Niagra Falls Part 1

More Niagra Falls pics, just like I promised!!  Aren't you happy??

It was so amazing to see the falls in the winter, but way too cold.  I printed about 65 pictures of that day, but don't worry, I make you see all of them.  Just some, ok, most!!

Come back tomorrow for part 2!!

No More Shopping

So I recently took stock of my craft room and all my scrappy supplies.  I decided that enough is enough.  I know, that goes against everything we scrappers believe in, but really, I have to stop.  Every month I get my kit from Scarlet Lime, I shop quite a bit at the crops I go to, I hit scrappy stores in every state or city I visit, and then we have the 2 big expos in the summer. 

I have been collecting more than I'm using.  Not good for many reasons:

1.  I'm spending money on stuff that I'm not even using for several months.

2.  I'm running out of room to store all my purchases.

3.  I want to acquire less "things" this year.

So I have decided to not shop for scrappy extras this year and use up some of the stuff I have hanging around.  I cancelled my subscription to Scarlet Lime.  I'm really going to miss those but I have a TON of stuff left to work with.  I even have 4 complete kits I haven't even touched yet.

I will allow myself to buy plain colored cardstock such as white, black and brown.  The colors I use all the time.  I have enough Tombow refills from my huge order last year so no need for adhesive. 

I can buy blade refills for my cutter.  Those are essential. 

When I go away to the CRC crops, I get $50 in vendor bucks for paying for the next crop in full that weekend.  I only go twice a year and each crop is really cheap at $155 so not a huge expense there.  And I really like having that time to get some serious work done. 

So I should be able to just make it through.  I'll keep you all updated on my scrappy purchases and try to pull some of those older supplies to good use in new ways.  I just need to be more creative. 

Here is one of those layouts:

I had these scraps of CTMH papers left over and really wanted to use them instead of throwing them out.

I scrapped a bunch of Niagra Falls pics this weekend, so that's what you're going to see the rest of the week.  Good thing is we are half way through the week.  Hooray!!  Only one more work day and the weekend is here again.  Can't wait.

Start planning your weekend everyone...you know I am!!

Say when....

I don't know when to say when on my layouts and they get a little clutter from time to time.  This is one of those times.

There is soooooo much going on!!  I just couldn't stop myself.

I only know of a few things on here because a lot of it's leftovers and scraps.  I know some of the paper is Pink Paislee, the letters are Thickers and I'm not sure of the rest.

Not sure if this is inspirational to any of you, but there it is!! 

Happy Tuesday!!

New Egypt Fire House

I finally got some scrapping done this weekend and it was wonderful.  I got up early and sat in my scrappy room before anyone else woke up.

 I have to apologize in advance for the quality of this weeks photos.  I forgot to take pictures when it was sunny out.  So I took the pictures on the window seat as the sun was setting.  The background is a little cluttered, but I'm sure you can get through. 

I've been working on some older pictures and newer pictures at the same time.  I so don't scrap in order.  A few years ago I took Abbie to the New Egypt Fire House for a fire safety talk.  They were really great with all the kids. 

I used all Basic Grey papers, some EK Success bling-like stickers, Glitz alphabet letters and think a rub on cause you know I can't scrap without them.

Well, it's Monday morning, so make the best of it!!

Catching Up

Ok, I promised a post last week about my blogger award, but sleep was more important.  I have spent much of the weekend catching up on lots of sleep!!  And now onto my award.

Val awarded my blog the Stylish Blogger Award.   THANKS!!! 

So now I need to share 7 things about myself.  Here we go:

1.  I love to cook but I HATE to clean up after myself.  Luckily, Tom loves to eat what I cook for him so he hangs in the kitchen with me and cleans up my messes as I make them...I'm so lucky!!

Check out these cupcakes with eggnog frosting I made for Christmas Eve.  YUM!!

2.  I have a serious hoarding issue when it comes to notebooks and journals.  I can't stop buying them in every shape, size and color and then keep them without using most of them.  I need to have a REALLY good reason to pull one out of my desk and start using it. A very small sampling of my notebook/planner stash.  I have a ton more!!

