Thoughts, Plans And Shenanigans
Ok, SBC+ ladies… I have a mid-week goodie for you.
I thought I would share another template I have made.
Here’s the template:
And a page I created with it:
The papers and embellishments are CM’s Vintage Digital Power Palette
(except for the button – can’t remember where I got it from)
You can download the template from here.
I hope you enjoy and I would really like to see some of your pages! Post a link to your blog in my comments section!
I had a little time this weekend to create a couple of templates. I thought I would share with you.
Here is the template:
The embellishment is from Creative Memoires’ Digital Freebies page. Have you downloaded any of theirs? Some of them are really nice. I especially like the flourishes that you can find there.
And here is the page I created with the template:
The paper and snowflakes are from Jen Allyson’s blog.
If you haven’t checked out her new digital scrapbooking store, you should. Design House Digital, it’s called. There is some beautiful stuff out there. I go browsing and I just want it all!
So, here is the template, if you’d like to download it to play with. (it’s for StoryBook Creator 3.0)
I’d love to see what you do with the page! Post a picture of your layout!
Just a quick note to let you know I will be hosting a few guest blog posts in the upcoming weeks.
Kate over at Liberty Cottage , Helen over at Furry Little Monster and I will be guest-posting on each other’s blogs in the coming months.
I thought I’d give you early notice so that you could check out their blogs – they are both so creative and I’m always inspired when I go for a little visit to their sites.
I am a knitter!
I had such fun last night with the ladies at the knitting circle. It reminded me a lot of what crops are like, minus lugging the paper, trimmers, pictures and other paraphernalia I take when I go to a crop. I traveled lightly. I took a little tote bag with two different skeins of yarn and my knitting needles. I also took my knitting board and a scarf I had made using it because I wanted to show them that I had at least done something before showing up last night.
You might remember this little scarf I made over the Thanksgiving break. I used the knitting board for that. It was part of what got me so interested in learning to knit.
A little back story here.
There is a really sweet lady at church that I have met through our mutual volunteer responsibilities. She has also been so kind to my girls and they look forward to seeing her every Sunday morning and loving on her between services. I mean, they just crawl all over her (literally) and tell her all about their week and what is going on. She is so patient and kind with them. It’s really touching.
She also happens to crochet. Beautifully. And I have seen some of her finished pieces. One Sunday I made a comment about how I would love to be able to learn to crochet like she does. We chatted a bit more and I confided that what I really wanted to do was learn to knit. She reached around and pointed to a lady sitting about three rows in front of us. “You need to talk to her,” she said.
So, you know what I did?
I just got right up (it was before the service started, don’t worry) and marched up there and introduced myself. I told her I had heard that she was an awesome knitter and that I had always wanted to knit. I asked her if she knew of anywhere I could go to learn to knit. She said she would teach me. She mentioned a knitting circle that she had started and that they met on Thursday nights at the local Starbuck’s. She invited me to join them (hooray!) the next time they met.
So, Thursday night I met with them for the first time.
I was so excited and a little intimidated as these ladies had obviously been knitting for a long time. They had all these patterns and elaborate projects (beautiful, elaborate projects with the most gorgeous yarn I’d ever seen) they were working on.
Finally, Jane sat me down and showed me how to get started. I was scared to death to take the needles from her and get started. I was afraid I’d mess up what she had done. But, you can’t learn if you don’t do. So, I took them and got going. Before I knew it, I was knitting! I was actually knitting. So cool.
By the end of the night I had knitted a very nice little bedspread for a Polly Pocket.
Ha!
It was not really supposed to be that, but it was about that big. Little Bit decided that she really, really needed it for her Polly Pocket so it may actually end up being a bedspread after all. Which would be ok, I guess, because I want to learn how to cast on/off stitches myself and that would give me the excuse to do so.
One thing I realized last night, as I was driving home from my knitting night out, was that this could quickly become a new hobby of mine. The knitting circle is a lot like the crop – the social aspect anyway – minus all the extra luggage. I enjoyed the time I spent relaxing, chatting with and getting to know these ladies. And the tactile part of knitting was very soothing to me. Which is something I’m missing now that so much of my scrapbooking is digital.
It will be interesting to see how this develops. But don’t worry, I’m sure I’ll keep you posted. 🙂
One of my favorite things about the holidays is not having to get up early – well, except for Christmas morning when the kids come bounding into the room at some ungodly hour, bouncing off the walls and onto the bed, insisting that we get up! get up! Santa’s come! get up!
Other than that exception, it is SO NICE to be able to sleep late. This year, especially, since I have not been feeling that well. Generally speaking, though, I am part bear and love to hibernate in the winter (heck, I love to sleep year round!).
There is nothing nicer than nestling down in the warm, soft covers knowing that you don’t have to go anywhere or do anything until you want to. The days leading up to Christmas are certainly not that way, but those precious days after Christmas are my favorites. Lazing around with only the things you want to being the things you have to do. Chores can wait, cooking? who is cooking? leftovers, baby. But the bestest part is the napping and sleeping in.
When the girls were smaller, they didn’t sleep past 6 AM or so. Actually, until last year, that was the case. However, now they are sleeping (gasp!) until 7:30 or 8:00 (isn’t it sad that I am excited and consider that sleeping “late?”). And the best part is that their dad usually gets up with them (part of why he is my SuperMan) and lets me sleep even later. (sigh)
I’m not looking forward to getting up at 5AM next week, but I’m sure enjoying my lazy days this week.
