Great news!

Wow! Two days in a row. I was just so happy today that I just needed to share it with someone! First off, my older son who is 19 texted me last night and told me that he was finally going to the MVD(Motor Vehicle Department) to get his license. I told him, "Good luck." He texted me back this morning about 10:45 MST to let me know that he got his license. He finally got his license. :) I was so happy and proud for him. I was at a Dr's appointment in the waiting room when it happened and all I wanted to do was cry, because my big boy was really growing into a man. I am definitely going to scrapbook this!

My next bit a great news happened when we were at my husband's Dr's appointment for his really bad carpal tunnel that he has in both hands. The doctor that he is seeing is also a plastic surgeon. While we were talking to him as he was explaining what he would do during the surgery and how he wants Chuck to get an EMG first to see how mild, bad, or severe his is, I had a thought pop into my head. "Ask him about breast reduction and insurance." So when all the explaining and such was done I asked the doctor if our insurance would cover me having a breast reduction surgery. He explained that it would as long as I had all the symptoms of needing it; back & neck pain, rash under the breast, signs of strap deformity where the strap goes over the shoulder, and a couple others. I answered "Yes" to every one. So he told me that when Chuck calls tomorrow to set up his EMG to have his assistant send me more info and see about my doctor making the referral to see this doctor. I am so EXCITED. I have been living with all the pain in my neck, back, shoulders for so long and I finally get to do something about it. I have wanted this surgery since my second son was born. I can not wait for this to happen!

Well, I am going to get some scrapping done before it is dinner time. Type later.

DT Layout

Is this not a beautiful sketch this week! I had just a blast doing my layout. It did take me awhile to pick out my pictures. All the pictures I have been scrapping lately have been old ones because I want to get that pile down a bit. I really need to start on the boys stuff. I don't have any from when they were babies because my ex-husband took all those and they were destroyed, and trust me I CRIED!!! Even the one and ONLY picture I had of my second son's birth because the camera malfunctioned. I'm still a little upset about it if you can't tell. (lol) Anyways, here is the recipe of the items I used:
Cardstock: Bazzill
Pattern paper: Webster's Pages
Ribbon: CTMH
Flowers: Prima
Brads: Making Memories
Scalloped boarder: Bazzill
Buttons: My own stash
Font tape: Dymo-Label Buddy

I do want to let all of you know that Shawn, the owner of Nuts About Sketches, will be putting up details later this week about the new Design Team call. Keep a look out as this has been an absolute blast these past 5 months.

DT Monday Layout

Well, here are this weeks sketch and layout. It took me about an hour to figure out what pictures I was going to use because there was so many on the sketch. Finally I remembered that I had a ton of pictures that I took when we went on a vacation to Santa Barbara and while we were there we visited the Santa Barbara Zoo.

DT Monday Layout

Good Morning (Afternoon, Evening) everyone. I hope that you all had a great weekend and if you have today off I hope you get to do some scrapping. That's what I have planned for today after I do some very much needed vacuuming. Here is my DT layout for the sketch this week. It took me quite awhile to find what pictures I wanted to do. Then it took another hour to find the paper. I am definitely not a fast scrapper. I do go a little faster when I make cards though. Here are the ingredients I used to make this page:

Cardstock: Bazzill
Pattern paper, Chipboard, Alphabet: Basic Grey-Origins
Cricut cart: Create a Critter cut at 4"
Ribbon: Offray
Flowers: Prima
Buttons: Making Memories
Ink: Cats Eye Chalk-Dark Brown
Adhesive: ATG, Zig 2 way glue, Pop Dots

I need to get a new camera. When ever I take a picture of my weekly layouts, they always look curved and in actuality they aren't. I hate that.

Well, today is going to be a fun day. After I get my vacuuming done, I am going to take some pictures of my scraproom as the before and start getting some things moved around. When you see in upcoming pics I am tucked back in a corner and can't move around very well in my chair. My wonderful DH finally was able to find wheels that would fit my chair I purchased at a thrift store that did not have any wheels on it. For about 6 months now it has been sitting on pieces of wood so that I could sit in it. Then a week ago he came home with 5 wheels in his hands. I was so happy! They fit perfectly and I am so thrilled now that I can actually move around in it, but the problem now is when ever I turn to get to the cabinets behind me the chair hits stuff. So when I did the new layout plan for my room I made sure I had plenty of room to move. :)

