Today's Progress

I made some progress today on layouts. I"m up to the December 2010 on my nephew now LOL.




caught playing dress up...heels and all!




these two are definately monkeys!!





love this picture of Zane and his Daddy.








Halloween!! love the svg file of the spider web that I used!

Zane's first trail ride riding "solo". He got up that morning asking his mom when they were going backhorse riding LOL. His mom will do the journaling on this!

I'm going to be back...one way or the other

this one is from a design team sketch at the scrapholic blog!





















this is my last one from a sketch. I'll try to find the sketches and post them as well. I can't remember at this point if I have saved them to my computer or not.

I've been scrapping again today so I'll have some more to post tomorrow.

Thanks for stopping by and for sticking with me!!







Needless to say this summer has been shocking to my system. My daughter bought a house, I lost my job about a month ago and I finally have time to do some scrapping...for now. I will be updating this blog over the next few days with pictures pictures and more pictures of layouts I have completed and design team layouts. Bare with me...I also have a part time job now and will be interviewing tomorrow night for a full time job but I do want to get some layouts posted.....I can't put into words how nice it has been to spend days at a time working to catch my nephew's album up.....I'm under a year behind now!!

Design Team Layout

I'm not sure I ever formally announced it but I actually made a DESIGN TEAM. Thank you to Jill at The Scrapaholic for accepting me to her sketch team. I missed the first sketch because of vacation (and the playground) but I did get the layout finished up last night.


Here is the sketch she gave us to work with.....




I don't know about you guys but I've never started with a sketch and had the layout coming out looking like the sketch but I LOVE using them as a starting point. I flipped this sketch since it fit my pictures better and instead of using all the ribbon, I went with leaves since it fit the subject in my pictures better but stayed with the overall layout in the sketch.



The journaling hasn't been finished yet because I want to sit down with Jake about what he wants it to say. These are pictures taken when the class went to the home of a class member who was killed in a tractor accident and planted a tree for the family. I really feel like he needs to give me input on what to journal on this page.

If you like the sketch and want to join in on the fun, Jill is sponsoring a challenge on her blog that you can participate in. Join us at www.thescrapoholic.blogspot.com starting Saturday, July 23rd and share your layout with us.

I'm adding to my resume

I'm going to add playground designer to my resume.LOL

The last few weeks all my spare time has been consumed by either vacation (can I go back?) or working at my daughter's new home helping her get everything in order for a state daycare license. The playground has taken forever but I think it is finally getting there.

We started with a fence I found on Craigslist......quite by accident! Then an idea that has been brewing for a loooooong time started taking shape. A tire tunnel.


it started out looking like this........both my brothers, my nephew and a friend of ours all pitched in one night to help Joni/Marcus/Larry/Jake and I put the fence up and bury the tires. We were quite the crew!!

Then Joni and I made a trip to Lowe's and Sutherland's and found some outdoor primer that was a mistint for CHEAP. We primed all the tires and went at them with cans of brightly colored spray paint. I would recommend painting before you bury if anyone else tries this at home!

Then we made some teepee style frames for the big swings. She also put up a smaller frame for toddler swings that is to the left of where I am standing to take the picture. We put the braces and swings on this the next day.

and for the grand finale...................

Larry and I disassebled the old telephone pole swingset and slide we had in our backyard from when our 3 kids were little. We salvaged all the 1x's we could to make platforms and cut the slide down. Add some more paint, a few 2 x 4's, lots of screws, and some pvc pipe to make railing and voila......you have a tire tunnel the whole neighborhood is talking about LOL. The kids can go over, under and around. There is another slide and wall on the back side to match. We have the rock holds ordered to add to the walls to make rock climbing walls for the kids. We will add some graffiti to the walls once those are in place. The kids love it.......even my 16 year old, football playing, girl chasing son has been caught going over and through the tunnels! We will add mats in this weekend once we get them cleaned up, painted and cut but the kids don't seem to mind crawling around in the dirt......Joni does mind having to clean all them up to go back in the house though.

So there you have it. My creative bug led me to the biggest project I have ever tried to accomplish. I must say........this is the first time that a project in my head actually worked out as good in real life as I could see it on the screen in my head. Thanks goodness........I think Joni and I would have both cried had it not worked out.

Hopefully this week I'll get back to some scrappin' also. It is entirely to hot to do anything outside and if I get my scraproom cleaned up so I can find my counter, I plan on kicking out a layout or two!

