VSBN!!!

What fun I had scrambling to complete as many of the 12 posted challenges as I could possibly manage! My oldest hosted the kids challenge early on Saturday!
This is her with her page!!!

I got warmed up by doing a double page spread (Naked Butt!) and then because of the normal-crazy activity level at my house, I did a digital page (Thinking About Tomorrow).

Sunday I did my favorite page which features my mom and my sister in 1968, and then I did another DPS! Can you tell I'm an addict? hee hee

On Monday I did a planned page (I gathered my papers and photos I would need the night before). My oldest has Tae Kwon Do on Monday nights, so I sat at a table during her class cutting patterned paper and taping it down with pictures! By the end of class I was just a few pieces shy, so as soon as the tooth brushings were done, stories told, and jammies were on, I stamped the title and added a few flowers!!!

Tuesday was a "free night" and I honestly was given some time to myself to scrap (throwing some leg quarters in the oven bought me an hour!! *wink wink* I completed the "Stapers Club" page in about an hour and a half. I was really on a roll...

Ahhh, it's Wednesday. The deadline for uploading was today at 4:00. I took my lunch break today and left about 11:10 AM...made it back to work by 12:20 and my page was done!!! Is this pathetic? Well I did kinda promise the hostess I would give her challenge a try. Not the best page I've scrapped in this bunch, but it has it's good points.

I managed to participate in 7 challenges, and I got 9 pages done. It feels good to have some pages completed and the more I scrap, the more I want to scrap! Maybe I should start a few more planned pages...hmmm, there's a crop coming up!

To see what I used to make these pages visit my online gallery!

Thinking Out Loud

This is the little "shrine" in my kitchen with pictures of my girls. It was a Christmas present for myself one year when Sydney was still pretty small. You know the type, your gift shopping and something strikes your fancy...so you get it for yourself and wrap it up. It was under our tree, "for Mom, love Gloria & Sydney." Hey if I hadn't done it, no body else would. Gabe is just not a shopper.
I was admiring it yesterday, but also thinking maybe an update is needed. Maybe add a little paint to the frames? But then I don't want to distract from the wallpaper. Maybe I should change out the photos for something more current? The little picture on the end of Natalie was an add on after all, and it's too dark anyway...
I completely missed out on the wildflowers this year. Having a job so close to home, I rarely venture outside of Frisco, and most of the bluebonnets and other wildflowers line the Texas highways! :( So I'm not sure what I would replace these with, gotta have outdoor pics! ;)
I still LOVE the picture of Gloria and Sydney together, but since Natalie's missing I feel obligated to change it out. There is a similar problem in the main hallway of our house. I have a big collage of photos and little Natalie will point and name names, and sometimes stop and say "is that me?" I have to say "no baby, that's Gloria."
So I guess it's time for a change. I can still display these pictures if I want to, or maybe I should just scrap them together on a layout. Decisions decisions, where is a field full of flowers when I need it!?! And as I type this we have more rain yet again!

Read Any Good Books Lately?

Happy Tuesday!!!

I want to share a cool idea for "Technique Tuesday" with you!
Sunday was not only the day of my most awesome card workshop, but it was also the preview party for our next Virtual Scrapbooking Night (VSBN). As always all the challenges were great, but one in particular caught my attention, and I had to do that one FIRST!

If you have an old hardcover book you don't mind altering, give this a try...
Cut an opening in the front cover and use a strong glue or adhesive to cover the book with patterned paper. Then from the inside of the cover attach an overlapping piece of card stock to create a pocket you can slip a photo into. It's that easy!!! Stamp on it, embellish it to your liking...whatever. I thought this was a unique project and if I had been online Sunday myself, I would have finished mine much sooner!!! Visit my Splitcoast gallery for more details on what I used to make mine.

Christmas in July

I'm having a Stamp-a-stack!!!
On Sunday July 22nd from 11:00 - 3:00
7500 Preston Rd., Frisco, TX 75035
(Kroger - in the community room upstairs)

Make the three cards pictured above in sets of 4 for a total of TWELVE cards to take home!

• Bring a friend and receive a gift
• Free project sheet featuring all three cards - so you can make more at your leisure!
• Envelopes included
  
• Door prizes
• Christmas tunes to get you in the mood
  
• Learn new techniques
• bleaching
• embossing
• watercolor with pencils
  
• direct to paper
  
• frayed ribbon
  
• $15.00 registration fee - $10.00 off if you place an order!
• Copies of the new Fall-Winter Collection 2007 Catalog available
  

Contact me if you plan to stop by, it's going to be "snow" much fun!!! hehehe

Wants, Needs, and MUST Haves

I am thrilled with the new Stampin' Up!(R) Fall-Winter 2007 Collection! Yippee!!!

