A few new things and family time

Howdy y'all!!

I hope you are having a fabulous week.

Here at the homestead we are trying to cope with being by ourselves after having these fun visitors for a few days:

This is my family! They ALL came to visit for four and a half fun filled days...it was a blast! My grandparents and my uncle, aunt, and cousins joined us for a few of the days as well, so we had quite the houseful! We loved it, though, and so far the after-family-let-down hasn't even been too bad! :)

Monday night before my parents and siblings headed out of town we set up the ol' tripod and attempted some family pictures since everyone was together. It is quite the feat to get that many people all looking at the camera and smiling, but we mostly managed to do it

{as long as you don't notice that Grace has her hand stuck in her belly button :)}. KIDS.....

I will be posting more on the FAMILY BLOG in the next couple of days as I get them edited, if you want to check them out.

And here are a few new things that I've worked up recently:

I love this layout of my chubby bald little girl! I used paper and stickers from the Fly a Kite line from October Afternoon (SO STINKIN" CUTE!) and some American Crafts Thickers, love those, of course.

And a couple of cute cards

to end the day:

Until next time....
JAG

For all girls who love PINK, look what I just found out...

Today is .....

National Pink Day!!!

Have you ever heard of this? I hadn't, but I was just checking out the Paper Crafts blog and saw that it was National Pink Day! How fun! Now, I am not really a pink girl myself, but having a daughter who LOVES all things PINK has really opened my eyes to the world of PINK. I wish I had known about this sooner, we could have thrown an awesome PINK party!! Here's some information that I found online:



National Pink Day:
When : Always June 23rd
It's National Pink Day, a day where everything should be basking in pink splendor!
It's especially a day for the ladies, as pink is a girl's favorite color. Guys, you can participate in National Pink Day, too. Just get in touch with your feminine side, and display a dash of pink. Note: the girls will love you for it!

It's easy to enjoy and to participate in National Pink Day. Bring your pink elephant out of hiding. Wear pink, and show off everything you have that's pink, from clothing and shoes to other possessions. Be creative. Use food coloring to make pink meals. Pink frosting on a cake or cookies will be a big hit today.



Awesome. June 23, 2011 come to my house...we will have a PINKALICIOUS time! :)

Makin' Do

First off, I had to start out with some of my favorite pictures from the last month!

This first one is of my parents and my kiddos.

The kids love when Grandma and Grandpa come to town,

and I love this picture that I captured!

My husband was put in the bishopric in our ward of the LDS church, so my parents come down for a very quick trip to spend the special weekend with us!

We are glad they are coming back this week or we wouldn't have been able to let them go again so soon! :)

Second, I was able to go to Utah for a couple of days for my sister's High School Graduation!

(Thanks to my wonderful husband Bryan and my fabulous friend Lisa for making that one possible!)

It was a lot of fun being there for Maren's special day and it was also my dad's first graduation ceremony as principal of the good ol' MCHS...the HS we've all gone to...so it was a special day all around!

I got some fun pictures of the Gradiator all dressed up.

(that's what I called her...kinda like the gladiator...off to conquer the world, you know....okay, I know, really corny...won't be quiting my day job!)

Isn't she cute!?

Exciting times!

On to a little scrappin' goodness......kind of.
See, when I went to that retreat last month, we got this awesome pack of papers, chipboard, rubons, etc. from My Mind's Eye.
Well, I love MME, but.....
I really didn't love this paper:

And of course, my pack had 3 sheets of it! Of all the luck....
so I was determined to use at least one at the retreat and make it look good.
Turns out I ended up using it on the very first layout I made that weekend! What do you think?:


I thought it turned out pretty cute.
Anyway, it was a fun challenge...to take something I really didn't like and to turn it into something I did like!

Oh, the pictures....
They are of my little G in her favorite shirt. She loves it and every time she wears it she will tell you what it says: "Little Princess with a BIG attitude!" And she says it in a voice that tells you what the shirt says is true!
You know what they say,
If the 'shirt' fits....
:) :) :)

Happy Monday!
JAG

Weekend Retreat+112 scrapbook lovin' women = Craziness!

Here are some pics of the crazy fun we had scrappin' a couple of weeks ago!

This is my friend Lisa and I scrapbooking the day away!

