Creating Impressions by Toni

Wishing You...

2012-01-22T23:48:00.000-06:00

Well how are you all doing tonight? I have been busy making Valentine Cards that I will be sharing with you very soon. I made a new years resolution of sorts that when I purchased any new stamp sets I would get the ink on them quickly and not let them sit for a few months before I used them. So far so good! These two cards here are from a nifty little set from Verve Visual called Wishing you. There are 10 little stamps in this set and you can easily use them for various different occasions...gotta love that right?

I love this card because I used scraps of other projects...doesn't that just make you feel so good? The flowers are Prima and I have had them for so long and haven't found the right project to use them on until today! Woot Woot!!

For this card pictured above the flourishes were from another Verve set called blessings. I am not sure what kind of patterned paper this is because it was also from my scrap stash.

Thanks for peekin' in friend! Hope all is well with you and yours!

On My Couch

2012-01-15T21:19:00.000-06:00

Hi friends! How are you this fine January day? We sure have been having a lot of ups and downs in the weather lately! Today was beautiful and the best part was that my hubby didn't have to work today so we have had a great family day! We watched a few movies and then I took some time out to play with my newest set of stamps from Papertrey Ink. Check it out...these are what I made with a little inspiration from the Papertrey website. This set is called On My Couch, isn't it just the cutest?

Each piece is a different stamp so you put your scene together like in the card above.

I purchased the die cut that goes with the couch so you stamp your image on patterned paper then put it through your die cut machine for easy cut out! How great is that?

I had the floral pattered paper left over from a project I did on Angelina's book and the paper actually reminded me of couch fabric...don't you think?

Well thanks for stopping in. See you next week!!

Hello 2012!!

2012-01-02T12:24:00.000-06:00

Hi there my blogger friends! What a crazy 2011! I decided to take some time away from blogging for a while to catch up on some much needed family time. My hubby was diagnosed with prostate cancer and thankfully we caught it in time and all is well now but I just needed to focus on our family and eliminate some things. I would like to begin blogging again this year but I will probably only post once a week. I have missed catching up on everything with you all but some of you I have kept in contact with through Facebook, others I have stalked your blogs!!

Any how, here is a little something that I worked on for a friend of mine at work. She ordered a card for her mom's birthday. I just loved the way this turned out. The colors are so fun and cheery!

I really enjoy using baker's twine! It is just the coolest thing! The large flower is from a stamp set called Great Friend from Verve Visual. The Birthday Wishes stamp is also from a Verve set although I don't remember which one right off hand.

Thanks for lookin' in on me friend. Hope you have a wonderful 2012!

Passing the orange torch...

2011-06-21T22:27:00.000-05:00

Say goodbye, never say goodbye (yeah that's right sing it to the tune of Bonjovi)

Today is the day my friends.

Now I am passing the Orange Torch at Amber Ink to my fabulous and totally crafty friend Lynette. I have enjoyed my run at Amber Ink so very much. I met some wonderful people and plan to sneak a peek in at their blogs from time to time to see how they are doing. I want to thank my creative little blog buddy Michele for recommending me to run with the Orange Torch. Michele you are such a creative inspiration to me and have you have become my BBB (Best Blog Buddy!) Pam and Amber you girls rocked my creative world showing me how to use your awesome digital goodies. I had never used digi paper until I met you, man have I been missing out! Thank you so much ladies!

Ahemm...drum roll please...the passing of the torches:

ORANGE: From ME to Lynette Brown @ http://lifeinhaysville.blogspot.com/

PINK: From Nancy Cappelan @ http://nancyskortblogg.blogspot.com/
to Penni Vickers @ http://lazycatscards.blogspot.com/

BROWN: From Laura Kayra @ http://paperiini.blogspot.com/
to Nina Maksimainen @ http://ninarsku.blogspot.com/

BLUE: From Renee Lynch @ http://itsapatchworklife.blogspot.com/
to Lee Anne Verret @ http://motherofonewifeofone.blogspot.com/

PURPLE: From Siobhan Kline @ http://the-monkey-hut.blogspot.com/
to Cammi Boddie @ http://cuttin-up.blogspot.com/

Check them out friends! Thanks for peekin in!

Final Amber Ink Project

2011-06-19T23:59:00.000-05:00

Hi there! Yes, here I am again for the second time in one day with another post. You see when my silly little computer (I really don't want to admit how tied to this darn thing I am) broke a few weeks back, I got behind on my posts for the lovely Amber Ink. Tomorrow is actually my final day as the chickie carrying the Orange Torch. Can I just say it has been so fun to work with these gals? But I will talk more about that tomorrow. Right now lets move on to the final project. This card is for a challenge from Cupcake Inspirations. Have you checked out their blog? So much fun! Their inspiration is from different photos of cupcakes. I gathered my inspiration from this photo

Side note: these lady bug cupcakes reminded me of Sidney's 13th birthday party this year. I forgot to put the left over cupcakes up when the girls all went outside to play. I looked at the dog a few minutes later and she had pinkish red furry little paws and beard! Too funny! She just helped herself! Gotta love those little fur babies!
Back to our regular scheduled programing...After looking a the cupcakes I made this card.

I just LOVE these little love bugs! I have to tell you, I am loving digi paper! The pink and brown patterned paper...yup...another digi paper design from Amber Ink. You wouldn't believe how easy it is to re-size your paper for your project! Amazing!

Well thanks for peekin' in! I sure hope you check out Amber Ink. Amber and her mom Pam are the most fun gals and they have hearts of gold...not to mention a fun little stamp store! Have a great week...take care of you!

5th Amber Ink Project

2011-06-19T12:45:00.000-05:00

Happy Father's Day friends! I am running a little behind this week with my post. Here is my 5th project from Amber Ink. This little digi stamp set called Wild Animals with Heart: Just Poking Around Line Up, comes with 4 different turtles and they are all so cute! It was hard to pick which one I wanted to use! The fun patterned paper is also from Amber Ink's digi paper line. Lookie at the bottom of the card...see I finally got some fun twine to use! I love that stuff! I have been looking at all these awesome cards made with twine for months and so I am so excited to use it!

Sorry this post is so short today but it's Father's Day and we have an active day planned. Until next time my creative little friend!

Apple of of my eye!

2011-06-13T19:37:00.000-05:00

Hi there friends! I feel like a new woman with my computer back up and running! I was sitting there at work today thinking about this cute little apple and what I was going to do with it for my 4th Amber Ink project. I know...daydreaming about playtime while at work...hope my boss isn't reading this! LOL!
I wanted to use that cute gingham red digi paper again and I thought lime green would be perfect with this apple, by the way this apple is one of the stamps from the Cutie Pie: Little Things set. I colored her up with Copic markers and got the colorless blender out to try to make the different color tone in the body of the apple, you know just like a real one? But I gotta have a little bling so I put a little bit of Frosted Lace Stickles on the shiny part! So what do ya think? Look good enough to eat?

Stay tuned because I will have another fun card up later this week but in the meantime go check out my torch bearing girlfriends and see what they are cookin' up this week! You can find them here: Laura, Nancy, Renee, and Siobhan They are so creative and talented! Thanks for peekin' in friend have a great week!

Sweet as Pie!

2011-06-10T22:57:00.000-05:00

Hey there friend! How have you been? Our computer contracted a virus and I had to take it to the doctor to be worked on. They were able to back up all of our files so we didn't lose anything...I don't think. But I have been working on getting things installed this week and it has just been nuts! So that is why I am so late posting this card! This is my 3rd project for Amber Ink.

Doesn't it make you want to have yummy pie? I am so excited to use this set! And guess what? See that red gingham paper? That's digi paper too! This is the first time that I have used digi paper and it was a sinch! The pie is from a fabby little digi set called Cutie Pie: Little Things and comes with 30 stamps! Just think of all the fun things you can do with it?

Amber Ink is sponsoring the challenge at Wee Memories this week. The best part is the theme is anything goes. So you can make what ever your little heart desires and if the group over at Wee Memories chooses your submission then you'll be the talk of the town (or at least the blog) as you will receive a $15 gift certificate to the Amber Ink store! The challenge is going on until June 17th so check it out and get in on the fun!

Thanks for peekin' in friend! Hope you have a wonderful weekend!

Amber Ink Project #2

2011-06-02T23:54:00.002-05:00

Ahem...drum roll please....doot do do doot! Here is my 2nd Amber Ink project. I was really trying to get this out earlier this week but you see I got a wild hair this weekend and thought, hummm, I have a 3 day weekend, why don't I just tear all the wallpaper off the entryway and hallway. Sounds harmless and possibly a little fun right...yeah I know...sick. Well once we got into the thick of things we found out there wasn't just one layer of wallpaper, there were 3 and when we began tearing it off the sheetrock paper came with it. Nice right. It was about then that I became a little cranky because I knew that I wasn't going to finish this task before work on Tuesday. Needless to say I am almost finished. However this little love bug has been running around in my head for a few days now just waiting for the page to put it on. This is our Granddaughter Angelina and man is she Grandpa's Little Love Bug. She comes to visit with her mommy every few months and if she will let us we get as many hugs and kisses as we can!

Here are the deets of this little project. The green patterned paper is from Making Memories. The little daisy flower around the border had a blue center which really didn't go with my project at all so I just hole punched the center out of each one...as my grandma would say "there's more than one way to skin a cat ladies!" I loved the green color and I certainly wasn't going to let a little blue stand in my way of using it! The thing I love about the Love Bug digi is that when you purchase this little fella you get one with hearts and one with out and the bestest part is that the price of this little digi is only $2!! I know right??? Anyway, the yellow and pink patterned papers are
from K and Company. Just incase you didn't hear me that digi was only $2!!

Here is a close up of the larger love bug. I wanted to make one a little bigger and use it as an embelly for the page. I colored the little buggy with Copic markers and then cut the image out. After using the Spellbinders circles I used a little popup tape to make her stand out off the page a little bit and then decked her out with a little bit of Frosted Lace Stickles. Every love bug has to have her bling right?

I typed the title up in a font I had on the computer and added the little love bug to the corner.

Looking at these pictures makes us miss our little bug so much! Sniff...

Well thanks for peekin' in friend, hope you have a fabulous Friday tomorrow! And if you haven't gone over to Amber Ink yet do it...you know you want to..

You still give me butterflies

2011-05-24T00:07:00.000-05:00

Hi friends! This is my first project for Amber Ink! Yippy Skippy! I saw this cute little digi and it reminded me of my hubby. We will be celebrating 10 wonderful years together on June 1st and seriously...he still gives me butterflies! There is nothing more exciting than being married to your best friend! So here are the deets on the card...

The patterned paper is Basic Grey and I thought hearts were perfect for this little love dovey card. I used Spellbinders circle and scalloped circle dies for the sentiment and for my own little touch I wrote around the edge of the circle Happy 10th ----I love you! In stead of using ribbon to tie around the middle of the card I thought I would use fibers because I wanted to keep with that distressed look of the patterned paper. You know me... I just need a smidge of bling on...everything...so I added some purple fun to the upper right corner of the card. I colored the little butterflies with Copics and then added a little bit of Doodlebug glitter to their wings, unfortunately I don't think you can really see it here in this picture. I can't wait to give this to him, but first I will write something mushy in it. We need a little of that after 10 years right?
I hope this post finds you all safe and well. We have been having some crazy storms here in the Midwest. Our friends in Joplin, out hearts and prayers go out to you after all of the loss that you have suffered over the weekend. Until later my friend, take care of you!

I'm an Amber Ink Torchbearer!!

2011-05-23T17:55:00.003-05:00

You are probably wondering what the heck is she talking about right? Well my wonderful little blog buddy Michele Greenwood from Whimsical Creations asked me if I would like to design for Amber Ink stamp company for the next month! How awesome is that? I am flattered that she thought of me and thrilled at the thought of representing Amber Ink and the Orange Team!

You should stop in and check out Amber Ink's blog for all the introductions of the new group of designers. Here are the totally creative chicks I will be rubbing elbows with!

Laura carries the brown torch

Nancy carries the pink torch

Renee carries the blue torch

Siohban carries the purple torch

If you haven't been to the Amber Ink store...what are you waiting for? Check them out because they have the cutest little stamps, digi stamps, and digi papers! There is some fun stuff just waiting for you, that's right I am enabling you to shop..we are in this sickness together!

Check back in tomorrow cuz we will have all of our first projects out there on the Amber Ink blog!

Thanks for peekin' in! Take care of you!

Hey there!!

2011-05-21T20:48:00.000-05:00

Hi friend! How are you? I have been thinking about blogging now for a few days and just haven't had the chance to get down here and post! Haley is finishing up her sophomore year and has secured herself a summer job! Yey for her! Sidney is on the count down for her 7th grade year and this is actually her last full week of school...shocking isn't it? She has a very busy summer as well. She is playing golf again this summer and has decided to also play softball. I also signed her up for a few classes through the local recreation center for a cooking and pottery class. The song "The Wheels On The Bus" keep running through my head! My mom has been very ill and we have been taking her to doctors appointments and so on. She has been sick since December and have ruled out many things and diagnosed a few things as well but she still isn't feeling better. We will be going back to the heart doc this Friday and to an infectious disease doctor in a few weeks. A little scary but at the same time we remain hopeful that we will be getting some answers very soon. Please keep us in your prayers that the Lord will guide the doctors to find out what is going on...thank you so much! Our faith is what keeps us going on!

With everything going on with mom this year I decided not to take on too many orders for Mother's Day. I did manage to have a few orders though :) I just love making cards for others, it makes me feel so good to see their face when they look at them! Don't you just love that feeling?

Here are a few of the cards I put together. I recently ordered this great stamp set from Verve Visual called Great Friend. the flowers on the card below were done with that set. Verve is such an amazing stamp company, they have amazing customer service.

Both of the sentiments on these cards were from Verve Visual also. The one below I ordered as a single stamp for $3!

I have a few more Mother's Day cards to post so stay tuned, I promise to have a few more posted soon.
Thanks for peekin' in on me! Take care of you!

More Momma Love

2011-05-21T20:47:00.004-05:00

Hey there friends! How are you doing this beautiful Saturday evening? We have been blessed with gorgeous weather today! We went to Sidney's first softball game this evening and had so much fun sitting talking to parents and cheering on the girls! Sid just started playing softball this past school year and loved it. One of her friends is playing for a city rec team in the area and asked her to join so she thought sure sounds fun! I can't get over how competitive things are right down to the uniforms and cleats! Fun stuff! I will post some pics soon but now I want to move on to a few mother's day cards I created a few weeks back.

