A New Year .... a clearer focus

all day I have been thinking about the New Year
praying about what my focus should be
**do I want to resolve to lose weight
(all the weight I have added through out my thyroid issues/cancer) 70lbs
can't believe I even typed that... hurts to hear that number out loud
**do I want to focus on being a better wife...a better mother, spending QUALITY time not just the quantity of time
**do I want to work on being a better student, being more diligent in my studies, and managing my time more efficiently

I think all of these are important, and worthy of my focus
but when I saw this video on Leslie Ashe's Blog I knew that this would be my focus for this year

Loving .... even when that means that I have to step out of my box, my comfort zone. Loving my family, strangers, and even myself.

I loved this song. It plays on Air 1 all the time. I know the words and can sing along, but I had never seen the video. When I watched it this evening I immediately knew that it was what my focus should be. Almost as if I had been walking around without glasses and put them on and was immediately able to see CLEARLY.
You know that feeling?
The moment when you know that THIS is it!
I love moments like that.

many blessings to you and yours this year

12 days of Christmas

This year instead of doing a complete Advent Calendar
I opted to do only 12 days - thinking that would be a more realistic goal
This is a list of our activities (I hope to post pictures next week)

Dec 14th was Hot Cocoa
Dec 15th was a hershey's kiss
Dec 16th was Happy Meals for dinner
Dec 17th was M & M's
Dec 18th was ice cream after dinner
Dec 19th was watching Prep and Landing (a christmas show)
Dec 20th
Dec 21st the kids got to open one gift

and that's as far as we got this year... sadly I didn't even manage to get through 12days. I had surgery on Dec 22nd and failed to put an effective plan together to make sure the FUN ACTIVITES and SWEET TREATS were handed out while I was dosed up on Percocet. The kids still had a great time and hopefully when they are in their 30's and in therapy tales of their mother's inability to follow through will not come up. A mother can dream right.

I know, I know
I have been a horrible blogger.
I really don't have a good excuse, just
been busy with school, family, and life in general.

I made it through midterms....barely and now finals are next week.
Really trying to focus on school right now as I have an 81 in A&P (not to far from a C). I have never had a C before and only a few B's so I will really have to study hard for the final. I am barely holding onto an A in History so that is another one that I really need to prepare for. My other classes are doing ok so as long as I stay the course with those I will be fine.

Not sure how this happened but it seems I forgot to post that I MADE it into the NURSING PROGRAM. I was ecstatic to learn of the news. My A&P grade suddenly dropped from an A to a B right before midterms so I was afraid I wouldn't get in but by the GRACE of GOD it worked out. ASUB only accepts about 24 students per year so they have pretty stiff requirements. Feeling very BLESSED and so EXCITED! So who will be the first to volunteer to be my guinea pig for IV's ;)

In all seriousness though, thank you so much for all of your support and encouragement. It has been a long road to get to this point and I still have a lot of hard work to do.

Lastly I leave you with a layout I made with the December Doubleshot Kit from The Scrap Room I love WOODGRAIN so this is my attempt at free handing it onto a chipboard house.

EEEEKKkkkkkkk

drove the kids to school this morning and upon leaving the school parking lot, I almost caused an accident. It would have been completely my fault.

There was a very tall white Tahoe next to me, waiting to turn right. I couldn't see over her vehicle but when she finally pulled out I looked left, I looked right, let my foot off the brake and as my eye was going back to the right I saw a white van pulling in front of me to turn into the parking lot. I applied my breaks and mouthed "I am so sorry" she mouthed something in return but it wasn't "it's okay" and it started with an "F" EEEEKKKKkkkkkkkk!!!!!

so to the lady I almost hit this morning:
Ma'am I am truly sorry. Please forgive me.

please note: I have an excellent driving record. I have never (knock on wood) caused an accident.

Not sure what happened this morning but I am totally blaming it on the fact that I did not have coffee. I think my eyes must have registered both white vehicles as only one vehicle??

it was just one of THOSE kinda days --

Probably my favorite layout this month. Makenna is still an "early to bed, early to rise" kind of girl. I love her to pieces and it was fun to pull out some older photos of her this month. She was only 3 in this photo and still had those full baby cheeks. Love me some chubby cheeks.

Papers and most embellishments were from The Scrap Room.
The Shiny Stars and the Teal Mesh behind the photo were from Gauche Alchemy, as well as the tiny eye balls I used for the owl. Those were originally pin heads and I just cut the pin portion off.

November Cards

These are the rest of my November Cards, nothing to crazy. I used my Fiskars Threading Water punch on the first one. I love that punch. Seriously, it is my go to border punch, kinda like a favorite pair of worn jeans. You know the feeling. The second card actually has "faux" rub on stitching. Is it just me or does it look REAL to you too? The third was actually going to be something else entirely but never really came to fruition. Don't you just hate that, when you have a plan and can't seem to pull it together. Products for these projects came from The Scrap Room's Double Shot kit.

