Top Ten of 2009

I have to say of all the years, 2009 has been my favorite so far. My sweet Frances was born on Christmas day 2008 and life hasn't been the same since.

In 2009 I stayed up all night with a crying baby, changed diapers, learned what it's like to be a stay at home mom, then learned what's it like to be a full time working mom with a baby in daycare.

I changed diapers and warmed up bottles and realized just how much you can love a little person that you just met. I can't imagine 2010 being better, but I am sure it will.

My friends at Crop Addict had the idea of posting a top ten list of our favorite layouts. I thought it was good idea to end 2009 so here is mine in no particular order.

Before the projects....

I will be giving away a RAK here on January 1st along with an announcement. I hope you stop by! Oh by the way mine won't be the only RAK you can win. Did that leave you in suspense? I hope so. Hehehe!

Happy new year to you and your family, hope to see you back on the 1st day of 2010.

I think this may just be my number one favorite LO. I just look at it and smile!

My little girl Frances's feet when she was only a few minutes old. Boy a year sure goes by fast!

I just like this one. I think it's cute!

Not my best LO, but my first LO of Frances. It will always have a special place.

Look at those baby rolls! Need I say more?

My two favorite people so how can it not be in the top ten?

I love these photos and love how this lo turned out.

Two words- It's fun!

This is my second favorite LO of all time (the first being the first of this post). I just laugh every time I see it.

And last- one of my more recent LO's.

My little girly is one!

I haven't had much time to do any scrapping, but I have been taking pictures! My little girly turned one on Christmas day and I still am in disbelief. Everyone said it would go by fast, but this is unbelievable. Just yesterday (it seems) I was holding little baby Frances in one hand. Here are just a few of my favs (I seriously took almost 1000 photos last week, of course most were blurry because well you know how one year olds are!)...

This is the birthday girl in her cutel little bday bib opening presents. Her party was the Sat. before Christmas.

The birthday girl and mommy.

The birthday party had a Curious George theme so we just had to have George cupcakes.

Frances enjoying her first ever piece of cake (or any type of sweet for that matter). I think she liked it.

Now on to Christmas...

I think she had a lot of practice opening presents at her party. Here she looks like a pro.

And her best pose in her Christmas outfit. I just love this one!

I hope everyone had a great Christmas and has an even better New Year!

A sneak peak at the SO January kit!

Heather at Simply Obsessed has decided to change things up. Which is good news for me because it means I get the monthy kit early! The kit reveals will now start the third week of the month BEFORE the kit is released instead of in conjunction with the kit release. That means you can see all the DT projects and be ready to scrap when your kit arrives.

There are so many fun little things in this kit, I just don't know where to start. All the stars and metal - I had to hold back on using it all on one layout. The Making Memories foil die cuts (available as an add-on) are awesome too. I love all the fun boy sayings on them. Having a girl I am usually creating pink girly pages so this was a welcome change. Before my daughter was born I mostly scrapped my nephews and doggies, but have fallen behind lately. This kit was the perfect reason to go back and scrap these older pictures.

This layout is of my nephews at the park a few summers ago. As soon as I saw those cute stamps I knew I had to take these pics out. It is a little hard to see in the picture, but the tractor on the stamp looks just like the one my nephew is sitting on.

The second layout is of my doggies Bacon and Kody. They are always into some kind of mischief so I used the big sticker from the sticker sheet as my title. They are laying under a hot pink blanket so I chose to use a black and white photo. I used some white leftover cardstock to make a little dog bone and added the mischeivous sticker. The journaling says: "When I see the two of you like this, it makes me wonder what you just did."

And last- I created this bday card for my friend's little boy who is turning one. She really isn't into the cutesy stuff so I thought she would like this "all boy" card. The picture is blurry because I had to take it at night. Sorry!

Hop on over to Simply Obsessed to get your hands on this kit! The January kit will start shipping the first week of January and you don't want to miss out.

Thanks for stopping by and have a wonderful holiday. We will be celebrating both Christmas and a first birthday in our house!

Decorative pin tutorial

Yay! Only one more day until Christmas Break! This Christmas and birthday together is wearing me out. I have been so busy planning little Frances's part I haven't had time to buy any Christmas presents. Luckily I have Monday off work so I can spend all day shopping.

I think I have everything planned for the little girlies big day except for the cake. It is going to be a Curious George theme and I still need a curious george cake. George has been harder to find that I thought. Lots of Pooh cakes, but no George cakes. So I will be on the hunt tomorrow.

