Playing with a fun new scrapbook kit

I just wanted to share a couple of new scrapbook pages. These were both done with a brand new collaborative kit at Cottage Arts created by Doris Castle, Julie Mead, and Michelle Shefveland called Bountiful Blessings. I am loving the colors in this! This first layout has photos of my daughter Abi from last Thanksgiving. The kit colors were a perfect match for her dress and her homemade placecard.

I also used a free template which is available to newsletter subscribers in the next Cottage Arts newsletter.

Journaling reads:
The table has been set...the placecards have been lovingly created by Elizabeth...smells of yummy food are wafting through the air...It’s not quite time to eat, but 2 year old Abi is ready at her place and waiting with fork and spoon in hand.

Full credits for this page can be found here.



This second page uses photos I took last week of my son, Patrick, on his 6th birthday. It was a gorgeous Fall day and I took him outside for a offical 6 year old photo shoot. He loved that! This page uses not only the Bountiful Blessings kit, but also a new page tear template set, too. Click on the banner below to find them both.

Full credits for this layout can be found here.

New Video Project

Just wanted to share what hubby and I have been working on for the last couple of days. Maybe obessessing over would be a better way to put it. It is only a little over a minute long, but it has taken hours and hours to put together. If we were more familiar with our software that would make things a lot quicker and easier, but we tend to be the type to learn as we go. This video will be played at the National Youth Workers Convention in St. Louis this weekend. Our youth pastor will be attending and was specifically asked if he could put together a short video like this to be played for all the youth workers at the conference. Since we have done some video work for the church before, he asked if we could help. So, our youth pastor planned it, hubby filmed it and edited the kids and I created and animated the text/graphics. I LOVE the creativity involved in doing something like this. Unfortunately, I get frustrated because I do not know how to do what I want to do in the software (Adobe Premier and After Effects). I know exactly what I would do if I could edit video in Photoshop, though. Hubby reminded me that I have put in many more hours in Photoshop than Premier. I responded by telling him that he needs to get me a DV camcorder for Christmas so I can take lots of home movies and practice editing them. That would probably be as much fun as scrapbooking!

Blue Monday

Today is "blue monday" in our house. No, I'm not saying we are all depressed. I'm talking about laundry day (although, for me, the lines get blurred between depression and laundry ;-) Because we keep getting behind on laundry in this house, several weeks ago I decided to have a laundry day once a week. We had been trying to do a load a day, but it just wasn't always happening. On the first blue monday we had TONS of laundry as well as sheets. On top of that I have been trying to go through our stored clothes. The kids need warmer stuff so it is time to pull out the hand-me-downs. Sadly, I had some stuff that had been invaded by mice andI have been spending a lot of extra time sorting and washing even the sizes that no one even currently needs.

I have a confession to make. I really hate laundry. The part I hate the most is the putting away the clean stuff so I tend to get behind in this area. This has currently invaded my bedroom and I am having difficulty getting everything put away. I have 9 overflowing laundry baskets lined up along the walls (one for each memeber of the family, one for linens/towels, and one for socks). I just can't seem to get it all put away and now it is blue Monday again. Time to do more laundry and add to the Mount Washmore in my bedroom. Ugh! I want my bedroom back! So, you know what I am going to be doing for a better part of my day. [sigh] I have a hope that one of these days I will catch up and have a laundry system that works for us. The other option is running off to a deserted island and forming our own nudist colony so there wouldn't BE any laundry. Probably, that's not a very realistic option so I guess I will just keep plugging away at it.

In other news, I was able to get some scrappin' done this weekend. I can only show you one page (because the other is done with a kit that hasn't been released yet). It is just a fun little page of my silly Abi.
Journaling reads:
Full of sweetness and full of fun, Abi, and always full of silliness. As soon as you see the camera, you begin to ham it up and the posing begins. These are some of your self-proclaimed “silly faces.” Even playing the part of the goof your are beautiful and your personality makes me smile.

Credits for the page can be found here.

Have a great Monday!

Signed Scared

So, does this scrapbook page make you scared? Yeah, they are supposed to be signing scared. Part of the sign is making a scared face, but they aren't too convinving. They're having too much fun!

