Tiffany's Thoughts

Design House Digital DSD Giveaway! - Part Two

2011-11-04T00:01:00.005-06:00

For this blog hop, the Decorators have made a quick page (in both 12x12 and 8.5x11 sizes) from the DSD - Designer Blog Hop 2011. (See my previous post to pick up the pieces of the kit.) Now is your chance to collect several fabulous pages. They are perfect to add to your own album or for a theme book. Enjoy!

Here is a page I made using the kit. The darling girl is my sweet niece.

Here is my quick page made from this page:

To get it click HERE.

Here is a list of the other participating Decorators, and a link to their blogs:

Allison Waken
Anna Drozd
Aria Andrus
Carey Bridges
Celeste Smith
Christy Carlson
Crystal Livesay
Gennifer Bursett & Celeste Smith
Jen Papadimitriou
Jennifer Hignite
Jen Flaherty
Jeryn Carlisi
Katherine Hansen
Lori Pickens
Mandi Buchanan
Mary Rogers
Sarah Hemmert
Shannon Dombkowski
DHD blog (for Janell Nugent, Jennifer Valencia, Liz Jutila, and Missy Backues' quick pages)

Design House Digital DSD Giveaway!

2011-11-03T13:29:00.001-06:00

Happy Digital Scrapbooking Day everyone! I hope it's fabulous and you collect a lot of goodies today! Well DHD has a DOOZIE for you! A free amazing collection from all the awesome designers! Here is what it looks like. Amazing huh!

How incredible is this! And it's ALL YOURS! All you have to do is visit each designer blog to collect each portion of the kit! Ready, Set, GO!

Here are the links to each blog to make it easier on you!

Enjoy! And remember, tomorrow is the DECORATOR BLOG HOP! Check back to snag a FREE quick page from me using this kit! And then I'll give you additional blog links to grab some more!

Happy Scrapping!

Prize List for Iron Scrapper at Scrap Orchard

2011-07-06T22:02:00.004-06:00

Come on... have you checked out the Iron Scrapper contest at Scrap Orchard yet? Ya know ya wanna!

Here is what you have a chance to win.

Grand Prize: Apple iPad2 with Wi-Fi (16 GB) + $200 Gift Certificate to Scrap Orchard *
1st Runner Up: Apple iPod Touch (8GB) + $100 Gift Certificate to Scrap Orchard*
2nd Runner Up: $50 Apple iTunes Gift Certificate + $50 Gift Certificate to Scrap Orchard*

Consolation Prizes:
Scrap Orchard T-Shirt+ & Scrap Orchard Mouse Pad*
Scrap Orchard T-Shirt+ & Scrap Orchard Mouse Pad*
$15 coupon from Ziggle Designs
$15 coupon from Scrapping with Liz
$15 coupon from Irene Alexeeva
$15 coupon from Lyndsay Riches
$15 coupon from Emily Card
$15 coupon from Fiddle-Dee-Dee Designs
$15 coupon from Designs by Julie Bullock
$15 coupon from Designs by Kat
$15 coupon from Captivated Visions
$15 coupon from SuzyQ Scraps

Check out this scrapping contest

2011-07-04T13:16:00.002-06:00

So have you checked out the Iron Scrapper Contest at the Scrap Orchard yet? I think it is my only chance to get an iPad since Clayne just let me order a new laptop and I can only ask for so much LOL. One of the challenges is to make an avatar for the contest. Here is mine.

Iron Scrapper Contest at Scrap Orchard

2011-07-01T11:53:00.004-06:00

Oh what a bad blogger I am! I am just glad that Scrap Orchard gave me a reason to make a post - so here goes!

I want to tell you about a fantastic challenge over at Scrap Orchard - this is the first week so I'll remind you about it regularly so you can go and enter some of the challenges! It's fun, and you could win AN IPAD2!!!!! It's a non-elimination contest, you earn points for everything you complete, every point gets you an entry into the draw for the prizes. Click HERE to go check it out!

[inter]National Scrapbook Day Freebie (The Sequel)

2011-05-05T17:12:00.005-06:00

We're back with another blog hop, and this time, it's the Design House Decorators who are sharing their goods. The Decorators are a super talented, super friendly, super helpful bunch o' ladies who comprise the creative team at Design House Digital, and we are oh-so-happy to have them. For this blog hop, the Decorators have made a quick page (in both 12x12 and 8.5x11 sizes... no discrimination here!) from the DHD Designers' iNSD collab kit. So, hop around to all the blogs, collect the goodies along the way, and you'll have 15 fabulous pages! Perfect to add into your own albums, or for a theme book of its' own. Here's my contribution:

And here is my original page that my quick page was based upon.

To get it, click here, or on the image above. It's a big file, so be patient! :) Be sure to stop by all of the other Decorators' blogs, to snag their pages (and get some sweet inspiration), too!

Been feeling Crafty!

2010-10-23T14:49:00.003-06:00

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

2010-10-11T09:48:00.003-06:00

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!

2010-07-23T16:47:00.003-06:00

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

2010-06-01T15:18:00.003-06:00

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

2010-05-19T15:12:00.003-06:00

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

2010-04-28T14:50:00.002-06:00

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

2010-04-21T10:03:00.003-06:00

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

2010-04-17T21:58:00.003-06:00

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

2010-04-14T16:52:00.002-06:00

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

2010-03-26T22:04:00.005-06:00

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

2010-03-17T21:45:00.005-06:00

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

2010-03-10T16:32:00.002-07:00

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

2010-03-06T16:58:00.003-07:00

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.

More Grocery Shopping!

2010-03-03T14:07:00.005-07:00

Another couple of trips to Albertsons today. I know... I need to get a life! I went early this morning to get in on the fruit snack deal where I got 25 boxes of fruit snacks for $2.50 plus tax. (YES - a dime each!!) This was by using the catalina that prints out after you buy in sets of 5 and some coupons I printed off the internet. When I was there early this morning I hadn't had time to figure out what else I could get for good deals on sale so after the kids were at school I matched up my coupons and went back and got the following 63 items for $51.98 pre tax and rolling my catalinas. I was stoked because I will be turning in my receipts for the Kraft promo for the oreos with another receipt from a prior sale which will get me a $20 rebate. My 63 items are as follows: 5 downy fabric softener, 10 panteen hairspray, 1 dawn dish soap, 1 pringles chips, 1 fabreeze, 1 gallon milk, 2 cartons sour cream, 10 packages of oreos, 8 Smart Ones frozen items, 1 egg beaters, 2 peanut butter, 1 popcorn, 2 manwich, 4 diced tomatoes, 8 rotel tomatoes, 4 pork & beans, 2 steam & mash potatoes~! I think I will send in my other receipts to Proctor and Gamble to get the $100 coupon book when you send in $50 receipts in their products. Now... hopefully I can let this sale go and do something else besides hang out at Albies... but I bet I'll find more deals to cash in on and go back before the sale ends.

I had a comment on the previous post that asked how I get so many coupons... Well, I get 5 Sunday papers each week and then I have two computers so I can usually print 2 of each coupon on each computer for a total of 4 of each coupon. I send for any offers that I can find as well as sign up for any offers that I find online that work for me. The site that is my "go to" for matching the sales with the coupons is Pinching Your Pennies.

P365 Week 8, grocery deals & baby stuff

2010-03-02T19:37:00.003-07:00

Yeah! I finally found time to get my week 8 layout done and posted. You can click on the image to go to the gallery and read the credits if you want to.

So I haven't scrapped much the last few days. Instead I have been printing and clipping coupons to match up with the sales. I hit some good ones at Albertsons. My pretax price out of pocket on all 46 of these items was $16. I got 4 boxes of cereal, 8 bags of nut clusters, 3 cartons of ice cream, 2 macaroni grill dinner mixes, 1 cake mix, 1 muffin mix, 17 juice concentrate, 4 smart one frozen items, 1 box of waffles, 1 box of singles pizza, 2 boxes of garlic bread, 2 boxes of bagel bites! WHEW! Yes- I feel that I rocked the coupons!

When I was shopping for fabric for my camera straps I met a darling girl, Kiama, who had beautiful fabrics in her cart. I asked what she was making and she said... bibs. I gave her my email addy and told her I wanted to see. She sells these darling bibs. They are vinyl lined so they won't stain but they are still machine washable. If you want to buy some or check them out further go to her blog Mud Puddles & Daisies I bought these three in the photo below. I gave 2 to my sister for my niece Megan and then I gave one to my neighbor Teresa at her baby shower. I love these!
Since I felt good about my camera strap I decided to try making one of the bibs... well Kiama, you need not worry LOL. Your market is safe. I am sure you have a system and can make them much faster than I can. I am happy with how my bib turned out but I won't even post how much time I spent to make just one bib! For me your price is a STEAL! I will be picking up more when I have another baby shower to attend.
So... As I mentioned, we had a baby shower for my neighbor. I made the invitations and a friend a few streets over hosted it at her house. We had an amazing turn out and she got so many beautiful gifts for her new baby. I can't wait for her baby girl to be here... just a few weeks to wait. So fun that I will have a baby next door to cuddle but I can sleep at night. Teresa will probably tell me that she wishes I didn't post a picture of her here but I think she looks CUTE!

Darn Insomnia!

2010-02-26T16:18:00.002-07:00

So I have been up since 1 this morning. I just woke up and couldn't get back to sleep. I wasn't stressed about anything or keyed up... just couldn't get back to sleep. I think I was trying to hard to fall back to sleep. So anyway... I haven't felt too scrapbook creative today and won't get my P365 layout done today but oh well.... hopefully this weekend I will.

Another set back in getting my photos shot for P365 this week was that my battery died while I was trying to get some of my shots. That makes me so frustrated when I spend the time to set something up for photographing and then zippo on battery power. I had some Staples Rewards to use and found that online I could order a battery for my camera. Ever since I got this camera I have only had the one battery and it always dies at the most inconvenient times and then takes 3 hours to charge. So... now I can always keep a spare charged and ready to go. I am so excited!!! I also had enough rewards to order a card reader so that I don't have to drain my camera battery when I load my photos onto my computer. And one more goodie.... I got another Compact Flash card for my camera too. I am almost giddy to know that I'll have all these conveniences in a week. Whooot!!!!

Another recent purchase for my camera was a 50mm 1:1.8 lens. I am loving it! It lets in more light and makes a nice blur in the background of the subject. It is also a great choice if you are looking to get another lens because it is inexpensive - only about $100.

Scrapbook Layout Share

2010-02-23T20:02:00.002-07:00

Just hanging out watching the Olympics & American Idol but I have never been very good at just "sitting" so I have my laptop handy and thought I'd post some of my latest scrapbook pages. Each page is linked to it's place in the galleries so you can click on any of them that you want to see credits for. Thanks for looking.

Sewing?

2010-02-20T22:12:00.004-07:00

Yep... I did some sewing today. I don't do very much sewing but I have seen a few people sporting these darling camera straps and then happened across a tutorial online and thought... hey I can do that! If you want to do it too then to to I Heart Faces HERE and check out the tutorial for yourself. I ended up making two different ones. FUN!

As I was surfing around I saw this darling project and snagged a photo from the blog Noodlehead to show you. WAY cute!!! I think I want to try and take on this project sometime soon. She is such a talented gal and shares the tutorial on her blog if you want to take a peek HERE. I think I just may be getting my machine out a little more often. When I went to JoAnn fabrics they had soooo many darling prints.

P365 Week 7 & some Valentine Photos

2010-02-19T19:32:00.003-07:00

Here is my latest page for P365. I enjoyed taking some photos of the kids for Valentine's season. I set up a little home studio by turning my couch to face the big window and draping a sheet over it. I also picked up two Valentine shower curtains (who decorates their bathroom for Valentine's day?) at Target for $5 each the day after Valentine's. One had multi colored hearts (behind Morgan) and the other had large flower graphics in pink (behind Cheyenne) I think it will be fun to use the pink one for Easter shots too. Clayne was an excellent Valentine and came through with a bouquet of roses and dinner at Jaker's. Dinner was soooo good. It was a prime rib and seafood buffet. I ate LOTS of crab legs & didn't feel the least bit guilty for doing so.

Credits: all products By Carina Gardner
AFFECTIONATE-Papers, Design 365 Masks v3, Design 365 A Month of Number Stamps, O CHRISTMAS TREE-Ribbons

So like I was saying I did some photo shoots of the kids. These were some of my favs. Savannah's is taken with natural light but then Carson complained about the sun in his eyes and so I decided to try out Clayne's old flash. He used it with his manual Canon SLR and he has had it from before we married 20 years ago. I wasn't sure it would work with my Nikon D70 but what do you know - It worked and I like the results. I will definitely be playing with it some more. I was thinking I needed to by a speedlight flash but didn't want to ding our budget to purchase one. It is always nice when you find something "free" that works.

