Sneek peek...

I'm working on some custom calendars for Christmas gifts and thought I would share a glimpse of some of the designs I have made...



These are so simple to make and fun too, I just hope the recipients enjoy their calendars. I think they are really cute!

If you want to create and give photo gifts this Christmas, I recommend Arts Cow.

Make Something Monday

My submission this week is a scrapbook page of dinner with Mickey Mouse at our local Big Boy Restaurant. It is so fun when they offer dinner with different characters in the Winter. Something we can actually do with a little kid and still get a decent dinner out.

Credits: Clubhouse kit by Andrea at Here A Scrap There A Scrap.

China Cabinet Makeover

Yep, here it is, that time of year again! Hardly seems like it should already be here, but it is.

Although I may not get the tree and all the other Christmas goodies up in time for my Thanksgiving guests this year, I am sure to put out the snowflake dishes and snowmen in my china cabinet.

One side holds my china and the other usually looks like this...

Yesterday out came the...

The plates and mugs went into the freshly dusted and windexed china cabinet...

Snowmen joined their snowflake dish friends and the transformation was complete...

Bring on Turkey Day! If nothing else gets decorated, I am ready!

Scrapbook Saturday

My entry for Scrapbook Saturday this week is a page using a quickpage that I only slightly embellished. I really loved the quickpages that go with the Road To Nowhere kit created by Shabby Pumpkin.

Everyone needs a theme song...

The other day my friend Toni posted her theme song for the day and asked that her readers follow suit. It has taken me a couple days to work it into my schedule, lol, but here's mine. It should be the theme song for my life since I am a professional worrier, but it's one of those things I continue to work on and try to improve about myself.

Book Review: The Wednesday Letters

The Wednesday Letters by Jason F. Wright is an inspiring story about love, family, secrets and forgiveness.

I was skeptical about reading a story that should be an emotional journey of discovery written by a man. I'll be honest and admit I think there are few men that can describe and reach the emotional levels most women can. I have read stories with the same principles written by women and they tend to draw me in and leave me thinking about the characters long after I finish the book.

I was surprised to find that this author was able to do that as well. Sure the emotional detail was not as deep as it could have been in the situations the characters faced, but it was still captivating.

I enjoyed getting to know each character better throughout the book. I enjoyed the unveiling of each secret and twist of the plot, one or two of which brought tears to my eyes.

Overall I found this to be a great read. Its 280 pages short and moves along quickly. I didn't want to put it down. The ending is sweet, but left a few unanswered questions in my opinion.

I think I'll be looking for Christmas Jars by Wright as well at my library this week. I'm off to finish an old yard sale find first though, True Blue by Luanne Rice.

Wordless Wednesday

The exciting (read dangerous) way to whack the pinata.

For more WW submissions, visit http://www.momdot.com

Have you read these?

I wrote a series of articles about digital scrapbooking for MomDot. I am really pleased with how they turned out and feel all the effort I put into them was worth it. I love digital scrapbooking and love to talk to other scrappers and share and gain inspiration from them. I hope these posts inspired even one reader to get creative.

Part One: Choosing Software for scrapbooking
Part Two: Digital Freebies
Part Three: Let's Go Shopping! and organizational tips
Part Four: Templates and Quickpages

Also, this week is National Board Game Week, so I used my weekend craft post at MomDot to highlight some homemade board game ideas. I know my family likes to play games together and I hope the ideas I provided will inspire some family fun in other families. Check out this post for information!

Make Something Monday

My submission this week is a scrapbook page I made for an album I am making for someone on my Christmas list. I wanted to make one page with a bunch of pictures from the month of July. There were so many great pics that it was hard to choose, but I managed to come up with something I like.

Credits: Papers and elements from Nature Walk, button from Yellow Polka Dot Bikini, word art from 9 to 5 Chic, all from Funky Playground.

How did I miss this???

There was a post about the Christmas of Dreams at MomDot that I overlooked for some reason. Prolly cause the last few weeks have been beyond busy for me. Anyway, I am glad I found it...

If you are not familiar with MomDot and the Christmas of Dreams check it out. They have all these fabulous and generous sponsors donating a gift to one lucky reader at the end of this month...

Sponsors are (and subject to be adding more as the month goes on):
Dyson
BabyPop
The Shrunks
Soda Club
Kadi Prescott
Uncommonly Cute
Lollipop Book Club
Kuster
Silly Monkeez
LA Plates
Natitys Design
Little Black Box
Koshas
Kidz Sunglasses
jaC Jewelry
Appledonia
LeapFrog
Mutsy
Kushies
Huddy Buddy
Mimsi-Bags
BottleWise
Lets Go Strolling
DaBib
Sassy Baby
Baby Legs
Scentsy
FeeFiFoto
Randi100
Organic Blankees
Shi Shu Style
Georgie Tees

I will definitely be posting my comments on why my family deserves a Christmas of Dreams, and you should too.

