Mailbox of Love

Kaley needed a decorated box or bag to receive her Valentines at her class party tomorrow. Now, if you know my Kaley, you would know that just a plain box or bag is not good enough. So I took her with me to Michael's with the plan of decoupaging a cute box that I saw on Laura Vegas' blog and then be able to reuse it after her party. But when we got there she saw this little foam mailbox instead and fell in love with it. It was only $3.99 and then some of the packs of foam shapes were already on clearance. So we went with that.
I had to use glue dots to hold one of the ends in place and the flag because it kept flopping all over and was getting bent. And as you can see, I helped her with the front where her name went (and those layered hearts we bought I loved so much that the rest are for me!) but the back she wanted to do all by herself. This is when I have to let go and walk away and just let her do it. My perfectionist self can't watch or help or things get bad! So to Kaley this meant using almost every shape that we bought and creating some kind of pattern that covered the whole side! Oh, she is so cute!
But now she has a cute place for her friends to put her Valentines, although I am starting to realize that the popular thing to do is create goody bags full of stuff. I am always shocked at the amount of money that some parents spend on this kind of stuff (especially when there are 31 kids in their class!)
By the way, the girls started Girl Scouts last night and they loved it! They can't wait to start earning patches and I love that most of the girls in their group are their friends from church!
I have a few more Valentine's Day crafts in the works and then next week I will start sharing pictures of the garden that my husband is creating for us!

It's Valentine's Time!

It is that time of year again... Valentine's Day! And that means one thing to a mom of school aged kids... parties! I always hold my breath when looking at the list of what things I'm supposed to bring in to the girls' classrooms and some years I get off better than others. This year Kaley had to make a Valentines box (I'll be sharing that tomorrow), Madison made hers in class. For Madison's class I have to make 20 heart sugar cookies unfrosted. Easy, especially since I found a BIG heart shaped cookie cutter at Michael's for $.79. But the one thing left was the Valentine's for the girl's to give to their friends. I gave them the choice, either: a) you can pick them out in the store and they can be any of your favorite characters, or b) we make them. They both opted for option b, and I found a cute idea in the Scrapbooks Etc. magazine. Here they are!
I used a big 3" scallop circle punch to punch out what seemed like a million shapes out of pink, blue, and purple tissue paper. These I let the girls take two of each color and layer them in whatever order they wanted.
I threaded them onto the suckers and the girls helped me fluff them up.
I came up with the idea to poke holes into a square paper plate and stick the suckers through for the girls to transport them with out crushing them.
The leaves I hand drew one based on the size of the Valentine's stamp that I had and then traced almost 90 of them! 31 for each of their classes and then 13 for each of them to take to Girl Scouts which they are starting tonight! I stamped each of them and then hand cut, then stamped the back with the to: and from:

I love to get pictures of their writing to see how far they have come in the last year.
One more Valentine's project down... yay!

I'm Coming Back... I Promise!

I have been a little (okay, a lot!) under the weather this past week. A seriously bad head cold hit me and seems to not want to go away. I usually love this time of the year and Valentine's Day is one of my favorite "crafty" holidays, but so far... nothing! I have lots of plans not only for my own home decor but also for the girls. This Friday is their Valentine's parties because they have next Monday off of school. So we have more than 60 valentine's to make, I have to send Madison with 2 dozen unfrosted heart sugar cookies, and send Kaley with some kind of treat plus a Valentine box that we have to create, and who knows what else will come up this week! Whew! I'm ready for another nap...

