Because Album

This is an album that I recently did that was inspired by one that Maggie Holmes did which I saw in the Creating Keepsakes Fast and Fresh Albums last summer. Hers was 12x12 but I chose to do mine in 8x8 and use the pictures from the photo shoot that we won last summer. This is a very special album to me and it came out just the way I wanted it! I love it when that happens...
The album is from Fancy Pants and I knew that it would fit perfectly with this rose ribbon from Maya Road and the details embellishment from American Crafts and then it was the perfect opportunity to use some adhesive bling flourishes that I picked up at the last Scrapbook Expo.
Each page is a full 8x8 print (from Costco) and the other side is the other photos in 2x3 plus some fun strips and embellishments. For the letters I didn't want to have to go and buy enough letter stickers to do the word "because" 12 times so instead I got to play with the drawing tips for the slice and let me say that "I Love Them!" It did take some time to do but I drew and then cut each letter on graph paper by Scenic Route. The whole album is this format so instead of explaining each thing that I did, I will just share the journaling with you:
"you are such a beautiful and sweet girl Madison and I love to hear you laugh!"
"you love life and can handle anything that it throws at you and you are goofy!"
"we might have a lot of stress in our family but we know how to relax and laugh too! We never planned to have a family this big but we wouldn't change it either."
"you have a heart of gold Gabriel and you love to show how much you care."
"you are creative and inventive although usually used for trouble! And you know how to make me laugh."
"We have been through so much and have remained the best of friends."
"no matter what we will always be a family and seek God's will for everything we do."
"I want to remember this moment forever. Us spending time together, laughing and playing. And know that you still need me a little as you discover and learn. But mostly because I love my big crazy family!"
This is most of the pages but you get the idea... I hope you enjoyed!

Snow Day

First off is a picture of Neil and I at our friends' wedding on New Year's Day. Beautiful wedding with the best food ever! Buffalo Wild Wings bus parked right outside with two awnings where they were making the yummy food! I love my mild boneless wings...
The next day we started getting snow! It continued all night and most of Monday so everybody stayed home and we went outside and played. I love this hat that Madison got me for Christmas!
Zachary was having so much fun trying to make snowballs to throw at Daddy and he even got in on the snow angel action.
Gabriel kept asking Daddy to make him snowballs so that he could then throw them mostly at Daddy... I don't know why Neil kept doing it especially since Gabriel had gloves on and he didn't.
I love this jacket on Madison with that big furry hood. She had a lot of fun playing around and when she made a snow angel Neil said, "okay it looks good, but now you're just making a mud angel!" But she didn't care.
Kaley decided that this thin little jacket was going to be warm enough and she would not admit that she was cold either. I don't know where she gets her stubborness from! Oh wait, yes I do!
I had to get a picture of my honey and I which I took right after he nailed me with a snowball right in the head and neck while I was taking video and not paying attention.
We had a really good time playing outside as the snow continued to fall, then we went inside for hot chocolate and movies... it was a great snow day.

My Resolution Layout

Here is the layout that I created to showcase those resolutions that I talked about the other day. I wanted them to all be on there but I wanted them hidden so I wrote them on the backs of these City Park tags by American Crafts. I really wanted the photo and these amazing papers to be the focus, plus I got to use my new sewing machine for the first time to create the pocket first.
I love these pinwheel embellishments for the City Park line. One of my favorite things right now is these accordian pinwheels and American Crafts has done the hard work for me!
I wanted something cute up in the corner so I added this little strip of my favorite striped paper and then sewed it down. I then added a couple of little embellishments and a strip of green paper (the backside of one of the patterned papers) to add the date.
The tags I stamped using some number stamps from SEI and then wrote my resolutions on the back. If you are wondering why my title isn't "My Resolutions" with the plural, it's because I only had one "S" and was determined to use these Thickers! So I will live with the title.

Supplies: AC- Waterfront Park paper (35229), Lincoln Park paper (35228), Heritage Park paper (35245), Hyde Park paper (35238), Mountain Park paper (35231), Sunny Day paper (34974) - Blue Skies, City Park Tags, Remarks- Gazebo (42176), Delights- Slide (72004), Yellow Ricrac-Everyday 1 (92960), Thickers-Jewelry Box (42849), Precision Pen 03 (62311)
Other- Stamps- SEI, Sewing Machine, brown raffia

Organizing Photos

Wow, two days in a row! I'm really on a roll now! hehe! I recently had six months worth of pictures printed at Costco, which by the way is the best way to have pictures printed. Not only do they look great but they are only $0.13 a print for 4x6 and their larger prints are very reasonable too. I often have 8x8 and 12x12 photos printed for special projects. And they are usually done in about an hour plus Costco is only about 9 minutes from my house now so it's pretty convenient! But my last order took a day and a half because I had 197 prints done! Now keep in mind that this is July-November... I haven't even touched December yet! So I thought that I would share with you how I organize all my photos that are waiting to be scrapped since I often get asked about this and how I get so much done! So here it is, this is my latest Costco photo order just taken out of the envelope that could barely stay closed...

