my silly Sarah and some new and old American Crafts

Those of you who follow my blog at all know that I like to mix things up when I scrap. I like to mix manufacturers and also like to mix up different collections from the same manufacturer. Here is a page that I made for American Crafts using the new City Park collection mixed with some Dear Lizzy Spring.

I hope you're having a great day!

The October kit from My Scrapbook Nook

Autumn is the perfect time of year, with crisp leaves, candied apples, fat pumpkins, and that sweater-weather nip in the air!  Celebrate a bountiful harvest of family, friendship and love with our October kit!  One of the most texturally satisfying kits we've ever created, this one is sure to be a winner!

• Lily Bee "Catching Fall" papers-2 each!
• Jillibean Soup Sugar Picks
• 1 Basic Grey Bloomers/With Buttons
• 2 Basic Grey Alphabets
• Maya Road Mini Roses Trim
• Lily Bee Die Cuts
• Jillibean Soup Corrugated Shapes

You will want to headfirst jump into this kit like its a heaping pile of leaves, for sure! Of course, you won't want to forget the coordinating add ons this month either! There's loads of amazing embellishments that will go perfectly with your kit. How about companies like Basic Grey, Jillibean Soup and Jenni Bowlin? Awesome? We agree! 


http://stores.myscrapbooknook.com/-strse-Kits-cln-Feature-Kit/Categories.bok

card with Creative Charms

Good morning!

Another quick post here but I wanted to share with you a card that I made for Creative Charms.

For this I used the October Afternoon "Fly A Kite" collection, an SRM Sticker and the following items from Creative Charms:  Black and White Netted Flowers, 3D Vintage Brads- Antique Flower Medley, Assorted Gradient Pearl Stickers. 


Do you like the Creative Charms products? 


Right now there is a design team call happening and YOU could be one of the new members of the Creative Charms team. I have enjoyed the time I've been there but because of my family and other commitments I am stepping down. 


You can find the DT call information here: http://creative-charms.blogspot.com/2010/09/creative-charms-design-team-call.html

Have a wonderful day!

Operation Write Home and SRM Stickers

I wanted to share this with you:

http://srm-stickers.blogspot.com/2010/09/operation-write-home.html

Operation Write Home receives handmade cards from papercrafters around the country and then sends those cards to soldiers and their families.

Would you like to help? All of the information you need can be found using the SRM blog link above.

There's even a sketch to help you get going:

And...as always, one winner will be chosen at random from the entries.

Have a wonderful day!

oh wow it's been a while

Good morning!

I have been a slacker blogger lately, haven't I?

I am sorry.

It's been busy here with soccer and gymnastics and mom and me aerobics and trying to keep up with mountains of dirty clothes and then mountains of clean clothes to put away.

I've been doing some scrapping, but all for assignments so I will be able to share those later. The truth is, I have been so tired at night after the girls go to bed that I sit and read or watch a show or go to bed instead of staying up to scrap.

Thanks for coming to visit my blog.

I'll post some recent pics for you here later on.

Have a great day!

take a look at My Scrapbook Nook!

This was a fun surprise!

Some of the Nook design team members have some of their September kit creations up on the Crate Paper blog today and a couple of my things are there!

http://crate.typepad.com/cratepaper/2010/09/a-kit-surprise-my-scrapbook-nook.html

That has been such a great kit to create with. I just love that Restoration paper.

Would you like to see what will be in the October kit from My Scrapbook Nook?

Here's a little peek:

And the add-ons can be viewed here:

http://stores.myscrapbooknook.com/-strse-Kits-cln-Kit-Add-dsh-Ons/Categories.bok

I know that one kind of Jillibean alphas is sold out already!

tagged by Sami

Some of you might know Sami- we go way back.

We were roommates in college, I was the first (or close to the first) to tell her that she and her then-boyfriend were going to get married. And I was right. And, they're still cute after all these years.

We graduated, both of us got married to great guys and soon we ended up in the same town going to a different school. We were all in Pocatello, then we moved to Boise and they followed us- and moved in next door. I still miss those days. Then they later moved to Texas (that was the shock of the century) not too long before we got here. She's the coolest girl, I tell ya, and she has a snappy wit and does a mean "washing machine" dance.

Life gets busy and we don't keep in touch as much as we'd like but today I found that she'd tagged me on her blog so I will do her the honor of answering the questions and then passing it on to some of you lucky readers.

Here are the questions she asked me to answer:

1.      1. Do you collect anything?  What is it?  If not, do you WISH you did?   I collect scrapbooking supplies, ha ha. I have a room full of stuff that I don't get to use as much as I would like. Most of the time it's during cram sessions right before a deadline for an assignment while Matt is away at work. I also collect dust. Well, not me personally (yuck) but my house does. I would rather play with my kids and do other things than dust. I need to put the girls to work with that one since they enjoy it so much. 

