Happy Halloween!

No layout today--but I do have a card. I made this a couple of years ago when I was designing for Chatterbox. It was published by Scrapbook Trends and so I took it down from the web. That was last year though so I thought I'd put it back up today :)

We did our Halloween celebrating yesterday and had a great time! The boys all looked great in their costumes,

We carved our pumpkins,

and we all ate way too much sugar! (Including these adorable little rats my mom made!)

I can't wait until next year!

I hope you had a great weekend! :)

Layout A Day--Day 6

Just a quick drive by post today with another layout to share. This layout features Blake doing some pumpkin Picking at the Oil Ranch last year. It uses Bella Blvd's One Fall Day Line which was a favorite of mine from this past summer's CHA trade show:

I also wanted to share a fabulous scrapbooking tool that I recently discovered. You may have noticed that I often print my photos smaller than 4"x6" I used to use Gimp to resize my photos so that I could print multiple photos on a 4"x6" photo paper, but that took forever! I also used Picasa to generate collages, but that wouldn't do batch processing....and it still took quite a bit of time.

Then I found this handy little program PhotoSheet, and now I can very quickly get many different sizes of many different photos onto a 4"x6" photo paper, and it will batch process if I need. It is so easy to use--very fast and it has made printing out my photos in the sizes I need SOOOOOOOO much easier! I love it! Check it out if you like to print your photos smaller than 4"x6"!

I hope you all have a great weekend! I know ours is sure to be full of lots of fun Halloween activities!

(Here is my cute little Cowboy after his Joy-School Halloween party)

So have a great day! And don't forget to comment on Thursday's post to get a chance to be in the drawing!

Layout A Day--Day 5

Welcome to day 5! Today I am sharing another layout created for Scrapbooks.com again featuring the super cute My Mind's Eye Alphabet Soup--Boy line. To say I loved this line would be a HUGE understatement! It was perfect for these older photos of Spencer getting some tummy time:

The scan made the title look a little bit off tilt, but it is straight in real life :)

The journaling reads: "You almost always loved to be on your tummy at this age Spencer! You were close to crawling, but really couldn’t do much more than just scoot around a little. Still, it gave you a tiny bit of freedom, so for about a month, we constantly found you smiling and babbling away in this position. --July 2007"

Be sure and leave a comment on yesterday's post to have a chance to win a copy of this book, plus a few free scrappy supplies :)

Have a great day! And be sure and check out tomorrow's post!

Layout A Day--Day 4 And A Give Away Too!

Well, I actually want to start today's post with a card I did for the Pebbles blog this week. We are debuting one of their latest lines "New Arrival--Boy" on their blog this week and there is some super cute and amazing work all there using this new collection. Here is my contribution:

Be sure and take a peek at all the other projects here!

I also have another project to share today from my DT work at scrapbooks.com.

This is a little Halloween banner that currently hangs on the wall in my living room. I had a lot of fun making it with these adorable Halloween papers from the Blackbird line by My Mind's Eye. My mom also gave me some very cute strips of fabric from her Halloween fabric collection which I wrapped around the chipboard letters (From Hobby Lobby) and turned into little rosettes. My mom made one with me and her's looks great hanging on her front door!

And since I promised a layout a day and not just a project a day, here is another layout made with the October Kit over at My Scrapbook Nook:

Oh yes, and I promised to tell you about my book giveaway as well....

So if you go back a few posts you will see where I talked about contributing to this book here:

This book is chalk full of good tips on everything from journaling, to photography, to keeping focused on the the story behind the pages! I loved working on it, and really had fun reading through the finished project! Nancy gives some really fun examples of telling celebrities about scrapbooking, and I must say this book really made me smile. Nancy is really good at describing just how important scrapbooking really can be to the family members you share them with and really captures the reasons why we scrapbook in truly heartfelt ways!

  Well anyhow, they sent me a couple of copies to give away to my blog readers! So if you would be interested in getting this book along with some papers and embellishments I have left over from her lovely Hummingbird collection...

 ...be sure and leave me a comment on this post before Monday morning and I'll draw a couple of winners!

Thanks again for visiting today!