This month my layouts seemed to really be scaled down. Not as much layering going on but I must say they were easy and painless...except for that pencil bouquet project where I burned myself with my new "high heat" glue gun. OUCH!

You can get these scrapbooking items as well as others at The Scrap Room.

A Family of Owls

Really simple card that I designed for
The Scrap Room. Lots of fun working
with the Double-Shot Kits for November.
Hope you enjoy!

Halloween 2009

This year I was blessed to have a

MERMAID and an UNKNOWN PHANTOM (not to be confused with the Grim Reaper - He will correct you)

Sometimes

Makenna came home today and told me that she cried at school today. She was overwhelmed with emotion. Sad that she never met her big brother. She said she just couldn't hold it in any longer.
As with any parent - it hurts me when my children hurt. I want to fix this for her, wave my magic mommy wand and make everything right. Seems there well always be a "empty" spot at our table where he should be sitting.
I miss him everyday but sometimes on days like today it feels as if I have lost him all over again
________________________
related posts
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3

Bouquets of Newly Sharpened Pencils

Sneak peek for November's Doubleshot Kit at The Scrap Room

This week I have made three pencil bouquets - one for each of the kids teachers along with a card.

I was playing with my craft supplies all day while watching/listening to You've Got Mail. Seriously one of my favorite movies.

I love watching movies while I scrap - What is your favorite movie

tell me about one you love to watch over and over again.

So Excited!

My "Riverwalk" layout was featured here on craftgossip.com
go check it out :)

12 Year Anniversary

Sunday was our 12th Anniversary ....

We made a cake

Heath bought me a card and flowers and let me take some pictures of him

Makenna bought a stick on mustache from the gumball machine. I had seen one earlier in the week at Tasty Freeze and said I was going to get one and wear that as a halloween costume. We are deciding between Charlie Chaplin style and a classic handle bar ;) good times

ended the day playing Cranium with the kids.

Great Day!

Blog Maintenance

sprucing up around the bloggity blog
now I just need to find a perfect 3 column format and make a new banner.
Hope you like it.
:)

personal updates

Scrolling through my blog and I can't help but notice that I have been posting mostly "crafty" things and not so much personal "schtuff". It seems that this is my life, either I am coasting through with craft projects or there is so much drama that I can't find my mojo. I will say I love how things have been going. Knock on Wood. But in an effort to give you a little peek into my life I will sum it up in a song......just kidding. How about bullet points.

• Going to school full-time. Still working on becoming a Registered Nurse. A&P is really giving me a run for my money.
• Recently became a CNA. Requirement here to enter the Nursing Program.
• My littles are growing faster than the speed of light. Noah is away as I type on his first overnight school trip.....tear
• My husband has helped in ways I never knew he could (starting to think he was only pretending that he couldn't do laundry for all those years).
• Member of the Doubleshot Design Team at The Scrap Room. Love having deadlines and having a reason to make myself scrap. A lot of time my fun scrapping time gets put on the back burner but no longer.
• Last but certainly not least --- PUMPKIN SPICE CREAMER is out finally - the moment I wait for all year long.

Happy Times

Layout - Eastside

Layout of Noah's first day of 4th grade at a new school (it goes with the layout featured here)
Items used are from The Scrap-Room's October Doubleshot kit. I loved the Jillibean Alphabet Soup Paper - perfect for those back to school photos. Additional items that I used were Heidi Swapp chipboard alpha's, acrylic paint, and bazzill cardstock. Hope you enjoy ;)

Card - Thank You

Thank you card using items from my Doubleshot Kit at the SCRAP ROOM
Added Heidi Swapp chipboard alphas
Kraft Cardstock
American Craft Thickers
Jillibean Pattern Paper
Bazzill Cardstock
buttons
ribbon
used my charcoal cat eye ink
Stampin up punch
sewing machine to zig zag
raffia to tie on the buttons

Card - We make a Great Pear

Super Simple Card used items from October's Doubleshot kit at the SCRAP ROOM
Kraft Cardstock
Cosmo Cricket Patterned Paper and Chipboard embellie
American Crafts Thickers
and Making Memories tiny alphas
zig zaged the edge of the patterned paper on my sewing machine
and inked almost everything with a charcoal cat eye

Sneak Peek

This was my Sneak Peek for The Scrap-Room's Double Shot Kit this month

products used were:

TSR's Double Shot kit containing Jillibean pp, bazzill cardstock, American Crafts Junior Buttons, and Coordinating Ribbon

Items added from my stash were:

