they’re back

Yes, I know that I’ve been MIA. Sorry, holidays got the best of me this year. I’ll update some of my promised posts soon (final Christmas card included)

But first…Green Tangerines Kit Club is back! Go to their blog for all the details: here.

And here are some sneaks from my first layout with the January kit. You can see the full layout here. (scroll down and check out all the great examples…using the same sketch!)

Lots of Jillibean goodness in this kit!

 

Love me some striped goodness…and sprouts…and stickers!

But the corrugated letters are my favorite!

 

Stay tuned for more layouts from this kit as well as some sneaks from a new class at Green Tangerines!

Kristen

visiting santa

Hey guys…let’s go visit Santa!

But first can we take a brother picture?

Uh, maybe not. Biggest brother is angry…he always has to be in charge and this really wasn’t his idea. Littlest brother is mad…he wanted to be in the middle. Middle brother just likes to smile his cheesy smile. Sigh…we’ll try again.

We get to the mall. It’s a weekday afternoon (last week) around 4. No one should be there right? Uh, wrong. An hour line. My kids are dressed, they are ready to tell Santa their wish lists. I decide to power on and try to keep them occupied. For angry 9 year old that means allowing him to walk laps in the mall, much to the annoyance of his brothers who aren’t allowed to leave the line. It also means an eventual $10 bribe (all I had in my wallet) in order to get said 9 year old to behave. Of course, I had to do this in secret or else I would have had to give THREE $10 bribes. Sigh.

A brother picture after 20 minutes in line…not too shabby. Love the guns little brother.

Thank goodness for the iphone and YouTube. Classic Christmas Cartoons anyone? Why doesn’t the mall have wireless for free? I’m spending a gagillion dollars on a silly santa picture. They could at least let me mooch off their network for a bit.

A maybe spend a little time posing. Not sure why…but it kept him entertained for a few minutes as long as I took pictures of every pose.

I’m eavesdropping to make sure that all the things they told me they were telling him were really what he told them. LOL

After all that? Success. Well, kind of. Not sure where they were all looking…but I’ll take it. It’s the first year they all smiled, no one was crying and they all talked to Santa.

Will we be able to do it next year? I’m wondering how much longer biggest brother will go with it (and I can’t afford a $20 bribe!)

Hope you are taking time to enjoy the magic of the season this week.

Kristen

i play dress up too

and to prove it…

When I was a teacher, we used to dress up each year. As a mom, I don’t do it that often.

One year, I was working in Jacob’s class so I pulled out one of my old costumes. He LOVED it. So I wore it trick or treating that year too.

Sorry, best picture I could come up with for 2007…Alice in Wonderland with my three little spidermen…

 

This year they asked again…so I told them I could be Alice in Wonderland or I had a Snow White costume in my closet too. The vote was Snow White.

(Side note…when I taught I was in Room 7. My school decided to have a themed Halloween…dress up the whole class as your favorite literary characters. My students chose to be Dwarfs…as in Snow White and the Dwarfs. I had a few talented moms help to sew boot covers and felt hats, we made cotton ball beards. It was so cute. As a surprise, I changed into my Snow White at lunch and went to pick up the kids after recess. It actually took them a minute to realize that I was their teacher!! We rocked the Halloween parade as “Snow Worden and the Room 7 Dwarves” Get it?)

This takes more effort since I have to actually put makeup on or I look like a freak with the black wig on!

And here we all are at the same house…three years later!

Sam doesn’t have to be carried anymore (although he begs for it…he’s such the baby of the family!! And by that I don’t mean that he is a baby…but that he likes to milk it!!), he actually says Trick or Treat and thank you (along with a long diatribe about who he and his brothers are dressed up as). My boys are growing up!

We started a new tradition this year. The “Switch Witch”. I know a lot of you already do it or something like it, but for some reason I hadn’t tried it. It worked like a charm…and my kids are already talking about it for next year.

Here’s the deal. I let them each pick out 20 of their favorite candies and pour the rest into a big bag. They got to pick out one more to eat that night. (Yes, they are totally satisfied with that one…didn’t even bat an eye or scream for more). The 20 favorites go in a ziplock with their name on it for after school treats over the next few weeks. The big bag of others are for the Switch Witch. I told them that after they were in bed and all the trick or treaters were done, we would put the bag on the porch. The Switch Witch comes and night and collects the candy and leaves them a present. My boys said “just like the Tooth Fairy and Santa Claus”…exactly!

