Toot and sleep

hmmm, interesting title huh?

Ok, so my toot (x2) is that Somerset Memories Mag has requested TWO of my pages! I am so excited! This will be my first publication!

Then on to sleep. I have been noticing the past couple of days that - dare I say it - Ellie has been going to bed more easily and sleeping better! I was totally thinking that this was NEVER going to happen! It used to be that she would scream at bed time, and get up multiple times. Now, she still cries, but gets in bed and gets up once AT MOST! and in the middle of the night sometimes she calls me in to rub her back, or wakes up to go potty, but she doesnt try to climb in bed with us. I just can't believe it ! What is even more surprising to me is that I didnt notice when it happened. I have been waiting for this for so long that I thought for sure I would notice and we would have a party. but I guess it happened gradually, and we had a few nights here and there that were good, only to go back to old habits. so I guess I just got tired of hoping.

anyway, now all of the sudden I am feeling rested for the first time in YEARS!!! I always have needed a lot of sleep - 8 or 9 hours - but for the longest time it seemed like no matter what I was always tired in the morning.

Online Crop This weekend!

I just wanted to let everyone know that there is an online crop this weekend at YMBD.

Here is a thread with all the details.

but just so you know: The crop runs from 7pm EST May 30th (Friday), until Midnight EST June 1st (Sunday). However...you will have until Midnight EST June 2nd (Monday) to get all your challenges done and uploaded!

There are going to be a ton of challenges, lots of prizes, and all the challenges are random draws so everyone has an equal chance (if you get your page done of course).

I will be hanging there most of the weekend so stop by and say hi.

Onto Next Round!

I made it to the next round of the project scrapaway contest! There are comments from Rhonna Farrer there!

and Here are the creations that everyone submitted.

This is mine:

Big weekend

Wow! we had a busy weekend. Friday was my birthday and I got out of work early, scrapped a little then went over to my in-laws for dinner. MIL made a great dinner and my favorite kind of cake - sticky toffee pudding! We also had maggie moos ice cream cupcakes because that was my special requiest, but they didnt live up to what I expected. Seth and Ellie got me some Gerbera daisies to plant in the garden and a new small camera to take places when I dont wnat to take my big one.

Saturday we relaxed, gosh I can't even remember - oh yeah I had a doctor appt and ellie went with me and we went to 'the donut store' otherwise known as wawa, then came home. I scrapped some, we watched TV and then we got restless and started calling people to come over. No one could come over so we went for a walk and tried the new burger place in town then had Ritas. then home and bed.

Sunday we got up early to hit a sale at Linens and Things. We got a tent/gazebo for our back porch which I LOVE!!! I think our porch is finally useable! Then seth and ellie and seth's parents went to the Devon horse show. I stayed home and relaxed - well a little. Then we sort of ended up having a small party so instead of relaxing I ended up running errands - library, wine store, beer store, grocery store, hardware store - lol! how annoying is it that in some places beer, wine and groceries are in the same store, but here I had to go to THREE different stores - stupid pennsylvania and the Quaker roots! anyway, so we had a group of people over and we had burgers and dogs and watched the kids play. There were 4 kids all about the same age 2.5-3.5 and they had a blast running around in the back yard. It was fun.

Monday I felt like crap. I dont know if it is allergies or what, but I still dont feel good. So I relaxed, scrapped a little and then went to the in-laws for a bbq.

and now I am back at work - but only for 3 days!! woohoo! for short weeks!

and here is a page that I did for a challenge at scrapbook dreamer, using the scrapperie may kit (love this kit!)

new mini album

I had a great birthday and then a great day today! this morning ellie and I went to wawa for coffee and donuts before a quick dr appt. then we cleaned a little for the cleaning people, then I scrapped, then we went for a walk and got dinner at a new burger joint in town (not that great) and water ice at ritas, and now we are home getting ready for bed.

Here is ANOTHER album from last weekend. I didnt get a chance to photograph it last weekend because I wasnt sure it was done. Then on Tuesday I decided to add the paint on the 'petals'. I am really happy with the way it turned out after that. before that I thought it just needed something.

I would be careful adding paint to acrylic because it could probably be scratched off, but I always seal it with acrylic sealer, so I think it should be ok.

Project Scrapaway - challenge 1

I was chosen as a contestant for the Scrap-n-Crop project scrapaway contest! the first challenge is up and I can't wait to get started, just wanted to share it with you all in case you want to head over and check it out. contest blog

Check it out!

