New Blog!

I just wanted to stop in and say a BIG, HUGE thank you to Kristina over at Two Happy Mamas for creating my beautiful new Blog!! Kristina did an awesome job and it was all complete in about a day! You ROCK Kristina!!
Just wanted to share and send anyone who is interested over to their website! These ladies ROCK!
Thanks for stopping by!!

2 Layouts

I have been working on part of my New Year's resolution by setting aside some time every day to scrapbook. It may not be a lot of time but it is time! I have found that laying my things out and starting on it and then going back to it whenever I have a few minutes is working AWESOME! I have completed 2 pages in the last week and have started another! I am loving it!

Since Kayla's new competition season is right around the corner (3 weeks away), I decided that I better get last season's pictures scrapbooked before I have a ton more to do! Here are my creations for two of her dances. The pictures are not that great but I am hoping with my new camera coming soon, my pictures will soon ROCK!!

Well, this is all for now! Thanks for stopping by!!

Happy New Year

Hi!

I have been really wanting to get back into the blogging seeing as I have seriously fallen behind. Unfortunately I can honestly say that I have not done too much crafting lately and that is what my blog originated as, a place to share my craft. I know people say that if you REALLY love scrapping or crafting, you will find a way to fit it into your life but really I feel like I am exhausted by the end of the day! It is my goal to get out of my rut and get back into the swing of things!

Over the summer I was able to create a new scrapping room all of my own, well actually I did create a space in my room for Kayla to sit and create with or without me. I am very fortunate to have this cozy space in my home to do what I love to do. I took a lot of time planning and decorating it and I honestly need to spend some time enjoying it now! Since it is a new year and time to make changes for the positive in our lives, that is what I am going to do. I have this AWESOME table to create at and I am going to plan to set aside a small bit of time each day to creating. It might be a card, a layout, or an actual craft. I can leave it lay and come back to it every day. Who knows, maybe I will get so involved that I will spend hours completing the entire project or layout!!

I haven't spent a lot of time scrapping or crafting but I have been spending a lot of time doing what I call "Blog Stalking"! I have been reading different Blogs and getting ideas for cards, layouts, and photography tips as I "stalk". One thing that really jumped out at me as I have been doing this is Ali Edwards's idea of "One Little Word" I have been thinking a lot of this concept and absolutely LOVE it! For those of you that are not familiar with it, the idea is that you choose a word that you want to spend an entire year working on, it is a word that is only about YOU. For more information, here is the link to Ali Edwards post explaining it way better than I can. I think that the word that I am going to focus on for the year is PEACE. I feel like I keep coming back to this word over and over again as I have been thinking of this concept. I feel like I need to find PEACE within my life and everything around me. Sometimes I feel like I am surrounded in chaos in my day to day life ~ from rushing out in the morning for work, to the craziness at work, rushing to pick up children, and getting Kayla to dance. Home life seems to be as chaotic ~ rushing through dinner, homework, bath, and bed just to get up in the morning and start all over again! So with all of that said, I strongly believe that I can benefit from PEACE in my life. One goal with this concept is that I want to create PEACE through spending time doing things that I LOVE, one of those being scrapbooking/crafting and then also writing. This is also where my Blog comes into play. I want to be better about getting on here and putting things down on "paper", I tend to feel so much better and feel like I can deal with things better when it is out in the open. I am hoping that through many things I can achieve that PEACE in my life that I am looking for. I know this is a process and I am sooo looking forward to this process! I am even hoping to pick up one of those beautiful necklaces featured in Ali Edwards post with my word on it. I think this will help me keep my focus daily even when I am feeling caught up in the chaos, something to ground myself, you know?

Well, since I have rambled on and on here, I am going to step away for the night and head off to my scrap room. I am hoping that I can interest Audrey in a Dora DVD so I can get something started!

Thanks for stopping by!

Cards for Kids

I have been away for away but I have been busy creating! I have wanted to join all of the great people that have been helping Jennifer McGuire out with the Cards for Kids drive and I finally got several cards finished. I wanted to make sure that I made everything perfect for these special kids. Here are the cards that I created:

First up for the girls is this adorable octopus. On the outside is a joke that says, "What lives at the bottom of the sea and carries a lot of fish?" The punchline on the inside says, "An octobus!!"

I showed this card in a previous post and I did not like how it turned out so I made it a little better! Instead of handwriting the joke, I typed it on the computer and placed it inside a bubble. I thought it looked better this way! I created pink for the girls and blue for the boys. The joke says, "What kind of monkey flies to school?" Punchline says, "a hot air baboon!!"

This is the punchline for the next card, I can't figure out how to reverse the order!! Sorry!!

This whale card is also from another post that I didn't like so again, I changed it!! Instead of handwriting the joke, I typed it on the computer and placed it inside a bubble. Again, I thought it looked better this way!

This robot card I thought would be cute and simple for the boys!

This is another simple card I made for the boys. (Sorry about the lighting, it doesn't look so good in this picture!)

This is the girls version of the above card! I had to make it girly by adding bling to it, not sure you can really see it in these pics.

I really enjoyed making these cards and I even got Kayla involved, I thought it was a great way to show her how important it is to give back to others and to send smiles to those in need. I hope that Kayla and I can continue to participate in this card drive and really make an effort to make these children smile!!

Until next time............

Quick Share

Hi!! I just wanted to share a quick few cards that I made!