3.  I only have 2 hair styles.  Pin straight in the winter and my natural curly in the summer.  I don't know how else to style it so I stick to what I know.

4.  I LOVE the beach and everything about it.  I go to the beach every single day that I can during the warm season.  We start going in May and have gone as late as October.  We get there at the crack at dawn and still til sun down, usually because that's when we run out of food.  I love the ocean, the waves, the heat, everything...except the sand.  I don't touch the sand with my hands.  Having sand under my nails is a serious crisis for me.

5.  I love reality TV.  Love every second of it!!  How these people put all their dirty laundry on TV for my entertainment  is amazing.  And believe me, I am entertained by it!!

6.  I love to read and I get most of my yearly reading done at the beach.  I don't usually read at home.  I would like to, but just can't seem to make enough time for it.

7.  And finally, I loved my daughter's Nintendo DS so much, that I bought myself one so I wouldn't have to wait for hers.  I play on it almost every time Tom is driving in the car with me.  And I get annoyed when he tries to talk to me in the middle of a game!!

Can't get enough of this game.

And so there you have it.  7 random facts about me. 

And now I need to pass this lovely blog award onto some of my favorite blogs. 

1.  Rachael at A Window Too My Scrappin World.  I love her scrappy style and she is such a great source of inspiration.

2.  Diane at Created by Diane.  Her recipes are absolutely delicious and my family and I have thoughly enjoyed them!!

3.  Penny at Artfully Embellished.  Love all her layouts and great crafty inspiration.

4.  Scrap Whispers.  I love their challenges.  And their Design Team makes great samples.

5.  Sassy Lil' Sketches.  I love working with sketches and these sketches always inspire me.

6.  Brittany at The Rest is Still Unwritten.  A great scrappy style and I really enjoy her layouts.

7.  Chris at Work for Scraps.  Another great scrappy blog with a great style of layouts.

8.  Kelly at Scrap My Life.  Kelly creates really awesome layouts and I always enjoy reading her blog.

9.  Aphra at My Scrappy Life.  Such a great blogs with so many awesome layouts and crafts.  Lots of fun to read.

Well, those are my favorites.  So, please pass along the Stylish Blogger Award to 15 of your favorite blogs and share 7 random facts about yourself.

Did you miss me??

Another whole week without a single post.  Sorry folks, life took over and I just couldn't seem to get my act together.  I woke up early today so I could do a yoga workout before work, but decided blogging was a better choice. 

There hasn't been much scrapping going on here lately.  I have been spending my weekends cooking my little heart out for my family instead.  I have this new found love for cooking and baking lately and it's eating into my scrapping time. I'm working on fitting it all into my short 3 day weekend along with everything else that needs to get done.  You know...laundry, vacuuming, food shopping, playing with Abbie, spending time with Tom, watching Dexter (I'm almost done with season 2!!). 

There's gotta be away to fit it all in.  I need to work on that.

So I wanted to share something with you other than pictures of Memory games, laundry piles, dirty dishes, or my bowl of oatmeal, so here is a layout that is almost done.

I say almost done because I feel like it needs a title of some sort.  I've already used "Beach Baby" way too many times.  I was thinking of "My Sunshine" or something like that, but I can't seem to commit.

Here is what I used:

So Sophie and Basic Grey papers, Fiskars border punch, Thickers, Basic Grey border stickers and I don't know where that cute pebble came from.  I think it might be Jenni Bowlin...at least it looks like it anyway.

I got a blog award last week too!!  I was so excited!!  I'll share that with you tomorrow.  Right now I need to hop in the shower and get my very long and rainy day started.

Have a great Tuesday!!

Playing Dress Up

As I try and scrap some older pics with some newer ones, I found these three pictures of Abbie during her "dress up" phase.  She still plays dress up even now, but she calls if fashion and makes up fun and quirky outfits out of her real clothes.

I used Basic Grey's Green at Heart. 

Isn't she cute???

