Thankful for little girls

Happy Thanksgiving everyone! I am thankful for so much. I have so many blessings in my life. These two little girls are one of them. They are cousin's born just two weeks apart. They are so lucky to have eachother. They are going to grow up together and be able to share it with one another. I've never had a sister but I bet this is the 2nd best thing.

Just a page

Just a page of Mikayla's first day of Kindergarten. I look at these photos and it reminds me so much of my days at St. Johns. I have many memories there. I love the education I received. So many of the teachers touched my heart, showed me compassion and taught me about God. I am glad that at least for now Mikayla can go to a school that provides the same caring environment that SJV gave me.

Splitcoast challenge SBVC52

I love splitcoaststampers.com not only do they have tons of stuff for all of us stamping freaks they have tons of stuff for scrapbookers as well! Challenges are always fun and this was one of them check it out here. If you are interested in making some of these flowers look a couple post down and I have a link to the tutorial and I say how I made mine.

S is for School

Gavin didn't go to school this year. Things are so crazy in our lives that I just couldn't justify putting him in. Money is tight, times are tough and through it all I would rather have him close by and making me work a little harder! So I took the pictures of him last year and pushed them to the back of my stuff. I think I was still a little upset that he would be "missing out" on something. Well the school year is under way and I am feeling a bit better about my decision. It has made him closer to his little brother. It gives him time to be "boss" of the house since Mikayla is in school all day. Even more important is it makes me try super hard to find fun things for him to do. The "pain" and "sorrow" has gone so now they finally made it into the scrapbook with no remorse or regret. Do you have photo's like that? Ones sitting around that are just to "hard" to scrap right now? Even if I don't know it at the time I've realized that somethings are just too hard to scrapbook right now. I don't want to remember, I don't want to face it or I'm too angry to think about it. So I push them off into my box and make excuses like "I don't have the right paper" or "I'm not in the mood right now." I think scrapbooking makes you grow. It makes me face things that I may have put off for years but instead they are right up in my face saying "when are you going to scrap me!" Today I am glad for them. It's made me look at my decision and say "Yeah, it was the right one, maybe not the easiest one but the right one." Gosh what would I do without this hobby!

Let me take you back...way back.

Sometimes you buy paper and you just know what you are using if for. This is one of those times. I just loved this paper. I saw it and it instantly reminded me of this day. Even though it happened five years ago I just knew this is what I wanted to put on it. I was so proud once it was all finished I had to show it off to my husband who kind of laughed at it. I couldn't believe what he just did. How dare he laugh at my artwork! How dare he make fun of my passion! Right before I got really mad he says "Boy, does she look like Peyton." Well, that's better and he is right she looks just like him.

Another CTMH pearl paint tip

Alright so I first saw this tutorial on this website. As I was watching it I thought "hey that would be a great thing to do with Close to my Heart's pearl paint." So I made three flowers doing three different things. For all of them I found two pieces of scrap paper that I liked and punched out a bunch of different sized circles. On one set I took my edge distresser and roughed up the edges. I placed all the circles out and painted over them with the CTMH's pearl paint. I let them dry slightly. I took the circles that I used with the edge distresser and put a brad through them and squeezed the edges of each circle. The next set of circles I did the same thing (these ones did not have distressed edges). The last set I crumpled all the circles in a ball and then flattened them back out and put a brad through them. These are what I ended up with. I didn't need to get them wet like in the tutorial because the paint keeps the paper movable. I did use my heat gun to set them. I hope you have fun making some of these flowers. I'll post a layout as soon as it's done.

1 year and counting

Well it's almost been two years and that little man still steals my heart. I know you are not aloud to have a favorite but this boys just is sometimes. He is constantly happy. He loves to make people smile. Being silly is just his personality. From day one he's been like this. So I decided to make a page every year that describes my favorite silly things he does to make people laugh. His first year I decided to talk about the "look". When Peyton was little he would tilt his head down and make is big eyes look way up and move his head around until he got your attention. Then he would shriek with joy which of course would make anyone smile. He'd give a big smile kind of like saying "mission accomplished." Year two is approaching fast and I am debating whether to talk about his tackling hugs or his "I love you" hitting!

Let them eat cake!

If you have paper in every corner of your scrapbooking space raise your hand. (my hand is raised) Last month I did a craft show and decided to get ride of some of those clutter filled scrap folders. Well, since then I have decided to clean up my space and I soon realized that I have paper stashed everywhere. I have bags from scrapbooking stores filled with paper, project folders filled with paper, CTMH boxes filled with paper not to mention my other folders and files and carries filled with paper. Of course I started to organize and put it away and I soon found a pile of paper that has no partner and has no home. How sad to have no home. How sad to have no one that is just a little like you. So I thought to myself everyone needs a home and I decided to make a "junk" folder for my extra paper to go so it has a home. This is not junk by the way, its just paper without a goal in mind. Well you can't just hang out with no goals can you? I will not stand for that so I mad a goal for myself and my "junk" paper. My goal is to make a page or some cards or a project out of my junk paper once or twice a month when I sit down for a random scrapbooking session. I put the folder close by so I can glace through it when I need to. I am hoping that it will inspire me to use up that paper I just had to have and remind me that I do not need more paper with no project in mind for at least a little while. I also decided that I am going to make a change jar with some of the paper and every time I use a piece I am going to stick some random change laying around my house in if for a reward. Once all the paper is used up I'll have a nice little stash to spend just on scrapbooking stuff. I encourage you all during these hard times to find ways to stay inspired, keep creating and reward yourself for meeting your challenges.

A new fun blog

Okay this is a little late coming but please go check out Close to My Heart's founder Jeanette Lynton's blog at www.jeanettelynton.com She is doing a 27 days of thanksgiving. Each day she is telling us what she is thankful for. Plus there is always awesome artwork.

A sample

Today is the day. I am off to the craft fair and just thought I would post a sample of the cards I am selling. Wish me luck.