In my spare time (hahahaha) I put this tutorial together for Simply Obsessed. Please forgive me for the pictures. I was taking these last night at midnight. Did I mention the little girl had a fever of 104 yesterday so I had to take her to the immediate care? Oh and I hit my MIL's car backing out of the driveway in the process. So it was a pretty busy night. My husband did make some comments again about it this morning. Sheeesh, besides inventing a time machine and preventing the accident all togher there's really not much I can do about it now, but I will probably hear about this one for awhile.

Ahhh, I digress, back to the pins. I call all pins t-pins because really I don't know the difference between them. But I will just call them pins here. This is really quick, really easy and really cute. OK, so here goes:

1. Gather your supplies-

You will need pins, beads of different colors and sizes, and a strong liquid adhesive like glossy accents or diamond glaze. I bought the pins and beads at a Joann's when they were 50% off.

2. Thread the beads on the pins in the desired arrangement.

4. On the bottom of the last bead add a little of the adhesive covering the entire opening of the bead and let dry.

5. These are different pins I made. You can embellish them with ribbons or other accents.

And here is a card I used one of the pins on.

Thanks for looking and have a great night!

New projects and a sick girl

Well Poor little Frances is sick. All she wants to do is lay down and hug her curious george. It is pretty cute though. I came home from school today and took her temperature and it was 104. I was pretty worried so I put her in the car and rushed out the garage. Well in my rush I forgot my mother in laws car was parked in the driveway and backed into it. And it was hard. There is a huge big blue dent in the side. I felt like such an idiot. Who backs into a car that is in the drive way? Oh well I am just hoping she feels better for her curious George birthday party Saturday :).

One good thing happened today though. I was asked to stay another month on the A Walk Down Memory Lane DT! Yay! I thought these would be my last projects, but I will have one more month and a few more projects besides my December projects below.

TFL

The 12th day of Christmas

Today is December 12th so the A Walk Dowm Memory Lane 12 days of Christmas crop is almost over. Don't worry, you still have until December 13th to take advantage of all the sales. There were some great sales if you haven't checked it out- idea books, chipboard, border punches, just to name a few. You can also take part in the challenges for another few weeks. December 24th is the deadline to upload the challenge projects to the DT blog for your chance to win a prize pack from the store. Good Luck!

Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow

It is a snowy winter wonderland here! It started snowing this morning and hasn't stopped since. And it is supposed to be 5 degrees tonight. It is going to be chilly! I hope you are staying warm and toasty in your neck of the woods.

These two cards are perfect for this weather. I created them for the 12 days of Christmas crop at A Walk Down Memory Lane.

I used an old Pink Paislee overlay to make the top of my card and Basic Grey Eskimo Kisses paper for the back. And I couldn't resist cutting that cute snowwoman with my cricut again. I lover her scarf, it is so cute!

Stay warm and have a great night.

My little honey bee + some xmas projects

Look at this cute little bee! I finally found the perfect paper to use for Frances's halloween costume. I was going to use some of my halloween paper, but then thought this was so much cuter! The paper and embellies are from the American Crafts everyday and hey there collections from the A Walk Down Memory Lane store (American Crafts is their featured manufaturer this month and all AC is 15%). I also used my cricut to cut that cute little bee and added some Kaiser pearls for his eyes.

I can't believe how fast this little one is growing. This time last year I could not wait for her to be born. Now she is walking and talking and getting into all kinds of mischeif. Her new skill is shaking her head no. She doesn't know yes yet so any question you ask her she shakes her head and laughs. It is so cute. We ask her all kinds of questions- "do you want your nose wiped?", "do you want to give mommy a hug", "do you love the doggies?" and she just laughs and shakes her head.

Also there is a 12 days of Christmas crop going on over at Simply Obsessed. I posted these projects this weekend.

I created this candle by diecutting the words with the storybook cricut cartridge and then adhering them. Really easy and it looks great in my dining room.

I then used my cricut winter woodland cartridge to create this hot cocoa card.


I am glad I am getting some use out of my cricut. I bought 11 (yes 11) cartridges over thanksgiving weekend. They were all sitting on my kitchen table and my husband asked me when provo craft was sending him his thank you card. So now whenever I use it I announce "I am using the cricut now". I also discovered Frances is terrified of the thing. She was sitting next to me when I was using it and when it turned on she crawled away as fast as she could. Now she gives it a funny look every time she sees it. She is just such a little cutie.

