Been feeling Crafty!

I got into a crafty mode the past two weeks and shared 3 blog posts over on the Design House Digital Blog featuring 13 Days Of Halloween. Check it out HERE. I had seen a blog post over on The Crafting Chicks blog and it spurred me. If you have never been to their site - let me just say it will really inspire you to get crafty! I am pretty sure the ladies I visit teach don't read my blog and if they do I guess the gig will be up. But my neighbor Teresa is my VT partner and we decided to treat our ladies to 13 days of Halloween fun. We really enjoyed spending one afternoon making these BOO blocks - another idea that I found on The Crafting Chicks.

So... that is what I have been up to... that and getting ready for Halloween around the house.... decorating, buying pumpkins, planning costumes, etc. Of course we will be having our Halloween dinner like I shared last year on my blog. The kids love it and I have lots of fun preparing it for them.

Balancing Act

Ummmm Long time no post. I don't even know if anyone who used to stop by even stops by anymore. I figured now was as good a time as any to get back to my blog. I am really going to try to post regularly... at least once a week. We'll see what really happens. I just read an awesome blog post at Simple Mom titled Redefining Simple Living: Choose Your Priorities This topic has been on my mind quite a lot lately. A few weeks ago I was telling a friend that I needed to either take a course in time management or get counseling. I felt overwhelmed and crazy - my "to-do" list was growing so long and I felt like I was running in circles. General Conference came just in time and the talks were all so fabulous but there was one that hit me smack dab between the eyes and it was given by President Dieter F. Uchtdorf titled "Of Things That Matter Most" I think I could benefit enormously by spending some time with myself to determine what my priorities are. Anyway... that is what is on my mind today & I just thought I'd share it with you. Have a wonderful day. Hey I almost signed off and then thought of the perfect scrapbook page to share with you. I created this one just a few weeks ago and it sums up what I have been struggling with. You can click on the image to go to the gallery for credits.

P365 Week 21 - 28 Catching up!

I am thinking that whatever small following I did have on my blog have probably given up on me. Heck - I almost gave up on me. Summer has been real busy and I haven't been on the computer very much. We haven't been doing anything big but we have been doing lots of little things. I really wish we were going on a big trip this summer but no-go this year. Clayne has used lots of his vacation going to scout camps, girls camps, youth conferences and family reunions so there really was no time left for us to take a true vacation this year. I do hope that I can plan something for next summer cuz I do love to travel. The Bodily Family Reunion next year will be the Grand Canyon but even that isn't what I am looking for in a vacation so I will be doing some planning to see what I can come up with. We will have lots of credits built up in our condos and so we really should go do something big and fun. We'll see. Anyway... here are 8 weeks of my Project 365 layouts. All of the credits for these pages can be seen in my gallery at Design House Digital. Anyway... I hope you all are enjoying your summer. Just 5 more weeks until school starts - yes... I am counting. Maybe I'll have more time to scrap, blog and even clean when the kids get out of the house.

P365 Week 17-20 & a kit I helped design

I can't believe how hard it is to find a few minutes to blog these days! I am almost caught up on my Project 365 pages with this post. Here are the last 4 weeks that I have done. You can see a list of credits in my gallery at Design House Digital. At the bottom of my post you will see a huge collaboration kit that I had the privlege of helping with. Yes... I designed a portion of the kit. Read more information about the kit below.



Over at the Scrap Orchard they are having a really fun month for June and you can pick up a piece of this kit every day. The important thing is that you will need to visit daily if you want the whole kit because the links will only be available for 24 hours each day. I'll post a pic of just the part I made later this week - just cuz I want to show it off - I think it turned out so cute. So anyway... to read more about this kit & the promotion going on at Scrap Orchard CLICK HERE.

Meg's 2 Year Photos & a Scrap Orchard goodie

Long time no post! I lost an entire week last week being sick. I started with a horrible cold on Mother's Day and then finished the week with the flu. No fun!!! I have so much catching up to do but a quick post will have to suffice for now. I recently took my niece, Megan's, 2 year photos. The lighting was not optimal and there are a few more shadows than I would have liked but with a 2 year old you are lucky to even be able to work in a photo shoot with nap time and catching them at a happy time of day so we just went with it. I think I captured some cute photos that really express her personality. Thanks for letting me share.

I also want to do a quick plug for Scrap Orchard. Seems that they were "sick" last week too. Actually they were moving to a new server and ended up being off line for several days. They are back up and running and as part of the celebration they are giving away the fabulous June Mega to all their newsletter subscribers. If you don't subscribe you may want to hurry and sign up HERE.

P365 Week 15 and 16 & NSD information

Well, I am pretty much on my way out the door to go to Women's Conference in Provo with some girlfriends. I am excited to get away and I always learn so much at these conferences. I thought I'd just quickly post my two most recent Project 365 pages as well as an advertisment for Design House Digital and Scrap Orchard for the upcoming International Scrapbooking Holiday this Saturday. There will be great events and sales all over the internet in scrapbooking stores. Hope you all enjoy! Oh if you want a list of supplies used on my pages the images are clickable to go to my gallery.


Here is the information for Design House Digital. You can click the image to go to the site.

Here is the list of events for the Scrap Orchard and again you can click the image to go to their site. I know that they plan on having the Farmer's Market open with lots of $1 kits!

A Slideshow of my Newborn Photoshoot

I wanted to show more of the photoshoot I did of Cassydi last week and so I figured out how to make a slideshow to share. Hope you enjoy it.