2.     2.  What room in your house would you most lke to remodel?  Would your answer change if soemeone else was paying for it?   I would love to have our master bedroom done. We've painted a lot of the rooms in our house but not our bedroom, and it seems to be the catch-all for the house. We put things in there since we don't want them out in the living room or somewhere else and it's just a mess right now. I'd love to paint in there and have some storage units built and maybe a nice little reading nook by the bay window. If someone else were paying for it? I'd love to have the OUTSIDE done by a professional landscaper, more trees planted and a great patio cover built, etc.  

3.      3. What is your LEAST favorite chore?  Do you hate it enough to get a maid to do it, or are you too anal for that?  My least favorite chore? I hate folding laundry. I can wash it and get it dried but a lot of times the clean laundry just sits until it starts to drive me crazy enough to just put it away. Some days I do better with this, other days, not so much. Would I hire someone to do it? No. Matt has even asked me before if I'd like a maid to come do some things but then I'd have to clean up the house in order for the maid to come over and do things like scrubbing the tile floors and the tubs. Seriously. I've had friends say that they clean up in order for the maid to come over and do the little jobs they have her do. 

4.    4.   Have you ever broken a bone?  What, and how? I broke my wrist when I was in 4th grade. That's not very exciting but it's the only bone I've ever broken. I was running down my driveway as a kid and I slipped on the rocks and fell on my arm. That takes coordination, too. My arm was still hurting a few days later so my parents took me to the doctor. It wasn't so bad...I got out of doing the dishes for a while. 

5.     5.  Music.  Do you have a go to album that you play to get you motivated, or do you just blare the radio, and pray that something peppy comes on? I don't very often get to listen to my own music, mostly it's something for the kids except for the rare time I'm in the car alone, during which time I listen to country or some random cd in the disc player. 

6.      6. How do you keep track of your schedule?  Old fashioned calendar?  Set alerts on your phone?  Fly by the seat of your pants, and pray you don't forget a Parent/Teacher conference? I really should be more organized but I just write things on the calendar and hope that I have everything on there. 

7.     7.  Cooking, baking, or neither? I like to do both but sadly they've suffered since I've had kids and lots of things to do. My kids think it's a treat sometimes when I open that yellow package and make cookies sometimes. Don't get me wrong- I do cook from scratch, too, just not as much as I'd like when it comes to baking. I guess it's a good thing that I don't make cookies as much anymore since I like to eat what I cook. 

8.     8.  Are you brand name specific, or are generics just as good?  What is one product you would NEVER replace with a generic brand? For some things I get name brand, other things I don't mind as much. I am not a brand name snob but when it comes to laundry detergent I get the name brand. 

a simple card for today

Good morning, all my bloggy friends. I hope that this week is treating you well so far. 

I am not sure why but I am feeling the need for a little vacation, a break from the craziness of life. 

Remember this? 

Yeah, I'm getting a bit antsy to get out of dodge, if you know what I mean. It will be fun to spend some time with just Matt and the girls, just US.  A lot of our trips are with other family members or to see family so this will be a nice time to share with just our little family. 

We've been thinking a lot about our family the last year or so, wondering what we can do to help our family grow by one more and hope that things will work out for us soon. 

Keep your fingers crossed for us, okay?

For today I just have a little card for you created with some American Crafts:

I hope that you have a nice day!

The Origin of Freckles and LOTS of American Crafts

I was riding in the car somewhere this week and it was just me and Aimee, my almost-3 year old.

She told me that she has two freckles on her leg and I asked her where they came from.

"From my bath. I took a bath last night," she said.

"And that's where you got the freckles?" I asked her.

"mmm hmmm" she said.

So, there you go. Freckles come from taking baths.

I have LOTS of freckles so I have had lots and lots of baths in my days, I guess.

As she told me this I grabbed a pen and paper sure that this would make the perfect layout and the title idea came to me. Here is the layout I created with this recent pic of Aimee and the journaling from this day.

For this page I've combined some new-ish Abode(floral and dot)  and Heat Wave (blue dot background) paper with Dear Lizzy Spring (white paper with hearts on it) and some OLD Moda Bella paper (striped paper at top and bottom of the layout). I love that you can mix old and new lines from American Crafts and they fit together so well. Considering I have some AC paper that dates back about 8 years, it's a really good thing. I added some Dear Lizzy Spring Flair, stickers and dimensional accents and then, of course, I had to add my mix of Thickers to the page to finish it off. 

