a little Jillibean Soup fun

I have had a great time so far as a member of the Jillibean Soup design team!

It's fun to HAVE to play with the cute papers and things each month and I so look forward to the new releases this upcoming CHA. You are going to LOVE LOVE LOVE them! Jill has added some great new paper lines and embellishments that are going to be fabulous.

For today I have a quick layout share using the Chicken Noodle line. This collection screams farms and fall and other such things and while we are heading into summer some of our international friends (hi, Tanya, in Australia!) live where the air is getting cooler and the leaves are starting to change- so here's a layout about my family's trip to the corn maze last fall and Matt and Hailey's corn cannon fun.

Aren't those little piggies the cutest? 

One of my favorite things to do is to cut patterns from the papers. On this layout you can see the piggies, daisies and the tractor I cut out. It makes for quick and easy page embellishments. 

Here I inked the white corrugated alphas and added some Glossy Accents. Funny thing was, a piece of cardstock got stuck to the glue but I like the resulting distressed look on he letters from where the paper stuck. I also added some Glossy Accents to the daisy flower centers. 

Happy Monday!

Today is a day when we remember those who have died in sacrifice of our freedoms. I hope that you will take the time today to remember those who have gone before. 

ballerina girls

As you might have read here before, I made some tutus last weekend and in honor of yesterday's "Children's Day" at our house we had a ballerina party complete with those tutus and ballerina treats (donut holes). We also played and colored and went to the Science Spectrum. Part of the deal of my making the girls tutus was that I got to take pictures of them in the cute skirts before they got messed up from so much use. Here are my cute ballerina girls:

Aimee, 2 1/2 years old

Sarah, 4 years old

Hailey, 5 1/2 years old

Don't you love Sarah's pouty face in this last picture? I think she was getting a little bit tired of having to sit for pictures- she wanted to go play! There are lots more pictures where these came from that you will most assuredly see  popping up on future scrapbook pages. 

Have a great weekend!

giveaway day at SRM Stickers

If you follow SRM Stickers on Facebook you may have noticed that there is a giveaway going on at the blog today! Simply do this:

Go to the SRM Stickers blog, become a follower and leave a comment on this post making sure to use the word  "FACEBOOK" in your comment for a chance to win a fabulous SRM prize pack!
http://srm-stickers.blogspot.com/2010/05/srm-sei-claire.html

You can also check out the loveliness created by the design team using SEI's Jocelyn and Claire collections. Some of us were featured on the SEI blog as well: http://seilifestyle.blogspot.com/2010/05/srm-stickers.html

Here is the layout I created using the Jocelyn collection:

Thank you, SEI!

My Scrapbook Nook June kit and SRM

Can you believe that it's almost June already?!

Today is the last day of school and then summer vacation starts.

The girls already have lots of activities planned for us for tomorrow which they've deemed, "Children's Day" here at our house, chock-full of games and "centers" and a ballerina party and whatever else we cook up.

For today I have a look at the June kit from My Scrapbook Nook which will hopefully be here at my house in the next few days ♥

What do you think? It's full of some of My Mind's Eye's newest collections with lots of the perfect touches for your summer projects. You can buy your own here: 

http://www.myscrapbooknook.org/club.shtml

ALSO today: check out the SRM blog for a look at what our design team has been cooking up with the SEI Jocelyn collection: http://srm-stickers.blogspot.com/2010/05/srm-sei-jocelyn.html

nine years ago today

Nine years ago today, May 26, 2001, was my wedding day.

These are all older layouts but you can see how happy and in love we were. And, we are tired and sick today but still in love and so happy together. Three cute girls and many trials and happinesses later we are still here.

It's hard to believe that after all of the anticipating and wanting and waiting the day was finally here and now almost a decade has passed.

I was hoping that by today I would be feeling better but I think that when the second wave hit Hailey I got hit even harder with this darn stubborn flu bug and I feel awful. Matt joked a few days ago about how we might have to celebrate today by sharing a Gatorade. If only he knew how right he was. Nothing tastes good yet and  I doubt there will be any major celebrating today. so sad.

But, today is a special day in our family, a day to celebrate our anniversary and also Hailey's kindergarten graduation. I am so proud of her. And, so proud of us for struggling through the rough times and enjoying and celebrating the good times. It is so worth the ride. I can't wait for eternity.

