This is for my Mom...

My Mom hasn't been over to see my new furniture and paint yet, so I'm posting these for her to see.

Here's my new dining room set -


Here's my newly painted wall which is really not this blue - it's a real pale robin's egg blue - must be the sunlight or something - but it pulls out the color in my chair


And here's my new window treatments that Tony picked out all by himself!

One of my better designs...

Here is a Princess paper bag album I did some time ago. I was very proud of this book and it sold for $150!! Every time I've tried to recreate it, it did not turn out as perfect. I even used a lot of old school stickers in it as kind of a self challenge. TFL!

This dress is all hand torn using mulberry paper layered over white cardstock. The hanger is made from a hair pin and the whole cover is sealed under clear acetate that I sewed on.


The right side is a foam stamp that I embossed -


I love the way the mirror turned out - this is an accucut die from the store I used to work at - the castle on the right is all hand pieced and I used stamps to do the words. (See! I AM a stamper!)


Old school stickers as promised!

Here's what I did today...

Today was my day off and I'm feeling a cold coming on (again) so I went in to work to do some of my own layouts and this is what I did. No long post because I feel icky. TFL!

I've been tagged!

My friend Lynn tagged me and I'm supposed to come up with 7 facts about myself. I asked my kids to pick one fact each and this is what I got -

1- My daughter Kalea said, I love to play the game "Animal Crossing" on Gamecube. It's true - I used to be fully addicted until little Josh deleted my whole game. Arrrgh! I loved how you could build your house, and pay off your mortgage, and clean up the town. Weird, I know. Perhaps it's because I could never pay off my mortgage in real life!

2- My youngest, Josh, said "You buy us Ramen noodles" Hmmmm, I don't know if that counts as an INTERESTING fact, but it is a fact nonetheless.

3-My oldest, Tim said "You're a really good scrapbooker". Hey, I'll take that cuz I thought he would say "My mom's a dork" since he's 13 and super sassy.

4- I absolutely LOVE to eat at Panera. My favorite is a cup of soup (any flavor) and a half of a Chicken Ceasar sandwich. YUM!

5- I am a fanatic about grammar. Typos drive me bonkers. The funny thing is, my friend Bonnie noticed on the last Christmas kit I did, that I misspelled Santa Claus. I made 12 kits that said Santa Clause (with an e) - It's been driving me crazy ever since but there's only 1 kit left to sell. *sigh*

6- In the summer, I do not wear shorts. Every day you will see me in a white tank top, capris, and flip flops. (I probably own 20 white tank tops from Old Navy - they are the best!)

7- I drive a big Ram truck that is bad to the bone. I like it because it's boyish - I have always loved and owned manly type autos but deep down I'm a real girly girl.

There you have it. I'm supposed to tag 7 others, but I don't know anyone on these blogs yet and the 3 people I know have already been tagged so boo hoo for me.

Thanks for reading!
J

1,000 hits already??!!

WOW. I wonder who is actually visiting this blog cuz I find it hard to believe that the 1000 hits came from Bonnie, Dawn and Lynn!! So for all of you lurkers out there, welcome! and thanks so much for viewing my blog! You guys are out of this world! (hence, the above layout titled appropriately so.) ;) I know that some gals give away stuff for marker hits and I'm not sure how that works yet, so I will get myself educated and offer up some free "candy" on the 2000 marker. So Dawn, if you're reading, email me with how to get the address of the lucky poster and all that jazz. Thanks!

Well, it's 9am - off to work! I got some new Cuttlebug embossing folders in the mail Saturday that I'm dying to try out. Which by the way, why is it that they came on SATURDAY when Tony was here to get the mail???? 6 other days of the week where UPS could have delivered to me. Nope. Busted. *sigh* It's getting harder to hide the addiction.

Have a super day!
J

Long day ahead for me...

Today I work at the store from 9:30 am to 4pm and right from there I have to go to Holy Family School where Little Scrapbox has set up a mobile store. We were there until 10:30 last night setting up but it looks really cool. I'm kinda hoping it's slow at work today so I can get some designing done - it's been awhile since I could really just sit and finish a project. But, not being able to design means that we are busy which is really good in this stinky economy. Seriously friends, if you are devoted Joann and Michael's shoppers, please try to remember that with each sale you give them, we get one step closer to having to close our doors. Support your LSS!! Pretty soon, your only choice for shopping WILL be Joann and Michaels because I've already seen 4 LSS's close in the past 6 months locally. Ok, I'll get off of my soapbox now -

This layout I did as a designer kit for the store. It sold out twice which made me feel like a proud mama (cause all my layouts are like my little children - snort!) Anyways, I lifted the little poem from my good friend Deb in The Paper Hen House (see my favorite links at left). Have a great day everyone!

