mother's day 2012

Trying to catch up on posting some stuff and I did promise this a few days ago. Been a little slow lately. Yesterday I went without the ACE bandage on my ankle and today I don't think I should have. A bit sore this morning. Hoping to take it easy and get it back to normal... or as normal as I get!

Here's what the kiddos gave to me for mommy's day.

Aren't they just so sweet?? The big pig is soooo soft. The two little piglets are Kira and Alex. Both of which have been adopted by the kids but they did leave me the big piggie who is named Oinky. So cute. Yes they are all Build A Bears.

After breakfast we headed out to see the Avengers. Alex was really looking forward to it. Me and my kiddos as we head out.

At the movie theater with "Captain Thor Alex" He seems to be taking the best of all the heroes. He really wants the IronMan chest piece. We'll see about that.

Alex checking out the dessert menu at Bugaboo where we had dinner after the movie. He was really studying them.

Alex's moose picture. So sad they only give them two colors of crayons with which to color.

And here is Kira's 'evil' moose picture. She is so funny.

Overall it was a great Mommy's Day. Love my kiddos.

disney 2008 continues (photo heavy)

I went away a couple weeks back to a friends place in Maine. I spent the entire weekend surrounded by some amazingly talented women. We ate, we laughed, we slept a bit and ate some more. We each even managed to squeeze some scrapping into the weekend as well. I brought along my Walt Disney World 2008 trip to see if I could plug away at more of that trip... and I did. Nineteen pages later I returned home. I had to put titles on two of them and a journal spot on another which I finally was able to do this week.

Time to share. I used PageMaps for all of these great pages. Sometimes they look like the sketches... sometimes not so much. But that is where my inspiration comes from.

Kira hanging with a small collection of dalmatians at one of the stores at Downtown Disney. Happy little girl there.

They have this fun fountain at Downtown Disney and Kira LOVES standing in it. It was warm so she was enjoying cooling off a bit... but not too much. I used the papers since they looked like water shooting in the air and it matched her outfit as well! I used my big red Sizzix machine and lowercase fun serif alphabet for the title.

One of my little guy on this trip. Unfortunately, he was at the age that once he was released from the stroller, he would take off and laugh at you to try to catch him. Needless to say, we didn't let him out too much. This was one of those times he was testing his boundaries.

Donald Duck!! He was so good with Alex. Alex didn't cry or scream. Just covered his eyes. I added in the circle of brads around the best picture. So much fun!

My silly silly girl. Sometimes she cracks me up to no end.

Waiting for the electric parade and the fireworks.

The kids got some new toys while we waited for more fireworks on this night.

Random smile pictures from around the Magic Kingdom. I stamped SMILE across the top of the layout with my Mickey head alphabet stamps. Very happy I picked them up when they were on clearance!!

Alex thought this was a great show! It was air conditioned, he could get out of his stroller and his television friends were there! Good time.

A few pictures from my mom's favorite ride which turned out to be one of Kira's as well.

Here Kira is hanging out in one of the shops at Downtown Disney. She took the little Tigger and helped him climb the tree in the shop. I totally loved the decorations and took pictures of them.

Alex climbing a light pole at the Hollywood Studios. If Dave hadn't been holding him, I think he would have gotten farther. He was intent on getting to the top where a bird was sitting. He then took off chasing the birds on the ground.

We had lunch at the Rainforest Cafe at Downtown Disney when we first arrived on the Disney grounds. Good food and fun times.

There they are. Now to keep the pace up and I might finish this trip someday. LOL

may sketch challenge

Since I was cutting it very close to the deadline on the Christmas card challenge group, I didn't want to do that with the layout challenge group! And this layout totally inspired me. The hardest part was coming up with the pictures since I had a few different events to choose from.

Here is the sketch I had to work with. Pretty nifty and I can see me using it again!!

Here is my layout. A couple years ago for Alex's fourth birthday he received a toddler scooter. When we got home from Syracuse (where the party was) he insisted on trying out the scooter. It was a chilly kind of day so he didn't play for long but totally loved it.

I used some embellishments that have been hanging around forever. Felt good to use them too. I took the clear stickers and put them on white cardstock so that they wouldn't get lost on the red background. I added the black dots to the title letters so they would stand out against that plaid. Seemed like a good idea at the time... partway through... not so much! Added rub ons to the two pictures on the left.

Tomorrow I shall post some pictures from Mother's Day. I hear a storm coming in so I am getting away from the computer!! Catch you all later!

christmas card and tea time

Yes it is that time of the month again where I share a wonderful sketch and a completed Christmas card. I am so loving this group I am a part of and all the inspiration they send out via the internet. I am also very happy that I now have 25 Christmas cards already created and ready to head out to family and friends!! Such a wonderful feeling.