Happy anniversary, sweetheart!

tutu cute

I know...that's silly but I am still sick and oh-so tired.

Here's a picture of the tutus I made for the girls. After everyone is feeling better we are going to have a ballerina party with treats and things but for now this is all I have.

The tutus were very easy and super-quick to put together once I had the strips of tulle cut out. You simply double the strips and tie them onto a long ribbon and add strips until the skirt is big enough for your cute girl.

Have a happy Monday. I hope that by tomorrow I'll be feeling like my old self again and be able to scrap a bit and have some new things to share with you. I just got a package from ♥Jillibean Soup♥ today and can't wait to scrap with the new Summer Squash line. 

little reminders that life is good.

I don't want this to be a whiny, ranting post.

Really, I want this post to help me remember the little things because

life.is.good.

We've been sick a lot lately, and it seems that whenever we get sick I get it the worst. Isn't that Murphy's Law or something? The one who is supposed to take care of everyone else is the one who gets sick the worst and still has to take care of everyone. It was funny (not ha ha funny) when I had to spend a lot of time on the couch last Saturday night because I was so sick and Matt got the girls fed and then ready for bed later and he commented about how I was having such an easy night and I just kind of glared at him.

Isn't funny how the whole world seemingly comes to a crashing halt when husbands are sick but the wives keep on taking care of everyone else? So I thought it was funny and had to remind him of how sick I was feeling and how I'd still been taking care of the kids and doing everything else and how I rarely get to just lay down on the couch when I'm sick. Rant over.

Anyway, this morning I was reminded as I read a friend's blog- she's been struggling with infertility and has suffered so many miscarriages and more heartache. We've been wanting #4 and it just hasn't happened and I am starting to realize that I need to be happy with what I've been given, my 3 beautiful, spunky girls.

I love being a mom, love reminders like
-finding hair clips in my pockets because I pick them up as I see them scattered around the house during the day
-finding Aimee's favorite pink afghan in the Tupperware cupboard where she was hiding yesterday
-finding pink plastic Princess bingo chips in my bathroom drawer
-so many hand-drawn pictures made by my girls that are now taking over the kitchen where they do most of their projects
-silly songs and crazy laughter
-listening to Hailey and Sarah excitedly talking to each other as they play
-episode after episode of "the Backyardigans"
-Aimee standing on the bottom step singing her little heart out
-teaching them to pray and getting excited to hear my 2 year old bless the food and listening to Sarah as she says, "and please bless Aimee to be quiet during the prayer" and thanking Heavenly Father for Santa Claus and other things
-Hailey sweetly asking me "Mommy, is there anything you can do?" Friday night as she threw up time after time after time and we didn't get any rest from that until after 3 on Saturday morning
-making cute tutus for the girls yesterday
-driving around town to find animals for the girls and our big score yesterday afternoon- BUFFALO!
-being grateful for having kids who bring home bugs from school because it means that I HAVE kids.
-having tea parties with purple cupcakes and sprinkles everywhere
-play doh all over the place
-endless scores of laundry that seems to be multiplying while I sleep
-blowing bubble after bubble in our backyard while the girls run and try to catch them
-watching Barbie movies with them for the zillionth time
-making forts out of couch cushions in the living room
-pulling mattresses onto the floor so that they can jump and do tricks
-Sarah literally climbing up the walls (remind me to post a picture of that sometime)

-planting flowers and strawberries only to have them picked and eaten green (it's no wonder Aimee's had diarrhea lately since she pulls green strawberries off the plants just about every time she goes outside)- I don't think we'll get to eat many of them this year
-making silly suppers for them
-getting doused with water every time I give them a bath

Even though we're going to have to stay home from church for the second week in a row (me, at least, since I was sick LAST weekend, too and now feel awful once again) I have my kids and my husband and I am so blessed.

I think it's important to remember the little things and you just KNOW that the scrapper in me is going to make a page with some of these in the near future.

Have a wonderful day!

quick card share

As you know, we as members of the SRM Stickers design team received the new Cosmo Cricket "Delovely" collection recently. I finished up a layout yesterday that you'll get to see in future SRM blog hop celebrating the new Cosmo line but for today I have a card to share. It was quick and easy and simply involved pulling out my scalloped square punch, my white pen, a butterfly punch and some ink. Pretty easy peasy.

