We Interrupt Our Regulary Scheduled Program for a Studio J Update

This just in: My Studio J order arrived last night! Here is what was waiting for me on my couch when I got home from dance class.

Now, I know I said yesterday that I would share some more of my Miracle kit creations, but that is just going to have to wait and you are going to have to be patient. This Studio J scrapbooking is just way too fun!!!

I didn't print a single one of these pictures. Studio J did it for me! I didn't cut a single piece of paper or ribbon. No brads or buttons were harmed in the making of these layouts. (Best of all, I still have "real" paper, ribbon, and embellishments in my stash to play with.)

The Sweet Pea kit is retired but available exclusively in Studio J.

Ditto for this Halloween paper, and I was able to order two copies of this layout, one for each girl. I could have created the first one, copied it, and then changed it a bit to personalize it if I had wanted to.

I have one more Studio J layout to share sometime soon, but since it is a gift it will have to wait. Patience, remember?

{2010 layouts 15-19}

A Miracle Awaits You: National Scrapbooking Month

Here is a sneak peek at the exclusive Miracle kit available from Close To My Heart for National Scrapbooking Month (a.k.a. May in some circles). At right is one of the layouts you can create, and below are pictures I took of my entire kit before I dove into it. (Read on to find out what's included and how to get your very own, beginning 4/15.)



If you're not a scrapper, you can use the pieces to create whatever your heart desires! I'll be sharing my artwork tomorrow.


One great feature of this kit is that it includes the colors Crystal Blue, Sweet Leaf, and Olive, but it encourages you to accent your layouts with additional colors of ink.


Kit contents:
5 Colonial White cardstock
1 Bamboo cardstock
1 Floral B&T Duos
1 Stripe B&T Duos
1 Crystal Blue B&T Duos die cut
1 Sweet Leaf B&T Duos die cut


6"x9" My Stickease assortment
6"x9" Irresistible Chipboard die cuts

1 Mini-Medley Colonal White collection

12" Colonial White waxy flax
3 Flip Flaps (4"x6")

2 sponge wedges
1 instruction brochure

You can purchase this kit outright for $19.95 (4/15-5/31/10 or while supplies last), place a minimum $40 order and purchase the kit for $10, or place a minimum $60 order and purchase the kit for only $5.* How fun is that? I had a blast playing with my kit at my Spring Break crop Wednesday, so come back tomorrow to see what all I made. (OK, how "country" does that sound? LOL)

*Tax and shipping/handling apply; minimum qualifying order does not include shipping/handling and tax; minimum purchases not applicable to Studio J orders

Studio J Update

You may remember my post about Studio J scrapbooking. Well, I created 7 layouts last month that I can't wait to share with you! I am not-so-patiently waiting for them to arrive! (CTMH was offering a great incentive for consultants to use Studio J and order their layouts.)

My first layout used pictures from last year's Fourth of July festivities. You can read more about it HERE. Now you can see the layout I created with those pictures. The really cool thing is that I didn't order or print the pictures; they will be printed directly onto my Studio J layout.

I will be sharing more about Studio J in preparation for its launch to customers this Spring.

Also, I found out yesterday that I was not selected to teach at the CTMH Convention this summer. :( Sure I'm disappointed, but I knew that I would regret not even trying! Now I will go and enjoy without any stress! It is going to be soooo much fun!!!

{2010 layout #5}

Easter '09 Layout

My brother is such a great uncle, and these photos from Easter last year really show how good he is with kids. It's too bad he doesn't have any of his own, although he may disagree with that statement. LOL


This layout celebrates his relationship with his nieces and nephews. I used the Imagine "Understudy" sketch that is suggested in the Topstitch Workshop on the Go Kit. I accented this layout with the February '09 stamp of the month, Easter Eggs (no longer available). Just Blooms, brads, and buttons completed the embellishments. This layout will go in our "People We Love" album rather than the "Things We Do," because I am trying to focus on their relationship instead of the Easter egg hunt.


All supplies from Close To My Heart: Topstitch paper pack; Easter Egg (no longer available), Chocolate Large, Friendship Alphabet (no longer available), and Love Is In the Air stamp sets; Heavenly Blue and Chocolate inks; Chocolate marker; Spring Harmony Brads; Spring Craft Buttons; Just Blooms paper flowers

{2010 layout #14}

Blog Candy from Jessica

Woohoo! I won Jessica Booth's blog candy, a calendar she decorated with the April stamp of the month. Thank you, Jessica!

Easter Highlights

Here are a few highlights from our Easter celebration. It was a blessed day indeed!

Loot after the Easter egg hunt

(Ansley is getting used to her new Transitions lenses.)

The Grands

Uncle Brian (who along with Uncle Reid and Daddy hid all the Easter eggs for the hunt in the garden)

family friends Dan & Joan, who my parents have known since B.C. (before children), so that's a REALLY long time!

Macey had to take her shoes off outside because they were slowing her down during the hunt. She has totally ruined those brand new tights!




Grammie

Our priest Jim+ and Grumps

Happy Easter!

The girls were thrilled to find that the Easter Bunny visited them! Here they are holding up their favorites from their loot. They can't wait for the Easter egg hunt after church today!

We are all looking forward to the Easter church service, egg hunt, and Easter feast (all at our church). Happy Easter to you and yours! How will you be celebrating Easter today?

Jesus Christ is risen today, alleluia!

Quote of the Week: Easter

"Easter spells out beauty, the rare beauty of new life."

~S.D. Gordon

We are enjoying a glorious spring day! Mom and I went shopping this morning to two different open houses, and I found a birthday present and a Christmas present! How's that for shopping early? The Christmas gift is absolutely perfect for the recipient (and no, I'm not spilling the beans).

