Week In The Life | Thursday Photos + Words

Well. It's getting to mid-point and I am having a hard time writing things down and taking pictures. I can't believe how much harder this is from the last time I did WITL. Life gets in the way which is the story of mine. Oh well.

Garage is finished (mostly).

Most of Brook's homework is online this year. She is part of a pilot program at her school where she has to go to several websites linked through a main online suite and upload her homework assignments into a chat where she can post discussions. It reminds me of college. My how things have changed.

 

At her Activity Days program with our church, Brook learned about babysitting. She didn't want to go to this one because she felt she already knew all she ever wanted to about the subject. After getting a bag full of games and entertainment for the "kids", she was glad she did and got started right in with reading to Garrett.

 

Brook's planner, today.

Warm wishes,

Week In The Life | Tuesday Photos + Words

I really fell off the #weekinthelife wagon. Hard. Man, this is difficult. Having a really hard time taking pictures and documenting. Had to go back and fill in the gaps to my log on Wednesday. Oh, well. This is me. And I'm rolling with it. At least I know it's just not me feeling defeated; feeling a failure in that I can't seem to get any crafting done; worrying I am not getting done what I need/want to in the craft room. I really am that busy. Kids. House. Work. School. Brandon. Kids. House. Dinner. Diet. Kids. House. Homework. Snacks. Brandon. Kids...

Pretty introspective today. It's 9/11 and while that is starting to fade from people's thoughts and emotions, it still means a lot to me. See my thoughts here.

Went to work today and didn't take a single picture. I spend so much time there, but I hate having an hourly picture of the same view over and over. I can't show what really goes on behind the scenes, so it's frustrating to not be able to document this the way I want. So I won't. You can see how much time I log on my dailies. Too much.

Love the clouds. The weather is sometimes brushed off as unmeaningful, reduced to basic chatter when people don't know what to say to each other. But I love it! Heavenly Father has provided such a beautiful place for us. Loved how the sun shone on just one spot on the mountain, with the tumultuous clouds of the passing storm just above.

 A flag in every yard. This was one of the best things that happened after 9/11. People grew impassioned and patriotic. Remembered their pride in this great nation. There were flags everywhere! You couldn't look without seeing the Stars & Stripes. Do you remember? Oh, I loved this. If you miss this, look up your local 9/12 Project chapter and invigorate your community.

 Homework in the 5th grade is mostly on the computer. Aidan is jealous of the learning "games" Brook gets to play everyday. I think it's ironic that the schools tell us parents to limit kids' screen time.... and then assign computer games as homework.

 The Sippy. Still such a part of our lives.

 Dinnertime sitting next to one of my faves.

Enjoy your week!

Warm wishes,

Morton Update | Mother's Day Card

First, thanks for staying with me the past few years, and following my blog! We've been mighty hectic around here (really, since Colt was born) and I've had a hard time setting things down and crafting, let alone sharing any of it.

Here's what you'll find, today:
1. Mother's Day
2. Morton Update
3. Mom's Card - tutorial

1. Mother's Day
I'm kind of proud of myself. I'll tell you why in a sec. For Mother's Day, my family really gave me the royal treatment! I got to prop my feet up while they cleaned the whole house top to bottom (waxed floors and polished the wood railings, even!) I received chocolate, handmade gifts, and a wonderful home-cooked meal and I didn't have to do the dishes! While they worked like slaves, I used my time wisely. This is the proud part. I got a rare opportunity to craft for several hours while they cleaned and cooked. I was able to accomplish quite a bit during that short time and crafted some last minute gifts for others. I'll share one with you today, and yippee! I have a few more to share this month, too. I hope you had an amazing Mother's Day with your friends and family as well!

