A visitor and a wish list... ahhhhh

Well I have nothing crafty for you today... Why? Because I was too excited, waiting for this little visitor! Hey Nate! What's crackin'? This is my little nephew, he's too cute and I just want to squeeze him when he's around.
HUH? He's waiting for pancakes! Like... hellooooo where are my pancakes????
Yum, nothing like grape juice early i nthe morning... Yum, slurp.. yumm...
Unfortunately he's already gone, he's on his way to my old Army Stomping Grounds in AZ to visit his other Aunt and Uncle. Darn, I'll miss him, but I'll see him on Monday when he's driving through again! :)

Did you notice that first picture of him? The blurriness? The Un-focusedness? The picture that's screaming.. Focus!... Focus.... FOCUS!!!! haha... Well that's one of the many reasons that I have this on my wish list....

Below is what I have now, it's nice, it's easy, it's a point and shoot camera from Kodak and don't get me wrong it has went everywhere with me, it has it's own indention in my purse for it's home, but I would like to upgrade, I mean, really, really, really.... upgrade... to the Nikon D80..
Get my drift?

Oh yeah I got a question too.... or a request for recommendations rather.... Who/Where do you recommend I get a Monthly Scrapbooking Kit from. I've looked all over and I'm just not sure where to go... Help me out here!

Lots of page layouts... DONE! :)

EIGHT Page Layouts, I finally figured out my camera to get them all on my internal memory. So here they are, I've been doing these over the last few days. I'm so proud that I've been so productive!

First off, we'll start with layouts....

Rhinos galore! They seem so relaxed and loveable right? :) I was trying to get as many pictures on a page as I could without it looking toooo crazy. I have tons of pictures people... I can't afford to only put one or two pictures on a layout all the time :)
For the Rhino layout you can see the background through the tissue.. what tissue you ask? I got a green thin tissue--like the ones you put in gift bags-- I tore it to fit the page, placed it on top and added rubber cement to the top. The tissue is so thin that it soaks it and glues through the other side to the paper and you get this effect... Something differenet I guess. Next time I'll try with a color that's not so similar.
Pose, Ride, Sleep... that was about the just of the trip. The journaling notes that everyone in my family knows me so well that they always know that they have to pose for pictures... Sometimes I get caught in a picture or two but its not very likely. :)
The letters were cut on my Cricut Basic shape cart and I added some green dots of paint and some buttons.

This is a page that I have redone because I didn't like the way I did the last one... If you'll remember it was quite a disaster, it was during the time my girls were out of town, I had a major headache and was scrapping for about 10 hours.. Member??? :)
Anyhow I added 2 flowers and a grommet, a clear "sightseeing" sticker and some pink paint dots.
OH MY! These creatures are amazing I think. They were playing the whole time we were there, I loved it.
The letters are again from the Cricut, just a new cut... I hadn't used this type before... I like it. Added some ribbon, staples, buttons... love it!

Simple yet okay with me... Posing with the King... Not Elvis the King, but the King of beers.. :)
These are my foamy stickers from the Dollar Tree along with some of my Sharpie writing. :)
I like this one because the colors are so good together, I think anything goes with black really and I love this! The letters are Dollar Tree stuff, the & sign is from the cricut and that's all folks!
Cute... Using the shadows here, love it!

These horses are so well taken care of and so nice and gentle... and oh soooo soft! They were huge I thought and with the girls next to them it was cute! I tore up one full sheet of 12x12 paper in orange to make this effect. I like it... it flows... I also cut some flowers out of the patterned red/orange paper to add
A blurry up close of the white chipboard.. I'm not sure why it's so blurry, sorry... You can see the flowers with a grommet and my journaling sideways on the lines...
This layout has the Park brochure on it, and some more posed pictures by the huge entrance murals. It was a rainy day there but we still had fun.
I added this buckle and adhered it with the same patterned paper, and added a torn paper to journal a line or two.. :)

Hope you like em'! I hope they "inspire" you! I hope you have a crafty Wednesday!

