ScrapTiffany Recycled Blog Hop

Welcome to the ScrapTiffany Recycled Blog Hop! I am your first stop and I am so excited you are joining us! You should be arriving here from the ScrapTiffanyblog.  If you have landed here first, head on back to the ScrapTiffany blog to start hopping!

ScrapTiffany

Michelle

Katie

Kay

Jennifer

Norazah

Jolanda

Bev

Krischelle

Sophie

Gaby

Dale

Danielle

Renee

Becca

Danielle2

ScrapTiffany

We are all going to have some fun with Recycling today and tomorrow.  I used to own a scrapbook kit club, and we would often split products for our kits. One month we used chipboard from My Mind’s Eye that came in these buckets that looked so cute filled with glittered chipboard shapes.

I ended up with tons of these and it seemed so wasteful to just toss them, so for the past 2 years they have been recycled in several different ways for fun little gifts. This seemed like the perfect item to dress up for Easter with a bit of papers I didn’t plan to use and a few tools from my stash.

Remove packaging

Punch 3” scallop circle to cover lid

Adhere punched borders to pail

Break out the embossing powder, versamark and stamps

Start Zinging….

Cut out a cute chick and layer eggs around the pail with pop dots Tie with ribbons, fill with jelly beans and give them to your favorite Easter Bunny. I am going to the CKC Mesa Scrapbook Convention this weekend. I will be bringing some goodies back to give away to a commenter from this post.

So follow me and leave a comment for a chance to win. (I will pay for US postage, and would be happy to give away to an international winner if you help out with the postage and cover the difference).

Winner will be posted when I get back on Sunday.

Thanks for hopping by!

Next stop on the Blog Hop is Katie.

Happy Hopping!

Love Fridays and a ScrapTiffany Challenge

Even when it means Saturday morning I must get up early and get our taxes done.  I am sure we will get a refund, and even knowing that I always put it off as long as possible. I guess I just don’t like to spend a weekend that way. Today is a layout challenge at ScrapTiffany.  Sassy Lil Sketches provided this cute sketch for us to use:

The ladies over at ScrapTiffany have lots of fun takes on it.  Here was mine:

I loved these pictures from our vacation last year at Disneyland, and was happy to finally get them on a page.

And here is another layout I did recently, my little man is a bit messy most the time. Maybe one day he won’t be and then we can just remember when he was “into everything”

I can dream anyway.

Well, I am off to get some routine blood work before finishing out the work week.

Have a great weekend!

A couple layouts to share

Pictures from our first breakfast with the animals at the zoo.  Nicholas had a ball feeing the goats.

Visiting Santa in 2009, the boy's letter's from Santa are tucked in the envelope.

Have a great week!

Happy Friday

I unexplainably woke up at 4:00 am this morning and could not go back to sleep. I figured I may as well get up and be productive with the time. I am sure I will be loving it about 2:00 this afternoon when the lack of sleep hits.  It will be even more fabulous because my entire afternoon is filled with back to back meetings. At least I have a 4 day weekend to look forward to. Last weekend was Mike’s big 45th.

His choice of celebrating was to stay at home most of the weekend and cook for us.  He started off the day with his Bobby Flay inspired Bloody Mary’s and brunch on the grill.  Those breakfast sandwiches are too die for.

We just hung around the house all day and he grilled us fabulous burgers for dinner.  I told him I would make him anything he wanted for his birthday cake. He picked Oreo Cheesecake. I found a few recipe ideas and made a Cheesecake Factory inspired Oreo Cheesecake for our dessert.  It was probably my best cheesecake effort to date.

Nicholas loves birthdays, singing and helping blow out candles.

Nicholas has decided he likes to stamp and made his Daddy a birthday card.

The great thing for me is all weekend he wanted to go down to my scrap room to stamp and do crafts. He is pretty self sufficient down there, I set him up with his own drawer full of old stamps and stamp pads, paper, stickers, and other items I didn’t want anymore.  It let me get some scrap time in too, I just have to let him have control of the TV while we are down there. But that’s okay.

This was my simple card for Mike.  And since I have a ton of layouts I haven’t shared, here are a few….

Jackson’s first Christmas….

At the pumpkin patch, I scrapped the enlarged photo I had in our entry way during the fall season.