10 years ago, my sister was blessed with TRIPLETS!! I remember the day they were born and how tiny they were. So scary to see such little tiny babies and I rememeber being so worried about them. I am happy to say that over the past 10 years, they have grown into such wonderful little people!! They always brighten your day when you are with them!! Even though they are triplets, each is so unique and has such a great personality!!

So with that came my challenge this year to create birthday cards that would suit each of their personalities!! This is what I came up with!!

For Ashley I created a butterfly card. Of course I had to use Bo Bunny paper. I used the Hero Arts butterfly stamp and embossed with white. I then added some glimmer mist to the butterfly to make it shine!! Here is a close up.

and here is the complete card.

For Jacob, I had a difficult time. 10 years old seems to be a period of transition. I didn't want to make it too childish but at the same time he isn't quite a teenager yet!! Here is what I created:

Finally for Alex I created this cute girly card. Again I used Hero Arts stamps and then used my Copic markers to color her in. Here is what I came up for Alex:

Well, that is it for now. I am off to get ready for the birthday party!!! Thanks for stopping by!!!

Cards For Kids

So I have been a stalker of Jennifer McGuire's blog for sometime now and I have seen how she has a drive called Cards for Kids. She enlists the help of scrapbookers and card makers to help create cards for children and their families who have severe illnesses such as cancer, leukemia, etc. and are receiving treatments or are in the hospital for long periods of time. I have always wanted to participate but never felt that I could make cards that would live up to the unwritten standards that were in my mind!!! So finally after watching my friend Heather create cards for some time now I finally decided that it didn't matter how my cards looked, it was the smile that I put on a child's face that mattered!! I have been working on several cards and I am determined to make more to send along to Jennifer. Here are a few examples:

I forgot to photograph the punch line!! It is: an eel-ectric guitar!!! LOL!!!

These monkey cards are not completely done, as I am making a set of 13 so I can send one to each of the children in Jennifer's campaign. I am sending the blue ones to the boys and the pink ones to the girls!! (in case you haven't figured that out!! LOL!!)

I am planning on creating a few more different cards to send to Jennifer for these adorable children before the end of August. I am also enlisting the help of Kayla. I thought this would be a great lesson for her and for giving back to those around us. I thought it would be a good lesson to teach her that we should care for and embrass everyone around us, even if we do not know them personally.

If you would like to participate in Jennifer McGuire's campaign, just click HERE for information.

Also, if you would like other examples of some CUTE cards for kids, click on my friend Heather's blog HERE!!!!

Hope you can participate and help put a smile on a child's face!!!!

Thanks for stopping by, be back soon to post some more Cards for Kids!!!!

Chaotic

Things are always busy here and it is rare that I grab a minute by myself without someone yelling or needing something! I decided to take some time to try to post some happenings around our house (although it may take more than one day to type everything, we shall see!!).





We have been on break from dance for about two weeks and it is sad to say, but I needed a minute to catch my breath! With school ending for Kayla and the school year wrapping up for me, it has been pretty hectic. Although I am teaching summer school for a few more weeks my room has been packed and ready for our big move! We are moving to a swing building this summer in order for our school to receive a ginormous renovation. This has been in the works for about 8 years now and it is finally happening. It is crazy, let me tell you!! Boxes, trash, packing, UGH!!! As soon as summer school is over I will be in our new building unpacking, making my room presentable and ready for the next school year!!





Tom is always busy with work and it gives me a lot of one-on-one time with the girls. I need to get more creative with our time together! This is where I admire my friend Shane the most, she always has great activities planned for her children!! I need to get better! Tom works 6 days a week and 2 days a week he is up at Kayla's dance studio helping with renovations for a "new and improved" dance studio! It is going to look great when it is completed but we don't see much of Tom around here, he usually gets home after the girls are tucked into bed!





Kayla is loving being out of school even though she still has to get up in the mornings so I can go to summer school. She is staying with her dance teacher and absolutely loves it!! Tami keeps her super busy and it is great because she is exhausted when she gets home!! Once summer school gets out we will definitely have to do some fun things together. She has so many friends now and will look forward to hanging out with them over the summer!





Here are some pics of Kayla enjoying time out at Grandma and Grandpa's lake.

Looking at the camera!



Being brave and jumping off!

Such a poser!

Where soes the time go?!

Audrey has already taken her summer hit! She was running through our living room and slipped on the rug by the front door and split her forehead open on the door! As you know, the forehead bleeds a lot and it just spread wide open! I was a mess, although I did keep it together for her in front of her! In the emergency room they gave us a choice between stitches or glue but said the glue would leave less of a scar. Being a girl, we wanted the least amount of scar as possible, so we went with glue. You would have thought she would have been screaming and yelling in the ER but she was AWESOME!! Thank goodness we have a "Kona Ice" truck which sells Hawaiian shaved ice and it had come around right before her fall and we had bought one. Kona Ice is awesome for keeping a 2 year old busy in the emergency room!!! The doctor and nurses couldn't stop complimenting Audrey on how well behaved she was!! She didn't drop a tear the entire time we were there! You know I took pictures and it will soon be a scrapbook page!!!
Here are some pics of Audrey and her little head!!

Audrey out at Granpa and Grandma's Lake on Memorial Day

Her lovely cut

Well, I guess that is all I have for right now! I have a lot of scrapbook pages to share and I might post those this evening if Tom comes home early, or we will try tomorrow!!

Thanks for stopping by.