just another manic...Tuesday?

We're having a bit of a rough start to our day at home and yes, I am escaping from it all by sitting at the computer to blog this layout. 

It's another that I created a while back for fun and didn't share it. 

There is a mix of manufacturers on the page. I think there's some Crate Paper, Basic Grey ♥ along with some Simple Stories and Jillibean Soup. The gold tape is something that I had to put on everything for a while simply because I ♥ it. I got on the gold train a little late but it just gives things a special pop that I really like. 

The stars were cut on my Silhouette machine...they'd been sitting around in a pile of things I cut thinking I'd use them right away but didn't. Do you ever do that? I find it easier to cut a bunch of things that would work on a variety of projects and save them for future use. 

This page features my two youngest after their swim lesson graduation. They'd been nagging me to get cotton candy and I'd promised them that on their last day of lessons we would get them each their own. Lily's was bigger than her head, ha ha. 

 Have a fantastic day!

♥♥

Everybody Needs a Thneed

I consider myself a crafty person.

I love to play with paper and paint, enjoy crocheting and doing other little projects.

I, quite naturally, have tried to pass that on to my girls.

A couple of years ago I taught my two oldest how to crochet, a skill that I learned from my grandma and my mom around their ages. Sarah caught on to it and even learned how to make herself a scarf!

Here is a layout I made documenting her achievement, made with an assortment of product from Crate Paper, Studio Calico, American Crafts and others. I need to do better at keeping track of supplies but since it was just for fun and not an assignment I just grabbed things from here and there that I thought would work.

Have a wonderful weekend!

I am hoping to do some crafting and get some projects ready for the upcoming CHA trade show.

It is so nice to be crafty again ♥

my three year old fashionista

My youngest is so funny about the clothes she wears.

Being as young as she is you wouldn't think she would care as much but she really does.

She has a flair for combining all things sparkly, pink and fancy. And she loves her boots.

She is so much fun.

One the particular day these pictures are from she had her pink sparkly skirt, pink leotard, little cowgirl vest and her sunglasses. She is such a diva ♥ but I think she's adorable and it's such a fun age that I hurried to grab the camera and take some pictures. She was such a fun little poser.

I made the layout using the South Shore kit from Noel Mignon, and it's full of lots of bright summery colors and patterns. I think the kits are sold out but the paper pack is still available. AND...the September kit is going to be so gorgeous- lots of Pebbles Jen Hadfield, Crate Maggie Holmes, My Mind's Eye and so many other fun things. I can't wait for it to get here.

I used the rainbow-striped paper from Simple Stories for my background and of course added some spray mist. That tends to be one of the things I do on every single page. I either spray the background first or add a few droplets here and there closer to when I finish the page. It is always easier to do it first so that I don't have to worry about getting stray ink on anything else ☺

A Silhouette Cameo cut file and those cute green glitter Thickers from American Crafts finished off the title.

Thanks for stopping by today! 

♥♥

silly kid antics and Queen & Company Designer Tapes

Hi!

I hope you had a good weekend.

Today I have a quick page to share using some of the new-ish Designer Tapes from Queen and Company.

I used a piece of Studio Calico paper as my background and then created some Instagram frames using tapes and some metal dies from Lifestyle Crafts. The hearts and banners are also cut using Queen tapes and the stars are a mix of tape, cork (from Lifestyle Crafts) and some gold glitter cardstock from Core'dinations. The green foam alphas are American Crafts Thickers. The chipboard camera is by Maggie Holmes for Crate Paper and the heart journal spot is an old one from Jenni Bowlin.

I love dipping into my stash!

What have you created with washi tape?

I'd love to see so link me up!

♥♥

one more layout for the week

Hello again!

I have one more layout to share with you before we head off into the weekend.

Every year before Christmas I take my kids to see the Nutcracker Ballet in town. They do a magnificent job and it is a fun thing that I get to do with my girls when they are old enough to sit still for that long ☺

Last year I was able to take three of my kids and we had a wonderful time.

The ballet company here likes to switch up the performance in little ways every year so it is fun to see what they do differently from year to year.

After the performance is over the ballet company goes out to meet the audience where patrons can take pictures and get autographs. This particular year my girls were able to meet and get pictures with a lot of the dancers. This layout shows my kids with the Snow Queen.

I used lots of Crate Paper chipboard pieces and a bunch of sequins. I  have been hoarding some sequins for quite some time and haven't yet learned how to use them in a way where I really like the result. I think I may have used too many here ☺but that's okay.