ZooLights at the Phoenix Zoo in 2009 in a rare 2 pager…

Have a great weekend….

Beauty

Today’s challenge at ScrapTiffany is about Beauty.

It’s weird really.  Today’s post was going to be about how we celebrated Mike’s 45th birthday this weekend. I will have to save that for another day. Because, I can’t stop thinking about my Mom right now, and that she will never again experience a beautiful Arizona sunset with us.

I guess it is because I worked on the design for her headstone this weekend. We had been putting it off, but it needed to be done. I sometimes wonder if I am putting the flowers in the right spot when I visit the cemetary.  So I guess we need to have that to make sure, right?

I have been disconnecting from my online world a lot lately on purpose. I have been spending time doing a few things I want to do; rather than a little of everything. I am purposefully choosing to do less online.

Last year I finally scanned all the pictures I had and those that my mom had given to me as well. I am now organizing and tagging them in Lightroom.  It is forcing me to spend a lot of time with my family and my childhood. That is a good thing. It is interesting the observations I make from this exercise.

I have a category called Who’s That? I don’t know who these people are. and with my mom gone, I am not sure if I will ever find out. I am happy that there aren’t many. I hope to give my children the gift of knowing who the people in the old photos are when I am not here to tell them anymore. I meant to ask my mom, but I didn’t.

One thing that really struck me…the last picture I had with my mom and me was from Thanksgiving 2009. Really? A year before she passed. I should be able to do better than that. I have a camera around at all times, how did that happen.

The other thing that struck me is the last pictures I have of my mom were from early October 2010. She looked really good. It was just a couple of weeks before we found out the cancer had spread...That our days with her were numbered and we didn’t even know it.

I zoomed in on this picture yesterday to see that the light still sparkled in her eyes. It made me realize that I watched it dim the last 2 weeks of her life.  The last couple of days they were dark. The light was gone.

Thanks for letting me remember her today. I miss her.

A ScrapTiffany Challenge and More Layouts to Share

Happy March to you! In Arizona that means one thing…..Spring Training baseball.  Mike and I grew up Angels fans, and when we moved from California to Arizona one thing he didn’t like was that we couldn’t go to Angel’s games anymore.  But, we have the next best thing here, Spring Training.  Tempe Stadium is a great place to see a game, especially when you have little ones. The big grassy area is perfect for lounging and watching the games. And of course we are raising our boys right….Angels babies!

So what better way to meet today’s ScrapTiffany Sports Challenge than to celebrate our Angel’s and Spring Training Baseball…..

Head on over to ScrapTiffany and check out the other ladies take on the challenge. And if you take the challenge e-mail your work to Tiffany (tiffany(at)scrapbooktiffany(dot)com), we would love to see it.

I also have a few more layouts to share. I was looking through my layout pictures and I still have a lot more to share.  Here are a few….

New Shoes – using Studio Calico Candy Shoppe January 2011. Doing some shoe shopping.

Fall 2010 using October 2010 Back 40. Celebrating fall decorations around the house.

From a past Sunday Sketch at Studio Calico using Elementary. Nicholas Fall school picture.

And finally Happy Halloween using the Color Me Daisy October 2009 Halloween kit. My favorite Halloween picture from 2009.

Have a great week. It is quarter end for me at work and it will be a busy one for me.

Life, Organization, Scrapbooking and Valentine’s Day

(Photo heavy post ahead) 2011 is already zipping on by.  We have been keeping busy with long work days, home organization projects and trying to fit in some creative/hobby time (usually late at night after the boys go to sleep.

Today’s challenge at ScrapTiffany was to use metal or wire. I ended up making 3 layouts using this challenge. This is the one I submitted to Tiffany for the design team layouts.

This layout was rolling around my brain since a few days after my mom passed away in December. The Orianthi song Courage came on the radio and I knew this was something I needed to make….

For this one I used some old metal flowers mixed with new.

and this one I embossed a thin sheet of metal with the cuttlebug for the heart in the title and the photo corner. Pictures were from our photo shoot with Maggie Holmes.

We have been on a clean out, get rid of and organize mission lately.  Two weekends ago we attacked the pantry and the linen closet.

This is what the pantry looked like when we started.

And now, although I am not happy with a few things, so I have ordered some more of the larger baskets and will move some of the smaller ones to the laundry room cabinets. But it is nice to have a place for everything,.

