You're the best!

Morning!  How you doing today?  I'm hoping to get some things wrapped up at work today for the end of the month and then it will be smooth sailing for the rest of the week!

I've recently been very inspired, A LOT, by ASHLI at PURPLE MAILBOX.  She is an amazing scrapbooker and has just finished sharing her creative journey on her blog.  You should definitely go check out her blog, way cool stuff over there!  While her style is vastly different from mine, she's inspired me to try some new things.  So today, I'm sharing a card I made.  My ode to Ashli.  Haha!

I started with an Orange Zest base and splattered on two different colors of October Afternoon sprinklers and some Studio Calico Mister Huey's.  Then I wiped Ranger distress stain in picket fence around the edge.  I used the same October Afternoon sprinklers to "stain" my Studio Calico woodgrain pieces.  After they were mostly dry, I have little patience, I glued them down in a diagonal and stamped my sentiment.

Here's a full frontal, but I guess my photographer wasn't paying attention and was holding the camera all crooked.  Sorry about that!  :)  So this card is out of my comfort zone, a little on the Ashli side, but I LOVE the way it turned out.  I realize though, the reason I don't "do" messy very often.  Messy tends to take a long time and I like instant gratification.  I think I need to find more time for messy though, messy is fun.

Hope you have a great Monday.  Thanks for stopping by today and I'll see you soon!

Birthday bag and tag.

Ha, my title sounds like a new game.  That made me laugh.  It really doesn't take much.  It must be the heat, making me delirious.

Today I want to share another birthday tag, but I'm also going to share the bag I decorated to go with it.

This was a Kraft bag I picked up at Michael's.  I added a couple of strips of really old Basic Grey paper to the bottom, and used a paper punch on the top strip.  To help hide the seam, I stuck on one of the BG border stickers.

I mimicked the same look on the tag with the patterned papers and added a Basic Grey cardstock sticker popped up with some pop dots for a bit of dimension.  I really like how this tag turned out! 

Do you have fun plans for the weekend?  We have a birthday party Saturday morning then I'm not sure what we'll do.  Hopefully nothing!  :)  I hope you have a great Friday and a wonderful weekend.  Thanks for stopping in today to see me and I'll see you soon!

Silver and Kraft inspiration.

Wow, I feel like this week has been five, wrapped into one!  Do you? 

Remember my Smash book?  It's been awhile since I've posted anything about it, but I'm still clipping and pasting ideas in it.  Here's a recent one.

I saw this in a magazine and instantly saw Kraft paper and embossed silver!

I picked out a few stamps, these are from Stampin' Up! Baroque Motifs set, and with my Versamark pad, stamped away on the Kraft paper.  Then I sprinkled with silver powder.

I love the way these turned out!  Not sure what I'm going to use them on yet...

Where are you getting inspiration from right now?

Have a beautiful Thursday and I'll see you tomorrow!  Thanks for stopping by today!!

WOYWW

Happy Wednesday!!  I'm linking up at JULIA'S BLOG today to share what I'm working on. 

Today, it's just a mess.  The mess from the tag I posted yesterday.

Quite the little pile for just one little tag.  I need to get this cleaned up because I have another tag to make and I think I'm going to decorate the bag for that gift too.  Let me ask you this.  You know I always clean up after a project, right?  So if you have a mess like this out (see above)  and you don't put it away, do you just create right on top of it?  How do you find your stuff?  Eventually you're going to lose your scissors, right?  ;)

Hope you have a great Wednesday.  Thanks for popping in and I'll see you tomorrow!!

Birthday Tag

You know what's awesome about having more than one kid?  When one gets sick, the chances of the other one catching what the first one had are greatly increased.  Yep, Abie had the pukies yesterday.  She seems much better today, in fact, she's running around and dancing in her robe so I'd say she's healed :)

Today I'm sharing a birthday tag for a party we have this weekend.  I love how this turned out!  All the layers and stuff, yay!!

