One Big Job - A huge deck restraining project ...

While sometimes I get nostalgic thinking about how big my kids are getting and how I miss them being little, I do realize that there are a lot of benefits of having "big" kids too. We hired our son to stain our back deck for us back in June. He took care of it all by himself and did a great job.

What a big help to us. And how nice for him to get some good "walking around money." ... Sadly for him though, just as he finished up this job and made some cash, he also forgot to take his expensive iPod Touch out of his pocket before putting his cargo shorts in the wash and I found it in the washing machine AFTER the wash cycle. His iPod Touch did not recover from this experience.  Bummer about the loss, but at least he had just made some money to help pay for his OOPS!

Credits:

LivE Designs: Paint Spatters Vol. 1

Simply Tiffany Studios: Artisan Blenda Pack 2

Karla Dudley: Boy wordart: Stamp Sheet Boy Brushes

Paper: Jofia Davoe

Fonts: Lobster, Tiza, Century Gothic

P365+1: Week 30: July 22-July 28, 2012

Busy busy week. We went boating with friends on Lake Waconia last Sunday. That was a LOT of fun. It was a gorgeous day. Of note on Sunday ... the kids tried to ski again, but so far it's still a no go. They were really really close to making it up so hopefully by the end of summer they'll make it (if they have another opportunity to give it a try). I on the other hand was a different story. I said that what the heck, I'll give skiing a try. It's been many years since I've skied but I wanted to do it. My daughter told me that there was no way I could get up - that I was WAAAAY too old. I took that as a challenge. I proved her wrong. I didn't get up on my first try, but I got right up - no problem whatsoever - on my second try. It really is like riding a bike. So look out ... your old mom isn't quite as old and decrepit as you think she is! :)
What else went on this week? We spent LOTS of time working on the family room Scott has been painting and my daughter and I have been shopping. (That's an important job too, right?!). My son flew out to Chicago Friday morning. He's spending the next 10 days sailing on Lake Michigan with friends. Lucky kid! So ... that's about it. I'd better keep my post short. I've got to get my Saturday started. Lots to do you know!

Have a great Saturday!

P365+1: Week 29: July 15-July 21, 2012 + Kids week with Grandma & Grandpa

I've got a couple of photo-of-the-day pages to share tonight. The first one is for Week 29. It was a busy, mostly stay at home, kind of week.
I had such a fun GNO (girls night out) with my neighborhood friends on Wednesday night. My friend Kathy was in town visiting from Chicago so it was a great reason for a bunch of us to get together. I didn't have my DSLR with me that night so I've at least got an iPhone picture. Better that than nothing, right?! Kathy had her camera and got the same shot so I'll probably do a photo swap out with her photo well before I actually print this book. I wanted to include a photo now though, so hey, this photo is better than nothing, right?!

This second page (actually the first page - it'll appear in the book before Week 29) is a collection of photo memories of the kids' week Grandma and Grandpa. They had a great time. It's a wonderful annual tradition for them to spend some quality time together! This year Mark was in town visiting from Colorado so they got to spend some time with him too. Lucky them!

I love this kid! {The crazy antics at Cub Foods!}

I scrap because I want to remember all the wonderful-ness of life. I scrap the big events of course but I also want to make sure to scrap the little things as well. It's the little random moments that are so easy to forget with the busy-ness of life. This page is about an afternoon in May when I had my son drive me to the grocery store to get in some driving practice. (He's got his learner's permit and he's doing well with his driving by the way.)

Anyway ... he got all goofy when we left the store and he was putting the cart away, which by the way he told me really wasn't supposed to be his job. It's the job for the passenger not the driver. Since he was the driver today it was supposed to be me putting the cart away. I decided -- why break with tradition? I plopped myself in the vehicle and let him head off with the cart! LOL!

For this random moment I pulled out my trusty iPhone and shot a one minute 45 second video of his antics. It was certainly not a big moment - but it was a fun moment between the two of us. Don't they say that it's the little things that are the big things?! Well, this is one of 'em!

Happy Saturday!

