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Hello friends! 

It's been a busy week! I will be back a bit later to share details of the graduation and the couple of good photos I managed to get.  And I have a few scrappy projects to share as well.  

Apparently blogger no longer has a "follow" button and google reader will be non existent after June 1.  I figured I would jump on the bandwagon and do the bloglovin thing :)  Click the linky thingy to continue to follow me!!! I don't wanna lose any of y'all!!!

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Graduation eve....

Hello my scrappy friends!

I'm trying to keep busy today....because if I don't I will be a crying, whining, bawling mess.  In less than 36 hours my second oldest son will be graduating. Even tho he is the second oldest, he is the first of my boys to take the march and get his diploma.  Matthew (who is Autistic) will graduate next year. Then Steven the year after that......all my babies are growing up....how dare they!!!!

So I have been a bundle of energy today......I "fixed" my dryer. Well, not really.....one of the boys told me it just "stopped working" and being a mom I really should know that when things just "stop working" there is usually an operator error or they have used whatever object that magically ":stopped working" in a way its not meant to be used.  But my brain has been on vacation lately.  So it's gorgeous and sunny out today and I figured I would rewash the items in the dryer and hang them out. 

I pull some towels out and they are dripping wet. DRIPPING. And the lightbulb goes off over my head. 

I pull everything out and throw back in the washer and start the dryer......runs perfect. The weight of the wet clothes was just too much for the dryer to turn.  What is wrong with people? I guess tonight we will have a class in how to wash and dry clothes.  I swear I think they do this stuff sometimes so I will just give up and do it myself.   I am thrilled tho that the dryer works! Do you know how fast laundry stacks up with 7 people in a house? YIKES!!!!

So......I figured out the dryer problem, washed 3 loads so far, vacuumed, and scrapped a bit and then cleaned my mess.  I really need to become a more organized crafter.  I lost a bottle of glimmer mist somewhere between the armoire and the kitchen table....and then tossed 3 gluesticks because they were either dried up or the glue was to the point that I needed to dig it out of the tube.  I'm thirty but I'm not gonna dig out the glue......Im just not that dedicated..  I finally found one that would wor and if I do any ore paper crafting this week I definitely need to make a glue run.  It's something all the time.....lol. 

I have a couple of pages to share today........Jacob isn't happy with me because this first one is him and one of his ex girl friends.   Yeah, like it's MY fault he breaks up with them faster than I can scrap em (rolls eyes)  Sorry Jacob.......one day you will be glad I did this....maybe. lol. But I still love the photo.....and I scrapped it....so THERE!!! (sticks out tongue)

 I used this sketch from the Paper Bakery.....

I took a few liberties with it......but you can still see the sketch inspo!!

This relationship goes back 2 girlfriends ago.....lol.  Yeah I need a score card :) Her name was Chloe  and I have scrapped them before. I love the photo and it reminded me of the Faith Hill song "this kiss", which is what I used for the title.

I dug and dug thru my stash and found this stack of Pink Paislee that I have had forever had forever......anyone remember Daily Junque and House of 3?   Apparently I loved it so much I couldn't bare to use it....or I might not have used it because I didn't have any embellies to go with it.  So I fussy cut a lot of the shapes from one of the patterned papers.

And this vine is Prima....trust me, it's so much prettier in person....my cell doesn't pick it up well.  I have it for no fewer than 3 years.  And the little yellow rhinestones are actually from MME funday.....another thing I have never opened and had for a while.  The Thickers are only about 6 months old.....lol.

In addition to the paper bakery Sketch challenge I am also joining these awesome challenges.

Use It Tuesday: Can't touch this,,,,,use those hoarded supplies
Paper Issues: Pink Paislee projects or mothers day themed. "Pink Paislee Daily Junque"


Next is another one for the PageMaps Anniversary celebration. LOVE this sketch!!!!

My digital take using the awesome Collab "That's Life" that was part of a blog/facebook train NSD between several digi designers.

I LOVE how this turned out!!!! Jesse a couple of July 4rths ago :)  The colors are so fun and so "him" I think if you  look up :live out loud" it would have his picture next to it......I love this boy!!

