Sketch & Little Yellow Bicycle (LYB)

As I was going through my pictures the other night I came across this one of my grandfather and my oldest daughter. I just had to do something with it! My grandfather had come up from Mexico for a visit and to meet his first Great grandchild. It was so sweet to see how much he loved her. He loved carrying her around in his arms and take out for walks and to swing with her in my mothers hammock. Although, he passed away a few years ago from Thyroid cancer and my little girl was to little to remember him. I at least have this sweet picture of the two of them and the incredible memories of the two together.

I used Little Yellow Bicycle's The Good Life pad and Nut's About Sketches for this layout.

Sketch                                         


Layout                                       

 

Scrapbooking Challenges!

Lately I've had a great friend, Angela, giving me the extra "push" I need to actually get some scrapbooking done! Can't thank her enough! She even has her own blog,  One Person's Scrapping Compulsion, with the most amazing scrapbook pages she's done! (You should stop by and drop her some "comment love"!) She's invited me to join her on some challenges. I must say, I was really nervous to start out, but, it has been a BLAST! It's amazing to see other peoples take on the challenges. 

I created a 2-page layout so I would be able to used them in different challenges I participated in! 

The first one was for-

 My Scraps & More Sketch Challenge #16

My second one was for-

My Scraps & More Sketch Challenge #15

And then I entered the 2 page layout as one for the 

Memorable Seasons LSS#3- Living on the Edge

Here's a collage & close up of all the "edging" done for that last challenge! So much fun! :)

Scrapbook USA Expo Layout Challenge

I've never participated in a scrapbooking layout challange, so this is a first for me! Here's the sketch:

It was a lot of fun! What I loved about it was that we had free rein on our take of the sketch. Here is my layout. 

It's been a really long time since I pulled out my scrapbooking supplies and actually created a page! So it took a while to get those creative juices flowing! I found some cute pictures of my girls that I took this past fall. Every once in a while THEY get in the mood and want me to photograph them. I love days like that! Nothing like dropping everything and just spending the day with My Girls. ;)

Supplies used: We R Memory Keepers Precious Metal Collection Paper Kit- Silver Lining, silver washi tape, Stampin' Up Vintage Brads.

Ribbon Giveaway

Confession time.... I. Am. A. HUGE. Ribbon. Addict! Aaaahhh! It's true! I have such a hard time walking out of a store with a beautiful spool of ribbon on hand! I'm sure it doesn't help that I have 3 little girls that I LOVE making hair bows, crafts and scrapbook pages with LOTS of ribbon! haha. Well here's a giveaway with some YUMMY May Arts Ribbon! They are giving away 4 spools of ribbon and the best part, you get to handpick them yourself! Hurry! Run! Go enter and win some gorgeous ribbon to play with! If you win you are always welcome to share with me! ;)

May Arts Ribbon Giveaway!:

http://create.northridgepublishing.com/giveaway-friday-may-arts/#comment-251086

Crafting with DCWV

 I haven't been doing much in the way of paper crafting lately. But today I thought I would attempt a project I've been having rolling around in my head for a while. Ever get those? You just finally have to do them to get them out!

My oldest daughter has really been into doing origami lately and taught me how to make the cutest little "balls"! It was so much fun just spending the afternoon having her teach me how to make them! The fun part is they can be made into several different sizes! We made some big ones using DCWV A Type of Art Stack 12x12 sheets. LOVE how some of the pages had embossed images! So much fun to feel the different textures and even be able to see it when up close. We hung a few of these big ones in her room! Such a cute decoration! We also made some smaller ones by cutting down a 12x12 sheet to 6x6's. I thought they would look adorable in my front room! Don't you agree? Did you notice the cute vase? Want to know a secret? I used some Recollections crafting (washi) tape around the top! I'm serious! Now I can customize my vase to match... well, whatever I want! Haha!

                

Supplies Used: DCWV A Type of Art Stack, DCWV The Stack III, DCWV "Quote Stacks"- Home & Family, Recollections Crafting Tape, Stampin' Up! hardware & Bakers Twine

Naming Your Home

HowDoesShe? Did an amazing post here, titled  3 TRICKS to take the WORK out of housework a bit ago. It seemed to hit about the right time for me.  When it comes my home I really stress out a lot about it not being in tip top immaculate shape! I know I'm being a bit ridiculous, especially since I have 3 little girls that love to play and make messes :) But I really tend to work myself up into such a stressed out frenzy over the "mess" in my home. I become overwhelmed and then to top it off I am NOT a fan of  doing dishes or folding and putting away laundry. So coming across this post the other day really hit home! Here's a paragraph that I never get tired of reading:

 "The most important trick to taking the “work” out of housework is ATTITUDE.  If you can shift your paradigm about why we keep house, by altering your attitude, you have unlocked the key to happy homemaking.  Now go back and read that last sentence again.  If you can really do this, it will be very powerful."

   I have that post bookmarked and keep referring back to the other two tricks! One thing I really loved about it was that one of the 3 Tricks is naming your home. I know, I know it sounds a little weird but the idea is that you need to take pride and ownership of your home. For me this is really hard. We have found a few problems with the home we live in and it doesn't exactly fit our family any more.We would love to move and find a better and bigger place or even just build our own home, but that's not something we can do right now. So when I read that, I immediately latched onto that idea, anything to help me out! I immediately asked the girls to help me come up with a few names so we could pick out our favorite one. What we came up with was Cozy Cottage. It works great for our cute little home! So I went right to work at finding a way to create a sign for our new name. I went to the Dollar store bought two frames and then visited a hardware store for some little tiny i-bolts. The rest I had at home!

First step was to paint my frames. They were a red color that was alright but not my favorite. So I spray painted them black. I figured I would give them two coats of paint but when the first coat dried and had a bit of red showing through I ended up really liking that so I didn't do the 2nd coat of paint.

I then got busy on my computer and just using Microsoft Word I created the name and added our address! Very simple! I then just screwed in the i-bolts to the bottom of the big frame and top of the little frame and tied them together with some ribbon. I immediately hung it up by our front
door! I think it looks great! And you know every time I see that name I do feel a bit more pride in my home. :)

Halloween Decor

I've had this one for awhile but absolutely LOVE it! I love Halloween but really don't have much in the way of decorations. I can't ever find stuff at the store that I REALLY love, they always seem kind of cheesy to me. But I do have a stamp set that I LOVE and thought it would be perfect to make something with that! So I ran to the Dollar Store (love it there!) and bought a frame and then came home and starting putting things together. I stamped out the images, picked out some great Halloween paper to go with it and Ta-da! We have a cool Halloween decoration! Of course I couldn't stop there, I had to drill some holes in the frame to do wire through them and hang it up! Simple, fast and easy! Love projects that go that work out that well.