Cloud 9

I like to give myself little challenges now and then, when it comes to scrapbooking anyway. Life not so much! The challenge that I gave myself last week was to create a mini album with only the Sassafras products that I had in my room. No shopping, no new stuff, just use up what I have on hand. I did have to go and take some new pictures but that doesn't count... right?
Giving myself this challenge forced me to do crazy things like mix patterns that I normally wouldn't put together, or create my own embellishments by cutting out little scraps of paper. I know, crazy!
Here is one example, this flower originally had an orange center. But orange didn't look good to me so I added a brown and then a pink button on top of it to cover up the orange. Voila!
This chipboard album is one that I had sitting in my room for a long time now, I picked it up at Michael's for a dollar. On this page I misted the chipboard background with blue and used a couple of masks that I made myself. There is a subtle swirl pattern on the left and the right.
It was fun to mix and match these different papers and stickers. And I love to detail cut things too and this background is misted with white so it looks like a silvery cloud!
The journaling spot here was created with a Sassafras stamp that I colored in with markers. The strip on the left is one of the Sassafras border strips that I accordian folded to give it some texture.
I love to use pretty packaging whenever I can! And most of the Sassafras embellishments and stamps come with a background that is thick and ledger printed. I love it so much! This was the scrap from when I punched out a tab edge using my Tim Holtz Sizzix die and my Big shot. I loved the section in the middle so I kept it and it created the perfect place for this little strip of plums cut from another sheet of paper.
I love to use up scraps and I have had a ton laying around my counter over the last week. It's a great way to clean up too!
This page didn't need much embellishment because the paper that I used to cover the chipboard was so pretty and it worked perfectly for Kaley's name. I just added a little decorative border strip.
There is just something about lined papers that makes me happy! Maybe it's the organizer in me, I don't know, but this is one of my favorites.

The back of the album was creating with a layer of paint first and then adding layers of chalk ink until it was the shade of turquoise that I wanted. I added a little hand cut cloud and some layer stickers. Note: the only thing in this album that isn't Sassafras is the letter stickers... those are Thickers by American Crafts.

Some Layouts to Share

This blog has been pretty heavy lately with stuff about my house and all of the stuff that I am wanting to buy that I thought I should share some of the layouts that I have done with the stuff I have. Here are just a selection of some of my favorite layouts from the past year or so...
I had a pretty difficult time with the thought of turning 30 last year so I wanted to make sure to create something beautiful out of something so horrible! And I really wanted to showcase this SEI birthday line.
Last year Neil played men's softball with some guys from our church. The kids and I loved going and watching him and I had fun taking pictures of him.
Oh boy, here's is an old picture of me! This is one of my favorite pages because of the products and how it all just came together, plus it includes some of the things from my childhood that I remember most.
I took my Mom out for an evening for her birthday to see the first showing of Michael Jackson's This Is It. We had a blast that night and I had a blast creating this page... especially that flower! I even punched out pieces from our tickets to add as embellishments.
I took this title from a page that Elizabeth Kartchner did a while back. It just seemed to fit Neil and I really well. And when he saw this page last night he said, "Oh look, it's the fat guy you used to be married to." He is so funny.
I love Echo Park and I love these pictures that I got at Disneyland of my daughter Kaley while we waited in line for Splash Mountain.
This page about my first ride on a Harley is a favorite because I love the way that the glimmer mist came out and how by me taking a blue marker to the red Harley bike sticker, it made it purple!
This page is one of my all time favorite layouts. The concept was slightly taken from a page by Elizabeth Kartchner but I put my own spin on it. The picture came out really neat even though you can see Neil holding up the camera remote, the whole page just feels comfy to me. Oh, and the love is hand stitched.

My Scrapbooking Wish List

Going on right now, only 2 hours away from me, is CHA winter! As someone this week called it, it's "the Super Bowl of Scrapbooking". This is where all of the companies debut all of their new products and even let you use some of them in Make n Takes. Many of the top designers are there and it is something that I dream about going to someday... crazy right? Oh well, you can go ahead and call me crazy! So here are just some of the things that I am loving the past few days as I have been stalking all of the company blogs... just a warning, this is a long post! And I haven't even touched the new Slice Design cards yet! Enjoy!
Here is the iBond from Imaginisce. This is a cordless hot glue gun and yes, you see that correct, those are colored and glittered glue sticks! I can't wait to get my hands on this baby!
I won an iRock from the Imaginisce blog a few months back and I really love it. This CHA they debuted more glam rocks in other colors and even shapes! And this handy little tray to get them back into that lipgloss looking bottle... clever!
These Starter papers from Sassafras are heavenly and are just screaming for me to layer some paper yumminess on top of them...
And this paper from the Sweetly Smitten collection is awesome! I love ledger papers!

