Tuesday, December 15, 2009

Glue with UHU Dec. Project

This month's project from UHU was to make magnets with glass beads using UHU Twist & Glue. These are the beads that have flat bottoms that you can put in vases. It was a pretty simple project too. The fun part was selecting the images I was going to use. I picked out some small stickers, rub-ons & images from scrapbook paper, then tested them under the bead to see what they would look like. Then, I put the UHU Twist & Glue on the back and stuck it to the paper. It did slide a little, but that was easily solved by holding the bead in place for a few seconds. I let them dry overnight. The next night, I trimmed the paper off with scissors. I used a file to sand down some of the pointed corners. Then, I glued the magnet on the back. Very easy project! Also, being a teacher, these would make great gifts for teachers and just about anyone else with a refrigerator :)
My favorite has to be the snail. Isn't he cute?

Sunday, December 6, 2009

Andrew's 1st page...

This page was done for the latest Pagemaps contest. I thought it would be a great sketch for Andrew to follow to scrapbook a picture from his trip to New York this past summer. I fully expected to be able to sit next to him and watch him and help him but I quickly found out that I needed to leave to room or else I was going to end up doing it for him :-) His journaling says: "This summer I spent 10 days in New York. We ministered to some of the nation's poorest neighborhoods! We also had some sight-seeing days. My favorite was the time we spent at Times Square and going to a Broadway play!" Thanks for looking!

Saturday, December 5, 2009

Free Paper?

Scrapbook paper that is..go here to check it out. You have till Dec. 15.

Sunday, November 22, 2009

Cards for my Secret Santa

I started making some cards tonight in preparation for the Secret Santa drawing at work. I thought one of the gifts I could give her would be a package of "all occasion" cards.

I hope I get a woman, anyway, I don't know what I'll do if I get a guy. Homemade treats are always good for a guy I guess. The only guy I'd get would be my principal and I don't think he'd want a package of all occasion cards. Ha!!

Sorry for the poor picture quality. I took these at night so the flash washed everything out. The first card says Thinking of you ...on your birthday. It has several options to choose from. The second one says "Have your cake..." then on the inside I put "& eat it too."


Saturday, November 14, 2009

UHU Glue samples

I received 2 UHU Glue samples in the mail recently. They sent me the samples for free in exchange for my opinion about their products. Here are some of the projects I made with my samples:

This is the first sample I got. It is the UHU permanent glue roller. You can read more about it here but instead of a tape, it delivers mini glue dots when you roll it on.
This is one of the projects I made with it. I made these tags by covering a playing card with white cardstock then with the patterned paper. Then, I decorated them. I used the glue roller to attach the pp to the cardstock & the embellishments to the pp.
Another LO I made with help from the glue roller. On this LO I used the roller to attach my letters to the page and the ribbon strip at the bottom, and the patterned journaling circle. It was nice to use on the letters because they are so small.
My opinion: I liked the roller for small paper objects like my letters and such. I did find that if you were gluing something heavier, it may not stick. Also gluing to certain surfaces may not stick. For example: the playing card was slick and it didn't stick very well to it. I also liked that I could pick up my object after laying it down. The ribbon strip at the bottom of my LO needed to be moved a few times so it was nice it wasn't completely permanent right away. I also liked that it wasn't stringy. When the roller stopped, the glue stopped. I also liked the adjusting screw at the back so you could tighten the roll if it became loose (mine never did).
The next sample I received was the UHU glue stick and a 6x9 mini clipboard to alter. You can read more about it here.
And, here is the clipboard I made:
My opinion: This glue stick is colored so you can see when it starts to dry which is nice so you can go back over parts. Mine seemed to dry quickly but it could've been because I had the fan on or because we live in an extremely dry climate. I was also able to adjust my paper after I put it down but once again you have to work quick because this glue does stick!! There is no peeling it up after a few seconds! I have seen so many glue sticks that peel right up a few days afterwards but this doesn't seem like it will do that.
Thanks for checking out my reviews and thanks to UHU for the samples!

