Xmas Freebie

Merry Christmas, Everyone! I decided to make a little freebie for y'all.  (actually, I'm stalling on cleaning, baking and wrapping :)  It contains 8 papers, 14 elements, 2 frames, 1 wordart and 1 alpha with uppers, lowers and numbers. (assuming I counted correctly!) The shadows and glows are just for the preview. So, here ya go.

Download Part 1

Download Part 2

Download Part 3

Credits: 

Sam's Scraps & Designs - CU Christmas Mix II

Stuff to Scrap Nov 2010 CU Grab Bag

Gunhild Storheide

Free Fonts used: Pretty Baby and Antsy Pants

Holiday Season and New Layouts

WOW!  This holiday season is turning out to be CRAZY!  The month between Thanksgiving and Christmas is always a whirl, but this year is a whole new level of wild.  I once thought that those four small children that sometimes felt like 20 small children, would be less demanding when they were older.  You know what I mean, I was looking forward to the day when I could  tell one to wait just a moment while I handled one emergency at a time...and it might actually WORK?

Well, here we are at 18, 17, 14, and 13.  I love them more than I ever thought I could.  So much, sometimes I can't even contain it.  But they are certainly not any less time consuming or emotionally exhausting than those little demons screaming through my house!  And, NO, I wouldn't give them up for anything.  One of my grandfathers used to say of his five children that he wouldn't give you a nickel for another one and he wouldn't take a million dollars for one he already had.  I think that about sums it up!

So, here are the latest layouts.  I've been saving them up so I have a few.   I've been all over the board with the subject matter, so if ya don't like one try another!  I'm trying to clean up some leftovers that I just haven't gotten around to scrapping.

First up is one from our Wisconsin trip this year.  It's a remake of one I lost in the great HD crash.  I actually like this better than the original.  You know how something somebody says makes you giggle and then everyone just keeps saying it and cracking up?  Those are giggles and these are ours from the trip.  Every year we pick a theme song for the trip.  This year it was Miley Cyrus' Party in the USA. Give me a break, ok?  Too many teenage girls to fight that one!

Kit is from my Fish kit from the November DSO Color Challenge (see Nov. Link to DL)

Here's Miss McKenzie getting her braces in August.  She's gonna love those shots!

Kit is Grin and Bare It from Designing Divas over at Stuff to Scrap.

Then Halloween school party pictures, also of McKenzie.

Kit is 2010 October Build A Kit from DigiScrapbook Mania (not available anymore).

Next are a couple from last Christmas.  I did lose the original layouts for these pics, but I didn't remake them.  I just did a completely new layout, because I wasn't entirely happy with the last ones.  I think I posted them previously if you are so dedicated you want to look at them. :)

Also, my cutie pooh poochie, Swiffer.  What you can't see is that he's at the foot of our dining table that seats twelve and it's the only open chair!  He was quite indignant when he got booted, too.

Both done with ScrapManiacs White Christmas at DSM  and Freesia Scraps Rustic Christmas.  If you're interested, that big red bow is from Quand l'Hiver Arriver from LAU Designs here, it was a freebie and I don't think they're offering it anymore.

Whew! Finished!

Whee!! Moving right along...

to my next layout...I seem to be accomplishing a lot lately.  Soon I will run out of pictures again...what will I do?  Probably take a million more for Christmas, that's what!! :)

Here's my middle girls in their Homecoming Parades.  McKenzie for her youth football team and Morgan for her junior high school team.  We had to race from one to the next in order to see them both.  Who doesn't love two parades in one day???

Red paper and bow from ScrapManiac's White Christmas. (Purple is recolorized)

The rest is mine.

Another layout

This is of child number two with his date for Homecoming this September.  Aren't they precious?  I really love the enchanted paper in the background.  I got the papers and most of the ellies from Cajoline's Christmas and ScrapManiac's White Christmas.  The key is from Sky's the Limit designs November color challenge kit at Digiscrap Obsession and the pocket watch is Scrappin Cop's.  I think the rest is all me ;)  I definitely did the enchanted overlay and I love it so much I'm saving it to use in a kit later.  I also lifted this layout from Jenasis Designs.  I've included her original version below so you can check out it's awesomeness, too!!

 Jenasis Designs

Hard Drive Crash and Cheer Layout

Yes, you read it correctly.  Another hard drive crash! Only this time it was my external that I bought to protect my stuff after my laptop drive crashed.  So that's not so bad, right? I should be able to download a copy of everything from my laptop.  Well, that's what happens to normal people.  STUPID people don't have everything on both drives.

