It's almost Turkey Day!!!

Hi everyone!

Quick post today. Have a lot to do before Thanksgiving as I am sure lots of you do! Our weekend was fabulous. L had a great meet on Sunday and although did not recieve any medals this time she has already qualified for state! So proud of my sweet 8 year old. I know she was disappointed but she handles herself with such grace.

We also saw A Christmas Carol in 3D. I loved it and so did the girls. I highly recommend it BUT not for younger children. There are definitely some creepy parts.

I am adding this mini album that I made this last week to my etsy store (check the side bar for the link). I used One of the tab albums by Magistical Memories for the base and also added some of the chipboard stars. Lots of yummy Graphic 45 and other goodies on there as well. Hope you enjoy it.

Have a fabulous Thanksgiving!!!

Gymnastics and salsa

I want to thank everyone for all your sweet well wishes. My headaches are completely gone and I feel sooooo much better.

It has been a busy last week or so partly due to some projects K has been working on. They have been doing a unit called See the USA. She was responsible for research and 5 projects (one being a report) on 5 different sites across the USA. She created a t-shirt, poster, mobile and a diarama. I am so proud of how hard she worked, there were several nights that she had no free time at all. Everything was due yesterday and today they are having a Taste of Americana party. I made some of my yummy salsa for her class. I told her teacher I would send her the recipe so I thought I would share it with you too.

Texan Salsa

1 (16 oz) can crushed tomatoes
2 (16 oz) cans diced tomatoes
1 small can green chilies
1 medium onion
2 large jalapenos (seeded and chopped)
2 gloves garlic
1/2 c. chopped fresh cilantro (I add a little bit more)
2 Tbsp. lime juice
1 Tbsp. sugar
salt to taste

Combine all ingredients.
*my family does not like chunks in their salsa so I put everything in the blender and puree it. It's much quicker that way too. :)

I am looking forward to this weekend. L has her first gymnastics meet of the season this weekend. She has been working so hard and has come so far. It should be good meet.

I wanted to share another project with you today. I created these tags for the Emma's Paperie blog this last week. I had so much fun making these. Each tag is printed on grid paper and inked for a worn look. I added lace to the bottom of each of the tags and lots of sparkles. Hope you enjoy them. I will be adding these to my Etsy shop if anyone is interested in purchasing them. :)

Have a great weekend!!!

Oh headache please go away...

Sunday morning L started complaining about a headache and sore throat. She never complains about a headache so I figured it was bothering her quite a bit. She is feeling much better but now I know why she was complaining. Both yesterday and this morning I have taken two Motrin and my head is still pounding. :(

I did want to share my very first Christmas card of the season with you. I created this card last week for Emma's. Cindy asked us to create a project using red and green. I just love all the great Christmas products she has in the store right now. Some of my favorites are definitely the Graphic 45 Christmas Past tags. Love the vintagy colors they used on those tags.



You can find a complete list of the supplies on the Emma's Paperie Blog and see all the amazing projects all the other designers created as well.
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I am going to add this card to my Etsy store if you are interested. Please stop by the store-the link is over on the bar on the left.
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Have an amazing day. (I am going to take a nap.) :)

Sunny Monday Morning

well, at least for the time being. :) They are predicting rain today, sounds like a good day to stay in and get some laundry and crafting done. I am finishing up a mini album for Magistical Memories that I hopefully will have done and can post in the next couple of days.

Hope everyone had a great weekend. K went on an overnight retreat with church on Friday after school. I was thrilled that she was so excited about going (she can be somewhat clingy sometimes). This has been a definite plus to our move. She had a wonderful time and is already looking forward to going next year. L had a friend over all day Saturday while K was gone and I got some cleaning done. Nothing too exciting and then Sunday K and I worked on all the homework she had to do. All in all, a pretty relaxing weekend.

I have a card to share with you today. Did this card for the Card-a-licious 31 challenge. We were challenged to create a Thank You card using the colors red and black. Here is my card.

The other thing I did this weekend was finally set up my Etsy shop. There is a link on the left hand side bar. Please feel free to check it out and let me know what you think.

Have a great day!

Proud of our Service Men and Women

It was a pretty busy day yesterday so I didn't get a chance to blog but I wanted to take this time to thank all of the men and women who serve our country. Having a brother who serves in the Army has made me aware of how very lucky we are to have all of them watching out for us.

After spending some quality time with our new dentist, (just kidding, she is great!) I stopped by the school to watch their Veteran's Day program. I will tell you what, there is nothing sweeter than listening to 400+ kids singing America the Beautiful. It really puts it all into perspective. Makes me realize that this is what all the defending our country is all about. They are our hope and our future. *sigh* it was just awesome. :)

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I do have two cards I would like to share with you today also. The first was a card I did for Magistical Memories. I covered one of the Chunky hearts with white paint and glitter (sorry for the poor picture, it really sparkles quite nicely). The background of the card is actually a doily that my MIL gave me. Lots of other goodies on here too. Love that watering can and tape measure from the Cut and Paste set by K & Company.

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I used to love paper piecing when it first came out. Some of my earlier scrapbook pages are proof of that. I swear the paper piecing was far bigger than any pictures on the page. LOL Decided to do a little paper piecing on this card too.