Check it out! It seems that a lot of people liked my acrylic album from yesterday almost as much as I did! It was chosen as the pick of the day at Scrapperie, Scrapbook Dreamer and someone posted about it on the message board at acherryontop! I was having a rough day this morning and this totally made my day - so thanks to everyone who gave me a boost today!

tuesday mini book

This is the second book that I completed this past weekend. I dont know which I like more the bright cheery one from yesterday or this one with the fun flowers and black rub-ons.

There are a LOT of pages in this album - lol.

I am not going to say that I had Missy's sketch challenge from scrapwords in mind when making this album, but I did notice that I kind of used a 'recipe' when making it - I started out with strips of paper on each page, then arranged the photos one up, one down, added a title and some black rub-ons, and voila! it came together so fast! and I think using the recipe sort of keeps unity throughout the book - kind of like using a sketch would.

I used some Daisy D's stickers that I got from Scrapwords a while ago. I think they go with these new prima papers wonderfully!

and I used some urban lily rub-ons and some making memories rub-ons.

and, again, my new favorite tiny letter stickers - and the black and white photos (same ones as yesterday just smaller). The papers, flowers, and fabrics, and the album are from my scarlet lime april project kit.

Well, showing a mini book a day seems to be the thing to do, and I made a couple this weekend. So I figured I would take this week - if that's ok.

Here is one that I made this weekend. I took Becca's challenge from Scrapwords to use black and white photos, and it worked out so well, and was so easy that I ended up making all three of my mother's day albums (better late than never huh?) this weekend using more or less the same photos!

Ok, so here is the first one, for my mother-in-law and incidentally, this was my first acrylic album, so there are a few things that I would do differently, but overall I like it!

almost everything in this album is from my scarlet lime may kit! so fun!

Here on the cover, I used this sassafrass lass paper with the new die cut border - LOVE IT! and the rub-ons are cosmo cricket. and there is a little bit of yellow lace peeking out of the bottom.

page 1 - I learned a lesson for the glue on the cover - I put the glue on the edges like I normally do, so then I had to put something (the green border stickers) to cover the glue. I used a lot of double sided papers so that they would show through - that I got lucky on on the first page, but I did it intentionally on the other pages.

page 2 - LOVE LOVE LOVE those tiny letter stickers. you will be seeing them throughout this album and the other two that I made. they are from 'adornit' I got 4 sheets of them - red on white, white on red, blue on beige and black on beige. And I have mostly used the red and white combos on all these albums and I still have a TON left!

The bigger letter stickers here are jenni bowlin. I love those too - I feel like they add a fun kick to it.

page 3 - I didnt do anything with the back of the lace cardstock here, and I decided after the fact that I dont really like it white - it just looks unfinished to me, so on the next sheet, I inked the back in red to match the front. - oh and if you look at the corner of page 2 you will see the back of that kraft tag - I stamped that with a wood grain stamp, in red ink.

page 5 - notice the white floral paper here - that is the back of the photo from the previous page where ellie is holding the ice cream. I used some small scraps to cover bits of the backs of the photos so that when they show through - they show through with pretty patterns. The other photo from the previous page has a scrap of the green paper with the red circles on it - see the triangle peeking out here?

page 6 - I dont know what went wrong with that journaling spot - that is a jenni bowlin tag, and I stamped on it with a 7 gypsies stamp and for some reason it bled - I dont know.

page 7 - here you can see the back of the lace cardstock that I inked red - you can hardly tell!! and I covered the glue from the chipboard flower and button with the big fabric flower on the other side.

Im not going to say

I'm not jealous, because I totally am. Seth and Ellie went to the zoo today and upgraded our membership to the next level which includes not just admission and parking and bringing guests like it used to, but also all the 'add-ons' like pony rides, horse rides, mini train rides, camel rides, zoo-balloon rides, swan boat rides, and rides on the dodge wild earth thing. LOL - I guess I could have just said it includes all the rides. Anyway, ellie has been addicted to the pony rides, and we go to the zoo ALL THE TIME and at $5 a pop the pony rides were starting to add up, so we figured, why not upgrade for $90 more and have them be included - hey we only need to ride a pony 18 times to make it worth while. AND now she can ride horses and camels and stuff, so that makes it even less time to be worth it.

So they are there today doing EVERYTHING. Well, with the exception of the zoo balloon because she is afraid of heights. and I havnet heard news on the camel ride yet.

So he sent me this pic of her getting ready to go on the swan boats. Isnt she cute?! (they are paddle boats) I dont know, because I dont know if I have ever been on a paddle boat but, are they going to go around in circles since she can't really paddle? LOL

A couple pages

Here are a couple of pages that I made for some challenges. I missed the deadlines on almost all of them, but I had fun making the pages.

