Follow your bliss

Check it out! Another layout and another blog post. I feel like I'm on a roll here. I better slow down so I don't hurt myself.

I don't think there is a new piece on here. Oh, maybe the washi tape but the rest of it is old, old, old.

Have a great day. Maybe I'll post again tomorrow.

so here it is

I have decided that the layout passed the "overnight test". I don't like the way the stamping turned out, but if I ripped apart every layout over one little thing, I'd never get anything done.

This picture of Blake is from March. Wow!

This is mostly made from Crate and Lily Bee.

Thanks for looking.

Dried up

One of my therapists suggested I try to get back into scrapbooking.

He also suggested I get some exercise in to help handle my stress. I've been running for over four months. It's helped some. Some days are better than others. Some days I just walk.

So, I have this whole room of paper, adhesive, stamps, ink and my latest addition of rolls and rolls washi tape. I can't say I've done a lot of scrapbooking but I'm back sitting in my room instead of watching TV in the bedroom.

I dug out some supplies. Unfortunately, most of my ink pads have dried up. My glue is gone, too. I did manage to put together a couple of pages.

I was getting lazy here and didn't even bother to scan this one properly. I just stuck it up under my Ottlite and snapped a picture.

Tonight I made a page about Blake. I have to look at it for 24 hours before I decide I like it. Maybe tomorrow I'll post it.

out for now

This snake and mouse stuff is just not working out

You saw the previous pictures, right? We kept the mouse, named her Snowflake and then four days later Snowflake gives birth to 7 babies.

She's a good mama. She didn't eat one baby. Kat is of course, THRILLED beyond words. I have claimed them as my new grandbabies.

Here they are from yesterday. They have their fur and their ears are up. They still haven't opened their eyes yet:

Sometimes they're like this when I come in to feed Snowflake. As soon as she hears food hit the bowl, she gets up and walks towards the bowl. The babies hang on trying to nurse as she drags them across the cage before they give up and fall off one by one. It's the funniest looking thing.

So, as my title suggests, this snake and mouse thing is just not working out.

Meet Mr. Chubbers:

Casey got this mouse on Friday and brought it over for the snake. Both of us were saying how hard it would be because he is soooo cute!! He's white with brown spots and black eyes. He is certainly much more handsome then the white mice with pink eyes.

Before we left to Trent's school carnival, I dropped the mouse (Mr. Chubbers) into the snake tank. I didn't want to watch, I didn't want to think about it. I just wanted it over with. We were purposely getting male mice because we didn't want to deal with mouse babies again.

I was so relieved when we came home from the carnival (several hours later) and there was no mouse to be found. Whew! The snake ate it and I could go on with my weekend.

We were home all weekend long.

This morning I hear Kat say, "MOM! I see the mouse!!" I thought she meant Snowflake so I got up out of bed and ran out to the kitchen. However, she was standing next to the snake tank. I don't know how to explain the look on Kat's face as she pointed at the tank. It was a mix of being stunned, shock and horror.  I looked under the log and there was Mr. Chubbers. He was covered in the ground up coconut shells we use for the snake's floor. He was desperately trying to clean himself off.

Somehow, he managed to live 2.5 days with a snake. Not one of us saw him all weekend long. I took him out and gave him some food and water. He looked like Mr. Skinny now.

Casey said she would keep him and make him a pet.

I'm so glad I've had this trial run with the snake. I love snakes and thought I wanted one for a pet. The problem is I get too attached to the mice. If they survive in the tank with the snake I somehow feel that they deserve to live. They're little fighters. 

Special Snowflake

All of have that Special Snowflake in our lives, don't we?

From this:

to this in less than 24 hours:

We have a snake.
The snake doesn't eat the mouse.
Someone (see picture above) names the mouse.
Now we have a pet mouse.

The luckiest mouse in the world. Kat loves Special Snowflake. She tells me every 60 seconds what the mouse is now doing...

Mom, Snowflake built a tunnel under her wheel...
Mom, Snowflake is eating a sunflower seed....
Mom, Snowflake is in her wheel, no now she's out...
Mom, Snowflake is eating her bedding...

The luckiest mouse in the world.

I can make anything out of paper

but I cannot frost and decorate a cake. I don't know what my dealio is. Here is the cake I made for my mom:

It shouldn't have to be that hard, right?

Do you remember the cake fiasco I had from a couple years ago? Click here

I don't want to keep practicing because someone has to eat the cake and of course it will end up being me. Usually in the middle of the night when everyone is sleeping.

So, while you're thinking about that, here's a layout I completed. I have had the hardest time functioning like a normal person since I no longer get to see my grandson. I haven't completed a layout in almost two months just because I don't feel like it. I don't feel like doing much of anything.

I have taken up running and that has helped. I'm hoping that when the kids start school again (which is next week) that I'll get into some sort of regular schedule and will set aside time to create pages again. We'll see...

