MHK Scrap Bytes

Facebook Fan Freebie

2012-01-24T20:30:00.002-06:00

It's freebie time! Funky Playground Designs is having a Facebook Train. Head over to my Facebook fan page and click the "like" button to get this alpha free. Make sure to follow the entire train and pick up the grab bag from the Funky Playground Designs page there is a coupon in there from me too.

My New Store

2012-01-03T20:27:00.002-06:00

Happy New Year everyone! Hope your year has started off great. My husband and I rang in the New Year with one of best friends from college. It was nice to have an adult evening. My kids had their own little party at my in-laws that night. lol. Grandpa and grandma took them out for pizza and then they got to go to the video store and pick out a bunch of movies to watch. Something they don't get to do very often now that we have been getting our rental movies through Netflix.

We also had Kailee's 3rd birthday this past week. She was so excited that morning when she woke up. She spent a good part of the day going around the house singing "Happy Birthday to me". She has come such a long way in the last year with her speech and I am so proud of what a hard little worker she is when we go in for her speech therapy each week. She has gone from only being able to say "ma" last Thanksgiving to singing "Happy Birthday" and a whole lot more this year. Her speech therapist is absolutely awesome and Kailee just loves going in to see her each week.

This year she has fallen in love with Rapunzel from Disney's Tangled. Though The Princess and the Frog still holds a very high place in the line up. So of course I had to make her cake for her birthday Rapunzel themed. When my mother-in-law went to the Mall of America in the beginning of December I had her pick up the Rapunzel play set from the Disney Store for Kailee's cake. Kailee was so excited when she seen the finished cake.

Sorry I didn't get this announcement posted earlier. We had a death in the family this weekend and so my computer time has been minimal.

And now for my big news...

It's official! I am now exclusively at Funky Playground Designs. My store opened there on Sunday. So excited to work with the great designers there.

I will be working on getting things moved into my store there in the coming weeks. This week I have my Tea for Two kit and coordinating cardstock in my store. Click on the images to be taken to the store.

Look at this adorable layout that Dawn made using Tea for Two.

I have also moved my Gingerbread Lane collection to Funky Playground Designs.

And now to announce the winner of the $5.00 coupon for my new store...

Ghislaine

Congrats! Please email me your email address so I can get you your code.

Until next time...Happy Scrapping!

Birthday Sale

2011-12-24T11:25:00.000-06:00

Wow where has the month of December gone? We normally have a busy Christmas season but this years seems to have been a bit more crazy than usual. We haven't had a quiet night at home all month yet and we won't until at least Tuesday. Besides the normal Taekwondo practice, dance practice, Wednesday night church and choir, we have had several Christmas programs, Snowball Dance, Taekwondo testing, multiple Christmas parties and 2 birthdays. Today was my birthday and my husband surprised me by taking me out for breakfast and then I spent the day doing my baking for tonight, tomorrow and Monday. On Monday my baby turns 3! Where have the last 3 years gone? She is getting to be so big.

To celebrate my birthday I've decided to put my ScrapMatters shop on sale!

From now until December 31, enjoy 25% everything in my shop (excluding collabs).

That's not all...

How would you like to get $5 to spend in my store? On Jan. 1, I will be opening up my new permanent store! I'm so excited to get started there. Leave a comment with where you think I'll be moving to by midnight EST Dec. 31 and I will randomly pick someone from the correct answers to receive a $5.00 coupon to spend in my new store!

Until next time...Happy Scrapping!

New Release & Grab Bag Reveal

2011-12-02T15:19:00.001-06:00

It's Friday once again and that means new goodies! If you are here for the blog train it in the previous post, so just scroll down. :)

First up today I have my Grab Bag Reveal. If you didn't get a chance to grab it last week you can now get each item individually or at a discounted price by picking up the bundle.

I also have in the store my Gingerbread Lane Icing pack.

Until next time...Happy Scrapping! :)

Dec Blog Train

2011-12-01T00:00:00.000-06:00

Welcome to the next stop on this month's blog train!

Download here or here.

You should have come from Hot Flash Designs and will be continuing on to to KS Designs.

I also have a coordinating alpha for you when you sign up for my newsletter. (Link in the sidebar) All current subscribers will also receive the freebie.v

Don't forget today is the last day to pick up my Black Friday Grab Bag before it gets broken apart tomorrow. (The reveal pictures in the previous post.)

Check out this adorable page that Dawn made using the grab bag!

Until next time...Happy Scrapping!

Black Friday Grab Bag

2011-11-25T09:42:00.000-06:00

Hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving this year. We spent the day with Paul's mom's family and had a nice quiet evening at home with just us. I don't think we have done that at all in the 12 years we have been married. I had thought about heading out to do some Black Friday shopping at midnight but decided that I wasn't that ambitious this year, especially since I knew I had a cake to make to take to Paul's cousin's house tonight for a post Thanksgiving party. He decided to go with a Hawaiian theme this year and I'm still not sure how I'm going to decorate the cake. Hopefully something comes to me soon. :)

This week I have this fun grab bag available at ScrapMatters. It's only available until Thursday, Dec. 1 and then will be broken apart and the pieces will be sold individually. It's the perfect kit to scrap a fun winter day or even a trip to the zoo or aquarium.

Here's a look at what is inside:

Until next time...Happy Scrapping!

2011-11-15T17:17:00.001-06:00

I've decided it's time to start a newsletter! With all the exciting things happening here at MHK Scraps over the next couple months I want to be able to keep everyone informed. I'm offering a free Icing Pack that coordinates with my Gingerbread Lane kit to those that sign up in November. The link to sign up is at the top of the sidebar.

Grab Bag Reveal and Re-release

2011-11-11T06:00:00.000-06:00

It's finally Friday again! I look forward to Fridays so much every week now. It's the one day of the week where I usually don't have to be anywhere. My Monday through Thursday is kind of busy with teaching preschool, Kailee's speech appointments and the older two's extracurricular activities. It's so nice for Kailee and I to be able to take our time in the mornings and spend some time snuggling together until she is ready to fully start the day. Some weeks is a little less than others, but what a great way to start the day. :)

Today my grab bag from last week has been broken down and all the pieces are available individually. You can also pick up all three pieces at once in the bundle and save 30%. Click on preview to be taken to it in the store.

I also brought one of my former releases from Scrapping Fairytales over to ScrapMatters today.

Also if you hadn't noticed I have added a newsletter sign-up link to the side bar. If you subscribe during the month of November you will receive my Icing Pack that coordinates with Gingerbread Lane for FREE as my way of saying "Thank you"! How awesome is that!

Well that's all for today! Until next time...Happy Scrapping!

2011-11-04T08:00:00.000-05:00

Well it's finally here! I'm finally guesting at ScrapMatters this month! Can't wait to show you what I have releasing this week for Digital Scrapbook Day.First though I have a little announcement. :) I've decided to shorten my design name to MHK Scraps. Over the next couple weeks I will be working on changing my blog design, so if it looks a little funny next time you visit don't worry it should be back to normal very soon. Now unto the fun stuff!

I had so much fun making this grab bag. It contains a full size kit, alpha and cardstock pack. It is available in my ScrapMatters guest store until November 10. After that it will be broken up and you will be able to get each piece individually.

Over the next couple months I have a lot of exciting things going on so make sure to sign up for my newsletter, "like" my facebook page and subscribe to my blog so you don't miss anything.

Mini Kit Challenge

2011-10-01T14:22:00.000-05:00

This month I'm hosting the Matter of Choice challenge at ScrapMatters and created a mini kit for you to use for it. You can grab it here until the end of the month.

I had yet to scrap the pictures I took last year at the pumpkin patch and we are quickly getting ready to head there again in the next couple weeks to get our pumpkins to carve. So I decided the best way to remedy that was to create a kit to go with my pictures. Here is the page I created with the mini kit, WM Squared's Sketchy Time Alpha and True Blue Studio's Autumn Bliss Templates.

linked for credits

Black & White Photo Tutorial

2011-09-24T14:25:00.000-05:00

I can't believe I forgot to come back here and let you all know that I got second place in the DSA Designer Apprentice!!! I still can't believe it. :) Keep an eye on my blog and my Facebook fan page to see when I'm starting my guest spot at ScrapMatters.

I've posted a tutorial on how to get better black and white pictures. I used a few of my sister's engagement pictures I took last month as my examples. I love how great the pictures turned out. I can't wait to show my sister the rest of them. Here is my page with the finished results.

click for credits

geniaBeana Anniversary Blog Train

2011-09-09T00:00:00.055-05:00

Welcome to your last stop on geniaBeana Scraps' Anniversary blog train!

geniaBeana Scraps is celebrating her 3rd year Designerversary AND 1 year ScrapMatters Anniversary all at the same time...and you get the presents! Make sure to check out her store because it's all on sale until Sept. 18. Also if you haven't already done so make sure to stop by her blog and pick up the BEAUTIFUL Mini Kit she has created to celebrate.

Don't forget to get your application in for her CT Call which ends on Monday.

And now for your goodie! :)

Download here or here.

You should have come from Digital Scrappin Rocks. If you have gotten lost along the way or are just getting started head over to GeniaBeana Scraps blog for the full list.

Girly Girl Elements

2011-09-04T00:41:00.001-05:00

Well here it is...The fifth and final challenge installment for DigiScrapAddicts' Designer Apprentice. We were to make element to go with either our week 2 or week 4 paper packs. I decided to go with my paper pack from last week. We had to include at least 6 layered elements and 4 basics. I knew this week was going to be very busy with getting everything set at school for preschool starting next week. I wanted to get started on this challenge as soon as I possibly could but ended up not getting a chance to really sit down and start creating until Wednesday. It was slow going at first. I had all these different ideas in my head on where I wanted to take this but didn't know where exactly to start. After starting and stopping on several elements I finally got in the groove. After that all the pieces just feel into place.

Going into this contest I did not expect to score as high as what I did. The first week that the scores were posted my jaw about hit the ground when I seen what I had gotten. That also meant the pressure was on. I wanted so badly to continue to do as well as that first week. I just about didn't sign up for the contest because of just getting this new job as a preschool teacher and knew that would take up a lot of time getting the room ready and preparing my curriculum. I am so glad I did take a chance though and go for it because over the last 5 weeks, I have learned so much. Not only about designing but also about what I'm capable of personally.

So without further ado...here is the preview for my elements. Hope you like them. You can find the download link in the DSA gallery.

Until next time...Happy Scrapping!

Girly Girl Paper Pack

2011-08-28T00:26:00.000-05:00

Wow what a week! I didn't know if I was going to get this week's challenge done or not at DSA. The kids started school on Monday and I thought that would mean I'd have more time during the days to work on it. I think I actually had less. lol.

The inspiration for this week's paper pack came from my youngest daughter. She is such a girly girl. Definitely more than her sister. She loves all things girly.

You can find the link to download this paper pack in the DSA gallery.

DSA Challenge #3

2011-08-20T17:05:00.003-05:00

This week we needed to make three alphas that coordinate with our mini kit from the first week. You can find the download link for them in the gallery at DSA. :)

DSA Challenge #2

2011-08-12T19:09:00.001-05:00

Well now that we have finally started to get into the routine of having my husband home every night, we've decided to change things up again. lol. :) I got a job as a preschool teacher 2 mornings a week. So after 8 years of substitute teaching in the elementary school, I finally have my own classroom! I'm pretty excited, but nervous, too. There is a lot to get done before it starts the day after Labor Day. I went in to take a look at the room today and start getting it set up today. It got moved from the room it was in last year, and it looks like whoever moved it just took the stuff and threw it in boxes and brought it to the new room. There is stuff all over and mixed up. This might take me awhile to get it the way I want it. Not only do I have the room to get ready, I also have to start making my lesson plans and looking for ideas for that. I'll also be helping with the after school program and the school-age summer enrichment program. Thankfully the curriculum that they use is one that I did a presentation on in college, so it's not completely new to me.

Got my paper pack for the second challenge at DigiScrapAddicts posted! One of my friends put in a request for a school kit that wasn't primary colors. Since she has all girls their back-to-school clothes usually don't match the colors in most of the school kits out there. And since I tend to have that problem with my oldest, too, I was happy to oblige. I'm hoping to expand this with elements and more papers eventually. Just have to find the time to get that done. lol. ;) It probably won't be until after I get into the swing of the school routine, though.

You can find the download link for it in the gallery post at DSA.

Until next time...Happy Scrapping! :)

Designer Apprentice Challenge #1 Kit

2011-08-06T15:44:00.001-05:00

If you are here for either the ScrapMatters' blog train or the Blog Train Blog train scroll down a couple posts. :)

Whew! Finally got my kit done for the DSA Designer Apprentice challenge #1 done. (with a few hours to spare even.) I'm supposed to be camping right now but had to sneak home to quickly get it posted since I didn't have it quite finished before we left yesterday. lol. You can find the links to download it in the gallery at DSA here. Now to wait and see what kind of challenge we get tomorrow for next week. :)

SM Garden Party Blog Train

2011-08-06T10:00:00.054-05:00

Welcome to the next stop on the ScrapMatter's Garden Party blog train! By now you should have collected all kinds of awesome goodies, but if you are just getting started you are in for a great treat.

If you are here for the Blog Train Blog it's a few posts down. :)

Here is a peek at my piece for you.

~~Download here or here.~~

***Sorry links expired.***

You should have come from Ophelia's blog and will now be headed on to Heidi. If you get derailed along the way just head back to the ScrapMatters blog where the entire list is posted. Don't forget to collect all the pieces to find all 10 pieces of the puzzle. When you have found all 10 pieces, put it together and upload it to your favorite photosharing site. Then pm Kat at ScrapMatters the link to receive your coupon code.

Whimsical Words Challenge

2011-08-05T09:15:00.000-05:00

I'm hosting the Whimsical Words challenge over at Scrapping Fairytales this month. I created a pack of summer themed word art for it and you can grab it for free using the coded posted in the thread. Hurry though because the coupon is only good until Aug 31.