I cased this design from someone at Splitcoaststampers, please forgive me for not remembering to write down their name to give them kudos! I loved the turquoise and black together. This card was so simple to make but turnedout so pretty. I used that totally F-A-B new stamp set from Verve Visual called Great Friend and stamped the flowers in white SU craft ink. The ribbon is from Hobby Lobby (one of those little spools for $1) and the butterfly was a Martha Stewart punch, naturally I had to bling it up with some clear gem stones. The Happy Mother's Day sentiment is also from Verve Visual.

You know what I love about making cards? There is instant gratification because unlike a scrapbook page, which takes so much time (you know finding the right paper for your layout and what size photos you want to use) you can snap out a card pretty quick and the best part is sometimes you can use scraps from other projects! This card was made using the same stamp set from Verve and Spellbinder circle and scalloped circle dies.

What mom isn't super...right? So this pretty little Bella was perfect for Mother's Day. I colored her using Copic markers and added a little highlight around the edge with a white gel pen.

Well thanks for peekin' in! So glad you stopped by! Take care of you!

Pretty in Pink

2011-05-15T22:44:00.002-05:00

Hi friend, how are you doing this fine Sunday evening? I am looking at the clock and here it is 10:25 pm and I am a little sad because as usual the weekend has passed by so quickly and alas, it is time to gear up for another work week. We have had so much fun stuff going on at work lately! Last week a dear friend of mine ended her 5 year career at the bank as her hubby is graduating from medical school and they are moving away...sad day! This last week our department hosted a baby shower for my friend Jenny. She is due in the early part of June and she's having a girl. It is so much fun to decorate and buy for a girl don't you think? Here are a few fun little snippet's from our little party. First of all here is a picture of Jenny and I. Isn't she the cutest little prego you have ever seen?

We interrupt our regular scheduled programing for a side note on my hair color: I colored my hair at 11:30 a few nights ago and I think I left it on too long...LOL! So I have this lovely shade of dark brown...it'll fade...gotta love it right? Moving along...

I thought this sweet bundle of joy needed her name on a banner so I made one up with her name on it. Unfortunately it is extremely difficult to get a good picture of a banner so here's the general idea...

And here is a close up of the first triangle. The sweetpea's name is going to be Emersyn.

This was so much fun to create! All the paper is from Hobby Lobby. The flowers are created with the large and medium stamps from a set called Great Friend from Verve Visual. I punched a 1" circle out of the solid pink for the center of the flower. Finally I cut the name out on the Cricut machine with the Tear Drop cartridge. In between each triangle is a sheer pink and lime green ribbon tied in a knot and a bow tied with the pink and white gingham ribbon. So after I made the banner I thought, I should make a cute little matching card. So this sweet little thing was made using the New Arrival Cricut cartridge...first time I used my Cricut for a card. What do you think?

Well thanks for peekin' in friends. Hope you have an amazing week!

Ten

2011-03-23T18:27:00.001-05:00

Hi Everyone! How are you? It is so crazy here in Kansas! This weather is so nice but very windy! I have taken the week off to spend with the kids over spring break and I am enjoying every minute! I can't believe it is already Wednesday!

I wanted to share this card with you. I made this for a co-worker of mine who was celebrating her 10th Wedding Anniversary! She asked for something that had the number 10 on it for her hubby. I got this idea from Splitcoast Stampers, can't remember the gal's name to give her the appropriate credit. She used a background stamp and I didn't have one that I liked so I got out my Storybook Cricut Cartridge and cut out the swirly background images. Don't you just love that? I thought was so excited when the card came together! The bottom of the card says Happy Anniversary I love you and I alternated the font colors in red and black. She loved it!

Well I have to tell you all that I have been experimenting with couponing a little bit. I was so intrigued when I heard about these ladies that would buy $100 worth of groceries for $2. So I began clipping my coupons from the Sunday paper to online coupons. I also found out that you can go to Dillons online and load up your plus card with the store coupons they have, those won't double but if you buy it on sale then have their coupon on your plus card and one from the paper AND one from online you can save some major bucks. I did figure out that you have to watch some of the online coupon sites though, I printed coupons from there and got a little buggy on my computer, so word to the wise...stay away from the sites that say they are going to install the coupon printer on your computer. Needless to say here is a picture of my groceries. Yes, I took a picture! I got all of this for $146.00 and saved $143.00, so without coupons I would have spent $289.

Well thanks for peekin' in! Hope you are having a great week whatever you are doing!

More Valentines!!

2011-02-20T21:43:00.001-06:00

Hi friends! If you live here in Kansas hope you have been able to get out and enjoy some of this warm weather! I can't believe how beautiful it was outside this weekend. I am so happy to have tomorrow off for President's Day! I know the weather isn't supposed to be as nice but dang it's nice to have a day off during the week!

I still have a few more posts to share with you on Valentine cards so hang in there with me! I just love Valentine cards they are so much fun to make with all the lovely colors!

I got the idea for this card layout from Split Coast Stampers. If you ever get stuck for a layout idea just head over there...some of the most creative people post their stuff there!
On this card I used the EK Boarder punch (there up at the top of the card) called Apron Strings...this is one of my most fav boarder punches! And here is a total BONUS it matches the new Lacey Circles I just got from Nestibilities. The sentiment is from this really fun set called Say It With Style by Paper Trey Ink.

This next card was so much fun to make. But I have to admit I was a little stumped at first when a friend of mine asked me to make it. She wanted a custom valentine card for her granddaughter who had recently been in a few high school musical productions. She wanted me to make a girl on a stage with a spot light and a microphone....what do you think of how it turned out? I was so excited when this all came together! I was racking my brain trying to figure out what I was going to do for the girl on stage...then it hit me like a ton of bricks...the girl from the Glam Girls set from CC Designs would be perfect! Then it was the microphone...which turned out to be easier than I thought to make. The handle of the microphone is made from a black scrap and the top is just the hole from a hole punch! After coloring her sunglasses black I used a clear glitter Copic Spica pen to add a little shimmer to her glasses. The spotlight is from Kayla's Creations, a paper piecing program I haven't used in ages...but so thankful I had it for this job! Tadaaa...here she is!

Another co-worker wanted something not quite so girly for her hubby. She wanted something "outdoorsy". I completely forgot about this little guy until I got home and dug through all of my stamps. I purchased Riley the Moose last year for Father's Day! Isn't he the cutest little fisherman?

So glad you stopped in friend! On my last post I shared with you that I had used digi stamps for the first time this Valentine's day and loved them. You know there aren't too many companies out there that sell digi stamps but guess what??? Yep, I found another fun one and I will share it with you soon. Thanks for peekin' in! Have a wonderful day!

Are we feelin' the love yet?

2011-02-11T19:04:00.001-06:00

Hi there crafty little buddies! Are we happy that it's Friday? I sure am! Let me tell you...I had a ton of orders to fill before today. I really didn't know that my cards would go over so well! You are going to think I am nuts but I stayed up until 2:30 this morning completing my orders! I know...4 hours of sleep! I already told the family that I am turning in early tonight...after all a girl has to get her beauty sleep doesn't she?
Here are another couple of fun digi stamps from Whimsie Doodles. I gotta say I am really impressed with their designs. They are so cute! I think that I like digi stamps better than digi scrappin' because you can still cut, color and embellish digi stamps. Plus with Whimsie Doodles you just pay and download your stamp right away...no waiting for that darn mail!
Any ways, here is a fun little card my intent was to make something that would be nice for a boy or maybe teacher. I saw an example of this card on the Whimsie Doodle web page and thought it was so cute how they used the silver brad to give it that real propeller look!

Isn't this owl just the cutest? I had so much fun coloring this little owl in different shades. The heart background is from the Fancypants line and it has so many fun colors you just can't go wrong using any color combination. The little verse on the card came along with the owl as a set. I really learned a lot about how to use my Copic markers with shading and so forth. Once you get the hang of using the markers they are a blast!

I have to share my new addiction with you. Back on New Year's day one of the cable channels was running an all day marathon of Dallas. Do you remember that show? The first season aired in 1978 so I certainly wasn't old enough to watch it but it went on for 13 years and I do remember my grandparents watching the show every Friday night. So Mike and I sat down and watched it all day on New Year's and I decided to Netflix the entire series! Is that crazy or what? It is so funny to see some of the outfits that were popular or how they wore their hair. Some of the acting isn't the best either but I can see how they kept you tuned in every week. I am currently in season 3 and just about to the episode of "Who Shot JR?" Sick isn't it? Oh well I am sure we all have some weird little obsession!
Thanks for peekin' in tonight! Hope you have a wonderful weekend!

Toadly Yours

2011-02-10T18:04:00.002-06:00

Haa! Can you believe it? Two whole days in a row!!! We must be on the edge of something big here huh? No, seriously I wanted to share another fun digi stamp with you. Again this saweet little froggie is from our friends over at Whimsie Doodles. Don't you just love the kissy lips? This cute little frog went over very well for Valentines.

Both of these little gals were colored with Copic markers and the glitter accents are stickles.

Thanks for peekin' in! Looks like we may begin to get out of this deep freeze weather for the next few days. I am so ready for spring...but then again who isn't?

Holy Shnikees...SHE'S BACK!

2011-02-09T19:16:00.001-06:00

Hi Friends! Did you think I fell off the planet? I know! Insanity right? Well I had to take a little break from blogging for a while. Too many things going on around here with these sweet girls of mine! So I don't want you to think for a minute that I haven't been crafting...then you would think I was really sick wouldn't you?? I am so excited to share some of my cards with you. I just love Valentine's Day. It is so fun to make the cards for this lovey holiday...I probably enjoy it because I love girly colors! Well I found this great little web site called Whimsie Doodles and they carry digital ( a.k.a. digi) stamps. I wasn't sure how I was going to like them but let me tell you I love them! Check these cuties out!

I colored this card using Copic markers and for the hearts I used Doodlebug Glitter in hot pink! Man-O-Man do I love glitter! I tried out some new glitter glue too. This glue was by Martha Stewart and I picked it up at Michael's a few months back. Works amazing with glitter!

Ok now on this sweet little thang I am so happy to introduce Spellbinders Lacey Circles! These are my favorite fun new tool! I just love the little lacy circles! They just make the card don't they?
This little web site has some really cute designs and needless to say they were a big hit with my co-workers! I will have more to post from this web site tomorrow...yes, you did hear me right I am going to post again tomorrow. Thanks for hanging in there with me!

Someone Remembers

2010-11-14T17:59:00.000-06:00

Hi friends! How have you been this fall? I have slacked off on my blogging of late just having a good time living life! My crafting has taken a backseat to all the wonderful life events. We absolutely love being grandparents and as our girls get older it just seems that if we don't take the time to spend time with them now we will miss out. So I might not be posting as much as I used to but keep checking on me I promise to keep you posted on the goings on and fun things I work on to!

I made this card for a co-worker of mine who had a dear friend pass away. I just love this set from Papertrey Ink! It's called Everyday Blessings and both the verse and the stamp I used for the background were in this set. The stamps from Papertrey make such nice impressions! They are such a great company! In fact the ribbon and green cardstock are from there also, don't they compliment each other well? The little white flower is actually a metal flower sticker from Making Memories, I picked up a package of these little babies from Frozen In Time, such a fun little store here on the West side of town!

Well thanks for peekin' in! Hope you have a great evening!

Thinking of You

2010-10-25T19:55:00.000-05:00

Recently one of Haley's friends grandma passed away and I wanted to make a card for their family just to let them know we were thinking of them. With it being fall I decided to use fall colors. I haven't done much crafting in a while so I decided to go out to Splitcoast Stampers and see what I could find using a fun technique. This card was made using 3 different fall colors of ink and a brayer. First I rolled on the lightest color and covered the entire piece of cardstock, the medium color was next. I rolled this color on leaving a little bit of the light color showing at the bottom. Finally, I rolled on the dark color at the top. Using the Upsy Daisy SU stamp set I stamped the daisys in Versamark and embossed them with white embossing powder! I love the way this card turned out!

So friends, what are your Halloween plans? Sidney is having a Halloween/Slumber party on Saturday. We are going to carve pumpkins, play games, eat scary food and watch movies...sound like fun? Sunday Haley has a costume party and Monday they are out of school for All Saints day so I took a day of vacation...sounds like I am going to need it after this weekend! LOL! I love it though...time flies so fast and they are grown before you know it!

By the way, everything turned out okay with Sidney's test. They still don't know why she was doing what she did but at least there isn't anything scary going on, if you know what I mean. Thank you for all your thoughts and prayers!

Take care of you...be safe this weekend and don't eat too many treats!

Where in the world is Ms. Toni?

2010-10-10T18:13:00.000-05:00

Have you been wondering where I have been? Our life has been so hectic lately that I haven't had time to create much let alone blog about it...and oh do I miss it! Haley has been performing with the color guard at all of the home games...here are a few fun pictures to catch you up! I love their uniforms they are so sparkly on the field at night!

Miss Sidney is playing softball...here are a few of her in one of her games. This is the first year she has played and she is having such a good time!

We recently had a health scare with Sidney too that has kept me busy as well. She was experiencing blurred vision in her left eye a few weeks ago and then her hand and lip went numb, after all of that she ended up having a headache for about 8 hrs. I was very concerned about all of this and took her to the ER and they did a CAT scan which came back okay but the ER doc wanted us to follow up with her doctor right away and possibly get an MRI, which we did on Friday and I haven't heard yet what the results of that test were. Hopefully I will know something on Monday. It is so scary when something happens to one of your kids. It just makes you sick to your stomach thinking about all that could be wrong. So I have had to do a lot of praying and leave this in the Lord's hands because I surely can't handle this one alone.

I have a few more pages to share from Angelina's book that I will post later this week. Thanks for peekin' in on us! Take care of you!

Sitting Up!

2010-09-07T20:00:00.000-05:00

Hi friends! Hope you all had a nice Labor Day weekend! Sure was hard to get back in the groove again and go to work this morning! We had such a nice weekend with the kids. They had friends over on Friday and Saturday and then the rest of the weekend I cleaned the house, watched movies scrapbooked and relaxed! Nice for a change huh?

