I'm back...and we survived!

Well the kiddos and I are back from our road trip to Utah, and I shouldn't just say we survived....we THRIVED! :) The kids were AWESOME in the car, which was much appreciated by this mom! They hardly even whined or argued on the way up, and they kept it to a minimum on the way home. It is always harder on the way home since the excitement level is down considerably. :)

Anyway, we had a great time hanging out with family and doing our fair share of shopping. We also went to see the movie Tangled (so cute!), ate way too much ice cream, had a very fun photo shoot with Grandpa Guymon, and went on a private "field trip" to the Cosmo Cricket offices...very fun! I will have more details of those last two adventures coming up soon!

First I had to share this pic that Bryan and I took with the camera remote while we were on our Seventh Anniversary date! It was so fun. We went to this really cool art museum housed in an old Baptist Church and then out to dinner. Doesn't seem like it could really be 7 years already! Married life has been good to us!


This next picture is of the only creation I have to share as of now, but there are definitely more in the works...coming soon!

This is a headband I made for Grace to wear for the photo shoot with Grandpa. I was inspired by my ever-creative friend, Becky. Turned out cute, don't you think? Yeah....unfortunately it didn't fit her very well and kept sliding into her eyes, so we had to go with the old standby, a pink bow, instead. Hopefully she will grow into it before she grows out of her desire to be frilly and girly! (I hope that never happens...I love the girly princess stage we are in!)

Thanks for stopping by!

JAG

A couple of new things

Hi y'all.

I just had to show off this 'Welcome Baby' banner that I made for my friend's baby shower we had at my house the other day. I have been loving all the banners I have seen around so I had to try my hand at it.

I used the Cricut Calligraphy cartirdge on this to cut out the triangles, scalloped triangles, circles, and the little onesie.

I kept this one pretty simple because I didn't have a ton of time, but thought it turned out so cute, I may make a fall or halloween banner next!

And here are a few quick cards.

I've made several lately, but it still seems

I've hardly made a dent in my stack of scraps! :)

I love yellow and gray together....something about it just makes me happy!
I think I may give this one to JBG's teacher.
He is loving her and kindergarten, and I am so grateful for that!

So I finally broke down and ordered some new things from this last CHA. I was trying so hard to resist, but I just couldn't. And when my dear husband wanted to indulge me......
well, I couldn't say no, now could I? :)
A little Cosmo cricket, October Afternoon (I ordered their Seaside papers...think I'm going to
L-O-V-E these!!!), My Mind's Eye, and American Crafts.

Yea, that ought to hold me for a while! :)

JAG

Have a Back to School Treat!

Oops, I forgot to share these in my last post!

This is the special Back to School treat that Grace and I made for the first day of school.

We made one for everyone since it was kind of a big day for the whole family!

I got the idea for these from the Sept./Oct. issue of Scrapbooks, Etc. * EDIT- it is in the Creating Keepsakes Magazine!* It is just a piece of yellow cardstock scored every half inch and wrapped around a tube of mini M&M's. Then I stuck a kiss at the end and made a paper eraser for the other end (I had to hot glue that one on, I used glue dots on the rest). The original idea said to use Rolos, but apparently our Walmart doesn't sell those, so we used the M&M's.

Anyway, here is JBG with his special treat!

He really liked it!

Have a great weekend!

JAG

American Crafts stuff

Hey y'all!

We are back from SA (pictures/stories coming soon!) and things are starting to get back to normal - which I am SOOO grateful for!! - so I thought I would share with you the things I made for the American crafts DT call.

I love these projects, and that is why I like trying for these teams, sometimes it's fun to have a challenge and see what I can stretch myself to come up with!

I used a combination of AC Dear Lizzy, Abode, and Heat Wave on these projects, and everything you see is from American Crafts.

{this 'splish splash' layout is my personal favorite!}

So which one is your favorite? :)

Thanks for stopping by!

JAG

The source of my crafty genes....Altered Items by my Mother!

My mom and I have this kind of reoccurring conversation about crafty abilities that we possess...or don't possess...depending on who you ask. :)

Mom claims she is very uncrafty and thinks I am so "skilled" at this crafty stuff. I would beg to differ on that charge, but I think my mom is very crafty! She oil paints, for goodness sake!

