all right, all ready! - digi layout

Here is a layout that I did today. I've had this one on my mind for quite awhile and I'm really glad that I was able to do this one today and mark it off my "things to scrap" list! I'm hoping to work on some other things today, too, but we'll see!

Journaling says:

I love the snow. Really I do, but I am so sick of snow right now, I could almost scream. Our first big snow storm started on December 8th and it snowed for days. The kids have missed 6 days of school (so far!). Little did we know, that was just the beginning. We had our next big snow storm during Christmas Break. Well, it was officially a blizzard and is now known as "The Christmas Blizzard of 2009”. I must admit, that having a huge snow storm during Christmas was pretty darn cool, especially when we were opening presents while big snowflakes were falling from the sky. But, now here we are at the end of January and we have had several more encounters with Old Man Winter and he hasn't been very polite! Joe has had to use the snowblower more than he ever has before and than goodness we have a big one! Gracie and I have been going through some serious feelings of cabin fever! She and I have made it to the mall as many times as we can, so that she can play in their play area, run around, and just be silly. It feels like we have spent every day of the past two months covered with a thick, dark cloud. The sunny days have been so rare. And, the roads are horrible! We went a long time with most roads being about half their width, so two lane roads were one and 4 lane roads were just two. There was so much snow and no place to put it all, so it came into the street for several feet on each side of the road. Now, when I hear that we are expecting more snow, I just cringe! I want to see the curbs on the street, I want to see the ground, I want to see something besides WHITE! But, like I said, I really do love the snow.....just not this much!
December 2009-January 2010

Digi supplies used:
Bundled Up! kit from Shabby Miss Jenn Designs
Frame - freebie from Joanne Brisebois Designs

The Blessing of Time - Faithfully Yours Challenge

Hello and Happy Friday! I'm not sure where this week went, but it sure did go by fast! I am hoping to have a productive day today. I have a couple of projects that I need to finish up today. I have a closet in my dining room that's been turned into what I call my "craft closet" and I've been reorganizing it this week. It has most of my sewing supplies, some of my favorite cookbooks, my home organizing system (kind of like a master plan book, but it's in a file organizer.....I need to share about this, too!), my Bibles and prayer books, kid craft books and holiday books, Gracie's art supplies, and a big file crate that has all of the holiday and religious holiday activities, crafts, and recipes filed in it. Whew! That's a lot for one little closet! lol That's why I've been trying to reorganize it, so that I can use that space as best as I can.

Anyway, sorry I got off topic....lol..... I wanted to share with you my "The Blessing of Time" layout that I did for the "A Year of Blessings-2010" Challenge at Faithfully Yours. You can see the blog post talking about this theme by clicking here. It took me a little while to think of what I wanted to do for this theme until one night when I was laying in bed trying to go to sleep. I usually sit in bed and read for a couple of hours and sometimes it's hard for my brain to stop, so
that I can go to sleep. lol But, I was super tired and I think that sometimes God uses that time in me to chat. So, this popped into my head and I pretty much didn't have "a satisfied mind" (as my mom always says) until I worked on and finished the journaling for this layout. I must say, that God is pretty persistent with me and He has to be, because I am pretty stubborn. lol

Here's my layout and my journaling.....I think the journaling pretty much explains everything.... ;-)
Journaling:

Lately, it has become painfully obvious to me of how much the Lord has blessed me with the gift of time. It is painful, because I am realizing how much of this precious time I have actually wasted. I have wasted so many years......years that I should have spent with my eyes turned towards God, not my own desires and wants. Times when I let myself get caught up in the hustle and bustle of life and not willing to give up any of my “precious time” to spend talking to the Lord. I have been so selfish with this blessing of time that God has given to me. Here is the amazing part though. God’s time isn’t like mine and thank goodness for that! And, even better......God is always wanting to forgive me and to give me more time to work on my faults and short-comings when it comes to my ever-stumbling walk in faith. Well, now it is my time. My time to begin again. My time to pour my life, my love, my heart and soul towards God. It’s all that I can do. Stand back up, brush off my knees and get back on the narrow path that leads to the never-ending love and compassion that God is wanting to give to me. Oh Lord! How I need your help! I can’t do this without you. I know that now. I have failed so many times. Wasted so much time. Please help me use the blessing of time in ways that focus on You, help me remember to pray, help me remember to turn to you and scream and cry when I’m mad or upset, help me to humble myself and remember that only with your help all things are possible. I know in my heart that all of the other parts of my life will be so much better, just by spending time with you. Yes, there will still be hard times, but they will be so much easier to bear. Thank you, Lord. Thank you so much for this amazing blessing of TIME.

