This Is What I Come Home To Sometimes

I never know what I am going to get when I come in the door.  Today it was this......

The little guy wearing a viking hat (aka McD's box) on his head singing the Batman Christmas Song.

And since we have been getting so much rain and have been bringing in lots of firewood, we get to see plenty of these. 

They are driving me crazy!  Whenever I feel like I have found and killed them all (shh, don't tell the little guy.  He freaks out whenever I kill any bug.)  I find 2 or 3 more. 

And since I have been on a mad creating streak lately, here is a page I did to house our Baltimore road trip photos. 

And a couple of scraplifts

Again I was inspired by Christine Middlecamp.  I have been following her blog for a couple of years and I love the way she layers.  She has some great ideas to share. 

I plan to sit my B-hind down Sunday and print photos to put on all these layouts.  I think that maybe then I will upload them into my 2 peas and split coast galleries.  I haven't put anything in there since oh man I don't even remember.  I hope I still know how!

Thanks for stopping by and have a terrific week........

Gardening Time

Me and the boys are going to be working in the yard.  Not putting in plants in for a couple more weeks but we are going to dig up a couple of beds and clean up some weeds (not those kinds of weeds lol) but the kind that won't let my husband have a decent vege bed.  I guess we'll take a trip to Lowe's sometime this weekend.  I was one of my neighbors out working on his beds and plan to casually walk by and see what he is doing next time.  I cut a bunch of daffodils and put them in the house to brighten up the joint.  They smell so good!  I had put in all deep yellow ones but Q decided to give me a hand while at was at school yesterday and he put in a few extra.  I can only imagine what the plant that he took these from looks like right now.  Next year I hope to have tulips, hydrangea and all sorts of beautys in my collection of milk glass vases. 

I have about 50 million 1/2 used packs of alphas.  Normally, once I use all of the a's or e's I can't get enough out of the rest of the letters to make the words I want and I hate mixing the fonts too much on my layouts.  I am a same type letter gal for the most part.  My lo's look too wonky to me when I use more than one type alpha for my titles.  So I have been thinking on ways that I could use up the rest of my alphas and here are a couple of the ideas that I came up with. 

• use them on a photo mat
• use them as a border

here are 2 layouts that I made like that.....

• use them as a framed monogram accent on a photo (loved this but don't have a pic of it)
• use them on cards

I used leftover rub-ons, paper, ribbon and stickers on this card and I loved how it turned out!

and then I ran out of ideas.  I tried to come up with at least ten but the old sponge just couldn't do it.  So if you have any suggestions, feel free to share (and thanks in advance, your creative and great!). 

Pictureless layouts (I even journaled on one and still did not put any pictures on it).  Can't figure out what my prob is here although ink is expensive.  I actually saw a post on two peas about this and am so glad to know that I am not the only lost soul who does this.  Although it seemed that most of the ladies that posted that they did this were sb instructors, designers or ladies who took a bunch of classes.  Interesting post all the same. 

Wise advice that I want to pass to my kids.  I hope that they find happiness everyday instead of waiting for their lives to be perfect.  I wasted a lot of years waiting for the right this or that in order to be satisfied.  I want to put a small individual photo of each of them on top of a large photo of the three of them together. 

My favorite page of all time!  Have no idea the pics but I love the page so much that I am going to take photos especially for it.  Another one for my kids.  I want them to know that I am so in love with them.  They make not only my day, but my life. 

This one is made of all of cardstock!  No patterned paper was harmed to make it.  I hand painted the flowers with glimmer mist and acrylic paint than outlined them with markers & gel pens, than cut them out and shaped them (sorry about all the thans, just excited about this concept).  Love how it turned out!

The cutest card I have ever, ever made!  I even used die cuts on the envelope for the to address.  Going to send this to my nephew Carlos bc I know he will love it. 

Thanks for stopping by and have a great day!

Hubby Was Home

For a little while at least.  But now he is gone again.  This is the busiest he has ever been and will repeat this home for a day or two pattern at least 3 more times over the next month or so.  Sigh 

And my sister and her family just moved here.  So excited that she is so close. 

