Happy Friday everyone!

Just a quick note this morning. The girls have another school delay and my sweet in-laws are here to help clean. I know all of you are sitting on the edge of your seat worried about my progress and have been waiting on news of my craft room. I am happy to say, it is finished! woohooooooo! I looks so bare though and spacious. I did make sure to keep a lot of stuff so hopefully I can still create while the house is on the market.

In honor of Valentine's Day coming up, I have another love layout for you. I created this one for Cindy Smith's Valentine's book that came out last year. It is a little different than my usual style but I really love this one. Please excuse the red glare off the transparency. It is not there IRL.






Have an amazing weekend!

What a Mess!

Good Morning all!

So were you expecting pictures this morning of my nicely cleaned and organized scraproom? Um...no, won't be showing you those. LOL I have got such a mess in here. It looks far worse than it did yesterday. I have to admit that I am kind of like that though. I have a tendency to make a mess as I organize. My closet looks fabulous, which is a feat in itself. The rest of the room, not so pretty. But I will get there! We have to have the POD (storage unit) completely tonight because they come to pick it up first thing tomorrow morning.

So, now that I have already procrastinated WAY too long, I will leave you with a little love. These are not brand new, as I couldn't even see my table if I had the time. LOL This first layout was published in Cindy Smith's Valentine's book for Pinecone Press.

This second layout was in Memory Makers Idea Gallery last year.

Wishing you a warm, happy day. Thanks for stopping by!

It's snowing, it's snowing!

Morning all!

I got some well needed rest last night because...school was cancelled! I am happy for the snow and happy to have my sweet girls home BUT I am worried about how I am going to get all this packing up done with them here.

Today on the decluttering agenda, my craft room. Did you see the picture in Monday's post? Yes it still looks like that. I usually clean up after I finish a project but I have been so busy packing. The thought of decluttering this room is paralyzing. I have SO much stuff. I want to make sure I have enough left to still complete assignments and submissions but I want to make the room look bigger too.


I did take a break from the cleaning yesterday to do a card. I had a lot of fun with this one. Hope you like it.





Have a great day!

Toys, what toys?

Happy Tuesday Everyone!


Thank you to everyone who gave their input on the knobs in the kitchen. I plan to replace the gold ones. I really do love the dark ones but it will cost about $100 so I just wanted to make sure I wasn't the only one who thought they looked good.

Today the play room is on the agenda. Our basement is about 75% finished and has kind of become the place to keep most of the girls' toys, especially the big stuff. My oldest has a "school room" down there that we will probably keep pretty much in tack. I did talk to the girls about what they think should be packed up and I was pleasantly surprised at what they suggested.

I have a layout to show to you today. I created this one a few months ago but haven't had a chance to post it. I thought it might cheer brighten up a cold winter's day for you. This is definitely one of my favorites. I love that picture of my DD. The smile is so natural and her dimples take center stage. I added dimples to the chipboard letters by using my Crop-a-Dile Eyelet setter. You can click on the picture to see it in better detail.



Hope your day is spectacular!

Plugging right along

Good morning all!

I am beat! I will admit, cleaning is NOT my favorite thing to do! But we are getting things done. We took the girls down to look around the new city on Saturday. I really think they had a good time. We checked out where K would be swimming for the swim club down there. Found a great gym for L and went in to watch a little bit of practice. We drove them by the two schools I like and even found a great park for them to play in. Both girls have now said to me that they wish we could just move now. I couldn't agree more! Just get it over with!

Sunday morning was hard. Our church will definitely be the place I cry when we leave. We have so many good friends there. Some of them had heard rumors already because I had to make an announcement at our Children's Ministry meeting since I won't be heading up VBS this year. It was nice to get so much support and love from everyone.

As for the rest of the weekend we decluttered both the girls' rooms and then cleaned up so we could have friends over for Bible study last night. Since I don't have any projects to show you today, I thought I would share some of our progress instead.

This is L's room. There was no getting rid of ginormous Barbie house. :) We did clean it up a little and limited the number of Barbies to 4. Yes, there are WAY more than that. They are camping out in her very clean closet.