J

For Dawn, Lynn and Bonnie

I lifted this off photobucket and thought you might like to take it for your Scrappin' Stampin' Sistahs Club. Hope you enjoy! Bonnie - just right click on it and save it to your computer.

Mirror, Mirror on the wall...

I start my post with this title because today I was talking to one of my regular customers at the store who shared with me pictures of her beautiful family. Her daughter, is absolutely breathtaking at a young age of 14 and everytime we would pass a picture of her with her daughter she would say "Oh, look at me the big fatso" or "Look at how giant I am, gosh!" The funny thing is that I never really noticed she was overweight (aren't we all???) until she said something and drew such attention to it. I always saw her as this beautiful woman with impeccable style - always put together so well, right down to her great taste in jewelry. She always smells so nice and when I found out she was approaching 50, I seriously gasped. My message is this: we all have insecurites about ourselves - heck, we wouldn't be women if we didn't right? The secret is to NEVER let anyone in on them. Walk with your head held high even if your mood makes you feel like slumping - Lie to everyone about how wonderful your life is even if right now it totally sucks. When YOU start to believe it, everyone else will. And anyways, true honest friends will see the beauty in you no matter what you may see. They will love you for who you are and that my friends, is BEAUTIFUL! Here's another little trick - every morning get up and get dressed and put on your makeup. Even if you're just toting junior to the grocery store, dress the way that makes you feel pretty. Throw those old frumpy T-shirts that you stole from your hubby in the garbage and instead put on that cute little cableknit sweater with your jeans. When you look good, you feel good and don't we all deserve at least that?

Hugs!
J

As promised...

Ok, first up is a layout I did for Little Scrapbox promoting some product. This is Kalea, my DD. Isn't she beautiful? Of course, I think so.

The next 3 layouts are 3 of the 20+ that I completed for my Hawaii album. They are probably my favorite 3. This is what I worked on at Creme of the Crop when I was away for the weekend. TFL!!

One last post and I'll leave you all alone!

This is such a scrapbook layout photo! I have 5 or 6 of my two sons building a snowman together last week. Why is this photo so special you may wonder? Because, seriously, it's the only 20 straight minutes they ever spent together without rolling around on the ground fighting. These 2 fight CONSTANTLY. So, I thought this photo made my top 10 for this year. I'm so scrappin' this moment before the next fight breaks out! Thanks for letting me show off my family (that I love so much!) Tomorrow I'll post a pic of my beautiful daughter. THEN I'll leave you alone!

Just 'cause I'm bored...

I decided I would share this pic of my hubby, Tony. I think it might be my all time favorite pic of him. What a hottie! By the way, that's MY sled he's on - his is the yellow one. I asked him if I could glue some prima flowers on mine with a few rub ons and he said no!! Whatevah!

Where oh where is spring??

I don't know about you but I'm dying a slow wintery death over here. Winter blahs have set in and I'm soooo looking forward to that smell of spring in the air. You know - that day when you open your windows for the first time and the sweet smells of spring fill your house giving you renewed inspiration and creativity? Ahhh yes, it shouldn't be long now. I'm stuck at home today with a sick kiddo so I decided to finally unpack my bags from my scrap weekend 2 weeks ago. Maybe I'll find some creativity lurking in those bags and whip up a layout today. Maybe.

Here's today's layout - Chicks rule! This was a super fast seller at the store and probably one of my all time faves. Enjoy and TFL!

Shout out to my home girls!

I just wanted to take a second to give props to all those girls out there working their tail feathers to the bone. Some of you are good friends of mine, some of you are my coworkers, some of you are family, and some of you are brand new acquaintances of mine. Either way, I'm proud of you all! You're doing what you do best and you're shining! So here's a little shout out to ya!

P.S. If you click the picture, you can see the layout better. I was too lazy to mess around with photobucket tonight so you're on your own this time! TFL!!

I found this over on my friend Dawn's blog and thought it was cool. I gotta tell ya that I absolutely LOVE Patrick Dempsey. I knew we were destined for each other! *swoon*


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I am back from Scraptopia!

I've been MIA for awhile because I was away at that wonderful scrapbook retreat called Creme of the Crop. If you've never done a weekend getaway or even if you have a favorite place you insist on going to, you MUST try this one. Seriously - it's my favorite place ever. 5 out of 5 stars for sure! The owner's name is Connie and she is an absolute delight - her cooking is out of this world, and her house is stunning. Here's her website: www.cremeofthecropretreat.com I'm making it my mission to be her personal spokesperson. This lady deserves mega business. AND I managed to complete an entire album of my trip to Hawaii. I plan on sharing some of those layouts this week.

Ok, back to scrapping news. I thought I'd post another paper bag album that I did. It is done in a pirate theme. I sold this book on ebay. Most of the pages are interactive like the treasure chest flips open to reveal room for 3 photos, the vest was made of velvet paper and opens to reveal a photo mat etc... TFL!!