Well have a great night. I will be back tomorrow with some Christmas cards for the A Walk Down Memory Lane christmas crop.

December projects

Can you believe only 23 more days until Christmas? With all the Christmas projects popping up it is really putting me in the Christmas spirit. And it is supposed to snow today too! I don't know if I am ready for that just yet though.

I created these three projects my December Simply Obsessed kit. Aren't the Christmas papers so fun? This first layout is of Frances playing while we were putting up the Christmas tree. She is seriously the happiest baby ever. She just amuses herself with her little toys.

She may always be happy, but not always cooperative. I wanted to take some pictures of her in this cute Santa hat, but she kept taking it off. I think her face in the last pic says it all!

And I couldn't resist opening up my new Winter Wonderland cricut cartridge for this card. I cut the snowwoman and pieced her together. Isn't she cute?

And A Walk Down Memory Lane is having a 12 days of Christmas crop on the DT Blog. There will be projects, challenges and sales each day. I created this gift bag with some old Christmas decorations and the super cute Basic Grey Eskimo Kisses paper and chipboard. You can see the full project on the DT blog here.

New challenge at Scrap Tiffany

Sadly this is my last week as guest designer at Scrap Tiffany. I had a great time following the weekly challenges and the work of the DT was great. I am always surprised at how different all the layouts are even though we are all working on the same challenge.

This week's challenge was to use the color green on a layout. I created this layout with my October Earth Love kit from Simply Obsessed.

Thanks for looking.

Yay for Friday's off work!

Did anyone brave the Black Friday sales this morning? I did not get up at 4am to go shopping. After all that turkey yesterday there was no way that was happening. Every year I go shopping at 10am. I make a list of all the stuff I want and if they still have it at 10am then I buy it. If they don't I figure it probably wasn't meant to be. All the stuff on my list is stuff I want anyway, not stuff I need so I probably shouldn't be buying it anyway.

So I woke up and made France and Ron breakfast, cleaned up the kitchen a little bit, drank my tea, got ready and by 10am I was ready to go shopping after all the crowds were gone. I got almost everything I wanted too. I got some toys for Frances, one of those Keurig coffee makers for Ron and some sweaters for me. Unfortunately Walmart was out of the $5 Hotel for Dogs dvd that I really wanted. And I am being serious. I checked all the DVD shelves just to make sure one wasn't misplaced, but didn't find it :(.

Oh and I did go to Michael's (actually two) last night on my way home from my sister's house. The first one I went to was super packed and out of everything. But the second I went to wasn't out of anything. I bought five cricut cartridges that I can't wait to open up! One is Winter Wonderland and I already have some ideas.

Best of all I had off work today! And I was home when the postman left this wonderful package on my doorstep- the December kit from Simply Obsessed. I looked through it immediately and boy is this paper cutie! I am going to scrap some pics of Frances "decorating" the xmas tree.

Also- I posted a new sketch challenge over at A Walk Down Memory Lane. The sketch was created by the fabulous Lucy Chesna. Here is the sketch and my take on the sketch.

If you want to play along with the sketch challenge we would love to see your take on it. And if you upload your layouts to the DT blog you will be entered into a random drawing from the {AWDML} store.

Have a great weekend! I keep thinking today is Saturday because we were all home today, but lucky for me it's still only Friday.

Gobble, Gobble

Aren't these cupcakes the cutest? I am going to make these as soon as I get home from work tomorrow! They look almost too cute to eat. Almost, but not close enough!

Here is a link to the recipe if you must make these: turkey cupcakes

Speaking of cupcakes, I had a great birthday this past weekend. I spent Saturday at an all day crop and my husband surprise me with and my scrapping friends with cupcakes. They were so good! I also got...

• the Glee soundtrack (I can't get "Don't Stop Believin'" and "Bust a Move" out of my head now!)


• a cuttlebug and some dies


• those moccasin type looking sandles from Target (I really wanted the Ugg ones, but these were only $10 and you can't beat that)


• a puzzle game for my nintendo DS


• and a spa gift certificate from Frances.

And now it's my turn to give away a present! I used a random number generator to pick a number and it picked.................................6!

Post #6 was - Amanda Winchester said...
Wow, I can't believe she's going to be one already! Time really flies! What a special holiday it will be for you :) Awesome give-away, you're so sweet!