We have been learning sign language in this house. I have been intrigued with sign language since I was a girl. I don't know why, I just thought it was cool. I learned the whole ASL alphabet and tried to get my friends to learn it too so that we could "talk" in this secret code, but it never happened. A year or so ago, I discovered Signing Time videos. They sounded great and had really good reviews, but I couldn't afford to buy them and my local library did not have them. Last Christmas I was struggling to come up with a wish list to pass around for my baby who was just 3 months old (because in our family we always do this for everyone). Then I had the brilliant idea to put down the Signing Time DVDs. Studies show that signing with babies is such a positive thing. Rachel got the first DVD and all the kids and I watched it. Rachel was too young to learn the signs and we were not diligent in signing them to her. But around her 1st birthday I pulled the DVD back out and we all relearned the signs and starting using them with her. Since then she has learned to recognize quite a few and has signed back to us: milk, more, sleep, and cookie. Our library now has the whole series of DVDs and we have been checking them out and learning tons as a family. It has been a fun project.

Anyway...I went into all of this to explain this fun scrapbook page. One of Patrick and Abi's favorite signs is "scared." I am sure this is because they get to make a "scared" face along with the sign. When I had the camera out on Patrick's birthday, they decided to pose silly for me and this is what I got. Details and credits for the page can be found here.

Here is a song from the Signing Time Zoo Train DVD. We got it from the library and my little ones love it.

Oh, and this one has been requested a lot by the younger set in this house.

Cleaning House

The blog house that is...

My blog formatting went whacky today and I couldn't figure out how to fix it. I had never upgraded to the new version of blogger, so I decided it was time and to clean house. As time allows, I am going to tweak this a bit, but for now be patience. My links and goodies will return and hopefully be better than ever.

A bit of fun photo tweakery

I was perusing the gallery at The Digital Scrapbook Place earlier this week and found some unique pages that caught my eye. I discovered that they were done as part of a stylelift challenge. I wasn't even familiar with a "stylelift" which is to copy the style of a particular artist. This month's stylelift is based on the altered art of Jessica Dittmer called Wish You Wells. Unfamiliar with her, I checked out her site and was immediately in love with it. She plays with photos and gives them this combination of an old photo and a drawing. Then she adds goodies like crowns, buttons, and pixie wings along with some sort of verse. Well, I decided that I really wanted to be able to do that! You can see my attempt here. It is close, but not exactly Jessica's look. It was incredibly fun to do, though! I have also shown a before and after shot because the difference is pretty dramatic. Credits for the goodies I used can be found here.

This was so much fun, that I will probably do this again. Shoot, after seeing how much one of these custom art pieces costs on the Wish You Wells site, I am thinking that I am in the wrong line of work. Anyone want to buy one? I'll cut you a great deal!

The Big Birthday Boy

Here is my big 6 YEAR OLD boy. He feels so big now! Yesterday was his official birthday and I told him that I wanted to take an official birthday photo of him. It was beautiful outside, so we found a spot under a tree to snap some shots. I was unable to post this yesterday because I had promised him that he could play Age of Empires with his big sister, therefore I was not able to get anywhere near the computer. He is currently obsessed with that game. He is constantly begging his dad to play it with him.

So happy birthday little buddy - love ya'!

So Long to the Zoo

Our local zoo has officially closed for the season. It always makes me sad because we really love our zoo. We made one last visit last week. We always go with my mom and dad, but this time our good friends joined us, too. Their children are about the same ages as Patrick and Abi and are good buddies. I have more photos that I want to scrap, but for now, here is one of all the kids except Elizabeth posing with the Rango the orangutan statue. I have more photos than I can count of my kids sitting here throughout the years. Of course, Elixabeth, my 13 year old, is conspicuously missing. I guess she just figures that it is no longer cool to pose with Rango. Gotta love teenagers! Credits for the LO can be found here.

1st Birthday Portrait

Happy Monday morning!
I am trying to ready myself to jump into a new week. I feel like there is so much to do and so little time. What I would really like to do is sit and scrap and forget about everything else. Maybe, if I am lucky I can squeeze in just a little time for myself. We'll see.