Speaking of scrapbooking I tried hard to get a lot of pages done for Angelina's baby book. I did get a few pages done but not as many as I had hoped, but at least I am back at it. I can't hardly believe that she has grown so much. In my previous post you can see how big she is getting and then you look at this page and OH MY! Where's the baby? This page was so much fun to scrapbook because on this visit Lena sat up for the first time on her own! Being so far away from her we miss a lot of the milestones but it was so exciting to see her sit up here for the first time! I think the first picture is such a scream! Mike and I were talking about it last night...it almost looks like she's yelling at her feet..."hey guys! help me out here!"

All the paper for this layout is My Mind's Eye (including the embellishments) but the cute little purple fuzzies...aren't those fun? Yes, well I picked them up at Scrapfunattic (gotta love those chicks)!

Thanks for peekin in on me! Looks like we might be getting some rain from that tropical storm in Texas later this week! Have a great week...hope it goes fast for you!

Beautiful girl

2010-09-02T22:15:00.000-05:00

Hi friends! I wanted to share this sweet picture with you of our little sweet pea! The girls were in town a few weeks back because of a family wedding and I caught a few snapshots of Angelina. I just love her dress! My sister in-law picked it up for her...isn't it just precious? This next picture of of Angelina resting on Mama in between getting M & M's and laughing at her aunt and uncle! Babies just light up your life don't they? You can be having the worst day ever and they can just smile or give you a hug and it's all better! Isn't that great?

One of my girlfriends is coming over tomorrow to scrapbook and I am hoping to continue on with Angelina's book. Hopefully I will put a dent in the rest of the stuff I need to finish. I don't have much going on this weekend so I thought I would work on my scrapbooking and catch up a little! Thanks for peekin' in friend. Where ever you are I hope you have a happy and safe Labor Day weekend!

Recycle for fun!

2010-08-31T19:58:00.000-05:00

Hi girlfriends! How are you? Seems like forever since I posted! I can't believe the month is almost over (tonight in fact) and I haven't blogged that much! What can I say the girls are back in school and things have been busy around here. I have managed to get a little crafting time in which makes me so happy!! I have had these little tea tins for a long time with this idea in my head but haven't had the time to make them. One night I sat down and decided...it's time! So here is what I came up with. I thought these would be so much fun to give as a little birthday gift with a little "starter money" inside. All of the girls are bellas with the exception of the little chick with the glasses, I purchased her through All that Scraps web store. Speaking of web store did you see my new blinkie for Ellen Hutson? You gotta check those gals out! I have been trying to build up my Copic Marker collection and they have them for $4.99, which is a really great deal!

Well the first football game is Friday night but the first home game isn't until later in September, we only have 4 home games and most of them are all in a row so we will be pretty busy on Friday evenings. Sidney decided to play softball for the 7th/8th grade team so I am sure that will take up some of our evenings pretty soon too! Life is good!

Thanks for peekin' in friend! Hope all is well with you!

Leftovers...

2010-08-06T21:14:00.000-05:00

Does anyone like left overs? What about left overs in your scrapbook room? So you buy this really great sticker sheet for a project and use the ones you want and then there are all these cute little stickers left over and you think to yourself, I could use those for something else so you stick them in a box or a drawer and eventually forget all about them. Does this happen to anyone else or is it just me? Not just me? Ahhh that is good news to me! Well this past week I decided to clean my drawers out and use those left over stickers for cards. So here is what I came up with.

Remember these cute little stickers from Doodle Bug?

This is what I did with my leftovers...

just added a bit of bling bling...

These stickers were the coordinating stickers that matched the stickers above. I thought the packages would make nice birthday cards.

I found these fun rainbow heart stickers and thought I would make really simple cards with them. What do you think? Seriously these went together in 5 minutes but aren't they fun?

These stickers were from the same set but I added a few buttons and twine. These cards just made me happy...so I am sure whoever gets them will smile too ehh?

Well thanks for peekin in friend. Sadly summer is coming to an end and the kids will be back in school soon. This was a good summer. The kids had so much going on...now it's back to homework and such. I am looking forward to highschool football though. This year Haley will be on the field at half time with the Color Gard team. Yey! Can't wait to share some footage with you then. Take care of you!

Lena's Baptism

2010-07-18T11:37:00.002-05:00

Hi friends! How are you this beautiful Sunday morning? We have so much to be thankful for don't we? Today I feel so blessed because of our family. So I thought because of that I would share Lena's baptism pages with you. God blessed us with this beautiful little girl last June and our hearts haven't been the same since! I was so proud of Whitney on this day, a single mother making these choices for her child. As the priest was making the blessing on Angelina I looked over at Whitney, my eyes welled up with tears, and at that moment she looked at me the same way. We didn't need to say anything because we were both full of the love of the Holy Spirit and at that moment Angelina became forever a child of God! How do you scrapbook that? I wanted to make a simple page using a very pale shade of pink so that is the base of the layout...in these pictures it looks more white, but really it's pink. The brown is from SU and it's Close to Cocoa. The bottom edge of the brown paper I used the EK boarder punch called Apron Strings, and added a little bit of rhinestone bling from Prima on the side there. The faith BINGO card is by Jenny Bowlin and the little rhinestone hearts I picked up at Michaels.

Oh...by the way did you notice the background change? Yes...I thought it was time to "move the furniture around"! My creative little mind likes to change things up every now and then. Thanks for peekin' in! We got our AC fixed on Monday this week! Thank God because this week has been terrible for heat here...one day the heat index hit 115! Can you believe that? Sheesh that is hot! The kids have 2 more weeks of summer camp and then school will be starting shortly after that....can you believe how fast this summer has gone? Haley will be a sophomore and Sidney will be in 7th grade! Where oh where have my little ones gone?

Have a fabulous week friends! Take care of you!

Goodnight Moon

2010-07-11T22:28:00.000-05:00

I just love this picture! She looks just like her dolly...they both have their little arms up! So sweet! This is new paper that I picked up at the new scrapbook store on the West side...Frozen In Time. They had a lot of new things in stock...they are a smaller store but they really try to carry a variety of things. This paper was a challenge for me to use because the little worm and moon were already on the paper and it is so difficult to decide how to lay out your photo and what accents you will use on the page. I didn't want to over do it so that's why I ended up with a few buttons. The title is cut with the Alphalicious Cricut cartridge and the border on the red paper is one of my newest border punches called Apron Strings. I absolutely love this punch! I had such a hard time finding it anywhere and so I called the friendly girls at Scrapfunattic and asked them to special order it for me...what a great group of gals over there!

Well friends it is a hot and sticky one in our house today. Our AC went out last night and the house is about 90 degrees upstairs! Thank the Lord we have a basement. We've been hanging out down here all day. Certainly makes you think about all of the things that you take for granted. Hopefully we can get someone over here tomorrow to take a look and see what's going on. I am praying that they can fix it without it costing too much money.

Thanks for peekin' in friend. I hope you have a wonderful week!

100% huggable

2010-07-09T22:37:00.000-05:00

Don't you just want to kiss those little chubby cheeks? I know I do! I remember this day...I was so excited to get these pictures. You never know with a baby how good your pictures are going to turn out because you just have to be so quick and take a million of them so you can have a good group to pick from...plus our little chubikins doesn't live here so we have to try to squeeze in picture time around all the other things that her mommy wants to do when they are visiting...but I digress...here is the low down on the page...

This page was so easy to put together! I just decided what size I wanted to print the photos out...seriously that was the hardest part! The patterned paper is from a Die Cuts With A View paper slab and the title is cut using the Alphalicious Cricut cartridge. I used the EK Success Threading Water border punch on the red cardstock piece under the larger black and white photo.

We have a slightly busy weekend but I will try to make it out here again to post some fun stuff. Thanks for peekin' in on us! Take care of you friend!

Lena's Scrapbook

2010-07-02T22:10:00.001-05:00

Well friends it has been a busy few weeks since I have posted last. I was trying to get as much done as I could for Lena's scrapbook and I have it about half way done. Here are a few pages that I finished.

I just love these pictures. I can't believe that I took these pictures! They just turned out so great! I have always admired pictures like these. When my kids were little we didn't think about taking pictures of their hands and feet! Sheesh we missed all the good stuff! Whitney is holding Angelina's hand in the picture above. Great memories. I pulled out some old paper for this one, the patterned paper is from Daisy D's, I am so sad that they went out of business I really liked their line.

This title was done with the Cricut machine. Simply was cut out using the Jasmine cartridge and then I inked the edges for that oh so slight distressed look. Sweet was cut out using the Tear Drop cartridge. I don't know if you can see them very well but I used some acetate hearts from Heidi Swapp and added those cute little safety pins. I have had those things for so long and wasn't really sure I was ever going to use them.

These pictures were taken the same day. I just love tiny little babies. They sleep real hard so you can move their hands where ever you want and they will stay put! That is what I did here. She just snoozed away while I took an endless amount of pictures. This page I called the "too cute photo shoot". I got the idea from one of the magazines I have piled up here in the scrap room. I just love the way the title is all different shapes and blingy!

Well thanks for peekin' in. I should have a few more things posted later. I have pictures from Lena's first birthday...they are so cute...cake was EVERYWHERE!

Talk to you soon friend!

Happy Father's Day Weekend!

2010-06-19T18:36:00.000-05:00

Well it's here...summer that is! It's already the middle of June and Father's Day weekend. Here are a few of the Father's Day cards that I made for a few of my customers. All of the stamps on these cards were purchased at Verve Visual. Great gals over there and quick with the shipping too! I was having such a hard time coming up with ideas for masculine cards and when I went to their web site to look around they had all these great layout ideas! If you ever get stuck for what to do head over to their web site and check them out!

Do you like the edges of the square with the sentiment on the card above? Remember those deckle edge scissors from EK? Yeah...blast from the past right? I thought they added just the right touch and then I inked the edges. See...I am going to be a trend setter...you want to go dig these scissors out and cut paper don't you?

What else would make a card more masculine than "screw" brads? Makes you want to go "ARRR" just like Tim the Toolman Taylor doesn't it?

We have been busy little bee's here at our house today. Our grand-daughter will be turning 1 this week and we are having the whole family over to celebrate with a cook out and pool party. My good friend at work is making the cake for me...she is awesome with decorating and our theme is Tinkerbell! So today in order to get ready for all the festivities I washed out decks...manually! I don't have a power sprayer and didn't want to spend the money to rent one so I bought the deck wash and scrubbed myself. Man was I a picture...I was in my swimming suit, yellow rubber gloves up to my elbows and hot pink tennis shoes...can anyone say hot mama? LOL! Needless to say with it as hot as it was today I jumped in the pool when I finished the chore. Feel much better now and am going to focus on the inside of the house. Mike and I need to put the mirror up in the basement bathroom and that room will finally be finished. Can you believe how long it took us to finish that bathroom up? Oh well at least it is done now right?

I am making some serious progress on Angelina's album and hope to finish it up this week before the party, so stay tuned as I will be posting pictures of pages as I can. Next week I will have tons of photos from the party so that should be fun too...who can resist looking at a cutie patootie eating cake in a diaper? Not this grandma!

Happy Father's day to all the dads in your life! Hope you have a wonderful weekend my friends! Till next time! ~Toni

Moose fishin?

2010-06-16T18:08:00.000-05:00

Hi Friends! Well it finally stopped raining here in doo-dah, now if those dadblasted mosquitoes would just go away! I went out to sit in the backyard for a bit the other night and got too many bites! I guess that means I am sweet right? LOL! Can you believe we are already to middle of the month of June and Father's Day is next weekend? I haven't had as many orders for Father's Day cards as I did for Mother's Day but I figure that is because most guys don't really care about getting a handmade card. Here is a cute little fishing card I made the other night. This little guy is called Riley and they sell a whole line of fun stamps just like him at Riley and Company check them out here. I also bought the golfing Riley because my hubs likes to golf but his nick name when he was growing up was Moose! I will post that card later...but I digress...I scored this great "boy" paper pad by My Mind's Eye at Michael's and it's just perfect for Father's Day cards. I colored our little friend with a few Copic markers. I am really just getting the hang of using them so I don't have a whole lot of different ones for shading and such but still I think it turned out pretty cute. I have recently been into using a white gel pen to put fun little accent lines here and there on the colored images and it just adds that fun little touch.

Well thanks for peekin' in! I am still working on Angelina's baby book...moving slow and there is so much ground to cover...hope I can get enough done before the birthday party so keep your fingers crossed!

Catchin' Up...

2010-06-10T23:37:00.000-05:00

Hi there my friends! It has been a few weeks since I blogged and I thought I better touch base with you! I was recently able to participate in the PJ Crop out at Scrap Funattic...they just moved to a bigger store just down the road from where they used to be and I love it! They have a lot more room and so you you know what that means right??? That's right! more scrappin' goodness for us! While I was there I finished 6 pages for Angelina's book. You see friends I am trying to play catch up and get as much done for her book as I can before her birthday. Whitney and Thomas are both coming home very soon! We are so excited and what is even more exciting is that we will all be able to celebrate Angelina's first birthday together...and all the Johnson family too! We are going to have so much fun!

So check this out...here are a few pages that I finished at the crop. This first page are pictures that I took last July. Whitney was looking at Angelina and talking to her and Lena was so focused on what mom was doing she wouldn't take her eyes off her! She almost tried to talk back to her! What a crack up!

Here are a few sweet pictures of Grampa holding his little "nibblet" as he calls her. My goodness she has changed a bunch since these pictures!

Scrap Funattic had these fun little fabric circles...I can't remember the name for them right off hand but I guess quilters use them...I thought they were the perfect touch for this page layout. Do you like the pink little stick pins? They had these in a little package for $.50 I think...fun little embelly for cheap!

Well thanks for peekin' in and checking in on me! I have been working on Father's Day cards. I found this great little slab of boy paper with the perfect colors and have been trying to make up some cards. It is so hard for me to make masculine cards! I am so used to making pink frilly cards...but now that my mojo is going a little bit it should get a little easier! Can you believe that Father's Day is only a week away? Sheesh...where does the time go?
Talk to you soon!
~T

Silhouette

2010-05-30T19:57:00.001-05:00

Hi friends! How are you doing on this Memorial weekend? I just want to take a minute to thank all of our service men and women for what they do for this country each and every day. Thank you for protecting the freedom that we have in this country. My heart goes out to all of those serving currently as well as all of their families, we pray for you all...God Bless You!

