Project Life: Week 41

OK, so my blog background has changed. Why is that, you ask? Well, I have been using Leelou Blogs for my free blog templates for quite a while. Periodically I like to change things up and put up something seasonal. I went to Leelou the other day to look for something Halloweeny and read that her blog templates will no longer be free and that after November 5 all existing blog templates will be removed (on a blog that has that template...like mine!). Now I totally get that...her blog designing takes a lot of time and it does cost her something and so now she is going to sell her designs. Really reasonable...$15 a blog template. Her blog templates are really, really cute. But when I read that I had one day to decide to have Leelou create me a customized template (apparently I wasn't getting the memo!) and I just couldn't make a decision! So I switched over to The Cutest Blog on the Block. That site used to have many more templates but just have a few. I quickly grabbed one up and here we are. It'll do....  I have no idea, though, why the text is all centered....I can't seem to figure out how to get it left justified (my preference!). 

(Ok, so now I am able to get each paragraph left justified but it defaults back to center justified if I don't manually change it...if anyone can tell me how to change it so it defaults to left justified let me know! ;)  I mean, this is such a huge first world problem, isn't it? LOL!)

(3rd "addendum"...I've changed it again to a background instead of a template and think I like the look better....at least I can READ my blog! And now I'm left justified again! Must have something to do with my brain!...now I just need a purdy banner....amazing how this stuff can just suck the time out of your life!)

Now onto more fun stuff....Project Life: Week 41! 11 more weeks and we will be at the end of the year (and then can start all over again! LOL!!!)

Here is the left side:

Although most of the week was centered around the new little guy in our lives I wanted to try to make sure I included some of the activities of the rest of the family.

Here is a photo of the whole family getting ready to come home from the hospital.  The hospital worker took a ton of pictures...this was about the best of the lot.  I love the look on Taylor's face...as she looks at Wade screaming...like "What the heck???!!!"

I made the banner with little EK Success punches and some Hero Arts alpha stamps and since my layouts were pretty photo heavy again I just journaled a bit on my Week card.

Below is a journaling card done with Me and My Big Ideas paper and a journaling card.  The little 3D bunny is from some random stickers I picked up recently at Tuesday Morning.

Here is the right side:

with a cute little filler card by Me and My Big Ideas:

More random stickers:

I also had a few of my favorite pictures of the week printed out in a 5x7 size and just put those in Becky Higgins page protectors:

And that's it for today!

Happy Halloween and Happy Crafting!

More Halloweenies!

Halloween is such a fun time each year.  I love the costumes and as I mentioned the other day... I LOVE THE CANDY!

I know there are people who don't celebrate Halloween thinking it's evil or something...I respect that BUT I love it and there is nothing evil about Flash Gordon and Minnie Mouse!

We went to an annual Trunk and Treat the other day.  I hadn't heard of that until last year....the church where the little ones go to preschool/mother's morning out has one each year.  People decorate the trunks or the back parts of their vehicles, dress up and give candy out to the little kids.  My grandkids love it!

Of course, Thursday is the big night, isn't it?

Here is another card I made with one of the Halloween sets from Paper Smooches.  I've had so much fun working with these sets....those little images are adorable!

I used Doodlebug papers and a Tim Holtz embossing folder (for the spider web).  I used white core paper so that when I sanded it the white showed through.  Whomever dreamed that one up was brilliant!

The little vampire was paper pieced and I added some goldish Stickles around his eyes.

And that would be it.  Simple, simple, bo-bimple, fanana fanna fo fimple.  There you have it.

I'm entering this in the Simon Says Challenge Halloween or Halloween Colors HERE.

Happy Crafting!

More Halloween Fun

I just spent about 7 hours and 43 minutes working on photos...I backed them all up (yay, me!), I went through hundreds to find some for Project Life, I formatted them to the correct size, edited them as needed, uploaded them to Costco and clicked SUBMIT!

About an hour later I got a call from Costco that their printer is down!  GREAT!!!  I had two orders uploaded!  Arrrggghhhhhhh!  Not a huge problem because I just went ahead and had them sent to another Costco but it all did set me back time wise so lo and behold...no housecleaning today either! LOL! *any excuse works for me!

