Now it's this little guy's turn...

As of late, I've shared lots of pictures of our oldest here on the blog -- as he turned one year older and surpassed another milestone into Kindergarten.  But let's not forget our littlest guy who is soon to become a big brother, himself!

Just this past Tuesday, he ventured off to school, as well.  I, of course, couldn't let the occasion pass without capturing the traditional 'first day' picture, on our front door step.  He was happy to pose and thrilled to be sporting the Buzz Lightyear backpack that he inherited from his older brother -- and that's nearly as big as he is!  Look at my big boy, sniff, sniff!

While this week marked his official first day, last week I attended a shortened 'meet the teacher' day with him.  That's where I was able to capture some of these darling photos of him 'in action' at school. 

As I drove him to school on that first day, he told me that he wasn't going to preschool, "I going to Kindergarten-Pschool!".  Oh, well okay then -- I stand corrected! ;)  Then, as we arrived and got out of the car he said, "Mommy you get back in the car, I walk on the street MYself!".  I guess this little guy isn't going to have a rough time with this new transition.  For this mommy, however, seeing her baby move off to a new adventure is always emotional.  Thankfully, I had the added stress of forgetting his backpack and all of the papers I had rushed to complete, to distract me from the tears.  I'm happy to report that his first day went great -- he was bouncing in excitement when I dropped him off and doing the same, when I arrived at his classroom door, two and half hours later, to pick him up.

So, with the return of school still in the air and lots of fun school themed supplies filling the shelves at my local scrap store, I was inspired to scrapbook some of those first day photos.  At the time that I picked up this kit from Simply Scrapbooks, I had just printed TJ's pics, so that's where I started.  Here is the resulting page:

As noted before, I'm always a sucker for school supplies and school themed products, but I really think Fancy Pants did an awesome job with their "Off to School" collection.  The colors are fun, slightly muted and a twist on the traditional primary colors.  Here are close-ups of both pages:

A peek at the journaling.  Aren't those chipboard accents cute?  I especially loved the cute little pencils, and couldn't resist using them both on this page!

A close-up of the title, with more cute chipboard accents:

And I absolutely LOVED that bookplate paper!!!



Thanks for stopping by!  Have a wonderful weekend!

You win some, you lose some...

Lately, it seems, I am 'losing' quite a bit when it comes to these design team gigs.  There is certainly some stiff competition out there and some amazing crafters that I am competing against.  I won't lie, it's a bit of a bruise to the ego, to get turned down from opportunities again and again and again.  But then I have to take a step back and remind myself the REAL reason I scrapbook -- for my family!  I know that when my kids are older and look back on these albums, they won't care if I was on a design team or not.  They will instead, relish the memories that I have preserved, the little stories that would otherwise be lost, and be grateful for the time I spent recording their and our families histories!  So, in essence it's all in your viewpoint, right?  I'm not 'losing' because I didn't make it onto a design team, I'm 'winning' because I took the time to carefully document our memories.  WINNING!  Okay, am I getting a little 'Charlie Sheen' for you, with all of this talk of winning?! ;)

Let's move on to the pictures...the eye candy...the fun scrappy stuff.  Okay? 

Bella Blvd announced the newest additions to their design team today, and while my name is not on the list, I walked away with some fun pages that I was eager to add to my albums.  Since they asked for 'never before seen' projects, I can now share them with you today!

This first one was, by far, my favorite of my entry.  I don't know if it's the darling Mr. Boy collection that sold it for me or that sweaty, chubby faced little boy that stole the show! ;)  I'll let you decide...

and closer peek at the journaling and some of the details...

This next page, is actually one I worked on awhile back, but just hadn't gotten around to sharing yet. I LOVE the fun colors in these pictures and how well they coordinated with the Bella papers.

I thought many of the sticker words and phrases added just the right touch to my page:

And, of course,  I had to 'junk it up' a bit with some strategically placed embellishments (and buttons!):

 

Now, I'm about to do the unthinkable and share a page featuring me and my baby bump, in a bathing suit, nonetheless!  Avert your eyes, if you have to! ;)  Seriously, I'm not so comfortable baring all on the blog, but this picture of my sister and I comparing bumps, was just too cute not to scrap! 

Seriously, is there really any competition?  Clearly, I am WINNING -- oops, there I go again channeling my inner Charlie Sheen. ;)

I couldn't resist rounding out my entry submission without completing a page featuring Bella's pet themed scrapbooking line.  Poor little Ruby used to be the focus of many of my pages, then well, the kids kind of took over.  Story of her life...

and a close up:

That's all I've got for tonight.  Hope to be back soon with more things to share!

