18 Months

Here is my layout to showcase Brooke at 18 months old! She was so stinkin cute during this mini photo shoot!

All of the cute papers came from American Crafts. I just love their papers!

I also loved matting all of the pictures in a different color to match the designer paper! This is what scraps are great for!

You can read the journaling in this blog post on our family blog.

17 Months

Wow! It's been a long time since I've blogged. SORRY!

But I have a cute layout for you all today and hopefully that makes up for it a little bit...maybe!

This layout is to highlight all Brooke was doing at 17 Months. You can read all of the journaling if you click on the picture to enlarge it or you can go here to read my blog post on my family blog.

The things I love most about this layout are the tickets and the bingo number!

The little birdie paper from American Crafts is another favorite of mine! So cute!

Coming back tomorrow to catch you up on her 18 Month layout!

Goal #4...

Create Something for Myself weekly and blog about it! If you haven't checked out all of my goals for the year, you can find them here.

This project is from last week and this week. I am creating a calendar for our family using My Digital Studio. I love how it's turning out so far but I still have 7 months to go!

I am making most of the layouts pretty simple! I'm just trying to get it done and printed so I can hang January on my fridge for at least a few days!

When I create my calendar I use pictures from 2010. So this year I decided to challenge myself to create my 2012 calendar, one month at a time DURING the year. This means that once January 2011 is over, I can start working on my January 2012 calendar page!

Won't it be nice to just hit print after I add Christmas pictures in after Christmas 2011!

Hope you all are enjoying the calendar pages I have so far!

I will post the remaining months as I get them finished.

Bleaching Backgrounds

This month in my stamp club we focused on bleaching. I have never done this before...probably because I don't have any in the house and I'm afraid of ruining all of my clothes! Ha ha! But I got over that to learn a little and create a few projects for my club members.

This is the card we made using bleaching. I think the best way to use this technique is to make a background. That way it doesn't have to be perfect and it still looks awesome!

Each cardstock color will turn out a little different when bleach is added to it. Old Olive gives off a yellow color, kinda like Daffodil Delight.

I just love the texture that bleach adds to a background. Don't you??

Valentine Defined

Well Christmas is officially over. The decorations are down (even if it only happened 2 days ago), the presents are being played with, and the food has helped me to gain a few pounds. What a great Christmas it was!

Now that Christmas is over it time to start talking about Valentine's Day! It's the second biggest holiday for card making and I love it! Stampin Up has a lot of new goodies that just came out in the Occsasions Mini that you will just LOVE!

This is a card that I created for a demonstrator swap that I will be attending tomorrow morning! I'm so excited to go and can't wait to show you all of the other creations I will be making. But back to this card...

It features a ton of new products like:

*Valentine Defined Stamp Set (WM #121941 $26.95, CM #123057 $18.95)

*Love Impressions DSP (#121780 $11.95)

*Glimmer Paper: Real Red (#121790 $3.95)

*Seam Binding: Crumb Cake (#122332 $6.95)

WOW! Don't you just love all of the new stuff??!!!

I love all of the different textures that this card shows off. I started with just the DSP and just kept adding layers upon layers until I was satisfied! I hope you all like it!

Along with the new Valentine Defined stamp set I also used the I {Heart} Hearts stamp set. This has been a favorite since last year! I think this woodgrain heart if my favorite of them all!

What are you doing to get ready for Valentine's Day??

2011 Goals

Here they are...without any further delay, I sat down tonight and I figured out my 10 goals. My problem this year was that I had too many floating around in my head. And you will see the results of that below. I wanted to stick to 10 main goals but there are a few extra that I hope to stick to also. Here we go...

Goal #1: Move More, Eat Less!

What a concept! Ha ha! If you don't already read Cathy Zielske's blog, you should hop on over there and check her out. She adopted this concept at the beginning of 2010 and she looks amazing now!

Last year I put a number on my weight loss goal and I didn't want to do that again this year. I will just say that I want to end 2011 at least one pound lower than 178 and I want to feel good about myself and my body!

Goal #2: Read 16 Books.

Last year my goal was to read 12 books. I surpassed that with 15 and a half books. Basically, I read my 12 books and then I just kind of relaxed and got lazy, watched more TV, you know! So this year I'm challenging myself even more!

Goal #3: Go on two dates per month with my handsome hubby.
One date where we go out and one date where we stay home. Obviously I want to get out the house with Sam and be away from parenting duties at least once a month. But on top of that I want to be intentional about enjoying our home together after our little one is fast asleep.

We may play games, watch movies, fix fancy dinners or desserts...who knows?!

Goal #4: Create something weekly that is just for me! (And blog about it!)
I was to make good use of my craft room! So I will create something (a card or scrapbook page) that is not to be used in a class or for an event. It will be just for me (and you because you read my blog)!

Goal #5: Organize the crawl space.
Yes, it's back on the list this year. I hope to get it done!

Goal #6: Finishing journaling in ALL scrapbooks...get caught up!
I have way too many pages that have been made without journaling being applied. So I will have a journaling day, or 20, this year!

Goal #7: Write a Will.
This one made the list again this year. We didn't get it done last year so hopefully we will this year.

Goal #8: Floss teeth at least 5 times each week!
I know my dentist will be happy about this one! I need to get in the habit and what better way than to set a goal and stick to it! I picked 5 times a week so I can take the weekends off if I want to.

Goal #9: Try 2 new recipes a month (and blog about them).
I got this idea from my friend Natasha. She is doing one new recipe a week. I scaled it back a bit so I'm not overwhelmed by the task!

Goal #10: Organize something once a week.
Notice that this goal is very generic. The word something could mean a lot of things! One room, one drawer, one box of clutter...I just want to be intentional about organizing this year! You will see why later this week! The hint is Ali Edwards.

And now we get to the part that I was talking about in the first paragraph of this post. The goals that I want to have but didn't make the top 10.

Goal #11: Rely more on God's Word to get me through the day.
The only reason that this goal isn't in the top 10 is because it's not really a measureable goal. I can't take a picture and call it complete. But this is probably the most important goal on my list. I want to be in the word daily, listening to what God has to tell me. When I have doubts and questions I want to seek out answers from God and rely more on Him to calm my nerves and fulfill all of my needs as he has promised! I'm excited to see where 2011 takes me spiritually!

Goal #12: Drink Less Sonic.

Yes, I actually wrote that one down! Can you believe it?? I would have a Sonic Route 44 Diet Dr. Pepper with real cherry syrup every day if I could. But let's face it, it's not really good for me and that would cost a lot of money! So I will reserve Sonic drinks to scrapbooking nights and special occasions only...unless I have a giftcard to use...I can use that whenever I want!

Goal #13: Drink at least 72 oz. of water per day

I can do this and I will be healthier because of it!

Project Life Album

It's DONE! Yes, my 2010 album is done and I'm off to capturing life in 2011! Pictures of one layout per month are coming soon! But first, I must tell you more about Becky Higgins' Project Life Kit!

This is a great tool to use in documenting your Project 365. The process is so simple and it's SO CUTE! There are two options this year (one sold out yesterday and the other is about to sell out...but they will be back)! I can't wait to get my hands on my Turquoise Edition! I got it as a gift for Christmas but it just arrived to my parent's house yesterday! I hear they may come by tomorrow evening!

I was also thinking about getting the Amber Edition as a way to easily scrapbook all of my high school memories! I think it would work perfectly! There are tons of pockets per page, lots of journaling cards to write all my memories on, and it's SO CUTE!

Stay tuned the rest of the album to be showcased and also my 2011 goals! Looking forward to sharing with you all!