Mission Accomplished

All that was planned for today got done...WooHoo!

Becca woke up today feeling much better and no fever (kept her home just to be safe), started a beef stew in the crockpot, headed out on my shopping mission (by myself I might add...Dan stayed home with B), came home put away everything that was purchased (new kitchen glasses(we were down to just 3 from the original set plus a bunch of mismatched oddities), a pair of new shoes, a new shirt & sweater, some socks, and a bunch of storage items from the Container Store), voted, and then came home and got pictures of my projects from yesterday.

So here they are...



The Scrapbook Cafe provided me with some papers from the Basic Grey Eskimo Kisses line and everything else you see here on the layout except for the cardstock, letter stickers/foam Thickers & the chipboard heart. On my 4x6 picture I used an Ali Edwards digital stamp.

When I have time (which is very rare anymore) I like to take my time and wrap my presents creatively. Here's a look at what I came up with using some more of the BG papers.



I just wrapped my boxes in plain brown mailing paper and then cut a strip of paper to make a band around the box. On top of each band I placed a paper flower. The big flower I recently saw directions for on the internet. (Basically it is a large scalloped circle wrapped around a large button or brad and then pleated to make the petals) I then glittered the middle of the flower. the flower on the small box is layered diecut flowers in 3 different sizes and the centered is a fringed piece of paper that you rollup, glue, then un furl the edges.

So that's it...my creativity from yesterday and a very productive day today.

{a new phone}

Well the phone fairy must have heard my wishes about getting a new phone because today while I was holed up in my room "creating"...3 Verizon bags appeared on my kitchen table.



Our contracts were up and we got new phones!!!! I am now the owner of a Blackberry Storm2...now I need to figure out how to use it. Good thing I'm on vacation and maybe able to take a few minutes and read the instructions.

So yes I did do a little scrapping today. I made 2 projects with some of the Basic Grey Eskimo Kisses paper (and some other goodies supplied to me by the Scrapbook Cafe). Hopefully tomorrow I'll be able to get some pictures and then I can share with you.

Speaking of tomorrow, Dan & I had planned to go out on a little shopping adventure. I was hoping to get back to the Container Store, Crate&Barrel and a few others that hold absolutely no interest to my children. Plans have changed...I was picking Becca up from school today since she has Dance right afterwards. One look at her and I could tell something was wrong. Out in the car she announced she didn't feel well. Achy & an upset stomach. I took her temp when we got home...101.8. She's now Motrin'ed up and resting in bed. Dan told me he'd stay home with her so I could go out...hope all is well in the morning and I can get a little retail therapy in. It has been ages since I was out shopping by myself.

{poor neglected blog}

Yep, I've been neglecting the blogging world lately. So many blogs that I have to catch up...sorry blogging world. As you all know life is just crazy busy sometimes and my blogging time has suffered. To catch you all up my life is just full of running kids here, there and everywhere. You want your kids to be active and social, but at times I feel like I've gotten a full-time job as chauffeur. Thank goodness for car pooling...it has truly saved me some nights. Now if I just got a phone with internet abilities...maybe I could blog while waiting to pickup kids after practices :wink:

So it is the first of the month (November...can you believe it?) and I just finished posting projects over at Coordinates Collections as well as updating some contest info on the message board.

I told you I picked up a couple bottles of Maya Mists this month and was having fun playing with them. Here are a couple of projects using the Pumpkin Pie kit and some Mists.




Really most of this card came from supplies in my stash. The idea I had when I started this card looks nothing like the finished card. Originally I was going to spray the Maya Mist as a background...using some HS acrylic butterflies as a mask for my background, then piece together a flower out of pattern paper in the kit. Well I sprayed the mist and then put it aside to dry while I worked on some other projects. When I came back to this card I had just finished using a Prima felt stem on another project and still had the peel-off backing lying on my desk. Ah Ha...that white backing looks stunning... I wish I had used it as a mask! Well I did the next best thing...I glued the backing right onto the card. With the addition of some Pink Paislee letter stickers from my stash I created a simple elegant card...all the while recycling too!

Now here's the layout I gave you a sneak of in last post:



To start I laid out some fern leaves on my cardstock and sprayed with pink Maya Mist. Layering the pink over the orangey cardstock just intensified the color and when I removed the leaves I had a nice subtle background image. Everything on this layout was included with the kit except for the small Jenni Bowlin stickers"Gettysburg" and the Jillibean Soup Journaling spot(which I inked to tone it down so it would blend into the layout). The Maya Road chipboard letters which were included with the kit were sprayed with the blue metallic Maya Mist.

Well that's all I have for now. I'm on vacation this week, no trips involved. Just staying at home...maybe doing a little shopping, working on moving more stuff into the new scrapbook room, have a layout to do for the Scrapbook Cafe(hope to do that tomorrow), maybe just enjoying being creative in my new room and quite possibly finding sometime to blog.

Playing with my pie

My "Pumpkin Pie" kit arrived earlier this week and the last day or 2 I have been playing with it...so, so, very yummy! I picked up a couple of bottles of the MayaMist offered in the CC store so as soon as my box arrived I began spraying the mists on different surfaces (ie paper, textured paper, cardboard, chipboard) to get a feel for it. I really think I like these. So far I have a card and a layout done with the kit.

Here's a little peek at my layout:



Do you see a subtle pattern on the cardstock? Just a little something I created with one of the mists. The journaling spot is actually a white based Journaling Sprout from Jillibean Soup that I added from my stash. I inked the sprout to make it blend in with the neutrals of this kit.