Doodlebug

Hello all!  I am still anxiously awaiting the announcement of the Doodlebug design team, for which I sent in an application a couple of weeks back.  So, to say that I have Doodlebug on the brain, may be a bit of an understatement.  I may have checked my email a few hundred times over the last couple of weeks, hoping to hear something from them. However, I'm sure their inbox was flooded with hopeful applicants, and I would be beyond lucky to grab their attention and snag a spot.  Either way, I thought I'd pop on here and share the projects that I submitted for the call.

The first is a page using their recent 'boy' birthday celebration collection.  I just LOVED the primary color scheme they used, and how they mixed it up a bit by adding touches of brown and teal. I knew it would be just right for photos of my favorite guys on their special days.  In fact, it proved to be just the right motivator to get this page idea out of my head and onto paper!  Each year on the boys birthdays, we have a special tradition of making them chocolate chip pancakes, adorning those pancakes with a candle and singing to them.  I, of course, have taken pictures of this tradition over the years and thought it would be fun to compile all of those pictures onto one page for each boy.  Here is the result for TJ's album:

Here's a close up of the vertical banner, which holds both the page title and journaling:

And some details in the upper left corner of the page.  I can't seem to make a page these days, that doesn't have at least one button sewn somewhere on it -- and the Doodlebug ones are my favorite, of course!

One last picture, showing how I 'fancied' up that birthday cake sticker with glitter, rhinestones, stitching and some starburst shaped stickers.

This collection was so fun to work with, I continued on to make a cute card with it.  As you can tell, I had fun dressing up each of the balloon stickers with a different embellishment - glitter, bling, sticker, button, twine, etc, and then attached a long piece of twine to each, to represent the string.  I thought the sentiment was fitting for this little scene, and could easily make the card work for a 'birthday', 'congrats' or a 'just saying hello' type of message.

For the next card, I broke into my stash of Doodlebug holiday goodies to make a 'sweet' Christmas greeting.  The darling little images and touches of glitter that they add to many of their products, just makes them that much cuter, don't you think?

Lastly, they requested that we submit images of a home decor project.  That was just the excuse I needed to snatch up some of their new 'Monster Mania' line and get started on a little wreath to display in our home for the upcoming holiday.  I shared a sneak of this projects a few posts back, and here is the full 'reveal'!:

And close up of the banner message.  I have pinterest to thank for that cute little saying.  It's pretty fitting, sitting next to that scary monster, don't you agree?

I still have plans to put together a little tutorial of how I created and assembled this project, if anyone is interested.  Alas, scrapbook time has been at a premium here lately, unless I'm willing to sacrifice sleep (which usually, I am!). 

Thanks for stopping by!

School, school, school...

As of tomorrow afternoon at 3:32pm, we will have officially completed our first full week on school.  Yes, I realize that it's actually TJ who is attending, but the reason I say we is that mommy has a big role and some added responsibilities in this whole school process too (bigger than I realized!).  So far we've made it out the door on-time, in uniform, hair brushed, backpack on, snack packed and arrived to school at the proper drop off time and place, each day.  Mommy has also kept track of the multiple daily school emails, communicating a variety of things, filled out loads of paperwork for the school fundraiser, signed and returned necessary forms, read and evaluated the numerous volunteer opportunities and signed up for some, and sat down with TJ to complete his first night of homework.  Holy moly -- and this is only Kindergarten.  I'm sure once we settle into the school year and the routine, this will all reach a level of normalcy.  At least I'm hoping so, because right now, with all of the added work, I feel like I'm back in school again!

Speaking of school... I mentioned in several prior posts that I had a some school themed pages to share.  Well, the wait is now over!  I know, the suspense has been killing you, huh?  I recently had the opportunity to work with Basic Grey's new Oxford line.  At first glance, this line looked to be a bit mature for my young boy, but I still thought I could make it work.  I've always liked Basic Grey's collections, but quite honestly, have found them a bit difficult to work with simply because they differ from what I would normally gravitate towards (which is bright and clean patterns and papers, rather than more distressed and muted).  When I spotted the 'school supply' themed paper in this line, though, I just couldn't resist!  That single paper inspired me to create a page documenting the supplies that TJ needed to start Kindergarten this year.

I thought it would be a fun memory for us to look back on -- just exactly what he needed that first year of school, and even included a little pocket with the receipt, so we can remember just what the supplies cost, as well.

In addition, I've tried to include a pocket style page for each year of school to house: memorabilia, extra photos, artwork, teacher evaluations, etc.  So, again, I used Basic Grey's Oxford line to create a page to do just that, for TJ's preschool year 2010-2011.

and some close-ups (you can click on any of the pictures, for an even larger view):

Well, that's all I've got for tonight.  I've been crafting like crazy most evenings this week, so it might be time to get into bed at a decent hour!  Thanks for stopping by!