ScrapMatter's Birthday Celebration

2011-08-04T09:00:00.000-05:00

Who's up for a birthday party this weekend? ScrapMatter's is turning 4 and it's time to celebrate!

Check out all the Speed Scraps and chats being hosted this weekend. Don't forget to stop by the forum, too, and check out the games being played.

Choo Choo! The train has enter the station

2011-08-01T10:00:00.009-05:00

Welcome to the next stop on the Blog Train from the Blog Train Blog!

I have this cute little mini kit for you today. When I seen the swatch for this month's blog train I knew I wanted to do something kind of summery. Inspiration hit when I was getting my youngest ready for bed one night. I noticed that the colors in her pajama bottoms happened to be close to this color palette. Then it got me thinking about all the monarchs you start seeing around here as summer comes to a close. I just love watching them flutter around from one brightly colored flower to the next. I knew I just had to go with that for this kit. And that is how Butterfly Garden came to be.

***Sorry links expired***

You should have come here from Pardon the Mess and will be continuing on to ViolaMoni. If you get lost or want to start at the beginning hop on over to the Blog Train Blog.

Hope you enjoy the mini kit! Make sure to stop back on Saturday for another freebie from the ScrapMatters blog train! :) I've also decided to compete in the DigiScrapAddict's Designer Apprentice this year, so be on the lookout for my submissions for that during the next month. I'll try to make sure to link you up to them when I get them posted over there.

Until next time...Happy Scrapping! :)

It's a Date Vol. 1

2011-07-22T17:20:00.000-05:00

I have a new date stamp element pack out at Scrapping Fairytales today! It is so versatile. You can make it match you page perfectly by clipping a paper to the different sections of the background paper. There are four different sections, so the possibilities are numerous. Also included are the years 1995-2020 in both straight and round orientations, the months in round, straight and abbreviated versions and numbers 1-31 for the date.

Check out how my CT member Dawn used it on this layout.

A little bit of China

2011-06-24T06:00:00.013-05:00

Life has gotten a bit crazy around my house this past week. My husband started a new job on Monday. He is now home every night. Talk about a big adjustment. For the past just about ten years he has been driving truck long distance, so he was usually only home every other weekend. The kids are really liking having him around more often, so am I. It's just going to take us a little bit to get used to the new routine. I have also applied for a preschool job for a couple mornings a week during the school year. I'm really hoping I get it.

Now on to what you probably came here to see...my new kits! :) Ever since I was little, pandas have been one of my favorite animals.When we went to the San Diego Zoo a few years ago, I was so thrilled to be able to see a live panda in person. I would love the opportunity to some day go to the panda research center in China to see even more of them. When I was working on my Zoo Crew kit I had thought about including the panda, but decided I wanted to do an entire kit around it instead, so that is how this kit came to be. I just love how these kits turned out.

If you buy both kits together in the bundle, you save about 30%. :)

Until next time happy scrapping! :)

A sneak peek!

2011-06-22T16:44:00.000-05:00

I have 2 fun mini kits coming out this Friday. Here is a little sneak peek. :)

Come join me for a Speed Scrap!

2011-06-20T21:52:00.000-05:00

I'm hosting my first speed scrap at ScrapMatters! Not only that but I even made the participation prize! Hope you can join me for a fun time. :)

Strawberry Lemonade Cupcakes

2011-06-20T21:28:00.000-05:00

Wow the summer has sure gone by fast so far. My little sister has decided that she wants to do three different kinds of cupcakes for her wedding, a white, a chocolate and a fun flavor. For her fun flavor she is currently thinking Strawberry Lemonade, since it is a summer wedding and that's a summery flavor. So that means time for me to experiment.

I took two tries at making the Strawberry Lemonade cupcakes. I think it's going to take a few more tries before we get the perfect combination. The first one I made was a lemon cupcake with a little bit of strawberry filled with lemon curd and topped with strawberry buttercream. This one turned out very dense and quite lemony. The lemon was a bit too overpowering. So it was on to try number 2. lol.

(Strawberry lemonade cupcake Take 1 outside)

(Strawberry Lemonade cupcake take 1 inside)

Take 2 is much closer to the cupcake my little sister is wanting for her wedding. I made these and took them to our church's Vacation Bible School for treats for the teachers and they were a huge hit! :) I decided to practice my rose frosting on these, too. Learned a few tips on how to get them to look right from the beginning next time. ;) This time I started with a white cake base and added lemonade concentrate in place of the water along with the strawberry puree. The filling is a strawberry lemonade mousse and is topped again with a strawberry buttercream. The cake was very moist and light with a great crumb. The mousse was the perfect blend of strawberry and lemon. I think I'm going to try to tweak this recipe a little bit more to see if I can get a bit more strawberry flavor in the cake, then it will be just right. :) I also like the appearance of this second one much better than the first, too.

(outside of Strawberry Lemonade cupcake Take 2)

(Inside of Strawberry Lemonade cupcake Take 2)

Next up is a birthday cake for my grandfather's 75th birthday this weekend. :)

Hunter's Cake and Template Freebie

2011-05-31T18:57:00.001-05:00

Hope everyone had a great Memorial Day yesterday. :)

Last weekend we went camping for Hunter's birthday. Man, what a wet weekend it was, too. :P By the time we came home on Sun we no longer had a black & white Shih Tzu. Instead we had a black one. :O Thankfully on Saturday when we had Hunter's birthday party with his friends it was dry until it got dark. We had the pleasure of setting up and taking down in the rain, too. lol. Unfortunately with all that rain that meant no sitting around the campfire at night too. Good thing we had packed games in the campers to play instead. The kids had a great time as usual, though, so it was all good. :)

For Hunter's birthday we decided to go with a Super Mario Bros. theme. I made funfetti cupcakes with red, green and blue frosting for his party with his friends and a funfetti cake for his family party. The decorations on his cake took me quite a while to make, but I have to say I'm pretty happy with the way they turned out. Everything on it was edible except for the Mario figurine on the top.

This week I'm thinking about trying a strawberry lemonade cake and cupcakes. I found a recipe that sounds pretty good and it's a flavor Lisa would like to try for her wedding. So I'm going to give it ago. Will try to remember to take pictures so I can post them here. :)

I'm hosting the Tuesday Template challenge at ScrapMatters today. :) You can snag this free template from me in this thread. Since it's the end of May, you have until the end of June to get a page completed!

Here is the page I created using The Design Girl's Fairytale and Erica Zane's If You Give a Girl a Castle that inspired the template.

It's been a fairly productive month scrapwise for me, too. Here are some of the other pages I managed to scrap. :)

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I've got some fun things I've been working on the last couple weeks, hopefully if all goes well I can show them to you soon. :) Until next time...

Happy Scrapping!

Summer Kick off freebies!

2011-05-29T19:00:00.008-05:00

Starting on May 27th, the Haynay Hunnies are giving you a week of freebies! :) You can find them on Haynay Designs' blog. Today is a cluster frame I created using Love My Doll and Love My Baby.

ScrapMatters Timeless Blog Train

2011-05-07T10:00:00.011-05:00

Welcome blog train riders! You have reached my stop on the ScrapMatters Timeless Blog Train. By now you should have collected all kinds of awesome goodies, but if you are just getting started you are in for a great treat. You should have come from Crystal's blog. Your next stop on the train is Angie. If you get derailed along the way just head back to the ScrapMatters blog where the entire list is posted.

~~Click on image to download. This paper stack will only be available through 8 am Pacific time on May 14.~~
***Sorry link expired.***

Tea for Two and a Freebie

2011-05-06T08:30:00.001-05:00

I'm so excited for iNSD weekend! There is so many fun things going on around digiland. Make sure to stop by Scrapping Fairytales on Sat and check out the 35% off storewide sale. While you are there also be sure to check out the forum and all the great challenges going on over there.

Do you want a free alpha to coordinate with the Capture the Moment Scrapping Fairytales Collab? Then make sure to do A Moment in Font challenge using the Capture the Moment kit and you will get this matching alpha from me.

I even have a fun new release for you this week! Tea for Two was inspired by all the tea parties I used to have at my grandparents' house when I was little. It was one of my favorite things to do there when we went for lunch after church every Sunday.

And last but not least I have a little gift for you for iNSD! It's a free pack of cardstock that coordinates with Tea for Two. Hurry and grab it because the link will expire at midnight Thursday. After that you will be able to pick it up in my store. Enjoy! :) ~~Click on the image to download~~. ***Sorry link expired.***

Until next time...
Happy Scrapping!!!

ScrapMatters iNSD Schedule

2011-05-06T08:15:00.000-05:00

iNSD is coming!

2011-05-05T08:00:00.003-05:00

Check out all the awesome things happening at ScrapMatters this weekend for iNSD!!! I can't wait it's going to be so much fun. :) The fun starts tomorrow so make sure to stop by.

My exciting news!

2011-05-01T03:30:00.001-05:00

It's finally time for me to announce what I have been working on for the last month! :) I'm so excited to share with you that I will now be selling my designs at Scrapping Fairytales. It is a brand new store and today is their grand opening. You can find my shop here or just click on the blinkie in the sidebar. I've also set up a fanpage on Facebook, so make sure to check it out and click the "like" button, so you stay up to date on the latest news. :) To celebrate my new store I'm also having a one day sale tomorrow.

The first kit I have releasing today is Tomboy Treasures. There is a little freebie that coordinates with this kit at the end of this post, so don't forget to grab it. Also, one of my CT members has a great frame cluster freebie for you that coordinates with The Zoo Crew on her blog. You can grab it here.

Next up is The Zoo Crew Collection. You can get each piece individually or buy the bundle and save.

I also have a couple more items that coordinate with The Zoo Crew. They are a set of word art frames and a pack of zoo themed word art.

And as promised here is a little freebie from me that goes with Tomboy Treasures. Click on image to download.

Until next time...
Happy Scrapping! :)

New look

2011-04-21T22:10:00.000-05:00

As you can see I've been busy changing up my blog this week. :) I figured it was long overdue. Make sure to keep checking back in the next couple weeks because there will be a lot of exciting things happening around here.

I figured while I'm at it I would share a few of my recent layouts with you. This first one has to have one of the longest credits list I have had recently. ScrapMatters started a new thing this month called Mix A Kit. All the designers worked with the same color swatch and came out with all these awesome products. This month's color palette was so pretty! It was so hard to choose just a few to work with so I decided to go ahead and see how many I could possibly fit on my layout. lol. ;) I think I managed to use 12 different items. Can't wait to see what they come up with next month.

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Until next time...
Happy Scrapping!

2011-04-14T21:21:00.002-05:00

Well here it finally is...My round 4 kit. But first the inspiration for it. :) Know now I mentioned in the post about the birthday cakes how much Kailee is liking frogs. Well that was my inspiration for this kit. :) This summer the kids found a little bitty toad and Kailee went absolutely nuts over the little thing. She couldn't get enough of it. She kept having to look at it in the bucket and trying to pick it up. The only problem with that was it since it was so tiny that she could squeeze it between her thumb and finger. :O They also found a furry caterpillar and she let it crawl up her arm.

So there it is, the inspiration to create this fun kit. :)

Making these last couple kits has really gotten the ideas flowing. I can't wait to get started on another one, but unfortunately it may have to wait awhile because I'm busy working on something that will be revealed to you very soon. That and Michaella's volleyball and dance schedules have really shaken things up around here. This next weekend she has a tournament on Saturday 1/2 an hour from here. On Sunday she has a dance competition that is 4 hours away. Unfortunately they aren't scheduled to dance until 5 pm, so it will be a late by the time we get home. Thankfully she doesn't have any of the state tests at school on Monday.

One last thing before I sign off. :) Check out these cupcakes I made for my grandma to take to their church sale. They are Neapolitan cupcakes with Neapolitan frosting. My little sister decided after seeing Michaella's birthday cupcakes that she wants me to try and do 3 colors of frosting on her cupcakes for the wedding. So what better time to give it a try than on a frosting that is made up of 3 different flavors! I discovered that when I do it the next time that I need to have a larger piping bag than my little 12" ones. With all that frosting in there at one time it was a bit too full. oops. ;) Sorry for the bad picture but I forgot to get a good one with my camera before my grandma came to pick them up. So I only have the picture I snapped with my phone to send to my sister. Next up I need to make 2 different types of frosting for one of my aunts to try. My cousin is graduating from high school this year and she doesn't like buttercream frosting, so she is looking for a whipped frosting to use instead. May have to try them for Easter. :)

Until next time...
Happy Scrapping! :)

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

2011-03-17T08:24:00.071-05:00

Took the kids to the zoo on Saturday for the first time this year. They were celebrating the triplet cubs' first birthday. When we woke up that morning it was so cold and windy that I decided that we weren't going. Michaella had a dance performance at the local Home & Garden Show in the morning, so we headed there and then we were going to go get her volleyball shoes since her first tournament is this Saturday. Apparently her current shoes have no grip left on them and she keeps sliding around at practice. After she was done dancing we headed to town to get her shoes. When we finished our lunch at Culver's I decided it wasn't to bad there and the wind was blocked much better there than it had been at home. So we headed to the zoo. When we got there we went right to the building by the tigers to wait for the zookeepers to let the cubs into their enclosure. The zookeepers had made the cubs 3 cakes covered in meat with the number one on top. They also made a few additional number ones to set around the enclosure. The cubs went right for the cakes when they were let in and started batting them around a bit. The kids had a great time watching the tigers interact with their cakes. From there we decided to go check out the baby monkey that had been born a couple weeks ago. The kids had fun interacting with the little spider monkeys, here. The one kept following Michaella's birthday hat she had gotten when we were by the tigers. Then it was on to the baby rhino that was born in Oct. We hadn't made it to see him yet and the kids were so excited we were finally getting a chance to do it that day. It was also our first time getting to see their new habitat, too. Unfortunately our first time though he was just laying next to him mama, so we went to the giraffes to see how big the baby giraffe had gotten. The last time we were there it was only a couple weeks old. They were still in the winter view building, so it was a nice break from the cold once again. We managed to get from one building to the other just as we were just starting to get a little chilled. The little giraffe kept watching Kailee in her stroller. It was so cute. The kids decided we should see the baby rhino one last time before we left. This time he was up and walking around. The kids were glad that we had decided to stop again. :)

For the second round of ScrapMatters Design Star contest the requirement was to make a paper pack with 8 papers (5 patterns & 3 solids). I decided to go with a zoo theme since I have so many zoo pictures to scrap and plan to keep adding to them. I really like how they turned out.

