Chicago

This weekend the husband and I are in Chicago with his company. We will drive to Dune Park and get on the train into the city. We'll meet with his co-workers for cocktails and pool etc. and then out for a bit. Saturday we have a luncheon with is Fort Wayne co-workers and then out for an afternoon in the city. Dinner and "playing" at Dave and Busters later in the evening. So, no posting for the weekend, I may have pics on Monday.

Our Vacation Scrapbook (2011!!)

Never let it be said that I don't know that I'm a procrastinator. I know it, admit it and embrace it. I try not to be, but to no avail. So, having said that, here is a picture of our vacation scrapbook from July 2011 (bear with me, this is a rather long post!).

At first glance you may think this looks incomplete, and you would be right. However, it is organized...a little bit...in my head! I mean there is a beginning and an end. Dive in with me, I'll show you!

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Here we have the beginning. The blank composition notebook, the foundation of the scrapbook!

Next we have the pictures. To me, the pictures are the core of the scrapbook. They are the one item that sparks the memory and helps us to visualize the events!

If you've been reading this blog at all, you will know that we had a computer crash in March and when it crashed, we lost all of our pictures from 2011 and the beginning of 2012 (we had moved all of our pictures from 2003-2010 to an offline storage location so we still have those!). Thankfully, I actually did NOT procrastinate on getting the pictures together for our book. I printed the pics the week that we got home, because that's when we were going to work on the book! So, I've got plenty of pics for this book, and these are the only copies we have!

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This vacation was the first trip that we've taken in about 5 years, and we had all 5 kids with us to that was interesting to say the least. We started by going up to Wisconsin Dells and then over to Cleveland OH to visit Aunt Bev and Uncle Ben, via Chicago. We were only gone from Tuesday to Sunday, but we did ALOT of traveling with the kids. I will say, they loved it and have been asking when we're going back! Not this year kiddos, we're going camping in a cabin at Jellystone park this year and we need to get last year's scrapbook finished before that!!
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So, moving on...we have a large collection of brochures from the attractions we went to while we were gone...

One of the attractions we went to was Chula Vista Resort which is an indoor/outdoor waterpark. It was too cold and rainy to go outside, but inside was awesome and every single one of the kids (including mom and dad!) loved it.

We have a collection of postcards we bought along the way...

And brochures and menus from some of the restuarants where we ate...

With all of this paraphernalia we should have no problem remembering everything that we did on vacation (almost a year ago!) right? Right, but who wants to risk it...not us, we kept a diary of sorts. That would be me, just keeping track of everything in my notebook!

I see in my diary notes a reminder that we were counting silos. On the way from Fort Wayne to Wisconsin Dells, in order to keep the kids entertained a bit, we counted any water towers that we saw. While driving from Wisconsin Dells to Chicago, we tried counting silos but I think we all lost track (or interest) around silo number 75 or 80!
We also kept a list of the license plates that we saw along the way...

And a map of our route...

We have an armband and discharge instruction sheet from our little side trip to the ER in Ashtabula, OH while visiting Aunt Bev and Uncle Ben!! Zachary was 6 weeks old and got a fever of 104+ that wouldn't break. They tested him for all kinds of things including menegitis, which all came back negative. We never did find out what was wrong with him. Poor little thing!!

And finally, the things that will make the pages pretty! Embellishments!!

There ya have it, I told you it was all clear in my head! Now I just need to get it all put together. I will be in Chicago this weekend, so I won't be working on it until after that, but I will get started on Monday. I promise! Stay tuned to this blog to see my progress! Thanks for stopping by!

Project Life Week 4-6

This post makes me sad. Long before my computer crashed, I somehow lost 3 weeks worth of pictures from my camera/computer. I don't know how I did it, possibly my kids deleted them from the camera before uploading to the computer???? At any rate, the 3 weeks being covered in this post, are the 3 weeks that I have no pictures for.

As a side note, some of the important things that I took pics of and don't have...Morgan and Connor's first trip to the dentist. Zach at the hospital getting a chest x-ray. Zach's 8 month birthday. Morgan's first time at the Roller Dome. :(

Oh well, I guess that was just a preview to get me ready for losing all of the pics from 2011, which happened when the computer crashed. Those pics are just a little bit more important to me though. Zachary's baby pictures, every single one of them. All of his first Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas. All of the Christmas pics from our trip to Virginia etc, etc, etc.

So, even though there aren't any pics in these three pages, here are the pictures of them anyway!

Project Life : Week 4

Project Life : Week 5

Project Life : Week 6

I'm still not sure how to handle these pages??? Leave them blank, move them to the back, remove them and ignore those 3 weeks? I just don't know!! What do you think?

Project Life Week 1-3

As I may have mentioned, I've been working on Project Life this year. It took me a really long time to get started because I didn't have the page protectors until February! Then when I did get the page protectors, I started my book and things were going well until I lost 3 weeks worth of pictures on my computer. I've skipped those pages, but they're still in my book, they're just big gaping holes!! I still haven't decided what to do with those spots, what do you think? Condense the book? Or leave the pages there and fill with something else? I just don't know.

