Goodbye Persimmon!

and hello "interactive cream"! After a year of peach colored walls in my scraproom, I have decided to make a change. I had posted earlier that this desire to change comes from my mother's remodeling (and I am still blaming her). I am hoping that the subtle cream color will help lighten up my basement scraproom, and blend with all the white accents better. I really love this Persimmon color but it needs to be in a room with more natural light, just doesn't work well down here. There is nothing better than a fresh coat of paint and having everything all wiped down and clean! Today I am emptying the room, and tomorrow we start to paint, thankfully my niece is coming over Sat. to babysit, which means we should have all the painting done Sat. and be able to put everything back into the room on Sunday!!! I will post pics when we get done!

ATC fun!

I have wanting to start my ATC holder for months now, and I finally did yesterday morning around 6:30am (more about the early time later) at first I was going to make it a record of events for the year, but I changed my mind. I have so many things "scheduled" in my life that I wanted a creative project that has no boundries, I can add to it whenever and whatever I choose. Kind of like an art journal, just little canvases for me to play on. The first one is "my word" and of course this comes from Ali's blog, it took me awhile to decide on a word for the year, but I really like grow, it's what I want to do this year: grow as a mother, friend, wife, child of God. I want my creativity to grow, and most of all I want to realize that to grow does not mean I have to be perfect, a hard lesson for me!

About the early morning - I am trying to find time to scrap, right now I do most of it in the afternoon if/when Zach takes his nap, and about once a week after everyone goes to bed. But Zach is about 4-6 months away from no more naps and the evening scrapping is hard because I am just to tired most of the time. So I thought I would try to start a habit of getting up early (like Greg does - he is up around 5:30am) and scrap when the boys are still sleeping. This is very hard for me - I am NOT a morning person, but there is something nice about being up before everyone, having the morning news on and that big cup of hot coffee first thing, that may get me motivated. I will keep you all updated.

Feb. Project kit./my favorite hymn

The project kit that I worked on for Cocoa Daisy turned out so cute! I titled it "what I love" and it's an Urban Lily Secret Keeper album, with lots of pretty red and pink floral patterned papers, vintage wallpaper and RX labels, a Lil' Davis acrylic stamp set and a some other fun little embellies. The bird on the front and back are from the vintage wallpaper.

We sang my favorite hymn in church this morning "How Great Thou Art" no matter how many times I hear or sing that song I get chills, it is so beautiful. So here is hoping that you have a great Sunday and if you have never heard this hymn please go check it out.

Happy Friday

Not much going on today, I am working on a fun project kit for Cocoa Daisy - it will go so cute with the Feb. kit! Here is a scraplift I did of a fab page by Tara Pakosta!

and......

My News - I have been asked to be a part of the Creative Cafe/Art Warehouse Design Team!!! I am beyond excited to work with such a great team and such fabulous product!!!

By the way let me know what you all think of my blog new look, I am in a "remodel" kinda mode it's my Mother's fault she has been redecorating her house (it looks beautiful by the way) and now I am convinced I need to repaint my scrap room! I am going to go with a color called "ecru" from Sherwin Williams, it will look great with the white trim and dark wood accents in my room, plus I can still keep my touches of peach.

some scrapin' randomness

I Have some really exciting news - but I cannot share just yet, hopefully in the next couple days!!!!

A little sneak peek from February's Cocoa Daisy kit:


I was playing around with photoshop and made this:


For Christmas I was given some Pottery Barn gift cards, and I was finally able to replace my old cork board message board with this (not the best pic sorry!) linen covered message board, I can't wait to fill it up with inspiration!

And I had to have this (not sure what I am going to fill it up with yet, it's really bigger than it looks and will hold a lot!):

Dr. visit for Deli

I took Deli Joe to the Vet this morning, his siezures have been getting more frequent and more intense. The vet checked him over and said he is doing really well - she said he looks young for his 12 years! She is going to do some blood work just to make sure - will find out about that on Friday. We did decide that it is time to put him on some anti-siezure medication, and hopefully that is all we will need to do. So over all I feel much better about my little baby!

I keep meaning to post this one....

...and I finally got around to it! I don't do 2 pagers very often, but I really wanted to make the focal photo really big. TFL!

Happy cleaning!

I am cleaning up and rearranging my scrap room (yes again - it's what I do when I need to recharge my creative battery) and I was organizing my flowers and came across these - I think they are the perfect flowers for vintage/boy pages, and I have been trying to do at least one vintage page a month, I am going to keep this as a goal for this year. When my Grandma passed away a couple years ago I was given a bunch of beautiful old black and white photos, and I want to make sure I get them preserved.

it's how warm?!

I live in MI it's not supposed to be over 30 degrees in January - let alone over 50! It was some weird weather, very warm and lots of rain - this did not keep us from our weekly lunch date with Grammy though (on Tuesdays we have taco's at Taco Bell and then go to Target). It's a simple little weekly ritual but I really love our lunch dates!

Grammy running to the car in the heavy downpour

and my two sleepy co pilots

creativity

Oh yes, creativity, she is a fickle little miss! I was talking to my friend Amber yesterday about this subject and it can get so frustrating when you can create a layout that you just love, and the next day - you work on one, and no matter how hard you try it just won't come togther. So I am now on a mission, I am going to try to put my finger on what drains my "good creative vibes", and I am going to do this by being aware of my moods and outside pressures while I create, see if I can find any conections (aside from the obvious ones like: children, sleep deprivation, housework, etc.). I also want to make sure that I make a point of writing down or sketching out more of the creative thoughts that pop into my head, I keep a sketch book, but I think it needs to be used for more than just layout sketches, maybe quotes, to do lists, bits of inspiration. I am also going to make it a point to get back to my roots of graphic design, I love the relationship between type, form and balance, and I think by looking at more graphic design publications it will help me keep things fresh. So that's my little bit of rambling for Tuesday! :)

End of year tally

I like to keep a running tally of my layouts, cards, and other altered items - like mini albums. It helps to keep me motivated, and last year I had a goal of two layouts a week - which I am happy to say I exceded by 1! So this year the goal is 120 layouts - I am starting to scrap a little faster so I am feeling good about meeting this goal. Let me know what your goal is this year - I would love to know!

Jan. Cocoa Daisy!

Here are my creations with the very pretty January Cocoa Daisy kit! The paper pieced bird was inspired by a bird on a Nordstrom's ad, and the heart on the other card is covered with glitter from Stampin' up. I have had such a blast this last year being a part of the Cocoa Daisy DT, and I am looking foward to this year and seeing what great kits Tricia puts together! If anyone ever has any questions about a layout or technique - just leave me a comment and I will answer the best I can!