Moving Fast...

Jinkies... where did the week go?? (Did ya know we watch a lot of Scooby Doo in our house?!) Actually, I know just where the week went...zooming by, generally out of control.

Let's see, the last post was Monday, right? Well, Tuesday started off a fabulous day. Kids and I got up relatively early, and went to the almighty Starbucks for some hot chocolate and treats before heading to the movie theater to catch "Diary of a Wimpy Kid." (J's school sells cheap tix for the summer series second run shows!) We enjoyed the show, then decided to hit Target for a few party decorations for Miss A's celebration Saturday. We even decided the Target cafeteria would be a fine spot to stop and have some lunch. Sounds pretty good, right? Well, it was, till we got home. Actually, it was more like 4 or so when A woke from her nap. She said her head hurt and her tummy hurt, so I took her temp just to see--102! Got her meds, she spent the next two days sleeping off and on while we kept the temp to a minimum. I was pretty sure it was just her teeth until about 3:30 am on Thursday. I hear a sobbing call for "Mommy" and run to see what's wrong. "I up-chucked in my bed!" She was more upset about the bed than the vomit itself, I think! It continued for another couple of hours. She was pretty much back to her usual self by Friday morning, so I headed out to finish the birthday party shopping. I came home with pizza for the family and asked Paul where J was... "He's upstairs. Said he was tired and needed a nap." My boy does NOT nap anymore. So, of course, I run up, take the temp, and yep, 102... *sigh*

Luckily the party went off pretty well. I didn't get all the pics I'd hoped to get, but seeing as how her actual bday isn't for another couple of days, I can get the posed shots then. Needless to say, it hasn't been too scrappy around here lately. Maybe when I'm done here I'll wander into my craft room and see if I'm inpired.

Here are a couple pics from the last week...

Miss A asleep on the couch, not wanting to miss anything while being sick.

Party pics! We rented a jumping castle and got more than our money's worth! If you've got space and good weather, this totally beats going to the other places to use theirs!

Way fun! I think we will definitely do it this way again!

Thanks for stopping by!

<3

Fun, Scrappy Giveaway!

I've been doing quite a bit of blog surfing with my "free time" lately! I just found this on scrappy friend Sam's blog...

So here it is...my next giveaway is a yummy collection of goodies from the Imaginisce Splash Dance line. The light is no good for taking a pic of it at the moment, but I will do that in the next day or two. This is just a pic I got off the Imaginisce website, but as you can see, it is the cutest beach range ever! Here's what's in the prize package...

12 Double Sided Papers

Sticker Stackers

Puffy Stickers

Fantastic Friends Rubons

Glass Stickers

Title Waves Rubons

Doin the Wave Border Rubons

Coral & Crew Sticker Stackers

Ocean Treasures Chipboard

Now make sure you head back to Sam's blog and check it out for your chance to win! Hmmm.... kind of inspiring me to do my own little giveaway... I'll have to see what I can do about that! Off to go see what else I can find! I need to look into the whole Bind-It-All vs. Cinch debate. Thought I was sold on one and just got some new information- hate it when that happens!

~Til next time  <3

Happy Father's Day!

I'm listening to the rain fall as I type this entry. Father's Day is pretty quiet here in our household. For us though, it's kind of a treat. My dear hubby is sitting on the couch reading the Sunday paper, and I'm finishing up a few projects to post. The kids are playing nicely upstairs (yeah, I know I really shouldn't have put that down-I may just jinx it!) keeping themselves busy. We may head out in a bit to go watch Toy Story 3. No pressures though. It's awfully nice to just do what we like.

This will most likely be one of our last few free Sunday mornings. The church we attend has been meeting Sunday evenings since before we started there over four years ago. So things have changed, and we've decided to move back to morning meetings. This is just something about our church that I love so much. We are just so relaxed and flexible and have the ability to just talk about things like this and make things happen to fit our community's needs... Just makes me smile thinking about it (even if it does mean dragging myself out of bed a bit earlier!)

I do have a couple of things to show you. The first is a card I made using gorgeous Crate Paper - Paper Doll from a PersonalScrapper add-on kit a couple of months ago (Erica should know to just send anything with CP in it without needing to ask by now! )

This was a card I made for A's dance teacher. She began as the teacher's assistant, but ended up needing to take the class over as the main teacher was having some complications in her pregnancy. A just loved her and was so excited to go to dance. It made our first dance experience a great one! I'll post some dance pics and maybe even a LO up later this week.

I also have the sketch for this month at SCRaPDANGo. I had fun creating the sketch and am feeling more and more confident in creating them. I need to get some info on downloading some other elements to include, so if you have any ideas for me, please let me know! Right now, I have PhotoShop Elements 5. I don't really know if it's necessary to upgrade to anything else, so I'll love to hear what you think on that too!

And here's my take on it... It's kind of hard to see in the photo, but I was able to create lots of layers and dimension in this one. The larger stars are punched from cardboard (my favorite thing to do right now!) and I added Glossy Accents to the stars on top of them. I totally swiped Kerryn's idea of the raised border cuz I LOVED it so much!

