Look Around challenge from Stacey

This was another Scrap-Off challenge and it was SO much fun! Amazing the inspiration you can get from things around you. Thanks for a great challenge, Stacey.

We are still at Ellie and Ross' house so I was looking around trying to find something to inspire my page. Every time we have visited them I wondered about this big sign they have in their living room. It's quite large and quite bold and not something you would normally see on someone's wall. I decided to ask them the story behind the sign and used this for the inspiration for my layout.

It turns out that Ross' great grandfather was one of the pioneers of the steam-cleaning industry which led to his owning the first drive-through car wash. Pretty cool, huh? The car wash was called "Follow Charlie" and I guess that once your car was on the conveyor belt it followed "Charlie" through.

Anyway, I used the general design of the sign for my layout, the colors (green, blue, yellow and black) and used the shape from the sign where Charlie is as the shape of my photo mat. I also liked how the business name went around the curves of the top and bottom of the green shape, so I mimicked that as well.

and another new page

I have been having a great time scrapbooking with my sister and was able to get couple of pages done. One is for my June AC Bailey design team assignment so I can't show you that one yet but the other one I made using the May kit from My Scrapbook Nook.


I've had these pics of Aimee for quite a while, I guess just waiting for the perfect paper to come along so I could make a layout with them. These Lily Bee papers did the trick!

Thanks for stopping by today and make sure to leave a comment on my "5000 visitors" post so that you can have a chance at a nice little scrapbooking surprise.

round 2

Well, we're starting over with Round 2 of the Scrapbook Nook Scrap-Off and so far it has been quite a party!! Challenges coming at us from left and right and lots of fun new things to try. I was so excited to be in first place during the last round (amazing, I know!! I was so surprised after the voting) and now, well...we're starting over with the points so I have to come up with some things to really wow those who are awarding all of the wonderful extra points.

I missed the blog hop today since we went with Ellie and her family to the candy factory in Denver but got the first two challenges completed.

First we had to create a layout based on the theme, "Keepin it real" and this is is what I did. We had to do a self-portrait, and I had no idea what to do...I really sincerely dislike taking pictures of myself but I guess I will have to get over that since there's a good chance we'll have to do another "all about me" page during this contest. Anyway, we had to have that pic of ourselves and base our layout on the theme...and then I got to thinking about this suitcase of scrapbook supplies that I brought on my 4-day trip to see my sister and thought this would make a fun page idea. The papers are from October Afternoon (Cherry Hill line- birdie paper and yellow one used for the scallop edge), Cosmo Cricket Girl Friday (stripe and pink polka dot) and the green scalloped paper is from Archiver's. Yep...we made a trip there yesterday!! The letters are, of course, American Crafts Thickers, the rub-ons are from October Afternoon, the journal spots from Jillibean Soup, the ribbon from Michael's and the buttons and flowers are from Sassafras Lass and the black bling swirlie from Zva Creative.

Second, we had to use two or more pics, at least 3 patterned papers, flowers and the color yellow. The papers I used are from the new Cherry Hill collection from October Afternoon, the journal spot from Jillibean Soup, the buttons and flowers are from Sassafras Lass and the foam letters are from American Crafts.

There you go! I may have some more to share with you if I get something done tonight.

moving on to round 2!!

As a lot of you know from reading here on my blog, I've been participating in the Scrap-Off at My Scrapbook Nook. This was one of the first scrapping sites I ever became a part of and one of the only places I still visit regularly and I love it!! The challenges have been quite, well, challenging, and have produced some of my best work lately. I've been inspired to do some fun new things and have learned so much from the other talented participants.

We just finished our Week #3 challenge which scored me 30 points, the maximum possible!! WOOHOO!! Thanks, DT members, for your votes. I appreciate it so much. Also, because of this and the votes from other wonderful Nook members I am moving on to round two. This promises to be swift and challenging and I just hope that I can keep up while here at my sister's house and not neglect them and take full advantage of the time I have here.