I had put everything I was burning to CD for permanent storage into a folder and was ready to burn them when I got distracted by, well...life and didn't burn it.  But, I DID delete the extra copy off my laptop to make more space.  Normally I wouldn't have done that till the CD's were done, but I was in a hurry and I didn't expect the drive to fail two days later.  Of course, who ever expects a drive failure?  Sigh.  So I lost all my scrap stuff again.  All my designing goodies and a lot of stuff I had just bought to use, too!  Also lost a bunch of layouts.  I was only distressed over a few of them, and I rebuilt them.  They aren't exactly the same, but they look pretty good.  So, live an learn, right?  I now subscribe to an online backup service that automatically syncs my files.  So there!  Gees, what is it with me and hard drives?  I must give off some kind of magnetic field that fries them or something.

Anyway, I'm back in business and here's my first layout for a while.  This is of McKenzie cheering at a couple football games.  I did this using the template for Jen Reed's November challenge.

Here's the template:

And here's the cutest little kit called Cherish that was that prize for playing in the challenge:

And here's my layout.  It's actually a double page so check 'em both out!

So, there ya go.  I hope to get something accomplished now that I've ironed out my hard drive issues!

Freebie Cluster Frame

Here's a cute little frame cluster I made to go with my Christmas kit, but the colors go with both if you want to use it with papers from the Fish kit.  The frames do have a slightly lifted effect that you can't see here because the shadow doesn't show on the black background.  Also, the 4shared preview doesn't show right, but the file downloads well.

Credits to:

Scrapping Cop for the ribbons.

Angelique for the Christmas cactus.

The rest is mine.

Download Here

Stuff to Scrap November 2010 Color Challenge: Revisted

Hello, everyone!  I did the kit below, and I like it, but it seems weird to do fish in November....so I did a Christmas kit with the same colors today.  I surely had something else I should have been doing, right? Just don't tell the Hub, he always thinks I spend too much time on the computer anyway. LoL.

Check it out, here's the preview.  Download links below the credits.

Thanks to the following for allowing use of their work:

Bekah E Designs

Gunhild Storeide

Roseytoes

Scrap Designs by Jessica

Scrappin Cop

At 4Shared: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4

At Mediafire: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4

Stuff to Scrap November 2010 Color Challenge

I love color challenges!! I've never done the one at Stuff to Scrap, but I had a couple free hours (ha ha) and thought I'd give it a shot...Here's the color swatch:

Interesting, right?  It makes me think of fish...which is weird for a November kit, but that's just how I roll.  Hee hee.  And here's the mini I created.  It doesn't have as many ellies as I usually do, but I only had a couple hours free, remember? LoL!  Hope ya like it.

Credits:

Bekah E Designs (Overlays)

Ohana Designs (Overlays)

Sprouting Seeds (Overlays)

Cajoline

Scrappin Cop

Click the download links below to DL from 4shared or Mediafire.  I'm hating on 4shared lately, so if anyone has any ideas on a place that's awesome, leave me a note.

Oh, and speaking of notes, remember folks, if ya wanna leave nasty comments, at least sign in.  Any anonymous nasties will be deleted and the writers summarily called cowardly.  Luv the rest of ya, though! :) As always, let me know if you have issues with the links, because we almost always do!

4Shared: Part 1 and Part 2

Mediafire: Part 1 and Part 2

McKenzie the Rebel Fairy

Okay, McKenzie the rebel anything...but here she's the rebel fairy...Luv ya, Mac ;)

Spooky Layouts

I've been really enjoying the Spooktacular over at DSM the last couple of days!  Here's a couple layouts I did for the challenges.  Make sure to check the last pic, it cracks me up!!

Spooktacular Recipe Challenge

 Kit: October Build-a-kit from DSM

Spooktacular Speed Scrap October 25

Kit: Ghouls Just Wanna Have Fun - Scrap maniac

And finally, we were supposed to "spook up" our avatars.  I thought this revealed my true form nicely.  At least that's what the Hub says.  ;)  Some of the avatars were fabulous! I can't get over how good some people are with photoshop.

LoL!! Ya know, the wings are a nuisance, but the horns are useful now and then. 

Green Acres--second edition

We've been really digging (ha, that's a pun!) around for information to decide what to do about the well.  As I said before, we're trying to decide whether to do a drilled or a bored well.   Our nearest neighbor, several acres to the west (are they neighbors if neither of us have built a house yet?) knows "a guy" at the  University of Illinois in an office that deals with local geological surveys and stuff.  So our neighbor, whom I will refer to as "Gifford" since that's from whence he's moving, called the geological guy and had him look at the water tables and do his mojo to see if he could tell us where the water can be found.  He said there's most definitely water and lots of it.  The problem is that we are a little higher and the land slopes pretty significantly (over a couple miles) toward the strip mine ponds in the Kickapoo area.  Since water wants to level itself out, it COULD be hiding low on our property to be in line with the water draining (read "being sucked") into the ponds.  He thinks the problem might be that people are just doing bored wells because the water is so deep.  If they don't drill deep enough to hit it, then they come up dry.  If this happened once or twice many years ago, people just start doing the bored wells.  Then when new builders come asking, it looks like there's no ground water.  Since you're paying by the foot for drilling, the bored wells are cheaper, too.

