Some freebies I found while browsing....

Melanie has the cutest alphabet that looks like it's general enough to use on lots of projects and pages. Here. She also has a ton of great freebies, so check out the rest of her blog, too!

Rachael has lots of cute stuff, too. I just HAD to snag this great bracket album! Here.

And my friend Amanda has lots of cute freebies. Check out her blog here.

And, last, but certainly not least, my favorite designer, and friend, Anne, has freebie after freebie on her blog. Please PLEASE check it out! Here.

Then, of course, there is the Creative Dreams Dream Team blog. Lots of freebies from all of them, including my newest template! :) Here.

About the Christmas photos two posts below, I have to get this little story down... My mom printed a copy of each for my dad. When my 9 year old cousin saw them (you might remember her from this past summer, she came to visit us in Alaska and I made her an album) she said that A looks like an Angel, then looked at my Dad and said "But we know better, huh?!" I almost died laughing when he told me that!! :) She is a smarty, isn't she?!

Template #9

Okay, I have the Template Challenge #9 ready to go over at Creative Dreams!
Check out the thread at CD HERE.
Check out the gallery at CD HERE.
Download the template at the CD Dream Team Blog HERE.

I made a sample that I posted before. Here it is again:


Supplies are DigiApeDesigns.

My boys

I LOVE LOVE LOVE these shots! I took them this afternoon while cooking dinner, baking a cake, and watching The Santa Claus 2. I know! These photos are almost SOOC. I cropped them and added the edge burn. That's it! I owe it all to the Candice Stringham class over at www.jessicasprague.com. She gets all the credit! There is no natural light, just lamps, and I didn't use a flash. Gotta love it! :) I'm thrilled!

Ice Skating

Brett's class walks over to the ice skating rink next door for PE during school! Isn't that cool?!

Supplies: Frost Kit by Creative Dreams (see post below).

Frost is available!

The Frost kit that I used for the secret special freebie gift a couple of posts down is now available in the store!! Go check it out! It's half price until the end of January!

And a special twist: Go to Anne's blog to get glitters that match for free!!

Just a few pics

View from my living room window about 9am, at 1 degree Fahrenheit.



(PW warmer & Seventies actions- isn't it scary how we can MAKE photos look old and orange- the one thing scrapbookers hate so much!?)



(PW warmer & heartland actions)



(PW warmer action)


(gavin)


Photo of Austin and I making Mounds bars (a family tradition) with various Pioneer Woman and Gavin free actions.



My kids playing school by the tree.



My Christmas tree 2008.

Pre-Christmas Gift for you!

SSSsssssshhhh!!! I have a present for you over on the Creative Dreams blog. I'm not sharing it here, because I have kids, and I don't want them to see it!! Go check it out!

Layout for Brett

Okay, so yesterday I had the Jessica Sprague forum up on my laptop, and my 5yo started naming off numbers that he saw in the "number of replies" column. I thought that was SO COOL and such a great learning experience! So we went through 4 pages of threads naming numbers. Then I thought he'd enjoy looking at the pictures here on my blog. So we went down the whole page, and then the page of "older Posts". I realized that there were several layouts about Austin by himself (and a bunch of others about things or all of us) but none on either page about Brett.

There's my mission.

I used my list of stuff about him, and searched for a quickpage or template that leaves lots of room for journaling (again). I found this template, which is 8.5x11, and put it on a 12x12 canvas to make my 2 page layout. What do you think? I think Brett will like it!




Supplies: THIS free template by Jessica Sprague, Gimme Space papers and alpha used for the title by DigiApeDesigns, font: Bell MT.

Let's take another look at that to-do list!

Luckily I have started preparing.
Taken family photos. Check.
Started my digi card. Check.
Started Christmas shopping. Check.
Wrapped what I have. Check.
Fudge. Check.
Caramel Corn. Check.

Put up Christmas Tree. Check.
Bring in ornaments & decorations. Check.
Mounds Bars. Ummm, no, not yet. lol
Planning Christmas meals. Check.
Buying food for Christmas meals. Nope. Payday is Monday. ;)
Address envelopes. Check.
Buy stamps. Check.
Be depressed and lonely until A & A come back from the east coast. They're back!!

So I made some ornaments for my sister-in-law. Long story short, all of her ornaments (some antique from her Grandma, some her kids made in school) went missing. I need to mail those.

And I need to take the decor boxes back to storage until I'm ready to take DOWN the Christmas stuff. Why do I live with boxes in here for weeks?! lol

And shopping. I need to do more shopping.

Another Quick Page

I made another quickpage about Austin. This one has 47 facts about him right now. These are my favorite kinds of pages- the ones that really tell it like it is, daily, informative, the REAL Austin. Gotta love those pages!


Supplies: Quickpage by Jessica Sprague that was given away at the Creating Keepsakes website a while back. The right side is the same quickpage turned on it's side. Font: Bookman Old Style.

Speech Therapy

I feel like I'm falling behind with all the layouts I want to do, and with the vacation we just took, so I decided to use a quickpage here. This story is one I'll want to keep, and I don't want to forget. So I used the email I sent my Mom about my son's first day of speech therapy as the journaling, and this quickpage by DigiApeDesigns and Hollie H, and made this layout in about 15 minutes.

Supplies: THIS quickpage kit, Fonts: Bell MT for the journaling, Bookman Old Style and Scriptina for the title.

If you're on my Christmas card list, don't look....

My 2008 Christmas card:

Supplies: Jolly Holiday kit by DigiApeDesigns.

First beach layout

First off, I went to Costco today and spent NINETY SEVEN dollars on printed layouts!! I am pretty sure that spending $97 in a scrapbook store would be way more fun than dropping it all at Costco!! Lesson learned: print my layouts WAY more often, and don't save them all up to print at once! Half of that (if not more) is for layouts that I printed for my Mom's scrapbook for Christmas. I started her a scrapbook years ago when I was doing paper scrapping, and I'd scrap the same photos (or the not-as-great photos) for her. Now I just print a second copy- it's SO much easier! Maybe cheaper, too, at $2.99 a page, but NOT ALL AT ONCE!! lol

Second, here is my first layout from our trip. Many more to come.



Supplies: Beach Bum kit & fish by April Staker at DigiApeDesigns. Starfish: a photo of a starfish I actually found on the beach.

December

Is it December already? Wow, it snuck up on me! I guess taking a 2 week vacation right at the end of November really does that to a person!

Luckily I have started preparing.
Taken family photos. Check.
Started my digi card. Check.
Started Christmas shopping. Check.
Wrapped what I have. Check.
Fudge. Check.
Caramel Corn. Check.

Put up Christmas Tree.
Bring in ornaments & decorations.
Mounds Bars.
Planning Christmas meals.
(Cinnamon Rolls for breakfast. Dinner? Once we had enchiladas, so there isn't too much pressure there.)
Buying food for Christmas meals.
Address envelopes.
Buy stamps.
Be depressed and lonely until A & A come back from the east coast.

Photos are from the aquarium in Myrtle Beach last week.