We had lunch with Logan's family today at the Resort for their yummy soup, salad, pasta, and dessert bar to celebrate his Mom's birthday and mine. (I hope to add pictures later.) It was such a nice time together!

The Easter eggs are now dyed, laundry is going, and I will be ironing our Easter frocks soon. Life is good!

CTMH April Stamp of the Month Blog Hop

If the calendar says April then it really must be spring! Close To My Heart has a sweet spring stamp of the month set for April, called Flower Pot. It reminds me of the window boxes I saw in Europe (hence the inspiration for my card), and I will definitely be using it on some scrapbook pages.

It's also time for another CTMH Stamp of the Month Blog Hop. If you're coming from The Brae-er's amazing blog or just starting to hop, enjoy the creations with this stamp set along the way. If you'd like to read the details about my card, then stay a while; otherwise hop on over to to Alison's blog (after leaving a comment, of course!).

My card began with the Caboodle paper pack and a Colonial White standard side-fold card base. I used the faux wood grain technique on the Crystal Blue square, then drew in the "boards" with a Grey Wool marker. Does the Sweet Leaf bottom portion look like siding or wainscoting? I hope so! I used my scoring blade to score stripes on the card stock.

This card also involved a ton of paper piecing. I stamped the window stamp (which includes the shutters and the window box) in Chocolate ink three times: once on the card, once on Sweet Leaf card stock for the shutters, and once again on Chocolate textured card stock for the window box. I used my craft knife to cut out the window on the card front and scissor cut the rest. For the shutters, I cut out part of the inside of the window and then folded that piece back to give the shutters a bit of dimension. (They are colored just a bit with Sweet Leaf and Chocolate markers.) After cutting out the window box, I colored the top section to give it more dimension too. Assembly was easy: glue on the shutters and attach the window box (after gluing on the flowers) with a 3-D foam square for extra dimension.

To create the flowers, I stamped them in Chocolate on Buttercup card stock. Next I colored the centers of the flowers with a Sorbet marker and the leaves with my Sweet Leaf marker. Can you see how I drew a line down the center of the leaves for extra dimension? A Sorbet brad also added a bit of depth.

The hardest part was creating the curtains. Before assembling the card, I sort of fan-folded or pleated the Sorbet B&T, then glued them on at an agle behind the window opening. They are absolutely my favorite part of the card! Before I adhered the entire window box/Crystal Blue square to my card front, I glued on another square of B&T from the Caboodle collection to look like wallpaper in the room.

Hubby thinks this card needs a cat looking out the window, which would be precious except that I don't have a stamp that's the right size. He didn't agree that I needed a new stamp set either!

If you've read this far, thanks a bunch! Now hop on over to to Alison's blog for more Flower Pot fun.

Birthday Fun

Today is my birthday, and I must be getting pretty old if my Mom is referring to me as "plenty-eight!" Today was nice, and it was capped off with a lovely dinner at my parents' house with my entire family and dear family friend "Aunt" Joy.

Here's what Mom put on her blog about our dinner plans:
We'll start off with wine (for the tall folks) and appetizers of Brie/crackers and spinach-artichoke dip. The main entree is pork tenderloin, served with salad, Easy Cheesy Scalloped Potatoes, Green Beans with Mushrooms and Cheese, and of course, French bread. I know that's a lot of cheese. So fire the cook. We'll be heart healthy tomorrow!

It was all delicious! Green beans are my favorite veggie anyway, and these were DIVINE.

More about the presents later... The plenty-eight birthday girl is tired!

4-H DPA Success!

Ansley and three of her close friends (two pictured here) all took FIRST PLACE in their categories at the regional 4-H Cloverleaf DPA (4th-6th grade District Project Achievement) competition. Her speech was on the Havana Brown cat breed, and she did a fantastic job! (This is not just a proud momma speaking; my fifth graders have participated in CPA for as long as I've been teaching here- I think 11 years?- so I have sat through many a speech!)

I am so proud of every single kid who participated in DPA, whether they placed or not. Researching a topic, writing a speech, creating some posters, and then getting up presenting their topic in front of an audience takes a lot of courage and determination. Also, our county had 81 participants. Go, Union County!!!


Here's part of our group for their "crazy" photo op after the more serious group shot.

A few more of the participants...

We won't mention any of the secret crushes going on in 6th grade right now!

After church today, I think we are going to come home and relax a bit (in between loads of laundry and other chores). I am excited to get to see my parents again since they have come back home from their winter "retreat" to warmer weather. :)

TGIF and an Altered Journal

After a VERY stressful weekend at work, it is so nice to relax and unwind this evening! I am scrapbooking a bit tonight. Yes!

I wish I could go into detail about some of the things that have made this week so stressful, but most school/classroom "business" is confidential. One really sad thing that happened that I can share is that one of the students that we have worked so hard with has moved to Florida to live with his grandparents. While I think that he will really benefit from this move, I am so sad to see him go. We have worked so hard with him (and against him sometimes), and we won't get to reap what we've sowed (BTW, by "we" I mean my co-teacher and me). The Lord does indeed work in mysterious ways, though, because his move opened up a valuable opportunity for another student. I can only pray that it is all for the best!

Another great thing about this week was going to dinner last night with my fifth grade co-workers to celebrate our outstanding teacher of the year. Mrs. Hughes, you deserve this honor! We had her reception months ago but were finally able to get our team together for a good time. I haven't laughed so much in a long, long time!!! Dinner was great! To top it off, we presented her with a journal in which we had all written a special message. (I was honored to be asked to "jazz it up" a bit before giving it to her.)

Here's to good friends and the little blessings in life!

P.S. Please send good thoughts our way Saturday morning as Ansley presents her 4-H DPA (District Project Achievement) presentation!