Vacation Mini Part I

Talk about just making the deadline!  We're getting ready to leave on vacation and I just finished last years vacation album!  The sad thing is, I started the album last summer.  I was trying to do the album without having the photos and I just can't scrapbook that way.  I'm really motivated by my pictures.  Not necessarily by the colors, but by the sizes and and such. 

Anyway, I'm going to share this album in two posts because I took a lot of pictures.

This is the cover of my album, which I shared last summer when I started it :)

Here's a view of the album from the side.  The front and back cover are black chipboard and the inside pages are pieces of October Afternoon patterned paper adhered together.

I took long skinny manila envelopes, that open from the top, and covered the front and back.  This is a picture of the front.

This is a picture of the back.

This is my attempt at a picture of the inside of the envelope.  I used it to keep maps, brochures and journaling.  (Do you see the recipe card Tracy???)

Here's a full sized page, 6x8.  I kept these pretty simple.  Good grief, I have no idea why this took me so long!  :)

The back side...

Here's another skinny envelope.  I like this one because of the twine.  No journaling, because it's hidden in the envelope :)

Okay, that's it for part I.  Hope you enjoyed and will be back tomorrow for part II.  We had a busy night last night and are in for a busy day today.  Mike is headed to Chicago and will be driving his work car back today and Abie has two volleyball games tonight.  Thanks for coming by today and I'll see you tomorrow.  Have a great Thursday!!

WOYWW

Good morning :)  Today is the third anniversary of WOYWW!  Happy anniversary JULIA!!!  I'm linking up over at her blog today to share in this momentous occasion.

This week I have a lot going on currently...

I'm trying to finish up that dang mini album.  I'm so close I can taste it!!!  Ha!  And for the record, this mess is driving me nuts!  Can't wait to put all of this away and start fresh, with a new project!

Abie has volleyball practice tonight and then we're dropping Mike off at my parents house so they can take him to the airport in the morning.  1) they live closer than we do and 2) his flight is early and we would have to get the girls up SUPER early to get him there in time.  It's times like these that I'm so, so grateful for my parents :)  Hope you have a wonderful Wednesday and I'll see you tomorrow!  Thanks for stopping by today.

A card for my Mom.

Morning!  Did you all have a nice weekend?  We had a three day weekend here, in honor of Memorial Day.  Luckily Mike and I were both off and able to enjoy time together.  With the crazy week we have in store, I was SO grateful :)

Mom and dad were gone for almost the whole month of May, including over Mother's Day.  They came by yesterday for dinner and I gave Mom her Mother's Day gift and this card.

This card was so much fun to make.  I love October Afternoon papers SO much anyway, and then I used the Tim Holtz caged bird die and a fun butterfly.  I was trying to figure out where to add a sentiment but thought it looked okay without one.

Hope you have a great Tuesday!  Thanks for stopping by today :)

Vacation bags.

I'm feeling a bit discombobulated today.  Things are starting to run together as we're preparing to leave on vacation soon, and I'm hoping everything gets taken care of.  Earlier this week, Mike's work car broke down, to the point that the company isn't going to replace it, and he is flying to Chicago (hi Katie) next Thursday to pick up his new car and drive it back.  Plus Abie's volleyball games start next week.  Plus we're leaving on vacation next week.  Oy!  See what I mean by life happening?  Life is happening a lot around here lately :)

Last week, when life wasn't so busy happening, I was able to put together a couple of vacation bags for the girls.  We're driving to Orlando (hi Tammy) and I know they're going to get bored of DVDs, tables, iPods and DSI's at some point.  So I stumbled across some great finds in the dollar aisle at Michael's.

I picked up travel journals, car bingo, magnetic checkers, magnetic tic tac toe, sleep masks and fun tissues.  I remember many a car trip with my sister, passing the time with car bingo and magnetic checkers.  I was SO excited to find these :)

I wrapped all of these up and placed everything in the bags.  As the girls get bored, or restless, they can reach in and open up one of the fun little presents.  Not anything big, but something a little fun to help pass the time.

Are you guys taking any road trips this year?  I'm SO excited for ours.  We're going to have a blast and I can't wait to go!!!  In the meantime, we have a nice relaxing Memorial Day weekend planned.  I hope you have a great Friday/weekend and I'll see you soon!  Thanks for stopping by!

Simple, oh so simple, graduation card.

Thursday.  Yes, Thursday.  Can you believe next Friday will be June 1st?  Crazy talk!  Today I want to share a graduation card I made for a distant cousin.  I had a grand, somewhat elaborate, sketch drawn out and was all prepared to work on it Friday night.  But then life happened and we spent the night outside with the neighbors and it was after 10 before I got inside to work on the card.  Mind you the next day was the garage sale, dual birthday party and graduation party so there would be no time to work on my elaborate card :(

Within a few minutes, I was able to switch gears and whip this up.

