Do you love SaraAmarie???

I create a lot of layouts with products by my friend, Sara. She is a designer at SweetShoppeDesigns. Well, Sara has been designing for THREE years and I think I have been creating for her for almost that long! To celebrate her designing anniversary, Sara has give me permission to give away one of her element packs! So, I thought it would be fun to give away an element pack to one of my faithful blog readers!

Check out SaraAmarie's store at SSD, pick out a favorite element pack or alpha or a paper pack, and come back here and post a comment here and let me know what your favorite is. On Thursday night, I will draw a random number and whoever's post corresponds with the number will win the element, alpha or paper pack of their choice for Sara's store! If there are a LOT of responses, I may even give out two prizes!

If you want to increase your chances of winning, there are a couple other contests at DST this week to win some of Sara's products.

These are a few of my favorite elements packs!

new layout with Natalie Bird's Designs

these are pictures from a couple of weeks ago
supply list:
Natalie Bird
Cluster Boxes
Crunch Papers
My Blue Jeans Alpha
Ashton
at NatalieBirdDesigns, PickleberryPop, ColorLineDesign


grass from Jen U's Down to Earth

Layout with Krystal Hartley's designs

this is a picture of a few of the kids from my grandparents' 50th wedding anniversary celebration last summer. anyone know who ALL of these kids are? lol! Some of them are my cousins and some of them are my cousins' children. I want to be able to put names in my scrapbook, though! lol! Mary & Kristi, help me out here! Ainsley is the baby in the carseat. I think the one in the swing is Lyndsey's... maybe?

supply list:
beads (recolored), paper: inspired by {rachel} exclusively at the PDP Potato Bar
doodled flower: inspired by {ashli} exclusively at the PolkaDotPotato Potato Bar
sculpted glass: nature at PolkaDotPotato, FaithSisters and purplepaperflowers
alpha: Lilac Twilight from the April collab at purplepaperflowers
little black alpha, recolored at PolkaDotPotato, FaithSisters, & purplepaperflowers
Build Your Own Dragonfly at purplepaperflowers


cardboard frame: saraamarie at sweetshoppedesigns

Layout with SaraAmarie's products

these are pictures from chicago last summer. hannah is doing the cha-cha slide with shelby! shelbs is such a good sport!

supply list:
saraamarie's
buggy extra goodies
buggy cute: dragonfly
dotty sticker alpha
at sweetshoppedesigns

New Layout with Krystal Hartley's Designs

Here is another one for me tonight!

supply list:
krystal hartley's
inspired by {rachel}
ONLY at the PDP Potato Bar


frame: cupcake kit, free at faithsisters
little black alpha at polkadotpotato, faithsisters, purplepaperflowers
}: rough & red alpha at faithsisters, purplepaperflowers, polkadotpotato
boy: true to yourself kit


snowflake doodles by melissa bennett

New Layout with Krystal Hartley's Designs

supply list:
Krystal Hartley's
Inspired by {Hannah} limited edition kit at polkadotpotato bar
Lilac Twilight from the PurplePaperFlowers Collab kit
flower stamp from cupcake freebie at faithsisters

beaded flowers by lili at scrapartist

five more sets of blinds clean!

only four more to go tomorrow!

I got up this morning, scrubbed the kitchen and bathroom, cleaned the blinds, dusted woodwork and windowsills, cleaned windows, made lunch, picked up the car at the dealership, stopped and got a Coke, came home, hung the blinds, scrubbed the bathtub (again!) and now I am done for the day! Well, as soon as dinner is cooked and cleaned up.

So, this is going to be a good week for tv! CSI Miami on Tuesday, LOST! & Grey's Anatomy on Thursday. I should get some good scrapping done!

Ainsley's fever is down, but her nose is running like a faucet. And she is one cranky little chica! I can't believe that my baby is going to be ONE YEAR OLD this week! I'm so sad!

my week in review

It seems like we have been going non-stop all week, but I really don't have too much to show for it. Monday, Hannah & I planted a couple of rows of sugar snap peas in our garden. I also planted a couple of cheap rose bushes I got on clearance. I am such a sucker for rescuing things, even plants! It was 82 degrees and beautiful! Hannah drank an entire Slurpee and half my Coke. Poor girl was sooo hot. Then we cooled off by washing our car in the frigid mountain water that comes out of our water hose. On our way in the house (covered in mud, by the way) Hannah said, "It was so nice of Daddy to leave us alone and let us have some good girl time today." Hmmmm, more like Daddy doesn't like to garden! But I'll let Hannah think otherwise! And I finally filed our Utah taxes.

