For All My Scrapbook Friends :0)

If you are looking for a scrapbook site to hang out at, I found one recently. Since Cropper's Cottage and Scrap Diner closed, I've been wanting to find a site again that has fun boards to chat on and where I can post and share layouts and scrappy stuff. I do hang at Studio Calico kit club a little bit, but since I'm not getting the kits anymore...for now :0), I'm not participating as much. And a lot of it is kit chat anyway.

But ScrapGal is fitting the bill for me :0) And you can find it here
I've been a member for a long time, but mostly just shopped there. Never quite made it to the boards.
I'm so glad I did!
So for those of you who are still looking come by and say "hi"!
The women there have all been very nice :0)

Christmas Reading

Erin and I picked up a huge pile of books at the library yesterday. I already have quite a collection of Christmas books for children from my teaching days. And even more since the kids were born. But there is nothing better than new books! Especially from the library :0) Tonight Erin and I read two of them for bed time and they were both winners in my opinion. And I think her's, too. Especially since she is sleeping with one of them right now :0)

This was one of the sweetest little books ever! A little boy makes gingerbread pirate cookies with his mom for Santa, but the captain is his favorite and he wants to keep it. When Santa comes his cookies are gone so he goes looking for them. The pirate captain tells Santa "you can't eat my crew." And then Santa gives the captain a pirate ship and turns them all into pirate toys for the ship so the little boy can keep them and play with them. And they won't get eaten :0) It was really cute!

The next was Dragon's Merry Christmas. But I could only find a photo of the pack. I liked the Christmas story so much though that the others are definitely going in my request list from the library. It sounds like Erin's teacher read this book to them at school, too. So that's why she picked this one out and is currently sleeping with it. This is a new thing she has started. Instead of sleeping with a stuffed animal or "bed friend" as we call them, she is sleeping with favorite books. A child after my own heart ;0)

And lastly, this is neither a Christmas book or a childrens book. But it comes highly recommended by me. I loved this book. It's a great story about a women who comes from Japan after world war II to be a bride to an american. The story also talks about her relationship with her daughter and other family members back in Japan. I really enjoyed it and loved the main characters!
Plus I was excited to find a link to the author's blog margaret dilloway
when I was looking for a photo of the book on-line at Amazon.com
I added her blog to my roll of fun and inspirational blogs below on the right. I always love fun finds like that!
Can't wait to read some more of our library finds this time around. For her and me.
As for Evan, he is reading Star wars chapter books right now with Mike. And he finds his at the school library or at the book store, which is why he didn't get any with us at the library. So glad our children love to read!

A Gift for Madi

It started out as this layout about my niece and god daughter Madi.

And I framed it and turned it into this for her birthday. I just wanted to give her something special from me so she would no how much I love her :0) And she really, really loved it! Along with the gift card for shoes we gave her. (She loves shoes and clothes)
By the way, I did the hand stitching on that tag I used for journaling. Lots of fun to sew on layouts! Even when it's something simple as that tag. And it already had pre-punched holes :0)

I do have one more layout to share, but Erin decided to run my tape runner over it. She was just trying to "scrapbook like mommy". But I managed to peel each little piece off. I just need to get a photo now!

Great Post over at Write, Click, Scrapbook Today!

WCS

Lots of great printables for the holidays!
Like this one...

and these...


I need to print some out!

Kid Storage Idea

 

I wish I could remember where I saw this photo. It was on-line and there is a watermark on it but I still can't remember. All that I know is that when I saw it, I thought "perfect!" 

We are in the process of remodeling our basement. A long process. It's going to take a while.

But I am already in the process of storing inspiration photos in a file on my computer.

This one is for the kid's art area. Mike is designing a space for all their stuff!

And a giant desk top with two chairs for them to share.

I can't wait!

So not Scrap Related, but...

my favorite thing to munch on right now is this hummus...

and these chips! Soooooo good. I am completely addicted :0)

Looking forward to lunch with some good friends today to celebrate a birthday before I have to pick Erin up from preschool.

Another layout!

This layout was created using a sketch from Kelly Purkey's Sketchbook 2 class. I was actually inspired by Stephanie Wheeler's take on the sketch. It seemed to go perfectly with this photo of Evan - my little artist :0)
If you click on the photo you should be able to read the story.

Watch Out!

Time for a new post, don't you think? :0)
I am just not the best blogger right now,
but I think that will be changing soon.

One of my most recent and favorite layouts. It's an 8 1/2x 11 with a story that just needed to be told! I'm hoping if you click on the photo it will get big enough to read what I typed there.
Anyway, the gist of the story is how Erin was sneaking up on Evan to knock over his Lego rockets with her car. And she didn't get away with it either! She can be such a little stinker sometimes :0)