P365 Week 7 & some Valentine Photos

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

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

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

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.

Valentine Ideas

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!

Happy Valentine's Day!

I hope you are all having a fun Valentine weekend. I found this picture that Savannah drew on the back of one of her school papers and I just had to share it. Of course I had to ask her what was by Cupid's bottom even though I was worried about what the answer might be. She told me it was just a sparkle. I guess Cupid just has a shiny hiney. (credits: frame by MCato)
Here are the Valentine cards I made for my kids to pass out to their friends today. Cheyenne's is made using Smooches which you can find here. Morgan's is made using King of Hearts which you can find here. Carson's is made using Love Struck which you can find here and Savannah's is made using Kiss My __ which you can find here.




I made a few hybrid items with free downloads I found on the net. The candy bags are for the ladies I visit teach and the water bottles are for the kid's school teachers. The bag toppers link can be found here and the water bottle wraps can be found here.

Valentine Projects

So here I am the head room mom again this year. I felt like since they were all in school all day I should be committed to helping out more at school. The Valentine party is this Friday and here are two of the projects and a game that we will be doing. There will be a couple other games too that other Mom's are in charge of.

Craft: The craft is made by painting the pinky side of the hand in a c shape and stamped down on a piece of poster board repeated by the opposite hand to form a heart. Tongue depressors are used for the frame and then it is jazzed up a bit by some stickers and foam hearts I picked up at WalMart. Then use a permanent marker to write their name on the frame. I went to the school today and got all the paint stamping done so that the craft won't take long on Friday.
Treat: They always seem to get plenty of goodies and aren't hungry enough to eat the cupcake or cookie so I am having them make these so that they can take them home if they want. It is made on a bambo skewer for BBQ. Easy Peasy!
Game: Candy Conversation Story: Fill a bowl with Valentine candy conversation hearts. Have party guests sit in a circle. Choose one person to start the game by taking a candy heart from the bowl. That person starts a story of his own creation and must include the words from the candy heart in the story. He then passes the bowl t the next person who chooses a candy heart and continues the story. This continues around the circle with each person adding to the story and using the words from the candy hearts. This game often creates a lot of laughter from the crazy story lines!

Happy Valentine's Day and some chatter

I wish there was a convenient way to let you know about good deals on groceries at Winco because that is where I do a majority of my shopping. When I do see a good deal there, I never know how long it will be on sale for. Anyway... with that said, they have a great deal on Cheerios right now. 97 cents for a big 14 oz box - limit of 2. They also have some of their canned veggies on for I think 25 cents a can but again it is a limit of 2. I'm sure there are more deals than I can mention or remember lol.

Here is the last update on our water damage. We finally have all the fans out of here. The walls are dry, the carpet pad has been replaced and our carpet has been relaid. There will be a little cosmetic painting that I'll need to do this spring but I count myself blessed that we were able to get away from this problem with this little of repair work. Don't know what the cost will be for All American renting the fans and putting the carpet down again, but I am just glad that the fans aren't going anymore - they were noisey and even more happy that we have things back in place again.

I want to share with you something I downloaded off the internet yesterday called UnZipThemAll It is going to save me so much time with unzipping my digi scrap downloads. It is a stand alone program that works on its own and is free. I love that if I have all of my zips in the same folder, both .zip and .rar, that I can direct the program to that folder and it will highlight all of the files for me. All I have to do is click to start and it will unzip all of the multiple zip files at once. Afterwards, the folder will have two files for each (the original zip and the unzipped). It's just a few clicks and I'm on my way to sorting my files. I hope you will all find this to be as helpful as I am finding it. I couldn't resist letting you know about something that has simplified my life. I love anything that makes my life easier lol.

Since it is Valentine's Day I thought I'd share something on that subject from Woman's Day magazine (Meredith L. Ritchie). They had a little tidbit about how to write a love letter. They suggest that each letter should be unique and tailored to the recipient. Here are some suggestions

• Make sure the letter is about what you have to say, not what Hallmark has to say.
• Start with a list of adjectives that describe everything you love about your man, then use the list to craft the letter. Or just pretend that you are writing a thank-you note and thank him for all he does.
• Point out the length of your relationship and how your feelings have grown over time.
• You can compliment the usual subjects like hair, eyes and lips, but praise them in a new way. A nice line is, "Your smile is my favorite distraction."
• Make use of those silly disagreements or everyday annoyances: "I love you in spite of your snoring."

Here is your big chance to write your own Valentine for your husband. There is still time to get it done. I need to take a bit of my afternoon and do this too. I gave him his gift early. I couldn't wait to show him the Heritage Makers book I made. It is titled, "The Story of Us" and starts from when we were engaged and marks the milestones in our lives from then until now. It is a fun book to see how we have changed in the last almost 19 years. I'll try to get some pages up on my blog in the next week to let you have a peak. Clayne brought me a beautiful arrangement of flowers yesterday and today we will be meeting at the temple to do sealings. I think that is a great way to spend time together on Valentine's day and I am thankful for the opportunity.

Tonight I will take a break from cooking and pick up some of those fun heart shaped pizzas at Papa Murphy's for dinner. Hope you are all having a great Valentine's day.

XOXOX

I learned something new at Kindergarten this week lol. Just goes to show that you can learn something new everyday and sometimes in the least likely of places. When I showed up to help in Centers in Savannah's class yesterday, the kids were gathered on the rug for story time and Mrs. Merkley was telling them a story. One of the things she told them in the story was what the X and O stood for when someone signs a letter with XOXOX. She said that the X was for kisses and the O was for hugs. I asked her if this were really so because all of my life I have thought it was the other way around. She said that it was the way that she had always known it and the other mom that was helping also had always known it the way the book stated. Goodness!!! I think it is funny when I am wrong on something like this. Anyway... just for fun I did a search on the net and found the following trivia on the subject:

Q: How did X's and O's become hugs and kisses when writing notes? What stands for what?

A: Because X is... supposedly like the shape your mouth makes puckered up and kissing, and O is the shape of your arms around someone.

A: This tradition started with the Medieval practice of allowing those who could not write to sign documents with an "X". This was done before witnesses, and the signer placed a kiss upon the "X" to show sincerity. This is how the kiss came to be synonymous with the letter "X", and how the "X" came to be commonly used at the end of letters as kiss symbols.

A: The X represent two people kissing. Each side represents a person, like > and < Put them together and you get the symbol for kiss, X.

Now be honest with me please lol. Where any of you wrong on what the X and O stand for or am I the only one? Guess that's what happens when you get your education in Malad lol.

Valentine's Project

Hey thanks for checking in. Here is the project I promised to share. I thought it would be fun to make my kids their own valentine cards to pass out to their classmates this year. It was so easy and I love how they turned out. I am going to print them as wallet size. Thanks for looking! I realized that I forgot the apostrophe on Cheyenne's and will have to go back and change it before printing. Morgan has also requested that I use a different picture of him on his so I may need to do a little editing there too.