Layout A Day--Day 3

Hi again everyone--welcome to day 3 of my Layout A Day posts! Today I'm sharing a layout made with the beautiful October kit at My Scrapbook Nook:

The papers in this kit are made by Lilly Bee and they are so beautiful! They just seemed perfect for these photos of Spencer at the pumpkin patch!

Be sure and come back tomorrow for a chance at a giveaway!

Layout A Day--Day 2

Welcome to day 2! Today I've got another layout I did for scrapbooks.com with the My Mind's Eye Alphabet Soup Boys Line! This one is about the little bald spot all my boys have gotten on the back of their heads before they start sitting up and crawling :) I used to love to kiss the smooth skin back there when they were little!

Journaling Reads: "You Spencer were my only baby to have much hair, but even you developed the characteristic baby bald spot on the back of your head from having your head constantly resting and rubbing against whatever was holding up your heavy head. Now that you are starting to crawl and sit up much more the bald spot is starting to disappear and soon it will only be a memory! --Fall 2007"

Be sure and come back tomorrow for day 3!

Layout A Day--Day 1

Hi everyone! So sorry for being too busy to blog last week! The good news though is that I am making up for it with a Layout A Day share this week. Each day I have at least 1 layout to share and somewhere this week, a book giveaway! So even though each post will be short and sweet, there will be something fun each day! I hope you will stop by and say hello!

Today I'm sharing a very recent layout I did for Scrapbooks.com.

And if you can believe it--I did a layout with 8 photos! It's about Spencer's recent love of everything to do with "Cars" and uses the new My Mind's Eye Alphabet Soup Boys line, which I fell in love with the first moment I saw it!

The journaling reads: "Spencer, you just love the movie cars! Ever since Grandpa put it onto your I-pad it has become a favorite! Recently you discovered that your brothers owned several of the toy cars from the movie. They have quickly become some of your favorite toys as you race them all over the house and drive them through the various toy garages we own. It is really fun to watch you grow and pass through so many fun stages Spencer. I think this current “movie” stage is one of my all time favorites! Fall ‘10"

Thanks for stopping by today!

Catching Fall....

...and catching up on blogging! These past 2 weeks have been sooooooooo busy! Way busier than an "average" busy time for me--which is really saying something! We have had all kinds of fun family activities like out trip to the Oil Ranch:

Wish this one wasn't so over-exposed, but Spencer was moving so fast I didn't have time to take a closer look at my settings and realise that I wasn't in the camera mode I thought I was. Oh well, editing it helped a lot--and it is too cute a pose to not keep it! :)

Blake had a hard time deciding on just one :)

Showing off their "Indian War Paint" as well as their pumpkins :)

 

And also our area's 100 yrs of scouting Jam--which was lots of fun! Plus Ty's third grade field trip to see an Opera! It has been a jam packed October so far and the month isn't quite half way over yet!

Also contributing majorly to the business is the fact that I've scrapbooked over 58 layouts and made 37 cards in the past two weeks. Now granted, some of the layouts and most of the cards were duplicates for Queen and Company's Board Program--all done in assembly line fashion late at night with a little help from Marc--but all of them took a great deal of time!

The rest of the work was all related to this book which hit shelves today:

As part of my design team work with Creative Memories I had the opportunity to contribute both to this book and to design one of the scrapbooks that are going on the media tour with Nancy. I also contributed to her page planner book which became available at the beginning of October.

Here is a little bit about the book from the Creative Memories web site:

Written in conjunction with Creative Memories, a leader in the scrapbooking industry, "Full of Love" explores the power of the family photo album. Illustrated with sample album pages and filled with how-to tips, "Full of Love" draws on Nancy’s own experiences, the advice of renowned child psychologist Dr. Kenneth Condrell and the expertise of acclaimed photographer Ulrica Wihlborg. Whether interviewing celebrities on the red carpet or co-hosting Access Hollywood for the past 13 years, O’Dell has always found time to capture her favorite memories in scrapbook albums. “I take so many photos at my children’s events, home and work,” O’Dell said. “I love having them to look at later with my family and friends.” O’Dell said she’s been making albums since she was a child. “It’s something I learned from my mother and grandmother,” she said. “They both created beautiful scrapbooks and showed me how important it is to have special memories you can hand down from generation to generation. It’s a tradition I now continue with my children.” O’Dell’s love for memory-keeping makes her a perfect partner for Creative Memories, a company that started the scrapbooking phenomenon nearly 25 years ago. “I know first-hand how important scrapbook albums are to kids,” O’Dell said, sharing her memories of the albums her mother made for her. “When I look at those albums, I feel like I was the most loved child in the world. I want my children to have that same feeling, that same sense of family connection,” she said. “There is no question that having those albums made me feel important. And I can already see that developing in my own family.”