Humble yourselves, therefore, under God's mighty hand, that he may lift you up in due time
1 Peter 5:6

Digi supplies from:
Weeds & Wildflowers Design- Cherish Every Moment (all of layout except for the following)
paper leaf - Weeds & Wildflowers Design- A Better Me
Clock Face - Faithfully Yours

I can't even begin to tell you how much I enjoy doing faith-booking pages. My head gets so full of everything and goes a mile a minute sometimes. It can be hard for me to calm it down so that I can sit and have quality prayer time. But, when I am working on a layout, the creative-thinking part calms my mind and I am able to think so much clearer and then the idea comes t my mind and the words start to flow and before I know it, my scrapbook page has turned into my prayer and the time I spent working on it my prayer time. It's taken me quite a while to figure this out, but I know that God has known this about me since I was created because He created me this way for a reason. He blessed me with this grace of creativity and He knows that it's the best way for me to talk to Him.

And now it's time for me to be creative in a different way! lol My little one wants me to build a house out of blocks with her. lol I hope that you all have an amazing day today and are able to spend some time doing something creative and crafty!

Sneak peek of a new project!

Lots of new things are happening at Faithfully Yours and I'm excited to be a part of it! For 2010, they are having a blessing challenge. Each month, they will be posting a new blessing and everyone is encouraged to create a layout about that blessing. At the end of the year, we all will have an amazing book all about our blessings!

Here is the cover to my "A Year of Blessings" book. I decided to do this project digitally, because I have a feeling that I will have a lot more journaling on these pages than photos. And, when I write, I write A LOT! lol So, this way I will be able to write like crazy and have plenty of room.

January's theme is "The Blessing of Time". Here's a sneaky, peeky of the layout that I created for this months theme. I will share the whole layout with you as soon as the newest e-zine from Faithfully Yours is released. It will be full of great layouts by other members of the Design Team at Faithfully Yours. Be sure to visit this post here at the Faithfully Yours Blog about the "A Year of Blessings 2010" Challenge. Click here to see the blog post about this months theme: TIME.

I am really looking forward to doing this challenge this year......I hope that you decide to join us, too! We all have so much to be thankful for and have received so many blessings!

Pattern Paper Challenge @ Practical Scrappers

This weeks challenge at Practical Scrappers is to use 2 or more designs of patterned paper on your project. Well, I am totally addicted to patterned paper. I have tons of it. I collect it like fine china. lol I say that because a lot of it I treat like fine china! I file it away in my cabinet and leave it there, because it's so pretty, I just want to look at it all of the time....just like if it was china in my buffet. lol It's silly, I know, but true. Silly and sad! lol So, I've been trying really hard to not collect patterned paper like I used to. I only buy new patterned paper if it's for a specific project. My goal is to use up my massive stash of patterned paper that I have collected in the many, many years that I've been scrapbooking.

So, here's what I have to share:
For this layout, I used eight different squares of patterned paper. I keep all of my paper scraps organized by color in drawer units, so it was easy for me to look through my color drawers and pull out scraps of paper that worked well together for this layout. So easy and lots of fun! I've had such a scatter-brained week (more on that later!), I can't remember where I got the sketch idea for this layout from....sorry! This is my little Gracie during her first feeding of cereal. Such a cutie-a-tootie!

I'm sorry about the darkness of these next photos. I tried to take the photos at night, which wasn't too smart of an idea! The idea for this idea came from sheer desperation. lol My husband gets up a lot earlier than I do, and since I've had Gracie and I sleep in with her as long as I can, he has often left for work before I get up and moving in the mornings. So, almost every morning, I had to call him to see if my little Sophie doggie had been fed or not. Needless to say, this got really old. So I made a sign that I put on our fridge w/ a long magnet. The sign is double-sided....one side says "Sophie HAS been fed" and the other says "Sophie HAS NOT been fed". I used five different patterns of paper on this one. Another project made mostly from my scrap drawers. I also raided my ribbon box and used lots of different ribbons!

