A huge unfinished project ~ Started

Well it is official ~ I have started the huge task of finally getting 2 weeks of Maui and Hawaii Honeymoon Vacation scrapbooked. I decided to start with a handful of photo's from a day Marty (my husband) and I decided to take a brake from our brake. We spent the day lounging on the small beach near our hotel. It was our first full day on Hawaii and we were tired from all our gallivanting on Maui and the long 15 min flight from Maui to Hawaii.



After spending the day on the beach (which I didn't get onto pages yet) we were walking back to our room and discovered our hotel had a restaurant/bar. Local girls that evening were going to demonstrate how they were learning to hula. (which I didn't get onto pages yet) are you seeing the trend of how big this project is gonna be? We decided to stay and have a drink and watch the sun set. We were in a prime area to see the turtles come and sleep for the night. It was an amazing evening...even though we were full of sea air and sand and looked like we had been drug up onto the beach by our heels. ahhh to be back there right now.

Click Here to see a slideshow of the details on this last page.

Friends * Fun * Family

This is yet another 2 page spread using a NEW paper pack Caprice. I also used the following NEW products on it: Foundry Elements, Edge Anchors, Heartfelt Collection Ribbon, Dimensional Simple Alphabet in lower case and the Chocolate Distressing Chalk Ink Mini Pad. The technique I used on the foundry pieces was to use the NEW Ceramcoat with a few drops of Honey re-inker added to it along with my NEW paint brushes and covered all foundry pieces. I then stamped on top of the Foundry Plate. I did use Chocolate (reg. ink) but as you can see it does settle into the Ceramcoat a bit and dilutes the color. On page two I used the Linen Stick Stock and the NEW Font CD...and again distressed it with the NEW chalk distressing ink mini pad. Now that I think about it I should have used the Chocolate RGB colors and printed the words Hot Heart's out in Chocolate. Oh well!

It feels so good to get some old photo's into my albums. These photos were taken I'm thinking around 2003. It was the year CTMH offered its Jamaican Cruise. I remember this because My 2nd upline Jody's husband had his dreads on while BBQ'ing. The kids are so young in these pictures. It is so nice to see that at one time they really did get along!

I've Been Enchanted

These are two pages I started a while ago and have just finished. WAHOO I get to add them to my 500 TICKER!

I used the NEW Enchanted paper pack, NEW Goodness of Life stamp set, NEW Dimentional Elements Simple Alphabet, Brads, NEW Expressions CTMH's font CD, and the NEW circular window elements on top of the metal rimmed circular tags.

My cute hubby in all his glory!

Simply Adoring my day of working with NEW product...but alas I have to set it all aside as I have customers arriving anytime for my Autumn/Winter Grand Celebration!

First Annual National Stamping Month

Celebrate in Style

Check out this awesome Video: http://www.closetomyheart.com/nsm07/video.html
it actually has been out a long time but never released to the public. Go Sticky Boy Go

About National Stamping Month: http://www.closetomyheart.com/nsm07/calendar.aspx

Enter to win: Enter daily to win a FREE stamp set.

Beautiful Soul

My Daughter has such a beautiful soul.

The colors in the photo complimented the paper colors from the NEW Life Delights paper pack. No stamping in this page just stickease, ribbon and a couple of brads. Really simple.

The quote on the stickease reads:

Believe

That you are beautiful in your uniqueness

Believe

That your soul catches the sunlight and reflects back joy to those around you

Believe

That you are as magical and precious as the deepest dreams within your heart.

Oh the sweet joy of playing with NEW Product!

A Bit of Free Spirit added to the mix

9x9 Scrapbook page using the Free Spirit paper pack, Legendary stamp set and Beautiful Buckles.

I had so much fun doing the foil technique on this page. I actually made 5 of these so I had to do 5 of the belt buckles as well. However, it went very fast and I enjoyed myself. It really does add dimension to the page.

Love the circular Clear Dimentions and the Foundry: Photo anchors.









So with those same sets and paper I created this 8x3.5 card.





I was actually trying for something more masculine with this card. I like how the patterns came through and the simple scissor distressing on the Cocoa rectangles gave it such rustic dimension.





I wasn't totally impressed with this card. It just fell short in comparison to the other items in this series.

Oh what fun I'm having playing with NEW TOYS! Bound to keep my mind off of Shelling Crabs, (thanks April * wink wink)

Do Over Day, Please!

I'm not sure what to call this post. Dead Beat Mom? My Mom will say that that title is too negative and I'm being too hard on myself.

ok ~ Try Again ~

Do Over Day

I'd love to be able to call a Do Over Day today...and on a whole the day would have rated A+ until around 3:30 when I was in the middle of picking up the kids.

My son, Quinn and I were off to pick up his sister from the Middle School. We had just spent the 45 min. between picking him up and getting her stopping by the pet store to pick up the Hermit Crab he got for his birthday. We picked "Hermie" out and headed to the middle school to get Batya. While waiting I held "Hermie" on my hand to the disputes of Quinn saying Mommy he has CLAWS and he will hurt you. Being the "MOM" I thought this would help him loose some of his fear. No problems!

