Up and Running

All right folks, the new blog is up and running and ready for viewing! Be sure and stop by soon!

Bloom Where You are Planted

Thanks, see you soon!

JAG

Hello There

Guess what?! I have been working up something new! I decided it was time for a new blog! See, I have this blog for all of my crafty stuff and hobbies, then we have a family blog where I blog about my most favorite things of all...my kids, my husband, and all our activites. I decided that I was getting bored of both blogs because neither were completely "me." I was tired of sharing only some of me on each blog, so it was time to combine.

So that is what I am working on. It really isn't much, but it is all of me in one place, and I am quite excited!

Once I finish working out the kinks, I will post the address.

Be back soon -

JAG

Simple and Sweet

Hello there! How are you? I am...tired! :)
Grace and I spent most of the day at Joshua's school for field day. It was very fun! Tug of war, relays, a water slide, and lots and lots of time in the sun!
I really enjoyed seeing JBG with his school friends and it was nice to visit with some of their parents, as well as his teacher. He has had such a great teacher this year, I just couldn't be happier! It is hard to believe that the school year has just a couple of days left. I am glad, though, because that means we will be heading to Utah soon for my sister's wedding, and I am so excited for that I can hardly stand it! Aren't weddings so fun?!

Quick crafty share:
I have a couple of cards I made for our moms on Mother's Day. They were super simple, but I thought they turned out cute! I had premade card bases from CTMH, and all I did was paint around the edges, add a punched out butterfly (Martha Stewart), and stick on a few letters (SEI)! Simple and Sweet. :)

Well, that's about it for me right now. I hope you have a wonderful week and I will try to be back with something a little more exciting before I head out of town!

bye-
JAG

Artistic

Hello and Happy Friday! How I love/live for the weekends! :)

Before I show you the latest layout I've made, I wanted to show off this beautiful piece of art by my Gracie girl. I bought an art easel from Ikea and we have been having lots of fun! This was her first masterpiece. It is our family. I love how we are under the rainbow - - seems so idyllic, doesn't it?! And look, she has been practicing writing her name, too! This girl is so smart it kinda scares me. ;) She has this thirst for learning new things, which I love and I want to follow her example! The other day we went to story time at the library and the for the craft the kids got to decorate sticker books. Grace couldn't just color and stick the stickers in...no, she had to write a whole book! All about flowers. What a fun girl!



This is a layout that I made for the Color challenge on the Get Picky Challenge blog. The challenge was just to use the colors yellow, blue, and white...not too hard since that is one of my favorite combos! I used some of my favorite bald baby pictures of Grace. Loved that bald head and blue eyes!

Thanks for stopping by and have a wonderful weekend!

JAG

An Oldie but a Goodie

Hey, just a quick layout to share.
I was going through some pictures last night to get some ready to print and I found a couple of layouts that I made a while ago...like over a year ago...so I thought I would share! I love this one of Grace on Halloween 2009, it is still one of my favorites. I just love this picture of her!

For this layout I used papers from Pink Paislee, Prima flowers, CTMH alphabet rubons, and American Crafts Thickers. I also cut our the word "little" and the leaf vines on my cricut.

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So...I have been spending the last, umm, three months I think it has been, painting, reorganizing, and decorating my scrapbook room. I am very slow, but it is almost done!! I am very excited to have my own little peaceful space. I love the wall color, it is so relaxing to me. Sometimes when we get a little crazy around here I just sneak into my room for a few minutes and sit there and look at the walls! It calms me right down and I can get back to the craziness. :) I still have things to hang on the walls and a few boxes of things I am trying to decide what to do with, but once I sort through all that I will post some pictures.

Have a great day!
JAG

Bella Blvd. Giveaway!

Hey y'all!
I was just taking a minute to surf a few blogs and I came across this awesome giveaway on the Bella Blvd blog! The winner gets the entire Sophisticates collection...Paper, chipboard, flowers and all! How awesome would it be to win that prize?! Check it out on their BLOG. Maybe one of us will be the lucky, lucky winner! :)

So how is your Saturday going? It is pretty quite and peaceful here right now....which is lovely.
Bryan and Grace fell asleep on the couch watching the OKC Thunder play the Memphis Grizzlies. I got a really cute picture of that! Joshua is playing with his cars and is completely in his own world. I love to listen to him play, it is so cute!