2. Morton Update
Before I go on about my cute little family, I want to remind you that during May, with your $35 purchase, you can still pick up a Dream Pop paper packet for National Scrapbooking Month for only $10. It's super cute and fun and just right to perk up your day! Pick it up here. Okay, now on to the fun stuff! We just returned home from four-wheeling in Delta, UT. Delta, you say? Yes, I was a bit skeptical as well, but, turns out, Delta has some really interesting sites and we had a great time. If you're from Delta, I commend you on your beautiful town and hospitality! Some of the places we saw:

Topaz Japanese Relocation Camp

Notch Peak

Painter Springs

Hermit's cabin

Lehman Caves

Brandon and I have been just plugging along and the vacation was much overdue. It was great to get out of the valley and roast s'mores with family and friends! The kids are all doing well, looking forward to summer. We got a tramp recently, so they've been enjoying their status as VIPs in the neighborhood :)

3. Mom's Card (one of them - Moms, that is)

This was a bit unconventional for a Mother's Day card. I had been cutting earlier for a project later this week for Moms and daughters at my church and became fascinated by the negative space created from the items cut out on my Cricut. I kept thinking, this would make a fabulous card in Slate and Honey! So this is what developed. I loved spending time just puttering around on the Cricut. Just seeing what inspiration came and following through; putting several projects together. Priceless. Thank you family.

This 6x6" card features a Slate base and 3 layers of Honey cardstock over the top, black 1" grosgrain ribbon and 2 Ruby cardstock roses, inked with Slate. Below is a quick tutorial on how I got the pattern.

1. I had 3 sheets of negatives left from cutting pinwheels out of Honey cardstock. The pinwheels were cut using the Close To My Heart Artiste cartridge (pg. 50, "p" key using Accent 1) sized at 3 1/4" and the Auto Fill feature, which produced 9 per sheet.

2. Flip the bottom diagonally, from the top right corner to the bottom left corner, keeping the top left corner where the pattern is closest to both edges.

 3. Ok, set the top sheet off to the side, keeping track of how you set it. Take the middle sheet and rotate a quarter turn to the right.

4. Now, hold up that third top sheet which you set aside and rotate that one a half turn to the right. And there's your pattern.

 5. Ok, now to tack them together quick-and-easy-like, grab your favorite spray adhesive. This is from Wally's. And something to use as a drop cloth. The lid of a paper box works great in keeping overspray to a minimum while fitting a full 12x12" sheet.

6. Now, separate the layers, keeping the positioning, and spray the backs of the cardstock sheets (so your adhesive doesn't show through if you miss), one at a time and carefully re-stack the sheets and press together to secure. Now you have your overlay for your card. It's still tacky on the bottom due to the previous spray adhesive, so just center over your card base where you like and press down, then trim.

7. Attach ribbon and then roses, which were also cut from the Artiste cartridge (pg. 54, "f" key using Accent 1, at 5" and 3"). Tip, use this handy tool to form your roses and zip these out in record time.

Warm wishes for a great spring day!

December Daily | Days Ten - Thirteen

Day Ten
Still loving the Glitz Glitter Gel! The Christmas light string stamp is from a retired SOTM, Sharing The Magic.

Day Eleven
A glimpse into the design process behind every class. Ribbon is some old Vineyard Berry from a bulk kit a few years ago.

Day Twelve
Building a snowman in the front yard. Stamps are in Cranberry and Sky inks and from a special double stamp set received in September from National Scrapbooking Day.
Day Thirteen
Colt and I watching Frosty come to life. (He was more interested in the camera clicking and beeping.)

Warm wishes,

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December Daily 2012 | Day One - Day Nine

One of the projects I worked on this past month (albeit, a bit silently) was a December Daily album, inspired by Ali Edwards. I became aware of this project a few years ago, when I started A Week In The Life, but figured I didn't have time to do such an in-depth project at the time. I was wrong. One of the things I've discovered, is these types of projects can be as involved and extravagant or as simple as you want. Love this! You've heard me say it a million times, as a mom of four I don't have much time. But the memories are so important. Documenting them doesn't have to take a lot of money or time. I challenged myself to use Close To My Heart products and to use up some of my stash. Without further ado, here is the album and the first nine days.

I used a 6x6" Quick Pic album in Olive as my base. I wanted to be able to slap the photos on and quickly journal. Not a lot of muss and fuss on the pages. I want this done. These albums come in two shades and have 8 memory protectors pre-mounted. That obviously wasn't enough to do 25 days plus an intro and/or end page, so I added some 6x6 Flip Flaps to expand the album. In the picture above (sorry, it's not great) at the center of the album, there is a half-inch space where the pages are mounted. I adhered 6 Flip Flaps in the center here, alternating pages spreading out three to the left and then three to the right, so I didn't end up with a "wedge" if they were all facing the same way. These pages are about an eighth of an inch larger than the pre-mounted memory protectors but they line up pretty well, even for an anal-retentive like me. 