Here's a closer shot at the journaling:

I used two of the Dear Lizzy Spring rub-ons (the lines with the bow at the end) for my journaling spot. The lines weren't quite long enough so I used my Sharpie pen to make them longer and then added a couple more lines in between the two rub-ons. Perfect journal spot, huh? I also used my Sharpie pen to add some eyes to the little birdie since they got lost in the blue of the paper.

Isn't that little birdie so cute?!

I hope you have a great day!

SRM's We've Got your Sticker!

These cute stickers were some of my favorites from this past CHA.

Here's a card I made using some- I love that the sentiments are available in white, black and brown.

and a close-up of the center (I simply mounted the stickers on cardstock and cut them out.)

The journal spot is from Jillibean Soup ♥

These stickers are all stickers from this sticker sheet:

You can get yours here:

http://www.shopatron.com/home/index/3258

and see samples from other design team members on the SRM blog here:

http://srm-stickers.blogspot.com/2010/09/weve-got-your-sticker.html

mid-month reminder for Creative Charms

Good morning!

I just wanted to remind you about the September deal at Creative Charms.

You can get either of these embellishment packs worth $24 for only $7.99.

Boy Deal – 161 Pieces

·         18” Blue Fancy Polka Dot Ribbon

·         Beige Teddy Bears (4 pcs)

·         Yellow Fuzzy Ducks (4 pcs)

·         It’s a Boy Felt & Epoxy Brads (17 pcs)

·         It’s a Boy Epoxy Stickers (18 pcs)

·         Playtime Boy Felt & Epoxy Brads (11 pcs)

·         Blue Sparkle Buttons (12 pcs)

·         Blue Gem Stickers (76 pcs)

·         Assorted Sports Brads (6 pcs)

·         Assorted Star Brads (6 pcs)

·         Assorted Animal Brads (6 pcs)

Girl Deal – 143 Pieces

·         18” Red Fancy Polka Dot Ribbon

·         Yellow Fuzzy Ducks (4 pcs)

·         It’s a Girl Felt & Epoxy Brads (18 pcs)

·         It’s a Girl Epoxy Stickers (18 pcs)

·         Playtime Girl Felt & Epoxy Brads (14 pcs)

·         Pink or Purple Sparkle Buttons (12 pcs)

·         Red Gem Stickers (76 pcs)

·         Pink Felt Crowns & Purses (4 pcs)

·         Assorted Girl Themed Brads (3 pcs)

·         Assorted Flower Brads (6 pcs)

These are available at http://www.creativecharms.com/shop/Deal-of-the-Month.htm

Also, coming up for next month are possibly two deals and a mini kit with brand new product so be watching for more details here on my blog. 

Have a great day!

what can I share today?

How about some more Crate Paper?

I have been scrapping a little bit but most of what I've been working on is design team work that I can't share yet. Soon, though!

Here's another page that I made using the fabulous September kit from My Scrapbook Nook.

This is Sarah with our Basset Hound puppy, Bella.

And a couple of detail shots above and below:

Have a wonderful day!

how about some American Crafts?

Another quick post today...

Here's a layout I created for American Crafts using the "I Do" collection mixed with some "Letterbox."

The flowers and Letterbox frames were just begging to be cut out!

And how about another little sneak peek of my September blog project for AC?

Thanks for stopping by today!

p.s. Guess what? This AC project is up on the blog today: 

http://americancrafts.typepad.com/studio/2010/09/beckys-bliss-frame.html

another Crate Paper project

Just a quick post today because there is SO much to do today.

I wanted to share another layout that I made with the September kit from My Scrapbook Nook.

And a couple of detail shots:

I really liked the rub-ons from this collection and used the bicycle one and the "family" one on this page.

I hope you have a great day!

yesterday was good, yesterday was fun

We had quite a busy, run-around day yesterday!

The girls and I got up not-so-bright but early so that we could go over to the park near our house and see the hot air balloons launch. We'd all been so excited for that day to come, to watch the balloons and eat donuts for breakfast. It was so fun to be there before the balloons were even ready to go up.

We arrived at the park and watched as the ballooners pulled out the balloons and spread them out across the grass and got increasingly more excited as the balloons began to inflate and cheered as they lifted off. There were only 4 balloons but it was still fun for us. We're now anxious with anticipation to go see this:

http://www.balloonfiesta.com

It's the international Balloon Fiesta in Albuquerque, New Mexico that takes place next month and WE are going to go! I can't wait to see all of the balloons- there are supposed to be 500 of them from here in the U.S. and other places around the world. Isn't that SO cool? 

After we watched the balloons we met Matt at home and had donuts and then headed over to the church to babysit for some families while they attended a session at the temple. We came home around lunchtime, ate and then took Hailey over to a friend's birthday party. 

