Monday Musings

Hey everyone!  Good Monday morning to you!  Not too much is going on………I did get Nik back to school this morning after missing three days last week.  She is still feeling really nauseated, and we’re not sure where that is coming from.  Possibly a side-effect from some other medication she is on.  Poor little thing!  She’s going to go until lunch, and then I’m bringing her home.  Baby steps is all we can take at the moment.

But in happier news, I did get the chance to do some scrapbooking over the weekend.  Went to my friend Kathie’s house where three of us Paper-Playground gals got together for a little crop.  They were working on some super cute September kit layouts that I will have soon to put up on the Paper-Playground gallery.  I worked on a card using the August kit and some other assignments that I will be able to share soon. Love those kits. And speaking of the kits….I got September’s kits boxed up and ready for mailing yesterday.  They are sitting at my door as I write, waiting for the mailman to whisk them on their way.  I always love seeing the boxes stacked up and ready to go.   Gives me a such a sense of satisfaction.  There are still kits left if anyone wants one, by the way!  And don’t forget to leave me a comment on my blog giveaway day post to enter your name in a random drawing to win some of the Bazzill mini stitching templates we used in August’s kit.  I will do the drawing for that on Friday.  Woo-hoo!

In other scrappy news, I wanted to tell you all about the September challenge going on over at the Webster’s Pages inspireME site.  This month’s challenge is all about heritage photos.  Here is what design team member, Anabelle O’Malley has to say about it.

“Webster’s Pages naturally lend themselves to vintage, shabby pages. And what better photos to scrap this way than heritage ones? My challenge for you is to pull out those old photo albums and create a layout using an older photo. Of course, your page doesn’t need to be shabby, you may want to do something fun and funky!”

What an absolutely perfect theme for Webster’s Pages products!  I do hope you will all play along.  The winner of the challenge will win a collection of the Webster’s Pages line of her/his choice.  What a great incentive!  Time to get scrapping!

Have a great day everyone!

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Blog Giveaway Day

Can you all believe it’s Friday already?  I cannot believe how quickly this past week has gone by.  And I don’t feel like I’ve gotten a whole lot accomplished either.  It’s a bit hard to pinpoint where all the time has gone.  I’m sure having the kids go back to school has added to the quick pace of the week… or that’s what I will tell myself, anyway.  Nik’s been sick, too, and we’ve spent several days going back and forth to the doctor.  And Glammie is still here keeping us occupied.  Guess all of this combined is making time truly fly.

Haven’t spent much time doing a lot of scrapping, but I have been slowly working on a page over the last few days that I finally finished last night.  I have been wanting to go back and work some more with the August kit from Paper-Playground, as there are still some patterns that I haven’t worked with at all yet.  Also, I’ve been wanting to do some more with the adorable calendar stamp from Imaginisce that is a special feature of August’s kit.  Here is the page I made with a picture of Nik on her first day of fifth grade back in July.

Did lots of cut-work with the Poppy patterned paper on here.  Took a bit of time, but I really like how the large flowers are focal points for the page.  I used a half inch circle punch from Stampin’Up to punch circles to make a border going across the top that I then stitched through on my sewing machine.  Also stamped the calendar stamp on the hand-made die-cut shape used behind my title.  I do love how these colors and leaf print patterns remind me of Fall coming.

One of my favorite parts of this kit has been the mini stitching templates from Bazzill.  It was probably the first thing I started playing with, and have used it to make flourishes and waves on most of my August projects.  I have a couple of extra templates that I would like to give away to a good home.

Anybody interested??  Just leave me a comment and I will do a random drawing next week for the winner.  I’d love to hear about any great project ideas you have using hand-stitching.  Hook me up, I’d love to check it out.

And lastly, look at this cute project Nik made for me to decorate the house for Halloween.

Don’t these little ghosties bring back memories?  I made these same kleenex/cotton ball ghosts when I was a child…..every Halloween.  It’s so sweet to see her doing the same thing all these years later.  Love how she connected the two on one string and found the perfect spot to show them off.  They make me smile every time I walk past.

Hope you all have a wonderful day!