For the third round we had to make the elements. Fifteen of them to be exact. I had so much fun making the little animals for this kit. I ended up making more than I needed so I have a few that may end up in an addon at some point. :)

I'm currently working on my kit for round 4 and can't wait to show it to you. We had to do 12 papers, 25 elements and an alpha. I have a little way to go with it before it has to be posted on Monday.

I have another cupcake for you today, too. :) I made this one for my grandma to take to their church group meeting the other day. It's a mint chocolate cupcake with a creme de menthe buttercream frosting sprinkled with gold glitter and a chocolate shamrock on top. Unfortunately the mint flavor didn't come through as well as I was hoping, but they were still very good.

Until next time...

Happy Scrapping!

Cakes and cupcakes!

2011-02-28T20:20:00.001-06:00

Over the last few months I have really gotten into cupcake and cake decorating. I think I've mentioned it before that I started doing them to practice for my kids' birthdays since my youngest can no longer have bakery cakes. It's always been one thing I'd like to learn how to do, too. In January my sister and I also took the first Wilton cake decorating course. Would really have liked to take the one that starts in March too but with Michaella's activities schedule it's not possible at this time. Hopefully I can take the one they have in June, though. Not only have I been practicing for the birthday cakes, but my little sister got engaged in November and is planning on having me do cupcakes and their cake for the wedding. So my kids (and everyone else) have been enjoying eating all my trials. lol.

For Kailee's birthday, I decided to go with a Princess and the Frog theme. She loves frogs and that seems to be her favorite movie at the moment. Whenever you ask her is she wants to watch a movie that is the one she will dig out. I was very happy with the way it turned out. She liked it too because every time she seen it she would go "ooooooooooo". :)

Michaella wanted to have an animal print themed party. So for her's I went all out. Everything matched from the invites to the cupcake wrappers. Even the cake matched. ;) She had also been looking over my shoulder when I was looking at different cake designs awhile ago and spotted the topsy turvy style cakes. She decided that was what kind of cake she wanted. No small orders for this one. It took me forever to get the decorations done on her cake, but it finally got done. I even used two colors of frosting on the cupcakes. Love how they turned out!

Hunter's already got his thinking cap on trying to decide what he wants me to do for his birthday. We'll have to see if he comes up with a more complicated design. lol. At least I have until May before I have to do his. Right now he is talking about wanting a Super Mario themed party.

So along with all the birthday cakes I've also been trying out different cupcake combinations. Whenever we have a family get together I have to try a new combination. I tried to take pictures of them but forgot a few.

In October I made a pumpkin spice cupcake with cream cheese frosting (decided I didn't care for these) and chocolate cupcakes filled with dulce de leche frosted with caramel buttercream (so yummy). For Halloween, I made purple & orange colored vanilla cupcakes with the left over cream cheese frosting from the pumpkin cupcakes.

For Thanksgiving, I did another chocolate cupcake with dulce de leche and whipped cream frosting. Christmas was chocolate cupcakes with peppermint buttercream and vanilla cupcakes with Oreo buttercream (both of these went over very well).

This one was a chocolate cupcake with a marshmallow cream filling and a whipped frosting.

Also gave making cupcake wrappers a go, too. I used my Tea for Two kit to make these.

I had never had red velvet cake before but after seeing it used about every week on Cupcake Wars on the Food Network I decided to give it a try. So what better time than Valentine's. :)

Of course, how can you make so many cupcakes and not have a little taste tester. lol. Kailee was definitely up for the job! Now whenever I get the mixer out she is right there at the counter with her little mouth open pointing at it, waiting for me to hand over the beater or spatula. How can you say no to such a cutie? ;)

Can't wait to try some more cupcakes (and neither can my family. lol. ;) )

I also decided to give the Design Star contest a try again at Scrap Matters, but unfortunately I didn't make it past the first round this time. :( But have decided to continue to play along to work on my designing. You can find my first round mini here. Tomorrow the second round gets posted and I'm so excited to show you what I came up with.

Until next time...

Happy scrapping!

Check out all the Speed Scraps

2010-11-03T15:00:00.000-05:00

DSD is coming!!!

2010-10-29T15:24:00.001-05:00

2010-10-29T06:00:00.002-05:00

Unfortunately the Zoo Boo last Friday wasn't near as good as we were hoping. I do not plan on going back again. Hardly any of the animals were still out when we got there and we got through the door right after they opened. They had a lot of the paths blocked off to the animals that were not on the treat path. There were only 10 candy stations and they were only giving out a piece or two of small candy. It was very disappointing. :( We were through the door, around the zoo and back to the car in about 1/2 hour. Even the kids said they were bored. It wouldn't have been so bad if it was free but we had to pay $5 a person. Next year it's time to find somewhere else to take the kids for a fun Halloween treat.

Another one of my butterfly pictures from the Como Park Zoo this summer. I used Creations by Rachael's Wings & Wildflowers.

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When we went to Disney World in 2005 we were able to attend Mickey's Not So Scary Halloween Party. When I seen Wendy's Double Double Toil & Trouble kit, I knew it would be perfect for the pictures I took of the decorations there.

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I'm so excited to be hosting my first challenge at ScrapMatters this month! If you want to check it out it's the 10/25 Word Up challenge. The only requirement I have for it is that you need to use the word family somewhere on your layout. You have until the end of November to join me. Here is the layout I made for the challenge. I used Graham Like the Crackers and WM Squared's Family Matters kit.

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I used The Design Girl's Stars and Stripes kit to scrap these pictures from our annual family 4th of July get together.

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Until next time...Happy Scrapping!

2010-10-22T06:00:00.003-05:00

My kids have had the last couple days off of school for state wide teacher conferences. Paul was home the first part of the week because all of his loads had been falling through. He was first supposed to leave on Monday afternoon, but thankfully that got changed because he was still working on his truck. Then he was supposed to take a load out to Pennsylvania and load it on a ship going across the ocean. He was really looking forward to it. He had just talked about how he had taken loads over there that were supposed to be loaded on a boat had never gotten all the way there before. Unfortunately the boat never came in, so that was another load that fell through. He finally left on Wed afternoon just as the kids were getting home for a couple days. So Kailee and I really had a different week than we normally do with just the two of us.

Thursday the kids and I headed over to my grandparents' house for them to play with my cousin's little boy who is only 6 months older than Hunter (He's the baby in the layout below). It also meant I got to see my cousin's baby girl, too. :) She is such a cutie. I think I spent most of the afternoon holding her. ;) Kailee was pretty taken by her, too. When we got there, she was sleeping on the living room floor. Kailee tried to cover her with her blanket. As soon as she started to cry, Kailee grabbed a hold of my shirt and pulled me over to her to pick her up. I thought Kailee would get jealous of my holding the baby instead of her, but it didn't seem to bother her.

Tonight the kids and I are headed to the zoo for the Zoo Boo with my sister.

With everyone around this week I only managed to get two pages done. As I mentioned earlier this is my cousins' little boy who is a little older than Hunter. I used Graham Like the Cracker & Bella Gypsy's Love that Boy kit. Mark one more page off the list for my grandparents' photobook. Woohoo!

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These pictures of Kailee are from when she stayed at my parents' this summer. I used Erica Zane & Denise Beatty Original's Eat Your Veggies kit and Erica's new EZ Date Bits V. 1.

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Until next time...Happy Scrapping!

2010-10-15T06:00:00.003-05:00

Michaella had her first ever volleyball game yesterday. She did so good! She is really loving it and wants to go out for JO Volleyball this spring, but Paul and I have been undecided of whether or not we would let her go out for it. We were worried that she wouldn't put much effort into it. With as much of a time commitment we would have to put into it, we wanted to be sure that it was something that she would actually do. After watching her yesterday I think she would do very well in it and am leaning toward letting her.

Another new venture we have decided to take up this year is 4-H. Paul decided that it would be easier to have both kids in the same club instead of one (eventually two) in girl scouts and one in boy scouts. This way we only have one meeting to attend. So last Sunday the kids and I went to our first 4-H meeting. It was combined with another local club. The kids played softball and then we had a potluck dinner. The kids had a really great time and are looking forward to all the different things they will get to do throughout the year. Michaella is especially looking forward to the fair. She wants me to teach her how to bake. Paul said that this first year she won't be doing any animal, so she was a little disappointed about that.

Apparently my scrapping mojo still hasn't quite come all the way back yet because I only did 4 pages in the last 2 weeks. :(

First up is this page of Hunter from Oct. 2005. I used Jady Day Studios' Harvest Happiness kit. He looks so small in these pictures. My how time has flown by.

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I'm loving this new Autumn Falling kit by Stolen Moments and Kristin Aagard. I also used Stolen Moments Scraps by Number: Just Call Me Jordan templates.

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geniaBeana also has this hauntingly beautiful kit, Haunted, out this week. This is the Haunted Mansion in Disneyland. I love how different it looks from the one in Disney World. I think I like this exterior better of the two.

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Yes, I'm another page closer to finishing my grandparents' anniversary photobook. :) This page is of my parents' wedding. My mom threatened me that I was not allowed to put their wedding picture in the book. So I didn't...I just used snapshots. lol. She didn't tell me I couldn't use those. ;) The colors of LDrag & JennCK's Love is kit matched the colors of their wedding so perfectly, I just had to use it to scrap this page. I also used Stolen Moments Scraps by Number: Just Call Me Andrea templates.

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Well that is it for now. Until next time...

Happy Scrapping!

2010-10-01T10:00:00.003-05:00

I'm so glad it finally stopped raining this week. Last Friday morning I woke up to a phone call from the school at 6:20 am saying that even though there would be some transportation issues with the roads east of town being closed due to flooding school would still be on time. Didn't think much of it because as long as we have lived here (over 11 years) our road has never been closed because of flooding. So I laid back down until my alarm went of 25 minutes later. I had to substitute at the school that day, so I had to get up earlier than normal to get myself and everyone else ready. Just out of curiousity I decided to look out my bedroom window and what I seen was quite the surprise. The field across the road was full of water. It's not unusual to see a lot of water in that field in the spring when the snow thaws, but this was a lot more than normal. These pictures were taken around 3:30 in the afternoon, so the water had gone back down a bit by then, but this will give you some what of an idea.

So I watched several cars drive up to the corner and turn around. That is when I realized that the road was closed. At that point I didn't know how I was going to get into town. Our road was the highest one I could think of that was close. When my grandparents came to pick up Kailee, (they were watching her for me that day) they confirmed that the road was closed. So I decided to call the bus garage to let them know the kids weren't riding since I didn't know if the bus would be on time or not. I also asked right away which roads were open and found out I had to go all the way around to interstate to get into town. It was the only road open to get into the town from the east. So my normal 8 minute drive turned into closer to 25 minutes.

After school I did what any good scrapper would do and went and got pictures. They are not quite as impressive as they would have been if I could have gotten them first thing in the morning, but there was still quite a bit of water there. On the other side of all the trees in the picture is our city park. It was under 5 to 6 feet of water.

Check out this layout using Happy Scrap Girl's new Serenity kit. The pictures are from our vacation to Yellowstone National Park in 2008. I'm slowly working my way on getting the photobook done. I have a long way to go though. I have about 30 done and only 70 more to go. I did get a couple more pages done for my grandparents' anniversary photobook, too, this past week you can check them out in my gallery. I'm so close to finishing it. I need to have it done and printed in time for Christmas. My cousin had her baby on our anniversary, so now I just need to get pictures of her and there shouldn't be anything else from stopping me getting it done. :)

How great is this? A free kit from the awesome designers at ScrapMatters! Check out the add below or the sidebar for details. Hurry and get signed up for both before Oct. 8 because you don't want to miss this.

2010-09-24T00:00:00.002-05:00

September has been another busy month around our house. (Actually what month isn't busy. lol.) The kids are getting into the school routine and Kailee and I are getting used to it, too. Michaella's activities are in full swing. This year besides dance Michaella has decided to give volleyball a try. She did it for a week this summer and really enjoyed it so when the opportunity came this fall for her to do it again she jumped at the chance. So two days a week afterschool she has practice. One day it's just the fifth graders and the other day the sixth graders join them. They are going to have 2 games against a neighboring town. Michaella is pretty excited about it. She is also in dance again this year. This too is with the sixth graders, though, their dance teacher is talking about splitting them up again since the class is so large. She seems to be enjoying dance much more this year, also. When volleyball is done for Michaella we have a couple weeks before Hunter starts basketball practice. All of this makes for never a dull moment around here.

Last Friday was my anniversary. We decided to take the kids to a large county fair about an hour from here on Saturday. It was so cold and wet. Definitely not the greatest fair going weather. We got there around 1:30 and headed straight for the commercial buildings to get out of the rain. Apparently everyone had the same idea because those buildings were packed. Thankfully the rain finally quit by the time we were finishing up the last building. The temperature didn't get much warmer, but at least we weren't getting wet while we walked around the rest of it. For Christmas last year Paul got a gift certificate for a hotel about 20 minutes from the fair, so we decided that it would be a great time to use that, too. We got a 2 bedroom suite and it was so nice. The kids even got some time in the pool when we got to the hotel that night. I really liked that the kids had their own room, so they could go to sleep but Paul and I could still stay up for a while.

My scrapping mojo apparently is still on vacation. I so wish it would hurry up and come back. I sure miss it. I did manage to get a couple layouts done the last couple weeks though.

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2010-09-22T00:00:00.003-05:00

Andilynn Designs has a great freebie up on her blog today that coordinates with Forget-Me-Not.

You can download it here.

