What I've Been Up To Lately

Well, I suppose the first thing should mention, is my latest reveal, which went up on Monday. I got to work with one of my favorite tools and products, Imaginisce's I-rock and new bling and stencils. This is my favorite layout of my reveal! Go here: http://www.acherryontop.com/articles/New-I-Rock-Bling%21-14467
and check it out! (Sorry, the link button isn't working for me for some reason.)
Other than scrapbooking, I am still working on my ongoing homeschooling organization project. I just got a brand new heavier-duty three hole punch and whole bunch of binders for organizing all my printed material. Now if you're a homeschool mom, I'm sure you'll understand why a new three hole punch is exciting to me, LOL! My old one I've had since college when I was studying to be an elementary school teacher. The bottom was cracked and the punch had a tendency to stick. Not so much fun to use when you're working your way through a foot tall stack of printed unit studies, lapbooks, worksheets and Dover coloring pages! The new one punches like a dream, so I'm happy.

And in my neverending search for ways to get cheap materials/books for homeschool, I've finally joined Paperback Swap. I took a good honest look at my bookshelves and was able to cull quite a bit to post. So far I've mailed out a total of 26 books. I've received 6 so far and have 13 more on the way to me. All books that I'll be using for school. And since it only costs me the postage to send out the books, it's cheaper even than buying used books. I'm loving it!

Avery and I are now in our third week of summer semester. We've been learning about plants/gardening, homes and this week is community helpers. We're also doing a summer long study to introduce Avery to the United States. We've done an overview already and now we're moving onto indvidual states. One every day, in alphabetical order. I'm excited to see how quickly Avery is already recognizing the names of the different states, whereas before now, she really only knew Washington and Montana, where most of her cousins live. We've got a fun summer ahead of us, that's for sure!

Time for a Change of Pace

I haven't blogged since the beginning of the month and there's a fairly good reason. I haven't scrapped since then, either! The time has come when scrapping can really no longer be my first priority. Avery is ready to move on to more serious schooling, so I need to be putting my focus on that.

I'm an eclectic homeschooler, which basically means that I pull my curriculum together from many different sources. I've been amassing curriculum and books since before Avery was born. Over the past few weeks, I've *finally* been putting it in order, along with buying more additional items, because just like with scrapbooking, I can also never have too many homeschool materials! I'm still not quite there yet with my organizing, but I want to get going on our summer session, so I'm just going to plunge ahead and keep working on it as time allows. We're doing things pretty light for the summer. Some thematic units covering basic stuff she would cover if she went to public school kindergarten, like community, transportation, citizenship, etc. We're also going to do a summer long study of the States and begin studying French, using Hooked on French.

I'm planning to blog more about homeschooling in the future. That's what this blog really started out as, anyway. Scrapbooking just kind of took it over for a while!

Be There or Be Square!

It's our National Scrapbooking Day crop this weekend at A Cherry on Top! And we are going to be Rockin' Around the Clock! Literally! From the start of the crop at 2:00 (EST) Friday afternoon until Sunday evening at 8:00, there will be nonstop games, challenges, fast scraps, classes and bingos! It's our biggest crop of the year and we want you there! The crop schedule is here, so plan to make some time this weekend to come by and see what's going on! The Creative Team is hard at work behind the scenes to make this an awesome crop, and you don't want to miss it!

Echo Park Summer Days

This month I was lucky enough to get to work with Echo Park Summer Days, one of my very favorite lines to be released at Winter CHA. Check out my reveal here!

ACOT May Challenges and PageMaps!

The Challenges for May are up at A Cherry on Top! There is totally awesome inspiration there, go and check it out! Everyone has worked really hard this month (as always!) to bring you some great challenges. It was my turn this month to do the Scraplift the GCT Challenge. This month's Guest Creative Team member is Lisa (javalove). I scraplifted her "These Ducks Can Catch" layout, using Bo Bunny's Ad Lib line.

I also contributed a layout for the Fashion Findings challenge, using Echo Park's For the Record line.
The ACOT Paper CT also had an incredible opportunity to work with PageMaps this month! We all love Becky Fleck's sketches and everyone did an awesome job with their layouts. Go and check them out here! I'm so proud of my fellow CT-ers! They totally rocked this! Here's my layout, using My Mind's Eye Quite Contrary.