Christmas in Pittsburgh

We were in Pittsburgh a few years ago just before Christmas and they had so many awesome Christmas activities set up all over town.  And they had a trolley that would take from place to place during the day.

One of the shopping malls had Santa and a train ride, there was a Christmas festival one night and another mall had a bunch of Christmas activities set up for kids.

Happy Thursday folks!!!

Chef Abbie

As much as Abbie loves to cook, she enjoys tasting more.

The proof is in the pudding, or cookie...no real baking going on just tasting and posing.    She is just too funny!!

Tractors and Golf Carts

Two of the photos we needed to capture during the photo scavenger hunt were: 

1.   a photo of a tractor
2.   fueling a golf cart

The tractor was easy to find, but the golf carts eluded us for a bit.  When we finally found them, I jumped out of the car so fast that I forgot to put the car in park!!  Can you tell I REALLY wanted to win??

Anyway, there was a fun sketch over at Sketchabilities that fit with the pictures I had.

Here is my take on the sketch:

I used mostly scraps again so not sure where this stuff came from.  But I know the flowers are from Kaiser Craft, the brads are from CTMH, the border sticker is from Crate Paper, the black letters are from K & Company and Making Memories. 

Have a happy Tuesday!!

Scrappin' Stats

Do you keep track of how many pages you scrap in a given year?  Two years ago, I mentioned to Shannon  that my goal for 2009 was to scrap 400 pages...and that's when the laughter began.  Both Shannon and Abbie laughed so hard they cried.  I had never kept track of how many layouts I completed, but it sure seems like a lot so 400 pages wasn't such an outrageous number...or was it??

Shannon guessed I would complete 178 layouts.  Abbie guessed I would complete 220 layouts and I adjusted my goal to 300 layouts.  I grabbed a notebook and stuck in the drawer of my scrapping desk so I could keep track. 

Here are the final numbers for 2009:

I was a little off in my guess!!  Only 85 layouts???  How can that be??  I scrap all the time!!  But, really I don't.  I also have to take into consideration that we need the family time together to actually create the memories that are photographed.

So I decided that I was going to keep track again in 2010.  I set a more reasonable goal of 200 layouts.  I knew that I would go away for two scrapping weekends instead of one and that would increase my chances of reaching my goal, right??  (I sounded logical at the time!!)

Here are the stats for 2010:

Again, I felt short of my goal.  But I don't mind one bit.  I had a great time creating and remembering all those awesome moments in my life with my family and friends.  I loved remembering all the highlights of my life while thumbing through the pictures and deciding which ones to work on next.

So this year I am going to keep track of the layouts I make again.  Not so much working towards a number goal, but just because it's fun to look back and see how much I have accomplished.

Stay tuned and I'll keep you updated on my stats.

Happy New Year!!!

It's officially 2011!!  Nothing really feels different though, but that's ok. 

I spent a good part of the day scrapping yesterday while Abbie crafted with me.  We headed out to dinner at Friday's and then spent the rest of the night watching Northern Exposure, waiting for the New Year to arrive.  Only, I slept right through it.  Didn't even make it to 10pm!! 

But I wanted to share with you the last layouts of 2010 and the first layouts of 2011. 

Here we go, the last layouts I made in 2010:

Abbie decided to have herself a little photo shoot in the car after a long day at the beach this past summer.  She takes the greatest pictures of herself too!!

I used mostly scraps of paper (I let you know why in a future post).  The blue stickers are K & Company, the butterflies were the last two in the Jenni Bowlin package, I used Black Soot Ranger Ink for all the edges, and the bling was from a left over package too.

I thought I should finish out the year with pictures that truly bring a smile to my face. 

I decided to start out the year with pictures from a day trip we took to Sandy Hook in 2009.

One of the first stops we made on our trip was to a model of what the Officer's House would have looked like when the Naval Base was still operational in the 1950's.  It was so neat to see how the house would have been set up and the products they would have used.

For these two pages, the cardstock is Bazzill, the ribbon is Stampin' Up and the rest is all Origins by Basic Grey.

Hope everyone spends their first day of 2011 doing what they love most with the people they love most!!