We R Memory Keepers Eyelets set with my crop-a-dile

bazzill cardstock

large paper clip (rak from my friend shellbowie)

Heidi Swapp Chipboard letters (black and orange)

Making Memories tiny alphas

acrylic paint

I used a toilet paper roll to stamp the circular images on the cardstock

mi casa es su casa

"My house is your house"
So join me on a tour of my scraproom.
We just moved out of state and while I always dread moving, this new house had a perk that my apartment did not have..... A SCRAPROOM. I am still trying to figure things out but all in all I really like how I have things laid out/organized.
This is my main organization unit. I purchased it from Ikea and it was worth every penny. My scraproom is right off of my living room. I think it was supposed to be a sun room. It has a beautiful set of french doors, and once inside the room, to the right is this shelving unit.

In the middle of the room (not pictured) I have a large dining room table, seats 8, that I have raised with bed raisers that I purchased from Walmart. My workspace is now at counter top height. I also have some Rubbermaid storage drawers under the table and plan to "someday" make a skirt for the table to cover all the junk I hide under there.
Here are my buttons. I used to have them in tiny bottles all sorted by color but this works for me and I end up using more random colors. Also hedgie... a gift from my kids.

I store my chipboard letters in these plastic cases. They are sorted by letter. I like to mix and match different letter styles. This way I can just Grab N Go ;) My Clip It Up! Ah, do you feel the love. I simply adore this item. If I could afford it I would have about 10 of these. I love that everything is VISIBLE! I don't know about you gals but if something isn't right in front of my face, I sometimes forget I have it. I keep my dwindling supply of Thickers on the Clip It Up as well as my favorite "go to" embellies.

Okay, you caught me. I admit it. Hello, my name is Shawnna and I have a messy desk. Seriously though I love this "desk". I use the term loosely because it is merely two file cabinets (which I already owned) and I purchased a $50 6ft. counter top from Lowe's. This is on the left side of the room. When you enter the room there are 3 large windows straight ahead, thus the lovely lighting. Sorry for the blown out photo.

I keep my embellishments sorted by color in the same plastic cases as my chipboard letters. I have a ton of these (one for each color plus metals and clear) and I purchased all of them when Hobby Lobby had a 1/2 off sale.

In the two cubbies to the left you can see my kits. I sort them in alphabetical order by the name of the manufacturer, except for Scenic Route Kits, they get their own Cropper Hopper Vertical Paper Holder. I do show favoritism.
I house many of my mini albums in baskets. This allows easy access for my family and visitors.

These owls and sign sit on top of my Ikea Shelving unit. These were all 3 gifts that make me smile every time I see them. It is so important to surround yourself with things that make you happy, things you love.

I keep my paper scraps (both cardstock and patterned paper) stored by color in these 12x12 drawers. This way I can go here first before grabbing a fresh sheet of paper. Reduce Reuse Recycle People. Also my kids know that they can use this paper for their own craft projects.

My paper storage is a little tricky. I couldn't decide on just one way to store so I have a few different categories of storage. First is cardstock, it is stored by color in vertical Cropper Hopper Paper Holders. I used to buy several sheets of every color of Bazzill, now I buy several sheets of only the colors I tend to use over and over. It took a little time to figure this out but it has saved me so much money.

Second is Patterned Paper -- OH HOW I LOVE THEE -- I have Scenic Route in a Cropper Hopper of it's own. I also have paper sorted by theme.... like Halloween/Christmas etc. If a piece of paper doesn't have a set theme then I file it by color unless it is one of my favorite manufacturers then it is filed by name alphabetically. See, I told you it was tricky. I keep my most recent Scrap-Room kits all the way to the right and in the same cubby I have a Cropper Hopper for kit left overs that I use to make cards. Ribbon is stored one of two ways. If it is long enough it is wrapped around a cardboard insert and placed by color in this basket pictured. If it isn't very long I have a large jar (same size as the button jar) that I keep snippets of ribbon in.

I use this Cropper Hopper box to store all my stickers and rub-ons. Most are by theme but I also have a section for each child, I use this area to store things I bought to use in their specific albums (think birthday party themed stickers/embellies).

Last but not least, my cart of drawers. My husband purchased this for me several years ago from Costco when I began outgrowing my wheeled totes. This is stored to the left of my desk, within arms reach, and houses tools, extra adhesive, and stamps. My Clip It Up sits on top of this cart.

So there you have it. Hope you enjoyed peeking inside my scraproom. Please leave links to your scraproom photos in the comment section. I would love to check them out.