I hope you are enjoying your week. Hang in there, the weekend is almost here. :) Have a fabulous day!

It's Monday again

Happy Monday everyone!!!!
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I hope your weekend was as wonderful as ours. Saturday K had her swim meet and did a fabulous job. She came in first for one of her heats, third, third and fourth for the others. She dropped 6 seconds off of her breaststroke and 4 seconds off her backstroke. The other two she didn't have times for yet. I am so amazed at how physically fit both of my girls are. K swam the 200 and made it look easy. I know for a fact I would be dying.
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Yesterday after church the girls and I did their shopping for their Operation Christmas Child boxes. Have you heard of this program? If not make sure to click the link above and check it out. It is a wonderful program and the girls and I look forward to shopping for their gifts every year around this time.
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I got a little bit of scrapping in this weekend as well. Can't show you the card I made for Card-a-licious yet but I can share this one I did for Sizzix. I used the Bird and Swirls die to cut the bird out of orange felt and then added some Stickles to his wing. He was super easy to make and the Sizzix go through the felt perfectly.
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I also realized that I didn't share one of my Magistical Memories projects from two weeks ago. Crystle has started creating not only chipboard but acrylic shapes. The flourish in the middle is called the Crystle Clear Wrought Iron Swirl. I simply covered it with black glitter before adding it to my layout. The tab and flower are also from MM. I just love these pictures of the girls, they make me smile every time I look at them. :)
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I need to get a picture of K's most recent reading spot. She created a nook (aka. pile 'o junk) next to her bed where she loves to read now.
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Thanks for stopping by this morning and have a wonderful week!

A bit of holiday talk

Quick post today. The read-a-thon fund raiser that our school was doing is on its very last day today. We are having a big celebration and a well deserved one. The kids knocked it out of the park, raising about twice as much as last year when they did wrapping paper sales. For the celebration today, the kids get to dress up as their favorite book character. We are going for the easy costumes. L is Julie from the American Girl series. (T-shirt, jeans, braid in her bangs and a peace necklace). K is going as Ira, from the kids book Ira Sleeps Over. She has her pjs and slippers on and carrying a blanket and teddy bear. It will be fun to see how the kids are all dressing up.

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OK, so I mentioned holiday talk in my header. For all of you card makers out there (even if you are not) I wanted to make you away of a little boy that needs some love and kindness. Noah Biorkman is very sick and his parents are planning on celebrating an early Christmas for him this weekend. Noah loves Christmas cards and they are hoping that people can send him some cards. You can read all about it here. Won't you join me in sending him a card or two?

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Can you believe that Thanksgiving is only 20 days away! I made a place setting for Emma's Paperie that would make the perfect greeting for your guests at the holiday table. Once the meal is over your guest can take their arrangement home.

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I have actually taken the name card out of the arrangement and placed it on my end table until Thanksgiving.

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Check out the Emma's Paperie blog for the instructions and supply list.

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Have a fabulous weekend and wish us luck. K has her first swim meet of the season this weekend. I am looking forward to it. :)

Rainy Wednesday

Not a whole lot exciting going on here today. Hope to get a little bit of scrapping done along with some laundry and grocery shopping. Wahoooo. :P I do get to volunteer in the library at school this afternoon. That is definitely a bright spot to my day.
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I did have a couple of projects I wanted to share with you this morning before my day got busy. The first is a gift bag a made using one of the felt goodies my sweet friend Terri made for me. Isn't that sweet chick adorable.

The second project I have to you is a card for the last Card-a-licious challenge. Janelle challenged us to use hand stitching, buttons and felt. Make sure to check the cards that the other amazing designers created.

Have a fabulous hump day. We are half way to the weekend!

A New Look

Happy Monday everyone!

I decided that it might be time to change my header since the last one was well over a year old. I just love that photo of my girls so much though that I wanted to keep it as long as possible. But alas, when your children grow and change so must you. :) Anyway, captured this picture when we were on our way to take DD to her fall swim party. The beautiful view behind them was right off the highway and I couldn't resist pulling over and snapping a few pictures. I would love to hear what you think.

I hope you all had a wonderful Halloween. With all the sniffles and yuck that went around our house combined with a late soccer season we were quite behind this year. We did get a chance to carve pumpkins on Saturday before trick or treating. K had us laughing with her pumpkin gutting antics.

The girls drew their own designs on the pumpkins again this year. I love how they turned out.

I made sure to get done carving pumpkins in plenty of time to take pictures of the girls in their costumes. L was an artist this year. Check out the barret. I got it at Claire's. It was hanging right next to the Fame leg warmers. Aaahhhh!!! Can't believe those are back!

K was a frazzled housewife. She and I had so much fun putting this costume together. I got a bad case of the giggles when I looked at this photo. LOL I had told her to pose as if the baby had been up all night crying and she was having a bad morning. heeheehee

OK, now for a project. Have you had a chance to check out this month's issue of Scrap Street? My sweet friend Stacey asked me to create a layout for her Open Road column. She asked me to incorporate sound into my journaling and this is the layout I created for her column. You can find it here.

Have a wonderful week everyone!