And life just gets crazier....

and here I thought I was going to have so much time to create in June.

Actually, I have been creating, just not in my scraproom. We have spent most of this week helping Joni get moved in and settled in her new home. Lots of organizing to do with all the kids toys and then there is the playground! I never thought I would ever put playground designer on my resume, but I do believe I am going to add it. I will post some pictures after this weekend of some of the fun stuff we are doing. She says the kids will fight over swings so we are making sure to put a big swing set in with 4 seats plus a toddler set of swings so the little guys aren't mixed in with the bigger rough and tumble kids. I am also designing and building a tire tunnel and gym. It is actually coming out pretty cool. We are getting ready to wash all the tires down and do the painting on those...hopefully this weekend. If all goes well, then Monday I am going to disassemble the old "gallows" swingset at my house (it was made out of telephone poles so a friend dubbed it the gallows). I will be using the wood from that to build the platforms and slide on the tire gym......I promise to post pictures if I can get it all done.

We are also going to spend next week getting our horse trailer/living quarters cleaned out and ready for the family float trip...we leave the 9th for a full week. I haven't done one thing to get ready for it this year...not one. We will probably be packing at 10 p.m. on the 8th. I know I will forget something....hopefully it won't be to tell the neighbors we are leaving so they will keep an eye on the house and water the critters LOL.

Well, lunch house is about over so it is back to work for me! Everybody enjoy the long weekend and remember the real reason for the 4th of July holiday and thank a veteran!!

catching up on some things

I got several vinyl window decals cut tonight and my scrap desk cleaned off. Hopefully that means I can do some scrapping in a couple of nights. Tomorrow night is dedicated to my mom and her pea patch LOL.

And hopefully I will be around more after this weekend. If you don't know me personally, let me in on a little bit of happiness that has happened at our house. My 20 year old daughter is buying a house....all on her own....and opening her daycare. She is still going to finish her college degree but decided when this particular house came up for sale it was time to make the move and follow her dreams. I'm a bit sad about her moving out "permantely" but she is only 5 miles from me, in town, so I can eat lunch with her most everyday AND most importantly...I'm sooooo very PROUD of her for having the guts to follow her dream and not let everyone tell her she needs to wait. I know she is intelligient and determined enough to make it work. And heaven knows the girl has the work ethic to do it................

that being said, I might not be on for a few weeks as consistently as I was wanting to be this summer. Helping her settle into her new home is going to take some time I was planning on spending in the craft room.

my brats........that I couldn't be prouder of......Joni and Jake at Prom this past April. Jake was a sophomore, Joni went with her boyfriend to his Senior Prom this year. Pretty good lookin' siblings don't you think?!?!

Joni and her boyfriend Marcus at his senior prom this past spring. A friend of mine made her dress and I made her jewelry and headband.

a few new ones from Mariska's album

okay, the first one isn't in a scrapbook page yet but I wanted to share.....Jeana's class graduated this year....they didn't forget. She was in the senior video and several of the kids gave me the same flowers they gave their mom's........and we got a tassel.......yup...bawled like a baby all day but I hope they know just how much it meant to us to have them remember her after 7 years. They are a special group of kids!

and now for the layouts for her album.
This is one of my favorites even though it didn't photograph well. I pulled the definition of a crop consultant off the net and changed it up a little to fit Mariska and her daddy LOL. She was "working" with him that day planting corn when Sharon snapped the picture out the front door.

Easter egg hunting with the cousins.......she hit the motherload!

Mariska and Zane "working" on the semi LOL

She was completely obsessed with her Burger King crown and even wore it fishing one Sunday afternoon....gotta love 3 year olds and their determination and committment rofl.

The annual Easter Egg coloring extravaganza with friends....love the picture of all the kids in the tree.

Life overwhelming!

Yup, you guessed it. I've been overwhelmed by everything life has to offer. I haven't completely quit scrapping, just haven't had time to post too much lately and I'm sorry about that. I have some really fun layouts I finished to complete Mariska's album before her 3rd birthday party a couple of weeks ago and I've been cutting a lot of vinyl lately. Our relay for life team made window decals as a fundraiser so that kept me busy. Add in the end of school, the start of summer, oh and my daughter signing a contract to buy a house and life has just gotten out of hand.

