Free!

Here's a LO that I completed for the November Sketch Challenge.

Fall 'N Angels

Here's my newest Layout. I created it for Challenge #2 on http://www.thelittlescrapshop.com/. I had to use the word "Angel" somewhere and use something "angelic" in the layout. The photo was taken at a fall farm and is of two sweet little girls that belong to friends of ours.

Check out the November challenges if you haven't already, some wonderful prizes await the winners!!!!!

I hope everyone had a great Turkle...eh..Thanksgiving Day!

On our way to Nebraska this past weekend, Levi was talking to Micah about a book that he had brought with him to read. It was about a turkey. For some reason, Levi had "turtle" on the brain and called it a turkle. Not only that, but while he was making fun of himself for calling it a turkle, he then accidently called it a turty! hehe!

So happy Turkle Day tomorrow everyone. Or is it Turty day...I don't know.

Here's a homemade chipboard album that I made recently. I bought the chipboard sheets, covered them with Prima IOD paper, embellished them a bit, cut holes in the pages with my cropadile and inserted rings and decorated with ribbon. Great for Christmas gifts!

Long weekend

Well, towards the end of last week, we got word that Levi had a job interview scheduled for Monday (yesterday) in Kearney, NE. So we planned a very quick trip up there! We left on Saturday morning about 6:30AM and got to Kearney at 4:30PM. We had some time to just relax and let the kids go swimming at the hotel after dinner, so that was nice. The hotel was really nice and had a swimming pool and a heated whirlpool that the kids could also get in and they loved that!

Then we went to church on Sunday at St. George and visited with everyone there. They're so wonderful, I really liked getting to know them better.
After lunch, we went around looking for houses/apartments so we could get a feel for what the market is like. We're just going to rent, and since housing is SO HIGH, we'll probably end up in an apartment. Which made me sad because our house is SO big here and I love it to pieces, and even a 3 bedroom 2 bath apartment would be about 1/4 the size of our current house!
I really do like the Kearney area though and it's 10 hours closer to my family so that will be worth it.

A fun surprise awaited me Sunday night! When we went to dinner at Red Lobster with Fr. Christopher and his wife, the first person I saw when I walked through the door was my friend Mackenzie! She lives about 4 1/2 hours from Kearney, but happened to be there that weekend visiting her sister who lives in Kearney. So that was a crazy moment! :) We were both in shock at first I think! She had no idea that I would be in Kearney that weekend and I had no idea she would be there either. So it was fun to at least say hi and talk for a few minutes.

I'm STILL waiting on my package for the December kit from Paws on Scrapbooking. They sent it out 2 weeks ago, and it's still MIA. It's being sent from Canada though, and mail from here to Canada and vice versa can be VERY slow and silly. I just hope it comes in one piece, preferrably BEFORE December!

Well, I'd better get back to work now! Hope you all have a great week!

Winter Wonderland

I've been playing with my Silhouette, and I made these pretty layered snowflakes yesterday! They were really fun to make.

Prima Tape

Today's blog post at The Little Scrap Shop is a review on Prima IOD Tape.

check it out! www.thelittlescrapshop.com/blog

Is a Cutting System for You?

In my blog post today for the Little Scrap Shop, I compare and contrast cutting systems such as the Cricut, Silhouette, etc. Here's a taste of the article, but to see the whole thing, you've gotta go to the source!
http://www.thelittlescrapshop.com/blog/?p=175
And while you're there, check out the new November challenges! You won't want to miss out on those cool prizes! And there's ONLY a few days left if you want in on the Fall Sweepstakes! Hundreds of dollars worth of scrapbooking prizes await you and it's free and easy to enter!

Is A Cutting System for You?

by Amy Hadley

These days, most scrappers utilize some sort of cutting system in their layouts. In fact, I’ve been seeing more brand new scrappers splurging on a system within a month or two of picking up the hobby. Some buy machines before they even understand what they do or that there are fundamental differences between them. It’s difficult to buy a machine and be happy with it if you don’t match it up to your personal needs as a scrapbooker, and the more you know about the different kinds of machines, the more informed and accurate your decision will be.

There are two general kinds of systems available, the manual and the electronic. Manual machines are those that you manipulate yourself and do not use electricity such as the Sizzix, Cuttlebug, Quickutz Squeeze, Quickutz Revolution, etc. You have to buy dies for them, and you are limited to the size of the die. The Cuttlebug is one of the newest manual die cutting machines. The Cuttlebug also features embossing folders that you can create embossed paper with and the Cuttlebug is compatible with die sets from most of the major brand scrapbook die cutters on the market. You can also cut chipboard, foam and felt easily with the Sizzix and Cuttlebug, and they can be taken to crops if you wish. The Sizzix is one of the oldest die cutting machines and is based on the “old school” industrial die cutters you see in teacher supply centers and colleges. If you’re a no frills scrapper and don’t plan on using more than one or two fonts, this machine could be a good fit for you economically. As electronic cutters take over the modern market, the older manual machines go down in price. However, some stores have stopped carrying them as well, so check into your local market...

For the rest of the article go to the link provided above for The Little Scrap Shop!

The Library is Closed for Ballet

Last weekend Levi and I ended up cleaning up Alexis' room because she was being a wild animal and decided she was just too "tired" and "sore" to do it herself. Well, we took her toys and put them all in an extra closet in our room for the week as punishmet, so all she was left with was her books and a table and chair in the play room. The play room is a huge walk in closet connected to her room. It's got built in shelves and it's a great play room because it's quite large. Earlier this week I noticed that she was spending hours in her room playing "library." She had taken all the Childcraft books and put them in the shelves in the playroom and she also took all the fall and Thanksgiving books off her shelf in her room and placed them in the playroom. Why? Because that's what librarians do. So she set up a library and took her stuffed dog to pick out books.