I hope you have a great weekend and that your Mother's Day is especially fabulous!

JAG

Hi!

So I decided to be a good blogger and actually post something this week....haha!
Maybe someday I will be a good blogger, but I wouldn't hold your breath! :) Too many other things to do............
at least it seems like there are a lot of other things to do.
Do you ever have those days were you know you don't just sit around doing nothing all day, and yet at the end of the day it seems like you haven't accomplished anything? I've had a string of days like that lately. I love spending time reading books and playing games with the kiddos, but then sometimes at the end of the day when there is nothing obviously finished or improved I get frustrated and feel like I have been lazy. But then on the other hand, I really don't want to spend so much time cleaning, etc. that I miss the time with my kids and I KNOW that I am accomplishing things by spending time with them....in fact I am accomplishing the most important things. But still, sometimes it is hard at the end of the day when you don't see immediate results...and the laundry is still piled high!
My endless dilemma, it seems...probably the same dilemma most moms face! :)

Anyway, here is a layout that I created a while back. The pictures were taken by my father-in-law in 2009 for our Christmas card. I love these pictures!
For this layout I used the "For the Record" collection kit from Echo Park. I also attempted a little misting with the red ink....I think I need to practice that one some more!

I have also been venturing a bit further into the photography world lately....meaning I finally took took the D-90 off the automatic settings and learned to use it in manual mode!!! I know, it only took two years, right?! :) But I am loving the results and I feel like I am really creating good photos now, not just getting them by default because I have a good camera. My poor father-in-law had tried to explain it to me several times, but I wasn't getting how to use my camera to get the results I wanted. Then a couple weeks ago I found this digital book called "Say No To Auto!" by Kristen Duke. I bought it, downloaded it, printed it and within a half hour had the basics figured out - -amazing!

I wanted to learn how to use the manual settings because a girl in my ward, Jackie, had asked me to take some senior pictures for her. She has been very patient and endured nearly five hours total in front of my camera (I took nearly 1,000 pics), but we have got some photos that I am really pleased with....hopefully she is, too! :) She is a beautiful girl, so really, my job was easy!

Here are a few of my favorites:

***this last one is my favorite!!***

Well thanks for stopping by. Hopefully I will be back soon!

cross your fingers... :)

JAG

Happy Wednesday!

Hi again! It's Wednesday, are you happy?! I am...it has been a bit of a long week already. Bittersweet moments have made for a happy and somewhat sad week, so I am grateful to be heading into the home stretch, so to speak! :) I just wanted to share this layout I made using last week's sketch from Pencil Lines blog. This was the first time I have used a sketch in a long time, and I love how it turned out! I used the Togetherness line from Cosmo Cricket for this layout, it is my favorite Cosmo line! Well I hope the rest of your week goes well.... here's hoping the weekend comes quickly! :) JAG

A whole lot of a good thing is a REALLY good thing!!

So do you remember a while back when I mentioned that my mom and I went to the Cosmo Cricket office/store with the intention of buying some Cosmo Cricket goodness, and we ended up having a little "field trip" through the warehouse? Yeah. It was awesome. I have always been a big fan of their products, so ever since I heard they had opened a little store in their warehouse in Nibley, I have wanted to drop by. Mom and I had a spare hour one afternoon, so we stopped by and we were greeted by none other than Mr. Lindsay Moore. *If you read the Cosmo Blog, you know who he is. :) Funny, funny, funny man! Anyway, it turns out that he and my mom are members of the same stake, they have kids that go to school together, etc. So we had a good time chatting. Then he took us on a generous tour of the offices, and we came home with some fun things! (Shh...don't tell, but I even left with a couple of the oh-so-coveted Glubers!) It was very fun, and I have had a blast playing with all of my new Cosmo Cricket products! First up a few cards! Except for the brads and cardstock, everything I used for these is from Cosmo Cricket. I used the 6x6 pads from the three newest collections. I love how even their "themed" collections, like Salt Air (beachy/ocean theme) are so versatile and all their collections work so well together!

Supplies: Salt Air 6x6 pad, clear tiny type alphabet

Supplies: Upcycle 6x6 pad, Upcycle stickers Supplies: Upcycle 6x6 pad, yellow tiny type Alphabet

Supplies: Social Club 6x6 pad, Early bird stickers

I think this one below is my favorite :0)

Supplies: Social Club 6x6 pad, brown tiny type alphabet

And some layouts!

