Chris and Kyle Layout

Since I have been finishing my degree I have neglected my scrapbooking so now that I have completed my mission and I thought it was time for me to jump back into the fun of crafting! Now I am now a really creative person when it comes to looking at material and coming up with ideas and since I have been away from this for awhile (almost 2 years) I needed some help. Here in our area we have the coolest scrapbooking store called Scrapbook Generations (www.scrapbookgenerations.com). The sale sketchbooks with the coolest ideas to help those of us that get stuck. I used their volume 3 for this layout but I did change a few things. First their layout added ribbon to several of the circles on the left side of the page and on the left side of the page the layout called for two 3x3 pictures and a Title with ribbon in the middle, I chose to make the squares 3x3 but added my boys names to the circles along with the year to the center. 

That is what is nice about using a layout book because it allows you to take an idea and get started but also allows you to add your own touch. 

Materials Used:

Scrapbook Generation Sketches for Scrapbooking Vol. 3

ColorCore Cardstock (Blue)

Paperstudio Boys Live to Rock (Pattern Paper)

Solid color paper came from my scrapbox

Creative Memories square punch 1 1/2"

Gypsy: George and Basic Shapes cartridge (circles) 

Cricut Expression

ATG Gun

StampinUp foam adhesives

I graduated!

Since the last time I posted so much has happened! I finally graduated from college with my degree in Elementary Education! I also graduated with honors of Magna Cum Laude and Alpha Sigma Lambda.

My Clear Dollar Stamp order

I received my order from over at www.cleardollarstamp.com! I was so excited to open the envelope that you would have thought it was Christmas morning. I was a little sad that several of the stamps I had ordered were out of stock but they refunded my money and also sent me the free item even though my order didn't total the required amount after the refund. How awesome is that?
This is a bad picture because I took it at 5:30 in the morning on my cell phone.

This order includes the following Clear Acrylic Stamps and Stickles:
Bank of Kidville
Charlie Baby
Barnyard Mischief
Billy Blasts Off
Dinomite
Monkey Surprise
Playful Pixies
Rosebud
Winter Eskimo
Doll Writing Tablet
Journaling Lines 4
Money Maker
My Little Books
Patchpal Piggy
Patchpal Puppy
Patchpal Skunk
Patchpal Giraffe
Patchpal Kitty
Patchpal Lamby
Stickles:
  Aqua
  Burgandy
  Copper
  Magenta
  Pink
  Platinum
  Purple
Free item: Mini Versus
(ALL this for less then $40)
I am planing on playing with all my new yummy stamps over spring break which starts at exactly 3:30 today!!! Will post pics soon!
Hope everyone has a great weekend!

My maternal grandpa

I have only seen one picture of my maternal grandfather and it was old enough and the picture was taken from far away. There has always been this question about what he looks like. My sister has been working on our family tree and has made connection with his last wife and her family. This week my mother received a picture from them of my grandpa. WOW! This was like Christmas. I know that my mom was excited but I have to say that I was also excited to see what he looked like.

He is the one that is leaning on the car, second from the right. I was a little sad that I couldn't see more of his face but also at the same time very excited that this was the most I have ever seen of him. I think he died in 1972 and I was born in 1974. He lived in Washington and I never got to meet him. My mom hadn't seen him since she was 12. There are so many unanswered questions and I can only imagine how many my mom has. But today one of those questions was answered, I now know what my grandfather looks like!!!

New website adventure!

This morning I was surfing the web and some how came across the coolest website! It is called Clear Dollar Stamps and you can find it at www.cleardollarstamps.com. To make it even better they are not too far from me. How have I never heard of this website? They have some really good deals on their stamps, my first order I went through their clearance pile and they are selling Stickles for $1.25 plus they have tons of stamps for just $1.00.

So excited for my new find! Can't wait to get my order. Will take pics as soon as my order arrives.

Cricut BLING!

I got a wild hair today and decided to add some bling to my Cricut!

BEFORE

FRONT VIEW

BACK VIEW

Sisters

I made a double layout of pictures from January 1976. I was a year and a half and my sister was three and a half. I used the Sisters paper kit from Paper Studio. Sometimes less is more, I really like how this turned out! Love my sister!

My Christmas Handmade item

I found these at Hobby Lobby. This is the before picture, I think I spent a total of maybe $6 for all three.

This is the after picture. I used some paint, cardstock, a metal tag holder and some ink. I think they turned out pretty cute and was less then $10 to make.

Close up picture, couldn't get the picture to rotate.

Chris' 1st deer

Eric took Chris hunting again this year and the first day of regular deer season Chris shot is first deer. He was so excited and it made it that more special because it was also a buck! I am not sure who was more excited, Eric or Chris. We processed the meat into sausage and jerky and the guys are loving it!
They both can't wait to go again next year!

K-W-L Chart

I used the Dino Cartridge to make a K-W-L Chart. I had to do a presentation on Dinosaurs for my Methods of Reading class so I decided to make my chart have a little more flare!

At the top of the poster board I glued the letters K W L then for the grass I used my fancy design scissors and cut strips into the paper and then scrunched them up to give them a 3D look. I then passed out cards (which is an option on this cartridge) and that is what the students used to write their information on.

This was a huge hit and I actually had several other students want the poster, which one lady actually took it home with her.

Create A Critter Cartridge Classroom Activity

I used the Create A Critter Cartridge along with my Gypsy to make these animal cut outs. I used them to work with students at a homeless shelter and they loved them. I had also cut out capital and lowercase letters using the Hello Kitty Font Cartridge. I had the students match the letters to the animals. These were a big hit!