I still have some window decals to cut this week so hopefully next week I can post some layouts. Jake is headed to Washington D.C. next Monday so things should be fairly quiet around my house....maybe then I can get back to some nice calm, quiet evenings....but then again....Joni will still be home and we will still be gathering up goodies for her new home and eventually a fully state licensed home day care.........

Remind me in a few years when I'm complaining about boredom that these days were overwhelming to me LOL.

YUP!! I'm excited

I got the big prize pack from the Imaginesce blog hop today...well everything but the cuttlebug machine and I already have one of those so I can still use the two paper lines, the embellishments and stamps to match as well as 12 embossing folders, 2 sets of embossing borders and 3 sets of cut and emboss dies that I am sitting at work drooling over!!!! Bonus is tomorrow is National Scrapbooking Day and I'm planning on doing a lot of challenges and fun tomorrow throughout the day. May start the day doing some close to home rummage saleing then be up and running by the 9:00 a.m. start time on sb.com

I do have lots of layouts to post eventually. Haven't had much down time at home to actually catch up here....but I will try to do that the first night it rains again and we don't have baseball games or graduations. The next week and a half is pretty crazy!!

WOW

How far behind am I??? I've been doing a lot of scrapping lately and cleaning and organizing in my scraproom. I have lots of layouts to post, just have to take the time of an evening to post them. I'll try and do that tonight....maybe.

March better come in like a Lamb

cuz I've had all the lion I want for a while LOL. Hi everybody....I'm back, for a few nights anyway. This week is district basketball so we have a game tomorrow night. If they win, then we have a game Thursday. If they win, we have a game on Saturday....and so on! It's March Madness in Missouri!

I did get to do some scrapping last night though. I did 4 pages in a little over 2 hours. I love layout kits. I also had one more simple layout I finished for Zane's album that I hadn't posted anywhere yet so I'll post it up here tonight.

Thanks for looking and hang in there........baseball games don't start hot and heavy until the first of April so maybe I can get some scrappin' done between now and then.

:sigh:

I'm tired, I'm cranky...........can I whine a little??

Life has been crazy with ballgames lately and I would love to just go home and sleep a few minutes and put my pj's on for about 3 days.

I'm behind on my blog, I haven't been on Scrappy Chic or sb.com in days, I miss my friends and I want some scrap time to destress and rejuvenate! We don't have ballgames for the next two nights but the house is a mess and laundry is behind again..........they tell me I'll look back in a few years and miss these days..........I'll miss some things but not the general upheaval of not being able to keep up with the little things in life.....like sweeping the floor.

Okay, whine and vent is over........back to work........spring is near - I hope!

I'm on a scrap high

31 pages in 2 days...yup yup...I'm on a scrap high!! My niece is caught up on everything that is printed. Already called my SIL and told her to get to printing. Only 24 layout kits in nephew's album and I'll need more to scrap..........if we have another blizzard................... (okay, not gonna go there)!

Blizzard 2011 - Perfect Scrap Weather!

The Great Blizzard of 2011 - I found the silver lining to that cloud. I had ALL DAY to scrap since the bossman texted at 5:30 a.m. and said they were closing down today!! I did 22 pages in 12 hours - gotta love sketches. I won't hit you with all of them, just a few of my favorites for the day. I'm happy to report that I'm less than 6 months behind on my niece now and if they close down again tomorrow which is a realistic expectation at this point, I'll have her caught up to what is printed. I already told my SIL to start sorting through pics and get ready to print again! I may actually have her caught up for her birthday this year!

snow UHG!

The only good thing about snow is that hubby will probably put my counter up this weekend. Yes, I'm doing a little changing in the scraproom again.....the big table in there is just not working for me. I really love that table....it is the old table top from mom and dad's house when I was a kid, but it just isn't working for me...I've tried everything to make it work out and yes, I'm a little crazy and OCD but the counter I had looking out through the window into the living room just worked so much better but..................

I do have an idea to preserve the "feeling" that table gives off. I have to get some additional help from hubby to make it work but stay tuned....if it works like I want it to, I'll post the results LOL.

I hope to get to do some scrapping this weekend but it is already filling up pretty fast so we'll see. We are on hold over the basketball games tonight at this point because it is snowing again. If they get cancelled, the counter top will go up tonight so I might actually get to work in there while doing laundry tomorrow....cross your fingers for me.