2010-09-03T00:00:00.004-05:00

Summer officially ended for my kids 2 weeks ago. If felt so strange sending them back to school in August. But I'm really looking forward to them getting out of school in May instead of June. So far school has been going great for both of them and they both like their teachers. I can't believe this is Michaella's last year in elementary and next year I'll have a middle schooler. AHHH!!! :O lol. Kailee and I have already gotten settled back into our routine. I think that is one of the things I look forward to the most about school starting. Finally getting some what of a normal routine back, especially this year. The entire month of August was kind of crazy around here. I only had one or two of the kids at home at a time the entire month.

My scrapping mojo decided to take a vacation in August without me. I hardly scrapped a single page the entire month. :( The last few days though it has started showing signs that it might have finally returned. I have made more pages this last week than I did the entire month of August. :)

Andilynn Designs has another beautiful kit in the store today called Rosalie. The colors in this kit are so pretty! There is also coordinating wordart and clusters, too. Here is a page I made using the kit. The pictures are from our trip to Walt Disney World in 2005. We met Sleeping Beauty and Prince Phillip during Mickey's Not So Scary Halloween Party, so the kids were dresssed up in their costumes. Andilynn has also made a Quick Page Freebie for you using Rosalie. You can grab it here.

I have officially started my term on the ScrapMatter's Creative Team. Oh yeah I forgot to mention that didn't I. :) In August they had a short CT call and I made it as a permanent member now! I'm so excited to be a member of such an awesome team.

I had a chance to work with Haynay Designs fun new My Magical Place Bundle and Erica Zane's great new Wave the Date. I used them to scrap our pictures from Chef Mickey's.

ScrapMatters is also looking for some more people to join us ScrapMatters Girls! I ablsolutely love being a ScrapMatters Girl. We have such a great time. I can't wait to see who is going to be joining us. You still have a week to get your applications in if you have applied yet. So what are you waiting for? Hurry and get your application in. :)

Until next time...Happy Scrapping!

Check this out!

2010-08-06T08:00:00.001-05:00

Scrap Matters is turning 3! Woohoo! Congrats Scrap Matters. You are going to want to head over there this weekend for all the great fun going on in the forum. There wil be games, chats, speed scraps and awesome prizes you won't want to miss. Don't forget to also check out the blog starting Saturday morning to hop on the blog train to pick up some fun additions for the kit you get free after spending $20 in the store. And what would a celebration be without a great sale. Starting today all personal use items are 30% off (sweet deals not included) & commerical use is 20% off.

Here is the schedule of all the fun.

And if that weren't exciting enough geniaBeana is also making her Scrap Matters debut today. She is one of the August guest designers.

What an awesome way to start this last month of summer!

2010-07-31T14:25:00.004-05:00

Scrap Matters is experiencing some technical difficulty due to the recent server move and is currently down. I'm going through withdrawal! I never realized how much time I spend there until it is down. Hopefully it is up and running again very soon.

Tonight Paul and I are headed to his 15th class reunion. It should be interesting. So far the last I heard most of the people I talk to that he graduated with aren't going to be there. It will be nice to have a night without the kids though. We'll actually get to sleep in if we need to on Sunday. lol.

The kids are finally getting a chance to ride with Paul in the truck this summer. On Monday night, Paul made it through town so we met him up at the shop so Michaella could go with him. Hunter was counting down the days until he came home and he gets to go with him. I think that this is one of their highlights of summertime-spending alone time with their daddy. They talk about it the entire year.

On Monday Kailee had her 18 month checkup. Her Dr. confirmed that she is probably allergic to peanuts and prescribed an epi-pen for her. He also said we should have have Benadryl with us all the time, too. Her reaction to them got worse than it ever has this past weekend. Her eyes started swelling shut. Normally she would just get a rash. We have had a feeling that she was allergic since Jan, so we have been really trying to make sure we avoid them around her as much as possible. Now we just have to make sure that everyone else she is around her knows can't have them.

So while it's down I'll show you some of the other layouts I made this month during my guest spot. lol.

First up is a page using Andilynn's newest kit, Festiva.

Check out this fun new kit by Trixie Scraps & Bella Gypsy called Saffron Blues.

So these pictures are about a year after the pictures in the previous page. Can you believe how much she has changed? I know I sure can't. When I seen I Scream, You Scream by The Design Girl, I just knew I had to use it to scrap these pictures.

This page is actually scrapped with pictures that I took during our weekend in the Twin Cities. I just love Haynay's Love My Doll and Love My Baby kits. They were just perfect to scrap this special moment. She is already wanting to be like her big sister. lol.

On Saturday that weekend we went to the Como Zoo. I'm the first to admit that I'm a shutterbug. lol. I took over 60(!) picture of this little guy! He was just being too cute. Someone had dropped a plastic cup in their enclosure and this baby orangutan was so interested in it. I used Boys in my Backyard by Stolen Moments & Stacy's Backdoor Scraps.

Also went through the conservatory there. These pictures are from the Japanese Garden. It was about ready to start raining while I was checking it out. This page uses Spring Whisper by LDrag Designs.

Sunday it was time for Valleyfair! Thoroughly Amused by Haynay Designs & Plum Dumpling Designs was the perfect kit to scrap these pictures of Paul & Michaella going on the Corkscrew for the 3rd time in a row!

These cute little guys are in the courtyard in front of Sleeping Beauty Castle. I used Forest Friends by Erica Zane. Love those cute little critters in that kit.

Yep, finally getting a couple more pages scrapped of our vacation to California in 2007. lol. I guess I'm trying to draw it out until we make it back to Disney again. These pictures are from Sea World. I used Bella Gypsy's At the Dropoff Value Bundle.

Love scrapping my Disney pictures & sometimes some of them just call to be scrapped more than once. I already have this picture scrapped and in my FINISHED Disney World album, but Sahlin Studio's Innovation kit was just calling for me to re-scrap it digitally.

One last one for today. :) This one uses Celebrate (bold) by Chelle's Creations. It has such fun birthday elements.

Can't wait for Scrap Matters to be up and running again so you can all see the awesome new releases that the great designers have coming out this week.

2010-07-20T18:30:00.007-05:00

We finally got a chance to go camping this past weekend. It's been since last Memorial Day weekend that we went last. It was a lot of fun, but I have to say that the mosquitos were out in full force. Apparently they thought I made a great meal, too, because my legs and feet are completely covered with bites. Ugh, they itch so bad and everything I have tried hasn't made it much better. Paul, the kids and I headed over on Thursday afternoon. We went to the Mall of America on Friday. Kailee got her first American Girl doll. She had so much fun playing with the display birthday party set up that her daddy decided to get her one of her own. She was so excited to get the doll. The lady at the checkout took it out of the box for her right away and she held tightly on to it for most of day. That is until we went to the Disney Store and she spotted a beanie Minnie Mouse. Michaella got another one of the little dogs with the carrier and Hunter had fun checking out the Lego store. All three kids thought the figures made out of the Legos were very neat. Hunter got to pick out another set to add to his growing Lego collection. He and Michaella have been working on putting it together since last night. Of course we had to cap the day off with a visit to the Rainforest Cafe. Kailee was quite enthralled with all the decorations. Friday night my parents, sister, her boyfriend and our Bolivian "sister" joined us at the campground. We headed to the Como Zoo on Saturday. That night my brother and his girlfriend came up to join us for our day at Valleyfair. My kids went on all the big coasters that they could, along with the water rides. They had a great time there.

Hunter has his last T-ball game this week. He really has done a great job this year. They stopped using the tee a couple weeks ago. They get 3 pitchs to try to hit it and then his coach lets them uses the tee again. He has been able to hit if off the pitch several times. Here is a page I did for this years season using Home Run Derby by Haynay Designs.

I took the kids to the zoo a couple weeks ago for their Animal Enrichment day. The zoo gives all the animal different objects for them to eat & play with. The kids had a great time watching the animal try out all the new items they were given. We even got lucky enough to see the zoo's three baby tigers. They were not supposed to be out on exhibit yet, but they decided they didn't want to go inside in the morning, so the zookeepers let them remain outside. Oh my were they so cute! I took so many pictures of them. lol. The baby tigers weren't the only babies we seen at the zoo that day. Check out this page using Lawteeda's A Day at the Zoo kit of all the little ones we see that day.

Kailee has absolutely loved being outside this summer. Everytime she goes outside she has to find a rock. Even when we are on pavement she has to try and look for a rock to pick up. She likes to just carry them around in her hands. When it's time to go back inside, she knows she has to put them back down. I used Trixie Scraps Nature Girl kit to scrap this page about Kailee and her rocks.

As I said in my last posting this is my guest month on the Scrap Matters' CT and I'm having a great time so far. I'm getting alot of scrapping done. Here are some of the pages I have completed so far.

These are the flamingos at Sea World in San Diego. When I seen the new Daily Download at Scrap Matters I knew exactly what pictures I was going to use to scrap with it. I just love the colors of this kit. If you missed this great kit during the Daily Download, never fear because at the end of the month Coastal Getaway will be available for sale in the shop.

Paul's dad's side rents the group cabin site at one of our local state parks every year for the weekend. The kids have a blast playing with their cousins. Of course what weekend wouldn't be complete without some water sports. WM Squared and Stolen Moments released Lakeside at Scrap Matters this past week & it's the perfect kit to scrap all the pictures from there. Here is Hunter & one of the other boys having a great time riding the water slide. They were having such a great time. The kids look forward to going every year. Unfortunately this year we weren't able to make it though, since we were camping by the cities last weekend.

I can't believe my baby sister graduated from high school this year. I used Graham Like the Cracker's Purple is my Signature Color kit to scrap these pictures of her receiving her diploma.

These page scrapped with Designs by Tater's Yankee Doodle Doo is from when we went to the Wisconsin Dells over the Fourth of July to celebrate my grandparents' 50th Anniversary.

One last page for this week. I used Inspirations from Day's new Summer Woods to scrap these pictures of the deer we seen when we were at the Royal Gorge in 2006.

2010-07-06T13:56:00.004-05:00

Apparently I've been a bit neglectful of my blog again. oops. Lot of things have happened since my last post. Some good, some bad. Worked my way through them all and here we are. :) Won't bore you will all the details, but let's just say I'm glad the last couple months are over. Can't believe that stores are already getting out the back to school stuff & that my kids have less than 7 weeks left of summer vacation.

I managed to get 65 pages done for the Queen of Scrap contest in May at Scrap Matters. My goal was to get to all the prize levels and I succeed, so even though I didn't get crown Queen or Princess I'm pretty happy with the outcome. And thankfully my mojo didn't leave me like it did last year because...

This is my month to be a guest on the Scrap Matters' store CT! Woohoo! I'm so excited! :) Lots of fun things happening there this month.

The first of the month seen the return of the Daily Download. The designers have put together a beautiful kit for you this month. There are still quite a few days left to grab it so make sure to head over there and start collecting the pieces.

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas...at least it will starting Friday at Scrap Matters. They are having a Christmas in July sale again this year. This is the perfect time to get ahead of the game and get some fun Christmas projects started.

So many great releases at the store again this week. I had a chance to work with the pretty new collab called Drift Away from by Becca and Graham Like the Cracker. Love the colors and all the fun elements in this kit. I used the bundle to create this page from our trip to Sea World a couple years ago.

Another new release I worked with this week is The Basics Templates Set 3 by Haynay Designs. I used her Tumble Time kit to finally scrap one of Michaella's gymnastics pictures. Love the fun, bright colors of this kit. I can see myself using this one quite a bit. :)

Summer is a great time to cool off with a bowl of ice cream and this month's Matter of Taste challenge is the perfect place to find some fun new recipes. Make sure to check them out and while your add it scrap a page of your own favorite. I found this recipe on allrecipes.com and can't wait to try it out. We have had an ice cream maker for several years, but don't use it very often. I'm hoping this challenge is just the push I need to get it out and start using it again. This page uses Happy Scrap Girl's Berry-licious Bundle.

Trixie Scraps also has a new release this week, but because of the server move at Scrap Matters was unable to release it there. But don't worry you can still grab it at Gotta Pixel and her personal store. Viva la Vino originally released during her guest spot at The Digi Chick but has now made it's way "home". She collabed with Rachel of Steel City Scraps to bring you this great kit full of rich colors. It was the perfect kit to scrap the pictures of our yummy desserts we had at Le Cellier in the Canada pavillion at Epcot.

She has also started a great new challenge at Gotta Pixel called Show Me the Mini. Each month she will give you a free mini kit that coordinates with one of her kits. Your challenge it to use every piece in the mini to create a page. This month the mini coordinates with her newest collab with Sarah Bennett, Old Glory. Make sure to check it out and join her for this awesome challenge. Here is one of the pages I made using the Old Glory bundle that is available at Scrap Matters, Gotta Pixel and her personal store.

Sya's Blueprints has put out some really great templates in the last month, too.

This layout was done using Just the Pictures.

Here is one using The Chosen One Set 5.

And finally one using Reloaded Vol. 1.

As you can see I've been quite busy scrapping. These are just a few of the awesome new products that have been released since I last posted. Make sure to check out their stores to see the rest. :)

One more thing before I say goodbye for now.

Do you have Disney pictures you are having trouble scrapping because you don't know what to do with them? Well then check out the photo swap going on at Mouse Scrappers. Mouse Scrappers is a board set up for those that love scrapping Disney pictures. There are lots of various challenges going on there to help you get your pages scrapped and if that weren't enough there is also a gallery loaded with great pages to draw some inspiration from.

Well that is all for now, until next time...

Happy Scrapping! :)

iNSD weekend

2010-04-29T00:14:00.011-05:00

Wow, what a weekend this was! My kids went to my parents' house after school Friday and Paul was supposed to be out this weekend with the truck. So that meant I would have the entire house to myself. Well I guess not totally to myself, since I will still had Tinkerbell home with me. I look forward to this weekend more than Christmas or my birthday. (heck, what am I saying those two are practically the same day. lol. ;) ) Unfortunately it didn't go quite as planned. Paul ended up coming home on Saturday afternoon. We went out for supper by ourselves, so that was nice. It had been since Thanksgiving weekend since we had gone out without any of the kids. He was home until about 1 today. My scrapping mojo was MIA, also, so I only managed to get 2 pages done the entire weekend. :( Scrap Matters was such a happening place that it was down for quite a bit of the weekend, but I did manage to get in on some of the festivities over there. Had a lot of fun chatting with the other ladies in the chat room and I even won blackout on Bingo on Saturday morning.

