Meeting my Aunts

Hi friends! Hope you had a great weekend. Sure was beautiful weather here, and I have to say that I just love fall! All the beautiful colors and crisp leaves on the ground! I can't believe that Halloween is already next week! Both of the girls have fun activities planned. Haley is going to a party on Friday night and Sidney is spending the night at a friend's house with a bunch of other girls and they are going trick or treating! Fun stuff huh? This year has been full of all kinds of new things for me as a mother! This is the first year that I will not be taking them around to trick or treat. Kinda sad when I stop and think about it...but then again I am sure there will be lots more new fun things ahead to experience also!

So what do you think of the new background? Here's the best part...everything was free! Gotta love that don't cha? Check them out you might find something you like.

This is a page layout that I did for Angelina's book. This page completes the day that she was born! I can't believe how on top of things I am! I wanted to make this a very simple page so I chose paper that was very busy and you can't actually see it in this photo but there is glitter all over this paper also...very girly huh? The patterned paper is from the Die Cuts With A View paper stack called The Blossoms & Butterflies stack. I picked this up at Hobby Lobby on a half off sale...AND **ENABLER ALERT**just so you know they are having a half off sale starting tomorrow on all of their single and packaged sheets...you simply must go and check it out. I went in last week to see what new stuff they had (paper wise) and they have a bunch of new yummy paper in sets. I am definitely going tomorrow!

Well thanks for peekin' in! Have a great weekend!

Envelope mini book

Hi friends! This is a class that I am doing for a lunch and learn at work. I have been teaching these little lunch and learn classes at work for a few years now and the ladies really seem to enjoy it. They bring their sack lunch and I show them how to make something scrappy over the lunch hour...sometimes we run a bit over but it's good to get out and do something fun at work every once in a while! I struggle to find projects that we can do in that short of time and I was so excited when this one worked out! It is so inexpensive to make and that is another nice thing...especially in this economy. Can you imagine the cool little books you could make for Christmas? Or just a fun little memory book? I made mine with photos of my grandparents. I wanted to jot down fun memories I have of them so that when I get older and forget things...which is already starting...I can flip through this book and say...hey I remember that! Plus my kids will have it to look back on too! I got this way cool idea from Marion at A Piece of Craft...check her blog out here. She does some really exciting stuff!

Here is the skinny on the project. You make this out of regular envelopes. You can either buy them or save the ones that you get in the mail with junk and recycle...cool huh? For my book I bought the regular sized bill envelopes and cut them in half. Then I sealed the sides so it makes a pocket that opens on the top. Here is the greatest part...are you ready??? NO MEASURING PAPER!! I love it! If you want step by step video instructions check Marion's video out here.

Can you believe another week has just about zipped by? I am so glad that tomorrow is Friday. We went to parent teacher conferences tonight. This was my first time going to high school conferences. We stood in line for 40 minutes to talk to one teacher! Oh well it was worth it though! Have a great day tomorrow...hope everyone is feeling well at your place!

Meeting my Grandparents

Hi everyone! Are you so happy that this work week is over and another weekend is here? I sure am! I am looking forward to spending some time with my kiddos!

This is one of the layouts from the day Angelina was born. I wanted to make just one page with the grandparents. I chose paper from the Basic Grey line called Oh Baby Girl. This line is a few years old but there are a few online stores that you can still find it available at. I got the layout idea from this month's issue of Creating Keepsakes magazine. What is funny is after you start looking at things outside the box you can make a scrapbook page layout from just about anything that you see. It doesn't have to be a scrapbook magazine you can just see how they lay an ad out in any magazine to pick up ideas. The trick I found is just to keep yourself fresh. If there is a few weeks between my scrapbooking then I sit there for what seems like forever trying to come up with the perfect layout. But lately I have been trying to scrapbook at least one page a week and that at least keeps my creative juices flowing.

Ok...back to the ingredients for my page...the lime green strips of paper were left over from another project and are not from the Basic Grey line....and actually I can't remember what line they came from. In the upper right corner I used silver metal arrows and brads, from Hobby Lobby, to add a little something different to zing this page up. The purple flower is from Bazzil, the white center and pink flower are both Heidi Swapp.