That will be all for now... I want to do some scrapping. I hope to share some of my latest pages with you this weekend. Are you enjoying the olympics? I watch them as I scrap on my laptop.

P365 week 6 & the kids' Valentine cards

2010-02-14T20:38:00.001-07:00

This was a busy week of crafting and baking for Valentine's Day. I finally got my week 6 layout done for P365. I also wanted to share the Valentine's that I made for our kids to give out in their class parties. Carson wanted his to be a crazy picture & I think he succeeded. It shows his personality quite well I think. Hope you all had a wonderful Valentine's Day. I know I have eaten a few too many sugar cookies. How about you?

Credits for this layout are the same as for Week 5 in last week's post.

Savannah's valentine is made from Jen Allyson's Smitten kit.

Cheyenne's Valentine was made from a freebie Pretty In Pink by Verena Designs.

I made Morgan & Carson's Valentine's from the One Love kit.

A Valentine Project and a little scrap info

2010-02-11T13:33:00.004-07:00

Before I go start cutting out sugar cookies, thought I'd make a quick post. Today will be busy getting the kids class Valentine's ready, making Valentine boxes... (I also have scouts today and Savannah's piano lessons...whew) I wanted to let you know about an event that is coming up at Scrap Orchard. Show another hybrid Valentine project I made this week. My scouts will be making this project today. (you can click on the image to go to the kit I used by Carina Gardner - you can buy it as a complete set or broke into just the parts you want.) And last... there is a preview of a kit that you can get for free at Design House Digital so go ahead and click on it to pick it up in the store.

A Valentine Project

2010-02-08T13:57:00.002-07:00

I can't believe it will be Valentine's Day in less than a week! I decided I better get busy on some of the projects I want to complete. Being the thrifty gal I am, I picked up these chocolates on after Christmas clearance for next to nothing and figured since they were mostly red I could use them for Valentine's for my kids. I think they worked up pretty cute. I used Lovestruck Paper Pack and Lovestruck Elements by Audrey Neal.

P365 Week 5

2010-02-07T18:59:00.004-07:00

Just a quick post to catch up on my P365. Hope you are all having a nice weekend. I am not a sports girl and we don't watch TV on Sundays (much to my son Morgan's dismay) so we are not watching the superbowl. I did enjoy stocking up on some great snacks for good prices due to the event though.
credits:
The Day Dreams Collection - Sunset Backgrounds By Meredith Fenwick
The Day Dreams Collection - Sunset Elements By Meredith Fenwick
Heart Frames By Spencer Nugent
template from Design 365 Color Kit 2 By Carina Gardner

Photography Tips

2010-02-03T13:19:00.003-07:00

Today I wanted to share with you a few video clips I watched over at YouTube by Erin Manning. I just requested her book at the library and look forward to learning more from her. I like her approach. There are more clips by Erin at YouTube as well so if you like these, go do a search and watch more.

Although I use my digital SLR most of the time I do sometimes still use my point and shoot and I found this clip interesting. I liked the tip for using the oil blotters over the flash as well as the tips for using sunglasses or a magnifying glass.

P365 Week 4 and some Layout shares

2010-01-29T22:47:00.004-07:00

Here is my Project 365 layout for week 4. I am so excited about how this project is working for me this year. I love assigning a "theme" to my weeks. It is so much easier to scrap the photos when the kind of "go" together. I also wanted to share some layouts I created this week as well as show you the Design House Digital exclusive facebook freebie kit that you can pick up by becoming a fan. Click the image of the super cute kit below to go to the FB page. Below the kit image you can see a page I created using that kit.

(Credits: Design 365: January 31 Day Page Templates By Spencer Nugent, Design 365: January Pack By Spencer Nugent, ESSENTIALS-Stitches v.1 By Carina Gardner, The Day Dreams Collection - Sunset Elements By Meredith Fenwick)

This page I made for the One Kit Four Ways blog post at Design House Digital this week. Using Jen Allyson's Smitten Mini Kit. You can see other layouts using this kit by visiting the blog HERE.

These next two pages are made with new releases at Scrap Orchard this week. New releases are currently on sale so hurry over to pick up the beautiful kits. You can see a list of credits by clicking my layouts below which will take you to my gallery at Scrap Orchard and there you will be able to click on the kit links to go shopping. Thanks for stopping by my blog today and letting me show off my latest creations.

Gas, Photography & Music?

2010-01-27T11:57:00.011-07:00

On a family vacation to West Yellowstone a while back, we visited a T-Shirt shop. Carson begged me to let him get a shirt with an iron on that said I ♥ to Fart! I decided that I didn't want him wearing that shirt to school and to family dinners - even if the statement is true of him. He is a very gassy boy. He ended up getting this shirt that says Worlds largest source of Natural Gas instead. If I had let him get the other shirt I would have put it on today and taken a picture of myself in it for this post LOL! Carson didn't want to have a photo today when I had him put on his shirt so this was as good as it gets for this post - just a snap shot.

Ok enough of that... So what is the difference between taking a photo or making a picture? When you take photos they would generally be categorized as snapshots - photos that don't have much thought put into them. Something caught your eye and you just started taking pictures. Sometimes, with a little luck, there will be a couple of photos in the lot that you will be happy with. More often though you'll be a bit disappointed, and after a few months when you come back to look at the photos, you may not even remember why you took them in the first place. As I have been browsing some books and the internet regarding photography I was drawn to an article by Ken Rockwell, FARTing: A Key to Creative Photography.

In this article Ken states, "I take my best pictures when I FART first." I'm not to sure the subject of your photo would always appreciate it if you really did fart. Don't worry though, FART is a mnemonic for a creative process.

F: Feel
A: Ask
R: Refine
T: Take

Since the article says it all so very well, I will direct you to it to read more about his advice HERE. I have been trying to think more about the photos I have been making. I find the word "make" instead of "take" interesting in photography. By using the word "make" I find that I think more about what I am photographing and why. So today I encourage you to put more thought into your photography and next time you pull out your camera don't forget to FART.

Oh and one more tid bit I'd like to share about a fun and FREE week-long class coming to Audrey's blog (One of the DHD Designers) in February -- stop by her blog and check out the details. Sounds fun to me!

Valentine Ideas

2010-01-24T17:13:00.003-07:00

Ok just a quick post before I head to the kitchen to make dinner. A scrapbook friend, Jenny, has these darling Valentine printables on her blog to share with you if you make a donation to Haiti. I think it is great that she is doing her part to help. Click the image below to head to her blog and check it out.
I thought these mini mailboxes were just too cute. I have checked our Target store and didn't find any of the mailboxes though. I hope that maybe I'll come across some somewhere. To get a look at how to make one click the image below.
And... here are a few printables that are currently available for free download. Cute huh? Again just click them to go to the site and grab them. Enjoy!

Layouts using the One Love kit

2010-01-23T21:20:00.002-07:00

So I decided since I have a cold that I needed to just take it easy LOL. Good excuse to just sit on my bed with my laptop and scrapbook. I made these three pages this evening with the gorgeous kit I mentioned in yesterday's post. The kit is One Love. Appropriately I watched a love story while I was scrapping too. Phantom of the Opera. One of my favorites. Hope you all have a great remainder of the weekend.

P365 Week 3 and some winter photo tips

2010-01-22T18:39:00.007-07:00

(Credits: Design 365: January 31 Day Page Templates By Spencer Nugent, Design 365: January Pack By Spencer Nugent, ESSENTIALS-Stitches v.1 By Carina Gardner, The Day Dreams Collection - Sunset Elements By Meredith Fenwick)

This week my Project 365 photo subject was winter. Shooting photos in the winter can be a tricky thing. I found that the bright snow causes my camera to underexpose my photo. The snow often took on a hue of gray. I will be doing some more study of adjusting my white balance on my camera before I head out to the snow to shoot photos again. Here is just one tutorial I found on this subject:
Understanding White Balance.

These two articles give encouragement to get out and shoot some winter photos. I know I often prefer to do outdoor photography in the other three seasons of the year and tend to stay in the house more in the winter. There are plenty of things to photograph indoors where it is warm but I find that after a little reading and looking around on the net I may just get out and try some new things with my photography this winter.
The Beauty of Winter Photography
Dreaming Winter Photography

Now what about those photos that I was mentioning earlier.... the ones where the snow took on a gray color cast. Well... that is when I am happy to have photoshop. I am still and probably always will be in the learning phase about what this program can do.

The first thing I did was added a Brightness/Contrast adjustment layer. I adjusted my brightness by 30 and set my contrast to 75. When making these adjustments it is a personal preference thing. You have to decide how far to go. If you expose the photo too much you can easily blow out detail. Sometimes I don't mind loosing a little detail if the overall look of the image is improved.
Brightness - How light or dark the picture is.
Contrast - How the brightness is distributed from the lightest to darkest parts of the picture.

Next I added an Exposure adjustment layer. I adjusted my exposure to +10, my offset to -0.0183 and my gama to 1.12 Again this is a to personal taste adjustment.
Exposure – lightens/darkens image.
Offset – adjusts shadow/highlight areas.
Gama – adjusts contrast.

Finally I added a Hue/Saturation adjustment layer where the only adjustment that I made was on the saturation slider which I increased by +25.
Hue - the color.
Saturation - how vivid the color is.
Lightness – how dark/light the color is.

If you want a more in depth look at these photoshop adjustments you can see the tutorial Fixing Exposure and Brightness. Although they don't use adjustment layers. They make the changes directly to the image. I prefer to work with layers so that I have the ability to go back into any of these adjustments and further tweak them as I go along. Using layers is what they call "non destructive photo editing." If you choose to work directly on your photo just be sure to never overwrite the original photo but save the edited photo under a different name. You never know when you may change your mind about the way you edited or your photo or when you may learn a new/better way of editing and want to try it again.

Of course how you choose to crop your photo can improve the impact of the photo as well. I like the closer crop of this photo in my Week 3 layout above better than looking at the entire image. To me there is just too much negative space in the upper left hand corner. OK... that is a wrap for me. I can't believe how much time it takes to put something like this together. Makes me appreciate all the great tutorials out there on the net even more. Have a great weekend!

Helping Haiti with a Scrapbooking purchase

2010-01-22T14:37:00.002-07:00

Forty-eight designers from around the scrapbooking community have joined together to bring you this incredible kit with the common purpose of raising funds for Haitian aid and relief. The theme, “One Love”, symbolizes not only a heartfelt effort to help the people of Haiti, but also encompasses the diverse styles of all the designers involved in this project. This kit represents the diversity of the community and shows that even though we are all different, when we come together the result is truly spectacular.

The profits from the sale of this kit will be donated to the Clinton Bush Haiti Fund. We chose the Clinton Bush Haiti Fund not only because it embodies the spirit of One Love, but also 100% of the donations will go to the immediate relief and long-term support to the earthquake survivors. Just take a look at this gorgeous kit, One Love. I for one can not wait to purchase this and scrap with it.

"Love-ly" Layout shares

2010-01-21T12:27:00.003-07:00

It is new release day over at DHD today and there are 26 new kits in the shop today. On release day new products are always 30% off - but just on the new release day so be sure to shop today for the best deal on these wonderful kits! I created a layout using the new release Smitten by Jen Allyson. Aren't these new Valentine's kits LOVE-LY? I am getting so excited for Valentine's Day!

The elements, paper and word art by Audrey Neal called Lovestruck were new releases on Monday this week so they aren't on sale today but I still wanted to show them off and a layout I made using them. If you want to see the paper and word art just click the image below to go to the DHD store and find them.

P365 Week 2

2010-01-15T22:18:00.000-07:00

January is just flying by! Here is my week 2 layout. It is all about Clayne since he just celebrated a birthday. I kept the look of the page similar to week 1 so that when I print my book it will coordinate with the page that is next to it. I am currently taking photos of a few subjects since I can't quite decide what I want week 3 theme to be. Right now I am leaning toward a winter theme.

So I did watch the photography class I mentioned in my previous post. It was pretty basic for the first week in the course but I learned things anyway because I need basics lol. I look forward to catching the class in the coming weeks to see what else I can learn. I had a few other things I wanted to post but I have to admit that I have been sucked into a book I am reading. Right now I am reading Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins. Last summer I read the first book in the series and have been impatiently waiting for this the second book. The first book is called The Hunger Games. If you are looking for a page turner, you ought to pick it up.

[Credits: Design 365 Seven Photo Masks-Simple By Carina Gardner, Design 365 Color Kit 1 By Carina Gardner, Design 365 A Month of Number Stamps By Carina Gardner, The Day Dreams Collection - Sunset Elements By Meredith Fenwick, The Day Dreams Collection - Sunrise Elements By Meredith Fenwick]

A Photography Workshop

2010-01-12T14:14:00.002-07:00

So... what are you doing tomorrow? I will be sitting at the computer to learn more about natural light photography. You can too. Just click the image above and then click on the "more info" tab at the top and from that menu click on "live" to view the presentation. No, I don't have any affiliation to Creative Techs but I have viewed many of their lessons on Photo Shop and have found them to be very helpful.

