Two Beauties

I have to admit. Tracey and I did a pretty darn good job at mixing our DNA on our oldest offspring—Maddi. Not to be confused with Maddison. Because—well—apparently that name is lame.

She looks nothing like our family. However, I know she is ours and wasn't a hospital baby mix up, because she looks JUST like her Grandma Dahl did at the same age. Gorgeous.

Maddi has been our experiment. I suppose most oldest children are. You get your parenting feet wet on a little bundle of blubber that you have NO clue in the world what you are doing with.

Yeah we messed up.

Yeah we did the best we could.

We never, ever stopped loving her, even when she dropped the "son".

But try as we might, a parent can't always be the person that their child needs.

And that is where we are lucky.

In walk Kyrie. A fellow band geek, of almost the same age exactly. Another beautiful young lady that shares a fair share of the amount of quirks that dear Maddi has.

Kyrie is also an oldest child. A parental experiment as well I suppose.

Thanks to the heavens above these two found each other. Through their love of music and marching band these two found that their souls are shared and they truly get each other. The anxiety. The insecurities. The crushes.

I owe a ton to miss Kyrie. There are times where I just get fed up with trying to soothe and console as my mind doesn't "get" the anxiety that Maddi has been dealt with in this life. That's where Kyrie is the comforter that I try so hard to be but just cant be sometimes.

I love her for that. Kind of like an extension of my own children.

To create this layout I used the June 1st sketch at Sketch N Scrap, (where I happen to be the current featured designer ::blush:: ).

 

Here's how mine morphed:

I absolutely LOVE creating. I love that I can take my photos (my other passion) and turn them into history. 

And now when Maddi has grandchildren, they can see what a babe she was at their age.

And now I should give Mr. Lee a huge thank you for a donation to the DNA mix—in a satisfactory manner.

Mid Week Mojo Peridot 5

You know what? I feel like I need to walk around with a little star stuck on my forehead.

Not only is it the 4th official day of summer vacation—no one has found themselves put up for sale yet.

We are doin' good.

Wanna know what else I'm doing good at?

Keeping up with the ScrapbookSteals.Com Mid Week Mojo's. It's pretty impressive as I never did 5 consecutive weeks when I was the Mojo Mama.

Like I said.  Star on the forehead please.

I had such a great time with Melodee's Peridot #5 sketch this week. Of course I had to twist it and tweak it to make it my own, but I adore what came out of it.

This layout just so happens to be about two pretty special ladies in my life. Actually I think they're kinda strange if you want to know the truth. I mean they're clarinet players. Nuff' said. You should see when Sarah busts out the 90 year old smoker woman voice. You pretty much would never see her in the same light again.

Her friend Sydney? Well she's equally as awesome. She's always been there for my girl. She's never hurt her feelings or done stupid girl drama crap. She and Sarah are Simply Stupendous. The Super S's. Yeah. That's what they are.

It's true. I believe these girls will be BFF's forever. They're kind of lucky that they have that amazing bond. 

Now as much as I'd like to get blogging my other weekend creation, I have GOT. TO. GET. MY. CHA. CLASS. DONE!

Oh and there's the poor neglected flowers that I bought last week, that reeeeally need to get into some dirt.  I think I'll do that first! Shhhh. 

My Turn at Kiwi Lane Designs

Did I ever mention how much I love my job at Kiwi Lane Designs? Not only do I get to work with wonderful women who are just good, good people, but I get to manage a team of incredibly talented ladies that are also just good, good people.

Add the fact that I get to work from home in my jammies aaaaand get paid to create a couple of times a month, well, I'm guessing you're just pretty jealous of me. ;)

Today is my turn on the Kiwi Lane blog, to create this weeks DT Doodles sketch. (Play along! Each week there is a chance to win a $25.00 gift code to the Kiwi Lane shop!

Here's the sketch I created:

Here's my take on it:

Of course the fact that we are highlighting My Mind's Eye this month just makes me giddy beyond belief. I love how well their papers work with the layering process of Kiwi Lane Designs. And. Well. They're kind of one of my faves.  

Know what else is one of my faves? My daughter Maddi. She's kind of awesome. And I'm not just saying that.

I think I was equally as thrilled that she was asked to Prom by her buddy Jared, aka Moses, as she was. For literally years she's been begging me for a "Princess Dress".  I'd get random texts from her at school or even during church (tsk, tsk),  stating nothing more than "I want to be a princess". Or, "Can I get a princess dress". 

When she was asked to Prom, her dad and I decided to make it happen.

We shopped and shopped and looked and looked for a dress that would fit into our budget. Here's the clencher. My amazing daughter, who is modest through and through required that it have sleeves.