For the title, I used my Big Shot to make the letters for "Sophie" and "been fed" and my good, old-fashioned plastic letter template for "HAS" and "HAS NOT". The dog, dog house and food bowl are all stamped using an old Stampin'Up! stamp set that I've had forever. I used pastel chalks and a blender pen to color them in.

Now, before you ask, because I know your wondering......did my husband ever use this? Well. Nope. Not once! lol All of that work and it doesn't get any use at all! He just doesn't think to use it and I don't bother him about it. Oh well. It was a lot of fun to make and sure does look cute on my fridge beside her food bowl. And, I guess I do still bother him about it in a way, because every now and then I do have to call him and ask him if Sophie has been fed! lol

I totally forgot to share my projects for last weeks challenge at Practical Scrappers. It was to use embossing of any type. My daughter had her Confirmation this past weekend and all of last week was complete chaos! Let me just say that it is almost impossible to find a decent dress for a young lady to wear. One that isn't too short, too low, too sparkly, too slinky....too EVERYTHING! lol It took 3 days of shopping and going to almost every clothing store in town before we found something. But, it was so worth it! She looked absolutely beautiful and the ceremony and Mass was wonderful! I will try to share my projects from last week in a day or two.

Take care, my friends.....and happy crafting!

Practical Scrappers Blog Hop Winner!!!

First of all, and most important.......I want to thank all of you who came and visited me over the weekend during the Practical Scrappers Designers Blog Hop! It was so wonderful to see so many new visitors here and to read all of your kind and wonderful comments! I really, really do appreciate you taking the time to visit and comment about my creations! Really! lol

Now, on to the fun part! I had a set of handmade cards up for grabs as a prize for commenting over the weekend on my Blog Hop post. There were 28 comments made and when I used the random number generator at random.org, it gave me this number: 24

Molly O'Bryon-Welpott said...

LOVE how unique you are with your challenges, great stuff and the towel exchange idea is something I am gonna be stealing for my BUNCO group I think:)

Congratulations Molly!!!!!!!!! Please send your mailing address to me at: diannef3@yahoo.com
I'll get your prize out to you as soon as I hear from you!

I invite you all to come back and visit me tomorrow, because I will be posting my submissions for this weeks challenge at Practical Scrappers which is to use two or more designs of patterned paper. I am quite obsessed with patterned paper, so I had no problem with this challenge! lol I also had a few people say that they would like to see how I made my bookmark that I shared in my Blog Hop post, so I am going to try really hard to get that tutorial done and shared by the end of this week. They are super easy and make great, little gifts! My daughter had fun making some for her girlfriends!

Happy Monday to you all and I hope you have a wonderful and crafty week!!!!

Toot Toot!!!! It's the Practical Scrappers Blog Hop!!!!

Hi! I am so happy and excited to be a part of the Practical Scrappers Design Team Blog Hop! If this is your first time visiting me, I sure hope that you enjoy your stay here and thanks so much for stopping by. With February coming up on us very quickly, we were asked to feature a project about something that we love. So, here are some layouts about some of the things that I absolutely LOVE!!!
Coffee. Yep. I LOVE it!!!!! Just LOVE it!!!!! I try to not drink so much, but right now it's almost impossible. This cold, winter just begs for me to have my coffee pot full at all times. lol

My other true love is my iPod. I just can't live without it. I absolutely LOVE music and I always have my iPod by my side. I can't wait until I can get one that has more memory. I have so many songs and it's hard for me to pick what to have on my Pod. lol My main play list is titled "my pod rocks". lol Yep. I love my Pod!

This layout is about all of my most favorite things. I really had a blast putting this layout together, except after I was all done with it, I realized that I didn't have anything related to Coke-a-Cola. I am a tried-and-true Coke-a-Cola fan and I can't believe that I forgot to put it on this layout! There used to be all sorts of Coke scrapping products and now that I need one, I can't find them anywhere! Oh well.....guess I need to cut part of a logo off a 12-pack or something! lol

I couldn't share things that I loved without showing you this bookmark that I made. I am a book addict. Yep. I am. I totally admit it. I have books EVERYWHERE! I can't walk into any store that sells books w/o buying one. I just can't do it! I just wish that I had enough time to read them all! Maybe one day.....lol I need to do a tutorial on how to make these. They are super easy and lots of fun! Plus, they stay in your books really well!