We also got some of the new pink and blue alphas- I love that they have included the little phrases. 

Yes, I realized after it was too late that the little squares are a little crooked. Oh well, right? 

fun with pinwheels and Jillibean Soup

I've always thought that pinwheels looked really cute on scrapbook pages but hadn't ever tried them out until recently when I did these two projects for Jillibean Soup.

Pinwheels are actually very quick and easy, the hardest part is just deciding which colors to use! For some of the pinwheels I just used the paper as-is and for others I used two different papers and glued them together. You can see a really quick tutorial here :http://jillibeansoup.typepad.com/my_weblog/2010/05/tutorial-on-tuesday----pinwheels.html

Have a great day- it's going to be a hectic one here.

fun flower tutorial with SRM Stickers

Good morning!

I apologize for the lack of blogging over the weekend. I caught whatever nasty stomach bug has been going around and am STILL trying to get better. I promise to "get my scrap on" today and make some new things to share with you this week.

For today, though, I have a quick little card and tutorial brought to you with SRM Stickers.

Here is the card I made with Cosmo Cricket Joyride product, Prima pearls and SRM Stickers.

You can see my tutorial about how to make these flowers up on the SRM Stickers blog today. 

http://srm-stickers.blogspot.com/2010/05/newsprint-flowers-by-becky.html

SRM Stickers and Lily Bee

Lily Bee recently came out with the cutest, happiest collection for summer called "Hello Sunshine."

I looked at the first artwork released by fabulous scrappers like Stephanie Howell and LOVED what she did with it but wondered if I'd be able to work with the bright blues, red and yellow. I decided to order some and find out and then used it on this page for SRM.

Our theme for this month at SRM Stickers was "Celebrate Life," which could lead to many options- of course you think about Pink and cancer and things like that, a very important cause for all of us, especially those of us who have been touched so many times by family members and friends with the disease. You could also scrap about birthdays and other celebrations. I chose to scrap about my family and titled my page, "Celebrate love, celebrate life, celebrate family."

I love to do titles that catch your eye and think that the big title on this page does just that with the mixed alphas (LOVE the big red ones by Pink Paislee and of course I love my Thickers). I also really like to handcut elements from my patterned paper, which I did with the blue and the red papers here (check the right side of the layout). And, I think I did justice to those cute Lily Bee papers ♥ ♥ ♥

I liked the look of the black and white picture with ALL of that color. The black houndstooth tape on the left is from Pink Paislee. 

UPDATE: I had to remove the full image because this page will be in an upcoming issue of Scrapbook Trends. 

Doesn't the blue SRM "celebrate" go so perfectly with these papers? The swirly on the right is also an SRM Sticker, as is the blue journal spot.I also really liked the look of the SRM Sticker right on top of those cute Pink Paislee red chipboard alphas. 

Oh, and it wasn't at all intentional but do you see the visual triangles in each color- the red, the blue and the yellow, how there is an element here and then another there? Totally not planned but I like the effect.

Have a great day!

p.s. WOOHOO!!! This is up as one of the Friday Faves on the Lily Bee blog today: 

http://lilybeedesign.blogspot.com/2010/05/friday-faves_14.html#comment-form

and it's in the top 5 views/liked/bookmarked at 2 Peas as well. Thank you all so much♥

playing with Cosmo Cricket

Cosmo Cricket has long since been one of my very favorite manufacturers.

Lately they've been incredibly generous with product because of publications and SRM Sticker assignments (we got the DeLovely line this week and I got some Material Girl before that) and so the other day I decided to pull out my big box of Cosmo and just play.

I do get busy with assignments and don't often get to delve into my ever-growing stash and make things for ME without some kind of deadline or assignment.

Here's a page I made mixing some old and new Cosmo- the Jack's World line paired with some Girl Friday and Joy Ride. Thanks, Cosmo, for sending along the Joy Ride and other fun things- this is one line that I hadn't bought yet ♥ Oh, the colorful chipboard alphas are from the Nutmeg collection and the blue grid ones are Cosmo as well.

