Make your own photo slideshow

LOAD October 2010

My friend Mimi talked me into do LOAD again...I have already failed and haven't uploaded every day, however I have totally decided to set my own challenge. I am still doing, and loading 31 layouts this month, even though it won't be one a day. Here is a sampeling of just a few of the layouts that I have done this far for LOAD.





Sorry that the photos aren't better...poor lighting on my part.




I am at the Point of Grace crop today, vending Tastefully Simple, however; I am going to plan on closing up shop here in an hour or so and then getting my crop on. Looking forward to it.

GO HAWKS!

Scrapbooking+State Fair=Big Bucks

I told my husband that he can no longer complain that my scrapbooking doesn't "payout"! I explained to him that I got a check from the Iowa State Fair for my ribbons, his face lit up excited to hear what this was all about. I then told him that my $8.00 check would be going to more supplies and he better not disagree! He just started to laugh and said that would be fine! I am not making fun, it is very nice that the ribbons get payout, I just didn't know they did so it made me chuckle when I saw this.

However, Memory Bound in Ankeny did generously donate gift certificates to the winners as well...so I do feel like my scrap booking paid out a bit! Despite what my husband says or thinks! :)

I am including to this post a few of my favorite pics from this years trip to the Iowa State Fair. It was fun but boy it was HOT!

An Explanation for State Fair Goers

I had mentioned in yesterdays post that I hadn't placed at the fair over the past few years so I almost gave up. It seemed like every year I was trying new things to impress the judges and do what they "seemed" to like the year before. Well, when I went to pick the pages up from the fair office, and the nice lady told me congrats as she handed me my $8.00 check (funny I know) and said, "You know it is really hard to get ribbons in the scrap booking category at the fair." She then went onto explain that they have different judges every year, so for those of us who have been trying year after year to "please" the judges this could be why we are not getting it right! Those weren't her exact words, but you get my point. I know that I have talked to a lot of you about what do you think that they want from your pages and what to enter. So my advice to all of you is to just be real, do what you like, and maybe next year you will get lucky like I did and appeal to the judges!

Catch Up Post

Serioulsy? My last post was June 2010 - that is not good! I guess that means that I have had one busy summer - time to catch up.

Well I got Owen's Room almost finished - close enough. I will post photos I promise.

I was really getting on to blog about an exciting scrapbook adventure that I just took. Well anyone that grew up in Iowa knows that the first part of August is FAIR time in Des Moines! So even thought I was a little reluctant to enter anything into this years scrapbooking competition (mainly due to my not placing in the last couple of years) I did go ahead and entered three pages and as luck would have it I got two ribbons! I got a red (second place) and a white (third place). I am so pumped and a lesson learned that one should never give up.

They may be pages that I have posted before so I aplogiz for any duplication, but I really wanted to share with you my pages.

I received a white ribbon this page...it is one of my favorites.



Here is my second place pages.

Owen's Room

Owen is gone this week at grandma and grandpa's so I thought it would be a good time to get Owen's room painted. No longer are the dragonflies working for an almost three year old boy!! We got Owen a full size bed a couple of months ago and his room has been in shambles since. So I am taking this opportunity (Owenless) and going to get his room in order. I taped the wood work tonight and will purchase the paint tomorrow. I am going to paint it green - the green that is the color in his new quilt. I couldn't decide which theme to go with for his room so we decided to go with a quilt that didn't have anything on it, just blocks of color so we can switch things out if Owen wants. Not sure what we are going to do for sure but rocket ships it is!

I will post photos when the room is finished.

Passion Fundraiser Scrapbooking Crop

LOAD - Take 2

Well...some how my friend Mimi talked me into doing LOAD again this month!! :) I have to admit I am not quite as motivated this time around, however I have a feeling once I get going and more organized I will be in the spirit again. I have been so busy with work and trying to sell our house that scrapbooking has taken a back seat for the last couple of months. It will be nice to be able to have some motivation to create. My goals for this LOAD isn't necessarily to scrap each day and get something uploaded (if that happens I will be very happy tho!), but it is to finish up Owen's first book and then continue to work on layouts for our wedding album.

Here are my first two layouts for the month of May's LOAD.



Yes, I am still working on our wedding album. I am so ready to finish this up. I am very happy how this layout turned out. Very simple but elegant which is what I was going for. The paper line is Rusty Pickle - one of my favorite lines.

This is the first page in Owen's first book. I love the transparency - the statement says it all and is just perfect for the first page which I sometimes have trouble with.

