What I Did on My Mini-Vacation

Ok, this is only one small part of it. But the kids were thrilled to be dancing with Mickey and Minnie at Liz and Derek's wedding.

One little word?

If you're a scrapbooker, you probably already know about the One Little Word initiative by Ali Edwards. In a nutshell, Ali and many of her fans each choose a single word each year to signify an areas of focus - words like organize, balance, serenity, peace are all commonly chosen.

I'm still trying to figure out my word for this year. I've been tossing around a lot of ideas and a lot of words, and I just haven't hit on the right one yet. Sigh.

But, that hasn't stopped me from getting some layouts done! Hope you enjoy.

Credits: Curated Album Kit by Kitschy Digitals and Paislee Press, Vintage Stacked Flowers by Kitschy Digitals

Credits: Good Times Template by In the Making Design, Life is Good collection by Echo Park

Squeee!

Here's dress 2! The chiffon has sparkles in it, which you can't really see in the photo but my princess loves!

I did it!

First, I should tell you that I am NOT a seamstress. I can do straight stitches, pretty much - I'm good for hemming, mending and my short foray into quilting, when I did machine piecing. But I was reading one of my favorite blogs - Make It and Love It - and came across this tutorial for repurposing a t shirt into a dress. HAD to try it - Alexa has a bunch of these in her closet and I wanted to see if I could make one for cheapy cheapy.

It WAS cheapy cheapy! I found junior fit t shirts at AC Moore 2/$7 - these are terrific and the small fits my size 6x daughter. Alexa picked out the fabric, which was on clearance at Joann's for $4 a yard - I needed 3/4 of a yard - so the dress cost me a grand total of $6.50.

Because of the length of the shirt, I didn't need the fabric tube described in the tutorial - I just sewed the ruffles right onto the shirt. This means of course that the ruffles show over the top, rather than being under the shirt. I think the finished product is cute either way!

It's not 100% perfect - the ruffles on the top layer are a little uneven and the stitching isn't perfectly straight - but all in all, I think it turned out great. The layers are nice and even, even though you can't see it super well in the photo. Go me!!! :)

We're back from Florida and some good stuff!

Well, it's been an eventful couple weeks! Have I mentioned that the cat pulled a full glass of water over on my laptop and drying it out for two weeks did not work? Limping along with Gimp has been awful (especially on my tiny little netbook screen) and I'm still mostly laptopless. A new one is coming with a very long delivery wait (thank you, Dell), so I loaded PSE on Adam's computer yesterday and I'll be scrapping some over the next couple weeks, when I can squeeze time in between his poker tournaments! And I learned something really cool - did you know you can buy a "hard drive enclosure" for your internal hard drive, effectively making it an external drive? I can't tell you how comforting it is to have my hard drive accessible - even though I back up my files obsessively (I've posted about that a lot), I still have favorites and application preferences and all my PSE presets that are in application data folders that AREN'T backed up. But now I still have them!

In other news, we were in Florida last week visiting The Mouse, Adam's family (mom, grandma, aunt & uncle) and my parents. It was a really fun and relaxing week - except for the frantic call we received from the petsitter on Monday saying Archie would not or could not get up. He's 11 1/2, which is old for a German shepherd, so I had some not so nice thoughts about what that might mean. Thoughts I definitely DID NOT want to be facing while on vacation 1000 miles from home. Adam flew home Tuesday morning and thankfully my old guy (Archie, not Adam) has Lyme disease, which is treatable. He's much better but still wobbly. And Adam got a nice vacation away from the kids while I stayed with them at my mom and dad's. He ended up flying back down on Saturday, just in time for me to pick him up at the airport and continue the long drive home to Pennsylvania.

OOOOkkkay then. So that's the personal news. On the creative team front, I haven't been doing much (you know, no scrapping computer), but I definitely wanted to make sure you're aware of the upcoming FREE class at Jessica Sprague:

And, I was actually able to get another hybrid project done! I hate that I can't effectively edit images and the quality of the photo is so poor, but there you have it. This little bag was so much fun to make and would be perfect for little Christmas gifts. I used Perfect Packaging: Boxy Bag Curved by iKari Designs and the soon-to-be-released Dashes Through the Snow paper and elements packs by Echo Park.

And yes, Christmas is coming!!!

Almost ready

to hibernate!! I'm sure I've blogged about this before (probably like last week and my sieve of a mind has just forgotten), but there is something about fall that makes me want to cook, bake, and generally get ready to hibernate. Yesterday we went to our local farm stand (which is really more like a big farm store) and got our pumpkins, along with a bushel of apples. In case you don't know or you've forgotten (as I had - see the sieve comment), a bushel of apples is A LOT of apples.

We had a blast carving our pumpkins - although Owen really did not like the feel of the pumpkin guts. EWWWW!!! GROSS! was heard more than once. Here's a layout I did using Fall Whimsy by Jennifer Labre:

Then I made apple crisp, apple cake, apple pies and applesauce. Pies and sauce are in the freezer, but we're enjoying the crisp and cake! YUM!