You can find a full list of the credits in my www.JessicaSprague.com gallery here.

A Monopoly / Game Board Scrapbook Page!

I wanted to share an old digi page with you this morning. This is a page I created way back in early 2008 as the intro page to my 2007 family scrapbook. I’d completely forgotten about it until I ran across it the other day while looking at pictures on my iPhone of all places while I was sitting in the waiting room at my daughter’s dentist office. {I keep the WEB versions of all of my digi pages on my iPhone. I like to look back at them sometimes when I’m killing time. It’s kinda fun!}

I created this page back in the early days when I was just starting to digiscrap. I still really like it a lot. Looking at it makes me want to check out our game boards at home to see what other game board style pages I can create for my new books.

Anyway … I just thought I’d share this page this morning! If it inspires any of you to create a game board style page, I’d love it if you’d send me a link to your page. I’d love to see it!

Happy Friday everyone.

How many kids fit in this outhouse? Answer: All of 'em!

I still have nightmares about this day and the kids going out on their own. OK, not real nightmares, but it does still freak me out a bit whenever I think about it. The occurrences of this particular afternoon/evening - I think - are going to be a vivid memory for the kids. #1 because they got to go off and swim at the mines which was great fun for them and #2 because their day ended with them unexpectedly being out on their own in a HUGE STORM (that unbeknownst to us at the time caused massive amounts of damage and destruction up north). So scary! Just in case it's not a vivid memory for them ... that's where I step in. I scrapped it so they WILL remember.

I'm torn between thinking I'm a really bad mom for letting my kids go and do this (even though everyone else said it was ok) and patting myself on the back for letting them go and easing up on my nervousness just a little bit. OK, I didn't actually ease up ... they left quickly and were gone before I had a chance to yell STOP!! Short of going and looking for my keys and driving after them they were gone before I knew it. 

All's well that ends well and when they got back to the resort safe and sound I just gave them a hug and said thanks a lot for giving me a heart attack all day! I was nervous the entire time they were gone. (I can still feel the butterflies in my stomach now as I think about it. Does this nervousness ever get better?!)

FYI, the journaling on this page tells the entire story. Of course the kids didn't have a camera with them, but my darling husband was kind enough to stop on his way by the Laurentian Divide and snapped a few pictures for me. 

Supplies used:

Splendid Fiins :Kinda Sketchy Album Templates : When Skies are Grey paper pack : Woodgrain Mist Mask

Our Week at Cedar Point Resort - a Splendid Fiins "Kinda Sketchy" kinda layouts!

Happy Sunday all. My weekend of unending scrapping is quickly coming to a close. My husband the kiddos will be home in a couple of hours and my sister and my niece - who are coming to spend the night - will be here in a few minutes. You know, I've enjoyed all this "me time" but I'm quite ready to have a house full of people again. I got a little bit lonely here at home. {I'm certainly not saying I didn't appreciate the quiet me-time though!} I sure got a lot of scrapping done AND I got a fair amount of my family room organized so it's more ready (not completely ready) to be painted, etc. etc. At least I got something accomplished!

I actually posted these pages yesterday as two page spreads. I've tweaked the pages just a little bit and thought I'd post the pages now that I think they're in final. I like looking at them together as 2-page layouts, but it's nice for me to be able to look at them one page at a time. I like to be able to look back at my postings and my pages and really look at the pictures and remember the events and that's easier to do when they're bigger pages.

Anyway ... here's a recap of some of our 4th of July week at the resort!

Looking at all these pages together makes me feel more like I got a bit done this weekend. Yay! I even got two more pages scrapped for this week up north, but those are posted separately. My "Outhouse" page is even done now. It's a really journaling intensive page and I want to wait until my sister and my niece read it and tell me if my understanding of the events is correct. More on that later! ...