Not only was it iNSD on Saturday, but Queen of Scrap started at Scrap Matters that day, too. Last year I managed to get just over 60 pages done in one month! I'm hoping to get 50 done this year so I can hit all the prize levels. Because let me tell you the prizes this year are absolutely to die for. :) We'll have to see if I get that accomplished or not. I'm thinking it's much easier to scrap during the day holding an infant than it is running around after a very active toddler all day. lol. :) Thankfully she has finally decided that naps are a good thing (most of the time anyway.). The most I have scrapped in a month since then is about 25. Hopefully the rest of the month goes much better than this weekend. lol.

I have all kinds of scrapping news to tell you about today! :)

First off Trixie Scraps is guesting at The Digi Chick this month! How exciting is that?! She has a really fun birthday kit for boys as her first release there. (Girls, don't worry. She didn't forget about you. ;) You'll see what I'm talking about a little later.) Birthday Bash {boy} is such a fun kit. Check out the layout I did for Hunter's birthday last year with it.

Not only does she have this at The Digi Chic, she also has a great new spring grab bag out at Scrap Matters. Hurry over to Scrap Matters and grab it by Wednesday because on Thursday the items will be broken up and sold individually.

Remember how I was saying that she didn't forget about the girls with her birthday kit? Check out what Trixie Scraps is coming out with in May! Make sure to stop by the Trixie Scraps Stars blog everyday starting May 1 to get all the pieces. It will totally be worth it. And while you are there grabbing this great kit, don't forget to check out all the great challenges and ideas that the ladies have posted each day for you.

Andilynn Designs also has a great set of templates out this week. They were inspired by her CT team. Make sure to also check out her facebook page for a chance to get another set.

geniaBeana also out a fun spring kit today, too, at both Elemental Scraps and Go Digital Scrapbooking. In Spring is such a refreshing kit.

Well that is all for me tonight. I need to get myself to bed on time since I have to teach preschool again in the morning.

Until next time...

Happy Scrapping!

2010-04-20T13:06:00.006-05:00

Wow what a weekend! I think we were home just long enough to sleep most days. :) The next few days don't look like they are going to be any slower either.

On Friday night we went to my grandparents to celebrate their 52nd Anniversary. (I'm still trying to finish up the pages for their photobook that I started for their first 50 years. Hoping to have it done in time to give it to them for Christmas this year. I'm over half way done, so...I'm thinking it should be)

Saturday afternoon I took the kids to the zoo. They were celebrating Earth Day there, so there were a bunch of different activities and booths set up throughout the zoo. The kids had a great time. From there we went straight to my parents'. My little sister had her senior prom on Saturday night & wanted me to take pictures for her. They had a rock 'n roll theme. My little sister's dress coordinated with the colors so well. She even did her nails to match the theme with musical notes on them. :) What a great sister I have for making it so easy for me to scrap it later. ;) Hunter & Kailee were also going to spend the night there, since Michaella & I had to go to Fargo on Sunday. My little brother was home from Georgia this weekend, too, so it was great seeing him again. Hunter spend most of the day with him on Sunday fishing. He loves his uncle so much and looks up to him a lot. :)

Why did we have to go to Fargo? Dance competition. :) They weren't scheduled to dance until 1:10, but we had to be up there by 11:30. So it was a very early morning. We left here around 6:00. I'm so not a morning person. :P We rode up there with one of Michaella's classmates. The girls had a great time on the way there and back. The team has been working on their routine since school started. When their scheduled time came to dance, the routines were getting all switched around. :O The girls finally danced at about 2:30. We were all starting to wonder if they were ever going to dance. They did a great job. The best they have done all year. I couldn't have been prouder of Michaella. They ended up getting gold and were very close to getting high gold. They also have the option of going to nationals in the Wisconsin Dells this summer. Still not sure if we are going to do that or not yet.

We didn't get home until around 9:30. Boy was it a long day. :) Spent most of yesterday trying to find my house back. Since we were only home basically just long enough to sleep this weekend, it was just enough time for us to make a major mess. lol. Still working on getting the laundry caught up, but I think just about everything else is much better.

So I don't know about the rest of you but I'm so looking forward to National Scrapbook Day next weekend! :) I think I have it set up with my parents to watch the kids for me that day. I have this next week and a half to get my house cleaned up & Paul's fuel tax paperwork done, so none of that is calling my name away from my scrapping that day. :) If you're looking for some fun new kits to try out this day make sure you head on over to Scrap Matters and check out Trixie Scraps new collab with Sarah Bennett. Sunday Afternoon is so pretty! The colors are perfect for my Yellowstone and Grand Teton photobook. I was so excited when she showed it to us. :)

While you are there make sure to also check out the beautiful new collab by the Scrap Matters designers. Because I'm a Woman is a great kit to celebrate all the great women in your life from young to old, including yourself. And the colors are so pretty. :)

Well that is all I have for today. Have a few things I need to get done around here before the kids get home from school and then I have to start doing Michaella's hair for her dance pictures tonight. :)

So until next time, happy scrapping! :)

2010-04-08T15:48:00.007-05:00

It is starting to feel like spring around here, finally! :) The kids have been spending a lot of time outside. Kailee is loving it! Every chance she gets she tries to go out. (even if that means she is not dressed for it.) The Easter bunny was even able to hide his eggs outside this year. (makes for much nicer Easter pictures, instead of my 80's brown shag carpet. lol. ;) Some day I will eventually get new carpet in our family rooom.) It didn't take Kailee long to figure out how to pick up the eggs and put them in her little bucket. She even picked up a few other things that weren't eggs and added them if they fit. ;) The other two took a little bit longer finding all their eggs. Apparently the Easter bunny found some pretty good hiding places.

Next week Michaella's dance team has their competition in Fargo. I hope they do as well as last year, if not better. They have definitely come a long way since Kindergarten. It's great to see these girls get along so well even though some of them have a lot stronger personalities than the others. You don't see the cattiness with them that groups of girls sometimes have.

Boy do I have some fun eye candy to show you this week! Tracy has really outdone herself. :) But you only get a peek at it for now. First up is this gorgeous collab kit. This kit is soft and elegant and pretty. Check out this sneak peek! Doesn't it look great? Want a chance to win it? Well then head on over to this thread at Scrap Matters forum and guess who she collabed with. Hurry because you only have until later tonight to guess.

Then she is also releasing this awesome bundle.

If the colors look familiar that is because this is the same color scheme that is gracing our Trixie Stars blog. If you haven't checked out our blog yet you really should! We are doing all kinds of fun things over there, even giving away a bunch of free stuff. Make sure to check out the template challenge that Carrin posted today. There is a chance you could be the lucky winner one of Trixie's kits.

Not only do I have Trixie's fun new goodies to play with this week, I also am doing my guest spot with Man in the Moon Designs. She has such a fun kit coming out this week. I can't wait for you all to see it. :)

Well it's so nice outside I think the kids and I are going to head out and blow some bubbles. Check back later this weekend to see my layouts I made with the new goodnes. :)

Happy Scrapping! :)

2010-03-14T15:52:00.007-05:00

Well it's just the kids and I again this weekend. Paul got unloaded in Kansas on Friday and the truck decided to spring an oil leak. grrrr. So he is unfortunately stuck out there until at least Monday. Hopefully the part he needs gets there then and he can get moving again. (anyone looking for a truck? I have one I'm looking to get rid of. ;) )

I picked up Michaella's Girl Scout cookies on Friday. So far I have been very good and they are still closed. But boy are they calling my name from the cupboard. lol. :) I'm thinking this is going to be her last year in Girl Scouts so I really have to make those cookies last. They have the meeting on Saturday mornings and she has probably only been able to make to about 3 of them so far this year. Paul thinks we should put them in 4-H, so that they both are involved and we don't have to worry about a ton of different meetings for various activities then. He was in 4-H when he was younger, so he says he can help them with their projects. (The catch is he would have to have time when he is home to actually do that though.) We have a couple more months to decide what we are going to do.

Well Michaella's dance performance went fine on Saturday morning, even though about half of her class wasn't there. (neither was the teacher, for that fact.) They did a good job of improvising where they needed to. I received a call from my mother-in-law at 1:00 that afternoon wondering were everyone was. I didn't think to call and tell her that the time had changed for when they dance, so she went by the time that was printed in the paper and all the advertisements. (normally she has a tendency to forget about it and not show up.)

Just found out this afternoon that school is starting early next year. In the state of Minnesota, schools are not allowed to start before Labor Day. Well last year our school along with 20 other ones in the area petitioned the state to start what is called a "flexible learning schedule". The state made it sounds like they were going to approve it then, so the schools all went ahead and made a school calendar with that start date and sent the new schedule home at the end of the school year. They were supposed to find out in May or so if it didn't go through. In the middle of June, they suddenly we told that it wasn't going to be allowed. So they all decided to try again this year, and it finally got approved. So that means my kids now start school on Aug. 23 instead of Sept. 7. That also means that we should get out before June though, too. (I'm kind of excited about that. :) ) It also puts our schools more in line with the area schools in Iowa and South Dakota. Hopefully it also means they will be able to build a couple snow days into the calendar again next year, unlike this year.

I forgot to mention who I'm going to be guest CT'ing for in my last post. The official announcement was made earlier this week in the Scrap Matters forum. :) I'll be doing a one kit guest CT for Man in the Moon Designs! I'm so excited! I have loved her designs since the Design Star contest last year. One of her recent kits is being used for the Quick Page Exchange. (for details on that see a couple post below. :) )

Andilynn Designs has two great new products out this week, Fair are the Meadows and Facts Matter Vol. 1. I just love the colors in Fair are the Meadows. They feel so springy. Here is one of the layouts I've made using these awesome products. She also has a great freebie up on her blog until the 18th to go with this.

Well that is all for now. :) Until next time, Happy Scrapping! :)

2010-03-12T17:20:00.008-06:00

What a week! I unfortunately didn't get through this round of sickness with the kids without getting sick myself. :( Unfortunately I woke up very early Tues morning and got sick. That only lasted a couple hours, but I felt pretty miserable for the entire day. Thankfully my dad was able to come and get Kailee and help the kids get ready for school. She ended up staying at their house until yesterday after school. That is the longest she has been away from me since we brought her home from the NICU. Usually she can only make it about 36 hours before she becomes really upset and nothing can please her. I had to teach preschool yesterday and today, so she went back for the day today.

Today when I got done teaching and went out to the car, it wouldn't start. :( Good thing I have AAA. Got it jumpstarted and it started right away. When I got home I put our battery charger on it right away, but am still waiting to see if it will start again later on tonight. According to Paul it's a 5 year battery. We have been using it for 7 1/2, so I guess it's probably about time to get a new one. ;) Paul just called a little bit ago, too, saying that the truck was in the shop, again. Apparently after he got unloaded, it started leaking oil all over. He could be down until Mon or Tues. He's in western Kansas. Why is it that this stuff always has to happen when he is so far from home. If it would happen somewhere closer, he could either make it home for awhile or we could go to where he is.

Tomorrow we have to be up at the school by 8:00 am because Michaella has to dance at the Home and Garden Show. They were originally supposed to dance at 1:00, but the time was changed (after all the advertising went out for it, of course). So not looking forward to having to get up early on our only day of the week we get to sleep in usually.

Now on to the new digi stuff out today. :)

Some more great deals at Scrap Matters today! Trixie Scraps has released her second P365 grab bag, Lovey Dovy Days, today. It contains a mini kit, template pack and 3 element packs. It is available this week for only $3.50. Hurry and grab it before next Friday when it will get split up and everything will be sold seperately. I used the mini kit to create the layout below.

Several of the designers at Scrap Matters have again gotten together and released a new Mega collab for the month of March. It is available this week for half price. Hurry and grab it before March 19 because it will be going back up to full price. Check out the sneak peek of the kit below.

Don't forget to check out the clearance sale while you are there. You still have a couple days left to get some great deals before those products are gone for good.

Until next time, HAPPY SCRAPPING! :)

Big Sale at Scrap Matters

2010-03-08T10:19:00.004-06:00

What a weekend we had. It started with Hunter staying home from school on Friday because his stomach hurt. I'm pretty sure that was just because he was overly tired, though. The kids started their extended school day on Monday to help get rid of 3 snow days. That means they get on the bus shortly after 7 and don't get home now until a little after 4. By Wed I could really see the effects it was having on them, so Thur they were in bed by 7 already. I get to look forward to one more month of this, but I guess it's better than having to go the second week of June. They lost on vacation day in April (teacher inservice) and the school year did extend by one day. Now just have to keep our fingers crossed that we don't have anymore snow days. Anyway on Saturday the kids went to my parents while Paul and I went in to get our taxes done (yuck :P). When we were done I went to my parents to have supper there because they were having my grandma over to celebrate her birthday with her while Brian was home. Paul had to come back to town to work on the truck and trailer, so he could leave on Sunday. Just as we sat down to eat, Hunter got sick. :( He went and laid down on the couch and fell asleep, so I waited to go home until he woke up again. Seemed like it was going to be a one time thing.

Unfortunately that wasn't the case. At 3 am I woke up to Michaella standing next to me telling me she threw up on the steps. I quickly sent her to the bathroom. Got the steps cleaned up and went to check on her only to find out I had to clean the bathroom, too. When everything was cleaned up Michaella said she was feeling better, so sent her back up to bed with a bucket. Not more than 10 minutes after I got back into bed Kailee woke up. And you guessed it she had thrown up, too. This time I made Paul get up, too, and help me. Got her, the crib and carpet cleaned up. Got back into bed and within minutes she did it again. Thankfully most of it was on her blanket, so it didn't take much to clean it up. Again got it cleaned up and into bed only to hear both Michaella and Hunter upstairs starting again. :O Moved them downstairs to the floor with buckets. Michaella & Kailee ended up getting sick one more time before we were finally able to call it a night. By Sunday morning, Hunter and Kailee were feeling much better, but Michaella was still feeling pretty icky. They all pretty much just laid around on the floor and couch all day. Even got all 3 of them to take a 2 1/2 hour nap. Today seems to be much better. I'm so glad this was a weekend that Paul was home because it would not have been much fun taking care of all that on my own. Not that it was fun doing it with him, but it would have been worse.