 
I can't remember the name of this paper line.  Echo Park maybe?  Hometown something?  I want to say Hometown Glory, but I think that's an Adele song.  Anyway, I bought it last summer, a 6x6 pack and I have a ton of it still.  I just can't justify buying any new stuff when I have so much "old" stuff still.  Is anyone else like that?  There are a bunch of new stamps I want to buy too, but I just can't pull the trigger. 

Focus Becky, back to the tag, I adhere the pink gingham to a manila tag and trimmed around to cut off the excess.  Then I layered on die cut tag, which came in a package from the same manufacturer as the paper.  After that I layered on die cut banners and punched butterflies and a heart.  I stamped my sentiment and added a small rhinestone, because the birthday girl is like that, rhinestoney :)

It's going to be HOT again today.  10...something.  At this point, it doesn't really even matter, right?  Haha!  I hope you're staying cool where you are.  We're keeping all the blinds closed and have our air up as high as we can stand it.  I think our ice maker is out of ice because of all the ice water we've been drinking!  Have a beautiful Tuesday and I'll see you tomorrow :)  Thanks for stopping by today!!

Project Life Weeks 24, 25 and 26

Good morning and happy Monday!  Did you have a productive weekend?  We woke up to a sick little one on Saturday so our plans were slightly derailed.  All was well be the afternoon though, must have been a quick 12 hour bug.

On Sunday we went school supply shopping.  Yes, I said it, the three dirties words of summer!  The girls were so excited though.  School starts in just three weeks here so we needed to "beat the rush".  Ha!

Today I'm sharing Project Life, Weeks 24-26.

On week 24 I used three scrappy journaling cards and one plain one.  I love how the scrappy cards look! Too many arrows though?  Ha!

Week 25 I scrappied up my title card but left my journaling cards blank, except for one.  What's the deal Becky, get it together!

Week 26, scrappy title card, check.  Scrappy journaling cards, check.  Three great pictures, WHAT???  This week would have been the silver tuna if I would have just taken a third photo!  Doh!

I'll get it together, don't worry :)  hahahahahaha!

This will be it for Project Life, for a few weeks.  I have to print more photos you know!  I have a couple of birthday cards/tags to make this week plus I have some new ideas I've been wanting to try out.  Now that we're on a break from volleyball I'm hoping I can fit in a little more crafty time after work.

Hope you have a fantastic Monday!  Thanks for stopping by today and I'll see you tomorrow!

Bloggy Award!

Hey guys!  Guess what?  Katie over at Katie Stories and Christina at See Christina Scrapbook both gave me a bloggy award yesterday!

So, as we all know, bloggy awards have rules! Here are the rules for this award:

Thank the blogger who nominated me for the award. (Thank you Katie!  Thank you Christina!)
Include a link to their blog in your post, as well as the award image (see above)
Give 7 random facts about yourself
Nominate 15 other deserving bloggers for the award
Include links to the nominate bloggers' sites
Let the other bloggers know that they have been nominated for the award

Here are my 7 random facts:

1)  My big dog sheds so much that when we swiffer the floor, every day, the pile of hair is SO big it could pass for a small dog.
2)  My hair is naturally curly/wavy.
3)  I cut off my long hair about a year ago, and while I LOVED the cut, at the time, I feel now that it was the WORST mistake I EVER made and wish I NEVER would have done it.
4)  I'm currently in the process of growing out my hair.  (see number 3)
5)  My next door neighbor moved away about four years ago, but she moved back into the neighborhood in December and we are both SO happy about that!
6)  I'm over 100+ degree heat.  90's are fine, 100+ no bueno.
7)  I'm not ready for school to start.  PUT THE SCHOOL SUPPLIES AWAY STORES!

Okay, I'm totally copping out here :)  If you're reading this, YOU WIN THE AWARD!!  I love all my blog readers AND all the blogs I read!  So if you take the award I would LOVE to learn more about you!!

Landry's thank yous and Project Life week 23

Whew, sorry to go missing on you yesterday.  It's been a very busy week here in Beckyland!  In fact, Thursday night was the first night we were home.

Today I have a couple of things I want to share.  The first are Landry's thank you cards.

Landry did all of the stamping herself.  I wrote in who the thank you was for and what the gift was and then Landry signed her name.  She was so excited about this and I think she did a great job!  Sunday night she hand delivered all of her thank yous to the neighbors and then after finishing the cards, mailed the rest out later.  I don't know if Stampin' Up! still offers this stamp, or maybe another version of it, but it's been used a lot over the years at our house.

Now, on to Project Life.  This week was different for me, because Week 23 was the week we were at Disney.  Now you know I've completely replaced all of my scrapbooking with Project Life.  So what was I going to do with all of our vacation photos?  I usually, almost always, well, at least the last three years, have made a separate vacation album.  This year I excused myself from that.  I made a photo book, online, with all of our photos!  But that still left the matter of the Project Life week.

I picked three of my favorite photos and best described the week on the four journaling cards.  The only problem I had left was what to do with all of our memorabilia.  I thought the best way would be with a pocket page.

Enter 12x12 insert!

This side held all of our maps.

The flip side held all of our receipts and other things.  I always like to keep our receipts in case we go back years later.  Wouldn't it be fun to see how much things cost before?

Okay, that's it for today.  We're really melting here and drying out like you wouldn't believe.  No rain in sight, as far as I know.  Our plans for this weekend include lots of staying inside, where it's cool :)

Hope you have a great weekend and a wonderful Friday!  Thanks for stopping in today and I'll see you soon.

WOYWW

Hello and happy Wednesday!!  I'm linking up over at JULIA'S BLOG today to share what I'm working on.  Only today I'm sharing a different work desk :)

This is my daughter's work table and this is my youngest, Landry, age 5.

She is working on something VERY important!  Her thank you cards from her recent birthday party.  If you look closely, You can see one of the cards on the left there.  I just love this Stampin' Up! stamp for kids thank yous.  Also on the left is a project Landry spent daaaaaays on, the take out box with the princess stickers.  I believe there's also a popsicle stick on there somewhere too.

Thanks for popping in today.  Hope you have a fantastic Wednesday and I'll see you back here tomorrow!

Project Life inserts.

My Monday flew by!  I was so busy at work, in a good way though.  Abie had volleyball and then we just relaxed the rest of the night.  The heat is starting to build again here, I'm hoping that means I can buy some more crafty time as it will be miserable to be outside, unless we're in a large body of water :)

Today I want to talk about inserts.  Do you use them with your Project Life?  What about with your regular scrapbooking?  They would work there too, you know :)

I have completely replaced my regular scrapbooking with Project Life.  It just fits our lifestyle better.  Case in point...

The last week of school and the week of Mother's Day were really busy for us.  I had a bunch of papers from both girls that I wanted to save and "put on display" in the album.  That's where these inserts have saved so much time!

Abie brought home this fab picture on the left, and it just happened to be 6x12!  I slipped it in and was done!  This is something that I normally would have put in a folder or drawer and kept for her, but now it's kept within the album and will actually get looked at!  Same on the right, Landry's pizza :)  The next several pages are school work, certificates from the end of the year and even Landry's Pre-School diploma.  All things I would have kept, but never made a layout from and never kept in the regular album.

I know there are a lot of you that aren't *doing* Project Life, but do you put inserts like this in your regular albums or do you work pictures and things like this into your albums in other ways?  This has to be one of my favorite things about this project :)

Okay, work today and Abie's last volleyball game for the session tonight.  Then we get a break for awhile.  Hope you're staying cool where you are.  Thanks for stopping in today and I'll see you tomorrow.

Project Life Week 21 and 22

Good Monday morning everyone!  Did you have a nice weekend?  We were busy on Saturday but had a nice relaxing Sunday.  I was able to get all caught up on my Project Life, all the way through this past week.  I tried to add in as many scrappy journaling cards as I could, but not as many as I would have liked.  I think the key is to try and stay caught up because when I'm behind, I have a tendency to rush through the weeks layouts to "get it done".