This first one uses the Salt Air collection, and the second uses Social Club.

Super fun stuff, don't you say?!

mmmmHUH!

Thanks for stopping by!

JAG

It's bedtime, but....

...here I am! I figure now is as good a time as any to quickly update the blog, right? Who needs sleep!? I just wanted to share these cute portraits that my father-in-law took while the kids and I were in Utah. I thought they turned out quite cute! I love the one of the kids together. It is usually quite impossible to get a picture of both of them even looking at the camera, so I was very happy with this picture! I think I feel a scrapbook layout coming on! :)

Grace - 4 yrs. old

Joshua - 6 yrs. old

I think this one should be titled

"One Lucky Mom" :)

I just blogged about the trip and a bit more about the photo shoot on our Family Blog, so feel free to check it out if you want!

And I have a layout to share! I made this the other day using Crate Paper's new Emma's Shoppe line. The line is a little bit vintage and a whole lot of girly...a combo that I love! The color is way off in the pic, not sure what happened, but trust me...it's great stuff!

This picture is of Grace at 9 months old....seems like forever ago! Lately I find myself missing the days of little babies, and I usually find myself avoiding scrapbooking pictures like these. It is really hard to realize that my babies aren't babies anymore, and as of now, there are no more babies, which has been really unexpected. But I decided to be brave and scrap this picture anyway, and to my surprise it was quite therapeutic. So don't be surprised if you see more baby pictures in future layouts...I need all the cheap therapy I can get! :)

Have a peaceful night!

JAG

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

ROAD TRIP!!

Guess where I am off to? UTAH!
Yep, the kids and I are taking off on a little Spring Break Road Trip...and we are leaving poor Bryan home to slave away at work. Should be interesting for all involved!
I am excited to see a lot of our extended family and to enjoy some time with them, even if it means leaving my 65-70 degree weather for a place that still has snow!
I'm keeping my fingers crossed that the driving goes well. We are following some friends from church, so I won't be completely alone on the road, but I will be the only adult in the car with the kiddos. We are armed with lots of books, music, and snacks! Now I just need to figure out how to get all of the snacks, books, crayons, etc. with in their arms reach!

WISH ME LUCK! :)
JAG

Happy Monday!

How is your Monday? Is the week off to a good start? I hope so! We are having a good Monday here. Grace and I went to the library, ran some errands, did some puzzles, read a few books, and even managed to get in a bit of laundry and cleaning, which was sorely needed. :) I count that as a good Monday!

I just wanted to share this layout that I made the other night using Echo Park Paper Co.'s Little Boy line. Have you used their paper and stickers? I first bought one of their kits a couple of months ago, and this was the second one I bought.....love them! I am definitely an Echo Park fan!
The pictures are from a couple years ago when we were in Olympia, WA for a family reunion and we went to this fabulous farmers market. Grandpa spoiled the kiddos and bought them these HUGE cookies which they, of course, loved devouring! :)

Have a great day!
JAG

Hello Again.

Just found a couple of projects I thought I would share before my girly-girl and I head out for a quick walk. It is a beautiful day around here today. The sun is almost tricking me into believing that spring is here!

First up is a layout of her third birthday...all girly and princessy and pink...just like her! I'm not very good at the whole "shabby chic" look, this is as close as I get! :) I still have to have my clean lines.

Looking at it now, I think it looks cuter in person. Oh well, I guess I need to find better lighting when I take pictures of my layouts!

I made a couple of these cute cards the other day with my Martha Stewart Butterfly punch and some scraps. I love how simple and yet cute it is! I was hoping to make a set of them for my sister for her birthday.....so far I have made two and her birthday was three weeks ago! I think I am off to a great start for her birthday next year, right!? :0) haha

Have a great day! I hope the sun is shining for you, too!
JAG

Recently....

...life has just seemed crazy! Every week I think, "this week I'm not going to be crazy busy! I'm going to relax this week." Hahaha. Guess I better just get used to the busy!

