Happy Thanksgiving and a New Layout in THREE's!

Happy Thanksgiving everyone! I hope it was good for all of you. Today (and always, but especially today) I say thanks for my family, our health, the comfort of our lives, my parents visiting and all their hard work helping with today's preparations as well as with the kids. They let my husband and I 'run away' for a few hours today to go to breakfast and a movie for our anniversary. On the 30th we celebrate 13 years. We saw The Blind Side. It was completely awesome. I realized we hadn't been to the movies in six months. The last movie we saw was "Angels and Demons" and that was because it was my husband's birthday. Boy, we need to get out more don't we?

I'm thankful for the many ways that I saw God's hands in answering little prayers of mine today. Do you ever have moments where literally you can feel God speaking to you? Today, several times things came together and someone would say something or suggest something that I had been really praying about even the night before. I love those times where you feel a sense of hope that it's going to work out and you really feel His presence. I'm so very thankful for that.

This was my first Thanksgiving since being put on a restricted diet. So I had plain green beans, instead of the casserole, Turkey, and sweet potatoes with apples instead of the marshmallows. I also tested out making my first vegan pumpkin pie last night in order to not have gluten or dairy. The batter tasted pretty good last night, but today the texture of the pie was a bit gummy. I guess these things take time to find the perfect combination. I don't think it was the recipe though, I think it could have been that I cooked it too long. I found it on a blog called The Gluten Free Goddess. There were tons of great recipes in case anyone is interested.

Anyway, my parents came up and spent the night and my mom did so much of the preparation. While I was waiting for the pie to bake I decided to jump in on dare #156 at digidares. This is my first time entering. It gave me inspiration to do a layout I had long wanted to do, but never got around to doing. I wanted to track the progression of my third child's growth by taking her picture in the same chair with her brother and sister over her first year. I meant to do one every month, but it seems I had a few months missing so for this layout (which by the way, the challenge has to do with doing things in threes for their three year anniversary) I chose to use three of the photos from newborn, six months, and one year.

So here's the challenge:

3 Photos in 3 different shapes (square, circle, horizontal rectangular, vertical rectangular, etc)
3 Papers
3 matching elements somewhere on the page (stars, hearts, flowers, buttons, etc)
3 different alphas
and 3 spots of journaling

Here are the layout credits & explanation:
Three photos - one square, one vertical rectangle, one horizontal rectangle

Three alphas -
-Marie Stones - freedigitalscrapping - earwig factory - gel square letters
-Number 3 - RPENN express yourself alpha (changed color & embossed)
-(3, 6, 1) Tia Bennett Two Peas free age tags

3 fonts -
-journaling - 1st grader
-day, months, year - chalkboard
-dates - Stamp Act

3 papers
- pink stripes - Carina Gardner, 2 peas may freebie
-yellow damask - Shabby Princess - happy go lucky ornate yellow paper
-green polka dots - Crystal Wilkerson - 2 peas - free april kit

3 flowers - Michelle Underwood 2peas Brightsmiles kit
3 sequins - Michelle Underwood 2peas Brightsmiles kit

Extra Credit - The number 3 in my title, it's about my third daughter's growth, the three kids in each photo, the three tags behind the dates & the three fonts in addition to the three alphas.

Pretend Play

I decided to enter a digital scrapbook contest over at penscrappers. The free kit to create a fantasy world is really amazing. I love it and just had to give it a go.

I took this photo while my daughters were pretending to be little mommies taking care of their babies. They climbed on top of our patio table. There was a pole for the umbrella right in between them so to make it fit the fantasy theme I turned it into something like a carousel pole helping to hold up their clouds in the sky.

Everything is from the free kit for the contest except the background paper is from Betsy Tuma – Two Peas in a Bucket – Eloquent Autumn kit.

The font I used for the journaling is KopanyicaStrasse.
The journaling says:
Sitting among the clouds…what child hasn’t imagined how that would feel? I love how your pretend play blissfully carries you to a world miles away. I’m in awe of the power of a child’s imagination and wonder why it is sometimes we lose it. My wish for you is that you’ll always hold onto the vibrant ability to create magic out of the most simple moments.