I was inspired by the colors in this weeks Moxie Fab World Tuesday Trigger

I hope they will allow this even tho its digital....if not , I still love em and it still helped me create an awesome layout!!!

And the challenge this week at Chic Tags is to use arrows......there are a couple there :)

I dunno if I will get a chance to post tomorrow......we have a hectic day.....graduation practice at 10:45, Senior luncheon in the old city ....that the parents are NOT allowed to go to....which I say bites!!!  Because that means I have to hang out downtown for 2 hours for practice, take him to the luncheon and either sit and wait or drive across town a few times.  And we are talkin downtown...noooooooo thank you!!!  Then swing back home, pick the boys p from school, come home and get ready to leave again....whew!!!  I'm gonna need a week to recover!!!

Enjoy your day and as always than you for dropping by and the awesome comments y'all leave. I love you all!!!
HUGS!
Tina

Gotta love Mondays :)

Hello my scrappy friends!

I hope everyone had an awesome Mother's Day and each and every one of you were spoiled and pampered!! I had a pretty low key day at home.....The boys got me some wonderful smelling candles that I am just loving!!  Even when my house is a mess I still like for it to smell good....somehow that makes the mess a little more tolerable....lol.  Jacob bought me a Yankee Candle Company 3 wick candle in "rainforest" scent.   I can't vouch for it's authenticity since I have never been to a rainforest but it is very relaxing!!  Bob "helped" the other boys with a couple of jumbo Harry and David ones....one in "moose munchin caramel" (it reminds me of Starbucks....smells like heavenly coffee and is hands down my fave!!) and one in "Lemon bar"  That one is pretty self explanatory...lol.  And it's Jesse's fave....he wants to marry it he says.....lol.   I can see I need to keep a watchful eye on my candle!!!

Bob also surprised me with a six pack of ShockTop beer......lmao!!  Kinda untraditional but I sampled a Honey Crisp one the other day (very applely!!) and fell in love.....and since it is summer time they now have Raspberry Wheat on the shelves.  If you are a beer drinker, and a girl, you haven't lived til you have mixed the Raspberry Wheat with a Leinenkugel Summer Shandy which is very lemonade like.  BLISS!!!!  I'm not a big drinker but I love sitting on the patio an a summer night and enjoying any of those 3 beers.  Ahhhhhhhhh :).

I also got some scrappy time in yesterday, which is ALWAYS good!!!

Before I show you the fruits of my scrappy labor I wanna show you a photo I snapped in the parking lot of Kroger this morning.......a couple of you have seen this on facebook already :)

We have a pond not quite 1/4 mile from where I was....it is actually called Fountain City Lake but locals just call it the duck pond......lol.  These cuties must have wandered over from there :)  

Ok.......first up I have a cute card to share!

I used this sketch from Retro Sketches

 I only do simple cards.....lol. So I really loved this sketch and used some scarps from American Crafts "Ready Set Go"  

I'm not overly fond of that floral paper but I like it on the card.....lol.  

And I worked FOREVER on a layout for this Pagemaps sketch.

LOVE, LOVE, LOVE the sketch and normally it wouldn't be a difficult one for me to tackle......b ut this one has a twist and is sponsored by ECHO PARK!!!!!  

Be still my heart!! So if there is an Echo Park Prize package to be had you know I'm gonna try!!!  This one involved a color palette. And it gave me fits.  

I dug thru my EP scraps and finally managed to whip this up.....

Don't even ask me which papers these are.....lol.  Some are from the first  boy collection they had, some are from Playground and I am clueless about the others.   I did enjoy making the little pin wheels tho.....lol.  The photo is one I have scrapped before of Brandon and Jesse.  Brandon is the one with the shades :)  This was taken after school one day while we were waiting on their older brothers to get out of school.  We have about 45 minutes to kill between when the elm schools let out and the middle/high school kids let out.  So we usually sit in the church parking  lot across from the middle school and wait.  This photo was when these 2 both went to elementary school......I have five kids so they are scattered everywhere.....lol.  Now it's just Jesse and I waiting on Brandon and then we hop over to pick the HS kids up.....whewwwww!!! :)  We kill time by playing, talking, going for a walk or he plays with friends and I either take pix or play on the internet on my phone.....lol.

