My first blog award

Tracy from Inside the ScrapHeap picked my blog for an award. How cool is that?

( will pick my seven tonight when I am off of work instead of now.)

Edited:
Okay, so I totally forgot about picking my favorite blogs to pass this on to, so I am going to start working on this now. I must admit, that I have a ton of blogs in my reader and it will be hard to pick 7. If you are reading this and I didn't pick you don't feel bad. Matter of fact, feel free to just add this award to your blog, because if I take the time to follow you then I like your blog.

1. Candy's Creations
2.Brandie's Thoughts
3. Bren's Stuff
4. Bush Life
5. Debby's Dare
6.I Scrap, you scrap, we scrap
7. Jennie's Scrap Space

There I have choosen 7. Please don't feel bad if you were choosen, I just ran out of space to list all of the blogs.

Date Stamps

Tonight, I took a break from decorating the tree to begin my JYC project. I created my date stamps for each page. I decided for my first year to go with something a little simple. I simply punched the 37 circles and 74 holly leaves. After putting the numbers on, I attached two holly leaves to each circle. I decided not to distress the edges as I am not sure what papers I will be using this year. I know some people are using the page maps to create their pages ahead of time, but since I don't know what I am doing, I will make my pages as I go along.

Journal Your Christmas

Last year while surfing some blogs, I came across one blog where the blogger had posted a page from her Christmas Journal. I really liked the idea and decided to ask the blogger about where she got her idea and her prompts. She referred me to Shimelle's blog. I chose not to sign up last year as it was already half way through the month of December and I felt that I was too far behind. I kept watching the sight and signed up once the post was up for this years class. I am really excited about doing this and hoping I can stay on top of things. Usually December is very busy, but since Sarah is in high school we have two fewer programs to attend for the month. I plan on posting my layouts to this site, so check back often, this may help keep me accountable.

All I need now is some time.

I must say that even though this has been a very busy week with a few things, the mail this week has been great. On Tuesday I received my final package from my fiskateer secret sister. She sent me the coolest things including a wonderful orange(fiskars) colored ornament, and a holly squeeze punch from fiskars. Plus a few other scraping goodies. She has been a wonderful secret sister. If you don't know what a fiskateer is please click here to find out. This group is so friendly and supporting. On Tuesday I also received my embellishment swap back from another great yahoo group. There were 10 of us and we each created an embellishment kit for paper crafting. We each had a color and created 10 kits Then sent the package to our fearless leader, who redistributed the kit and sent it back to us. I received 10 different colored packages. Finally today, I received the frame kit that I won from Kelly Jo, one of the fiskateer leads. This kit looks like so much fun, it even included a fiskars tape runner. I love this adhesive, but have never seen it in a store.
Now all I need is the time to spend many hours creating. Do you think that Santa would bring me at least 72 hours of total free time, without any other distractions so that I can create and scrap and rest? Please Santa, that is all I really want, besides a clean house and children that actually help verses hinder.

Spit Rags

When Kristen was a baby, I received a very nice gift that had some decorated spit rags. The person had simply taken a cloth diaper and found some cute ribbon then sewed it down the edge. I loved this look and also the fact that when we went out, or for something nice, I could take a nicer looking spit rag. I saved those rags for outings, church, family holidays etc. Because I love those so, I decided to make a few for my new great niece Allison. I did two with the ribbon down the side, and then I did two with my embroidery machine. I will be meeting Allison later today, at the birthday party for Austin and Kristen. She is about 6 weeks old, so can't wait to see her. I am hoping that she enjoys these spit rags as much as Kristen enjoyed hers.

Mail Time

Yesterday was such a fun mail day. I regularly read a blog Debby's Dares, and had won a chance to get some of the Fiskar's new Halloween and Christmas punch shapes. Not the actual punches, but 10 of each shape. I received such a big envelope just full of the punches, some are on paper that I haven't seen before. I had also won one of the bazzill monochromatic little albums from Lisa Bearnson's blog from Creating Keepsakes. She was giving away 25 of those adorable little albums a couple of weeks ago for a project started by Stacy Julian. She wanted everyone to take 10 photos of the people or items in their life right now and then put them into a small album that could be carried in a purse or put in a drawer at work. Then you are to open the album up each day and look at it to be reminded of all that is important in your life. I love idea and can't wait to put together my mini album on Saturday. Anyway, Lisa B enclosed some other fun scrapbooking goodies besides the mini album. I so can't wait to play.

Kristen's Halloween costume

This year Kristen has decided to skip the usual princess costume to be a cheerleader just like her older sister. When Sarah was in Kindergarten, I made her a cheerleader costume for Halloween. While Kristen liked that costume, she decided that she really needed a new one that more closely resembles Sarah's uniform. We found a pattern with several different designs on it and I managed to talk her into one that didn't have quite as much bling to it as the other ones, which is good because we had a hard time finding any trim that would work. I had the skirt almost made, when I had Kristen try it on. At this point I realized that I would need to trim almost 3 inches off of the sides so that the skirt would stay up. Wouldn't I love to have no hips like that child, however 2 children and eating way to many Halloween treats have given me hips. The pattern came with a pattern for a spankie. I wasn't going to make the spankie for Kristen, but after seeing how short the skirt is, I decided to go ahead and make it. I will wait for tomorrow night to get it finished. It is Kristen's bedtime and I have a feeling that I will need to resize the spankie also.