Inspiration Jar

I've had this idea floating around in my head for quite a while. I'm sure that I got the idea from somewhere, but I couldn't tell you where anymore! I wanted a pretty jar to keep all my ideas that I find in magazines and online and also products that I have a hard time remembering to use. It's very rare that I make something that is ONLY for me, so I had a lot of fun with this. Cosmo Cricket Circa 1934 is a line that I just love, love, love. I combined that with a little bit of Echo Park For the Record, Kaisercraft lace and some beautiful Prima flowers and bling. It looks so cute sitting on my desk just filled with ready inspiration any time the mojo is lacking! (Which seems to be pretty much all the time lately!)

Progress...

I haven't made any. All my grand plans and where did they go? No idea. I haven't even gotten one layout done. Sigh..... Friday was awesome. I had all this motivation. It was a beautiful day and I spent time outside enjoying the sunshine with my kid. We had a cookout for supper and then afterward went to the beach. Got Starbucks on the way home. A pretty perfect day in all. I had plans to scrap after watching "Who Do You Think You Are?" But then that darn show sucked me in and got me on a genealogy research kick. I stayed up until after 1, not scrapping, oh no, but searching online trying to figure out if my dh had any relatives that fought in the Civil War. It was fun, yes, but not so productive, and then I dreamt Civil War stuff all night and didn't sleep well. I woke up late Saturday morning and all my great mojo was gone. It took me ALL DAY just to figure out what papers to use for this layout I need to do and I'm back to putting a ton of pressure on myself. Ugh. And then in the midst of it, I decided that I had way too much MME stuff, I was never going to use it all, and I needed to do a serious purge. So even after finally picking out papers, I couldn't make myself start working! I pared my MME stash down to probably about half. What I'm going to do with the stuff, I don't know yet. Most of it really won't work to give to Avery to play with. And it's so old I don't think anyone would even be interested in it if I tried to give it away. (I have/had a serious problem with hoarding MME.) So. Here's the new plan. Tomorrow (or rather, today, since it's already 1:51 in the morning) is a new day. I'm going to get up, go to church, come back home, get my homeschool planning for the week out of the way and then get serious about working. My new goal is to get ONE layout done tomorrow. The one I'm putting the most pressure on myself about. And then when that one is done, hopefully I can ease off myself a bit and have more fun. That's the plan. We'll see how it goes.

Lots of Scrapping Planned for this Weekend!

That's right boys and girls! (Okay, mainly just girls, LOL!) I think the mojo is finally back! I've got several projects to work on this weekend and I am excited! I just got some fun supplies via Fed Ex today and I'm expecting another box tomorrow! ;) Here's what was in today's box!

Seriously, that Pink Paislee twine is SO YUMMY! Can't wait to use that on a layout. Tomorrow's box is going to be full of Imaginisce Berrylicious goodness AND a new border punch!

I've got at least two layouts and an altered project that I want to get done this weekend. I'm really excited about the altered project. I *may* even get brave and do a tutorial along with it. We'll see. I'm not so good at tutorials. But this one I think I could manage. I really need to get a tripod to help me out. I had one, but then I apparently got rid of the plate that attaches the camera to the tripod when we replaced the camera forever ago! How I managed that, I honestly do not know! I am so smart! S-M-R-T! ;) So now I need to get a new tripod. Maybe once all this government shutdown nonsense is over.

Anyone else have fun scrappy plans for the weekend?

Finally Some New Layouts!

I have finally managed to pull together some semblance of motivation and scrap! I had been sick for nearly two weeks and just could not find the energy to do anything. So I decided just to ease back into things by scrapping some older pictures and using one of my favorite companies, Echo Park! The first layout uses last week's Sketchy Thursday sketch (though, sadly I did not complete it by the deadline) and Happy Halloween. The double page layout uses Wintertime and a sketch, but I don't remember who it's by! TFL!

April Showers!