While Hailey was at her party I took Aimee and Sarah to see this- a display of 911 American flags set up at a local park in honor of those who lost their lives in the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001. It was such an emotional experience for me as we walked down row after row of flags and as I explained a little to the girls about what happened that day nine years ago.

We stayed there a bit and then went to try out a new frozen yogurt shop called "A Cup of Yo" and it was SO yummy. I think I'll take Matt there one of these days. You go in and get a cup and choose from the dozen or so flavors of frozen yogurt and then you choose what you want to put on top- fresh fruit, candies and other sweet treats, caramel and other syrups. It was so good. I got a little bit of a bunch of flavors- cheesecake, peanut butter, dark chocolate and vanilla bean. Did I mention how yummy it was? SO yummy, so yummy (to quote one of Aimee's favorite songs). 

Later in the day we went over to Texas Tech to see the flag display that they had- a flag for each person who'd been killed on 9/11. It was a nice tribute and a great reminder once again of the sacrifices made by those who serve each and every day to protect our freedoms, a reminder that we are so blessed to be safe in our home. 

I hope that you and your family are happy and well today. 

Everyday Girl from SRM Stickers

It's been a blast to be on the team at SRM Stickers and this last CHA release had some of the best stickers yet.

Today we are showing off the new "Everyday Girl" stickers which were, of course, perfect for me with my three girls. Here's a Hailey layout that I made using those stickers.

I walked into the kitchen one day and Hailey was creating a dress for her Barbie- she is so great at designing, whether it be in her drawings, her dress-up clothes ensembles or organizing the girls' activities. I thought this was such a clever thing for her to do! I used the Cosmo Cricket Material Girl line for this page along with a mix of American Crafts Thickers.

Here are some detail shots so you can get a better look at the stickers and journaling:

You can get some SRM Stickers here: 

http://www.shopatron.com/home/index/3258

You can see the work of the other SRM designers here on this blog post:

http://srm-stickers.blogspot.com/2010/09/everyday-girl.html

Have a wonderful day!!!

more with Crate Restoration

I have another layout to share with you using the September kit from My Scrapbook Nook.

Do you remember that old song that says, "I just can't get enough...I just can't get enough..."?

Well, that is the case for me with this gorgeous paper so I have another layout to share with you now and even more in the works that I'll share later on.

I don't know about your kids and what they like to eat when it's hot outside but mine like to feast on popsicles, even the cheap ones like Otter Pops. Here are Sarah and Aimee enjoying a cool treat on a hot day. Hailey was around that day, too, but those pics didn't turn out so lovely so I thought I'd share these.

I used some American Crafts Thickers for the title and used some more handcut doilies.

The rub-ons that come with this collection are just TOO fun. I liked this little postmark one so much!

and the journaling. 

There are still more kits so stop by the Nook to get one of your own today!

Crate Paper Restoration fun

When the new CHA release sneaks were shown before the big trade show, the Crate Paper Restoration collection was one of our very favorites among the design team at My Scrapbook Nook. We were so excited when we found out that we could have it for our September kit.

Here is a mini album that I created for a class at the Nook using this collection. You can see the class with all of my step-by-step instructions here: http://www.myscrapbooknook.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=31648

Here's the cover with one of those fun accordion flowers. Thanks to the amazing Sasha Holloway who had these on her blog along with where to find them (the fab girls at Stampin Up! had some tutorials on YouTube). I also used some of the Restoration brads and rub-ons for this. 

 And some of the inside pages. Please ignore the fact that one of the letters in Matt's name was falling off and I didn't realize until I was editing the pictures. I used my little retro flower and photo corner punches from EK Success to add a little extra to the pages. 

If you'd like to make one of your own, check out the kit here at the Nook:

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

Have a great day!

Color combo challenge at My Scrapbook Nook

There are so many fun things going on at My Scrapbook Nook right now!

We have the gorgeous new September kit which is sure to sell out quickly (I'm considering getting another one for myself).

We now have the oh-so-talented Danni Reid on our design team and she is breathing some new life into the Cards part of our forum and has just posted a color challenge there. Here is what you need to do if you'd like to take part:

Each month Danni will post a color combination challenge using colors from the current month's kit. You don't have to use the kit to make your card but it will make things easier for you. Simply create your card using the colors posted using kraft or white cardstock as the base, upload your card picture to the Nook gallery and in the challenge thread before September 30 and on October 1 the design team will choose a winner who will receive a card kit from Danni. Doesn't that sound like fun?

This is the thread to respond to once you have your card finished (click on the link at the top of the forum to post your image in the gallery). http://www.myscrapbooknook.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=31675&highlight=

Here is the color combo for September: