It's time!!

to finish up everything I wanted to get done in 2010, to think about what I want to do in 2011 and to post another "picniked" photo!

Stayed tuned for 2011's What I Want 3.0 party pics and resulting goal board.

Merry Christmas!

Hope your holidays are filled with fun, family, happiness and creativity!

Baby, its cold outside!

Well it was freezing out today, so it reminded me of this picture of my and sisters last year skiing (or maybe it was the year before??)

Love Picnik!

A Picnik in the Cold

As an early Christmas present, Jeff got me the premium subscription to www.picnik.com - a cool, yet easy to use photo editing site.

Here's my first quick collage



Happy Holidays!

Scraproom Remodel

Sometime back Jeff and I ripped the carpet out of my scraproom and finally my whining about getting a floor back in there paid off. So off to Home Depot we went and picked out some click and lock laminate (nothing fancy but better then concrete).

I got to work and emptied the entire room which was slightly shocking to Jeff in terms of how much stuff I had in there.

We scraped and vacuumed and prepped the floor, then we were ready to get started. We laid down the underlayment and then got to work on the floor.


What we figured out is that putting a new floor down, also means putting new trim up (and painting it, which also means painting the whole room (including the ceiling and the door) and adding a new hardware to the door (bye-bye gold door knob).


After a couple of weekends we were done and I was able to move all my scrap goodies back in.

NEXT UP - a trip to Ikea for a storage solution and new workspace (can you say Merry Christmas and Happy Birthday?) Then it will be totally finished and I will be one happy scrapper!

Technique Tags

Well after some "Mercedes" like production I was able to finish 5 sets of technique tags for the scrap weekend. I still have about 10 more to go for all my other scrappy friends who have yet to get theirs.

Here is a shot of the final product. They are great to just keep around especially for those with girls and anyone else wanting to add flowers to their pages.


Scrapweekend was eventful if nothing else - poor Crystal had an allergic reaction to something so we spend Saturday late night/early Sunday morning in the ER (boo!) and poor Aunt Barb got hit in the church parking lot Sunday morning :-/. Well here's to our next weekend where hopefully we will have a little more fun and get a little more done!

Hope everyone had a wonderful holiday weekend and here's to a homemade create holiday season!

P.S. Collage made at www.picnik.com - my new favorite photo site, I see an upgrade to premium in my near future for a mere $24.95 with endless photo editing possibilities how can I resist?!

Creativity in Progress

As I mentioned I have been wanting to put together a cool little gift for my scrappy friends so I am working diligently to get them done before our scrap weekend in November. Also on the list for this weekend - ordering photos for that same weekend. Can't wait to actually sit down and create some more!

1 Down, So many more to go!

I finally finished my first knitting project - a scarf for Holdan. Now I am on to the next. More photos this week of the fun stuff I am working on.

Okay, here we go...again

Life happens and sometimes you don't always have time to blog about it! What can I say, its been a crazy busy summer, then Jeff started a new job blah blah blah.

So to catch you up on my creative endeavors I am working on finishing some projects over the next couple weeks and will be taking photos of some of them I did finish with... my new camera! Yahoo! Jeff surprised me with the latest model of a camera I have been pining for, for about a year. It is the Canon G12. The best of both worlds - awesome auto photo taking capabilities and a bunch cool functions as well as the ability to shoot in the raw. I am so excited...well I have already gotten through 41 pages of the 220 page manual and I am going to test it out this weekend.

Stay tuned... I promise there are many more updates to come before 2010 slips away into the night.

Here's to your creative self! Make time to free your mind and create to make your heart feel great!

xoxox
Kris

Ahhh...What happened to July and half of August

...for that matter?

Man, is this summer ever flying by! I have been knitting a little scarf for my Holdie Bear - will post pictures of that soon.

And today I signed up for Liz Kartchner's class - she has great ideas, so it should be fun...sort of a consolation prize to myself since I won't be making it to spark this year (www.sparktheevent.com).

You can find out more about her class at her blog www.elizabethkartchner.blogspot.com

As a mid-year update to those cute goal boards we made back in January I am doing pretty well on my list - I have learned to knit, gardened, cleaned more then I ever have before, am eating and living more healthfully (at least I am pretty sure that is what helped take off the 25 lbs!) I have signed up for a 5k in a few weeks... this years goal board is looking quite good and most will be completed!

Thanks Dad!

My dear father-in-law Greg is kind enough to scan in my scrap pages for me, so he just finished with the last batch... it was so cute when he asked if he was all caught up or if I had since made more pages...sorry Dad there will always be more!! (And yes I am going to get some done with you in them - I'm thinking we need to recruit Dawn for some family pictures... Jeff and I haven't done them since you last took them)

Here's a sample of a few...

