Photo-A-Day {No.11}

This is Chloe. Today it rained almost all day. Chloe laid on the couch the {entire} day.

Oh, to have the life of a cat.

{SOY}

Back in May I entered the Scrapbooker of the Year {SOY} contest. Obviously, I didn't win or you would've heard about it! Today I thought I'd share a couple of the layouts that were part of my entry. Maybe you can find a little bit of inspiration from them today. Now go get busy and create!!

Photo-A-Day {No.10}

This, of course, is Brett. My man. The one person who can always make me laugh no matter what. And, the one person who I can count on to make any type of outing fun. He is always trying on things when we go into stores and then hamming it up for the camera for me. {He saw the mask and said that Abbey would like it. And, she would. She loves Phantom of the Opera.} He was like a kid at Christmas while we were in the party store. Thanks babe for always making me laugh.

Photo-A-Day {No.9}

I am doing the photo a day for 365 days. This is No. 9. {Mom taxi.} Picking my baby up from school.

daily gratitude.

So. I promised to post the project I just finished and here it is. My daily gratitude journal. I had so much fun making this. Pulled out a bunch of stamps, stickers and tags for this and just had creative fun. No pressure. Just creative freedom.
My goal {thanks to Nellie} is to daily write down something from my day that I am grateful for. So far, I have kept up with it pretty easily. Kinda hard not to when you have something creative to write in.
















I used lots of different papers, tags, packaging, and garment tags to make the pages of this journal. I wanted to use up scrap pieces of paper and pieces of everyday life to create something useful. And, here it is.














I used 2 star playing cards for the front and back covers. They, of course, were the number 3's from the deck.

You may be asking why I made a gratitude journal. Mainly because my focus hasn't been where it needs to be. I haven't had my eyes on God every day as I should and I needed a reminder of what He does for me on a daily basis. So, this little stack of cards is my way of regaining that focus. Me, physically writing down at least one thing every single day that I am grateful for. {Making sure that God is the center of my life.}

{thank you} nellie bellie

Nellie, you are truly a blog {Queen}. Thank you so much for all your help with my blog and your patient tutoring of me. You are the absolute best. I love how you made it fun and easy. I actually enjoyed playing around with my blog tonite. HOotie HoO! Hopefully, I will have a new project to post soon.............

NeLliE neLLiE dAy

Today I {cEleBRatE} you, Nellie. The first time we met I knew we were going to be friends. We have shared so much in such a short space of time and yet it seems like I've known you all my life. You have such a tender and deep heart and I LoVe that about you. You have pushed me in so many ways to grow as a friend and as a child of God. I am blessed beyond measure that God {brought} you into my life as my sister and my friend. You are genuine, encouraging, funny, inspiring and beautiful in so many ways. And, as if that wasn't enough, you are incredibly {aRtiStIc}. Your handwriting kicks butt!! Thank you so much for sharing with me your love, laughter, late night chats, scrapping sessions, Michael's shopping sprees, hot cocoa and ice cream runs, lung punches, and daily emails. But, most of all, thank you for just allowing me to be a part of your journey. HaPpy hApPY BiRthDaY, NeLliE beLLiE! {I heart you.}

How {happy} will you be today?

I have this little baby hanging in my kitchen right now. My first response to it was a chuckle and a smile. But, then when you think about it a little longer.....it really is very {simple}. Just be happy with your life, with what you have, with who you are. Stop looking at all the negatives and the could have beens and just find {joy in the journey}. Let God take control again and enjoy the journey He has planned for you. So, we all have a {choice} today. Will we be happy or not happy? Personally, I think I'll go with fRenCh frY bIrD today.

the 80's are alive and well...and so is Rick Springfield

So, my birthday was August 14th and my sweet husband got me tickets to see Rick Springfield on my birthday. [He felt pretty clever for that one. Way to go, honey!] I wasn't quite sure what to expect. After all, Rick is almost 60. [His bday is August 23rd - sound familiar, Nellie?] I didn't know if he would still be rockin' or not. He is. In fact, he is in extremely good shape and can play the electric guitar like nobody's business. Actually, he played like 5 or 6 different ones and threw some of them almost to the ceiling and cAugHt them. And, his voice? The same. When he sang Jessie's Girl...WOW! Sounded just like I remember. He totally roCkEd! He had more energy than I would've ever expected. Love his new CD by the way. Yes, that's right folks, he's making music again. Venus In Overdrive. Definitely worth a listen to. Oh yeah, Rick's still alive and well. :)

Ahhhhhhhhh, Spring Cleaning

Had a wonderful weekend! My family and I cleaned house and I totally reorganized my office. Nothing like a little reorganization to get you feeling creative again. Have a bunch of pictures to share. First of my reorganized and CLEAN office and of artwork by my daughter that I framed and hung up. And, since I had a newly cleaned office I was excited to finally work on an art project for my bathroom. Made some art to hang on a very boring wall.

Yes, I'm a bit of a daisy lover. They're such friendly flowers and they make me smile. :)

Find a way to be creative this week. Go through your supplies. Purge and reorganize and see what ideas might come from that. Make some wall art. Get inspiration from art created by your kids. But, most of all ~ ENJOY!

A Little Staples Love

I'm baaaaaaaaaack! Sorry to have been away for so long. Just finished a humongo project. HOotie HoO!! So, I'm back to share a little Staples love today. First of all, love love love Staples! Cannot even begin to tell you how they rock. Super nice, friendly people who are so WILLING to help you with anything. Made my color copying experience painless and efficient. They totally rock. And, found these super cool paper clips and binder clips there. So many possibilities for these little babies. Can't wait to use these in my scrapping. Okay, that's all for today. Just a short note to let you know that I hadn't died or anything. :)

Heavy Metal

It has finally happened! Abbey has gotten into Heavy Metal. Not the music kind, but the mouth kind. Here's my sweet girl sporting her new braces. She looks so different to me. She's been a real trooper with the sore mouth. Every time I look at her teeth it looks like something has moved already. I'm sure that's all in my head, but you never know. The orthodontist's assistant said that she would feel her teeth moving all the time. Kinda bizarre. I think she smiles even more now that she got braces than she did before if that is at all possible! :)

Happy Easter

Hope everyone is having a fabulous Easter. Just kicking back here. No egg hunts for us. My sweet Abbey doesn't want to hunt eggs by herself. I can't imagine why! I guess that isn't too cool for a 14 year old to do. That's okay. I don't have a single plastic egg in the house! So, what do you do to treat a teenager on Easter? You make them a card and insert cash!

And, after you take a picture of the card, then you start playing with the settings on your camera and you find cool options like this one:

Apparently, my camera will shoot in black and white and color only the parts that have a green or yellow tint to them. Too COOL! If you have time this week, play with your camera and see what you can do with yours. Happy Bunny Day!

Why do you scrapbook?

Let's face it. Life art can be full of creativity and joy. And, it can be overwhelming and frustrating at times. Taking a moment to pause and remind yourself WHY you create life art is a wonderful exercise in regaining focus and allowing yourself to enjoy your art again. A year ago I had the privilege of taking a mini album class at Scrap Etc. by Kristina Contes on "Why do you scrapbook?". I didn't work on the project again until last week. It was kinda therapeutic reminding myself WHY I create in the first place. Above are pics of my finished project. Hope that you will take a few minutes to remember why you create life art or maybe go even further and create a mini album of your own to serve as a reminder when you're feeling overwhelmed or frustrated by this amazing art form. Happy Creating!