What a WEEK!

Well, I am plain pooped after the week that I have had! One of my many titles around here is Apartment Manager. To be honest, it is not my favorite role, but we own apartments and my hubby's job doesn't allow him time to manage them any more so now that title falls to me. We have had a wave of openings which means work to get them cleaned, painted and ready to rent as well as advertising them, fielding the onslaught of phone calls and setting appointments and showing them. When you add that on to my other daily duties, as wife, mother, and teacher (I have had to take a break from the designing completely this week), my days are bursting at the seams. To make matters worse, I scheduled to teach a photography class to my kids' 4-H club this week. I have been wanting to do this for quite some time and finally decided last month to just set a date and get it done. Of course, when I picked this week, I had no idea how busy it would actually be! Oh well! I am still surviving and I have gotten LOTS accomplished.

This morning I really felt like I needed to destress a little bit so allowed myself the privilege of scrappin' a quick page. Here is a beautiful photo of my oldest, Elizabeth, right before we went to her orthodontist appointment on the day that the braces came OFF. She certainly does look happy! I did this with a quickpage from Doris. This one is from here Gypsy Saree collection which is just SO RICH and gorgeous.

Now after that bit of relaxation, it is time to get to work. My little natives (a.k.a. children) are restless and there's lot to do.

Hope you have a great day and can include just a bit of fun into it!

I found a gray hair this week...

My son just GASPED when I told him how old I am...

I need to find a way to celebrate this day, so.................

in my entire store!



38% off sale runs from Thursday, March 22nd, through Sunday, March 25th.

Excludes commercial use items.

Happy St. Patrick's Day

...from my son, Patrick!

Ever since Patrick was born, I have had a desire to do something special for St. Patrick's day. Last year, Patrick really thought that the day was all about him and I had to explain the it was in honor of SAINT Patrick (and frankly he was no saint!). This year the Leprechauns visited us and upset some of the furniture and turned our milk green. I told Patrick that if he actually caught a leprechaun, he would get his fortune so he hunted all morning for one but was unsuccessful.

To celebrate the day, we had a fun brunch of green pancakes with green syrup, green applesauce, fried bologna, and green milk. While we feasted, we watched the Veggie Tales St. Patrick flannelgraph story (which is a short on the Sumo of the Opera video). It is one of my all time fave Veggie Tales. It is funny and very informative.

Tonight we will celebrate with corned beef and cabbage and some good friends are coming over.

Hope you are all having a great day!

Some days you just have to twirl!

I think that would have to be my daughter's motto. Today she was a twirl girl and I had my camera ready. I purposefully used a slow shutter speed to try and capture her motion a bit. Then I tweaked it out in photoshop some more. I like the effect although I am not really happy with the text on it. I'll probably end up changing that later.

It feels like spring. I am sitting here with my window open and catching some wonderful breezes. It makes ME want to get up and twirl, too! Aaaah... spring fever!

Celebrate!

I just read that today is officially national earmuff day because on March 13, 1877 big-eared Chester Greenwood patented the "Champion Ear Protector" which later became known as "ear mufflers", and was eventually shortened to "earmuffs".

It is also my father-in-law's birthday. Happy Birthday!

By the way, this is a digital scrapbook layout that I created 3 years ago. Not only has my scrapbooking style changed quite a bit since then, but I think digital scrapbooking as a whole is way different now. I still really love this, though!

Here's a challenge for you...pull out some of your early scrapbook pages (either digital or paper) and decide what you really love about them. Also, is there anything you don't like about them? Is this something you have changed about your scrappin' style and do differently now? It is kinda fun to see our progress. I started paper scrappin' 12 years ago and I can tell you I would never create pages like that now. But that being said, they were typical of what scrapbooking as a whole was at that time. I cringe when I look at some of my first digital pages. That was 4 years ago and my knowledge of my software has grown considerably since then (thankfully). At that time, digital scrapbooking was in its infancy and there wasn't the same types of scrapbook kits available either. If you want a good chuckle, my very first digital scrapbook pages can be found in my Scrapbook-Bytes gallery. The link to it is on the right side of this page.

Anyway...have some fun...Reminisce!

Been scrappin'

I felt driven to get a little scrappin' done the other day. I figure that when the mood strikes, I really need to take advantage of it. Here are two layouts I completed.

The top one is of my precious bundle Rachel. Credits can be found here.