Tuesday, Tuesday...

For lack of a better post title.. it's freaking Tuesday... Can you feel my enthusiasm? I love coming to work, so I can sit and look at blogs all day, so long in fact that I almost forgot to update my own blog. Oops.

I really have to figure out some things on my camera, the whole internal memory is full thing is making me angry and I can't seem to get them to copy to my SD card... blah. blah. blah... So I only have one layout for you today. It was one of 3 that I did lastnight. I am really on the ball with these pages, my husband told me I'm a Scrapbooking Fool! My daughter keeps asking when I'll be done with all this scrapbooking.... the answer.... probably never.. but... I'm okay with that! :)

So here is today layout.. Hope you like it.. I do! :)

These are two of my favorite pictures of my trip.. Love them! I just framed them with some matchy paper and ta-da... not much to this layout but I like it nonetheless.
These letters were cut from my NEW Cricut cartridge "Makin' the Grade". The prima was a new set I got at Michael's yesterday too.... more on that below.
So I decided to go to Michael's because their Cricut carts are 1/2 off... yikes, what a sale... so I went.. I got Makin' the Grade cart and I love the letters! You'll be seeing them alot in the next few weeks I suppose. I also got these prima tins, they have 96 in each tin for $5.99 at Michael's. I was in shock because every other time I looked at them they seemed to be much more expensive... So I got one in pastels and one in bright colors.. :) The provo Craft letters are chipboards, buttttt I can use both the negative and positives of the letters because they are in tag form so I get double the letters! Love em, got a pack in Black/white and Pink/white. :)

That's it for today, it's time to go, happy crafting! :)

Tea Party and a layout....

Back to Monday... Am I the ONLY one that hates Mondays? I already hate waking up so early but to wake up to come to work and sit here all day just kills me.... Oh and to top it off I got in and the AC is OUT! Out as in NOT WORKING! Not good for Albuquerque weather I tell ya that. It's boiling. I usually have oatmeal for breakfast when I get in, but I think if I do I might just burn up!

Anyhow.. how was your weekend? I didn't do much actually, Friday I was lazy after work, I didn't feel like doing much, I had a headache all afternoon and evening so I just watched TV.

Saturday the girls were invited to a birthday Tea Party. It was so cute and the girls had sooo much fun. Here's the pics of the tea party. Happy birthday Bella! :)

They started off with some sandwiches and then moved outside to make some bracelets. Nevaeh is working away steadily... :)
Mikayla is a pro at this already, look at all her beads that are already on the string! :)
Nevaeh was done fast--I helped her... So she waited patiently for the cake and tea.
Mango tea.. yummmm... She really liked it too.
Mikayla was a little iffy once they poured the milk in, but add a lump of sugar and she was all in! :)
They also got to go swimming while we were there. They had so much fun and they were so tired out. It was sprinkling rain while they were swimming so it was nice and refreshing. :) Look at the view!

I wouldn't mind waking up to the mountains like this everyday. They live alot closer to the Sandia mountains than I do.

Throughout the weekend, I also got about 7 pages done buttttttt the way I had my camera set up and my full SD cards I was only able to get picture of ONE layout for today... Ugh it's a long story and well I have about 2600 pictures on my SD card to get developed, only about 30 pictures are able to upload on my internal drive so I didn't have any space to take layout pics. Sorry, I will have them later this week. So as you can tell I am starting on my SeaWorld pics. I love that place! I love these pics. Mikayla is giving 2 thumbs up! She's so photogenic!
I love this page because it's soooo bright. I added white chipboard letters to break it up a bit. I cut out circles with my fiskar circle cutter... I also used my Fiskar threading waterpunch.. I love that thing. I got the ribbon on the dollar rack at Hobby Lobby. The white journaling says... We had a Whale of a time! Thumbs up!

