Sunday, August 30, 2009

My dream house





Hi everyone! This is my dream house! I have drooled over this house for so many years and there are many times that I make us drive by it just too look again and dream! I promise if it ever goes up for sale I will go to look at it. I would love to know what the inside looks like. I can only imagine it is probably absolutely fabulous! Isn't it just a beauty? The sign in the yard says Est. 1913 so it is probably on a historical register somewhere...maybe?

Well, I didn't get any creating done this weekend. I took my mama to a movie Saturday and did some scrapbook shopping out East. We went to see the movie Julie and Julia. What a great movie! I give it 2 thumbs up! We also saw the previews for the new Sandra Bullock movie All About Steve. My sis wants to see that and it comes out this week so we will probably try to hit that next weekend sometime.

Last weekend was such a mess with pipe that was leaky in our basement so this weekend was devoted to tearing out the rest of the sheetrock in the bathroom and deciding what kind of flooring we are going to put in. Thankfully we were able to get the carpet in the family room completely dried out and it looks like the walls are all okay in there! THANK GOD! So really the only wall we will have to fix is the one wall in the bathroom!

Mike's son is coming this week on Thursday and will be here for 5 days. The kids have a friend that is getting married on Saturday so Whitney is coming up on Saturday for that and then Sunday we are having Angelina baptized. Then I think all of the Johnson family is going to come over to our house from some dinner and maybe swimming if it is warm enough! Now who would have thought I would have been saying that in August? Wasn't the weather gorgeous this weekend? SO...I will try to get some projects posted this week but I can't make any promises. Will probably be cleaning and getting ready for everything. We are going to try to get some family pics taken since both of the kids will be here. We haven't seen for a year and a half. The last time he was here Mike was in the hospital recovering from his heart attacks....not the best way that you want to come home to visit huh?

Oh yeah...I almost forgot. Haley had a B-L-A-S-T at the back to school dance. She said that there were a ton of kids there. She has made a good group of friends so far. Freshman initiation was not too bad either. The Senior golf girls took the freshman golf girls out and made them wear pacifiers around their neck but that was about it. AND she is really enjoying playing golf. So that is good! Maybe I can start relaxing a little bit now? You think?

Thanks for peekin' in! Have a great evening!

Wednesday, August 26, 2009

In my daughter's eyes....

Hi everyone! Is this week dragging along or is it just me? Sheesh...I don't know why but I just can't wait until the weekend! Friday night is Haley's first dance. Yikes! She told me today that she planned on going with some girls from golf. One of the girls is a Senior and will be driving them from golf practice to her house to get ready, then to the dance. She has to be home by 12! Did you hear me? I said 12! I can't believe that I have a kid that now has a curfew!!!! Deep breath in....let it out slow...ok...I am alright now...er...I think! Is this the stage in life where you loose a lot of sleep because you are worried about you kid being out there at night? Isn't it funny how we loose sleep when they are born and then things chill for a while and then you are right back where you started when they are teenagers? Wanna here something interesting? I was reading on the daily blog at the school and they have breathalyzers at the door of the dance. WOW! I didn't think about that. I guess it's better to be safe than sorry right?

Anywho...here is my page layout for the evening. This is another picture of Whitney and Angelina on the day the "little bean" greeted the world! I have been doing a lot of 1 picture to a page spreads but I really wanted to emphasize the photos. I played around with this one a little bit in Picasa. I softened the edges to give it that blurred out effect to minimize the hospital junk going on in the background. I think it added just the right touch. I just love the way that Whitney is looking at her so loving. After I had worked on the photo and printed it I sat there and looked looked at it and the first thing that popped in my head was the song "In My Daughter's Eyes" by Martina McBride popped into my mind so I printed the lyrics out on the green cardstock. The BABY embelly at the top of the journaling block is a Jolee's sticker I just happened to find this week when I was in Michael's...for something else...does that happen to any of you? You go to the store for something and get way off on some other path and find something else to spend money on? Anyway I thought it was a cool embelly even though I wasn't sure at the time what I was going to use it on. BUT after I started puting this page together and used the pearls on the corners of the photo I thought the BABY embelly would tie in nicely. The flowers at the bottom are various different prima's and I used the pearls again as an accent in the middle of the flowers. All of the patterned paper is from the Nana's Nursery Baby Girl stack from Die Cuts with A View.


umm...I wanted to share the first day of school photos with you. Here is my Freshman.

And since this was a "milestone" dad thought it would be nice to get a picture of us together.


Sheesh...she's growing up!

Speaking of another little "weed" here is my 6th grader!

Well...thanks for peekin' in! Have a great rest of the week...hope it goes quick so we can celebrate the weekend!