Natural light is both free and valuable. Rosanne Olson tells us about the delights of natural and continuous lighting – how to use what’s already available to you.

Date: Wednesday, January 13, 2010
Time: 11am Pacific (Seattle) [Other Time Zones]
Duration: 90-120 Minutes
Cost: The LIVE class is FREE to attend!

Scrapped a bit

2010-01-11T10:03:00.004-07:00

Hope you all had a good weekend. I squeaked in just a little scrap time when I saw Audrey's new kit at DHD. It is on sale today for 30% off - as are all the new releases today. Be sure to go check it out by clicking the kit image below. I am babysitting Meg today so this will be a real short post. Have a wonderful Monday.

I ♥ Faces

2010-01-08T18:08:00.004-07:00

One of my goals this year is to improve in my photography & so I decided to join a photography forum and I found a great one over at "i heart faces" I have not had as much time as I would like to go through the forums but I know that over the course of the upcoming year I will be visiting frequently to learn from the wealth of knowledge. They are celebrating their one year anniversary and are having a contest using their logo in your photos. Below you will see my entry. If you want to see more creative logo entries be sure to click on the "i heart faces" logo below.

“I am submitting this photo into the I Heart Faces logo photo contest. By entering, I am granting I Heart Faces LLC permission to consider my photo for use in the marketing and promotion of their website.” - TiffanyB

P365 Week 1

2010-01-08T13:23:00.003-07:00

[Credits: Design 365 Seven Photo Masks-Simple By Carina Gardner, Design 365 Color Kit 1 By Carina Gardner, Design 365 A Month of Number Stamps By Carina Gardner, The Day Dreams Collection - Sunset Elements By Meredith Fenwick, The Day Dreams Collection - Sunrise Elements By Meredith Fenwick]

One week down in 2010 and 51 to go! I really can't believe that the first week is already over. Mine went really fast. I didn't get to scrap nearly enough LOL. There are so many wonderful new goodies at both my scrapbook homes Design House Digital and Scrap Orchard. I did however manage to scrap my first layout for P365 which focused on my goals for 2010. It is going to take a lot of organization for me to keep up with all I want to accomplish this year and I just found a wonderful product at DHD that will be so helpful for me. Click the image below to go check it out.

I have decided on my theme for my photos for this next week for P365. Clayne had a birthday a few days ago and I have decided that for a week around the birthday of myself, spouse or one of the kids that I will do a week of photos about them. I already have ideas flowing and am excited to get started. See larger images and more information about this planner at The Project Girl.

Get in the Photo

2010-01-07T14:46:00.006-07:00

I wasn't too sure what I would be sharing this week about photography but I did notice a common thread in my photos for P365 this week. As I shared earlier, this week my photos are about my goals for this year. When I started capturing my images for my layout for this week, I noticed the need to photograph myself in many of the photos. I did have Clayne shoot one photo for me but he is usually only home at night and the lighting isn't nearly as good so I was left with the choice of having a friend come over to take my shots, leaving myself out of the shots, or trying out my self timer on my camera. I almost hate to admit that I had never used this feature on my camera and after reading the 4 short steps in my manual on how to use it I knew I had to try it out. I have to say that since I don't own a tripod I had to become pretty creative on how to set up my camera for the shots. Note to self: Pick up a tripod! (I already had decided I wanted to buy one this year but now I for sure want one.)

Maybe somewhere in the back of my mind the idea of getting in the photo was forming after browsing the email I got on Tuesday from SimpleScrapper.com They gave 9 interesting ideas for self portraits. One of which was play with mirrors. And I find that I did do this. You can read more of the article HERE. I need to create a creative team layout soon about myself so I will likely be trying more of the ideas to come up with something I like. If you want even more ideas about self portrait photography there is a great article at Digital Photography School. I think one of my photography goals for 2010 has presented itself. I think I'll be getting into more of the pictures - right after I go pick up a tripod.

Ahhh just noticed my photo stamp needs updating with the new year LOL. Guess that is something I'll add to my list of things to do.

My Word of the Year

2010-01-02T16:20:00.002-07:00

Do you choose a word for the year? Ali Edwards shared her new word for this year on her blog this week & you can go to her blog to find out more about how she started this tradition. She also links up to a Free Download "Word of the Year Discovery tool." from blogger Christine Kane. It's a worksheet for thinking through your word and essentially telling the story of your word.I am going to check this out! I think this will be a good Sunday activity for me tomorrow. Last year I had thought about choosing a word but then I never got around to it - so maybe my word last year was procrastination LOL. I chose a word for this year though. My word for this year is PROGRESS. I know better from years past than to expect perfection in the goals I set for myself each new year. As I stated before, I usually bite off more than I can chew and I get discouraged when I fall short of the goals I wanted to accomplish. I prefer to look at my goals as a work in progress instead. I want to give myself credit for even small steps in the right direction. I think that if I can just look back at the end of the year and see that I have made progress that it should be enough. Here's to a year of progress!

Project 365 in 2010

2010-01-01T20:34:00.004-07:00

Here is my opening page for my album I will be creating this year for Project 365. I used the Journey 365 Jumbo kit by SuzyQ Scraps available at Scrap Orchard. Remember that Scrap Orchard will be back open on January 4 & if I remember right this kit is on sale! The stitching is by Carina Gardner & the template was a freebie from HERE.

Yep... I'm gonna try this again. I learned a few things when I took on Project 365 last year & hope to improve my approach this year. I am not going to beat myself up if every photo is not an awesome photo but I am going to make an effort to do all I can to improve my photography skills this year - well... all I can afford time to do or can find for free on the internet. I know that to take great photos is a big time investment & can also be a big financial investment.

What I hope to do is find at least one good photography tutorial each week (the tutorials I share may be on photo editing too because there is a lot I want to learn there too) and apply what I learn as well as share links to the tutorials when possible. I'm hoping to share what I learn on Thursdays each week on my blog.

So... yes you have probably figured out that one of my goals this year is to improve my photography. Over at Photojojo there is a fun article New Year's Just Ain't New Year's Without Photo Resolutions. In this article they share a list of 22 photo possibilities for the upcoming year. I know there are things on that list that I need to do.

I also plan to just share my Project 365 layouts each week rather than trying to upload my photo each day. If I feel like any of my photos are worthy of being featured outside of a layout I'll post those too. Anyway... I am just hoping to learn more from what I am doing this year. I also want my collection of 7 photos each week to be related in some way instead of completely random. I will have a theme of sorts each week for what I take photos of. This first week will be about my goals for 2010.

I spent some time researching how I wanted to approach Project 365 this year and came across a few things that you may find useful if you are joining in the project yourself this year. I know lasts year I struggled some days finding something worthwhile to photograph & I think these lists will help inspire me.
Creating Keepsakes has this list of 365 ideas to photograph
Carina is heading up the challenge at DHD and has a great list too
And one more list here on the left hand side of the blog

Of course viewing other people's blogs who are participating in the Project will inspire you too. If you are joining in be sure to link me up. I'd love to have a look.

Days of December 30 - 31

2010-01-01T15:29:00.003-07:00

Happy New Year everyone! I must say that I am glad to have this "little" scrapbook project done. Here are my last two days of pages. I have to admit that I lost some of my enthusiasm after Christmas Day. I had some fun activities written in my planner for the days following Christmas but I just didn't feel like doing them & I think the kids just wanted down time to play with their Christmas gifts & their friends - so I bagged the ideas I had planned and just ended up filling in these pages with whatever we ended up doing. If I do this project next year - I will be doing it differently but I still am glad I took it on and I will have a wonderful album that records all we did in December. I am less than satisfied with the hat and wordart embellishments I added to yesterday's layout for the New Year's Eve Party but I just wanted to be done. Scrap Orchard is closed until Jan. 4 but then I'll probably end up downloading a New Year's Kit and changing out the embellishments on this page before I print it & put it in my album - for for now I just wanted to be done so I could do something else. I already have a new project underway and want to get it going. I'll show you in my next post. Oh and don't forget that today DHD opened. See my previous post for more information.

Oh and one more thing - even if this is just a note to myself LOL. I thought many of the photo prompts and journaling prompts on the pages I did over this month were fabulous and I didn't always follow them but I did take photos of most of them and will be doing additional pages - not necesarrily following the same design of these pages I have done but where ever my ideas take me - so we'll see what comes of it.

Announcing Design House Digital

2009-12-30T14:31:00.004-07:00

Whahoooo! I am so super excited to finally be able to share with you that Carina Gardner (who I have been on Creative Team for over the past few years) has been instrumental in developing and opening a new scrapbooking site and I am a lucky girl to be able to continue on not only Carina's CT but on the site Creative Team. I will continue to be on the Creative Team over at the Scrap Orchard as well. These will be my two homes for scrapbooking and I will frequently share on my blog scrapbook projects I complete using products from these two fabulous sites. I will also do my best to inform you of sales and special promotions at each of these sites too.

SO.... since Design House Digital is just opening on Friday - you must check this site out and pick up some beautiful freebies when you register for the Newsletter & be sure to check out the products in the shop where you will find some additional freebies. Of course there will also be a great kick off sale with everything 30% off for the weekend.

And not to leave out the Scrap Orchard sale information - they just put out what they call "Fresh Fruit" today. Bunches of great new products for 20% off. Scrap Orchard will be closed Jan. 1-3 for site updates but the sale will continue for a few days after the maintenance as well so you will have ample time to shop. I definitely suggest picking up the January 2010 Mega for just $3. I designed one of the quick pages that is in this fantastic kit. The page is shown below. And to finish up this post you will see a page that I created for Design House Digital using cute products by Deena Rutter. Ok that's a wrap for now. Happy Scrapping!

Days of December 26 - 29

2009-12-30T12:25:00.003-07:00

No commentary from me on this post - I am just happy to be caught up on my December pages & now I am going to head out and do some sledding with the kids on our beautiful new snow!

Days of December 22 - 25

2009-12-29T10:13:00.002-07:00

I realized after loading all these pages that I have them going from oldest to newest but I'm just going to leave it this way. I am doing good to even get this many posted. Christmas just got busy busy - as I am sure you can relate. We had a wonderful Christmas day and I hope you did too. Now to just keep the kids entertained while they are out of school this week and try to keep my wits about me LOL. Clayne actually took today off & so that is why I am not getting all the way caught up on my Days of December posting. I feel pretty good about getting 22-25 up though.

Our bowling scores were lousy but we sure had fun! It was obvious that we had way too many treats around our house this holiday season because it was days after the pretzel rods were packaged and put away before any of the kids asked where they went and wanted some. I told them we would make more for Valentine's day since we have already over eaten this whole month. Since there is still plenty around here they seem ok with that.

This activity turned out to be lots of fun. I had tried to schedule it for an earlier evening in the month since it involved going to a department store and I try really hard to avoid the department stores... or any stores... the week of Christmas but it just couldn't be helped since we just had to do this activity LOL. We went to ShopKo and it was actually pretty quiet in that store for the 23rd of December. We divided into two teams and we had a list of items to search the store for and then we each had a digital camera and needed to photograph the items. We actually tied but I suppose that is for the best.

We did the normal stuff on the 24th that we always do. We read the Christmas story from Luke in the bible and attended the Bodily family party with the traditional pass along gift game. One of Clayne's Aunts or his Dad write a story with lots of "left" and "right" in the story and we pass a gift (always a little food item like a box of crackers or nuts or the like) until the story is done and then you keep what you end up with. We also sprinkled out Magic Dust for the reindeer and Santa & left out cookies and letters for Santa.

Christmas Day was EARLY! Clayne and I got to bed at 1 and then the kids were up at 2:30! I actually only heard them at 4 but they had already been up for a while. We had told them that they couldn't wake us up before 8 - ya right. They didn't knock on our door til then but they had woke us up way too early! They all seemed pretty happy with what they got - even Cheyenne had to take back her words. Earlier this Christmas season when we told them they would be getting only 3 gifts from Clayne and I she had said this would be the worst Christmas ever and was not happy at all. When on Christmas day I asked her if it was the worst Christmas ever she smiled and said... No! Here is what Santa left this year - Cheyenne got an acoustic guitar, Morgan some basketball shoes, Carson a lego set, Savannah a Barbie electric guitar. Hopefully I will get layouts done soon that showcase these memories but for now.... Have a wonderful day!

Days of December 20 & 21

2009-12-22T18:37:00.003-07:00

Here are a couple more days pages. The kids enjoyed making some more gift tag cards and I shared a picture of a few below. We just kept them easy and simple but I thought they turned out cute. Tonight I gave the kids the opportunity to vote on an activity since I didn't really feel like doing what I had on my calendar. They voted to go bowling so we are off to the bowling ally here in a few minutes. Hope you are all enjoying the week of Christmas. I can't believe it is already so close. I was sitting around this morning just reading a book and thought... Hey what are you doing when Christmas is so close and the gifts aren't even all wrapped. I guess tomorrow I better finish up the odds and ends like wrapping so that I am not up all night Thursday.