Thank you for stopping by and visiting my blog during the Practical Scrappers Designer Blog Hop. Now here's the really fun part! I have eight cards - handmade by me- and I am giving away as a prize for the visiting me during the blog hop. I am sorry, but I am only able to ship to those of you who live in the United States. All that you need to do to qualify is this: you need to become a follower here and leave a comment on this post. I will announce the winner on Monday, January 25th so make sure to check back in! You should have arrived here from Amys' beautiful site - Paush Design. Your next stop is Joy's wonderful blog - Craftstash. If this was your first stop head over to Practical Scrappers to start at the beginning of the hop. The designers are giving away some great prizes and have some absolutely amazing projects to share - you don't want to miss your chance!

Thanks again for visiting me, please come back often and I hope you enjoy your ride on the Practical Scrappers Design Team Blog Hop!!!! Toot! Toot!!!!!

Artichoke Paremsan Dip

So, this is the best artichoke cheese dip EVER! lol I made this last night and we gobbled it all up real fast. This is a recipe from Simply Recipes that I modified a little bit, but not much. I like it the best because it only has 1 cup of mayonnaise and a lot of the recipes out there have 2 cups. That is just too much mayo for me!

Artichoke Parmesan Cheese Dip

2-14 oz. cans of artichokes (packed in water, not oil)
2 cups of freshly grated Parmesan cheese
1 cup shredded mozzarella cheese
1 cup of mayonnaise
1-2 cloves garlic, minced finely
Salt and pepper

1. Drain the artichokes and coarsely chop them.

2. Combine artichokes, Parmesan and mozzarella cheeses, minced garlic and mayo in a large bowl. Stir in a pinch of salt and pepper, if desired. Put into a tart pan, or something similar, and spread into an even layer.

3. Bake in a 350F oven for 30 minutes.

4. Let cool a few minutes before eating.

Serve with tortilla chips, toasted rounds of a baguette, crackers, etc.

Yum. ;-)

Dolled Up Hand Towel

Tonight I get to be the hostess for our monthly FarmGirls meeting and I can't wait! Last month, we were all given a plain hand towel and we were asked to decorate and wrap it. Tonight we are going to swap them! I was pretty stumped on how to decorate mine, until I found this super-cute idea with directions at Crafty Chica.

Here is what I came up with:

I had a hard time with my towel being black! Until I decided that nothing goes with black better than hot pink. I AM a child of the '80's! lol So, after the hard part was over, picking the colors, the rest of it came together really fast. I used a couple of my circle punches to punch out templates for the circles. I just held the circles together and sewed them in place with embroidery floss. I didn't pin or measure anything. lol After all of the circles were on, I then sewed on the buttons. I love the retro look of the ball fringe and to pull it all together, I added the pink dot ribbon along the edge of the towel.
And a close up of the circles.....I just had to add buttons......because....I just had to add buttons! lol I try to not be an over-embellisher, but sometimes it's hard! I think the buttons add a nice touch and really top off the circles.
This was a lot of fun to make and I might be making some more for my own kitchen!

Take care everyone.....I hope you're all doing well and having some time to be crafty!

Bling, bling, bling.....

I'm not quite sure where this past week went, but it sure did go by....I can't say that it went by fast, but it's gone! I meant to share some things with you all here this past week, but I'm just so out of sorts lately. We have been going through so many snow storms and blizzards....I have serious cabin fever! My children just went back to school today! They were supposed to go back last Wednesday, but we ended up having snow days on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday because of snow and bitterly cold temperatures. It was -45 with the wind chill! I wasn't able to get any crafting done then because my scrap area is in our mudroom and wow, was it ever cold in there! It's on a cement base, so the floor was freezing and the window are old, so we had some major drafts. Today was actually in the low 30's and it felt like a heat wave! lol So, my little one and I spent some time in my scrap room and I was able to make a card for next weeks challenge at Practical Scrappers. I can't wait to share it, but you're just going to have to wait and see!

This weeks challenge at Practical Scrappers is to use bling! Bling of any kind - glitter, rhinestones, anything sparkly!
I needed to make a sympathy card for a dear friend of mine who lost her father on Christmas Day. So, I decided to use this lily and I added pale, yellow glitter to the flower and then a small, yellow rhinestone in the center. I stamped the image on water color paper and then went around the edges of the image with my blender pen. That created the water color look outside of the edges of the image and also colored in the centers of the leaves and flowers. I did some old-school embossing on the oval. This is something I learned ages ago before home die-cut/embossing machines were even a twinkle in any of our scrappers eyes! I didn't take any pics of how I did it, so I'll have to make up a quick tutorial on it sometime soon. It's easy and cheap and great for anyone who doesn't have a die-cut machine.