7009 Horton Avenue Urbandale, IA 50322 | HomeFinder.com | ID: DMREGISTER-1131

7009 Horton Avenue Urbandale, IA 50322 | HomeFinder.com | ID: DMREGISTER-1131

Samuel Ronnie

I would like to introduce my new nephew Samuel Ronnie. He was born on St. Patrick's day and he is the sweetest little baby. He is so precious and I just love holding him. We are heading over to their house tonight to spend some time with the little guy. I cannot wait.

Also, my sister Lindsey is staying with us this week as she has a practicum here in Des Moines. We are excited to have her here with us. Owen is especially happy because his aunt Lou is here with him and will do fun things with him.

Challenge Accomplished!

I haven't posted for a while so I thought I would try and play a little catch up. Well...I finished LOAD! YEAH! I did all 28 days and I feel so accomplished and I love the fact that I set out to do 28 days/layouts and accomplished it! Here are just a few of my favorites from the challenge. On the top is a page kit that I did in a Creating Keepsakes class at CKC. I decided to use our family photos from the summer and I am so happy how this turned out.

Owen learning to walk with his push mower.

This is one of my favorite lines - Basic Grey's Offbeat. How fast is my little boy growing?!?!

This is another page kit from CKC. Lovin' the film strip.

And another page kit from CKC.

This is a kit from a Quick Quotes class - this isn't usually how I scrapbook put I thought this page had some fun elements!

There is another LOAD challenge in May 2010 and Mimi and I are doing it again. Once the registration opens to the public I will post the information. I would love to have more of my scrappy friends join in on the fun.

Digi Scrapbooking

I have been bitten by the digi bug! I am really enjoying doing some digital layouts. It is something fun and different. However, I must say that I still enjoy traditional scrapbooking more. I love the textures and layers/height you get with "real" elements. LOAD is going good for me, I am trying new things and experimenting with things that I have been wanting to do just never made the time to do. However, with this LOAD community that I am in right now has saved me time and given me resources for some of these new things I have been wanting to try. But, I must say that I want to get back to the task at hand, and the main reason I signed up for LOAD. To finish up some of the older items I have been working on so I can move on to my newer items. I want to get some of that stash used up!

The All I want for Christmas LO I used a template from ScrapinBarb(a lady that is doing the LOAD challenge with me) and I also found this amazing site called Shabby Princess - where I downloaded most of my page elements from.It is a fun site where you can download some free kits to use. She is a wonderful designer and I can see myself visiting her site many times for digi items. The second photo is the full two page layout.

The Happy New Year LO I found some fun free elements/items off of the Two Peas in a Bucket website. The design is mine (didn't use a template) but the "paper" and "embellishments" are from Brandy Buffington's Holiday Party collection. The Happy New Year overlay is from Rhonna Farrer's New Year Kit. I am really having way to much fun with this digi stuff. These photos are some I took New Years Eve - Owen was in a goofy mood that night. I am really pleased with how this layout turned out. I hope you like it too.

LOAD - Day 7

Got another kit used up from CKC! I love that I am getting so much done and used up. I thought that this layout turned out really cute!

Still organizing my scrapbook room and I finally feel like I am getting some where with it. I think one more good night in it I should be finished. Will post the final photos once I get them taken.

LOAD - Day 4 and 5

A little behind on the posting here - sorry about that. Here are my layouts for day's four and five of LOAD. The first one is from a kit, Heartstrings Designs - as mentioned in earlier postings I am trying to get caught up on Charlie and my book. This page is some of our professional engagement photos. Simple layout but great colors and something a little different.

The next layout is from CKC this year, I took a class called "The Latest and Greatest with Basic Grey" taught by Shelby from Embellish It. I switched up things a bit to fit my photos but overall the design is from the class kit. The paper is Create Paper - the 2009 holiday collection which I just love. These photos are so much fun too. We were taking a photo for Nana for the holidays. The kids have matching outfits, and my favorite part is Owen's hat. This was a fun day and I am really happy how the layout turned out.

I am really enjoying the LOAD challenge and so far so good with keeping up. Hopefully the rest of the month will prove to be as positive as it is now.

LOAD - Day 6

Today's prompt was to try digital scrapbookng with a template that one of the LOAD gals (Barb) designed. I have been hesitant to do any digital scrapbooking, since I feel that is what I kind of do on a day to day basis at work. More time on the computer just didn't appeal to me. However, I thought I had would see what this is all about, since more and more people are talking about it. So, I downloaded the file and started the layout. I also did some online research to see what other digi scrapbookers are doing and I was surprised with what I found out. Several people are using both digital and traditional scrapbooking together to create their pages! What is funny about this, I am already doing that!! Who knew!?!?