The picture is one of Hailey after she got her bike for Christmas. She's taken to it so quickly! I love to see her get excited that she can do things so well.

The little Joy Ride chipboard path and bicycle were so perfect for this Hailey page.

EK Success retro flower punch and some Girl Friday rub-ons.

Little clouds...because they're just fun ☺ and another Girl Friday rub-on

This journal spot is actually a circle cut from Joy Ride paper and then I used a Girl Friday rub-on and flower from Joy Ride. It's a great way to use up items in your stash. 

I ♥ you, Cosmo Cricket!!

cards and Jillibean Soup- updated

I thought it would be fun to create a card with a matching envelope and the Jillibean Soup kraft cards and envelopes were perfect for this. Since my project was up on the Jillibean Soup blog yesterday I can go ahead and share it with you.

Supplies:

Jillibean Soup
Kraft card base and envelope
Patterned Paper: Soup Staples/navy sugar, olive sugar, orange sugar, pink sugar, yellow sugar.
Clear Stamps: Sending Thoughts, Eggcelent, Sentiments
Cool Beans: Brown
Bean Stalks: brown/natural, green/brown

Other: blue button

***

In other news, I just got some fun info from SRM Stickers- we're teaming up once again with one of my favorite manufacturers and something LOVELY is coming my way soon. I can't wait to play with the new collection and share some projects with you! Stay tuned ♥

p.s. I had to take this card/envelope set off because it's going to be in the October 2010 Cards magazine. WOOHOO!!! It's my first time to have something picked up by Cards so I'm very excited. ♥

purple cupcakes with pink frosting

I will have to apologize in advance if this post is a bit incoherent but it's 4 in the morning and I've already been up for an hour. This is the second night in a row that Aimee's coughing has kept the two of us up. Cough medicine, nebulizer treatments, the humidifier and propping her up don't seem to be helping very much tonight, at least not enough to get much of a good rest. Surprisingly, though, Sarah and Hailey are sleeping right through it and they're in my bedroom, too. I should have gone back to bed before now but since I have a couple of projects that I need to email I figured I'd just sit up and get them done and do a quick blog post as well.

After taking the girls to get their hair cut on Saturday we made a quick stop at Walmart so that we could grab what we needed to make purple cupcakes with pink frosting along with purple juice (those little Kool-aid bottles) for our tea party. Because I can sometimes be an uptight mom and because the kids not only didn't clean up their messes on Saturday but instead added to them and made a watery mess upstairs we didn't make the cupcakes on Saturday as planned but instead did them yesterday. Here are a few pictures of our fun.

The girls always enjoy getting to decorate their own cupcakes. Aimee's was a bit smashed since she was so anxious to decorate that she grabbed her cupcake right out of the pan. It didn't keep her from having a lot of fun smearing the frosting everywhere. Hailey and Sarah, of course, placed every decoration quite meticulously.

Don't they look delicious?

 I limited myself to having just the top since I really need to cut the sugar and lose some weight! 

Hailey's creation

Not much of Aimee's frosting actually made it onto her cupcake ♥

And Sarah's yummy treat!

Have a wonderful day! Thank you so much for stopping by. 

Happy Mother's Day

I want to wish all of the moms out there a Happy Mother's Day!

Matt came home after working all night and had a card for me signed by him and the girls, he got me breakfast and gave me flowers. He's so good to me.

Being a mom is one of the hardest jobs in the world, if not THE hardest but I am truly grateful for the chance I have to take care of these sweet girls who have been creating little masterpieces for this very day. Aimee was being grumpy and Hailey sternly told her, "You can't be a drama queen on Mother's Day." You've gotta love her ♥

I am thankful for the sacrifices my own mom made for me and my 5 sisters. I know that times weren't always easy and that she often went without so that we could have what we needed. We didn't have fancy things but she took care of us and for that I am thankful today.

Supplies: American Crafts Dear Lizzy, kraft cardstock, AC Thickers

Have a wonderful day today!

new wings and Jillibean Soup

Do you remember my post about the new release from Jillibean Soup?

Well, Jill is heading to the printer today to check on the colors before the collection goes to print. After that it'll only be a short time before that cute paper is in my possession. Fun, huh?

