Month: March 2013

I’ve been in a bit of a scrapping rut this week.  One of my March goals was to finish Kate’s June and July pages, but I just haven’t been feeling them.  I have to admit that I’m generally firmly in the October Afternoon camp, but I needed something super bright and fun for my swimming pictures.  Don’t get me wrong, I love Midway, but I needed some variety.  Enter the new Doodlebug line.  Rainbow colors.  ::swoon::

I may have gone a wee bit overboard.  Who am I kidding.  I totally went overboard, but I plan on getting more of this line anyway.  Archivers didn’t have the washi tape (and I *need* it!) and I’ve already used up all of the rainbow chevron.  In my defense, I made 4 layouts today while Raptor was at preschool.  🙂

I really like this one.  I have multiple pictures of Kate at this particular sprinkler park, so I tried to find a different story to tell.  In the end I journaled about how taking Kate to the sprinkler park had become our new Friday happy hour and I loved it.

I’m totally going to end up buying more of these Thickers too.  They’re the bomb!

Wood veneers.  ::swoon::

I tried really hard to have 3 clusters of embellishments all repeating the same stuff a la Shimelle, my hero.  Each cluster had the strip of paper, the washi tape, and the arrow wood veneer.  The verdict?  I’m pretty happy with this one.

Update?  I have 3 more layouts to do for June and 3 more for July.  Will I get them done by Monday?  Maybe.  I also start my new Project Life on Monday (my birthday is March 31st) and I’ve pretty much decided on the digital Honey kit.  I’m basically technologically an idiot so this should be amusing.  🙂  I’ll keep you guys posted.

 

 

 

 

 

Last year I got a Zoku for my birthday and I thought that it was just about the coolest thing ever.  In fact, I wrote a whole blog post about it here.  And one year later?  It’s still the coolest thing ever!

 

Last year I got all fancy cutting out hearts and adding color.  This time, I kept it simpler and it was still a big hit.

 

I tried to recreate the pictures of both the popsicles and the girls eating them because I think it will make a neat scrapbook layout.  #nerdalert

Reasons why I still love this.

1.  It’s quick and easy.

2.  I can make 3 popsicles from one organic juice box if I add a wee bit of water.  (I frequently have 3 little girls here.)

3.  The little pitcher from the accessories pack makes this super easy.

4.  I love being able to give Raptor and the girls a fun treat that is free of HFCS and dye.

5.  The popsicle maker is very well made.

6.  It’s cute!

In short, you need this!

I don’t have anything finished to show at the moment, but I have a bunch of in-progress projects!

Project Life, of course.  I’m currently working on November, but I have the journaling caught up through mid-March.  My book runs April 1st to April 1st and I’m 99% convinced that I’m taking the digital plunge this year.  It’s cheaper, smaller (I’m getting overrun with albums), and there won’t be a delay in getting photos printed (I send off my prints for everything except October/ December Daily) so I’m hoping I’ll be able to keep up with it.  We’ll see.

Photo Editing.  I was working on that PL Layout for November and I saw in my notes that we had gone to the sand park.  I decided to check on the waterproof camera to see if I had taken any pics and I found a ton of cute pics from this summer!  I love to take our waterproof camera into the pool, but I never think to pull the pictures off of it.  Side note: I <3 this camera.  We thought about getting Kate a toddler camera, but honestly they don’t take very good pictures.  And we already had this one that was supposed to be shock proof.  While I wouldn’t spend this much money on a camera to give my 3 year old, it’s been perfect!

 

Packaging Wipes.  Just trying to pad the old spending money before I go scrapbooking.  If I make it that long.  There are some mid year released calling my name!  ::cough cough:: Crate Paper ::cough cough::  Speaking of, I really wanted to get June and July of 2012 finished up by the end of the month, but I think I’m going to give myself a pass until I can get my hands on the new Crate Paper.  It’s just so perfect for swimming pictures!

 

Felt Alpha Set.  Speaking of spending money, I’m working on a felt alphabet set.  I would really *love* to get it done by Friday, but I’m not sure that it’s physically possible.  ::fingers crossed::

 

Gardening.  So far so good!  We bought a few more plants this weekend, but the guy at the nursery recommended that we wait until after Wednesday to plant them since we’re having a wee bit of a cold snap here.  I’m hoping that our already planted veggies survive!

Alright then, I’m off to stitch some more.  Wish me luck!  🙂

 

 

I’ve decided to kill some more plants this year!  I’ve started a garden and have high hopes this year.  We have terrible soil and little to no drainage (our backyard resembles a swamp the 3 days a year we get rain) so RaptorDad suggested raised beds when I insisted that this was going to be the year that I conquered gardening.  We’re going with something called lasagna gardening which I gather means we’re putting down various layers of stuff.

