Sugar and Spice and SPARKLES!

Okay, so I'll admit it... I may have gone a little glitter crazy with this layout. It sure was fun!!!

This is my little girl when she was around 2 and got her first tutu dress up outfit. She wouldn't take it off and in fact, we went out to dinner with friends that night and she wore it there too. I believe she cried that night when it was time to go to bed and she had to take it off. Goofy girl! She's still all about fancy and fru-fru things, so apparently this is when it all started!

Thanks for looking!


Some close-up shots of all the sparkles and fabulous glitteryness...



Patterned Paper: K&Company
Alphas: Thickers by American Crafts
Flowers: Prima and a few handmade
Bling Flourish: Recollections by Michael's Stores
Pennant Die cut: Lost & Found (Girl Collection) by My Minds Eye
Layered Stickers: Butterflies by K&Co.
Ribbons: Crocheted ribbon by American Crafts, Fringe by Maya Road

Faithful Friend

I was digging through some photos tonight and I came across these pictures of our family dog, Radar. She was such a special dog and indeed, a faithful friend in the all of the ways that pets can be. Always knowing when something was wrong, when you needed some extra licks or cuddling, she just knew what she needed to be to each person in our family. She was a truly amazing dog, right up to the end.

Radar passed away when I was about 6 months pregnant with my oldest child. It was a sad day, but she will forever be remembered for the remarkable addition to our family that happened by "mistake". (I don't remember 100% how it happened, but she was my brother's dog. I think he needed somewhere for her to be for a while when he was moving -- he brought her over one day and she just never left.)

So there's my little jaunt down memory lane and without further ado - my dear friend, Radar. :)

Patterned Paper and stickers: Thrift Shop by October Afternoon
Flowers: Prima Marketing
Tags (both metal and paper): Tim Holtz
Alphas: Thickers by American Crafts and Tiny Type by Cosmo Cricket
Trim/crocheted ribbon: Maya Road

The Day Before...

This layout is so special in so many ways. The picture is of my daughter and me (I don't get into pictures TOO often) sitting outside waiting for the Flag Day parade to start. There wasn't a cloud in the sky, or wind, or shade to be found... it was hot. I was 9 months pregnant. My mom talked me into going to the parade in the afternoon, because M loves parades. I worked that morning, went to the parade, got a bit of a sunburn, worked a little after the parade, went home and by then my husband was home from work. He fixed dinner, I took a shower and slathered on lotion for the sunburn. I remember putting on pajamas and feeling so relaxed, I was in bed by 9pm at the latest that night. It was a good, exhausting day. 5:45am the next morning my water broke. :)

This is a layout to remember the day before... I spent the afternoon with my mom and daughter at the parade. Its the day before we became a family of four and our lives changed forever (again)!

So if you made it through all of my ramblings, now you actually get to see it. Its a sweet memory, so I'm a little more chatty than I usually am in a blog post. Or it could be that its past 1am and I wanted to get this posted before I went to bed! :)



All patterned paper/journaling card: Fly A Kite by October Afternoon
Kraft paper: Bazzill
Rose ribbon: Maya Road
Button: Stampin' Up!
Ink: Color Box
Alphas: Thickers by American Crafts

Some closer-ups of the details:

Pure BLISS!

For those of you who know me or even for those who have been following my blog for a bit, you may notice that I have hardly any themed stuff. For instance, wedding, Christmas, or most holidays... I have this major aversion to Holiday or themed paper. I like it, I think its pretty. I have a really hard time getting it to come out how I see things in my head without being what I would consider something to be over the top (*gasp* Did I just say that I'm over the top sometimes??? haha).

I've been married for a little over 7 years now and just recently someone introduced this site/blog to me suggested trying it for a challenge. (Scrapbooking From the Inside out has a lot of great challenges, check out their site!) I'm always up for a good challenge, so I figured I could do a wedding layout and really challenge myself. :)

Here is the end product --- I like it! What do you think?


