P365 Week 11 and 12

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

St. Pat's Fun & P365 Week 10

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

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


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

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

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


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

Scrapbook Layout Share

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

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

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


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

P365 Week 9

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

More Grocery Shopping!

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

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!

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

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?

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

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.