Days of December 18 & 19

2009-12-20T16:38:00.003-07:00

Yesterday just got busy busy so here are two days worth for my Days of December. I am baking a ham right now for Sunday dinner and it smells so delish! I can't wait for dinner. I was planning to cook one of my turkeys that are out in my chest freezer for Christmas but I think I am going to wait until New Years day for that since my MIL has invited our family up for Christmas dinner and she is going to cook a turkey for that. So that is why ham seemed a good choice for today. Those who know me all know that I buy at least 4 turkeys at Thanksgiving so I can cook them at intervals over the winter. They are so inexpensive and yummy. Ok... I ramble... Have a nice Sunday.

Layout Share

2009-12-19T12:24:00.002-07:00

I know... that is what I have been doing daily is a layout share - but these are not for my Holidays In Hand project. I just was in the mood to scrap something different. I will be back later with my Days of December pages. You can click the images below if you want to go to my gallery and read credits. Have a great day... the last Saturday before Christmas and Clayne wants to make a trip to the mall. CRAZY!

Days of December 17

2009-12-18T17:08:00.002-07:00

Days of December 16

2009-12-17T14:53:00.003-07:00

Yesterday I decided to look for a puzzle one last place... Big Lots and yep I found what I was looking for. I really wanted one about Christ and they had some for $5. Much more affordable than the ones at Deseret Book. I really liked the ones at Deseret Book but I didn't want to spend that much and they were smaller pieces too. I wanted one my kids wouldn't get too frustrated with. We also made our yummy gingersnap cookies. I shared the recipe on my blog a while back but if you missed it click HERE. Bye for now & thanks for checking up on us.

Days of December 14 & 15

2009-12-16T20:27:00.003-07:00

Here are days 14 & 15. Whew... this month is going by so fast... already half over! On the 14th we did a Mad Lib as a family and the kids were in hysterics. You can make one too by going to Family Fun HERE. The girls enjoyed making Finish Stars but the boys thought they looked too complicated. You can find directions to make them HERE. On the 15th I conducted personal interviews of each of my kids. I don't get that old dinosaur (the video recorder) out very often and so they loved feeling like celebrities LOL. I think it will be fun to see how their answers to the questions change each year. We also made a slushy drink that we all enjoyed. It was easy. You just take one can each of frozen orange juice, pineapple juice & lemonade and add 3 cans of water then freeze it in ice cube trays & when frozen serve with 7 Up. Smash the cubes with a fork and you have a easy and yummy slush. Until tomorrow.... Happy Holidays!

Days of December 13

2009-12-14T21:54:00.004-07:00

I absolutely adore these nativity puppets that my SIL Shelly made for us as a gift a few years back. (this picture doesn't even show half of the puppets) Ever since that year, we always do a special Family Home Evening lesson in December using them. I also came up with an idea to make each kid their own 12 day count down chain for Christmas. On each strip is written a compliment. I wrote 3 for each child and so did Clayne and then we had each child write 2 for each of their siblings. At the top or end of the chain is a bracelet that I picked up at Deseret Book that is a "Choose the Right" bracelet for them to wear. When I read the compliments that Carson wrote to Savannah one of them said, "I like it when you let me beat you up." I erased the latter portion of his "compliment" so he could re-write it & say something nice. He then wrote, "I like it when you let me play with you." Some of the other "compliments" were not what I had hoped for but I decided to just leave them and let them be what they were because that is what the kids wanted to write. Still they were funny to me & some were eye openers for me too. I'll share some of them and you can read more if you want.

Savannah's compliments on her chain were:
* I like it when you let me play on your computer - from Carson (she has an old computer in her room with no internet connection)
* I like it when you let me play with you - from Carson
* Thank you for being on my side sometimes when Morgan and/or Carson isn't sometimes - from Cheyenne
* I like it when Savannah lets me hang out with her sometimes - from Cheyenne
* Pretty - from Morgan
* Nice - from Morgan
* I love your kind heart - from Mom
* I love your way of obeying - from Mom
* I love your happy attitude - from Mom
* You help others - from Dad
* You are very loving - from Dad
* You look for ways to help others - from Dad

Carson's compliments on his chain were:
* Thank you for helping me - from Savannah
* And I love you very much - from Savannah
* Letting me play with your legos - from Morgan
* Playing with me - from Morgan
* I like it when you and Mom make me laugh with your jokes that have no meaning to them. Maybe that is why they have humor in them? HA! - from Cheyenne
* Thank you for being stupid sometimes so it makes me look smarter! - from Cheyenne
* I love the way you make me laugh every day - from Mom
* I love how creative you are with legos - from Mom
* I love how you always kiss me goodnight - from Mom
* You are very competitive - from Dad
* You try very hard to be your best - from Dad
* You are a hard worker when you want to - from Dad

Morgan's compliments on his chain were:
* Thanks for giving me gum - from Savannah
* Thanks for giving me candy - from Savannah
* I like when you don't mess with my legos - from Carson
* I like when you let me stay up - from Carson (they share a room and sometimes don't want to go to bed at the same time)
* Thank you for doing sports so I could be the musically talented one in the family. - from Cheyenne
* I like it when you are nice and on my side sometimes. - from Cheyenne
* I love to see you playing nice with Savannah - from Mom
* I love how reverent you try to be at church - from Mom
* I love how you are friends with everyone - from Mom
* You are helpful to others - from Dad
* You are friendly to others - from Dad
* You have a kind heart - from Dad

Cheyenne's compliments on her chain were:
* Thanks for painting my nails - from Savannah
* Thanks for doing my hair - from Savannah
* I like when you don't fite (fight) with Mom - from Carson
* Thanks for not going in my room - from Carson
* Being nice - from Morgan
* Helping me - from Morgan
* You really are beautiful. I love you! - from Mom
* Thanks for always keeping your room clean - from Mom
* I love the way you play the piano - from Mom
* You are respectful to your church leaders - from Dad
* You are musically talented - from Dad
* You are very competitive - from Dad

Days of December 12

2009-12-13T17:03:00.003-07:00

Another quick post to share our holiday happenings for December 12. Hope you are all happy and well.

Days of December 10 & 11

2009-12-11T20:32:00.003-07:00

Today I am actually ahead of the game in my daily posting. I decided to go ahead and post the 11th which is today - usually I post each day the following day. We are watching Night At The Museum Battle of the Smithsonian & I rarely can just watch a movie. I usually only kind of watch and have my laptop with me which is what I am doing now so I had time to put these pages together and post them. Today we made scarves & they were inexpensive, easy & cute! They were about $1 each. I just picked out polar fleece that matched each of my kids personalities and got 7 inches for each kid. I evened up the cut when I got home and then cut 3 inch strips at each end to create fringe. The kids tied a knot on each fringe and easy... done. Carson's has a soccer theme and Morgan's has a multi sport theme. Yesterday on the 10th we made sugar cookies using the classic cookie recipe. I posted my sugar cookie recipes on my blog in 2007 and if you would like to grab the recipes you can click HERE to go to that post. We also went out to dinner as a family last night. My kids always love that but I don't take it personally against my cooking - instead I just enjoy a break!

Today I got some more of my Christmas shopping done today. I am getting very close to being done & that feels good! I probably would have finished but I decided to do some coupon shopping at Albertsons & to go out to lunch with Clayne and before I knew it the kids were home from school. Maybe I'll get out tomorrow and finish it up & do some wrapping....

Days of December 8 & 9

2009-12-10T15:31:00.004-07:00

Two days passed quickly again. So here goes! We made two yummy treats - homemade caramels (which we make in the microwave & they are easy!) and homemade fudge. I shared my caramel recipe two Christmas' ago on my blog if you want to get the recipe go HERE and we made the Carnation fudge recipe that you can find HERE. I posted earlier this month that we are reading a Christmas story together each night. We had been reading from a book I found in our Christmas stuff called The Most Loved Christmas Stories but after reading Babouscka, The Little Fir Tree, The Little Match Girl and a few others, we decided that these stories were not happy enough and we started to just read some of our story books in our collection and I also searched the internet and found a fun collection to print off that we are also using now. You can print off a collection for yourself by visiting HERE - just ignore the message to update your bookmark & be sure to scroll to the bottom of the page to find the PDF story collection. Enjoy!

Days of December 7

2009-12-08T15:51:00.003-07:00

Well Day Seven is pretty self explanatory so I am going to leave it at this and go do today's activity with the kids. Thanks for checking in on us & have a wonderful day!

Days of December 5 & 6

2009-12-07T16:26:00.003-07:00

The weekend went by so fast. Thought I'd take a minute and post days 5 & 6. On Saturday we put up the tree and went shopping to let the kids all pick out their one new ornament for this year. On Sunday we went to the First Presidency Devotional which was excellent! Following the devotional all the wards in our stake each performed a musical number for Christmas. Our ward just had the Young Women sing. Cheyenne did a great job & looked gorgeous. I still can't believe how much she has changed this last year - not too much of a little girl left in her looks. On Sunday we also made homemade doughnuts which were very tasty and super easy. You can find directions for them at Real Simple HERE.

Days of December 4

2009-12-05T22:40:00.005-07:00

Weekends in December are CRAZY but fun too. So I am off to bed in a minute but wanted to keep up with my December scrapbook posts. So yesterday we made new ornaments. These were super easy but turned out real cute. We just carefully took the tops off some clear glass ball ornaments and then put about 15 inches of each of three coordinating ribbons and then wrote our name on a tag and the year. We tied a bow at the top & attached the tag.

Days of December 3

2009-12-04T15:08:00.005-07:00

So how is December going for you? Mine is already going by way to fast. Maybe I am just trying to do too many things but I feel like I need a little more time in my day. For example... I didn't get our family Christmas newsletter written yet - which I was supposed to do yesterday. I do keep our letter very short and simple though so I plan to take 10 minutes and get it done today. I had hoped to send the Christmas cards out today but I think if I just get a good start on getting my newsletter printed and stuff them into the envelopes along with the photo that is already printed and ready to go (YIPEE) I may just take my time getting the addresses on them gradually over the weekend and drop them in the mail Monday. That would still be much earlier than I do most years.

Last night Savannah & Carson helped me get the neighbor gifts ready - we will deliver them sometime this next week. If you are a neighbor reading my blog, sorry for the sneak peak. It is simple... a sheet of window clings with a tag that says "we hope you CLING to your family & traditions this holiday season." I purposely made lots of them so we'd have plenty to take to family parties and other events too. I'd post a picture of the tag but I made that on the desktop downstairs when my laptop was being crazy yesterday and so I don't have access to it from the laptop now. Fortunately the laptop seems to be working fine today. Whew!

Well the kids are home today because of Parent Teacher conferences and so I should go and do our Dec. 4 activity with them and I do need to go to the grocery store sometime too and get the ingredients I need for a breakfast casserole to take to the ward Christmas breakfast that will be tomorrow morning. As for PT Conferences that I went to this morning.... um... I'm just gonna say that the boys are going to have to step up and do better or they will be loosing some privileges. I knew something was up when day after day they had no homework.

Days of December 2

2009-12-03T18:51:00.002-07:00

I was thinking I might not get this post made today. My laptop was not behaving. I had to shut it down improperly three times and was very scared that it was going to die. I ran a full system scan and didn't find anything there to worry about and so then just to be safe I spent the afternoon backing up everything and anything just to be safe. I am hopeful that my laptop was just being weird and that it will continue to work - cuz I love it SO!

Anyway.... here is what we were up to in our Christmas celebrations on the 2nd. We made some hot chocolate jars and of course we made some for ourselves too. The girls put on Santa hats and delivered a few jars. Not everyone will be getting these goodies. You'll have to check back to see what the neighborhood gifts will be.

If you are interested in making some homemade cocoa you can find the directions HERE. If you want to make other gifts in a jar you can look at the Organized Christmas site. In years past I have done dry soup mix in a jar as well as some cookie jars too. They are lots of fun and I think they make such pretty gifts.

Days of December 1

2009-12-02T15:08:00.004-07:00

As promised... I am back to tell you all about what we did for the first day of December. I showed you my advent calendar yesterday and that is when I showed my kids too.... well that night anyway. They loved it! We also hung our older advent calendar which is a felt tree with a different felt ornament to put up on it each day. We all enjoyed making some cute button snowmen tags too. Just so you can see them better I included a larger photo at the bottom of my post. I am loving the cute little videos that have been uploaded to youtube by KWernerDesign. She has a cute card for every day of December & this is just one of them. I hope to find time to make more of her designs. Click here to go to the video. Oh and yes... I know, I know... I am supposed to list credits for my layouts below and I will... later. The kids are going to be home and we will need to be doing December 2 activities!