The other great news I had this past weekend was my DH has been working for himself in a cabinet shop close to our home. We are real good friends with the owner and one day my DH asked if he could use the equipment in the shop to make a drawer that he had been planning to hold all our DVDs. Since then he has been making lots of things. Well, I was in there the other day and I noticed a 50 gallon trash can with some wood in it that I wanted to use for shelving so I asked my DH if he thought I could have it. He told me to ask Curt (the owner). I did and I was told that I could have any trash wood that I wanted! The pieces aren't too big but some are and they are perfect for making shelves and even maybe a desk organizer, or even a wall holder for all my ribbon! I was so excited, so I grabbed a whole bunch for now. I can go back when ever my DH is there and grab some more. If I do by chance need a piece of wood that is a little bigger then trash, I can just pay for it. My mind is turning now! :)

Blog Hop

Hey everyone! It has been a few days since I have been on. Every time I went to get on to post something would happen. Well, today I wanted to tell you about a great Blog Hop that I went on! It starts at My Pink Stamper. It is so much fun and all the projects are so beautiful. Here is mine...

Isn't it so cute! I created it with my Cricut. Here are the ingredients:

Cricut cartridge: Create a Critter

Cardstock: Bazzill, Pattern paper: unknown

Glitter: Stickles

Ribbon: Offray

Rud-on: American Crafts

I cut the Love Bug at 3-3/4" . The whole card is an A2 size card. I had a blast putting this together and I think I have fallen in love with this cartridge! I can't wait to get this card in the mail to my bff.

DT Submission

Hey everyone! So what do you think of it? It is my new Tinkerbell journal. I covered a composition book like you would buy at Walmart. After I bought my Cricut Expression the very first and my most favorite cartridge that I had to get was Tinkerbell. I absolutely love this cartridge and have used it so many times! Here is a list of the products I used to make this journal:

Composition Book
Cricut Expression
Tinkerbell & Friends cartridge

Paper:

• Doodlebug
• Bazzill
• Stampin Up

Embellishments:

• Stickles-Crystal
• Ribbon-Unknown

Adhesive:

• ATG Gun (Pink one)
• Zig 2 Way Glue Pen
• Pop Dots

I made this journal for a DT submission. It is for My Pink Stamper. Robyn is a great, funny person who I started going to her blog about a month ago. I love her "Pink Loft"! Pink is my most favorite color too. I just wish that I could paint my scraproom pink, but I live in a townhouse style apartment and we aren't allowed to paint. Oh well, someday I will get to. Well, I hope you really like this journal. Leave me a comment and let me know what you think. Thanks for looking!

Dad's Birthday

Hello! I am trying so hard to get caught up. Now that the holidays are over things have dramatically slowed down here. Yea! I felt like I was running around like a wild person and yet I don't feel like I got much done. Oh well. Only 11 and 1/2 months until we do it again.:)

The weather today was so much warmer, though I don't think that a lot of you consider 36 degrees warm. It was for here. After having below 0 temps anything over freezing is warm. There is still snow on the ground. About 3 inches. Most of it is turning to ice as the temps drop at night.

Today was my dad's 64th birthday. I called and sang "Happy Birthday" to him over the phone. My dad loved it. We talked about his day and what he got. It was good to hear his voice.

Well, this is a quick post. I just wanted to do an update. Type later!

New Layout

Here is my DT layout for Nuts About Sketches. I thought this sketch was a blast. I have been wanting to get these pictures scrapped. My son is now 19 and graduated from high school almost 2 years ago. I'm a little behind. I will admit that I almost have every Christmas scrapped though. And Halloween. They are my favorite holidays if that explains anything.

The kids went back to school today! It didn't really matter here. Ben is either never here to begin with or really quiet when he is home to notice. I got out for a bit today though. I haven't been anywhere since it snowed. I love the snow very much, but I don't like driving around in it as I am afraid of something bad happening. I trust my husband's driving, I just don't trust all the other drivers out there. It is still very slick outside for me. Chuck has been helping me walk in bad areas by allowing me to hold onto his arm or shoulder. Slipping and falling on my back just does not sound like fun. When you have a chance of injuring your spinal cord like I do, you take every caution you can. This is my everyday life.

Well, I am heading to bed. I am way tired tonight. Type later everyone! Goodnight :)

Christmas Day

Merry Christmas everyone!!! I hope it has been a wonderful day for you. My boys are in Cali so I got to sleep in this morning. They are visiting their dad for Christmas and will be home late Monday. My husband is cooking a wonderful dinner for us and our neighbors. We are having a Christmas duck with stuffing, mash potatoes and gravy, and green bean casserole. For dessert we are just having leftover holiday goodies that we have been making all week for gift baskets. We were going to get a Christmas goose for dinner but when we both saw the price tag of $78.56, our mouths dropped open, Chuck placed the goose back into the grocery freezer and we got a Christmas duck at a savings of over $60.

MIA...