A few weeks ago I thought it would be fun to make Whitney a silhouette of Angelina for Mother's Day...I totally cased the idea from Emily...check her cute little blog out here. Here are my little step by step instructions should you feel so compelled to whip this fun little project out too!

It is super hard to take a profile picture of a small child! They are so fast! This picture here was the best that I could come up with. It was even a little blurry but it really doesn't matter as we will be painting it black.

Ok so I just cut her right out of the picture...I even gave her wavy hair in the back!

Then I got out the acrylic paint and a sponge brush and gave her a nice even color.

Taadaa! Here is the end result.
Picture frame...$3
Paint & Supplies...$2
Time to make the project...10 minutes plus drying time
Feeling of satisfaction...priceless!

Thanks for peekin' in on me this weekend! Hope you have a wonderful Memorial Day!

Mother's Day...this is the last group

2010-05-26T21:51:00.001-05:00

Hi Friends! How are you doing? It has been a while hasn't it? May always seems to be such a busy month! Haley's last day of school is tomorrow. Yep...one more day and then she will officially be a sophomore! Sidney's last day of school was last Wednesday so she is now a 7th grader! Man I can't believe that my girls are growing up so fast!
Sidney is going to summer camp again this summer, this will be her last summer to go, she is really looking forward to going this last year. Both of the girls attended this camp for 4 years it is such a great way for a kid to spend the summer. It's a day camp and they do tons of fun activities with the kids and they get so much exercise that they are usually pretty wore out at the end of the day! Good stuff huh?
Haley is going to have a very busy summer this year. She has decided to volunteer for YESS camp, which is a camp for the mentally handicapped. She will be working for half a day at school helping with whatever the teacher needs assistance with and then the rest of the day they play games and other activities. On Fridays they have a field trip to a fun place...swimming, horseback riding, etc. Then she will have Color Guard Camp and practices every week and let's not forget about golf! I am tired thinking about it! *wink*

Here are the last few Mother's Day cards I made. The paper on this first card is from SU, I have actually had this paper for 2 years! Sick isn't it? But hey...I pulled it out and am using it that's good right? The stamp set is from Verve Visual. I used the stamp off technique so that the color was a little faded looking for the flowers. You can't really tell in the picture but I used clear embossing powder on the Happy Mother's Day phrase, then inked the edges up a little bit to soften it up.

This is the card that I made for my mom. The paper is Making Memories but don't try to find it because it is also several years old...LOL! For this one I used my markers to ink up the stamp so that I could make the stems one color and the flowers another color. The verse is from the same Verve Visual stamp set I have used on all the Mother's Day cards. The little butterfly is a Martha Stewart punch and to bling it up a bit I used some green stones in the middle. I picked up the crochet lace at Hobby Lobby...I was so excited because I wasn't even thinking about this card when I got it...LOVE IT!

This is a playful little card that I made for a gal at work to give her daughter. It was so simple but I loved the youthful look. The border punch is...you guessed it Martha Stewart. You would think that with all the snappy punches Martha has that she would have an awesome personality...CRAZY!

Well guess what I am doing now? You guessed it...I am trying to come up with Father's Day card designs. I have such a hard time with masculine cards. I need to work on our little granddaughter's scrapbook. She will be turning 1 next month and we are having a birthday party for her here with all of the family so I would like to get caught up so that they can look at how much she has changed! We shall see how far I get on that idea! There just aren't enough hours in the day are there?

Thanks for peekin' in on me! If I don't get something posted this weekend I hope you have a happy and safe memorial weekend where ever you are!

Grandma Cards

2010-05-10T20:26:00.018-05:00

Hi friends! Holy cow! We had some very strange weather here this evening. They were predicting that tonight could be just right for super cell storms producing large hail and tornadoes. Around 4:30 today I decided the weather was looking pretty ominous so I decided to head home for the day. I pulled out of the parking garage where I work and got a few blocks away and the tornado sirens fired up. There was a tornado on the ground about 40 miles south west of town. It would be so easy to get crazy and panic and believe me my heart was pounding but I decided to say a few prayers and ask the Lord to get me home safely...that is exactly what he did! In fact my DH drove in at the same time as I did. My mom was here with the girls and they had everything ready downstairs...flashlight, doggie, dog food...just waiting for us! So we watched everything for a while and we got a lot of crazy rain but missed the hail (thank God!). Tornadoes were all around us and they kept popping up here and there but after about an hour the weather cleared up and the sun came out. Funny how fast things got crazy and then left just as fast. Unfortunately I don't think the people in Oklahoma are as fortunate tonight! God be with you all!

Here are a few of the cards I made for Grandma's for Mother's day. This first one was so simple! The buttons made me think of a Grandma! I cut a slit with my exacto knife and fed the ribbon through the card and tied in the front. I really like that idea...it would look great with wider ribbon too. The white card stock in the middle is punched out using one of my new border punches. I had seen it in all the magazines and have been looking for it everywhere but couldn't find it here locally, so I called up those fabulous gals at Scrapfunattic and asked if they could order it for me. Fiskars carries a version of this punch but I really don't care for the Fiskars border punches because I just don't think they are a quality product. This punch is actually from EK Success and I am sorry but I don't remember what it's called! However I also found out that EK makes Martha Stewart punches...figures...I love the quality of her punches too!

So as you can see...I used the punch here on this card too and then did a little "foe" stitching on the side.

These next cards are very similar and this first one reminds me of my sweet little grandma. I really like the colors they are so cheery and springy. The white side of the card was made with the swiss dot embossing folder and the cuddle bug.

Thanks for peeking in! I hope you are all safe this evening!

Mother's Day Cards & Birthdays...

2010-05-04T22:26:00.002-05:00

Hi friends...how you doing? The weather here has been so beautiful for the last week! I love it! I have been doing very well getting my walking exercise in almost every day...hopefully just talking about it won't jinx me and I will keep it up! I would love to shed about 10 pounds...just wanna be a little happier me...know what I mean?

It has been so busy around here lately with the girls birthdays and school activities and ...do you remember that basement bathroom project I started several weeks ago? I decided to tile the bathroom floor? Yep, well I called my dad to come over and help me with cutting the tile around those tricky parts then we pulled the toilet up to tile nicely around that area and well nothing ever goes as planned in this old house...needless to say things broke and we had to get a few new pieces. Dad and I thought we could fix it but after fiddling with the toilet for the whole day we decided to call a plumber friend of the family and he worked us in and was able to come out tonight and put everything together! Yay! Now all I need to do is fix up the walls and we are good to go! I will take pictures when I finish.

Now onto some creative fun. Here are a few more Mother's Day cards that I put together this week. This is still the same stamp set I purchased from Verve Visual...it's called Because of You...such a beautiful set! Even though I bought it for Mother's Day cards I can see how versatile this set would be to use for other cards too. This first card was fairly simple the time consuming part was cutting all the little petals out for the flowers but they really make the card, don't cha think? I used the Giga and Mega Marvy large punches for the circle and scallop.

I think I am going to make this next card for my mom for Mother's Day. She saw it laying there on the floor and she said I love that! I am sure your mother really shouldn't pick out her mother's day card but what the heck! At least I will know that she likes it!

Here are a few pictures from Haley's birthday. I can't believe that she is 15! I blinked and she turned into a beautiful young woman. I remember when she used to play dress up and play with baby dolls!

Dad got her first pair of golf shoes...you think she was happy? LOL!

Here are pictures from Sidney's birthday, she just turned 12! I can't believe she is almost a teenager! She cracks me up...she is so crafty like me. She made the invitations for her party to hand out at school.

We were so lucky because Whitney and Lena were here for Sidney's birthday! Here is a picture of Angelina having a big cookie with frosting! Momma wasn't too sure about all this mess!

Thanks for peekin' in my friends. Hope you are having a great week so far! Take care of you!

Maaaa....

2010-04-30T21:12:00.000-05:00

Hi friends! How are you this evening? What a nice evening to just sit out and enjoy the peace and quiet! We have been so busy around here lately! With the school year wrapping up just around the corner there are plenty of school activities that have been keeping us busy and the girls birthdays are so close together so April and May are always busy with that and then there's mothers day! Speaking of mother's day...I have had a total of 55 orders for mother's day cards! I was so excited and surprised at the same time! Last Saturday I didn't have anything going on (if you can imagine that) and thought I would begin working on all the cards. I thought with the whole day I should be able to crank the cards out...I even had all my sketches ready to go. Would you believe that I had absolutely NO creative mojo what so ever? It was so weird. I was so mad! Then Sunday morning rolls around (we weren't going to church until that evening) so I got up and said my morning prayers and asked the Lord to please have mercy and help me! He answered my prayers because I finished 22 cards by late afternoon on Sunday! Here are a few cards that were part of that group.

I used a fabulous new stamp set that I got from Verve Visual...wonderful online store.

The "Happy Mother's Day" used on this card was also from Verve Visual but it is sold by itself.

All of the Mother's Day cards I made thus far have been done with paper I already had in my stash. Is that good...or sick that I have that much paper. After I stopped working at the scrapbook store I realized how much stuff I had that I hadn't even started to use and I decided that it was simply greedy to keep buying and not using it up. I always thought that I had to have the most current paper designs to keep up with the trends. While it is nice to get the new stuff coming out people that don't scrapbook or paper craft, that buy my cards, don't know if the paper is from this year or 4 years ago...and I haven't had any complaints on the cards yet!

Well thanks for peekin in friends! Hope you have a great weekend! ~Toni

Super Mom

2010-04-21T18:54:00.000-05:00

Hi friends! Can you believe how fast the month of April is flying by? Mother's Day is just around the corner so I thought I would take the opportunity to tell my co-workers that I was selling cards for this wonderful day. I work with a lot of men so I took advantage that...most men are looking at the last minute for a card so I simply told them hey fellas, do you want to earn some brownie points with the wife? Let me make a beautiful Mother's Day card for you and you can tell her that you had it handmade for her." How special is that? Well let me tell you...there must be a lot of guys that need to earn brownie points because I have 45 orders for cards! Yes I am completely serious! Isn't that great! I am so excited and the best part is I got this great idea in plenty of time to make the cards and not stress out about it! In fact here is one of my cards. I have had this beautiful little Bella stamp for a few years and I have mainly used it for birthday cards but as I was sitting here one day thinking of card designs I remembers this little lady and thought it would make a great Mother's Day card. I am so proud of my coloring job. She was colored with Copic markers and I outlined her boots, outfit and cape with a white gel pen...doesn't that add a great little touch? I used a grey color for just a slight hint of color where she's standing. If you click on the image you can see the detail a bit better.

Thanks for peekin' in today! I love to hear from you! Hope you can get out and enjoy some of this beautiful weather!

He is Risen

2010-04-11T23:03:00.000-05:00

Hi Everyone! Have you enjoyed this beautiful weather that we were blessed with this weekend? I sure have! Do you like the 80's tunes? I switched the music up a bit for a while! I love the 80's /90's music, it's what I grew up on in highschool!
Both of my girls were gone this weekend so I had some time to myself. I love having some free time every now and then but you know what? I love being a mom! I miss them so much when they are gone! My DH (dear husband) had to help out at the Shriner Circus on Saturday evening so I had the whole day and most of the evening alone. I decided to retile the basement bathroom floor. Are you laughing? You see I have this wild hair issue, and you never know when it's going to strike! Last year we had some plumbing issues in the wall in the basement bathroom and had to remove a whole wall to fix some leaky pipes. We had carpet in there but ended up having to tear it out and after finishing the sheetrock and redoing the ceiling decided to wait a while before doing anything else to it, after all it's the basement bathroom, normally it's just us that see it anyway. But none the less I was thinking I needed to tackle this job. So I went to Lowes and picked out the tile (the linoleum sticky back kind) and began laying that tile. This is a tough job, mainly because it is a killer on your knees, but I think all the up and down really gave my lower body a work out *bonus*. I asked my dad to come over and measure and cut tiles on the tricky ones and am happy to say we are almost done with the project! Yey me! Once I get it completely done I will have to share pictures with you. I am going to do some fun texture painting on the walls with colored glaze!

On to some creative cards...this is the last of my Easter creations. These next two cards were made with one of my new stamp sets called Easter Elegance from Verve Visual. This was the first time that I had ordered from them. I really like their stamps! Their website has so many talented people too! One the first card I used the masking technique for the row of colored eggs at the top.

The cross stamp and sentiment used on this next card is from the same set. The cross is so pretty and I really liked it because I could see myself using it for other projects not just Easter...gotta love those cards that really give you a lotta bang for your buck huh?

This card has to be one of my favorites! All made from scraps from a project I did last year! It's so simple but so fun. You know sometimes I forget that the simple little cards can be the prettiest!

Well hope this little post finds you happy and well! Thanks for peekin' in my friend! Have a good week!

Card Supplies:
Stamps: Verve Visual - Easter Elegance
Ink: SU - chocolate chip, bordering blue, certainly celery, barely banana, rose red, orchid opulence
Tools: martha stewert's heart border punch
Other: ribbons, patterned paper

Bunny Love

2010-04-06T21:36:00.000-05:00

Hi everyone! How are you this evening? Did you have a Happy Easter? Wasn't the weather beautiful? The Lord sure did bless us this year with gorgeous weather! Speaking of weather we sure are having some strange weather here, when I got home from work we kept hearing this rolling thunder for about half an hour. It was freaky, I had never heard anything like it...then it started hailing!

Moving on...this is a fun little Easter card that I made using a new Easter set purchased from Ellen Hutson's online store called Hey Chickie (by Cornish Farms). I colored everything with colored pencils and copic markers. The patterned paper is actually left overs from another project...bonus...doesn't it give you such a good feeling when you can use up your scraps? Do you like the little scallop on the tan on the side? It is an new Martha Stuart boarder punch called Cornice, also purchased from Ellen Hutson. This was the first time that I had ordered from her and she is just simply wonderful! Her turn around time after ordering is excellent...check them out!

Well, thanks for peekin' in. I sure do love when you visit! Hope you have a great week and the weekend is here before you know it!

Gotta love pastels...

