dusk!)

I think this next one was one of the favorites. You guys always ask me where I get inspiration for all of my layouts. Sometimes I just have an idea for something, sometimes I look at sketch websites like pagemaps, and other time I see someone's idea and scraplift it like this one! I got the "idea" for this one from here. I just *loved* her layout and knew I wanted to recreate it!


That's it guys!! Have fun putting your photos on your layouts!!!

new shoe, the 4th

notice I said "shoe" and not "shoes" because this is what I get to wear around for the next 2 weeks...


I'm so thrilled, can you tell?!! Here's the culprit:

I tripped over it letting the dogs out on Monday and whacked my big toe into it, cracking it in 2 spots. Now, I would like to say that this is the first time I've broken a toe. I'd like to say that. What can I say, I'm a klutz! And unfortunately my daughter takes after me. Well, maybe I should change my nailpolish to match the lovely shade of purple I've got on my foot! ewwww...don't worry, I won't show you a picture of my toe!!

Other than that, we had a wonderful 4th of July. We went to a bbq, the kids spent countless hours in the pool. Thankfully, I did not have to jump in the pool fully clothed to rescue my son as I had to do last year!

Oh, and one more thing, I made a great recipe for dinner that I found on Becky Higgins' blog. It's garlic shrimp linguine and it was soooo good! You can check out the recipe here.

I don't have any scrap stuff to share today. I've been working on a few pages from Becky Higgins' school kit so that I stay current each year. I just finished my daughter's Kindergarten pages, which she had fun helping me do! Then I need to go back and do her preschool pages and my son's as well. I also bought Becky's school expansion kit that I'll be using for the extra preschool pages I'll need for my kids as they both have more than one year of preschool and the original school kit only came with one.

I'm also working on finishing up the pages for my class on Saturday. That's about it, hopefully I'll have more to share tomorrow :)

Happy 4th!!!

I hope you all have a wonderful and safe 4th of July! A special thank you to all those who serve our country and their families!!!!!

mini journal books

And this is what else I came up with this week. I wanted to have a mini-journal for layout ideas that I find or come up with when I'm out and about. Sometimes inspiration for a layout happens when I'm in the grocery store or waiting in the school line. In the past I've used mini-notebooks (I especially like the ones at Target that you can alter). The only problem with notebooks (for me) is 1) they have lines which drives me nuts when I'm trying to sketch a layout and 2) once the book is filled ~ that's it. You have to get another notebook. So I came up with this cute little mini-journal that has blank index cards (who knew?!) that I found in the grocery store of all places. And since it's on a ring I can add and take away pages whenever I want! The papers are from Cherry Arte. Aren't they so bright and cute?!

I also made a few more for my etsy gallery. You can check them out here.

where have I been?

I know, it's been over a week since I posted anything...which is unusual for me! Well, let's see, I wasn't feeling all that great last week, my husband was out of town and I've been working a little more than normal. Let's see I've spent lots of time organizing my room and I have it almost straightened up enough to share pics. I will share an AWESOME deal that my friend Kellie found for me {big smiles!} Our ACMoore is going out of business and she found these Sizzix towers for.........about $3 a piece!!!! YES, I said 3 DOLLARS!!!! They're used but who cares??!!

She lives much closer to ACMoore than I do so she can go in there and peek at what they have for sale much more often than me!! Thanks Kellie!!! She also picked up some Sizzix dies for me, too {more big smiles!}

I also spent some time organizing my scrap paper. I have 2 12x12 containers that I keep paper scraps and cardstock scraps in. It was SO messy that I couldn't find anything. This is just the cardstock scraps...


So I organized all the patterned paper in one, got rid of the paper that I knew I wouldn't use for the next yard sale at the Shoppe. I did the same thing with the cardstock and I sorted it all into colors. Boy, this makes it SO much easier to find the scraps that I need!!! (and I'm more likely to dig into my scraps instead of cutting up a brand new sheet of cardstock for a project)

And let's see, we also spent last week making this:

and this:

My kids are such cheeseballs!!! The cake was a sprite cake that I got from the fabulous Bakerella. You can find the recipe here. I made mine with a funfetti cake cause that's all I had in the pantry. The other treat we made which is one of my kids' favorites (and mine, too!) is Monkey Munch (otherwise known as puppy chow). You can find the recipe here. My kids call it monkey munch cause that's what they call it on Jon and Kate plus 8 (one of our favorite shows!!) My daughter is still amazed that she had 6 babies in her belly!! Anyway, if you haven't tried it yet it's super yummy. Ours was gone in less than 2 days!!!

I also made a few scrapbook creations that I'll share in a separate post. This one's getting pretty big already!!