Tuesday, it snowed. Not kidding.

I don't even remember Wednesday, except that we had more snow.

Or Thursday. Oh wait! Thursday was Leslie's baby shower. I went down to Cori's house for it. That's right! Thursday I ran to Costco and got a HUGE bag of spinach and a HUGE bag of Romaine hearts for less than a small bag of salad mix at Smith's. And I ran into the dollar store and got some diaper sacks for poopy diapers. My life is so much fun. You know you want to be me! :) But it was really nice to talk to family and spend time getting to know cousins a bit better.

Friday afternoon Thomas had a job interview. It went REALLY well and he is very excited. We really hope he gets this job. It's a great opportunity for him and he would be GREAT at it! I scrubbed my bathroom and kitchen. By bedtime it was trashed again. It was such nice weather on Friday, too. We rented a couple of RedBox movies thanks to their free rental codes. Hannah enjoyed Barbie Mariposa. I watched Breach (eh, it was okay) and August Rush. Holy cow!!!!!! Every parent in the entire world should see that movie. I balled and I don't typically do that. While I was watching my movies, I resized scrapbook pages. I figured out that is 2/3 of the price to print 8x10 pages instead of 8.5x11. AND it is half the cost to print 8x8 instead of 12x12. AND some of my 2 page 8.5x11 layouts can actually be shrunk down to about an 8x12 and printed for half the price. I am still going to use a 12x12 book because some of my favorite pages will be printed at 12x12, a LOT of them will be 8x12 and some will be 8x10 and some will stay 8.5x11 and some even 11x8.5. With a 12x12 album I can do pretty much any size and it will fit on the page. Now I need to actually print some pages. Can you tell what I really really really want to do with my tax rebate? I wish we were getting that sooner! There is a huge sale on 8x10 prints right now and I have about 500 pages to print. Don't worry anyone, I am not planning to print that many pages at once. But it would be nice to print some and get twice as many pages for my $$.

Saturday, it was supposed to snow, but NO! It was 70 degrees, but VERY windy! Hannah wanted to wash the car again (because it got FILTHY in the snow on Tuesday), but it was way too windy. And the air was horrendous! Seriously. Hannah and I ran out to do a couple of errands and the air was so brown you couldn't even see the mountains, and we were up really close to them. Hannah was soooo excited because we got a craft kit for her. Michael's had a bunch of kids' crafts on clearance for $1. We got her one that she could make sparkly flowers. She was so excited because I let her use glue. Yes, I am a mean no-messy crafts kind of Mom. But I let her. And I am still scrubbing glue off everything. And she glued a spangle to her shirt.

We woke up this morning to Ainsley with a fever and Hannah with a runny nose. Ainsley coughed all Saturday night. She barely slept. It was awful. Needless to say, we didn't make it to church today. Ainsley smells like she may have a sinus infection. That is NOT what I need right now. She had a fever on and off all day today. And she has been so cranky. She has been super picky about food the last few days, too. I am wondering if her teeth hurt. She recently discovered Hannah's push-popper. And she has been pushing that darn thing all over the house, back and forth, back and forth. Now I know why my dad took the clackers out of ours when I was little. I always wondered why none of my toys made noise... NOW I COMPLETELY UNDERSTAND! I took down four of the twelve sets of mini-blinds in my house today. All of the ones from my family room & Hannah's room, and I soaked them in the bathtub with dish soap and then took them out and wiped them down. I don't think they have been cleaned in YEARS. They were filthy! But they even smell good now! I couldn't get the ones in my kitchen down, so I don't know how I am going to clean those. I have tried wiping them down and spraying them with degreaser, but they need much more attention than that. But I am going to do my bedroom blinds tomorrow. My goal is to do it every other month. I can handle that. I don't have that many sets and once they are initially cleaned, it should go pretty quickly.

