Major Progress on the Kitchen Front...

The counter top came today! Woohoo!!! :) There are only a few things left to do (install crown on top of cabinets and the trim on the bottom of the cabinets, install toe kick at the very bottom of the cabinets, touch up a few paint areas, and put stuff away!) We started the demo on 02/18/2009, which obviously means it took a couple of days more than two months. :) I am so excited I can hardly stand it. I can't stop looking at the counters and cabinets.

Poor Kyleigh

This is my niece, Kyleigh. It really pains me to mess up the best part of this LO, her little smiling face, but I don't put pictures of kids on the internet when they aren't mine. :) Cardstock is Bazzill, patterned paper is Basic Grey, letter stickers I believe are K&Company, I think the button is Autumn Leaves, felt flowers and scallop border punch are SU! and the brads are Lasting Impressions for Paper. Thanks for looking!

This picture doesn't do it justice....

This is my favorite one, though the picture is not the greatest. It's actually not completely finished, as I have to add journaling in the bare blue spot, probably on strips of printed cardstock off the computer or printed on transparency. The main reason I like it so much is because all of the products I used are from different manufacturers. The cardstock is Bazzill, buttons SU!, letter stickers (Ava) by Martha Stewart, the chipboard is Making Memories, patterned paper is Basic Grey, and the rub-on is a really old K&Company one from my stash. I "threaded" the buttons with thin strips of the black cardstock that I used for the mat. The "18 months" strip is a Dymo label that I punched out on my labelmaker. Thanks so much for looking...all comments welcome, unless they are bad! LOL! :)

Mom's Day Out

I didn't design this one, but I am including it anyway because I had to adapt it to my format and I also changed the title that was provided. This was one of the Photos First (by Simple Scrapbooks) class layouts at CKC. The originals were supposed to be 12x12, but I shrunk down my pictures to scale for 8.5 x 11 and obviously cut my cardstock and patterned paper that way as well. They provided that white title and journaling block with a pre-printed title that said "Side by Side," but that didn't work for my photos, so I used my friend's Cricut to cut out a circle out of my Swiss Dot Bazzill, cut the title (also with the Cricut--not sure on the alphabet...George maybe?), and glued it all over the top of the pre-printed title. Again, there was no apostrophe on this Cricut cartridge, so I used the inside of the letter "a" as my apostrophe. After I took the photo of this layout, I wrote the date of the photos on the bottom line of the journaling block. :) Thanks for looking!

From One Holiday to Another...

Okay, the sun came out for about 30 seconds today, so I ran outside and snapped some photos of the layouts that I did over the past couple of weeks. This one started out VERY different...at CKC I took a class by Simple Scrapbooks called "Photos First" and we had to have 9 photos for each layout. The class was based on 12x12 scrapping, which would have been useless for me since my kid's albums are 8.5x11. I had to adapt all three layouts (two double-page spreads and one single) to make them work for my needs and spent quite a bit of time trying to figure out the reduced dimensions of the photos I needed for my pages (they named specific dimensions of photos that people needed for the 12x12 layouts.)

I ran out of time when it came time to this layout's dimensions and hurriedly printed out six photos all the same size and two longer photos. When we got to the class, it turned out that even the 12x12 people had the wrong sizes printed for their photos because there was a misprint on the sizing on the website. I couldn't get the original layout to work with my photo and paper sizes, so I just packed it up during the class and did my own thing at the crop that I went to the following week. This one is very much more my style, but I like how the colors are outside of my comfort zone and not something that I would have picked starting out. Basically the only thing I got from the class on this layout was the black background with the checkered scalloped edge...the rest I did myself. I bought some My Mind's Eye orange dotted paper while I was down there, which ended up coordinating perfectly with the slightly orange edge on the checkered scallop. The blue was actually an ancient piece of patterned paper that I got from one of the girls at the crop (circa 2000 or 2001?) The felt stickers are Making Memories and the "Kiss Me" brad was in my goody bag from the CKC crop. Serendipity, I tell ya! I thought the flower above the "i" in Irish sort of resembled a four-leafed clover. They didn't actually have an apostrophe on the letter sticker sheet, so I cut the tip off of a bracket sticker. Anyway, sorry for being so long-winded this time. Thanks for looking! :)

Easter Beauties

Pretty Gracie. :)

She's stylish. That's Chinese for beautiful! (for what I am referencing, check my previous post on Easter). Too funny.