2010-03-27T14:53:00.000-05:00

Hi Everyone! I have been running around like a crazy woman today. Haley had to be at school for God Squad this morning at 9 so I used this opportunity to do some errands. I needed a new coffee pot. It is so funny...I didn't used to be a coffee drinker until about 2 years ago and now I love to have a cup...or 3 every morning. Just helps get my motor runnin'. Do you like to drink coffee? If not what do you do to get movin in the morning? After errands I came back to the house to clean and when Haley got home we had about 2 hours before she had to back up to the school for dress rehearsal for her choir variety show. There are 2 performances today and then they clean up after the last one so she has a very long day ahead of her. I will see what kind of pictures I can get and share them with you later.

Can you believe Easter is next weekend already? I had a few orders for Easter cards and I think these are two of my favorite cards.

I have had this little Imaginisce Chick stamp for a year and this is the first time I have had to ink it up. Isn't it so cute? Here is the best part...it was only $1! I had a chance to check out the new little scrapbook store on the West side of town. Frozen in Time is such a cute little shop. It is a little small but she has some fun stuff. I picked up the paper for both of the cards there. The patterned paper is from We R Memory Keepers and it is the Hippity Hoppity line. The cool thing about this paper is that it is double sided AND the paper used in this card was all from the same paper...yep both the flowered part and the green polka dot. What cha talkin' about right? Well this is the kind of paper that has one full side of the same print and the other side has 4 different prints on the other side...perfect for card making! I used the Fiskars Threading Water punch to do that cute little scallop on the green paper. The chick was colored with sunburst yellow prisma marker. OH YEAH...Hobby Lobby has their markers on sale today for 30% off...I picked up a few more colors. Those darn things are so expensive that seems to be the only way that I can do it! The ribbon on this card...if you can see it is Bazzill. I picked it up at Frozen in Time too!

Now this little guy is simple but I love the way it turned out. Again it is the same paper and on this one I used Prima Flowers and the blue ribbon is also from Bazzill. Do you like them? I sure do!

Sorry about the photography on these cards. I was just trying to take a quick picture of them before going to bed and it was so late! I have some other Easter cards to share with you this week too. I got a few new stamp sets. One set was from Ellen Hutson's store...that gal has some great turnaround time on ordering. I got the stamp set in 4 days after my order! Check her out!

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

8th Grade Lake Day

2010-03-25T18:33:00.000-05:00

Hi friends! How are you today? I am doing great...the sun is shining! I thought I would share a few of the pages that I made for Haley's school book with you.
It is tradition that after the last day of school Fr. Eck takes the 8th grade class out to the lake to go skiing. It was a really nice day...a little chilly but not too bad. Several parents went and we BBQ'd for the kids while Fr. Eck showed them how to ski. I wanted to use bright sunshiny colors so I used the summer line from Karen Foster.

Here's a close up of the title, foam thicker letters with a little bit of rhinestone bling.

Here is the second page. There were only 10 kids in Haley's class and only 4 girls! Gotta love small schools!

I wanted to zoom in on this picture of Father. Can you believe his is in his 80's? He is such a wonderful priest!

Well thanks for peekin' in! I am so glad that you stopped in! This weekend Haley has a huge variety show and they are having 3 performances...can't wait to share some pictures with you!

Take care of you!

Diaper Cakes

2010-03-20T13:01:00.000-05:00

Happy Saturday! Burrrr! That is all I have to say this morning! We've got blowing snow outside so today we are just hanging around enjoying our last few days of time off inside. Today I decided to organize my scrapbook room and get all the "nooks and crannys" cleaned out. Went through some of my stamps that haven't received much love lately and thought I might sell some (so if you're interested let me know, most of them are Stampin Up) and we are catching up on laundry today also. I am sure we will pop in a few movies before the day is through too!

Tomorrow the girls and I are going to a baby shower for Mike's nieces. One had her baby in December and the other is due in a few weeks, both of the girls are from the same family so a joint shower just makes sense. I heard that they really had quite a bit of stuff already and they had diapers on their list. You know me...I can't just give a package of diapers...I have to "dress it up" a bit right? So here are the creations that my oldest daughter and I made one evening this week. Diaper cakes. Both of them are made using one package of diapers, the "icing" is a 30x30 flannel receiving blanket wrapped with ribbon. Perfect timing on the shower because we picked up some crinkle paper Easter grass for a great price to add a little fluff and a little stuffed animal at the top...also there to the side are 3 baby washcloths with a bow around them. I wish I could say that I thought this idea up all by myself but I actually found the idea on Esy. There is a gal that does up all kinds of fun cakes like this and tons of other fun stuff so I thought...why couldn't I do that? I hope they like them...we sure had fun making them!

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

The 7 Sorrows of Mary's Heart

2010-03-19T11:23:00.001-05:00

Hi everyone! We are having such beautiful weather today I just can't believe that we are supposed to get snow tomorrow. But I am thankful that the sun is shining! Today I am taking the kids to the movies. We are going to see The Diary of a Wimpy Kid. The previews looked really cute...we shall see. I decided to change my blog background...again...because St Patrick's day is over and since I am going back to work next week I am sure that I won't have much time to redo the blog background again for a while so this is neutral enough that it should last me for a while...unless I get a wild hair! *wink*

This week I have been working on Haley's school scrapbook trying to catch up. This is a page that I started when my friend Lynette came over to scrapbook and I just couldn't get my mojo going. I hadn't scrapped in a while and was just stuck on my idea, then when the layout idea came to me I was stuck trying to find the right paper! But I didn't give up I just kept going and this is what I came up with. Once I got over that "creative hump" the rest of the pages I worked on were simple. Funny how that happens huh?

I thought with this being lent I would post this layout first. When Haley was in 8th grade her class performed the 7 Sorrows of Mary's Heart and Haley was Mary. They all did such a great job, it was a very moving performance! The larger picture is a little out of focus but even still I thought it was the best choice for the focal point on the page. She just stands out to me with the blue vale and white clothing. Over the years of taking pictures at the kids programs I have had some pictures not turn out as well, but that doesn't stop me from including them in the scrapbook. I mean if most of your pictures are in focus and there is one, like this one, well I would rather use it for the memory then not include it. The title is done with the Stone Script Cricut Cartridge and the jewel embellishments are clear brads from Hobby Lobby.

Here is close up of the "out of focus" picture. See...not too bad.

I just love my little Epsom Picture Mate printer! This is how you put many photos on a page and get away with a single page layout!

Hope you are having a happy friday! Can you believe Easter is just around the corner? I just ordered an Easter stamp set so I will be working on Easter cards just as soon as they get here! Take care of you!

Our little rocker

2010-03-17T12:38:00.000-05:00

Hi friends! How are you today? Hope you are having a great week. I am enjoying spending time with my girls. You know it seems like we are always going somewhere or have something that we have to do whether it is school related or not so it is just nice to take some time and just enjoy being together playing games, watching movies and just having fun. I think the kids really needed a break from school too. I know Haley really needed the break, she has some really tough classes and sometimes it can get hard trying to juggle all the responsibilities as a young person so I am so glad that she could take a breather and just regroup. When they get back there are only 7 weeks of school left...can you believe that? Where did the school year go?

Here is a fun page that I did of our little godson. He is such a fun little guy! This was taken at Christmas, his mom told me that he really loved pretending to play the guitar so we got him this one. Look at him rock out!! I was out at Scrapfunattic a month or so ago and saw this paper and knew immediately that this would be perfect for this picture. The paper is by Making Memories and the chipboard embellishments are Me & My Big Ideas, I found them at Michaels. I made the photo black and white to downplay the background a little and make the photo 5x7. Every time I look at this page I can't help but laugh!

Still hoping the sun will come out some time soon! I hear that today and tomorrow it is supposed to be in the 60's and then Friday changes over to rain then Saturday...SNOW! What the heck? Then next week back into the 60's. Strange huh?

Thanks for peekin' in! Take care of you!

Whitney's Birthday

2010-03-16T21:18:00.000-05:00

Our daughter celebrated her 24th birthday a few weeks ago and we got to go to dinner with her and her precious little girl. I have been trying to find an affordable photo program to edit my pictures because for whatever reason my camera takes horrible pictures indoors. Too much light. I am just not sure what I am doing wrong. But I wanted to post these cute pictures.

Here is a great one of Whitney & Angelina.

Now she had just woke up from her nap so when Haley was holding her she wasn't sure about her surroundings yet. But she did lean forward and give her a kiss. Isn't that the sweetest? She gives hugs too. They are just so special!

This was close to the end of dinner so she was all happy...plus grandma had given her some icing from the cake! nummy nummy!

Here's a close up of the cake! They did a FABULOUS job! It was so good too! Mike laughed because I gave up chocolate for lent and so I ordered a white cake...but actually I like white cake better than chocolate anyway. Chocolate is always so dry!

Thanks for peekin' in! I have been kicking some tail on scrapbooking. I just might have Haley's school album caught up to Freshman year this week! I took the week off to spend spring break with the girls. We have been having such a good time! Hope you get out there and enjoy this weather! Supposed to get cold again this weekend! Prayin' for some sunshine tomorrow!

Anniversary

2010-03-13T10:12:00.001-06:00

Hi friends! Happy St. Patrick's Day! I thought I would get in the "green mood" and switch up my blog a little bit. Pretty fun for March huh? It has been a while since I have blogged! Life has been so hectic lately...I am sure you know the feeling right? My DH's (dear husband) daughter was in town with our little granddaughter a few weeks ago and we celebrated our daughter's birthday. I still have a little tweaking to do to the photos and I will share them with you. Cake turned out great and we had such a good evening!

Here is a card that I made for a co-worker. It was her wedding anniversary and she wanted to give her husband a special card. I thought this sweet little Bella Stamp was perfect. I paper pieced her dress...I just love this technique! I used the Stampin Up ticket punch to punch out the corners and then added dew drops to each corner to bling it up a little.

Hope you are enjoying the weekend. I have a friend coming over today to scrapbook...I am so excited! Wish me luck that I get a bunch of pages done. Still working on the girls school scrapbooks...hopefully I can make some headway! Thanks for peekin' in!

Sympathy Cards

2010-02-25T22:39:00.000-06:00

Hi friends! How are you this week? Are you excited that the work week is almost over? Isn't it sad that it seems for most of us we are looking forward to the weekend all the time? I mean every day is a gift and we should treasure each one of them because we never know when that day might be our last. A couple of my co-workers experienced losses in their lives this past week and asked me to make cards for their loved ones or friends. This stamp set is from Paper Trey Ink and the words always seem to give me comfort when I read them so I hope that they bring comfort to whom ever they were made for.

This card was for a man so I was hoping for more of a masculine feel. This card was made using the Guideline Stamp set from Paper Trey Ink and all of the cardstock and ink was Stampin Up.

I really liked the way that this card turned out. I was able to use my new Martha Stuart punch (thanks Michelle for inspiring me on your blog...because I purchased this punch a few days after you used it on your blog). The embossed dot background was made using the Swiss Dot embossing folder and the Cuttlebug.

Well thanks for peekin' in tonight friends. Hope you have a wonderful day tomorrow! This weekend is packed full of fun. My youngest is getting ready for a robotics competition through her school so they will be practicing and making the finishing touches on their presentation and display boards, my oldest has a few school functions in the morning and Mike's daughter will be in this weekend with our grandbaby! Yey! How exciting is that? We are celebrating our daughter's birthday. I can't wait to share pictures with you! I ordered the cutest cake! If you don't know...that's my thing...making birthdays special. I usually try to have a fun cake made to celebrate the occasion. Some years it gets a little challenging to think of fun designs but I haven't come up empty handed yet! This year is going to be so much fun because we will have out little grandbaby here to celebrate her momma's birthday too!
Take care of you!

Some bunny loves you...

2010-02-17T21:52:00.002-06:00

Hi everyone. Hope your week is going well...mine is just zippin' right by...now watch now that I said that tomorrow and Friday will crawl! Here is a fun little card that I made for one of my customers for her daughter. Isn't this bunny just the cutest? I got the bunny and sentiment stamp from Amuse Art Stamps, they are out of Seattle. They have the cutest little sayings on their stamps! My stepson lives in Seattle so one time I had him run over to the store and pick up my stamps with the intention of bringing them home with him, since he was coming home shortly after I intended on placing my order. He picked them up for me but forgot to put them in his suitcase...even after I reminded him. Then it took another 2 months of reminding for him to mail them to me. LOL! KIDS!

Anywho...I got the inspiration for this card from Amy at Prairie Paper & Ink you can check her blog out here. She is always doing a fun sketch that helps get your mojo going!

Thanks for peekin' in! Today is the start of the Lenten season, I have decided to give up chocolate. I did this last year and made it the whole time. It is definitely a challenge but I can do it...besides if it is a challenge then it is really a sacrifice and that's the least that I can do considering what He did for me. Hope you have a great day! Take care of you!

Supplies:
Paper: SU cardstock
Stamps: Little Bunny & Some Bunny (both from Amuse)
Embelly's: heart eyelets, ribbon, mega scalloped square punch, heart embossing folder

More love...

2010-02-15T09:49:00.004-06:00

Hi friends! Did you have a good Valentine's Day? We sure did. My DH (Dear Husband) and I don't make a big deal out of Valentine's Day, we just do little things to remind each other how much we care. We went to the movie Valentine's Day...my opinion of this movie is...wait until it comes out on video, but the company was good that that is what matters. Here are a few more fun cards that I made for this special holiday. Sometimes when I get stuck and and need a little help with inspiration I head over to splitcoaststampers.com there are so many wonderful talented people over there! In this post I mention where I got my inspiration as well as the blogs you can visit.

All of these cards were made using my new stamp set from Paper Trey Inc called Say It With Style. I just love this little set! It is so much fun and you could use it for many other cards through out the year it just happened that it worked perfect for Valentine cards! Here is what it looks like. See how versatile it is?

My inspiration for these next two cards came from Julie Lacey. She is a wonderful artist and her blog is so cute! You can check her blog out here. On the first card I used the fiskars heart boarders punch. The patterned paper on both of these cards is My Minds Eye, Love Nest and the large circle was done with Nestibilities.

This card is pretty much the same with the exception of the punch. The punch used at the bottom of this card is Martha Stewart's doily punch. I have always thought Martha's crafts have been too expensive but her punches are worth the money. They are really easy to use and make such a nice addition to your project.

This next card was designed by Dawn McVey. This is another lady that makes me want to create! Her projects are so much fun! You can check out her blog here. She is the designer that created the stamp set I mentioned above!

This next card was created using the My Minds Eye Love Nest line and the ribbon is Basic Grey. The layout idea of the card was inspiration from Kristina. You can check her blog out here. She is full of fun ideas and her blog is so much fun!