And I am proud to say that this is the Clutter Queen's room. She did an amazing job letting go of a lot of her stuff. I was worried about her. She is so sentimental and hates to part with anything but we did not have to "force" either of them to pack away anything. We did want to keep most of their favorite things because we don't know how long we will be here.



Here is our newly painted foyer. Pretty isn't it? I am so happy with how it turned out. Love this color. Without the glare, it is a gorgeous tan with the pop of white trim.





And then there is my craft room! Oh...my head hurts already! :)




Ok, so now I need your help. I don't watch a whole lot of television but when I do, I usually have HGTV on. I love watching shows like Design to Sell. One of the great things I have heard is to change out the knobs on your kitchen cabinets. So I found these great knobs at Lowes today. They match the gorgeous light fixtures that were in our kitchen when we moved.

These are the knobs that have been on the doors for 5 years.




These are the new ones.




Here is a picture of them from a distance. What do you think? I mean I REALLY want your opinion. Good or Bad. REALLY. Be honest with me.




OK, I am off to tackle my laundry room, linen closet and laundry room. Wish me luck!


Thanks for stopping by. Have a fabulous day!

Paint time

Morning all!

Just a quick post today. The painter will be here at any minute. The plan for today is to declutter the kitchen. I plan on packing up a bunch of stuff today and tomorrow we get to go look at houses (nothing official yet).

It is sketch day at Emma's today. You really need to stop by and check out the adorable sketch by the fabulous Melissa Phillips. :) Here is my take on the sketch.

You can check out all the other fabulous projects and get a supply list on the Emma's Paperie blog. :)

Have a great day!

It's Official!!!

I can finally share! We found out a few days ago that DH is going to be getting a promotion and we will be moving. It is a very bitter sweet time. There are so many dear friends here that I hate to say good-bye to. But at the same time, it is a very good time for us. The good news is that we are not changing states or really moving that far away. We will be about 2 hours south of here. That is still close enough to come visit often. :) Now here is the important part...if you happen to know my girls, please DO NOT say anything to them yet. We have not had a chance to tell them yet. Yesterday DH got home after K started swimming, tonight I had to leave for a meeting at church as soon as DH walked in the door and tomorrow there is gymnastics and swimming. So mum is the word for a few days. :)

It has definitely changed the way I look at my house. I am all of a sudden noticing how dirty doors are, how badly trim needs to be painted, etc. So if I miss a day or two here or there please don't give up on me. Just say a prayer for us that we can do this all stress free. :)

So how about I share another card that I made at Kimber's house the other night. I have just loved these little hearts since I found them last Valentine's Day. I have used them here and there but this was the perfect project for them.

Have a great Wednesday!

You're Absolutely Fabulous

Morning everyone!

That was the sentiment on one of the cards I made this last week. I just love that. I could give this card to so many wonderful women I know. I was happy to get a chance to go over to my sweet friend, Kimber's to do a little scrapping. It has been way too long since we have had a chance to get together and scrap. I got several cards done while I was there and wanted to share one with you today.

My first official Sizzix card. :) I don't actually have my machine yet (that poor mail carrier is probably getting very worried about my stalking tendacies lately) LOL But Kimber had a Big Shot that I borrowed. The cute little bird, the flourish and the brown flower are all Sizzix.



The pattern paper and cool paper mache frame are from Making Memories. The great sentiment stamp is from Stamping Up. The rhineston buckle is Daisy D's I think (gotta check that one) and the flower is Offray.

As always, I appreciate all of you stopping by. Have an amazing week.

Swim star and a soccer layout

Morning! I would like to start out by saying thank you to all of you. I really do appreciate all of your sweet comments and just the fact that you stop by to check out my blog.

This weekend was a swim weekend. As some of you may know, my oldest is a swimmer. She has been on the swim team for almost a year now and I finally been able to get some pictures of her swimming. Every meet I end up on the floor timing and I don't get an opportunity to take any pictures. Don't get me wrong, I don't mind timing but it was nice to be able to sit back and watch her swim for once. I wanted to share a few pictures with you.

This first picture is really not really swimming. K was standing and talking to a friend when she saw me with the camera. She has such a great time and it shows on her face. :)

I wish the pictures of her freestyle were not so blurry. I didn't mess with my camera settings as much as I should have before she started swimming.