Week 21

On week 21 I added a little bit of scrappy to the title card, and the first two journaling cards.  Then I puttered out :)

Week 22

Nada on the title card and I added in a pre made journaling card.  I feel like the week as a whole looks pretty blah and I wish I would have jazzed it up a little more.  But, the stories are down and the pictures are in.

A little update on the Velcro wall.  We broke it :)  It was awesome!  We had so much fun and I'm sure we were breaking the rules, but man it was a good time!  I highly recommend renting one for your next party.  Just don't have 5 people on it at once...

Thanks for stopping by today.  Be sure to stop back by tomorrow, I'm going to be talking about inserts.  Have a beautiful Monday!

Project Life Week 20 and a lightbulb moment.

Yay for Friday!!  There's one thing I've learned through this Project Life process, it's just that, a process.  I think it will be fun to look back on my pages in December and see how they've changed since January.

Now you know I've been struggling with adding more scrappiness to my layouts since the beginning of this project.  Last week I posted about adding more stuff to my journaling cards. Wednesday night I was working on Week #20 and pulled out one of my index cards and started adding some stuff to it.  Nothing new right?

But then I pulled my journaling cards out and added some scraps to one of them.  AFTER I added my journaling to the cards that's when it dawned on me, THIS is the way to add the scrappy stuff to my albums.  I need to have some pre making journaling and title card making sessions, on a regular basis.  Then when I sit down to do my layouts, the scrappy cards are ready to go.  Why didn't I use the scrappy cards I made from the other day, you ask?  Because I didn't want to waste them.  That and they were all on index cards and I didn't want all the journaling to look the same :)  Am I making sense at all or just rambling?  So just to clarify, I need to add more stuff to my journaling cards and title cards.  Whether they're pre made or ones I've cut out.  All the stuff I've added has been bits and pieces, scraps of things from here and there.  Easy, right?  Right!

You have big plans this weekend?  My parents are watching the girls tomorrow night and Mike and I are going to a friend's birthday party.  His wife has rented a velcro wall!  Should be a good time :)  Other than that, we're just cleaning house, doing laundry and relaxing.  I hope you all have a wonderful Friday and a fantabulous weekend!!!  Thanks for coming by to see me today!

Project Life Week 19

Morning!  Can you believe it's already Thursday?  This week is flying by, again.  Today I'm sharing week 19 of Project Life.

This week is pretty basic.  Just words and pictures, a little bit of embellishing on the title card.  I think I have figured out my issue with adding *stuff* to my Project Life layouts.  I have a small example of this tomorrow!

Have a beautiful Thursday and thanks for stopping by today.  I'll see you tomorrow!!

WOYWW

Hello there Wednesday, so nice to see you today!  I'm linking up over at JULIA'S BLOG to share what I'm working on.

Right now, on my desk is my Project Life.  Do you see that...week 20!  Luckily I've been taking notes and sketching out my weeks so when I am ready to work on it (like right now) it will be a breeze!

Thanks for stopping by today and I'll see you tomorrow with a finished Project Life layout.  Have a great Wednesday!!

Manicure

Happy Tuesday!!  I have another non-traditional, non-crafty post for you today :)  But I guess this could sort of be considered crafty.  I've been checking out THIS BLOG on a regular basis and watched THIS VIDEO about a week and half ago.  I was then so intrigued and ordered the supplies from HERE.  They came last week and I've already done my nails twice and the girls nails a total of three times!!

I painted my nails a Sally Hansen blue color and then stamped on them with the Konad special white.  They make me happy every time I look at them!  I pretty much followed Kristina's video step by step and it was super easy!  I can't wait to buy more stamping plates!

I'll be back tomorrow with a look at my desk.  Only a corner of it though, the rest of it's getting kind of messy :)  Yay!  Thanks for stopping by today.  Have a fantastic Tuesday!

Not so much crafting going on, but...

I have been busy.  We've been looking for a new car for awhile.  After much deliberation, back and forth between and even walking out of a dealer, we finally bought a car on Saturday.