Shades of Summer

This summer, shortly after our move, I was able to participate in Liz Kartchner's SHADES OF SUMMER. It was a lot of fun and I can't wait to see the completed project with bits and pieces of everyone. So go check it out. My photo is in the second grouping and is on the top far right corner :)

Designing for TSR

This month was my first month Designing for the Doubleshots Kits at TSR. Getting the kit in the mail was a euphoric high. Nothing like opening your front door to a box of scrapping goodies. You can click here to see the entire Coffee House of Ideas. All the Designers did such an incredible job. I am honored to be listed among them. I also designed another two page layout along with specific instructions (Recipe Card) but it can only be viewed if you are a member of The Scrap-Room...... So what are you waiting for???? GO SIGN UP ;)

It's Me

Hey You!
Yep, I'm talkin to You.
Remember me?
It's Shawnna, your long lost buddy.

Chicken Pox

Although I fully intended to be back up and blogging

by now, another blogging hiatus has ensued.

Makenna has the Chicken Pox. Regular blogging

will ensue once all spots are fully scabbed over.

I wouldn't want you to catch the pox virtually.

Plus this will insure that I am available to answer

"Mommy, how much longer till the chicken pox are gone?"

for the 5 millionth time.

send prayers and calamine lotion ;)

Barista

Need to interrupt this blogging hiatus with Breaking News

Just found out that I made the Design Team at The Scrap-Room.

That is right, I am now a Barista

I keep having to reassure myself, it doesn't seem real.

Feeling so so so BLESSED!!!

Can't wait for the September kit to arrive in my mailbox.

Blogging Hiatus

I have been taking a CNA class all week, and I will be in class and doing clinicals next week as well. A short blogging hiatus has ensued. Will return as soon as I master all my new skills which include but are not limited to: pulse and respiration, blood pressure, perineal care, bed bathing, and etc.

Crafty Goodness

Just received my Gauche Alchemy order and I am in

♥ LOVE ♥ ...seriously

They had me at Hello

The kids were ecstatic because they thought the Postman delivered us pizza (the box resembles a pizza box, at least to a 9 and 10 year old).

Once I opened the box I was elated. It was even wrapped neatly. I totally felt like I was opening a gift and at their prices it was practically true.

For the love of crafty holiness run and place an order....did I say I was in love ♥ (have a pic to post but need to find my connecty cord thingy...yeah I'm all technical and stuff )

13 years

Another year
Another anniversary
tough day
always is
wonder if that will ever change

I love my first born son so much
forever and always

I wonder what he would be like
what sports would he play
would he even like sports at all
what would he look like
what would his personality be like
serious, organized, type A
or goofy and spontaneous

I miss him
I wish he could still be here with me
but my wishing doesn't change things
my only comfort comes from believing
I will see him again

Today I hugged my other children tighter and longer than usual
and today they let me without pulling away
I needed that and I think HE knew it
Thanks BIG GUY (I like to call God that sometimes)
____________________
back story:
Part One
Part Two
Part Three

My Tiny Dancer

Another Girl Friday Layout. I love this paper :) and the TSR KIT was loaded :)
Title and Journaling: My tiny Dancer. Life is Beautiful. it is such a joy watching you at dance class. Photo 2007
Products
cardstock: Bazzill
Patterned Paper: Cosmo Crickt Girl Friday
Vintage Lace
assorted ric rac
Flowers: Prima and Making Memories
White paint (to distress the letters, they were a little bright for the layout)
Puff paint
Letters: Making Memories, American Crafts Thickers, and Cosmo Cricket
Embellishments Cosmo Cricket and Heidi Swapp

Isn't She Lovely

These were photos of Makenna from 3/22/07 in the bluebonnets out west of Houston toward the Hill Country.

Most products came from The Scrap-Room's April 2009 kit :)

Products:

Cardstock:Bazzill

Patterned Paper: Cosmo Cricket Girl Friday

Buttons: Making Memories & assorted

Ribbon: Making Memories

Letter Stickers: American Crafts and Making Memories

Embellishments: Cosmo Cricket Girl Friday :)

Hidden Journaling reads:

I know that all too soon you will be finished with letting me fix your hair and posing for photos. I cherish these fleeting moments. I {heart} you!

Superficial Stuff

posted about this layout on the TSR BLOG a bit ago. This one is filled with random superficial stuff that makes me happy :) Many of the items used were from The Scrap-Room's April 2009 kit.

Cardstock: Bazzill

Patterned Paper: Cosmo Cricket Girl friday, Imaginisce

Letters: Thickers, EK Success Sticko, Cosmo Cricket

Random Labels

Making Memories and assorted buttons

Prima flowers

a Scenic Route Button from CHA 2008

and a drink topper I got at Shogun ;)

Journaling: Superficial Stuff that Makes me HAPPY - mermaids, owls, and hedgies. Thickers, Cosmo Cricket, Old Navy, Gap, Scenic Route, anthropologie, love elsie, October Afternoon, and 7 jeans