Haunted House online Class

On Saturday, I had the whole day free. Only one child at home and didn't have to go anywhere. Fiskars was having and online crop and I could play along. I was so excited. I decided to work on the haunted house cosmo cricket online class that I had signed up for. The supplies came in earlier in the week and I couldn't wait to work on it. Loved making the shingles for the house. That is a technique that I have never done before but it was really fun. I also enjoyed creating the windows for this house. Now all I have left to do is find the pictures of the girls in their Halloween costumes.

Friday Night crop

So Friday night I went to my church's monthly crop. While I didn't get any pages finished to show you, I did manage to get all of Sarah's 7th grade year organized. Not bad considering she is in 9th grade. My goal for this school year is to totally get caught up with her scrapping so that I can stay on top of it, plus get a little of Kristen's done. Once I am caught up it shouldn't be too hard to stay on top of things. Or at least I hope not. Most months I am able to get to two different crops, one at my church Grace Lutheran and the other at a church in the town I live in, Church of the Open Door. I really enjoy both crops and hate when I have to choose between them. I think that what I enjoy the most is the fellowship with other adults. Of course in just 4 years, I won't have to go to a crop to be productive with my scrapping. Sarah will be in college and I will move Kristen into Sarah's room and convert Kristen's tiny little room into my space. Perfect for scrapping and sewing. In the meantime, I will continue to scrap at crops and in my messy living room, plus sew at my kitchen table.

Day of Creativity

Scrapaganza had a day of Creativity yesterday. You could pick from 4 different areas to create. They were offering two simple cards, a 2 page 12 x 12 layout, a fall clipboard and an ocean book. You had the chance to do as much or as little as you wanted to do. What is really nice about this, is that the girls were allowed to participate also. Kristen and I both chose to make the 2 different cards. The cards are really simple and hopefully I will remember this as the cards are a good pattern to use for making just about any style of card. Just change the paper and stamps to fit the theme.

July 4th Towels

Besides paper crafting I also love to sew. I have been sewing on and off since I was 9 years old. Hey, I can still remember the first outfit I made. It was a shorts outfit. Top and shorts. I made it out of some cheep white fabric first and then made a second one out of a green material with trim. This was not only my first sewing project, but the first sewing project that I entered at the fair. I was so proud of that outfit. Through the years I have made many things, however some of the favorite things have been clothes (dresses) for my daughters, however they are getting to old and don't want Mom to make them cute outfits anymore. A couple of years ago I purchased a Sewing/Embroidery Machine and love to play with it. One of the things that I have done quite a bit of is dish towels. I enjoy taking the feed sack dish towel and dressing it up for the holiday or season. These make fun gifts for people. The set pictured is a fun Fourth of July patterns that I downloaded from the web for free. There are all kinds of free patterns out there if you are willing to take the time to look. I entered them in this years county fair so couldn't use them for the holidays this year, but can't wait to use them next summer. Thanks for lookng

Hybrid Scrapbooking

I wanted to learn a lot more about digital scrapbooking so I took a class at Scrapaganza taught by Candi. This is the layout that we created. The hardest part was finding a picture of my teenage daughter smiling. I think that they forget how to smile for a while.

St. Louis Arch

I actually found this layout kit at the Arch in St. Louis. I was excited to find the paper as it is usually hard to find something in my area tha is specific to a national park

Card making 101 (the remedial class)

My first attempt at making cards. I don't normally make cards, but needed 5 cards for family birthday party so decided at last moment to make the cards. I have seen better cards, but since this was my first attempt and I had a limited amount of time to do this, I was happy with the results

August NYOBC challenge

I belong to my LSS NYOBC club. In August they passed out 3 paper bags, told us how to fold them and the task was for us to bring them back at the next months meeting completed and ready for pictures. I used papers that I had received in a RAK so not sure of the company. I will say that I love the blue papers fo this book. I am excited to find just the perfect pictures for the book

Scrapbook your year Swap

I created a layout for the scrapbook your year swap on memory making crafts. Each person is assigned one month and needs to create a one page layout for that month. The tricky part is that we couldn't include any holidays as there were people from other countries participating. Since I love the changing season and the cooler temps (I hope) I chose to use some fo the fall colors on my page. I was also able to use the mickey cartridge for my cricut to cut the acorns and oak leaves. I never would have thought to look on that cartridge for fall stuff, but since Chip and Dale are on the package there are a few things for their benefit.

Welcome

I am going to try and create a blog strictly for my crafting endeavors.
Check back often as I work to upload some of my creations. I would love
for you to leave comments about my work. Praise is always welcome, but
I would also like some creativecriticism so that I can improve. Some of my favorite crafts are scrap booking, sewing, and counted cross stitch (haven't done it for a few years as my eyes don't want me too). I can also knit and crochet, but that has been a long time ago also.