30 Posts in 30 Days!

Thanks to Tiffany, hostess of the Big Blog Challenge at sb.com, I have blogged nearly everyday this month! Some days I posted more than once! I had so much fun with the blog prompts as they helped me to come up with topics I probably wouldn't have on my own!

I created a monster this weekend! I participated in a crop over at serendipity scrapbooks and one of the challenges was to get the little ones to create a layout. Donovan had a great time with this- check out my baby's work! He loves paint jut like his mommy! This was such a cute little challenge, the only problem is that he has been begging me to scrap since then. I need to go through my stuff and see what I can set aside for him to use, I was just too busy to do that this weekend.

Recent Projects

For this LO (Time Flies When You're Having Fun), I used then (July 2005) and now (June 2008) pics of D at the same park. Looing at these photos together makes me smile- I can really see how much he's grown in 3 years!

I also created this LO as part of the round robin lift challenge at scrap-diner. I lifted Leah.

My attempt at an uber masculine layout! Love all of the different textures: I distressed the edges, painted the back of the bubble wrap white and inked the front black. I used an urban chipboard font, metal mesh, felt, screw brads, and twine.
The front of this card is transparent- I stamped the sentiment inside of the and the birds on the outside of the transparency.

I think I'm going to use this on a BOM LO- instead of a card, it can serve to hide journaling.

just trying something different and simple

I'm teaching this at my LSS next month- I love cutwork, but most of the students don't, so we'll see how many turnout. I sometimes hear "do I have to cut this out?" My response- "if you want it to look like this, then yes!"

I dabbed silver paint around the edge and then added platinum stickles for a frosted look.

I cut HS bling strips to add to the flourishes. I then sprayed the big paper flowers with candy apple red glimmer mist, topped with punched flowers are added a dab of platinum stickles to the centers.

TFL!

More Park Photos

I took these photos this past Monday on my 3 mile walk. This time I took the telephoto lens with me.

The 1/2 mile point...only 2 1/2 miles to go!

Tree fungus- it's kind of cool looking, dontcha think?

Couldn't resist this cute little squirrel!

I was infatuated with ducks for some reason!

More ducks!

TFL!

These Are A Few Of My Favorite Things

Well, it's obvious that my family and friends are at the top of the list, so this list is compiled of my other favorite things!
1. Coupons- any discount is my type of price!
2. My camera- Canon digital Rebel XT (love my telephoto lens, too)
3. Laptop- this is how I stay in touch
4. Skittles- I love to mix chocolate and original skittles in my candy dish
5. Turtles- one of my favorite animals- I even have a mini collection of turtle nick knacks
6. Clocks- I have an infatuation with numbers
7. T-shirts- long or short sleeved, striped, plain, graphic, V-neck, scoop neck- it doesn't matter, I love T-shirts!
8. Tropical vacations- I love the beach and hot weather
9. Cute dresses- dressy or casual, I love how feminine and sexy a pretty dress makes me feel
10. Strappy sandals- or any shoe with high heels
11. Flip flops
12. the smell of sunscreen
13. smiling babies- especially my own
14. Curling up with a good book
15. Scrapbook supplies and magazines
16. Godiva chocolate
17. pepsi
18. down-filled pillows and comforters
19. Strawberry milkshakes
20. Strawberry coolattas from Dunkin Donuts
21. Maybelline lash discovery mascara- I live with 3 males and they all have longer eyelashes than I do- so not fair! LOL!
22. MAC lip glass
23. Hot chocolate
24. Jam hair gel- gotta keep those edges down
25. chocolate desserts (ice cream, candy, cake...you get the picture, I'm a choc-o-holic!)

Share Your Stash

We've been playing this really cool game over at scrap-diner.com called Share Your Stash. The rules are pretty simple- the hostess picks something that is easily and inexpensively mailed. All who sign up must commit to sending the winner the item listed. The hostess randomly draws a name of the person who will receive the specified items from all of the people who signed up to play that round. If you are the winner you will receive happy mail from all over the place and you host the next round. You get to pick the next item to share; the hostess can't win but does send happy mail to the winner of her round.

Well for the first round, the players had to share 4 clear items each. Guess who won the first round...................ME!!! Woot woot! It was so much fun looking forward to getting happy mail everyday- way better than getting bills! This is what I ended up with -- a fabulous array of clear/sheer/see through items along with some really cute cards. I love clear items and can't wait to create some projects with my RAK!

I was the hostess of round 2 and choose ribbon as the RAK. Each participant has to send the winner 5 different types of ribbon, at least 12" each. The winner of this RAK is about to be showered in ribbon!

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Here's a recent LO I created- I scraplifted this LO created by Sher, owner of scrap-diner.com! The photo is of Xander at 8 days old.

TFL!

My Little Shoebox

My first projects for My Little Shoebox- these papers are so cute! The card and envelope were created with the Tulip line and the mini album was created using Pansy.
The acrylic album is made by myacrylicalbum.com- awesome acrylics!

I didn't have the traditional turkey photos from thanksgiving, just pics of my smiling family, so I chose a non-traditional color scheme with a couple of Thanksgiving quotes. All of the paper,chipboard, overlays, and diecuts are MLS.

TFL!

A winner has been chosen for the blog RAK at My Little Shoebox.....Congratulations Erin Willis!