Since the last time I posted I got a couple new CT spots! Woohoo! :) First I'm now a member of Sya's Blueprints CT. Love her templates! Make sure to check them and her great collab kits out at Scrap Matters. Speaking of Scrap Matters...I got a guest spot on the CT for July!!! I can't wait! I told Paul he had to take all the kids in the truck for the month, so I could spend the entire month scrapping. lol. Unfortunately he didn't quite go for the idea. ;) I also got a one kit guest spot for another great designer at Scrap Matter, but I have to wait a little bit to tell you who that is since the official announcement hasn't been posted yet.

Have you seen the awesome date elements that Andilynn Designs has put out recently? They are so neat. Check out Dates Matter Vol. 3 on my layout below. The square comes in 3 different variations and each section is customizable. Love the fact that you can thrown a little bit of journaling on it. If you want a chance to win it make sure to head over to Andilynn's blog and post a comment. The kit I used on it is Trixie Scraps' new collab with Madame Wing, Daisy Crazy. Aren't the colors of the kit just absolutely cheery and so full of spring fun? (which I am so ready for :) ) It was so much fun to work with.

So much fun stuff going on over at Scrap Matters this week! First up is the HUGE clearance sale going on. Make sure to stop by the shop and check it out. Many of the designers have items at 50-60% off! Below are Trixie Scraps' and Sya's Blueprints' ads. If there is anything there you want make sure to grab it now because on March 14 they will be gone forever.

Today is also the start on another great Quick Page Exchange. This month we get to use the adorable kit So Big by Man in the Moon Designs. It's perfect since I have so many of Kailee's baby pictures to scrap yet. They say that the more kids you have the less pictures you take. I know that is definitely not the case here. lol. I have way more pictures of Kailee than the other two combined probably. The joys of having a digital camera. :) I can just keep taking pictures and not have to worry about the cost of having to print them all.

And last but definitely not the least in any way, make sure you make your way over to the Scrap Matters forums on Thurs night to participate in the great speed scrap being hosted by the wonderful Tracy of Trixie Scraps. :) It starts at 8 pm EST/5 pm PST. Check out the beautiful participation prize she has created for it.

Like I said a lot of fun things happening over at Scrap Matters, so make sure you come and check it all out. :) Until next time...

HAPPY SCRAPPING!!!

2010-02-10T23:50:00.008-06:00

Bad blogger checking in. lol. :) Wow, it's been a while since I've posted. Hopefully everyone is managing to stay warm this winter. What a crazy winter it has been so far. Our Christmas was spent snowed in at home. Thankfully Paul had gotten home the Friday before so I didn't have to worry about him making it here. He was actually home for about 2 1/2 weeks. We ended up with around 20" of snow that week. Kinda put a damper on Kailee's and my birthdays, too. Even Michaella's birthday didn't go untouched by a snowstorm this year. We unfortunately had to cancel her birthday party, too. Still trying to figure out when we can we try to have it. Had planned to do it this weekend but Paul isn't going to be around and they are talking another storm for the weekend. Paul's birthday is in 2 weeks so we'll have to see if he can go without a snowstorm as a present. lol. At this rate though it's kind of fallen in the pattern of a storm every other week. The kids have had 5 snow days so far this year and we still have a couple months left of the white stuff. :P Unfortunately those days have now been tacked on to the end of the school year, so the kids don't get out of school until June 1o. :( (and that is as long as we don't have any more snow days) I'm so ready for it to be spring.

Since I last posted I joined another CT! Woohoo! I'm now a proud member of geniaBeana's creative team. You can find her designs at Elemental Scraps and Go Digital Scrapbooking.

Don't forget to check out Scrap Matter's February Quick Page Exchange using Page Frock's Love Ya kit.

And your reward for making it all the way through this post is a set of zoo frames! :) Enjoy!

Download them here.

On the 10th Day of Christmas...

2009-12-22T00:00:00.001-06:00

Can you believe it?! Only 3 more days until Christmas! Do you have all you shopping down? I don't yet. I still have a couple more to get. One for my youngest and one for my parents. We are having the most trouble finding something to get for Kailee. We have quite a few toys left from the other two kids, so that doesn't leave a lot of options left for her. Plus since her birthday is the 26th we have to get her birthday present for her right away, too. I know what I'm getting for my parents it's just a matter of locating one that we like.

It's also starting to look a lot like Christmas here, too. We are expected to get about 8-12 inches or more of snow by Christmas. I'm all for a white Christmas, but...WOW, not quite that white! lol. Hopefully it doesn't get as windy as it's supposed to, also. Otherwise it will be a snowed-in Christmas. We are supposed to start with our Christmas parties on Wednesday after the kids get out of school. It's a good thing Paul is home already, so I don't have to worry about him making it home in time.

Speaking of Christmas, I got my Christmas present from Paul earlier. (or I should say it should be delivered today, as long as the weather holds out.) It's a Nikon D5000! I'm so excited to get it and start playing with it. He decided I could have it early so I could use it for Christmas pictures. I'm so spoiled. lol. Now I just have to start saving my money, so I can get a zoom lens for it.

Those of us on Trixie Scraps CT have gotten together with her and have made a bunch of little gifts for you for the 12 Days of Christmas. If you missed the first 9 days go to Tracy's blog to get the stops. So on to day 10-A bonus alpha for Trixie Scraps Snow Day kit. If you are looking for the full kit to go with it you can find it at Scrap Matters.

Download here

Hope you enjoy it, and don't forget to check Tracy's blog tomorrow and Wed for the last 2 days.

Hope everyone has a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

A weekend full of FUN and a freebie!

2009-11-06T11:22:00.007-06:00

Who is ready to party?! I know I am. Tomorrow is Digital Scrapbook Day (DSD) and Scrap Matters is having all kinds of fun things going on over there in the forum, plus an awesome sale in the shop. Come on over and check it out. My kids are headed over my to parents' today and are staying there until my cousin's little boy's birthday party tomorrow night, which means I will have the entire house to myself to scrap, scrap and scrap. Yea!

I forgot to mention my awesome news-I'm a Scrap Matter Girl! Woohoo! I'm so excited to join the team. We are kinda of like the "welcome wagon" to the site. So far I have been having a great time. I feel so behind on everything the last couple weeks.

I have finally gotten back to subbing. I hadn't subbed since last October. I spent all last week teaching preschoolers. Wow, I forgot how much energy that takes. By the time I got home from school the first couple days I was completely exhausted. Unfortunately, I ended up feeling well on Saturday and by Sunday night I was miserable. I had to call in on Monday and say I couldn't come in. Thankfully my inlaws still watched Kailee for me, so I pretty much slept all day and by about 3 I was feeling much better. I finally felt good enough to sub again yesterday. Man have I missed this. I had forgotten how much I enjoyed being in the classroom. It's been great getting to stay home with Kailee but I'm also glad to be back to it.

Now on to some fun stuff. :)

Trixie Scraps has been on a creative roll this week. Check out all the awesome products she has in the store just in time for DSD. First up is this really great grab bag.

This first layout I used the contents of the grab bag along with her template pack she released last week.

This layout is made with the contents of the bag.

If you want to see all the goodies you get in the bag check out her facebook page and become a fan. Not only will get you get to see the contents of the grab bag, but she is also offering an awesome freebie that goes with her other new kit for all her fans. So don't forget to become a fan before Sunday, so you receive it.

"Girls Day Out!" is also being released this week. Shopping, lunching, manicures,a day at the spa - if it’s a day out with the girls, this is the kit you need to scrap the memory with! Perfect for photos of your gal pals, best friends, sisters and more, too! Grab it this weekend while it is on sale. While you are there don't forget to grab the glitter styles to go with it. If you go to the forums at Scrap Matters and participate in the posting challenge there is another freebie addon!

And as promised I have a little freebie for you today, too! This is the third set of zoo wordart.

You can download it here or here.

2009-10-09T16:42:00.006-05:00

So have you all checked out the new stuff at Scrap Matters yet today? Both Andilynn Designs and Trixie Scraps had new products. Cute Lil' Punkin by Trixie Scraps is the perfect kit to use when scrapping visits to the pumpkin patch or any other fall or Halloween type pictures. The best part is it's on sale for only $4.00 today and tomorrow. What a deal!

I used it to scrap this picture of Michaella dancing with Minnie Mouse at Mickey's Not So Scary Halloween Party a few years ago. I love the way it turned out.

Andilynn Designs released a 2010 Quick Page Calendar. It's 8 1/2" x 11". It would make the perfect Christmas gift to give to anyone on your gift list. Grab it this week while it's only $8.95.

Ok, as promised here is the next set of zoo wordart for you.

Download it here or here.

Happy Scrapping,

Amanda

A Sneak Peek and a freebie

2009-10-08T09:06:00.006-05:00

Can you believe its already October? I know I can't! This year has sure flown by. You can definitely tell it's not summer here anymore, too. The weather has turned cold and rainy. Yesterday was the first time in about a week that it didn't rain. The sun was out and it was actually a very nice autumn day. As soon as the kids got home and Michaella was finished with her homework, I sent them outside to enjoy the nice weather before it turns cold again this weekend. They found a salamander in my garden pond and were so excited.

I was so hoping this was going to be a nice weekend so we could take the kids to the pumpkin patch and get our pumpkins to carve. If we do go, the kids will definitely have to wear their winter coats. (which don't exactly go with autumn colors. ;) ) This has become a tradition for us. Every year we go to the Pumpkin Festival at the apple orchard and pick out a few pumpkins. Then the kids each get to pick out a pattern to carve in them and we spend the afternoon carving them. The kids have such a good time doing it and look forward to it every year.

And look at this little sneak peek from Trixie Scraps...

Doesn't it look like a great kit to use with those pumpkin patch pictures? Can't wait for you all to see how awesome this kit is! So check out Scrap Matters in the morning to see it revealed.

I thought this summer was busy...this fall sure feels just as busy if not busier, especially this week. I'm glad next week is a short week because we'll need it to catch our breath. Though I don't know if it'll be any slower. lol. Michaella has dance and a Girl Scout sleepover on Friday. The firemen are also having their annual Fireman's Movie. This year it's G-Force. The kids have been asking to go to that since before it came out, so we will definitely have to make time to go to it.

Well it's been a while since I've given you all a freebie, so I thought I would come up with a little something again. My parents gave us a membership to the local zoo for Christmas, so we made it quite a few times this summer. I'm always on the look out for zoo stuff, so I thought what better thing to make for you is some word art that is zoo themed. Well I might have gotten a bit carried away with it, which is a good thing for you. I couldn't stop with just this pack once I got started. I ended up making 3! Plus a pack of frames!!!

Download here or here

Well that is all for today. Remember to keep checking back in the next week or so, as I will be posting the the rest of them when I get a chance. :) Enjoy!

New Daily Download

2009-10-01T13:53:00.008-05:00

Woohoo! It's time for another Daily Download at Scrap Matters! Trixie Scraps has teamed up with Plum Dumpling Designs, Pressed Petal Designs, Haynay Designs & WM Squared Designs to bring you this awesome new kit.

Click here to start collecting.

(click for credits)

(click for credits)

2009-08-24T13:50:00.003-05:00

ScrapMatters has kicked off a *NEW* weekly feature -- MANIC MONDAYS!!! Don't miss out on your chance to get products at extra reduced prices.... Sales will last for one day ONLY.... Make Monday your FUN DAY!!!!! Check the ScrapMatters Shop for more details!! *Manic Monday sales go into the shop early Monday morning and will "disappear" around midnight! So don't wait!!!
This week, Trixie Scraps has decided to put her kit For the Girls, on sale for 50% off - it's just $2.50, today only!! Click on the preview below to hop on over to Scrap Matters to scoop it up.

Did you know that she has several coordinating products for this kit, as well? While they aren't on sale, they would be a great compliment to your purchase if you decide to snag the full kit! They include glitter styles, quickpages, and a scallop-edge brag book .

Andilynn also has her Hot August Nights kit on sale for 50% off, making it only $2.75!!

While you are there checking out these awesome kits make sure to see what some of the other designers have on sale, also. There are some really great buys to be had today.

My exciting new!

2009-08-20T11:58:00.006-05:00

Well I can now officially announce that I'm a Scrap Star!!! Woohoo! I'm one of the new members of Trixie Scraps CT. You can check out her awesome products at Scrap Matters. I'm so excited to work with her and all the other lovely ladies on the CT.

Here is a page I created using her It'a a Slumber Party kit. It was so much fun to work with. There are so many fun slumber party elements in there. It also has a lot of other elements in it to make it great to use on pages other than sleeping or slumber parties, too.

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I also got to work with her new You're a Star kit. It's full of glitz and glam and so much fun to use. Perfect for the little diva in your life. :)

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Don't forget to get her August Grab Bag because tomorrow it is getting broken up. It is full of some great items and is a great deal at only $4.oo.

Happy Scrapping!

