pages of my boys

I don't know if its because I am not feeling good or what, but I feel like these pages are lacking something...

This one was fun playing with the picture. I used digital frames from Two Peas and a saying from Shabby Princess....

Lots of bling and glitter with the acrylic letters. It works with boys pages, I promise!

More two peas digital frames and shabby princess sayings! I also sewed on all but one of these four pages.


Acrylic Crown I cut out earlier in the week...


And this one is a scraplift from a scrapbook forum I participate in. Its always cool to take a page and try your hand at it.

Its Electric!

Some pictures from the storm....

Cookies and Painting!

On our little sick/off day today, I thought I would entertain the boys with a baking/painting session. Jaden has seemed a little down the past couple of days and this seemed to perk him right up! First we made cookies....Jaden did a great job on sprinkles duty!

Awhile back I posted about hands on canvas. I can not find the post, but we modified and did something similar today. I bought the canvases for a two pack for 2 dollars at Target and repainted them so that they were blank. Then the boys added their handprints and we put them up in their rooms! Jaden wanted their hands to have white paint like white ice cream.

Over the paint.

Acrylic Shapes

Ugh. I have been awake since 4 am. I have caught my 50 millionth cold or something of the year. Ok, that is an exaggeration but I feel like I have been sick all of 2008! And its not even a cold. I dont know what it is. Misery? I caught a misery bug. haha..it sure does make me look forward to being Mommy today!| I feel so bad when I am not 100% for my kids. Jaden didnt seem himself yesterday, hopefully he isn't catching it too.

ANYWAY.

I love acrylic. I love dressing it up, glitterizing it, rubons, ribobn, anything. I love acrylic. They get kind of pricey though and I have to scrapbook cheaply.

My favorite thing about creating is when most of the stuff (embellishments) I use is what I have made or designed to then add to the page, book, project I am working on.

So I thought to myself "I can make my own shapes!" ...and I did! I used a saw that my father in law gave Micah last year for wood work, bought the acrylic at home depot and went to work. I did everything out of shapes I drew. Granted, they are simple shapes, but I drew them (see the bird in there?) There are so many possibilities with this. I want to do my own acrylic album project at some point.

Design Team Page for September

I got my kit for the next month this week and decided to go ahead and tackle it now.

To be honest, I had a hard time with it this month. Its hard to do girly pages a lot because, lets face it. There's only so many self pages I can do and I just don't have a lot of "girls" in my life :) So I thought it would be fun to bust out the prom pictures! So I went old school. No digital pictures.

I added a couple of digital frames to the pictures before they were printed out. Everything on the page minus the rhinestones and the plastic letters and ribbons were in the kit. The rhinestones, letters and ribbons are all at Devine Memories for purchase as well as the papers, chipboard elements felt flowers and glitter tulle. The journaling is on a transparency and on the pictures and the crown there is a lot of sparkle.

Love is....

1 Corinthians 13:4-8 4 Love suffers long and is kind; love does not envy; love does not parade itself, is not puffed up; 5 does not behave rudely, does not seek its own, is not provoked, thinks no evil; 6 does not rejoice in iniquity, but rejoices in the truth; 7 bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. 8 Love never fails. But whether there are prophecies, they will fail; whether there are tongues, they will cease; whether there is knowledge, it will vanish away.

Last night, Micah and I got into an argument. It was over something so petty and little but it blew up into something that kept escalating. Instead of letting it grow and keep on going, Micah stopped it. He picked up his Bible and some dry erase markers and led me into the bathroom. We then broke down the verse above. Love is patient, love is kind... after we took this picture, we kept going with it and by the time we were finished, the mirror was completely full, except for inside of the heart.

We rarely argue anymore. When we were first married, we fought a lot. So I think it took us both by surprise when we both got so angry last night. And then even more surprising at how hurtful we can be.

Sometimes we don't realize how we treat the people we love or come across through our every day life. Friends, family, children, salespeople in stores, solicitors on the phone, neighbors or even people that are mean to us first. And its even easier to hurt those who are closest to us. We take their love for granted.

This verse does not just apply to married people. This applies to everyone. Take a step back and see how you act during the day. Try to be a bit more patient if your children are taking their time doing something and you are in a hurry. Try to smile even if you are in a long line at the store and help out the clerk who is grouchy and stressed out. If you get a solicitor on the phone, go out of your way to be polite. If you have a close friend who you just feel out of touch with in general, send them a note. Its not about how they treat you, its about how you show love yourself.

I could have kept going with this but for some reason I stopped. Just something to think about.

Bountiful Baskets

This morning, bright and early (for me and the boys), I loaded up the kids in the bike trailer and rode down to the park to pick up our very first bountiful basket order! And I can not wait to do this again in two weeks!

What is Bountiful Baskets? How did I hear about this? You got all of that for how much?! (those were all the questions I was asked when I showed it all to my parents afterwards)

Bountiful Baskets is a co-op program you can learn more about here. The first time purchase is slightly more than repeat customers, but it was still a great deal! Pick up locations are all over the area, and I just so happened to have one a block away from my house! Everyone was friendly, and even though it was running an hour late and i had to bring the kids back, I plan on doing it every two weeks when it is offered. And its not just fruits and veggies. They also have other offerings at different times!

