Layout Musings

I have some new layouts to share since I last posted ...

This is using a great kit by MandaBean & Lauren Grier - Bumble Bee Mine - which is so cute and fun!


Another page that I originally made for my heritage album & it was featured in Bella Scraps Magazine. It's one of my favorites - all about my Mimi and her volunteering in the community.


Another ADSR layout. This one had to include NO photos and use 3 different frames. I wanted to commemorate the Obama Inauguration but I didn't have any photos as I watched from work with my co-workers. So this was the perfect way to ensure that the historical day was in our family scrapbook!

I love this new MandaBean/Robin Carlton Two Scoops kit - 3-Ring Romance - it's so fun and colorful!
Another kit by MandaBean - this one a collab with Melissa Bennett called Your Sweetness which was perfect for this photo of Sami & Meighan!

Another recipe card - this one for meatballs - using Corina Nielsen & Krystal Hartley's 9 to 5 Chic kit! (Yes, Mom this one is being printed for you ....)

I dug out some baby pictures for this one ... Look at how little they were. This one uses Valorie Brown's Familiar Times kit which is awesome!

Another fun layout - this one using Miss Tiina's Friendship kit!

And here is my Week 3 layout for Project 365 - this one use's Valorie Brown's Esme kit which ROCKS! I'm doing one pagers for the 3rd & 4th weeks to see if I prefer that over the two pagers. We shall see :)


And this is week 2 - another 2 pager. I like how this album is shaping up!

Project 365: Days 19-25

Here are days 19 through 25 of Project 365 -

19:365 - I love the starkness of this photo of the tree across the way from our home. Just screams winter to me!



20:365 - Our Alex who loves playing on his Leapster now that he's figure out how to use it ... LOL

21:365 - Meighan and Daddy making dinner for us - CHICKEN! She loves to help cook & this was especially fun since she got all dirty & covered with eggs and breadcrumbs!


22:365 - Our boy & his NutriGrain bars (blueberry, of course). He eats them constantly & we cannot take the chance of running out of them our he goes nuts LOL. I figure that its better that he loves these than candy or something. Although he also loves candy, he just knows he can't have it very often!



23:365 - The guys that get so much play in our house. He has a ton of them but these are his current favorites. He doesn't go anywhere without them and he sleeps with them every night. He plays with them constantly and is obsessed with superheros!




24:365 - Awww ... she's so beautiful in her new hat, gloves and old winter coat. Getting ready to take a walk in the cold with her brother and Daddy (Mommy stayed home and napped!). She told me, as they left, that she was going bird watching & hoped to see a woodpecker (which is apparently her favorite bird????). She ended up seeing other birds, but no woodpeckers. But, she found another walnut which she insisted on burying in the flower bed so she can grow a tree! LOL



25:365 - We woke up to snow this morning. It's snowed most of the day. Generally, just powder but beautiful to look at from our warm house. They are calling for more tomorrow and Tuesday so maybe the kids will get to build the snowman that they have been talking about for weeks. There just hasn't been enough yet to get a real snow man built. At least we all have our winter boots, gloves, hats and jackets ready for some time in the snow!

That's it for this week ... more to come soon!

Project 365: Days 11 - 18

Here are days 11 through 18 of Project 365 -

11:365: We had a blast fingerpainting & getting all messy. Well, Alex gave up about 5 minutes in because he doesn't like to be dirty LOL but Meighan stuck it out and was covered from head to toe with paint by the end. We have many beautiful pictures which will be making their way onto the wall once we figure out the best way to hang them!

12:365: Meighan and Alex LOVE to help Paul make scrambled eggs. They crack the eggs and help to scramble them up. What I lvoe about this photo is that I caught it just as Paul is trying to get the egg shells out of the eggs (which inevitably fall in when the kids crack the eggs - they are still learning)! And I love how everyone has bed head since we'd all just woken up!


13:365: The shrine to the Eagles that we had going this football season. Since the playoff game just ended about 30 minutes ago and we're all pretty sad about the outcome (Paul tore up his old Eagles shirt if that tells you his mindset - oh and now he & the kids are now wearing pieces of it as dress up clothes LOL), I'm just going to say that this was a centerpiece in our living room since Christmas and it has been said that it was a critical part of their doing so well up until today ....

14:365: Our sweet boy, Alex. My sunshine ... the very best of the best of all boys ... He is his own person, that is for sure. And I couldn't love him more.

15:365: Me and my boy! Not the best photo of me (I just came home from work, my makeup is less than stellar) but I love it!


16:365: The dishwasher - I LOVE this modern convenience. I hate doing dishes but this makes it so much easier. Well, and that Paul's started doing the dishes FOR me. I LOVE THAT! I have a good husband!


17:365: I love this photograph of Alex helping Paul bring in the paper towels after a trip to the grocery store. Getting just a peek of our little guy through the screen door which was closing. I love it!