And that's it. my plans for this week... teach Hannah a new Primary song (new to her) "I'm Trying to be Like Jesus" because she and her cousins are singing it in sacrament meeting next Sunday at Grandpa Cardall's ward. I need to do some organizing in the basement and pull out the summer clothes and pack up the winter clothes. I also have to get the window AC unit out and ready to install. I need to change lightbulbs in the family room, bedroom and kitchen. AND I have a million layouts I need to do. And I need to scrub my house before my mom comes in TWO WEEKS! I clean my house every day, but it always looks like I haven't touched it. And it isn't Ruthie clean. I need to de-clutter my kitchen table and hutch. :::sigh::: Thomas should hear something about this job hopefully tomorrow. We'll be anxiously sitting by the phone all day. We'll let everyone know as soon as we hear something. Well, I am tired now and am going to go get some sleep. Yes, it's 2:15 am. If I want any peace & quiet, I have to stay up this late. Ainsley usually wakes up around now for a feeding, so i am sure that as soon as I fall asleep, she'll wake up.

'Nite all!

a couple of *new* things by me!

I don't have credits for these right now, but I just thought I would post them so you can see what I have been working on this week. I haven't done a ton of scrapping, but what I have done has been pretty detailed. Just so guys know, most of the layouts I post here were done at least one week prior to being posted. I try not to post layouts until the products have been released into the stores. So, just because you see 20 layouts doesn't mean I have actually done 20 layouts that day! They could be saved up from the last 3 weeks! :)

The above layout features mostly Krystal Hartley products. This a sneak peek into some of her Potato Bar products at PolkaDotPotato this week! :) This is one of the things that I offer in my business. I can create an image like this with your kids' photo(s). And they don't have to be nakey! :) This one is a 12x12, but I can create pretty much any size. Each piece of art is unique. This particular page is for my personal scrapbook, so there are some non-commercial use products in there. But not many. :)

The above layout is all Natalie Bird products. Aren't they cute? I love those pictures of Ainsley. Don't mess with that girl's licorice!

This is actually a 16x16 print that I made today to hang above my kitchen table. I still have to have it printed. I didn't keep a credits list for this one, but a good bit of the products are Krystal Hartley... some SaraAmarie... some Amy Sumrall... the flowers, trees & house are templates by Aja Abney... some Dani Mogstad... some Natalie Bird... some Michelle Coleman... some Molly DeCrow... stitches by Melissa Bennett... and even some Christine Smith. I think that's everything. If you see someone I missed, let me know. And pretty much everything is scrap-for-hire friendly. So, if you want me to create something like this for you, I can!

Layout with Tracey Monette's products

these are pictures from last summer
credits:
tracey monette's
Tracey's Beachcomber Page Kit
Tracey’s Marine Animals! The doodles
Tracey's Jail House Rock ALPHA
Tracey's Jewels Element Kit
Tracey's Sewn Tag Alpha
Tracey's POPart Paper Pack
Tracey's Wild Rose Element Kit
Tracey's Fall Wash Page Kit

Layout with Tracey Monette's products

this is a picture from last sunday...

credits:
tracey monette's
multifarious elements & paper pack
spring robin
at scrapbook-elements

Free QuickPage for yOU!

I created this bold & unique QuickPage using Misty Cato's Clash Kit. Go check out Misty's blog to get the page for FrEE!

Here is my page, that inspired the QuickPage! I also used Misty's Style File: I Can See Clearly.

a pretty picture

well, this picture has quite obviously been "fixed" a bit. but i think it's pretty!

Soooooo busy!

Sorry for not blogging much lately. I have been seriously busy the last couple of weeks. We were supposed to go to the cabin last weekend, but Thomas wasn't feeling well. Anyway... it's going to be a really busy couple of weeks. My mom is coming out to visit me (okay, not really me) in a couple of weeks. She is actually flying out to meet up with Ashley and help her drive to Chicago. Then my dad will help her drive the rest of the way to DC for the summer. But Ruthie is staying with me for a couple of days. We are going to wait until she is here to officially celebrate Ainsley's birthday. That gives me an extra week to get everything ready! :) So here are some fun pictures!

my little girl doing her new favorite thing... drinking a bottle! who woulda thought? Seriously, I have been power-packing Ainsley's baby food and her formula. She is drinking at least one, usually two, bottles a day. She is still waking up every three hours to eat. And she is STARVING when she wakes up. I tried to add cereal to her bottle today hoping she would nap longer, but it didn't help. In fact, she only napped for 30 minutes. And that, my friends, is not long enough for that cranky kid!

ainsley eating cheerios. she looks so much like her dad in this picture!