I hope you all have a wonderful day and I thank you for visiting! It's BEAUTIFUL here today and I'm doing some much needed cleaning and maybe a trip to the park later....we'll see!

Hugs!

Tina

Some scrappiness!

Hello everyone!

Hope your weekend is going splendidly!!  I had plans to just lay around do nothing....but it didn't happen....lol. Why am I surprised???  My allergies are kicking my butt and I m kinda feeling draggy and blah!  I need to relocate someplace where nothing can grow....lol. No foliage, no allergies!!!  My last allergy attack ended with me being sidelined with an upper respiratory infection for almost a month....not cool!! I'm too busy for that craziness!!

I started my day with coffee and a homemade muffin and then Jacob and I hit the road in search of a long sleeved white dress shirt for graduation.  We checked a couple of thrift stores and come up empty handed so we hit my new favorite place to shop.....Burke's Outlet!  Do you have one in your area? I just love them!! They are along the lines of Marshall's and TJ Maxx.  They have everything!!  We found him one there with a pocket hankie (swag!) and a tie.....regular $56.00.....$10!!

From there we headed to Kroger for drinks and koolaid for the kids. Yeah.....packed!!!  Everyone buying flowers, cakes, cards etc for mother's day.  A madhouse!  I thought I would get out quicker goring thru the U-scan........of course I wasn't thinking about the koolaid packets.  I had 20 of them and every other one wouldn't ring up or it would tell me to place the item in the bag when I already had.  I had a total meltdown.  The likes of which I haven't had in months!!!!  Poor Jacob.......he took the remaining packs of koolaid to the attendant and asked them to please ring them up because his mom was about to rip the Uscan out......lol.  He's seen me like that before and knew it could happen!!

Finally we made it home and I got some scrapping and card making in!  I will share the card tomorrow!  For today I have 3 pages to share....and 2 are actually paper!!!!

First........the fun is still going on at Colorful Creations and the sketchathon!

 I have told myself I won't do a sketch just "because" I need to love it or think it's something kinda different from my normal style and wanna try it.

Simple but I thought it had potential!  And I really wanted to scrap some Of Jacob's prom pix.  of him solo of course!!! I went digi because I haven't had them printed off just yet.

I wanted to make it kinda cool and masculine.  I hope he doesn't kill me because of the flower.....lol.
I used a blog freebie from  Blagovesta Gosheva that I really like a lot........the stitching is from a kit designed by Libby Pritchett titled "Frog Lips" lol.  I will be using that one soon! I just needed something in the corners of the layout and couldn't find digi brads.

here is the picture itself so you can see how handsome he is in his bowtie :)

My paper creations....yes!! PAPER!!!!!  I didn't wanna dig thru it all so I pulled out a baggie kit.  Which is what I do when I have a bunch of things from the same collection or manufacturer, just to make things easy.  This was already a kit.....American Creations Ready Set Go that I won sometike last year and hadn't touched.,

First up is my little cousin Nevaeh!!

This girl is such a babydoll! I need to check her moms fb page for new pix!!! No challenge here....just me scrappin :)

Next is one for Inspired Blueprints.  I was so happy to hear they have restarted the ning site! It used to be one of my fave sketch places.......I will be playing with them often because they rock! And I already have another of their sketches ready to work with tomorrow!!! This one is sketch #93

So many ways you could scrap this one....it's going into my saved file for use another day, another way :)  I chose to place a photo at the top and use the grid for patterned paper.

This is an old photo of Jesse and myself when he was less than a year old.  I love his sweet little face here!!!!All of this is also from Ready Set Go from AC......I added some messy blue Tattered Angels glimmer paint and tiny letters on teh tag are from Little Yellow Bicycle..  IF I can locate a blue gel pen I am gonna draw lines around the grid blocks.  They look much  cooler in person and pop a lot more than they do on the monitor.  I was using my cell camera so maybe thats the deal.

I had a LOT of fun getting the glue and paint out and getting messy!! I am enjoying scrapping right now more than I think I ever have!