I'm sure you're all wondering the same thing that popped to my mind at this point.  How deep?  He says probably, maybe around 300 feet.  Whew.  That's a deep well.

So, do you drill, being fairly sure, there's water in them thar hills?  What if you come up dry at 300 feet?  Then you have to do a bored well anyway.  BUT, if you do hit, you have a better, safer well, that will be less susceptible to run-off and drought.  

The Hub, Gifford and Gillman (the neighbor to the east, who comes from, guess where?) have decided they should probably drill, but who gets to go first?  So, now we're all trying to wait out the others and let someone else be the guinea pig!  Ha.  

Small Pieces of You

I was cruising through town a few days ago playing my ipod with my new tune stick (WHY, oh why, didn't someone tell me about this gadget before? This thing is awesome! It's a tiny, little FM transmitter that sends my ipod music to my car radio so I can hear it through my speakers.  Cool, but even cooler is this one has no wires and it's made specially to fit my ipod and only makes it about an inch and a half longer.  Awesome! And I can take it in my bathroom and use it to play through the stereo in there when I take a nice, hot bath...Now, that's a good idea! See you guys later....J/K.)

I digress.  So, anyway, I was cruising through town listening to my ipod when Sara Groves' song A Small Piece of You played.  Oh, my goodness! I was in tears in about three seconds.  I've been thinking a lot lately about how grown up my babies are getting and Jordan will be leaving soon (probably with me hanging onto her legs and begging her to stay, but I'll try to be graceful about it.)

It made me think about using the song in a layout.  I had this sweet picture of her that I hadn't used yet that I thought would be perfect for it.  What do you think? Is the right side of the layout too plain?

Click image to see a larger view

Click arrow to hear Sara Groves sing Small Piece of You

Credits:

Joni Gray Designs

Greenfield Original Freebies

Kim B at DSO

Gunhild Storeide (File Tab and torn edges)

Scrappin Cop (Worn Sanded Overlay)

The swan I did myself...a swan in flight seemed perfect.

My Angel

I was stalking around my daughter's facebook and discovered some of her friends had tagged her in some really cute pictures.  (I have a terrible time gettting anything decent of her because she HIDES) Anyway, I lifted the pics off their profiles and scrapped this with a few of them.  I got these from Joey and Megan.  I have another really cute idea I'm planning to upload soon.  This one was scrapped using bits and pieces from the September Color Challenge at DSO.  I LOVE the stuff I get from that challenge...I'm always in awe of the great quality, creative stuff people who aren't designers, just regular scrappers, come up with!  AND, I'm very thankful they let me in on it!

Click image for larger view

Credits to: 

Sky's the Limit Scraps

Wendy Tunison

Freesia Scraps

Thanks, Ladies, you rock!!

Halloween Kit

I wanted to play around with some elements I've been collecting for a while.  I figure if I use them I can get them out of my way and stop searching around them all the time!  So here's the preview with download links below.  Have a good one!

Mediafire: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4

4Shared: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4

October 2010 DSO Color Challenge

Here I am back again for the October edition of Kim B's color challenge at DSO.  I got my part done a little earlier this month!  The color swatch this month made me think of my son's bedroom.  It's done in camouflage with touches of red, so I called this month's mini "Austin's Room."  I hope y'all like it and find something in it useful! Catch ya later.

Part 1 at 4shared

Part 2 at 4shared

Part 1 at Mediafire

Part 2 at Mediafire
I downloaded all the files and they work fine for me (which means nothing we discovered last month), so if you have any issues, email me and I'll fix it if I can ;)

Conference and Competition

For several weeks the Hub and I have been agonizing over a business trip to Orlando.  Neither of us wanted to go...well, that's not true.  I would love to go...fabulous hotel, great food, entertainment...these trips can be a lot of fun if you just ignore the kissing, er...schmoozing and have a good time together.  The last time we were in Orlando we had a wonderful time.  But this is really bad timing.  There's so much going on at home we really needed to stay home.  We finally registered and made arrangements for someone to stay with the kids, but it didn't feel right.  At the last minute we decided to stay home and cancelled all our plans. Then a "big shot" decided the Hub just HAD to be there (add some strong words and arm twisting).  So, in the end, He left this morning and I stayed behind.  He is driving 13 or so hours today and 4 or 5 tomorrow to get there by the noon registration and meet up with the others who flew out yesterday. Poor guy.  Well, I guess there's nothing for it.  It's just the way it is, I suppose.

Child number 4 began mandatory practices for cheer competition today.  The girls know their cheer and dance pretty well, they just have to clean up the little mistakes and get the timing down.  There are still two weeks left and they always shock me at competition.  It's amazing how they sparkle in front of a crowd, the little hams!

