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.

look at that

I have got excess baggage under my eyes. Must be my total lack of sleep and working my hind end off at the Book Fair. It's all worth it in the end. Small price to pay for all the happy kids with their new books. I can rest on Saturday....

ALL DAY

IN MY JAMMIES

ON THE COUCH OR IN MY BED

DOING NOTHING!

I AM SO LOOKING FORWARD TO IT.

oh the fun begins!

It is that time again! The Scholastic Book Fair is here! Which means I will not be around much for the coming week. Lots to do and so much fun to be had. I cannot wait. Guess I should get my day started and get the kiddos moving as well. Pictures of the Fair will be coming soon. I need to work on the finishing touches today. I need more hours and more arms to get everything done. But it will work out wonderfully!! It always does.

back to 2008

And our trip to Walt Disney World! I finally embraced my clean and simple side and am moving through my pictures and feeling good about it. I have been stressing about making every layout a super duper days spent on it and every embellishment and technique used on them kind of layout. I have let go of that expectation and am shooting on getting them out of the box and into an album. (or two or three)

I will say this epiphany came from my friend Melissa. There will still be other pages that do get the special overdone treatment, but more often than not, I do believe they will be pretty clean and simple. On with the show...

This first set was in Pooh's Playful Spot that has since been removed from the landscape of the Magic Kingdom. The kids both loved playing here and it was a good spot to relax for the parents. All of my pages were at one time based on a pagemap but then once I get creating, I sort of move away from the pagemap. But they did start with some help.

More hanging at the play spot. Love the pictures and the kids faces. Used one of my EKSuccess border punches to make the orange accents for this page. The chipboard words came with a bunch of Pooh characters in a pack. I cannot remember who makes them as the packaging has been gone for a bit.

Liberty Tree Tavern when they still had characters visit your table. Alex was able to tolerate the characters as long as they didn't get too close. He would turn his head or hide his eyes so he couldn't see them and they couldn't see him. But he didn't scream or cry. The papers are from a DCWV summer paper stack from a few years back. I got out my red machine Sizzix and two different Sizzlit fonts to make the title.

The Pooh parade at the Crystal Palace. Kira had a blast! She did very well with spinning her napkin and walking. The papers are from a DCWV spring stack from a few years back. The chipboard letters are from a Christmas kit I purchased ages ago. The colors worked so on the layout they went!

Been busy since yesterday was Alex's 6th birthday. 6?? oh my word... where has the time gone? Seriously. He was just a baby and now he is almost through with kindergarten. Time really needs to slow on down. Off to get creative and do laundry.

card sketch challenge

oh my goodness! Three posts in one day! Don't drop from shock. Not sure what is going on but I am happy to have actually sat down to scrap and done something besides staring into space (or at my computer). I used the sketch below from one of sketch challenge card groups. This is an extra bonus card sketch for March. They keep us on our toes at this group and I love it!

So here is what I came up with. I was feeling a bit green today (totally different than feeling blue) so I searched for some St. Patrick's Day themed papers and it the jackpot with these great papers from a DCWV Spring stack from who knows when. It's here so it got used. The stamp I purchased about a month ago since I had no shamrock stamps and thought everyone should have one. It was a set from Studio G at Joanns for a buck. Can't go wrong there!! 

I did some stitching and had fun coloring in the shamrock. I am happy with how this came out. Hope the lucky recipient likes it. But we'll have to wait a bit before I tell who this is for. Don't want to ruin the surprise!

I do think that is it for me today. I have a walk to go on with the town to support the purchasing of land so we may one day have a new school built. Plus it is an extremely gorgeous kind of spring day here. The air will do me good.

march sketch challenge

Look at that... two posts in one day from me! Now if both of them had been scrapping stuff that would have been even more of a miracle. I spent the morning in the art room at the school. Actually I was in the hallways of the school hanging up some of the most beautiful artwork you could imagine for the school wide art show that goes on for the entire month of March. Those kids are truly talented.

Anywho... in the sketch challenge group I am in, this was the sketch for March. Pretty neat one. I do believe I shall use this again as it was pretty easy to do and I can see different ways to add pictures and such.

Here is my take on the sketch. I used my scoring board to make the flower medallions and used one of my EK Success border punches for the circle borders. I wish they would put the name of the punch on the punch. It would make it easier when trying to describe things. I guess I could have put it on when I bought it, but alas, I did not.

Alex got to paint an ornament while Kira was doing two projects for a Girl Scout badge. He took his time and was really careful about where he put the 'ornaments' on the tree. I did the trunk of the tree and filled in some of the paint on the sides that he missed but he did everything else. It came out so nice. He hung it on his Christmas tree and it will be a treasured ornament for years to come.

Thanks for stopping by to peek. I need to work on a card... hoping to get some inspiration. Wish me luck.

update to vent

After much thought on the matter, I did return to the Kittery Outlets to ask for a price adjustment on my Childrens Place purchase. It took a bit of time for the girl to ring in the return as she had to type in each of the numbers for the items (and I had purchased quite a few items) and then she rescanned everything and I received a lovely discount of about $50! Really worth it to me.

While I was standing there waiting for the girl to type everything in, the girl who waited on my yesterday was next to her and someone tried to use a Childrens Place retail coupon and she told them that they were two separate "companies" now but that she could offer her the outlet coupon discount instead!! WHAT??? Why couldn't she have done that with me yesterday?? Why did I have to travel back up there to go through all this??

I do believe I am writing to the company (I already took their online survey) but I think a district manager needs to know of this.

Feeling better already.