I used colored cardstock from DCWV and each cut out is about 11" in length. I used my large cricut mat (12 x 24) and I would make one design using blackout and then on the other end of the mat I would use the regular image.

(I laid all the cut outs on my kitchen floor and then had to stand on top of a bar stool in order to get all of the images in the picture.)

Crash

I haven't posted in awhile so I thought today would be a great day to start! Since my last posting our sweet little Chief passed away. He died November 22nd at the hospital. He was such a sweet puppy. Our family welcomed our new bulldog puppy on April 15th and we have named him Crash. He is way different than Chief in the fact that he seems to have way more energy and is very active.

This week I plan to update the boys school scrapbook albums with their 2nd grade and 6th grade photos and journaling. I cannot believe we now have a 3rd grader and a 7th grader. Feeling a little old today!

Wedding Album for my cousin

Good morning! I have to say that the time change has me completely messed up or better yet it has our new puppy messed up because he normally gets up at 5:30a.m. to go outside and today he woke up at 4:30a.m. Fun for me!

Several weeks ago my cousin got married and today we will be holding his new bride a wedding shower. I wasn't sure what to get t

hem so I decided to make them a scrapbook album that they could hopefully use!

I wasn't able to attend the wedding and have not seen pictures so I was not sure on the colors of the flowers or cake so I went with basic black and white throughout the album and figured that the colored pictures would stand out more that way!

'This day I will marry my friend; the one I laugh with, live for, dream with, love.'

I found this album at Hobby Lobby and it is leather bound and black, super cute!

Material Used:

Papers from Stampin' Up, The Paper Studio and Me & My Big Ideas.

My rockin' tape gun!

Rub on stickers by The Paper Studio: Wedding

Wedding stickers from Me & My Big Ideas

Vellum quotes from DCWV: Wedding & Romance

Ink from Stampin Up

Ribbon and brads from my stash

Jewels and Bling from Prima

Thanks for looking at my blog!

Our new puppy, "Chief"

Chief

Our new edition!

We have a new puppy and he is the sweetest!

My first classroom bulletin board

My very first classroom bulletin board!!!!

I am teaching computer's this year so I decided that I needed a keyboard bulletin board. I looked everywhere to find computer stuff for decorating and kept coming up empty handed so I did some research and found another teacher's template for a keyboard.

Items used:

Gypsy

Cricut Expression

Making the Grade cart

Various other carts

Various cardstocks

Hamburger containers

For a friend...

School is starting in less then a month and the teacher's are in their classrooms getting things ready for the first day. A friend of mine teaches kindergarten and she is using a ladybug theme this year so I made her this sign to hang outside of her classroom! Now I need to sit down and make one for my classroom!!!!

Receipe

Gypsy

Create-a-critter

Making the grade

black and red cardstock

Stickles

ATG gun adhesive

I have to say that I LOVE MY GYPSY! I was able to cut all of the letters out on one 12x12 piece of cardstock because the gypsy allows you to move the letters around and I was able to place them in different positions to save paper!!!!!

I just complete my very first Blog Hop over at www.peachykeenstamps.com.

I have to say that I have never participate in a blog hop before because I wasn't exactly sure what it was all about. This morning I woke up and decided to jump right in and give it a try. It was fun and through visiting all the different blogs I have found some new inspiration! Can't wait until the next one I can find.

Also, found out this morning that I did not win the challenge over at Emma's Creative Time with Me Throwback Thursday challenge, I was number 88 and the 89 was the winner! Congrats to them! I still love the idea that I participated!

Hope you have a great Monday and hopefully I will be able to post some pics later.

Throwback Thursday Challenge #7 with Emma

So I have to say that I have

never and I mean NEVER

done this before but this morning I woke up and decided I would try it. I am entering this card into Emma's Throwback Thursday Challenge over at http://www.mycreativetimeforme.com.

I have never done this before so I am not sure if it is even acceptable to jump in on challenge #7 but I am going to cross this off of my bucket list!

Receipe:

Wildcard Cartridge (pg. 74)

Gypsy

Textured cardstock by The Paper Company

Card Height 5"

ATG gun adhesive

Peachy Keen Christmas Face Stamp

Stampin Up Basic Black ink

Lime Green, Xmas Red, and Diamond Stickles

Martha Stewart color pencils

"Merry Christmas" stamp Stampin Up Teeny Tiny Wishes

I bought it!!!

I finally broke down and purchased a Gypsy for my Cricut! So far it has been somewhat easy to use, there is a little bit of a learning curve when it comes to figuring out the exact placement of paper on the mat to the placement on the gypsy but so far so good. I also broke down and bought three new cartridges, Create a Critter, Storybook, and Calligraphy. I was super excited yesterday when I went to the store and found several cartridges that I didn't have in the clearance section. I always use the price scanner to double check prices and was so happy when two of then scanned for cheaper then they were marked! Marked $45, scanned $23!!!! Needless to say I was giddy!

I hope to have something made today but no promises as we will probably head to the lake when everyone wakes up!

Have a great Saturday!

Handmade cards

I am new to stamping and card making, I usually just make scrapbook pages but I thought I would try my hand at making cards. It is actually not hard to do because there are so many blogs and websites that have such cute ideas and templates out there.

The King of the Grill card is blank on the inside and I used an old Christmas card and covered up with cardstock I found at Michael's. The stamps and ink are from Stampin Up and I used Stampin Up watercolor pencils and blender pen to color the image. I scraplifted this card from another Stampin Up person and for the life of me I cannot find her website now.

Tri-fold cards


I found this breast cancer paper at Michael's and the inside stamp "Survivor" also came from Michael's, the ink is from Stampin Up and the flowers and brads are all Spare Parts products. I love this card.