I heard about this from my friend Trisha who highly recommended it, and now I am recommending it too! Try it! Even if its only once, it will be fun to see what you will get, what you can cook differently, how much of it is stuff you normally already buy, etc.

Also, I just so happened to have my produce bags that I made with me (which was an accident as I brought big bags to take the produce home in and found them in there when I arrived), so I was able to sort it all out as I packed it up. I was there maybe 3 minutes tops. Quick and painless. And everything will be eaten as it was all stuff I normally buy or use!


Here is what we received this time:

Basket of Cherry Tomatoes
Red Potatoes
Celery
Broccoli
Bag of Baby Carrots
4 Green Peppers

7 Bananas
Strawberries
LOTS of plums
LOTS of pears
3 mangoes
bag of grapes


AND!! The autism raffle ends today, make sure you stop by Just Devine for a chance to enter!!

Bird Template Download

I had a request for my bird template that I drew, and so I wanted to share it here! If you cut out the bird and cut all the purple away, the actual template is inside the lines...


Bird Template Download HERE!

Let me know if there any questions, size issues or if its not working! And if you use it, link me so that I can see your fabulous creations!

Ooh A scraplift!!

This was exciting to me!

Remember this page that I recently did?

My friend Stephanie was inspired to do a digital page of the layout of her own version! It looks great! Check her out here!!

Birthday Cards Part 1

First batch of cards.....

the bird is made out of felt



the background is super glittery!


hand cut the swirls and then added the glitter dots with a glue pen and made the label


hand cut flower! lots of layers!

Making cards today!

I decided I am going to make all the birthday cards through the year this week. Any time a birthday comes around, I never get a chance to make a card beforehand, but this way, I will be ready! I have a photo box to keep them in, so as long as i remember they are there, I will be good to go!

I think I will go ahead and post the cards on here, even though people receiving them might see them. It wont have names on the front, so it will still be a surprise when they get them.

Stay tuned!

Also, I just wanted to say that I am having a rough time right now. But I am praying and I know that no matter what, God is good and thats all I need to remember, and everything will be ok. Nehemiah 9, Psalms 34, Psalms 147

Keepin' it real.

Not every project I attempt turns out.

I was trying to make coasters today for the living room and it was a big flop. I guess they were cut too small and the material was too thick because when I got to the last step, it all fell apart.

I guess I will have to make a quilt for the living room and put these squares in it so they don't go to waste.. I will have to go buy more potholders, so hopefully there wasnt a mad stampede for them since last night!

This was the first time appliquéing the birds like this. These are also the same birds I hand drew for that tray I did. Kind of made it up as I went along.

Materials used:

Heat n' bond and iro
brown thread
fat quarter quilting fabric in brown
clearance potholders cut apart. (I thought I was so slick for these at 50 cents a piece...too bad thats what ruined it.)

Result:

Poooooooor sad bird. :(

Altered Clipboard

This weekend I played around with altering a clipboard. I did a few of them several years ago as gifts but never did one for myself. I found Micah's clipboard and thought I would finally do one of our own. It was fun to just layer and red/black paint and layer more paper and modge podge until I got what I wanted from it. Adding all the vintage buttons from my mother in law, the rhinestones, chipboard, ribbons and rubons gave it its the final look. It looks better hanging because of the bottom pom pom fringe that hangs down, and the paper I used was scraps I had left over.

Barn Star Class in ONE week!

Sign up today to do this fun project I am teaching at Devine Memories in a week from tomorrow (August 25th): 30 dollars and pictures are optional (but a lot of fun!) and will be using stamps and glitter too!

We're Baaaaack!

Miss me? :)

We had such a nice time enjoying the cooler weather and great outdoors with good friends! the mosquitoes were HORRIBLE (and I wore my bug spray Michelle!) but that's really my only complaint. Its always hard to go home....until you remember there is a nice bathroom, warm bed and shower waiting for you!

As soon as I got home I tackled the laundry. I had the boys lined up at the bathtub and was taking their clothes off and putting them straight into the washer (the clothes, not the boys!), so it helped motivate me to just do it all. Now I need to fold it all and put it away. There's a lot of clothes for four people for three days....more than you realize once you start adding up all the layers!

I didn't really go too crazy with the camera. I guess I wasn't really feeling it. I had so much help with the boys that it was nice to just enjoy it. I ended up having a lot of random pictures though, so I will go ahead and post my top ten (in no order)...to see the rest of them, be sure to visit the family blog (let me know if you need the password)




my tough little camper took quite a fall.





(This was my favorite picture....)


Now its back to the heat. I have plenty of little projects here that I am itching to do (maybe I said itching because I am ITCHING SO BAD RIGHT NOW! Anyone have any remedies for mosquito bites?!)

Also, drop everything right now and go check out the Autism Raffle this week...some items being raffled can even be shipped so you dont have to be local to participate! Here is the link: Just Devine..Only 1 dollar a ticket!

AND if you register, make sure to stop here and enter for a chance to win this beautiful piece of art!