We also managed to get a soccer game in today during the drizzle...



Here come's the offensive line bringing the ball up the field. They ended up winning 7-2.

Hoping to get another layout done tonight. Tomorrow we have a home game right after church and then I'm hoping to get a little more scrapping time in. I've got ideas brewing.

Happy weekend!

Coming Together

Well it's been a very rainy wet weekend here in southern New Jersey. The Soccer League canceled league play this weekend due to the poor field conditions. We had a free weekend...yay! Bad news...we will be now playing makeup games the 1st weekend of December (brrr!).

We went out shopping yesterday. Fritz was in desperate need of new jeans, so we went to Old Navy and then we also made a trip to Target & Borders...then Dan offered to take us all out to lunch.

In the afternoon we decided to put the drawer pulls on the cabinets and install the countertop in the new scraproom. A little sidenote about this week...said countertop was hanging out the back of Dan's SUV when he dropped his keys. He bent down to pick up the keys and yes you guessed it...caught the side of his forehead on the edge of the counter. He called me at work and off we went to the ER. Luckily, no stitches were needed. They just cleaned and taped it up.

Now last week when we began to position the cabinets my inital plan to wrap the counter around both walls was thrown out the door. This would have just taken up too much space in this little room. So I then decided to just run it from the window down to the corner. After installing the countertop this is what it looks like right now.



I've begun filling up some of the drawers with tools and supplies. I know it will take me quite sometime to get it completely organized to my liking. I have to get Dan to hang the dark brown floating shelves on the wall above the counter. Probably the jars of ribbon and Creative Cafe embellishments seen here sitting on the counter will go up on the shelves. (He also has to still install the baseboard too, then his work will be finished)

I bought these at Target yesterday:



Thought they might be fun for organizing stuff. Pat has these little tin baskets/pails at her shop...



They come in a variety of colors (I'm taking my fabric swatch up with me on my next visit to find something that matches my decor). This might be a fun accent on the counter top holding some of the things I use all the time.

Well I don't think I will share anymore pictures until I get the room all finished. Got a chair on order, some pictures to hang, etc. So stay tuned. It's finally coming together.

A quick weekend recap

We left Friday and came home on Monday. Most of the weekend was spent in South Central Pennsylvania at the Dillsburg Soccer Tournament. 250 teams over 18 different field sites...that's a lot of soccer action. Saturday and Sunday was spent either playing or waiting to play a game.



He's now playing the striker position, so this is a shot of putting the ball into play the beginning of the 2nd half of one of the games. On Saturday he did shoulder in a ball scoring a goal...of course I didn't get a shot of that.


Then I snapped this picture of the team laying together along the sideline watching another game. There were 24 teams in the U12 division and our guys ended up 8th. I don't think they cared where they placed...they just enjoyed the fact that they all got to stay in a hotel for the weekend together.

We were done our games by 1pm on Sunday and decided to take advantage of the beautiful fall day and the fact that we were within a 1/2 hours drive of Gettysburg.


After watching a film in the visitors center we headed out on a car tour of the actual battlefield. I took A LOT of pictures. It really is unbelieveable how little these rolling hills have changed since those 3 days in July 1863. This is a picture of a row of cannons located at the beginning of Seminary Ridge (the Confederate Side) if I remember correctly one of the regiments from Virginia was stationed here. We drove down along the top of Seminary Ridge, around thru Round Top and Little Round Top and then across Cemetary Ridge. From every angle the views were amazing and you could almost picture the battle going on before you. A very moving afternoon indeed.

More stories from the remodeling/scraproom front, but I will save them for another post...with maybe a picture or two. However, tomorrow is the 1st game of the NLCS ...so I maybe preoccupied :wink: Go Phillies!

Pumpkin Pie or Lemon Meringue?

No not the pies (but they are both good)...I'm talking about the November kits over at Coordinates Collections. (Love these names!) Here's a look at the kits...




The delicious "Pumpkin Pie" preview...featuring stuff from BoBunny, Little Yellow Bicycle, Maya Road and SEI to name a few.



and then this is the equally delicious "Lemon Meringue" featuring Crate Paper, Basic Grey, Maya Road and Prima I believe. It was a tough choice for me this month, but I'm going with Pumpkin Pie (it was my baby from the "1st ingredient" back in July/August) So now I'm waiting for my box and hoping to get some fun fall pictures of the Pennsylvania countryside when we are at our soccer tournament this weekend.

I was off today (actually took a little vacation time...will not be going back to work until next Tuesday...Yippee!) and Dan & I headed to Lowes while the kids were in school. Guess what I got? Yep...we picked up the cabinets, countertop, and a new ceiling fan for my room. I purchased unfinished cabinets because I decided I wanted to paint the base cabinets a taupe color(to match a stripe in my valance & it will be a nice contrast to the dark floor) I spread a tarp on the back deck this afternoon and managed to get 2 coats of paint on the cabinets.
The color of the cabinets is called "Lyndhurst Stone".



So this is what our back deck looks like right now. I may have to do a bit of lite sanding on the drawer fronts tomorrow morning, then a quick 3rd coat of paint. Hopefully by late tomorrow we may begin the installation process. (fingers crossed) My other plan for tomorrow morning is to finally head up to the Scrapbook Cafe to see all the changes & to drop off my projects.

Oh yeah and the Phillies won this afternoon...Yippee!!!!
It was a good day.