Happy Halloween!

My girls woke up this morning SO EXCITED for tonight!!  Candy!!  Costumes!!  Fun!!  Oh yes, they are going to have a blast.  Even my teenager decided she was going out with her sisters tonight.  She doesn't know what her costume is going to be yet, but she will pull something together.  And I called the Snickers bars.  They are my favorite!!

But something else that we do every Halloween is carve out pumpkins.  I wait until the day of because no one likes a rotting pumpkin.  Yuck.  So as soon as they get home from school.  We are carving.  Four years ago I carved the faces of the presidential candidates in my pumpkins.  I am not tackling that again, it was a lot of work.  But I do like to go with a theme for mine.  I am thinking an ocean theme this year.  And of course we will have some traditional jack-o-laterns as well.  It is too much fun not to do many pumpkins.

Last year, my youngest got really into carving with me.  Yay!  One of them did!!  To celebrate Halloween, I made a page about it for Little Yellow Bicycle.

I used Acorn Hollow and my Cameo to cut out the pieces of the pumpkin and then added about all of the leaves in the entire collection.  Love it.

I hope you all have a great day and a fun Halloween (if you celebrate).

Thanks for stopping by!

Little Yellow Bicycle Blog Swap

Little Yellow Bicycle and Xyron have teamed up this week so some awesome inspiration. I am so excited to share my project created with Little Yellow Bicycle’s Acorn Hollow Collection and Xyron Adhesive.

I created a fun fall banner to help give my home in a festival fall feel.

F

A

L

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2012

Making this with the Xyron machine to help me was awesome!  I ran EVERYTHING through it.  It even made the chipboard a sticker.  LOVE it!

I hope you enjoyed my banner but it is time to move on to the next blog.  You can head to Vicki's place by clicking this link!

Oh but wait...  There is a giveaway...

Leave a comment here and on each blog you hop to and you have a chance to win the entire BRAND NEW Once Upon a Christmas collection from Little Yellow Bicycle. Leave a comment on our Facebook page and you add another chance to win. Then head on over to the Xyron Design Team blog to check out their fabulous creations and enter their giveaway for our Acorn Hollow Collection! Be sure to "like" them on their Facebook Page for an extra chance to win!

Easy right?  And the new collection is great.  I love Christmas papers.  Have fun hopping!!! And thanks for stopping by!

My favorite travel partner

We have three kids, so most of the time my husband and I do not get to do a whole lot of traveling with just the two of us.  Usually our travels consist of the beach (which I LOVE) or Disney World (which I also love) or a grandparent's house.  We have not ventured out more than that really.  But when it is just the two of us, we like to go different places.  New York City, Chicago, and now California.

I must admit, my husband is the best travel partner ever.  He likes to sight see, but at a leisurely pace.  He likes to eat good food.  He likes to talk to new people.  He will hold my hand when we are walking.  He is awesome.  I just love being with him!

So here is my last layout from our recent trip to California.  It is sad that it is wrapping up now, but happy too because I have scrapbooked the WHOLE TRIP!  That's a first for me!!!

We were in San Francisco this day and Alcatraz is behind us.  We did not have time to go out for a tour, but I felt so cool to be this close.  

There is a bunch of hidden journaling about traveling with my hubby and this part of our trip here.  

I love this washi tape.  It is huge but fun to make a background out of.

And these wood arrows are from Sodalicious.  Yeah, I need more.

I am ready to start planning out next adventure.  It most likely will involve three pretty girls and the "happiest place on earth" but I am okay with that.  I think I may be able to beg another weekend to Cali next fall.  My fingers are crossed!

Have a great day all!

Thanks for stopping by!

California dreaming...

It is really easy to start dreaming of a future in wine making when you are walking through the most beautiful vineyards in California.  Seriously, who cares that you know nothing about winemaking, practically nothing about the different types of wine, let alone the grapes, and that you are an accountant.  Those vineyards are inspiring and the lifestyle is so romantic.  Well, my dear hubby fell for it, hook, line and sinker when we were in California in September.  The regions spoke to him and he dreamed of a different life.  I don't blame him and I cannot even say he was alone in the dreams but I came back to reality a little bit more quickly.

But a man needs to dream...

I used new American Craft goodness for this page.  Amy Tangerine's Ready, Set, Go.  Such awesome stuff.

Have a great Wednesday!!  Thanks for stopping by.

Pink Paislee Sketches

I love sketches.  I am sure I have said that before.  It is a totally awesome jumping off point.  I mean, you can follow the sketch just like a blue print or you can pick something out of it that inspires you.  Your finished layout may or may not look just like the sketch.  Either is great.

Pink Paislee has a sketch for this month that has a lot of different elements that can be used as an inspirational starting point.

And here is my take...

Some close ups...

Do you like using sketches??

Thanks for stopping by!

Scrap Vintage with help from Jenni Bowlin

I do not scrapbook purely vintage very often but I love to incorporate vintage items into my regular pages.  But I pulled out this vintage dress pattern paper from an older Jenni Bowlin Antiquarian kit and I immediately thought of my grandmother.

She is so special to me.

Vintage bits and pieces are so unique.

The colors of vintage papers are warm and comforting.

Mixing in current papers is really easy to do.  These journaling strips are cut from some of the new Jenni Bowlin perforated papers.

Do you scrap vintage???

Thanks for stopping by today!!

A Jenni Bowlin Studio Blog Hop

Today is a great day for a hop, don't you think???  What fun!!  I love hopping.  The Jenni Bowlin crew is excited for this hop and all the incredible things that are going on right now!  