I LOVE this card! It was so simple to do and with the stamp set you can change it up so easily. The other cards I made with this design said "Love You" & "Smooches". The heart stamps were from a Stampin Up set called Happy Hearts.

Thanks for peeking in today. I love to hear from you! Talk to you soon friend!

Toni

Valentine's Day with Changito

2010-02-12T18:39:00.002-06:00

Hi friends! It has been a while since I posted. Life has been so busy lately. I have some fun news to share with you. A while back I got some really cute Valentine's paper and stamps and I was so excited to try them out that on Tuesday this past week I got a wild idea. I put together an email and sent it around to my co-workers and told them that I was making Valentines and if they wanted to place an order just let me know. Usually I get maybe 5-10 requests for 1 card each....this time I had orders totaling 35 cards! So I was overwhelmed and was so excited that I took the task on. Needless to say I haven't had much sleep in the last 3 days but have been really excited about my creative venture. It was such a challenge to get a "game plan" going and decide what to do. All of my customers told me who they needed cards for so here are the kid cards I came up with using the Changito Monkey line from Stampendous.

This stamp is called Changito Bouquet and I actually made several of these but not just for the kids. I colored the monkey in with a cinnamon toast colored Prismacolor art marker. I really like the even flow of coloring when using these markers. They are similar to the Copic markers but just a little more affordable. This little guy was originally holding a bouquet of flowers but since it's heart day I punched some hearts out and outlined them with a black marker and adhered them to the card. I used a smaller heart stamp and SU's white craft ink to add some detail to the bottom of the card.

I made this card for a 12 year old who's brother got the card above. For some reason it is so hard for me to come up with fun ideas for cards for boys. This stamp is called Changito B-day, I punched a heart and put it right over the "B". I love this stamp...doesn't it just look like a couple of brothers? *grin*

One of my customers didn't care what I did as long as I used camouflage paper. I was really trying to think how I would incorporate camouflage paper into Valentine's day but I think worked out pretty good

I have a lot more examples of Valentine's Day cards coming up that I am so excited to share with you. I hope that you have a wonderful Valentine's Day whatever you do! Thanks for peekin' in! Take care of you!

School Pages

2010-02-03T18:08:00.002-06:00

Hi Everyone! How are you today? I tell you I am really ready for some warmer weather but I don't think that's gonna happen since that old ground hog saw his shadow the other day! We are supposed to get more snow and ice here and man I hate driving on that stuff!

I am still trying to play catch up with the girls school scrapbooks and slowly but surely I have made a little head way. I knew this would happen but school scrapping has slowed way down for Haley since she is in High School now. There just aren't as many school functions to take pictures of. She is in choir and I have gotten pictures of each of her concerts but you know how embarrassed they get when mom pulls out the camera?

This is last year's 8x10 of Sidney. I always hang them up in the frame on the wall for the year and when they get the new one for the next year I scrapbook the older photo and we do it all again. So far that has worked out pretty good.

I loved this paper! I thought it fit her personality in the photo great and the colors where so much fun. I can't remember what line this was from but I picked it up at Scrappin Time in Derby. The "5th grade" title is done with the Cricut Alphalicious cartridge. The arrow and the stars are chipboard pieces that I covered in the same green cardstock as the title. I used zip dry to adhere the chipboard pieces to the cardstock then used an exacto knife to cut around the shape. Then I used my Basic Grey nail files to file of the edges and a little bit of chalk ink to keep that distressed look going. I thought it needed just a little something so I added the jewels to bling things up a bit. Here's a closer look...

At the end of the year they always take a class photo. I just love these...I wish they would have had these when I was in grade school...maybe they did and mom just didn't get them. Later down the road the kids are going to love looking back at these!

This was a fun little page...so simple but just right. The blue apple paper is from a Karen Foster line and the yellow school bus paper is Junkitz. Those fun little embelly's on the side are little wooden pieces that I picked up at Michael's. I used a white gel pen to write her name and grade. Here's a close up...

I have been such a busy little bee lately but I have been trying my hardest to work out every week. I found the greatest workout so far! I love it and I am really starting to feel it! If you have a Wii and are looking for a fun workout you should check this out! Very fun! I have such a hard time finding something that keeps me interested...lots of workout things tend to get boring to me but not this one!

I am so glad that you peekin in! Hope you are having a good week so far! Take care of you!

Vintage Valentine

2010-01-22T20:48:00.005-06:00

Hi Everyone! How are you doing this fine Friday? I am ready for the weekend. I don't have anything planned so I am hoping to finish cleaning up my scrapbook room and start working on some projects. One of my most favorite card magazines is Paper Crafts. I just love all the fun ideas that they have in there! The January/February issue arrived not too long ago and I was so excited to see all the fun Valentine stuff. Vintage is really in this year and they just caught my eye so I decided that I would try to set out and find some fun vintage valentines or vintage photos online. I started reading the supplies list of all the valentine cards I liked and I found this neat web site called Lunagirl Images, you can check them out here. They have the neatest web site, you can purchase a CD Rom for 14.99 and get 1,000 or more images, or if you are impatient (like me *wink*) then you you can download some for $3.95 each sheet. The image above is on a sheet of 12 or so. What do you think? I really like the way it turned out! I am going to play around some more this weekend so I may have more to post.

I have some sad stamp news too...this may be old news to some of you but Hana Stamps has gone out of business. There were several of there stamps that I really liked and I missed the boat on that one. One of my stampin' buddies mentioned that I may be able to find them somewhere else online so I may check that out too.

Hope you all have a great weekend! Hugs!

Supplies:

Paper: old olive cardstock (SU), patterned paper (bo-bunny shabby princess collection, cherry pie)

Stamp: I love you, Out On A Limb Sentiments (Papertrey Ink)

Ink: Chestnut Roan (Colorbox Chalk Ink)

Tools/Accessories: oval & scalloped oval punches (SU), flowers (Hobby Lobby), lace (Hobby Lobby), vintage button (stash from around the house)

New Stamps

2010-01-14T18:30:00.006-06:00

Hi friends! How are you this week? I don't know about you but it has been tough for me to go to work this week. Maybe I have the blues after so much activity during the Christmas season, or maybe I am a little sad because my pants are fitting a little tighter after Christmas. Either way a little sunshine would help! Sheesh it has been so cold here, but I hear that we should have some nicer weather this weekend and I plan to get out and enjoy it a little bit.

What do you do when you are blue? Me, well I hop online and look around at the fun crafty sites. I hadn't been to Papertrey Ink in a while so I thought I would look around. Yep, I know I don't even have to finish my thought...you already know I bought some new stamps. I thought I would take one of the sets on a test run last night and the card above is what I came up with. I got my inspiration from Amy at Prairie Paper & Ink who used to design for Papertrey Ink...the girl's got talent! I need a little more practice with this set but over all I am happy with the way it turned out. This is a fun little set that Papertrey Ink sells called Guidelines. This is what the stamp set looks like...

Or you could go here to get a better look (yes you are right, I am enabling you right now to spend a little money *wink*). You stamp the Guideline stamp on your paper then you use the other little stamps to make a fun pattern. I usually buy Stampin Up cardstock but since I was buying stamps from Papertrey I thought I would try out their white cardstock, so that is what I used on this card. I really liked the weight and it was a little cheaper than SU *bonus* The sentiment is also a new stamp from Papertrey and the name of the set is Signature Greetings. To simplify my posts a little bit I am going to try something a friend of mine does on her blog and put all the information about the card at the bottom of the post.
Because of the weather our daughter Whitney and her baby Angelina weren't able to make it for Christmas so they were in last weekend and we got some of these pictures while they were here. Angelina is into everything and loves putting things in her mouth! We got to help feed her. That was so much fun for us! Let me tell you there is nothing like lovin' on a little one in the morning. It was so hard to see them go but we all had a great time.

Thanks Grampa for my Christmas presents! I love you!

Thanks for peekin' in! Hope you're having a great week! Valentines day is not too far away so I am sure I will start working on some fun projects soon! Take care of you!

Here's the scoop:

Stamps: Guidelines (Papertrey Ink), Signature Greetings (Papertrey Ink)

Ink: SU Perfect Plum & Pale Plum

Accessories: SU ticket punch, SU key tag punch, purple flowers (Walmart), brad

Sports Paper

2010-01-02T16:12:00.003-06:00

Hi friends! How are you after all the holidays? I am better now...I got sick over the New Year holiday...sinus stuff...but I am back to feeling better now...thank God!

I am so excited to share with you a really neat website that I stumbled upon a few months back. As most of you know my girls are golfers and it is so difficult to find golf stuff anywhere, let alone fun girl golf stuff. If a store carries it unfortunately it is the same stuff at practically every store. So in my frustration I decided to look online and see what I could find. I was so excited to find Scrappin' Stuff! They carry a large variety of different sports papers and embellys...some sports you wouldn't even think of...but I was really excited when I found all this golf paper. Sports tend to be their main gig but they have all kinds of other school related stuff too like choir, band and lots of other stuff too...check this out!

And this is the one that I am so excited about! PINK GOLF PAPER! CHECK IT OUT! ***WOOT WOOT***

And how great is this? It coordinates with the pink!

And embellys to match! How exciting is that?

Well, thanks "fore" peekin' in today! Hope you have a wonderful weekend! Happy New Year!

A gift for Thomas

2009-12-21T21:08:00.001-06:00

Hi everyone! How are you this week? Getting everything done for Christmas? I am telling you it has been nuts here at our house trying to wrap up some last minute things. This weekend Haley and I made carmel puff corn for her friends. We bagged it up in cute little reindeer holiday bags for her to take to school. Tomorrow is her last round of finals and that will end the first semester at BC! I can't believe how fast the time went. Sidney decided she wanted to take flavored candy canes to her friends and I am so glad that she did because Momma is pooped! Saturday some friends and I went shopping and we shopped from 9:30-9:30! I can't believe it but I got all the stocking stuffers and had a great time with my girlfriends so it was worth it...plus I am sure that I walked off some of those holiday goodies I have been indulging in *wink*

Check this out...

This is a page that I made for our son. He was home in September for our Granddaughter's baptism and we got this picture of him holding her. Isn't it the cutest picture? I just love the expression on her face! She is holding the penguin that he got for her when they went to the zoo...she just loves that thing! I knew months ago that I was going to do something for him with this picture. So I bought one of those scrapbook page frames at Michael's...they are spring loaded on the back so if you have lumpy embellishments on you page it won't matter it will fit! The whole project is matted on white 12x12 cardstock, then the top and bottom edges of the hot pink cardstock are cut with the Fiskars Threading Waters punch, the patterned paper is from the My Mind's Eye Party Time glitter slab (Hobby Lobby). It's kinda hard to see but the orange "frame" (I cut this myself so it's a little crooked) is Bazzill Bling and the lime green strip of cardstock is punched out with the Martha Stewart Doily punch.

Have you ever used Dew Drops by Robin's Nest? They are so fun! That is what I used to accent the scalloped circle below. Pretty fun huh? They come in so many colors and they give you a different look then using a brad. Just nice to change it up sometimes.

Well, thanks for peekin' in. We are supposed to get a crazy winter storm here this week. Our daughter is supposed to be coming home with her little one for Christmas on Christmas morning but I don't know if that will happen if we get the weather they say we might. We shall see. I sure want to see them open their presents this year! Merry Christmas to you all!

Class Pictures

2009-12-18T22:27:00.001-06:00

Hi Friends! How are you doing this holiday season? I hope that you are taking time to enjoy family and friends! There are so many things that we have to be thankful for! I have been so busy the past few weeks doing fun things with my girls! We did a lot of holiday baking last weekend and Haley and I made some carmel puff corn tonight! YUM-O-LICIOUS! It is so much better than carmel popcorn! We also made Oreo truffles! One of those little suckers and you go right to heaven! They are so good. So you ask...are you sampling everything? Well...yes but I have managed to get my butt on the treadmill several times this week...just feeling guilty for eating too many sweets! A friend and I did palettes 2-3 times a week before school started this fall and when Haley started golf things got crazy so we ended up dropping that and we walked in the parking garage everyday on our lunch hour and now that it has gotten cold we of coarse aren't doing that right now so I am on the treadmill. Sometimes I find it hard to stay on for so long. Yes, I have the TV right in front of me but still I have issues...I have to tell myself "come on crazy girl...keep working...keep working!" LOL! So anyway my friend and I decided that we are going to pick back up with palettes 2 times a week starting in January and then the other three days I will hop on the treadmill. Sounds like a good plan huh?

I did manage to squeeze in a little bit of scrapbooking too. These were easy pages because the pictures are 8x10's so there is not really any journaling to do and little embellishments. I usually try to pick colors that complement what the girls are wearing. I used chipboard letters from Maya Road to state the grade they were in and I sprayed the letters/numbers with glimmer mist to change them to a pretty glittery version that blends well with the layout.

Here is a close up of the chipboard.

And here is a close up of the embellishment that I made to accent Haley's page. I have found that you can make so many fun embellishments with stamps and it saves you money too! Here is a close up of the stamped embelley that I made.

I stamped the image on off white cardstock, then punched the image out with my circle punch and inked the edges for an antique look. Then I used one of the circle Spellbinders dies to cut the scalloped circle and inked the edges of that.

Well, thanks for peekin' in! I will post some of our baking fun from last weekend soon! Can you believe that Christmas is next week already? Where oh where does the time go? Hope you have a great weekend!

Hugs ~Toni

Birthday Tin

2009-12-11T20:07:00.001-06:00

Hi Friends! How are you this evening? I have had a crazy week and am so glad the weekend is here! I think this was the busiest week this month and now I can start to relax a little bit! Sidney was invited to a little birthday party tonight and I was trying to think of something fun to get the little girl for her birthday. As luck would have it I have a very creative friend, Michele AKA Whimsical Creations, and she did the cutest little birthday tin. I thought it was so cute and at the time when I was reading her blog I didn't know that Sidney had a party this weekend. So there I was sitting there last night trying to figure out what to do for a gift and I remembered that I have had one of these little tins just begging to be used so I did and this is how it turned out! A big thanks to Michele for the great idea...you should go check her blog out here! We ended up filling the tin with everything pink...nail polish, lotion, and lip gloss!

Tomorrow after I pick Sidney up the girls and I will be doing some holiday baking and Sunday afternoon we are decorating our Christmas tree. It has become a tradition that we go pick up our Godson and he helps us decorate the tree too...he is so much fun! He's only 4 years old and so full of life! I just love the little stinker!

Thanks for peekin' in! Hope this post finds you well and warm!!

Friendship Bread

2009-12-05T20:38:00.001-06:00

Hi friends! How are you doing this wonderful weekend? I have been busy as usual! I finished up my Christmas shopping today. I am so excited that I got that done! I have a very busy week next week and am hoping that the last 2 weeks before Christmas I can just enjoy with my family. I am working on making a couple of presents for family but other than that all I have to do is wrap Christmas presents and holiday bake with my girls! Speaking of baking...have you ever made Amish Friendship Bread? One of my friends gave me a bag of the mix and a few days later (because she had it for a while) it was ready for me to separate out and make. So I decided to make the chocolate chocolate chip bread in mini loaves. YUM-O! This is super yummy bread. And the best thing about it is all the different variations you can make. As you can see I have kept all four bags for myself. I am going to make lemon poppy seed, butterscotch and vanilla. Before I started making the bread I wanted to see if there was anything online about different variations of the bread. So I googled Amish Friendship Bread variations and found this really neat blog on baking...in fact I liked it so much I added it to my favorite blogs over there on the right....it's called Mommy's Kitchen. Check her out she has got some great stuff!

Well thanks for peekin' in! I hope you get all your Christmas shopping done and have time to enjoy this blessed holiday season!

Digital Scrapbooking

2009-12-02T22:06:00.002-06:00

Hi friends! How are you this week? Old man winter has blown into town here. It is so chilly outside and tomorrow it is going to be a little colder yet, but I guess it is that time of the year! A few months back I got invited to a digital scrapbook party and thought I would check it out. I have always been interested in checking out digi scrapping but one thing that held me back was that I have so much money already tied up in all the supplies I have that I just couldn't see switching completely...plus I don't know about you but I like to cut and glue and make lumpy pages with fun embellishments and digital just doesn't seem as real to me...this is not to say that I haven't seen some beautiful digi scrapbook pages because I have but you know...as they say...to each his own. Well anyway, I went to this party and put together the page that you see above as a gift for my husband's birthday. The idea was so neat. We did these 12 x 12 scrapbook pages and the consultant ordered the page for us. When that came in we adhered it to a 12x12 ceramic floor tile with Modge Podge and using sandpaper "roughed up" the edges to give it that distressed look. Then I covered it with Modge Podge to seal it, waited until that was dry and went over it again. When that was dry I took it outside and sealed it with a spray sealer, waited 10 minutes and did that again.

I wasn't sure how the page was going to turn out. I got frustrated using the computer to put this together because although it doesn't look like I put much into doing this page there were so many choices and options to try out with your photo, from endless background choices, to millions of embellishments. Then you could do all kinds of neat things to the photos. There were so many choices that it was a little overwhelming really. Needless to say this page took me 2 1/2 hrs to complete but I was very surprised at how good it turned out for my first time. The quote at the bottom says "Families are what make life rich. Love is what binds us together. Joy is bing surrounded by both." I like the way this turned out so much that I am doing another one for my mother in-law for Christmas.

Well thanks for peekin' in! Hope you are having a great week!

O Come Let Us Adore Him

2009-11-28T08:42:00.001-06:00

Hi friends! Hope your Thanksgiving was wonderful and full of blessings. This year we had Thanksgiving dinner with my Dad's family at my cousin's house. This was the first time that this side of the family has been together since my Grandma passed away. It was so good to see everyone and catch up! My Dad's side of the family is German so in addition to making the traditional Thanksgiving day food we also had some great German dishes that my Grandma used to make.

I wanted to do something nice for my cousin for hosting the day so I made her a set of Christmas cards in the design above. Don't you think those 3 little wise men are so cute? I just love them! This stamp is from Stampendous and it's called Nativity Wisemen. I looked though my Christmas paper and found that great argyle print, it is from an older Karen Foster line. I ran the purple cardstock through the Swiss Dot embossing folder on the Cuttle Bug and matted the little wise guys in a dark green. They are all colored using water color pencils. I have also found that blending them with mineral spirits instead of water gives better blending. Finally I added the little jewels to bling up their crowns!

Did you hit any of the black friday sales? I made a list of a few things that were good prices and decided to go to Target. I set the alarm for 4:30 and laid there for a while just getting myself used to the idea of getting out in the cold and bracing the crowds to get a "good deal". I laid there for a bit and said to Mike...I must be nuts...he laughed and rolled over. I got dressed, brushed my teeth, made some coffee and hit the road. I got to Target at 5:20, found a parking spot way out in the North 40 and walked into the building. I had never seen so many people in all my life! The lines to check out snaked every where. So I pulled my list out of my pocket and decided what I really wanted to get today. I had a gift for my brother and sister in law in mind so I went to the isle where they were and surprisingly there wasn't but 2 people on that isle or even in that department! Probably because everyone was in the electronics department! I made my way to the front where I found a check out line with only 5 people ahead of me and managed to get out of the store in 20 minutes. Can you believe that? I was feeling pretty good about myself so I decided I was going to go to check out Walmart...you know they had those Cricut Expression machines dirt cheap! So I parked...in the boonies again...walked into the store and...oh my! There were double, maybe even triple what was at Target. The check out lines went all the way from the front to the back of the store! There were people everywhere! You couldn't even get into certain isles because all the people in line to check out and they weren't very friendly when you would say "excuse me" to get through. Needless to say they were all out of Cricut Expression machines...and really it didn't look like they had too many to begin with. The display box where they had them was very small. So at that point I just decided to be happy with the purchase I made and go home and get back into bed! I did get up early this morning to go to JoAnn's, they had their Cricut cartridges on sale for $27! Now how can a girl pass that offer up? Yep...this girl ended up with 3 new ones!

Thanks for peekin' in. Hope you have a wonderful weekend!

Great Great Granny

2009-11-18T23:35:00.001-06:00

Hi Everyone! How are you? This chilly weather is nice isn't it? I mean I am not a big fan of cold weather but it is November! I love to have a fire going in the fire place and enjoying the basement family room with my peeps!

Here is a page that I finished up the other night. This is Angelina's Great Great Granny. How many little girls can say that their Great Great Grandma held them? Amazing huh? And because of that fact I thought this picture deserved a page all its own. I make the photo a 5x7 and found the perfect papers by Heidi Grace to complement the colors in both what Angelina and Grandma are wearing. The words at the top and bottom are rubons from Creative Imaginations and what other word could describe this picture except Precious? My thoughts exactly!

I am actually going to get some scrapbooking done this Friday night. I am packing up and heading to one of the local scrapbook stores for a crop night. I am not sure what I am going to work on yet but I am leaning on playing catch up with the girls school books as I have fell WAY behind on that. I have to get my ducks in a row tomorrow night and then will be on my way on Friday. I think my oldest is going to tag along and see what she can get done also. Good mom and daughter night huh?

Stay warm...I am sure I will have something new to post soon! Take care of you!

Sweet One

2009-11-15T18:19:00.002-06:00

Hi friends! Hope you are enjoying this weekend with your family! We had some brisk weather blow into Kansas today and the temperature keeps dropping! Looks like it's gonna be pretty chilly in the morning...time to get those winter coats out I guess!

A friend of mine and her husband just adopted a baby in October so I had to make her a card. Have I ever told you about Split Coast Stampers? Fabulous web page you can go to for great ideas. They have all kinds of things out there including tutorials! Any how I lifted the design from there. I can't remember who did the card but I used different colors and buttons on top instead of brads. You will be happy to know that all of the paper for this card, except for the base, was made using scraps! Don't ya just love it?

Mike's daughter and her little baby are here for the weekend so I am sure I will have pictures to post later. We had Christmas pictures taken today! That was so fun! We couldn't keep her dress out of her mouth!

Thanks for peekin' in. Hope you have a great week!

July 4th 2007

2009-11-11T00:04:00.003-06:00

Hi Friends! How are you today? I have the day off today in honor of Veteran's Day and naturally I have an action packed day. Whitney is coming in this weekend with Angelina **yay!!** and we have an appointment to get her Christmas pictures taken so I am off to find a cute little Christmas dress. I am looking for Red velvet because we have this sweet picture of Whitney when she was about 8 months old in a red velvet dress and I thought that would be a fun scrapbook page to have the two photos together! And what would a Christmas dress be without little black patten leather shoes? I tell you it is so much fun dressing a little girl!

I worked on these pages last weekend...the chubbykins in the upper right corner on the second page is my brother in law's youngest...isn't that picture a hoot? There were 4 pages to this layout but I thought I would share these two with you. I love this paper! It is Scenic Route's Liberty line and the little chipboard embellishments are also from the same line. I used my Spellbinders circle die cut to make the circles then ran some red cardstock through with the scalloped circle die to matt the circle photos on. I thought the photos needed just a little matting to pop.

Thanks for peekin' in on me! Hope you have a great day!

Sweet Pea

2009-11-06T22:27:00.001-06:00

Hi friends! How are you? Hope you are enjoying this Friday evening! This is a layout that I made for Angelina's book. I can't get over how fast she is changing! These pictures were taken on the 4th of July when she was just 8 days old. I was so excited to use this paper because the polka dots on the paper match her dress perfectly! The title Sweet Pea and the pea itself were made with the New Arrival Cricut Cartridge. Both patterned papers are from the October Afternoon line.

Lots of activities going on here this weekend! Sidney has her first marching band parade tomorrow in Cheney. Then we head back to the school to help build the float for the Kingman parade coming up soon. I am so proud of her! She has been playing the flute for the past 2 years and she is really getting good! I am sure I will be posting pictures tomorrow sometime. Sunday we are serving lunch at the Anthony Family Shelter and Haley has a end of the season golf banquet Sunday evening! And we are already looking forward to next weekend...Whitney and Angelina are coming home for a visit! We are definitely going to be kissin' some baby cheeks next week!

Thanks for peekin' in friends. Hope you are out enjoying this unseasonably nice weather!

Hugs~ Toni

Follow Me

2009-11-02T19:14:00.002-06:00

Ok as you can see I have done some updating to my blog. Do you like it? If so you should check out ShabbyBlogs.com those ladies have some very fun stuff over there! The purpose of my little post tonight is to have more peeps sign up to follow my blog. I added a follow me button...scroll down on the lower right side and sign up. I will have a drawing next week Monday for some scrapping goodness for the winner. After you sign up make a comment on this post and how I can contact you. Much love friends!

Halloween & Dad

2009-11-01T20:41:00.005-06:00

Hi Everyone! How are you doing today? Hope you had a great weekend and a safe Halloween! Speaking of Halloween here is my Lady Liberty!

Isn't she cute? We decided to try to make our costume this year as inexpensive as possible and Sidney was such a good sport! We did by the cool headband and face paint but as you can see the rest of the costume was a sheet. She spent the night at a friend's house...there were 7 little girls in total at the party. They had a blast!

This is the first year that Haley didn't go trick or treating so she stayed home and gave out candy with us. We didn't have too many trick our treaters this year...so the last few kids that came to our house got several pieces of candy!

Here is a page that I worked on this weekend. Mike is the best step dad I could have ever asked for! He loves both of my girls just like they are his own. He has always been very involved with their school activities and is always there to help with homework too. Here Sidney was having a bit of trouble reading so he just sat right down there on the floor where she was reading to help her sound the words out! We are so blessed to have him in our lives.

Now for the scoop on the page. The brand of patterned paper is Love Elsie from the Roxie line. I wanted to give the notebook paper that torn look so I used this notebook punch from Stampin Up...

Here is a close up of the the little journaling box. Isn't it cute?

The journaling box is made from a Teresa Collins stamp. This is how it looks when you take it out of the package. Just stick it on an acrylic block and bam...good stuff!

Thanks for peekin' in! I always love to hear from you so leave a comment if you want to!

Hope you have a great week! Hugs ~ Toni

Meeting my Aunts

2009-10-25T18:36:00.002-05:00

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

2009-10-22T21:40:00.004-05:00

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

2009-10-17T00:15:00.002-05:00

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

2009-10-13T23:28:00.002-05:00

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!

2009-10-10T20:05:00.004-05:00

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!

21!

2009-09-29T19:56:00.001-05:00

Hi friends! Here is a fun little layout that I have had ready to scrap for sometime and just haven't gotten around to until now. This was Whitney's 21st Bday a few years back. I thought that a girl should be decked out in all the necessary 21 gear so I bought this really cute crown that said "I'm 21...where's the bar?" And what girl can be with out a wand and boas on her birthday right? I thought so too! So we celebrated at PF Chang, one of her favorite restaurants, and check out the cake! I had my favorite cake lady make this up. Whitney loves leopard print so I thought it would be fun to have that on the cake. Man...when we took this cake out of the box people from the other side of the restaurant came over and commented on how cool the cake was! AND it was just as yummy as it was fun!

But anyway down to the page ingredients. I spied the layout in the Page Maps book...LOVE IT! And all of the paper is from Hobby Lobby as well as the ribbon and rick rack. The flowers are by Sandylion and the best thing about them is they come in many different colors and they are very inexpensive.

Hope your having a great week so far...here's to hump day tomorrow...hope it goes by extra fast! Thanks for peekin' in friend!

Cast all your cares upon Him

2009-09-28T19:43:00.001-05:00

Hi friends! How are you this marvelous Monday? I wanted to share this card that I made with you. A co-worker of mine had a loved one pass away and so I thought it would be nice if our department sent him a card. Since this was a card for a man I tried to use colors that seemed a little more masculine. The stamp sets is one of my favorites, it is from Paper Trey and the set is called Everyday Blessings. This little set is chalked full of beautiful bible verses and wonderful sayings. I usually use it for sympathy cards but it is so versatile you can easily use it for encouragement or thinking of you. The background of the card was done using 2 of the shaped stamps in the set. I used Stampin Up classic ink pads in Mellow Moss and Brocade Blue. The corners of the verse are punched using the ticket punch from SU also.

Thanks for peekin' in! Have a great week!