This is what we saw when we walked in! We couldn't believe all of the paper, stickers, and Cricut machines everywhere! Some of these ladies were up until 6:00 AM scrapbooking - can you believe it? I don't know how they do it for two and half days when they don't sleep!? The day and a half we stayed was enough for me, and I even slept. :)

And here are a couple of the layouts that I made that weekend. Pretty simple, but I liked them.

Oh and in case you were wondering, even at an all weekend retreat I am still painfully slow at scrapbooking! In all that time I finished a whopping 8 layouts! :) Lisa made 22......I guess somethings will never change!

Have a great day!

JAG

A few cards...and some very pink lip gloss :)

Hello!

I hope Sunday is as beautiful where you are at as it is here! The sun is shining and it is so pretty outside! I think we may need to go sit on the swing on the back porch and just enjoy this beautiful day for a little while!

Well I survived my first weekend scrapbooking retreat last weekend. My friend, Lisa, and I walked in and our mouths dropped! I thought I was pretty crazy about scrapbooking, but apparently there are a lot of women out there who are more crazy about scrapbooking (or, at least collecting scrapping supplies!) than I am! HAHAHA!

Anyway, we really had a great time. I have pictures to show, but I haven't downloaded or edited them yet, so that will have to wait until next time.

Today I just had to share this picture of my daughter:

You like? She is totally a girly girl, pink through and through! She came out yesterday with pink lipgloss everywhere! She applies this stuff several times a day lately, and as you can see it is LOVELY! :)

and now I will get to find out if it comes out of blankets and shirts - fun for me!

And now for a few cards!

These first two thank you cards are for PaperCrafts Gallery Idol Competition. See, while I have very few scrapbooking goals besides, of course, to preserve all these fun memories we make each day, the one thing I would love is to see something I made in a magazine. Just one thing, and I would be happy. :) So I am "trying out" for this competition to get on PaperCrafts submission list...we'll see how it goes!

This first card uses the Juliette line by SEI - these papers are so pretty and elegant. I made the flower by drawing a five inch swirl on the back of the grey paper, cutting it out and scrunching it and wrapping it in a tighter swirl, adding glue as I went. Whalaa!

This next card uses papers from the Cherry Hill line by October afternoon - I love the colors in this line!

And this one is not for the competition, but is just a cute little card I made with some Dear Lizzy scraps and Rub-ons. Isn't that bicycle rub-on so CUTE!? Love it!
It just seemed to need to say Hello!

Thanks for stopping in, and check back soon for pictures of all of the crazy scrapbookin' ladies...oh, and a few of the pages I made once I recovered from my shock at all of the paper and cricut machine chaos!!

JAG

Happy Monday!

Hello!

I hope you are having a happy Monday.

It's going to be a good week...I can feel it!

Last week was a little crummy...the kids and I all had this horrible cold and it left me feeling a little out of it all week, but I seem to be on the mend finally, so that is good.

AND.....

I get to go to my first scrapbooking retreat this weekend!

Nothing but scrapbooking from 12:00 on Friday until late Saturday!

I am very excited......

and a little nervous - I've never actually scrapbooked for that long at one time!

I'm pretty sure I can handle it, though, as long as the 200 pics I ordered from Shutterfly get here in time! I will keep my fingers crossed! :)

Here is a layout I created a couple of weeks ago. I love these pictures of my daughter when she was first starting to really smile. Those first smiles are so precious. Of course these pictures were taken over three years ago now, so they are all the more precious!

For this layout I used the new papers from the Freshprint Clothesline line from Little Yellow Bicycle, as well as some paper from SEI's Juliette line and a lot of different punches! Love my punches!

Hope your Monday is happy!

JAG

Dream BIG!!

Wow - two posts in one day! - that is a record for me!! :)

I have so many fun new papers from My Mind's Eye that I couldn't resist doing their challenge this month. The challenge was to use the song "Dream Big" by Ryan Shupe and the RubberBand for inspiration, as well as use the provided sketch by Anam Stubbington and, of course, My Mind's Eye products. (You can find the details HERE.)

I LOVE this layout that I ended up with. I used the Jack and Jill and Little Boy Blue papers from the Quite Contrary line by MME. I kind of started with one idea and then added a few details at the last minute that created a different look, but I love it!

Supplies: Patterned Papers (My Mind's Eye), Chipboard letters (My Mind's Eye), Brads (Close to My Heart), Journaling spot (Jillibean Soup).

I hope y'all have a fabulous Friday tomorrow - YAY! - it's the end of the week! :)

JAG