Life is good!  Catch y'all later.

September 2010 DSO Color Challenge

Wow, I'm really running late this month! I had the theme for my kit picked out as soon as I saw Kim's color swatch on September 1, it just took me until yesterday to start creating.  Too much life happening with the first month of school, I guess.  But, better late than never, right??  So here it is with download links.  Hope you enjoy it and find something you can use!  You can pick up everyone else's goodies at the DSO forum.  Kisses.

I call this kit "Oliver" because I used some images from the Oliver Winery in Southern Indiana.  I used to live near there and it's a lovely part of the country.  Download it on 4Shared ( One and Two) or on Mediafire (One and Two).  Please drop me a note if you have any problems downloading or issues with the files on my EMAIL.  (I hope I have it fixed now--I re-zipped and uploaded.  It seemed like it always does this time, so I assume it worked! It all works when I test it, but let me know if it still doesn't work!)

Green Acres

I have heard it jokingly said that building a house is the single largest cause of divorce.  I think I believe it!  Whew, this process is barely off the ground and the stress is outrageous!  As if committing to purchase a large parcel of land at auction wasn't stressful enough right out of the gate, the hits just keep coming.  Does anyone ever say, "Sure, we can do that.  No problem at all"?  Maybe they frown on that in contractor school.

HAY
So, we own a beautiful field of clover and alfalfa (scroll down for pics in my layout "The House that Love Built). We have a friend who bales it two or three times a year and trades us beef for the hay.  That's not the stressful part. Actually, that's pretty awesome.

SITE CHOICE
Anyway, we picked a site where we'd like to build our house. It's on the edge of a ravine so I can have an overhanging deck with a view of the floor of the woods and the canopy of trees.  That means the fall of the land is wrong and angles toward the house--bad for water run off.  There's good news and bad news about that. It's no sweat because we have to scoop out 700 or so feet of driveway down to eight inches to make a road base and we can use our own dirt to build it up.  Sweet.  Apart from the cost of filling that 700' X 8" with whatever it takes to make a decent road base, anyway.

POWER
Now the stress begins. We decided we need power, right? So we called the power company and the first thing the young lady answering calls said was that she already shows us with service.  Uh-oh, not the brightest bulb in the box. Yes, we already have service AT OUR CURRENT HOUSE.  We want to build a new one, that's why you heard "new building site."  Never mind that the bill goes to our post office box and not our physical address (which apparently is an unusual and confusing situation), that's how we want it, please DO NOT correct it!  Can we please talk about THE NEW HOUSE??  It turns out you can't get power until you have a 911 address.

GETTING AN ADDRESS
So we got a 911 address.  I'll spare you that laborious story, except to say this: If you want one, start early.  Someone has to get out from behind a desk and measure the distance (while walking it) from the nearest major cross street to your building site and then calculate what the address would be from that.  We now have an address with so many numbers and directions I can't remember it anyway and have to dig through my purse for the little paper I wrote it on.

POWER AGAIN
THEN we called the power company again and they were quite prompt in coming out and checking out our site the following Monday.  Unfortunately, they decided we needed to purchase something called a "pad transformer" for several thousand dollars.  I'm not sure why, but I DID understand that we (as the first builders in the area) would own the power coming through the transformer and everyone else building after us would purchase their power from us.  HUH?  Ummmm, NO, NO, NO.  I so do not want to be responsible for paying for ALL the power and then trying to get the money from everyone else.

Enter the Hub's best friend's dad, who is an electrician extraordinaire.  He said they always try to tell new builders this because it's better for them if you take on the $12-15,000 extra cost for the transformer.  After the power guy saw a guy who understands the hazards of country power, suddenly there will still need to be a pad transformer, but they own it and not us. (This disturbed the Hub, but I am female and have dealt with many men who think I don't know squat.)  Now we just have to decide if we want to have the power overhead or underground....Price tag? $10,000 or so to run it to the site. Oh, and that's just for access...that doesn't include hooking it up to anything.  That costs more.

WELL
Well, then we decided we'd better check out a well. What good is an address and power if there's no water, right?  OMS! (that's OH MY STARS!)  Water tables, nearest neighbor stories and three contractors later, we have a consensus.  You can't drill a well.  Oh, there's water.  Plenty of it, actually. It's just that the soil is very sandy (something about dead river bed, blah, blah, blah) and the sand comes in and fills up the well in a few years and you'd have to keep taking care of that issue.  We need a "bored" well...because they bore it out, and, yes, it took me a week to realize it wasn't made of boards. :)  It's not as good an idea, because it's shallower and susceptible to crop run-off and other stuff.  So we'd have to bring in drinking water.  But, we probably would have done that anyway.  We are considering, at this moment, drilling just for fun to see if we hit anything and, if not, doing the bored well.  It's less expensive if we hit (and a better well) and, if we don't, at least we know for sure, I guess.  Cost? $5-10,000.  Probably closer to ten if we do a bored well, which is more expensive anyway, which makes no sense to me if it isn't as desirable.  Go figure.

