Five years ago...

Five years ago today I didn't sleep at all.

Five years ago today I woke up from that "nonsleep" & went to the hospital at 5 am.

Five years ago today I gave birth to my beautiful baby boy.

Five years ago today my world changed forever.

Happy Birthday Brandon!

I can't wait!

I have been a busy little beaver the last few days...shuttling kids to & from appointments, dance, baseball, and prepping for Brandon's birthday party tomorrow...and playing with my new February kit from Green Tangerines. The store may be closing (boo!), but the kit club lives on (thank goodness!).

I got my kit on Wednesday & have been having so much fun with it! I can't wait to share my layouts...sneak peeks to come soon :)

Picture of the Day

My scrapdesk in our office (formerly the dining room without furniture!). I just got my new kit club box from Green Tangerines, so I was playing a bit! I'll share my layouts as soon as I can :) But for now, just the desk.

Everything you see (boxes that need to have stuff put in them, desk, drawers, picture frames, & shelf) are all from Ikea. I also have an Expedit that you can't see here. I need to get it all prettied up, but it looks cool as it is. One of these days I'll get a picture of it! I need to get this room spruced up before Brandon's birthday party on Sunday...maybe then.

I haven't fallen off the Earth!

Just haven't had any new projects to share lately. Between my addiction to the Olympics, being sick (well, that's just the last few days), planning my son's fifth birthday party, and waiting on my new kit club package, I haven't done much! I do have a LOT of layouts planned (and waiting), so hopefully I'll have some new ones ready to go in a few days!

Abbie's first birthday...finally!

Hey, it's only been seven months (unlike Olivia's 2nd birthday that was almost two YEARS ago that still hasn't been scrapped!).

Sometimes other layouts just seem more fun to do, and sometimes (for me) trying to find the "right" birthday paper can be daunting! I didn't want paper that screamed birthday, or was too baby. This paper I found at Green Tangerines last week is very summery (perfect for a July 14 birthday) and not too "birthday" at all! It's by Kaiser craft & the bonus is that it's double sided! Fun, and perfect since I made two layouts exactly the same (one for her album & one for mine). The layout was lifted from one by Laura Vegas in February's Creating Keepsakes.

Again, I photographed it outside instead of scanning it...so much better!

***ETA: the original layout had journaling strips on the left hand side, which balances it out nicely. I left those off originally, because there's really not much to say about her birthday :) However, I think I am going to add a few words (like the date, or "celebrate" or something) with white background letter stickers like Hannah & Henry from American Crafts.

Crazy Sticker Boy!

This is what happens when you ask your four year old to clean up all the stickers he put all over the playroom walls:

I found this cool design in the 4x6 photos scrapbook idea book by Creating Keepsakes. I found a lot of cool layouts in there recently. The papers & goodies are from my September Kit from Green Tangerines. The "4" is punched out from a sheet of paper, full of numbers in circles; I want to say it's KI memories but I really don't know. You can get a better look at it here.

And I think I'm getting the hang of taking pictures of my layouts instead of scanning them. I just need to get better at taking those cool "other view" shots. I think the problem I had before was that I was using my 50mm lens, so I couldn't quite get far enough away without a ladder. This photo was taken with my 18-55mm lens.

Abbie's first June (11 months old)

It feels so good to be getting caught up with Abbie's album! I only have a few more pages to go: birthday, "end of"/last page, family tree (ugh!), and April (waiting to see if I can get some more Cosmo Cricket first). Yay me :)

I used some fun Cosmo Cricket & October Afternoon on this layout, which is another fun Becky Higgins sketch. Its from last summer (I think) and I've used it three times so far! I love having a couple of large photos. I brought this with me to my last crop at Green Tangerines on Saturday night, finished it, and even took a photo of it over the weekend. And then I went to post it & realized that these photos were from June, not July...which is what I had originally title it with! Thank goodness those Thickers come off fairly easily! As Brandon would say, silly me :)

Our Boy

Another "oldie" finally scrapped!

I used a bunch of October Afternoon goodies I picked up last year. I love that Night Light line! So cute for boys (or girls too!).