How great is that? Great except they are NOT EASY TO FIND!

Usually it's the momma telling their child "ummmm....perhaps you should cover up a little more?" "You don't want to torture those poor young men do you?" "GIRL! Get those 'girls' covered!"  (Oh wait. Our DNA pool barely produces "girls", but still....)

I couldn't have been more proud of her.

We decided to go all out and hired a good friend that Tracey uses as the makeup artist for all of their work shoots, MaryAnn aka "Muchacha Mary".  This. Woman. Is. Amazing. 

Not only is she so incredibly talented with what she does, she is yet another good, good person. 

Grab some tissues and read her most recent blog posting about her IVF - 6 vs Mary 0. And while you're at it say a prayer for her as even though she's an incredibly beautiful and STRONG person, her heart has got to be aching that once again, her time to hold her own baby has been delayed. 

Well. There ya have it! My princess, transformed by another princess.

So glad I have this girl and so glad we could make her dream come true. Worth. Every. Penny.

Stop by a little later today for my creations that I made yesterday. I kinda love em. 

Throwing My Hat in the Ring

So if you saw my last posting it was filled with my creative binges from last weekend.

As a result of surfing around the interwebs I came across the sketch site Sketch ~ N ~ Scrap.

I had no idea that they have a monthly guest designer until one of the team commented on my post that I should apply and sent me the link.

Guess what.

I'm applying.

**ETA: No I'm not applying. I missed the deadline even though I had the page done a few days ago.  LOL!!!  That's okay. CHA+July=Busy anyway. Maybe next month.**


I haven't actually been a part of a design team for many, many, many years.  Yeah, for the newbies in the scrappy world we're talking in major retro times that I was on a team. Does Rob & Bob Studio ring a bell? 

However, I've managed a fair share of them since and have coordinated and hosted countless blog hops. I love it. I love meeting new crafty peeps, and sharing with everyone my passion to create and my passion to journal.

I realize that journaling is a major "no-no" for the trendy white space look right now, but—well—ya know me. That just doesn't fly for my personal motto.

Here's the sketch. (Notice no journaling, which is totally cool. Just makes it that much more fun to tweak!)

Thankfully for my entry, and I'm sure all of you that really don't want to read about my life, the journaling on this page is limited. :) Did I make a good balance?  LOL!

 

Truth is if I would have had more room, I'd have gone on and on about Mr. Macho Lee who "entertained" himself for the last two miles of the 1/2 marathon by sprinting ahead of me and doing pushups until I would catch up to him.  Seriously?  Who does crap like that.

Oh yeah.

My sexy husband.

Well, even if the stars don't shine on me to be a guest designer for a month (which I wouldn't blame them for not picking me one bit—with my whole 18 followers or whatever it is—after all I am in marketing and I get how it works ;) ), it sure was fun creating another fun page! Now to just get back into the shape that I was in last summer.  **sigh**

The Perks of Almost Summer

So sometimes there are perks to the 16 year old being out of school early. I got to send her to go and pick up Mr. Kindey-gartener from school so I could keep tinkering around with my blog. Don't tell her that though. She thinks I'm laboriously working on very important stuff.

Wait.

This is.

I mean, I need to get these things blogged for sketch challenges before their deadlines are passed. Right?

Plus, she got to weasel out of her dishes duties as a result of being my boy fetcher.

Hmmm. Somehow I think I got the short end of the stick. Lazy girl.

So over the weekend I got all sorts of crafty. It felt really good to do some more pages in my memory book about dad, and even a few pages just because I could. If I keep up this drive for crafting, it's going to be a busy summer! :D

So the first layout that I came up with was for the ScrapbookSteals.com Peridot 4, Mid Week Mojo sketch.

I modified the sketch a little bit to work with some of the photos that I took from Maddi's seminary graduation on the 19th.

I can't believe how proud I am of our oldest. Her love and desire to always be at Seminary really make a momma proud. I don't remember having such a strong desire to attend Seminary and do all of the required assignments. (Maybe there were just no cute boys). In fact over the 4 years that Maddi was in the Seminary program, she received all A's, except for one semester in 9th grade when she didn't read her scriptures every day. EVERY DAY. did you read that? She truly is my inspiration.

Next I made a fun and light hearted layout for the Sketch #4 challenge over at the Paper Bakery Kit Club blog. 

I had so much fun doing this layout because there is NO patterned paper on it. Only paper that I used my masks and mists on. I adore how it turned out and I love that I snapped some of these silly photos at the hospital, so that I can always remember it wasn't all gloomy during those weeks, but that we did our best to have fun and be cheerful also. (Hmmm. Wonder if those eyeballs are still there!)

