Live from Tormville!

I forgot to title this post

Mark and I - we've been busy this week, this last week before he starts preschool. To make the adjustment into his classroom just a little bit easier, we joined his class on a field trip to the apple orchard yesterday. As you can tell by his flannel lined jeans, triple layers and the mud on the slide - it was a little damp and cold, but we had fun. He does well in this type of environment - we are the kool-aid house after all. It's when we try to engage him in group activities that he's goes into arms crossed I ain't gonna do it mode.

He also realized that going on a hayride and picking pumpkins with a group isn't so bad. 

I'm excited that he's going to be in such great hands. Here he is with one of the two very qualified teachers. 

This morning I brought Mark to the audiologist for 8:30 am. He was due for his six month post tubes checkup, and I wanted to be sure that his hearing was on target before we work more on his speech. He's been to a speech therapist already, and he hits all the required targets for his age, but both the audiologist and the speech therapist could recognize why I had him tested, and both made mention that they felt the target was a little low for this age.  Now that I know he can hear fine, I won't feel so badly about working on his sounds with him more.  It's hard to insist on certain sounds if there's that doubt that he might not be hearing them differently than he's saying them.

And the pumpkin that he picked a couple photos up? It washed up nicely and worked great here for a layout photo prop, don't you think?  *wink*

Creative Memories has a new Rewards Club, and I was honored to be able to play with October Exclusive Product to create the layout above. 

Love a bit of themed fun to pull the Halloween pages together. I think the cardstock alphabet stickers are functional enough to go with any layout. This was Wendy decked out for her first Busy Bee's party back in 2008. The journaling tells a little bit about how the whole dressed so you're not guessed concept went over her head, but she had fun anyway.  

I'm having fun catching up on a few event pages while my card table is helping out in the kitchen. I've also made a few more cards recently, some of which can be seen over here. 

It's all fun.

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Just picked up Brian from school. I enjoy this part of the day because it allows for one on one conversation time. Today's conversation went something like this:

Brian: So mom, there's this one boy in my class and now I know his name is Ethan, and yesterday I did go up to him on recess to say hi but he did just walk away so today I tried it again and he stayed long enough to hear my voice, and when he realized that I had a nice voice he stayed and played with me because then he knew that I was a nice kid, not like that Mathew in kindergarten class, and now we're friends! 

one, two, skip a few....

My mother informed me that I haven't blogged yet today.
I informed her that I still feel crunky, four days now, and I was afraid my blog post would be a whole lot of whine, whine, moan, whine, watery eyes, sneezing, chills, earache, whine and moan.
And I just hated to do that to you. Again.

And then I thought maybe I'd have a layout to share - but the post I made it for hasn't gone live yet. Pout.

SO.

I give to you this layout that I made for my designer hi-lite spot on the Creative Memories blog slotted for last April.  I'd link you to it, but for the life of me, I can't find it. I'll blame the stuffed head.

Whine, moan, *achoo*

Otherwise, Mr. One Two Skip a Few and I are enjoying our days at home together. He's a good partner. We have to force ourselves to get out once a week to keep ourselves to get out now and then. We have a vehicle this year (knock on wood) which is a step up from our bicycling errand days of last fall.  This enables us to do a lot during the day that I would normally do in the evening. We were at Meijers first thing this morning buying more Airborne and some ingredients for our spaghetti dinner.

After looking at the week's forecast, I'm wondering if we can make it to the cider mill tomorrow, after story hour.  Today is raining.  Whine.  Wednesday, Thursday and Friday are raining.  Moan.

You can blame this whiny blog post on my mother. 

*wink*

Oh - and if I still feel crunky later today, I'll bring myself to urgent care after dinner. I promise. I'm thinking my sinuses need a good Z-Pack kick in the drain pipes. So tomorrow's blog post should be much less self pitying. 

 

Layout Share!

The above and the following are layouts I did a bit ago, but haven't been able to share until this week, as the Spring/Summer 2010 Creative Memories catalog was revealed.

The above one is one of my favorites - I don't often capture my teenager anymore, so it was fun to catch him/scrapbook him doing something he enjoys

Ingredients and Directions Here

 

And Uncle George. He came over the other day saying, 'yeah - I realized I hadn't been over in awhile when I was reading your blog and it had been awhile since I saw myself on it.

