Merry Christmas!!!

Well, here it is Christmas and I have to admit that all the calendars are not done. NOPE...I was sooooo close, but didn't get them out (sorry!). I was missing a picture for "Home for the Holidays" and "You & Me." I'm always behind the camera, so I have so few pictures of me. I wanted to get Erica to take a pix of Jeff and I (and am still hoping to do so), but it hasn't happened yet. I promise the calendars will get done and sent out ASAP.

So here are the full pictures of the months that are done. I'm particularly excited that the "Celebration" month happens to be Erica's birth month...yeah! Again, all the credit goes to Basic Grey on this one. I'll try to put some notes on each month:

Erica's 7th Birthday "party" at Chuck E Cheese's

Our standard family picture on the Tilt-o-whirl...the only ride at the fair Jeff will go on. This year it felt like it went on FOREVER. We aren't quite sure what we did to upset the operator.

Erica ice fishing...she was eventually on her belly looking into the hole. I honestly thought she was "wishing" she could catch a fish.

Erica and Cole tubing on Grandpa's lake

A random picture of Erica...we truly are lucky to have her!!!

Erica, Grandpa Guru, and Grannie Annie at a Yankee's pre-season game in Florida. What a beautiful day!!!

Erica with the top of the world in the background (Denali...aka Mt McKinley). It's rarely seen all the way in Anchorage.

Erica's troop became Junior Rangers by visiting a the Kenai Fjords National Park and completing some great learning activities.

Another picture of Erica on Grandpa's lake...she LOVES to drive the boat!!!

Part of the Girl Scout Law is to make the world a better place. During a camping trip in April, the girls planted trees and flowers at the park for their service project.

Happy Winter Solstice...and calendar peeks

Today is officially the shortest day of the year. Tomorrow we finally get to GAIN some daylight...YEAH! For those on the east coast, today was a milestone that hadn't been seen in the past 370-some odd years. There was a lunar eclipse on the same day as the winter solstice. Officially it occurred yesterday in Alaska, but oh, well.

My scrappy friends (and parents/in-laws) know I make 8x8 scrapbook calendars as Christmas gifts every year. This year is no different...I think I'd be disowned if I didn't make them. In fact, one year I was late getting Jeff's done and his heart dropped on Christmas morning when his mom opened her calendar, but he didn't have one. It was soooo nice to hear him say he really enjoyed having it at the office. Yes, he got one that year, too.

Since it's not Christmas, I don't think I should post the full pictures. Instead, here are a few sneak peeks. Stay tuned for the complete pictures in a week or so (and since we'll be gone, I'm gonna have to "schedule" the post...let's see if I can do it right). Oh, and this is another great kit from Basic Grey!!! Pre-cut papers, stickers, rub-ons, and INSTRUCTIONS!!! All I had to do was add adhesive, pictures, and TIME. Whew, nothing like cutting it close, huh?

More Card kits...

My last post was a showing you a great card kit from Basic Grey (and they have them for all kinds of themes). I also made several cards from Fancy Pants Designs (they also have several themes). This one required a little more measuring for cutting papers, but they still went together very quickly...and with lots of left overs. I made extra cards from this kit, too. And I think I was also able to mix and match papers and embellishments from both kits, which was nice!

Now I need to finish getting them addressed (yes, I know I said I was doing that last weekend) and get them in the mail!!! Remember the busy schedule I mentioned? Ugh...is it ever going to let up?!?!?

Awesome Crafty Card Kit

I love to be crafty...scrapbooking, sewing, home decor, you name it. I have a stash of cards for various holidays (mostly birthdays). If I buy a card, I either forgot to pull one from my stash or I didn't have the right one (boy birthday cards are usually a make it that day thing). So it's no wonder I make cards every year...course, maybe that's why I went a few years without sending Christmas cards (but let's not talk about that).