Wish me luck! And, good luck to everyone still in the game! Should be a lot of fun. Right now I have two layouts to do for the contest so I'll post as soon as I have them done. One of them is due tomorrow already!!

almost to 5000

I just want to say thank you to all of you who visit my blog and leave your kind comments. I am almost to 5000 visitors, something that makes me smile!! And, because of that, I will do a random drawing of everyone who leaves a comment on this post. I'll be out of town for a few days, so next Monday I'll do the drawing and promise it will be a fun little scrapbooking treat for whoever wins :)

happy anniversary to me

Yes, today is our 8th anniversary and we are spending it on the road. It's not so very romantic but at least we get to be together. I made Matt promise we'd stop at Brahm's on the way to get some yummy ice cream!!

I am so thankful to have this man in my life...he is kind and sweet, funny and silly, charming and romantic, a wonderful husband and father and provider for our family. He works hard so that I can stay home with the kids and serves diligently in his church work. He is loyal and thoughful and selfless and I love him. I sometimes wonder why he picked me but am so very grateful that he did.

I wish I had a recent picture of us together, or that I could remember which file on my computer contains some of our wedding pics but since I am short on time this morning I will share some old layouts with pictures of us. Please don't laugh too hard, ok? Remember, too, that these are OLD and hopefully my design skills and scrapbooking talent have improved a little bit since I made these. Still, they have pictures of us together, and y'all can make fun of my pages and snicker a little at how funny some of them may look to you.





These pages aren't too horrible, are they? I told you they were old. I really need to get a picture of us together and do a new layout.

I know that my husband doesn't often sit down and read my silly blog, but happy anniversary, sweetheart.

a card and quick page

I am getting ready to head out of town for a few days and wanted to leave you with something new to look at. The card is made from the gorgeous May kit from AC Bailey featuring Marks Paper. The brown and gold at the bottom right is actually from a Chatterbox tag- I disassembled it so that it wouldn't be quite so bulky for the front of my card.

The layout was a really quick one that I put together in about 15-20 minutes last night. I wanted to scrap the pictures but didn't want to take forever doing a page so I just picked out a few pieces of paper that would work without fussing too much over the ones I chose or how I laid them out on the page. I added a little Sassafras Lass butterfly for the finishing touch.

I hope you all have a great week. If I get a chance to update from my sister's house I'll do so.

p.s. the Scrap-off is still in full-swing at My Scrapbook Nook. I am a little nervous as we are about to begin the next round where half of the participants will be eliminated. Please keep your fingers crossed for me as I really want this!!

a new favorite picture of Hailey

We were at the park today and I got some cute pictures of the girls playing in the fields...I love this picture of Hailey blowing the fluff off of the dandelion. I can see this showing up on a future scrapbook page so keep watching for it.

beautiful Daddy

Matt is working a few graveyard shifts this week and is subsequently very tired. He came home this morning, ate a bowl of cereal and I'm sure was ready to head off to bed when Hailey decided she wanted to do a little beauty makeover...of her dad. I asked Hailey what she was doing and she said she was "making Daddy beautiful." And, he sat there patiently enduring it all...what a good daddy he is. We are so lucky to have him in our family.

There he is with his beautiful girls and his beautiful 'do!

He is such a good sport.

some new layouts

I have immersed myself lately in the Scrap-Off at My Scrapbook Nook. It has been so fun for me to just scrap for fun, to be inspired by the challenges and to stretch myself to do things I might not have normally done.

So, here are a few more layouts I've done this week. It's incredible that I've accomplished so much. I can't let myself fall behind, though, if I want to have a shot at winning...so, last night I was up until after 1 o'clock. Matt was working graveyard shift and once the kids settled down and went to sleep I decided I wanted some ME time and needed to get some challenges done.

This layout was for our Week #3 challenge. We had to do a layout where the journaling reflected deep emotion. I've wanted to do a page like this before...talking about infertility and the struggles Matt and I went through to be able to have kids. So, here it is. You can click on it to see better and read the journaling if you'd like. Paper is from Lily Bee and the flowers from Maya Road.
This layout was for Selena's sketch challenge featuring a sketch by Becky Fleck. We had to use the sketch and create a layout that told something about who we are, only we couldn't use things that were related to us being a mom, a wife, a sister, etc. So, I chose this..."I believe." Papers are from Scenic Route, journal spot from Jillibean Soup, also American Crafts Thickers and some bling swirlies. Oh, the butterfly is from Prima. I love those gorgeous butterflies.