Sunday, August 23, 2009

Blessed

Hi friends! How are you today? Hope you have had a great weekend....I on the other hand have had an interesting weekend. We woke up Friday morning to discover a puddle of water in front of the toilet in the basement bathroom. The water actually squished up when we stepped down. We didn't have time to examine much at that point and couldn't figure out where it was coming from so we called this fella that was recommended to us by our brother and sister in law. So he came out on Saturday to examine everything and we had to pull the carpet up in the bathroom...the pad was soaking wet. After routing around found out that we have had a leak in the wall for what looks like a few months. We have been tearing sheetrock out and finally found the leak. Long story short we think we have fixed the leak. Now we have big fans on the carpet in the living room downstairs as the water seeped over there and got that wet about 5 feet away from the wall of the bathroom. So the next step after drying everything out will be redoing the walls and we have decided to put tile down on the floor instead of carpet. Good stuff huh?

So I thought I would take a break from all the fun at our house to make a little blog entry. Here is a page that I finished up this week for Angelina's book. I love the way this page turned out. This was the first time that Mike held his little granddaughter. I love his facial expression in the photo at the bottom. He just looks so proud! Then looking at these photos reminded me that we almost lost him in 2008 and I just know that him being here for her is part of the Lord's awesome plan for him.

I used My Mind's Eye's Wild Asparagus line for this layout. The plaid is called Birthday Girl the pink colored paper is what is on the reverse side of the plaid paper and the aqua colored paper was the coordinating cardstock.

Here is a close up of the flowers. They are Prima and you know what is so funny about them? I have had them for about a year and have had the opportunity to use them on anything. They are just a little more pastel then what I typically use but see all I needed was a baby! LOL! Any who...the centers on the flowers are adhesive gems that I picked up at Michael's for $1 on one of those end caps. You can see the white zig zag and dotted rub on in the background there, that was a set of rubons from Die Cuts With A View. Sort of a foe stitching set. I was impressed with how they rubbed off. No problems at all. You know sometimes when you buy rub ons they aren't very nice and don't come off very good but these were great.



Here is a close up of the word blessed. These were done with Maya Road chipboard letters and this was the Noah Alphabet. I got them from Frantic Stamper online. If you haven't been to here site check her out she has tons of stuff! I sprayed the letter with Patina Glimmer Mist and couldn't get over how well the color matched the paper! That very rarely happens to me!



Well thanks for peekin' in. Say a little prayer for us that everything dries out nice and we can get things back to normal soon! Have a great week!

Friday, August 21, 2009

Haley's 12th Bday


Hi friends! Can I just tell you I am doing the happy dance now that it is Friday and the week is over? This week seemed so long, but maybe that was because school started this week. This is the first year that the girls are going to different schools. It just seems so weird...and stressful at the same time, but I am sure that once we get the routine down we will be better. I am a working mama so all I have to say is THANK GOD FOR MY MOM! I am always thankful for my mom but especially now. We wouldn't be able to do what we do if it weren't for her. She makes sure that our kiddos get picked up from school and taken where they need to go...if it weren't for her I don't know what we would do! So here's to you Ma!



This is a page layout that I finished up recently. Haley's 12th Birthday a few years ago. What a fun birthday this was! She decided that she wanted a sleep over. So when all the girls got here we got everything set up in the basement for them and then we went over to Knolla's Pizza. Have you ever been there? YUM-O! It is the BEST pizza I have ever had! So if you haven't been you should try them out! Anyway, after pizza we came home and I took picture of them out in the yard...what cuties! The background of this layout is Bazzill Turquoise cardstock. and I cut 2 different patterned papers in stips and glued them down. The words Laugh, Friends, Giggle, Crazy in along the seams are actually ribbon. The layout up on top has a picture of Sidney and her friend, you know it is so hard for little sis when big sis has friends over, so she had a friend spend the night too! I thought that photo would look best cut in a circle then instead of matting it I used the Creative Memories circle cutters to cut both the photo and the cardstock circles around the photo. And in typical "Toni fashion" let's not let anything go to waste...I used the circle from the middle of the cardstock pieces on different parts of the layouts above. After the girls finished their "photo shoot" they headed downstairs for cards, facials and movies! Good times!

Thanks for peekin' in. I love to hear from you! I hope that you get out and enjoy this beautiful weekend weather! I am going to try to get out and about with the kids tomorrow and take some photos!

Tuesday, August 18, 2009

Birthday Treats

Hi friends! Do you know what today is? National Cupcake Day! Yeah...that's right...you need to eat a cupcake in honor of this great day! And since it is such a fabulous cupcake day I thought I would share a page layout with you that has cupcakes on it! This was birthday treat day for Sidney a few years back. Don't you just love catchin' pics of your kids in the morning? They look so sleepy! I was searching through all of my paper and found this white, pink and green patterned paper that I bought at Hobby Lobby last year and I thought...yup...I need to use up what I got. So I matched it up with green and pink cardstock. The square papers to the side are all scrap paper from my friend Lynette's stash, and she was happy that they could be put to good use.