Finished mounting.

Stamp the inside of the cover in Slate and Cranberry using Season of Change (retired). Even though this is old (it's still one of my favorites) I thought this scene embodied all of December from the tree, the winter snow and Santa's reindeer.

Another shot of my opening spread. I've always loved vellum so I wanted to do a see-through page, but didn't want to spend oodles of time. This was pretty simple! Cut the vellum to 6x6" and then I stamped in Slate across the middle using my date stamp I got at Walmart. The ornament is from this cute packet of  Dimensional Elements In Color-Holiday. 

I placed a matching ornament on the back. I created my Foundation Pages in Word using a table and just printed them on plain white 20 lb. paper. If you're interested, email me and I'll send it to you. The pages repeat the days up to 25. I originally made 31, but then decided I would just scrapbook those New Year events separately as they seemed to be a separate thing. each page has room for about 3 lines of journalling. Just enough. Yeah, I'm all about faster, simpler, easier the Close To My Heart way! Here are the rest of my pages. Enjoy!

Days Two and Three. Cranberry stitched ribbon is from the Ribbon Round and retired. The banner is hand-cut and hand lettered in red marker.

"Seven-11" (Garrett can't wait to go with Dad each day) is stamped using the Glamour Lowercase Alphabet in Slate and red glitter accents added using Glitz Glitter Gel.

Again, the Glamour Lowercase Alphabet in Cranberry. Love this.

The ribbon is really old (non-ctmh).

I'll have a few more pages up later this week. My schedule at work changed, so I'm all skee-wampus and I'll be offline for a few days. Check back soon!

Warm wishes,

Family Game Night | Studio J

Winter sets in, the nights get colder. The kids get bolder... unless you break out some board games! The wind is whistlin' and the snow, it is a flyin'. It's time to start one of our winter traditions again! This super easy scrapbook layout from Studio J can be assembled in 15-30 minutes online in our studio scrappin' suite from Close To My Heart. Kits are predesigned and come as simple or as intermediate as you want, but with drag and drop ease. Give the gift of your family through the year in photos and words as you easily duplicate your pages or albums to share with ALL your loved ones! Schedule some "studio" time with me online via chat to walk you through a layout of your choice. It's free! And most of all, enjoy the season and Merry Christmas!

Warm wishes,

Mall Rat {Studio J}

This is my secret name for this layout. Shh, don't tell Brook! (I don't want to scar her for life with my outdated vernacular, at least, not any more than I already have.) It's said with affection!

My sweet baby girl is growing up so fast! These pictures of Brook are from a few years ago, just after she turned seven. Seven is Heaven! They are a collection of random shots of her being girly over a few months that summer that just didn't go with anything else. Together, they paint the picture of a pre-tween tomboy who is just starting to pay attention to girl stuff (but don't tell anyone).

The focal shot is of Brook on a girls outing at the mall - just the two of us and no boys. In our house, this a real rarity! Brook was so excited to be doing Mall Stuff. We shopped (and bought!) just for her, we found some gifts for others and we had an Orange Julius at the food court which is what I remember most about being a kid and going to the mall. It became a tradition of my best friend and I to hit the Hello Kitty store and have an Orange Julius (remember when you used to be able to go places alone as a kid?)

When I met Brandon, he would always have a fresh, hot pretzel, so that became a tradition for us that we have shared with our kids as a family. For me and my princess, though, we did the girl thang and got Juliuses! Enjoy the moments.

Warm wishes,

P.S. - Don't forget Cyber Monday lasts through 11:59pm!

Small Business Saturday and a Layout {Studio J}

The Mortons in Avonlea, inspired by Karen Pedersen.

Welcome to Small Business Saturday! What is Small Business Saturday? Let Wikipedia enlighten us:

Small Business Saturday is an American shopping holiday held on the Saturday after Thanksgiving during one of the busiest shopping periods of the year. First celebrated on November 27, 2010, it is a counterpart to Black Friday and Cyber Monday, which feature big box retail and e-commerce stores respectively. By contrast, Small Business Saturday encourages holiday shoppers to patronize brick and mortar businesses that are small and local.

