Holiday Scrapping on a lazy Sunday!

Today I stayed in my jammies until 7pm, at which time I got in the shower and put on clean jammies! I LOVE those kind of days. Nothing really pressing to do other than some laundry, and I *think* I've got the start of a head cold so it felt great to just kick back and do whatever. I even got a few pages done today. All three are holiday pages because I just got a huge order from ACOT (my first since the summer!) and it was chock full of all the new yummy Christmas lines. I realized not too long ago that while I scrap a lot of *everyday* things, I'm really not much on scrapping the holidays.

So I started with this layout of our Christmas tree on Christmas Eve LAST year! All of these pages use papers and bellies by BoBunny, Little Yellow Bicycle and/or Echo Park and the title letters are either American Crafts Thickers or Anna Griffin.  The gold trim on this is by BoBunny,,,.I LOVE it but you only get that small amount (plus a little bit more that I cut off).  The month tag is from Oriental Trading with a Martha Stewart red dot on it.

This is what my daughter and I spent much of Friday and Saturday working on! Our 2010 Gingerbread House. It came out quite good I must admit. The last time I tried one of these the kids were only 4 & 5 and it was a DIS-AS-TER!!! It kept falling apart, the icing wouldn't set up right....just a mess. So I was a little leary when Susie said she wanted to make one. But I think we did a splendid job! I assembled and iced the room and the eaves, while she put all the candies on it! (In addition to above supplies, I added a 'gingerbread' flash card from Elle's Studio sprayed with Coffee Shop Glimmer Mist so that it would coordinate better and assorted buttons, some tied with the new bakers twine I just got, and some ric-rac from Walmart.

Lastly is a layout of the Trans-Siberian Orchestra concert John took me to last Saturday to celebrate my birthday and the start of the holiday season. I added some musical sickers by Recollections. Aren't those Anna Griffin letters (the red ones) great!! I got them at Michaels on Friday and they were 40% off then I had another 30% coupon! Gotta love Black Friday. Some choose to stand out in the cold at Best Buy for 3 days....I just strolled into Michaels and AC Moore mid-morning after a good nights rest and got everything I was there for!

And so my nice, relaxing long weekend has come to a close. Its back to work tomorrow and the start of my "busy season" at the college. Getting courses ready and faculty scheduled for September 2011! A few weeks of busy will be rewarded with a week off between Christmas and New Years, and of course there are 3 personal days that I have to take before the end of the year so I think will make myself a couple more long weekends this month!!

Till next time.....thanks for stopping by!

Halloween in November!

I have one more layout to do and Halloween 2010 will be in the books. Without too much detail so as not to create another long boring post, here's the three I have done so far! The top one is for the Countdown Challenge at ACOT and is a direct scraplift of Barb's St. Maarten layout that I LOVE!! Funny how making it Halloweenie changed the whole look!! The challenge was to use 5 Buttons, 4 Halloween elements other than pumpkins, 3 patterened papers, 2 pumpkins and 1 solid Black Background.

The next two I did a few weeks ago so honestly can't remember if they are sketch based or challenge based. I'm not as on top of things as I usually am.

Hi everyone! Hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving. I was quite melancholy for mine, being the first time in 43 years that my mom wasn't with me. But on the other hand, its my second "first without Mommy" already and she's only been gone 6 weeks. Somedays I feel like I'm being 1-2 punched, but then some friends think that its a good thing that all my major FIRSTS will be behind me by mid January....my birthday, Thanksgiving, Christmas and my mom's birthday all fall between November 18 and January 11. Its true, every day gets a little easier, but my heart still aches like I've never known before. At least with the holiday season upon us, I have other things to focus my attention to....like shopping! Did you do any Black Friday shopping? I did a bit online and then on Friday mid-morning the kids and I hit the stores. I wasn't in the market for any of their Doorbuster items so we didn't have to brave any crazy lines or anything. I mostly shopped at Michaels and AC Moore taking advantage of their before-noon deals and a 30% off entire order coupons. Is it really bad when you have most of the stuff for sale at those stores? Yikes! But I did pick up two Gingerbread kits which we will decorate today.

I have two layouts this morning. This first one...above...has been sitting on my desk partially done for weeks now. Its not a great photo but I "borrowed" it from my daughter's Facebook page. The journaling reads - "With the invention of Facebook there is no shortage of pictures of Susie and her friends, uploaded with their phones or webcams. This one is of Susie and Emily." I have grabbed so many cute pictures off my kids and their friends Facebook pages. Shots that I would normally never see. But thanks for Facebook, and the fact that they are not allowed to have an account if I can't have free reign to see what they are doing (and even most of their friends are my "friend" on Facebook), I have access to hundreds of silly snapshots capturing a moment in time when its not MOM behind the camera!

I did start with a sketch on this one but since its sat for so long, I for the life of my cannot remember where I got the sketch from! So if this is your sketch, I'm sorry for not crediting you properly! This layout is also an entry in the monthly Color Challenge at ACOT. Here it is November 27 and I have only ONE layout done for the November challenges!