Family Silhouettes

I found this cool print at Home Goods and loved it. I instantly thought it would be neat to add oval shaped silhouettes of the kids and our four legged child surrounding it.

The kids have been home sick more than usual for us and we've all been a bit stir crazy so I set them up to paint and decided I really needed a creative outlet too. It makes me so happy doing something like this and having a neat family memory captured in time to go on our wall for years to come. My parents still have silhouettes of my sister and me in their family room. I love the old fashioned look about them.

The girls painted very intensely and concentrated so well. However, my two-year-old decided she was done in a much shorter window of time. I was trying to work quickly, but in my concentration I somehow missed that she singlehandedly, very quietly got the craft bin out of the cupboard and was digging through everything with reckless abandon because of one teeny tiny little pom pom ball she saw at the bottom and wanted. She's quite persistent and dedicated to accomplishing missions that one.

Anyway, on to the silhouettes. They aren't quite finished but I thought I'd post what I have so far and how I did it in case anyone is curious. I printed out the photos a size that would go nicely on the canvas. Then I mixed a color that would match with the Home Goods print for the background. While the paint dried I cut out all the faces. Then placed them with tape on top of the canvas and traced the outline. Then I painted the inside in a dark brown. Each one needed two coats in order to not look blotchy. In the first picture the dog still doesn't have a second coat. I really love how they're turning out. I still need to put the brown around the edges of all of the canvases and then want to do a top coat sealer for protection. I'm considering maybe putting melted beeswax on top because it is how the Home Goods print is finished, but I'm a little afraid I might ruin them, so I'm probably going to opt for a semi gloss sealer.

I can't wait to hang them up. There has been a perfect blank space in our living room, above an antique clock that has been in my husband's family for generations, that is just waiting for them.

A Quiet Weekend

My entire family has been sick for what feels like over a month. As soon as one gets better, another gets something new. This past week all the kids got the stomach flu. I knew that day would come when they all had it at once and I dreaded it. I never handled this well. I know no one does, but we're talking a major phobia. I never got that kind of sick as a child. While my sister would be in the bathroom all day long I'd cover my ears and sing "Mary Had A Little Lamb" to try to drown it out. No idea why I chose to sing or why that song, but I did.

I only got sick in that way three times as a child. Once wasn't even the flu, but because my dad overdosed me on vitamin c and my body got upset and another was because I got into the cold medicine and my mom didn't know how much I drank (I was 4 years old) so they took me to the E.R. and had my stomach pumped. Actually I think that is what gave me this phobia. It was a traumatic day and the worst part was that the whole experience ruined my favorite Sunday dress.

Anyway, I know just talking about it is enough to send some people away. So I apologize, but wanted to set the stage to explain how God gave me grace to handle this on a day when my husband was working and I was alone. I won't go into the details, but I was amazed that I didn't get nauseated and my kids didn't cry or complain. They were little champs just handling it and being patient as I ran from room to room.

So we recovered from that and now daddy is sick with chills, a fever, cough and stuffy nose, headaches, body aches. All the symptoms sound sorta like what they're describing as the H1N1. I'm paranoid about us all getting this so I've been banishing him from the main living area and wiping things down with lysol like crazy. My hands are raw from washing and I'm doing just about every homeopathic preventative measure you can imagine. Just praying this passes without myself or the kids getting it.

Meanwhile everyone will be going back to school tomorrow. This fall so far has been a doozy on my kids with sicknesses. Again, praying they stay well.

Also wanted to record an interesting little Jackson-ism from tonight.

After bath he said something like,

"Teenagers are crazy."

I said, "Oh yea, how are they crazy?"

He said, "I don't know they always act all weird and do crazy things."

I asked him how he knows this and he replied, "I don't know, I just see it."

I told him I'd record that he said this for when he's a teenager and see if he still agrees.

