We moved back!

Oh gosh. I am so sorry for this but we are back at Blogger:

Pretty.Thrifty.Scrap.

I finally figured out how to make my pics bigger on Blogger,which was the main reason we moved. WP simply did not allow me to do the things I needed to do to personalize my blog and I didnt want to host it myself, yet anyway.

Please bookmark my original blog over at blogger or add us to your RSS.

Thanks!

Exciting News…

This girl:

Got a call back from our local modeling agency,
which is a division of

Wilhelmina!

We will be meeting with them to hear all about the agency and see what we need to get started. I am so very excited! She is so beautiful and I know, I’m her Mom but please, isn’t she??? LOL

Photoshop CS2 Conversions…

Work on some pics that we took the other day. Played around with some conversions that I made up in PS CS2. I usually just play around until I get the desired effect. CC welcome!

New Goodies…

I got new Goodies. For some reason I had been wanting some new Martha Stewart goodies so I got new Halloween stamps, ribbon, and really cute craft punches. I love her craft punches, probably more because of the color, cream, which is my favorite, and also the fact that they are very comfy to use.

I used the cute punches to make the pumpkins that are hanging off of the bow. The layout is of Abbey at the pumpkin patch last year. I love the vintage mother of pearl buttons that I was able to find to frame the pics. It added just the shabby touch that I was looking for. I also used the crackle stamp from Stampin Up for the background. I think it is my favorite stamp for creating a shabby chic look. I’ve used it on several different lo’s and it can add a different feel to each just depending on the color of paint I use. Gotta love that.

I wanted to thank everyone for all the encouraging comments on my last post. It is really nice to know that even though I’ve been gone so long, I still have friends that care 🙂  If you are  new to my blog, leave me a comment and introduce yourself. I always love knowing who is who on the little stats map that I look at. So many people from so many different parts of the world make this who blogging world so much more fun 🙂

I am still adjusting to the world of Word Press blogging. I love the size of the pics compared to Blogger. Now all I need to do is make myself a banner  and new graphics so I can get rid of this generic one, however, it is a really nice generic one, don’t you think?

Blog you soon!

So Excited…

I was just on the Memory Makers website and this jumped out at me…

It is Blake’s 2nd cover and I am thrilled and honored that MM even considered me for this. They are so good to me 🙂

The story behind this layout is exhausting but here’s the short version. MM emailed me about one of my favorite lo’s. They wanted it for the Nov. cover. Of course I was so excited and I mailed it to them immediately. After quite a few weeks, MM contacted me again and said that the pic and the pattern papers on my lo were not photographing well and were not going to work on the cover. They asked if I could redo the layout with another photo and different paper. So I said yes. Well, somewhere in there we had a mis-communication and I ended up having only 1 day to redo the lo, well what I thought was one day. I was at work and missed a phone call that was telling me that the lo would have to be overnighted on that day that I was actually working on it. So when I got home from work, I got an email which said that I needed to contact them by 4:00 or someone else would be given my assignment. I freaked out. I didnt want MY cover to be assigned to anyone else.
So basically, I did this lo in 35 minutes and rushed it across town and made it to Fed-Ex with about 10 minutes to spare. I cannot tell you how stressful this whole thing was but now looking at the final result, I can say it was well worth it 🙂

This is a copy of the original that didn’t photograph well. I had to redo THIS actual one into a 8.5×11 and take off the journaling before I sent it in to them though. It is all Cosmo Cricket and it is still one of my favorites…

6 Months Today

Today is 6 months that my Mom is gone. I had a dream last night that I was in my car on Mike’s laptop outside of some kind of store. My Mom came out of the store and I looked up and saw her. My mind told me (in my dream) that she wasn’t really there because she was gone and to not go up to her because she would disappear. It was all in slow motion and she walked by my car and we were looking at each other and she walked around my car until I couldn’t see her anymore. It was really weird because even in my sleep, my mind tells me that she is gone, maybe to not give me false hope that this is just a horrible nightmare, I dunno.

I wanted to share a layout I did for her when she was sick. I had not posted it yet but I read it at her funeral. It is titled “Real Mom”. I cannot believe that the pic of her in this layout was taken only 1 1/2 years before her diagnosis. It was when we lived in CA and she had come to visit us because Houston was having hurricane Rita. She was 74 in the pic and never looked her age, ever.

I have one regret about this layout and that is that I did not read it to her. I sent her the layout when she was already pretty sick and when I was going to read it to her over the phone, she couldn’t really talk for too long and she had to let me go. When I went to Houston, we didn’t have a lot of private time together and she was so sick, I just never had a chance to read it. I know that she knew though. I know that she knew that she was my only Mom. I voiced that quite loudly throughout my life.