I was doing so good too with blogging at least weekly then... nothing. Shame on me! Actually I didn't realize how long it had been since I last blogged. Time seems to be going by so fast. I can't believe that Christmas is less then 2 weeks away. The boys are going to their dad's for a week, so it will only be Chuck and I for Christmas. I kind of wanted to have them for Christmas as I feel that this may be the last time we will be all in the same area to be together for Christmas. Next year so much may change, we will just have to see.
Here is my layout this week. When Shawn gave us December's sketches back in early November I knew what I wanted to do with this sketch. I saw a Christmas layout with Santa in his sleigh with reindeer flying through the sky. The only thing I needed to get was a Cricut cartridge for the Santa and reindeer. How lucky I was when I went to Walmart at midnight on Black Friday to look at the sales and especially the Cricut cartridges that they had on sale for $20, when I found one with exactly what I needed. I was so thrilled. This is probably my most fav layout that I have done so far.

Long Week

Last week was a long week for me, anyone else? I did get my layout for Nuts About Sketches done early so that left me with some extra free time and I spent it probably cleaning. Our weather here has finally changed to Fall and our winds have kicked in too. With this wind comes the wonderful and fun job to remove DUST. It finds every little crack to come in, let alone when the front door is opened. We don't get it as bad as some people in the apartments because we are kind of tucked in a little corner. Well, here is this weeks sketch and my layout. I thought that with this week being the week before Halloween I would do a Halloween layout of my boys. This was a fun Halloween for us as this was the first year Ben could walk completely on his own. As you can tell they wanted the candy before we went trick or treating and had it all over their faces. I have always put a little handful of candy from our hand out stuff into their buckets so they are not empty when they go out. :)

It is so different now. With them being 19 & 17 there is no more trick or treating, actually there hasn't been for awhile now. I miss it, making the costumes, putting on face paint, going through the candy when we got home and picking out one of my favs! It was always so much fun. I remember the first time Ben asked to go with his friends instead of the family. I thought I was going to cry.

The next step will be the grandkids and I can't wait! But I did tell my boys that they better wait for a few more years!

New Sketch

Here is this weeks new sketch! I had a really fun time putting this one together. My dad truly is my hero and always will be. When I went through my divorce he had the shoulder I could cry on. It was an abusive marriage and my dad did so much to help. He went to almost all my court hearings, he helped get me back into my house after my ex moved out. He even bought me a cute stuffed dog to help me cheer up (I still have it). My parents even paid for my attorney.

When my dad got cancer, I was there to help him. As he was going through chemo his hair started to fall out and my mom asked if I could shave my dad's head to halp ease the pain because she couldn't do it and I couldn't balme her. I think this was when it truly hit me that I may lose my dad. He is still here and doing great. He is in complete remission right now. :)

I'm daddy's little girl, his first born, and he is "My Hero."

Didn't make it

Well, I didn't make it on the design team for Scrapbookers Anonymous, but that is ok. I had so much fun doing the sketch for it. I have to admit though that every time I try out for a design team I am getting some more photos scrapped whether I make it on the team or not. :) But I did want to go ahead and at least post the layout I did do.

It is of my friend Morgan and her baby girl Zoe. I actually scrap Zoe a lot because she is so photogenic. In these pictures Morgan decided to climb into Zoe's crib. When she brought me these photos i couldn't stop laughing. They are just too cute. At the time Zoe is about 10 months, now she is 2 yrs old. I did two new techniques on this layout too. The pinwheels and the zipper flowers. I have done pinwheels before but the ones where you flip the paper over and secure it down, and I have to say that when you are doing very small ones it can be a pain in the butt to secure them. I saw these new ones it another layout and thought that they would be perfect and so much easier! They are so simple to make, you cut out 2 squares, one smaller then the other (I used square punches to make mine), then on the back side you draw lines diagonally and into quarters. Now you cut the lines down to within 1/8th inch of the center. Then cut out every other one. Now glue the smaller one on top of the bigger one and embellish as you please. Very easy. Now the zipper flower is a lot harder and you can find tutorials all over the internet for them.

I'm now going to get back to scrapping. I need to start working on next weeks sketch for NAS. I hope you all have had a great weekend! Type later.

Did It Again...

So here is this week's sketch and my layout of it. I really had so much fun doing this one. My brother and I have a great relationship and I have always wanted to do a layout about us and this sketch was perfect. My mom absolutely loved it too.

Well, I did it. I applied for another design team and can't wait to see if I made it. Since I have been doing layouts for Nuts About Sketches I have fallen in love with doing a layout each week and I love the doing challenges so I applied at Scrapbookers Anonymous. It is a new scrapsite and I am loving it. I really like the monthly challenges. This month you need to use 3 different pattern papers from 3 different manufacturers all on one layout, and trust me it is not that easy. Each month will be a different kind of challenge so I can't wait to find out who has made the team.