My first reveal at A Cherry on Top is up! I got to work with the adorable 3 Bugs in a Rug April Showers collection. Go and check it out here!

Sneak Peek!

Here's a little sneak peek of my upcoming reveal this week at ACherryonTop.com. Make sure and check it out!

Exciting News!

I got a layout picked up for the next issue of Scrapbook News and Review! This is my first *official* pub! I'm so excited!

Bo Bunny Layout Challenge

I had so much fun with this layout! I absolutely love to work with Bo Bunny Sunkissed! I love the bright colors and patterns in this line. All PPs are Sunkissed; cardstock is Double Dot. Flowers, stickers and button are also Sunkissed. Alphas are American Crafts Thickers. Bling is all Imaginisce and applied with my i-Rock. TFL!

My Mind's Eye Blog Challenge- Layout

I loved working with this sketch and getting a chance to play with my Fine and Dandy PPs finally! Everything is My Mind's Eye except for the notebook PP (Scenic Route), alphas (Adornit and American Crafts) and baker's twine (Martha Stewart). TFL and Happy Valentine's Day!!!

Sassy Li'l Sketches Jan. 7th Sketch

Just using up some old stash on this one! Gotta make room for all new CHA goodies, right? ;)

Big Announcement!!!

I am now one of the newest members of the ACherryOnTop.com Creative Team! ACOT has been my scrappy home for 3 years now and I couldn't be more excited and honored to join their amazing Creative Team! I am going to be working with an awesome group of girls and we are already having WAY too much fun together. I'm really looking forward to working with all the great products that ACOT offers as well as being pushed creatively to try new things!

Speaking of trying new things, why not head over to ACOT and check out the February Challenges? The team has put together some awesome challenges this month! You're sure to find some inspiration!

I Sewed a Dress!

This past week, I got a new sewing machine. The one I've been using for the past 10 years secretly hated me, I'm convinced of it. It always started off at top speed and was just a pain in the butt to work with. So I did not do much sewing because it was such a headache to try and sew anything with it. Well, now I am very excited to start sewing for Avery since my new machine is so much easier to work with. My mom had bought this piece of pre-shirred fabric to make a dress for Avery last summer, but never got around to it, so she gave it to me to finish. While she was here this past week she helped me actually get it made into a dress! I think it's super adorable and Avery is pleased as punch with it. I'm so proud of myself! :D

My First Vintage Piece!

I have been absolutely filled with envy lately at all the cute scraprooms I have been seeing done up with vintage pieces. Milk glass, hobnail glass, cute little cakestands, mini tart tins, repurposed vintage furniture pieces, all of it! My scrap space currently occupies about half-ish of our 3rd bedroom. One wall is all built-in bookshelves which house all our reading books and nonfiction books for homeschool. And it's a small room, so space is really at a premium. I make it work, but it's crowded and not very "pretty", if you know what I mean.

Well, lately dh and I have been discussing moving my scrap space out to the "man cave" in the garage. The previous owners of our house collected movie posters, so they built a room into the garage in which to store them. Dh doesn't use it as a man cave really because all his gaming systems and whatnot are inside the house (because the better TVs are in here, LOL!) So right now it just gets used to house family when they come to visit. (Aren't we so nice to put them out in the garage? ;) ) And my mom and stepdad will be staying out there while they are in the process of moving here in the very near future. My mom is here this week trying to scout out both jobs and houses.

Anyhoo, to make a long story longer, once my mom and stepdad get moved into their own place, I will be getting the man cave for my very own! We're going to have to do a little remodeling on it before it will be ready for me. Most likely some better lighting and possibly putting in a window. Also some carpeting and pretty paint on the walls.

My mom and I were out shopping this week, just here in town, and went into this great shop that I have been wanting to visit for ages! It's amazing! All sorts of awesome home decor items as well as jewelry and hair accessories. And mixed in with new pieces are vintage pieces on consignment! Everywhere we turned there some adorable thing that we wanted to buy! What I fell most in love with were all the vintage glass candy dishes and bowls.

So I bought myself one!