Sketchy post #3.  I haven't done a double pager in a while.  Ok, I rarely do double pagers.  I am strictly a one page layout kind of girl.  but here goes.

and the page. 

larger pic of page one.  I plan to put pics of my hubby on this spread.  I was so happy with the contrast between the blacks, creams and reds.  It is what I call a dual monochromatic page (if that is possible) because I used different saturations of 2 colors, red & cream.  The glimmer mist, wow.  You can really see how it shimmers in the upper left corner. 

and page 2.  I did a lot of layering on this page.  Lots of fussy cuts but the page looks really simple.  It took me a day and a half to finish!

I altered it just a little bit.  I used glimmer mist and a THoltz mask on the sides of the pages to make it feel more balanced to me.  I also used scraps almost exclusively for the mats and pp on the page. 

Finally, after over a year of applying, Aaron got a call back.  I am very proud of him and am so excited that he will finally know what it is to earn the money he puts into his pocket.  I really can't believe that he is going to be graduating soon and leaving home soon after.  He will spend a couple of months in Ill with his Grandma and then he will be off to basic after that.  Time sure does fly. 

My new favorite breakfast is a banana, 2 cups of coffee and

These littly babies are sooooo good! For the last few years I have been trying to healthyatize our diets.  Not necessarily cutting out fats and sugars but more leaning towards cutting our preservatives, food dyes and what not.  It has been going pretty well.  It is definitely more expensive but so worth it.  Last year, I was looking for a good alternative to cream soups (they have msg in them) and never found one but I learned in that process that there is a lot of food out there that has msg.  Yikes.  I hardly buy any canned foods, preffering fresh or frozen (no preservatives at all most) and I don't buy rice mixes or foods like it anymore, which have tons of msg.  It has not been as difficult as I thought it would be.  We love noodles with fresh spinach and veges, rice the same and potatoes.  I have been learning so many new ways to cook potatoes. So what's the point to this.  No  point to this whatsoevah, just talking to my girls about something that ive been mulling and i hope you dont mind.  The good news is that before I started, my cholesterol was super, super high and now it is better than normal so something must be meshing here.  And if I am being totally honest (which I am), the changes were so slow that we havent even missed the way we used to eat or the things we have dropped from our diet.  

I saw a news report not to long ago about a woman that set an experiment to see if she could eat healthy off of the average amount of money that food stamps supplies to a family per month (I bet that saved her a ton of money!  My grocery bill is out of control).  I was amazed by how she was eating.  She said that she couldn't afford fresh or frozen foods or good cuts of meat.  Hello, where was she shopping at whole foods?  Not that I have anything at all against whole foods, it is one of my favorite stores but you have to have a healthy food budget to shop there.  Seriously.  Budget shoppers shop where the bargains are and that is not whole foods my friends.   I had to wonder if she exagerated a bit, she was talking about all this weight she lost and having to eat canned foods and fatty meats.  Wha?  My mom budget shopped for us and she started a garden, found a co-op and learned how to make a mean pot of stew (ok, sometimes it was nasty) but she did it and we ate healthy.  Just no snacks except what we made at home and not a lot of the more expensive fruits (grapes, cherries, etc). 

 Babble over, time to say thank you for stopping by and I hope that you have a fantastic weekend!!!!!  Hope your weather is not rainy, cold or snowy like ours here is supposed to be. 

What Am I Doing Today

My to do list for today.....

• Clean - hubby is coming home for 1 stinkin day and I want the house to be clean & fresh smelling.  I love to come home to a clean house after a trip and I want to give him the same courtesy.
• Schoolwork - huge, huge list of test to study for, projects to complete and homework assignments.  Sigh
• Laundry - to include the huge basketful of socks that need to be sorted
• Submissions - I am working on several submissions and have to take photos to put on the pages, take good photos of the projects and get them all uploaded with my information
• Summer Scrapbook Shows - I am applying for several shows this summer and there is so much planning to do.  Booth design, kit designs, class designs, product orders, travel plans & reservations
• Vacation reservations - Disney or cruise?
• Bills - my personal favorite
• Menu for next week
• Q's Summer activities - he wants to take karate, play soccer, start learning Japanese (yes, he asked for this), science camp, art classes and he wants to start piano lessons this year
• A's Graduation stuff - lots of fam coming to town so reservations, invitations, ordering cap & gown, etc
• File - I open my mail only when I have to so I always have a pile that looks like this

• Unfinished projects
• Develop new projects to add to the unfinished projects list
• Rearrange my craft room
• Family phone calls - I like to talk to at least one of my sibs & my parents daily so I try to make a couple of calls every day of the week.  Weird I know but it works for us bc no one can get information without sharing it with someone else.  So if I get good news from Aggie on Monday, I can talk to Janeen about it on Tuesday and Teen will call me on Wednesday etc. 
• Workout - can someone invent a workout pill?  Please?  You take the pill and it is like doing a 30 minute run.  Take 2 pills and you've done a thirty minute run, 30 push ups, 50 sit ups and 250 crunches. 