I am a huge Echo Park fan and they have 3 new collections that I am drooling over. The first is this Springtime collection... love that tree!
This Summer Days collection is so totally me and perfect for pictures of my girls playing this summer. Is it crazy that I am already planning activities for this summer just to go with some of these papers?
Here is the collection that I am most excited about: For the Record. All of the fun, funky, vintage stuff that I am loving right now!
Here is one of the papers from the Hello Sunshine Collection from American Crafts. These clouds are so cute and I am itching to detail cut some of them out to add to my pages.

Here are a couple of the embellishments from the Peachy Keen line from American Crafts... loving them so much! The rose brads are amazing!
American Crafts has come out with a couple of revolutionary products this CHA, one of them being this Micro Glitter paper. This is glitter paper that WILL NOT come off! Coming from someone that hates having glitter on them this makes me happy!
Lately I have tried to not buy every single piece of a collection that I like. Because I have come to realize that I do a couple of pages, some cards and maybe a mini album and then I am ready to move on and not see it again. So I waste so much money by buying it all when I could just buy my favorite papers, and a few embellishments (making sure to get different types and textures) and then that's it. That way I spend less and I get to try more collections and keep things fresh. All of that to say that this Confetti line from American Crafts I am so in love with (and with four kids who seem to have birthdays every year!) I have to have it all! It's way too cute to not get every little piece.
Check out these darling little delights embellishments. Love the colors.
These details cupcake embellishments look so good that I find it difficult to not lick my computer screen, just darling!
The #1 thing on my CHA wish list? These new Knock Outs border punches from American Crafts! Check this out.... one punch base and then you buy the decorative inserts to go with it. Less expensive and it takes up less room! Genius those American Crafts people are, just genius!

Hope you enjoyed the peeks at new products coming out soon! I could probably find enough products to do another post as long as this one... maybe if I have some extra time!

My Wish List

I thought that it would be fun to share some things that I have been drooling over as I peruse online stores. These are things that I am working on picking up here or there whenever I get a few extra dollars and others are being saved for birthday/christmas requests! Ok here we go...
Black Glitter Toms! I have been wanting a pair of Toms for quite a while now but have been unable to decide which ones I want... there are way too many that I like! But I am thinking that these black glitter ones will be perfect for this spring and summer because I really need a new pair of black flats anyway and these would look so cute with my cropped jeans!
We love to watch Blu Ray's and these are some of my favorite girly movies, our blu ray drawer is a little guy action movie and kid movie heavy! When In Rome is hilarious!
This was one of my favorite movies when I was in High School and still the best version of an incredible play.
This one is a classic "already know the story line" kind of movie but still really enjoyable and the Italian countryside is beautiful in Blu Ray!
Here is my "someday I will own you" item. The Epson R1900 large format printer. I don't print 12x12 photos often although I did a couple of our Maui trip, but I mostly want it for the option of printing journaling or images directly onto my 12x12 cardstock background... someday!

I am loving this jewelry holder from Urban Outfitters.

I'm really wishing that they still had this one! Why do they have to torture me with posting it on the website but then in big Red letters posting Sorry this is no longer available!


Oh you precious Jo Tote... the camera bag of my dreams! This is an amazing camera bag that is big enough for your DSLR, extra lenses, accessories and your normal everyday purse stuff too!

Well, there is a peek at the things that I am daydreaming about lately. Monday I will post my scrapbook wish list, CHA starts tomorrow and great things are coming out!