The title "Meeting my Grandparents" are the letters that came with the Basic Grey paper kit. After I got the letters situated where I wanted them I traced around them with a brown marker to make them pop out on the page a bit. I got this idea from the Embellish Online blog. Check them out here, they have a great blog and a fabulous online store too. Thanks for the idea ladies!

Let me introduce you to miracle in a bottle also known a Un-du. Sort of embarrassing to admit but when I put this page together I was a little tired and I put some of my journaling strips on in the wrong order...now come on there have to be some of you that has done that too right? Well thanks to this great little product I was able to safely remove the adhesive without tearing the paper and reposition my journaling strips! Who ever created this product was a genius! Here is a close up of Un-du if you don't know what it looks like. It is really a handy item to have in your scrapbook room. You just never know when you might need it!

Well thanks for peekin' in on me today. Hope everyone is well at your house! Take care! Hugs ~Toni

Heaven Sent

Hi friends. Hope all is going well for you this week. I decided this past weekend that I was going to finish scrapbooking the day that Angelina was born. Man...when I set my mind to something! I really didn't have that much more to put together but it is just getting the layouts together that take so much time ya know? I had a stash of baby paper for quite some time now so all of this patterned paper is pretty old and I am not sure exactly where I got it...my guess would be Hobby Lobby though. I got the page layout idea from this month's Scrapbooks Etc. I just love that magazine! They have a few pages towards the back all of sketches. When I started this layout I picked out two pieces of patterned paper that I wanted to use together and the foundation is a very pale pink cardstock. I cut the scalloped pattern in the word paper using a very old Creative Memories cutting tool, in fact I am not really sure they sell it any more! The title Heaven Sent and other white title words are actually velvet stickers by Making Memories. I just love the font!

I will be posting a few more pages baby pages over the next few days so stay tuned!

In other Toni news...Wednesday evenings are very exciting for me! A family friend of ours helps to head up the RCIA (Rite of Christian Initiation for Adults) classes at the church and he called and asked me if I would be interested in being a sponsor for a young gal that is taking classes to become Catholic. I am very honored that he asked me, just the fact that he thought of me for this opportunity makes me feel so good. I have gone to 2 classes now and attended mass with her on Sunday. She is a really neat gal and I think will probably be a friend for years to come. Well, I better head off to bed, Haley has to be at school at 7AM for a test! Yikes that is so early for Mama! The kid loves to get to school early to socialize!

Thanks for peekin' in...hope everyone is well at your place! Hugs ~ Toni

Weekend fun!

Hi Friends! How are you doing? It is so cold here in Kansas! I can't get over how cold it was today, in fact I am not really sure we got over 43 today! Hope you are doing well this weekend. I wanted to share some pictures with you of our week. Whitney came down for a few days with the baby and we had a great time! We really wanted to go to the pumpkin patch but we had planned on doing that early on Thursday evening but the weather just wouldn't cooperate with us! It rained all day and there was just no way to go. BUT Friday I got to take Angelina for her first photos! We went to Portrait Innovations and they were pretty good. We didn't spend a whole lot of money and got a lot of very cute pictures! If my scanner was working I would scan them and show you but I am having issues with my scanner so I thought I would post these really cute pictures from this weekend.

Here Haley is helping with bath time this morning. Isn't it always fun to help give a baby a bath?



This is her OOOO face! It is so cute!

Angelina is modeling her new little boots! Aren't they a scream! Look at those chubby little legs! I tell you I just love chubby babies! I could just kiss her little cheeks off she is so stinkin' cute!

Here Grandpa thought he would be funny and see how she looked in his glasses!

Sidney got one of her stuffed animals out for Angelina to play with. I think this is such a cute picture of the two of them!

This is a frame that I made for Whitney to take home. I wanted to do something a little different for her then what I did for Thomas. I used the same color scheme since I know they both like these colors. This frame is from Creative Imaginations and it was pretty simple to decorate. I cut the black and white paper to fit the frame and then I used an exacto knife to cut out the middle. Then to distress the edges a bit and get rid of any cutting imperfections I used my Basic Grey emery board set and filed the edges of the frame. The word Family is cut from my Cricut and I used the Stone script font. The brackets were chipboard that I covered with red cardstock for a nice accent.

Thanks for peekin' in on me friends. I love it when you stop in! Hope you have a great weekend!