For this layout I did all digital as it was working well to do it this way. However I am excited to try more of this and experiment with some other fun digital scrapbooking items. I want to keep combining the two, the possibilities seem endless. And what I really found out, it isn't anything like work. :)

LOAD - Day 3

Forgot to post this yesterday. This is another layout for Charlie and my book. This was the night of our engagement. Charlie proposed with a fortune cookie message - hence the Chinese food stickers. I got the first page from a kit at CKC a few years back and then designed the second page with elements from the first page. Kind of fun, simple but overall just glad that I am finally finished with it!

I am really enjoying LOAD - it is making me work on projects that I had long forgotten about or just haven't made the time to work on. It is working well with my New Year's Resolution of finishing up some older books.

And it goes on an on...

So Tuesday night I got a chance to get back into my scrapbook room and do some more "organizing" and "cleaning". OMG! I am not sure what I have done. I will let the pictures tell the story for me.







And of course I had my helper again. That could be part of the problem!



I do have to say that I do have 4 boxes full of garage sale items, so I am getting rid of things which is the goal. I am hoping that by Monday I will be able to post photos of a clean and organized scrapbook room.

LOAD - Day 2

This is my layout for day two of the LOAD challenge. I have a book that is just a recap of every year that Charlie and I have been together. This layout recaps the year 2003. The layouts in this book are pretty simple as I always have so many photos to get on the page. But Charlie and I enjoy looking at this book from time to time so I thought I had better work on getting it finished. I am planning on doing a few other layouts for this book during the LOAD challenge.

LOAD - Day One

Last night my friend Mimi (That Scrappy Girl) and I went to Archiver's to kick off LOAD - Feb. 2010. We both had really bad days so it was a well spent evening.
This is the first layout that I have created for the challenge. I started with this layout because our daily prompt was to scrap a page of "firsts" and this was my friend Jess' first baby. I remember the day I went over to meet Lucy, Jess was so happy, never had I seen her beaming as much as I did that day. The smaller of the two photos remind me of that day. It is a fairly simple layout, and I wanted to keep it that way, as I wanted the primary focus to be on the beauty of the baby in the photo.

Now, onto day two!!! Our challenge today it to find a product or item that we haven't used in a long time. I don't think this should be a problem as I am still in the process of cleaning out my room and I have been finding some interesting items!

Friendship

I am so blessed and so honored to have the friends that I do.

Happy Birthday Becky! A day late and a dollar short, but I still hope you had a great day. Love ya!

Manic Monday

It is February 1st - I cannot believe it. January flew by and so did my weekend. Friday night I spent the night scrappin with my girls at Mimi's house. We had a great night and laughed a lot which I needed, however I didn't get much done as far as scrapbooking goes. I did figure out though that I need to plan the rest of my wedding book out so I can get it scrapbooked.

Saturday, I spent some the day with Owen and Cole as Marty (my brother-in-law) and Charlie worked on little projects around the house. I think I mentioned this before but we are preparing to put our house on the market so cleaning and repairing is the name of the game right now. Fun fun!

Sunday I cleaned some more and then Charlie and I went to a few open houses. We wanted to get a sense of what is out there and what we can get for our money. I am excited and overwhelmed all at the same time.

Well...today is the first day of LOAD and I am kind of ready. Mimi and I are going to head on over to Archivers to work on our first layout for LOAD tonight after work, so I know that I will get through day one it is after that in which I am starting to get a little stressed about!

Organization

I spent the weekend being sick (yuck!) and organizing my scrapbook items/pages in preparation for LOAD. I started on Saturday to get my photos in order, pick out the paper and embellishments, etc. This is when I got a great idea and decided that I wanted to organize my scrapbook room. I didn't officially start organizing until Sunday though. My friend Mimi (That Scrappy Girl), just organized her room and so I thought "What a great idea!" Also, I need to get organized for several reasons One, you can ask most of my friends and they will tell you that I am a pretty organized person, flaky but organized! It seems to me that over the past year my scrapbook room has gotten out of control which I just cannot stand. Things are just every where and I have too much junk. Two, we are preparing to put our house on the market and I have got to get the room cleaned up before that or my husband might loose it one me! Three, my scrapbook room is also my craft room and I have way too many things that are "almost" finished and really have no intention of ever finishing. LIke the blanket I wanted to crochet for my son, or the beads I wanted to start my own jewerly business with. Even though I love to learn new things I am going to stick to scrapbooking for now, which means I need to declutter some of my craft supplies. After this considreation (really didn't take me that long to decide!) I started in on it.

