Picture Spring

I am taking the Picture Spring class over at Big Picture Scrapbooking. The instructor is Tracey Clark, the founder of Shutter Sisters.

I never made it through 365 days of photos last year, taking a picture everyday got difficult when I couldn't find something new to photograph each day  I signed up for this class to help expand my horizons, so to speak, and re-train myself to look beyond the obvious.  Each morning our we have a prompt for the day in our in-box. It is up to us to interpret what that means to us.

So here are my first 10 days of pictures....

Day 1

Day 2

Day 3

Day 4

Day 5

Day 6

Day 7

Day 8

Day 9

Day 10

Some Color Me Daisy Layouts

Here are the rest of the layouts from the Color Me Daisy Spring Fever kit. So far I have done 5 layouts, 3 cards and 3 altered projects from the kit and I still have a lot more to work with. I wasn't sure how much I could make the kit work since when I put the kit together I thought it might be a bit to girly for a mama of two boys. I found enough to use for the boy layouts but it also gave me a reason to scrap some pictures from my binders that I never got to before.

This one is probably tied for 1st in my favorite layouts from the kit. The colors make the lemons stand out and I just love the randomness of life in the story behind it.

When Life Gives You Lemons Make Lemonade...and Lemon Meringue Pie

The story was something I blogged about here. This LO was based on a sketch I had printed out a week or two ago, I believe from The Scrappiest.

I just love this picture I took of Jackson recently. I wanted it to be the focus of my page. I like how the button tree adds a lot of color but I think the picture still takes center stage. And I cannot tell you how much I love the Pink Paislee Artisan Element Frames and Tapes. Both are used on this page, along with a feature of my misting and border punch obsession.

Our Lil J

Before the boys were born, the dogs were featured in a lot more layouts. Since they are girly girl dogs there was plenty to work with in this kit for a princess puppy page.  I love the Jillibean Alpha's, the white ones especially give you so many options in altering them.  And the fabric in this kit is probably my favorite "evah"! The fabric circle flower was part of a What to Do Fabric Idea Feature in the Color Me Daisy April Kit Idea Guide.

Marti

This layout was based on a sketch from Inspired Blueprints a sketch site I recently discovered with great sketches and a friendly community.  I have had these pictures in my binders for a few years now from a trip to Las Vegas in 2006, the colors in the kit were so perfect for the bright colorful flower gardens of the Bellagio Hotel. I made a fabric strip flower for this one, which was also included in our idea guide.

I still have tons of photos of the gardens from that trip, maybe I'll use up my kit scraps for a mini album.

Bellagio Las Vegas

Well that's it for tonight. I still have cards, altered projects and a from my scraps project to share over the next couple of days.

Hope you have a great Friday!

Weekend update and scrappy stuff...

How did it get to be Wednesday night already? I guess with the release of the now sold out Color Me Daisy April Spring Fever kit and putting the finishing touches on the Idea Guide for the kit together the past few nights, I've been a bit busy.  I know I haven't been sleeping much.

We had a fun and busy Easter weekend. I spent almost all day Friday scrapping, it was delicious!  Then Saturday we were preparing eggs for dyeing, deviling eggs, whipping up strawberry vinaigrette for our Easter salad, baking hash brown casserole and decorating this scrumptious cake with a raspberry filling:

I got the idea for the cake from some Easter basket cupcakes I had seen while surfing the internet a couple of weeks ago. But honestly I wasn't interested in decorating that many little cupcakes. So I made a 2 layer white cake and the most yummy raspberry filling ever. I colored the frosting and coconut green and decorated the cake top with a bunny, peeps, jelly beans and malted eggs.  But I still needed a basket. So I grabbed my favorite Martha Stewart Border Punch and the Fiskars Apron Lace Punch and whipped up this basket using the Spring Fever kit scraps. It took about 10 minutes and it was just plain fun!

Other highlights from the weekend...

Nicholas had a ball dyeing the Easter eggs. He did a great job and was only medium messy.

We left a note and some jelly beans for the Easter Bunny and he delivered well...

Nicholas really got the idea of baskets and goodies and egg hunting this year and loved his new sporty toys.

Jackson is still a bit overwhelmed by the holidays, but he did manage to eat some goldfish and M&M's from his basket before breakfast.

I have a lot of scrappy stuff to share with you, but since it is getting late I'll leave it to one for tonight.

This one has some of my favorite things from the April Color Me Daisy kit...fabric, Jillibean Soup Corrugated Alphas and Pink Paislee Artisan Frames. I misted the alphas and frame with Maya Mist and love the splattered look for my little artist.  I layered the fabric after fraying the edges over packaging from the Pink Paislee ribbon pleats in the kit. I used the Artisan tape to give an anchor to the title of my layout and I cut the Pink Paislee flip notes in half to border the tops of my photos.

I'll be back tomorrow night with some more scrappy stuff as well as some pictures from the Picture Spring class I am taking at Big Picture Scrapbooking.

All the eggs in one basket...

Nicholas found all but 1 egg during the egg hunt today. Jackson couldn't care less about looking for eggs. He found one and just threw it then moved on to other more important things (throwing his other toys all over the yard).

Nicholas looks pretty proud of himself in this picture. He did well with the assistance from bear (in his left hand) and Nana R and Nana C.

Happy Easter

The boys are playing with their Easter basket goodies and munching on candy and goldfish (great breakfast, huh?), while we get ready for the day's festivities.

Wishing you a Happy Easter!

Ohhh the possibilities....

