2 Page Echo Park Layout and First Day of Scool

I just love this Echo Park line, Splash! LOVE the colors! I created this layout using a sketch from Nuts About Sketches. It was for a color challenge at Birds of a Feather.

A super simple layout.
In case you wanted to see each page closer.
The pictures are from our road trip last summer to see my brother in law and sister in law who lived in Core D'Alene Idaho. We were supposed to pull our trailer over there and camp nearby. But, we lost the transmission in our truck. :-( We debated cancelling the whole trip. I am so glad we didn't as we had a lot of fun. We took the kids to Silverwood Theme Park. What a neat neat place! I'd love to take them back some day! I wasn't sure what to expect, so bought a disposable camera. I was quite disappointed in how they came out.

I'm entering this into the TPV challenge this week, which was to use stickers. The big flourish/wave and the sun journaling spot are stickers. The title is alpha stickers too!

Monday was Peyton's first day of Kindergarten! He was VERY excited! If you look closely, you'll see Maddy had her back pack on too. She thought she got to go too!
This is what happened when I asked Peyton to smile and show how excited he was.
I was so proud of him. he walked right in, sat where the teacher told him to sat and that was that! :-) No tears, no 'Mommy don't leave me', nothing! Poor Maddy sat down next to him and refused to get up! I had to pack her out. :-(

Thanks for stopping by!

Teachers Gift

Because I am a slacker, I didn't get Peyton's teacher's gift made til after we had our conference. But, I did make it and will send it with him tomorrow, for his first day of school!

The Paper Variety's last challenge for the blogiversary party was to use your favorite embellishment. I LOVE tiny type alphas. I've been using them a lot lately! The tiny types were perfect for this tag as my printer is down and a lot of letters were needed.

I saw this quote somewhere out there in blogdom and it stuck with me. 'I hope your new year starts out smoothly'. Cheesy I know...but I thought it was cute!

So I made a tag to slip onto a bottle of lotion I picked up. Since the bottle was orange, I decided to make sure that color was in the tag. I have a few bits and pieces from Scenic Route left in my stash and have been itching to use them. I happened to have almost exactly the right sizes of papers to alter the bag! I just love it when things work out like that and I don't' have to throw away paper!
Just a quick and simple tag and card!

Thanks for stopping by!

More Cards for The Paper Variety Blogiversary!

The Paper Variety is having a big party for their one year blog anniversary! Every day is a new challenge. Today's challenge was to create a monochromatic project. I REALLY struggle with monochromatic challenges. But I love playing along with TPV so I decided to make an attempt with a card.

I started off by opening up my inspiration file and found a card I saw posted a long time ago on the Jillibean Soup blog.
I was also inspired by some of their embellies that I am to cheap to buy, but think I can make! ;-) So I glued some yarn in a circle pattern to a piece of paper, layered it on top of a piece of felt, on top of a couple scalloped netting circles and topped it off with a button.

TPV challenge yesterday was to create a project using your favorite photos. I have a couple favorite photos. I recently read that this Sunday is Grandparents Day! What? Yes...I need to mark this on next years calendar so I can better prepare for it. I decided to make some quick cards for the Grandparents.
I made 4, each one different.
But these two were some of my favorite photos. I used a sketch from Cardablities for these cards!

Now those who know me well, know I love to garage sale. I was able to go out all by myself today! And I LOVED every minute of it! :-) I was able to pick up two Christmas presents for Peyton! :-) A killer deal for a friend. And this frame for $3:
Pardon the clutter behind the photo. I am still in the process of cleaning the garage. I cleaned it up and spray painted it! I'm now waiting for Chris to get back so I can have two extra hands to put my poster in it! The poster had been rolled for at least 8 years, so its hard to handle. Check back soon to see me finished product!

A Couple Cards

Amy at Birds of a Feather challenged us to come up with a creative way to use up alphas. I saw this idea a LONG time ago and finally got around to try it!

I bought some plain pearl headed straight pins a while back. I love being able to alter them to fit whatever project I am working on. I simply glued on a orange and black bead to jazz them up a bit!

Can I just say, this is one of my favorite color combos? I just LOVE it!

The Paper Variety is celebrating their one year blog anniversary ALL week and weekend! They have challenges, prizes and give-aways so be sure to swing by and check it out. Their challenge yesterday was to stamp. I'm NOT a stamper. I really struggle with it. I do have a little stash of sentiments for cards. One of my cousins daughters birthday is this weekend and I thought I'd whip up a card real quick for her. I used a sketch from Cardabilities.
The colors seem kinda wonky in the photo, but in real life it looks much better!

Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow!

Whats this...I scrapped? Can it be true? haha! August was a whirl wind month and the last 3 weeks of it left me no time to scrap. So far I have been trying my hardest to catch up around the house and with different projects after being gone so much which has meant no scrapping time too! I was able to sneak in a few minutes last night and this morning!

Its kinda hard to think about snow when its in the 90's! But these photos happened to be towards the top of my stack of photos and worked perfect for the sketch challenge this month at Birds of a Feather. As I was working on it, I noticed The Paper Variety's challenge today (for the blogiversary event) was to use your favorite manufacturer! Yay...this layout works perfect for it too!

