Holiday Card Album

One of my favorite things about the holiday is getting holiday cards in the mail. I love that so many people send out photo cards, I love seeing how everyone's families grow and change!! When I was laid up, on the couch this past December one of my favorite parts of the day was when my husband went to get the mail. He would come back with a stack of cards everyday and give them to me to open. I loved opening each and every one! So when we cleaned up after the holidays, there is NO way I can throw any of those fabulous cards away. I have seen a couple of different versions of Holiday Card Albums on pinterest. So I decided to whip up my own version.

I had some 12x12 sheets of chipboard that I cut down just a little bit bigger than my biggest card. I cut some Pink Paislee paper to the right size and modpodged it (is that even a verb??) to the chipboard pieces. I then just made a super simple title page.

I punched holes in the chipboard. I lined up each holiday card to those holes and punched holes in each card. I searched around for about 30 minutes looking for jump rings and then attached the whole thing together into a book.

I put our family card on the first page because honestly, I always think i'm going to make a layout using our own holiday card...and I never do. Now it's nice and safe in my album.

I love how it's big and the cards all all different shapes and sized and stick out all funny, but are still contained in the book.

I am so happy to have these all in one place!! I know I have a few previous years of cards stashed someplace. I really need to find them and make books for each year. I know they will be fun to take out over the years and look through them. And it was a fairly easy project. The biggest pain was just punching the holes in all the cards. But well worth it.

Hope you're having a great first week of 2012...thanks for stopping by!

2012 Goals

Do you make resolutions at the beginning of the year? I don't make resolutions, but I usually have some goals that I want to accomplish. And this year all my goals revolve around my new ankle. I have many many things that I want to do this year with my fitness and running but I dare not say them outloud. Because I have absolutely no idea how my rehab is going to go. So, with that being said, I do have some sayings and quotes that I want to be reminded of as this year and my rehab progresses.

Over at Citrus Tree Studio, one of our crop challenges this past weekend was to create an artistic trading card (ATC) that has our resolutions or goals incorporated. I ended up making 4 ATC's and stringing them together like a mini banner. I plan on putting this someplace I can see it everyday.

Each ATC has a quote that I want to remember as I journey through 2012, in my quest to be fit and healthy again.

I used some embossed cardstock that I sanded, some Jillibean Soup scraps, Jillibean Soup letters and sprouts, and some random flowers I found in my stash.

I strung them all together with some twine from my stash and added some random buttons!

I love how this turned out!! Just little reminders that I can't do it all in one week or even one month. Slow down and take some time to enjoy the journey. I know I sound so much like the Biggest Loser show right now, ha ha!! Which starts a new season this week and I can't wait. Bob Harper is rad!!

Do you make resolutions? Goals? Do you write them down? I hope your 2012 is off to a great start. My kids go back to school tomorrow and our routine/schedule begins again. I think we are all looking forward to it.

Thanks for stopping by today!

Citrus Tree Studio New Year's Eve Crop!

Hi Everyone! Happy New Year's Eve! Do you have big plans for tonight? Are you going to get dressed up and hit the town? Or stay in your pajamas and eat popcorn and watch movies on your couch? I am more the stay home with friends and family type of girl for new year's eve. If you have some time this weekend, please come over and check out the Citrus Tree Studio New Year's Eve Crop going on right now. Lots of fun challenges were posted this morning and you have until Monday to create projects and post them in the gallery.

Here is one of my challenges, the Number Game. You will need to use a number in the title of your layouts.

I used lots of Jillibean Soup on this layout. I love how many of their lines coordinate. I think I used 3 different lines on this layout. And I still love their corrugated letters!! And their kraft tags.

I also love their big punchout sheets with fun embellies like photo corners and saying stickers and journaling sprouts.

I also pulled lots of buttons from my stash and used my favorite baker's twine.

So if you have some time to get crafty this weekend, please come check out the crop! There are layout and card and altered challenges, so i'm sure there will be something that will catch your eye.

Happy New Year Everyone!

Snow Day

I have one more project to share that I created using the December Blue Hills Meadow kit. The Kaisercraft Photo Display was our product spotlight and I used that plus the kit to make a fun home decor piece.