Here are a couple of my favorite pics from our Baltimore trip. 

I took most of them, but Q took the one of that interesting looking fish. 

Thanks for stopping by and I hope you have a fantastic Thursday. 

P.S. If you like to make handmade flowers, stop by and visit lollychops, she is doing tutorials all this week and they are fantastic!

What a Great Weekend

We went here

I actually got to see one of the torpedoes that I used to work on while I was here and was able to tell my hubby a little history about them.  That was buck but the sub was small so we left and went here

and here

holy cow folks, this is the largest B&N that I have ever seen!  And I have seen a lot of them.  It is like 4 stories has an indoor and outdoor cafe and 2 coffee bars.  The little guy and I could have stayed there for 1 full day and been as happy as ticks on a fat dog but the hubby was having none of it so we went here

Those mantas there were as big as a baby elephant.  Q and I spent a good half hour trying to get decent pictures of them.  Man were we tired from all the walking so we left and went to my very favorite restaraunt and had an amazing lunch/dinner.  If you have a chance to go, I highly, highly recommend the red velvet cheesecake.  Yum.

I have to edit the photos that I took of us (ha ha, I said edit)  but will be posting them especially for the girl sometime this week. 

The weather was perfect and Baltimore Harbor was packed with street performers, wall to wall people, dogs with their owners and runners.  There are a ton of runners here.  We enjoyed and will definitely be going back.  Although next time I will make sure I take my own pillows!  The hotels were down and man am I paying for it now.  Off to pop a couple of Benedryl. 

Thanks for stopping by and have an incredible week!

Great Scraps

And sketchy layout number 2.  I love it when I do what I'm supposed to do!  The sketch....

This sketch was so much fun.  I hand cut the scallop and decide to put 2 photos at the bottom instead of one.  I also handmade the journal mat with my cad and a pair of scissors.  Love the colors on this one too....

I spent the entire day (11-5) scrappin at Great Scraps.  It was so, so nice I truly enjoyed it.  I only finished 2 layouts though.  I am definitely not one to crank out page after page.  I know a lady that did 30 layouts at a 2 day crop.  Holy smokes, I don't do 30 layouts in a month. 

I don't know what the deal is but I haven't been able to keep my eyes open for the last 2 days.  I fell asleep last night at like 930.  I was in bed before my boys!  I must be getting old.  

Anyway, thanks for stopping by and have a great day!!!!

PageMaps

I plan to do all of the sketches for pagemaps this month.  wish me luck.  Here is the first sketch 

and the page.  I intend to use a picture of me and all my sisters but I can't find it!  I am going to have to get one of them to send it to me.  Not sure I love the layout, but I love the colors and the concept.  Sorry it's so blurry, I may be forced to retake the pic of it later. 

I showed this layout in progress a couple of weeks ago, maybe, I can't remember but I finally finished it. 

I plan to add this photo of my gabby girl + another one as soon as I find one that I like enough to put in the circle. 

My intention was to craft all day Saturday and today but instead, I spent the entire day reading!  I have read 4 of the 6 - 1000 page DG Outlander novels since I got them a few weeks ago.  Seriously, I stay up until like 2am reading most nights, I just can't put them down.  I haven't had any takers on my offer to give them away so as soon as I finish the last one, I plan to donate them to the Goodwill. 

This is a photo of the worst adhesive I have ever used!  It was awful for me.  I have disliked things before (glimmer mist) and them come to love them but I don't see that happening here.  I got it bc it was on sale for like $2 and I ended up giving it away.  Seriously, awful. 

I had this idea in my had for a bag/purse and it is still there but I still have not definitively decided upon a design or a plan.  It is just swirling around in my head.  Times like this make me wish I could put pen to paper and come away with the picture in my head.