The swim club where K swims does such a great job working with them on their form. I just love these pictures of her starts.

Breast stroke is not her favorite stroke but she really did great this weekend. She swam the 5o 14 seconds faster than her best time and came in first for her heat. :) Sadly she accidently did about half a freestyle stroke right after coming off the block and got DQd. She is still quite excited about her amazing time.

Backstroke, her favorite stroke. She took almost 2 seconds off her time here too. :)

I just love this picture. I absolutely adore the coaches at K's swim club. This is her favorite coach. She is just the sweetest. I love how they take time to talk to the kids after each event they swim.

OK, so now that you have seen WAY too many swimming pictures how about a layout. My final layout I got done from my scrappy weekend. I really love the way this layout turned out. Sadly, it did not photograph real well. The pictures are not nearly that harsh. K cracks me up. I don't know many little girls that enjoy being goalie. Personally, I don't want people kicking a ball at my head. LOL But it is her favorite position and she is getting quite good at it.

Some more yummy Magistical Memories nested stars on here. I am seriously addicted! Pattern papers are Basic Grey and that label if from an awesome digital kit I got from 2 Peas called Swank Labels by Jennifer Pebbles.

Have a fabulous week!!!

A Day Off

Good Chilly Morning everyone!

Just a quick post this morning. The school district decided last night that they were going to cancel school today. Seems that the school busses had a few problems yesterday with the cold and today is even colder.

I wanted to share another one of the layouts I did at my scrapbook weekend. I haven't done a two page layout in some time so I really enjoyed this one.

I used a white paint pen to create the white polka dots on the large circles. I absolutely love my Sharpie paint pen. I tried looking for some at Hobby Lobby yesterday (the one place in town I have always been able to find them) and they did not have any! I may have to resort to buying them on line. They are that good. Anyway, it is a little hard to tell, but the title and photos are pop dotted for a dimension.

Thank you for stopping by and stay warm. :)

Cold is not ALL bad

OK first, I need to admit that I am cheating a bit. I am actually sitting here on Wednesday night typing up tomorrow's post. The reason? We got a call that school will be delayed two hours tomorrow!!! They are predicting 14 below with the wind chill. Man, that is cold! So I plan on sleeping in a bit and then hangin' out with my girls before they go to school. :)

I wanted to answer two questions Stacey has asked recently.

Have I read any good books? I just finished up a book called 90 Minutes in Heaven that Santa put in my stocking. :) It was pretty good. I went through it pretty fast and I really enjoyed the author's honesty and loved reading about his description about heaven.

Would you post some pictures of your scraproom? I posted several pictures on December 19th of my room if you want to go back and find them. I didn't post pictures of my closet because honestly, it is not all that pretty. LOL I have a bunch Rubber Made type drawers in there where I keep my DT supplies. Some of them are huge and others are smaller for embellishments and such.

Wahooo, it is project day over at the Emma's Paperie blog again and I am telling you that you need to get over there! WOW the projects are jaw dropping this week. Simply gorgeous! I decided to make several mini cards for my sweethearts. I plan on tucking these in their backpacks and on my DH's desk on Valentine's day. Of course I can't simply make something like this without making a cute little box to go along with them. :)

I am not sure what happened to the sentiment on that front card. Somehow I got it washed out in the photograph. Sorry about that. It is a real pretty pink IRL I promise.

Thank you for stopping by! Have an amazing Thursday!

How much is too much?

Happy Wednesday everyone! Hope you are staying warm!

I heard yesterday that ticket to the Inauguration were being scalped for $1000 or more. At first I was thinking that was way too much money but then I started thinking about it. How much would you pay to be part of history? I won't be hopping on a plane and paying a scalper $1000, that's not counting how much rooms are going for. But it definitely would be cool to be standing there as Obama is being sworn in. So if you had a chance to go, how much would you be willing to pay?

As promised, I have another layout to share. These pictures make me smile. I guess to me, finding their dolls in the sink just represents childhood to me. I am so thinkful for their wonderful imaginations.



It is a little hard to tell from the picture but I added glitter letters in the title and a matching glitter frame around the journaling. You can click on the photo to see it better.

