What Inspires You?

I've had this Cosmo Cricket paper and blackboard pieces forever. I've used a lot of it on kids' birthday cards for the boys' friends but I have wanted to use this big, silly robot and couldn't figure out how or where. Liz Chidester was my inspiration. Over at her blog The Scrappiest she has all kinds of really great sketches. I was browsing around and found a super cute sketch that included a robot - PERFECT! Thanks Liz. I met Liz through the Queen Scraps website, she's one of their design team members, and have used her sketches on more than one occassion. For me they are great at getting my creativity flowing, they inspire me.

What else inspires me? My Lord and Savior - He keeps me grounded, He keeps me joyful, He keeps me safe. My life is so busy, as I know most of yours are as well, and sometimes I forget to take the time I need to to just sit back and worship Him, to soak in His presence. When I do take the time, it's amazing how much more efficiently my day runs, how much more at peace I am throughout the busy-ness of my life. What inspires you? How do you keep going through the busy-ness of your life? Take a moment, think about it and then do it...

"Be careful, then, how you live - not as unwise but as wise, making the most of every opportunity..." Ephesians 5:15-16

For a good cause...

I wouldn't normally use my blog for something like this but it is a cause that is near and dear to me. Last year I participated in the Avon Walk for Breast Cancer. It was one of the most amazing experiences of my life. Breast cancer affects so many people, women and men, young and old. I made a conscious choice to not participate in the walk this year because it was a huge time commitment to train properly and it was a large financial commitment to raise the money needed to walk. We have taken in one of our teenager's friends and he has been living with us since October - this is where we have committed our financial resources for now... but I will walk again and we WILL find a cure for this horrible disease that takes away mothers, sisters, daughters and friends. The team I walked with last year is walking in the Avon Walk again this year and my very dear friend Carol Inga is walking in the Susan G. Komen 3-Day For The Cure. It takes money to participate in these walks but the money is used to find a cure or help people find the care they need to beat this awful disease. I encourage you to support in any way that you can. No donation is too small, every little bit helps and can make a difference. Your donation is tax deductible too. So please, if you can...give. You can click on the links above to donate on-line.

Oh baby...

I have a baby shower to attend on Sunday evening and decided to make this bib card to go along with the gift. I found the sketch for this in Paper Crafts Go to Sketches magazine. I've had this magazine for a long time and I don't think I've even read through the whole thing yet but I've pulled it out so many times to inspire me when I had cards to make. If you love making cards, you'll love this magazine.

It's almost summer break and we just got snow last night. It makes it tough to gear up for summer fun when we're bundling the kids up in winter coats and hats to go to the school bus stop in the morning. Regardless, summer IS coming and all of our kids have so much stuff going on as we near the end of the school year - field trips, parties, yearbook signing, graduation parties...the list goes on. Plus it seems that every child in my younger boys' classes are having birthday parties RIGHT NOW. We have 3 this Saturday so my husband and I will have to divide and conquer to get to all of them...I think we're going to have to draw straws as to who has to sit through the insanity at Chuck E. Cheese with our preschooler. It's a good thing we have that big "family calendar" on the wall in the hallway...otherwise I'm not sure I'd know where I was supposed to be this month.

On another note, we're dog-sitting for some friends and can I tell you how very spoiled this dog is becoming. My kids love to have her right next to them and are constantly calling her name to get her attention. Super cute but I fear for the tears that will come when she finally has to be returned to her owners. We even took Bella to the dog wash yesterday where Tyler and I donned our plastic aprons and proceeded to get her all cleaned up after she dug a hole under our backyard fence. She was a little dirty to say the least! Thankfully she didn't go anywhere when she escaped other than to our front yard to play. She's such a good dog...I think even I will miss her despite the fact that she made my allergies go nuts for a few days.

Have Faith...

I made this mini album as part of a class taught by Fiskateer Rebecca during National Scrapbooking Day. I'm working on the interior pages but I intend to fill it with Bible verses that inspire me, strengthen me, and remind me how blessed I truly am. The cover includes a paper flower that I made based on a tutorial I found on the internet...but now for the life of me I can't find it again to link it. It's super simple though - punch out some circles, ink them up, distress the edges, give them a little fold in the middle then stick them all together, and add a brad or bling in the middle. I love how it turned out...so simple but just the right touch.

We're getting so close to the end of the school year for all of our kids. I think we are suffering from a bit of "spring fever" in our household...it's getting harder and harder to get them all to bed at night which in turn means it's harder to get them up and going in the morning. Just a few more weeks and we'll be free for a while. Sure hope we can cram a bunch of camping in along with our trip to my grandma's farm in Wisconsin. Lots planned but it's all fun stuff so I can't wait. Are you longing for summer to arrive? Start making your plans now so you have the motivation to get through this end of the school year push.

Gone Fishin'

So I created this layout as part of a sketch challenge over at the Queen Scraps forums. The sketch they provided was right up my alley so I dug through photos in my "to be scrapped" pile and found these of my husband and our younger two boys fishing. I love that he has the patience to work with the boys and show them how to fish...even when it means he gets very little fishing done himself. For this layout I used the Basic Grey Marrakech collection of papers as well as a few felt embellishmnets from Fancy Pants. For the chipboard embellishments, I simply covered plain chipboard with patterned paper and then sanded and inked the edges. The large circle is actually hand stitched with embroidery floss adding yet another dimension to the layout. The title was the trickiest part in that I had some olive-green alpha stickers that I adhered to the layout and then realized they virtually disappeared into the patterned paper. I ended up outlining the stickers with an opaque, white gel pen then filling in the letter with glitter and covering the whole thing with glossy adhesive so the glitter wouldn't "flake" onto my page. I then outlined the whole thing with a black pen to make them pop even more. I love how it turned out and it almost makes the letters look like they are under-water...a cool effect I had no intention of creating. Love it when that happens!

I will leave you with a Bible verse that I personally think is HUGE... "Everything is possible for him who believes. " Mark 9:23