Advent Calendars

2009-12-01T08:38:00.005-07:00

I just can't believe that it is already December 1st. I know that December always goes by so quickly and so I am trying to hit the ground running so that I can keep up with all the festivities. I am still plugging along with my Holidays in Hand album and will be sharing my pages a day late each day for the month. Why? Well because I will be adding the photos as I go along so that the entire album will be finished by the end of the month. I won't be able to take my photos for December 1 until later when our family does the activity for the day and then I can add the photos to my page and share them tomorrow - so if you want to see what we are doing to celebrate the holiday season over the month be sure to stop in often. You can always use more ideas of family fun for the month of December... right?

One thing I can share with you right now is my new Advent Calendar that I made last week. I am so excited to share this with my kids later today. In each box of the calendar will be a paper with a scripture reference. Each scripture is one that will help us focus more on Christ. I want my children to have constant reminders of why we celebrate Christmas and to try to keep our focus on Christ this Christmas. So for this month we will deviate a little from our normal daily family scripture reading of the Book of Mormon - instead - each night we will gather and read the Christ scripture from the advent calendar and also read a holiday Christmas story. Clayne and I used to read a short Christmas story each night of December before we had children & I loved the holiday feelings I had from reading them together. When we had kids somehow that tradition slipped. I want to try it this year and see if we can get that tradition going again.

So anyway.... here is my calendar I made. I had seen another similar type on the internet this year and loved the idea but couldn't find that calendar kit around here. At Michaels Crafts I did find this one and I just took the train off the top painted the edges red and then used scraps of scrapbook paper and modge podge to add different papers to each door. At Michaels I also found the cute little figures that I glued to each door. One more thing that I found at Michaels was this little Christmas tree and a set of Nativity miniature ornaments. So in each door of the advent there will also be a little ornament that they can place on the little tree. When I was little I adored anything miniature and so I hope my kids will be just as intrigued with it as I would have been as a child.
We have a few other advent calendar type things that we traditionally do and I need to go and pull them out from the holiday decorations under the stairs so I'll be back to share those - probably tomorrow. Anyway... I did want to show a few of the fun advent calendars that I found on the internet (click the images to read more about the design of them & the artist who created them) and I encourage you to create some type of count down for your family too - we have always had so much fun with it. First... here is the advent calendar that got me wanting to make the one I did.
For more great advent calendar ideas just google and find one that works for you!

Finally... I did want to share with you another "advent" of sorts. At the Scrap Orchard there will be a fun count down with wonderful sales each day AND there will also be a different 4x6 brag book page each day that you cana get for free. I created one of the pages that they will be giving away... not sure what day they will be giving my page away but I am excited to collect all the pages and have a fun little book to showcase some of our holiday memories. Click the image below to go to the Scrap Orchard Blog and pick up the brag book page as well as read about the great sale.

Just a quick post

2009-11-27T13:15:00.004-07:00

I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving Day. Ours was nice. So... yah... I did go out and hit a few of the Black Friday sales today even though I hadn't planned to. I have a nice jump start on my holiday shopping. I won't be doing a whole lot of shopping this year anyway. We are simplifying - much to Cheyenne's dismay. Not sure you can read the journaling on my layout here
"MErry Christmas starts with ME seems to be the way Cheyenne views this important holiday. True some of this has to do with being 14. Still we want to try and help her see Christmas is much more than about the gifts, so this year we are simplifying."

We have decided to give the kids each 3 gifts this year. They will still get their stockings filled and a gift from Santa but from Clayne and I they will each get 3 gifts:
Something you need
Something you want
Something to read
To create this page I used one of Chrissy's newest templates that is available in her fabulous grab bag for just $3 until Dec. 6. Go check it out by clicking the image below. I also used the kit Fra-Gee-Lay available at Scrap Orchard. While you are at the Scrap Orchard you will not want to miss the Farmer's Market - oodles of wonderful scrapbook products for just $1 each. Ok.... I must get busy and do some crafty projects now.

What is up?

2009-11-19T16:57:00.003-07:00

So... what am I up to these days.... I'd like to know too LOL. I did sign up for Jessica Sprague's Holidays in Hand class and LOVE it. I hope to spend some quality time getting my ideas together from what I am learning so far. Basically the class is geared at helping you determine what is important to you & your family in relation to the Holidays (Christmas to be exact) and then getting your ideas together of what you want to do to celebrate so you can really make it happen and then of course to journal and scrapbook the things you do over the month of December.

Specifically... what have I been doing today? Well one thing I did was download some new albums from Amazon where they have several for $5. Quite a deal! I bought 5 new albums - my ears are so happy LOL.

And now for something a bit random.... a few sites that I enjoy checking often for Scrapbooking inspiration - these two are fun because they have something new almost every day.
The Simple Scrapper
The Daily Digi

Fun & Free Font Sites

2009-11-13T16:44:00.004-07:00

This post is as much for me as for anyone else LOL. Sometimes I see a new site that I just really want to remember so I can go back and visit it when I have more time. I love handwritten fonts to use in my scrapbooking and I love it even more when I find a great site with free fonts. I have already been in the habit of visiting Kevin & Amanda's site and I have many many fonts from their site. Today I found another site called Sugar Frog Fonts and look forward to browsing it soon.

Happy Digital Scrapbook Day!

2009-11-07T06:45:00.007-07:00

Did you know it was Digital Scrapbook Day? Well.... there is a lot going on out there on the net for everyone who enjoys the hobby of digi scrapping. I am having such a hard time narrowing down what I want to buy. There are some fantastic sales going on. Be sure to check out all the sales and activities going on at the Scrap Orchard, in Chrissy's Store at Elemental Scraps (spend $5 - save 30%, spend $10 - save 40%, spend $15 - save 50%!), & in Carina's Store at Two Peas. Hmmm I just took a looksie and as far as I can tell Carina doesn't have a sale for the DSD event. Still, as a memeber of her creative team I want to remind you to have a look at her store. I'll try to come back to update this post with some of the things that I just HAVE to buy this weekend - for now... I must browse some more sales. Hope you have a great day!

Stuff I Bought

These Drop Shadow Actions by Bec

I caved in and bought this darling alpha - Free Spirit.
I also picked up these paper borders. I already own her paper curls and tears and I love them!

A Layout to Share

2009-11-02T10:40:00.004-07:00

Hope you all had a nice Halloween. I am now repenting for eating too much candy... but that is normal. We all had a good time and the dinner was a huge hit. I haven't had time to download my photos off my camera yet but hopefully will be back to blog them soon. Just wanted to share a cute page of my darling daughters that I scrapped this weekend. We took a bunch of fun fall photos just a few weeks ago. If you like the template I used you can pick it up for free in Chrissy's shop & be sure to check out the other products I used on my layout - many of them are on sale in her store today. You can click on my layout to go to get a full list of credits and you can click on the template image to go to Chrissy's shop. Oh and I just have to show off my desktop that uses the same photo plus others from that day. I just love it. You can pick up the desktop at Shabby Princess Blog for free and add your own pics and enjoy instant happiness too! Have a great Monday!

Another Blog Train

2009-10-30T17:35:00.002-06:00

Just a quick post to let you know about a fun blog train that you may want to hop on! Click the image to go to the Orchard Blog where it all starts tonight at midnight.

Halloween Dinner Menu

2009-10-28T13:43:00.005-06:00

Ok I have it narrowed down. The kids will get a menu with only the creative names listed in hopes that when they order it will be all out of order. They may get dessert first, they may get no utensils to eat with when they need them, etc. It just adds to the fun. All of the food items are showcased in my previous post unless otherwise noted. I have the items divided up in this post just so you get an idea of what is main course, appetizer, dessert, and so on. On the menu they will be all mixed up to throw the kids off in making their selections. I'm guessing we will be having our dinner at 4:30ish on Saturday but I need to be sure that it works for all my kids so that they can all enjoy the fun. I plan to take lots of pictures and hope to be able to show you how it all turned out. If you decide to host a dinner like this I'd love to hear your ideas too.

knife - spooky slasher
spoon - grave digger
fork - devil's staff
napkin - corpse bride's veil

mummy dogs - curse of the mummy
pizza mummies - entombed skull
chicken wings - bat wings (probably from the deli or in the freezer section)
ketchup - vampire kiss
drink - cauldron chiller (some kind of beverage - whatever I grab in the soda isle)

bread sticks & marinara sauce - blood & bones (see this item at Our Best Bites)
mini dill pickles - frankies fingers (frankenstein)
cheesy fingers - lost digits
apple slices - monster jaws
ghost crackers - haunted boo
carrot/olive appetizer - edible eyeballs
pretzel sticks - boogers on a stick (find this item at Halloween Is Here)

candy corn pudding - corny treat
spider cookies - spider's web

Halloween FUN!

2009-10-27T12:35:00.012-06:00

I hardly know where to start with this Halloween themed post. Every year I like to have a special Halloween dinner for my kids. They always look forward to it & we have lots of fun with it. We serve 18 items in 3 courses and the kids write their 6 selections down for each course not having any idea what it is that they are ordering. Since we have now been doing it for several years, they have started to figure out what all the items are on the secret menu. So this year I went on a search on the internet for some new ideas & I must say I was not disappointed. I found more ideas than I will ever be able to use but I will share the ideas I am going to use and then some of the ideas that I found that were just too fun to not share. For starters, I needed some new theme music for our Halloween dinner and I was able to find a great free download of 31 tracks of creepy music at this site, Oddio Overplay.

I'm still narrowing down my 18 items for my Halloween Dinner Menu but will be back with another post when I have my decision made.

Candy Corn Pudding from Paper Jewels
Butterscotch on the bottom, vanilla (dyed with yellow food coloring) in the middle, whipped topping on top. (Make this kid friendly by using clear plastic tumblers.)
Scroll down on her blog to see the darling Ghost Grub she shared. CUTE!
Do you want more candy corn themed ideas? Skip To My Lou had some fun ones & if you are a scrapper/paper crafter - you are especially going to enjoy her ideas. I'm thinking it might be fun to dress up the beverages at our meal like this.

I only wish that there were a better balance of food ideas out there - there are way too many cute dessert ideas out there for me to reasonably serve. The kids will be getting plenty of sugar with their trick-or-treating so I can't give in to my temptation to serve too many of these cute goodies. These and other fun spider ideas can be found at Bakerella.

Although this is not something they would be eating... I do think my kids would get a huge kick out of these and I hope to find some time to make some this week with them and then we can use them as a centerpiece for our dinner. This idea can be found at Our Best Bites - I LOVE this site! Aren't these shrunken heads made from apples fun!

Here are some food ideas that I will be using on the menu from Our Best Bites. There are lots more fabulous ideas over there so be sure to check it out for yourself.

Mummy Dogs:

Monster Jaws:Cheesy Fingers:

Kraft Foods - I am going to use the ghost crackers
Family Fun had this cute idea of Mummy Pizzas as well as these edible eyes made of carrots & olives. They had lots more for you to look at too.
I thought these eyeball tacos on the Food Channel were just too fun and we may have to do them another year since I am going to go with the pizzas and hotdogs this year.

Are you in the mood for spaghetti? Here is a spooky one where the meatballs are made to look like eyeballs and a cute one.
From About.com
From Hostess with the Mostess In addition to this spaghetti be sure to visit this site for some more fantastic photos of ideas. I love the ribs, burgers, coffins... heck it was all very cute!

Some other sites that I found some fun ideas on were:
Epicurious - a cute mummy meatloaf
She Knows Parties - what an extensive list she has compiled for over 50 ideas for Halloween parties

It's a BLOG TRAIN!

2009-10-21T20:22:00.009-06:00

Hi there and welcome to my stop on Scrap Orchard's Blog Train. To make my Brag Book Freebie I used the Mega kit Spooktacular, so if you like what you see, head over to the Scrap Orchard to buy it.
Be sure to scroll through this entire post because I have an additional freebie for you to pick up today. I have been doing the Project 365 this year and for my most recent two weeks of layouts I created a template to share. The kit I used with my template is the fabulous October Mega, Harvest Spice available at the Scrap Orchard.

And here are my two Project 365 layouts.

Now for what you came for - Click on the preview to download my brag book page.

The Orchard Girls will be having a blog train next weekend with free'bees' so be sure to watch for information this next week about that - it is sure to be a Halloween Treat!

And now you’re off to Erin’s blog! Have fun!

And here is the template I created to share for Project 365. Of course you could use it for any other themed page in your scrapbooking too. Click on the Preview below to download the template. Enjoy!

Clayne and I are on vacation

2009-09-25T14:02:00.002-06:00

Clayne and I are spending a week here celebrating our 20th wedding anniversary. It has been fun so far. My sister Chelsea is staying with the kids while we are here. She is awesome! We have checked in daily and things seem to be going ok at home other than Carson running a fever and missing a little school. The school had a little trouble tracking down who could come get him and care for him and I am thankful for good neighbors who helped out since Chelsea was at work and we were hundreds of miles away. Well.... I am going to head out to this "big" town and have a walk-about. The heart of this town is about 4x6 blocks so it doesn't take long lol. We have already walked it several times - but it is fun anyway. I think we'll pick up a few souvineers for the kids today.