This is the start of the new backsplash, behind the stove. I have one more piece on backorder that will fit below the shelf area down to the counter top. But this is making me very happy.

Superbowl Sunday was spent hanging around the house. Or climbing if you are Jackson…

Making some yummy treats…

Nicholas liked watching half time and the commercials more than the football game (just like his mommy)….

I was home early from a doctor’s appointment on Tuesday. Jackson was playing and then suddenly it was quiet….

Nicholas now knows how to play Daddy’s train game on the computer….

This past Saturday, Mike’s mom came to watch the boys so Mike and I could attack this disaster.  Our house has a 2 car and 1 car garage set up. The 1 car garage has become a dumping ground for everything….

We took out everything opened all the bins and boxes. Moved all the shelves, swept, and wiped down everything.  Then we added new shelving and a file cabinet. And we actually have a garage again.

In January I also did the larger garage. It wasn’t as crammed with stuff. This side just needed a better set up and a good clean out.  I guess I didn’t take a before shot, but here is how it looks now….

my favorite area is this one. We do most of our grocery shopping at Costco, saving money is great, but storing the bulk stuff is a pain. Now it is all in one place, convenient to grab when we need it and easy to unload after the Costco trip each week.

Nicholas in daddy’s shoes (showing off the closet that is coming up on the list of things to clean out).

Mike has been busy working on his radio project.

We celebrated Valentine’s with a few goodies for the kiddos.

my Valentine’s present will be shipping from Verizon soon….

After the kiddos went to bed, my Valentine and I spent the rest of the evening enjoying

Dinner….Greek Salad

Wild Mushroom Lasagna and Meatballs….

and a movie…

Have a great week!

Has it really been 2 weeks?

I guess so.  Life has been busy. I have been working a lot of late nights and time with the kiddos has been short, so I my time online has been very limited lately.  We have also dug into a few house organization projects, so that has kept me busy on the weekends. It is time for a ScrapTiffany challenge. The first challenge for February was to use a yellow and grey color scheme.

Good colors for a Studio Calico kit. I think this was Napa Valley (November), with a few other things thrown in.

I have always loved this picture of Mike and Jackson.  Jackson is definitely Mike’s son. Jackson is very attached to his daddy. He is super grumpy when he is hungry, doesn’t like to be told he can’t do something, quiet at times and a chatterbox other times….which one am I talking about? Both.

I have been sidelined by heel pain. I was doing well on my walking for the 3 day Walk, but I am suffering from plantar fasciitis. My doctor has tried several treatments to let me keep walking, but I haven’t seen a tremendous amount of improvement, so I agreed begrudgingly to wear a boot for 2 weeks. Which means no walking, no extra things. Lots of rest. But hopefully it will be what I need to get over the hump and avoid physical therapy or worse, surgery.

Since I didn’t have to get up early to walk or go to work, I stayed up until 12:00 am on Sunday night and got 4 layouts done with January’s Studio Calico kit. I was struggling with this kit, so used a couple of challenges to get a start.

First was the Sunday Sketch at Studio Calico. I converted the sketch to a 12x12, but otherwise stayed pretty close to the original design.

Studio Calico was hosting some CHA challenges this weekend, one of them was a self portrait, so this was my take.

I’ll share the other 2 and more soon.

I have lots more to talk about, but it’s getting late and I am trying to get more sleep. So it will need to wait for another day.

Have a great week!

ScrapTiffany Sketch Challenge

It’s time for another ScrapTiffany challenge. This time the Design Team was asked to work with this sketch by our own Bev. If you want to join in the fun, email your take on the sketch to Tiffany at Tiffany(at)ScrapTiffany(dot)com.

Here was my take on it with a couple of my more recent favorite pictures of me and my mama.

I picked out the pictures when I saw the sketch, but I have to admit, when it came time to journal I couldn’t do it, so I found some sentiment stickers that said something instead.

It’s funny how some days you can write or talk about someone you miss easier than others. The day I made this, just wasn’t one of those easier days. But I am okay with that.

Hope you have a great Saturday. And if you are a lucky one with a 3 day weekend (I’m not), enjoy!

Tuesday Tutorial at ScrapTiffany

I'm hosting the Tuesday Tutorial over at ScrapTiffany. Come on by and learn how to make this: