Just a slice, please

On the verge of summer...

The last bits of the school year are wrapping up...the high schoolers are in finals (although they have taken some of them already), we have the dance recital next week and weekend and the baby shower I am co-hosting with my sister wives (my husband's cousin's wives and my sister in law) will be wrapped up and then.. . Summer.

 I have decided that this might be the year that I am NOT going to complain about how hot it is.  I am going to enjoy the company of my family no matter the heat and we are going to LIVE.  This very well may be the last summer at home for Maddie.  Who knows if she will go off to Europe or travel next summer after High School...and for Jillian, we are probably facing her jaw surgery next summer.  So I feel compelled to make some memories. Nothing crazy or earth shattering.  The lack of funds forces me to be creative.  But somehow, getting those dreams down on paper is really exciting to me.  Many of these plans have been perkolating for a while and some are true "gimmes" meaning we have done them before and enjoyed them so much we will do them again. So thank you to Ali Edwards for giving me the gentle push this morning to create my SUMMER MANIFESTO.

1) Buy a bathing suit I actually like and will be seen in, no matter what.

2) Hit the beach every other week, more if possible!

3) Shop at the Farmer's Market.

4) Create a new meal with said Farmer's Market finds.

5) Plant and keep alive an herb garden.

6) Take the girls to Hearst Castle.

7) Visit at least 2 colleges of Maddie's choice.

8) Eat outside at least once a week.

9) Go to Sunday Concerts in the park- often.

10) Visit the Santa Monica Pier and Aquarium.

11) Visit Olevera Street.

12) Take the girls and the cameras and photograph our city.

13) Create a scrapbook project with the photos.

14) Play board games.

15) Go Camping.

16) Paint the coffee table.

17) Collect seashells and make sand candles.

18) Sew one project with each girl.

19) Go to a Dodger game with Fireworks.

20) Teach Cammy piano.

21) Take a one night trip with Eric.

22) Live in the moment.

I am excited about the possibilities of this Manifesto..this bucket list...there is a lot of goodness here.  And the best part is that I think I can do them all and that is SUPER exciting...we are going to have a great summer and we are going to live each moment!!

 

Inspiration Elevator

Welcome to Inspiration Elevator!

IE is a group of like minded scrappy friends who want to raise the bar in their own creative process through unique challenges that we issue to each other once a month. These won't be run of the mill challenges and we hope you will join us each month and be inspired by the innovative designs we create.

This is not a blog hop, and there are no prizes, but we would love it if you would take a few minutes to see what the rest of the Inspiration Elevator team created. We are sure you will feel inspired to get creative:

Ann 

Lisa

Audrey

Cathy

Laurel

Christa

Carolyn

Joanne

Laura

 Sue

Lisa M

  

The first challenge, issued by Christa, is two-fold: to create a new design that reflects your style, and to use a new product or technique that you find inspiring right now.

So, with a pile of brand new Crate goodies, some twine, doilies, glimmer mist, hoarded Sassafras butterflies and Pink Paislee, too, I created this...

I wish you could see the gold glimmer mist...there is such a pretty sheen in real life!  Here's some close ups..

So that's my layout, pretty quintessentially me!  I hope you'll follow along with us on the 15th of each month and be sure to link back your creations in my comments if you do so I can see what you've created!

The CK Triple Toot!

So, my big news for the week is I had THREE layouts requested for the Nov/Dec issue of Creating Keepsakes!!  I am pretty darn proud of myself that all three layouts I submitted to them got selected...pretty darn proud!  This isn't my first go-around with CK but it is a HUGE milestone none the less!!  I've never had more than one layout get picked up for the same issue so this is very exciting to little old me!

I've been enjoying my work with Scrappin Sports n More...I love what a clean look I get when I use their papers.  It is old school scrapping at it's best for me, and I love the layouts I create for them.  Here's a couple I've shared on their blog but not here:

I've also been very busy with my new responsibilities as DT Coordinator at Little Red Scrapbook.  LOVE the girls on the new DT...everyone is settling in nicely and the board is hopping along once again.  Come check it out if you haven't yet...not only are our kits the BEST in the industry, we have some fun challenges and friendly faces, too. :)

on a personal note, the kids and I are all suffering from "senioritis" despite none of them being seniors in High School.  Everyone is pretty much "done" with the hustle and bustle and stress of the school year..sadly, it's only going to get worse before it gets better.  The bigs have finals coming up the week after next, then more the following week, just to be compounded with recital rehearsals, ending with the bang of the recital!  Then...ahh...a few weeks off for them while Cammy finishes up (yes their schools aren't on the same schedule this year).  I can not WAIT to get to that point.  Lots of fun to be had until then though...

