{bliss}

here comes April!

I think I blinked and missed March!  I can't believe how quickly the month flew by.  I'm happy to report that I can once again see bare ground in my front yard, so a lot of that snow that fell on Friday melted away over the weekend.  My daffodils are really trying hard!  I snapped this photo of them this morning (and discovered that we forgot to bring in the drip hoses last fall - oops!)  It is above freezing already this morning, so there is hope that we might get some more melting today!

Weekend wrap up:  the girls had a fantastic time at Brigid's friend's birthday party.  Her Mom had thought up all sorts of Spiderwick twists on popular kids games (like Pin the Book on Jared - lol!)  They played out in the snow, did crafts, and had a great time.  I've got a lot of good ideas now for Brigid's party if we're lucky enough to be able to have some friends over this year.  Her birthday is such an "inconvenient" week, though.  It falls during the week right after school lets out and the 4th of July holiday, so it is tough to plan a party with so many people going away on vacation that week. 

My training at AC Moore on Saturday was a mixed success.  I met three awesome and enthusiastic ladies, but didn't have any AC Moore employees in attendance.  I am going to try to meet up with a Fiskateer in the Newington store later this week, (and maybe can corral a store employee or two then!) and I've got a craft group at church that I am going to give a demo to tomorrow too.  Lots of Fiskar-y stuff going on - now if it would just stop snowing so I could plan ahead, that would be wonderful!

Lots to do today.  My LOAD today brings a little spring color to another gray day.  New Daisy D's "Sweet Baby Jane" pp & Bazzill "Just the Edge" cardstock.  The stamps are from Imaginisce's "For Peeps Sake" collection as is the big brad. 

TTFN!

ETA:  March is headed out like a lion, that's for sure - it is snowing like mad out there right now.  *sigh*

I'm crying "Uncle"....

Enough already!  Schools out today because of this storm - it is snowing like crazy out there!  We have broken our seasonal record for the most snow in a hundred years (at around 8 this morning), and we're taking aim at the all time snowfall record set in 1873.  We'll be getting about an inch an hour from 7 to 1pm. today.  Eeek!  I hope our plow guy hadn't put away his equipment yet.  So at this point, we're just watching it come down. 

I had hoped to get to Target and the Hallmark store today, but if we do, it probably won't be until well after lunch at this rate.  We've got a birthday party to shop for, and I have a few other things that I want to look for in Target.  I have been wondering if they have re-set their scrapbooking aisle yet, because it was clearanced and picked clean the last time I was there.  I'm very curious to see what lines they are bringing in for spring, and if they have re-stocked the Making Memories Garden Party stuff.  That is probably my all time favorite collection from them!  Love the colors, love the goodies, and love how nicely it goes with all my other favorite spring collections like Scenic Route Lynden.  There are some velvet flowers and some adorable mini brads (love the little bunnies!) that go with the MM collection that I haven't seen anywhere yet, so I have my fingers crossed that I'll run across them while I'm shopping.

This photo of Brigid cracks me up.  She had such a great time at the Bunny Breakfast, and this is what I got when I asked her if she'd found any eggs...  :)  Too cute.  The pp's are Daisy D's Sweet Baby Jane - love, love, love April Cornell's florals!  There is some really old script paper from DD too, I have been trying to remember what collection it came in.  It went very nicely with the colors in the new paper.  Jenni B. tags, of course, and I traced one of the butterflies on the gingham paper.  The egg and bunny buttons I have had in my stash forever - they're from Doodlebug a couple of years ago.

I've a few prayer requests today - some folks who are struggling have really been on my mind.  Could you please keep Sue, Kiersten and Cheryl in your prayers?  Thank you. 

I love vintage...

...especially when I find something I've had all along!  Look what I rescued from our basement this morning.  Despite having been submerged when our basement flooded, it has cleaned up quite nicely and still types!  That typewriter ribbon in there has to be 30 years old, but it still types!  I am trying to find a source for the ribbon now, and plan on using it in my scrapping!  Vintage typewriters seem to be "the thing" right now, and I am so happy to be able to revive this old machine.  I wish I still had the fabulous old typewriter that I learned to type on - it was a monstrosity of a thing and had glass typewriter keys!  It must have weighed 50 pounds at least.  This one is no light-weight, it was designed to be a portable typewriter and has this funky case that it sets into.  It is a solid machine, and Aileen has been having the best time figuring out how to feed paper through it and comparing it to the computer keyboard that it is currently sitting next to.  She is enchanted by the "ding" at the end of the row, and the "mechanical-ness" of it.  ((I swear, this girl is going to be an engineer!))