And now it holds *most* of my buttons! (I still need a couple more dishes to hold my metal buttons and my shaped buttons. Darn it! ;) ) I'm hooked now. I know I'm going to be going back to Grandiflora again and again to find more pieces for my new scrap room. My mom has also told me that she has some dishes that belonged to my great-grandmother that I can have, too! Yippee!

My Little Shoebox Blog Challenge

I was so excited to participate in the MLS sketch challenge this month. I just love Aphra's sketches, and I was so glad of an excuse to pull out my MLS papers. All PPs are My Little Shoebox. Die-cuts and photo corners are My Little Shoebox. I used my Cricut and the From My Kitchen cartridge to create the cake slice. Alphas are a mix of My Little Shoebox and American Crafts Thickers. Crocheted flowers are American Crafts Dear Lizzy Spring. TFL!

Bo Bunny Layout Challenge

It's been a while since I did a Bo Bunny layout challenge. A looooonnnnngggg while. This one just spoke to me and I went all out! I've been saving these Olivia PPs for when I got our pumpkin patch pictures printed. And oh, were they perfect! All PPs are Olivia, even the background, which is Olivia Nectar. The large layered scallopped circle was cut with my Cricut and the Lovely Floral Lite cartridge, Olivia Stripe PP and Olive Double Dot cardstock. Glittered cardstock is DCWV. Trims are Making Memories and, I *think*, Creative Imaginations. Flowers are all various Prima, including some of the E.line flowers that I colored using Tea Party Smooch Spritz. Brads are all Olivia iCandy brads. Leaves are hand cut from the Olivia Honeydew PP. Journaling page is Olivia Noteworthy. Letters are American Crafts Stroll Thickers. TFL!

My Mind's Eye Blog Challenge

This is for the current My Mind's Eye layout challenge. I dug deep into my stash of MME to find a line that would coordinate with this picture of Avery making a snow angel, since the theme this month is "Winter". All PPs are MME Bohemia, as is the die-cut title, which I embellished with KaiserCraft gems. Glitter cardstock is Core'dinations. Scallopped strip is Bazzill Just the Edge. Transparency is MME. Letters are American Crafts Thickers. Snowflakes are Heidi Swapp. Floss is DMC. Bling is KaiserCraft and Darice. TFL!

Creative Scrappers Sketch #137 and American Crafts "Details" Challenge

This week on the American Crafts blog, the challenge was to feature "Details" on your layout. Background is the backside of American Crafts Dear Lizzy Spring Beehive Brunch PP. PP is Dear Lizzy Enchanted Sophisticated Jack and Gentle Badger. Doilies are Wilton and Martha Stewart. Chipboard is Magistical Memories. Ticket is Dear Lizzy Enchanted Just Write, stickers are Dear Lizzy Enchanted Remarks. Butterfly is Dear Lizzy Enchanted Details. This is also based on Creative Scrappers Sketch #137. TFL!

Resolutions and Goals

Okay, here we go. I'm going to actually try and get these down and put them out there for all the world to keep me accountable to! (Did that sentence even make sense?) Honestly, I really stink at keeping resolutions, but if I don't even make them, then I make no effort AT ALL to change and that's even worse! So THIS is the year that I will keep my resolutions all year! (I know, I know, but I really am going to try!)

Resolutions:
1. I am not going to spend any money on scrapping/craft supplies for myself, with the exception of adhesives. Any new supplies will have to come from gifts, prizes won, gift cards, points accumulated at ACOT and my ACOT Secret Sister.
2. Get healthy! This basically entails cutting waaaaaaayyyy back on the Mountain Dew, drinking a lot more water, exercising using a combo of Wii Fit, Leslie Sansone walking videos and actual walks outdoors. Also changing my eating habits and working on portion control.
3. Devotions every day. Right now I'm going to start out with "God's Little Devotional Book for Moms" and "The One Year Book of Christian History." I'm also going to try and get back into journaling in my gratitude journal.

Goals:
1. Blog more.
2. Better school planning.
3. Scrap more.
4. Start earlier on Christmas gift making.
5. Cross stitch more and finish up projects already completed.
6. Try more new recipes.

I think that's enough! Truth be told, I'm already feeling overwhelmed.