New Stuff

Made 2 new pages today! Quite impressed with myself.

Glam Girl..journaling reads "all fancied up to go go-karting with Daddy". Fancied up is Sage's new expression..she's developed an obsession with all things Fancy Nancy related.

Good Thing You Have A Mother..journaling reads "otherwise you would quite happily leave the house like this!"

Yum

There are few things in life that make me happier than a new pile of books from the library. Here is my latest stack..

The Complete Book of Sewing

Apartment Therapy

Sew What! Skirts

Subversive Seamster

The Happy Hooker

Sew Subversive

Deluxe

Charlie Wilson's War

Celebutantes

Can you tell I'm trying to learn how to sew? Plus where would I be without some guilty chick-lit reading pleasure.

I am in love with everything that Jennifer Johner makes. I haven't seen a page she's done that hasn't made me smile or say "I LOVE those colours". Here is a scraplift that I did this morning of her "5 Things" page.

How Many Have You Done

Found this on a fellow 2 Peas blog...you need to bold the items on the list you have completed.

1. Started your own blog
2. Slept under the stars
3. Played in a band
4. Visited Hawaii
5. Watched a meteor shower
6. Given more than you can afford to charity
7. Been to Disneyland
8. Climbed a mountain
9. Held a praying mantis
10. Sang a solo
11. Bungee jumped
12. Visited Paris
13. Watched a lightning storm at sea
14. Taught yourself an art from scratch
15. Adopted a child
16. Had food poisoning
17. Walked to the top of the Statue of Liberty
18. Grown your own vegetables
19. Seen the Mona Lisa in France
20. Slept on an overnight train
21. Had a pillow fight
22. Hitch hiked
23. Taken a sick day when you’re not ill
24. Built a snow fort
25. Held a lamb
26. Gone skinny dipping
27. Run a Marathon
28. Ridden in a gondola in Venice
29. Seen a total eclipse
30. Watched a sunrise or sunset
31. Hit a home run
32. Been on a cruise
33. Seen Niagara Falls in person
34. Visited the birthplace of your ancestors
35. Seen an Amish community
36. Taught yourself a new language
37. Had enough money to be truly satisfied
38. Seen the Leaning Tower of Pisa in person
39. Gone rock climbing
40. Seen Michelangelos David
41. Sung karaoke
42. Seen Old Faithful geyser erupt
43. Bought a stranger a meal at a restaurant
44. Visited Africa
45. Walked on a beach by moonlight
46. Been transported in an ambulance
47. Had your portrait painted
48. Gone deep sea fishing
49. Seen the Sistine Chapel in person
50. Been to the top of the Eiffel Tower in Paris
51. Gone scuba diving or snorkeling
52. Kissed in the rain
53. Played in the mud
54. Gone to a drive-in theater
55. Been in a movie
56. Visited the Great Wall of China
57. Started a business
58. Taken a martial arts class
59. Visited Russia
60. Served at a soup kitchen
61. Sold Girl Scout Cookies
62. Gone whale watching
63. Got flowers for no reason
64. Donated blood, platelets or plasma
65. Gone sky diving
66. Visited a Nazi Concentration Camp
67. Bounced a check
68. Flown in a helicopter
69. Saved a favorite childhood toy
70. Visited the Lincoln Memorial
71. Eaten Caviar
72. Pieced a quilt
73. Stood in Times Square
74. Toured the Everglades
75. Been fired from a job
76. Seen the Changing of the Guards in London
77. Broken a bone
78. Been on a speeding motorcycle
79. Seen the Grand Canyon in person
80. Published a book
81. Visited the Vatican
82. Bought a brand new car
83. Walked in Jerusalem
84. Had your picture in the newspaper
85. Read the entire Bible
86. Visited the White House
87. Killed and prepared an animal for eating
88. Had chickenpox
89. Saved someone’s life
90. Sat on a jury
91. Met someone famous
92. Joined a book club
93. Lost a loved one
94. Had a baby
95. Seen the Alamo in person
96. Swam in the Great Salt Lake
97. Been involved in a law suit
98. Owned a cell phone
99. Been stung by a bee
100. Read an entire book in one day

What My Home Says About Me

Came across this the other day..scariest part of it is that it's a pretty accurate description!

What Your Home Says About You

You come across as very intellectual. People take your wisdom seriously. Your hygiene is passable, but you may be hiding some dirty secrets. You are a very domestic person. You enjoy decorating, cooking, and making things homey. You are not a very nurturing person. You have enough trouble taking care of yourself. You feel settled in your life. You have enough time to focus on little details. You are a very self sufficient person. You can get along well without much help. Your friends see you as courageous, dynamic, and bright.