CONCLUSIONS
So, that's the scoop so far...and we haven't even broken ground yet.  The poor Hub is under so much stress worrying about the dang well, because that's the critical issue at the moment.  It's going to be $30-40 thousand before we even break ground. Who knew?....Weeellll, the Hub knew. He tried to warn me, but I'm a jump-in-the-water-looks-great kind of girl.  Problem is there's rocks under the surface of this pond!

Hopefully (hysterical laughter) things will go smoothly when we actually start the physical building.  I'll keep ya posted. ;)

Birthdays and Bittersweet Days

::Sigh::  My little girl had her first day of college this week.  She's adapting beautifully, as I knew she would, and I doubt college will cause her any more worry than high school did.  She's just awesome like that, she figures out what's necessary and just makes it happen. Her 18th birthday was yesterday and the day wasn't as joyful for me as it was for her.

After I got the kids off to school and the Hub left for work, I sat on the couch and I cried.  You know the kind, just weepy, sorry-for-yourself crying.  I was thinking about how many days in my mothering career had been like this...Days you look forward to and then, when they arrive, there's a tinge of sorrow that something is lost:  The future is exciting, but the past was precious and it's gone.  The first step, which was just the first one into the world and away from Mom.  The first day of Kindergarten, when she dismissed me with a sweet, "See you later, Mom." And I went in the hall and cried because she didn't.  The day she got on the bus and went to the same High School where I went and my father went before me. And I was so proud of her calm assurance and terrified of the years ahead, which turned out to be a breeze with her. (May they be as trouble-free for her siblings.) The day she got her driver's license, which I held off for months because I just wasn't ready to turn her loose on the world. That night she didn't just walk away from me, she flew. And I prayed every time she left the house, and twice if someone else was driving.  Prom, when she looked so beautiful I could hardly believe she was trusted to me. And I could barely breathe as I watched that boy help her tuck her dress into the car so they could close the door.  Graduation, when I could hardly contain how pleased and proud I was of her, and I knew that my days with her were numbered.  She will leave soon, and she won't be calling to tell me when she's coming home.

And, yesterday, her 18th Birthday. 18. I can't believe it when I hear it, it sounds so foreign.  It was just a few days ago that I held that colicky, screaming baby and bawled because it was going to be FIVE YEARS before she went to school, and in a blink I was watching her get on the school bus.  I keep thinking about all the games I was too busy to play and how much I would like to be able to kiss those chubby baby fingers clutching a bouquet of weedy flowers for me one more time.

 I looked at her best friends and her boyfriend standing around the table and what a great group they are! Good, sweet, smart kids.  Positive and going places.  I watched as they saved cake for the one who had to work and the one who has gone far enough away to college that she couldn't be here to blow out candles.

I love them all. I've watched them all grow up.  I'm proud of every one of them and so grateful to them for taking care of my baby, because we all know our high school friends nurture us a lot like a second family. They're a pretty awesome group.

So, I guess I have a few bittersweet days with her to get through yet: another graduation, the day she moves away from home, the day she marries, the day she gives me a grandchild.  Then I can start over with a new little life.  May I do a better job as Grammy than I have as Mommy.

August 2010 DSO Color Challenge

I LOVE the colors for this month's challenge...so fresh and crisp. They make me think of summer.  Here's the preview for my kit with the download link beneath. Enjoy!
See the rest of the fantastic entries at DSO.

4shared:     Part1     Part2     Part3     Part4

MediaFire:     Part1     Part2      Part3     Part4

See the rest of the fantastic entries at DSO.

Ice Cream and New Bikes

Today was a typical Sunday. For some reason, Sunday is always a free-for-all at my house.  We got up late for church, which actually isn't so unusual, but we had a friend staying all night so I had to get creative in my hurry up incentives instead of just relying on screaming like I usually do, LoL.

After church we usually go to lunch, and today the hub decided he'd like to eat at a very nice local Mexican restaurant, so that's where we went.  Anyone who eats out with me very often knows I tend to have one dish in every restaurant that I order every time I'm there. Consequently, I hate it when they change their menu. (I'm stilled really ticked off that Red Lobster removed Aztec Chicken from their menu and won't go in there. That'll show 'em.) I don't know what made me decide to alter from my nice safe choice of #28, but I chose to live dangerously and forge a new culinary path today. Since I ate three pieces of coffee cake in Sunday School (gasp), I thought I would have a salad and eat a little lighter, so I ordered a taco salad.  Wow. It came out and it had taco meat and beans in the bottom swimming in melted cheese, sour cream and guacamole, steamy hot and topped with a handful of lettuce. Needless to say, it was NOT what I expected. I picked through and ate the lettuce and the pastry bowl (which was awesome, I should say) and a little of the meat and beans.  I have paid for it all day, too! It just goes to show ya that ordering the safe stuff you're familiar with is the best course of action!