P365+1: Week 28: July 8 - July 14, 2012; Also ... Bob's cabin and the canceled family reunion

Busy busy week. It's been a great week actually. The kids have spent it with their grandparents. I haven't talked to them a whole lot, but when I have spoken to them they've been having a great time. I'm glad to hear it. {I've missed them though!} The kids being with their grandparents meant Scott and I went out to dinner four nights in a row. That is extremely unusual for us. OK, it simply never happens. We can certainly go out to dinner when the kids are home, it's just that they usually go with us, but they are not all that adventurous with food. They don't want anything "weird" or "gross." So ... since they were gone, Scott and I made a point of going out to dinner to places we know they won't enjoy. It was a fun week.

I also created a full page POTD page for the reunion. Actually for the reunion that didn't happen. We still went out to the cabin and the kids had a great time in the water, but the real 23rd annual reunion was canceled because Mary was very sick and was in the hospital. We were disappointed the the reunion didn't happen, but we still had a great time at the cabin.

FYI, I know the kids are having a great time with their grandparents and they have even sent me pictures. I need to make a full page POTD page for their week but I need to wait until they actually walk back in the door and I'm sure I won't get any more pictures. It sure looks like they're having fun!

Here are the pages I created for this week:

4th of July "Up North" - 8 - count 'em - 8 - pages!

I have to admit it. I am a REALLY SLOW scrapper. Good thing I enjoy the process - so it's o.k. it takes me almost forever to scrap a page! I've been scrapping on and off all day today but I did get 8 pages done so I'm pretty happy about that. Since they were such similar pages I'd have thought they'd have gone together more quickly, but that's not the way I work. I try this. I try that. Hmm, maybe I should change that paper. How about this color doodle? How about that color doodle? How about this shape doodle? How about that shape doodle? It's a process ... and a fun process at that!

So ... I've now officially scrapped 9 pages for our week up at the resort over the 4th (including the "cast of characters" from yesterday). I still have two more pages I want to create for our time at the resort/Oma's: one a page of Oma and Lauren working together to make Lauren's first stained glass project. (How cool is that? It turned out so well!) The second - I'm thinking - is going to memorialize the kids' experience during the huge storm. No more details yet on that - but I'm thinking!

Here's a full list of digi supplies I used on this page:

Splendid Fiins

: Kinda Sketchy Album Templates
: Kinda Sketchy Scribbly Bits

: Life in a Nutshell Cards (extracted words)

: Stars taken from the Kinda Sketchy Template 2

:Squiggles, doodles and tags taken from Kinda Sketchy Template 1

: When Skies are Grey Paper Packs 1 and 2

: When Skies are Grey - Journal Cards Vol. 2

: Keaton's Closet - blue stripe paper

Becky Higgins

: Project Life Cobalt Edition

The cast of characters ...

I've got a whole weekend ahead of me and I can scrap whoever I want to ... I'm loving it! Tonight I had a chance to play with a fun "kinda sketchy" template that Splendid Fiins has coming out soon. What fun!

FYI, I've got about a zillion photos from our week up north over the 4th of July that I want to scrap ... I thought that I'd just start out with a page showing the "cast of characters" from our weekend! 

Hmmm ... now what to scrap now?

Here's a link to the full list of supplies I used on this page.

What goes around comes around!

What's a girl to do when a boy gets SO much joy out of driving her crazy? Why, make her OWN fun of course! {FYI, a good time was had by all!}

For a complete list of supplies used for this page click here to go to the layout in my Jessica Sprague gallery.

P365+1: Weeks 26-27: Our week "up north" at Cedar Point Resort June 30 - July 6, 2012: A Recap

We spent such a great week "up north" at Cedar Point and Oma's that I felt that just ONE photo per day just didn't do justice to all of the memories that we made, so ... here's a brief photographic recap of our week "up north":

P365+1: Week 27: July 1 - July 7, 2012

What a fantastic week! We spent the first half of this week at the resort with my side of the family It was such a fun week. The kids (and adults too) spent as much time as possible on the water. It was a hot, hot, HOT week but the intense heat was much more bearable at the lake than it would have been at home! There was quite a devastating storm up north this week but my sister and her family, as well as my mom, were fortunate in that they didn't experience much damage other than  a relatively short (8 hour) power outage and some downed branches. Others up here did not fare nearly as well. It's sad to see how much damage such a quick (and powerful) storm can cause.
Friday we headed over to visit Scott's parents. My sister-in-law dropped off the girls at the resort and they headed over with us as well.
It's been such a fun time. Ahhh, reality sets in and we've got real life and work again tomorrow. It sure is fun to look at pictures of our awesome week! .. Now though I think I'll put together another couple pages for my photo of the day book to showcase a few more photos from our fun week! Those pages will come soon-ish!
Have a great Sunday everyone!