Journaling reads:

All my life, when I would talk about you, or introduce you to people, I would have to explain how you were not my “real Mom”. From a very young age, I remember you always explaining to people that you were my Grandmother who was raising me. For some reason you felt it was important for people to know this. Maybe it was because you wanted me to not forget my “real Mom”, or because you thought that they would think you were to old to have a little girl my age. Looking back now it seems very silly that we did this, I mean honestly, you were not my “real mom”, you were so much more. You sacrificed a lot to give me a good life. You didn’t have to do it, but you knew that if you did not take me and become my “real Mom” I would not have a very good life. You did everything that a little girl could want in a mom. You stayed home with me. You taught me how to read. You taught me how to roller skate. You were there every single day to meet me at the door after school. You loved me when my “real Mom” didn’t. I didn’t think about it much when I was little but, as a adult, I hate explaining that you are not my “Real Mom” so I don’t do it anymore, not very often anyway and if I do, it’s just out of habit. Lately I have had to explain to people that my mom is sick. I ask everyone to pray for my mom, that she will be healed of this horrible sickness called cancer. All my life you have been a very healthy person so now it is very hard to believe and accept this curse of cancer, to believe that you are facing sickness. I still know that God will heal you. It is because of you that I know this. You also taught me the most important part of my life. You taught me of Jesus. You took me to church every Sunday and I always had a deep passion in my heart for Jesus, my Heavenly Father . I know that He can touch you and heal you. I know that He will let you stay with us a lot longer so that I can show you how much I appreciate you being my “real Mom” and that Jesus is touching you and giving you strength to fight this sickness. I believe His word, and it says, “Through His stripes you are healed”, and I know you will be healed. I only wish I could be there in Houston with you. I know I am far away, but know that I am praying for you and think of you constantly, day and night, you are in my heart. Just like Jesus, you will never leave. Always know that you are my “real Mom” and I appreciate everything you did for me and most importantly remember that I thank you and I love you for all you are Mom. You will always be my Real Mom.

I miss you terribly Mom!

Fall Has Begun…

Fall has definitely begun in our household. I never decorate for fall or Halloween, I usually leave that up to my sister, who, (I think) goes overboard. This year, however, will be a different story. Why, you ask. Well, because I painted my kitchen cabinets black and didn’t visualize how that would look against my orange/terra cotta walls. Black + Orange = Halloween! For this reason, I have been inspired to really go all out and decorate for the season. I over-shopped this weekend and spent almost $150 on seasonal decor at Kohl’s. I wanted to get it all because they had it all on sale for 50% off but then I went to Stein Mart and T.J. Maxx today and they had cuter stuff cheaper. So now I will have to go over everything that I dont really want from Kohl’s and return it so I can go get more cuter stuff elsewhere. That’s what I get for not shopping around first and I hate returning stuff.

Oh, and this is the first time in a long time that I have used rub ons, lol. I found the most awesome rub-ons for the walls. I may be way behind on what is “in” in the home decor world and scrapbooking but I just could not pass this up. I thought the sayings were so cute. I hope it doesn’t make my house look outdated. Actually, I dont care if it does, I love it! Pic below!

At any rate, here is a sneek peek at my formal dining room. I LOVE those apothecary jars I found and they came filled with the pumpkins, gotta love that! I don’t normally use a tablecloth for my table because I love the beautiful wood but I noticed that Blake is starting to bang around with toys more often and I thought I had better cover it for protection and for the whole decor thing, lol.

Things Like This…

That make me happy! We are a homeschooling family, some of you may not have known that 😉 It is a very hard job, especially when you are trying to jungle a business and household all at the same time. How on earth I find time to blog, I have no idea.
There are times that my heart just jumps for joy and excitement that I homeschool. These pics show one of those times. Abbey was happily doing her math work. I went to the foyer to find Blake working on his alphabet all by himself. Abbey taught him his alphabet and how to recognize his letters when he was 2. He is working on all the different letter sounds now. It was just a good feeling to see him chose to do something educational to keep himself entertained while big sister was doing her work 🙂

Weekend In The Mountains

Just a few shots from this weekend including our trip to the mountains and the apple orchard. We celebrated Mike’s b/day with fine dining and family. It was so good. I played with several conversions and still working on editing. I will post more soon 🙂

Getting Ready For Company

My in-laws are coming for a visit so I have been trying to get things in order. I dont know why but I’m the type of person who freaks out when someone comes over. I have to have everything as perfect as possible. This time I’m a little slacking but oh well. I have been tired from going back and forth to the cleaners. Oh yea, during my MIA, we actually finally opened our new cleaners. I will talk more on that later.

Anyway, I wanted to at least add some visual pretties to this post because it has been so long and with my company here, I’m not sure how soon I will post again.

So, here are some layouts that I have done. I have been very blessed to have been picked up quite a bit this year. I may have never won any big contests but at least I know I am worthy of being published, lol.

Oh and by the way, I was so excited to be at Barnes and Noble and pick up the latest special issue of Scrapbooking Trends and find one of my Christmas lo’s in there. I had totally forgotten that I was going to be published in that one 🙂

Have a great day!

This is the one in Scrapbook Trends…

This one was in last months Memory Makers. I love working with them and have a suprise coming up very soon that I am excited about…

Here are some I did that I had not posted here, just want to play catch up. The first one is my favorite!…