Caribbean blue

Good Monday morning! Caribbean Blue couldn't be further from the gray nasty day I'm staring down, so at least it's a nice escape posting these Cocoa Daisy April kit layouts (Caribbean bliss is actually the name) here:

This one is made with everything from the main kit except the AC Bliss coffee Thickers and Crate Brook epoxy brad (add-on #1-not sure what the names will be just yet). The kit goes on sale to the general public 3/30, right now the subscribers are getting first crack at everything. For those of you from the sneaks that thought I was pregnant, I'm not. Two refers to J and dh, and me realizing that even though I only dared hope for love from one boy in this life, I got lucky and have two boys who love me. Sweet! :)
This one is actually my favorite I think. My dad gives me lots of little pieces of parenting wisdom, and he told me that someday soon J would be my shadow, doing everything I do and helping me. And he is such a big help to me, especially this week in the yard. I really liked those Maya Road chipboard butterflies (add-on #3). I hope I used them in ways that aren't girly. :) The patterned paper is from the patterned paper add-on. The heart and AC bliss coffee thickers from add-on #1. And all the cardstock is from the main kit.
These photos were from last year. All the paper and alphas are in the main kit, the butterflies in add-on #3 and "spring" is from those AC bliss coffee thickers (Love those lots too.)
Everything on this is from the main kit, including the stamp, journaling tag, ticket, Tim Holtz thing-a-ma-bob (I have no idea what those things are called, but they are really fun to use!), patterned paper (Crate's Brook collection) and those tiny blue alphas. I love those! They come with 2 sheets to a package too, so you have alphas to spell out your kids full name (including the middle one) plus continue on for several sentences! I couldn't believe how many you get, it's really crazy in a good way. :) I hope you can see the fish in that photo, you might have to blow the photo up to see them right next to J's face.
Last is one of J and I at the beach, also home to me. I used patterned paper from the patterned paper add-on, and embellishments from add-ons #1 (AC thickers, Crate brook brads and stickers) and #3 (butterflies).

I had hoped to make a few more layouts, but time got away from me. I need to prepare for CD May (we have that kit already), make some things for the AC blog and blog hop and I'm looking forward to a guest design team position I have next month. I'm waiting on this to arrive for J's room:

How cute is that? I've never shopped at Land of Nod before, and all I can say is that I probably should not be allowed to go to Susan Weinroth's blog anymore. She linked to LON about something she wanted for her son's room and it was all down hill from there for me. I tried to talk myself out of it for about a month. It didn't work though. :) Clearly.

Happy Monday to you! Until tomorrow.

Home Sweet Home

Please don't send out the guard looking for me. I'm ok, I'm better than ok!

Just enjoying my new house and yard. Did a bit of spring cleaning last week, didn't think it was blog worthy though. Love having a clean house!

Still a bit overwhelmed by the yard. Ok, a lot overwhelmed by the yard. It's not a big yard at all, a postage stamp compared to what a normal American yard is actually. But it is meticulously manicured, right down to the last raised bed. And I don't even know what's in the beds! Strange buds keep popping out of the ground, things I would have written off for long since dead have green stems and new growth. It's weird, and it makes my head hurt. All I've been able to do is pick up twigs with J, and pull weeds. One day (leaf) at a time. Photo from Sept 09.

We are spending as much time outdoors as we can, soon it will be too hot to bake out there so we are trying to enjoy it. When we don't get rained on. :)

I ordered some new carpet for the downstairs, but it's going to take some time to get it in. Once we do that, I am done with home improvement. Home maintenance/repair we will still have to do, but other than it, it's my dream home and I'm not touching anything else. Ok, I'm going to dead-head that plant out front once I figure out what the heck it is, but otherwise, I'm done! :) After that, I think I will finally feel like this house is ours. I may never feel like the yard is mine though. :)

I did 10 continuing medical education credits this month. When I'm not scrapbooking, I'm reading medical literature. Good stuff about antibiotic resistance (we have to culture everyone?! for everything?! according to the CDC). Sorry, I know no one but me cares about that.

And otherwise it's peaceful here. I suppose that's what has kept me away so long. Nothing exciting to write about. But peaceful is highly underrated, and it is good for the soul. To be with the ones I love, in a place I love, this is good. It's the good stuff.

And this month's Cocoa Daisy kit is good stuff too. Here is a glimpse:

Happy Wednesday to you! Until tomorrow. Signed-unbelievably blessed and lucky.

Something different

Sometimes with all the fun supplies out there, I look around and I feel like a little kid in a candy store. And I often wonder how my child must feel around the supplies that are clearly things that he loves. I have shared a few of my American crafts Junior chipboard pieces with him, and he will spend hours playing with the dinosaurs, cars and robots. I thought for sure they would be toast in 5 minutes, destroyed. But he is very careful and loves them so much. I could pick them right now and use them on a page, they are still in great condition.

So sometimes I get the itch to make him something. Something that only he will love and appreciate. I've had all these supplies in a Studio calico crop bag for nearly 6 months now. Everything has delayed this project, most especially the move. But I finally had some time to complete it this weekend. It is going in this Maya Road chipboard album.

I started to glue the pages, but then I was afraid it would be too hard to take a photo and keep the album open at the same time. So I stopped and just laid the pages out for the picture, but they will be in the album by tonight for sure. J has been watching the progress, I put each 2 page spread up on my magnetic bulletin board each morning for him to see. He really likes it, he loves cars/planes so much! So this "book" is dedicated to J, who loves cars and planes more than anyone I know.

Supplies: American Crafts Delight thickers-white and black; American crafts white gel pen; American crafts Letterbox chipboard frame; American crafts felt Blue skies embellishments; American crafts black 03 pen; plus Scribble scrabble patterned paper and 2 packages of Sassafras Zoom, zoom Felties.