Been Scrapping a little

So I have gotten a few pages done over the last couple weeks. I used some of my loot from my prize.


Lucky Me with my sis and Holdan

This one cracks me up, just because Burt and Chimmy are brothers from different mothers and not really friends, this is a rare occasion that Jeff caught on camera of them snuggling about a week after we adopted Chimmy, it really hasn't happened since then... maybe I need to change the title to Part time friends....hmmm

I am going to be working on a special project for Camp Staley in honor of Grandpa Staley, who recently left the good earth to join our Father in heaven. Love you grandpa!

The Loot!

My box of goodies AKA my fabulous prize arrived on Thursday, before the holiday weekend, so I haven't had the chance to do anything with it yet, but I had a great weekend with my family and my little Holdie Bear so I have lots of pics to get printed and I'm sure I will be able to put it to good use.

Tada!! Paper, an album, rub-ons, stickers, bling, journaling pads and spots, a tearing ruler and a few others I'm forgetting to mention. Super fun!

Creative Rut

Well I haven't posted anything in a while because I just haven't had time to do much lately, but hoping a visit and lots of pictures of my sweet nephew will get me going next week. I have some cards to make, more knitting to do, scrapbooking and some shopping I'm sure.

Stay tuned for some fun stuff!

P.S. Just got word that my "fabulous" prize is being shipped out today so I will have some pics of all my winnings as soon as it gets here!

Sweet - I won!

So...sometimes I enter a contest, just on the off chance I might win and today I got a message saying that I did indeed win! I was so excited I forgot to ask what I won, but it is a "fabulous prize" according to the Creating Keepsakes website and hopefully it will be arriving on my doorstep soon.

Here's what I did to win...they had a little contest to put one of your layouts on one of their magazine covers. Here's what I posted...

A layout I did of miss Lillian - She's so cute!


I also got my new scissors, tape refill, and new cutting mat that I ordered today...double scrap happiness and tomorrow I get spend some time with my mom helping her work on some of her books. It's going to be a great weekend!

Armed and Crafty

So I have all this fabric and I have been trying find an easy and fun way to use some of it up. I found a tutorial online at the American Crafts Dear Lizzy site to make rolled flowers so I grabbed my glue gun and got to work.


Here's the link the video with the easy how to: http://americancrafts.typepad.com/studio/2010/04/dear-lizzy-fabric-flower-video.html

Here's the end result - Thank You card for a friend


A Happy day card for some lucky person :-)

Pink Ink Studios!

I entered to win Carrie’s entire store at @pinkinkstudios.com valued at over $1,300! www.facebook.com/PinkInkStudios for further details!

Happy National Scrapbooking Day

Hope you have a chance to get creative today! I have a couple cards to make before a Kentucky Derby party. I'll post pictures later.

Have a great day!

New Addition...

... to the scrap room that is! I found this great Hip Home wall art at Joann's and best of all it was 70% off!

I think it just adds a little something to the scraproom and is a great message.

"You're the HERO of your own story."

Tutu Cute

Yes... they are too too cute for sure! Jess mentioned a couple weeks ago we should make tutus for our little girls in our life so I said I was in. It was actually pretty easy, if you want to know how just ask. Here are the fun tutus that will be making their way down to El Paso, TX for my little Lillian and her baby sister that is yet to arrive.

Baby Cooke's tutu - pink and purple tulle, with pink organza ribbon and a couple little purple fire flies sewn on to the ribbon.


Miss Lillian's tutu - also pink and purple tulle, but with pink and teal organza ribbon and matching fireflies sewn around the waist line...


Okay girls, now its time to dance!!

P.S. (sorry Sarah...had Holdan been a girl, one would be coming your way as well)

Card Making Class

So I signed up for a card making class at Archiver's for today. It was going to be a low key Sunday and I thought this would be a fun thing to do for a couple hours... I get to the store and they have canceled the class but didn't update my phone number so they couldn't get a hold of me to let me know...the store is about 15 miles away (not a lot but in the city a good 25 minute drive) While I am shopping around (since I'm there already) the clerk comes over and says that 2 other people have showed up for the class so they are going to have it anyways. So lesson learned...bring friends with you! Here's a sample of some of what I did though, it wasn't exactly what I thought it would be but the end result was decent. (4 of the 8 cards)


Thank you Card

Happy Puppy Card

Congratulations Card



Hello Card

Knitting Update

So I've made a bit of progress on my scarf, its about a foot long so only about 50 more inches to go! Should be ready by next winter ;-)

Pages and Pages

So I am finally getting a chance to post a few photos of my pages from scrapweekend. I was able to get 13 done in total. Thanks girls it was so much fun. Looking forward to our next one.