Graduation Party

I took about a zillion photos at this big family party - my niece's graduation party. It was such a fun weekend ... a wonderful chance to catch up with a TON of family and friends. I just couldn't bring myself to choose only a couple of photos to represent the weekend ... so I used a TON of pictures instead! It sure is a busy page, but there are a lot of memories I want to remember!

Fun. Fun. Fun!

The full layout (2 pages side by side):

Left page:

Right page:

For this page I used an awesome template by Vinnie Pearce that I altered to make a 2 page layout. I also used simply a TON of Splendid Fiins' playful elements. If you'd like to see a full list of the products I used for this page, click here.

P365+1: Week 26: June 24 - June 30, 2012

Happy 4th of July week everyone!

Let's play softball

Tiffany Tillman came out with a fabulous new set of Artisan Blend templates this week. They're absolutely fabulous! It's so fun blending photos into the papers and textures into the photos. I love digi! Now my mind is working. I'm thinking of some photos I want to take this week so I can play around with some more of these templates later this week. Yup. I'm a scrapper! LOL!

FYI, my daughter loves playing softball!

You can find all the credits to this page here.

This is what happiness looks like - A New Bike!

This was a fun page to create. I've been using blending modes on my scrapbook pages for a long time now, but I knew there was a lot more to blending than I knew and I wanted to learn more! I decided it would be fun to take Tiffany Tillman's blending class at ReneePearson.com. (FYI, it's a self paced class.) I'm so glad I did. Tiffany answered a bunch of questions for me ... and more importantly taught me things I had no idea I didn't know - options I didn't even know existed. Awesome! {Yes ... I'm a computer geek!} I'm going to be playing around with blending on a lot more pages to come - that's for sure!

Oh, the pictures ... we just got my daughter a new bike. She's much taller this summer than she was last summer. Growth spurts = new bikes. If you saw my photo of the day from a short time ago you know that she's been using my bike all summer and that she was not happy about it. I've had my bike for a long time (it's a perfectly good bike) and she was not happy about "riding a bike that's older than she is!" She was quite happy when her dad took her out and got her a new bike. Happiness = a New Bike!

If you'd like to see the credits for this page, click here.

If you'd like to read more about Tiffany Tillman's blending class, click here.

P365+1: Week 25: June 17 - June 23, 2012 + Softball!

Another fun week. Oma is visiting us this weekend. The weather was gorgeous today ... perfect for a softball tournament! What a fun day!

FYI, the Lord of the Rings photo kind of creeps me out. My son wanted me to snap the photo with my phone while we were watching the movie. He played the movie in slow motion during this scene. He thought it might be a fun profile pic for FB. Turns out it was a fun pic (yikes!) but he decided he didn't want to use it for FB. Probably a good decision. (But that opinion is coming from an adult and not a high school boy!)

Super Kool Kidz! ... (Comic Book Style ... again!)

I seem to be drawn to comic book style pages these days. The fonts and the papers and the shapes ... way too fun! Tiffany Tillman at Design House Digital came out with an awesome set of comic book templates this week. I used them for these pages. They're great ... check 'em out!

FYI ... these pics are from a field trip my daughter took this year with her class. I got to chaperone ... which I don't get to do very often anymore. What fun! I loved it. I need to take these opportunities while I still have them, right?!

Left Page:

Right page:

You can find a full list of credits here.

FREE Jessica Sprague birthday blog hop!

The Jessica Sprague birthday bash bloghop starts today! The first stop is Jessica's blog. It'll include 9 stops and in the end you'll have an awesome Beach Party kit created by the J*S designers. Click here to get to Jessica's blog and you'll be on your way!