Then I took a nap (love me a Sunday afternoon nap!) It's just a good way to start the week :) Unfortunately, my family is making choices while I'm sleeping.  So when I woke up, I found out that my 12-year-old had another friend spending the night tonight, even though she has a sports physical scheduled for 8 a.m.  Also, every one has decided they want to attend the church ice cream social (!) tonight, but maybe we won't get ice cream there. We'll stop and get ice cream at our fav place and then go socialize a bit. Well, you know what happened. Ice cream TWICE. Now, I love ice cream, it's like my favorite food ever. So I'm not really complaining about that. :)

Good thing I had me a nap, because I need the extra energy to digest all these calories! Sheesh.

Right now, the girls are out riding bikes, so I have a little peace. Child four got a new bike yesterday, which totally goes against what I told her. I told her we weren't buying her a new bike because she didn't take care of the old one and left it lay in the yard so much it practically rusted to the sidewalk. She hasn't complained, even though she's way outgrown this one, until last week when the chain popped off (for the third time) and locked up the gears and she flew off and boogered up her knee pretty good. It was the first day of cheer leading practice, too! She knelt in the grass like a trooper at practice, though. So, she got a new bike. I guess eventually she had to get a new one anyway.

So, finally, here's my layout of our cabin in Wisconsin. I took these in June while we were there with the family. It was just before sunset ( I LOVE that time for pics) and I took some shots, went down to the dock for a few minutes, then took some more. It was cool to see the change in lighting just maybe two minutes made. The first pictures were good, but the second set was awesome. The light was golden and the greens of the trees and grass were really popping. Gotta love that "magic minute!"

Layout for Digiscrapbook Mania's July 2010 Template Challenge

Template by Miss Mis Designs

Kit: The Great Outdoors blog train.

Is it still an air conditioner if it doesn't condition air?

I think it should be demoted to "Potted Plant Pedestal".  "Twisted Mass of Wrecked Metal" also comes to mind.  But, then again, I might just be cranky from the humidity, too. ::sigh::

So, we're having another repair service out to poke around.  The last one said it isn't the a/c, it's the electrical. Hmmm, then what's all that white, frosty, foamy stuff on the piping out there? Fairy spit? I figure it should take approximately three weeks to get them out here. I know this because it's going to be the hottest day we've had so far this year with temps above 100 degrees and it's not even August yet. Which means everyone and their brother will need a/c repair. ::sigh::

So, I'll just upload my layout for today and try to nap before it gets hot. Then my boy Swiffer and I will find somewhere to hide this afternoon...assuming the a/c doesn't have mercy and start working.

Here's my baby girl at her graduation.

Kit: Days Gone By from Jensen Motley Crew Designs

Clock from Beautiful Bike Ride by Deatles for KimB's July 2010 Color Challenge.

The polka dot frame and I Love You charm are from Blissful by Jensen Motley Crew Designs, also.

Leaving a Legacy

I love the Leaving a Legacy challenges at Digi Scrapbook Mania. I'm working through them and creating a book of really important memories about who I am.  This month we were to journal about some event that has changed our lives. I thought about my husband and giving birth, but I do layouts about those things all the time. I couldn't decide between two events so I did them both. When I look them over I noticed a couple things I almost went back and changed, but I decided to leave it alone...You know, I was emotional when I did them and I want them to stay that way. Sometimes I work things until they're bland.

First is "In God's Hands." It's about an accident I had. In that moment when I knew what was coming I was helpless and alone and not scared at all. There was nothing but me and Jesus in that van.

In God's Hands

There are no credits for this one. Just a pic I googled and texturized. I could not find an artist.

Tea Party with Jesus

Time is now divided into before Zoey and after Zoey.

Kits: Sweet Cream and Neoplitan by Ivy's Inspirations, Ribbons, tea set, cupcake, etc. are mine.

Painting is by Greg Olsen and I photo shopped Zoey in.

Fairies

Papers: Summer Sunshine by Jenni Bean Designs

Moon: Baroque by Juicy Scrap

Galaxy Pic used as an overlay from NASA

Fairy: clipart used as photo mask

Photomask: Maske2 by Dani3

Star Glitter recolored from DSM's July 2010 Build a Kit.

Font: Vtks Beautiful Dreams

New Property

Today is the day of discontented children.  Child one is unhappy because she foraged for food on her own and then we ordered pizza. "Someone coulda told me," she said. Child two returned to his job as camp counselor today to discover that he left his pillow at home, because it has a camouflage cover and it was next to our loden couch. Child four is unhappy because we wouldn't allow her to begin a movie at 10:15 p.m...especially since her chosen movie is the interminably long "My Fair Lady." Child three is the only one without a gripe at this point. Give it a few minutes, I'm sure it's coming!