Thank you so much for stopping by and have great day!

I'm so excited

Hope everyone is having a great day. Sorry I am a little late on posting today, I wanted to wait until I had some good light to take pictures of my layouts. Sadly, it is not a pleasant day here in the midwest. Snow flurries and wind chills below zero will probably keep me indoors today. The sun did peek out for a bit so I was able to get some pictures.

But first I wanted to share some exciting news. If you read my blog once in a while you may remeber that I mentioned a couple of weeks ago about being asked to be a featured designer for the February issue of Crafts 'N Things magazine. Well, I got an e-mail from the editor this last week telling me that she got a call from Sizzix Die Cuts. They saw my work in the magazine and would like me to do design work for them using their product! How cool is that??? I can't wait to start playing with all of their awesome product!

So now for one of those layouts I worked on this weekend. I absolutely love these photos, especially the one of my mom on the top in the middle. :) It makes me smile everytime I look at it. My girls got karaoke machine last year for Christmas and we have had so much time with it.

I used a few of the awesome nested chipboard stars from Magistical Memories on here. I really need to get more of those. The inspiration for the layout came from that cool guitar, also from Magistical Memories. I covered them in red acrylic paint and then covered them with glitter. I experimented with using Mod Podge to hold the glitter on since I was cropping with friends. I think I still like spray adhesive a little better though.

Thank you so very much for stopping by my blog. I appreciate all of you more than you know! Have a wonderful Tuesday!

Tired but Happy :)

What a wonderful weekend I had! It is always so nice to get away and spend some time scrapping with friends. I got 4 layouts and a card done! Wahoo, not bad for me. (I have a tendency to talk a bit when I scrap with friends) :) Anyway, I will post them in the next few days. I still have to get the pictures printed. I usually print my photos on fast print onto computer paper when I go to things like this. That way I can chop them up without worrying about them. I figure out exactly the size of photos I want on each layout and then have that size printed.

I can share a project I did for Emma's Paperie though. Our color challenge this month was turquoise. No challenge there! I absolutely love this color. I have had this calendar sitting in my office for some time just waiting to be altered. I am so excited that I got a chance to do it for this project. (I even used it this weekend to schedule our next scrappy weekend) :) You can find all the other gorgeous projects and a supply list on the Emma's blog.

As always, thank you for stopping by! I hope you have a fabulous week.

Me time

Do you take time away for yourself? It has taken me a long time to figure this out but I am such a better mom and wife when I get a little time to myself. I am so much better at taking time for myself than I was when the girls were younger. The reason I bring this up is because I am in full preparation mode for a little weekend away with some friends. Three friends and I have found a local hotel that is pretty close to a scrapbook store. We simply rent a room for Friday and Saturday night, as well as, the conference room. We spread our scrapbook goodies out in the conference room and spend the weekend scrapping. It has worked out so nice for us. The hotel is about 20 minutes away so I can run home to go to a soccer game or if I need to have my sweet DH to bring me something I forgot. But there are no dishes to do, no sweet faces to chase after, I get to stay up late and sleep in. It is absolutely wonderful. So how about you? Do you take time for you?

So I have a quick project to share with you. I created this card using a Pumpkin Vine Frame from Magistical Memories. You can find it here.

I simply painted the frame orange and added some red ink to distress the edges. I then painted the leaves green and added some green stickles for a little extra bling. The frame comes with a second piece of chipboard to place over the pumpkin. I painted that orange as well and added some glitter. I then printed the quote on a piece of pattern paper and placed it under the frame.

Thanks for stopping by!

Becoming

With every stage that the girls go through I am always thinking to myself, "Oh, I love this age!" Don't get me wrong, I do look back at those old pictures and think, "I miss that" but I would never go back. Part of what I love so much is seeing who they are becoming. When they were little you could see hints of their personality but at 7 and 9 they are developing their sense of self and I love it. My youngest is such a girly girl. She loves everything frilly and fancy. She is passionate and affectionate. I love her spunk and energy. My oldest is a little bit more like me. Casual, happy in jeans and a t-shirt, but still likes to dress up once in a while. She loves everything having to do with science and sports. Some of the cute little quirks about their personality have been around for some time. Several months ago I made this layout about my oldest. Her love of rhinos has always made me laugh. I knew I had to do a layout about it. She still loves them even to this day. :)

I hope you have a fabulous day!