A little blog revamp

I know. I'm so behind on blogging. I have so many layouts to post....sigh. But I did redesign my blog tonight! Yay for me!

I'm trying to figure out why my sidebar tags have a white background. They were saved as .pngs with a transparent background and uploaded from my computer just the way I always do so I have no idea what happened. Any ideas?

Let it Snow!

We love it here. Really, really love it!!! We even love the 26 inches of snow we got last weekend!

We're just about unpacked and I'm itching to get started scrapping again - so look for some layouts soon!

A few observations

after my first week in Pennsylvania -

1. People here are really, really friendly. Strangers smile and say good morning. Amazing!
2. I like the cold much, much more than the heat - I've confirmed that with a week of 20 degree weather
3. It's very strange not to dial the area code before the phone number for local calls
4. I forgot that dry air = lots of little shocks
5. No sales tax on clothing?? SCORE!
6. Every thing is cheaper here - groceries, car insurance, homeowner's insurance, car registration (although gas is about the same as FL)
7. Highways with hills and big curves rather than flat open space will take some getting used to, especially in the snow!
8. Getting a driver's license and car registration in PA is convoluted. However, registering a foreign adoption is not (no court proceedings).
9. The logistics and number of things to do when you move with kids (especially 1 in school) are exponentially greater than with no kids.

All by myself...

well, not quite - the cat is with me - but I'm in Pennsylvania while my family is still in Florida. This is my first week at my new job and so far, so good. I drove up last weekend (Sat/Sun) and I'm all settled into my temporary apartment...but I am anxious to have everyone here with me on Feb 1st (and I'm anxious to move into our new house, too).

I am not complaining - but it is COLD here!!!! Brrrr.....

The news and some layouts

First - the news - I have accepted a new job and we are moving to Pennsylvania! Yippee!!

And here are some layouts...the first uses Your Planet or Mine by 4 Shades of Blue:


Next is a layout using Joyful and Frosty Winter Frames by Roben-Marie Designs:

And finally, this layout uses Holly Jolly Holiday by Mikkel Paige and Layer It On - Volume 1 by Lil' Digi Bits by Jude:

Hope you enjoy! :)

Some Disney layouts and big news

First, the news: those of you who have been reading my blog for a while know how much I rave about Feeling Scrappy's Sketchapalooza classes. I always get so much scrapping done during the class and I really just adore the great group of women who participate in the class regularly.

Sketchapalooza 5 is coming up from October 26th to November 23rd, and I'm guest designing for this class as I did for #4. I'll also be creating digital templates for all the sketches, so digi scrappers out there will get over 20 templates to use! You can find out more about the class over at Feeling Scrappy.

Now for some Disney layouts! I have a few more that I turned into samples for Sketchapalooza so I won't be able to post them until after the class - but what I can share will give you a good idea of the fun we had (there's also one more layout of the Halloween party down a couple posts). Credits under each photo and all items are available at The Digichick.

Credits: all items from the October TDC designer collab, Every Life Has a Story - Chapters 1 (available in the store), 2 (available as part of this month's journaling workshop) and 3 (part of this month's Digi Files)

Credits: The Living Seas by Dawn Inskip and a Jumper by Crystal Livesay

Credits: Tickle My Fancy by Gypsy Couture

Credits: all items from the October TDC designer collab, Every Life Has a Story - Chapters 1 (available in the store), 2 (available as part of this month's journaling workshop) and 3 (part of this month's Digi Files) - done for the TDC Speed Scrap on 10/2

:)

A little life update

Whew. The last month or so has been a whirlwind. I have reduced my work schedule from full time to 3 days a week, which is fantastic because it has given me the opportunity to become more involved at Alexa's school (I'm a room mom and on the PTA). I also am in training to become a Guardian ad Litem - something I've wanted to do for ages and just never had the time. I am anxious to get started and be an advocate for kids who really need it (for more info about how to make a lasting positive impact on abused and neglected kids, you can visit the national court appointed special advocates website).

We spent this last weekend at Disney doing some fun events - now, I'm not one of those crazy screaming Disney fans (and I say that with love because I know some of you!!) but I'll tell ya, Disney knows how to do it right. We spent Friday night at Mickey's Not-So-Scary Halloween Party and it was amazing!! They limit the number of tickets sold so we didn't hit any lines - we rode several popular rides over and over. There were tons of trick-or-treating stations, and characters in costume were EVERYWHERE!! One of our favorite things was the "dance party" stations where the characters were out on the floor dancing along with the kids. Fun!! We had so much fun that we closed the park down at MIDNIGHT with our 5 year old and 15 month old. So you know it had to have been really, really fun.