I don't come right out and say that I love a page that I make myself too often, but I really really do love this one!

Here are some close-ups of details:



And for those of you straining your eyes trying to see what I wrote - I'm not ashamed of my love for my husband... so I'll share!
"This picture is taken with one of the few throw away cameras we had around during the reception. Granted its not a great picture of the two of us, but you can certainly tell just how happy we were this day! I love you!"

We just celebrated 7 years last week Monday, Sept 20th. You know how we celebrated? It was a normal day.... but thats okay. Its a nice reminder of how far we've come and what we have with our family and most importantly, our beautiful children. (We did go to dinner on Sunday night, the 19th to Buffalo Wild Wings, nothing fancy - but we used to go on a date every Tuesday night-Wing night when we were dating and first married.) Oh, and a leak in the basement... minor drama for the evening running to Home Depot before they closed to get the parts needed to replace some valves in the basement so we wouldn't have water leaking all over the floor. Yep, just another day in paradise. :)

And now I'm done being mushy for today... I promise. :)

Some Basic Grey - Oliver and Olivia

A while ago I purchased some of the Basic Grey Olivia and Oliver lines. I did one of each and I figured I'd pair them up for a post. :)

Here's my handsome little guy....






And my not-so-little-anymore drama queen....

Finally finished!

I started this layout a week and a half ago while I was at the LSS croppin' with some ladies. I just needed to put the finishing touches on it... so here it is!





Most of the products on this layout are from the Basic Grey Kioshi line, with the exception of some Prima flowers, Tiny Type Cosmo Cricket letters, Making Memories fancy alphas, and some Thickers. :) All of the buttons, brads, pp, and paper ribbon are BG! Woot!

Crate Paper

I have a lot of Crate Paper now and I have yet to use any of it. This line just screams "little boy" pictures to me, even though its called 'Brook'. Loooooove the vibrant colors and all of the fun curves and textures in the paper.
Anyway, sorry for the critique on Crate Paper - but their paper is fantastic. Really. Get some today! :)

Here's my layout of my little guy last summer... he wasn't so sure if he liked sitting in the grass but he loved watching all of the animals and was very curious what was going on in the bushes!

Birthday Girl!

This is the very first birthday layout I've scrapped of my daughter... and it is from over six months ago when she turned five. How bad is that? Show's you how far behind I am on things. :) I'm still playing catch up with the baby books!

The paper is from SEI - a recent release of birthday stuff. Lots of cute graphics and embellishments for this line, I enjoyed the bright colors. I have a hard time scrapping holidays and birthdays because I feel like somehow they always end up kind of cheesy, but I love how this turned out. :)

Thanks for looking!

Cuttle Buggin'!

This is such a fun layout, if I do say so myself.

My lovely daughter decided she wanted to help me make some origami flowers for some cards that I did a while back for a card swap. I figured she could use the cuttlebug no problem since she has her little cuttle kids. Well, she comes downstairs all dressed up and ready to help me... in her butterfly costume. She figured if she was going to use my cuttleBUG she should be a bug! How is that for a five year old's train of thought?

The paper and die cut are from one of the new Quite Contrary My Mind's Eye lines. I embellished the die-cut to make it have more texture and dimension and then of course there are some lovely new Thickers that one of my scrappy friends sent me, thanks Jessica! :)




("pearls" are from Liquid pearls... I finally used them! Yeah! I used a lot of Stickles on this page too. Gotta love all the sparkles!)

A couple new layouts! :)

I did these a week or so ago and I just haven't had time to post them. Today I made time during morning nap, so here we go! :)

There are a couple of these that are unusually simple for me, but I love the paper and colors and they worked perfectly for the pictures I had. Don't you just love when that happens?

Paper and products from the first two layouts are from the new My Mind's Eye lines. :)









And one more for now.... :)




Paper from this layout is from the Little Yellow Bicycle's 'Lucky' line.