This year has been crazy with Erica's Girl Scout schedule, soccer twice a week, Jeff shooting, and my new job. So I didn't get creative and make my own from scratch. Instead I found a few great kits and put them together with pre-coordinated supplies and instructions (woo hoo!!!). This is the first set I did from Basic Grey (ooooh, how I love Basic Grey!!!). There was alot of left over supplies. I made a few extra cards from the left overs...but of course I didn't take pix of those. Oh, well. The cards were so easy to complete, and now I have a bunch of new design "go-bys."

The Santa Claus House, North Pole Alaska

I have a log on the bottom of the blog that shows where people come from when they visit my blog. I see the standard friends and family most of the time. But recently I've seen a bunch of hits on my Magical experience in North Pole, Alaska. I thought I put a plug in for the Santa Claus House. If you have young kids and don't know about this place, take a look!!! You can get a letter from Santa delivered and it's actually post marked from the North Pole.

We visited the Santa Claus house 18 months ago and met Santa in the middle of summer. What an experience it was. If you ever make it to Alaska with young kids and have a chance to travel up to Fairbanks, I highly encourage it. It made a big impact on Erica!

And while we're talking about Christmas fun, do you know about the NORAD Santa Tracker site? This is our favorite activity on Christmas Eve. The site is up and counting down the days, minutes, and seconds. There's also a kids countdown link where kids can play games, too. GREAT site!!!

Just for fun, here's the layout I did after our visit to the Santa Claus House in June 2009. Merry Christmas!!!

A fun mini-album...

So here I sit again...WEEKS after my last blog post. I'm trying desperately to strike a balance between Erica's activities (girl scouts and soccer), 10-hour days at work, Jeff's shooting, and our new activities at the gym. Yes, we've joined a gym again. I'm down 4 pounds in a month and Jeff is down 6 pounds. The hardest part about trying to live a healthy life is cooking healthy. It was scary when I looked at the food we ate. So now I'm trying to learn about healthy eating...ugh, and healthy cooking takes a LONG time compared to easy unhealthy stuff.

But I digress. The only crafty stuff I've done since the last post is Christmas cards (Yeah!!! They're going out in the next day or two after I get them addressed) and the standard Christmas calendars for Jeff and the grandparents. So...since Jeff wrote the Christmas letter and published the blog address on it, I figured I should get some stuff posted. I don't have the cards or the calendars digitized yet, so here is are some mini album pages I did for a dear friend of mine a few months ago. She has two active boys. The papers I used are called Monstrosity. Ha! I don't know the boys that well, but what boy doesn't fit in the category of "monstrosity?!?"

These pages were really easy to make with just 5 sheets of double sided paper and some coordinating cardstock, stickers, and felties. All she has to do is add a 4x6 photo and she has an instant album!

Project 12 - October

This weekend has been a good time getting back in the swing of Scrappin. Hopefully I can get a page or two more done and post them over the next few days. I had to take a break on Sat to sew a robe. Erica volunteered me to make a robe for one of her friends for a birthday present...and the party is today. Oh, and I found out on Thanksgiving. Here was the conversation:

Me: What does your daughter want for her birthday

The Mom: {Pause} Well {pause}, I think the girls have already worked that out

Me: Really? And that would be....

The Mom: Erica said you would make her a robe

Me: She did, huh? Well, alright...I guess I'm making a robe...

So Friday I bought the pattern and fabric and Saturday I made the robe. I cut it out on Friday night, but had a friend over for scrappin' so I couldn't sew it. The nice thing is, I was able to start the October Project 12 layout on Friday and finish it Saturday night. Well, I actually started it back in September when I had friends over to scrap. But, I didn't have the pictures for October, so I couldn't finish it. And some time after I started it, I bought a Celebration Flourish Cricut cartridge that had this wonderful tree. So I changed the circle I originally had on it and then modified the picture layout so it didn't cover up the tree.

At first, October didn't seem very busy. But when I started looking thru the pictures, I remembered everything we did. The Girl Scouts are always busy. They're learning to love water and started a save project (more later). They also went to the zoo and met Chance, a fox that was given a second chance when he was rescued after being hit by a car. Jeff won tickets to the Great American Circus and we took Jenna. Erica had a blast, but I think she may have had more fun playing on the blow up jumping things with Jenna. Of course we also experienced all the seasonal fun of falling leave, the first snow fall (that didn't stick), and Halloween. Decorating the house and making the Halloween dinner was really fun! This year Erica went trick or treating by herself, but I decided to pull out an old costume and join her. What fun!