I thought I was running out of ideas for pics with this kit and didn't want to overuse B&W or sepia. So another funny thing happened. I was reading Stacy Julian's blog the other day (she's SO my hero!) and she was talking about color in LOs. She said not to worry about matching everything just so. That we choose colors based on emotion and to go ahead and let our emotion from pictures match everything up for us (OK, so at least that's what I got out of it!) Well Stacy--I did that, and low and behold, this pics I came up with match just perfectly!

I'll leave you with a pic of me and MY daddy... This was at my brother's wedding last summer (it was 100+ in a place that normally rains 75% of the year! Love you Dad!

Hope your day is spectacular!

~Til next time <3

My Little Reader...

So I had this crazy "Wow" kind of moment the other day... I have some friends who were telling us about how their now 7th grader was reading Harry Potter books in 2nd grade. I kinda thought in the back of my mind, "Seriously? How do you even HAVE a kid who can do that?" The teacher in me was just not sold on how that was even possible. Well... I think I'm gonna have that child in a couple of  years. As I type this, I am listening to my boy read from his Star Wars books to his sister... Wow... I have a real reader on my hands! I know he doesn't yet realize what this opens up to him, but to me, it is truly amazing... I have a reader... :)

Just wanted to get that down since I know that before I can blink, it will be old hat, always been that way. For now though, it's pretty spectacular! Thanks for letting me share that... :)

<3

Back Again with a Dango Reveal!

Yep! I'm here again already! I'll just make a quick one and share my latest and greatest from the Scrapdango kit for the month! This month Heather sent me the Spice kit, loaded up with Glitz goodies. Check it out...

I was a little nervous, as I'd never heard of this manufacturer before, but boy, was I suprised! This was a really great kit to work with. I've been using a ton of kraft cardstock as well as black and white and sepia photos, so this really worked beautifully with that! The ephemera is double sided, so you can use them as journal spots too.

Here's what I did...

This is a picture of J and his (now former) teacher. I hid his little draft of a letter he wrote her in the envelope.

This one is actually a short mini album we made for J's teacher. I decorated the outside and added some pics on the inside, while he wrote his actual letter to her. :)

Here's another fun little thing I made J. (A is NOT gonna be happy when she figures out the inequality in all this!) He already had the little peanut butter jar from the sitter's house where he keeps his allowance he earns from her. He brought it home for the summer, so I decided to decorate it a bit for him. In his words, "I like it a lot. Actually, I really love it!" (Ahhh, thanks bud!)

I wasn't quite sure of what I thought of this last one, but, once again, I really like how it turned out! I'm always trying to give my LOs more dimension, so this was fun for me to do so much messing around with the paper. I also started to go a little crazy with the GlimmerMist and the CS started to bend, but it's ok now that it's in the page protector.

Ok, so maybe that wasn't such a quick post afterall... Oh well, I had a blast! I'll be back around the 20th for the sketch reveal. This month's Dango sketch was designed by yours truly! I'm having a fab time creating those too lately! I need to download some more elements to use on them!

Thanks for stopping by!

<3

Is Anybody Here??

I am! I don't know if anyone else is around here anymore though! :) I knew it had been awhile since I'd posted, but man, that really WAS a long time! Well, summer break is here. All school stuff is pretty much shut down for me for the next several weeks, so I will promise any followers who are still stopping by that I will be blogging much more frequently. Dare I go out on a huge limb and say I'll try for a minimum of once a week?? Yes! That will be my summer blogging goal!

Needless to say, I'm more than incredibly happy to be off work for the next couple of months. I couldn't really say if anything in particular made this year tougher than others. I just seemed to get worn out quicker than usual. A vacation is completely what I need to get recharged and back into some spectacular scrapping (ok, that might be a more lofty goal than the blogging one!) Actually, I'm really excited to get scrappy now. I've done a few things recently that I'll be sharing today and tomorrow, but I hate when scrapping becomes more of a job than something that I love... So, here's to feeling renewed and recharged!

I do have a wonderful sketch I got to create with recently! There's super exciting news over at Sassy Lil' Sketches too!

Yes, Sassy Lil' Sketches will have monthly

sponsors starting now! We have had several

generous companies agree to sponsor a month

at Sassy Lil' Sketches.

We will be posting the winner of our first random

drawing on July 6th*.

Reminisce is our first sponsor. How cool is that?

What do you need to do to be in the drawing?

Do one of June's Sassy Lil Sketches and have it

uploaded via Mr. Linky by July 5th.

The more sketches you do in June,

the more times your name goes in the drawing!

Now who wouldn't love some yummy Reminisce goodies?? I hope you'll head over there and check it out! My work is for the card team, but don't forget that there are 3 fabulous layout sketches for the rest of the month! Cherie and Katie also have a list of upcoming sponsers listed on the blog.

Here's the sketch I worked with this month...

And here's the card I made...

The Cosmo Cricket papers in this card are from an awesome Personal Scrapper add-on kit. When I got the email from Erica offering the add-on (yes, that's the customer service she gives!) there was no way I was going to risk not having it! Those papers are so much fun! Be on the look out for more projects with these posted soon!

I hope you'll be able to check back over the next few days too. I've got some serious scrapping to catch up on!

<3