There is nothing quite like being sick during the holidays. After all the cooking, cleaning, baking, preparations and anticipation, my body simply decided it was done. Quit. Finis. Full Stop.
Thank goodness I have a very understanding, loving, and compassionate family. SuperMan did most of the cooking (including our delicious Christmas Day dinner) and general taking care of things. The girls were so well behaved (for the most part) and just played with their new toys and patted me on the arm as they went by. Me? I spent most of Friday and Saturday either on the sofa or in my recliner in a snot-induced haze. Gross imagery, I know, but true.
I am finally starting to feel a little more like myself, although I think a trip to the doctor is still not out of the running.
However, yesterday, SuperMan took the girls for an afternoon outing with friends. They went to see the new Alvin & the Chipmunks movie – The Squeaquel (I love that play on words!). They had a great time and then MB went to spend the night at a friend’s house. They were supposed to be staying here, but we decided there were too many germs in our house so they moved the party.
While they were gone, I thought I would do a little reading or scrapbooking. Turned out, I got to do both. I am reading Dan Brown’s new book: The Lost Symbol. It is very engaging and from about page 50, I was hooked. I have been carrying the book around under my arm everywhere I go in the house this weekend (from the couch to the recliner… from the recliner to the couch :-) and reading every second I can. Basically, it’s similar to the other Dan Brown books although this time it’s not focused on the Catholic Church – it’s about the Masons. Pretty interesting.
Anyway, I also sat down to do some digital scrapbooking (my scrap table is covered in Christmas paper right now and I didn’t feel up to cleaning it off) only to find out that the new “patch” of the StoryBook Creator software I’d installed had completely erased all the links to my content. Argh! So, I spent close to two hours re-linking all the files. While this probably was a good thing in the long run (it cleaned up my mis-mashed linking I had before) it was SO not how I wanted to spend my afternoon of silence and solitude!
Once I finished that chore, I was determined to get some scrapbooking done. I managed to finish the album I’m making for my brother (shh, it’s a secret!) and did a little work on the one for my mom. Then, I started on some pages on my family album. Here are a few I did:
This will be the cover page of our 2009 album. Do you get the reference?
I love the simplicity of the design –
and the fact that I managed to fit 12 pictures from the year on one page!
I think this one speaks for itself concerning the topic.
All of the elements are freebies (including the paper) that I found online in October.
Here are larger pictures of the pages:
I have been wanting to do something special with MB’s field day pictures. I think this turned out pretty well.
I used one of the free CM templates (Great Escapes) and doctored it a bit to make it less ‘travel’ oriented and more sports oriented.
Here are larger pictures of the pages:
I don’t know if I will have time today to do more scrapbooking, but I am hoping to. Next on my list of things I want to scrap are Ang’s graduation pictures, our trip to the pumpkin patch, and the Girl Scout hike the girls took in November. I am really enjoying not constraining myself to crop chronologically… although I am a wee bit concerned I may miss a few pictures here and there. But heck, when you take close to 200 a month some months, you are bound to miss one or two, right?
What have you been up to?
Our Elf on the Shelf has been much into the mischief this year…
While he was getting used to us, he hung out in our wreath.
Then, I guess he got comfy, because he TP'ed MB's bedroom
(no pictures for that one,
although it was fun to hear the kids when they woke up!)
Then, he decided to take Barbie on a date:
I guess he figured he was welcome to do whatever he wanted then…
So he ate a little snack:
That is… ate a snack while perched on the ledge above our 2-story foyer
(we think he must’ve flown up there)
It’s a good thing Santa comes tomorrow night.
There is no telling what mischief he would get into if he stayed too much longer.
Our Elf on the Shelf has been much into the mischief this year…
While he was getting used to us, he hung out in our wreath.
Then, I guess he got comfy, because he TP'ed MB's bedroom
(no pictures for that one,
although it was fun to hear the kids when they woke up!)
Then, he decided to take Barbie on a date:
I guess he figured he was welcome to do whatever he wanted then…
So he ate a little snack:
That is… ate a snack while perched on the ledge above our 2-story foyer
(we think he must’ve flown up there)
It’s a good thing Santa comes tomorrow night.
There is no telling what mischief he would get into if he stayed too much longer.
Merry Christmas to all of you! This may be my last post this week – I have company on the way (arriving any minute) and then a week full of festivities planned. I am sure you are not going to have any more time to sit still and surf the web than I am, so we will just plan to see each other again after the 25th, okay?
Before I leave you, here are some links to some of the digital goodness I have stumbled across this holiday season. Even if you are not a digital scrapbooker, you can download and print these out to use in your traditional scrapbooking.
Enjoy!
Oh, and if you are a Creative Memories digital user, you can still use these. Just import them into your program as your own digital content.
Ok, hope that gets you started.
I have to go make final preparations…
Merry Christmas to all, and to all Good Night! 🙂
Look at this.
If you love color like I do, you are probably salivating now.
How pretty are these?
I can just imagine taking them and festooning them with some ribbons and stickers and brightly colored papers… and tucking them in my purse to pull out whenever I need to jot a note or an appointment down.
Sigh.
Just lovely.
Santa? Do you hear me? I love these.
Thoughts Along Life's Highway 