I used the same stand that I altered for CTS a few months ago (you can see that project HERE). I painted the display white and picked the aqua/red/white papers from the kit. I really love that color combo! I decided to use some snow photos from our snow trip a few years ago to make a Snow Day themed display.

All the big chipboard pieces are from the kit. What a fun embellishment! I also used some baker's twine to string along the top and bottom of the display. I just added dots of glue along the way and the twine adhered just fine.

And my favorite snowflake cut from the Accents Essentials Cricut cartridge. I strung them on some baker's twine for a fun snowflake banner.

We rarely see snow. It doesn't snow in Southern California and frankly...it's SO cold. Ha ha! These photos are from a trip 3 years ago and we haven't seen snow since. I think another snow trip could be in the works for this winter. How do you think i'd do in the snow on crutches?

Citrus Tree Studio is having a New Year's Crop this Saturday!! Please come check out all the challenges and games. They will be posted Saturday morning and you will have all weekend to complete them. It's going to be fun!

Hope you are having a fabulous week so far. Thanks for stopping by!!

My Exciting News!

I am so excited and thrilled to share with you that I got chosen to be part of the My Momenta Design Team for 2012!!! My Momenta is a scrapbook manufacturer who provides great papers and embellishments of all kinds. They also have Create Your Own Sticker, where you can personalize any of their alphabet fonts using your own computer and home printer. This will be my first manufacturer design team and I could not be more excited. Please go check out the announcement and all the other amazing designers I get to work with HERE. And if you want to see some great projects, visit the My Momenta blog HERE. And become a follower, too!

That's my big news, I cannot wait to get started! We had a great time yesterday celebrating my son's 10th birthday with lots of video games, new board games, Key Lime Pie, and me limping around trying to take photos of him. Apparently turning 10 gives you the right to say NO to Mom when she's trying to take photos of you. Hmmmm....I might not like this double digit thing. Ha ha!

Thanks for stopping by today!!

The Morning After

Hi Everyone! If you celebrated Christmas yesterday, I hope it was a wonderful day with friends, family, and lots of goodies to eat. I didn't get as many photos as I wanted. It's hard to crutch around with the camera to get just the right shot. But I did get a few. I didn't want 2011 to go down as the year with no photos.

The day before Christmas...sitting on my butt, watching football while my kids go absolutely crazy!!

Christmas morning...Santa always leaves M&M guys in the kids stockings and this year he left stockings in their stockings!

My son turns 10 today and for his birthday and christmas (I hate to combine birthday/christmas gifts, but this was a big one) we got him an iPod touch. He was thrilled!! Poor kid has some road rash on his chin from an ice skating fall 2 days ago.

And Miss Kayla got an ipod shuffle that she absolutely loves. Here she is getting an ear bud lesson from dad. Note she is already wearing a new shirt and new flower headband.

My sweet kids! Yes, I am holding myself up on the wall. Not easy to pose on one leg without my crutches. Aren't their smiles precious...ha ha! Cal Berkley shirt thanks to my oldest brother and his wife who are Cal Alumni.

Playing Just Dance! When their cousin came, all three of them were rocking out.

And here they are with their cousin. Remember those invisible ink games and activity pads from long ago? My husband found them and they all played with those for quite a while.

And lots more presents, family, drinks, good food and Just Dance games. I have to say a HUGE thank you to my sweet husband. He did everything yesterday from cleaning the kitchen, making the turkey, getting the house ready for family, and cleaning up after. He has been pretty amazing this whole time i've been off my feet. I'm a lucky girl!

Hope you had a great holiday weekend. I will be back soon with some REALLY exciting news! Thanks for stopping by!

Happy Holidays!!!

I wanted to drop in this morning real quick and wish you all a very Happy Holidays! I appreciate you all and have come to think of you as my 'friends'. I appreciate every single comment you leave and love visiting all your blogs as well. Thank you for a fun 2011 and I look forward to sharing and being inspired by you all in 2012!

Have a fabulous holiday with your friends and family and i'll catch you all on the flip side!

Kayla, Kevin, Molly & Harbour...Christmas 2010

Happy  Holidays!!!