And don't forget ... there's a sale and birthday contest. Lots of fun!

My Goofy Guys!

I love when I get fun goofing around photos of my husband and son! They make me laugh!

I love Design by Dani's Super Pop kit. I've used it a couple of times in the last couple of days. It's just so fun!
You can see a full list of credits at my gallery at Jessica Sprague here.

A fun surprise! I'm in the Club CK Blog!

I wanted to share with you that I just had a nice surprise waiting for me in my email box. I received an email from Club CK (the Online Community and Scrapbook Club from Creating Keepsakes magazine). I’ve been a big fan of CK magazine for a long time now (can I say forever?). They’ve got a fantastic gallery filled with so much wonderful creative inspiration!

Anyway, I ramble, their email told me that they spotlighted one of my recent pages in the Club CK weekly gallery picks. What fun!

If you want to visit Club CK’s blog post featuring this week’s gallery picks, click here.

Also ... this is the layout they chose:

Here it is in the CK gallery.

Just a Picnic?

This probably looks like just an impromptu picnic. It was more than that.

My daughter has so many awesome traits, but some of my favorites are her spontaneity and her sweetness. The weather has been beautiful lately and she has been enjoying spending lots of time outside biking, reading books or just enjoying the sunshine. On this day my daughter asked me so sweetly – “Can we eat dinner outside? Just have a little picnic?” How could I say no? My husband was traveling for work so it was just the kids and me. My son thought it was a really dumb idea. Eating on the ground? Really? (I think he was embarrassed. What would people think as they drove by and saw us out there?!) I thought it was sweet. I remember that we had sloppy joes and that it was a little difficult to eat with our plates on our laps, but I also remember that it was fun! 

Today’s picnic reminds me of where the kids are at right now: My son's teenage embarrassment (he did still snap this picture for me though!) and my daughter's sweet 12 year old innocence. Impromptu moments make the best memories!

You can find the credits for this page at my Jessica Sprague gallery here.

Yummy! My daughter the baker...

My DD is such an awesome baker. I know I'm biased but I have to say I'm impressed with her dedication and how many beautiful and awesome things she has created - especially considering she's so young. It's pretty fun. She's gotten a reputation around the neighborhood. (She's always bring treats to the neighbors!) If I let her she'd bake EVERY day! I don't want us all to weigh 800 pounds so I do have to limit her at times. (Lets be realistic - it is difficult to say no to desserts when they're sitting right in front of us!)

I hadn't planned on scrapping these photos but I liked these papers by KI Memories and I created this page for this week's challenge at Jessica Sprague so what the heck?! I'm glad I did! (Looking at the pictures makes me really wish I had a cupcake right now!) ;)

You can find full credits for this page here.

P365+1: Week 24: June 10 - June 16, 2012

Happy Father's Day everyone!

It's 8:00 Sunday morning. Everyone in my house is still sleeping. The dog is laying on the floor next to me and I got up about an hour ago. Since the house is so quiet I thought I'd work on my photo of the day page. It feels good to be able to look back already on some of last week's photos! It was a good week.

I see some serious happiness in the new bike photo. My daughter has been wanting (OK, needing) a new bike for a while now so I'm glad Scott took her out yesterday and they found one she liked. She's been riding my bike this summer (hers really is just TOO small ... she's getting tall). She wanted her own bike (makes sense!) but was o.k. with riding mine until we got one for her. OK, I should say she was fine with it UNTIL she found out that I got my bike "BEFORE SHE WAS EVEN BORN!" OMG. Can you believe it?! Before she was even born?! Ha! Once she realized that, she wanted a new bike and she wanted it yesterday! Too funny. Now she's got her bike and I can go back to riding my ANCIENT bike. (It's not really ancient - but it is 19 years old. With the few times I ride a bike every summer I'm perfectly happy with mine!) I'm glad to see her so happy with her bike though! Now we need to get to PROP so we can donate her old bike. The to-do-list continues ... :)

And that bucket list ... LOVE it!

Have a great day!