a late Happy Thanksgiving

I was out of town this past week visiting some relatives in Kansas. It was pretty chilly up there for me, which made most of them laugh since I can't take the cold. Even though I was born in Kansas, I have lived in Louisiana since I was about 6, so I don't do well in the cold. While we were there, we visiting with both my mom's side and my dad's side of the family. It was a bit of a whirlwind trip. We drove home yesterday which wouldn't have been bad, but the entire 13 hour drive home was rain, rain, and more rain. It was pretty bad, but we made it. It is great to be home, really it is.

Here is a picture of my grandfather's old farmhouse. My aunt still lives on the same property, but nobody lives in this house anymore. I don't think it is really even safe to go inside of the house anymore. It seems to be getting in pretty bad shape. When I was a little girl, I was always scared while staying here, especially the upstairs. The first year that Lee and I were married, we stayed with my grandfather for a few days for a visit and I figured that I had outgrown being scared to be by myself upstairs, but it still felt just as creepy as it did when I was a kid!!!

BBTB Contest: Non-Traditional Christmas card

I was blog-hopping the other day and came across BBTB (Bitten By the Bug) and saw that there is a contest going on so I decided to try my hand at it. The requirements were that it has to be non-traditional and include at least one Cricut cut. I have been trying to come up with a cute way to give gift cards this year since normally I just put them in a card and call it done. Here is what I came up with....


I used the card cut from the Christmas Cheer cart and cut it at about 8 inches. The girl is the pregnant girl from the New Arrival cart. I cut her in black and then trimmed her down so that she no longer looked pregnant.

Other products used: Heidi Swapp paper, Prima bling, Making Memories rubons and sticker letters, misc. bling, Versamagic ink



on the inside I cut another card from the same cart, just smaller and made it into a pocket to hold gift cards. I covered it with paper and added a blinged out glittery crown, that was cut from the Indie Cart. I also added a little Christmas cheer with the rubon....

last design team meeting..........

so last night was our last design team meeting and once again, it was a blast. It was also a celebration of how much fun we had getting to know each other throughout the year. We have also become good friends and want to continue to support each other, which is a good thing, you can never have too many friends! Here we all are at the end of the night

Here is Melissa opening the gift that we gave her, I hope she liked it!!!

and here is what Melissa brought us!!!!!! (practicing my Karen Russell photography skills again, yay!)


(yummmmmmmmmmy!!!) These were delicious!

Thanks again to Melissa and Janet and the girls from the design team. It was a great year!

TM Design Team October Submission

Well, I where do I start. This is our last design team meeting and I am sad about it. I have had a blast the last year meeting once a month with everyone and trying to figure out what the hell I am going to do with the "crap" that Melissa was giving me, lol. It was never "crap" but that is what I called it every month to give her a hard time in a friendly way. This is it, the finale layout for my reign as a Treasured Memories Design Team member..........

We were give a ton of Tim Holtz products to use this month including grungeboard, trinket pins, a mask, journalling tickets, adage tickets, and fragments. I used at least one of everything except for the mask. I forgot about it until my layout was almost completely done and tried to work it in somewhere, but I just couldn't get it to look right.

The title is Grungeboard with the dots texture that Janet had long ago (NEED TO GET THEM BACK IN!!) that I inked with distressing ink and then sanded a little bit to roughen them up. For the fragments, I used Stayz-on ink to distress the sides and then glued pattern paper on the bottom to give them a little sumpin sumpin. For the grungeboard tiles, once again, inked them with distressing ink.


All products listed above from Tim Holtz, Basic Grey paper, Bo Bunny Paper, Tim Holtz Distress Stickles in vintage photo, American Crafts Thickers, Tim Holtz distress ink in Walnut Stain, Versamagic ink in Hint of Pesto, Fancy Pants felt flowers, Prima flowers, misc. brads

Family......

This is one of the pictures that Matt Landry took a few weeks ago for us. There was 2 almost identical shots so I took one and scrapped it since I can't wait to scrap them, but need to wait until everyone sees them. I will get the scrapped hopefully soon, Matt!!!


Products used: Bazzill Cardstock, American Crafts cardstock, Crate Paper diecut paper, Glitz rubon, Prima pattern papern paper, American Crafts thickers, Applebarrel acrylic paint, Prima flowers, K & Co brads, misc. bling, Rusty Pickle chipboard, Tattered Angels chipboard, Tim Holtz crackle paint, Prima felt frame

TM Design Team project: switching photos

So, last month when the TM Design Team met, we all swapped photos and did a layout for one of our fellow design team members. We ended up doing lots more talking than scrapping and most of us had to bring it home and finish it. I am sad to say that it has taken me almost 3 weeks to finish Jeanne's layout. I haven't been feeling very creative, so I struggled a bit with this as well as my next (and final) design team submission. Jeanne, I hope you like it!!!


Products used: Bazzill cardstock, Imaginisce paper, MAMBI bling, Making Memories flowers, Prima flowers, Making Memories brads, Cricut Plantin Schoolbook cartridge, May Arts ribbons.

I got a new toy!!!!

