Bunny Ears

A little something from last Easter to share today! I fell in love with this super cute Easter line from Bella Blvd a while back and knew it would be great with these photos of the boys with their "Bunny Ears" and baskets on Easter morning.

The journaling reads: "You boys made rather cute bunnies with the ears the Easter Bunny left you this year! As always you enjoyed searching the house to find all the treats left during the night. You also had a great time feasting on all that sugar throughout the morning! Easter 2011"

Thanks for stopping by and have a great day!

Big Brothers Again

Another quick share of a Scrapbook.com layout today. I mentioned that I had a lot of fun with the new Echo Park's "A Boy's Life" line and it is very true! This layout shows some photos I snapped of my two oldest "seeing" their new sibling for the first time. It was fun to document their excitement!

The journaling reads: "I love seeing you boys so excited to be big brothers again! I didn't expect that the two of you would be so interested and thrilled to have a baby joining our family. It is fun to hear you talk about and ask questions about the baby. In these photos you were getting your first look at your new sibling and jokingly telling me about how it looks like an alien and how you don’t really care if it is a girl or a boy—you are just both excited for a baby! 01/20/12"

Thanks again for visiting!

The Final Derby

Good morning and happy spring break everyone! I have a quick post today to share a new layout for Scrapbook.com. I had lots of fun playing with the new Echo Park "A Boy's Life" line and used it for several of my layouts this month. Today I want to share a layout I made about Ty's final Pinewood Derby (at least as a Cub Scout). He is in Webelos now so by this time next year he will have moved up to Boy Scouts. This is far from our last Pinewood Derby as a family though as Blake moves into Cub Scouts this fall. 

The journaling reads: "As a Webelo Ty this was your last Pinewood Derby, but it was still at lot of fun. You and Dad worked together on the design and paint job, with you deciding to make it into a tank with a few Legos added on top. You were a little sad when you lost your first race as you thought you were done racing, however, you went on to win your next three races and finished somewhere in the top ten cars. You didn't win a trophy, but you were still excited to win the award for the “Most Dangerous” car! Jan 2012"

Thanks for visiting!

I'm wearing pink today!!!

I'm not the type of person that is often good at waiting for a long period of time. That is what has made this past week soooooooo hard!!! We had an ultrasound last week and had a good look at this new baby. Thankfully, the baby looks very healthy and some concerns from earlier seem to have resolved themselves. We decided to wait a bit on finding out the gender until we could find out together with our boys and some family and friends. And even though it killed me having an envelope with the news in my purse (and not looking at it) for six whole days, I'm so glad we did it this way! 

I kept myself from peeking by staying busy getting ready for our little party. I made invitations and decorations, bought candy and balloons, and planed our menu. Here are a few photos of some of the details.

Everything for the evening (from decor, to plates, cups, and utensils) was done in colors of pink, blue, and brown. Lots of candy in pink, blue, and brown too--it was really fun to try and find the proper colors. Pink was fairly easy to find, blue however, was a bit more elusive. My favorites were the Root Beer Barrels and the Hershey Kisses with the "It's a girl/boy!" papers inside. The kids seemed to really like the Rock Candy.

Since we live in Texas it seemed to make sense to go with a western theme. We had lot of yummy BBQ to eat and some fun rodeo inspired family games to play for our "family night" activities. 

Oh, and here is a peek at the invitation. It was up on the Cricut Circle blog over the weekend so I'll have to wait a while to show the whole thing, but here is a peek.

Some paper flowers for decor.

We took a little poll about what people thought the baby would be. You can see it was a pretty even split with "girl" up by one among those willing to take a guess.

Because it was still a week before daylight savings we knew we would need to figure out some way to bring light into the backyard. We strung out Christmas lights around the fence and I made some of these paper lanterns. That brought just enough light and I loved the way the lanterns looked once it got dark. (Made with my Cricut, Cricut Craft Room and the Old West Cartridge)

For the big reveal I sent one of my friends into the house to open the envelope and fill this big box with balloons of the proper color (I had both blue and pink balloons ready to go). After opening the envelop she filled the box and brought it back outside while everyone gathered around to watch our family open it.

 The big moment! It's a girl!!! 

I was in total shock! Somehow after three boys I just didn't quite think it would ever be a girl!

Marc was thrilled as was Ty. Blake was not quite so happy. He apparently wanted another little brother and it took a little bit to warm him up to the idea. He went off to school pretty happy about it this morning though. He was eager to tell his friends and teacher about it. Spencer is still just trying to figure out what is going on. I don't think he will quite get it until the baby is here.

Ty is still very excited about it. He wanted me to take this photo this morning since we finally had daylight again!