MMMMMM

As in yummy and Magistical Memories. :)

Sorry I am a little late this morning. I woke up this morning feeling a little bit yucky. Nothing real serious but I am definitely fighting something off. I slept over 12 hours on Saturday! I thought I had this thing beat. Obviously, I am not quite perfect yet but after taking a little nap this morning I am feeling more productive. I would really love to get some scrapping done but I am still trying to catch up from having so many guests for the holidays. The laundry threatened to take over my bathroom. Don't worry, I beat it back with a stick and I think we can pile another two tons in there. LOL Actually after dedicating the day yesterday to housework I can actually see the bottom of one of the laundry baskets. Yayyyyyyy!!!


Anyway, I wanted to tell you about a really cool challenge over at Magistical Memories. I was looking back over one of my old scrapbooks with L last night and noticed how often I used to use quotes and poems, even found one that I wrote myself! (gasp!) LOL I started thinking about it and realized that I haven't done that in quite sometime. I still collect quotes though. I even have a daily quote pop up on my igoogle page every day. If you are like me and love quotes this is the perfect challenge. All you have to do is create a card or tag using a quote for a chance to win some very awesome chipboard from Magistical Memories. You can find the challenge here. Here is my first card that I created. I plan on making at least one more. (if I can find my way out from under the laundry of course!) LOL




Layered a card with a few different papers from Basic Grey and Creative Imaginations. I printed the quote on a piece of pattern paper and then used it to cover a piece of Magistical Memories chipboard. Finished it off with a rub-on, rhinestone flowers(gotta have bling, and some ribbon. Hope to see some of your projects!

Have a very happy Wednesday!

And we have a winner!!!

Happy Monday everyone. Although I was sad to see the girls go back to school today I am happy to have a little bit of routine back. It is time to get my house back into shape and get some projects done.

But first I wanted to announce the winners of the 5000 Celebration. Thanks to everyone who shared your resolutions with me. You all have inspired me to work to better myself in 2009. Now for the winners. After throwing all the names in a hat (well, actually I threw them in a cute little red bucket I got from Target LOL) I have two winners. Congrats to Susan Beth and Michelle Lanning! Please e-mail me with your information.

I have another reason to celebrate. Yesterday was project day over at Emma's Paperie. :) I know you have heard me say before how much I adore these days but WOW! This week the girls blew my socks off. What amazing ways to use these cute little tins. We were challenged to use these tins in a project. Here is what I came up with.



You can find all the other designers' projects, as well as instructions for each on the Emma's Paperie Blog.

Have an amazing week and thanks for stopping by!

Let's Celebrate

As I sit here I can hear the girls downstairs singing "glooo-ooo-ooo-ooo-ooo-riaaaaa"as they work on one of the presents they received for Christmas. I am so happy to have them home with me. I may go into withdrawals come Monday.

We had such a wonderful New Years. We spent the holiday at my in-laws, ringing in the New Year with family. Such a great way to celebrate. Lots of games and laughing and spending time with the ones we love. Brianne, no longer the youngest, cracked me up with all her antics. Trying to keep all the big girl toys out of the tiny little hands of my niece who is about 18 months and just relaxing and having a good time.

I know why people make New Year's Resolutions to lose weight. I don't even want to touch another cookie or dessert. I am still stuffed from all the good food. My New Years resolution is to work on my organization. I used to be extremely organized before I had the girls but things have just slid since then. My craft room is clean and organized and I love it this way. I am really going to try and keep it this way. We really need to clean and organize our storage room in the basement for you.

So here is the celebration part. I want to not only celebrate a fresh, new year but over the holidays I hit 5000 visitors! So leave me a comment and tell me what your New Year's resolutions are. If you have none, that is fine just tell me that. I will pick two people to receive $25 worth of Odd Bird Planet stamps (your choice). I will also throw in a Bazzill 6 x 12 album for each and a few other goodies. You have until Monday to leave me a comment.

Have a wonderful weekend!