In reality Daddy took the bag to work so that Mommy and Daddy didn’t eat it while sitting on the couch at night. And so the kids can’t beg and beg for weeks and weeks for just one more piece of candy!

Of course, I had planned ahead and purchased $10 items that I knew they would love. J-boy (aka Harry Potter) got a Harry Potter Lego, T-man (aka Red Power Ranger) got a jumbo set of skinny markers and S-bam (aka Woody) got a Toy Story 3 Lego set. Nothing over $10. Now, I’m aware this just cost me more money…but it’s saving me on the sugar high and crappy feelings after inhaling it all.

I took their trick or treat bags and put the gifts in there and then hung them from the banister. When they woke up this morning and came downstairs, the big bag of candy was gone (in Dad’s car) and the gifts were there. They were over the top excited.

Totally doing that again next year!!

Kristen

and another…I’m on a roll…

Yep…the second of the sketches I posted last week.

Again, Jillibean…this time Atomic Soup line…

I’m loving the sticker sheets that coordinate with the lines!

The ‘9’ is a foam Thicker inked with yellow ink…fun!

You can also see this layout in person at the store.

Two layouts in a week? Look out…I’ve got three more in the hopper.

And I have more Jillibean, some Teresa Collins and American Crafts to play with.

Kristen

a layout…shocked?

Yep, I actually have a layout to share…

Remember the ‘sketches’ I posted last week? Well here is the first one live and in the flesh, so to speak.

All supplies are the fabulous Monster Stew collection from Jillibean Soup. Yummmmm

You can see it live and in person at the store.

Having issues with my camera (grrrrr) so excuse the blurriness. The numbers are American Crafts Thickers and the mini letters are American Crafts Remarks.

Aren’t these little guys adorable? I hand cut them out of patterned paper from the line. Love.

How about you…do you have your first day of school pictures scrapped yet?

Kristen

12 things about t-man

Remember way back when I promised a 12 on the 12th about my middle guy? Yah, I didn’t think so. Here it is anyway…not that you were waiting for it, but I wanted to get it done so I can document him at 6.

So…here are 12 things about my T-man at age 6…

1. He loves to read. And wow, what an amazing job he has done this year. He’s one of those kids that just soaks it all in and learns so much. Plus he had an amazing teacher this year. We LOVE Mrs. Rainey!

taken in February, 2010

2. He loves to write too. He spends most afternoons writing in his journal or writing notes to his friends or making lists or writing the names of his favorite songs. He goes through a lot of paper!

July, 2010

3. He loves music. More time in the afternoons are spent playing his favorite songs on his iPod. No, he doesn’t have his own iPod…but he kind of adopted my old one and since I don’t use it anymore and he’s the kid that loves music, it has become ‘his’. Along with his love of music…he loves to dance. Breakaway (our church’s VBS on steroids this summer) was so up his alley…twice a day singing and dancing…woot woot!

  June, 2010

4. He is a fan of unhealthy food. Ugh. This kid’s favorite things are fish sticks and corn dogs. No matter how often we force him to eat other things, these are always on the top of his wish list. Sheesh. Meal time is a constant battle with him…I’m so tired of it. But as a mom I have to stick to my guns, right? At some point he’ll get the healthy food picture if we stick to it, right?

5. He is super dramatic. Oh gosh, this kid can through a crying snit fit like no others business. He’s stubborn too (see #4). Luckily we’re usually more stubborn. But man, he loves to be dramatic. My mother in law was here a few weeks ago and it made me giggle when he was having a fit…she looked at him very seriously and said, T do you want to be an actor when you grow up? He stopped crying and looked at her and asked why? LOL

June, 2010…J-boy can’t seem to smile these days…it ends up pained, like this!

6. He loves his brothers. He spends hours each day setting up train track with S-Bam and making up elaborate adventures with favorite movie characters with J-boy. They are so fun together…they are each other’s best friends…and occasionally enemies. Mostly friends though. It warms my heart that they hug and say I love you each time one of them goes off without the others.

7.  He loves art. It’s another way he spends his afternoons. Loves to create. And yet another reason why Breakaway is his favorite week of the summer…20 minutes of the best art stations ever!

June, 2010

8. He likes to be in charge. He really hates his middle child status. He wants to be #1 at everything. He wants to tell everyone what the rules are and how they should be followed. This will be a good thing later in life, I’m sure. Right now it’s annoying to the other boys most of the time.

Kindergarten Open House, May, 2010

9. He is so darn excited about first grade next year…he was in a K-1 multi-age classroom last year and will loop with that same teacher next year (YAY!). He loved it and will love being the big man in the class next year. He cannot wait to go to school all day like J-boy!