I'm still in shock and still very happy. This was a really, really fun way to find out. Worth the wait and made even better by being surrounded by family and friends. I don't think there could have been a better way to find out. A big thank you to all of you who came, helped, and celebrated with us! 

Now I'm going to get ready to do some shopping with my mom (whom this baby will get her middle name from). I hope that I can have a relationship with this new daughter of mine like the relationship I have with my mom. That would be the very best part of having a daughter!

Thanks for letting me share my news! And have a great Tuesday!

Welcome To The Blog Hop!

(If you were having trouble with the link below it has been fixed)

Welcome To The Creative Memories Blog Hop! You should have arrived from the blog of Nicole LeBlanc if you are following the hop. If you are just hearing about the blog hop be sure and visit the start of the hop at the Creative Memories Digital blog so that you can see all the beautiful projects created with the new lines!

For my part of the hop I was able to play with the gorgeous new line "Enchanted". The colors, embossing, and gloss accents of this new line are so pretty!  To top it all off the new die cut paper ribbon (which is self-adhesive) and new epoxy stickers add some wonderful texture and dimension to any project made with this line! I love it and think it's one of Creative Memories best ever lines!

I made this set of cards for my part of the blog hop.

In addition to the Enchanted line, I also used a few tools when making my cards. This card here uses the Corner Maker on the main tag, Foam Squares to pop up the tag, and my Square Maker to clip the ends of the paper for the sentiment.

 On this card I had a little fun with my Cricut and the Stork's Delivery Cartridge. I cut the sentiment and cupcake out with this cartridge.

And on this final card I pulled out my favorite Border Maker Cartridge to add the scallops along the bottom of my card. Again I used my Square Maker to clip the end of my pennant in the upper corner of the card.

And now for the important stuff! If you are collecting letters from each of the blogs for a chance to win a prize then you need to know my letter is.............E

And the next stop on the blog hop is Gretchen McElveen's blog.

For more information about the new lines and new March products you can click here.

For information about finding a consultant in your area visit this link.

Or, if you are interested in becoming a consultant yourself you can learn more about it here.

Thanks for letting me share my projects with you! And good luck to those of you collecting letters for a chance at a prize! You will love playing with this new line!

Blog Hop Time (Win some great prizes too!)

I'm super excited to be participating in a blog hop starting tomorrow! Creative Memories is showcasing it's two beautiful new lines with projects from their design team. I've had a lot of fun playing with my projects and can't wait to share them with you tomorrow! So I hope you come back tomorrow and check out my blog and all the other designers blogs to see some truly gorgeous new lines and some wonderful projects--prizes too! For more information check out the Creative Memories blog.

And because I can't do a post without a project, here is a little bit of Cricut work I did for the Cricut Blog back in December. I believe I showed a thumbnail of them before, but here are the full size images.

These cards use a beautiful Christmas line from Echo Park and the Elegant Edges and Winter Frolic Cricut Cartridges. The Rub-On sentiments are by Melissa Frances and the jewels are by Queen and Co. 

Thanks for visiting! See you tomorrow!

It's Rodeo Day!

I just dropped three very handsome little cowboys off at school for their rodeo day. They each had their cowboy duds, hats, and great big grins on as this is one of their favorite school days each year. It's one of mine as well since I get to go watch them perform the line and square dances they each have been learning in P.E. this past month or so. And since the first graders are up in just a few minutes I'll have to make this post short, but I wanted to share another Cricut Circle Blog project from last fall. I made this layout with the Creative Memories Cheerful Seasons Cartridge which in one of my favorite cartridge as it has a little bit of something for each time of year. 

I used several of the fall cuts on this cartridge along with the Apple Cheddar Soup line from Jillibean Soup. They were a perfect math for this layout about making caramel apples for Family Night!

Thanks for visiting and have a great weekend!

Faking the Letterpress Look

Much of the designing I do for Cricut is shown on the Cricut Circle blog, which is an exclusive members only blog (information on becoming a member here) and therefore I can't show those projects on my own personal blog  until three months has passed. Thankfully I've been designing with Cricut now about 4 months so that means I have a few projects to share! 

The first project I did for the Cricut Circle blog was a challenge to make something to giveaway, so I made this little treat box for a friend of mine at church. I had some leftover supplies from the treat box so I made a matching card as well. 

My favorite part of this project was the embossed background. I used white cardstock, my Cuttlebug, and some green ink. I inked the Cuttlebug folder as completely as I could (I used American Craft pigment ink) and then added my white cardstock and ran it through the Cuttlebug. The first result is on the treat box, although pretty, it didn't quite give me full coverage of the ink, so I repeated the process again using a thin cardstock sham to add additional pressure. This time I got perfect full coverage of the green ink on the flat portions of the cardstock. The raised embossed portions stayed white to create a perfect letterbox effect.  

