Just So I don't Forget

Because I haven't written it down anywhere yet, and I know I'll want to remember someday...at 17 months, these are the words Chloe can say:
Mama
Dada
Reow Reow (what she calls Mooshi, our cat)
Up
Dow (down)
Off
Eat
Knee
Cheese
Apple
Elbow
Eye
Eyebrow
Nose
Ear
Shoe
Tankoo (Thank you)
Pop (FIL)
YaYa (MIL)
Gampa (my Dad/Mom)
Lala (my bff, Leah)
Moo
Moon
Hat
Hot (thanks lala :)

And the words Chloe can sign:
Eat
Drink
Cat
Dog
Book
Bird/Duck
Clean-up
Bath
Help
Fish
Car
Rabbit
Banana
Apple
Cracker
Baby
Boy
Thank you
Please
Water

Gratitude

Last night a pipe burst in our living room wall. Seems like a good time to remember all that we have to be thankful for, despite the headaches of home-ownership! Flip open the title, and there is a letter I wrote to Chloe about all we have to be grateful for right now--family, friends, jobs, home...
It's poignant right now in this time of economic uncertainty, but even more so as D. and I sat amidst our living room/dining room in shambles, puddles on the floor, phone book in hand, trying to figure out what to do at 6 p.m. on a Friday night the weekend before Thanksgiving. We're warm and dry, anyways, the house is still standing (there are a few holes in the ceiling and wall, but we'll deal)...
I made this layout for a hybrid challenge over at Get it Scrapped. The directions were for Photoshop, but someone was nice enough to explain how to get a similar effect using wordart in ms-word, so that's what I did here. (On a side note, anyone got an extra copy of Photoshop Elements for a mac floating around?;) I love the way it came out, and it's super easy to so--here are the paraphrased directions:

Insert >Picture>Wordart.

Select a Wordart style and type your word, click OK.

Click on your word (make it bigger or reposition on page using the directional squares).

Format Wordart > Fill Effects> Picture

I've been window shopping...

And look at all this Etsy adorable-ness!

Goosegrease


Gremlynn


Devilishgrin


Hardyharhar


Bug Bites

I can't believe the season is already here...

...it sneaks up on me every year, and then flies by in such a flurry that I barely get to slow down and enjoy it. And every year I vow, "Next year I'll do it differently," but it always seems to happen the same way. So this November I have been trying to think about what my priorities for the holiday season are, especially now that Chloe is old enough that what we do during the Christmas season will make a lasting impression. I want to be deliberate in our choices, and create traditions for our family that have meaning beyond the commercialism and stress created by the expectations of the holiday. I have noticed a lot of people in blogland taking handmade pledges, which is awesome. I always make a few presents every year, and each Christmas we have pared down the list of people we exchange gifts with. We have gone from swapping names with my siblings and their spouses to eliminating adult presents altogether, which is a good thing considering the financial strain so many of us are currently under. D. and I have asked our families to consider "experiences" as gifts for Chloe and ourselves rather than objects, and I have done the same for my nephews for the past few years, having them sleepover and then taking them to the science museum or aquarium. I'd like to ask for just handmade gifts for Chloe, but I just can't see my 85 year-old Grammie buying handmade when her shopping locale of choice is usually Walmart. We have, however, asked for no electronic toys and done fairly well with that so far--seeing that we're committed with the cloth diapering has made my 'conservative' family take such eccentricities seriously.

I tend to get stressed out trying to accomplish too much during the holidays--meeting some expectation of what I think needs to happen. So I think I'm going to start a list of things/priorities I'd like to focus on this year so that I can come back to it to revise and edit as the season progresses to help myself keep from getting overwhelmed. Here goes:

1. Create traditions w/ D. and Chloe that are meaningful to our family

• bake cookies together for neighbors
  
• decorate tree/ pine boughs
• volunteer at soup kitchen

2. Make some crafty gifts

• screen printing w/Leah
• photo calenders
• stuffies/ornaments

3. Spend quality time with friends/family

• invite brothers and their families to dinner
• visit Grammie for lunch
• host NYE party (?)
  

That's probably more that enough for now, but I am sure I will amend/edit/add/delete as time goes on!

And just to prove that I am indeed a ma-ma-material girl, I found what I want for Christmas, Dear Santa!

Canon PowerShot A590IS based on the most minimum amount of research, I have decided this is the camera for me: under $150, small, but not so small you can see the damn screen or through the eyepiece, not a SLR (because d. already had a very nice one of those) but with lotsa options to play with.