I appreciate your patronage this day especially and invite you to stop by my Brick and Mortar for a spell and some great Black Friday fun, still going on through the end of Cyber Monday. Go here to see what exclusive hourly deals I have to offer today in thanks!

Along with Mom & Pop shops, comes Family. This is one of those typical family portraits for photographers. Since we are usually behind the lens, it can be a challenge to get a good shot of your family with you actually in it (the self-timer option is our friend). You're at somebody's wedding (in this case, my niece, Paige's) and the setting is beautiful, so you gather the family and ask someone to take your picture and hope for the best! Will everybody be looking at the camera, did the makeshift photographer frame it up right, are your faces now in shadow? I find these can be very frustrating if you let them. So I don't!

Now, I find they are the best portraits of our family and often reveal the real McCoy (in this case, Garrett). He's such a character! If anyone is going to be doing something off, it will be him. Mind you, he's only three, so it's okay. It reminds me of the many years previous when it was first Brook, then Aidan who gave this photographer grief. I'm learning to let it go, finally, and just enjoy the moments! I hope you have had or will have many moments this weekend as you celebrate within your own friends and family all the wonderful ideas and character that has made this nation great. Give thanks for the American Dream and thanks for stopping by!

Warm wishes,

This Old House and Updates

Wow, has it really been over a week? Time has just flown this week and I apologize for not getting on here more often. I have the garage still torn up as we gut and re-do, kids busy in school and plenty of homework and news from Afghanistan. Today, you can find a few updates here and a new, old layout.. (I'll explain).

Morton Updates:

1. We finally heard from Drew this past week!! Drew is a good friend of our family and deployed this summer to Afghanistan with the US Army National Guard. We are very proud of him for doing this and we are so grateful for the freedoms we still have as American citizens, which he protects daily with his life! He left behind a pregnant wife and young son and will miss the birth of his daughter while overseas. He is an extension of our family and we pray for he and his family constantly while he is there fighting for the next year.

Out on patrol. I am so grateful for his friends who are willing
to take pictures for me and especially for him!

This is the market just out the "front door" where he is stationed.
The soldier pictured is standing just outside the gates, looking out.

 All we can say is keep sending us photos in cyberspace and hurry home!!!

2. General zaniness abounds at our house. Brook is studying Utah this year, while Aidan's class is currently refreshing what they learned in kindergarten as far as colors and service personnel relationships (don't ask me where that came from). So, dreaded math and spelling lists mixed in with a little salt dough is EVERYWHERE in our house! We've had one field trip so far (Aidan) and one more at the first of October (Brook). It seems things are ramping up even faster this year and I'm not sure I'm ready! (Too late, needless to say.) We had so much fun being crazy together as a family while at Paige & Zac's wedding this month so I thought I would share one of the photos we took at the photo booth. (If you ever get the chance to do this, DON"T PASS IT UP! It is just too much fun! I think the picture says it all.

3. This Old House is one of my favorite magazines to read, based on the television series, which you can find on your local PBS or online. I love reading about all the DIY projects and getting sucked into just how "easy" or "cheap" something can be. (Note to self, use sarcasm appropriately here.) Love the projects and ideas - but they NEVER turn out to be cheap OR easy for me!! I started this layout a few years ago and just finished it last night. I went through a phase where I wanted to get caught up so I faked it and cut the pictures and papers for the layout and put them together but left all the journalling, titles and embellishments off for another time. Seemed like a great idea at the time but now I just have a bunch of unlabeled photos in books rather than a box. I don't recommend this method for everyone!! LOL.

Anyhoo, these are pictures of our first house. It was a 1934 farmhouse my Grandma inherited from my Great (Great!) Aunt and we later purchased. So nostalgic to look back at those times. Things were different, sure, (jobs, cars, kids) but the funny thing is thinking about who I thought I was then and where I thought I was going.... and thinking about who I am now and where I am going. Some are the same. Many are different. I think I may add a little hidden journalling about that.. but I'll leave that for later!

Warm wishes,

Supplies: Everything on this is retired Close To My Heart from a few years ago. You can find the pewter brads here, Colonial White Waxy Flax here, and the Dark Chocolate Stripe Grosgrain here. Oh, and don't forget the extra fine tip Sharpie!