I have two layouts today. Both were taken at our new property where we will be building a house soon. First is Child four, who is twelve, with Swiffer.

Kit is Forest Discoveries from Tiggcon's Scrap Designs with a few pink pieces thrown in from 

Summer Daisy by Mel Haines.

The second is of the property (and Swiffer, of course).

Kit is the July 2010 Build a Kit from Digiscrapbook Mania.

Sinuses Strike Back

This morning when I opened my eyes, I knew I had one of those headaches that was going to stick around all day. I tried all my little remedies and nothing even touched it. My sinuses have been really acting up. I know it's probably something in the air, but I'm not sure what.

Then my son comes in and says he thinks he has a sinus infection. His face hurts, his chest is congested, his ears ache and he's running a low fever. Whoops. So I spent the morning at the walk-in clinic (since he has to be back at camp tomorrow morning, I need to get some antibiotics in this kid!) Yup, the doctor says his ears are full, and the glands in his neck are swollen. Sure glad he didn't wait until tomorrow to be sick!

I finished a layout of Child three and Child four (otherwise known as Morgan and McKenzie) on Easter morning before church. It was a beautiful day, but church is early and it was a little chilly outside for the pics.

Kit is from the July 2010 Blog Train Blog "Picnic in the Park". 

Thanks to: Angel Hartline, Bon Scrapatit Designs, Chaos Lounge, Charm City Scraps, Designs by Angel, Digilover's Addiction, MandyMade DigiBits, and Victoria Feemster

Water Parks and Mountain Lions

We enjoyed the day at the water park so much last week, we decided to go again today.  The girls brought a friend and we had a lot of fun. Then we stuffed ourselves with WAY too much ice cream and could barely stay awake for the drive home!  And to kick it off, when I got home, Child number one had washed my van and cleaned its carpets (and, yes, I mean CLEANED the carpets. Like, with soap and water.) Wow. All in all it was an awesome day!

The layout I did today is of my Shih-tzu Swiffer. He's a real cutie and most of the time I just want to squeeze his stuffings out. For little dogs, Shih-tzu have HUGE personalities. He is demanding and spoiled and adores me. Which is pretty much perfect,as far as I'm concerned!

Last week, I was walking him outside my sister-in-law's house and we were minding our own business on the sidewalk when all of a sudden this monster ball of fluff comes spitting and growling off someone's porch and jumps on poor Swiff. I swear I thought it was a mountain lion! (Well, not really, but I was pretty startled.) Swiffer, of course, started screaming like a little girl and ran AWAY from me. I grabbed hold of the retractable leash to try and stop him so I could pick him up and ZIP, the line ran through my fingers and made a nice deep track of burned flesh across the insides of the fleshy part of all my fingers.

About this time, Swiffer apparently had run out from in front of the cat's yard and the cat started to come back. So what does my genius pooch do? He stops, turns around and tries to sniff the cats posterior as it saunters away. That cat flipped around and jumped on him again! By then I was caught up to them and grabbed him up in my arms...at which point the cat started to circle around, staring at Swiffer the whole time! He ran at me and I booted that evil sucker right up in his yard! The whole thing took about 30 seconds.

Okay, I have a cat at home, too. She's 13 and I love her. AND I certainly tried not to do any real damage to that demon. I just wanted to encourage him to cease disturbing my peace! Needless to say, we walked the other way every time after that.  I checked Swiff over and not a scratch, which I found really hard to believe since that cat was riding on him.  I still can hardly close my fingers a week later. I probably should have gotten stitches, but at the time, I didn't think they were that bad since it didn't bleed at all. I think heat from the zipping line must have cauterized it or something.  My life is crazy!

And here's my boy:

Kit is Boyz Rulez from Charlies Digiscraps and the template is from Modern June.

July 2010 Color Challenge

Here ya go...I don't usually name these mini's, but here's "Flower Market."  It was kinda hard not to name it that with the big black words in the middle of the preview! :) I was really going for a soft vintage chic more than flowers. Anyway, the download links are below the preview. Enjoy! And don't forget to check out the rest of the great mini's and layouts in the challenge at DSO.

Download Part 1
Download Part 2

Ever wonder what motivates you?

I do. I mean, I haven't been very interested in scrapping for several months. I guess I got all caught up on my photos and just lost interest. I always thought if I could just catch up, then I could do all those layouts I wanted to get around to...those great nature photos, old heritage photos, maybe redo some I'm not ecstatic about...you know.  But when the time came, I was just not motivated.

Then, a few days ago, I just decided to start messing around and designed a kit for Kim B's color challenge at DSO and I've been taking off ever since....weird. I wish I could figure out what lit a fire under me....I'd like to be able to duplicate it again.

and again, and again, and again....