Here is a close up of the title. The word tReaTs are adhesive puffy letters from Making Memories. I wrote the word Birthday and doodled about the outside of the title box with a white gel pen. I really like those white pens!


And this is a close up of those beautiful little cupcakes. I needed something in this corner and forgot that I had these cute little Jolee's cupcake stickers hidden away in my stuff.

Well thanks for peekin' in tonight. Here's to a great and speedy week!

Monday, August 17, 2009

Haley...the photographer



Hi everyone! I want to do a post about my kiddo Haley. She starts her first day of high school tomorrow! Eeeee! We are all so excited! But I wanted to share with you some photos that she took in a photo class this summer at City Arts. I think she has a real creative eye. Enjoy!

Hope you have a great evening. I will have some creative layouts to post tomorrow!

Sunday, August 16, 2009

First Baby Page

Hi friends! How are you this wonderful Sunday? I am so not ready to go back to work tomorrow! This weekend when so darn fast! I did go to a friend's house and scrapbook on Saturday and we had a blast! I got a lot of pages started and the ones that I hadn't completed, I finished up this afternoon. I will be sharing them with you through out this coming week.

But I really wanted to share Angelina's first page with you. I just love the way that it turned out! This was a photo that I took of her the day that she was born. I already had some rough idea of what I wanted to do when I started out. I knew that I only wanted one photo on the page, for it to be black and white and enlarged to 5x7. Now here's the ingredients to this lovely little page:

The base of the layout is Mellow Moss from Stampin' Up textured cardstock. Wowie I am LOVIN this paper! The pastel distressed floral paper is all from Daisy D's. I picked it up a few years back at Hobby Lobby. The pink flower is from Heidi Swapp. I cut the flower in half and used half on the top and half on the bottom. The clear adhesive stones are Paper Studio from Hobby Lobby. The center of the flowers are a Stampin Up stamp from the set Seeing Spots and the ink is Mellow Moss from SU as well. The ribbon is Basic Grey but unfortunately it was left overs from another project and I really can't remember from which line.
Like that font? I just got it! It is the Stone Script Cricut Cartridge.



Here is a close up of the flower so you can see the stamp and stones a little better.

I love these little hearts. They were a Provo Craft funky heart punch...love it!



Thanks for peekin' in. Hope your week starts off great! Talk to you soon!

Friday, August 14, 2009

Storage Bin

Hi everyone! How are you this Fab Friday? I am getting some things together to scrapbook with a friend all day tomorrow! Hopefully I will get done what I plan on. I am deciding to take way less then I did the last time we scrapbooked together. Plus the last time we scrapped together I had worked all day and I was tired. This time we are starting in the morning on a Saturday so hopefully I can get my mojo running faster and won't burn out as quick!

I thought I would share my new craft organizer with you. I found this on the JoAnn's web site. I had purchased a really cute girly album for Angelina and the brand was Sandylion. I really liked it so I didn't want to look for another one but my problem was that Michael's didn't carry that brand of page refills and nothing they had would fit that album. So I decided to go to JoAnn's online and look around. I found the page refills...on sale...and this cool storage bin...BONUS!!! So here I will show you what it is all about. Seriously, anyone who has come over to scrap knows that I just can't keep a clean scrap room and everything is usually in piles here or there so I thought this storage bin would be great to help get me more organized!



So this is the bin empty. There are pockets around the outside and it was very easy to assemble.


See the lid flips open and the inside is HUGE! There are pockets on both sides that are just as deep as the outside pockets.



This is a bird's eye view of the inside empty...just give me a minute...I'll filler up!



Check it out!!! I haven't even finished loading it yet and there is still plenty of room!
And here is the outside view. There is a little shelf on the bottom that I put a little canvas tote full of other items.
Well thanks for peekin' in tonight! Have a great weekend!

Tuesday, August 11, 2009

Prom Night




Hi everyone! How are you this fine Tuesday? Are you just about ready to get those kiddos back into school? We are counting down here at my house. I am taking Haley over to enrollment tomorrow afternoon...gotta do it there at the school...can't just mail everything in. I wish there was an easier way but that is how they do it at Bishop Carroll.