Congrats Amanda! I know where to find you so I'll contact you for your mailing address shortly!

If you didn't win this time check back. I have another give away planned for the next couple weeks!

Scrap Tiffany's new challenge

There's a new challenge up at Scrap Tiffany for this week. The challenge is to scrap a favorite recipe.

Well I have a hard time scrapbooking non-people (dogs not included) so I decided to scrapbook our trip to the apple orchard, my favorite fall tradition.

We meet at my sister's house, eat lunch and then caravan over to the apple orchard. We pick our apples (of course we make time to eat some apple doughnuts too!) then caravan back to my sister's house and eat dinner and dessert (non-apple related). I make about 6 apple pies from the apples we pick and freeze them. Whenever we are in the mood for a pie I pop one in the oven and we have fresh apple pie all winter long. I have made apple pie with store bought apples and it just does not taste as good as it does with the apples we pick. Maybe it's freshness or maybe it's all in my head. I am not sure. I do know it is one of my favorite days all year long. I like it better than my birthday, better than Christmas, better than Halloween, or pretty much any other holiday. So maybe that's why those pies taste the so good. Whenever I eat them I am reminded of how lucky I am to have such a great family.

My family isn't big on the picture taking so I settled for using these pics of Baby Frances and me.

I used Bo Bunny Kitchen Spice for this LO. Isn't it the cutest? Sorry about the bad pic too. Not a lot of light around here lately. It doesn't help that I leave for work when it's dark and come home when it's dark too!

By the way you still a little time to leave me a comment to win the MM mistle toe goodies! I will be picking a winner tomorrow and posting it here. Have a great night!

A sketch and a give away

TGIF! I am ready for some relaxation this weekend. I have an all day crop planned tomorrow and I can't wait. I have some Christmas stuff to work on and some layouts. I made this sketch today to take with me.



And now for the give away! It is my birthday (not today, but soon) so to celebrate I am having a give away. My birthday is in fall, but my dear Baby Frances's 1st birthday is on Christmas day and I am already making the plans. Talk about the best xmas gift ever! The holiday now has a special place in my heart as it shares my baby girl's birthday. So in honor of baby Frances's birthday I chose a holiday themed give away featuring the Making Memories new Mistletoe collection. I love this paper! It is so cute and fun for Christmas!

Just leave me a comment by Monday midnight central time and your name will go into a drawing to win the goodies below: 1 MM mistletoe 8x8 paper pad, 1 MM mistletoe stickers, 1 MM red glitter letter stickers, 2 American Crafts ribbon spools, 1 Imaginisce clear acrylic stamp and 1 Me and My Big Ideas bling.

A new challenge at Scrap Tiffany

I have been lucky enough to be the guest designer at Scrap Tiffany this month. I am having a lot of fun playing along with the callenges.


Today's challenge is to step outside of your scrapping box so to speak and try something you usually wouldn't do. I chose to do masking on my layout since I have never used masking before. So I got out my glimmer mist and cardstock and starting spraying. The first few tries didn't work out so well to say the least. I soaked through two pieces of cardstock and used half the bottle. On the third try I finally got something I could use. I think the glimmer mist will go back in the plastic bag it came from for a while. I also tried to use some white space since I like to fill the whole page.

I know I have scrapped this pic before, but I couldn't help scrapping it again! It is just the cutest isn't it?

I am a little late posting this layout (oppsies!). This was for the challenge last Monday at Scrap Tiffany to create a layout based on a sketch by Kim Hughes. I used the Scrapbook Circle November kit Radiant Harvest to complete this layout. Look at how cute little baby Frances is. I can't believe how fast she is growing up! She is almost walking now. I remember when I was worried she would never crawl. Well she does that and yes she gets into everything. The poor girl fell yesterday and bit her lip. I picked her up and blood was all over her mouth. I felt so bad. She laughed it off though. It is just like her to laugh. She is the eternally happy baby- always laughing and smiling. Her favorite new game is to throw her food over the edge of her high chair and watch the doggies lick it. She has fun and I never have to sweep the floor. Bonus!

Also I made this card for my friend's baby shower. The theme of the baby's room is elephants so I thought this SEI playday paper would be perfect.

And one more thing- November is my birthday month! To celebrate I will be having a give away on the blog this week! Check back to see what and when it is. Have a great night!