And below is the Becky Fleck sketch. The supplies are BoBunny's Mama Razzi papers and alpha stickers along with Bazzill cardstock and Maya Rd flourish chipboard.

Green Friends

Yeah...another week of Color done. Week three is green. I love the color green. It's so outdoorsy (not sure how to spell that since it's not really a word). For some reason, I tend to like the earth tones of green and brown in my scrapbooking, so this layout came together fairly easily. I originally planned to use Basic Grey papers, but since Maggie's clothes were teal, the blue tones in the My Minds Eye papers seemed to be a better fit. And it really worked out since I could also add green's complimentary color, red. The journaling blocks and embellishment tickets from the My Minds Eye line was perfect since Erica was wearing a red shirt in the pictures.By the way, the flowers Maggie and Erica planted bloomed all summer and were beautiful in the front of the house. I'm sure Erica will want to do it again next year...at least I hope so.

More color...orange

Wow, has it really been over three weeks since I last blogged??? I'm soooo sorry! So let's see how productive I can be this weekend (even though I have to work tomorrow after a hard morning of fighting crowds at the store).

So I'm taking some inspiration from the color class I'm taking with Nic Howard. Week two is on orange and yellow. I'm trying to take the feeling of the color and put it into my layouts. Orange is a happy color and adds excitement into layouts. Think, too, about what orange symbolizes: fire, danger, caution. I couldn't help but think about Erica. She has two speeds: off and on. And when it's on, it's on full blast. So that got my mind going into explosions and Powder Keg. Powder Keg is a FAST roller coaster at Silver Dollar City. She LOVES that roller coaster and can't seem to get enough of it. She even HAD to have the t-shirt (and is wearing it in the pictures on the layout). If I remember correctly, this coaster goes from 0-53 in 2.8 seconds (I looked it up). That's not a coaster record, but it's impressive when you're on it, let me tell you. The last part of the journaling says that Erica can't wait until she's tall enough to ride Wild Fire at Silver Dollar City. That one goes upside down. Yes, she's definitely a WILD CHILD.

Working with color...RED

I told you I was signing up for the Big Picture Class: Color. I did...and it started last week. First we made a pre-class set of tags for the colors of the rainbow...I haven't finished mine since I JUST got the tags this weekend. I'll try to work on them this week.

Each week will focus on a different color. This week is red. I was able to get the first two projects done. Each week we make a 6x6 layout using the color of the week. One page is with our picture, and the other page has words describing the color and tips on how to use it. Then Nic shares a technique she uses on the featured layout and includes instructions on how to make the layout with the color of the week. I really liked the layout for this week and got it done already (YEAH, me!!!).

The layout uses last year's Fancy Pants Christmas papers and stickers, Bazzill flowers that have been inked and embossed, as well as a few die cuts from my Cricut (Serenade and Winter Wonderland cartridges).

Happy Halloween 2010

What a great day...I just love holidays. The decorating, the food, the fun...it just makes me feel so good. This year I really had a blast with Halloween. I got a book that had ideas on decorating the house as well as party and food ideas.

Halloween Eve I decorated the front windows like a spider web using blanket binding, ribbon, and yarn. I made the spiders out of big foam balls and pipe cleaners. And can you believe I actually convinced Jeff to help hang this outside? Yes, he's a gooooood man!

For dinner I made mummy dogs and spiderweb soup. You wrap dough around hot dogs and put capers for eyes, then bake them until golden brown. For the web, mix sour cream and milk and pour circles over the soup. Then use a tooth pick to pull the circles to look like webs. And it's all yummy!!!

