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.

start of vacation week

and I was working like a dog today!

My front flower bed. I have a love hate relationship with it. I love it when it is full of pretty flowers and I hate it when the weeds take over and make it downright ugly. The first picture will show you how ugly it can be! I didn't pull a single weed all summer and didn't even bother removing the fall leaves that gathered there. I'm surprised the daffodils managed to bloom through all the junk that was in that bed. This was what I had to work with at 10am this morning. Such a sad looking place.

Poor hubby, he is a trooper. We stopped at Home Depot last night and picked up some new flowers to plant (hoping they take root and are around next spring), some blocks to finish one of the edges, and mulch.

I say poor hubby cuz he was out of town all last week and I know this project was very low on his to do list but he did help me out and planted the eight new plants I bought and helped with the laying of the weed barrier and the mulch. I do hope that weed barrier does its job for me.

Looks pretty nice if I do say so myself. We will be adding more stone blocks at the upper right hand corner and probably get rid of the railroad ties that are pretty gross looking. I am loving the look of the black mulch. We have always used red or brown up there and I think it makes the rocks pop more.

Anywho... hubby and I are both pretty beat. I think I shall call it a night and head to bed. Plus my allergies are in full force tonight due to playing all day outside with plants AND hubby mowing the lawn with me in the bed. Yikes. I'm lucky my eyes haven't fallen out of my head yet. I'll post another picture once we finish up with the blocks.

half day = picnic and friends

The kids had a half day of school on Wednesday for the teachers to have a workshop so I planned a picnic and a playground trip with my friend and her kids. Thank goodness the weather cooperated with us and gave us a glorious lovely sunny day. After our picnic I grabbed my little guy and did a photo session for his 6th birthday. I am very happy with the pictures I got. Now to decide which ones make the birthday frame for the year. Such hard decisions.

I will be starting with this one as I am totally in love with it.

Then I was able to wrangle all five kids into smiling for me and sitting still. Not easy and I took MANY pictures to ensure that I got everyone with eyes open and looking at me. Such a cute group we had.

Then today it was off and on rain and sun. Of course not enough rain to help with our drought conditions, but enough to mess up plans to play at the playground after school. grrrr.

crystal palace at the magic kingdom

I have been scrapping. Not a ton. Not all at once. But a few minutes for a few days (weeks) and I can get things done. Especially when I have the layout figured out beforehand. I love Pagemaps!! Really I do.

This first layout is a 12X12 single pagemap from January 2007. I used pattern paper from DCWV Spring Stack, the Mickey head confetti that was on our table, two different Pooh punches I own and my Mickey head stamps for the title.

This one I used a 12X12 single pagemap from October 2006 to start my layout with. Used pretty much the same stuff from the above layout with the addition of some vellum and some stitching. I can't believe how tiny Kira used to be. Where has my baby girl gone?? Seriously... she is almost as tall as me now. Which I know isn't really saying much since I am not hitting the ceiling with my head... but still.

This last layout I used a pagemap from April 2006 double pager. The journaling I did on the tag hanging on the backside of the layout on the right hand page. Totally was going to put it behind a picture but forgot and attached all the pictures. Look how tiny Alex was!! oh my word. He still has those eyelashes though. Lucky kid.

Need to get working on some Christmas cards for my sketch challenge group. I only have until Sunday to get them done and posted. eeeek... busy me.

easter 2012

We had a very relaxing and fun Easter. Nana and Papa were here to celebrate with us and Grandpa sent a box of goodies. The kids actually let us sleep in until 8am but after that they were quite insistent that we get up so they could hunt for the eggs the Easter Bunny left. Only one problem with that... they had already scoped out the family room and had found them all. So cute.

Here they are with their baskets before the hunt began.

Here are the contents of their baskets. Not too much candy as they are not big candy kids. There were Reece's peanut butter cups in Kira's eggs and Starburst Jelly Beans in Alex's.

And this was left by the Easter Bunny in our kitchen. So nice of him.

On Saturday we went to the rec center for their annual egg hunt. Thank goodness this year it was sunny and not raining. My parents had decided they didn't want to be peeps again this year. I don't know why... they were pretty cute peeps in their rain gear.

We were standing on the edge of the playground, waiting for them to call Go... Alex took off and landed there. Right past all those eggs!! Then he kept going into the center of the playground stepping over a ton of eggs. So cute. They had 1600 eggs on the playground for this group.

I'd say he did pretty darn good. He was happy.

Kira's age group (6-12) was released into the woods in a staggered start which put her at the end of the entering the woods. She was not happy with her collection, but did get a few more eggs from the rec center and seemed to perk up when we went to visit the Easter Bunny.

This is the only picture I got of the kids with the bunny this year. I didn't even take them to the mall. Not sure what was wrong with me... maybe next year I'll do better. I love how Alex is crossing his legs. So cute.

I finished up one layout that had been hanging out on the desk and am in the process of putting my journaling on a two pager. Hoping I can share those later.

where i have been

I should be posting a picture of my bed or my couch as that is where I have been residing since the Book Fair ended and I caught a lovely little bug of a cold. I am miserable. There I will say it. I am not a happy mommy at all. My nose is running like Niagara Falls and I am coughing up my lungs. Trust me it is not pretty. Maybe it's better I don't show you that.

Instead I'll share you some pictures from the Book Fair that I did last week. Here we are when you come into the library. It looked so nice this year. We were full but had less cases. Go figure. It was a good selection of books and every student left with a free brand new book. 

Here I am at our Family Night event with Beremy from Build a Bear Workshop. It helps to have an in to get an appearance by the famous bear. We also handed out free bookmarks. I was quite happy (and not sweating) at that point in the evening.

And here I am with Clifford!! This costume was sent to us by Scholastic for the Fair. It was a great costume and the kids LOVED it. As you can tell... so did I. I'm just a kid at heart.

It was a great book fair and I am happy to have done it but am seriously thinking it was my last. It takes a ton out of me and I think it is time for someone else to have some fun with it. Five years is a long time. Then maybe I can avoid this after Book Fair cold next year.

Sniff sniff... cough cough. Heading outside so that Alex can ride his bike. At least I can get some pictures of that. If I can focus.