I realize this is very simple, even bordering on plain, but the recipient was a boy so I figured it was okay :)  The school colors were red, black and grey/silver.

Hope your week is going along great.  Things are running smoothly here, as in we're going with the bumps as best we can.  Ha!  See you tomorrow!  Have a fab Thursday.

WOYWW

Good Wednesday morning everyone!  A quick post for you today...  I'm linking up over at JULIA'S BLOG today to share what is on my workdesk.

As you can see, my adhesive arrived!!!  The first roll I opened wasn't working right in my gun though.  Turns out it was wound backwards on the roll!  The second roll was just fine though.  That pile in the back is my vacation mini album, stacked up nicely so I can carry it around the house and work on it :)

Hope you have a great Wednesday.  Thanks for stopping by today!!

Birthday boy tag #2!

It's Tuesday, yay!!  Monday flew by for me, how about you?  Today I wanted to share my second birthday boy tag.

With this tag I was really trying to recreate the first tag over again but there weren't anymore large circle pieces in my miscellany pack.  So I improvised with a piece of patterned paper and my 1 3/4" punch.  That wasn't quite big enough so I added a punched cloud behind it to help balance everything out.

Pretty boring day here today, but after the crazy week we had last week I could go for a few ho hum days :)  Hope you have a wonderful Tuesday and thanks so much for popping in to see me!  Chat with you tomorrow!

Birthday boy tag #1.

Good morning everyone.  Did you have a nice weekend?  We were so busy on Saturday, we had the garage sale, a joint birthday party and a graduation party.  Sunday was busy with cleaning, laundry and running errands. 

On Saturday, the joint birthday party was for two boys, ages four and five.  It was at the coolest place.  A building full of bounce houses!  You know I'm not the greatest at boy cards and projects.  I grabbed what was on my desk, October Afternoon Boarding Pass.  It's probably the most boyish paper I own right now.

I covered a plain shipping tag with the air mail striped paper and then added the yellow tab, punched with the Stampin' Up! Round Tab Punch.  I flipped through my miscellany pack and found that round London Kings Cross piece and added it with some pop dots.  To finish it off, I took a small white garage sale tag and covered it with Boarding Pass graph paper.  I wrapped the birthday boy's present with white paper and used super thick twine around the middle of the package to tie this tag onto.

What did you do this weekend?  Did you get any crafting done?  My adhesive came in, so I'm good to go now :)  Except the first roll I tried to use was wound backwards :(  I'm trying to get some things caught up this week at work.  Vacation is coming up quickly for us and I need to tie up all of my loose ends.

Thanks for stopping by today and I'll be back tomorrow with tag #2!  Have a great Monday!

Twigs

Morning all!  Hope this post finds you well :)  I'm excited to share with you my post today.  You know we were getting things together over the weekend for our garage sale this weekend.  Mike had this really cool old tin can thing that he use to keep his Hot Wheels in and he decided to sell them.  So he said, "do you want this can?"  Of course I said yes, because I think stuff like that is really cool.  He gives me this look like, what the hell are you going to do with it?  I told him we should take some twigs from out back and spray paint them to put in the can.  Fast forward to the next day and he is outside spray painting away...

Pretty cool right?  Those are seriously twigs off of our weeping willow that Mike spray painting white.  Love this!  I think it needs twinkle lights for nighttime :)

Have a beautiful Thursday friends and thanks for stopping in today.  I'll see you soon!

WOYWW

Wednesday already people, can you believe it?  I'm linking up with JULIA  today to share what's on my workdesk.

This is what is currently on my desk.  The mini album I started on Sunday that I ran out of adhesive in the middle of.  I bought adhesive, from The Tape Depot yesterday, but it's not here yet.  So I'm at a standstill with my project.  Ack!  I've never bought from them before, but SCHELL recommended them :) and so far I'm impressed.  I already got a shipping notice.  I should be back in business soon!

So, on a personal note.  Landry graduated from preschool last night.  I was so proud!  We LOVE her preschool SO much and it was just awesome last night :)

Today I'm off to the dentist, then the talent show at Abie's school and then I have another doctor's appointment at 1PM.  Plus today is the last day of school!  The kids are going a full day today, but I can hardly believe it's the end of another school year.  Time flies, doesn't it?

Okay, enough jabbering today.  Thanks for stopping by and I'll see you tomorrow.  Have a wonderful Wednesday.

Project Life weeks 17 and 18

Morning everyone :)  was it just me or did Monday fly by?  Abie started volleyball back up and her first practice was last night.  She was so excited and honestly, so was I.  I love that she loves this so much!

Okay, up now the last two weeks of Project Life.

Week 17 was the week of Abie's school play.  I normally would have done a one or two page layout for this and added a pocket for the program.  This way, I slipped in the two photos and...