The foam phrase and hearts are from the American Crafts Amy Tangerine Plus One collection and the striped tape is from Hobby Lobby. I think the gold rose print tape is from 3M and the pink striped one is from a pack I got at Target. I used some wood masking tape from ARC Crafts that I got in a welcome pack when I joined one of the Lifestyle Crafts Studio teams. The small alphas are from October Afternoon. 

Have a great weekend!

♥

playing with buttons, butterflies and burlap

I shared a new layout on the Noel Mignon blog yesterday and wanted to share it here as well.

For this page I used the Sweet & Simple classic kit (did you know that they have a Project Life-ish kit now?)

When the Fancy Pants "Burlap and Bouquets" collection was released one of the things that stuck out most to me was the burlap bows and I'd been saving it to use on a fun project. I thought I might use it for a home decor item or for a hair bow or something but decided instead to use it on this page.

I really liked the collage-y feel of the October Afternoon paper I used for the background but didn't want it to overshadow my photograph of this cute girl so I used a piece of Crate Paper Road Trip patterned paper (with the white brick) to soften it a bit. I added lots of buttons from October Afternoon and really like how this turned out: 

I added some of these cute chipboard frames to my page and was adding buttons later when I got the idea to add some buttons inside the little slide frame. I think it turned out cute!

I also added some Heidi Swapp Color Shine mist to a few of the wooden butterflies to add some sparkle to my page. 

Thanks for stopping by today!

You Make Me Happy

One day last week I decided to take a break from assignments and play with some product from my stash, mainly the cute new Hello Sunshine collection from Pink Paislee:

This little girl is a ray of sunshine at our house. The pics were from her 3rd birthday. 

The vinyl and chipboard accents are so fun! I really like the striped alphas! 

Thanks for stopping by today!

♥♥

Little Miss Sassy Pants

This little girl is going to be three years old on Sunday!

It's so hard to believe that she is so old already.

She is a miracle girl, such a beloved part of our family, the queen of the household, to tell the truth.

She is almost three going on thirteen.

She makes me laugh and want to scream all in the same day.

ha ha.

I love her spunk.

I took a break this week to scrap something just for fun. I felt like I was stuck in a rut and just wanted to play with some of my supplies without doing it for an assignment, without having a certain group of things I had to choose from. So, I pulled out the new American Crafts Amy Tangerine Plus One collection, the new Dear Lizzy and lots of fun Thickers. The result is the above ☺

I added some fun rub-on stars by my title and a sun at the top right of the page. 

We went to the Ranching Heritage Center one day while the kids were off of school and I caught Lily making this face and laughed. I knew it would make a great topic for a page and it was fun to catch a little bit of her personality. 

Have a great weekend!

♥♥

love these girls; playing with paint and mist

**Please check post below for your chance to win a spot in the upcoming PageMapsU Card class! 

I will be participating along with many of your favorite cardmakers. Here is a peek of one of my cards:

It's another day, another chance to make it a better one than the day before.

I had a rough mom night with some of my kids last night...they were being difficult and I gave in and lost my cool. I had to ask for their forgiveness. It is a good thing they are so forgiving. I am trying to be better.

Have you ever been there before?

I do love my girls; they are sweet and creative and smart and amaze me all the time.

Here is a page that I created yesterday in about 15 minutes using product I had right on my desktop; white cardstock background (American Crafts cardstock is my fave), a tag from Bella Blvd, a vellum cut by the talented Jennifer Chapin, mist from Heidi Swapp, wood veneer shapes that I cut using wood paper from ARC Crafts, tape from Queen & Co, American Crafts glitter Thickers, some craft paint and a Studio Calico acetate word.

The pictures of my girls are from Sarah's birthday; I wanted to get some pictures of her before we left for church and Lily did not want to be left out of the action. ♥

The tapes are from Queen & Co's new release; I worked on some CHA projects for Wendy and was able to snag some tape from my sister-in-law who was here visiting and also working on Q&Co projects.

That little yellow tag is from one of Bella Blvd's brand new releases- so cute! I tucked a heart underneath and added a few wood veneer stars punched from the ARC bark paper.

Have a fantastic day!

♥♥

fly by post this morning

It is another quick-post day.

One of the kids had a bad dream and came into our room around 3 and we all overslept so we are rushing as fast as we can to get out the door today.

Here is another page created with the My Mind's Eye Cut & Paste with a few American Crafts Thickers thrown in for good measure ☺

Have a great day!

my sweet Aimee and some more MME

Can you believe it?

I have actually been blogging almost every day lately.

It's been nice to have some down time to scrap and have those things to share with all of you. I mean, the twelve people who are still reading my blog ☺

Is anyone out there?