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Mummy Making

I’m not getting a whole lot of scrapping done these days.  I’ve been enjoying my time with my mother instead and have been doing a lot of hanging out.  LOVE hanging out.  And it was while hanging out with her on the back deck, eating Eskimo Pies, that inspiration struck for a cute kids’ Halloween craft project.  The Popsicle stick on these ice-creams were such a fun shape that all sorts of ideas started popping into my mind on what we could do with them.  I’m always trying to think up cute projects that Nik can do herself, as she really likes to make things.  A girl after my own heart!!  But before we could get started, we needed a few more sticks. So…. we polished off the box of Eskimo pies.  Just to be accommodating, you know?  And now with sticks in hand, Nik got started on her project yesterday afternoon.

The first step was to paint the sticks black.

Next, we broke out the googly eyes.  What craft project is not 99.9% improved by googly eyes?

After gluing down the eyes, Nik took strips of torn fabric and wrapped them around the entire stick, leaving just a bit of room around the eyes.

Take a look at the finished guy.

Isn’t that a cute little mummy??  So fast and so easy to make, and Nik was able to do the entire project by herself.  That’s a total winner in my book.  We think these would make cute little ghosts, and vampires and Frankensteins…the possibilities are endless.  Guess I’ll have to get more Eskimo Pies.  Gee, I hate to have to do that….but I will make the ultimate sacrifice.

Big of me, huh?

Have a great day everyone!

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Sketch This #66

My goodness, is shopping ever exhausting! I am completely worn out right now! Glammie and I ran off first thing this morning to see what we could see, and have worn ourselves into the ground in the process. And we didn’t find a single thing. You never know what kind of luck you are going to have. No pain, no gain. At least the ‘ol pocketbook is still intact! I’m sure my dad will be happy about that.

I may be pooped, but I’m still raring to post my card for the Sketch This blog this week. Are you all ready for a new sketch? Here it is!

Janelle called this sketch fun and simple, and I definitely agree. I really loved this one, and found it so easy to work with. Think this is one I will fall back on time and time again. To me, it works particularly well for card-making, but I also love the pages the other design team members made. Here is my card.

Went back and pulled out my August kit from Paper-Playground for this featuring cardstock, patterned paper, and die-cuts from SEI’s Poppy line. These colors are so bright and cheerful. I really love how this turned out. I hand cut the flower and leaf branch from one of the sheets and made a scalloped border on another using my Fiskars Threading Water punch. I also used the adorable calendar stamp from Imaginisce included in this kit on the background piece behind the flower. I stamped the calendar 4 times, making a rectangular block that I then trimmed to size. I also stamped a sentiment onto the die-cut tag for my greeting. Brads from Imaginisce finished off the details.

I have to say that this card came together quickly and easily! It’s really a wonderful sketch. Hope you give it a try. Link me up in the comments if you do!

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Random Chaos #31

Well, we did it.  We survived our first morning back to school.  But it wasn’t super easy. None of us were tired at bedtime last night, and of course we all had a rough time waking up this morning.  After walking Nik to school this morning, Glammie and I stayed to help the teacher run copies for her upcoming classwork.  Took three of us a full hour to get it all done.  And now Glammie and I have just walked home from having lunch with Nik in the cafeteria.  In less than an hour, Peter will be home, and then soon after that it will be back up to the elementary school to pick up Nik.  I’d say this day has certainly been revolving around school, school, and more school!  It sure is hard to get back into the routine after our three week break.

So now after all this academic activity, I think it’s time to turn to some scrapbooking fun!  Are you all ready for this week’s Random Chaos challenge?  This week is the opposite of last week.  Last week we were to use an over-sized photo, and this week the challenge is to use a very small photo(s).  Something wallet size or less.  Here is what I did.

LOVE the challenge this week.  I have had these two tiny pictures of my brother and me for years that I had never scrapped.  I mean these photos are really, really small.  One measures 1″ x 3.5″, and the other is 1.75″ x 3/25″.   My mom took one look at them and called them “little specks”.  I thought that was rather appropriate, but I’m so happy that I have finally scrapped them.  Once again, Janelle has given me just the push I needed to get it done.