I distressed a lot of edges, including the pictures. I wanted to sew, but was too lazy, sew I drew on lines instead!
Side note: If your looking for a friendly message board check out Birds of a Feather. Everyone is SUPER sweet and its small enough you don't feel totally overwhelmed when you join! Amy has great challenges each month too! Also, you will want to check out The Paper Variety this week! it is their one year anniversary and they are having a PARTY! Lots of inspiration challenges and prizes! So head on over there and check it out!

Monday morning, during my regular Craigslist searching, I came across a play structure for a excellent price! I was SUPER excited and called on it right away. Chris was a trooper, and even though he needed to get his bow fixed he went with me to check out the play structure. Yes...his bow broke during hunting season...worse of yet, it broke his arrow and the arrow landed on a buck right underneath the tree stand he was in...talk about timing! It turned into a all-day event! But this mama is VERY happy as are the kiddos!
We got it home and got the swing arm off and with all my body weight put into, I could even budge the dang thing, so I knew I wouldn't be able to help Chris. So I marched over to the neighbors house and asked for help! :-) I love having great neighbors!
Ta-da! It is all set up. Although I had to order new swings as the ones they had were broken.

On Wednesday I had a conference with Peyton's Kindergarten teacher. I'm really excited and think it is going to be a great year. I had a bad mommy moment and accidentally shut one of his fingers in the door on the way there. :-( NOT a good way to start off the year.
So I just got this sad pathetic, I will not smile for the camera, shot of him. :-(
Then once inside the classroom, the teacher tried to talk to him and he all out broke down. Which caused Maddy to get upset, which caused me to feel even worse than I had. So I did not get a picture of Peyton with his teacher as I had planned.

Thanks so much for stopping by!

An afternoon by the lake layout

I lifted a layout found here for this layout! My super sweet friend Karen won this super cute October Afternoon line on Julie Bonner's blog. Knowing how much I love the outdoors and camping, she had Julie send it to me! I am attempting to do her justice with the layouts I create using it! ;-)

At Birds of A Feather (in July, or maybe it was August????), they challenged us to scraplift a layout from the gallery. I LOVE to scraplift!

We are so lucky in that this lake is only 5-10 minutes from our house! :-0 Yep, we don't spend hardly time there either. :-( This must change, right?

We have had a busy busy weekend as usual. Chris was in a golf tournament Wednesday through Friday. Then squeezed in some hunting. Saturday morning we took off to the first OSU football game! This would be my first game (or at least first game I remember) and Peyton's first game!
He really was not a fan of the 3+ hour drive to get there or the horrid line getting into the game. But he had some fun on a few jumpy houses they had outside the stadium.
Our seats were WAY UP in the corner! This was our view. I told Chris if I looked down I felt like I was going to get sick.
Peyton did good. But considering it the car told us it was 96 degrees when we got back to it, its no wonder he only made it to half time.
This morning Chris went out to the garden with the kids while I made lunch. Peyton was SUPER excited to pull some carrots and beans!
Maddy...she just wanted to do what Peyton did.
Once again, they went out WITHOUT me and DID NOT get pictures. So we went out again and dug up some potatoes!

I am a Craigslist junkie....I am a garage sale junkie....there I said it. I feel much better now! haha! I saw a posting on Craigslist and this gal was giving up scrapbooking! *gasp* I know! So I scheduled to meet her Saturday morning. My plans changed, so I didn't get over there til this morning. I'm a tad disappointed as she said a gal went over yesterday and got a TON of stuff. :-( But I was able to score some great finds!

I found a handful of cardstock, some random pieces to some of my favorite lines, some yummy Bo Bunny Double Dot cardstock.
I found a stack of DCWV cardstock (not my fave, but at the same time, so excited to get some more cardstock) some fall glitter cardstock (I'm thinking flowers for home decor items) and the Basic Grey Granola stack!
Basic Grey Eerie Set and doilies.
Special glue, fuzz/flock and glitter (not sure if I'll use them, but couldn't pass them up) as well as a couple punches for my mom!
A 6x6 BG paper stack, 2 Sizzix die cuts, Tim Holtz metal pieces (almost new packages) and grungeboard album, FAMILY chipboard album by Bo Bunny, Autumn Leaves papers and chipboard pieces, flowers, pop dots and more! Anyone heard of Pearl Ex pigments? Yeah...got some...not sure what to do with it. haha! I spent over an hour looking through this gals stuff and chit-chatting with her! She was SUPER sweet! My total for the day was only...are you ready for it....are you sure?...$20! I am one lucky duck!

Now off to put my goodies away and scrap! I hope you all are having a wonderful holiday weekend!

Maddy's 2nd Birthday

I finally got to scrap yesterday! It feels like it has been FOREVER! While on Pinterest, Karen had pinned a new sketch from Pretty Little Studio. I was SUPER excited about the sketch as it worked really well for The Paper Variety challenge this week too (to create a birthday project and include a banner). So I went to work! I had ordered these cute little banner pieces from Pretty Little Studio and they just so happened to work out perfect for this layout.

I didn't get many good pictures from Maddy's 2nd birthday. So I had to make do with what I had. I inked everything with charcoal colored inkpad.
I wanted the title to stand out a bit so put it on a layered journaling spot I made.
I twisted some bakers twine for the banner and made a couple 3-d stars to finish off the banner.

The Paper Variety is having their 1 year blogiversary next week! They have lots in store for us all, so make sure to check it out!