Getting into the swing of things

2009-09-09T14:23:00.004-06:00

Now that school's been in session for a bit over a week, I am slowly feeling a little more on top of things and catching up on some of that stuff that I had been putting off until school started. This post is not going to contain even a fraction of all the stuff I would like it to - I am going to be a realist here lol. I did want to share the photo I took of the kids on their first day back to school. It is incredible to me when I compare it with the photo I took just last year... almost 365 days ago. What I especially want to know is how Cheyenne could turn from girl to young woman in just one year! Now if the maturity would just come as quickly lol. She has been told that she can get her drivers license just as soon as she demonstrates maturity - that should be pretty safe for putting it off for a while lol.

The back to school schedule is well underway with lots of stuff to keep us all busy. I am now the Wolf Den Mother in cub scouts and held my first den meeting yesterday. Of course my two boys have scout meetings to throw into the weekly schedule too. Cheyenne continues to take piano and this year we signed up Carson and Savannah as well. Cheyenne is also going to be taking a dance class. Savannah was disappointed that her TaVaci teacher wasn't holding classes this year but she is excited about learning piano. Carson still enjoys soccer and the practices and games keep the schedule full along with Morgan's football practices/games schedule. From the time they get out of school each day until we tuck them in bed we keep very busy! I have pictures to scrap for all of these busy events... and hope I just can get un-busy enough to do so.

Yesterday Clayne and I "celebrated" our 20th wedding anniversary. I say "celebrated" that way because of course we were too busy to even do anything for it lol. Clayne brought me home some beautiful roses and when we have time I have told him that we have a date to go pick out a new wedding band for him. His is more hexagon than round and not very comfortable. We bought what we could afford when we were starting out and as I recall it was about $30 lol. Now that we have made it 20 years, I guess it is pretty safe to invest in a new band. We will also be going on a week long vacation later this month to California - just the two of us. My sister Chelsea will be coming to stay with the kids for the week. See I had my motive for babysitting my niece Megan once a week this past year lol.

Well.... I think that is a pretty quick catch up post for now. I still want to share about our last vacation we took before school started but that will have to be another day. It is almost 3:00 and so I will be playing taxi soon. Hope all is well with everyone!

Credits: Scrap Orchard September Mega: Rule The School, Template Challenge FREEBIE #29
font- Adler

Credits: September Grab Bag by Jennifer Fox, You've Been Framed by Tracie Stroud, Doodled Paper Alpha by Tracie Stroud
Yes... the same kids just a year ago lol!

Back to School and Busy Bee

2009-08-31T14:32:00.002-06:00

So school started today for my kids and soon they will be coming home and I can't believe how fast the day has gone! I wanted to do a cute post with their back to school pictures I snapped this morning but I haven't even found the time to do that yet. I have lots of plans for how I will be spending my days when they are at school and I just hope that even half of it can really happen lol. Poor Savannah had a fever of 103.3 yesterday and was even still warm this morning but insisted on spending her first day at school and not at home sick - so I gave her a dose of Tylenol and sent her on her way. All day I have waited for the school to call me and tell me to come get her. I just hope she had a good day despite not feeling 100%. I plan on making her take a little nap when she gets off the bus. Anyway.... just another quick post and a little announcement for anyone who is looking to join a forum for digital scrapbooking. Scrap Orchard is a wonderful place to hang out and they are going to have a fun contest starting tomorrow. Click the image to go to the forums.

A Few Great Scrapbook Sales

2009-08-28T13:12:00.002-06:00

Ohhhh how I miss keeping up on my blog. I "think" I'll do much better with blogging when school starts up again. I find myself becoming giddy with the thought of school starting Monday and having some daily quiet time again. So... hopefully those who used to visit my blog will come back when I start posting more regularly. For now I wanted to inform you of a couple of great scrapbooking sales that will be going on at the Scrap Orchard. Click on either image to go to the Market and see all the beautiful products.

2009-07-31T15:58:00.003-06:00

As I was saying in my post earlier today (yep I am making more than one post today LOL) I have been working on improving my photo editing skills. Below is a layout I made using some of Chrissy W's great new stuff go check it out in her store here. If it is of any interest to you... I use PSE6 and here are the steps I took to edit the photo below. I still have lots to learn but I am having fun.

The first thing I did was edit the eyes to sharpen and brighten them - select eyes with lasso & create new layer. Filter>Other>Highpass with a radius of 4 px. Change the blending mode to overlay Merge layers. Copy photo layer and then edit copy to black & white leaving the color photo under it in the layer pallet. Use soft brush eraser on the B&W layer to let eye color show through. Copy B&W photo layer and use a soft brush to paint some pink on the cheeks. Change this layer mode to soft light lower the opacity then merge the layers.

The eye brightening trick I learned at The Daily Digi and you can check out that tutorial in full Here.

I wanted to alert you on some fun times ahead at the Scrap Orchard. I have been asked to oversee the challenges at the Orchard and I look forward to participating in as many of the challenges as I can. Points can be earned for each challenge and you will then receive a coupon code for discount shopping at the Orchard store. I hope you will join us in the fun.
I had told those who attended the Craft Classes that Cheyenne and I put on earlier this month that I would share the link for the way fun colorburst cupcakes that we made on the first day of class. Now let me warn you.... this lady has many other fun and great ideas for food on her site so be prepared for some time lost as you surf around there LOL. My cupcakes weren't quite as picture perfect as this one but they were still lots of fun and YUMMO!
Also in our Craft Class we made a "Box of Fun" and I want to site my source of inspiration as The Daily Digi. Yes.... I love that site and get lots of inspiration there. The list of 100 things to do that we put into our box we made are at THIS LINK and you may find that some of the ideas would make great Activity Days for church callings or whatever. Enjoy!
How was that for a random post? Just had lots of tid-bits that I had saved up and decided to blog them all at one sitting. Have a great weekend.

A Little Photo Shoot

2009-07-31T15:28:00.003-06:00

So I took about a half an hour out of my evening last night and took Savannah out on a mini shoot. I was really happy with some of the pictures I took and wanted to share. Isn't she cute? I didn't bother to comb or fix her hair or to change her outfit but just took her as is to capture her everyday look. Now I just need to take a little time and get the other 3 kids out for a little photo action. It has been a while since I went out with my Nikon to really try to get some good shots instead of just auto mode LOL. I almost forgot how fun it is. I have also been practicing my editing and trying to learn a few tricks.

Project 365 Week 28, 29 & 30

2009-07-29T10:56:00.008-06:00

Another 3 weeks have flown by! I just can not believe how fast the summer has gone. I really did have grand visions about how the summer would be spent and we have only done a few of the things that I thought we would but hey... seems that is how every summer goes. I was reading an article in Woman's Day that asked if you are a Summer Mom or a Back to School Mom. It was really quite humorous. I guess mostly because I could so see myself in the article. If I get a chance I will post some of the article in a later post. So if you had to guess which one I am.... Which would it be?

Also I want to give a big shout out to all who supported Cheyenne's craft classes. They completely filled and we had a waiting list but no one on the waiting list got in because everyone showed up. She is looking forward to some back to school shopping with her earnings.

Jounaling reads: We attended the Pioneer Day Picnic on Thursday. On Friday Savannah came in dripping blood & said she cut herself on a balloon -now how do you do that? It was a latex glove that had been filled with water and then it popped when she was holding it and it snapped the skin off her inner forearm. We are now harvesting a bit from our garden and made yummy taco salads. Meg didn't play with her new ball as much as I thought she'd do. On Tuesday we went to the Chuckars game. On Wednesday I froze peas.
Credits for both week 30 & 29: Thank You For This Day by LCC by Amy Stoffel, template by Brooklyn Designs, Font - 39Smooth

Journaling reads: Yet another week has come & gone. Savannah swam at a neighbor's until her sunscreen was gone. We had our day of babysitting Meg like usual. I started taking the coupon subscription to the paper to get my deals & ice cream was my major deal this time. I got 36 pints for $4. I spent lots of time with Cheyenne preparing for and teaching some craft classes to get her some back to school shopping money. Clayne spent lots of time fixing the sprinkler system.

Journaling reads: 9 Thurs. Went to the library with Savannah. She is a good little reader this summer. 10 Fri. Went to the drive in movie with Savannah & Carson. Saw Ice Age three. 11 Sat. Clayne built me another food storage shelf & then arranged the food for me. 12 Sun. A weird weather pattern wind blew a big poplar tree down in our back yard and that night was a lightning storm. 13. Mon. A fun day with Meg. 14 Tues. A sprinkler head broke at 2 AM and flooded the boys bedroom. 15. Wed. Finding creative ways to use Cheerios that I bought a while back for next to nothing. Since the kids are too picky to just eat them for breakfast.
Credits: Scrap Orchard July Mystery Mega, Freebie 26 Template by Chrissy W., Font - Adler

Cheerio Treats:
Bring 1 C sugar & 1 C light corn syrup to a slow boil stirring frequently. Remove from heat and stir in 1 C peanut butter. Return to heat and boil 1 min stirring constantly. Remove from heat and pour over 6 C cheerios & stir well. Add 1 C mini marshmallows and stir in. Spread in a cake pan and pour 1 C chocolate chips over the top. If the chocolate chips don't melt well enough pop the pan into a preheated 350 degree oven for just a few minutes & then cool completely.

So This Wasn't Our Best Week

2009-07-19T19:39:00.002-06:00

So early Tuesday morning (2 am) our sons came to our room to tell us that water was POURING into their bedroom downstairs. Turns out one or our sprinkler heads broke and flooded into the window well and they were right... it had leaked under the window and was flowing like a river in there.... ok maybe not a river but at least a stream. We quickly removed everything from the floors and threw the boys mattresses out in the living room downstairs so they could try to get more sleep while we moved out the rest of the furniture and cleaned up the room. BUMMER is that it was the last room in the basement that we finished... not even 2 years ago. The carpet is completely ruined as is the pad and we now have had the restoration crew here to cut the sheet rock under the window out so that the wet insulation could be removed and fans were placed in the room for 3 days to dry it out. Needless to say that the week has already been VERY long. We got the boys settled into the spare room (luckily we have one) and now we are waiting to get going on the repair work. This is SO not our best week!! Oh well... guess it could have been worse - it could have happened while we were on vacation last week and then it would have ruined more than one room. Thanks for listening... just had to vent a bit. I don't even want to think how much $$ this will be since the homeowners won't cover it since the water came from outside of the house.

Oh and remember that weird weather we had last weekend? The strong winds and lightening? Well the wind blew over one of our big poplar trees in our back yard. Again... trying to see the bright side - if it had waited to fall in a year or two it may have been big enough to hit the house but right now it wasn't quite that big - probably 5 feet short of it. This week is bound to be better!

Paper Craft Classes

2009-07-13T13:48:00.002-06:00

So I told Cheyenne she would receive the same amount of money for her back to school clothes shopping as the boys get and she started to realize that her taste in clothing would exceed the budget I give her. She asked me to help her find a way to make some extra money. I designed craft projects for three classes and she will then be assembling the supplies and teaching the projects in some craft classes next week. The classes will be for girls ages 6 - 12 and will be held at our house (in the garage) on Tues. July 21, Wed. July 22, and Thurs. July 23 from 1:00 - 2:30. The cost is $5 each class or if you want to take all three the cost will be $12. There will be a limit of 10 students in each class so if you are interested call ASAP. If by chance you do not have our phone number leave me a comment here on the blog. I am posting the projects below so you can get a better idea of what we are offering. Excuse the poor photography... I have a million things to do today. Don't hesitate to call with questions either.
Tues. July 21 Box Of Fun This box will contain 100 slips of paper - each with a fun suggestion of an activity that your child & family can enjoy doing together. This will go a long way in helping when the kids say that familiar, "I'm bored."
Wed. July 22 About Me Book In our class we will complete 12 pages and place them in a cute binder as shown. There will be little areas for your child to fill in some text as well as to insert some photos (they will add text and photos at home). It would be fun to let your child use a digital camera to take their own photos to add to the pages when they get home. If you would rather, they could just draw pictures in the photo spaces. The binder does allow for up to 40 pages so there will be room to add more pages at a later date if you desire.
Thurs. July 23 Note Card Set In this class your child will make a set of 6 note cards as well as a decorative box to place them in. This card set can then be used by your child, or they could give it as a gift to a grandparent or teacher.