I want nearly ALL the paper, and ALL the ribbon, and there are some cool punches and tools, OH MY!

Just thought I would share my new stamp wish list:

Item# Page# Description

109363 27 Batty For You

109689 27 Batty (Jumbo wheel)

109284 29 Haunting Halloween

109266 35 Big on Christmas

109463 39 Merry Merry

107926 67 Double-Line Doodles

109314 72 So Much

108634 73 Flowers & Flourish

109421 91 Elementary Essentials

109405 95 Big Flowers

109290 101 Garden Whimsey

109260 117 Priceless

109683 117 So Swirly (Jumbo wheel)

109256 127 Illuminations

109503 130 Labelicious

109473 130 Totally Tabs

109481 133 Stem Sayings

109397 143 All Holidays

109308 150 It's All Good

109298 154 Calendar

109568 160 My ABC's (wheel)

Now my BIGGEST problem is what to get first! hee hee

Tagged Again

I decided to post about being tagged on my other blog. If you want to read my "confessions," click on the link at the left, and if you're not on yahoo 360, feel free to leave any comments here!!!

Sneek a Peek....

I have been considering a project for kiddos to do at my open house, and found this cute and crafty idea on Family Fun (it's a great website!). Of course I changed it up a little from their suggestion, but I think it will be something fun for all ages. Well OK, my youngest pictured above didn't make one...yet, but she was instrumental in getting the sample done!!!

Actually all three girls pitched in to help me get these drink coasters painted, I used ModPodge to adhere white cardstock to the other side. Stamped a star...cut it out, stamped another star on one of the scraps, and put that on with a pop dot! Believe me, they were watching closely...that way they can each make their own at the open house on Friday night!!! My 10 year-old will be my Jr Assistant, in charge of this activity, and ready to lend a hand to those who need it!

For more information on my Open House, visit the Events page of my website!

Crafty Times...

Went to my sister's open house yesterday, and did these three cute projects. My open house isn't until the 29th, so I've only created two projects so far, and surprise, surprise, I'll be using one of the same stamp sets! It would be hard not to though, Baroque Motifs is so NEW, everyone that got their hands on it early is using it like CraZy!!!
hee hee

Just Think of Me as Your Friendly Neighborhood BAG LADY!!!

Well if you saw my Teacher Appreciation post, then you know I did a paper bag book for Sydney's pre-K teacher. I guess she really loved the book because she showed it to all the other teachers. This resulted in a special request from another teacher, Miss Sara! She LOVED the book too and contracted me to make her one to give her mom and one to give her sister, I had a lot of fun putting them together...maybe next time I'll make one for ME!









Here's the sister book:

All Caught Up!

Well I made the time to scrap my April/May sketch -- YAY me! ;)
I got into the bleach again and stamped flowers along my background piece. Then I stamped over the bleached out images and also added layers of other stamped and punched flowers. Three of them are embossed with silver and then watercolored.

The pictures are from a trip to Cancun, Mexico 2001. My oldest daughter, my father, and his wife.

To see which colors and stamp sets I used, visit my SCS gallery!

Purty pages!!!

These are all pages that were scrapped using my April/May sketch! I am so impressed with all of them so I had to share! Great job ladies, and Donna it was a tough choice, but YOU WIN!

Technique Tuesday!!!

Well I haven't tried a new technique lately, but decided I'd share my technique journal. I'm itching to do a little scrapping, and experiment with a cool technique I stumbled on, but it will have to wait for another day - stay tuned!!!

Teacher Appreciation

This is a paper bag book I made for Sydney's teacher. The large tag on the cover was designed by my sister Barbara and I made it at one of her workshops. The rest of the book was designed to compliment the tag. I had a lot of fun making it!!!




I had 7 teachers to give gifts too, I also made several cards, this 6x6 scrapbook page, a photo magnet, and a mini book:

Tagged

Well, lookie here...I've been tagged! Miss Tracy tagged me and apparently that means I must share 7 things about myself and do my own tagging! ;)
Hmmm, where to begin.

1. I started with this silly questionaire I found...puts me 1 year before I was a born...not too shabby!

You Belong in 1968

You are a free spirit with a huge heart. Love, peace, and happiness rule.

What Year Do You Belong In?