18:365: My girl, Megs. What can I say - she is a FASHION PLATE. I was walking by the bathroom and saw her in there washing her hands (she loves to wash her hands - ????) while wearing the necklace I 'lent' her on Friday when I came home from work wearing it and she asked if she could wear it! She's worn it every second since then. I also just love how intensely she's going about the business of washing her hands. Just cracks me up! I also love that this photo shows two of the ceramics that my Mimi Robertson made back in the 1970s when she took a ceramics class with my mom. The one you can see best is the blue/green/white dish on the left of the sink but just next to it is a small vase she made as well. They fit the color scheme in that bathroom perfectly! I have a few of the pieces she made and I cherish them.

Layout Musings

I know I've been a bit lax in adding my pages here so here are a few layouts I've done since I last posted pages ...

Wendy and I are doing ADSR again this year (our 4th time competing together!) and this is my layout for the 4th challenge this year. There were two rules - make it artsy (add art stuff like paint and ephemera) and make your journaling come from the soul. So, here's what I came up with. And I mostly used Valorie Brown's Bella kit which is absolutely beautiful! This kit is still just $1 so RUN to get it here.


Next, is a page I did for the Color Challenge over at FPD this week. We used teal, red and bling! I think it turned out just adorable.

And here's a page I did for the FPD Scraplift challenge using Krystal Hartley's brand new Love Me Tender kit which is stunning (you can grab it here, not a dollar anymore but it's worth every penny).

And my page for my FPD Font Challenge this week where we're coloring our fonts for a funky look. I used lliella's Rollicking kit which is so cute and fun (you can grab it here). By the way, there's still time to join me this week and possibly win an awesome prize! Come by the forum here for the details!

And my first Project 365 Pages - this is week one which is a two page spread. I'll be doing one of these for each week of the project and later getting them bound into one book for us. Used lots of Weed & Wildflowers Life 365 kit!


This is another one of the ADSR pages - this one was a challenge to redo one of your first layouts uploaded to a gallery. My first layout at DST was a 2 pager about Sami meeting the twins which really needed a refresher! (You can see the original here). I used Laura Bratcher's Fiddle-Dee-Dee kit which is still selling for just $1 here & may well be my new favorite kit. It's so fun & has tons of cute little elements in there! It was fun to do a new page using the same photos and journaling - showed me how far I've come since the early days of digital scrapbooking!

This is another great kit by MandaBean over at SSD. I love how this page turned out!

This was a page I did during our first FPD Font Challenge which was to use a specific font for your title. I used much Traci Murphy goodies on this one.

Another ADSR layout - this one was to rip/tear your photo into at least 3 pieces and journal on your page. I wanted to focus my journaling on my word for the year - SIMPLIFY. I'm really happy how this one turned out too!

From Bella Scraps Magazine - the girls we love so much!

Another one from Bella Scraps Magazine. A very different approach to a page for me but I loved the photo of Paul and wanted to make it a little funkier than I usually do ... I love the end result.

One of my all time favorite layouts. Just love everything about this one. This is another layout that was in Bella Scraps Magazine.

Another Bella Scraps magazine layout - the kiddos at the park.
I love this page - so cute and colorful!

My mom's ham biscuit recipe which is YUMMY! Had to add this to the recipe collection!

Our princess ...

A layout about my being a Mom & how much I love every minute of it!

Christmas - pretty self explanatory!

Another new favorite layout - Meighan is really getting into Barbie's these days and I have a ton of photos of her playing Barbie. I love how this turned out, too!

Using Jannylynn's My Love kit which is so cute and lovely - you can grab it here.

That's it for me tonight. I need to go get all my 365 Project photos uploaded here so you can see what we've been up to. Which I warn you isn't much as it's been so cold that I can't even describe it to you! 7 degrees and a Below zero wind chill = TOO COLD!

Project 365 - Days 7-10

7:365

My new winter coat. I was getting tired of having everyone who I spoke to in St. Louis shame me about not having a winter coat. So, I went and found a nice coat that will keep me warm and that I can respectably wear to work. YAY me!



8:365

And I got me some snow boots to go with my recent new winter coat purchase. Less than 30 bucks, they don't look like snow boots but they are waterproof & keep my feet warm. WOO HOO!


9:365

Our Alex is not much of an eater. If it's not a blueberry breakfast bar or a corn dog/hot dog, it's tough to get him to eat it. Occasionally, he has a good night and eats like a fiend. This one one such night & of course we had Hamburger Helper rather than something healthy! uggg. You can't win!


10:365

One of the many book shelves in our house. I'm a HUGE reader and always make sure our kiddos have PLENTY of books waiting for them when they want to read. NOTE TO SELF: Go through and organize the messy bookshelves!