The second layout is from my daughter's 13th birthday. It is tradition in our house that you get breakfast in bed on your birthday. This is a pretty busy page - busier than I have normally been creating lately, but I like all the little details that you need to look closely to see. Credits for this one can be found here.

Have you noticed the something different about my layouts? They have turned square! After YEARS of being a rectangle girl, I have decided to try being square. I stuck with the 8 1/2" x 11" format all this time to keep my printing costs down. Now, there are more options available for printing square layouts, so I thought I would make the switch and see how I like it.

I spent most of the day today uploading layouts and creating a photo book at www.lulu.com. I knew that I was LONG overdue to print my layouts, but I didn't realized just how bad it was. I have nearly 3 YEARS of pages! My new book will be 236 pages long. I am so excited with the thought of having these in printed form and having something concrete for my kids to enjoy. This book will be a paperback book and is very economical - only 15 cents per page to print. Next time, I think I may splurge and print a hardcover book, but since I have so many to get printed right now, there was no way that I could afford to do that now.

It's a FREEBIE!

I created this freebie for the Scrap Outside the Box newsletter this week. I had fun playing with some new techiniques like digitally "painting" on the backgrounds and curling and rumpling my elements. If you are interested, this freebie can be downloaded through the newsletter here.

While you are there be sure to check out some of fantastic deals. There are a bunch of kits marked 25% and even 50% off. Thre is also a great tutorial about custom brushes and creating fibers.

Wake up and smell the coffee!

That is what I have done for the past three mornings because my darling daughter, Anna, has gotten up before me and and made coffee and brought a cup upstairs to me while I was getting ready. How cool is that! You may ask HOW she learned to make coffee. She watched me, she started asking me questions about what I was doing, and made notes. I thought her notes were too cute so I scanned them and made a scrapbook page. THIS is why I love scrapbooking! It goes beyond mere photos. It gives a whole extra dimension to our memories. I know that for years to come, I will look at this page and that drawing will make me just smile.

Layout credits:
Quickpage from Doris Castle's Spellbound album available at Scrapbook Graphics. The alpha and coffee stain were made by me.

Growth Spurt

It is official. Baby Rachel has definitely had a growth spurt! This past week I have had several people tell me that they thought she had sprouted up in just a week's time, but I wasn't seeing it. Probably because I see her every day. But do you see that cute little outfit in that picture I took tday? It is the THIRD one I tried on her today. The first two were footed and although they fit her the last time I put them on her just fine, today she couldn't even straighten her legs out in them. Really the only reason this outfit worked was because there were no feet. Look how high it is riding up on her leg. Unless I have shrunk everything this poor girl owns in the laundry this week she has sprouted! I'm gonna have to find the box of bigger baby girl clothes fast!

I have been trying to teach myself how to create these cool realistic curved photo frames. I have LOVED these for years. Now that they are the hot new thing in digital scrapbooking, I have decided that I have to learn how to master these for myself. I am pleased but still want to improve on it a bit. I have a really neat freebie coming out in this week's Scrap Outside the Box newsletter with a rumpled looking frame and curled journal card. I can't show it to you yet, though, you have to wait for the newsletter that comes out on Thursday.

Keeper of the Cheerios

Yep, that's me: Keeper of the Cheerios

I love that title. That really just sums up the average day in the life of a mother doesn't it. I can't tell you how many cheerios that I have swept up off the floor in a given day. Then, of course, how many I keep discovering that I missed (those little rascals are sneaky!).
I just heard the song "She's Somebody's Hero."
The lyrics for the first verse go like this:

She's never pulled anyone from a burning building
She's never rocked Central Park to a half a million fans,
screaming out her name
She's never hit a shot to win the game
She's never left her footprints on the moon
She's never made a solo hot air balloon ride, around the world,
No, she's just your everyday average girl (but)

She's somebody's hero
A hero to her baby with a skinned up knee
A little kiss is all she needs
The keeper of the cheerios
The voice that brings Snow White to life
Bedtime stories every night
And that smile lets her know
She's somebody's hero

Myspace Layouts :: Funny Videos :: Music Video Codes

Here's to all the heros out there - to all the other Keepers of the Cheerios!

Just checking in. I have felt very busy and haven't had much time for blogging. Here's a photo of my little girl. LOVE that wink! She got her cast off last week! YAY! She is still hobbling around a bit, but that is to be expected. I love seeing her on her two MATCHING legs. It's a good thing.