I'll have more layouts this week and I am hoping the AC works better sooooon! :) I might just have to go home for the day :)

Posting early today....

Yay. I think this is the earliest I've ever posted! Well not alot is going on today, probably leaving early from work... Why? Why not is a better question. Nobody is really here today and even if there was people here they don't care anyway. I leave for an hour or two and nobody even notices. That's how much they *love* me... :)

Anywho.... I got two pages done lastnight, I'm moving along quickly with last years trip so I'm happy.... considering I take thousands of pictures I'm doing good!

Here are the layouts:This was one of the baby animals at the park, along with her mother. She was too cute!
I added a chipboard and a button to the top right.
I added pre-printed Baby letters. Popped up the B so it had dimension. Added some journaling as well in pink gel pen.
Added the eeeeeee ribbon with some silver brads.
This layout was on white paper covered mostly with one of the Park maps.
I added the tickets we had to get into the park as well.
These chipboards are the negatives of the letters, I love them this way! The R is used above as well.
Here I covered what was a polka dotted blue arrow with green paper, I added the negatives of YOU chipboard and I love the way it came out.

So I plan to do more pages this weekend along with another project that is super secret! I won't reveal that until much later! Since I'm already done with all the school shopping I really don't know what we're going to do. The girls are supposed to go to a tea party birthday tomorrow but being that it's about an hour drive from my house and I am babysitting a friend's little girl I'm not sure if we'll make it. Well other than that, Happy Friday and Happy Crafting for the weekend! See ya on Monday!

Is the layout okay?

Is this readable now? I sure hope soooo... Sorry for all the headache! :)

Thursday Tagging!

I've been tagged.... for a ONE WORD MEME! This came from blogging buddy Nit over at A Soldier's Girl. Thanks Nit, I haven't done one in a while.... So here goes..

All you have to do is answer the questions with one word, and tag four people. I am NOT a one word person so lets see how this goes....

1. Where is your cell phone? Pocket
2. Your significant other? Driving
3. Your hair? Shorter
4. Your mother? Lovely
5. Your father? Crazy
6. Your favorite thing? Family
7. Your dream last night? Highschool???
8. Your favorite drink? Pepsi
9. Your dream/goal? Author
10. The room you’re in? Office
11. Your hobby? Scrapbooking
12. Your fear? Debt
13. Where do you want to be in 6 years? Rich!
14. What you’re not? Gullable
15. Muffins? Carb-o-licious
16. One of your wish list items? Baby
17. Where you grew up? NM
18. The last thing you did? Read
19. What are you wearing? Pink
20. Favorite gadget? Computer
21. Your pets? UGH!
22. Your computer? SLOWWWWW
23. Your mood? Frustrated
24. Missing someone? Grandma
25. Your car? NEW!
26. Something you’re not wearing? Socks
27. Favorite store? Hobby Lobby
28. Like someone? Yeah
29. Your favorite color? Black
30. When is the last time you laughed? Morning
31. Last time you cried? June

Okay.. that wasn't so bad... I wish I could have explained some of them! :) So I'm going to be tagging.....

Lauren at Busy Bee Lauren
Kim at Paper Babe
MandyKay at MandyKay
Misty at Li'l Bucks Creations

As for my regular post for today... nothing crafty happened lastnight, I had to actually change the name on the frame I made yesterday because apparently the parents changed the middle name to Lynn and failed to inform me even after talking to him to ensure spelling.. Way to go Dad! :) haha... just kidding, I give him a hard time... So just imagine the frame as it now says Ava Lynn. :) That's all folks... oh and by the way... I'll be changing my layout again, apparently those using Firefox are having a hard time reading it... I don't want it to be more trouble for you than it has to be... So say goodbye to this pink and black swirly thing-a-ma-jig layout.... at least it lasted a day or so! :)

Middle of the week Madness

It's always madness but really it's been crazy... It's like baby central around here, a guy at work just had a baby, my sister in law had a baby two days ago and now my husband's first cousin had a baby lastnight... Insane! I love babies and I want at least one more (everyone thinks I'm crazy) so I kind of feel out of the loop with all these babies being born and none of them are mine! haha :)

Anyhow, I stopped by Hobby Lobby lastnight and got a plain wooden frame, the ones they sell in the unfinished wood department and I decided to jazz it up for one of the new babies. Her name is Ava Rose (cute!). I hope her parents like it! Here it is....