Here is this month's sketch. Doesn't it totally rock??

And here is my take on the sketch. I used a holiday stack I picked up at Michaels recently (as in last year recently) I also used two of my new to me Studio G stamps that I bought off of a scrapping friend. Isn't he the cutest?? I colored in his scarf to match the colors in the card. Trying to figure out why that green snowflake looks so out of place in the picture. It really is the same green as the rest of them.

On last Saturday, I had the pleasure of having a tea with my little lady at the towns rec center. Seriously.... they put on this amazing event with all the money raised going to the local hospital and their womens center so that any woman with or without insurance can go in and have a mammogram and a PAP smear. What a wonderful thing to do.

Kira picked out her own outfit and I was so happy to see this one on her as it is one of my all time favorites I bought for her. Daddy took pictures of us before we left. If you look closely, you'll not only see that she is almost as tall as me!! How the heck did that happen?? But my left ankle is quite large. Yup, I twisted it at the school on Thursday. At the same time I fell on my right knee and palms. I'm sure it was pretty graceful.... NOT!! I tried to disguise the ankle brace with a pair of leggings. I don't think it fooled anyone.

Anywho... the tea was so wonderful. They gave us a lesson on drinking tea and had a bunch of vendors for us to look at and shop at. Plus some raffles which I am happy to say we won!! We have a gift certificate to a local bookstore and a new bulletin board!!

After the tea, I took Kira shopping for some new summer clothes as hers are a tad bit on the short side. I don't think she should be running around in daisy dukes so she needed new shorts. There was a nice sale at Justice and we did pretty well. The best part?? The most amazing time with my girl. We had so much fun. Love that little munchkin of mine.

I need to get my Mother's Day pictures off of the other camera and post them. Keep your eyes posted!!

layout and gifts

Once again I was inspired by this wonderful group of ladies I hang out with online to complete a layout before the end of the month. And I finished it up last night but didn't get it posted until today. I was a little sidetracked with my thank you gift project.

Anywho... here is the sketch that was given to all of us to see what we could do with it. Pretty neato sketch.

And here is what I did with it. I totally messed up my pattern paper placement on the first page and had already glued everything down on the second page. Yes sometimes I work backwards from page two to page one. It's a quirk. But I am happy with how it came out. I pulled the papers from my stash that I found under holiday papers. Guess I'm pretty lucky that Easter colors don't seem to change year to year!! Used my handy dandy border punch (apron) that I totally LOVE!! That was part of my birthday present from my mom. Very happy I picked it up. Yes that is computer journaling on yellow vellum! Oh yeah baby, I went old school for that one.

As I was uploading the batch of pictures of my thank you gifts to the PTA moms, I realized I forgot two ladies. Not sure how that happened. So I was working on these next two sets today when I realized I forgot ANOTHER two!! OH MY WORD!!

So far I have made 102 cards and 12 gift boxes!! I have 16 more cards to make and two more gift boxes. And that does not include my end of the year thank you gifts to the secretaries and teachers that I need to get motoring on!

Here are the next two sets of cards with their respective boxes.

Now to dig out more of my DCWV stacks so I can pull some papers for the next two sets. Really hoping I now have gotten everyone on my list. Guess I should have thought this project through a little more than I did. At least I am having fun!!

thank you gifts

Since my time as PTA president is coming to an end, I decided I should thank those wonderful ladies who have done so much to help me during my time in office. They were there when I needed volunteers and always gave above and beyond. I opted for a gift box with eight handmade monogram cards for everyone. I chose two pretty simple sketches and used a video tutorial for the gift box. 

The sketches I used I have had for awhile and I printed them out but saved them at a small size and all I can make out on the watermark is HKS and Heather Scott. I tried looking it up but the links I keep coming up with do not correlate with what I have. If you  happen to know where I can find a link for her, please let me know. These cards could not have been done without her wonderful sketches.

I used papers from DCWV stacks and from my stash. I used my embossing folders to give the cards some dimension as I didn't want to use anything too bulky so they could all fit in the card box. I punched the edges of all the card boxes with one of my many border punches and raided my button stash to create the flowers for the fronts of the boxes. I used my Sizzlits alphabets to create the monograms (Monkey Tails, Aphrodite, and Funky Brush) and used my Spellbinders Nesties for some shapes.

I hope the ladies like them. I think they are a wonderful bunch of ladies and I am happy to have worked with them for these years.