But onto Halloween.  Here is another card made with the Paper Smooches set I used in the cards I posted yesterday.  In fact, I used the same little Frankenstein who is just too cute.   I colored him with some Copics and added some googly eyes.  Cut him out and popped him up.

Fun and simple to create.

I've entered this in the Simon Says Stamp Halloween or Halloween Colors Challenge HERE.

Off to pick up those pictures and head to a Trunk and Treat with the kids!

Happy Crafting!

Happy Halloween!

Boo!  Eeek! Shriek!!!  Halloween is just around the corner, isn't it? I have always loved Halloween...I don't remember too many costumes that I dressed up in when I was a kid but I do recall those horrid masks that you wore and could not breathe in or see out of! LOL!  Those of you more than 29 years old will surely remember those.

I do recall that when I was in the second grade I dressed up as Jackie Kennedy.  I don't recall what my mother put me in but I did have an authentic Jackie Kennedy mask.  I thought she was so pretty!  Of course, JFK was president then so you can probably figure out that I am Waaay more than 29!  HAHA!

I made several costumes for my own kids and that was always fun.

My grandkids are going as Flash Gordon and Minnie Mouse this year.  I can't wait to see them.  Wade, the new baby, will probably go as a cow which will have been recycled from the other kids.  ;)

Anyway, onto cardmaking.  I have a few Paper Smooches stamp sets and I just love them.  I like the cute side of Halloween.  I know some love the spooky, creepy stuff but I like cute.  Don't hate.

So, I've made several cards and will share over the next few days.  Gotta get these babies in the mail today, don't I?

I made two variations but here is the first one.  I love the little Frankenstein dude....I colored him with Copics and added some googly eyes.  I love the little beakers which I put some Stickles over.  I hate spiders which totally ick me out but can tolerate the 2 dimensional non-moving kind....  I think he's kind of cute, by the way....

Here is a closeup of Mr. Frank N. Stein.  (Oh, old favorite movie....Young Frankenstein with Gene Wilder.  "It's not Frankenstein...it's Frah ken steen!"  HAHA!)

And here is a photo of the two versions:

 

Fun, fun, fun!

Oh, and another thing I like about Halloween is CANDY!  I love candy.  Yep...I do!  I like just about everything except for Jujubes...and Milk Duds sort of get on my nerves.  But Snickers, M and M's, Twix, Starburst, etc....well, keep them out of my reach!

Happy Crafting!  It's a beautiful day here...a bit cool.  I think I'll take a walk at the park and do some crafting, too! 

Oh, and I entered this in the Simon Says Stamp Halloween or Halloween Colors Challenge HERE.

Christmas Tags: Part 3

Whoooooeeee.....I have been remiss in blogging this past week.  Life just keeps happening.  Time with the grandkids has been great...we did a photo shoot of our little BullDAWG (UGA) yesterday and here he is:

We had such fun trying to pose him (not successfully most of the time!)...we set him up on a bed....opened the blinds...put a heating pad under him and had a heater on in the room and he just slept most of the time.  Too cute!  But we never could get the really cute Anne Geddes type photos...we would "mold" him and he'd quickly unmold!  LOL!

We had fun, though!  My grandkids are so well documented, you know?  Digital photography has been life changing for me.  My husband says he only has one or two photos from when he was a baby.  My grandkids have thousands!!!  Amazing.  I. Love. It.

Onto Christmas Tags....here are the final four I made at the class I took....uh, two weeks ago!

The tag above was simply done by coloring stamps with markers on a tag cut on the Silhouette Cameo.  The coloring part is not my favorite technique.  Not much into "huffing"...I generally over huff or under huff.  On this tag I over huffed my sentiment a bit so it looks like it says "Merry and Nacht"...should have reduced my huffing and then it might have looked like "Merry and Bright"...like it was supposed to! LOL!

The tag below was done with the cutest little penguin stamp...which we stamped, colored a bit and cut out.  We added a tad of washi tape and some baker's twine and that was it.  Easy.