Just thought I would share a scrapbook page that I finished up on Saturday. It is another photo from my baby's crazy birthday photoshoot. I was thinking I really should do an outake scrapbook page of all the many bad photos taken that day. Anyway...here is one I liked. I kept the page soft to match the photo.

Journaling reads:
In a mere year’s time, you have matured from a helpless little infant to a sweet, pretty little girl.. You are on your feet and taking your very first steps. Although you say few real words, you love to babble back and forth with your family. You are starting to learn some sign language for more, milk , sleep and eat. Your eyes light up when one of your siblings interacts with you. There is no doubt how much you love them and can’t wait until you can keep up with them. What a cute little charmer you already are and we can’t wait to see the young lady you are yet to become. September 26, 2007

Credits for the layout can be found here.

My Little Birthday Fairy

It is a frazzle-day! Why am I frazzled? Well, you see that cute little fairy-girl in this scrapbook page. She is currently cutting 2 teeth and is not dealing with it well. In fact, she has been dealing with it by screaming at me in the most piercing way that a one year old can. It tends to wear on the nerves! This too shall pass. Hopefully, I will keep my sanity in the process. Adding to the chaos around here is the fact that I have a couple of energetic preschoolers who really need to go outside and run and today it has turned kinda cold. They got up and dressed like they have been lately in shorts and short sleeves. I sent them outside not paying attention to the temperture and they came right back in saying it was too cold. Shoot - I checked and it is only 46 degrees!

In other news, I did a little "scrap-therapy" to cope and relax a bit. I had so much fun turning Rachel into this birthday fairy. I took a bunch of pictures of her on her birthday in our homemade basement studio. It is laughable how many BAD photos I got. She is just not about to be troubled with sitting still long enough for a picture! This picture is one of the better ones and she isn't looking my way at all. When I went to create a layout using this, I realized that I did not have a kit that quite matched this photo. I wanted something with an aged look with just a touch of yellow. So I pieced this together from a bunch of kits by Doris Castle. Full credits can be found here.

I am off to check some math...have a great day!

Just one more pumpkin page...

Can you stand it? Although I have a couple more cute photos from the pumpkin farm, I am going to set them aside because I am itching to scrap some photos from my youngest's 1st birthday.

This layout was done for a challenge over at Cottage Arts to scrap about a "crop" - the kind that grows. I figured the pumpkin farm qualified for that. I kept the page simple and just used one of my photos to overlay on the backgound. I had many photos from in the pumpkin patch, but no real stand-outs, so I decided to cluster them together and tell the story.

Journaling reads:

Picking the Perfect pumpkinWas no easy task when faced with a huge beautiful pumpkin patch like the one Anna, Patrick and Abi faced on this day. Patrick immediately found one he loved as soon as he stepped off the wagon into the field. Anna and Abi were a different story.They perused the entire field. Anna finally settled on a bigger one.Abi picked up one cute pumpkin after another. She would pick it up by the stem and I would remind her that she learned in pumpkin school not to do that, but to instead hold the pumpkin itself with two hands. This discouraged her because the pumpkins had dirt on them and she didn’t want to get dirty. So she would discard that one and continue searching. Even Patrick had a last minute change of heart and asked if he could trade his pumpkin for another. Then the bell warning that the wagon was about to leave rang and I had to inform Abi that if she didn’t pick a pumpkin immediately, she would go home without one. She managed to choose one, but kept asking me to carry it because it had dirt on it. We returned home and cleaned the pumpkins and everyone was happy with their perfect picks.

Full credits for the page can be found here.

I can't believe that another week has flown by and it is Saturday already. How does that happen? Fortunately, we don't have a busy day planned and I am hoping that my family sleeps in and gives me some time to get some things done in peace and quiet.

Pumpkin School

I told you that I loved Fall and there would be more layouts like this! Here are some of my kids with their cousins at the pumpkin farm for "Pumpkin School."

Journaling reads:

On September 27, 2007, Anna, Patrick and Abi attended “Pumpkin School” with their cousins at the Kurtz pumpkin farm on Highway 37. Before taking a hayride to the pumpkin patch to pick their own pumpkins, they went to school in the barn. There they learned all about how pumpkins grow, saw lots of pumpkin varieties, and even how to carry a pumpkin. It was fun for mom, because she remembered taking Elizabeth to Pumpkin School back when she was in preschool.