I also shared these samples at Practical Scrappers for this weeks challenge. My Gratitude Journal cover and one of my journal pages where I used glitter, plus this layout that you can see here. I've already shared those here on my blog, so I won't re-post pictures of them now.

I have been up to lots of other crafting! Crafting that I can do in my living room and no in my freezing mudroom! So, keep a look out because I'll be sharing them here soon!

I hope you're all having a wonderful and are keeping nice and warm!

Buttons, buttons, who's got the buttons? ;-)

The challenge this week at Practical Scrappers is to use buttons! I love using buttons on my layouts and cards and if I ever see a jar of them at the thrift store, I buy them right up! There are so many things that you can do with them....here are some of my favorite layouts that I have used buttons on:

Use them to frame part of your photo

Embellish patterned paper-
Each of the circles in the strip of patterned paper have a white button in the center of them. And then I made a cluster of three buttons with ribbon by the heart embellishment.

Line them across the whole length of your layout

Create the center of a flower
(I absolutely LOVE the bottom photo of my then 11 year old holding her new baby sister!)

Use them as the centers for flowers

Buttons are so much fun to add to any layout! I hope you got some ideas for using buttons on your layouts!

1992 - a digi layout

I had a lot of fun working on this layout last night and I was able to finish it this morning after I scanned in this self-portrait of us at the Salt Flats in Utah on 10 June 1992. I got the idea for this layout from one of the December challenge questions at Log Your Memory. The question was "What has been the best year of your life, so far"? After I read this, I immediately knew what my best year was and that I had to make a scrapbook page about it!

Here's what the journaling says:

To date, 1992 was by far the best year of my life. So many exciting and new things happened to me that year. Joe came back into my life in January & was there for me as I struggled with being in an abusive marriage. Tori & I moved back in with my parents in February. During all of that mess, Joe was there for me & we quickly fell back into love. In March, we saw each other for the first time in a couple of years. He rode in a Greyhound bus from Sacramento, CA to Springfield, Mo just to see me & to give me a promise ring. On May 20th, my divorce was finalized & I quickly began to make plans for our wedding on June 7th. Joe was still in Sacramento & wasn’t able to come back to Missouri until a week before our wedding. I also spent that month packing! We got married & on the 8th we were packing up a yellow Ryder truck with all of my belongings. The next day we were on our way to Mather Air Force Base which was neat Sacramento, CA. It took us two, long days of driving to reach the base. Tori did great and we had lots of fun. It was the first time that I had ever been past Grand Junction, CO, where Grandma & Grandpa Newton lived. We drove through Utah & stopped at the Salt Flats & I saw my first casinos as we trucked through Nevada. In August, we found out that I was pregnant with Chris! We spent our first Thanksgiving & Christmas together with Grandpa Fago & Aunt Agnes, who were living in Placerville, CA at that time. Everything was so new & exciting! The Air Force Base & learning how to be a military wife, living by a big city & all of the things to do there, traveling into the Sierra Nevada Mountains, meeting Lisa Sullivan who was our neighbor & is still a dear friend, & just finally being able to experience what true love was & how wonderful being married could be! 1992 will always be one of my most favorite years & will always hold a special place in my heart! It was the beginning of my life with my true love, Joe & we have had so many amazing years since then, too!

I picked up several fun kits on sale at OScraps by Kitty Designs and I used a couple of those new kits for this layout called "Lovey Dovey" and "Cherish". I also used one of my new templates for this layout. I LOVE using templates for digi layouts! They really help get me started, just like sketches do for traditional, paper scrapping. This Jumper Template #9 is from Crystal Livesay. I just discovered her templates and I really love all of the variety!

Well, that's it for now. I hope to share a post about my 2010 Memory Logbook. It is awesome and I think it's really going to help me keep track of those special, every day memories that are so easily forgotten!

Stay warm (it's -2F here!!!) and happy crafting!!!!!

Let's Say Thanks

Please be sure to do this! It only takes a few seconds and it will mean so much to our military! My husband was in the Air Force for 10 years and it is so important to let our military personnel know how much they all mean to us!

Let's Say Thanks