The background paper is from Michael's. I think it's actually American Crafts under their Recollections brand name. The background piece is leftover tag packaging from Daisy D's.

Thanks for looking and thanks for your nice comments.

Blake pages

I actually got a little scrapping done this weekend. I have two layouts but one of them is a month old or so. I just got around to scanning it.

  I love Lily Bee .Love it!! This is all from Double Dutch. There are also a few pieces of older Sassafras chipboard pieces.

This one is BasicGrey PB and J plus a few older embellishments from Daisy D's. I added an old sewing pattern to the background with some gesso.

Thanks for looking and thanks for your comments. :D

The kids and I are heading to the cheap movies this afternoon. While I love the low cost of the movies, I can't stand how dirty the theater is. I feel like I should bring a beach towel to spread out on the chair before I sit down. It's important to get there early while the lights are still on to make sure your seat doesn't have gum on it.

Have a great day!

Stripes

Several weeks ago I signed the kids up for Karate. Kat was really into it and had been asking for months to take lessons. Trent wasn't really interested because he "didn't want to kick his friends".

Ok.

Kat was afraid of robbers and thought for sure that taking Karate lessons would help relieve her anxiety. She had started doing yoga a few weeks before to help prepare herself for lessons. I'm not sure where she made the yoga/karate connection but I wasn't going to say anything.

When I went to the class to inquire about lessons, I was told they would get a little introductory type lesson and we'd go from there. So we went and Trent decided he loved it. We signed them both up and started lessons.

4 times a week.


They were both warned to be careful at home and not hurt each other. As you can imagine, this warning lasted until we got out of the car and into the garage. They were all over each other. I can't tell you how many times one of them has come crying to me saying, "Mom!! Kat/Trent kicked me!!" and when I ask the other what happened, I always hear "I was practicing Karate and I didn't mean to really kick him/her." After 4 weeks, I don't even bother asking what happened because I know what the answer is. It's really boring here during the day and Karate lessons are in the evening, so in other words, they get a lot of "practice" time in.  Last week Kat had a bruise on her forehead. I didn't ask about it because I knew where it probably came from -  practicing "moves" on each other.


2 weeks or so in, they start earning stripes. First they both got a white one and then the next week Trent got both a red and blue and Kat only got a red.

She was devastated and she cried when we got home.

It didn't help that her brother, who wasn't really into Karate to begin with and still doesn't know how to tie his belt, kinda rubbed it in after we got home.

But, since we go 4 times a week (*sigh*) it was just the next lesson when Katrina got her blue stripe. I wish I had a picture of her smile. It was bigger than the day we told her she didn't have to take swimming lessons anymore.

When we got home, both asked me to take their picture. They even said that I could put it on Facebook which is amazing because I have to pinky swear a LOT not to put certain pictures on Facebook.

So, here they are after Kat earned her blue stripe and they are both "even". Don't let their smiles deceive you.  Go ahead and wrap your arms around one of them. They practice all day on each other.

They will kill you.

Sunshine

I bought a new printer and boy that sucker is HUGE! It's a Canon wide format printer and I swear it's the size of two normal printers side by side.

I printed off my first picture and so excited to see that it print exactly the same way it looked on the screen.

I had no choice but to scrapbook it.

I wanted to use my new Simple Storiescollection. I love their papers! They're so easy to use but it looks like you spent an hour putting it together.

First Day Last Day 2012

Ok, I do this every year. Which is the first day of school and which is the last day of school?

Paint

I've really missed adding paint to my pages. A year ago or so, I had to throw out my Making Memories paints. All of them were dried out and unusable.

Recently, I picked up a few Martha Stewart paints from Michael's. I think I like them even more than the Making Memories paints! They're thick and smooth and easy to apply. I've also been experimenting with other mediums. The first layout below has "glass beads". You can mix it with the paint and it gives a really cool texture.

The last couple of layouts I've made have some paint on them:

 Papers are  Lily Bee (one of my absolutely favorite companies). I think the title card is Fancy Pants. I keep a stash of "loose" items underneath my desk. It forces me to use something I normally wouldn't.

Papers are Studio Calico. There is also some Crate, BasicGrey and 7Gypsies.

Thanks for looking and thanks so much for your comments. Have a great day.

Oldies but Goodies

I was going through my stash looking for scraps to throw out (because I need the room!!). After they were all spread out on the desk, I decided I couldn't part with them quite yet so I made a layout using them.

I also added some newer stuff like the Fancy Pants and the Prima stamp. I love mixing up old with new.

Thanks for looking. :D

The baby is sleeping

It's so nice. I can just put him in his pack and play and he falls asleep. I love it. Of course, he has to have his special blanket. It used to be his pacifier and blanket but he doesn't use the pacifier anymore.

Here are a couple layouts that were in Ready, Set, Create. I recently had to step down from the designer position as I still could not get enough time in from watching Blake all day. Now that I can just lay him down, I'm starting to get a bit of time back. Whew!