I know we get busy but hardly anyone comments anymore. I think in this fast-paced world we live in we are lucky to get to read blogs let alone comment on them. Feel free to comment here ☺

Anyway, I've had this picture of my Aimee for about 6 months now and finally got it scrapped- she is a sweetheart, a beautiful girl who doesn't have a volume knob- she is either on or off. There is no soft for Aimee. She is 100% or nothing. And we love her. She loves softball and hated gymnastics class- not as competitive as her older sister. She still sucks her thumb at night, makes friends wherever she goes, is taking her time with learning to read, is feisty and sweet all at the same time.

Here I've used more of the My Mind's Eye Cut & Paste collection- scrapping  just for fun.

The thing about scrapping "just for fun" for me is being able to use whatever I want. No restrictions, no worrying about which company's product I put on my page. I can mix it up however I want. Here, though, I did pretty much stick to the collection I was using but added in some Thickers from American Crafts. Because who can scrap without Thickers? They are my all-time favorite letter stickers and I use them (especially because I have way too many of them) whenever I can. 

I used lots of the embellishments from the collection and added bits of twine and little enamel dots. The star tape isn't from the Cut & Paste collection but it is from MME. From a boy collection, I think. Between MME and my tapes from Queen and Co. and Bella Blvd I have lots to choose from and use them on just about every page lately. 

What is your favorite manufacturer? 

Do you have a favorite type of embellishment?

I like so many of them, it's hard to choose just one. So, when I get the chance I try out different things. 

Have a great day- it is going to be a busy, back-and-forth day here. 

♥♥

It's Monday again! 

The kids have been out of school for two weeks for their Christmas holiday and during that time off I thought all along that they were supposed to go back to school today. I was wrong. They go back tomorrow. 

Don't get me wrong...I love my girls and love having them at home with me. During the school year things are so busy that we don't get a lot of time to spend together so having them home is so nice. But, I can tell that they are ready to go back. They are grumpy with each other and with me and I think they are craving their routine, whether they realize it or not. 

And so am I. 

So for today we will play and do something fun, they'll head back to gymnastics and dance tonight and tomorrow we will get back to  our regular schedule. 

With CHA trade show work done and a no assignments due this week I had some time to just play with some of the papers in my stash again. I've been going through the Cut & Paste collection from My Mind's Eye this past weekend (thanks to the Scrap Review gig I used to have I received the entire Cut & Paste collection in all four color schemes) and have this and a couple of other layouts to share with you this week. 

Here is little Lily at the park on the day that I taught her about making wishes and blowing off the fluff from dandelions. She was so cute, having so much fun running around the park to find more "wishes." 

These little hearts were originally part of an embellishment but I decided to cut that apart and use the hearts all over the page. The gray twine here is from Doodlebug. All other product besides what I specify to be different is from the My Mind's Eye Cut & Paste collection. 

The yellow alphas are some of my favorite Thickers from American Crafts and the little "xoxo" is from Studio Calico. All tapes and stickers are from My Mind's Eye. 

What are you doing with your Monday? Are your kids back to school already? 

Have a fantastic day!

♥♥

have a very Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas!

Usually by now, the morning of Christmas Eve, I have accomplished so much more.

We only put up one tree this year- the one the kids get to decorate- and the other still sits in the box where it will presumably stay until next year. We still have half of our decorations in storage containers. Fudge hasn't been made yet, gingerbread houses are yet undecorated and our Christmas cards are still sitting in the box waiting to be mailed.

Has it been a crazy time around our house?

Absolutey.

Are the kids going crazy with excitement for this special holiday creating so many little gifts for each other?

YES.

I think at last count Hailey had made something like 70 presents. I have no idea what is wrapped in that paper but I bet her sisters will love it.

I finished helping Aimee with presents for her sisters yesterday; it is so fun to see the joy in their eyes as they work on something special for each other.

Will it likely end up on the floor sometime in the near future?

More than likely it will but for now they are enjoying themselves and that is the important thing.

I sometimes get too bogged down in the details of Christmas and don't slow down enough to really enjoy it. This year life has made me realize that I just can't do it all. We will find time to decorate the gingerbread houses while the kids are out of school, the other tree with all of my favorite ornaments can wait and fudge will eventually be made ☺but for now I am enjoying this time with my family when we can all be together.

We are going bowling with some friends this morning- their Christmas Eve tradition- we will exchange treats and play and get the house ready for tonight when we will sing carols, drive around to see the Christmas lights and read in Luke 2 about the birth of baby Jesus. We will open new pajamas and hustle the kids to bed as we furiously wrap all of the presents I've bought over the last couple of months.