Oh You Poor Neglected Blog

2009-07-09T13:49:00.005-06:00

I kept thinking I'd get a chance to blog but a whole month went by and I didn't find the time. Now I suppose I'll just bombard my blog with my 4 weeks of Project 365 layouts. We just returned home on Wednesday from a week at our Bodily Family Reunion in St. Anthony, Idaho. We had a great time with all the cousins. All but one of Clayne's sisters was able to make it. We hope that maybe next year we'll have 100% attendance. His sister Kami had a set of twins this past year and the travel would have been long and difficult. We attended the fireworks in Rexburg for Independence Day and I was greatly disappointed. Idaho Falls just has such a spectacular show that this one was not even close to being what I am used to. Oh well... next year. Now I am just trying to get things back in order after being gone so much. We had only been home for less than a week from our Utah trip - see below.

Credits for project 365 layout week 27: Scrap Orchard July Mystery Mega, A Photo A Day Templates Set 2 by Chrissy W., Fonts - Do I Like Stripes, Adler

The latter end of week 25 and beginning of week 26 were spent on a Utah trip. Clayne needed to work and so I loaded up the kids and took a trip down. I took them to our Condo up Ogden canyon and then from there we made two day trips on Tuesday and Wednesday to Lagoon. We took advantage of the bounce back deal they do to make it a little more economical and I used some coupons from Deseret Book for the first day. It still was pricey enough - I used to go to Lagoon as a girl when I was growing up in North Salt Lake and of course it was lots cheaper then lol. The kids had a great time and we only lost Carson once. I thought I did pretty good keeping track of 4 kids in an amusement park by myself. After we had our Lagoon days we traveled further south and went to Clayne's brother's house near Richfield where we dropped Cheyenne off for the week. They brought her back when they came up for the reunion. It was good for Cheyenne and I to have a break from each other. Since she became a teen - sometimes there is just too much estrogen in our house LOL.

If you like the templates I used on my layouts for the past 3 weeks you can pick them up on sale right now at Elemental Scraps where Chrissy is the Featured designer for the week and has a great sale going on. You will find a link in the credits.

Credits for project 365 layouts weeks 25 and 26: Lucky by Amanda Heimann Designs, A Photo A Day Templates Set 2 by Chrissy W., Fonts - Soopafresh, CookieNookie

For credits on my project 365 week 24 layout see previous post.

Project 365 Week 23 & Grocery Deals

2009-06-10T17:36:00.004-06:00

Have you been out to shop Albertsons deals this week yet? I bought all these groceries this morning (headed over there at 7 am - the early bird gets the selection). For less than $60 I was able to get 10 boxes of Fiber One Bars, 11 boxes of cereal, 6 boxes of Suddenly Salad, 2 bags of Chex snack mix, 12 boxes of Go-Gurts, 6 packages of Trix Yogurt, 3 boxes of yogurt smoothies and 4 boxes of fruit snacks. I was feeling pretty thrifty!

This photo was the final one in this week's series for my project 365. Did you know Friday was National Donut Day? The kids were more than happy for me to need an excuse to buy donuts lol. This week my bracelet arrived that I ordered from Complaint Free World. I just finished reading the book and decided that I really needed to take the challenge. The ultimate goal is to go 21 days without criticizing, complaining or gossiping. After the 21 days it will have become a life pattern. The literature states that it takes 4 - 8 months average to reach 21 days. I have to admit that so far it hasn't been easy but in only a few days I am already so much more aware of what I say.
(Credits: My New Story by Bren Boone, Template by LizDesigns, Font - Adler)

This is a page I made yesterday. I used Chrissy's newest template set. You can go pick up this set by clicking the image below my layout. I think I'll print this layout out small and use it as a card front for Clayne's Father's Day card.
(Credits: I Dream Of Poppies by Bren Boone, Mixin It Up - FIVE Templates by Chrissy W, Worn overlay by Something Blue Studios, Fonts - Adler, LT Chickenhawk)

Project 365 Week 22, Time Out & a Freebie Template

2009-06-07T16:02:00.003-06:00

Friday night and Saturday I spent at Time Out for Women in Pocatello with my Mom. I enjoyed a break from the everyday life and time to hear spiritual music and messages. The theme was "Sweet Assurance" and they encouraged everyone there to pick one thing that they "know for sure" or one Sweet Assurance and take it home to share with those they love. Here is what I know for sure.... that there will always be darkness and bad things going on in the world but that you will find what you are looking for and there is also great beauty in the world and many good things. I know for sure that Heavenly Father sent us here to find JOY and that there will always be things in our life that can bring us joy if we seek after these things. I am determined to remain optimistic even when the world tries to tell me that the economy is bad, that nothing lasts forever, that it is raining outside.... whatever the world tries to tell me - I will stay true to the gospel and seek for the joy. Click HERE to find out more about the Time Out for Women event.

Here is my Week 22 for Project 365. The journaling reads:
May 28 Morgan received his Arrow of Light at pack meeting.
May 29 Savannah and her friend performed in the school talent show with the song from Annie, “I don’t need anything but you.”
May 30 We planted our garden starts and are now hopeful for a bounteous harvest.
May 31 This is my new hair cut that I got on Saturday. So far I really like it.
June 1 Today I spent a few hours weeding my flower bed but I hardly made a dent in all the work that remains to be done there.
June 2 Today was Carson’s 10th birthday!
June 3 The last day of school and all the kids just came home and dumped their back packs on the couch. Lovely addition to the clutter - not!
(Credits: At One With Nature by Bren Boone, A Good Life by Designer Valorie Brown, Template by Anna Jenkins, brads by ANAFLOR DESIGN, Fonts - Soopafresh, Wendy Sue)

And here is a page I made recently. I love Carson's joyful expression. It is made using a fun new kit, The Beach Collection: Surfer Dude and Hula Princess, by Ziggle Designs & Amanda Heimann Designs that you can find by clicking the image below my layout.

Oh and I almost forgot! My first Template Freebie was given away over on the Ziggle Designs CT Blog this last week. Be sure to head over there and pick it up by clicking HERE.

Ready for Summer?

2009-06-03T08:40:00.001-06:00

Holy Cow I can't believe the kids are at their last day of school today. I want this summer to be FABULOUS! I don't want to spend the whole time bugging my kids about their chores or hearing them say they are bored. I want to feel like we have created some fun memories by the end of the summer. So I have been on the look out for fun ideas and here are just a few things that I have come across so far.

I was watching Good Things Utah earlier this week and they had a fun segment that gave ideas for the whole month of June for things to do as a family. Click HERE. One of the many activities was a family cam pout in the back yard. We have done this before but it has been a few years since Clayne and I joined the kids in sleeping out back. We usually save the tent event for when we really have to do it since we both like our own bed too much to give in - but this year we will do the backyard tent event. I will definitely be checking into the Utah Mama site for more ideas.

Another segment they had on Good Things Utah this week (but I didn't watch this one - found it on their site) was about Summer Work Standards I agree that kids need to know what is expected of them during the summer. They focus on three areas - Neatness Standards, Household Skills, and Reading Opportunities.

Clayne and I have already been talking to the kids about some of our expectations over the summer. Here are a few of our "rules." They will not be allowed to leave the house to play with friends or whatever until they have made their beds, cleaned their rooms and finished any of their chores on the job chart. After their chores they will need to read for at least 20 minutes as well before they are free to go. They must inform us of where they are going and what they are going to be doing and before they leave that location to go to another they must again check in to let us know. The family will gather at 9 PM for scriptures and bedtime prayers. So far that is our list and as we see any problems arise - we of course have the right to make more rules lol.

Of course since the kids will be reading anyway - we will be making a trip to the library to sign up for the summer reading program. The kids may as well pick up a few prizes along the way.

I love to visit The Daily Digi site and this week they too had a summer idea post. Click HERE to check it out. This post has a list of "100 Things I Want to Do This Summer." I'm not even going to try to pick my favorite ideas from her list. She had so many good ideas but I do know that I will be borrowing a few of them to add to my list. If I really am able to compile my 100 list in a decent amount of time - I hope to share it here on my blog soon.

Of course one of the things we often take advantage of in the summer is the free movies at Edwards Theater. Click HERE to see the line up for our theater.Some of the movies they have listed are ones that I haven't seen yet and so I am looking forward to going to these Nim's Island and Inkheart.

Here is a list of 99 Days of Great Summer Games Memorial Day to June 30 from FamilyFun.com
Here are some craft ideas from About.com
And HERE is one more site that has ideas for activities, crafts and summer recipes.
Oh and on the off chance that you are planning a trip to a National Park this summer there is news that for 3 weekends this summer the entry fee will be waived at 147 parks. Click HERE for details.

I stumbled upon this cute letter called Dear Summer on the Rocks In My Dryer Blog and thought you may like it too.

Dear Summer,

Welcome back, my old friend. We’ve missed you.

As always, you showed up right on time, with the shrill dinging of the last school bell one afternoon last week. You rode on the shoulders of my delirious sons, as they bounded out to the car. Their faces were flushed with the awareness that you’ll be their companion for the next three glorious months... {read more at Parenting.com}

So do you have fun plans for the summer? Do you have ideas that will help me in my summer planning? Feel free to share a comment or link me up to your blog so I can learn from you.

Some Scrappy News & Project 365 Week 21

2009-06-02T15:17:00.005-06:00

Finally found a few minutes to share my latest Project 365 page. I wanted to share a little more about the photos as well which you can find below as well as credits for the layout.

May 22 we have already had some very nice warm days with temps into the 80's. The kids have enjoyed playing on Slip N Slides and eating many popsicles already.
May 23 we always make a trip to the nursery over Memorial weekend to get our garden starts. We have found that if we wait that things are really picked over. Everyone seems to go out that weekend to get their garden needs. We didn't even end up planting our garden for a week after we picked these up. Well.... actually a few weeks prior we had planted our peas, lettuce and carrots but we always wait to plant our tomatoes for fear of freezing. Turns out we had no reason to wait that week because the weather was super warm and nice. We just hope that now they are planted that we will continue to have warm weather.
May 24 we have our Family Home Evening on Sundays and it always includes a treat. Sometimes I just need something easy. Do you ever make easy cookies? You just use a cake mix, 1/3 cup softened margarine and 2 eggs. Then you can stir in chocolate chips, nuts or other add ins you like. You bake them at 350 degrees for about 10 minutes.
May 25 the holiday was spent painting the Master Bedroom. I had painted it just 2 years ago. I loved the color but had used an eggshell finish and it has been very difficult to take care of. It shows all dirt including hand prints from just wearing lotion. I finally gave in and got a different finish and repainted it the same color. Lesson learned on paint finishes!
May 26 on Monday evening we decided to take a bike ride as a family. Cheyenne was not going to go with us because she said her bike was trashed from Morgan always riding it last summer. I told her that if she'd go that she could ride my bike and I'd ride hers. She then reminded me that the bike I called mine was really hers and that she wanted it now. We won the bike in a raffle when she was too little for it and honestly I can't remember who's name was on the ticket. All I know is that when she gets something in her mind - there is no changing it. I decided rather than to hear her reminders of ownership of the bike for the next 4 years that I'd just go get me a new bike and let her have it. I found this cute retro bike at WalMart for less than $100. The only thing I would have liked better is if it were green lol. It is a pretty simple bike with no gears or hand brakes but it is much more comfortable to ride than the mountain bike and should serve my purposes for the time being. Now to just find a cute basket for it.
May 27 we always spend Wednesday nights at Carson's soccer games. I really enjoy watching him play. He is a very aggressive player and is not afraid to go after the ball. It is common for him to zing all across the field. I really don't know where he gets all the energy. I'd pass out after just running the field one time.

That sums up Project 365 Week 21. I am so glad that I decided to just start taking photos of what I feel represents my day or what is going on in our family. I think it will make it much more interesting and meaningful to me.
Week 21 Credits: A Good Life by Designer Valorie Brown, Template by Anna Jenkins, Fonts - Soopafresh, Wendy Sue
I absolutely adored the photos I took of Megan last week when I was babysitting. This was her first popsicle and she LOVED it. I couldn't get the image to transfer over to my blog to show you the cute kit I used to make my page. It is made using Spring at Last by Chrissy W. and a few of her other products that match. You ought to go check them out while they are on sale. SO CUTE! She also has the template below available for free in her store. I used it on my layout below and just flipped it on it's side. That is one of the things I love about templates... how you can use them so many different ways. Click on the image of the template to head to Chrissy's store and get it.

This template set was in the May Mega at Elemental Scraps. This was just a small portion of the Mega kit and these templates were made by Chrissy. I made a cute little card just for fun the other day. You can click the image below to go see the mega kit.

(Credits: A Romantic Garden by Designer Ana Amorim, Yellow and striped paper by Joyce Paul, Template (May Sampler) by Chrissy W, Font - Monster Paparazzi)

Ok... just one more thing to share.... Scrap Orchard has their new Mystery Mega available now. Until the 7th, it is only $3. A fabulous deal. You can click the image to go check it out. Below is a layout I made using the kit.