This one was for scrapjacked so it was inspired by the jack for last week. And it was for get your scrap on challenge from last week to use colors from the set - I used teal, purple, green and beige, missed the deadline on that too. AND it was for creative therapy from about two weeks ago (yep missed that one too) to journal about your guilty pleasure. I just love the color combo here though, and I had a lot of fun making it.



This one was for the ABC, sketch and monochromatic color challenge at scrapwords. It was tough and I am not thrilled with it, but I got these busy pics scrapped so that is good. Used my scrapperie April kit here.



And this one was for a contest to win a Cricut at acherryontop, which I didnt win :( bummer!

I kinda dig this page though

Scrap storage

I posted some pics of my scrap room a few days ago, but someone mentioned storage today so I thought I would share some of my storage ideas.

This is a silverware organizer that I bought to store pens markers and misc stuff in. It has changed purpose slightly since I took this photo. It now stores mostly tools - files, pliers, erasers, etc. And it resides in one of the drawers of my really big rubbermaid four drawer cabinet.


Kit storage: I have gotten really into kits lately and I like to keep them all together, but I hate taking them out of the bag and putting them back in, so I bought TWO of these 12x12 organizers to keep my latest 6 kits in. That way I can just pull the drawer out and take it over to my desk.


Misc Letters and Brads: I like to keep my almost whole chipboard alphabets together, but once I am down to a limited selection of letters, I split them up according to letter, into this bead organizer (99cents on sale at ACMoore) I have 4 of these - two for letters and two for brads.


Peg Board and Scrap storage: I have a bunch of these fabulous peg boards in my room, and I love them because everything is visible, yet organized. I usually keep my full or almost full packages of embellishments on this. At the bottom you will see my page protectors that hold all of my scraps divided into small cardstock, big cardstock, small patterned paper and large patterned paper.


Frequently Used tools: This peg board is right above/behind my desk, so I store some of my most frequently used tools here - well when they arent lying on the desk anyway.


Flowers: I just love this idea of putting flowers in glass jars so you can see them. Unfortunately these jars are a little bigger than I would have liked, but they are still cool


buttons and misc small embellies: This is something that we had in the office and I repurposed for buttons in my scrap room. Since this pic was taken I have acquired a larger organizer for the buttons and this now holds misc buttons that havent been sorted, some epoxy stickers and some misc embellishments. The purple container on top is from the dollar store, and it holds random things that I havnet put away yet, but dont want on my desk. LOL! yep, I have a few special places designated for those items. The metal dish under the peg board that holds the ATG gun also holds misc stuff that I havent put away.


This metal mail organizer is another thing that I stole from our office. I keep my chipboard letters, and some misc thickers and stuff in there. It is rather messy in this photo, because some of those sticker sheets have not been put away yet in sticker storage.


Stamp storage: I use Cd cases for my acrylic stamp storage, and this metal container to hold the CD cases.


Sticker storage: This is my cheapie clip it up that I use for letter sticker storage. My other stickers and rub-ons are on the wire one behind my desk.

my mother's day present

I got a new MP3 player for Mother's Day. I just have to tell everyone how much I love it! I am a little bit odd, in that I am a software engineer but I am really not into gadgets or learning new techie type things, so it never occurred to me how much I could possibly love an mp3 player, but I love love love it! I love holding it in my hand and touching the little screen. lol! I just love it! Here it is if you want to see it:
http://www.amazon.com/Samsung-YP-P2JCR-Portable-Player-Burgundy/dp/B000Z3Q4Q6/ref=pd_bbs_8?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1210614302&sr=8-8

My altered shelf and a new page

These two projects were from the Bad Girls April kit:

won some scenic route!

Woohoo! I won a bunch of the new Scenic Route liberty line!
thanks Layle!!

My day looks just a tad brighter now!

Rough couple of days

Sorry I havent been posting as much lately, I have been feeling pretty down. Here are some pages that I made on NSD for challenges - not my best work, and the photos are pretty crappy. Oh wait, is that me or the depression talking?

Here are some of the pages I made for challenges on NSD. This first one was for 3 different challenges and included using 2 stamps, 4 PP, paper piecing, 3 photos, one quote, journaling strips, a sketch, staples, a punch and I think that's it.

Products here are doodlebug letters, BG{readmore}and Fancy pants papers, autumn leaves stamps.

This is just a simple card that I made from scraps for a 'fast scrap' where you only have an hour to complete it, the challenge was to make a card using a photo.