The third tag for sharing was a favorite....we punched the ornaments with an EK Success punch, stamped the date with a Paper Smooches stamp which we did before embossing it.  Added a few little embellishments and that was it!  I loved the bright and cheerful papers!

The last tag we did was this one:

Again we used some bright Christmasy papers, stamped "December 25" on a word bubble which was punched with an American Crafts punch.  The cute little Santa is an 3D sticker from Petaloo.  CUTE and fast!

That's it for today, my friends.  Thanks for stopping by and...
Happy Crafting!

Project Life: Week 40

Week 40 was an incredible week for us...and it was all centered around the birth of my grandson, Wade Garrison.  Sure, I did play tennis that week (and won) and the kids had their usual school activities but we were in the waiting game.  Amanda was due on Sunday, October 6 but she had both David and Taylor before her due dates so we knew this little one could come along at any point.

On Friday I offered to keep the kids so that she and Big David (her hubby)  could have one last night out before they went from a family of 4 to a family of 5.  She had told me that would be great but later in the day I got the text that they would come to my house but would probably not do dinner and to "wash your hair".  That was "code" for she was probably in labor....I had told her that when she thought she was in labor that I would need to know so that I could wash my hair!  I didn't want pictures of me with my new grandchild to show me with ratty hair, you know?  LOL!  So instead of saying she was in labor she just told me to wash my hair.  LOL!!!

They arrived here around 5:30, I think and dropped of the two little ones and headed to the hospital.  I took David and Taylor to their other grandparents and headed to the hospital so I could be there with them. 

I arrived at the hospital at about 6:45pm. By that time she was already 5-6cm dilated, I think.  It wasn't long before she was 8-9cms and then time to have the baby.

Amanda has babies quickly.  I knew this time around that I would need to have my camera ready and focused.  Taylor came so quickly that I wanted to tell the Dr. to put her back as I didn't get many pictures.  This time I was a little better prepared! ;)

So my Project Life for Week 40 is pretty much all about the day the little guy joined us (although I did sneak a couple of photos of David in!).

Here is the left side:

 I purchased these little filler cards which are made by Me and My Big Ideas and worked just fine for me!  Nothing to it except to corner round it and stick it in the album.

 My week card was also done with a Me and My Big Ideas journaling card and some Thickers.

I am letting the photos do the talking....
Here is the right side:

Witnessing a child being born (and not being in labor yourself) is truly a miracle.  Amazing. Overwhelming.  Awe-inspiring.  Sensational. Incredible.  You get the idea. 

I am a lucky Omie.

OK, so this two page spread only goes to Friday but my weeks go to Saturday. I have a lot of photos for Saturday, though, when several people came to the hospital to see the little guy so I am going to do another two page spread for that.  An insert page just would not be enough, you know?  A Week 40 part B, so to speak...

I am off today to spend with a friend or two and meet some new ladies who also have a love of paper crafting. 

I hope you all have a wonderful Sunday...thanks for stopping by!

And...Happy Crafting!

Christmas Tags: Part II

I shared a few tags I made in the Tag class at Archiver's in my last post and will share a few more today.  I love all of the little tags...they are just pretty darned cute, I think, and I will look forward to slapping them on a gift this Christmas!

Here is the next batch...

I love that tag with the cute little banner made with punches....the little tree punch was so darned cute, too.  And isn't the script on the Paper Smooches "Merry Christmas" sentiment so perfect?  Easy and fun, I say!

The one below was done with a Hampton Arts stamp (the jar) and snowflake and holly punches by EK Success. We used a Corner Chomper for the corners.  Simple to make!

And the last one for today is this cute one with skates die cut out of felt.  The die was from Tim Holtz.  We colored the heels and blades with markers.  Added few metal dots to make it look like the skate grommets.  Too cute and again....very easy!

It is a dreary fall day here today....drizzly and cool.  A perfect day to sequester myself in my crafty space and create!