You can check back on their blog later today for some pictures. The link is in the sidebar on the right ☺

It's a crazy day with a morning full of quesadilla making for the kindergarten Cinco de Mayo party at my daughter's school. That's right, I am making taquitos and enough quesadillas for 120 kids. That's a lot of cheese and tortillas! Chips and queso  would have been so much easier. Since we have the picnic with Hailey's class right before the party I have to get everything done before we go in about an hour and a half. So, this will be brief!!!

I wanted to share with you a layout that was up on the Jillibean Soup blog yesterday called "Brand New Wings."

If you know Aimee at all you know that she's quite a mama's girl and it's only been recently that she's gotten brave enough to venture out on her own. This picture was taken in our neighborhood by the "rainbow" as Aimee calls it.

I added some Maya Mist (brown) to the white corrugated alphas and then some Stickles glitter glue on top.

Martha Stewart butterfly punch. 

Supplies: 

Jillibean Soup

Patterned Paper: Egg Drop Soup/Green Onions, Sesame Oil, White Pepper, Old World Cabbage Stew/Red Peppers, Caraway Seeds, Grandma's Christmas Soup/Can Beef Consomme

Coordinating Cardstock Stickers: Old World Cabbage Stew

Journaling Sprouts: Circles: Pink on white, brown on white, yellow on white

Alphabeans: Black

Corrugated Alphas: White

Canvas Flowers: Brown Letters, Green Grid

Cool Beans: Brown

Bean Stalks: Green/brown

Other: Brown Maya Mist, Stickles glitter glue, Fiskars border punches, Martha Stewart butterfly punch, Prima pearls.

Have wonderful weekend! I'm off to bond with my grill for an hour or so ☺

looking for something new

I just know that there's something I haven't shown you yet so for today I'm going to look into my scrappy picture files and see what I haven't shown you yet that I can share with you right now.

Supplies: Paper by My Mind's Eye, Collage Press, Basic Grey.

Embellishments from Sassafras, Collage Press, Jillibean Soup, Basic Grey, Cosmo Cricket.

Here's one that I haven't yet shared here! It's a page that I created for an article by the fabulous Stacey Michaud (fellow Nook DT member and member of the Pink Paislee team) for the April ScrapStreet magazine. Stacey's article was about journaling and she asked me to focus on the 'how it feels, looks, sounds" of an emotion. I had these pictures of Aimee and just knew they'd be great for telling about one specific emotion. 

It was a little while after Halloween. Aimee is our little candy girl. She LOVES it and will fight for it. I, however, on this particular day didn't think she needed any more candy. She'd had some earlier in the day and I'd told her and Sarah that they could have more piece if they ate their lunch first. Well, you can guess how that went. Aimee didn't WANT to eat her lunch, she wanted candy. These pictures are of the drama that ensued, and being the scrapper that I am I went to grab the camera because I just knew that these pictures would make a great page. Can you see the emotion here? 

Most of us are good about telling the story behind an event but how often do we journal about the emotions? Just a little challenge for ya ☺

The Nook blog hop winners are up!

Check this thread to see if you were one of the winners:

http://www.myscrapbooknook.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=28153

and a quick card post

Good Monday morning to you!

I hope that you had a wonderful weekend.

Here, the birds are chirping but that is the only sound I hear so far besides the noise from my keyboard.

It's funny...we have some recessed lights under the eves of our second story and one of those lights has fallen. The other day I was upstairs in a bedroom right next to that light and I kept hearing chirping. I went outside to see if I could see anything and sure enough I saw a bird fly out of that hole. That explains all of the little chirpy noises- a bird has made its nest in that hole and we have little birdies living in there. I think it's cute but one of these days we're going to have to replace that light and will have to move their home. Not anytime soon, though.

I have a couple of super quick cards to share with you today using SRM stickers and more of the American Crafts Dear Lizzy collection. ♥

Have a wonderful day!

p.s. a fun little tidbit: my "Such a Doll" layout from my blog hop post below using the May Nook kit has been in the #1 spot for most viewed/most liked/most bookmarked today on 2 Peas. That's pretty cool considering the caliber of work that is submitted there. October Afternoon had it posted on their Facebook fan page today, too. 

My Scrapbook Nook May kit class

Good afternoon!

