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A couple things to share today....First is my November layout for my Heidi Swapp class...
The concept behind this page was to create a page using a bunch of different envelopes in different colors and sizes....I absolutely LOVE it. I love the contrast of the bright envelopes against the dark brown background. Yay. Then, I'll be writing a letter to each person in my family to be read 5 years from now....such a cool idea...it's scary to think that in 5 years Payton will be 8, Gabby will be 6, Graham and I will have been married for almost 12 years....aaahhhh!!! That's freakin' me out a bit!!And the next thing I wanted to share was this photo box that I decorated for my mom as a last-minute Christmas gift. I made it last night...I think it only took me an hour from start to finish.
When we were all at my mom's the other day, my niece and I were looking through all of my mom's photos and we noticed that she doesn't really have a specific place for all the pictures she has of her grandkids, so I thought this was a perfect gift for her!! And the best part was, it only cost me 2 whole dollars. I got the box on sale at Michaels the other day and everything else I had on hand. I just glued the paper on with a gluestick...nothin' too fancy! This was another Heidi Swapp inspired project...hopefully mom won't look at my blog before Christmas morning!!AND....I'm just waiting for all the comments saying "HOW can you have time to be doing this kind of stuff on Christmas Eve???"....haha! In all honesty, I love Christmas Eve-day....this is literally the first day in FOREVER that we haven't had to be somewhere doing something, and it's been so nice for all of us to just be chillin' in our pajamas doing whatever we want. Gabby's had a nap, I've been doing laundry and Payton's been busy playing with all of her birthday presents. The calm before the storm, right???:)
Okay, so every single day I have intentions of blogging and then it just doesn't happen!! My husband was out of town for a few days (and he's leaving again tomorrow...*sniff, sniff*) so my hands are pretty full when I'm on my own. We have been very busy, though, as I'm sure you ALL are with Christmas coming so soon. AAahhh! I have tons of presents that still need to be wrapped that I stare at everyday and I just can't seem to bring myself to wrap them. It'll happen last minute, I'm sure. Anyways, since I don't have anything new to share scrapbooking-wise right now, I thought I'd share some of my sister, Niki's work!! She's totally gotten into the digital scrapbooking thing, and her pages are so awesome. There is definately something to be said for digital scrapbooking...once you get the hang of it, you can create a page in no time at all, you get to use your digital kits over and over again and, well....it's cool! So here are a few of her pages:
(can you guess which one is me in this picture?)
Isn't she awesome??? Love your stuff, Nik, hope you don't mind that I jacked your pages and put them on my blog. hehe! Check out Niki's gallery here AND she's on the design team for this site. You rock, babes!Here are a few things that we've been up to this past week:
*Payton did her Rudolph dance again on Saturday, and everything went well...she was dancin' up a storm on stage this time, and...mommy stayed with her till she went onstage, too.
*We all have colds. Ick. I'm getting over it, but it's definately drained me of any and all energy.
*We had Christmas with my 2 BFF's yesterday...it was so great. As always, the kids were crazy and everyone was spoiled. Just the way Christmas should be.
*Gabby has decided that it's fun to cry all night long and keep Mommy and Daddy from getting any kind of sleep.
*Payton has slept TWO nights in a row with panties and NO accidents!! (tonight will be night #3!)
*And last but not least, today was Payton's 3rd Birthday. Holy Cow. I have a 3 year old. I have been a parent for 3 years. She's growing up. We kept things simple today...the 4 of us went on rides, then out for lunch where Payton cried when the people sang "Happy Birthday" to her, baked a caked (with Pay's help, of course), opened presents, and I saved everyone from saying "cheese" for the camera...left it at home today. On purpose. (we're having a family party for her on Friday where I'll be sure to take lots of pictures!!)
December is a crazy month! I have things going on every single day till almost New Year's from here on out. If I'm not back before Christmas then I hope you all have a great one!!!
Tal:)
P.S. Thanks for all your comments on Payton's baby album...it's such a fun system!!
So....My house is a disaster, but I have two sleeping girls and a husband at work, so it's time to blog! It's been a while since I've shared anything scrap-related, so I thought I'd show you what I've been up to.First, is my very last layout for my "A Year to Remember" online class. I have absolutely looooved this class this year...I will be sad when it's done. Heidi Swapp is totally amazing and it has been awesome to be inspired by her every single week. For this layout we had to use a photo that kind of captures your family as it is right here, right now...I thought this photo did the trick.
Then we had to use some stuff that we have hanging around in different ways. This metal heart was what I used on my wedding invitations almost 7 years ago (aaahhhh!), and this lace is leftover from the little headband that Gabby wore on her blessing day. I love that.
Then, I've had this white tulle sitting around forever, so I layered it under a flower for fun. Yay! So that's my December calendar page.
Now, the next thing I want to share is something I am SUPER excited about and have been wanting to do for months now. I saw this tutorial on 2Peas by Lisa McGarvey forever ago and it's been on my mind ever since. Make sure you read it, it's awesome!!Basically, it's just another way for storing your layouts. I am one of those people that scraps in various sizes and have always struggled with *where* to put all my layouts. Having like, 5 different sized albums for one kid just seemed ridiculous, so this is the GREATEST solution! I got an American Crafts 12 x 12 binder-style album, and I've just put ALL of Payton's scrapbook pages from birth to age 2 in the SAME ALBUM, no matter what the size. I absolutely LOOOOOOVE how the pages look, layered on top of eachother, and you can see other layouts peeking thru and stuff....so awesome!! I chose to organize them chronologically....I like to see the growth and how my kids changed over time and stuff like that. Then, I added large pictures here and there...ones that I love and never got around to actually scrapbooking. I love love love the contrast of a busy page next to a large, beautiful photo. Did I mention how much I love this album???