Placed the program in a 6x12 page protector.  I really love those and MUST order some more ;)

Week 18 I added a card that Abie made for me instead of a journaling card :)

On 5/3/2012 we finally told the girls where we are going on vacation and, while I didn't get a picture, I did want to remember the story.  So I took one of the folded journaling cards and slipped it behind one of the regular ones.  I left it up out of the page protector a little bit so you can see it and know to pull it out of there.  Does that make sense?

I'm in the mood to do a little shopping, anyone else?  I feel like I haven't bought anything crafty in a long time and I'm wanting to pick up a few things.  Any suggestions?  Anything you're in the market for right now?  I mean, I already have to buy adhesive so I might as well buy some other things too, right?  :)

Hope you have a great Tuesday!  See you tomorrow :)

Project Life Weeks 15 & 16

Oh Monday, why couldn't you be Sunday?  I was feeling pretty good on Saturday because the day went by so slow, but then Sunday came and went SO fast I don't even know what happened!

Today I'm sharing Project Life weeks 15 and 16.

This week I already had the title card and journaling cards completed and just slipped in my photos.  Done in 10 seconds!

This week I had the title card done and my journaling cards picked out.  I slipped my photos in, referred to my calendar and added my journaling.  It took me about 10 minutes, give or take a minute.  Awesome!

I finished up weeks 17, 18 and part of 19.  Then I started on a mini album, yes Tracy I said mini album.  I was on a roll people, and you know what happens when you're on a roll don't you?  You run out of adhesive.  That's what happens.  This was at about noon yesterday, so I gave up and went shopping.  We shopped all afternoon, but I refused to buy adhesive because I didn't have a coupon.  It might be awhile before I create anything...  :)

Hope you had a wonderful weekend.  Thanks for stopping by today and I'll be back tomorrow with weeks 17 and 18.  Have a beautiful Monday!

Neighbor's Baby Tag.

Good morning!  I have a tag to share today that I made last night for a baby gift.  Our newest neighbors had a baby on Monday and we picked up a little something for them this week. 

Now you know I've been crazy busy this week and if I'm being completely honest, I haven't been feeling very crafty either.  The longer I go without crafting, the harder it is to get anything accomplished.  But last night I headed downstairs, without a plan, and whipped up this tag.  It felt great!  I wish I had had more time to work on stuff, that's how great it felt :)

I started out with a small piece of Kraft cardstock and ran it through my Cuttlebug with the Swiss Dots embossing folder.  Then I adhered the Kraft piece to a plain shipping tag.  I trimmed off the excess.
I grabbed a couple of pieces of Dear Lizzy Neapolitan paper and played around with the lengths and widths.

Then I trimmed out the baby carriage from the Stretch Your Imagination Cricut cartridge (cut at 2 3/4") and I popped it up on pop dots.  To that I added a smaller shipping tag that I had stamped with a Papertrey Ink sentiment.

It still looked a little plain to me so I added a couple of buttons for good measure :)

I don't have ANY baby papers, stamps or embellishments so I was pretty proud of myself for coming up with this tag.  Ha!

Do you have big plans for this weekend?  We were thinking about going to the Drive In tonight with some friends, but now the movie we wanted to take the kids to see isn't playing, so I'm not sure what we'll do.  Tomorrow we're going to be getting ready for next weekends garage sale and then Sunday I'm hoping to RELAX!  Hahahaha! 

I wish you all the best weekend and a beautiful Friday.  Happy Mother's Day to all of the Moms out there :)  I'll see you soon, thanks for popping in today.

Grandma's Birthday Card.

Happy weekend eve my friends!  This week has flown by and I'm glad about that because I need a weekend :) 

Last Saturday was my Grandma Jean's birthday and I was able to make this card for her.  I was inspired by Arlene.  She makes the most beautiful cards!  They're so classy, clean, simple and she always throws in just the right amount of bling or pearls.  So that's the look I was going for here.

I stamped Stampin' Up!s Baroque Motifs in pink onto pale pink cardstock and then added a few pearls.  Then I stamped my sentiment onto an ivory flag and popped it up on some foam adhesive.  This card was so simple and quick to make, but I love how it turned out.

I did my usual Wednesday night laundry last night and got my grocery list made out for today.  We also ran a couple of errands, so it was an eventful evening!  I'm hoping tonight will be a little more normal, even thought I have to go do the grocery shopping :)  I'll see you soon.  Thanks for popping in and have a fantastic Thursday!

WOYWW

So today I'm linking up over at JULIA'S BLOG to share what is on my desk.  Are you ready for this?  I hope you're sitting down...

Now I know I usually have a clean desk, but how sad is this?  I'm not working on a THING!  I have several things I need to work on too.  A baby gift, two birthday gifts and then there's Mother's Day too!  We've just been busy and I haven't had time to work on anything.  The weather has been so beautiful and we've been outside every minute.

