My "baby" is 2!

My little lady had a birthday yesterday so I decided to take her outside in a attempt to get an official birthday picture. Did you know that 2 year olds are active?!? I have more blurry photos than anything else because she didn't want to sit still for me. BUT I did manage to snap this little gem of her looking up at my into the breeze. It shows off her crazy wild curls and sweet face perfectly. So, I had to scrap it, of course.

The page can be seen with credits here.

Tomorrow we are having her birthday party here at the house which will be mostly family. So, today I will be cooking and cleaning to get ready.

A couple more pages

Credits can be found here.

Credits can be found here.

They're back and I'm stressed

Do you remember me mentioning that when I feel stressed I like to scrapbook? Can you tell that I have been feeling a bit stressed? Just when I been to relax about the lice, they returned with a vengence. So, I am back at the nitpicking, vacuuming and laundry. [sigh] I am finding it all quite depressing. My fear is that we are going to have to do this every two weeks indefinitely. I think I may go insane if I have to go through all of this again. The laundry! Ugh! I have piles and piles still to wash - piles and piles that are wahed and need to be folded or hung and put away - and NOTHING in my closet to actually wear. We opted not to go to church this morning just to make sure we didn't spread any of this around. Today was supposed to be Anna's birthday party (yesterday was the big day), but we cancelled because I worried about inviting people into our lice-ridden house even though I have vacuumed and cleaned it quite well. Poor Anna. We will try again next week if we are clean bug-free.

So, we are having a lazy morning and I spent some time scrapping:

Credits for this page can be found here.


Credits for this page can be found here.


Credits for this last page can be found here.

Sweet Sweater Set

Just sharing this page of my baby girl in her pretty new sweater set. Well it isn't actually new. My friend made it for her when she was just a newborn, but she made it a bit big so she wouldn't outgrow it so fast. Well, this is the first time she wore it. She has been big enough to wear it for a while but our weather hasn't been cold enough for such a warm sweater. Sadly, I can't get her to keep the hat on. I have tried, but it usually ends up in tears. (Hers not mine ;-)
Credits for the page can be found here. This page was also featured in the Cottage Arts newletter this week because it was done using one of their new Simply Done templates which are really cool and have some special features if you are using Photoshop Elements. This page came together in a snap.

Seeing something like this sweater set makes me want to be able to knit. I can crochet, but some things are just better knitted. Connie (who made this lovely sweater) tried to teach me a while back. I wanted to knit a prayer shawl and she took the time to show me how. Well, I was slow and awkward at it and I ended up getting impatient with myself and crocheting the shawl. A youth prayer shawl ministry has just started at our church and my daughter, Anna, has decided to try it. She has been taught how to knit and it loving it. Seeing her pick up on this so quickly is so wonderful to watch (even if it does disgust me that she has picked up on it much faster than me). She has shown me one more time the process of knitting and it is starting to click better in my brain. I am determined that after the holidays I am going to sit down and actually master knitting.

Sorry I am babbling. I was up late last night because I have a nasty cold and couldn't sleep. Then I woke up early because I was so stuffed and my sinuses feel like they are gonna explode. I though perhaps I would go lay back down after a bit, but it is too late. I have to get everyone up for church in about a half an hour. So, I had better get some coffee into me and get a bit more awake!

Hope you all have a sweet Sunday.

Fast Food Firsts

I have officially corrupted my baby girl's tastebuds. We took Patrick out to lunch for his birthday last month at the Golden Arches (a.k.a. the chicken and fries place). I realized when we got there that I didn't bring anything for Rachel. No food, bib or sippy cup. So, when the going gets touch, the tough order a Happy Meal. Right? I tried to be a little healthy about it, but the only thing you could substitute for fries was apple wedges which little Rachel doesn't have enough teeth to do. We did skip the soft drink and get the juicebox instead. She had never done a straw but figured it out so fast you would have thought she was a pro. Then there was the ketchup. To say she loved the ketchup would be an extreme understatement! Since I had no bib, I just dipped the end of a fry in a bit and handed it to her. It was love at first taste! I finally decided that giving her a little cup with a little bit couldn't be that messy. I was wrong. Next thing I know, she has completely bypassed the fries and is ramming her whole little fist into the ketcup cup. You can see the results on her face in this layout.

If you are interesed, the tiny journaling for this page reads:

Even though it was Patrick’s birthday, it was a day of “firsts” for Rachel. Upon arriving at McDonald’s, I realized that I forgot to bring anything for Rachel to eat, so she got her very first Happy Meal. She had never sampled ketchup, so I dipped one of her fries in it. Well, she was all about the ketchup! I gave her her own tiny cup with a little bit in it and the next thing I know, she has bypassed the fries altogether and was eating ketchup straight with her fingers! To drink, she had her first juicebox and her first time with a straw. I was worried she wouldn’t be able to figure it out, but it was NOT a problem. She slurped down the entire thing in no time flat. She is official a fast food pro. Hopefully, she will still eat her broccoli after this!

Credits for this page can be found here.

I made Digi Pick of the Day!!!

I can't believe it! This layout was the digi pick of the day on the 5th. I was totally oblivious until this morning when I got a google alert. Back when I was designing, a fellow designer had said that she had set up a google alert for her name. Google then searches the web for things that pop up with your name associated with them. As a designer, this is nice because if someone posts something using your art, google may find it and send you an e-mail. Usually, I get messages about a layout that I posted myself somewhere and it is outdated. But this morning, I got a message referring to the Digi Pick of the Day page. How cool is that!!!

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.

Happy Times

I just wanted to pop in and share this scrapbook page I did the other day. It was one of those pages where I just couldn't figure out what I wanted to do with it. So I used a little of this and a little of that an kept messing with it. Finally I just had to say, "Enough is enough!" and consider it done. Everything here is by Doris Castle and full credits can be found here.

This is a photo of my littlest taken at a family reunion last month. She does this funny little crawl on her feet instead of her knees. I should really get more pictures of this because I know it won't be long and she will be walking and this will be gone. Her first birthday is in 6 days. Where did that year go? Didn't I just bring her home last month? Time may be flying, but I really love this age. She is so much fun!

Tonight, my book club is meeting and we are going to get to actually chat with the author of the book we read. Isn't that exciting? I am off to get dinner going so I am not late.

Peek-A-Boo

I just had a minute, but I wanted to share this scrapbook page. I did this with the Sweet Innocence Page Pak from Cottage Arts by Doris Castle. This page is featured on the Digital Tips pages at Cottage Arts. There is a great tutorial that shows you how to use the page curl template included in this set. I used it here on the bottom of the page. I love how realistic it looks! It is just like I have a torn, curled piece of paper.

The photo is of Rachel sitting on the sidelines of one of Patrick's soccer games. I love how she is hiding her eyes as well as her sweet little toes in the grass.

LOTS have been going on, but my day is getting away from me and I have bunches left to do so I will have to share more later! Have a great day!

Label tool