I actually got it a week ago, but I just haven't really had time to play with it as much as I have wanted to. After taking Karen's class this weekend, I can't put it down!!! Here is what I got.....

15.1 MP of pur bliss!!! Lee told me to wait until after the first of the year and I agreed. I had to go to Best Buy last Tuesday to pick up the Twilight soundtrack and though I would just do a quick look at the cameras and it was love at first sight seriously. When I walked over there, it caught my eye and I think, I am not sure, but I think I started to hear angels sing. My heart was fluttering and my knees got weak. It was awesome!! I left empty-handed (and broken-hearted) because I agreed to wait, but it really did get the best of me. I ended up going back later that night to take it home with me.

Here are a few practice shots that I have done taking what Karen Russell taught me in her class. I think I over did the vignette on the picture of Deuce, but still I think it gives it a cool effect. That picture looks like it is in black and white, but it is really a color picture, just a grey dog against a white background.

You can't polish a turd............

That one little phrase is one of the funniest things I heard yesterday at a class and I think one of the funniest things I have ever heard!!! I attended The Photographer's One Day Workshop by Karen Russell yesterday and wow is really all I can say. The class was really really REALLY a great one. It was a long day but I came home with my brain spinning. It is spinning a little out of control right now, but I am hoping that I can start to piece together everything Karen taught us yesterday to make my photos better. It really was a whirlwind of information! My goal is to learn to shoot WITHOUT being on the green box!!!

If you get a chance to take this class, please do so, it is so informative and really a lot of fun. Karen Russell was a great teacher and I would love to take more classes with her if she ever gets back into my neck of the woods. Seriously, she taught me about buttons on my camera that I honestly thought were there for decoration, lol.

9 years old

I posted a couple of weeks ago about both of my girls having birthdays. I usually do a page for each of their albums highlighting their birthday age. So here is McKenzie's "birthday" page. I used that new All Purpose ink by Tsukineko. This stuff is awesome. It is a liquid that comes in a little jar and you apply it with a sponge. It has lots of shimmer!!!! You can use it on lots of different surfaces to. If you have a change to try some out, give it a whirl.


Products used: over (can't remember who this is by), Bazzill cardstock, Fancy Pants felt, Prima flowers and bling, All Purpose ink, Cricut Storybook cartridge

Tim Holtz Distress Stickles

I have been reading about lots of anticipation about the new Tim Holtz Distress stickles, so when I got notification that Treasured Memories had them in stock, I ran over there to get one of each. I haven't really had time to play with these yet, it has been crazy busy around here, but I did have time to test each color. I also showed a few of the Glitz Stickles since those are a bit new as well. I think I am missing two of the Glitz Stickles, I need to figure out which ones so I can add those to my collection!!!

Tim Holtz at the top and the Glitz are at the bottom (click on the picture to get a full size close-up view)

another clipboard gift

After taking Wendy's class and making the pink and black clipboard for Taylor, I figured that I needed to make one for McKenzie as well. I bought an extra one brought it home and went to town. I really like making these clipboards! I plan on putting one of the pictures that Matt took on it before giving it to the girls for Christmas. I will post pictures of the clipboards once I get the pictures matted on clipped on.

For the flower on the clip part, I didn't have the right color, so I took a white flower and used Jazz Blue glimmer mist to color it. I little butterfly in the corner was cut using my Cricut. I cut it out of black cardstock and added some Stickles.

Products used: Autumn Leaves papers, Fancy Pants chipboard, Doodlebug glitter, Prima bling and flowers, Making Memories metal letter, misc. rhinestones, misc. ribbons, Stayz On ink, Melissa Frances clipboard, Glimmer Mist, Cricut Storybook cartridge, Stickles

talking garbage cans???

Only at Disney can a garbage can become a magical thing, lol. We were strolling through Animal Kingdome at Rafiki's Planet Watch and all of the sudden, a garbage can started talking to Taylor!!! It asked her a couple of questions and when she answered and started to walk away, it started to follow her. It was hilarious. It wasn't long until everyone else noticed that the garbage can was no ordinary trashcan. Soon there was a huge crowd around it asking it all kinds of stuff. After getting the picture with it, we decided to get out of the crowd and move on.



Products used: Sassafrass Lass paper, American Crafts Thickers, Fancy Pants chipboard, Buzz and Bloom chipboard, KI Memories letter stickers, buttons, Cricut Mickey Font cartridge (mickey head)

Halloween 2008 pictures

We attended a Halloween party Friday night and had a ball!!! My sister-in-law's favorite holiday is Halloween, so she has a party every year with a theme for the adults. This year, it was a vampire theme, which works out great since I am reading Twilight!!! I know the vampires in Twilight don't usually have blood dripping from their mouths, but I had to add it to complete my costume.


me!!!!


Taylor as not really sure, she wore a Twilight t-shirt, so I guess that was her take on the vampire theme, and McKenzie was Hannah Montana


all 3 of us together. I think in this one, McKenzie went from Hannah to Miley since the wig is gone, lol


Taylor, my dad, me, McKenzie, my mom and my hubby (who just got off of work, but refuses to dress up anyway)