Well, I need to get some chores done so I need to get off this computer. Type later.

One Big Hole

Here is this weeks Nuts About Sketches sketch and my layout. I hope you like it. My layout is about a field trip I went on to Tonto Natural Bridge with the 7th grade class at Snowflake Jr. High. I was an Instructional Assistant at the time. It was so beautiful to see this amazing bridge. I know that it is hard to see in the pics but if you look real close you can see some of the students in relation to the size of the hole. I will try to get a better pic of that for you. It was really hard to make the climb back up though. I thought I was going to die and I wanted to when I finally did get to the top. :) It was so much fun and absolutely beautiful to visit.

Zipper flowers

Here are the up close pictures of the zipper flower I made and put on my layout.

New Layout

Here is the latest layout I did for Nuts About Sketches. I hope you like it. The zipper flower in the top right corner is something I just learned how to do. It was so much fun to create!

Today I got a great package from my mom. She told me she was sending me a bag for my laptop that she had given me along with a birthday card, but that wasn't it in the box. Along with that stuff was a really cute Tinker Bell fleece blanket (I LOVE Tinker Bell), a Tinker Bell place mat that I have on my desk, a cute little Tinker Bell lunch box that I am going to use for my photos, a heart keychain, a pair of Tinker Bell earrings, and a Tinker Bell house key. I love it all and it was such a great surprise. Thank you Mom!!

My Card

Today I decided to make a card for a scrapbook site that was having a contest. I had to use black, burgundy, yellow, and white to create either a layout or a card. I thought about it and decided that it would probably be easier for me to make a card. It took me about 3 hrs to make it and to me that is a long time to make a single card. I always take a long time when scrapping because I look through all my options. I pull lots of things out and decide how that looks then put them back and try something else. This can go on for about an hour in itself. I need to learn how to chose materials faster. I did learn from someone that the way she would do it was only give herself so many minutes to chose say what cardstock she was going to use. I did try once to only give myself only 5 minutes to chose the pattern paper I wanted to use and it ended up being 30 minutes which isn't too long, but when it was 30 minutes for that then 30 minutes for the next thing it adds up and the next thing I know I have spent 6 hours on a layout and I'm not even finished! The one thing that helps me the most with getting layouts out faster are sketches. They are my time savers. That is the number one thing I love the most about being on Nuts About Sketches Design Team. The sketch is there for me! Once I do have all the paper, pictures, and embellishments then it is usually 2-3 hrs for me to finish, but that is for a single page.

Well, I am going to work on some jewelry now as I found a great necklace that I want to make. Type later.

A Few Layouts

I wanted to get a couple new layouts on my blog today. I finished these in the last couple weeks and realized I didn't have them up. Shame on me! These are layouts I did for a crop over on Simply Obsessed. I love it there because they usually have a crop a month with great prizes. They sure get me motivated to get some pictures scrapped. I have so many, a few hundred, pictures I want to get done, plus all the new ones that are being taken. Someday, maybe I will catch up.

Not much has happened since the last time I blogged. My husband has been real busy with making furniture. I need to post some pics of his stuff, it is absolutely BEAUTIFUL! He has made me a coffee table, a TV cabinet, and for his lizard, a new stand. Right now he is working on a cutting board thing. I'm not sure about it. He uses exotic woods and really pretty hard woods to make his stuff. Mostly it is purple heart, orange perduke, and black walnut. I never knew that wood could be so beautiful. I want him to make me a spice cabinet like they have in Chinese stores. The ones that have like 50 or more drawers in them. I love them and think it would be great storage for all my embellishments and stuff. The drawers are usually only about 6"x6"x 8". Some of the cabinets I have seen are so ornate with a lot of Chinese design on them. I'm not sure how soon this will happen, but I'm hoping not too long. I told him I would like it for Christmas. :)

Thw weather here is finally cooling down. The past week has been so nice. I don't think we even got out of the 70's. It really feels like Fall now and I have been kinda wanting to get out the Halloween decorations. Last year I didn't get to put a whole lot out because that was when I was dealing with my hands not working and it was so painful to move my fingers. This year though, I am ready to turn my home into a crypt. I think I have more Halloween decorations then Christmas ones. It is my husbands favorite holiday too. Well, I am falling asleep while I am typing so it is time to head to bed so off I go, type later.

New Layout

Here is a layout I finished today. I have very few pictures of my boys when they were very little because of a terrible divorce, so I love doing layouts of the ones I have. My boys are my dreams come true, they are actually miracles because of a condition I had I never should of been able to have children. I did not find out about this until after I had my hysterectomy at the ripe old age of 29. I so wanted more children too, but I will just wait for grandchildren. :)