Like I said, I've been wanting to do this for a long time now and since I put it together last week, I've been flipping thru it everyday. It's so nice to be enjoying all these pages that I've created that have just been stored *wherever* for the past year or so. My plan is to have an album like this for Gabby, one for our family, and start another one for Payton as this one is already full. I love that there are now no boundaries as to what size I scrapbook. I even think my 9x9 and 6x12 pages would look awesome in there, too. I have ALOT to do now, though....especially of Gabby! Most of my pages of her are 9x9, so I'd like to do some 12x12 ones of her again...it's been awhile since I've done anything that size. Whew!! For Gabby I think I might go thru all of her pictures on my computer and specifically pick pictures and stories that I want to tell, just to get myself organized and motivated. Lots of times I want to scrapbook but don't even know where to begin. I think if I have a plan, it'll speed up the process a bit!Okay, I know this is a loooong post. Let me know what you think of this album storage (Thanks, Lisa McGarvey!) and if you have any other fun ideas or suggestions that could work with this. And don't forget about The Goodie Box....we have 6 more days of fun this month!T:)
I've gotten two phone calls this passed week that have "surprised" me...
The first one was from the ladies at one of my LSS's, The Urban Scrapbook. They left me a message saying, "Congratulations!! We just got the new Simple Scrapbooks issue in!!" I had no idea what they were talking about so I called them back, and I guess Gray and I are on the front cover of the January/February '08 issue! Haha! When Rebecca Cooper took pictures of our family back in May, she asked if it would be okay to use photos is upcoming issues if there was ever a need and I said "sure" not really thinking much of it. So that's where the photo came from! I don't have an issue yet, and I haven't seen it on the Simple website quite yet, either, but they're floating around, and yup, that's us. So that was a fun surprise.
(and p.s.....how cute is my hubby?)The my second "surprise" phone call was from my friend Janna, just a few minutes ago...She asked me if I've ever seen the Glitz It Now website and when I said "no", she told me to go and take a look. Well, fun....the hand-written font that they've used on their home page and throughout their site is my font, CK Taliatype that I created for Creating Keepsakes last year! Too funny.
It's always fun to be surprised. Two things that are making me happy today!!Everyday I have good intentions of blogging, but just get distracted. I am *almost* done my Christmas shopping and very excited about that. Being around grumpy, crazy Christmas shoppers is so not fun!Have a fun weekend!T:)
So we had a very exciting weekend...Payton had her first-ever dance performance on Saturday and let me tell ya, it was, hmmm.....dramatic, to say the least! I guess I should tell the story...Payton's little dance class was dancing at an event called The Festival of Trees...they've been practicing their "Rudolph" routine since October, my mom made their costumes and Payton's been very excited. So on Friday night Payton and I were practicing together at home and I was very impressed, actually, with how much she knew of her routine! Anyways, Saturday morning came and we got her all dressed and ready (see cute picture above) and she was totally ready to go. We got to where they were dancing and the girls were so cute and Payton was just super excited and happy. They did a practice run-through of their dance before they would actually be doing it on the big stage and everything was fine...
So when it was time for the parents to leave I started getting a little nervous....come on, it's my baby's first time on stage and I'm just supposed to be like, "See ya!"??? Payton looked a little overwhelmed and I could tell she didn't know what was going on, but Graham told me not to be a "stage mom" and that she would be fine. (Okay, and I would just like to say...I don't think that making sure your 2 year old isn't freaking out before going on a huge stage all by herself for the very first time is being a stage mom! hehe.)Anyways, we went out into the audience and I just had this feeling that I should be backstage with Payton, but I tried to brush it off. Keep in mind she had Grandma and Grandpa and aunts and uncles all there to watch her....so when it was Payton's turn to dance all the little reindeer came on stage except, of course....Payton. I was like, "uh-oh"....So I quickly ran backstage to see what was going on and I found her just totally crying. I didn't know what had happened so I just picked her up and asked her if she wanted to do her dance and between her tears she said "y-y-yes!" The rest of the girls were already onstage with their teacher and their music had just barely started so what did I do? Yup, I took her out on the stage and just did the dance with her!! Oy. Once I got out there I realised I couldn't just walk off...so I just stayed there and did the dance! And Payton was AWESOME....totally did all her steps and was happy as could be. I was so proud of her. Good thing I've taught and danced a million times on stage before so this wasn't a big deal for me...and Gray said I just looked like one of the "helpers" that each class had with them anyways. AAAaaahh! So Payton's first dance and mommy was up there with her! Oh, good times.Okay, I know this story is getting totally long, but afterwards I found out what had happened and as the girls were heading on to the stage, I guess Payton fell somehow and smacked her head on the concrete floor, so of course she was crying! Oh, the drama. But she is totally fine and it all worked out in the end. So this video is of her when they were practicing...and no, there are no videos or pictures of when she was actually on stage because, uh, I was onstage WITH HER!!. (my family had a good laugh about that.)So that is the end of our dramatic story. Glad it's done and now we have a fun story to tell of Payton's first time on stage. Can't wait to see what will happen when Gabby dances for the first time!Tal:)P.S. There is some fun stuff happening at the Goodie Box for the next 12 days!!!