We got the book out of the library several months ago called Alphabeep. Much of this book is inspired by it, and the Scribble Scrabble paper. I just love the colored grid paper, wish that trend would catch on. The words were inspired by a Thomas the train book, Jeremy the jet plane. Thanks for humoring me. :)

And I promised you a picture of it:

Dh and I have been spending our evenings this past weekend in front of our new gas logs. The ones that took over a week to install correctly. The ones who have subsequently brought 60 degree temperatures around noon to our region. The snow, it's still not melted yet. It was a ton of snow. This thing cranks out some heat though, it's not just for looks. I love it. :)

Thank you so much for the kind words on the mini album, and thank you so much to everyone who bookmarked it, voted, etc. at 2 peas. That was a nice surprise. I'm so overwhelmed by all the comments. Thank you. Happy Wednesday! Until tomorrow.

Part Two Mini album

I was tied up yesterday with the gas logs people, but I think we finally got it right! I'll post a photo tomorrow, now I'm loving it! Here is the mini album from the Cocoa Daisy March kit Ozzie and Harriet. How this came about was I had been thinking what photos I'd like to scrap with the colors in the kit. And it dawned on me that I'd like to scrap some from each different folder of the 2009 year. Then it hit me further that I had not been very good about my monthly pages last year and that I really should do something about that.

The one big question in my mind was could all the newly released paper/embellishments play together in one mini album? I think the answer is yes. :)

The cover: (Studio Calico Anthology Fabrips, American crafts Emerald Black thickers, Maya road chipboard scissors, and writing and sewing hybridly designed via computer). The only thing not from the kit or add-ons was those thickers. The thickers that came with the kit are bigger and I wanted very much to use those, but they didn't have 2 zeros and the "o"s were smaller and kind of wonky with the "2". So I got ones that were the exact same texture and color from my stash.

January: (Studio Calico anthology paper, notebook paper kit, Martha stewart snowflake punch)

February: (Studio Calico Anthology paper (front and back) with Sassafrass Cherry delicious paper accents, Jenni Bowlin Studio pins, Martha Stewart heart punch)

March: (Jenni Bowlin homespun paper and butterfly.) One of my favorite pages.

April: (Cosmo cricket Material girl with Maya road Chipboard needle/thread)

May: (Fancy Pants Lil Spout paper with GDC flower accent from homespun chic paper with Maya road leave pin)

June: One of my favorite pages! (GCD homespun chic paper with Jillibean soup cut-out birdhouse, Maya road chipboard heart.)

July: Studio Calico Anthology with Cosmo cricket paper strip, Tim Holtz sprocket (not included in the kit, but you could have just done a circle):

August: (Jillibean Soup Old World Cabbage paper, Maya Road chipboard hanger; shorts made out of GCD papers, random button)

September: (GCD homespun chic paper, Maya road chipboard paperclip). I forgot to add some of the trim that came with the main kit, oops. :)

October: Scenic Route Lemongroove paper with Jenni bowlin banner stickers. I added some American crafts Marilyn rub-ons from my stash, but any rub-ons in a smaller size would work.

November: 7 gypsies Journey edo paper, with a die cut leaf from the cardstock in the main kit and cut piece of Sassafrass Cherry delicious paper.

December: Front and back of Apple Jack Sassafras paper and Jenni bowlin Green vintage buttons.

There you have it, pretty simple. For someone who is more graphic than vintage, I think I made all these new vintage-inspired lines work for my 2009 year in review album. Off to go clean the downstairs, repair people always make such a mess. Happy Wednesday! Until tomorrow. As always, your comments are appreciated by me. Just glad you dropped by. :)

Ozzie and Harriet part 1

Sharing the layouts I did with the Cocoa Daisy March kit Ozzie and Harriet. This is the kit I will compare all others too, past and future. I really, really loved it to pieces. Here are the layouts, I will share the mini album next time. I got the main kit and the patterned paper That Girl and had bits and pieces of the add-ons Bewitched and Gidget in my stash.

This one is all the main kit except for the JBS stick pins and journaling card. Gosh he is getting so big, so fast. He's potty trained now, guess being stuck in the house with all the snow this past month was good for something! :)

This one is very representative of how I am spending my days at the moment. J's favorite thing in the whole world is to "play trains." He has Thomas the train, and I am now proficient at building all kinds of cities. I love, love that studio calico anthology paper. It's so perfect for a little boy. That little notecard (blue) comes with the main kit. Everything from the main kit here.

This is me reminiscing over last year. Our spring this year will likely be much different, J wants to play with other kids, wants to start preschool, it's just all different this year. It makes me a little sad. At least scrapping is a way to let those emotions out. I love the JBS stuff on here, green is my favorite color. The JBS paper, SC alphas and the JBS buttons are add-ons, everything else is from the main kit.

And this one makes me laugh. From my journaling exactly, "When he's happy it's a joy, and when he isn't, oh boy." He's intense and passionate. I'm that way, you have to take the good with the bad. The blue and yellow check paper was in the patterned paper add-on-That girl. The SC alphas were in add-on Gidget. Everything else is in the main kit. I love those maya road chipboard shapes (from the main kit).

I'll be back tomorrow with the mini album I did with this kit. It's too long to post on this post too. Here's a little look of a page I did for the AC blog coming up:

I've got a thing for that Foil paper and those Emerald thickers! It's good to hear so many of you have similar tastes in music. Do you like Pink and Katy Perry too? Or is that way too much information about my otherwise lousy taste in music?! :) Happy Monday! Until tomorrow.

Note: Bewitched, I Dream of Jeanie, and Add-on Patterned paper are presently sold out.