Sunday, November 8, 2009

More free stamps?

Want another chance to win some free stamps? Go here to read the details.

Sunday, November 1, 2009

Christmas 2008

I made this page for 3 challenges. One of the challenges was for Sisterhood of Scrap, and it was to make your LO glittery. The next challenge was at Scrapping out LOUD! and that was to use an oversized embellishment. Mine would be the Christmas trees. The other challenge was the current Pagemaps sketch. Thanks for looking!

AnnaBelle Stamps


Want a chance to win these 3 sets of stamps and some Sprinkles? Go here & enter you name! Good luck!!

Sunday, October 25, 2009

Lunch Time

This LO was done for 3 challenges this week. One of the challenges is from Sisterhood of Scrap's weekly challenge. It was to do a LO with black, red & white. Another challenge came from Scrapping out LOUD! & their challenge this week was to use the theme "time." I made the clock on my page & it has Hannah's lunch time from first grade on it (since the pictures are from last year). And the final challenge came from Scrap It Forward. Their challenge was to do a "girlfriend" LO in honor of Breast Cancer Awareness month. You can't tell in the picture but Hannah is sitting with 2 girlfriends that happen to be in her class again this year & she is good friends with both of them. I blurred the faces because there are a lot of kids in these pictures & you just never know who's going to see them on the Internet.
Now the second part of Scrap It Forward's challenge was to collect the pink Yoplait lids & promise to send them in to the company. So here is a picture of the flyer & the envelope that I'm going to leave in the teacher's lounge at work to collect lids from everyone there. Thanks for stopping by!

Sunday, October 18, 2009

Treasured moments

This page did double duty for me today. Scrapping out LOUD's challenge for the week was to use naked chipboard. I used chipboard photo corners & little extra pieces in between the pictures. At first I was good with leaving them naked. Then, when I went to do the journaling I kept thinking "I could write or draw on the chipboard" and I had to keep reminding myself not to touch it! This was also for the Sisterhood of Scrap's "soup" challenge. This week's "soup" was Chicken Noodle Soup. The recipe was: -Add some striped paper (noodles) -Shades of yellows( chicken) -Brown ink (chicken broth). Thanks for looking! Enjoy!

Thursday, October 15, 2009

Cards, cards and more cards

I've been in the card making mood lately I guess. Here are some cards I made for the Sisterhood of Scrap World Card Making Day, which was on the 3rd. On this first card, the challenge was to use a pink bow.On this second card, the challenge was to make a square card and put a butterfly and a heart somewhere on the card. The butterfly I added has a magnet on the back and I attached it to the card with some removable adhesive. That way, the recipient can put it on their fridge. I got the butterfly idea from Dawn Griffith.
This next card was a "Flower Child" challenge. You had to use flowers and twine on the card. I saw a card similar to this at the Creating Keepsakes vendor fair that Hannah & I went to but of course I couldn't remember exactly what it looked like so this is the closest I got.
On this next card, you had to use numbers in your title.

This last card was for the "Thankful" challenge and you had to used an orange button, stitching (real or faux), orange patterned paper and the thankful theme.
This card I made after seeing Kristina Werner's Make A Card Monday. It was a very simple card and I thought I could do something similar pretty easily. This is just a random card and not for any challenge.

This next card is for the Sisterhood of Scrap Saturday Soup challenge for Oct. 10th. The soup theme was "pea soup." The recipe was: 1 animal embellishment (for the ham bone!), orange ribbon (for the carrots), 6 green buttons (for the celery), 3 different green pp (for the peas), some black and white of some sort (for the salt and pepper). You could do a LO or a card but I seem to be stuck on cards so here's what I came up with:

Monday, October 12, 2009

Bowling lessons

This layout is for the Pagemaps contest. I actually broke out some of the stuff I bought at the Creating Keepsakes convention that Hannah & I went to. There's not much else to say about the LO. The journaling pretty much says it all. I don't know what's up with the dots on the side of the picture. I think it's the stitching program I use. Sorry for the scan! Thanks for looking!