This time I focused on getting some of Chimmy's photos scrapped since I have a million pages for Burt.



Then of course I had to do a page of my sweet little Sydney...and yes Jessica has admitted that I have now scrapped more pages of Sydney then her...and yes I have only done this one :-)


But...(drum roll please) my all time favorite pages from the weekend were my pages I did for my trip to see my good friend Sally in TX. We took a day trip to White Sands, New Mexico - which was gorgeous and we had a great time. I cut out a million little butterflies and attached them only by their body so I could lift their wings making the whole lay fly. The picture doesn't do it justice, but it is definitely one of my favs.


I'm off to work on my knitting project. I'll have pics of my progress on that this weekend.

Holy Scrap Batman!

Time flies when your getting ready to have fun! Scrapbook weekend starts tomorrow. Ohh happy day.

Lots of photos and pics of my work will be up next week so be on the look out!

Have a great weekend!

Photoshop Fun

This past weekend I got a "how to" PSE book so I can make some attempt at actually figuring out how to use it with some level of proficiency. Here's what I did tonight.

Before

After (I was able to get rid of the "stuff" in the background, but definitely still pretty elementary)

Hope your having a great week!

Sending some Crafty Love

Jeff and I don't typically celebrate Valentine's Day, but since I have some cute little babies that I am Auntie to I thought I would send a little love their way. They all got a version of this card, each with a sweet pea on the inside that I made with my trusty Cricut and customized for the boy and the girls. They each got a little present with their cards.

Little miss Sydney got some headbands for her hair and I had to amp up a few of them so I found this great "sherbert" fabric at Joann's and made some lollipop flowers and sewed them onto the bands.

I am thinking of all kinds ways to use the BIG stack of fabric I still have for my scrapbooking pages.

Speaking of scrapbooking...t-minus 13 days til our next scrap weekend in Saginaw! There will be a small group this time, about 1/2 our normal crew but it should still be quite a bit of fun. So I will be getting photos and paper ready so I can really get something accomplished.

Keep on being creative!

Knit This!

As you know one of my creative endeavors for the year was to try out knitting and maybe even pick up. So Jessica and I signed up for a knitting class a Joann's. Despite the fact that our teacher was Kuku for coco puffs, I did actually learn a little bit, now I just have to find time to practice so I can decide if its something I really want to pick up.

So let me take you through my first knitting masterpiece (aka a 3x4 inch swatch of orange yarn :-))

Step 1. Casting On (there are 2 ways to cast on to get your project started either knitting on or long-tail cast on which is what I found easier.


Once you have your first row cast on then you can start knitting, which is a bit awkward at first but I found holding the needles a certain way did help (of course not the text book way but whatever)


Then basically after that you are transferring your knit knots from one needle to the other (note you always hold your work in your left hand so once your knots are moved to the right, then you switch hands) and it starts to look like this.

It was surprisingly hard to keep an even tension so that will be my biggest challenge to figure out. And after a while of knitting the same stitch (Garder I think?) Then we learned a different stitch (purl) so the when you see those nice v style knit sweaters it is a combination of both (stockinette).
Then after a while you can switch between the two and it starts to create a pattern. We finished off class by learning how to bind of the piece and voila here have my finished piece!


Here's to all the knitters out there - you are amazing because it isn't easy! To another creative week!

P.S. To all of you are wondering about my teaching - some of my students have been very creative which has resulted in my brain feeling like it is going to explode, so I may have re-categorize teaching into a category that is not 'creative' :-)

Sunday Scrapbooking

This Sunday was spent resting from my birthday celebrations (thanks all!) Last Sunday though, I had a chance to spend a little bit of time with my sweet sis-in-law Crystal and get some scrapbooking done. I purposely brought some old photos that I had been putting off to the side and finally got them put to paper and they turned out great.

First Up - Kickball photos from our 2008 team.

I used the index photos to get a couple more on the page and I used the red circles that looked a lot like a kickball to add some fun facts about our team.

Next Up a photo of Jeff and I at his sisters wedding circa 2005.

I added felt hearts and used a black pen to make it look like I stitched the title on the page.

Then there were these adorable photos of Burt right after we brought him. Once day I found him snuggled into the corner of the couch and he still stretches out now just like he did then.

Lastly I had this picture my cousin took at one of our family reunion a few years back. She had us dress up in old clothes and took the photo in sepia. I used some monochromatic papers and gold ink to keep the look going.

To another creative week!