I am on vacation today and Mike (being the awesome husband he is) is giving me a scrap day. Today is his day to go to the grocery store and Costco so I have the house to myself for a few hours and I am about ready to get to work.....back later with whatever I come up with.

Get moving....

I have two more reasons to get my butt out of bed in the morning and out the door to exercise....

Not only do I need to get an exercise routine going and keep it on track. These two adorable pups need to drop some weight too.

The cute chubby black and white one, Marti (or fatty patty as I lovingly call her), well in dog terms she's obese. Marti should weigh 14 pounds and she weighs about 19. It's pretty harsh really. How would you like to be considered obese when you are 5 pounds overweight? I noticed that she is having a bit more trouble getting her bottom half on the couch when she jumps up. I don't think that food is really her issue. She would sleep 23 hours a day if we let her. She is LAZY and proud of it.

The white cutie-pie is Mandi. She should be a little dog and her fur sometimes hides things. But she can't sneak through the pool fence anymore. She probably weighs 10 pounds and shouldn't be more than 8 or 9. She isn't lazy so much as she is a piggy. She stalks the boys when they are eating to get whatever scraps she can find.

So until we get a routine going, I am alternating taking one of them on a walk each morning. They are a bit impossible to walk together and I need to want to get out of bed in the morning and being dragged by one dog while the other one lallygags along isn't going to make me race out the door.

So first up was Marti, she enjoyed her walk this morning. Mandi on the other hand was very mad that she didn't get to go. Tomorrow will be Mandi's turn and I am certain that our LAZY Marti will stay in bed under the covers and not even know we are gone.

It's the Climb...and yummy cookies

We have a climber on our hands. Jackson has been climbing on everything lately...the coffee table, the fireplace mantel, the ottoman, chairs, whatever.  I told Mike he just wants to be up higher so it is easier for him to get in our face (he is quite bossy). The problem is we think he can get up just fine, it's getting down we are worried about. Nicholas never did this, so it's a new thing. I am sure my mom would call it payback.  Apparently I was quite the acrobat back in my day.

I got home earlier than normal for a Friday, so I decided to find out what happened when you take these....

and mix them up like this.....

you get something that looks like this....

I found this recipe for Reese's Peanut Butter Egg Cookies on the Picky Palate blog.  I love her recipes they are usually relatively easy to follow and every one I have tried is easy to make. When I saw this recipe earlier this week I knew I had to make them, the Reese's Peanut Butter Eggs are probably my favorite all year.

The recipe said it would make 4 dozen, my scoop must be a bit smaller because I ended up with 5 dozen. So I think my co-workers will be happy on Monday with some of these.  There is no way we can keep them in the house. It will be impossible not to devour them over the weekend.

DIY Dish

Since I am wanting to learn to sew I have been on the look out for blogs and ideas to get started. The other day I came across DIY Dish. They posted their first episode last week.

Episode 2 is up now to.

Through March 31st you can enter to win one of TWO Janome sewing machines. Visit this post to get the details,

I've been a bad girl.....but I am so happy about it...and a few Color Me Daisy peeks

Yesterday I left this message for Mike "oh good, you didn't answer so I don't have to tell you what I did at lunch".  He called back later and said "you bought a sewing machine, didn't you?".  Well I guess I wasn't getting away with anything, was I? A couple of years ago I wanted to learn to sew just so I could stitch on my scrapbook pages, but I didn't want to spend a lot of money on a machine. So I got the bargain basement Singer from Target on a Black Friday sale.  It took me almost 2 years to actually learn to use it. I've sewed with it some, but it jams a lot and now that I have dabbled a bit in some fabric sewing I know it isn't going to cut it for long. I had known when I bought it that if I got the sewing bug I would go ahead and upgrade.

I have been including fabric in the Color Me Daisy kits for the past year and every time I go to pick out fabrics I am so intrigued (I think it's just like scrapbook papers in that respect). I look at it and touch it and see so many possibilities.

I also want to do a makeover on my kitchen and master bathroom, as well as finishing some window treatments around the house.  They are so expensive to have done I keep putting it off. So I thought maybe I could learn to sew them myself.

So after a lot of research I finally settled on a new machine:

Isn't she pretty? This machine does 173 stitches including some basic embroidery. But the coolest thing about it (for me) is the bobbin loading. I hated the one on my old machine, this one is so much simpler. I have a class next week on how to use it, but I plan to play with it this weekend. I even have an apron in mind to try to make.

Earlier this week I went to Michael's in search of some of the new EK Success Border Punches. They didn't have any yet, but I did find a star border punch in the American Girls section. I like flowers as much as the next girl, but with 2 boys a star border is a bit more useful. Of course I found what I was looking for at JoAnn's yesterday when I bought my machine, but I couldn't justify spending even more money after the sewing machine purchase.

I also picked up some yarn to try my hand at crocheting flowers. I haven't really crocheted in years, I started a blanket when Nicholas was born but never finished it, and fortunately I didn't have to because my "second" mom is a whiz at crocheting and she did a gorgeous one for him. But I still want to learn how to do flowers. So I brought a few fun colors on sale and have found some tutorials on a few blogs and plan to give that a whirl.

And last, but definitely not least, I have a few sneaks from one of my layouts I finished with the Color Me Daisy Spring Fever kit that will be released on April 5th.

I love the Jillibean Soup corrugated alpha's, they give you so many possibilities...

The kit has 5 fabric's included and the Idea Guide included with the kit will have no-sew fabric ideas.....

and Pink Paislee's new Artisan Elements are very fun to work with....

If you want to see additional sneak peeks for the Spring Fever kit visit the Color Me Daisy Blog or  Featured Designer, Becky Williams.