Sunday, October 4, 2009

Non crafting related post...

I wanted to share this cookie recipe that I made 3 times last week. I made them last Sunday and they were so popular at my house, I think they were gone in about 15 min. I made them again on Mon. or Tues. night (I can't remember) and again on Wed. night for my class/co-workers at school. Whew! I got the idea from a Betty Crocker e-mail and that one called for Devils Food Cake Mix but Andrew accidentally got chocolate and my recipe was born. Here is the recipe in case you want to try them:

1 box chocolate cake mix
1/3 c. oil (plus about 1 tbsp.)
2 eggs
1 tsp. vanilla
1/4 c. sugar
Preheat oven to 350. Mix first 4 ingredients and form into 1 in. balls. Roll in sugar. Place on cookie sheet and bake 8-10 min. Let cool. Enjoy!

Monday, September 28, 2009

More challenges...

Here are a couple of scrapbook pages I did this weekend for the challenges at Sisterhood of Scrap. These were for their "Back to School Challenge" and they had to be done by the 26th so did them both on Sat. morning. Whew! The first page was for a challenge to use brackets or parentheses on your page. The second page was to use a mix of letters for your title. On a side note - I have filled my third album and am starting on a fourth one (which I won in a blog candy contest). Thanks for looking!

Thursday, September 24, 2009

Tire Swing

I made this page for Sisterhood of Scrap's Back to School Crop. This was their
"Reduce" challenge. The guidelines were:

~ use 1 piece of paper for your background (12x12, 8x8, or 8.5x11)
~any number of photos
~2 pieces of cs or pp, or a mix of both (each 6x6 in size, you may leave these as is, or cut or alter them any way you wish)
~letter stickers for the title
~4 embellishments (they can be the same, or any mixture)
~2 types of technique medium (pens for doodling, ink, chalk, shimmerz, Glimmer mist, etc)


I used 2 flowers and 2 buttons as my embellishments and Stickles and a white gel pen as my doodling medium. This was a challenge but fun! Thanks for looking!

Monday, September 21, 2009

Reading List

I made this page for Sisterhood of Scrap's online crop. The topic was reading and making a layout based on your favorite book(s) or a picture of you or someone else reading. Anyway, this is what I chose to make. How about a list of 43(!!!!) books that are on my list to read?

Tuesday, September 15, 2009

Sketch book

Kristina Werner posted a video on how to make your own sketch book for her Make A Card Mon. yesterday. So, I decided to try my own. I don't do a lot of sketches but today on the way to & from school I made 3! I made my boxes square (to resemble a 12x12 scrapbook page) in Word and then I just printed them out and ran my paper through the printer the opposite way to make it double sided. You can't tell in the picture but the word "Inspire" is in light blue. Enjoy!

Sunday, September 13, 2009

Recycled Object

Here is a LO I did this weekend of my brother, Preston, and my nephew, Aaron. I took this picture when I was back visiting in July. I used the Pagemaps sketch for their current contest. I also did this LO for a Sisterhood of Scrap "soup" challenge. One of the soup ingredients was to use a recycled object. My object can be found on the green paper. I used the empty tape roll from my previous post and did some stamping with it. You also had to use 3 different colors of cardstock (I used gray, white and blue). You had to used patterned paper (mine is the green stamped paper), buttons and ribbon or twine. This LO also works for the Scrapping Out Loud! weekly challenge where you had to use a quote on the page and pick one type of word for you journaling. I chose the quote "We find delight in the beauty and happiness of children that makes the heart too big for the body. Ralph Waldo Emerson" I also chose verbs for my journaling: inspire, dream, live, love, laugh, imagine, grow. I am a total English geek so this challenge was perfect for me! I am amazed I was able to do triple duty this weekend! Thanks for looking!

Monday, September 7, 2009

Re-purposing

I found these items over the last week or so and since "going green" is all the rage, I have decided see if I can reuse them. Starting at the bottom left they are: a large tic-tac container, an Orbit gum package, an Icebreaker container, a plastic tape roll, a coaster from a restaurant (I made my husband grab them from the table :), and a Stride gum package. If you have any ideas of how I can use these things leave me a comment. I'll be back later to post my projects.