Day Two of the Christmas of Dreams party...

My friends at MomDot are hosting a Christmas of Dreams blog party for the holidays. Have you noticed the button over there---> Day two is sponsored by LaPlates and Lets Go Strolling and Natitys Design. Today's question posted by Alicia is a request to share our family traditions...

A Christmas tradition started a couple years ago by my dad when he gave my son the story "Twas The Night Before Christmas". Now he reads that to him ever year on Christmas Eve after dinner. So sweet!

Another Christmas tradition around here is that Santa does not wrap his presents. He usually hides them downstairs as well. We open Aiden's presents from us under the tree, then we head downstairs to see what Santa brought. We have another tree down there and that is where we have the presents my husband and I bought for each other. While Aiden checks out his Santa loot, my husband and I exchange our gifts. Then it is off to the kitchen for some bacon and pancakes.

Santa brought this last year, it was fun!

We tend to do things the same on every holiday each year. Seems like our little family is carving out their own traditions as we go. This Easter we spent the night at a local Best Western with an indoor water park. I would LOVE to make that an Easter tradition. We had such a great time there. My son really loves to swim and it was hilarious to see him in the pool and playing with all the slides and the lazy river. Hopefully we can do it again next year!

Day One Post is here.

Day One of the Christmas Of Dreams party

So, here we go...my friends at MomDot are hosting a Christmas of Dreams blog party for the holidays. Have you noticed the button over there--->
Day one is sponsored by La Belle Toile and This and That by Randi.
Today's question posted by Trisha is a request to introduce our family and share pictures from past holidays...

Here's my family...

My fabulous husband, my energetic son and myself.

And for pictures of Christmases past, I have this cute little collage of our visits to see Santa since my son was born. I cannot wait to see his reaction this year and take a new picture to add to the collage. Last year he was really excited and got right up there and placed his order, it was adorable.

Awards...for me?

Ok, I know I am horrible at picking up and passing on awards. It takes time and I generally schedule my blog posts or they come out late in the day, like todays. lol

However, a new bloggy friend of mine has passed on three awards to me recently and I better post them on here before I forget...Thank you Felicia at Go Graham Go!





For the Kreativ Blogger Award I am also supposed to list 6 things about myself, so here goes...
I am totally grossed out by mayo
I don't ride roller coasters
I love to swim
I miss having a cat
I like to read
I am addicted to sweets

And now for the tricky part...passing them on to my fabulous bloggy friends...I believe I am supposed to pass on the Kreative Blogger Award, so here goes...

Make Something Monday

This week I am posting instructions and a picture of a craft I created for my son's birthday party this past weekend...a Spiderman Pinata.

Materials you will need:
1 regular balloon
1 big bottle of glue
newspaper, torn into 2" wide strips
party streamers, whatever color(s) you need for your finished design
water
a couple bowls
ribbon
craft foam
sewing needle
acrylic paint
tissue paper, the kind used in gift wrapping

Step 1: You will want to mix 1 part water to 3 parts glue, starting off with 1/4 cup water to 3/4 cup glue is good. Blow up the balloon and set inside a bowl. Coat your newspaper strips in the glue mix one strip at a time and layer them on your balloon. Cover the entire balloon with two layers of newspaper strips leave a 4" hole at the bottom and allow to dry a day or two.
Step 2: Create glue mixture again. Cut colored streamers into about 8" lengths. Coat the streamer strips in glue one at a time and layer them over the newspaper on the balloon. Apply at least two layers, more if desired. Allow to dry for one or two days.
Step 3: Pop balloon with needle or scissors, it will deflate and you can pull it right out. Using needle, thread some ribbon through two holes in a 3.5" circle cut from the craft foam. Thread this through the top of your pinata from the inside with the foam up against the inside top of the pinata. The foam is there to ensure the ribbon does not rip right through on first wack. Tie the ribbon so you have a loop that you can use twine to hang your pinata from.
Step 4: Using acrylic paints, decorate your pinata with your chosen design. For my Spiderman pinata I painted on the web design and the black part of the eyes and used white copy paper for the whites of the eyes.
Step 5: Fill with candy. After putting in candy, wad up some tissue paper and put that in to protect your candy from getting glue on it in the next step.
Step 6: Cover the hole at the end of your pinata using the glue mix and more pieces of streamers. Apply a couple layers to ensure it holds the weight of the candy. Allow to dry.