I was trying to take a picture of my cute girls together, but Ainsley would NOT cooperate! She is way too wiggly & Hannah hates to look at the camera.

Hannah was supposed to give a talk in Primary last Sunday. We went down to the Primary room a little early to practice. Let's just say that I gave a GREAT one minute talk on prophets.

We went to the park on Sunday after church to take pictures of the girls in their matching dresses. Can't tell the dresses match. And neither of them would cooperate. We lost Ainsley's bow somewhere in the car ride over.

And that's it for today...

Photoshop Elements 5 on SALE

I just got an email from SoftwareOutlet.com. They have Photoshop Elements 5 on sale for $37.95. If you have been wanting to learn how to do digital scrapbooking or just want something for retouching your photos, this is an AMAZING deal! The image is linked.

Where did Thomas & I meet?
We were in college. We met on the front porch of his house. My roommate had a crush on him and took me home with her one weekend and she wanted me to meet this amazing, really hot guy! Oops!

Take a stab at my middle name?
Porter

Take a stab at my middle name BEFORE I got married?
Raye

Do I smoke?
Ew. No.

Color of my eyes?
Brown

Do I have any siblings?
FOUR of them!

Name two siblings!
Jacob, Angie, Ashley & Shelby

What's one of my favorite things to do?
digiscrap, take pictures, read, crochet, knit

What's my favorite type of music?
90s alternative rock... but I do like everything from RATM to country to classic rock

In person, am I shy or outgoing?
Shy at first, but then you can't shut me up once you get to know me! :)

Am I a rebel or do I follow the rules?
I follow the rules, except for dumb rules!

Any special talents?
scrapbooking

How many children do I have?
TWO, Hannah & Ainsley

If you and I were stranded on a deserted island, what is one thing that I would bring?
It would be a toss-up between my bikini & my laptop...

What size shoes do I wear?
Eight

What are my favorite kind of shoes?
flip-flops (I do love spiky heels!)

What is my favorite color?
RED!

Scores:
Aleisha 14
Alishia 11
Amber 15
Amy 10
Angie 16
ASHLEY 17!!!
Mary 14
Mish 9
Rach 9


And the winner is ASHLEY!!! She's my sister, she better know this stuff! :) Ash, let me know if you want a blog header or a scrapbook page! Love ya!

This was really fun! I enjoyed reading what you guys thought were my favorites! I must say I was pretty impressed by your guesses! Some of you guys only know me through my blog! :)

TWO free QuickPages for you!

Check out Misty Cato's blog for the link to these two free QuickPages! :)

What kind of thinker are you?

I love quizzes! and this one is right on!

Your Thinking is Concrete and Sequential

You are precise, orderly, and realistic. You tend to get to the point and get things done. Difficult, detailed work is easy for you. You take things step by step. Time limits aren't a problem for you either. You work well with deadlines. What does drive you crazy is any sort of task that isn't precisely laid out. You don't like anything to be ambiguous. You prefer to deal with the facts at hand.

What Kind of Thinker Are You?

Layout with SaraAmarie's GirlieGirl Kit

This is the new scroll-shaped album that I made for SaraAmarie at SweetShoppeDesigns using her GirlieGirl kit, which is new in the shop today! Get the album & kit for 20% off on Saturday only.

and this is the layout I made using Girlie Girl! What a fun kit!

supply list:
SaraAmarie's GirlieGirl kit at Sweet Shoppe Designs
bracket & bird templates by susan bartolini at ssd
chipboard action by atomic cupcake

Layouts with Natalie Bird's products

supply list:
natalie bird's
downtown kit
hearts: open arms
baby word tags
button box
heart: ultimate element collection
at nataliebirddesigns, pickleberrypop, colorlinedesign

supply list:
Natalie Bird's
Ryley Kit
U: my blue jeans alpha from alpha grab bag
Brackets 2
at nataliebirddesigns, pickleberrypop & colorlinedesign

supply list:
natalie bird's
julie kit
black chalk alpha from alpha grab bag
at nataliebirddesigns, pickleberrypop, colorlinedesign
photo action by holly mccaig