This weekend is full of birthday parties and Mother's Day, the following weekend I am going to Inspired Journey, a smallish event hosted by my friend Ginger and Teresa Collins...two full days of creating and no kids (hopefully!) and a cheer banquet for Jillian. Throw in dress rehearsals for the recital and the actual recital followed by a family baby shower for which I am in charge of decorations and I will come up for air June 10th..so if I am a bit scarce until then..you know why!  Hope your days aren't as crazy as mine and you are getting lots of crafty "me" time!

NSD Blog Hop Winner!

Thank you all for joining me and the Little Red Design Team on National Scrapbook Day! The winner of the My Minds Eye Collection Pack is Jo L!!

Jo, I will be in contact with you to get you your prize!

I hope you all had a lovely day filled with creating and friendships. I sure did! Here's a couple peeks of projects I was working on... Can't wait to share soon! Hope you all have a wonderful day!

Little Red Scrapbook's National Scrapbook Day Blog Hop!

 

Welcome to the Little Red Scrapbook’s National Scrapbook Day Blog Hop!!  We all love scrapbooking and the community that this hobby brings so what better way to celebrate than by a blog hop!  Each of the designers has some inspiration to share with you and you might even find some chances to win prizes along the way! 
Each month we share a sketch with you and this month, we have selected this fabulous Page Maps sketch for our inspiration!

Here is what I created with it and the new May Kit!

and a close up of the fussy cut flowers..(I added the teeny pearls that were from a previous kit)

We hope you'll play along with our sketch challenge by uploading to our NSD gallery here:  and then linking us in the Sketch Challenge thread on our message board, found here.  You might find your layout featured on our blog this month in our new "Wow'd Us Wednesday" post where we will be highlighting one member's design each week!!

Now, I wouldn't leave you without a chance to win a NSD prize, would I??  Leave me a comment by Sunday midnight telling me all about your National Scrapbook Day plans and I will give one lucky commenter this whole Love Me Collection Pack by My Mind's Eye!! You have an extra chance by following my blog!

Then, hop on to the next blog in the list (be sure to leave a comment on each blog!) and end at the Little Red Scrapbook blog and comment by 11:59CST to tell us what inspired you for a chance to win a prize! 
Lisa S.- http://www.lisaspiegel.typepad.com (you are here!)
Karrie - http://www.karriecook.blogspot.com
Nikki – http://nikki-hobbs.blogspot.com
AnnaMarie - http://www.annamarie-mondro.blogspot.com
Meg- http://www.meggiroux.blogspot.com
Tammy - http://www.tammydee-meandmine.blogspot.com
Lisa W. - http://createfor7.blogspot.com
LRS Blog- http://www.littleredchronicle.blogspot.com

Happy National Scrapbook Day and Happy Hopping!!!

TGIF!!

Thank goodness it's Friday!  It's been very busy around here with the big kids headed into finals, AP exams and such.  I have been working a lot and gearing up for our Little Red Blog Hop on National Scrapbook Day (Saturday) so that has kept me busy.  I decided to clean my scraproom in honor of NSD, mostly so that I had room to scrap!  I have been great at making messes, cleaning, not so much!  Anyway, I have a blog post up on the Little Red Scrapbook Blog today where I'm sharing photos of my Scrap Loft!!  I'll give you a peek here..

but if you would like to see the whole thing, head on over there where I take you on the full tour!  Be sure to come back on Saturday for the Little Red NSD Blog Hop.  I have a great prize to give away and a layout to share!  TGIF!!

Mark your calendar!

May 5th is National Scrapbook Day and we are celebrating and kicking off our new Design Team with a BLOG HOP!!! Mark your calendars and join in the fun and celebration! There will be lots of inspiration and prizes, too!! Hope you'll join us!!