Of course, Grandma made Erica's costume again. This year Erica wanted to be a fairy princess. And because it's always soooo cold at Halloween, it had to go over her snow gear. It was perfect. I decided to get into the dress up fun, too. I had an old Cleopatra outfit from YEARS ago. It wouldn't fit over my coat, though.

Can't wait to work on the October Project 12 layout to put these pictures on it. I wonder if I can find a Thanksgiving book and go nuts in November, too...hmmmmmmm.

What a "pear"

It took Jeff a while to figure out why I spelled pair as "pear." When you see the layout, I'm sure you'll get it. Creativity must be lost on him...

So Erica and Jenna have been joined at the hip for a while. They played together all summer when school was out, and all weekend once school started again. Last week Jeff won four tickets to The Great American Circus from the radio. Erica wanted Jenna to go. They had a blast. One of Jenna's mom's friends said they had face painting. Rather than spend $12 there to have it done, Jenna's mom painted their faces before we went (yeah!). I'm surprised it lasted all night. The girls played non stop on the bouncy toys (a slide, an obstacle course, and a fun house) before the circus started and again at intermission. I got a few pictures of the circus acts, but I'm not sure if they came out well enough for a layout...we'll see...

This is more Basic Grey, but it's from their Pyrus Page Kit. I guess I should journal in that tan block...oh, well...

More Fall Fun

So a few days ago I posted about Jenna and Erica having a blast raking leaves. I should have posted this layout after that one, sorry. Here are Erica, Jenna, Ally, and Roxy having fun with the leaf pile after it was raked. Gee, it's a little hard to see the green grass under all the scattered leaves. I guess they'll just have to rake them up again...
Yes, these are more Basic Grey Indian Summer papers and embellishments. And another sketch from Becky Fleck's Pagemaps

A different kind of FALL

Ha...one of the chipboard titles in the Basic Grey package said "FALL." Well, I didn't get too many Fall pictures this year, but I did have some pictures of Erica "falling." This summer Grandma and Grandpa got her roller blades for her birthday. She was just getting used to them the day I took these pictures...and got a little too confident and fell. I just love the last picture, though...she thinks she's soooo cool!!!

These are more papers, chipboard stickers, glazed brads, alphas, and pop up stickers from Basic Grey's Indian Summer line. And the sketch is from the archives of Becky Fleck's Page Maps

Are you read for some color?

Ha...this isn't a post about the new Big Picture Class I'm going to take (that starts this week). But I did have some fun with autumn pictures...I just love the beautiful colors! These papers really caught my eye from Basic Grey (Indian Summer). We don't get the beautiful purples up here in Alaska, but the colors are still fun and so were the pictures. Enjoy...

It cracks me up how Erica and Jenna enjoy raking leaves...maybe it's because they have soooo much fun with them once they're piled up (another layout coming soon!). The leaves have been coming down in stages and just before Jeff mows them, they pull out the rakes and make big piles. I just love the little chipboard on the layout that says "Hi Ho, Hi Ho...it's off to rake we go." It's so perfect for the girls because it really never seems like work for them...at least not at this age.

Still on spring break pictures...

While I had those last two pictures out to work on the cute kit, I decided to work on other Spring Break pictures. I've already scrapped a layout with the side picture of Erica, but I decided it was perfect in this layout, too. The layout is lifted from an old issue of Scrapbook Trends...I had the die cut from a kit I bought (it's an old kit, so I'm using my stash) and the layout I found cut it and split it around a big strip.

The day we watched the Yankees play the Tigers was absolutely perfect...perfectly HOT! We didn't stay the whole time cuz Erica started getting bored, but she was good for more than half the game. She even asked Grandpa Guru questions about the game of baseball. He's called Grandpa Guru because he's a guru when it comes to baseball. In fact, he was in Florida for a tournament with his college baseball team.

All she wanted to do...

I'm pretty sure I posted about this after our spring break trip to Florida. We went to Orlando and met Grannie Annie. While we were there we went to the Magic Kingdom (of course), to a Yankee's game with Grandpa Guru, to Tampa Bay to visit my friend who set Jeff and I up on a blind date, and to Kennedy Space Center. Erica was most excited to go to the Space Center. She is fascinated with science and wanted to meet an astronaut and touch the moon. So of course I spent the extra money to have lunch with an astronaut and to go on the tour that would allow us to touch a moon rock.