And lastly, Delaina challenged us to create either a card with an animal made from buttons or a layout using more than 20 buttons, so I opted to do the layout and think I had something like 60 buttons on there, more than meeting the criteria :) The paper is from the new Scenic Route Garden Grove collection that I won as my prize for being a winner in the January Scenic Route product challenge. The Layton Street paper in the "I Believe" layout was from that prize as well. I love getting free scrapping supplies!!

I have some more fun things to add, new pics of Matt being "beautiful" and pics from Hailey's preschool graduation last night, so check back later on.

Happy scrapping!

new and not-so-new pictures

I love digital cameras but one of the drawbacks is that some picture are forever lost either on my memory card or on the computer. To prevent that from happening I thought I'd share a few recent ones. They're a little mixed up but I'll try and explain each one. Enjoy!

Sarah's lollipop and below, her straddle jump on the trampoline
a pretty rainbow from last week

Mother's Day flowers from Matt

the famous "Bat Mobile" that won first prize in the Pinewood Derby last weekend!

Hailey being silly at dinner time

Hailey on the beam and being silly during the picture-taking before GymFest

a calla lily from our front yard...isn't the pipe a nice touch? Sorry.

Little Aimee, our biker baby sporting her shirt from Disneyland

The derby line-up- with the Bat Mobile- and yes, he made it himself!

The bathroom downstairs...right before I started to paint. After pics to come later.

Cute Aimee outside yesterday- she can climb up the slide now.

Our little mama

And an AC Bailey project I'm working on- gotta get moving on this one!

And there you have it...lots of new pics from me. Have a great night. It's time for me to get to bed since I have another busy day tomorrow!!

a new page...finally

The last few days have been a little hectic with the kids, painting the bathroom and whatever other chores we had to do. I got a chance to scrapbook last night and have a new page to share with you!

I made this with the May mini kit from My Scrapbook Nook featuring Lily Bee French Couture.

Have a wonderful day!

a couple more projects

Things at our house have been a little busy lately- we had that pinewood derby, kindergarten registration, Gym Fest for the girls today (I'll post some pics tomorrow along with Matt's pinewood derby ones) so I have a couple more projects to post from the Nook Scrap-Off.

The first one was from a challenge to create a gift card holder. I wanted to try something new so I used a Janna Wilson pillow box template that I downloaded from online, from the Got Crafts? site, I believe, and used some of my Bloom and Grow paper from My Mind's Eye as well.

For the second mini-challenge this week we had to use the colors seen in this fabric to create a layout. Fun idea, huh?

So, here is my page, one about little Aimee and her not being so little anymore. And, you can see how I incorporated the colors from the fabric into my layout. These challenges have been great to stretch me creatively and it's been interesting to see everyone's take on the same challenges.

Oh, and since I never posted this finished project, here is my Princess album all put together.

Have a great night!!

we have a winner!!

I will post some pictures of this tomorrow after I upload them from the camera but I wanted to make sure and let y'all know that Matt won the pinewood derby!! Yes, that's right...he came in FIRST PLACE!! I was so proud to watch him and it was funny to watch his intensity as the cars raced down the track. There were 15 to 20 cars, I'm not sure exactly the number, but still, winning is an amazing thing considering the last time he did this he was still in Pharmacy school, was getting ready for finals and didn't have any time to put together a car that had any chance of winning.

This time, however, was different. Long gone are the days of Matt's block of wood on wheels car with the allen wrenches duct taped to the top. Long gone even are his "Jenny" car days. That probably didn't make sense unless you are an 80s music listener and are familiar with the song, "8675309."

For Matt's racing adventures this time he diligently searched out his options online and got himself some fancy wheels. It's all in the wheels, he told me, and apparently he was right because that seemed to make all the difference. Race after race his car came out ahead and he ended up winning the whole thing, along with a gift card to Olive Garden! Woohoo! Maybe we can go out on a date by ourselves one of these days and use it.