10. He LOVES to swing. Since Daddy, Grandpa and Uncle J put up our play structure over spring break he goes out at all hours of the day and evening and just swings to his hearts content. Who can blame him, I love to swing too…it’s therapeutic!

Ferry across the Bay, San Francisco, June 2010

11. He loves adventures to new places. He could not stop talking about a recent trip to San Fran he took with grandma. She likes to cram a lot of stuff into a two day trip so I think they experienced everything a little boy could and he loved it all.

He looks terrified, but I actually caught him mid-breath, June, 2010

12.  He is a water boy. All my boys are. He loves sprinkler parks, playing with the hose, splashing in the pool…and now swimming. This was really the year that swim lessons took a hold of him and he is well on his way to swimming completely by himself. I took the boys to the pool the other day and he spent the whole 1 1/2 hours practicing what he had learned the previous week. So fun!

So there you have it…our T-man at age 6!

My next 12 on the 12th will be all about the S-Bam who turns 3 1/2 later this month. Say what? My baby isn’t my baby anymore!

Kristen

it’s monday…

I do now know where the time goes. Seriously…it’s another Monday…and June is more than half way over…hello?

Today is an exciting day in our house. Our church does this amazing summer program….think VBS on serious steroids…called Breakaway. They had one session last week and two this week. Two of my boys and I headed out early this morning to participate and my oldest goes this evening.

I’m so tired I can barely type this. The boys on the other hand have the soundtrack (yes, the camp has their own soundtrack, I’m telling you…) blaring in the living room and are dancing around to all the songs.

So if you don’t hear from me much this week…that’s why. :)

Kristen

three boys and a ferris wheel

I had mentioned in my Disney re-cap that I had pictures of all three boys in the ferris wheel at California Adventure. Well, it got me thinking that I should look them up:

This is Jake at 1o months in 2002. California Adventure had just opened the year before and it was actually our first visit…and Jake’s first visit to any Disney park. Weird since my mom worked there back then too…I guess with a new baby we weren’t really anxious to do the whole Disney thing yet. This was actually a film camera and I guess I scanned this one photo from the trip. Weird that it happened to be that one photo!

This is Tyler’s first visit in July of 2005. He was 13 months. I certainly look like I’ve had a long day at the park, huh? I think this night was the one we saw the fireworks from the top of the ferris wheel…so cool.

And then, of course, Sam. He is 3 years old in this picture just last month. He’s been to the parks at least 3 times in his young life (I’d have to look and check), but this was the first time we got him on that ferris wheel.

The funniest thing about these pictures is that, except for Jake riding with us when Tyler did in ‘05, these were all the first and last rides for each of them. At least for now. That thing is huge…have you seen it?

Looks like I have a layout coming on…

Kristen

brothers

We interrrupt this kit club news to bring you...A single pager! Shocking!

We’re in the midst of some rearranging in my scrap space/office/craft room…and now it’s becoming a workout room. Yep. Not only do I get to make a mess of it and Tyler gets to make a mess of it (he’s my art guy) but now hubby gets to make a mess of it too!

It’s a good thing. My hubby won a big contest at work and brought home the latest and greatest Precor treadmill. I am so proud of him and so happy to have an alternative to the gym during rainy weather or long days. It fits right in with my goal of the 5K in April (I’m on week 5 of training…feeling good!) I’m only slightly bummed that it takes up half of ‘my’ room.

Another plus is that I get to have the cable officially connected in the room. Hubby has to have it to run on the treadmill, or course. Now I’ll have it to scrap to as well. Yay!

So while I was rearranging, cleaning and purging (didn’t I just do this when we moved this stuff downstairs?) I came across a stack of layouts I had started but hadn’t completed for whatever reason. This brothers page is one of them.

I honestly am not even sure when I started it. It must have been when this line of My Mind’s Eye papers came out. And I know it was at least a year ago. Sigh.

I’m not that in love with the design of it. But now it’s done and the story of my oldest cutting big chunks out of his and his brother’s hair is told. That’s what scrapbooking is about for me. Sure, I spend time making sure some things are perfect…especially if they are for design team stuff…but mostly I’m concerned with getting the stories that go with my pictures told. So I don’t sweat it when I’m not 100% satisfied. That’s part of the process.