Finished a two pager and did two one pagers!

It's been a productive night....it helped that we were supposed to have a basketball game tonight which was called off and supper was finished in the crockpot when I got home. Everybody elected to use paper plates and I had a liner in the crock pot so NO DISHES. I didn't do any laundry tonight but who cares......got a lot of scrappin' done

I realized something this morning.

I'm never going to make a design team....ever. Why? Two reasons actually.

1. I don't scrap by manufacturer. I probably can't tell you two manufacturers in my whole scraproom unless the paper is still in a pack and possibly a couple of tools. I don't care who makes it, I care if the colors highlight my pictures.

2. I'm too simple a scrapper. I don't like to have to look through all the embellishments to find my pictures...yes, my pictureS. I seldom do a one picture layout unless it is for my niece or nephew and there is only one picture........which since I've preached to my SIL about getting good shots, there is ALWAYS more than one. I occassionally get a one picture opportunity when it is a picture of one of the kids with somebody special in their life but when I do get those, I like to keep the layout simple and the picture big.

I would so love to be on a design team somewhere or even just featured but I've come to accept that will never happen. I'm not a marketable scrapper since it doesn't cost $10 per page for one of my layouts so I'll never be accepted to a design team. Oh well, such is life. My kids love their books, my 4-H kids love to learn, and my 4-H moms love me because I'm not breaking the bank getting their kids involved in such a wonderful hobby....................

a few layouts I did over New Years

I haven't had much of a chance to scrap since then because basketball season has taken over our life LOL. But with the snow slowing things down a bit, I can at least get a few posted for you. Of course, I'm working on Mariska's album and hoping to get her caught up by her birthday in May so she will be my focus for a few weeks.





used my sewing machine to put the border around this one.........of course it messed up on me but I'm still okay with how it came out.

Lots of good pics from their yearly trailride at Emminence MO....almost too many for a two page layout but I picked out the best....she is pretty little.....as she grows and eventually goes on the rides, I'll have to expand this layout a lot.

Sunday's with dad.......some fun pictures with room for Mom to journal.

I couldn't resist the overused title....it fit the pictures so well.

the year of the torrential rain. Mom will have to do the journaling on the back of this one....too many good pics and I didn't want to leave anything out.

The infamous finger incident. Big brother accidentally dropped a brick on the end of her finger and she ended up having surgery and was in a sling for several weeks. There is a pocket on the right side with the ER and hospital bill tucked away inside and lots of room for journaling.

Fun pics with daddy..........every little girl needs lots of these. I tried to make it a little girly without losing Daddy in the frills and ruffles LOL.

Of course I saved my favorite layout for last........me and my girl. One of the few pics of me I actually approve of enough to put in her album! This picture was taken on my 40th birthday!


Thanks for stopping by and looking. I'm working on some page kits tonight and hopefully will get some time over the weekend to put some more layouts together. I'm also working on the material for the 4-H scrapbooking project meetings. This is my second year as project leader and I decided to make it an all day crop with mini classes throughout the day. We are making it a Mom and Me day.....mom's and grandma's can join in on the classes or scrap while I do the projects with the girls and the rest of the day is for group fun and scrapping. I can't wait!!

Oh to be a kid again

I have always said I NEVER wanted to go back to high school but today makes me wonder if it wouldn't be nice....no, I don't want to deal with the drama and such but sitting at work looking at almost 7 inches of snow and thinking........oh for a snow day. I want to be at home scrapping. I cleaned up the scrapspot last night and moved all the beads and jewelry making stuff off my table....now I just want to go home and scrap but here I sit at work - yes, I'm having a lot of trouble staying focused on work items....my mind keeps going to the layouts I have at home that I could be kicking out but here I sit........broken hearted........while both of my children are rubbing it in that they don't have school today. Yes, even my college child got lucky since she goes to a community college that is all students who commute so they called classes off today............it truly sucks to be an adult sometimes.

back in the groove

I got back in the groove this weekend and got some scrapping done. I hope to get pics posted sometime this week but with 5 ballgames in 6 days....time at home is short.

I also started doing some jewelry making and have found a new obsession. Trying to limit myself to one GOOD necklace or set a week so I don't overspend...we'll see how well that resolution holds out.

Sorry the posts have been so few and far between....life got crazy there for a while and I'm ready for it to slow down some!