Any way I thought I would share a layout that I did not long ago. This was of Whitney's Junior Prom in 2003. I remember when I went to Junior Prom...it was so much fun to get all dressed up and have a cute boy pick you up for dinner and dancing! Must be why I love date nights with my hubby so much **wink**. I wanted this layout to be simple but elegant. I found this great die cut for the title "Prom Night" and I thought it was great because it matched the colors of Whitney's dress perfectly! By the way I found this cute little title at Scrapfunattic in Andover, KS. **SIDE NOTE**You see the bottom photo that I cut in a circle? See the little kitty? That was our favorite cat Buster. He was a stray that Whitney found over at her mom's house and loved him so much she started feeding him (hoping that he would keep coming over). Well this little cat loved her too and naturally he liked being fed so when he started hanging out regularly at her mom's she decided to bring him over here to our house. He was a stray but he was the best cat...more like a dog actually. When she brought him home Mike named him Buster and it just worked. Sidney, who at the time was 4, couldn't say Buster, she called him Busser...then we all started calling him Busser! Busser was an out door cat and he would come and go all the time. Sometimes he would be gone all day long but he always knew when we came home and he was always around in the mornings too. If we wanted to see him during the day and he wasn't around all we had to do was stand outside and holler "Buuuuuuusser!" and here he would come meowing and running down the street. But one day he just stopped coming around. We were all pretty sad about this, but one thing is for sure he will always have a place in our hearts. Now you see, this cat just loved Whitney and he just couldn't stay out of the Prom photos...so naturally I had to use this photo some how in the layout! Aww...good times!

Well, thanks for peekin' in on me. Sure hope this week goes fast cuz I am ready for another weekend!

Thursday, August 6, 2009

Our weekend getaway!


A few weeks back Mike and I decided to take the weekend and get away just the two of us. We had such a good time. You know it is really great when you like the person you're in love with! We always make each other laugh! This was a little bed and breakfast in Norman Oklahoma called the Montford. BEAUTIFUL! You should go there sometime...the owners are wonderful! Very peaceful place. Next time we might think about staying 2 days!Thanks for peekin' in! Happy Friday tomorrow!

Wednesday, August 5, 2009

Christmas...in August?




Hi Friends! Here is one of the layouts that I finished is this week after suffering from brainblock...or scrapblock whatever you wish to call it! I have been going through this phase lately where I really want to scrapbook, I get all of my stuff organized, pick out my pictures, have my papers all ready to go and then I just set there and look at the pictures and pages and can't come up with a darn thing. I start putting it together and then I hate the layout so I start over! So needless to say I started on this one on Friday evening at a friend's house and couldn't manage to finish it until last night. BUT I finished it. And as you can see it was Christmas 2006! You know what else I figured out? I take entirely too many pictures to scrap at Christmas time. I read on another gal's blog that she chooses her favorite photos to scrap and then she buys the plastic inserts where you have 8 4x6 photos on a page and places that behind her two page layout. That is a pretty neat idea and I seriously might consider that.

Anyway down to the details of the page. The paper is a fun little Christmas line from My Mind's Eye they had out a few years ago. On the first page I used a paper from that collection called Dear Santa. I matted my 4x6 photo on Bazzill cardstock but for the life of me can't remember the names. The fun little chipboard scrolly thing is from Bazzill and I sprayed it with Glimmermist in Holly Berry. A while back I purchased some of the Basic Grey fiber and can I just tell you how sad I am that they are discontinuing making them? I know lots of people don't use them anymore but I just love fibers. The titling was done with my Cricut machine and the Alphalicious cartridge. The paper on the two page layout was also from My Mind's Eye (polka dot one is called Festive Dots and the stripe is Stocking Stripes).

Here is some fun kid news...Haley is going to be in choir this year! We still don't know what all of her electives are...we will find out when we go to pay for enrollment next week but we got a letter in the mail from the choir teacher about "choir camp" and what she will need before school starts for class. School starts in 2 weeks. She is a little bit nervous but also excited. She has also decided to play golf for Carroll too. So it looks like we will hit the ground running when school starts. Is there any other way? I am so excited and nervous for her too. My little girl is growing up...sheesh...where does the time go?

Thanks for peekin' in my friends! Hope your week is flyin' by!

Monday, August 3, 2009

July 4th




Hi everyone! How are you doing this Monday? I wanted to share some of our 4th of July pictures with you and I just got so preoccupied with the pictures of our grandbaby. So I was sitting here this evening thinking about what to post and I thought...hah...I need to share these pictures with you! Haley helped me make some festive goodies for the 4th as you can see in the first picture. We made firecrackers on a stick...which are just big stick pretzels rolled in melted vanilla and then rolled in festive sprinkles...and then don't forget the cupcakes...gotta have cupcakes with sprinkles! I can't believe how much they have grown up...it goes fast doesn't it? Before we know it school will be starting again!

Thanks for peekin' in on me...I love it when you stop by. Have a good week!