Here’s a fun trick. I only used 2 sheets of paper and one 2 piece tag on this layout! I figured out how I wanted the shield piece to lay on the solid piece and then trimmed out a bit from the solid piece. I used that extra scrap to punch circles and also to run through my printer for the journaling. Cost saver! {Just a note…make sure you pay attention before putting the adhesive on the top layer…obviously I thought the opening in the background was smaller than it actually was! LOL!}

The two piece tag is part of the line as well…the title piece punched out from the frame. Look out…two embellishments!

How do you save money in your scrapbooking?

I'll be back tomorrow with more kit club goodness...
Kristen

Three boys and a Santa...

(3 Boys and a Santa layout: American Crafts Thickers, Making Memories Mini Alphas--numbers--

and Christmas stickers by Creative Imaginations a few years back)

Yesterday, I shared with you 2 of my three Christmas albums. Well, here is the third...

The Santa Photo Album

I used to do an individual Santa layout for each year and put in in my Christmas album (the layout above was just for fun for the store last year).  A few years back I decided I wanted to have them all in one album. So I picked up another Making Memories leather 9x9 album (looks like they don't make that size in red anymore) and got to work. Again, just like my Ornament album, I wanted it to be quick and simple.

So I created a simple layout which included a shipping tag printed with the year, a background of Basic Grey papers and a 5x7 print of that year's photo. This is my first born at just 4 months!

I continued the layout throughout the album. Now...what to do when your 2 year old won't sit on Santa's lap AT ALL (the previous year mommy sat on Santa's lap and Jake sat on mine...a bit creepy in retrospect)? Since this was the year that Jake wouldn't even stand in line for Santa, much less get near him...I just documented it on the tag and grabbed a shot from Christmas morning.

And the next year...when Jake wouldn't get near Santa AGAIN? I just went with it and had 6 month old Tyler take a picture by himself. *Sigh* I knew if I was patient, Jake would eventually sit on Santa's lap again, right?

And he did...and he's the most happy about it now!

I love putting this book out on my coffee table during Christmas. The boys love to check out each year's photo.

And this years? Well, it's not their best. But I'm not that mom that insists on taking 500 photos, holding up the line hoping for the perfect one. Take a few, choose the best and move on. The kids are more interested in telling Santa their wishes anyway.

I like to buy the digital package at our mall. This year the package came with the photo on a thumb drive and then a $20 coupon for Shutterfly. Score! That reminds me, I need to place an order soon...it expires at the end of January.

I like to get the digital one so I can send it out to the grandparents without paying an arm and a leg for the Santa folks to print it. Plus, I can (say it with me) play in Photoshop. Am I the only one that detests the weird borders they put on it? Ugh.

So while it's not the best picture of the boys together...it's their Santa photo for 2009...and it's going in the album this week.

See, make it easy, and it gets done quickly. By mid-January I have all my Christmas layouts complete and in their albums. I wish I could say that about the rest of my year!

flippin' out...

So we've established that I'm a sketch girl, right? Whether it's Becky's sketches, fun finds on the internet, sketches drawn from favorite layouts or from my own head...I like to use sketches to organize the beginnings of my layouts.

The fun part is...when you find a sketch you like, you can use it over and over! I don't always scrap chronologically so as long as the layouts won't be back to back in my book, I'm fine with re-purposing a sketch. And the best part is...you can make it look different by just flipping a few elements!

For example:

Happy Birthday Sam layout from my January kit layouts. This sketch I came up with out of my head. Who knows, I may have lifted it from something I had seen somewhere along the way...but one day it came to me and I drew it in my notebook and saved it for the perfect layout. One that needed room for lots of pictures or lots of journaling...or a little of both.

For this one, I rounded the corners of all the rectangles and sanded the edges of both the papers and pictures for a fun distressed look. Only one of the rectangles became a journaling block and two others were patterned paper accents. Butting the pictures and papers up to the edges of the layout game me a bit more room. All the small rectangles are 2" x 3" with a smidge trimmed off for wiggle room. The squares are 3x3 and the big photo is straight from the printer at 4x6

I loved this sketch so much that I decided to do a layout in each of the boys' books. Tyler's is still at Green Tangerines and I forgot to photograph it before I turned it in (silly me) so I'll post that another time. But here is Jake's. It's a review of him at 6 (hence the title 'at 6')...so I needed more space for journaling. Just take a few of the rectangles and replace the photos with your journaling.

Did you notice I just flipped the sketch a bit and combined some of the squares into 3x6 photos?

This used an American Crafts line from a bit ago. I loved the colors and the fun letter patterned paper as well as the quote patterned paper! AC paper is fun to distress by sanding the edges too!

I'd love to see what you come up with using the sketch...link your layout in the comments and I'll come check it out! :)

Kristen