My First Newborn Photoshoot

So much to do and so little time! I just noticed that my blog is still wearing a winter theme! THE SHAME!!! I don't even know when I'll have time to switch it out. I just have way to many things I want to do and never enough time to do it all. My neighbor, Teresa, asked me to help her get some newborn pictures of her sweet baby and I just couldn't pass up the opportunity to learn. I have put my kids through little photo shoots but this was my first "real" photo shoot. She was fussy and it took longer than we thought. We spent about 5 hours with set up of scenes, getting Cassy to play nice, etc. I'm sure the pros don't have to spend as much time LOL. Then today I spent a while editing and was very happy with the results. Here are just a few of my favs. Oh and.... I made the two hats. I think they are way cute so I am going to take bragging rights on them LOL.

P365 Week 13 and 14

We have had a busy few weeks which explains my neglect to my blog. Today I finally had time to do two pages for my Project365. As stated in my last post we were on spring break for a week - which we spent in St. George. It was so warm and relaxing I had a hard time coming home - especially when it had to go and snow like it did with school even being canceled on Tuesday last week. THAT was not NICE! We had a very nice Easter and then spent the week getting ready for Savannah's baptism. It was hard to believe that my baby turned 8. Then to feel even older I celebrated my 40th birthday on Monday this week. I had been dreading the big 4 - 0 for a whole year but now that it has come and gone I don't feel any different.

I scrapped a lot on spring break and have over 20 layouts to share. I hope to do so before the week is over so watch for my pages soon. And if you want a list of credits for the pages above they are clickable to go to my gallery at Design House Digital. Thanks for taking a peak.

P365 Week 11 and 12

Oh goodness time does go by fast. This has been a busy week getting ready for Spring Break and my two girls birthdays. Cheyenne turned 15 on Wednesday and Savannah will be 8 on Sunday. Again I say time does go by fast! Well since I have some packing to finish up before we can go on our family vacation, I will just post my week 11 and 12 of P365. Images are clickable to go to my gallery and see a full list of credits.

St. Pat's Fun & P365 Week 10

I had so much fun with St. Patrick's Day this year. I don't know why I haven't done more with this holiday in the past - It only seems natural for me to celebrate my favorite color GREEN! As I posted last week, I made green shamrock rice crispy treats for my scouts. I decided to try some green popcorn for the ladies I visit teach. Not only was it super cute, but it was yummy too. You can find the recipe HERE at Skip to my Lou. Oh and take care not to burn the green sugar coating.... yes I am speaking from experience... unfortunately I burnt the first batch and had to give it another go.

Walmart had so many cute St. Pat's shirts this year so I splurged and bought each of the kids a fun green shirt to wear. Savannah's says, "This is my Lucky shirt."


A few weeks ago I picked up these cute lime green plates, bowls & cups at the dollar store thinking I would do a green meal for the kids for St. Pat's but then I kind of put it off and had almost decided not to do the meal after all. At about 2 this afternoon I decided that I did want to do it and so hurried to the grocery store and did a little baking and it came together wonderful. I had the table all set when they came home so they'd know that some fun was coming up later. They wanted to heat the gold coins and Hershey nuggets but I assured them I knew how many were on there and that they had better not eat any until after dinner.

I made green cupcakes and LOVED these cute toppers that I found HERE at Busy Bees. The recipe for the cupcakes I am sure I have shared before - the rainbow ones - but for today I only used green food coloring. HERE (from Our Best Bites) is the recipe for that if you want to make a copy. My kids LOVE these cupcakes no mater what color!

Since I didn't have much time I kept the rest pretty simple. I served green guacamole tortilla chips, green spinach fettuccine noodles with alfredo sauce (Newman's brand is actually quite good), green grapes, steamed broccoli, green kool- aid, the cupcakes & decorative chocolates. I'm pretty sure this will become a tradition because it was yummy, easy and the kids loved it!


I meant to post my week 10 page earlier than this but it completely slipped my mind so here it is and you can click on it to go to my gallery and see a credit listing. I decided to photograph some of the green items I have in my house. I can't believe that tomorrow wraps up week 11. I am sure that some of the photos above will be featured in that layout.

Scrapbook Layout Share

Ok I want to brag just a bit about the lovely template I created for a challenge I am hosting over at Scrap Orchard. You can read more about the challenge and pick it up for free by clicking on the image below.

Here is the page I made using the template. I was absolutely thrilled with how it turned out. I think it is one of my best layouts I have made in a while. Usually I don't do so much layering and rarely do I pull items from multiple kits. You can click the image to go to the gallery for a full list of credits. In fact, all of my pages shown in this post are linked to my gallery if you want more details.

Here are a few pages I scrapped of my niece Megan. She is just so fun to scrap. I love to scrap babies and toddlers so I suppose I better get my own children's photos from their young lives scanned into my computer so I can scrap them too.


Here are a couple of takes on the St. Patrick's theme photos I took of Carson. The second one is made using a kit that Audrey designed for Design House Digital and it is FREE so click on the image of the kit below and go pick it up... it is way cute!

P365 Week 9

Just a quick post to update my Project 365. I wish I could find more cute St. Pat's decorations. I was very limited! Maybe it will have to be an ongoing thing and I'll find more each year? I thought these pics of Carson turned out cute - I used them to create my March desktop for my laptop too. If you want a list of credits the image is clickable to go to my gallery at Design House Digital.