Sunday, August 16, 2009

Holy bugs!

This page was made for the current contest at the Mix It Up! blog. You were to use these colors as inspiration and they provided this sketch as well. I took everything pretty literally. These pictures were perfect to cut small squares from. I really like the story behind this page. The journaling says: "The tradition started when I brought home a cardboard mouse as a kid. The mouse would find its way to various places in the house. Now my kids enjoy hiding all kinds of bugs for Grandpa. He enjoys returning the favor! 7-28-09" When we visited Grandma & Grandpa last month we specially packed some "bugs" in our carry-ons for the exact purpose of hiding them under Grandpa's pillow. When my kids woke up Tues. morning, this is what Grandpa had waiting for them. Every time we turned around there was another "animal" waiting for us. And to think it all started with me & a cardboard mouse when I was 8! Such a fun family tradition to remember! Thanks for looking!


Tuesday, August 11, 2009

More blog candy...

Scrap It Forward is also giving away some blog candy. You have until Sun. Aug. 23rd to enter. You can check out all the details here. Good luck!

Monday, August 10, 2009

Blog Candy Alert!

Steph from the blog "Where'd All My Money Go?" is having some blog candy for having 25,000 blog hits. She is giving away a gift card to the lucky winner. Want a chance to win? Just click here to read all the details. Good luck!

Listen

This page is for Scrapping Out Loud's current contest. The challenge was to rip paper on you LO. These pictures were taken on our vacation to IL. Uncle Preston is the "candy uncle" and he always has candy for the kids. He is mostly known for his candy necklaces but this time he brought out candy rings for the kids. I love how in this picture my niece, Madison, is looking at Hannah and then at me. Thanks for looking! Enjoy!

Sunday, August 9, 2009

Up & Away

I made this page for the current Pagemaps contest. I love these pictures I took of my nephew Aaron on our vacation this summer! He laughs & smiles so easily. I also used some new grungeboard I bought at the beginning of the summer. It's under the bottom circle picture. I inked it & then put Stickles glue on it. Not sure what the dark shadow is at the bottom. It must be from my scanner. Anyway, enjoy and thanks for looking!

Going green

Want to see some projects where you can repurpose some of the things in your house? Deanne Burton is having a month long project where she "going green" and recycling things around her house. Check out her blog & be inspired to "go green"!

Thursday, August 6, 2009

Decorative Pins

I found this on the Sisterhood of Scrap forum. Basically it's just a jewlery pin with beads on it. You can also open the top and add charms if you wish. I rarely make cards so these two are a big deal for me :) Anyway, I made 2 cards using the pins and I thought the people that looked at my blog would like to see them since they might not have access to the forum. Enjoy!


Saturday, July 25, 2009

Buddies

This page was done for 2 challenges. The first challenge I used the Sisterhood of Scrap's Saturday sketch. The second challenge was for Scrap it Forward's "Clearly" challenge. You had to use clear embellishments. I took some acetate and made photo corners with them. Then I drew the lines on with my sharpie markers. The other part of Scrap it Forward is to pay it forward to someone. The pay it forward part of this challenge was to let someone know how much you love them or are grateful for them. I did that in the journaling which is on the tag behind the photo.

It says: "You and daddy have always been buddies. Especially this summer during camp. Everywhere daddy went, you wanted to be right there with him. I am so grateful to Daddy for taking you with him & I am grateful that you two have such a wonderful relationship. 7-25-09"

I am really grateful to Andrew for being so willing to have Josh help him and do some things with him this summer. It was hard for Josh to go from being with Daddy all day to being with me all day and I'm really glad Andrew could help out a little.