It shows me though that they're observing and watching at all times. Those kids in the mall, crossing the street, the pants down low with the underwear showing (he has commented on this) and the hats turned to the side (again he has commented on this). His seven and a half year old mind thinks it's all crazy. I hope he still keeps perspective when he's older.

The best part of it all was him saying he doesn't want to grow up, he likes that he's a kid and he likes that he can still be into webkinz. This made my heart smile. What mom doesn't want their child to stay young forever. I'm always feeling like I just want to lock this age or that into place. I know they have to grow up and I know it's what is best, but the changes and the realization that a season is gone and wondering how it left without my noticing makes me very nostalgic.

I like where my kids are now and yet there are moments when I don't like repeating myself again and again and again about cleaning up, washing hands, not fighting, speaking kindly, being patient. But a dear friend who has twin two year olds and a newborn once said to me, 'When I start feeling that way about these things I remember that one day there will be acne and stinky underarms and attitude and real problems and it puts it all in perspective.'

Perspective is where I am right now...appreciating today and the now.

Music Room Mural

I'm taking a little walk through memory lane here with some of my favorite creative projects. Last year the preschool asked if I would do a mural in their new music room. This reminded me that I never went back to take pictures once the room was all put together, so I'll have to do that. I had an image of doing a marching parade mural and originally drew the picture on two sheets of 8 1/2 x 11 paper. Then I decided it would be cool to make it look like a silhouette. I'm not super experienced at doing murals so I scanned my drawing into photoshop and turned it into a silhouette. Then I used a projector to outline the painting on the wall. I was worried that I would lose perspective and the sizing would be off so this helped a lot. When I get updated photos I'll put a finished picture up one day. The preschool sends out weekly emails of the kids playing in there and it's so fun to see them dancing alongside the children on the wall.

Decoupage Tables

I love doing altered art projects and went through a phase where I loved making cute little vintage dress up images with black and white photos of kids. I'm going through old projects I've done and wanted to share this one. I digitally used old letters and maps to create the alphabet and then found vintage images to add to the children's faces in my son's class. This table was auctioned off at their preschool fundraiser. I can't remember what it sold for, but it did well. I spent so much time on it, and figure it's probably thrashed now, but it was so much fun doing it. I keep saying one day I'll do one again for our family!

Resurrecting the Blog & A Scrapbooking Mission! :)

I know I've been absent for WAY too long. I had sort of put this blog to rest, but an email I received today from my favorite scrapbook site listed that they're looking for new people to join their digital creative team. I felt inspired to apply and need to post some layouts here. So welcome back to you and me! I've wanted to jump back in again lately. There's something about school starting and the fall and now the holidays that makes me so sentimental and I want to remember the details. So here we go. I'm going to keep it short and sweet today though in order to get these layouts posted. I love doing digital layouts. But so often I don't keep track of what elements I'm using so I don't post them anywhere. But I'd love to change that and to have an actual assignment to scrapbook. I work well with deadlines and now that everyone is in school (the girls three mornings a week) I do have more daytime 'me' time to be creative.

So to see more of my work, here is the link to my flickr scrapbook set. Now that I'm in a groove, I plan to add more. This isn't all, but the hour is getting late, so it's a preview. You'll notice that I LOVE to journal. Although I love photography, beautiful papers, elements and making everything look pretty, the most important part of scrapbooking to me is to write down the little details I know I'll forget as the years go on.

There are so many little things I think will always be in my memory bank, but a year or two later, had I not written them down they really do slip away. With digital scrapbooking, I love scanning things like food labels that my kids love or sequins from a slipper to make an element or even to create my own stamps from drawings or images to use in layouts. So it's more than just using pre-made papers and elements for me, I like to personalize things. In the layout about my daughter's first day of school I scanned an applique and ribbon that were on a shirt my grandmother made me when I was a child. I like being creative in that way and finding inspiration in unexpected places.

Well, I'm excited to have this blog moving again and to actually upload my work. It's good getting organized and being inspired. Enjoy!