How is your Sunday going? It's hard to believe that the weekend is just about over, isn't it?

We've had a very busy but fun weekend and just spent the afternoon munching on breakfast yummies and playing games with some friends. It was so nice to have people over again since it's been quite a while since we'd invited another family over to hang out with us. Well, besides family here in town, that is.

I wanted to quickly share with you a class that I put together using the May kit from My Scrapbook Nook. This kit features the "Fly a Kite" collection from October Afternoon and has been an absolute blast to play with.

You can see the class instructions here:
http://www.myscrapbooknook.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=28078&sid=66afba5e3a0d2ca1d05e69c6bed10319

My Scrapbook Nook NSD blog hop!

Were you looking for the My Scrapbook Nook blog hop? 

Well, you're in the right place!

You should have arrived here from Lori's blog after starting at Leah's blog and hopping right on down the list. If you didn't start with Leah, here's the list so that you won't miss out on anything:

Leah Killian http://lifeaslou.blogsome.com/ 

Susan Lui http://luv2scrap-pages.blogspot.com/ 

Zarah S Peterson http://zarischka2.blogspot.com 

Stacey Michaud http://staceymichaud.blogspot.com/ 

LG Belarmino http://scrappinworld.blogspot.com/ 

Camilla Ekman http://camillaslillasida.blogspot.com 

Celeste Smith http://celestefs.blogspot.com 

Nicole Martel http://nicolemartel.blogspot.com 

Jenny Svensson http://jejas.blogspot.com 

Amy Coose http://www.amycoose.blogspot.com/ 

Tanya Tahir http://www.sweetaboutme-tanya.blogspot.com/ 

Trish Harwick http://harwickfamily.typepad.com/ 

Lori Mancini http://lorimancini.typepad.com/ 

Becky Williams http://onescrappinmama.blogspot.com/ (that's me!!)

So what's in it for YOU? 

The grand prize winner will receive the entire "So Sophie" line from My Mind's Eye as well as their other release, Meadowlark. Two runners-up will receive a Jenni Bowlin kit and a SEI prize package. 

Pretty cool, huh? 

All you have to do to be eligible for the prizes is to leave a comment on each blog that you visit during the hop. One blog will be chosen via random number generator to have three winners chosen from it, also via random draw. Because you don't know which blog will be the lucky one you should visit ALL of them ☺to increase your chances of winning. The prize winners will be posted on our Facebook Fan Page and in the forum at My Scrapbook Nook by May 4th.

Before I get started, how about a peek at the June Nook kit? We had so much fun with the "Little Boy Blue" line from My Mind's Eye that we decided to go for more MME in June. We'll have 15- yes, 15!!!-papers from the new Clever and Sassy lines. I'm loving it! How about you? 

This will be perfect for scrapping summer photos, pictures of boys OR girls or anything else you might have in mind. Leah's gorgeous handiwork in the picture above makes me so excited to get my kit. 

Would you like to see more work from our amazing international design team? Check out the gallery here: 

http://www.myscrapbooknook.org/gallery/. Our members are equally as  fantastic and it would be hard for you to find another gallery as inspiring and mixed as ours. 

So, how about some more from Leah? She's our amazing design team leader and the master mind behind the incredible kits we get each month at My Scrapbook Nook. She has an eye for detail and such incredible talent.

Isn't she just incredible? I think so. ♥

And now for something from me using the May kit. This is my sweet Aimee, 2 1/2 years old. She and her sisters were playing one day with some of Aimee's old baby clothes and this is Aimee all dolled up in a little pink dress. 

And a couple of detail shots: 

I used the Thickers from the kit, only I wanted something different from the original pink color so I used my handy dandy black Copic marker and voila!

For this page I used my EK Success retro flower punch and also cut out out the little girls and "make believe fun" from a sheet of the "Fly A Kite" patterned paper. 

Here, once again, is the super-fun May kit, filled with goodies from October Afternoon, Jenni Bowlin, SEI and KaiserCraft. You can order your own kit and start a subscription by clicking here: 

http://www.myscrapbooknook.org/club.shtml

Now that you've perused all of the Nook design team member blogs please head back to the forum and let us know you've completed the hop and to give us any feedback you wish!

Happy National Scrapbook Day!