Sunday, June 7, 2009

Workin' Girl

I finished another LO this weekend. It kind of helps me cool down from the week. This page satisfies two challenges for me. The first one is a Pagemaps challenge to win some Basic Grey paper. You didn't have to use BG paper but I ended up using it because I hoard my paper. I used the "Sugared" collection and I love how it all coordinates together. I don't have to worry about the paper matching! I get neurotic like that :) The next challenge is at Scrapping Out Loud. This challenge was to use rub-ons on your picture. I managed to find some rub-ons that weren't black so they showed up on the pictures. I also used a technique that I saw on Sisterhood of Scrap where they showed a tip for using your buttons as stamps. I stamped with buttons around the word "girl." Anyway, I hope you enjoy it! Thanks for looking!

Friday, June 5, 2009

Lil' Miss giveaway

Want to win some paper? Go to the Pebbles Inc. blog and enter your name to win some paper and stickers. Good luck!

Can't forget the boys: http://pebblesinc.blogspot.com/2009/04/blog-post.html

Sunday, May 31, 2009

Together with Daddy

I made this page for the Scrapping Out Loud challenge for the week. It's due on Tuesday but because we have to be at camp on Sun. night, I made it today. It came together pretty quick - 1 1/2 hrs! The challenge was to layer, layer, layer your embellishments. I used my new Cricut "Home" cartridge that Andrew got me for Mother's Day. I love this picture of Andrew and the kids. It was taken after he came home from work one day and Andrew was looking through the mail and the kids came out and sat with him on the steps. I just love how all three of them are lined up on the top step. Enjoy!

Wednesday, May 27, 2009

Random thoughts...

So I probably won't have very many craft posts for awhile. We are at summer camps working for (and with) my brother-in-law and sister-in-law. I probably won't have a lot of time to update either (if you look at the time stamp it's almost 11:30 here). Back to the topic at hand...

I have been thinking about some random things lately. The first thought came when I was making the bed last night. Yes, last night. So why is it that I make the bed BEFORE I get in and sleep in it? It's going to get messed up anyway. I think it has something to do with needing to have straight sheets. I'm not sure.

My 2nd random thought comes from having a small visitor in our house. Andrew found a lizard on the back of one of the couches when we first moved into our house at camp. So he caught it in a pan and took it back outside. Well, Sunday, he saw it again in our house. He tried to catch it again but was unsuccessful. In order to calm everyone down, he kept saying "It's more scared of us than we are of it." What does this phrase mean? I know what it means but, come on! I don't care how scared the darn lizard is - I don't want it in my house and I don't want to be near it. The same thing goes for other creepy crawly things. Just because a spider might be scared of me does not mean I'm going to let it live in the corner of my bedroom its whole life!! And really, think about a snake. Maybe that snake is sitting there thinking "Oooh, what nice piece of human meat. That reminds me, I've been craving human." In that case, do I have a right to be scared? I guess that phrase is just not comforting to me. You?

Monday, May 18, 2009

"One Life to Love"

I heard a song the other day on the radio and it really made me think. It was the song "One life to Love" by 33 Miles. You can check out the Youtube video here.

With my kindergartner graduating tomorrow, I was thinking about this song tonight. The chorus is the part that really speaks to me. It says:

"You only get just one time around, you only get one shot at this
One chance to find out the one thing that you don’t wanna miss
One day when it’s all said and done I hope you see that it was enough
This one ride, one try, one life to love"

There are a million things I can think of right now that I don't want to miss. Not only that, but I don't want my kids to ever think I'm missing out on them. Sometimes life can get so busy that we forget to stop and notice the little things. I started my Project 365 in order to do just that: to capture my daily life. I have still been taking pictures, although I haven't posted them in awhile.

So I'm trying to remember that I have one chance and one try at my life. What is it that you might be missing out on? Do you want a second chance? You can start today!

Thursday, May 7, 2009

Sometimes...

God makes you go "Wow!" As an example, travel back with me about 15 min. I get out of the car that I ride in with my boss. I live around the corner from him so I carpool with him almost every day. As I get out of the car I notice that my purse is a little light and I think "Huh, I hope my keys are in there, surely they are, why wouldn't they be?" You might wonder why this is a problem for me on this particular day.