I wanna take a moment to wish you all a Happy Mother's Day!  I'm spending mine at home with the kids since Bob is working.  Not much planned, just hangin at home and I need to come up with a creative gift bag for Bob's present for his mother and I am going to go thru a box of scraps and create a set of Thank You cards for Jesse to give his teacher for an end of school year gift.  I totally ripped the idea off from Julie Tucker Woleck......lol.  Luv ya Julie!!!!

Whatever your plans, enjoy your day!!
Tina



 

I'm a Mom, whats your super power??

Good morning my scrappy friends!!

It's FINALLY Friday!!!! And my day is actually starting off pretty darn awesome!  Bob Bob dropped me off coffee and apple fritters this morning!!! Awwwwww!!!  He had to transport our elderly neighbor to the doctor this morning.  I'm sure I have mentioned it before, but Bob is a cabbie.  Bless my neighbors heart, she refuses to ride with anyone but Bob.  She just celebrated her  83rd birthday and is pretty cantankerous if you don't know how to handle her......she happens to love me so I have no problems with her......She called the cab company and told them she needed a ride tis morning but refused to give them her address because she is certain someone will come and break into her house.  The poor dispatcher called Bob and said "ok, there is this lady that says she lives across the street from you and needs a ride but won't tell us where she lives because she said only you need that information" LMAO!!!! I so love this lady!!!

I am looking forward to a LONGGGGGGG relaxing weekend before everything starts to get REALLY crazy next week!!!  We have a week and a half of school left.  And next week is just insane schedule wise.  Jacob's last day was yesterday but he is going back next week to hang out with the CDC kids he peer tutors.  He has worked with the special needs kids all year and they are so attached to him.  One kiddo, Blake aka Blakey, called 4 times yesterday and asked him to please come back.  He doesn't understand that Jacob is graduating :(  Peer tutoring has been awesome for Jacob and he thinks he wants to be a special education teacher after he gets out of the navy.  Speaking of which, we have an appointment to see the recruiter and sign the papers Monday.  He won't ship out until October.  For him those months are gonna drag by and for me they will go much to fast.  

He went with me to Jesse's play last night and it rocked!!!! I will share the pix in an upcoming post because they are in my phone and it's not wanting to turn them loose......lol.

I have a couple of pages to share this morning.......I did complete a paper layout!! I swear I did!! But I'm having issues with my actual camera right now not wanting to read memory cards, I think it's time for a new camera :( So I am working with my cell.  While it takes really nice quality pix......I'm waiting on them to send to my email....much like the school play photos.....lol.  I should probably look into getting a micro SD adapter.  That would be a great mother's day present just in case anyone is reading.....hint, hint!!!   A new camera would be even better......lol.

PageMaps has several awesome sketch challenges going right now for their 7th anniversary!!
I love Becky's sketches and there are several I am gonna play along with.  I fell in love with this sketch as soon as I saw it

And the prize is just icing on the anniversary cake!! With a cherry on top!!
(see what I did there....with a cherry on top!!)

 
OMGosh.......$200 in scrappy goodies!!!!
*swoon*

Again, I went digi....only because I didn't have the pix I wanted to use printed up.  So this sketch goes into my save file for sure!! And I loveeee how this all came together!!!

I used the super cool kit from Jenn Barrette and Sweet Shoppe Designs called "Kinda Awesome"  

I worked super hard on this page and at one point forgot the golden rule of digital scrapping "Save after every step!!" and lost the entire thing and had to start all over.

I'm also entering this one in the following challenges.....check these awesome blogs out and play along!!!

Creative Belli Blog Mothers Day theme

Little Red Wagon All about Mom

The Pink Elephant; Mother's day theme

Go FISH! Mom

Simply Create Too Anything goes

Digitally Sweet Challenges Flowers for Mother's Day

Not done yet!!! I have one more for the 3rd anniversary sketchathon at Colorful Creations!! I'm slowly but surely getting these done......hopefully I can catch up this weekend!

The sketch....