2. I am a BIG TIME animal lover. ALL animals, even rats, and yes I care about our stupid dog CJ too! *smile*

3. Figuring out what to do with my life has become a joke. I am so undecided it's craZy!!! I'm kinda stuck in the job I have now and wish I could go back to just being home with my girls (especially now that Syd will be starting Kindergarten - hee hee). I do have several ideas for bettering our family situation, but have yet to persue any of them. *sigh*

4. LOVE to cook, but HATE to clean up!

5. If I had a million dollars I would start a campaign to boycott production of automobiles that run on GAS! Think GREEN, cars fueled by hydrogen should be our future!!!

6. I once weighed 212 pounds! Thankfully I woke up and did something about it...still would love to shed 15-20 more, but I'm in a size 10 now and feel so much better about myself.

7. Weird but true: When I was a little girl I had a fantasy that I was the only REAL human being, and everyone else was a robot! ha ha

TAGGED:
I'm going to "cheat" and only pick three. In my opinion 7 is just too many...besides most of my bloging buddies have already been tagged!!!

Amy
Christie
Stephanie

Scramping is Addictive!!!

Guess what!?! One of my VSBN pages from the preview won...and 1st place too! I am so excited and happy, I'm beside myself!!! Thank you to all of you that left me sweet comments in my gallery! It feels good to get a little pat on the back now and then, and winning...WOW!!!

Saturday was the kick off for the week-end of scrapping, and my challenge was at 12:00 PM! There were a total of 13 challenges posted over the week-end, and Friday there were 3 surprise challenges. I've only scrapped 3 pages and a double page spread so far, but the upload deadline has been extended until 5:00 PM Wednesday May 2, 2007!!! There are 2 more challenges I REALLY want to do, but hopefully I can squeeze in a few more before the deadline!

Click HERE to see all 20 challenges - judging is over for the first 4, but who knows you might get inspired!
Click HERE to see all the entries for my challenge - where's yours?
Click HERE to see all the APR07VSBN entries!

Virtual Scrapbooking

Last Saturday was a preview of our Virtual Scrapbooking event on Splitcoaststampers, or more affectionately known as VSBN. Next week-end there will be so much more!!! You don't have to scrap along to play. There's a deadline for all uploads and everyone is on the "honor system" for obeying the 2 hour time limit. Sometimes it's easier to scrap first and upload later. ;)

I did all 4 challenges from the preview, have a look:

APRIL 2007 VSBN
A Nature Spa Weekend

Saturday 4/28 & Sunday 4/29
Challenges will be posted every two hours beginning at 10:00 AM both days!

Here's a link to the Challenge Thread where you'll see the requirements of each preview challenge, and this is also where the new challenges will be, starting at 10:00 AM Saturday!!!

Confetti Eggs ~ Cascarones

Easter is quickly approaching and I'm always worried we won't have enough eggs for the hunt. I've only been saving shells for a few weeks so far, and we are 2 eggs shy of 36. That would give each of my three girls a dozen, but I was hoping for MORE!

If you've never made these, they are a ton of fun. We got kinda burned out on hardboiled eggs, so the last few years we've been making nothing but cascarones (confetti eggs). They are easy to do, we just carefully remove the egg whites and yolk when we cook eggs. The best way I've found is to tap the end with a butter knife, and then break away the shell bit by bit with your nail, until the hole is about the size of a nickel. I usually insert the knife too which breaks the yolk and helps guide the egg out of its shell.

If you are really impatient like me you can dump your eggs into a container for cooking later! I just put the last 5 in this container so I can put together a quiche for Good Friday. Make sure you rinse your shells out, and then you can color them like you would the hardboiled version...that's the FUN part! After they're colored and dry just fill with confetti and seal the ends by gluing a piece of tissue paper over the hole. WAY easy!

We'll probably do them on Saturday, which gives me a few more days to save shells, and we got one of those new kits that does tye die eggs this year. The girls are totally anxious to get started!!!

Wasabi Hobby

One of my favorite snacks, at the moment, are wasabi peas. They are spicy, crunchy, and YUMMY! After recycling a few cans I thought to myself, these could be useful...and I started saving them. This past week-end, I dug out some pretty paper, slathered it's backside with ModPodge, added a little this and that, and voila - something "purty" for my personal use.

I decided to use it for storing different ideas and notes for future layouts and cards. I've read about others who tear things from magazines and keep them in a jar. Well I am WAY too obsessive compulsive to destroy a magazine, but I do have lots of little notes jotted on scraps as well as some freebie ideas from mailings and that I've picked up in stores. It's so nice to get them out of my drawer and tucked away in my wasabi tin...hmmm what should I call it now?

• Inspiration Station?
• Tip Tin?
• Idea Vault?
  
• Concept Container?
  

Ok, ok, maybe I'm overthinking this a little. hee hee