Batya (my daughter) gets into the truck and looks at the crab. I take him outta his container to show her how "nice" he is and CLAMP he took his biggest CLAWS and snapped onto the soft part of my palm. Holy *%)$# it hurt!

My instinct kicked in here and I didn't think at all. To my children's horror I grabbed old Hermie and pulled him off my hand. Hermie shell-less when flying in the kids direction. Guts flew all over the snacks, Scholastic book form and truck seats. I grasped my hand in pain and realized what I had done.

At this point Quinn was balling out of fear but at the time I thought it was because I'd just KILLED his birthday gift Hermit Crab. Batya was screaming get it as Hermie drug half his body around the seat of the truck. I grabbed him and got him into the container and tried to calm everyone down. I prayed that I didn't kill him and that somehow the Hermit Crab GODS would look down and re-attach his shell half to his CLAW half. No such luck. Hermie died 45 min later in the comfort of his new established home.

I can't bare to go back to that pet store and face the employees when they see half Hermies lifeless body or wonder why I'm back for yet another Hermit Crab.

Am I the only Mommy that has acted out of such stupidity and carelessness? Even as I write this post I'm in tears yet again about the whole incident. The kids on the other hand seem fine but I know once they face the 2nd purchase it will come back like it was fresh. Well at least that is what my head tells me!

First Day Photo's

Well it took me three days to finally give up on my husband having the time to download the photo's. I nabbed the camera and the cord and had at it and have these photo's to share of the kids first day of school.

First off can I just say...TAXI ~ Yes, It is official I have officially become a human TAXI CAB!

Here are the pics we took in front of the house.

This is Batya (Ba-tea-a) she is 11.5 and in 6th grade. She started Middle School this year. YIKES!

Here is Quinn. In this photo he was 4 but the very next day (yesterday/Tuesday 8/28) he turned 5.

This was a very funny picture. Batya's dad was sneaking a picture of her when she got to the school...and right as he clicked it she turned around. My first thought was...ohhh she cares if we were waiting to watch for her. My second thought was boy were we gonna hear about it when she got home....and boy was I right!

We got a serious pose in front of the school sign as well but this one was priceless. Quinn was so tired of his dad snapping 8 million pictures of each pose...and it shows on his face!

Whew...I made it through the day

with some help from a friend. After dropping the kadoodles off this am my friend Deborah called to ask if I'd be interested in going out for Coffee. Of course anything to be at all side tracked. We sipped our coffee and nibbled our scones at the local 'Starbucks' and talked. We talked about 'Eye Candy' (she's single of course), we talked about the issues of coming into the TEEN years, we talked about independence and of course we talked about MAKIN' TIME TO CROP!!!

FREEDOM

Well I guess it won't be all freedom as soon I will be working again. Ok so it will only 25 hrs a week and I will be working from home...but it isn't the total FREEDOM I envisioned.

I will share Kadoodle 1st days as soon as I can get my HUBBIE to download those pics for me. We took the pics on his digital since mine is so horrible! I knew it would be an issue...well I guess better than blurry pics.

Teacher Survival Kit

This turned out cuter than I had originally imagined it would. I used the CTMH Sweet Harmony paper pack & Doodle Alphabet (September Stamp of the Month) on it with the CTMH Pansy Purple and Olive ink(couldn't find my Topiary). The bag is a Creating Keepsake Viola bag with ribbon handle.

I filled the bag with a bag of Popcorn, Mini notebook, 4 sticks of 60 calorie Hershey's Chocolate Sticks for those really stressful moments. I also included some band aids and Kleenex. My friend Deborah is an AVON Rep. and she makes these awesome PMS (Perfume, Makeup, Scent) Sample kits using a sizzix cut scalloped tag. I included one of those in it and an AVON Vita Moist, SSS Moisturizing Shower Gel and a Natural Raspberry lip balm.

The note pad, chocolate, band aids and Popcorn are all covered in matching paper from the Sweet Harmony paper pack as well.

Not really ready for tomorrow but I'm gonna fake it until it is over and then cry all day tomorrow while they are gone. Either that or play in my craft room since I'll have time now. :)

Mourning the end of an era........

FREEDOM!!!

My youngest child starts Kindergarten tomorrow. I'm caught between total melt down with mourning the loss of my BABY and celebrating the beginning of my own daily FREEDOM! My oldest, well she is starting Middle School...what's that, I can hear you all now saying "Oh, Middle School" with that knowing sigh. Can I just say I'm totally scared!

Now don't get me wrong I love my children but at 40 with an 11 year old and a nearly 5 year old I am ready for some FREEDOM! How can I be so excited and dreading it at the same time? While I'm ready for my son the Kindergartner (YIKES) to learn some social skills and fulfill his dream to read I yearn to snuggle him like the two year old he used to be.

Thank goodness my husband is going with me to drop them off their first day. I'll need someone to take pictures and hold my hand. I'm also so glad he's the man he is and this is "that" important to him.

Now to go prep my For The Teacher gift and my son's 5th birthday invitations. Whew...