I had this pink paper in my stash, it was double sided so the green and white polka dots was the other side of it. I covered the entire thing in the pink. I added the green strips to the corners.
This chipboard I just bought yesterday, it was only $2 so I had to get them.
These are the same flowers I made the other day with my card. I really like the way they come out. These ones I tore up the edges a little more so the white would come through and break up the green a bit. I used a darker green for the biggest circle, the same white/green polka dot paper for the middle circle and the pink paper for the center.
I used white grommets for the middle, I crop a diled them to the green strips before adhering them to the actual frame. The flowers ended up coming out great I thought, and they are so easy to do... Just circles, edge them, crumple, and then grommet... :) easy peasy... Let me know what you think! :)

Okay.. this is it...

I promise... no changing templates.. at least not for a few more days.. haha :) I was not happy with the last one I put up and so I found this one FINALLYYYYY that I liked at Pyzam . You know since I'm soooo busy at work and all I had to manage to find the time to find yet another template, and I did! Yay, I like this one. Do you? Let me know.... I want to hear from you alllllll! :)

I also changed the side bar, I took off all the "things accomplished in 08", I had the number of layouts, cards, books, etc. on there but it was getting too hard to track... yeah I know I'm lazy. So instead I added the " last crafty thing I've done". I think that will be better since I don't get to do something crafty EVERY DAY... and you can still know what's going on.

I also updated my blog roll, there are some new ones and I took off a few that I was frequenting as much... But believe it or not I hit these blogs once a day at least during the work week... YAY! I'm such a true friend! :) heehee....

Ohhhh by the way Carol, I didn't forget about you hun.. I'm leaving work in about 30 minutes to go pick up your gift card and send it your way... So sorry that it took me an extra week to get it out. I was procrastinating as usual! :) You'll be able to do some shopping on the weekend with it!

Tired Tuesday... and a card!

Tired.. yes, as always but today I realllllyyyy have a reason to be tired this early in the morning. I woke up with my mom and went walking. We walked 2 miles... my little toes hurt! I know I'm a wimp, I don't know how I ever made it through the Army. haha. Okay enough about that. Last night I made a CARD! I am not a cardmaker I don't think. After I look through all these blogs and see what others do I am left speechless. So in no way do I think I am a cardmaker... but I thought I would give it a try. Over at 2 Sketches 4 You Kazan and Laura are the best card makers ever! I love their stuff. They always have unique ideas and they are so pretty and cute! I love them. They just started this blog not too long ago and they are doing weekly sketches. This week the sketch is this.And the prize is THIS! Not too shabby eh? :)
So this is the card that I made for the sketch. I hope you like it. Although I don't think I will win (there's stiff competition)... I had fun trying and I plan to continue doing the weekly challenge so I can become a better card maker. Who better to learn from, right? :)
I scraped the edges of everything with my xacto knife to take off some of the color... Used chocolate brown base, some hot pink for the middle section and some lime green for some pops. Up close, you can see I added scraped lines to the green as well, it's rough feeling and I think it added a cute touch.I added a little clear bubble sticker "faith" for the sentiment.I've seen this flower making in various layouts and cards and thought I would try it again. I had only done in a layout but on the card it's cute. :) I used the same brown but scraped it both horizontal and vertical with the xacto to take off the color a bit as well as the edges. I used a couple differnt pink papers for the center and topped it off with a brown grommet. Enjoy and go take a look at their work.. It's awesome!