Here are some before photos of my scrapbook room:










So I started this on Saturday (the planning), and by Sunday late afternoon I had officially made a mess. These are some images from day 1 of organizing my scrapbook room.



I at least got the corner cleaned out, and 3 tubs of things packed up and ready to be taken to the storage unit!



And as you can see the table itself doesn't look much different. Looks like I have my work cut out for me!


I also had my favorite little man helping me out.He had several opinions for me during this process! I treated him with some green M&M's.



Well...I may not be any closer to getting my things ready for LOAD, but I have managed to create a mess in my scrapbook room.

28 day challenge - CHALLENGING!

After some consideration I have decided to take the 28 day LOAD challenge. My friend Mimi (That Scrappy Girl) sent me this link to the LOAD Challenge http://knitandpurlgrrl.blogs.com/five_things/2009/12/its-that-time-of-year.html a week or so ago. We have been back and forth and back and forth on if we should do it or not. So this morning we both decided that we were going to do it. (Come on Vicki and Trish, you should join the fun too!)Mimi and I just got signed up so we are good to go.

This weekend I am going to spend some time getting organized for the challenge. It seems the process that personally takes me the longest is getting the photos and supplies ready to scrap. Once I get that part done the actual scrapbooking doesn't seem to take that long - well...on a good day that is!

If you decided to join this challenge too please let me know. Would love to work together on this. I know it is going to be hard but in the end I think I will be really happy that I did it. If anything it will help me get closer to obtaining some of my New Years Resolutions in which I still need to finish writing.

IT IS GAME TIME! or in our case IT IS SCRAP TIME!

Ferberizing...or something like that

Last night was our first night of Ferberizing. Owen did pretty well for the most part. I on the other hand am cranky and have a sore neck. I knew that this was going to be harder on me than him! :)

Posh Designs Scrapbook Store

I just found this amazing blog that I just found called Posh Designs Scrapbook Store. They are giving away some awesome blog candy that you will want to for sure check out. Visit the site here.

I just got done packing up for my crop tomorrow I am heading to. That Scrappy Girl is having another 12 crop at the Craft Cottage in Van Meter. I am going to spend most of the day there, cropping with my girls. I cannot wait. I hope to get a lot done. Will hopefully share with you some of the cool projects that I create.

Have a wonderful weekend.

Friday Night

It has been one crazy week here. I have been sick, the weather has been not so nice here in Iowa, and my computer for work has been acting up so...needless to say I am happy it is Friday.

As soon as I got home I jumped into finishing the laundry and my husband had started dishes!! He is now running some errands and I am going to do a little scrapbooking. I am working on finishing up my 2006 scrapbooks. One of my New Years Resolutions is to finish a few of the books that I have started. It seems like I always want to jump onto the newest, latest happening. Going to try and do something differnt this year. I would like to be able to show my family a completed ablum!

Looking forward to a restful and productive weekend.

Sicko

I have a cold and I am not happy about it. Owen was sick last week and Charlie and I started to feel ill last week, came down with a cough and sore throat over the weekend and it has just gotten worse and worse as time as gone on. I was at work on Monday and Tuesday, but then Tuesday afternoon I started getting this awful pain in my left ear...I had never felt pain like this before. I wanted to cry it hurt so bad. I could consentrate any longer at work so I thought to myself that it is time to go to the walk-in clinic. So I headed over to the doctor's office, sat there for about 45 minutes and then saw the doctor which too about 3 minutes for him to tell me I had a sinus infection and an ear infection - hence the terrible ear pain. Now in all of my 33 years I cannot recall ever having an ear infection so this was a shock to me. I now understood what my little 2 year old was going through. OUCH! No wonder he cried like he did I wanted to cry too. I got some antibiotics and stayed home today to rest. I rested the best I could, between the coughing, the phone calls from my husband and running Owen to and from day care it wasn't the most peaceful day but I am feeling a bit better. I am off to put Owen to bed and then take the cough syrup that the doctor prescribed and hopefully it will knock me out for the night.

PS - I am sure that most of you know this already but, "There is no one sicker than a man!" I don't think I need to say more.