I have to be honest that I've reeeeeally enjoyed using sketches to create pages with. It seriously takes so much of the brain pain out of creating and allows for a quick and simple page. I now get why people looked forward to Mid Week Mojo at ScrapbookSteals.com so much when I was the sketch maker for 4 years. I think I look forward to a new sketch just as much as the next girl!

It's always fun to throw your hat into the ring for a bit of scrappy swag when creating a sketch challenge so I turned to scrapchallenge.com to find some more sketches that might actually have a little swag attached to them. I mean at this rate, I might actually blow through my stash and neeeed some new supplies! ;)

The next sketch I happened across came from the Sketch Savvy blog. I loved this Sketch #102 sketch and thought it would work perfectly for this page I did about my current addiction of gardening. 

Next I stumbled across a few sketches on the Sketch ~ N ~ Scrap blog.  I printed off a few sketches but only had time (so far) to complete the May 15th Sketch.  It may be my favorite of the bunch as it is of me and my sweet momma. Geesh I love her. I'm such a lucky daughter to have such an amazing mom, who has stood firm as a rock during the course of the past few months. I only pray that if I outlive Tracey that somehow I will manage to be as strong as her. 

The final sketch I completed was the May : Week 3 Sketch challenge on the Let's Get Sketchy blog. Another page down in the book about dad. The only thing that truly breaks my heart about this day, is it was the last time we were all together—mom and dad with their 4 kids. I genuinely wish I'd have thought to get a photo of all of us. :( 

Well I guess it's time to get a little work done around the house now. Well, I do actually need to get working on my class for CHA. Hmmm.  Maybe I'll do that instead. :D

Memories up on Kiwi Lane

So if you don't know me (which why any random crafty blog surfer would actually look at my kind of pathetic looking blog is beyond me), I'm a very blessed woman.

I've had the luxury of working from home for the past several years designing blog content and managing design teams. For nearly 4 years I was the blog hostess for ScrapbookSteals.Com, which I dearly loved. It was through my time with them that I was introduced to a very innovative company called Kiwi Lane Designs.

Fast forward a couple of years and I'm now the Kiwi Lane—work at home—Social Media director / blog hostess / Design Team coordinator. I love it. I love the ladies I work for. I love that they are all outstanding and righteous women that get that family comes first. I have been so truly blessed.

Anyhow, being that I'm the Bloggy person for Kiwi Lane, I kind of get to make up my own assignments. At the beginning of the year I was pretty adamant that we have a feature called Write From the Heart, as journaling has always been my passion when scrapbooking. It's all about the who's, what's, when's and wheres because you better believe those darling little great-great-great grandchildren with the little turned up—freckly noses are going to wonder about the people in the photos in your scrapbooks. Don't make them guess! Hand it to them with a silver spoon! (Cause heaven only knows you don't really want to be mistaken for your brothers—sister in laws—mothers—cousin). ;)

My turn rolled around today on the blog, so I thought I would do Susan Budge (my awesome boss lady) proud, and make a two pager. I hate two pagers. She thinks I do a good job with them. They make my brain hurt, but alas, I did need to have a little more working space, so this is what I made.

Of course I needed to allow enough space for journaling, so two of the journaling cards in the Teresa Collins Everyday Moments collection.

I used some of the Kiwi Lane Designer Templates that we are featuring this month to create these cute lil' embellishments. 

It's strange how some days are quite easy when it comes to thinking about dad being gone, but other days are kind of rough. I'm just so glad we have lots of happy memories. 

The Erin Colby Challenge

So I have to admit something that really isn't so much of a secret—that my life has been absolutely richly blessed with the friends that I have made through the scrapbooking world.

Luckily for me, sometimes those friends get to challenge me to create a scrapbook page.

The crazy talented Erin Colby dished out a challenge to a group of ladies called The Little Somethings challenge.

Something Old
Something New
Something Borrowed
Something Blue

Here's what I came up with:

Here's how the "Somethings" dish out.

Something old: The photo of dad

Something new: The glorious Authentique Paper Seasons:Summer collection. (Thanks Sam!)

Something borrowed: I am currently borrowing a We R Memory Keepers Albums Made Easy 3x4 punch, which I used to punch out the cards framing dads photo.

Something blue: Well the paper easily fits into this as does this gorgeous crouched flower that another dear scrappy friend, Cathryn Hanson created and mailed to me. 

Of course you know me and my journaling love. Telling the story. That's what it's all about. 

Thank you Erin for such an great challenge! Oh and for those of you that are in the Mojo Mama's Creative Corner challenge group, this layout will be the sketch for next week!