I usually get down to my craft area at least once during the week, but it's not looking like that will happen this week... 

What about you?  Are you busy with projects right now or are you busy outside like me?

Thanks for stopping by today and I'll be back tomorrow with a card (that I made last week, haha!)  Have a beautiful day.

Abie's cards.

Good morning :)  Did you have a nice weekend?  Ours flew by, but was wonderful!  I didn't get a lick of crafting in though.  Saturday we had our neighborhood get together and it was SO MUCH FUN!  The kids had a blast.  Sunday was spent cleaning up and getting ready for the work week.  We then had dinner at our friend's house.  Perfect way to end the weekend.

Abie has been working on some cards lately and I think they're fabulous!  ;)

Here's her first card.  She made this a couple of weeks ago and I've been meaning to post it.  I love the red and white :)

This card she made last week.  Check out that flower!  Love those that she draws :)

Are you busy this week?  Mike and I are off today and I think we're going to go for a ride on the bike.  The rest of the week is spent finishing up end of year stuff for school.  Lots going on here!

Hope you're doing well.  Thanks for stopping by today and I'll see you tomorrow!!

Quick and easy bag tag.

Hello Friday!  I'm so ready for the weekend, how about you?  It's a busy one for us, but I'm ready :)

Last Sunday we had a birthday part for our neighbors little boy.  It's their third :)  and he was turning one.  I was on a time crunch but this was what I came up with.

I found this card in the October Afternoon miscellany pack.  It reminded me of all the kids in our neighborhood :) They have grown up together like this.  I rounded the corners, added some fun buttons and twine and a file tab on the side.  I wasn't quite sure where I was going with this, but was really quite happy with where I ended up. 

Yesterday morning, Landry got up and her temp was back down to normal AND stayed down all day :)  We had a great day together, then had Abie's art show that night.  Tomorrow we have Landry's pre-school barbecue and all of our neighbors are getting together for a Cinco de Mayo party.  Should be a good time!  What's on your agenda this weekend?

Thanks for stopping by today.  Have a beautiful Friday and a fab weekend.  I'll see you soon!

Congrats card.

Good morning!  You know yesterday I posted a congratulations card I was working on for a friend.  She was recently promoted and I needed to get this in the mail to her.  So here is the finished card.

 I love these letters from Lawn Fawn!  I know I've said that before, but I just do :)  After I stamped the letters, I colored them and trimmed them out. 

I popped them up with pop dots, but the card still looked a little plain.  So I added some lime green twine for some extra oomph. 

Well my Wednesday afternoon/evening didn't end up how I thought it would.  I got a call from Landry's pre-school telling me that she was running a fever, so I spent the afternoon taking care of her :(  Poor thing, she slept quite a bit and just wasn't herself.  I'm hoping her fever breaks this morning when she gets up though, that way we have a semi fun stay at home day :)  On the brighter side, Abie made the all school talent show!  Woot woot!  So proud of her and her friends for working so hard on their dance!

Okay then, I want to thank you for stopping by today and I hope you have a wonderful, fabulous Thursday!  See you tomorrow :)

WOYWW

Happy Wednesday!  Quick post this morning.  I'm linking up over at THE STAMPING GROUND to share what's on my workdesk.

I'm working on a congratulations card for a friend.  Like how I stamp extra letters in case I mess up my coloring?  :)  That's my little "to do" book up there in the corner.  I keep a running list of all my ideas and things I need/want to work on.

Things are warming up here again so that means lots more outside time for us.  It's really humid this time though, which is not great on the hair.  Ponytail time!  Ha!  Hope you have a fantastic Wednesday and I'll be back tomorrow, hopefully with this finished card :)  Thanks for stopping by!

Project Life title cards and journal cards.

Happy Tuesday morning!  I don't know about you, but I was sure glad to get through yesterday.  It was a long Monday :)  Part of it had to do with the gloomy weather.  I love me some sunshine!!!

Last week I was messing around in my craft area and pulled out some 4x6 index cards with the intent to make my own title cards for Project Life.

I pulled out some officey type stamps and just stamped a few things here and there on the index cards.  I tried to leave them mostly blank so I could add titles and dates and things for the particular week I'll be using them for.

After I did these, I trimmed several 4x6 cards in half to make some journal cards, in the same way.

I did the same thing, pulling out some various stamps and inks and randomly stamping things.

I LOVE how these turned out and can't wait to use them!!  So easy :)

Okay, I'm out of here for today.  I'm really hoping that today goes by fast.  I'm expecting a Fed Ex delivery today...my new phone!!!!  I can't wait!  It's almost as exciting as crafting supplies coming in the mail.  Ha!!!  Hope you have a fab Tuesday and I'll see you tomorrow :)