And for whatever reason I have issues with tilting things.  I hate doing it and if left to my own devices I wouldn't have......but I was trying to stay as true to the sketch as possible.  Give me another week or so and I willbe back to veering off on my own and doing my own thing to the point that the sketch isn't even recognizable.....lol .  for this one I went with a winter theme and scrapped one of Jesse playing in the snow and posing with his snow dude :)

The kit here is Lliella "Chilly Willy"  I don't have an image for it tho...sorry :(

That's it for now!! I hope you all have a wonderful day and awesome weekend!!

Hugs!

Tina

The weekend can NOT get here soon enough!!

Anyone wanna trade lives for a few weeks? I'm kinda sick of mine at the moment!!  Before you agree to the trade you need to know that no wimps allowed! The schedule we have been keeping the past week is wearing me out and wearing me down.  SOON school will be out and then life will be just perfect right?  

SHHHHHH!!!! Don't you dare ruin this happy lil summertime fantasy I have in my head!!! At the moment it's all I have and I am willing to fight for it!!

Today is Jacob's last day of school. EVER.   I'm taking it way harder than he is.....lol.  Graduation is next Wednesday.  And my schedule is still jammed packed.  Tonight is Jesse's acting debut in the school play!  I don't remember what the play is called but we have been working on an award winning performance with his line "That silly Stinkbug is such a freeloader, and everywhere he goes, he leaves a terrible odor! He is gonna rock because I coached him a bit with adding some "personality" to his army ant.......complete with the pinching the nose for the stink bug odor......I'm tellin ya, in a few years he will walking the red carpet at the golden globes :)

We also have field day coming, Tomorrow is the red and black game at the high school and we are going to that......and in the midst of all of this my 13 yr old got suspended yesterday for smoking at school.  The night before we found out that he had been dipping and bought a can at school from a "friend" for $5.  Apparently there is big money in black market tobacco products because it is just $1.25 at out corner store.  And upon doing a room search we also found that he had gotten into Bob's beer and there were 4 empty cans in his room.  

He is so grounded for...........forever!!

I tried talking to him but every question I ask I get an "I dunno" out of him.  His older brothers tried talking to him and of course when they talk they are just "jumping on him or making fun of him"   I have managed to raise a couple of other kids into teen-hood without these kinds of issues, I guess this is God's way of keeping me on my toes.  So Mr' Brandon has been spending his suspension doing the yuckiest jobs I can find.  And he was working for neighbors making some spending money but he obviously can't be trusted with money.  So for the summer we have offered his services for free!! And I have talked to the neighbors and they know not to pay him because if I find out they did....it will  not be pretty!!!!

I hve a couple of pages to share with you today that I have completed for the 3rd Anniversary /Birthday of Colorful Creations.  I'm having so much fun playing along with their sketches and they are really and awesome bunch of ladies too. If you wanna play along just sign up for the forum and there is a brand new sketch every day this month except the weekends.  I don't know anything about prizes, heck I'm just happy to be scrapping again and getting my mojo back!!

And apparently I didn't have as much rust as I thought because the page I shared last post was featured at Colorful Creations AND LMLC!!! (you might notice my shiny new LMLC badge on my sidebar!)WOOT!!! I'm so humbled, grateful and honored, especially with that being my first "anything" since December. They have all been digi so far but I do have a paper project to share tomorrow ;)

First up today is sketch 3 by Tabitha Triplett.....such cuteness!!!

,.

And this is my take on it featuring Jesse last month at one of Jacob's rugby games.  The school photographer actually caught this shot and passed it along to us.  If I had known they were gonna snap his pic he woulda had a haircut.....lol

I used Kristin Aagard's awesome digi kit "Free Wheelin" for this one.  I love all of the fun bits it has including messy paint. This one will be a mainstay for me this summer because it is the perfect boy kit.    And you guys know how much I LOVEEEEEE fun and bold color!