2009-08-14T11:31:00.003-05:00

I finally have all my little munchkins home with me. After Michaella got home from being in the truck, she and Hunter switched places. Michaella went to Paul’s mom and dad’s from Sunday to Sunday and Hunter went in the truck with Paul. Hunter ended up being in the truck with Paul for 2 weeks. They were all over with the truck (PA, VA, CO, MI and everywhere in between). So I ended up only having one kid home for 2 weeks. The second week Hunter was gone I had Michaella at home, too. It was nice to have some time with just one or two of them, but I’m glad to have them all home with me again. As the saying goes, “They drive me crazy, but I wouldn’t trade them for anything.” I think they are happy to be home, too, though they both had a great time being away.
Only 3 ½ weeks left before the older two start school again for the year. The girls and I did the school shopping last week. Still have to get them both gym shoes and some new clothes, but other than that they are ready for school to start. We got the school letter in the mail on Saturday with who their teachers are. Now they are both wondering who will be in their classes. Hopefully they both have at least one of their friends in the same class again this year. I can’t believe Michaella is going to be in fourth grade already this year. Two more years and she will be in junior high already. Ahhh, where has the time gone.
Kailee has grown so much in the past month, too. Her top two teeth finally broke the surface last week. Not only did they come in but she got another one on the bottom at the same time. I think the one on the bottom is working its way through, too. She has also started crawling on all fours now. She started getting around by doing a combination of sitting up and rolling to get where she wanted, but it didn’t take her long to figure out the “army crawl”. On Monday, she finally started to move on all fours. She has also started to pull herself up against anything she can. Boy does she get herself in trouble now. It’s amazing how fast she is and how far her little arms reach when she wants something. LOL. We are also one step closer to getting her moved up to Michaella’s room. My dad got the new window installed up there this week. Now we just have to clean it up a bit and rearrange the room.
I had to take Hunter to the dentist again on Wednesday. Apparently his mouth isn’t quite big enough for his permanent teeth. So he had to have two of his bottom baby teeth pulled to make room for his one permanent tooth that is coming in. He will probably have to have the same thing done with the other side because that one is coming in way behind the baby teeth, too. He was pretty excited to finally teeth because that meant the tooth fairy was going to come and he would get money. He thought that since they had gotten pulled he should get a million dollars, though. The tooth fairy on the other hand thought that was a bit steep. LOL. He got the going rate, instead.
Did you get a chance to check out Scrap Matters’ Birthday Celebration last weekend? I managed to get a few of the festivities, but not near as much as I had hoped. Since Paul was home we got a few things around the house done and took the kids to the zoo on Saturday. I did manage to do quite a bit of shopping at the sale, though. Andilynn Designs released an adorable set of page kits called Love You Forever Emma & Love You Forever Ethan. You can get them separately or as a set. They work great for baby pages to wedding pages to everything in between. I did a couple pages with Love You Forever Emma. Go check them out at Scrap Matters if you haven’t seen them yet.

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I also have some very exciting news, but I need to wait until it's announced before posting here. So check back later to find out what it is. :)

Happy Scrapping,

Amanda

3 post in one week!

2009-07-24T15:33:00.008-05:00

Oh my, this is my third post in one week. Can you believe it? hehe. :)

Andilynn has a couple new alphas in her shop. :) They are so versitale. I did a couple of Disney layout with them. The first one uses the Simply Stamped Alpha-Red. The pictures are from 2005 when we went to Disney World. It was a complete surprise for the kids. During our 24 hour drive we dropped several hints where we were going, but they didn't catch on. We thought for sure they would figure it out once we were on International Dr., but even with all the Disney signs and ads they still were clueless. As we pulled on to property and Michaella seen the big arch with the Disney characters on either side, she finally figured it out. It was so funny. :)

This one uses the Simply Stamped Alpha-Charcoal. When we went to Disneyland, we decided to see Mickey in Toontown. I had never seen him in the Steamboat Willie outfit before.

Hunter ended up leaving me this week, too. So I only had Kailee at home this week. Hunter had his last Kinderball game on Wednesday and Paul's mom, grandma & aunt showed up to watch him. After the game, Paul's mom asked if he wanted to go home with her for a couple days. Of course, he jumped at the chance to spend a few days with grandpa and grandma. :) It has definitely been different having only one of the kids home this week. I feel more tired this week, than when I have all three of them here. Since the other 2 aren't around to help entertain Kailee, she has to have me in her sights all the time. It makes it a bit hard to get everything done and take care of her that way. :) The kids have been having a good time, though, so that is what matters. Well she is taking a bit of a catnap right now I better keep going with the rest of my work.

Happy Scrapping!

Amanda

Free Sisters Wordart

2009-07-21T15:30:00.012-05:00

Well Friday night was a lot of fun. It was nice to be able to watch the movie without one of the kids needing something or asking what is going to happen next. Kailee slept off and on through both movies. I have to say, though, that Paul and I were slightly disappointed by Harry Potter. :( Since there is so much to cover in this book a lot of things were cut and it didn't follow the book near as well as the last 5 have. We will still buy the DVD when it comes out, though. ;) 17 Again was a pretty good movie. It was quite funny.

The kids had a great time at the lake this weekend. By the time their grandma brought them home yesterday, they were absolutely beat. Hunter actually slept in this morning. They only got to go swimming on Saturday since the weather was a bit chilly this weekend. They both went tubing behind the boat and had a great time. Michaella even went fishing. They also spent time with a few cousins they don't get to see that often. Neither of them can wait to go again next year.

I'm down to just 2 kids this week. Michaella decided to go with Paul in the truck this week. Hunter stayed home, since he has his final Kinderball game tomorrow. The plan is to have him go with Paul next week. The kids really enjoy riding in the truck with Paul. This is the first time the two older ones have been apart from each other for more than a day. It'll be interesting to see how this goes. They have been each other's closest friend since the day we brought Hunter home from the hospital. When Michaella first started going to school, Hunter was lost without her here to play with.

Now time for some goodies. :) I have been meaning to make a wordart pack of sister quotes since I made this page of my girls for a Speed Scrap at Scrap Matters.

credits

Well I have finally gotten it finished. :) And you get the reward! Woohoo! Each wordart is in both black and white. The links to download it are below the preview. Enjoy! :)

*Links expired*

Happy Scrapping,
Amanda

Christmas in July

2009-07-18T18:17:00.003-05:00

Scrap Matters is having a SALE!!! Woohoo! :) Until Monday you can get 25% off all Christmas and Winter themed items. To celebrate the sale a bunch of the designers at Scrap Matters have released new Christmas kits and other Christmas themed items. Andilynn Designs has 2 new releases-Be Merry kit and Traditonal Christmas Word art. Here is a layout I did using the Be Merry kit.

I'm so excited, Paul and I are going to the drive-in tonight to see Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince (and 17 Again)! I have wanted to see a Harry Potter movie there since it reopened a few years ago and they have finally gotten one. We are having sort of a date night. The 2 oldest are with the grandparents for the weekend, so we still have Kailee with us.

Well I better get her fed, so we can head over to the drive-in to wait in line to get in. The line has been really long the last few night. ;)

Long time, no post

2009-07-14T23:28:00.006-05:00

Yikes, I can't believe it's been 2 months since I have last posted. :O Things have been pretty busy around here the last couple months with school getting out and all the kids' summer activities. But they are finally starting to wind down and I'm getting a little bit more time to get around to doing other things again. How is it that summer's are so much busier than during the school year it seems. This post might be a little long, so please bear with me. ;)

Anyway since I last posted we have gone camping, had bible school, gymnastics, swimming lessons and kinderball. (plus a few other things thrown in there)

Memorial Day weekend we took the camper out for the first (and probably only) time this year. Kailee did great. It was also Hunter's birthday that weekend, so we had his birthday party out at the campground. We had tried to do it last year, too, but unfortunately it got rained out. This year the weather was perfect for it. We also took the kids to the zoo. My parents' got us a membership for the zoo for Christmas. The kids had a great time, even Kailee. She got so excited when she seen the penguins. Paul thought she was going to jump right out of his arms. Her little legs and arms were just swinging all over.

The kids each got to pick one activity besides swimming lessons that they wanted to do this summer. Michaella chose gymnastics, just like she does every year. :) Hunter decided to try Kinderball, which is basically t-ball but the first week they played kickball just to get them used to running the bases and stuff. He's not quite sure yet if he likes it completely or not. He has definitely improved since the first week. Here's a picture of my little leaguer.

Michaella has been doing gymnastics since she three. We have it available for 2 weeks in the summer and 2 weeks in the fall. She absolutely loves it and is always asking when it starts again. Unfortunately I forgot to bring my camera this year. One of her closest friends' mom took a picture of the group, so hopefully I can get a copy of it from here.

They also had swimming lessons. Hunter passed, but Michaella did not. She was very close to passing it though. This was her first time at this level, so she did a great job. They didn't get to work on everything she needed to pass the level because there weren't enough kids signed up for levels 3 & 4 so they were put together.

This weekend Paul's extended family is headed to the lake. Every year they rent the group cabins at the state park and go for the weekend. Michaella and Hunter are so excited about getting to go again. They have such a fun time playing with all the other kids. They are going for the entire weekend with Paul's parents. Kailee and I will probably head up there on Saturday for the day. We'll have to see if Paul makes it home this weekend to go with us. He should be since he wasn't home last weekend.

Not only has my life been busy with all the kids' stuff this summer, I've had a few scrapping things going on, also. In May I participated in the Queen of Scrap competition at Scrap Matters. I managed to get just over 60 pages done for the month! :O I have never done that many pages in one month before. I unfortunately didn't make it into the top 10, but was quite impressed with the amount I completed. The ladies that did make it into the top 10 did a great job. Unfortunately it also kinda burnt me out for the month of June, too. :( I didn't get many pages done for that month. I finally seem to be coming out of my creative slump this week.

I also joined Andilynn Designs Creative Team. Woohoo! :) You can check out her store over at Scrap Matters. http://www.scrapmatters.com/shop/manufacturers.php?manufacturerid=25 It's been so much fun to work with her stuff.

I also decided throw my hat in for the Creative Team contest over at Scrap Orchard. I got all the way to round 3, but was eliminated for the last round. There were quite a few very creative ladies competing and I was quite happy to have gotten as far as I did. Congrats go out to all the lovely ladies that made it all the way through! You all did an awesome job on your creations.

I hosted my first challenge over at the DIS Boards a couple weeks ago. Thanks to everyone who participated. I loved all the pages. For those of you that missed the challenge keep an eye on my blog because I may be offering the Mickey heads for a short time here on my blog later on. I'm also working on another participation prize so when I get that done I'll be hosting another challenge. :) If you haven't yet checked them out, head over to the DIS boards. Every Wednesday a new Disney Digiscrap challenge is posted.

I have also been slowly working on a new kit when I get a little bit of time between everything. (and when Kailee decided to take a bit of a nap. ;) ) I'm not sure when I'll get it finished but when I do I'll post it here. :)

Well anyway I better get to bed, since the kids will be up again in a few hours. :O Where does the time go in a day. It seems like I can never get to bed before 1:00 am lately.

Until next time (which hopefully won't be another 2 months), happy scrapping!

Amanda

Choo Choo! The train has entered the station

2009-05-15T00:00:00.004-05:00

If you are here for the blog train, scroll down. :)

Well I'm having a great time doing layouts for the Queen of Scrap contest over at Scrap Matters. I've already done 30 pages, since the beginning of the month. I can't believe I've gotten that many done already.

On Saturday was the annual Children's Miracle Network fundraiser. This year they did "Dancing with the Stars." We found out on Tuesday that Michaella's dance team was one of the two that the teacher picked to dance at it. I went with her while Paul stayed with the 2 little ones. The theater was packed. They sold out of tickets over half an hour before it started and there were some people that had to stand because the seats were all filled. I was up in the balcony helping the dance teacher with the girl. They did a great job again. I'm so proud of Michaella and how far she has come this year with her dancing. We were just about ready to pull her out because she didn't seem to like it, but now she is doing an awesome job. :)

Kailee got her first two teeth of Friday. :O I'm so glad they are finally through. It has been a month long battle for her. :( I hope the rest of them come in easier for her because it has not been fun.

Anyway now on to the fun stuff. ;)

A few of us that didn't get to the last round of the Design Star Contest over at Scrap Matters decided we had so much fun designing that we came up with a blog train for all of you. As you can see from the preview there's a lot of great stuff in the kit. :)

Here is my part of the blog train.

*Links expired*

Next stop is Amanda.

Here is the full list of stops.
1. Carol - carolzeitz - http://carolzeitz.blogspot.com/

2. Jill - Jillyfish - http://chocolatekidsmommy.blogspot.com/

You are here-3. Amanda - dznyscrapper - http://mhkscraps.blogspot.com/

4. Amanda - apatchetear - http://greenboxcreations.blogspot.com/

5. Hillary - http://designsbyhillary.blogspot.com/

6. GeniaBenia - http://geniabeanascraps.blogspot.com/

7. Lovemy4kids - http://digitaldesignsbylisa.blogspot.com/

8. Dallasrobyn - http://digirobyn.blogspot.com/

9. merchi - http://merchimakesit.blogspot.com/

10. Jude - judet - http://judet95.blogspot.com/

11. Jen - http://wolfffpack6.blogspot.com/

Post NSD

2009-05-05T10:15:00.002-05:00

I hope everyone had a fun and productive National Scrapbook Day on Saturday. :) I know I did. I managed to start or finish 14 paper pages at the scrapbook stores' crop and then came home and did the Speed Scrap at ScrapMatters. I also did both of them on Friday. I'll try and get them posted later on.
Not only did I have a productive day of scrapping. I also had a lot of fun shopping! :) I made good use off a bunch of the great sales this weekend. I'm going to be busy downloading for days, though. :O But I can't wait to play with all the fun stuff I got. Woohoo! :) That will definitely help me with the new contest going on at ScrapMatters-Queen of Scrap. It might be just the kick I need to get my grandparents' anniversary album started and finished.
Not only am I working on trying to get a bunch of layouts done this month, I'm working on making some goodies for all of you. :) Hopefully I can have some more freebies up for your soon.
Well it's just about time for another Speed Scrap, so I'm going to sign off for now.

Dance Results

2009-05-01T00:18:00.005-05:00

What a weekend we had last week. :) On Friday night the in-laws came to help Paul put up the kids' new swingset. It was a bit more involved than Paul had first anticipated, so it's not quite done yet. They got the main frame work mostly put together, but that's about as far as it got. So right now it's sitting there in the middle of nowhere waiting to be finished. ;) The kids are chomping at the bit for it to be done, so they can play on it. Hopefully it won't be too much more of a wait for them.