It will be a wonderful holiday and we'll eat crepes on Christmas morning while the kids wait anxiously to open their gifts.

I hope that you have a wonderful time celebrating with your family.

Here is a layout that I created with this years' Christmas card and some supplies from Pebbles Inc:

I used a mix of papers from the Halloween and "From Me To You" collections as well as some Thickers and some American Crafts washi tape that I found at Target. 

Have a very Merry Christmas! 

♥♥♥

crepe paper backgrounds and a cute little girl

It is interesting to see the personalities of each of my four girls develop and change over the years.

Each one is unique with different quirks, things she enjoys and things that drive her nuts.

Lily is our youngest, two and a half years old now, and she has quite a personality!

She makes me laugh so hard sometimes and makes my hair go gray during others.

Here is a layout I made about a week ago:

I used a Dear Lizzy crepe paper background, 5th and Frolic Project Life cards, Studio Calico wood hearts, Crate Paper butterfly and heart embellishments, American Crafts Thickers and twine from The Twinery. 

I added a few drops of mist to the background. 

Have a great day!

♥♥

just for fun *new layout

Well, we survived our adoption homestudy this past weekend and now there is just a little bit more for us to do before all we can do is wait and wait and wait some more.

With the looming home visit over I took a break from everything yesterday and did some scrapbooking and it was so nice to sit down and play. I haven't had many assignments to do lately since I've paired things down so I just pulled out some things that I wanted to play with and created this:

Created using some Dear Lizzy Polka Dot Party and My Mind's Eye Cut & Paste. I used Heidi Swapp mists and a little glitter star cut file from Studio Calico, a mix of alphas for the 9s- American Crafts and Sassafras- a butterfly left over from the banner I made for Hailey's party, hearts are from MME except for the large one which I cut from a Dear Lizzy Project Life card. The tape is MME as are the epoxy dots. 

For Hailey's 9th birthday she invited a bunch of friends over for an art party. We had canvases and lots of paint, they got to decorate their aprons and we had so much yummy, colorful food. I hanged paper globes from the ceiling in the kitchen and dipped rice krispy treats in colored white chocolate. It was so much fun. This picture is of the girls after the painting was done. They did a fantastic job!

Thanks for stopping by today!

I am going to try and scrap a bit more now...we'll see how it goes.

I have to mail a big packet of paperwork to the adoption agency and that will start the ball rolling so that we can get our referral. That could be anywhere from 6-18 months. It is quite a rollercoaster.

I'll keep you posted!

♥♥

getting ready for Halloween with American Crafts

Did you know that there is an American Crafts Halloween line that is found exclusively at Target stores?

I happily found it one day while perusing the store and was excited to get to create with it for Pebbles Inc.

I have so far created this layout and hope to be able to create lots more with this fun collection that includes a 6x6 paper pad, sequins, banner kit, table top decorations, clips, stickers, tape and more.

My Sarah makes quite a cute, silly witch, don't you think? 

She is so great at jumping into character and makes me laugh so hard sometimes. 

She is such a fun girl! I love her confidence and silliness. 

These pictures were actually taken during the summer just for fun; she is going to dress up as a witch for Halloween this year as well, hopefully complete with green face paint and crazy hair!

I added foam adhesive to the backs of some of the stars; the alphas are American Crafts Thickers (no project would be complete without them of course!)

The large gold star is from the banner kit and the smaller ones are all on a sticker sheet. There is also another pack of stickers and you can see some of those here on my page. 

What do you think of this line? 

If you like it, run to your nearest Target store and get some before it's all gone!

♥♥

birthday week at American Crafts

It is quite fitting that it's birthday week at American Crafts because it is also birthday week here for my oldest, Hailey.

I had a layout and card up on the American Crafts blog yesterday and would love to share it with you here today.

I made this card using the cover of an Amy Tangerine Ready Set Go mini book and added some extra circles, twine and Thickers for a card with a more masculine feel. 

For this page I used mostly the Mayberry collection with some My Girl and Amy Tangerine Yes Please. 

Isn't she sweet? It's always fun to scrap pages with pictures of this little girl. 

These are my last assignments for American Crafts. 

It's been so much fun to be part of the team!

♥♥

quick cards today

Hello once again.

Today I have a couple of quick cards to share with you:

This one was made using a mix of Bella Blvd Designer Tapes and a card from the Play Date collection. 

I made this using part of the cover of an Amy Tangerine Ready Set Go album, flowers and Thickers. 

Have a nice weekend!