This layout was also made with that cute kit I bought online. See...isn't it perfect?!? The astronaut is Sam Gamar, who was on three shuttle launches. One of the most interesting things I learned at the lunch was that one in 15 astronauts lose their lives in the line of duty. WOW!

No Fear?

OK, so the Use Your Stash class is over. I'm not sure if I really embraced the whole concept or not. You decide...

I found the cutest papers by We R Memory Keepers at Scrapbook Steals (awesome site, by the way!). As soon as I saw them I thought they'd be perfect for the Kennedy Space Center pictures I got over Spring Break. In the kit was also some stickers, stamps, and brads. Didn't I decide during the class that I have too many kits laying around? I cancelled a kit club this summer because of it. HRUMPH! I completed one layout from the space center and will probably do one more. I also did another layout with a picture from a Disney ride. Three layouts...is that sufficient? Part of me says yes, but part of me isn't convinced. I *might* be able to do more, but I think the papers will be laying around for a while if I do. I think I should share them with friends who have boys...

OK, so here's the Disney layout. Erica says she LOVES roller coasters. When we went to Disney World over spring break she wanted to go on ALL of them...Space Mountain included. Take a look at the picture and tell me if she really loved this ride. She says she did and she wanted to go again, but when it came down to getting in line, she decided not to. At least this ride didn't scare her when it came to other roller coasters. I'll work on a Powder Keg layout...if she could have ridden that one over and over and over in a single day, she would've.

Project 12 - Septemper...and more stash!

Are you keeping up with Project 12? I just love the project and think I'm going to keep up with it every year! Looking back at September, I don't really have many pictures...but why did I feel like I had little to no time for myself? And why do I feel so tired? Is it my new job that doesn't have every other Friday off to stay home and clean and scrap? It is that Erica studies spelling words almost every night (and has gotten mostly 100s on the tests...yeah, Erica!)? Soccer is only once a week and Jeff hasn't really been shooting much this month. Is it Girl Scouts? They only meet twice a month...but the Brownies sure have lots of activities compared to the Daisies. We may have to pick and choose NOT to go to some activities...but they're sooooo much fun! Mix in Erica's birthday and a GREAT hike up Mt Baldy and I guess I see where the time went. Whew, it didn't seem like we did much this month, but looking at all that, I guess all the little things add up.

So here's the layout with only a few pix. The STASH I used is more of the Fancy Pants It's Your Day kit (and I still have lots left). And the Becky Fleck sketch at the end.

Digital Lift...and more stash work

I had a few friends over last weekend to scrap and actually got a little scrappin' done myself...that rarely happens when I host crops. This layout came together in no time at all. It's a digital template from Jessica Sprague. And when paired with a kit from My Scrapbook Nook (My Minds Eye papers and embellies), the longest part was journaling. And I'm going to take credit for the Use Your Stash class work since this is an old kit...I'm doing good keeping with the kits to get rid of them!!!

These are a few pictures from a field trip Jeff and I went on with Erica's 1st/2nd grade class. The kids went ice fishing, but only one student caught a fish. I love the progression of these pictures with Erica, from excitement with Daddy, to getting tired and sitting down, to finally looking into the hole and wondering if there really are any fish in the lake at all.

More Mt Baldy

I told you I was inspired by our hike up Mt Baldy...and the Fancy Pants It's Your Day kit was perfect, too. I didn't quite have the perfect blue background, but I think this was close enough (and don't tell me if you don't agree...hee, hee). The Celebrate glitter cut was absolutely perfect! And this is a May Flaum layout from the class...easy and perfect for my pictures. Gotta love it when a plan comes together.I have to laugh...Jeff's mom emailed me after I posted the pictures from the hike and asked if Jeff's Husker shirt was the standard uniform for hiking up the mountain. I didn't notice before, but indeed, he wore that on another trip where I took pix. But then he tends to wear that shirt alot. I used to rotate his shirts by putting clean ones on the bottom of the stack, but some time over the past few years I stopped doing that.