And in scrappy news...
Here are 2 layouts I did a few weeks ago, supposedly for the November newsletter over at ScrapGal, but due to some various delays, I reveal them here to you in all their glory instead, lol:


and a detail shot of the hand cut title and little apples I drew

And finally:

Check out Galblog for details on when I'll be giving a tutorial on making these cute ornaments!!
{stash diet update--yes, I'm still keeping track!! 41 down, 9 to go}

Circle Journal

I made this little art journal for a circle journal swap that's starting soon. There's about 12 of us participating, from the US, Canada, Australia, Netherlands and Norway. It'll be a year before I get this bad boy back, but I am excited to see it filled with so many creative individual's creations!

These are the front and back covers. I gesso-ed and painted, then collaged the images on top. The theme for my journal is "Inspiration," I am hoping everyone will share what's currently inspiring them to create.

Reverse of the front cover, and the instruction page, I left it open except to ask everyone to create a 2 page spread (the pages are 6x6 inches).

These are the sign-in pages, there are spaces that look like this for all 12 participants to tell a little about themselves and include a picture.

Here are my pages, I cut up some pictures taken by D. into squares, inked the edges, then rearranged onto the page. I am already missing the glorious fall colors, going outside everyday was a feast of color for just about the entire month of October!

And the winner is...

Sorry for the blurry camera phone pic! Julia, email me your address and I'll mail you your sissix dies :) sukeydookiedoo (at) yahoo (dot) com

Blog Makeover and a RAK

So I thought a new look was in order, what do you think? All the credit goes to Scrapblog and Blogger Template, I am pretty clueless when it comes to html, so I just went with the basics. But I am happy with the new look.

I have been the luckyducky recipient of several Random Acts of Kindness lately, I can't even think of them all to list them here, but let it suffice to say that I probably should have gone to Vegas or at least bought a lottery ticket, that's how often by name has seemed to come up lately! I want to do a proper RAK soon, but for the time being, is there anyone out there that has a Sissix, Sidekick or Big Shot? I received three really cute sets of dies that I cannot use, because I do not have any of these machines, and I would love to pass them along to someone who would enjoy them. They are a Halloween Charm set, Spider set, and Christmas Tags set. Looks like they are called "sizzlits" and each set comes with three designs. Anyways, if you're interested, leave a comment below with your email address, and I'll pick a winner on Friday.

Prompt #6 is up at the Creative Type

Mix it Up

The challenge is to use different fonts on your layout. I used several different letter stickers and some rub-ons, it took fooooooorever, but totally worth it for the effect, don't you think? These pictures totally crack me up, they're from Columbus day weekend up at the lake. We found this antique abacus that was probably D's dad's from when he was a boy, and Chloe just loves to slide the beads back and forth. When I was trying to come up with a title for this page, I kept thinking it would be funny if D was trying to get Chloe to do his taxes or tell on Mommy's scrapbooking spending habits, but both of those ideas seemed too convoluted, and probably just funny to me (I'm used to being the only one cracking up at my own jokes, it's okay). Anyways, I thought with the mixed up fonts, it reminded me of kid's handwriting, so I composed a little note from 15 month old Chloe to her Daddy, who is in reality probably isn't even thinking about math at all!

I think this is 38 for the stash diet...I'm kind of losing track...which is a good sign, I'd say! So that makes it just 12 to go!

It's the little things...

...that get me excited:

This is my first time on "the catwalk" over at SiStv, I'm really happy that sweet Andrea choose my Growing Up layout. 1. I love the way it came out 2. The process of creating it felt really organic and I had a lot of fun making it 3. The look of it is inspired by stuff made by my bud MandyKay and she is totally my Scraphero.

yay!!

Trying Something New

So, I have been busy! Trying out the slide show, seemed like it might be a quicker way to share my latest scrapbook pages (and a card) rather than one picture at a time. All of these pictures I scrapped were taken one day a few weekends ago when D and I took the bear to a farm down the street (I know, a farm, in the suburbs so close to the city, crazy). She was so cute that day with her two little pigtails, and the day was just gorgeous, I have had the best time picking out papers to match the colors in the pictures, yum yum! I still have more to scrap from that day too, if we had been using film, I would say we took about 2 rolls! It's a good thing, too, as it will make up for the fact that I did not get any good pictures of Chloe in her Halloween costume...some passable ones, but nothing all that great. I have more to post about, but this is it for now--I got a package in the mail from Piperlime and I'm excited to try on my new shoes!