Oh, and I know you want to see a more current photo of little Wade who turns a whopping 15 days old today.  He was just a mere lad of 13 days when this photo was taken.  His sister and brother have the blackest eyes which were black from they day they were born but Wade's are a different color...still blue.  We expect them to change at some point since both his parents have dark eyes but it is interesting to see different color....

Hope you get some time for some Happy Crafting, too!

Christmas Tags Archiver's Style

I have posted here about how much I enjoy classes I take at Archiver's.  They are not usually very difficult...and sometimes we all learn a few new things or get to play with some new products.  The annual tag class is no exception and I love making all the little tags.

I went with 2 friends...one of whom says she doesn't much care for the Archiver's classes.  I love them....what's not to love?  They do all the hard work and we just stick and glue and embellish and emboss.  And we can get caught up on all our yapping.  And they clean up the mess we make!  So again...what's not to love?  LOL!

Back to the Christmas tags....if I use them for family gifts I make the recipient give them back to me so that I can recycle them the next year.  I am like that.  It's my contribution to the greening of America.  LOL!

Seriously, the tags are generally too cute to toss so why not use them again I ask you?

Since I've taken this class each year for the past few years I think I have more tags than gifts to give.  A good problem to have, I believe....

We made 10 tags...I'll share 3 of those today.

The first was just some popped up paper with a square cut out to make it look like a fireplace.  How easy is that?!  And then we just stuck on some 3d embellishments...those stocking are made out of felt and so cute!

The second one was done with some silver cardstock and a circle punch, a stamped and hand cut tree, a Hero Arts banner stamp which was hand cut and some bling.  Easy and I like the way this little one turned out!

And the third one was done with a tag shape cut with a Silhouette design, some chevron washi tape, a stamped sentiment and a little punched snowflake with a bit of bling.

All were fast and easy!

So we tried to get a photo of me with the 3 little ones, David, Taylor and Wade, yesterday.  About 20 photos were snapped but none was great.  LOL!

We tried "look at Mommy", "put your legs down", "smile", "put your hands down", "put your hands down and smile", "put your legs and hands down and look at Mommy", "open your eyes and put your legs down", "sit up", "sit up and smile",  "open your eyes and smile and stop doing fill in the blank".  LOL!!! It is what it is! 
I love these kids!  I've told my daughter that for Christmas I'd like a professionally done portrait of the kids.  Good luck to that professional!

Happy Crafting!

Project Life: Week 39

I had a few minutes yesterday to finish up Week 39 of my Project Life.  I'm doing well....getting caught  up! LOL! 

Here is the left side:

The week card and the journaling card as well as the enamel dots are all from Doodlebug...I love Doodlebug...such cute stuff for kid pages.  Here's a closer shot of the "week" card:

I used Memory Box dies for "week", the brackets and the "39".  I put a little glossy accent on the little bluebird and some tiny googly eyes on the owl.  I love the googly eyes and I think the little kiddos will like them, too!
The "grandparent" stamp on the bottom right photo of the kids and me is a Unity Stamp.
Here is the right side:

I used a journaling stamp from Unity Stamps and papers from a DCWV stack from my stash.  The burlap and felt stickers were left over from a project from another week and are from Little Yellow Bicycle, I think.
I also did an insert page this week with a 5x7 photo of my grandson, David.   The front side is just simply the photo placed in a 5x7 Becky Higgins page insert.  Isn't he the cutest little boy?

 The back side I used a Becky Higgins 4x6 journaling card and added a little paper and some enamel dots and did a little good bit of journaling!

And that, my friends, means that Week 39 is FINISHED!!!  Woohooo.....which means I can get on to WEEK 40 and the birth of WADE!

It will be a few days, though...I'm back at my daughter's to help out for a few more days so am away from my crafty stuff.  And while I'm here I don't do crafting.  I play Batman and Babies and Dollhouse and Cars and read Curious George and New York Baby for the 116th times.  Life is grand!

Happy Crafting to you, though!

Project Life: Week 38

Mish mash, hodge podge, eclectic?  I think you could use any of those words to describe my approach to my Project Life pages for Week 38.  But they are done.  "Eclectic" always has a nice sound to it but often means unmatched to me! LOL!  Oh well...Week 38 is done...on to Week 39!