Fitting to finish this post with a Layout of my BIRTHDAY BOY. Carson turns 10 today. I better get going and get his birthday dinner cooking and frost his cupcakes. Yep.... that is Carson for you. He told me that instead of a cake he wanted cupcakes. Guess I'll put 10 of them in front of him with a candle in each for his photos lol. Here is the lil guy as a baby.

My New Look

2009-06-01T13:34:00.002-06:00

I have been wearing my hair the same for a few years now and it was time for a change. I got it cut on Saturday and then got lots of compliments in church Sunday.... good thing or I may have gone into hiding lol. I really like the new style myself and think it was just what I needed for a fun and fresh summer look. Just wanted to share. There are lots of things I want to post including my latest Project 365 and some of my recent layouts but I am babysitting today and Megan just woke from her nap. Maybe I'll get back to my blog later tonight?

Sprocket Brag Book Freebie

2009-05-21T16:51:00.005-06:00

Welcome to my stop on the blog train for the Sprocket Brag Book. I know you are anxious to get your freebie but first I want to show you the latest kit Whaddamess by Ziggle Designs. It is a collab with Pineapple Plantation Designs and is on sale today in the market.
And here is a page I made using this versatile and fun kit.
And now for the brag book page. Be sure to visit all the stops to collect the pages for this fun book. You can download mine by clicking HERE. Happy Scrapping! Your next stop is at Jennifer's blog.

Project 365 Week 20 & some other stuff too

2009-05-21T10:41:00.002-06:00

Wow the time just flies doesn't it? I can't believe that school will be out in just 2 weeks. I'm gonna have to get some fun things planned for the kids and I to do. I have been keeping busy this week with several trips to Albertsons. They are having double coupons this week and I have scored on some excellent buys. I have gotten several things for FREE and several things for very cheep. I am ready for Smore making season this summer lol. They have a deal where if you buy a 6pack package of Hershey chocolate bars (yep full size bars!) a pack of Nabisco graham crackers and a package of Kraft marshmallows you get an instant rebate of $3 off at the register which makes them just $4 for all 3 products... but if you go to the Kraft Foods website and register you can print a coupon for $1 off the graham crackers and then you can pair it with a doubler coupon and get all three products for just $2. If you happen to get the Sunday paper coupon insert there was a $1 off coupon for these 3 items as well so you could just use that if you don't want to print the coupon on the website. Hope that makes sense. For me I know it made perfect cents lol! I don't know how it worked out... but maybe the prices are cheaper at our Albies cuz my total was actually a little less than $2 for these items. Ok... enough babling but I just can't stand it when I find a great deal lol! Here is my Project 365 page for the week. I do think I like it better to take the pressure off myself and just post weekly for this project. I plan to print all my project pages in a book at the end of the year and so I am making the two pages that are side by side to match. Credits for this page are just the same as the ones for week 19 in my previous post.Here are a few of the products that I have had the chance to work with on my Creative Teams this past week too. Both layouts feature my cute niece, Megan. I think I better scrap a few pages of my own kids lol. Lately I scrap her more than I do my own kids. Babies are just too fun to scrap! I don't have to list credits since all I used were the kits. The kit images are clickable to go to Scrap Orchard and purchase them if you are interested.

Project 365 Weeks 17 - 19

2009-05-15T14:53:00.002-06:00

So a friend of mine pointed out to me yesterday that on my last blog post I was abandoning my family to go to Women's Conference but that in blog world it looks like I never came home lol. Well rest assured, I did come back to my family and I have been busy playing catch up ever since. Much of my scrapping and certainly my blogging has been on hold. I did find some time to scrap a few of my Project 365 pages though and it was so fun. I am thinking that I may just save up my week of photos and then make myself scrap them to share a post of my Project. It is just too hard to get my pics posted here every day lol. If you have noticed I rarely do get them posted daily. At the end of my post you will find a list of credits for the layouts - if that kind of stuff interests you. But hey... I have to tell ya that if you go to the end of my post you will find an image of just one of the many great kits that are available for scrapbooking Project 365 if you are doing the project too. Many of the kits would be great for scrapbooking everyday stuff too and best of all they are FREE! I am not sure how long the links will be available to download the kits so be sure to head over to Digiscrap Addicts soon and check it out. Oh and by the way... yes Women's Conference was wonderful! If you have never been or if you want to learn more about it there is information Here.

Credits for my layouts:
Project 365 Week 17 & 18 Daydreamin by Megan Turnidge, In Stitches by Angie Kovacs Digital Designs, Word Art (altered) by Stephanie2, Template (altered) by Miss Cutiepie, Staple by Flergs, Font - Wendy Sue
Project 365 Week 19 Love All Year Long by Jady Day Studio, word art Day by Day by Tracie Stroud Designs, Template by Michelle Filo, Font - Pea PaulaSo this cute kit is just one of many you can download for Free. Here is the link to the Project 365 kits. These are all submissions in the contest So You Think You Can Design that is currently going on. You will need to register at Digiscrap Addicts in order to download but it is easy! Ok... I'll try to do better with my blogging. If I have time I'll even be back to post another entry today. Happy scrapping all!

Scrappy News

2009-04-29T08:27:00.003-06:00

Just a quick note. I am getting ready to abandon my family for a few days and head to Woman's Conference in Provo. Clayne will do just fine taking care of everything for me at home.... I am SURE. I have so much to do before I leave but wanted to let you know that Scrap Orchard has a FABULOUS sale going on. I love all of Bren Boone's stuff and she has some great kits in the sale for just $1. There are TONS of great items so click HERE and get your shopping cart loaded up. And just in case I don't have a chance to get back to my blog before Saturday.... On Saturday it is National Scrapbook Day. There will be lots of great sales and events going on in digital scrapbook land so I hope to be able to join in on some of it when I get home Saturday. Hope you all have a great week.

Project 365 Day 115-118

2009-04-28T21:10:00.003-06:00

The photo prompts are unfolding to be portions of a self portrait this week but I have decided to take it a different direction and show what products are "must haves" for my teeth, eyes, hair and ears. Those were the photo prompts for the past 4 days.Day 115 "teeth"
Day 116 "eyes"
Day 117 "hair"
Day 118 "ears"

Project 365 Day 110-114

2009-04-24T21:43:00.003-06:00

Yep.... Gonna catch up quick again. I am determined to stick with this Project!
Day 110 the prompt was alarm clock. Here is the time that it goes off 5 days out of 7 so I can go to the gym.
Day 111 Remote (used it today to watch Am. Idol)
Day 112 the prompt was Newspaper (Perfect day to shoot this since it is the day I wait for... Wednesday grocery ads)
Day 113 the prompt was Feet - I am determined to find flip flops that my stupid arches will like. Maybe these will be them! The color is right lol.
Day 114 the prompt is hands. I bought 10 dozen eggs today - they were a steal at 50 cents a doz. I think the stores had too many left from Easter. I put a dozen in a freezer bag and put the 10 bags into the freezer for future use as scrambled eggs or omelets.

Project 365 Day 107-109

2009-04-19T15:56:00.003-06:00

Here I am again playing catch up on my Project 365. Taking the photos isn't usually the problem... it is getting them uploaded on my computer and posted on my blog. The photo prompt for day 107 was "rolling pin." I wasn't in the mood to be domestic and make a pie or cookies so I had Savannah do some play doh. She was happy to oblige me in my photo needs.
The prompt for day 108 was "photo album" and guess what. I don't even have any photo albums in my house lol. I always kept my photos in photo boxes like this one until I got them scrapbooked and then they were in the scrapbooks. Now that my passion is digital scrapbooking, I rarely delve into these boxes. I did get a great new negative scanner and am excited to turn all my old negatives into digital images so I can digital scrapbook them all too.The photo prompt for today was "take away." The first thing to mind was Morgan's math book that was sitting out. We have spent quite a bit of time this weekend tutoring him and having him redo some of his past assignments that he did poorly on. He is a very smart kid and math is one of his best subjects. He just got lazy on us and we let up. Guess we'll be buckling down on him again. What a stinker!

Some Scrappy News & Project 365 Day 105-106

2009-04-16T09:32:00.004-06:00

Ziggle Designs has teamed up with Amanda Heimann to create a delicious kit that is sure to inspire you. Click the image to to to the Market to buy this fun kit. Or if you would like a chance to win this kit be sure to visit the Creative Team Blog.
And here are a few pages I made using this fun kit. Images are clickable to go to my Gallery for full credits. This first one I took the photos at the School's fun Family Night that was held this week and the other was from our last summer's vacation. I really wanted to take a trip to our local ice cream shoppe but decided that with all the calories I have been consuming on Easter candy.... especially those Mini Eggs - I had better not be going out for ice cream sundaes.

Yesterday, Day 105 was "Sugar Rush" I have to tell you.... as I said before... I need to cut back on all the sweets I am eating lately. So far today I haven't eaten any. I hope I can be "good" all day.
Today the photo prompt was "circuit board." Kind of strange. Don't know how to be very creative for this photo. This is the circuitry from 3 computers ago. It completely crashed and the tech was not able to retrieve anything from the memory. I kept the old thing around thinking maybe someday I'd have another tech try it out but I have yet to do so and I have gotten by just fine with out the "stuff" that was stored on this old computer so maybe I'll never give it a go. For years while in college I worked for a company building circuit boards. I think that putting all those pieces together day after day was partially to blame for the carpal tunnel surgery that I had to have done a few years ago. Anyway... that is just a random tidbit. I couldn't help but think of those "good ol days" when I took this photo.

Project 365 Day 101-104

2009-04-14T10:24:00.003-06:00

Day 101 the prompt was Chicken. What is Easter without Peeps? Personally I have never really liked them and I am not sure which of my kids actually ate them and who threw them away. I had put them in sets of two in the kids baskets and Savannah pulled out her little baggie of the two and asked what kind of candy are these two little slippers. I thought it was pretty funny and when you have just two and look at them upside down they kind of do look like slippers.Day 102 was Religion. This is two pages of a little Easter booklet my friend Trina made for us about Christ's Last Week. We read a little each night for the entire week before Easter. It was a great little review of why we really have Easter. You can find the information HERE to make a book for yourself for next year.
Day 103 was Family and here they are watching our new DVD Bedtime Stories.
Today the prompt is Chocolate. Here is my favorite candy.... got this cute jar full from my neighbor, Teresa for my birthday as well as a refill bag (and an Easter Lilly) from another friend Kathy.

Project 365 Day 96-100 plus a little

2009-04-11T07:12:00.003-06:00

I can not believe how fast the week went by! I hardly even did any scrapbooking this week either! I did do a quick photo book for my sister at Heritage Makers but other than that.... not much scrapping. I will have to find some time soon because I have some fun Creative Team kits to work with and I am having withdrawls lol. I don't even really know what I did that made my week disappear so fast. I was busy but I can't really show what I did. We have a busy weekend ahead and you probably all do too. I hope you all have a wonderful Easter. Here are my Project 365 Photos for the week.
Day 96 the prompt was "fun" and since I spent the day babysitting and doing laundry the most "fun" moment I could come up with was that the weather was gorgeous and we got out for a little walk.
Day 97 the prompt was "fold" so here is my coupon folder. Most of my Sunday coupon inserts I don't actually cut out but rather I store them in page sleeves with by date and then match them up with online listings of grocery store deals. There are some odds and ends though that I end up storing in this old stand by and of course when I do sort out what I want I like to put them in here for my store trips.
Day 98 was "fast" I am always looking for ideas to streamline my domestic duties. I love great meals that come together fast and I also love when I can get the house clean more quickly. I have LOVED the book House Works.
Day 99 the prompt was "Bunny." I almost didn't get these chocolate bunnies for the baskets this year but then I thought what the heck! I think they are almost a "must have" for Easter. So I found myself adding 4 of these to my cart.
Day 100 was "egg." I debated about a photo of cadburry mini eggs which are my favorite but decided on the Reese's eggs instead. These are another traditional "must have" basket stuffer. All my kids love them but I would have to say that Cheyenne loves them the most.

On Wednesday I joined the scouts for a canal cleaning project. I was reluctant to commit but then I figured I really ought to go help even if it didn't sound "fun." The boys expression in the photo doesn't show "fun" either but it actually wasn't all drudgery. the boys had a good time as they discovered junk to pick up and I enjoyed visiting with the other adults as I helped too.
So I have still been on the look out for great deals at the grocery store. I felt pretty good about this grocery store trip to Albertsons I made on Thursday this week. I spent $37.58 on all these things pictured and when my receipt printed out I got 3 free milk coupons as well as two 10% off $50 orders coupons for future purchases. Not bad for:
12 boxes of cereal
2 fabric softener
2 mayo
2 salad dressing
1 peanut butter
6 pasta sides
1 ham (8lb)
1 roast (3.5lb)
Real quick I want to give a little plug for this great chance to get a whole lot of scrapbooking goods for very little money at Scrap Orchard. Check it out by clicking here.