And look guys…….I’m still getting mileage out of my September kit from Paper-Playground.  The paper on here is from the Vita Bella line from Little Yellow Bicycle, as are the gorgeous copper rub-ons and the filigree brad.  I love the combo of the organic, olive mesh trim with the silky organdy ribbon on the right side.  Gives this page a real textured feel, and I just love that about this kit.

Time for me to let Glammie have a turn at the computer before Peter bursts through the door and commandeers the computer!  Have a great day everyone!

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Mummy Wrap

Once again, I feel very lucky this morning.  Hanna has come and gone through our area without our hardly knowing she was even here.  We had a little bit of wind and a little bit of rain, but by noon yesterday, the skies were clearing and turning into a beautiful day.  And this morning, too, promises to bring us another glorious day.  How nice for our last day of break before returning to school.  Ugh…….I had to say it.  Yes, tomorrow we head back to school to start our second session of this year.  The kiddos are not very happy campers about it, either.  And I will admit I’m not looking forward to having to get up at 6 am again…

But what a nice three week break we have had.  We got to take that trip up to Williamsburg to the Great Wolf Lodge, and the kids spent a week at the beach, as well.  And now we have Glammie visiting!  It has been wonderful having her here.  I’ve been so busy hanging out with her that I haven’t spent much time doing anything else.  But I did make a page last night that I can share with you now using my favorite September kit from Paper-Playground.  I just cannot get enough of that kit!  I’m loving how well the colors match so many of my photos and how easy this kit is to use.

You all may recognize these photos, as I’ve posted them before.  These were taken at Nik’s school fall festival that was held the last day of school before break.  I went and volunteered, so was able to capture a few of the highlights in pictures.  These photos of Nik doing the mummy wrap race were my favorite of the day.  And this activity was, by far, the favorite of the kids that day, too.

This page combines three of the patterned papers from Basic Grey with two colors of the Bazzill cardstock. I hand cut some more of those cute birdies for embellishment and also cut some wavy cardstock strips to mimic the mummy wrapping in the photos.  The title combines the Basic Grey mini monogram stickers from the kit with some Making Memories black alpha rub-ons from my stash.  And then for detail under the title, I layered all sorts of goodies from the kit, including a chipboard circle tag, some brads, another bird, both trims and the felt flowers from American Crafts.

Don’t know how many more projects I can still eek out of this much-loved kit, but I’m going to find out! !

Have a great day everyone!

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Hanna is On Her Way

We are starting to brace ourselves tonight.  As of 8 pm, Hanna was located about 200 miles South/Southeast of Wilmington on the NC coast.  After breaking landfall, the storm is projected to continue sweeping upwards, passing just slightly to the east of us.  Sustained winds of 30-45 mph with gusts of over 50 mph along with over 5 inches of rain are in our forecast for the next 24 hours.  Although it sounds like we will not get the brunt of the storm, I worry for all those in its path.  In our area, we can expect to have wide spread power outages, some flash flooding, and downed trees…oh, and severe thunderstorms as well.  And thunderstorms do quite a bit of damage around here.  I had a flash hit in my backyard a couple of years ago.  Hit a tall tree, traveled down into the neighbor’s metal fence which blew all the finials off the fence posts and took out the garage door openers of two neighbors and the timer on my sprinkler system….

So… Glammie and I figured we should try to prepare in some way.  We just went out and took down the umbrella from the table set on the back deck and turned over the chairs so they won’t blow as badly.  Now she’s urging me to shut down the computer.  Not much else we can do.

And not much else going on at this point.  Haven’t even stepped into my scraproom today.  Can you believe that?  The only piece of scrappy news I have to share is just a little thing, but it made me feel kind of happy.  Brandin O’Neill, the owner of Webster’s Pages asked if she could put up some of my work on her blog, which she did with a nice comment, too.  Also posted some work from one of my favorite scrappers, Alicia Giess, for her fabulous guest designers pages she has created recently for Webster’s.  I feel honored to be included in such company!  Thank you so much, Brandin!

good luck to everyone in the path of this latest storm!