This project also uses pumpkins cut with the Mini Monsters Cartridge and tags cut with the Elegant Edges Cartridge. The treat box is cut from the Sweet Treats cartridge. 

The papers and stickers are by Bella Blvd, ribbon by Chatterbox, and the clear sentiment stickers are by SRM Stickers.

Thanks for letting me share and have a great day!

Yeah For A Fixed Window and More Halloween

Thanks to a good friend of ours the van is back in great shape and I'm counting my blessings that if the window had to break, I'm very glad it picked one of the few days this week without rain. Now I'm all set for the rather wet and wild weather they say we are going to be having this weekend. Perfect timing! 

So as I mentioned in my last post, today I'm showing my other Halloween layout that there just wasn't time for me to add yesterday. It again uses the Bella Blvd "Too Cute To Spook" line and is about a very fun little Halloween party the boys had with some of their cousins last October.

The journaling reads: "What a great time we had meeting up with your cousins in Dallas for a mini Halloween party in the hotel room. We dressed up, played games, and ate lots of candy. Some of my favorite moments included watching you boys “mummy wrap” your cousins in toilet paper and watching the eruption of giggles while we played “Don’t Eat Jack!” I’m so glad we live close enough to see your cousins often as we always have a great time together! October 2011"

Thanks for stopping by and have a great weekend!

Well It's Not October or Any Time Near Halloween

But I have some Halloween layouts to share. I was going to do all three today and write a much longer post, but I'm a little bit shorter on time than I thought I would be. While driving my 5 year old to school a rock hit my back window and shattered it --so I'll just go with posting the two that are here and save the third for tomorrow since my day will now be filled with getting the van fixed. Bummer :(

Anyhow, here are two layouts of last Halloween. Spencer loved being Thomas and Blake was very excited to have his first "scary" costume--a vampire. Both layouts use my favorite Halloween line from 2011--Bella Blvd's "Too Cute To Spook" line.

Little Engineer

Scary Little Count

I'm off to go price auto-glass! I hope your day gets off to a better start than mine--and thanks for visiting!

A Little Picadilly

One of my recent favorite collections from Basic Grey is Picadilly! I love the colors and fun country patterns included in this line--very fun stuff! I used it here on this layout about Spencer enjoying some fall leaves in his grandparents backyard last November.

Finally Fall

The journaling reads: "Spencer, you had so much fun playing in all the fall leaves at Grandma and Grandpa Williams' home. We don't see fall leaves in Houston much, so it was a special treat to have a few spare hours to romp through them! November 2011"

Also I want to thank my sweet sister-in-law Becky, for passing a blogging award on to me last Friday! If you haven't checked out her blog you are really missing out! She is a super talented scrapbooker and does amazing things scrapbooking her four sweet girls! I love visiting her blog and seeing her beautiful work--check it out if you have a moment.

As part of the award I get to highlight 5 other bloggers that I love--so head on over and check these talented ladies out!

1. Charity Hassel  Love what my fellow Cricut team member does with her Cricut!

2. Kathy Martin. Great little details on her scrapbooks and cards--and lots of great color!

3. Liz Birnel A sweet friend of mine who just started an Esty shop and blog featuring her beautiful and fun crocheted items!

4. Alicia Giess --One of the nicest and kindest scrapbookers I've ever had the pleasure of designing with! And she scrapbooks awesome too!

5.  Michelle St. Clair--I adore her slightly simple graphic style! Her pages are always clean and lovely and she can rock two page layouts! 

Have fun checking out these talented ladies--and as always, thanks for visiting!

They Like To Be Together

Happy Friday Morning! I love Fridays, I just wish today wasn't quite so rainy--otherwise it would be a perfect day! I have another layout for Scrapbook.com full of various Pink Paislee lines to share today. It's about my silly boys who  frequently like to sleep in the same room or even the same bed. Silly boys! I have no idea how they can sleep like that!

The Journaling reads: " All three of you have your own beds and two different rooms to sleep in, yet most nights you prefer to sleep together. This night you were all sleeping in Ty’s room when I checked on you and found this funny scene. All three of you on top of each other and yet still sleeping so soundly! I had to take a picture! June 14th 2011"

And as I mentioned yesterday I had a project go up on the Cricut blog yesterday using their new Cricut Craft Room Exclusive: Zombies. Here is a little preview and you can see the entire project by clicking over to the Cricut Blog here. While you are there be sure and check out all the new Craft Room Exclusives Released yesterday--there are lots of fun ones!

Thanks for stopping by today! Have a great weekend!