This morning, I caught her writing on a note taped to her door. She doesn't really write much yet, so she was just scribbling while she talked.

"The library is closed today. The lady who owns the library is teaching kids ballet. If you like ballet, please come to the library. But the library is not open. Unless you like ballet."

Professional Looker

So I was downstairs in the kitchen and Alexis was evidently playing a secret game of hide and seek. She was behind the stove and I noticed she was there and said "hi sweetie."

She came stomping out and exclaimed, "Are you a professional looker or something?"

huh?

I asked her what she was talking about and she said, "You know, everywhere I am, you look and see me!"

So that's me, I'm a professional looker ;)

Some new Layouts

I loved this photo of DD at a fall farm sitting on bales of hay. I took it when she was watching the other kids play, she didn't even notice. I started out with an 8x10 in color and black and white and pieced the color over the black and white manually (not digitally) and adhered it down. I used Tim Holtz vintage photo distress ink on the edges of the photo.

Oh Monday...

Well, this weekend was spent just relaxing and cleaning. It was nice, it's been a while since we had a quiet weekend with nothing major to accomplish! I got a little bit of scrapbooking done, I'm working on a circle chipboard album for Micah (from the November kit). I think he's really going to like it!

Micah told me that he has a friend named Ben and evidently he taught Micah to pull the neck of his shirt down and say, "I'm buff." *rolling my eyes over here*

It was funny though, here was our conversation:

"Mom, I said that once with Ben on the bus."

"Why did you say that Micah, you're so goofy."

"I said it twice actually."

"Twice? You guys are weird" :)

"Actually I said it 10 times."

hehehehe :)

Oh, and I'm so happy for daylight savings time right now! I got up at 6:45 and was actually awake because it wasn't dark out. hooray! Let's see how long this lasts....

Here's some fun pics I took of Alexis when I took her to Mc Donald's last week to play.

Pics from Last Weekend

We went to a Fall Farm near St. Louis last Sunday with some good friends of ours. Here's some fun photos!

Here's Micah after he made it through a corn maze. Goofy kid!
Here's the "Pumpkin Chucker" that shot pumpkins about a 1/2 of a mile! It was really fun to watch and really loud!

Here's Micah and his stagecoach.

See the cone sticking out of the goat's mouth? :)



The straw pyramid and slides

It's Starting out to be a Great Day :)

Here's what I got in my e-mail box this morning from Paws on Scrapbooking...

CRAZY BLUE !!!
You are our choice for Guest DT Member for the month of
December!
Your Kit will ship next week for you and we are anxiously
awaiting your creations!


Thanks for being a great part of
PAWS ON Scrapbooking!

Also note that you can take advantage of a
10% discount on your orders for the Month Of December and FREE Shipping charges
if you purchase products before your kit ships out. Kits will be mailed on
Tuesday November 6th.
If you accept this DT Position, I will email you an
online coupon you can use to benefit of this 10% discount for the month of
December.

OUr DT Kit for the month of December is Daisy D's Paisley
Sugarplum with a value of about 40$!

Woo HOO!!!!!

November kit debuts!

(by Angel - owner of TLSS)

The Little Scrap Shop is happy to present our November kit, ‘Color Me Creative’. This is our first mini-album kit, and includes a premium (and very nice sized!) 6-page chipboard album, plus papers and embellishments so wild and colorful, we’re sure they’ll inspire you to create!
Kit includes:
12 - Sheets Tinkering Ink Blur double-sided 12×12 cardstock-weight patterned papers1 - Full Sheet Tinkering Ink Slang rub-ons (black AND white in one pack - how sweet is that?)1 - Full sheet Tinkering Ink Funk Die Cut stickers (dozens upon dozens of awesome nested die cut stickers!)1 - 8×8 Rusty Pickle ring-bound 6 page chipboard circle album (these things are BIG, will hold 4×6 photos and then some!!)8 - American Crafts red & teal (4 of each) medium (6mm) bradsHandful (between 8-12) Rusty Pickle lavender buttons (various sizes)1 - Bam Pop Trubbles clear stamp
We’re including pics of both sides of the Tinkering Ink paper so you can see how incredible they are!!

This is also our first kit to include BONUS papers! You’ll also get:
4 - Bam Pop Version III 12×12 papers (everyone gets at least one sheet of foil accented paper!)6 - Bazzill 12×12 textured cardstocks in coordinating colors (2 of each of 3 colors)

This kit is HUGE - worth over $40 retail, but it’s yours for only $30 (plus shipping)! There’s enough stuff here to make an entire 8×8 circle album, and who knows how many layouts! These papers are fun, bright, funky and youthful, so if you have little kids, teen kids, big kids who used to be little kids, grandkids who are little kids or big kids, if you’re married to a big kid, or if you’re just a kid at heart, then this kid… I mean KIT… is for you!

http://thelittlescrapshop.com/

And here's a LO that I created using the kit paper. I cut the letters with my brand new Silhouette, I had so much fun :)I cut an "x" in the background and "ripped" open the sides so it looks like the photo is with

in and bursting out. I used Queen & Co Felt Fusions (green scroll) and cut it up a bit. I also used new Prima border tape, but it's hard to see in this photo. You can see it better on top of the LO photograph - it's a green pattern.