Stacked all pretty and waiting to be sorted. Now I should tell you that in order to save even more money and to give me some variety for scrapbooking I photoshop all of my pictures that are good enough to print. First I open all of the photos for a given event or topic, then I decide which ones are good enough to be printed at full 4x6. I correct any color that needs tweaked and crop to exact 4x6 so that what I see on my computer is exactly what I get when printed. The rest of the photos get sized and grouped onto a 4x6 canvas so that I either have two 3x4 pictures like this...
or four 2x3 pictures like this... Not only does this save some money in the printing department but then I can fit more pictures onto a layout without having to crop anything important out. With my Maui scrapbook I preplanned all of my layouts with sketches and then cropped the photos to fit the sketches (maybe I will share more on that project someday) but usually I just crop based on the number of photos that I have and the quality of them and then I design my page based on the quantity and size of photos for that subject.
Next I lay out my photos by subject. I should also tell you that when you have pictures printed at Costco from the website at least, if you adjust color at all in photoshop then turn off the auto color correction because it will mess up what you worked so hard to acheive! So here are my piles all spread out...
Then I use one of my favorite things in my organizational arsenal... my Creative Memories Power Sort box and dividers. When I sold the stuff years ago I stocked up on these amazing little boxes and the dividers that go with them. I have one that is dedicated to my in process photos, two big ones for all of the photos left over and the bigger projects that I will get to someday (this is also where I pull photos for my daughters to scrapbook), and I have two more of the small ones for old negatives and photo CD's. You can write on the dividers with a regular pencil and then when you are done with the photos just erase it and reuse it! I always keep the blank ones in the back ready for their next assignment...

So here are my dividers all lined up ready to be paired with their coordinating photos...
Lastly, I place the divider and photos into my Power Sort box. The front section is mostly events like holidays, the middle section is by person which always has dividers for each of us there with general photos of that person so that when I want to scrapbook about a story, say maybe a funny thing the boys did, then I have photos of them to go with it that don't have anything to do with a special event. The back section is for other events or places that we go like Disneyland.
So there we have it, this is how I organize my photos. When I get some time to scrapbook I just go to this box and decide which subject sounds like fun to work with that day. Some days I feel like tackling the bigger projects like Halloween and some days I just want to do something small with only one or two pictures and more journaling. After I have pretty much cleared it out then I go through and really clean it out and put leftover photos into the bigger boxes but since I started using photoshop and combining pictures I have found that I have fewer leftover pictures which means less to store too!

2010 Highlights

We jumped at the chance to take the girls to the Nickelodeon Kid's Choice Awards. And they loved it!
My friend Amanda and I went down to Disneyland to see the return of Captain EO, one of my favorite Disney attractions of all time. And we spent the day goofing off in the park taking fun pictures.
We spent several days at the park...
And searched for Easter Eggs.
Madison received the Citizenship award for her 1st grade class...
and Kaley received the Principal's award for her Kindergarten class!
Neil played softball with a church team and loved being back out on the field... he also turned 30! (I'm not admitting if I did or not!)
I got to meet the fabulous Laura Vegas while I was working CKC Riverside. I admire her work and what an awesome person she is!
Neil and I celebrated our 10th wedding anniversary at the Old Lahaina Luau...
while we spent an amazing week in the paradise of Maui!
I won a free family photo shoot from Rachel Clare photography and we had a great time. These are pictures that I will treasure forever!
We took the girls to the beach with the youth group and roasted marshmallows over a huge fire. The girls had a great time hanging out with Bethany and Candace.
For Halloween we had a Dorothy...
a Wonder Woman...
a Batman...
and a Robin. And yes, Zach was positive that he wanted to be Robin and not another super hero. So someday when he gets mad at me for letting him be a sidekick I will tell him that I tried!
We strolled through the pumpkin patch.
and took lots of pictures...
We tried to get a family shot just before it got dark but Zach was not wanting any part of it!
Nanny and Pop Pop took us to the American Girl store where we had a ton of fun.
My friend Rea had the most adorable baby boy this June and not only did I get to take maternity pictures of her but I took their Christmas pictures too! I'm so lucky!
Back in June I went with a group of friends to the midnight showing of Eclipse. The nice thing was that I had just gotten back from Maui so I was still on Maui time. We had so much fun that when the movie came out on Blu Ray I had them over to my house for a viewing party. We had red velvet cupcakes and Neil made us the most amazing pizzas. We had blast and I think that this will become a tradition, although I don't think that I can wait for the next one to come out so we might have to have some parties in between where we play Twilight Scene it or something!