Saturday we headed out around noon for Michaella's dance competition. Paul figured it would take about 4 hours to get there. Instead of taking interstate, he decided to take the "cut crosscountry" way. Well he missed the corner where our road turned and didn't realize it until about 30 miles later. :O Needless to say that the hour cushion that we had started with was completely eaten up and we got there right on time. Michaella was supposed to have all her bangs back and her hair curly for her routine. When we left the house, I had her hair done right and there was a fair amount of curls. By the time we got there, her bangs had come out of the ponytail holder and were standing straight up! :O It looked quite funny. Unfortunately she lost all the curls in her hair, too. No matter what I try on her hair it refuses to hold a curl for longer than about an hour. I tried to curl it a little bit when we got there but it wouldn't hold a curl anymore no matter how much hairspray I put in it. ;) The girls did a great job. Michaella said she wasn't nervous about all the people watching because the stage lights were so bright, she couldn't see anyone. ;) They ended up getting High Gold! They can go on to Nationals if they want to. I'm not sure if we will be able to go or not yet. We stayed and watched a couple of other groups dance, grabbed some supper and headed back home. We didn't get home until 12:45 am. :O It definitely made for a long day. The kids did great, but I wasn't too worried about them since they are used to much longer drives. ;) It was more Kailee that I was worried about on the drive. This was her first long distance ride in a vehicle. She did pretty good. There were a couple times we had to pull over to get her out, but other than that she was pretty content.

Here's a picture of the dance team in their end pose. There was one girl that didn't make it. Michaella definitely looks different without her bangs. (She told me the other day that is how she wants her hair now, too. So I guess we are going to work on growing out her bangs.) I was so proud of how well she did that night.

I decided to play around with my sister's prom pictures a little bit today. I had picked up a couple of tropical kits the other day and wanted to use them. I figured her prom pictures would be perfect for them. ;)

Credits

This layout I did for a Roadmap to Scrap challenge over at ScrapMatters. I love how it turned out. I've been trying for so long to get a picture of her smiling. I get get her going and as soon as I take out the camera it disappears. I did manage to get it a little bit in these pictures, though, that is before she turned her head on me. ;)

Credits

I participated in the Speed Scrap at ScrapMatters on Tuesday. I'm loving how the layout I did for it turned out. :) The kids are playing in the water area at A Bug's Land in California Adventure. By the time they were done they were quite wet, but they had a great time. :)

Credits

This weekend it National Scrapbook Day! I'm so excited I finally get to work on some paper layouts again. I hope I didn't forget how. ;) I plan on trying to get in some digi scrapping, too. ScrapMatters is doing a ton! of Speed Scraps this weekend through Wednesday. They are also starting the Queen of Scrap contest. I decided to give it a whirl. ;) I'm sure I won't get near as many layouts done as last years winner did, but it should be fun.

Well this post got a bit longer than I had planned. :) I guess I should try and update more than once a week. Time for me to head to bed, so I have lots of energy for this weekend, so I can scrap, scrap, scrap. ;)

Catching up

2009-04-24T10:52:00.006-05:00

Wow it's already been two weeks since I last posted. Things have been quite busy around here. The kids had a great time over Easter. The Easter bunny visited both here and at grandpa and grandma's, so Monday they had quite the sugar rush. Thankfully it was a nice day and I could send them outside to burn off some of that energy. :)
Last Saturday, I got to play photographer for my little sister's prom. It was the first time I took pictures for someone other than family. It was a very interesting experience. They had run out of time to set up a place for pictures, so when I got there I needed to find somewhere to take them. They didn't turn out too bad. I just have some editing to do on the background to tone it down a bit. Here's what my little sister's looks like when I finished editing it.

This weekend we are headed to a dance competition for Michaella. She is quite excited to be going. This will be her first year being able to participate. We are still trying to decide if we want to take the two little ones with us yet. It should be quite the experience. ;) All those excited girls in one place. :O She's excited she gets to wear make-up, too. Yikes! ;) I'm hoping we might be able to do a little shopping, too, beforehand. Can't go to the Twin Cities without a stop at the Mall of America, right? ;) Besides that I need my Disney fix from the Disney Store. And of course, since next weekend is National Scrapbook Day, I should really stop at Archivers and stock-up on some supplies to keep myself scrapping on Saturday. Kailee could also use some more clothes, too, since she is starting to outgrow the size she is in now. She's getting so big. I can't believe she will be 4 months on Sunday already. Time sure flies.

Anyway here are some layouts I've completed recently. Since Kailee was born I haven't been able to work with any of my paper pages, so I've been getting quite a few digital pages completed to keep up. That will change next weekend though. :) I'm getting to spend the entire day at the LSS store. Woohoo. I love going there for NSD. They always have great challenges and stuff. It fills up very fast every year, too. They started taking registrations for it on a Monday morning at 10 when they opened and when I called at 10:30 they were just about full already. I'm really looking forward to getting to work on some paper layouts again.

The first one I used my new Frog Princess kit. Click layouts for credits.

I participated in the last few Speed Scraps over at ScrapMatters and really like the way the layouts turned out.

This one is of Michaella and Hunter from when we went to Sea World San Diego in 2007. I'm slowly working on getting my California album done. I'm doing it in both paper and digital. It's still 3 volumes big though. :O What can I say I like to take a lot of pictures. ;)

Kailee really dislikes laying on the floor, so the other day when she was actually in a good mood I decided to quick take some pictures. I got some pretty good ones, but unfortunately I still had the laundry baskets and stuff on the couch behind her. :O So, with some creative editing I was able to get rid of the. The picture of the girls turned out really nice, but Michaella had on a neon orange and fuschia shirt. It was much easier to work with in black and white. ;)

Anyway I think that is about it for now. Hopefully the gallery is going again at ScrapMatter soon, so they don't have to cancel anymore Speed Scraps. They have one scheduled again for Tues. afternoon and Thur night. It sounds like May 1st-6th there are going to be 10! :O Woohoo! Can't wait. They have definitely helped me to think outside of the box for some of my layouts.

Until next time, keep scrapping. ;)

Frog Princess

2009-04-09T17:36:00.002-05:00

One of the movies I'm most looking forward to coming out this year is Disney's new animated movie, The Princess and the Frog. Have you seen the trailer for it? It is so cute! You can view it on the movie's official website. I love that they are doing it in the old style animation like all the classic Disney movies. Even though technology has advanced so much since Walt did Snow White, there is just something about that type of animation that makes the movies great. Can't wait to hear all the great songs they come up with, too. :)
Well I decided what better inspiration than a Disney movie for a digital scrapping kit. ;) I teamed up with Project B Designs to create this great kit. It went into the store today! :) Check it out:

There are so many great items included in this kit. :)

You can pick it up here. Hurry and get it quick because it's on sale until next Friday.

Pictures Take 2

2009-04-02T23:52:00.002-05:00

Well pictures went much better today than they did on Saturday. :) Still not great, but much better. We got 5 good ones out of her before she decided she had enough. Of course I couldn't pass any of the poses up because she is such cutie, so I ordered a 10 x 13 that the 4 that aren't part of the package are on so I could cut them up and scrap them or whatever. :) Can't wait to get them back on the 20th. We started out in her dress, tights and little dress shoes. After the first picture I took off the shoes hoping to make her happier. It worked for a few more. Then tried a bottle because she had started on it before pictures. She didn't seem to want that, so the tights came off. ;) Boy did she start cooing and smiling for me then. Unfortunately the photographer was on the phone and by the time she got off the cooing was done. :( At that point she had enough. While I was picking out what pictures to choose, my mom finished feeding her, which of course brought on the cooing and smiles again. She can be a little stinker in front of the camera, that's for sure. At home whenever I have her smiling and cooing and think I'm going to get a pic of it, she stops as soon as sees the camera. Hunter was the same way. I had to sneak a picture of him to get his smile. It only took me about 4 months. :O Hopefully it doesn't take quite that long this time. ;)

On Tuesday I got Hunter and Michaella their first baseball gloves. They are so excited. They can't wait until they can go outside and play ball. Now we just have to get the ball. ;) They have been playing with a whiffle ball and bat the last couple years, so we decided to finally get them a regular ball and bat. Michaella has gotten pretty good at hitting the ball. Though she likes to make a line drive straight for the pitcher. Paul has been hit a couple of times. ;) Hunter still needs a bit of help when it's his turn. I think this summer we are going to sign him up for Kinderball.

Well I should really get to bed now because morning is fast approaching and Kailee has been getting up around 5:30/6:00 the last week or so.

2009-03-30T14:34:00.003-05:00

Well pictures didn't go quite as planned. Kailee wanted nothing to do with them. :( She cried about the entire time. It just wasn't a very good day to do pictures. Hunter didn't want to cooperate very well either. We managed to get 3 pictures of her looking at the camera. The first one Hunter had a wierd look on his face, so that one was out. The second one she was pretty much laying flat on her back, and you couldn't see her very well. The third was ok except her dress was sticking up in the back. So we ended up with the last one. It's a good thing the package was cheap. I think I'm going to try and get Kailee's picture done again on Thursday morning.
Yesterday we had my parents, brother, sister, her boyfriend and the foreign exchange student staying with them over for lunch. My brother is taking off next Monday for Montana for the next 2-3 years. He will be about 40 miles north of Yellowstone. He won't be able to come back home until September for our cousin's wedding. On Saturday we are getting together with the rest of the family for a going away party. It will definitely be different not to have him around here all the time.
On the design front, I have some exciting things come up. :) Stay tuned for more details. ;)

2009-03-27T17:44:00.004-05:00

Well I didn't make it on to Round 4. :( I had a lot of fun and am happy I made it as far as I did. I definitely learnt a lot and plan to keep dabbling with designing. I've already started on another kit. I don't know when I will get it done though.
Kailee has finally started to sleep through the night this last week! Yeah! She usually goes from about 11 until 6:30. Now I just have to get myself to call it quits when I lay her down. I've been staying up late and getting some things done around the house that I haven't been able to get done during the day. Morning definitely comes quick then. :P
Going to try and get the kids' pictures taken tomorrow. I have the hardest time picking out what clothes to put on them when it comes to pictures. I'm getting Kailee's 3 month picture done and then all 3 of them together. The grandma's keep asking when they are going to get one. ;)
Speaking of pictures, Michaella had her dance pictures taken this week, too. The girls had trouble deciding on how they wanted to have their group picture taken. Cindy finally stepped in after about 10 minutes and set them up. You can definitely tell we are getting close to the teenage years with some of the looks they were giving. ;) Yikes, where has the time gone!
Well my kids seem to think I'm starving them so I better go get some dinner made.

The Art of Nature Add-on

2009-03-22T15:31:00.004-05:00

Today is such a dreary day. :( Yesterday was so nice. The kids spent the majority of the day outside, and now today they are cooped up inside. Paul unloaded in Georgia yesterday, so it's just the kids and I. Good thing it's a free view on Starz this weekend and they are playing a bunch of good Disney movies. Definitely a good day to stay home and veg out. I'm also working on getting some challenge layouts done at ScrapMatters and trying to keep busy so I'm not obsessing about finding out if I made it to the next round or not. ;)

Well here it is. :) I finally finished the preview for "The Art of Nature Add-on".

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Enjoy! :)

Bright Sunshiny Day Elements

2009-03-21T16:33:00.008-05:00

Wow, things have been pretty busy around here lately. I had planned on getting the paper pack addon posted sooner, but as you can see I didn't get that far. On Sunday we had Kailee's baptism. Everyone thought she looked so cute in her little dress. Monday night I had my beginners class at the LSS. Had a full class again. It has been quite awhile since I have had that many, so it was really nice. I was offered the Advance Cardmaking class since the other teacher quit, but had to turn it down. I can't make a card to save my life. ;) I have tried and tried to make cards, but I just can't seem to do it. This morning Michaella had to dance at the local Home Show. She did fairly well considering the person she lifts several times in the routine wasn't there. She is getting excited to go to competition for the first time the end of next month. Hopefully we can make a weekend away out of it. She also has her school program that Friday and is trying for a speaking part this year.

Most of my week was spent working on Round 3 of the Design Star competition at ScrapMatters. We were to make an element pack to go with last weeks paper pack. Well without further ado, here is what I came up with.

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I had a lot of fun coming up with these elements. :) I will find out sometime on Monday if I move on to Round 4. Keep your fingers crossed for me.

Here is the Paper Pack Addon for Bright Sunshiny Day. Hope you enjoy it. :)

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I will try and get "The Art of Nature Addon" up soon. ;) I'm still working on the preview.

First Posting

2009-03-13T09:42:00.011-05:00

First I would like to welcome you to my blog and thank you for stopping by. :) Wow, did I have a surprise earlier this week! I decided to try the Design Star Competition at ScrapMatters just for the heck of it. (http://www.scrapmatters.com/) We had to design a mini kit with 3 papers and 3 elements. The color palette they gave us was so awesome. It reminded me of our vacation to Yellowstone and Grand Teton National Parks this summer.

If you want to grab my Art of Nature mini kit from round one you can find it here:

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I also have some more elements and papers for this that I will try to upload later.

When I uploaded my kit and posted it, I figured that I would probably not make it past the first round. I had dabbled around a bit with designing scrap products, but nothing too serious. Well when I logged into the message board on Monday morning, I couldn't believe what I was reading. There on the list of participants moving on was my name!!!:O Talk about making a person do a double take. ;) Anyway our assignment for round 2 was to design a paper pack with 3 solids and 5 patterns. My inspiration for mine came while I was trying to get my little munchkin to sleep. ;) Her sleeper was just the inspiration I needed for colors and theme. Here is the preview for my paper pack:

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Well I also came up with several other papers to go with it, too. I will work on getting them together and uploaded so you can pick them up, also. I had a lot of fun designing these 2 items. Even if I don't move on to round 3 I learned a lot.

Enjoy!

Well my little munckin decided her nap has been long enough, so I better go get here.