What Does Your Home Say About You?

Piggy Tales Hide and Seek Flap Book

I have just started my first ever non-12x12 page layout project. And I think it might be the death of me!

As soon as I saw this book I knew that I wanted to make it for my almost 3 month old niece. Little did I realize what I had gotten myself into. I am about halfway done the book..I am mostly happy with the way that it is turning out. Some of the challenges have been that I am designing it for a baby and I want her to be able to look at it without fear of wrecking it..so I am using just paper and stickers to decorate the book so that I can put a layer of Mod Podge over the whole thing. Another issue with this book is that the template that is so kindly included is not exact! You can imagine how frustrated I was when I cut out my paper and went to glue it to the page and discovered that the flaps wouldn't lift since the paper didn't properly line up!

I will post pics as soon as it is done..hopefully by the end of this week!

An Indulgence

I have been wanting a Coach purse for the longest time now. But as a stay at home mother who already has a scrapbooking supply obsession it wasn't something I felt I could justify buying for myself. Then a couple months ago, guess what opened up only 30 minutes from my house. A Coach outlet. When I saw the sign I screamed so loud in the car that Geoff almost got us into an accident. You have no idea how disappointed I was when the store finally opened and they had almost no purses from the real stores..just ones that looked as if they had been specifically made for the outlet.


On Saturday I was in the area so I figured I'd go in again..this would be my 3rd visit and I didn't really have high hopes. Sage and I walked into the store and walked straight to the back where the keep the few purses that come in from the real Coach stores. I spotted this one right away, picked it up and walked right to the cash register. Totally unlike me...for the last few years I debate every purchase I make for myself..and I usually end up talking myself out of it. Not this time. It was such an amazing deal..now I just have to get Geoff to see it in the same way!




Isn't she beautiful?

Umbra Factory Warehouse Sale

Just some of the beautiful things that I am hoping to find..yes I am well aware that I'm living in dreamland. My husband and I first happened upon the Umbra sale purely by accident just after we were married 6 years ago...we've tried to make it to every sale since!

Mine, Mine, Mine

Our anniversary is coming up next weekend and as a present, Geoff took me to Ikea last weekend and let me pick out cabinets and desktops to turn our loft into a scrapbooking area for me. We have been married for 6 years and for that entire time we have done drastic and major renovations on our 110+ year old house. Decorating the loft..which cannot be seen from the main floor...was frankly the least of my worries about this place. So up here got thrown our too small desk which was really only good for putting the computer on..some random boxes and our old kitchen table that Sage used for crafts. It was a disaster. There was no place to put anything so I gave up even trying after awhile. Pretty much the only time I tidied it up was when we were having company!

So we came home with the majority of what I needed..some things were not in stock and others I realized we're going to have to change around a bit after actually getting this stuff together but for the most part I have a space. Until we started assembling this area..I say we but really it was all Geoff..I had no idea how much I missed having a spot of my own. We live in a small, open plan house so there has never been an area where I can say this is my place. It has been oddly freeing..I feel as if I've reclaimed a piece of myself that has been missing for a long time. I love being a stay at home mom but it has left me with the feeling that all of our stuff is Geoff's..he would tell you that is ridiculous and he's right..he has never ever made me feel that way. So..it's not ready yet..there are more cabinets to come and then I will begin all the decorating details but it's already amazing to have a place where I can just be.

Since I can't have a blog post with no picture, here is a quick little page I did last night..

One day last week as we were getting ready for school Sage was blabbering away as usual while she ate her breakfast. She starts telling me how a little boy in her class calls her his girlfriend.."everytime when he sees me he says Hey Girlfriend". I smiled to myself thinking how cute it was that this kind of stuff had started already. 2 minutes later I'm getting out the clothes she was to wear that day and she says to me "Pick me out something sexy, I want to look like a girlfriend." Suddenly this wasn't so cute anymore!!

Fortunately for the sake of her father's heart health and my overactive imagination, this was her idea of sexy girlfriend clothes.

8:00 AM

So far this morning I have:

• made the bed
• cooked soft-boiled eggs with toast dippers
• put a load of laundry in
• built a tent over our living room furniture for Sage to play in

• knocked over a very large, very full cup of coffee all over my desk which then spilt down onto my computer, over onto the scanner and on top of a pile of pages I had pulled from scrapbooking magazines which hadn't yet made it into my inspiration book. This resulted in the use of 2 bath towels to clean up.

I'm already exhausted.