I'm Tired Of Being Cheated

Seriously...how much more out of control is this economy going to get? Prices are going up and up while quality and quantity is taking a nose dive. Just the other day I made macaroni salad for a BBQ. For some reason, the salad just looked like it needed a smidge more mayo which I thought was odd because I always put an entire 16 oz jar in my salad. Well I picked up the jar and guess what...the jar was only 15 oz! One whole ounce was gone...poof! Did the price of mayo go down? Heck no! Then I started thinking of all the other products where I've noticed companys cheating us, the comsumers. When was the last time you bought a 1/2 gallon of ice cream? I'll tell you, it's been a while! You know why? Because companys like Edy's, Turkey Hill, Friendly's and so many more have taken out a nice sized chunk of ice cream and now you either get 1.5 qt or 1.75 qt instead of 2 qts like in the "olden days"! The price of icecream hasn't gone down either...see we're getting cheated all around! This morning I was driving back from my walk at the park and saw a sign advertising a "sale" on a gallon of milk...$3.79! When the heck did milk get so expensive? Wanna know the sad part? A gallon of gas now costs more than a gallon of milk! Don't even get me started on the price of gas- I can remember 8 years ago when I bought my Civic getting gas for less than $1.00 per gallon! Boy, those were the days! When was the last time you got a raise? Did it cover the cost of living increase? Mine certainly didn't! It's out of control now, almost makes you wish for the economy to crash just to re-boot itself, but then that would bring on a whole set of different problems! Humph!

I'm done with my rant!

The First Full Day Of Summer!

Summer is by far my favorite season of the year; it's the time of year when I come out of hibernation! I love the sun and warm weather (I could do without the humdity, though). I love the beach, I love to find different activities to do for the kids (mine and my sister's), I really love to go on vacation, have backyard BBQs and just chill! This summer, I'm lucky enough to be home on maternity leave so I'm not stuck in the lab yearning to be outside. I won't be able to take a big vacation, a new baby has a way of putting a dent in your pocket LOL, but I will definitely be on the go and in search of FUN! We're going back to the hot air balloon festival in July, that's for sure, might hit the State Fair at the end on this month, tons of trips to the park, etc... We're starting off our fun summer today with a BBQ at my sister's house!

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Don't forget to check out My Little Shoebox's blog! They are giving away an awesome RAK of scrappy goodies next week, so go on over and post that I sent you! Here's the link!

Face Paint

I believe this is when it all started, October 2006- Donovan's love of face painting. He patiently waited in line and when it was his turn, he knew exactly what he wanted, a spider web and a spider. He didn't have to look in the book, he knew as if he'd been contemplating his decision forever!


This work of art took place 1 year later at my company's Halloween party. Again, he immediately knew what he wanted, a spider. I guess it was only fitting since he was the black Spiderman AKA Venom!


Earlier this month he attended a birthday party and this work of art was born. All of the kids at the party climbed in the chair one by one, getting teddy bears painted on their cheeks or fairy wings by their eyes. Then it was Donovan's turn. I sat across the room and watched the clown begin to paint...after a few minutes he was still painting...and still painting. I thought what in the world is that clown painting on my child and then Donovan climbed down and ran to me. My baby's cute little face was covered in orange paint with black stripes, he had asked to be painted as a tiger! He was so proud of his decision! I took a few pictures and could help but think how his face was going to look after a few minutes of running around in 100 degree heat. I kept my thoughts to myself and told him he looked GREAT!

Have you noticed how the size of the face painting progressively grew into this? Next thing you know the face paint will move to the arms, etc... Someone please tell me that this won't grow into a love of tattoos and body piercings! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

More Cosmo Cricket

Crossing my fingers and hoping to get invited to the Cosmo Cricket DT!! Their papers are fab! I revisited an older line for this sunset photo- I thought the Wanted Papers were perfect for allowing the sunset to stand out!

Here I used Dutch Girl- this is one of my favorite color combinations! I love this picture of Donovan playing in the snow. He's a winter baby all the way- he loves the snow and the cold weather!

close up: Y'all know I love stickles! I outlined the flourishes and mittens with Stardust.

TFL!

I've Been Inspired!

Checking out the blog Inspire Me Inspire You, I decided to search around the house to see what I could find for inspiration. I found it in a place I never have thought of looking in before, it was right before my eyes! I took the colors for this layout from Xander's pacifier. I love this combination!
This LO is about my favorite snack, ice cold pepsi and microwave popcorn! I was actually eating while scrapping this LO! YUMMY!

I doodled the black and white circles and the border.


Thank you card made from scraps from the LO.

Cosmo Cricket Projects

I love this Get Happy Line by Cosmo Cricket- the colors are fun, bright and make me happy!

I used a card sketch by Kimberly Crawford for this birthday card.

CK Pub

Check out page 75 of July's issue of Creating Keepsakes!!

A Walk In The Park

I've gotten back in stride! I didn't do my daily walks all last week, it was just too darn hot! This week is much cooler, so I have no excuse. I walked 3 miles today and 3 miles yesterday! Yesterday I had my camera in tow to take some pictures, it made walking much more fun! I really want to take a photography course to better my photos and photo taking, but for now I'm practicing!

I love the lines on this fungus. I wonder how this would look if it were taken with a macro lens!

I don't know what this is, but the complimentary colors really caught my eye plus it was the only one I saw in the park!

I love water lillies. The river in this park is filled with them- a little bit of beauty among all the green stuff growing on the surface of the river. I de-saturated this photo a bit.

Trying to work on lines- although the little waterfall is in the background, the fence draws my eye to it.

Take a walk with me!

Another water lily.

Love the lines here, too. There was a nest in this tree, I wish I had bought my telephoto lens with me- maybe next time!

TFL!