Little Red Scrapbook News!

It's been a busy couple of days over at Little Red Scrapbook! First, we announced our new Design Team!  I'm so honored to be the Design Team Coordinator of this fantastic team!!  You can see the announcement HERE.  We also had our Design Team Gallery reveal so I thought I'd share my designs with you here.

Here's my first design..it's also my Monthly Challenge.  (which is to use the hot trend of chevrons on your layout)

Next up was my sketch layout.  I also played along with Tammy's challenge to use paint or mist on the layout.  I added splashes of mists and confetti, too. :)

My last layout...

and a couple of cards- the first was created with the stamp add on...oooh I love this typewriter stamp!!  I'm going to be using it a LOT!

And next, a bonus card.  I used the stamps to stamp on the canvas butterflies here:

So there you have it!  There are still a few kits left and you won't want to miss this one...I mean it!!

So come check out our fun and friendly forum and stick around for some fun new challenges and mojo makers for May!!  We have lots of exciting new changes in store for you all!!

Project Life Update

I'm still plugging along with Project Life, and more importantly, I'm still LOVING this project! My sweet friend Kari got me some of Type A page protectors so in this recap of the last month you will see a switch to this style. Which I LOVE. I wasn't sure how I'd feel about them but there is so much more opportunity with all the extra pockets- its a fun new challenge for me!
Now, typepad is giving me fits this week. For some reason I am not able to upload pictures from my computer to it. I'm not sure if this is part of the Picasa/Google + switch or not but the only way I am able to blog is from my iPhone, then go back in and edit the post. And then there is a pesky 5 photo limit... So please hang in there with me while I wait for typepad to answer my claim ticket and help me out!

Okay, so here we go..this is week 10. I decided no inserts were necessary for this particularly boring week. LOL We were UBER busy and I seriously just didn't get an opportunity to take many photos.

Here we have Week 11...St Patty's week! I had fun designing this week because there was so much for me to choose from! I decided to add reciepts to the actual posts this week, instead of a pocket of them. I think I will use more of this going forward. I found some great free printable cards on Pinterest and added those and the inserts are of the cute Leprechaun mask Cammy made and Maddie's full color newspaper. I wish I could add another photo here so you could see the adorable transparency pocket I made...you'll see the backside in the next photo.

 

Edited to add**Yay!  I am able to upload..something about "compatability mode" blah blah blah...isn't the transparency cute??  I will definitely try this again!

I'm super proud of this. I printed out Lucky (from Heidi Swapp, I think) onto transparency, put clear embossing powder over it and heat set it (without melting the transparency- go ME!) and then added some lucky pennies and other fun stuff, slid the transparency in the pocket and sewed the entire thing shut. LOVE it.

 

 

You can see the backside again of a pocket with no paper in it...One side has the iTunes cards we used for a bunch of downloads during the week and the other side has the baggage check ticket from my DH's trip for the week. The insert has Cammy's major book report (she got a 4- 100%!!) and a cute little hat from the classroom.

I was able to use three pockets to display one vertical 4 x 6 and make it a little scrapbooky...lol...I really like how that turned out. My only issue with these Type A protectors is there isn't room for vertical pictures unless you do something creative like this...but I do love how it turned out!

So there you have the last 4 weeks of Project Life. I am liking the changes that the new protectors are offering me and it is keeping me inspired when I see other's projects for ideas. I'd love to have more time to spend on this project. I think one thing I didn't realize is that it really takes a couple of hours a week to keep up with the project. I tend to let one week get behind and do two weeks at a time as that cuts down on time spent. I can print all photos and organize all memorabilia at the same time which is a time saver for me. How are you keeping up with the project? Tell me your tips!! And thank you for bearing with me while I figure out this Typepad issue...hopefully it will be fixed soon and I can get back to my picture heavy posts!!

I hit bottom!!

On my desk that is!

So I spread out my March Little Red Scrapbook kit and got busy! I can not believe how quickly I did three layouts and two cards... The kit is amazing! It is even more beautiful in person and you are going to love it! So here's a few sneaks for you...sorry you will have to wait until the 15th for the full reveal!