This project sounds like a lot of steps, and it is, but it is not difficult at all. In the end it costs about $3 to make the pinata, not counting the cost of candy, versus the $20 they charge for an empty pinata at the party supply store. Please note, humidity will affect drying time. You can also print out any picture or character you would like and glue that on instead of painting on a design. The options are endless!

Scrapbook Saturday

Credits: Outta This World kit by Puuurfect Designs. Font is Leftovers.

A follow up from Wordless Wednesday...

Some of you wanted to know how to make jam after yesterday's WW photo, so here's my recipe...

If you've never done any home canning here are a few tips:

• sterilize jars right before use, either in a dishwasher on sterilize setting or in boiling water on the stove, keep warm until pouring in hot jam to avoid breaking jars with temperature change
• purchase a funnel that fits inside the top of the jar to help avoid spills when ladeling in hot jam
• purchase a set of jar lifting tongs, they really are the best way to avoid dropping hot glass jars
• the box of Ball brand fruit pectin comes with a little recipe booklet inside, there are tons of jam and jelly recipes on that little booklet
• please visit http://www.homecanning.com/ for lots of useful information and recipes
• don't be afraid to mix fruits and berries, strawberry raspberry is a good combination as well as raspberry blackberry, yumm yumm!
• I do not recommend EVER trying to make orange marmalade, it is an unGodly amount of work that will leave your fingers orange for days, I speak from experience

Happy Jam Making!

Wordless Wednesday

Last week, making raspberry jam. If you would like to see more WW posts, please visit my friends at MomDot.

Winter means we have to get creative...

The Winter is long here and cold cold cold. Sitting at home day after day stuck indoors when it gets really cold can get booooring. My son and I both get kinda cranky after looking at each other hour after hour each day.

So sometimes we have to get creative and come up with other ways to enjoy family time together. One of our favorite things to do is head over to Chuck E. Cheese. We used a coupon once and spent $10 and bought enough tokens to last through the year. Since our son is only almost 4, spending about an hour there is all he needs. I think we usually use about 15 tokens each visit. We don't eat dinner there, we've heard the pizza is not that great. Overall it's an inexpensive way to get out of the house without being out in the cold and have a little fun.

Oh, and who can resist cashing in those tickets at the end for some plastic toy that will break before we get home. LOL The kid loves them, so that's cool!

Here's some photos of one of our trips to Chuck E. Cheese back in January...

Credits: Chuck E. Cheese quick page from BabyYaks, font is Jester.

Make Something Monday

I know my post is very very late, but it's still Monday here and this is my first chance to get on here. Anyway, I made a scrapbook page today for Make Something Monday. Take a look...

Credits: Sweet Summertime freebie kit by Andrea at Here A Scrap There A Scrap.

Welcome November

I am totally loving the In The Neighborhood kit from Funky Playground. I used papers and elements from that kit, as well as the word "november" from the 9 to 5 Chic kit to create my own desktop for the month of November. I was not in the mood to mess with creating the calendar part, so I just made it as a table in Word and pasted it in. Not too shabby for my first attempt. I really love how the photo of my son seems to jump off the screen at me.

I hope to enjoy the month of November as much as I am enjoying glancing at my pretty desktop.

Do you use one of these desktop wallpaper thingys? If so, which one are you using for November?

Happy DSD!

I'm coming down from my Halloween sugar rush and the excitement continues because today is Digital Scrapbooking Day. There are specials and sales galore today and I plan to take advantage of at least a few of them.
I thought I would share with you some of the great deals happening in celebration of this super fun holiday...

Everything in the Orchard is 35% off this weekend, except the Mystery Mega.

Peppermint Creative is offering 30% off their whole store all weekend!

The Designs In Digital girls are hosting a treasure hunt, you can start here.

Every item is 15% off at DesignerDigitals this weekend.

Almost everything at MyScrapShop is 60% off this weekend.

Scrapbook Bytes is offering 50% off all Jennifer M. Trippetti designs this weekend.

Also, don't forget to hop on the Halloween Blog Train by Sunshine Studios and Scrap Orchard designers. This freebie train has a lot of stops, but is so sweet it's worth the download time.

Scrapbook Saturday

Credits: All papers and elements from In The Neighborhood from Funky Playground, Font is Boring Showers.

This awesome collab kit is on sale for $1.75 at Funky Playground right now, check it out and grab one for yourself.