Did I ever tell you what my wonderful husband gave me for my birthday?
Three fabulous things:
FIRST, and most exciting, was a visit from my MOM!!! I had no idea she was coming, and the evening before my birthday he just walked in from work like normal...except this time he had my mom with him! I screamed for a solid five minutes, I think! And she stayed for a WHOLE WEEK! Lots of shopping, visiting and fun!
SECOND, a 50 mm lens for our -okay, technically it's his- camera!!! Still trying to figure it out.
THIRD, a gallon of paint and a coupon for some painting helpers to help me paint my scrapbook room! (don't worry, I'm taking before and after pics.)
Isn't that fun!? I think it was the best birthday ever, especially because I got to spend it with my mom...that hasn't happened for several years! What a blessed girl I am to have a husband who is so very, very thoughtful.

Next up....
I had a quick photo shoot with this little girl the other day... had to try out that new lens, right? We spend quite a lot of one on one time together these days with Joshua in school, and it is special time, for sure. We had to take some pictures to document. :)

She's pretty darn cute....and she'll talk your ear off if you let her! Watch out! In fact, as I type this she is climbing all over my back chattering away about the show she just watched. :)

And finally, a card!

As I mentioned, we are painting the scrapbook room, so there isn't a whole lot of creating going on at the moment, but I did manage to get a few cards made before I had to disassemble my room. I used patterened paper, journaling sprouts, a canvas flower, Happy birthday stamp, and stickers from Jillibean Soup, as well as some random cardstock scraps, a red button and a bit of twine.

Hope your day is fabulous!

JAG

Just a little card...

Hello again.

I just wanted to share this cute little card I made using papers and die cuts from the Alphabet Soup Boy line by My Mind's Eye. It is based on a sketch challenge they had on their blog a couple of weeks ago. Isn't that tiger die cut adorable? Oh, and the sentiment is a sticker from SRM...love their clear stickers for cute, quick cards. I would say that I need to buy myself some more, but I am on a self-imposed-scrapbook-supply-buying-freeze. :) We'll see how that goes, especially with all the new CHA releases coming up!! My goal is to make it throught March without buying anything new...wish me luck!

I've been reorganizing my scrapbook room, and it has been quite fun to dig through everything and find all the fun things I had forgotten I had! Of course I am a little disgusted at how much I have that goes unused...hence the buying freeze. :) I could probably make a hundred or so cards just from the scrap stash I have built up! YIKES! Time to get busy!

Not much else going on around here, just keeping busy with the normal school, work, church, life kind of stuff and trying not to get too sick. Seems like someone has been sick since November, but right now we all just have colds and I am praying that is it for a while! In the past we have been blessed with such good health that I guess I have been spoiled. I would maybe take one of my kiddos to the Dr. each year. Poor Joshua has been four times already this year, and Grace and I have each been once! So anyway, I'm hoping this is the end!

I'll try and be back with something a little more exciting soon!
Have a good night!
JAG

Yay! The first Layout of 2011 :)

Well, seeing how it has been over two months since I even made a full 12x12 scrapbook layout, I am quite excited that the first layout of the new year has already been finished! Let's hope there are many more to come. :)

Supplies: Patterned Papers (Cosmo Cricket Mr. Campy and Togetherness) Cardstock (CTMH)Stickers (Border - Cosmo Cricket, letters - SEI and Doodlebug) Journaling Spot (Jillibean Soup) Stamps (Journaling Jots by CTMH) Brads (CTMH) Diecut (Apple from A Childs Year Cricut Cartridge - Provo Craft).

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I'm loving a new year. I feel a fresh start.
I'm choosing to be happier with where I am in life and what I am, and I'm choosing to be more hopeful. So much of life is about what we choose to see and do, isn't it?
I'm hoping to be more organized and, thus, productive. :)
I'm working to be more fit spiritually, and physically as well.
Hummm.....it's a lot, but I think it will be very worth it in the end. It all takes effort and time....and stamina, sitcking-to-it-ness. :) I think I've got it in me! Hooray for a new year!

JAG

My Top 10 Favorite Layouts of 2010!!

I thought it might be fun to share some of my favorite layouts from this last year.

It's funny how at the beginning of the year there were lots to choose from, but ever since Joshua started school the layouts I've completed have been few and far between. Life is truly full of the best things right now, with family and faith being at the top of the list, but I do hope that I am able to find a little more time for scrapping in this new year than I have the last few months. I miss the time for me, honestly, and not having had much of it recently makes me realize that it is an important part of my life, too. So here is to a new year and to finding....no CREATING... balance in my life! ;)

And without further ado...my 10 favorite layouts of 2010 (in no particular order):

JAG