In other news, this finally occured:

We have been waiting for that tooth to fall out for well over a month!  Mama had to step in with an assist for it, but she is such a tough little kid that it hardly fazed her!

Library day today, and tomorrow after school we go birthday present shopping for a classmate who is having a party this weekend.  Saturday I've got my morning class, and then am working to 11, so Daddy is fielding the birthday party.  And then work from 2 to 11 on Sunday too.  Busy weekend! 

April looks a little more laid back.  I will have wrapped up my Fiskars classes for the most part, and will be able to turn my attention to the clean sweep I plan on doing throughout the entire house!  I have been enjoying this site, and have gotten some really good storage ideas that I'm going to attempt to put into practice.  I'm going to start in the kitchen and really give it my all!  By the time I get to the scrapbook room, the purge I did in January will be mostly undone, so I can start all over again!

Here's my layout for today.  This has got to be one of my favorite pages that I did this month.  LOVE that color scheme, and love the way that the Prima, Creative Imaginations Narratives Honeydew collection and Making Memories Garden Party all work so well together.  Can you believe this girl is going to be 6 in...gulp...34 days?  *sigh*  Where does the time go?

Enjoy this beautiful day!  They say it is going to snow tonight, so I'm enjoying the sunshine and the 50 degrees outside for as long as I can!

Jenni! Jenni! Jenni!

(do I love her stuff?  Oh, yes I do!)  :)

This is actually the first page I made from photos taken while Jon was home on spring break.  His girlfriend is sort of hidden behind Brigid's head, so I had them sit for a better photo before they left, which is what I used on my "Welcome Home" page.  You've gotta love a kid who doesn't mine having his photo taken! 

So, today is Wednesday.  I'm feeling pretty caught up on just about everything but laundry, so in between loads, I think I'm going to try to make up some more kits to post at SA, and get myself organized for the Fiskars Demonstrator training I'm holding on Saturday in Nashua.  Email me for details if you are interested!

Make sure you check out the CI Blog later today, I believe another of the Make & Take projects from CHA will be posted - since I wasn't able to attend the show this year, I am looking forward to all the projects as they are posted!  There are all sorts of great things coming up on the blog, and a brand new "webisode" will premiere at TVweekly.com in the ScrapLounge on April 1st.  You won't want to miss it!  If you missed the recent Creative Cafe project with Jamie Petersen, you can still check it out in the archives here. 

breakfast with bunnies, and other spring things...

I saw a robin this morning!  The poor thing was hopping around on the snow (probably looking for a bare patch to begin worm excavation in) so even if he is a little confused and a tad early, spring has got to be right around the corner! 

My LOAD for today uses the new Renae's House "Easter" collection.  SO cute!  I love the floral border paper, and the cute jellybean and egg toss papers too. Check out that chubby chick sticker - too cute!  :)  I pulled out a really old CI kit that I have - it's an envelope template kit from Sonnets - and used the small square template to make the little envelope that the tag is in.  I'd forgotten I had those templates - really cool!  I'll be pulling them out again, I think! 

More new goodies rolling in at Peek this week!  The new Pink Paislee collections: Office Lingo and Spring Fling have arrived!!  I love 'em!  The stamps are still on order, and should be arriving soon - so incredibly cute!  The singles are only $2, and the sets are $13 - such a deal.  I can't wait for those!!

The new Technique Tuesday stamps have arrived too.  How cute are these sets?

 

Crate will be in later this week!  :)

Monday, Monday...

Oh my aching feet!  What a weekend.  We were so incredibly busy on Saturday, and so incredibly understaffed on Saturday night!  Ugh!  I feel like making a badge for myself that says "I survived the Great Peep Riot of 2008".  That's right, we ran out of Peeps, and there was one gentleman who was mighty unhappy about that.  (of course, if he hadn't waited until 10pm the night before Easter to attempt to purchase his marshmallow treats, he wouldn't have had that problem...but I digress...)  By 11pm there wasn't a single chocolate bunny left in the store, either.  The lines were long all day, the people were grumpy - all in all, not the prelude to the Easter holiday I would have wished for.  And I couldn't believe how many people were out shopping on Easter Sunday - not just for rolls or pies or a bottle of wine to take to wherever they were traveling to for Easter dinner - but whole huge orders just like it was any other day.

