Back In Town

Whew! It's been a busy two weeks - out of town the past two weekends with limited or no time to do anything online. The next two days I'll be working on my layout for the Creative Scrapbooking Divas challenge I posted as well as some other projects for them. Thanks for all the wonderful comments from this weekend. I'll be replying to you all today and drawing a name for my RAK! Hope you had a great weekend, National Scrapbooking Day & Mother's Day!
Happy Crafting~
Stephanie

Welcome Creative Scrapbooking Divas!

Welcome to my little blog home Divas! Hope you're having a great weekend and getting to do some scrapbooking on this National Scrapbooking Day weekend! I'm working on projects for my online scrapping home, The Creative Scrapbooking Divas. At CS Divas we encourage members to create, try different things, challenge themselves and enjoy the process! We don't sell anything, so there's none of that added pressure, but we do offer monthly challenges, often times with RAKs offered (random acts of kindness - goodies!) a sponsored Grand Prize, great camaraderie, and we like to spotlight our members and their fabulous creations. Most of all we want our members to have fun!!!

We have eight Design Team Members (a.k.a. Tour Guides) to give you a taste of what is offered at the Diva Mansion. If you are just joining us now, you can go to Ann's blog to start at the beginning.
Our Tour List:

Ann - Gadgets/All Mixed Up - Ann's Scraps of Time

Yolie - Traditional Scrapbooking - JustYolie, JustCreate

Sandy - Cards/Cricut - ScrapBook Blessings

Vanessa - Faithbooking - Creating Sensations

Alecia - Cookbooking - Welcome to Alecia's

Stephanie - Fun Techniques/Products - The Magic of Ordinary Days

Pam - Mini Album/Book of Me - Dreamer's Klub

Luisa - Creative Designs by Luisa

Please visit each diva's blog and of course, the Creative Scrapbooking Divas home page! Show some love and leave a comment! Some Design Team members are offering RAKs and get entered to win the Grand Prize at CS Divas by:
1. becoming a new member, completing your profile, upload your picture & post your introduction OR
2. Current members post a NEW project to any of the groups by midnight May 7th.

In both cases please post a comment and/or upload a project here: Divas Mansion Tour Blog Hop so we can keep track of players who earn a ticket for a Grand Prize!

I am currently working with the Divas as a Design Team Member in the Fun Techniques/Products group. This group focuses on how to use different techniques and trends in paper crafts to really make your pages and cards pop! Everything goes in this group - glimmer mists, stamping, sewing, distressing, inking, and more! On Mondays I try to feature one "design house" (scrapbooking company) to introduce you to lines of products you may not know about. The rest of the week is dedicated to tutorials, tips and discussion. My first challenge was devoted to the beautiful flowers of spring, entitled "In Bloom" and focused on pages & cards with handmade paper flowers. Here's a look at how some of them turned out:

My Entry:

Terri's Entry:

This month's challenge is inspired by the royal wedding and is called the "Something old, new, borrowed, and blue" challenge. On your next layout, use...something OLD from your stash. Use a NEW technique you've never tried before. BORROW a layout (scraplift) from a friend or use a sketch from a website, and finally, use the color BLUE somewhere in your project.

Here on my personal blog you'll find more of my own creations, stories of my family and my journey as a Stay at Home Mom. I hope you'll come back and visit me again! Today I'm offering an RAK at random from all the comments left throughout the weekend. Drawing will be done on Monday so come back to see who won!

Thanks for stopping by - let's head to Pam's blog next!

Happy Crafting!

Stephanie

Long Time Coming

Seems like it's been forever since I had a chance to blog! Two birthdays have passed, Easter, and a trip to my parents in Austin means I've been a busy bee! This weekend I got a chance to do some scrapbooking with my friends at Creative Scrapbooking Divas' online crop. (http://divascreativas.ning.com/) If you haven't been to their site, go check it out! Here's what I made from one of their challenges. A sketch from the site Sassy Lil Sketches (http://sassylilsketches.blogspot.com/) gave me an opportunity to scrap some of my favorite pics of my son from last year! Here's the sketch, and how I interpreted it.