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Sketch This 65

It’s such a happy morning in our household.  The sun is shining and we are still enjoying our last few days of track-out break before heading back to school on Monday.  And the best part of all is that my mom arrived last night for a month long visit.  I’ve got my mommy!  Yeah!  Life is good!

And now it’s time to share my card for this week’s sketch over at the Sketch This blog.  Sketch #65.

Made this for my girlfriend’s birthday using the September kit from Paper-Playground.  Told you I was going to use up every single scrap of this kit!  I just added a rub-on birthday greeting from My Sentiment’s Exactly to personalize this for Amy.  The inside of the card reads: When You Never Look Any Older.  Perfect sentiment for her, as I don’t think she looks a day older than when I met her years ago.  Lucky girl!

Here is the sketch.

Lots of room for small details on this sketch, such as the layered area at the focal point and on each corner of the background block. I cut out tiny squares of cardstock and dressed them up with a single French knot for my corner embellishments.  For my focal point, I layered patterned paper and that funky mesh trim under a chipboard circle tag that is topped with leaf cut-outs, silk organdy ribbon and one of the gorgeous metal filigree brads from Little Yellow Bicycle.  Love the combo of papers from Basic Grey and Little Yellow Bicycle in this month’s kit!

Well, I’m off now to enjoy this beautiful day with the kiddos and Glammie!  Hope you all have a wonderful day, too.

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Random Chaos 30

Here we are marking another milestone over at the Random Chaos challenge blog. Janelle amazes me with her creative weekly challenges, and here we are on challenge number 30 already! Way to go, Janelle!! I feel really honored to have been able to play along for all 30 weeks, and look forward to each new week. Well………except for that dreaded no patterns week. But now that that is behind me, it’s smooth sailing from here on out!

This week’s challenge is to use an over-sized photo on your layout. I have always liked the look of that, but rarely enlarge my photos very much. I really love that Janelle’s challenge pushed me to actually go ahead and do it. I am really happy with the outcome. But that could be in large part due to my subject matter. Take a look.

You recognize this guy, right? This is the primitive wooden Jack O’Lantern I splurged on last week. Could NOT resist it. Thought it’s vintage, shabby goodness would compliment the beautiful papers from Webster’s Pages really well, and I’m so pleased with the result. Think the patchwork effect gives this page a real homespun charm to it. All the paper on this project came from the two new lines from Webster’s called Inspired and Reflections of Nature. From the Reflections line, I used the front and back sides of both the Amber Waves and the Chestnut Mocha papers. From Inspired, I used the Bountiful paper for the dark brown strips at top and bottom, and I cut the word “Inspiration” from the sheet for use in my title. Love the gorgeous script. For the chipboard letters in the title, I covered them with dictionary paper and aged them slightly with a Ranger distress ink pad. I also stamped one journaling strip with Hero Arts letter stamps and added a couple of Chatterbox ribbon ties for a final touch.

I just love fall! Think it has to be my most favorite season. Anyone else think so, too?

Have a great day everyone!

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It’s Official

I have a teenager in the house.  Peter turned 13 today.  He’s happy as can be, and I’m a little in shock about it all.  It’s just so hard to believe that my first child is this old already.  But it really is just a number thing because the child has been ACTING like a teenager for years.  Here he is in all his birthday glory.

Looks like a teenager, doesn’t he?  Shark tooth necklace, Abercrombie shirt, braces, loooooonnnnnnnnggggg hair… sigh.

Peter really wanted this Nerf gun that was just released called the Vulcan.  Fully automated, this baby pumps three bullets per second a distance of around 20 feet.  Absolute boy heaven.

He also got a pair of kick-back chairs for the game room from Glammie, Pop-Pop, and Uncle Paul.  He was practicing snoozing in them, which was definitely his way of saying “they rock”.

I asked Nik to take a few pictures of Peter and I together, too.  He pulled all his usual stunts and tricks, but I did get a few good ones.  A bit blurry cause he’s always trying to make a move right when the shutter clicks.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, PETER!!!    Thanks for all the laughs!  I’ve loved every minute of being your mom. Here’s to the next 13 years!

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