This next one is sketch 1.  As simple as it looks it was actually a challenge for me because I don't like tilting pix......lol.  I like everything very straight

I went with it and stayed pretty true to the sketch.  I used bits of a few kits here and didn't write all of my credits down as I was going......this was the page I was working on when I got the call that my son has been suspended. So cut me just a wee bit of slack :)  The papers I do know are from Misty Cato's "Badda Bing" and the digi stamp in the top corner and some of the other elements came from The Scrap Orchard's "Authenticity"

I tried to make it very masculine and cool since this was for Jacob. Just a few of his rugby season pix and the number 3 is his number :)  I'm amazed we made it thru a season with just one hospital visit and no broken bones!!  

I almost forgot, this one made the featured page at Colorful Creations as well!!!

I will be back tomorrow to share a traditional scrap page, created with paper and clue and all that fun stuff :)

Have a great day!
Tina

I told ya I'd get into the swing of things :)

I scrapped!!! YAY!!!!!

I wanna thank everyone for the welcome's back! Honestly, it brought a tear to my eye and gave me the warm fuzzies :)  They probably have shots for that but i don't care...I like the warm fuzzies!!!!  Y'all rock!! I mean it!!

I scrapped today!!YAY!!!!

I said that already didn't I?

I have a LOT of creative rust to knock off so I chose to kinda ease into things. Obviously I have blog rust to work thru also....trust me, it will be no time before I am back to my incessant chatter about pretty much nothing....I have tons of end of school year stuff to scrap and stories about the kiddo's to tell.  For instance the photo I was GONNA scrap today was of my 17 yr olds prom.  It was an awesome photo of him and his girlfriend of 6 months.......you already know where this is going doncha? They broke up last night......

WHAT?????

 How dare they break up before I could scrap prom!!! That's just rude!

*sigh*

I swear I am going to make that boy an album of all of his ex girlfriends and call it "all the girls I loved before" or "all my ex's"  Aren't you glad I'm not your mom???

So, I agreed to not scrap any photos of the two of them together........for now :) Luckily there are tons and tons of photos of him and his bro-skis I can scrap here soon.

So y'all get to see my ugly mug today instead :)

And I combined a couple of my absolutely FAVE challenge sites for this layout.  All this month Colorful Creations is having a sketch- a -thon!!

It's the PERFECT thing if , like me, you need to get your mojo risin!! And I combined it with the latest challenge at my ol stompin grounds. Lasting Memories!!! (insert crowd roar and applause)

  They thought they were rid of me....bwahahahahaha!!!! NEVER my pretties!!!!! I will play as often as I can and I will get your little dog too!!  

Um, sorry....that happens sometimes :)

The challenge at LMLC this week is to complete a one photo layout. Super easy for me because that's how I usually scrap.  

Here is the sketch I chose to work with ......it's the second one of the sketchathon.....I like to work out of order....I'm a rebel that way :) I believe this is a Becky Fleck Pagemaps sketch....I could be wrong, it's happened before. Super simple and perfect for getting my feet wet and getting back into the groove.   

I dusted off my digi skills for this one.  I do love this sketch so I will be doing it with paper soon as well. I can see this one looking pretty cool flipped on it's side too :)  

So here I am!!!  I have started taking a lot more photos with me in them.  I often amuse myself while I am waiting for the kids to get out of school....I'm dangerous with a cell phone and cool photo filter apps.....lol.  I played a bit with the photo is Pixlr-O-Matic.  I have the program on my computer and they have a free phone app for android as well and it is my fave of all time!  Trust me, I look like Sea Hag in real life....so see what it can do?????? :):)

Over the weekend with all of the NSD events going on in between the Ky Derby and Cinco De mayo and mint julips and margaritas Sweet Shoppe Designs had a little blog train going with a super cool free kit called "That's Life"  The collab is HUGE!! Many gave their parts out on Facebook and I haven't reactivated my Facebook yet. So there are parts floating around that I didn't get but the bits I did are sooo dang cute!!! I love these colors because they remind me of Echo Park....and y'all know how I feel about EP!!! And obviously i still love banners too!!!

The word "Me" came from a different digi kit from Kate Hadfield and Kim Jenson called "Audaciously Awesome" The stitched down part is actually a word art bit from the SSD collbab as well.  The journaling font is barbajoepisanie. And I created this in PSP X.

Whewwwwwwww! All done! Thanks for looking!!
Tina