My plan is to take it easy today - and take some Tylenol - and try to ease back into the swing of things. 

Here are a couple pages to catch up.  This first one is the example page for this week's Autumn Leaves "Desiging With..." challenge.  The prompt for the challenge this week comes from Rhonna: "Journal for your children to help them remember special times." and the tag under the photo holds my impressions of meeting Jon's girlfriend in person last week.  I used some new goodies for it:  Sassafrass Lass "Pocket Full of Rosies" patterned paper and one of the new "Glitter Cuts" from Fancy Pants and one of Jenni Bowlin's cute journaling die cuts. (and that is a little smidge of Jenni's polka dot paper from her new collection too - probably one of my favorite patterned papers ever!  lol!)

My second page is for the Product Showcase today at Peek.  The collection being featured is Debbie Mumm's "Botanical Winter" from Creative Imaginations which is 25% off today!  Love the vintage look and soft, worn colors in this collection.  I paired them with another Jenni tag and some Imaginisce snowflakes. 

Plan on doing some scrapping for ME this week!  I've got all kinds of new goodies to play with, and am going to do just that.

Over the weekend, there were some lovely new Easter cards posted on the CI Blog.  I love how the DT members used some themed and some non-themed products to create these beautiful cards!  New CI stuff is shipping now - can't wait to get some of the new products.  Christine Adolph has a beautiful new collection that is releasing in March: Felicity.  Teri has a wonderful new collection called "Mother Earth" too that is going to be fun to work with.

Have a wonderful day!

quick page share...

...before I run out the door to work.  We went to the Easter Bunny Breakfast this morning - so much fun, the kids loved it!!  They had a folk singer performing, and I got this shot of Miss B. while she was watching the show.  You can just see how that top tooth is barely holding on - thus the title of the page!  I really like the colors in the new Love, Elsie collection "Claire".  Hope everyone has a wonderful weekend!

Good Friday

And it is, too!  The kids arrived yesterday afternoon, and the girls instantly fell in love with Jon's girlfriend!  She is a perfect fit for our family - we all speak the same "language", which is pretty cool.  We colored our Easter eggs yesterday afternoon, once they had arrived, but unfortunately, I was too busy supervising egg dye to get many pictures.  Jon's going to read to Aileen's class today, which will be pretty cool - I definitely need to get some photos of that! 

I can finally spill the beans about a project I did a while back too!  Fiskars is running a special celebration for National Craft Month, and my project is featured today!  I got to use one of my favorite Cloud 9 lines ever, and some nifty Fiskars tools - so much fun!

In other Fiskars news - Lead Fiskateer May will be spending National Scrapbooking Day (May 3) in CT!  Congrats to Kelly Jo who had the winning entry!

Off to get this party started this morning!  It is going to be a busy, busy day!

ETA:  and a good time was had by all!  :)

almost spring...

...but still snowing!  lol!  It's going to turn to ice in a bit, and then rain for the remainder of the day.  Oh joy.  lol!

There are some awesome new CI videos up on Scrapbooking.com - love the projects!!

The Product Showcase today at Peek is Foof-a-la's "Dad's Ties" collection.  My Dad loves to clip things out of newspapers and magazines for me, so I created a page with a ginormous envelope element to save my favorite "clippings".  Pat's got what is left in stock from this collection at 50% off today!  She's gotten a TON of new stuff in the store this week too:

new Sassafrass Lass collections

Daisy D's Sweet Baby Jane

Daisy D's Bambino

tons of new Sweetwater collections

Love, Elsie Cody collection

Love, Elsie Claire collection

and the new Cosmo Cricket collection "Cogsmo"

Please keep my friend Stephenie and her son Owen in your prayers.  They've had a tough week.  And if you could continue to keep my friends Kiersten, Genevieve and Chrys from Peek in your prayers, I would appreciate it. 

simple Tuesday

I'm making life simple for myself today. 

Simple layout:  CI Narratives, Making Memories + lots of button-ish embellishments = cute.

Simple schedule: nothing in particular on my "to do" list today, so I give myself permission to be "lazy" today and take a nap or read while Aileen is in school this afternoon.

Simple menu:  leftover Irish goodies for me for dinner, and a no hassle favorite for the girls.

Simple chores: if the kitchen still looks good at the end of the day, I'll be a happy woman.

How are you making life simple for yourself today?