The above layout came about because while at Michael's I saw this adorable little Santa hat and had to get it for our cat, Cloudy! Here he is, sporting his Santa hat and wishing you all a Meowy Christmas!

Its An Altered Day!

After I finished my altered frame I just wasn't in the mood to scrap with photos so I pulled out these letters I had picked up for my daughter's room. She's almost 13 now and just about 2 weeks ago we finally updated her room from the little girl pink and purple that it was to Hot Pink and Zebra stripes! It really looks cute and fits her personality! She's been looking at all sorts of Zebra accessories for her room (we only got the bedding and curtains) so I thought these letters would be a cute extra present for Christmas. The black on the zebra striped is flocked so the letters have great texture. I used lots of bling in hot pink and silver and the pink/white dotted ribbon was actually wrapped around a pair of pajamas I just got at Target! The jammies were cheap...I think like $9 and there was at least 2 yards of this ribbon holding the package together! SCORE! I have to admit, I selected the jammies I got based on the ribbon that was on it. Different styles had different ribbons and I KNEW I would get use out of this one! I got the letters at AC Moore during a 40% off sale, plus had a 25% off entire order (even sale items) so they worked out to cost about $3 each complete!! Can't beat that!

Decking the Halls!

So this isn't exactly scrapping but I had to show off my latest project! During the crop last week at A Cherry On Top, Jess had a class on this awesome altered frame. I thought about it all week and Friday night we were out and about and I stopped in AC Moore and picked up a $2.50 frame. All the rest was supplies I had on hand already. The frame is covered with old book pages that I cut into 2" circles, twisted on a pencil and hot glued to the frame. The frame took about 4 hours from start to finish, not including the insert but I absolutely love it and John suggested I make one for his mom for Christmas....THAT says a lot as he's not big on the compliments on my crafts. I do want to change out the bow at the bottom with a chunkier ribbon but didn't have anything on hand. I am also going to make inserts with different holidays and seasons. If you want to see the full instructions, the class thread is here: Jess's Altered Frame Class.

Here's another view of mine:

More crop layouts

Last one for a bit as my son has a football game soon! This was for challenge #3 at the ACOT Crop. You had to message someone you have never messaged before and ask their favorite color. The layout has to be predominantly that color. My person said RED. The other requirements were bling and and alphabet. I used MME Lost and Found papers, Heidi Swapp hearts, Maya Road Stickpin in the red prima rose, Recollections bling and Thickers alphabet.

Wish us luck on the game. Its the playoffs and my son has some high school scouts watching him. If he does well and gets a scholarship I may not be forced to move to a better school district after all. THIS IS BIG!!

Mug Shots of Mom

This layout came together quickly! The photos were random shots John took (the first two when I wasn't paying attention) when we were in Busch Gardens over the Summer. I haven't done anything with them because I didn't like the photos. But then came Challenge #2 at the ACOT crop. We had to create a layout based on this ad as inspiration:

We had to have a title, 3 photos, and the numbers 1,2 & 3. I think i turned out cute. I used My Minds Eye Breaking Away paper for the background, leftover Sass Lass from the last layout for the photo mat. The shield is also My Minds Eye. Letters are Thickers and Cosmo Cricket Tiny Type. TFL!

Hi...Remember Me?

Before I get into the above layout, I just wanted to thank those of you who have been praying for my mom. Its with a heavy heart that I tell you that my mommy, my best friend, a huge part of my heart....went home to be with her God on October 13. It was sudden and unexpected and I didn't get to say goodbye. I talked to her the day before and she was feeling good. The next day I got a call from the hospital to get there right away. She was in an induced coma and on a ventilator while they tried to stabilize her heart but they were not able to do it. After two days we made the difficult decision to let her go. The last two years she has fought so valiantly against obstacle after obstacle. She was tired. I knew that. She had little quality of life. I knew that too. But still, I always thought she'd be ok. She always was. This time was different. She didn't suffer....but we are. I miss her more than words can say and I am having a very hard time getting through each day. They say time will make it easier and I know that its true, but my heart aches, the pain is relentless and the tears have no end. I feel suddenly alone and half the person I used to be. Thank God for my family....if it weren't for my kids and John, and so many friends....I don't know where I'd be right now. As you can imagine, the last thing I was interested in was scrapping.

The last few weeks I have found myself being non-productive in all areas of my life...except that I get up and go to work everyday. So this weekend is an online crop at A Cherry On Top and I decided that this was my opportunity to get my act together and get back to my hobby that love so much. I know that's what my mom would have wanted. She loved to see my layouts and hear all about the new goodies I got or what I was working on. So that's what I'm doing. The above is the first layout I've created in quite some time as I have taken a leave from my DT positions until I am sure I can fully commit. This is for Challenge #1 of the crop - Use Sassafrass Lass paper. I used papers from the Count Me In collection, chip letters from Colorbox, flower by Prima and orange gem flowers by Creative Charms. I will post more as I complete them but I have to admit...my creative juices aren't flowing quite as freely these days so they may not be my best work, but its serving a purpose....to bring me back to a new normal. Thanks again for all of your prayers. I am sure that God heard them and is taking wonderful care of my mom.