I went to Lowe’s armed with a rather daunting shopping list, but they were quite nice and loaded everything up for me.  My biggest issue?  Why does it have to cost *more* to buy dirt without added fertilizer?  I didn’t need certified organic potting soil (at 3 times the price) but I couldn’t find any other potting soil without added chemicals.  Luckily, RaptorDad actually has some gardening know how and after a few panicky texts he gave me a list so that we could make our own.  And yes, next time I’ll drive the hour down to the hippy nursery.  I’ve learned my lesson.  😉

Our yard gets zero shade since, in addition to killing small vegetables, I also have a habit of killing trees.  ::sigh::  Our next house will definitely include established trees.  I know that lots of sun is good for plants, but there’s a limit to what they can take when it’s 107* outside.  With this in mind, RaptorDad built me a rectangle out of reclaimed wood (thanks craigslist!) in our side yard so that it would get some shade from the house and the fence.  Fingers crossed!  I removed all of the stickers and tape from some cardboard boxes we had laying around (we order way too many things from Amazon, but we’ve been sucked in by free 2 day shipping) and put them down as the first layer.  We then wet them thoroughly.

The next layer was some dried out grass clipping and our failed compost.  We recently started composting again and I’m really hoping we can keep up with it.  I’d like to add more raised beds every year and dirt is surprisingly expensive!  Not to mention we’re trying to reduce the amount of trash that we produce.

After that came a couple of bags of pea gravel and some play sand.  Apparently this will help with drainage.

 Obligatory adorable picture of Kate.  She is so excited to help with the garden.  She was a little perturbed that we had to wait for actual veggies though.  She’s into instant gratification just like her mom.

Our next layer was top soil, compost, and vermiculite.  We mixed all of those together to get what I assume is essentially potting soil.

 

Then plants!  So far I’ve planted 1 orange tomato, one squash, 1 green bean, and 1 okra.  Everyone says that the things to grow are tomatoes and peppers, but I figured we’d be better off growing things we would actually eat and there’s no way in the world Kate is eating jalapeños.  I’m not sure how that happened since I’m pretty sure that her amniotic fluid was at least 50% salsa, but there you have it.

Incidentally, I’m writing this blog post on Thursday and we planted the garden on Wednesday.  So I’ve already kept the plants alive 1 whole day!  That may not sound like much, but it’s better than last year so I’m putting it in the win column.  Any other suggestions for things to plant?  Or is it better to just put in several of each kind of plant?    I’d like some variety, but I also don’t want to end up with 1 green bean.  Who am I kidding.  I would be *thrilled* to get one green bean, but you get my point.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Kate’s preschool teachers are amazing.  We totally love them so I like to send in little treats every once in a while.  This was a Pinterst find, of course.  🙂  It even included the printable!

Excuse the blurry picture.  My allergies have laid me low.  I initially intended to cut out the circle like the example and maybe add some more cute paper layers, but honestly I was doing good to get it done at all.  It was well received even in its simpler form.  🙂

I’m a bit behind today, but I have a cool idea that I’ll hopefully finish and get up today.  It all depends on how nap time goes.  🙂  Now that spring break os over things shold get back to normal around here shortly.

Kate and I took a little field trip down to the Zilker Science and Nature Center last week. I totally love this place.

We had a blast down by their little lake.  The light was gorgeous.  🙂

And Kate was being quite cooperative.  🙂

She loved looking at the rescue animals.

 

Isn’t this microscope the coolest?

 

She was so excited to be able to do the slides all by herself.  🙂

 

This one’s a bit blurry, but she was so proud of herself that I just had to include it.

 

Inspector Kate!

 

 

 

I’m on a scrapping roll!

Can I just say that I love October Afternoon?  Because I do.  🙂  This page was super simple to put together.  It’s basically 2 pieces of patterned paper on some cardstock with a bit of washi tape, a few wood veneers, some letter stickers and a journaling sticker.  Oh, and a wee bit of ink.

 

I’m so excited about this page.  I think it might just be my favorite page ever.

The title is a bit of an inside joke.  Kate is a huge ham and she loves to have her picture taken.  Once I asked her to run toward me and she’s seriously latched onto that.  Now anytime she sees my camera she wants to give me a “running picture.”  🙂

I tried to channel my inner Shimelle (you know, my scrapbooking idol) with the layering. Supplies: Papers are October Afternoon, the Midway Collection; Thickers are Amy Tangerine; Wood Veneers are Studio Calico.

 

 

I thought that this page turned out really cute.

I even got super fancy with the title and pulled out my DIY Thickers and some Doodlebug Flocking.

Imagine my frustration when I found 2 more photos that were supposed to be included about 10 minutes after I finished.  Grr…  I certainly wasn’t redoing the whole page so I decided to add a little flip up section.

 

It’s a super simple technique.  I taped 2 photos back to back and then set them directly on top of another photo.  I attached it with a wee bit of washi tape along the top to make a hinge.

I reinforced it with another bit of washi on the backside.  Clear as mud?

Here it is with the flap down.  I’ll cut a corresponding flap into the page protector so that you can see all of the pictures without removing the page.  I have a tendency to print *way* too many pictures and this is a great way to get them all into Kate’s book.  Let me know if you try it!