I'm on a roll...

I have had a blast with both the Use Your Stash Class and the It's Your Day kit from Fancy Pants Designs. As I posted last time, we haven't had a party for Erica yet, but this kit is so versatile that I've made several non-party layouts.

This is another soccer layout. Can you believe I actually convinced Jeff to BUY pictures of her at soccer? I guess I don't always know what he'll say...This is a layout from the pre-work for the Use Your Stash class. As soon as I saw the wavy strip on the Fancy Pants paper with the star, I knew I was gonna use it for this layout.Stay tuned for more layouts (yeah!).

Color or Colour?

Ugh...I'm sucked in and I don't know why? I'm still trying to finish the Use Your Stash class at Big Picture Scrapbooking (oops, they changed their name to Big Picture Classes) and now I'm feeling the pull to take a class by Nic Howard called Colour! Or is it Color? I just scanned thru her blog and have tagged a few layouts for inspiration. I guess I'm just wanting to learn and learn and learn. I'm not sure why...I can lift just about anything and tweak it for my stash. I know I don't have time to try out for a design team (although I'd LOVE to eventually). I guess I just want to keep building my capabilities so one day I can try...or maybe I just need to do a little more for me as I'm feeling overwhelmed with my new job, all the Girl Scout events, and no relief on the horizon. It really seems odd to say that cuz I have scrapped more pages in the past few weeks than I have in a long time (you'll see them soon). I'm in a state of confusion and am not sure I understand what's going on in my head.

OK, I'm rambling...but I know one thing...I'm intrigued by the color class and I've registered for it. Stay tuned.

With much scrappiness...

Another Stash Layout

Well, I said I was going to use kits for my Use Your Stash class. I was hoping to use some old kits, but I had to get busy with completing the monthly layouts for my kit club, so I made some layouts with a fairly new kit from Fancy Pants Designs -- It's Your Day. I realized I hadn't ever done a birthday kit, so I thought Erica's birthday month was a great time to do that. Too bad we haven't had a party for her yet...worst parents ever, I know. She's decided she wants to have a few friends over for a slumber party. Now I just need to find a free weekend so I don't pull my hair out...ugh!

Anyway, we did manage to have a small family celebration for her birthday. We went to Chuck E Cheese's for dinner and then to Dairy Queen for dessert. She was such a hoot at Chuck E Cheese's, everyone she talked to knew it was her birthday...and check out the crown. She's so sweet that when she asked for a crown, the cashier couldn't resist and gave her one...I think they were supposed to be reserved for kids actually PAYING to have their parties at Chuck E Cheese's. Oh, well.

This layout isn't a layout from the Use Your Stash class. I actually saw it as an idea sheet at JoAnn's and thought it would be perfect for scraps. It was quick and fun!

Whew...what a day!!!

We had a wonderful weekend in Anchorage...couldn't ask for better weather in the middle of September. So we decided to take a hike up Mt Baldy (along with half of Anchorage...there was easily over 100 people on the mountain with us). Not only was the weather great, the view was, too...and Denali was out!!! For anyone out of Alaska, you need to know that this is amazing by itself. Denali is only visible from Anchorage about five times a year. It was a little hazy, but it was still awesome.

The whole trip took us just over two hours. What a great family activity. I hope next weekend is just as nice so we can get one more hike in before the snow flies. Enjoy a few pictures I took..and you'll see them scrapped soon! The hike up to the top...whew, hard work, but definitely worth it. This was one of a few times I was actually ahead of Jeff and Erica and could get a picture of them from the front.And a picture of Erica at the top...if you look closely, you can see Denali (Mt McKinley) on the far right in the distance.This is Erica and I with an overlook of the Anchorage bowl. Jeff took this so there would be proof that I actually made it to the top...

And one last picture of Denali. This overlooks the Cook Inlet with Wasilla in the background. What a day!!!