And it doesn’t stop with a book. Nancy has also designed a full line of scrapbooking products in conjunction with Creative Memories, called the Hummingbird Series.

I've gotten to know this collection well over the past few months and it is beautiful! In fact that beautiful scrapbook tote just showed up on my doorstep today and it is the prettiest scrapbook tote I've ever seen--by far! I love it and plan on using it to take along some scrapbook supplies on our next little weekend trip :) If you would like a chance to win some of this collection be sure and stop by here.

You can also read more about the book here:

http://www.scrapbooksetc.com/blogs/iscrapuscrap/2010/10/01/10-pages-in-10-minutes/

http://www.creativememories.com/LandingPages/Page?folder=Promos/FullOfLoveBook

Or just keep an eye on your TV over the next couple of weeks as Nancy goes on her book tour. She kicks it off on the Early show Monday morning in the 9am hour. I'm hoping to see a few quick peeks of some of the stuff I designed at that time :)

Additionally, you can win one of her books next week here on my blog! I think they are sending me 3 copies of her book to giveaway, so come back soon to leave a comment and pick up this book for free :)

And because I feel like I need to post some scrapbook work instead of just talk about it--here is a layout I created with the beautiful October kit at www.myscrapbooknook.org:

The papers are from the Lilly Bee Catching Fall line, the alphas and flowers are by Basic Grey, and the flower shapes are by Jillibean Soup. The puzzle punch is by Creative Memories.

Journaling reads: ""This past summer you became a reader Ty! This was a hard fought battle to help you overcome your learning disabilities that have made reading so hard for you, but we are so proud of you for working so hard with us this summer to succeed! These are photos I took of you after you realized that you could read a book as long and complicated as “Green Eggs and Ham.” You would sit on the couch and read from cover to cover for as long as it took to finish it, and you enjoyed it too! I cried watching you do it, and thanked our Father in Heaven for this simple and wonderful miracle! Summer '10"

Thanks for stopping by today and putting up with my lack of blogging. (Like you had a choice, right? :) )

Enjoy your weekend!

New Layouts To Share Today...And A Peek At The October Kit...

...from My Scrapbook Nook.

Isn't this beautiful? Here is the little summary of it:

The 2010 Oct. Kit Featuring Lily Bee, Jillibean Soup, Basic Grey, and Maya Road

Autumn is the perfect time of year, with crisp leaves, candied apples, fat pumpkins, and that sweater-weather nip in the air!  Celebrate a bountiful harvest of family, friendship and love with our October kit!  One of the most texturally satisfying kits we've ever created, this one is sure to be a winner!

Lily Bee "Catching Fall" papers-2 each!
Jillibean Soup Sugar Picks
1 Basic Grey Bloomers/With Buttons
2 Basic Grey Alphabets
Maya Road Mini Roses Trim
Lily Bee Die Cuts
Jillibean Soup Corrugated Shapes

You will want to jump into this kit like its a heaping pile of leaves!  And don't forget the coordinating add ons, loads of amazing embellishments from companies like Basic Grey, Jillibean Soup and Lily Bee.

Mine just came in the mail and I can't wait to play!

On a different note, here are 2 of my September Layouts for Scrapbooks.com:

This first one is all about what a great big brother Ty is to Spencer. He is always looking out for him and taking good care of him! Lots of Bella Blvd Hello Beautiful papers here.



And this last layout is all about one of our favorite summer time treats, Popsicles! We can go through a lot of Popsicles in a summer and I wanted to document this childhood classic and how much we love it :) This layout features the new Cosmo Cricket Togetherness line.

Thanks for stopping by today! Have a great Friday!