Just a little something I made for this hop.  I wanted to use the incredible October 2012 cut files.  Especially the leaves.  Wow, those are seriously awesome.  Here is what I made...

The leaves are just amazing.  You can still snag the cut files and an October kit if you hurry.  I heard we are down to the single digits on those kits.

This is the cutest house made my Jenni herself.  I just LOVE it!!  She is so great at pulling the most adorable things together.  And guess what, Jenni is giving this house away on her blog!!!!  Definitely keep hopping over there!!

But what is a hop without a prize of two??  Well I am excited to tell you that I get to give away one set of the October die cuts!  Look here...

Those are the leaves I love but all the other cuts are amazing as well.  And it really is easy to cut them out.  I had to ask for some help, but then picked it up quickly.  (Hopefully I will remember for next time!)  Anyway, leave a comment here to be entered to win the files.  This giveaway will stay open until Saturday at 7PM EST/6PM CT.  I will announce the winner sometime after that.  (It might be Monday, I am not good about being online on Sundays.)

Also, on the JBS Inspiration blog, we are giving away a mega kit of your choice!

TOTALLY AWESOME!!!

But both of these are available for purchase if you don't end up winning and you really want them.  The cut files are here and the mega kit is here.

Lastly, Silhouette is offering up a special discount code for all you JBS hoppers.  Here is the deal...

Fall Vinyl/CAMEO bundle:

• 1 roll 9 in. x 10 ft. black premium vinyl
• 1 roll 9 in. x 10 ft. orange premium vinyl
• 1 roll transfer paper
• 1 Silhouette hook tool
• 1 Silhouette CAMEO
• All for $269.99!!  (MSRP of $351.95)

WHAT A DEAL!!!  The couple code for this is:  jbshalloweenbonanza and is good from October 17th through the end of the month.  If you want to take part in this, just go here to purchase.

And if you want it but you are afraid to use this cool machine, our very own Amanda has a class that just opened up called Silhouette 101.  It is 25% off through Friday.  (I totally need this class.)

So enough talking...  Now it is time to head over and see Doris.  She is waiting for you.

And here is the full list in case you get lost.

Amanda Jones Robinson 
Amy Kingsford
Ashley Calder 
Betsy Sammarco 
Briana Johnson 
Connie Mercer 
Corrie Jones <== You are here now!!
Doris Sander 
Jenni Bowlin 
Jenni Bowlin Studio Inspiration
Jenni Hufford 
Jill Sprott 
Kerry Lynn Yeary 
Leah Farquharson 
Lisa Dickinson 
Megan Klauer 
Natalie Elphinstone 
Shimelle Laine 
Tina Walker 

Happy hopping everyone!!!

Thanks for stopping by!

Week 5 with American Crafts

My weekly kindergarten photos have continued! I am happy that we are 10 weeks into the school year and I only have a couple of days missing from the daily photo. I am a little bit more behind on the pages. But I have the photos all printed and I am on a mission to catch up!

Here is week 5.

I cut the large 5 out of white cardstock on my Cameo and then used foam dots to add the feather paper underneath. I love this paper. It is from the new American Crafts Amy Tangerine Ready, Set, Go line.

This girl is so fun. Over the weekend we were talking about Christmas break. She will get two weeks off. When she realized that meant two weeks off school, she started crying. I asked her what was wrong and she said she was just so upset about having to miss TWO WHOLE WEEKS OF SCHOOL! And then demanded to know WHY that was going to happen??? Maybe when she is older she will look forward to the break more.

Have a good Tuesday!! Thanks for stopping by!

Right now...

Well, really this was "right now" last week.

I decided to try scrapbooking myself more. Sort of like a journal of sorts to just kind of not forget that I am a part of this whole thing. Right? I definitely love to scrapbook my kids and all and me and my hubby. But just me is rare. Beyond rare even.

But I am important to my own story so I am going to make a point to do this exercise once a month at a minimum. I picked a random date. The 8th. No significance, just that was the day I decided on this project, so that is it.

Here was me on the 8th.

Nope. Not the happiest of people on the 8th. I actually even considered waiting on this until I felt better, but then how real would that be?

This is a project for myself and if I cannot be real to myself, who can I be real too? So "blue" it is. Things are better now. I am not blue now. So let me try something here...

Sad from a visit.
But thankful that the visit itself was POSSIBLE.

Tired of being in my car.
But thankful that I have it to get my kiddos around SAFELY.

Sore from the gym.
But thankful that I am doing something to get in SHAPE.

Missing my hubby.
But thankful that I get to see him each day even if it is just for a few minutes.

Wanting a friend.
But so thankful that I have OTHERS there for me.

Scared of test results.
But thankful for a doctor that CARES about my health.

Heavy with worry.
But thankful that my daughter is working hard to make things CHANGE.

Needing an attitude adjustment.
But thankful that it seems to have HAPPENED!

Thanks for reading.

Thanks for visiting.

Citrus Twist October Layouts

Hey everyone! I was excited to be a part of Citrus Twist this month. They are a newer kit club and they have some really cute kits. Today is the 12th, which means I can share what I have been doing for them!

Good colors, right?

And they are having a giveaway of one of my favorite things right now over on the Citrus Twist blog. What is it?? A Tim's Tiny Attacher. I LOVE that tool!! Head on over there and enter yourself to win one. Woot Woot.

I am so glad it is Friday. I hope you are too. Thanks for stopping by!

Jenni Bowlin October Kits Revealed!

The October kits from Jenni Bowlin are just incredible. The colors are some of my favorites and the kits were a joy to work with. Here are three more of my pages for this month.

Definitely go check them out along with all the other amazing creations from the design team!

Have a great Thursday!  Thanks for stopping by!