Good Luck Candy

2009-09-22T20:53:00.002-05:00

Hi everyone! I wanted to share a little goody that I made for Haley's locker buddy on her golf team. On every game day they give each other a little treat or note of encouragement and I thought since I had this saaweet little Bella Golfer Girl I would make a wrapper to go around the candy bar. The stamp is from Stamping Bella, you can check them out here, I colored this trendy little gal in with Twinkling H2O's for the shirt, hat and socks. For the shorts I used a Mocha Light PrismaColor marker. For the hair, grass and golf club I used water colored pencils. I had to add a little bit of bling so I used stickles on the ponytail holder and golf ball. Pretty sassy golfer huh? Haley said that Lakin thought it was pretty cute!

Well, thanks for peekin' in. Hope that your week goes by quick! I am looking forward to this weekend. We are going to the Homecoming game on Friday night...and you know what that means about Saturday right? Yep...Homecoming dance! Very exciting around our house. I will share pics with you later this weekend! Take care!

Family Wall Decor

2009-09-20T15:55:00.001-05:00

Hi friends! Hope you are out enjoying this beautiful day! I just love this weather! I think fall has to be my favorite season, too bad it doesn't last longer!

Earlier this month our son Thomas was here for a visit and we were able to get a family picture taken...courtesy of my sister who does amazing work! If you are in the market for family, senior or just any time photos check her out. This is her blog, girlwithanangle.blogspot.com, she is still working on it but it will give you an idea of her work.

Anyway, I wanted to make something for Thomas for a little remembrance of his trip here and give him a copy of our most recent family photo. I thought this hanging frame was perfect! It's made by Kaisercraft and the neat thing about it is that it is made out of wood. I painted the frames red and after they dried I sanded the edges to give it that distressed look. The black and white patterned paper is Doodlebug, which is actually left over from another project...yey me for using scraps! The word family is a Heidi Swapp stamp. I stamped it in white craft ink from Stampin Up and then embossed it with clear embossing powder to give it that finished look. I used black grosgrain ribbon from Stampin Up to tie everything together.

Here are some close ups of each square.

Thanks for peekin' in on me this weekend! Take care of you!

Girls Rock!

2009-09-19T12:10:00.001-05:00

Hi friends! How are you this fine Saturday morning? I am doing fabulous! Got some cleaning done this morning and am in my scrapbook room for a while watching Gilmore Girls on the computer and typing up this blog post. I ask you, how can this day get any better?

Here is a two page layout that I finished last weekend when Lynette came over to scrapbook. These were softball pictures from one of Haley's games last year. I just love this paper...it totally rocks and the stickers matched perfect. I bought all of this stuff last year cuz I knew I would have these pictures to scrap so I can't remember what line this paper was from...sorry!

We have some Homecoming dress shopping to do today. That sounds fun huh? One of my friends from work is bringing some of her dresses by to see if there is anything that Haley would like to borrow and if we don't find the right one we are going to hit the stores! I still can't believe she is old enough to go to Homecoming! Seems like just yesterday she was in grade school!

Until next time my friend! Have a wonderful weekend!

Pretty In Pink

2009-09-15T19:16:00.001-05:00

Hi friends! Doesn't sweet pea look so cute in pink? Hence the title Pretty In Pink! Whitney and her mom sent us these photos about 2 weeks ago. Don't cha' just wanna pick her up and love on those sweet little chubby cheeks? See the circle scalloped paper in the background? It seems to be all the rage right now. Every time I go to scrapbook store I find one that I really like. This one was just perfect to match her dress. I thought the soft yellow behind that would tie in with the colors from her dress. The pink and yellow patterned paper is Basic Grey Two Scoops line, this particular paper is called Dreamsicle. Finally I used my Epson Photo Mate printer to make the photos smaller to fit on the page.

I know this is a short post but I don't really feel too well tonight. So I think I am going to get in my jammies and curl up on the couch and watch the Gilmore Girls tonight. Dang I love that show! Hope you are feeling well and the week speeds by for you...because I know we all live for the weekend right?

Hip Hop Dance

2009-09-14T19:50:00.002-05:00

Hi friends! In the words of Joey Tribbiani....How you doin?
I wanted to share this page with you. I love all the colors on this lay out. In July Mike and I took a well deserved weekend get away and I managed to do a little scrapbook shopping...that doesn't surprise you does it? I found this great dance paper by Moxie called Dance Fever and I knew the colors would work out great for the pictures I needed to scrap. Check out the little photos there on the side! Love it? Well, lately I have been using the heck out of my little printer. I just love what you can do with it and the fact that you can shrink your photos down a bit and fit them all on a page with out it looking congested. And the quality of the photo is fabulous! The pictures were all printed using my little Epson Picture Mate. The only draw back to this little printer is that if you don't use it for a while the ink tends to dry up a bit and you don't get as many photos out of the ink cartridge. But there is a simple fix for that...just do more scrappin' so you can print more photos!!

Ok, now before I end for this post I have to share some great news with you! Haley played in her first golf game for Carroll. She played 3 other girls and got the best out of 3! Super huh? I am so proud of her!

Thanks for peekin' in on me. Hope your having a great Monday!

My Family

2009-09-11T21:40:00.001-05:00

Hi friends! Sorry it has been so long since I have blogged! Last week was very busy with our son in town for a bit. Sunday Angelina was baptized and we had the family over for the afternoon. It has been about 2 years since Thomas has been home so we thought this would be the perfect opportunity to take a family picture. Who knows when the next time will be when we are all together again...so this is the newest picture of our crew! Thanks to my sis...she came over and took some family shots of us. This one was my favorite! Sunday Whitney and Angelina spent the night and we got to help give her a bath...in the kitchen sink! Did you ever do that with your little ones? Don't you just love the way that babies smell after a bath?

So while all this fun activity was going on I decided to get a wild hair and paint my scrapbook room. I know...why do I do everything all at one time right? I don't know I guess that's just how I am. Love to be busy! I ended up painting a portion of the room to see if it would help lighten things up. Needless to say things have been all over the place this week and I haven't had time to do any crafting...BUT you just wait! I have a friend coming over tomorrow to scrap all day so we shall see what I will get done!

OH...exciting...I went to Super Target this evening. They have most of their scrapbook isle on clearance and some of it is really good stuff. So here, I am enabling you...go shop!

Check back later this weekend...promise I will post some fun stuff!

Thanks for peekin' in! Toodles!

My dream house

2009-08-30T17:28:00.002-05:00

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!

In my daughter's eyes....

2009-08-26T20:01:00.004-05:00

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!

Blessed

2009-08-23T18:36:00.001-05:00

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!

Haley's 12th Bday

2009-08-21T20:38:00.001-05:00

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!

Birthday Treats

2009-08-18T20:48:00.001-05:00

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!

Haley...the photographer

2009-08-17T19:58:00.004-05:00

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!

First Baby Page

2009-08-16T21:49:00.002-05:00

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!

Storage Bin

2009-08-14T21:10:00.003-05:00

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!

Prom Night

2009-08-11T18:45:00.002-05:00

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!

Our weekend getaway!

2009-08-06T19:58:00.003-05:00

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!

Christmas...in August?

2009-08-05T22:04:00.001-05:00

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!

July 4th

2009-08-03T21:45:00.001-05:00

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!

You can call me flower if you want to!

2009-07-29T20:27:00.002-05:00

Hi everyone! Spent some time with Little Bit this past week. We had a pretty good conversation as you can see above in the first picture! She was actually trying really hard to talk back to me...and I did get a smile! Later I picked a flower from the flower box on the porch and put it in her hand...you know what a grip babies have...Haley actually got both of these photos...good job huh? I have already decided on a title for the scrapbook page I am going to do of the flower picture...You Can Call Me Flower...If You Want To. Pretty cute huh? Remember what movie that was from? Bambi. The skunk came out of the flowers and said that to Bambi.

Will have some creative work to post soon. Thanks for peekin' in!

Celebrate!

2009-07-28T20:26:00.001-05:00

Ok now here's a blast from the past! This was 2003...Whitney's 17th birthday. We celebrated at Osaka with the Johnson family. I used black cardstock for the base of my layouts. The patterned paper is from the Jenni Bowlin line...this is called Vintage Red. I just loved the colors. I saved the chopsticks from the restaurant that night to add as a little bling for the page. The title "CelEbraTe" was done with Making Memories puffy alphabet in red.

Haley and Sidney played in their golf tournament yesterday and today...guess what? Haley took first place in the 9 hole competition! Isn't that great! I am so proud of her! This was Sidney's first year to be in the 9 hole completion and she took 4th place. She wasn't too happy about that but I told her that the important thing was that she had fun...and there are going to be rounds you will do good and other rounds not so good but don't give up and keep trying. I know there are rounds that Mike plays that he can throw his putter farther than he can hit the ball! Their awards party is this Saturday! Yahoo...I will post some pictures then!

Thanks for peekin in on me! Hope you're having a great week!

Growing so fast!

2009-07-21T21:30:00.003-05:00

Hi Everyone, Whitney and Angelina came by tonight and I thought I would take a few pictures. Whitney will be moving to her mom's next month so I am just trying to get a few pictures while she is here. I've forgotten how fast they change! I tried my hand at some creative baby shots but some of them didn't work out...she just didn't want to cooperate earlier this evening. But she finally settled down and I was able to get a few sleepy shots. I will have some scrappin' work to post later this week! Thanks for peekin' in!

Precious

2009-07-16T21:24:00.001-05:00

Whitney and Angelina came over last night and I got this sweet photo! You know now that I have been scrapbooking for a while I see all these cool photos in magazines that I want to try with my kids. And now that we have a little granddaughter I can try all these cool baby shots! When I originally took this photo the lighting in the room wasn't that great so I decided to make it black and white and blur the edges a bit to keep the focal point on the sweeties little feeties! What do you think?

Thanks for peekin' in! Hope your having a great week...TGIF tomorrow!

Golf Swim Party

2009-07-14T20:13:00.001-05:00

Hi everyone! This is a layout that I finished up last week. It was one of them that I started out and got stuck half way though. Ever had that happen? Creative brain freeze! So it sat on my desk for a few weeks and after I came back from the PJ crop I finished it up. Every year after the girls finish up their summer junior golf there is an awards party at the Rolling Hills pool. This was 2007 and Sidney took 3rd place in the tournament! Go Sidney! I really like it that they have taken up golf. It is something that Mike likes to do and they can go out and spend some time with him. The orange flowered paper is from Creative Imaginations but all the other paper is from my stash that I have been "hording" here in the basement so I couldn't tell you what it is! Anyone else have that sickness?

Man it sure was hot here today! I am sure if we cracked an egg on the sidewalk it would have cooked right there! LOL!

Haley and I braved the heat and went over to the used book sale for Bishop Carroll at our church. You are thinking...used book sale...what the? Well at Bishop Carroll they make you buy your books and most of them new are between $50-80 depending on what you need. So naturally parents want to get in on a good bargain. Luckily I had some great advice from my sister in law, who is a pro at this, and there was a really nice lady in line behind us too. I got there at 5:45, the sale didn't start until 7 but I had heard you better be there early. So there we are standing in line...the lady behind us says I should go to the parking lot to see if anyone is selling anything out of their car so I hit the pavement and ran out the door. I was running around the parking lot asking "FRESHMAN? FRESHMAN BOOKS?" I only found one but saved half so that was good. I went back inside and stood there for a while then the lady behind me said I am going to go out and see if I can find anything for my daughter (she was going to be a senior) so I sent Haley out with her and she came back with 2 more books. Good so far right???? I was feeling pretty good about saving all this money so we stood in line for a while and thought...let's go back out and try again. So we did and we bought an English book from some chick standing at the door...yeah I don't know what it was...maybe that mother's intuition I said "Haley go down there in the book sale and ask them if this is a current English book" SHYA...RIGHT...IT WAS SO NOT EVEN ON THE LIST...of current books. So we were out $20 on that one. Hopefully that person didn't know and they made an honest mistake and weren't trying to screw people over. But there you go...you live and you learn. Oh well. I had a good time with my kiddo and that's what count...even if that sucker got our $20!!! LOL!
Have a great evening! Talk to you soon!

Croppin' Fun!

2009-07-12T20:36:00.002-05:00

Hi Everyone! Sorry it has been so long since I have blogged anything! We have been so busy lately and it seems like my little blog is the last thing that I have the opportunity to update! Last night I took my girls over to the PJ crop at Scrapfunattic in Andover we had such a good time! Have you ever been? If not you should check it out. They crop once a month from 5pm to 5am...hence the name "PJ Crop". We didn't stay until 5 am though...we had a long busy day today so we packed up about 11pm. We met one of my scrappin buddies over there that I haven't had the chance to see for a while so it was great! It was so nice to be back in a creative environment again. I miss being around scrapbooking and seeing all of the great ideas that come from everyone. Just sitting in that store looking around gave me so many fun ideas! It makes me want to come home and check things out on line and get my creative juices flowing. I will tell you that is sure isn't as easy as it used to be to pack up your stuff and go somewhere though. I feel like I am moving the whole house when I try to pack up and go somewhere. I guess I just need to get better organized before I go somewhere.
Anyhow, here is one of the page layouts that I did last night. These photos are from 2006! But I am almost done with 2006 so that is a good thing! This was the girls first concert and we had a blast. We made a little girls trip out of it as it was down in Tulsa. We took our good friend Reva, what a good sport she was! The tween music was so loud and kids were everywhere screaming and dancing! But we had a great time.

Now for the page recipe: I thought these photos needed that "grunge" look so I picked out Bobunny Teen Xtreme Line and these papers are called Xtreme Green Grunge. For the lettering I used the cricut and the Alphalicious cartridge.

Now for the most fun trick. Do you like Magic Mesh? Yeah...I do too but it is so expensive. This looks like Magic Mesh doesn't it? Well it's not! It's drywall mesh! HA...I got a huge roll at Walmart for FIVE BUCKS...then to make it the color I wanted I just ran my Real Red Stampin Up ink pad over it and got this nice red color. See behind the vellum? That is just left over black cardstock strips that I cut into random shapes and inked the edges white to give that grunge look also. Pretty fun huh?

Thanks for peekin' in on me. Hope you have a great week!

She's HERE!!

2009-06-25T06:38:00.003-05:00

Proud Grandpa!

Can you believe I am a Grandma?

Whitney's mom...a very proud Grandma

Our little Angelina was delivered yesterday at 5:51 pm after a 13 hour labor of love! I am now a proud Grandma of a 7lb. 10oz, 21 inch long baby girl! Mom and baby are doing great! Thanks for peekin' in! Hope you have a great day!