But now I have proof that she is crafty and can make fabulously cute paper crafting items!

Check it out!

Exhibit 1:

Exhibit 2:

My mom sent these to the kids for Valentine's Day - aren't they adorable!?
And she just gets all of these ideas out of her head! Amazing Woman!
And you should have seen what she sent them last year - CUTE little candy boxes made out of paper, complete with cut out cellophane windows that you could see the candy through.
And she always has these cute, incredibly cheesey, lovey dovey one liners on her gifts that only a grandma can get away with . If I said something like that to my kids I would probably get a "yuck, mom!" but when it comes from her, the kiddos just giggle!
LOVE it!

It's going to be a SUPER Saturday!

We have a fun activity coming up next week at our church, and I am the lucky one that has had the honor of planning it! ;) It really has been fun to put it all together, but it really has been a lot of work, too! It is a most-of-the-day thing. We call is a Super Saturday, and the theme I chose for this years activity is "Home can be a Heaven on Earth." I'm anxious to see how it all turns out! We are having some workshops and service opportunities in the morning, then a lunch and some time for crafting after lunch!

These are the crafts that I made that the ladies can sign up to make:

What do you think? I thought they turned out pretty cute!

We are also offering the pictures that are cut and mounted on MDF and covered with a glaze so they look like tiles, but I didn't make that sample.

So anyway, if you don't see me around here much the next week, you'll know why!

I've got A LOT to do! :)

JAG

A week of fun projects!

Thanks to the kindness of my husband and children, I was able to get a lot of fun layouts done this week! Bryan took Saturday off an let me enjoy a nice relaxing day of doing whatever I wanted! Isn't he the greatest? Thanks, Love!

This first layout Joshua helped me do about him. He picked the papers, wrote his name, and answered the journaling prompts. I ordered them from Close to my Heart, and they are so fun! I love seeing his answers and opinions on these things, and I know they are something we will always treasure! Especially how when I asked him about people that are special to him, his friend Claire came first and foremost, before any of his family, including his Mommy!! What's that all about? :)

This one is about the fateful day when Grace fell at the playground and came up with a bump the size of a golf ball on her forehead. I was so worried that she might have a concussion or something, but she just cried for a while and then went right on being her running-every-where, climbing-everything self.
Just some pics from Halloween a few years ago, finally getting around to scrapbooking them. I had to try out my fun new alphabet stamps from Close to my Heart.
And I think this is my favorite of the bunch. How can you resist a chubby baby face?!?
This is a wood pumpkin that I bought at Hobby Lobby and decorated with some paint, paper, ribbon, and buttons. Kind of fun to try something outside the scrapbooking box once in awhile. :)

A week of projects

Here are a few more projects for this week. I got them all done, but I'm exhausted! Seems I have to chose between my fun projects or sleep these days. . . .

All of these were for the AC Bailey challenges again. The challenge runs eight weeks, but since we will be living in Amarillo for the last couple weeks of it, I am trying to get as much done as possible now!

This was what I made for the altered art challenge. I altered a plain white sign board that can be hung on the wall. It worked out rather conveniently, too, because I needed a five dollar gift for Bunko last week, and this board was five dollars. How about that? My friend Carri won it, and, as sad as I was to have to part with it, she has a beautiful home and it matched her decor perfectly, so it will look a lot better there than in my apartment :)

This is my layout of pictures of Grace from when she was 6 weeks old. WHERE ON EARTH HAS THE TIME GONE?!? Hard to believe that this sweet little baby now climbs everything and runs everywhere.

The layout was for a challenge to put ten flowers of various types and sizes on one layout. I was afraid it would be overkill on the flowers, but I quite like it! :)

This layout was for a challenge to put some type of stitching (hand, machine, or faux) on your layout. Not sure it's my favorite, but I guess you can't love 'em all!

This was for the unique technique challenge, so my unique technique was to dry emboss and sand the background paper. I really like this one as well, but it's hard not to with pictures as sweet as those!