Let's see, this one was also 3 different challenges - use different fonts in the title, use orange, use 6 brads, use scraps, use a quote, use a movie title as the title. It isnt quite as bright as it looks in this image.

This one was for 3 different challenges - use the word titanic, use the sketch, and a recipe to use one PP, 4 word title, 5 pcs of chipboard, 3 photos, and 2 brads (the dots on the i's)

Here the chipboard is fancy pants, and the paper is A2Z essentials I think.

this card was for another 'fast scrap' to use a flower. It also is not as bright as it looks

50 moments contest reminder

Win Lisa Bearson's NEW Book!!

Just a reminder that YOU have a chance to WIN Creating Keepsakes Magazine Founder and my friend Lisa Bearnson's NEW Book "50 Moments: Scrapbook the Pages that Matter Most" from Scrapwords!! Lisa will personally autograph the winners books as well! How cool is that?? All you have to do is e-mail me an 8x8 or larger layout of YOUR most memorable moment!! 5 winners will be chosen. So what are you waiting for? Enter today!! E-mail layouts to les262@embarqmail.comDeadline: May 9th at Midnight

My scrap space

So yes, I scrapped a lot this weekend, and I will be sharing that later this week. but I should probably take new pics of it all because the light was bad when I took the first pics. So let me start by showing you my stack of yet-to-be-put-in-albums layouts. I seriously need an intervention here! I HATE putting my stuff into albums, even though I have a bunch or themed albums and everything is more or less organized, I still procrastinate it. and I store some of them in my scrap room, but they usually end up here on my wine rack because it is a nice 12x12 area that is clear or any other 'junk'. The bad thing is that when the glasses come out of the dishwasher, they sometimes drip on my pages. so I really shouldnt keep them there, but it is the most convenient after I take my photos of them in the light by the front door.

And now for my scrap room pics. Some of you may have seen them before, but a lot of you havent and a lot of things have changed since I am constantly reorganizing. Oh and it isnt as clean as normal because I took these on NSD.

This is my main desk - it is an old metal workbench spray painted purple with sheetmetal top. The rub-ons and stickers are hanging on curtain wire from ikea. you can just see the bottom of my new altered shelf that I cant share with you yet because it is in a contest. The peg board (and all the desks for that matter) was here when we moved in and I just painted it.

This is desk two. you can just see the bottom of the letter sticker clip up thing. that one is made from a dowel rod that I spray painted. You can also see my stamp and button storage here on the shelf. (stamps in cd cases and buttons in that plastic organizer that I got in the needlepoint section of ACMoore with my 55% off coupon!)

This is my newest 'desk'. it is really just a skinny folding table that I swiped from my mom. I needed it to pretty much just set stuff on - lol! you can see my photo box in the back and some shelves that I keep my glitters and embossing powders on. And some more peg board. The one is covered in cork. Oh and on the right there at the bottom are my page protectors that I store my scraps in. And finally, if you look really closely in the lower left corner you can see my 'trash can' - LOL - I am totally low budget!

Finally, this is the computer/sewing machine/wishblade, printer area. This desk and peg board were also here when we moved in. They are both permanently affixed to the wall. I recenly bought those plastic organizers for pens and journaling cards and stuff. And below you can see the first of two 12x12 organizers that I keep my kits in. And the mirror that I altered to do my hair in (see the flat iron just to the left of the computer) LOL!

and that lindt candy tin is there for me to alter (you thought I was snacking on that while I scrap didnt you?) well youd be wrong because I ate it all BEFORE I started scrapping - LOL!

Calendar mini kit

Here are a few of the pages from the calendar book that I made with this months Scrapwords "You" mini kit which retails for only $15.99!! It may seem a little odd to start a calendar in June, but I thought it might make a cool mother's day tradition, so I made this calendar for my mom to put on{readmore}her desk, and it starts with June 08 and goes to May 09. If you want, you could put quotes or more pictures instead of the calendar pages.

And everything for this album is in the kit! the only thing I added was the photos, cardstock for the calendar pages, a few plain brads, ink, paint and of course glue. Oh and about 3 or 4 stickers that I had laying around and thought went well with my photos but they are totally optional. The 'full of life' sticker on the zoo day page below and the 'unique' sticker on the 'she' page were from a Daisy D's cardstock sticker set that I got at Scrapwords. This is the sticker set I used : Sassy Girl

Oh, and if you buy this kit (or any other kit) this month, I will send you complete instructions for this project (including tips, lessons learned and photos) AND a word file template for the calendar pages!