So, to my smart "Bat Mobile" pinewood derby car-making, race-winning husband, congratulations!!!

we have a walker!!

I posted a while back about how we were a little concerned that our 18 month old wasn't walking on her own yet. She could push our little toy shopping cart, walk holding onto our finger but as soon as we let go she'd just sit down. We've been having her walk everywhere, hardly carrying her at all, so much that I've noticed that I've begun missing just holding her. It is so sad because she is getting so big and isn't much of a baby anymore and we don't know when/if we'll have another.

This morning Matt and I were sitting on the floor and we practiced having Aimee walk from one of us to the other, giving her toys to take to one or the other of us. She took a few labored, unbalanced steps and we tried again...and again..and again until she was walking a few feet and now...she can walk across the room. Sure she is quite unsteady but she is walking. I am so grateful. So many prayers have been said on her behalf and today they are prayers of thanks instead of prayers for help.

let her eat cupcake

Remember how I said that I was working on a project...here it is!! I hope it was worth the anticipation. I had taken these pics of Sarah a couple weeks ago and when I was browsing through my pictures last night and saw these I knew what I would do for Leah's challenge- make a cupcake-shaped page!! I hope it does look like a cupcake, lol.

It took a while to sketch out the shape I wanted since I am far from being an artist, but I kinda like it and this was the most fun page I've done for a while.

Papers are from the March AC Bailey kit from LAST year- yeah, I liked it so much I bought two of the kits! They're Sassafras Lass (top) and Making Memories (brown dot).

I got real creative and did the pleated part at the bottom and sanded the edges to make it look like a paper cupcake cup. Did it work? I think so, and Glossy Accents worked perfectly for gluing that part onto my background paper. I used some foam adhesive to make the top part stand out as well, did some doodling and added some glitter glue as well and lots of American Crafts Thickers and some Sassafras flowers.


And there you have it...a cupcake-shaped scrapbook page. I hope it earns me some more extra points this week because I'd surely love to win a spot on the Nook design team!! (hint, hint)

p.s. We did go for a walk outside, too, so I met that "get movin'" goal for today as well!!

5/14/09 Just as a side note today, this layout is in the Top 10 over at 2 Peas in a Bucket!!! That is so very exciting for me!!!!

i really need to get off my duff

No offense or reference to Hilary or her sister...I have just been doing lots of sitting lately. Sitting and scrapbooking, sitting and cruising the blogs I read, sitting and watching the "Wonder Pets" to please my kids, sitting and sitting and sitting.

I really need to dust off that treadmill that's taking up so much space in the corner of my bedroom. I'd love to take a walk if it wasn't already so darn hot outside and it's supposed to be near 100 degrees today. And, it's only May here, people!!!!!! I fear for the summer heat that awaits us if it's this scorchingly (is that a word?) hot right now. Never fear, though, it's supposed to be down in the 70s where I like it by the end of the week.

So, my goal, stop sitting so much. Get moving, dance around (I did chase the kids around the house this morning at their request, so that's got to count for something, right?) and do something active.

But, today I am working on a project. Such a fun scrapbooking project. I have one in the works for next month's AC Bailey newsletter, one I'm doing for Hailey's preschool teacher and one for a contest I'm in over at Scrapbook Nook. I got 10 extra points on my week #1 challenge layout- thanks to the design team member over there for your vote!! I'm so very excited about this week's challenge- create a shaped layout...and I have the perfect idea and it's so fun and unique and I don't think anyone else will do this same thing...unless, of course, they think I'm so cool and they want to be like me. Not hardly likely. But, I'm anxious to get it done so I can show y'all. ( I really do use that word "Y'all" a lot more than I ever thought I would when we moved down to Texas.)

So, stay tuned and be prepared to be WOWed. Maybe. I hope so :) So, more sitting. And, then maybe I'll take the kids for a walk.

Have a great day. Yesterday was kind of a crazy zoo here and today is already looking a thousand times better. So, I'm chipper and ready to finish my project.