Today, Andrew and Josh are camping with Andrew's brothers in Tucson. Tucson is about 2 1/2 hours away, not to mention that Andrew is halfway up a mountain with no cell phone service. Where's Hannah you might ask? Hannah is with my sister-in-law who lives 30 min. away.

So back to my story...as I get up to my door, I realize that, nope, my keys are not in my purse. On the verge of tears I think, just maybe Andrew will have cell phone service. I don't know what he could do for me but I knew I didn't want to bother my sister-in-law to drive 30 min. just to let me in my house. I also didn't want to sit in the hot sun for 30 min. Did I mention it was 102 today? No answer with Andrew. I realize I have to do it. I have to call my sister-in-law and tear her away from her family to come let me in.

I make the call and tell her what I did. Her reply? "Oh, I just left Surprise, let me turn around right now and I will be there in 8 min." She went on to tell me that she got a phone call from a friend who she hasn't seen in 2 years. She went over to her friend's house and talked for awhile and had just left when I called. Did you catch the part where she hadn't seen her friend in 2 years?!?! God is all knowing isn't he? It's amazing to me that he knew I didn't have my keys and he was working other plans so that Ann wasn't 30 minutes away from me when I needed her. So as I type this I am comfy on my bed and thinking how very thankful I am to God and my amazing sister-in-law!! I am also left thinking - wow!

Sunday, May 3, 2009

My two monkeys...

I made this page for a new challenge blog I found. It's no wonder my grading never gets done and my house was clean "yesterday"
;-) right? Well, Scrapper's Block posted this challenge and it also satisfies this last weeks Sisterhood of Scrap challenge. The first was to use no patterned paper, and the second was to use 4 different fonts. Both of these challenges weren't too difficult. I usually don't scrap with patterned paper because I'm too neurotic about matching and I have a ton of leftover alphabets so that was easy too. Well, enjoy!

Monday, April 13, 2009

Thinking of You

This layout is for the latest Pagemaps challenge. This was a hard page for me to finish. I'm not sure why. Maybe it's because I wasn't completely sold on using this particular picture. I had already used it on another layout and although I like the picture, I didn't seem to have many of just Andrew. I'm also a perfectionist so I wanted the page to be perfect. Anyway, the contest was to scrap about something that's been on my mind and as you can tell by the journaling, what's been on my mind is Andrew. He's had lots of medical stuff going on lately and it's been hard, especially for him. So, I did this page to let him know how I've been feeling since I'm not always so good expressing that in words.

P.S. Hurry on over to Lorraine's blog. She is giving away mystery candy!!

Thursday, April 9, 2009

Project 365: Week 11

So this was the fun week. We took so many pictures that I just copied my mom's memory card onto my computer. I think this makes up for not taking any pictures last week. Enjoy!
Day 73 Mar. 16
The kids went to school today and we took my parents to see them at lunch. We brought them Happy Meals for lunch. The kids had fun seeing my parents. Josh's lunch was a little more crazy than Hannah's but it was still fun to take them lunch.








Day 74 Mar. 17






We took my parents to my school and then bowling. The first picture is in my classroom. The second picture was taken at the lookout on the way down the mountain and the third picture is the teacher coming out in dad teaching Hannah how to bowl.









Day 74 Mar. 18












My dad wasn't feeling well on this day so it started out with a library in the kids room. Then we flew kites. Then my mom helped the kids sew up Hannah's pillow and then they made Easter cookies. Even though we were a man down, we still had a busy day!

Day 75 Mar. 19
We went to Cerrata's Chocolate Factory and the kids got "chompo" bars (from the Francis books). Then we went to Westgate shopping center and saw the jumping fountains.








Day 76 Mar. 20

We were driving by the stadium and saw fireworks going off for a Spring Training baseball game. So, we pulled over and watched the last few.



Day 77 Mar. 21

We had a party for my niece's 3rd birthday. The pool wasn't really warm enough to swim in but the kids wanted to get in anyway. After their lips and nails turned blue, they finally got out :)