Both of these use Echo Park.

Thanks for looking and thanks for your comments.

Trying to get back into this

Oh, it's hard to blog with a baby. It's hard to create anything with a baby. I don't know how some of you do it.

Anyway, here are a couple layouts I've completed a few weeks ago. It's taken me this long to get them scanned:

 This was made with mostly October Afternoon Farmhouse.

This one was all scraps I was going to throw away. Mostly Sassafras. There is also some Daisy D's and Making Memories.

Thanks for your time!! I hope to keep this blog up. 

It's Spring Break

Yahoo! It's Spring Break here and would you believe it was snowing yesterday? Snowing in Tucson. It doesn't happen very often.

I don't have Blake this week. He's with his step grandmother because she was spring break off, too, as she is a school bus driver.

The house is a bit quiet but I like the break. Don't get me wrong, I miss the little booger, but it is nice to spend some quality time with my kids.

Here are some layouts:

New Note to Self from Echo Park. I also had some Star Wars die-cuts sitting around. This picture has been on my desk for 2 years now. It's about time I got it scrapped. If you look closely, you can see Darth Vader in the very back. He blends right into the black backdrop.

New October Afternoon Sarsaparilla. The background paper is Simple Stories.

Two Peas has so many new products in right now. If you plan on ordering, PLEASE go through the link on the top right of my side bar. I get a little commission if you order through me and I will be forever grateful. :)

Today I received a box from Technique Tuesday. I thought maybe it was new stamps but no, it was some of my old layouts that I made for them. I'm happy to have my layouts back, but I sure am disappointed that they kind of dumped me from the team. I love working with their products and I really miss them. I don't know if I did something wrong because I can't seem to get an explanation.

I am on no design teams right now and it's really a weird feeling. It's the first time I've been "free" for eight years or so.

Asleep

Last week when I was dropping off the kids at school, one of Trent's classmates (a 5th grade girl) came up to the stroller where little Blake was in there screaming his head off.

With her fingers in her ears, she looked at me and said, "How do you listen to that all day?"

I just smiled and walked away. He doesn't scream all the time. In fact, most of the time he is in a pretty good mood. However, when he gets in one of his screaming moods, watch out. It's ear piercing shrill and it can go on for 20 or more minutes. There's nothing to do to stop it.

We do have the nice quiet moments. Those are nice. This is new
Simple Stories that I played with over the weekend. 

All of this is older October Afternoon. This is why I don't throw anything away. You just never know when you're going to need to "monster paper". Right?

Apples

I should re-name my blog name to "No Time". I have no time anymore for goofy fun things like playing with paper, stamps and ink.

It took me about a week to come up with each of these pages:

I used leftover Lily Bee from the layout in my previous post. I have corrected Katrina in her spelling and she now knows how to spell "sugar".

"Suger" written three times instantly reminded me of the John Water's movie, Pecker. His little sister loves suger, I mean sugar:

 

and this one was made using BasicGrey Sweet Threads, some really old Sassafras and even older stickers and there are actually some Jolee's in there believe it or not.  Whew, that was a long sentence.

Tomorrow is our last Girl Scout cookie booth. I am so very happy. Kat just made it to 500 boxes sold.

I'll try to blog more often. It seems to keep the spammers away.

Head over heels, smitten

When I found this little gem in Kat's backpack, I knew I would be keeping it for use on a layout later. I had to hide it because when she first saw that I was keeping it, she was embarrassed.

Ok, so look quick and don't say anything to her. She'll be so embarrassed....

All paper is Lily Bee. There are a couple accents from other companies. It's mostly from my "pink box".

 The index card pulls out and has journaling.

The heart was cut on my Cricut using the Victorian Romance cart from Memory Miser.

Blog hop winner and a new layout

Good Morning!! I have the winner of the Snow Day cart from the blog hop. Thank you everyone for stopping by and leaving a nice comment. It just makes my day when I ready them. Thank you!!

Anyway, chosen by random....Elisa Bertram. Congratulations!! Please email me your address and I'll get that cart out to you right away.

Thank you again to Memory Miser for hosting me and allowing me to give away this awesome prize!

My friend, Linda, sent me some of the new Echo Park to play with. I finally got a chance to play with it last night.  This is what I came up with:

Also, be sure to check out the latest Ready, Set, Create. I have several projects in this issue. Thanks again!

Grandma Loves You & Blog Hop

Hello everyone,

This is the first time I've been able to participate in the BBTB2 challenge this year!

It's a Valentine for Blake:

 papers are K&Co and Glitz. Die cut and alpha stickers are Jillibean Soup.

Please leave a comment for the chance to win the Snow Day cartridge provided by Memory Miser. I would really appreciate it if you would sign up to be a follower of my blog, too. I know I haven't written much this year, but I plan on posting a lot more.

Here's a layout I made with the Snow Day cart:

For the next person on the blog hop, please visit the fabulous Shelly.

Thank you for visiting!!