Radiant you

Ahhh, is it Wednesday already?  This was a long weekend here with Monday being "Family Day."  Really, it is just an excuse to stick a holiday weekend into the middle of winter and I am not going to line up to complain.  My husband took the kids to see my MIL for the day and I stayed back to do some editing for the retreat talks I am preparing for this weekend, had a wonderful lunch out with a friend, and enjoyed some quiet moments in the house.  Now I'm all mixed up as to what day it is!

I am very much looking forward to having some more time to scrapbook and catch up on other things around here after the retreat is over.  Don't get me wrong, I am totally looking forward to the opportunity, but big events like this are hurdles in my thinking, I really haven't seeen past Feb. 27.  My oldest daughter is happy as she says I will have more time to clean the house.  Do you think that's a hint??

Speaking of my daughter, here is a layout I recently completed.  I love these photos snapped of her at the beach.  She seems to be skipping the "ugly duckling" phase and carries herself with a lot of grace.  She's a great helper to me and I enjoy having her around.  I used a whole bunch of Making Memories product on this page.  The layers are straight, my photograph is just on a bit of an angle:

I have a meeting later this morning and the girls have music lessons this afternoon.  What are you up to today?  Whatever it is, have a great rest of your day.

{head of her class}

This layout didn't photograph as well as I would have liked but I wanted to post it anyway.  This is my middle daughter, third child, working away at her schooling.  The papers are Scenic Route, the card stock Stampin' Up, and the journaling sticker is Daisy D's.  I am not always thrilled about homeschooling (hmmm, did I say that out loud?) but the benefits continue to outweigh our other options.  I do find joy in spending my days with my children, I've got a pretty good group of people here!

I am pretty happy that it is Friday.  This week has kind of kicked my butt.  I have hit a couple of snags in preparing for my speaking gig next weekend that will hopefully be resolved soon.  I had the funniest dream on Sunday night.  I was starting my first of three one-hour sessions and had my notes very well prepared.  I got up to the front of this auditorium and I started my session on how to properly make a bed.  I was very passionate about hospital corners and smoothing the sheets.  Just think, three hours of that!  I had to laugh that my mind doesn't even really relax when I sleep right now!

My two oldest were supposed to go skiing/snowboarding today but it is way too cold for that and their event has been postponed.  It is a long weekend here and I am looking forward to holing up inside, working at my computer, and getting some time to play with my pretty paper.  I'm working on a big photo order at ScrapbookPictures that I hope to get out today.

What are your weekend plans?

Loves of my Life

I have to admit to not being much of a Valentines person.  It's not that I don't like the reminder to tell those I love how much I appreciate them, it's just all the romantic pressure!  Our days don't allow for these great romantic diversions of dinners out, warm vacations, long walks on the beach....Okay, now I'm being silly.  What I desire is cultivate a life that doesn't need a particular day to celebrate love.  I want everything I do for my husband, my family, to come from a heart of love.  One day is just not enough of a focus.

That said, I do have little cards and treats for my five loves.  Right now my four children are sitting at the table doing their schoolwork lamenting the fact that Valentines Day doesn't count as a holiday from homeschooling.  I teach music lessons this afternoon and my husband leaves about ten minutes after my last lesson for a class he coordinates every Monday night.  I'll see him for roughly 9 minutes today.  Better make it count!

This layout is not exactly Valentines-ish.  I came across a LOT of older photos and wanted to use these of the birth of my first daughter, Olivia.  I saw this neat phrase for a title in an old magazine and used a sketch.  The cardstock is Stampin' Up, the patterned paper is Basic Grey, letter stickers are Scenic Route and American Crafts, the flower is cut out with my Big Shot, and the brad is Stampin' Up.  Look at these young people thinkin' they can have another baby!

Have a great Monday!  Any special plans for today/tonight?

Party Faces

Yay, it's Saturday!  Haven't accomplished a lot today but I did get up, made coffee, ate a croissant, and started some more laundry.  We have a few soccer games this afternoon and then our girls are going over to spend time baking with a friend of mine.  I had really hoped to do some scrapbooking last night but ended up going to Costco with my husband and a couple of our girls.  Costco is totally the $300 store.  Doesn't seem to matter what combination of things we buy or how few things are actually on our list, we usually end up spending around $300.  We stopped for ice cream before we started shopping, that was the bribe to get me to come along.  Obviously, it worked.  When we got home and got everything put away and kids to bed I was too tired to sit at my scrap table so I worked on a knitting project while we watched a bit of TV.

This is a recent layout using, again, Scenic Route.  I used a sketch from Sketch Support and I really like how the mix of papers worked and how quickly this came together.  I cut the stars out of one of the patterned papers and popped a couple of them up on dimensional adhesive.  My kids haven't been into face paint for a number of years but I remember this day very clearly.