My husband and I have been together for over 14 years now.  I was thinking about how when we first met i loved every single thing about him and he really could do no wrong.  This feeling must have stuck around for awhile bc we dated for 3 years before we got married.  We are very, very different in a lot of ways but I think that what makes us stick and still love each other very much, despite the differences, is we both have the same ultimate goals.  God comes first, we come second and the kids come next (most of the time we come second but on a daily basis I have to admit that we put the kids needs first).  Lovely right?  Well, I have to tell you that the next time that man starts talking in the middle of a good movie we are going to leave the theater and go straight to the judge!  He is the worst movie talker ever!!!!  I am quite as a church mouse but him, OMGoodness he would talk straight thru if I didn't give him the stink eye and refuse to answer his questions.  I won't watch any tv show with him unless it is recording for the same reasons or if it is something that I didn't really want to watch anyway.  AAAAGGGGGHHHH. 

On another note, spring is in the air.  It is supposed to get to 70 on Friday and I caught a picture of these this morning when I was photographing layouts.

I have already been looking through garden catalogs so I guess the boys and I will be spending some time this weekend looking for a nursery for the garden plan I have in mind. 

Thanks for stopping by and check you later.  Have a fantastically wonderful week!

Encyclopedia Brown

Yes, I still have encyclopedias.  I am a smell the book kind of girl so having them on disk is not appealing to me.  I had a whole entire set of them which included the entire works of all the great well known philosophers but I donated them to a private school years ago.  Broke my heart but at least they are being used.  My husband has been threating, begging, and bribing me to give up these last few and I just simply can't.  They are beautiful to me and I am holding out for that library.  When we finally settle into the last home we are going to live in, I will have a library that holds all my books.  I am so looking forward to that.  But for now, I think they will have to go back into the box seeing as how he set his fish tank up right next to them.  Pity.

It is stinky dark and wet and dreary here.  Supposed to rain all weekend and part of next week.  I sure do miss my fluffy snow.  

I will be crafting all day today and 1/2 of tomorrow yes I will.  Can't wait.  I have bought a ton of new papers and embellishments that have been calling me all week. 

K&Co.  Probably one of my favorite companies.  Still have a few things that I want to get

I also bought a lot of pink paisley paper, october afternoon papers and embellies, some new basic grey, american crafts, bo bunny, my minds eye, me and my big ideas and a new company that I was not familiar with called scribble scrabble.  I loved their papers though. 

I have already used the bird and one of the frames on the sticker sheet!  I never do that, it normally takes me a few weeks to use my new stuff.  I plan to cut the center out of the yellow die cut edge paper.  The pattern is too cute to cover up and, again, I have already used the 1 of the token die cuts.  They are about 2 inches wide and 1 inch tall, big enough for a sub title or part of a title.  hmmm just thought of that. 

Oh man, that is a heck of a post.  Sorry about that.  Been chatty lately.  I guess it is the weather!  Thanks for stopping by and hope that you are having a fantastic weekend.  Later

New Favorite Layout

This is my new favorite layout.

It is of my girl and my best friends boy when they were about 6 months old.  I haven't journaled it yet because I am not quite sure what I want to say, maybe I will just use a quote.  At least I used a photo. 

The weather is so bad here and CJ is out of town and I was concerned about Q coming home to an empty house (plus I left my cell phone) that I decided to play hookie on my last class.  Most of my classes have been super empty today so hopefully my professor will not take this day to put out some amazingly difficult concept that I must be in class to appreciate.  I have been faithfully reading each chapter, doing the optional homework and taking hundreds of notes so I should be fine. 

I finally got the new issue of CK and am going to settle in to read it and the 4th book in my Outlanders series tonight.  That's my plan and I am sticking to it.  No laundry, dinner cooking, bed making or other distractions will get between me and my relaxation.  I wasn't crazy about the cover colors, despite the fact that purple is my favorite color, but I am reserving judgement on how much I like this issue. 

I have just started following along with KW cards on Fridays and Mondays.  I went back and started at the beginning and here are the 2 cards I made.  I am going to make this weeks today.  I plan to do nothing at all but craft this weekend (with the exception of taking Q to the art museum).

I have been promising the girl my recipes for a while now and have finally started a blog to share what we are eating with her.  I think she probably misses the family dinners a little. 

Not a lot to share today.  Thanks for stopping by and have fun & fantastic weekend!