May AC Bailey projects

It was so fun to work with October Afternoon this month. Sure, the Daydream set is a little older but so fun and something I hadn't really used before except for a couple of pieces of the paper. For these projects I used the Daydream patterned paper, die-cuts, journaling spots and rubber charms along with American Crafts Thickers and Flair.

This card was made using a recent sketch from the October Afternoon blog. It's a 4 x 5 1/2 card and quite simple to make. Just cut a piece of Daydream paper slightly smaller than your card front add a strip of coordinating paper and some trim, add a sentiment and an embellishment and you're done!
This layout includes pictures of Matt and Hailey during some down time on our recent Disneyland trip. We'd checked in to the hotel and were getting settled and meanwhile these two had some bonding time listening to Disney Princess music on Matt's iPod.

Now this page, of course, had to be done. This is Hailey right before our Disney trip, the day she decided to cut her own hair. Some of you may remember when I blogged about this. We were shocked at the amount of hair she'd cut off, but were grateful it was Saturday, not Monday when we had to leave, and grateful for a hair salon closeby.

I hope y'all are having a fabulous day. You'll have to stop by the AC Bailey store at http://www.acbaileydesigns.net/ to check out all of the great new products there. Soon to arrive is the new Cherry Hill collection from October Afternoon!

kind of a blue day

I think that we all have days like this...days when we're just kind of sad because of something going on in our lives.

Today I am sad because there will be a big change coming up in my life soon...not life-changing in a huge way but I'm having to give up something that I've been doing more than a year and because of it I feel sad. I think it will be great for many people involved and I wish them all the luck in the world. I don't know how much I can say...not that my blog readership is that big...the news isn't really out besides general info to the consultants but there will be some changes-good ones for the consultants who work for AC Bailey- changes to the design team member requirements that won't allow me to stay on the team. Makes me sad, but it's something I can't commit to with other things I have going on in my life. There...I'll have to leave the team and it makes me sad...There may be a new design team call, I am not yet sure, and those of you who are consultants for the company or would like to become so (it is a direct-sales company that sells awesome scrap supplies from companies we all love like October Afternoon, Bo Bunny, American Crafts, Cosmo Cricket, etc. and has a great kit club as well) you'll have to check it out! It's been a fabulous company to do work for.

I know that when one door closes another one opens for us eventually and I hope that's the case. Being on the AC Bailey design team has been such a pleasure for me, wonderful because of all the people I've met, wonderful because of the other ladies on the team who have become my friends, wonderful because of our great boss and owner of AC Bailey, Erica. It's been more than I could have asked for in a design team experience and I am sad today thinking about it, thinking about no longer being on the team.

Ok, enough whining from me...I will bow out gracefully and accept things as they are and wish everyone the very best. I still have a little bit longer before I really have to get weepy and just move on with other things.

Thanks for enduring my weepiness...just one of those days...I'll go eat some chocolate and watch some old episodes of "The Gilmore Girls" and all will be well. Or, maybe I'll go work on one of my scrappy projects that I need to get done.

Have a great day. Stay tuned for my May AC Bailey projects that I'll post today as well.

AC Bailey May kit layout

As you were able to see in my National Scrapbook Day post, the May AC Bailey kit is just gorgeous!! It features papers from Marks Paper and some fun embellishments from Chatterbox and Prima.

Here is Hailey all dressed in her wedding garb, remarkably enough, it was made out of toilet paper. Remember my post about that? Here is a layout about that experience, finally.



This paper was just begging to be cut! So, I cut out some flowers and the scalloped shape, added some doodling and Stickles glitter glue and curved the flowers' edges up a little to make them stand out more.

Keep watching because I will have more projects to share with you made from this kit.

and some mini cards

Another Scrap-Off challenge from My Scrapbook Nook was to make some mini cards. I made mine 4 x4 and used some of the new My Mind's Eye papers and die-cuts along with Sassafras Lass buttons and flowers.

I was able to get my sewing machine to cooperate for a few minutes, long enough to do some stitching on one of the cards.


Thanks for stopping by!