Everything on page (except the photos ;-) is from Cottage Arts. This was created for a challenge there. Full credit can be found here.

Gratuitous Giftie - Fall Quickpage

It's beginning to feel like Fall around here. We have had those cool, crisp nights and clear sunny days. The leaves are just beginning to turn. I love this season!

I figured it was time to share another freebie with you all. This is actually a quickpage that I created last Fall. I had been playing with some fun backgrounds including this leaf one and decided it would be fun to put them together like quilts. This is a pattern for a quilt square called Liberty. It leaves a perfect spot for a photo.

I hope you have fun with this! It can be downloaded here.

How fun is this?

I discovered this layout done by Scrappin4Him over at www.digitalfreebies.com It was created with my On the Tracks kit that was the Daily Download freebie at Scrap Outside the Box a couple of months ago. It is always so much fun to see your art used by someone else and Scrappin4Him did a fantastic, creative job. You can find the layout and leave her some love here.

New Poker Table

It was a busy weekend for us. First I should mention that my baby girl had her first birthday last Wednesday and we had her big party yesterday. Whooshh...where did that year go? I'll have more details on that later when I get her scrapbook pages done. I have lots of fun photos!

On Friday night, my hubby had group of guys from church over for a poker night. He is getting into poker. He plays Texas Holdem' with his buddies from work at least once a month. He is enjoying the strategic aspects of the game. He has even using it as a math tool to teach the girls about calculating odds and percentages. Anna is not thrilled but I think he's got Elizabeth hooked. She will even watch poker on TV with him.

Well after hosting several poker nights and knowing that he will probably be hosting more, my hubby has the bug to have a big poker table that 8 - 10 can sit at. We priced tables and ugh! There is no way that is going to happen. I suggested that we cover our kitchen table that can expand to 8 feet long, but he went on exploring different options like building a table or buying an old table and converting it. Then he tells me that HE has had this revelation that we could cover our kitchen table. I just had to laugh. And he says he listens to me ;-). So that is just what happened. He bought fabric and I sewed it up. I am no seamstress, so am pretty happy that it came out so well. You can see it in the scrapbook page above.
Journaling on the page reads:

There is a new obsession in our home with poker - Texas Holdem’ to be exact. Because of the poker nights that have taken place at our house, Barry had a strong desire to own a big poker table. After the sticker shock of pricing tables, we decided to cover our existing kitchen table. The economical solution was to use car headliner that is available at the local fabric store. Trish was commissioned to sew it up complete with darts at the corners, elastic around the edges and velcro to keep it in place on the long sides. It works great...... Let the betting begin!

Credits for the layout can be found here.

Saturday was a full day with preparations for Rachel's birthday party, a baby shower in the afternoon, and the 1st annual Wii Olympics we attended in the evening. A good friend of ours had a milestone birthday and got a Wii and invited a group of us over for a little friendly competition pitting husbands against wives. All I can say is that I am feeling the sore muscles today from beating up my hubby in boxing. I have pictures from that, too, that I really need to scrap!

Then Sunday was church. My girls and I worked in the nursery and I did my first week of leading our church's Cherub Choir. This is the little preschoolers. Ever since I found out that there was no leader for this group I have had this little niggling that this was something I should step up and do. Every morning during my quiet time, thoughts about leading this group kept flooding my mind. I argued with God that I don't need any more projects and I am busy enough, but this feeling just would not go away. So I told the children's leader I would do it. There is really no point in arguing with God. The safest place to be is in the center of God's will. The great thing is that after I shared this with a close friend she said that she had the feeling that she should be helping me. How awesome is that? I was very thankful because there were 13 wiggly 2-4 year olds. Help was definitely a blessing. Even my daughter, Anna, helped which was so wonderful. She is really great with kids that age. It went great. We sang "Jesus Loves Me" and I taught them the ASL signs for "Jesus," "loves" and "me." I can't wait to do it again next week.

Then we partied with the birthday girl here at our house with lunch , gifts and cake. Rachel, though, ended up being too pooped to party and fell asleep in her highchair with one hand still in her cake. It was too sweet and of course, I got pictures!

I am off to jump into my week. Hope yours is a great one!