Well, this was our year... plus moving out of Silver Lakes and into a beautiful house in Victorville. I don't have any moving pictures because we were just too busy that day but you will see it when I get around to posting snow pictures! We love living here right in the middle of everything and are now able to be much more involved with church and friends! God has blessed us this year so much!!!

New Years Resolutions

With 2011 comes two resolutions for me and one key word for the year. Resolution #1: workout at least four times a week. Resolution #2: Blog as often as I can and do it as if there are thousands of people reading it! My key word for the year is BALANCE.

Okay, now let me explain these things and let you know my progress (which I will continue to do throughout the year). My first resolution to workout at least 4 times a week comes from the large amount of weight that I have gained back over the last 6 months due to the fact that I stress eat, and the last 6 months of my life have been STRESSFUL!!! So hubby and I bought a nice elliptical machine from Walmart and we have been using it often. So far so good, I am trying to build up my stamina and it will take some time but I am keeping up with it every other day right now plus doing lots of sit ups and stretching. To me, this gives me a chance to go into my bedroom and lock the door while letting my hubby take care of the kids, and I get to not only watch whatever movie I want to but I also get to do something for me and improve the way I feel about myself. Happier me, happier hubby and family... everybody wins!

Resolution #2 starts with my dream job: working on a design team for a scrapbook company. I guess my absolute dream job would be to become a member of the Creating Keepsakes Dream Team or be a Contributing writer for them, but I have to start somewhere. Now I have applied to several design team calls and although I have been told that my designs are great the weak point comes with my blog. I don't do it very often! It has become a place for me to post my pages and enter contests and that is it. This is not good! I have so many ideas not only for scrapbooking and general craftiness but also for oraganization and I will be doing a lot of work on my new house over the next year making this home a place that inspires me on a daily basis. So here I am (even though it is now January 4th!) better late than never. I am starting this now so be ready to hear from me a lot!

The last thing is my word for the year. This comes from Ali Edwards one little word project here and I have been contemplating my one little word for a couple of weeks now. This morning I was washing some dishes when I washed the water bottle that came with the elliptical, it said BALANCE on the side of it. It hit me like a ton of bricks. That was it... my word. Balance is what I try to achieve everyday of my life and although I often fail at it, it's still something to strive for. I need to balance the things that I have to do on a daily basis: cleaning, playing with my boys, doing something creative something for me, spending quality time with my girls after school, time with my husband, my facebook/farmville time, reading, photo editing.... I could go on and on but you get the point. This is what I want to focus on this year, balancing my life. I once heard an amazing speaker who talked about us as women being like a 4 legged table. Those legs being physical, mental, spiritual, and emotional. Unless all four legs are balanced then the table is not balanced. So this year I am going to work on being a more balanced table!

Alright so this has been a very text heavy blog entry to start off the new year but I wanted to get these things off my chest and let you know the direction that I am heading in this year. I think that I will work on a Highlights of 2010 post with lots of pictures that I never got around to posting!

American Crafts Brads Challenge

The challenge on the American Crafts blog this week was to use two brads. Ha Ha! I don't know that I could ever use only two brads... especially if you are talking about their Elements brads. So instead of just two brads, I used lots of brads in two different ways! This page is about the picnic that Madison's first grade teacher invited the parents to come in for. I brought us sandwiches and yummy chips plus my Arizona Sweet Tea (oh how I miss it on this diet!) and her favorite drink from our little town's market, Mott's apple juice in a little can. We ended it with the best drumsticks on the planet... vanilla with caramel in the center! We did this to celebrate their class learning the long "I" sound like in Ice Cream!
First I used the brads as photo corners. These are the mini glitter black ones (one of my favorites!) They really make this photo pop off the page.
I also used the jewel brads from a couple of different sets to make the I for the title. It was really easy to do and makes the title really different from most of my usual ones. It all seems to go really well with the new Heat Wave collection. Hope you enjoyed!

Supplies: Blue- Creamy Coconut (back) (35107), Dot Strip- Tangerine Tidal wave (35113), Ice Cream/pink strip- Slammin' Strawberry (35114), Journaling sticker- Fork, Abode collection (42691), Ice Cream- Details Sandy (78032), Brads: Black mini glitter, Jewel : black, Earth Tones, Botanique. Thickers- Chit Chat Chestnut (42901), Niki Riki Yellow (53041). Flair- Heat wave (All products from American Crafts)