It's a Ford Edge.  Sorry for the wonky picture, but I was against the wall in the garage :)  So glad all that's over with.  The dealer we ended up going to is one that we've bought two other cars from and they were really great to deal with.

In other news, we've also been busy doing this...

You know a little thing had a big birthday last week.  So we went to Nebraska Furniture Mart and picked out a new desk, chair and nightstand.  She's SO BIG now :)

With all of this going on, plus the hot temps which meant lots of swimming, there was no time for crafty business :(  I'm hoping that now that vacation is over and Landry's party is done I'll be able to work in some time to get some things done that I want to work on.  The girls and I cleaned up our craft area yesterday so it's all ready to go!

We have volleyball tonight, only one more week after this one.  It's sure going to be hard to go back to work today :)  Oh, almost forgot, we saw Brave on Friday.  It was really good.  A great message about mother daughter relationships.  Hope you have a great Monday and I'll see you tomorrow!  Thanks for stopping in today :)

Adding a little more stuff to my jouronaling cards.

Morning everyone!  Hope you had a great day yesterday, if you were celebrating.  We had a fantastic day with family and friends.  At one point, I just sat and took a moment to look around at all the people that were with us and and saw how much fun they were having and was truly grateful that they had chosen to spend the day with us.  It meant so much to Mike and I :) 

Today I want to share with you my Project Life journaling cards.  A few weeks ago I posted THESE journaling cards that I made.  I really liked them, but you know I've been trying to amp up my Project Life a little bit.  So when I saw THIS POST and THIS POST I got a little bit excited!  I knew this might be the way I could kick it up a notch with my Project Life. 

I took out the journaling cards that I made before and all my scrap papers, punches, washi tape and of course my Tim Holtz tiny attacher and got to work.

These are just a start.  All the supplies are still out on my desk, I had a party to get to after :).  My picture order should be here today and I'm really hoping these amped up journaling cards add just the right amount of oomph to my Project Life that I've been looking for! 

The girls and I are home until Monday so I'll be taking the day off from blogging tomorrow.  We're hoping to swim today and maybe see Brave tomorrow.  I hope you have a wonderful Thursday, fabulous Friday and a beautiful weekend!  Thanks so much for visiting today and I'll see you soon!!

Happy Birthday Landry!

Yes, it's Independence Day, but it's also my baby's 5th birthday!

It's hard to believe it's been five years since Landry came into our life!  She came into this world like a firecracker too :)  She's funny, spunky, smart, beautiful, independent and sweet as can be.  We love her SO much!  Happy Birthday baby girl!

I hope you all have a safe holiday, here in the states.  We're celebrating Landry's birthday today and then having  a barbecue after with family and friends.  Thanks for popping in today and I'll see you tomorrow!

Easy party favors.

Quickie post today and a quickie project too.  Mike came up with the great idea of glow sticks for party favors tomorrow!  Smart guy, huh?  We ran by Party City and bought an assortment pack of glow sticks and I tied them together with twine.  Then Abie helped me stamp some festive tags to tie on to the twine.

Abie stamped the firecrackers and I stamped the stars.  Didn't she do awesome?!?  I love this idea and how quick and easy these came together!

We have volleyball tonight and then we're going to finish getting ready for the big party/bbq tomorrow.  Hope you have an awesome Tuesday!  Thanks for stopping by today and I'll see you tomorrow!

Card with my new stamp.

So on Friday I shared a tag I made with my new stamp, but it didn't really SHOW my new stamp.  So today I want to show you a card I made with the same stamp which shows it off a little more.

Since this stamp is like 4x6, it's hard when inking it up to get great coverage.  It really gives you a more distressed look when you stamp with it.  After I stamped the background, I just added some twine and a few embellishments.  I'm really liking this stamp, might turn out to be a regular :)

Did you have a good weekend?  We were very productive, which we needed to be.  Hope you have a great Monday!  Thanks for stopping by today.  I'll see you tomorrow!