So, everything was moving along just splendidly and then my computer crashed, taking all of my pictures with it! Thank goodness I had printed everything that I needed for the book up to the point of crash, and everything after the point of crash was (is!) still on my camera's memory card. I just made notes on post-its for the things that had been happening in our lives throughout that time. Now I just need to get the memory card into the new computer and get printing!! Unfortunately, for some reason my printer is "offline" and won't come back "online"!!

I've decided to just go ahead post what I've got so far. I will also tell you, my pages are not at all as detailed, elaborate and beautiful as some others I've seen on line. I've just been putting my photos in and journaling about them. I would like to embellish them more, maybe later!

And so here it is, without further ado (sp?)...


Project Life : Opening Page
Just so you know, I'm using the Amber Collection with the Clementine binder.

This is my opening page, it is soooooo plain and simple, I just stuck the cards in where Becky told me to!! So many other pages that I see online have pretty flowers, fun letters, sewing, brads etc.

I did get some larger numbers on the one side for the year!

Project Life : Week 1
The year started off with 6 out of 7 of us sick! So, we didn't take lots of pics this week. I just put in a picture of each of the kids with their ages on them. The journaling introduces each of them and some of their random "likes".

Project Life : Week 2
This week is just Morgan and Connor working on puzzles and making cookies. Boring but our life!

And I can clearly see that when I get this book caught up, I must EMBELLISH!!!

Project Life : Week 3
This week brought us the only day that the kids played outside in the snow. For the entire winter, just one time in the snow!

And of course, with playing outside in the snow, comes a huge mess and HOT COCOA!!!

Ok, this is a really long post. Sorry about that and thank you so much for following me to the end!!

What have I been working on?

Well, I've been promising pictures and here they are. After looking at how they actually look on the blog, I think I need to do some retakes before loading them on to Etsy. I don't know why, but all of the pics except the last one in this post look really dark (hmm, I took them at the same time, using the same lightbox and settings on my camera, I think!) and there seems to be a spot on the bottom of each one even though my lens is clean!

Anyway, these are pictures of a few things I've been working on while my computer has been down. Most of these will be available in my Etsy Shop later today or this evening. Enjoy!

Cute little origami shirts, perfect for Father's Day Cards!!

I love post-it notes and I think these turned out so cute!

This is a cute binder clip for holding a picture or note on your desk. It also comes with an actual photo mounting card, just stick your 3x4 photo to the mount and stand it up in the binder clip! Nice gift for dad's desk!

Speaking of dad, Father's Day is right around the corner! Here's a cute little card for dad. This is a thick card so I wouldn't send it through the mail, but if you'll see dad, you can just hand it to him!

New Computer

Good news, we FINALLY got a new computer today!! I can hardly wait to get new items listed in my Etsy Shop, post pictures of my Project Life pages, print pics of my kids, and finally get some pictures posted here, of course!! So, beginning tomorrow, I promise some new pics. Just waiting on the 24 hour, husband imposed, holding time. For some reason he told me to be cool about it and wait for a day. Well, his exact words were "I think you should wait until tomorrow before you start uploading pictures and bringing viruses to the computer"!!

Pictures!!

As you know, I can't upload any pictures because I don't have a computer and I'm working on my husbands laptop. However it occurred to me this morning that I could add pictures, without actually adding pictures! My original blog has a gadget which comes directly from Etsy, which showcases some of the items from the shop. Ding, ding, ding!!! How about adding the same gadget to this blog! Of course I did just that, as you can see from the top of my sidebar. So there you have it folks, pictures!! Thanks for stopping by, enjoy.

My Etsy Shop

Stop by to see the items I currently have for sale in my Etsy Shop. New items are coming soon, just as soon as I can get a new computer and upload the pictures!

I really can't wait to get some pictures up here. How can you see what I'm talking about without pictures!!

Project Life

Well, just so you know, in addition to papercrafts, I am an overall "Paper Person". Part of being a "Paper Person", says my mother anyway, is that I can't get enough of taking, printing and scrapping pictures of my life. I take pictures of everything...my kids, family, vacations, yard, crafts, messes, everything. I take pictures of silly/stupid things. The first time Zachary (my youngest) sits in the "big boy" car seat. The first time Morgan/Connor go to the dentist office. The new dining room table (and the assembly of said table). Mommy cleaning out the closet. Ok, I'm a freak about pictures.

This year as a way to "scrap" these pictures, I asked for Project Life for Christmas (if you're not familiar with Project Life, you can go to Becky Higgins' blog, she has tons of information and inspiration!). Basically I take my pictures, and drop them into the Project Life protective pages and it's done. Becky's kits come with journaling cards and pretty papers to make your pages look really cute. So easy.

As part of this blog, I will show pictures of my Project Life pages, HOWEVER, at this time, my computer is dead (I'm using my husband's laptop right now!) and I can't upload pics from my camera! As soon as I get a new computer, I will be adding all kinds of pictures to this blog!! I can't wait for that!

Welcome!!

Hello and welcome to my new blog!

This is my second blog. It is all about papercrafts, which I love! I'll be posting things about my love of papercrafts and the crafts that I make and sell on my Etsy Shop. My original blog is all about my family, vacations, kids, and a little bit about my papercrafts! For some reason I just want to keep the two separate. Probably to create more work for myself!!

You can also follow me on Facebook and Twitter.

Thanks for stopping by, if you like what you see here, please follow me!