Got that right

Ingredients and Directions Here

 

And our Wendy. She's grown so much this past year and a half. I enjoyed looking back on these flower girl photos and getting them into her scrapbook

Ingredients and Directions Here

 

Same flower girl, another page

Ingredients and Directions Here

There are more, but those are just a few of my favorites.  I love that Creative Memories puts all the Ingredients/Directions on their site like that. If you have the new Spring/Summer 2010 catalog - you can look any of them up there.

Nifty.

*******

As for today - I've declared today Get Off the Computer and Get Things Done Day.
These often fall on Wednesdays - I'm not certain why.

Laundry
Dusting
Paperwork
Layouts
Find a Dentist for the kids (Wendy needs one yesterday)
More Paperwork
And I could probably do a 27 Fling Boogie in each room

It's that kind of day.

Happy Wednesday to You!

some projects and a how-to

You all thought I was here on the computer all day - but, HA - I was not. I was creating.  Whether I'm on board or not, the holidays are coming and I have a few things I need to do in order to get ready.  Like decorate cute cans for candy canes.

I used the Jewel Christmas Addition on this one.  I simply measured the height of the can (it's a Del Monte mandarin can.  Our Wendy *loves* mandarins in her lunch), and cut the paper accordingly.

Then, because I have this compulsive need to mat and border everything, I created a trim

 

I'm in love with the wavy blade that goes with Creative Memories 12" Rotary Trimmer.  One of my favorite things to do with it, is to layer my waves.  For this can I began by cutting a wave border, 1" wide.

 

I then created another wavy edge, this time on white cardstock.  It's actually the piece on the left that I'm using and I'm not worried about size at this point - just as long as it's more than the one inch I made my blue border

 

Next, I adhered my blue border to my white cardstock - matching up the waves and leaving a small matted edge

I then put the whole piece into my 12 inch rotary trimmer again, and cut it just a smidge (that *is* a technical term) over an inch, leaving that small white mat along the top edge. I then adhered the whole piece along the top edge of the can, creating the bordered edge.  Fun! 

To follow through with the white borders, I also matted and trimmed the three ornaments (cut from the patterned paper) before adhering them with foam squares to the can. Try it!  Quick and easy! Also a fun way to give a gift.

 

On a roll today, I also made a fun little card.  I used foam tape on the tree sticker to give it a little lift, and added a circle and snowflake to the top to give a little balance and help the eye move through the project.  That all sounds oh too technical.  I made a card - it was fun!  I've been in teacher mode for too long. I forget how to talk sometimes.

 

Lastly - our essential oil order came in the mail today, and I was tickled to see that they now (it's been a year since I ordered) pack the oils in darling little cardboard tubes.  I instantly visualized fun holiday packaging!  I measured the tube, cut my paper to size and wrapped it around adhering with photo splits along the way.

I labeled it to my mother and now I'm committed.  Or maybe I'll tell my kids they need to fill it for me.....yeah, that's what I'll do.......

Have a great weekend!!

Boo!

I've been a creating machine this past couple weeks - have you noticed? 

Some of you might remember that not too long ago I was hired on to be part of the Creative Memories Traditional Design Team.  What this means for me, in a nutshell, is more fun scrap goodies and more layouts and cards! 

Life is good.  I've been enjoying my work immensely so far - they are every bit as fun to work for/with as Steph kept telling me.

This past week I've been playing with a Limited Edition Trick or Treat Addition scheduled to launch on September 1st.   It's fun stuff.  I love this color combination.  I'm a little bummed because I plowed right thru the papers already - I want more!

eeek!!

I love that bug eyed owl.  And that bug eyed boy.  *sniff*  He's growing.  These pictures from two years ago a little bit made my stomach lurch.  He's growing too quick! I'm going to put a brick on his head, I think.

And her too!  I've been holding onto these pictures for two years - I love how this set pulled them together. Finally.  I might actually catch up some day at this rate!  Watch out!

And that's that.

Otherwise -

Pa's Home!  Pa's Home!  Pa's Home!!!
And the boys won't give him a moments peace.
bahahahahhahahahahhahaha......