Well, today I did a layout of my eldest daughter (previously referred to as "Child One") It's been nice having a few more pictures of her, because usually I get shots of her hands in front of her face.  These shots were taken when we had to get a pic of her to use for school. I took about a million or so and these were some of her "out takes." (She's going to want to strangle me, so keep it down, okay?)

Thanks to Greenfield Original, Bekah E. Designs, Fanfan-Rue des Anges, Joni Gray Designs, And Deatles for the stuff they shared in Kim B's June 2010 Color Challenge at DSO.  And thanks to Elegant WordArt by Bethany for the word art. 

I love me some freebies!

Morgan's Cheer Pics from this year

I didn't have access to Morgan's cheer pictures for this season (another story and not worth repeating, so don't ask). I accidentally got ONE poor digital copy of her pic and I photoshopped it into some sort of useful condition and altered the saturation for this.  I think it came out very nice...considering. :)

Kit is a freebie by Flergalicious

Boy Scout camp & a layout of Jordan and Swiffer

The boy has some time off this evening from his job as staff at the local boy scout camp. He's been working four weeks now and has about five to go.  Monday nights he has a couple hours free and we're planning on picking him up and taking him out for dinner.  I'm really excited about seeing him because he had kind of a rough week last week and the rest of the family was out of town this weekend so I didn't get to see him when he was home for his day off.  I really missed being there, but I'm so proud of him for sticking it out when it was difficult. I think he's pretty proud of it, too, and pleased with the way the situation has worked out so far. He says he'd like to have Steak n Shake for dinner and that sounds great to me. Anyway, I really can't wait to get my arms around him, even though I'm sure he'll be telling me I'm embarrassing his 16 y/o self!

This is a layout of some pics of Jordan and Swiffer. She's so cute with him. She treats him like a little brother...he bugs her sometimes and sometimes she can't stand not to squeeze him. When I get up in the morning and let the dog out of the bedroom he runs right down to Jordan and wants his morning rub. He sits outside her bedroom or the bathroom door and waits for her to come out and snuggle him. If I say, "Where's Sissy," he knows who I mean and looks toward where he knows she is.  Swiffer luvs Jordan.

Kit is Summer Daisy by Mel Hains

My latest two layouts and travelling news

The hub and the two youngest girls and I traveled to Indianapolis today. I was so busy with crazy last minute problems I could barely get packed.  Child three had a phone that mysteriously stopped functioning and I spent at least an hour fiddling with it and holding for a customer service rep. Child two is at camp and somehow the screen on HIS phone got wet and he can't see to read my text messages. (or his girlfriend's which seems to be the bigger issue.) Child four spent the day swimming with a friend and was, consequently, not packed. At the last moment she thought of her mp3 player, but, somehow, a toothbrush and underwear were not a concern. At any rate, we got here and whatever didn't make it is stuck at home.

Tomorrow we are spending the day at a water park and the evening at a baseball game. It should be a whirlwind day!

I haven't posted any layouts in a long time. Here are the two latest one's I have done.      

This is Child number one.  This is a mini kit I created (see earlier post) with some odds and ends from other kits from DSO's January 2010 color challenge.

                                                                                                                              

Also Child number one with her best friends before prom.  This template is from Modern June.

June 2010 Color Challenge

Well, here's my kit for Kim's Color Challenge at DSO. These colors were a real challenge for me.  I was just going to use the blues and do a "stormy sea" idea, but it was flat. So I worked in some of the peachy color, too. I hope y'all enjoy it!

I gotta give credit to The Scrappin Cop (as always), Katussia (KTS) at Just a Dream and Sprouting Seeds. And a whole lotta other peeps I download from all the time and just didn't use in this particular endeavor. Thanks to all for sharing!

Download Elements

Download Papers

I'm caught up!!

It's official! Today I felt like doing some scrapping and I looked in my "undone" pics file and there wasn't anything in there that I haven't used already.  So I went to my external hard drive and dug through my back file and...could it be? I'm caught up! The only projects I have left to do are my "old" family photos from my genealogy file and to scan my paper photos from before I had a digital camera.  I scrapped them the "old fashioned" way, but I'm not really happy with that anymore.  I'll have to think about whether I'll just scan the layouts I really like or re-scrap them in digital.

Anyway, here's the layout I did today of my mom and my oldest sister.

January DSO Color Challenge

I was poking around in a drawer today and I found two pictures of my husband and his father and grandfather.  I don't know where I got them, I don't even remember having them before.  But he looks so precious and young!  This is the layout I made with them.  I'm happy with it as far as it goes, but it needs more and I'm frazzled from trying this and that and being unhappy with everything! So I am giving in and declaring it finished...at least until I figure out what I want to do with it ;)

Mains Generations

And here is my offering for the color challenge.  I hope you like it.  Props to Angelique and The Scrappin Cop for allowing use of their work! Thanks for sharing!!

Click here to download