Week 38 was a big week for us as it was David's 4th birthday on September 21.  His mom who was just a few weeks from giving birth to her 3rd kid wanted to do something low key for his birthday.  She wanted to just get a cake...have some kids to a local park and let them run around and play.  No big deal.  Well, all week long we had the most gorgeous weather....the day before his birthday was gorgeous....the day after was just as lovely but on the 21st we had TORRENTIAL DOWNPOURS!  So at the last minute we were able to move it indoors to one of those indoor playground sorts of places.  It worked out well and the children all had a great time.  And the place cleaned up the mess.  Well worth the $$$!

Here is the left side:

I used a Doodlebug card for the week card and a card from Simple Stories which doesn't even much match!  Eclectic, remember?  LOL!!!  I also used a photo template from Lily Pad Designs.
On to the right side:

Again we have a mish mash...a Recollections Card and a Simple Stories card....I didn't do much with the pictures this week....just corner rounded.  No big complicated templates or anything like that.
You may not be able to see the bottom left picture well but these are the girls (minus 1) who will be in my son and future daughter in law's wedding next April.  Those are not the dresses they will wear but we did just get a group shot.  They are all such pretty girls!!!
Since it was David's birthday I also did an insert page for this week:
Here is the front side:

The Celebrate card was made on my Silhouette Cameo.

Here is the reverse side:

And that would be it for today....time for some grandmother time with the little ones!

Happy Crafting!

Thanks

Wooooooo, BOY!  I've been having the best time getting to know my new grandson, Wade Garrison, and spending time with his big brother and sister (and his mom and dad!)! I stayed at my daughter's for a few days after they came home from the hospital and was able to snap this first photo of their so-precious-to-me family:

Here are the two boys together...David is so protective of his little brother:

 

 And here's one of Wade at 2 days old just after getting home from the hospital:

He looks a lot like his older brother and sister....but does have lighter hair than they did.  And he's a good bit bigger than they were!
Anyway, not much time for crafting but I did make Amanda some thank you cards for her to send.

I used a Lawn Fawn stamp which I inked with Versamark and used some blue embossing powder which was heat set.  I also stamped a small heart with Versafine black ink and then heat embossed it with some clear and colored it in with a Wink of Stella glitter brush pen.  I used a circle punch and a scallop punch and then used foam dimensionals for a bit of lift.

The "thanks" is a Simon Says Stamp die.  This was probably the most time consuming part of the card as the little inside pieces of the "h", "a", "k" and "s" had to be adhered as well.  For some things "nekkid" holes work but with this pretty script...well, it needs its innards!  LOL!!!  By the way..."nekkid" is a real word.  It means "naked" but is naughtier.  Google it if you don't believe me.  I tell the truth.

Off to make another batch!

Happy Crafting!

He's Here!

I am a three time grandmother!  My daughter gave birth to a beautiful baby boy Friday night at 22:22 (10:22pm)!  That girl knows how to birth babies...very efficient with the least amount of trouble possible.  5-6 pushes and he was out!

His name is Wade...I guess they will decide on a middle name today.  I guess Wade Susan just won't work.  LOL!

Here he is about 5 hours before he was born!

 Here he is a few minutes after he was born.  He weighed 8lbs 12ozs which is the biggest grandchild by far for me!  And he was 22 inches long at birth.

Here he is with the doctor who delivered him.  My daughter's doctor who delivered the first two was not on call Friday night so this lady delivered him but she was great. 

 Here's one after the eye gook was put in.  LOL!

 And as he was getting his first bath...

 All cleaned up. 

 And yawning at Omie who cannot believe she is a third time grandmother and is only 39 years old!!! How can that be????  LOL!!!

And here's one with the kids taken yesterday.  They were quite the big protective big brother and big sister!

No crafting for me for a few days but woohoo...look at all the subject matter I'll have to scrapbook!!

(Not that I was lacking...!)

Happy Crafting!