I used new western papers by Adorn It, blue plaid strip by Hobby Lobby, silver charms from HL as well, tags are really old from K&Co. Loved this sketch & had a lot of fun using it! Thanks for looking!

Someday Fridays

I love being a part of my church's MOPS group. Mothers Of PreschoolerS. This is my season of life and it's where I go to make friends, get some time to myself and some adult conversation. Some meetings are craft meetings, some are speaker meetings. At one of the latest meetings, I ran across an idea that one of my friends got from another mom's blogs. It's called "Someday Fridays" and the idea is that whenever your kids want to do something that you don't have the time or money to do, you write down the activity (go to a friend's house, play at the park, etc.) on a piece of paper and put it in a jar - your "Someday Jar". Well of course I had to go out and make my own someday jar!

Here is what I came up with: I bought a clear plastic paint can from Michaels. I loved this glazed strawberry paper from one of K&Co's newest paper pads at Michaels, cut a strip of white cardstock into a scalloped banner and finished it off with Hobby Lobby's red gingham. I put together a collage of assorted vintage images for each of my kids; one side for Cade and one for Macy and covered the handles with loads of colorful ribbon. They love it and so do I!

The plan is that every Friday we'll set aside time to pull one activity out of the jar and do it. Should be fun!

I hope this will help me stay accountable to getting more active with my kids, and help us make some really fun memories that they'll carry over into their own lives as parents!

Birthday Girl

Three years ago God proved to me once again that He knows best what we need. He blessed my husband and I with a daughter, Macy. I had wanted another boy, that's just how much I loved my son. I'll admit to being a little disappointed in that sonogram room when they told me it was a girl. Even though I was happy to have a healthy baby, I was unsure if I could love a daughter the way I loved my son. Not to mention the curious nature of wondering if you could love your second child as much as you love your first. All this to say, it didn't take long for me to fall hopelessly in love with my little girl, and I couldn't imagine my world without her. Thank you Lord for entrusting your child to me. Macy at 3:

Sweet & Sassy

Loves french fries

Looks like her Daddy

Proactive and Type A

Pink and girly

Takes her blankets everywhere

Sucks her thumb (not for much longer I hope!)

Loves books and her pajamas
Coming out of her shell

Happy Birthday Sweet Macy! Love you so much!!!

Worldless Wednesday

Just a few words today:

Glamorous

Iconic

Beautiful

Classic

Scandalous

Tortured

Alone

R.I.P. Elizabeth Taylor. Another Hollywood Icon lost to a generation. May you finally find the love and peace you chased after so much here on Earth.

Tutorial Tuesday: Easy-Peasy Pinwheels

Here's an easy activity you can do with the kids - and it's perfect for the upcoming Easter holiday! The image of pinwheels spinning happily in the wind just speaks to me of my childhood - carefree and fun. I'm making a bunch with my own kids, and then I'll let them stick them in the yard. These would also make really fun party favors or dress up the table with a bit of whimsy for your next party! Let's get started!

Supplies:

1 - 12x12 Double Sided patterned paper -

paper trimmer

ruler

scissors

hole setter

coordinating brad

glue gun

bamboo skewer

First trim your patterned paper down to 6x6 size. You could get bigger or smaller, depending on how big you want them to be, as long as you trim it to an exact square.

Next - draw a large "x" on the back side from corner to corner.

Cut on each line almost up to the center point. Leave approximately 1/2" in the center from cut to center point. (the first time I tried to make a pinwheel, I cut to close to the point and it tore when I had it folded and was trying to set the brad.)

Using your hole setter, punch a small hole in every other corner. Don't use a regular hole punch from the office supplies. Your hole will be too big.

Now pick one corner that has a hole in it and fold it to the center. Take every other corner and fold all four corners in to the center so the holes all line up together.

Push your brad through the holes and fasten. If you want to dress your brad up a little, add a button or sticker.

Take your bamboo skewer and drop a touch of hot glue on the end. Slide it into the center of the pinwheel and press to dry.

All done! Enjoy your cute creation!