I saw this cute layout on Susan Weinroth's blog, and wanted to make it work for me. It was exactly what I needed for these photos. I really need to journal something for this too, and maybe hide it somehow since I'm happy with how it looks!

Some background on the photos: Yes, that is Brandon with a plastic drum on his head. He used to walk around the house wearing that all the time! And then he would also use the drum sticks as microphones to serenade us nightly. Those are goggles on his head...he wore them everywhere! And that large photo? That would be Olivia's shirt he's wearing. He's about 1 1/2, so she was just a few months old. But he insisted on wearing the doggy shirt, even though it's tiny on him & his undershirt is showing...

October Month in Review

As part of my kit club membership, I was able to purchase these cool Month in Review layouts. I love doing layouts like this that are a collage of what we did for a month. And I love that everything is all in one spot! Perfect to bring on vacation!

I brought this kit up to Tahoe last weekend, and basically finished it. I tried to do my own hand-journaling, but...1) I wasn't sure if that was the look I was going for, and 2) my handwriting was WAY too big! So I typed it up on the computer at home  & then cut the strips.

Sleepy Head

For this fun layout I scraplifted a great idea from Kelly Purkey that was featured in the Creating Keepsakes 4x6 idea book. And, I'll admit, I even used the same papers. I was originally going to use the layout design with some fun Cosmo Cricket Earth Love paper. And then when I was at Green Tangerines the other day, I found this super cute Early Bird paper, also Cosmo Cricket, along with the matching adhesive chipboard. Too cute!

Another photographed layout here (not scanned) and this one seemed to come out much better! I can see where it's going to take some practice :)

Lego Master Builder

A few months back, the Lego Store at Arden Fair Mall hosted a Lego "Master Builder" event. Kids could come & build large blocks that would then be used to build a HUGE Yoda from Star Wars. Brandon is our Lego king, but he wasn't too into it. Olivia, on the other hand, build a ton of blocks.

I finally got around to scrapping it the other night, at my last Green Tangerines Scrappy Hour :( . Our last local scrapbook store is going out of business (they lost their lease). A few of us would gather & crop monthly, so it's sad to see it go. They will continue their kit club, so that eases the pain a bit.

Anyhow...I digress...I based this layout on a sketch I made of one in the Creating Keepsakes 4x6 Photos book.  I used more goodies from my September kit club.

And then, instead of scanning it, stitching it in PSE, and getting that horrid stitching line, I photographed it. I must've had the flash on for this one because there's a glare on the bottom. and the vertical sides are all wonky, like I didn't have the camera straight. So I definitely need to perfect this technique! Any hints?

fun summer memories

I love doing a layout with all of those "leftover" summer photos. I saw this cute kit at Green Tangerines & picked it up. I love the colors on it! The scalloped border is from my now-defunct larger corner rounder (it kept getting stuck in the "punched" position); I took off the outer corner guard & used it to make individual scallops.

september month in review

...four months later!

I got this as part of my kit club at Green Tangerines. I love doing "collage" style layouts that capture a month in time. And I like that someone has thought out all the stuff for me too! The best part this time was that it was all in a nice enclosed pack that was easy to transport to Tahoe. All I had to do was print out my photos at 1 1/2 x 2 & adhere.

Please forgive the cruddy scan; it's a lumpy page so it won't lay flat! I do my best :)

more October Afternoon

I shared these photos from our visit from Gram this last summer, and I finally scrapped it right before heading off to Tahoe last week.

I used more from my July kit from Green Tangerines. Most of it is October Afternoon (also from my stash that I'm desperately trying to use up!), and I think the buttons were from the May kit. I name the kits because honestly, I usually can't remember/don't know the line of the paper/product I've used. Or I simply don't feel like getting up & looking at it!

I saw this layout in the December Scrapbooks, Etc. Or at least a very similar one; they had it as one of their sketches. I had purchase the October Afternoon journaling cards last summer because they're just so darned cute, and I was happy to see a layout with one. And I was able to scrap a photo for a needed "blank page" in my album.

Happy February

Time for a new desktop, courtesy of the Shabby Princess :)

I just posted this picture of Olivia, catching snowflakes, and I love it! Unfortunately, I didn't have an equally "good" photo to go with it, of her or her siblings. Oh well :)