On Saturday, we went to the special passholder screening of Tinkerbell and the Lost Treasure, which isn't being released to the public until the end of October. Again, a fantastic experience. Of course we got some individual time with Tink and Terence (her friend in the movie), and Disney flew in Rob Paulsen, who is a super-famous voice guy who does a couple of the voices in the movie. We got to meet him and talk to him a bit (and of course, get his autograph). It was a special afternoon, for sure!

The rest of the weekend was spent doing regular stuff....you'll be happy to know that Owen likes visiting with the characters as much as Alexa does. So, we waited in several character meeting lines.....but got some great photos!

I'm sure you'll be seeing some of the photos in upcoming layouts....hint, hint!

Do you like my new look?

The last couple times I've redecorated my blog, I've purchased blogs-in-a-box from some of my favorite designers. I've gotten more and more comfortable with the html code and decided to do a redecorate this time from scratch, using one of Elise's fantastic kits! What do you think??

And, lest you think I forgot - yep, that's right - it's new release Thursday at The Digichick!! Here's what I've created with just a fraction of the new stuff available for 20% off today!

Four of my five layouts use Jumpers by Crystal Livesay - these templates are FANTASTIC and are perfect when you want to do a great layout quickly. I paired her templates up with some of the new kits and came up with ----

This first layout uses Unbreakable by ViVa Artistry. I just love the coppery and blue combination they used for this kit.


This next layout uses September Grass by Elise - the same kit I used for my blog!!! As always, Elise's work is just beyond compare - her detail is so fantastic.


Although this kit - A Sport in a World Full of Games collab by Elise and Courtney Wilson - is running themed, you can see that it's really versatile and can definitely be used for non-sports kits! This is the one layout I designed myself in this batch (i.e. I didn't use one of Crystal's Jumpers).

This layout features another beautiful kit by ViVa Artistry - this one is called Cazbah. Check out all the sparkle and glitter!
And last but certainly not least, Capture+Record by Karla Dudley is perfect for recording the way we love to record our lives!

Hope you enjoy!

Why I can't be a Krazy Coupon Lady

My friend (and favorite hybrid template designer) Kelleigh has been posting on her blog about all the awesome grocery stuff she is getting for next to nothing, all by learning to be a Krazy Coupon Lady. I want to be a KCL. I want to save gobs of money and get a lot of things for free. Or even make money buying things! My mom was the ultimate KCL, so one would think that maybe I inherited the gene. Nope. I've given it a try. It's not working. Here's why:

1. I am not organized enough. Ok, I can check the blogs (I do use Google Reader, after all). I can even print the coupons. But then they end up in a big pile and I have no idea where the one I need is without sifting through hundreds. Very frustrating.

2. I hate (detest, really) having unused stuff around - I like my life clutter free, thankyouverymuch. I now have 6 boxes of cereal and 8 boxes of granola bars in my pantry. It's making me very anxious wondering when they are going to be all used up and stop taking up my visual space. I know. I have a problem. But there it is.

3. I can't buy one Sunday paper because of the mess it creates, let alone 5 or 6 just for the coupons. I'm having heart palpitations just thinking about it.

4. All those printed coupons take up more visual space. I need to go vomit now. Being a KCL is just not in my future. Sigh.

SSD FOBTY 8/27

Exercise...hm. I'm lucky. I have a pool in my backyard and an elliptical and treadmill in the house, along with Wii Fit and assorted Reebok steps, balance balls, yoga and Pilates paraphernalia. At various points in my life I've used them, and well, sometimes not. I really need to get back into a routine!

First day of Kindergarten!

SSD FOBTY - Favorite Summer Photo

Such a fun summer weekend

We had so much family fun this weekend! On Saturday morning, we took the kids to the beach - it was really windy and rough but we hung out in the sand and at the water's edge - and the strong breeze made it not too hot! Sunday morning, I took Alexa to her riding lesson then we had some quality mommy/daughter shopping time. We spent the afternoon in the pool, and after dinner we washed my car and had a huge water balloon fight! Here are some layouts to show you what a great time we had:

Credits: Little Fish by Kristin Cronin-Barrow; Cut up Template by Lauren Reid; Little Boy Blue by Misty Cato (string); Jellybelly Add On by Melissa Bennett (stitching); SmartyPants by Shawna Clingerman and Julie Billingsley (staples)
Credits: template by Juli Fish; Candy Sunshine by Sugarplum Paperie; On the Line by Sugarplum Paperie (August Grab Bag); Old School by Kelley Mickus (flower - recolored); string is by mgl Scraps
Credits: inspired by http://www.myscrapbookart.com/galler...mp;ppuser=2437; His Playroom by Traci Reed; Bitty Stitchies by Lauren Reid and CutUps 1 by Lauren Reid.

SSD FOBTY - favorite song

Today's SSD FOBTY is to blog about your favorite "guilty pleasure" song - it's no secret that I love anything with a dance beat that I can move to! Although none of these songs are super new, three that I love right now are:
Right Round by Flo-Rida
When I Grow Up by the Pussycat Dolls
Single Ladies by Beyonce'

Now I need to get up and dance!