This is what Ava does when she is "smelling" something, in this instance the candle that's down to the bottom right of the photo. She basically makes that face and blows air out of her nose. LOL! :)

Pretty Ava. :)

Pretty girlies together. :)

Happy Easter!

Gracie was standing in front of the mirror on the back of our bedroom door this morning, admiring her Easter dress. I put on my shirt and she moved out of the way and said, "Here, you can see how you look." I said, "How do you think I look?" She said "I think you look stylish!" I laughed and told Sean about it and then she added..."That's how you say beautiful in Chinese!"

She has been watching a lot of Ni Hao, Kai-lan on Noggin lately, can you tell? LOL! :)

Dainty Congratulations

As I said yesterday, this one is my favorite. I think I like it because all of the textures make it visually interesting, yet it is still very simple. :) The background is Kiwi Kiss, the DSP is Bella Rose, the flower button is from the Button Bouquet, I believe the pink piece is textured Pink Pirouette, and the yellow piece is Bazzill. The stamp is from Hugs & Wishes (or Holidays & Wishes--always get those two confused). Thanks for looking! :)

My least favorite one....

It's okay, though. The tag was in my scrap baggie. I stamped the word "Hi" from a stamp set that I got in that Technique Tuesday Class at CKC. The heart was in my scrap baggie. The green dot Bella Rose DSP was left over from all of those other cards I have featured. LOL! :) The brad and brown mat simply finished the card out. Background is Kraft. Thanks so much for looking! I will post my favorite card tomorrow...then I have several scrapbook layouts to post.

Tag Present

Most of this also came out of my scrap baggie. The blue piece was a leftover from the Technique Tuesday class we took at CKC. The orange dot piece was a scrap from a layout I did on Saturday. The layered tag was already adhered together in my baggie and I just stamped the present (in Apricot Appeal) and added the ribbon (American Crafts, I believe). The star was already punched and the button was already threaded. This card came together rather quickly with all of that already finished! :) Thanks for looking!

Thanks So Much

I took my baggie of usable card scraps to the crop on Saturday and got four cards done. This is one of them. I have seriously had this stamped image for YEARS in that baggie, all cut out and everything. It's even embossed on the frame part. I don't even know the manufacturer of the frame stamp it's been so long ago and I think I sold it. The "Thanks so Much" stamp is Stampin' Up!, as is the flower button from the Button Latte assortment. I tied it on with linen thread. The background is Certainly Celery and I think the brown is DCWV. :) Thanks for looking!

It's unanimous...

With a unanimous vote of three whole people (at least I hope they are whole people), I have decided to do one project a day. :) If you don't like green, you can stop looking now, because I realized today that every single project has green on it. I like green, what can I say? :)

This one was also pretty simple (as all of my cards are). Baja Breeze is the base (In Color 2008-9), Bella Rose DSP for the petals, stem, brown background, and dotted green piece, the three heart punch comprises the flowers, and I used the "Thank You Kindly" set for the sentiment. A brown flower button from the Button Latte assortment is tied on with linen thread. All supplies SU! :) Thanks for looking!

Okay, so I am taking a poll.....

I went to crops two weekends in a row and actually got a lot of scrapbooking and cardmaking finished (different for me!) Would you all prefer that I post one project a day or so to spread it out for something interesting to read more often, or would you prefer that I post everything at once and maybe not have a post for a week or longer? You can vote on the poll, over to the top right of my blog. Thanks! :)

Mr & Mrs

A quick little wedding card I had to make last night. A family friend was getting married and I didn't remember about making a card until about an hour before I had to leave! :) All supplies Stampin' Up! except for the tiny little pink flower, which is by Prima. The stamp is actually retired. It was in the Taggers Dozen set. I LOVED that set and wish it hadn't retired. Oh well, I will still use it, obviously. :) Any questions, just ask!

Getting there....

Ignore everything messy. :) I LOVE the cabinets. We need to start looking for some hardware online to order. The people are coming on Monday to measure for the counter top. Exciting stuff around here! :)