Here's to a great Saturday! 

Stuck

It's still may be a bit early to tell but you just might be stuck with me.  A few minutes ago I took a bunch of photos of recent layouts and I am enjoying your sweet comments on my blog so much that I just might stick around!  It feels different this time around.  I'm not doing this to impress anybody or get noticed or to promote any kind of agenda.  This is me, take it or leave it, and I am enjoying blogging.  This is probably the way it should be.

I recently enrolled in a self-paced class over at Big Picture Scrapbooking, Cathy Zielske's Design Your Life.  I am interested in the "whys" and "hows" of design and am so looking forward to these projects.  My first layout for the class uses product from many different manufacturers.  I've got some more Scenic Route (see, I really am using it), Pink Paislee, Making Memories, Tim Holtz, American Crafts, Sassafrass, and a few others that I can't remember.  I am enjoying shopping my stash.

I'm not only about using stuff that I have, I just need to stop "saving" some of the "good" stuff that I've kept for just the right project (and instead it just waits unused).  I recently ordered Cosmo Cricket's 1934 and a few sheets of Basic Grey Wander for working with our Disney and California photos from last year.  I will be needing to keep up my supply of Kraft cardstock (really loving the kraft) and adhesive and all that stuff.  Oh, and I think I might have a new problem with border punches.

It's the weekend!  My husband has today off and we don't have heavy plans for the weekend.  The sun is shining and the temperature is supposed to hover around the freezing mark for the next several days.  I had a quick appointment this morning and came home and told Gary that I feel like going away.  Well, with the money we've spent on renovating two bathrooms in the last 11 months, unless I can ride that fancy toilet somewhere, we're staying put.  I have some editing to do for the retreat I'm speaking at and piles of laundry calling my name.  Other than that, I'll be spending time at home crafting and enjoying a laid-back few days.  Anyone else have big plans for the weekend, crafting or otherwise?

Have a fabulous Friday!

Happy Wednesday!

Wednesdays are indeed happy days around here.  Halfway through the week, music lessons in the afternoon (followed by some sort of shopping or treat), and the kids are occupied with Faithbuilders (a mid-week kids' club at church) and Jr. High Youth (yes, I have two of these in my household!).  Wednesday evenings Gary and I often linger at the table over coffee enjoying a quieter house while the kids are out and then we usually pursue some sort of project interrupted only by needing to go and drive the family taxi for pick up.  The sun is shining today and I feel a certain delight when this happens at the same time as my kitchen counter is cleared off and wiped.  Plus I'm wearing my favourite socks.  Simple things make me happy.

This is a layout I completed in the first few days of January.  I am finally starting to dive into my precious stack of Scenic Route papers, I also used some Thickers, a circle punch, and a border punch on this page.  I used a sketch but, for the life of me, can't remember which one as my worktable has been piled high with sketches as I've tried to organize my space.

Have a great Wednesday!

Out of Control

I know I'm not the world's most consistent blogger but I'm hoping to get back into it a bit in 2011.  After a busy Christmas hosting my husband's family (29 of us on Christmas Day and the turkey that made all the other cry) and a realization that this winter thing is going on for a while, I've enjoyed retreating to my scrapbook studio and working on layouts and cards.  I plan to share many of them in the days to come but today is all about the mail.

Two Peas in a Bucket is among the best scrapbook message boards and resources out there and I started hanging out around there in the fall when I started to feel my urge to scrapbook return after a long hiatus.  I enjoyed being on a design team for about a year and a half but really lost my desire to create after I resigned.  Something about working with deadlines really didn't appeal to me.  We were in the middle of a big renovation of our basement and I didn't feel like hauling stuff out and putting it away again so I was mostly creating the odd card out of necessity and otherwise not spending any time at home scrapbooking.  I needed to rediscover the fun of it, what drew me to the craft to begin with.

One of my new favourite things to do is to look at the daily blog links posted on Two Peas.  I have especially enjoyed this lady's blog:  Hilde's blog.  Love her style and projects, just consistently great stuff.  A few weeks into posting she was doing a giveaway on her site.  I was in the habit of posting anyway, made a comment on her project, and didn't think much about it until she contacted me to say that I had won.  I was thrilled but that pales in comparison to how I felt after I received this package yesterday.

Can you believe how generous she is?  She designs for all these companies and I am so excited to play with this new stash!  The second photo is the stack of patterned paper alone.  And you do know I love me some paper!  She is seriously out of control but I am very grateful to be the recipient.

I've been working hard at another project as well.  I'm going to be the speaker at our upcoming church women's retreat.  I have a good amount of holy fear, I'd say.  There are going to be close to 150 women there!  I am writing and editing and writing some more and it has been a neat process with very specific answers to prayer along the way. 

Have a great day!