Merry Christmas!!

My family wanted to wish all of you and yours a very Merry Christmas as we celebrate our Savior’s birth! 

Such an exciting time!  We are ready, plates of goodies are assembled and passed out…..oh…..there are stories with that one!  I must journal on a layout about it!  Let’s just say….better packaging next year.  ; ) 

This has been such a special month.  I can’t help but to blog about how proud I am of this lil’ man!  My first born.  **gasp** I honestly don’t know where the time has gone!  He is loving his new school and all the demands of it being a magnet school.  He especially loves the band he is apart of and they had recently had their first concert.  It was mostly Christmas songs and they such a fantastic job!

Here he is at their piano recital right before his turn.  I love the look.  Raw emotion; nerves, excitement, confidence.

The most meaningful and memorable event was a week and a half ago at our Sunday morning service.  He had been asking for quite some time about when he get water baptized.  We knew that when he had a full understanding of what it meant and when he felt ready, he would bring it up all on his own.  He has come to know what it is to have a real relationship with Jesus and to have a Heavenly Father who loves him so much, no matter what.  You can imagine how excited I was when I heard that he wanted to proclaim that to the world through water baptism.  I know that God has an amazing plan for his life and I love watching it unfold.  Look how pleased he is in this photo!  Like….  ‘I finally get to do this!’ 

This kid is phenomenal.    We are so truly blessed.  What an honor for Arte to get to baptize his own son.  I was playing the piano with the rest of the team, bawling my eyes out!  You could feel such a strong presence of the Holy Spirit.  The entire service was such a powerful one……I will never, ever forget it!

It seems as though I don’t get as many layouts done with the documentation of my photos and memories.  I’m thinking that is partially why I love to blog.  Getting my thoughts and memories down just in case I don’t quite get that page scrapped!  LOL 

I wanted to announce the winner of the Give-away from a few posts back.  If I can get your addy in time, I will try to get this in the mail before Christmas.

Random Integer Generator

Here are your random numbers:

1

Timestamp: 2010-12-23 16:03:04 UTC

I am amazed at the times that Random Generator chooses 1!  That means Leigh…you are the winner!  Congrats!  Email your addy to me at julieoverby@peak.org  Have a fabulous Christmas my friends!

From Our Kitchen To Yours

The girls and I have been baking up a storm, getting some fun plates together full of homemade goodies, ready to take to all our neighbors.  I made this lil’ tag with some of my favorite stamps from Gina K Designs ‘Winter Mittens’ (sentiment) set and the pinecone and needles are from Flourishes.  After I stamped the background with some musical notes (Pink Paislee,) I then sprayed my tag with glimmer mist and began layering from there.  I used Spellbinders Labels Fourteen behind the sentiment.

I think this is my most favorite two weeks of the year.  I love having the kids home.  I love catching snap shots of favorite memories.  Check out the joy on this girls face as she ‘makes’ something for other people.

Well, okay……maybe she did have a few herself and maybe she was just a bit excited about that!  LOL

The kids also had their Christmas program at church this past Sunday.  I was so proud of them!  They did amazing.  The photos are going to need a little work.  I need some practice taking good photos at performances!  As great as they did, my absolutely FAVORITE photo of all was captured later Sunday afternoon after they had returned home.  The three of them just sat around the piano jamming, singing and teaching each other new things.  Oh!  Be still my beating heart!!  I think it was one of the happiest moments I’ve had as a mother.  Not necessarily because they were being musical but because they were inspiring each other and encouraging one another and singing togther….all on their own!  It was precious.

We had several other memorable and special moments this week that I am anxious to document.  I will save them for a later post. 

If you haven’t had a chance to read about the RAK I am doing, there is still time to be entered for it.  You can find the details in this post below.  Be sure to check back on Thursday to see if you are the winner!

I hope your next few days are extremely blessed as anticipate the celebration of our Savior’s birth!

Merci for your patience! RAK time!!

I wanted to say ‘Merci’ to all my blog readers for your sweet comments and for your patience with me!  December is a month where I really try to focus on my priorities and I had intended to post this earlier but you know how it goes! 

I stamped this card with Gina K Designs stamp, ‘Lovely Lables Two’ and then cut/embossed it with Spellbinders Labels Fifteen.  The brown felt is Viola from Prima Marketing. 

So, to thank you all for being such amazing blog readers and in the Christmas spirit of giving I wanted to post a RAK.  At this time of year, it’s so easy to get caught up in all the festivities and forget that the reason we are celebrating ‘giving,’ is that God gave, sent, His son to earth as a baby boy.  Jesus then grew to be a man went through many of the same trials we do (He understands what you are going through!)  In the end, giving up his own own life because He loves us so much.  He wanted us to have the ultimate gift which is eternal life with Him!  It amazes me that all we have to do is ask Him to forgive us (which is a gift of freedom in itself!) and to make Him Lord of life.  I can’t tell you how truly blessed I am to be living by this faith.  There is no greater peace. 

I can hardly wait until Friday afternoon when the kids are done with school and we can do some more baking and fun crafts together.  I have a few recipes to share too!

Here are a few shots of the RAK.  It was hard to get a good photo because I only have my zoom lens still.  

The kit standing up in the back is a My Mind’s Eye kit and it includes 6 gorgeous pieces of pattern paper, rub ons, overlays, and several die cuts.  Also in the back there are a package of Heidi Swapp glossy accents and a package of Hambly Screen Prints Rub ons.  Shown below is some gorgeous pattern paper, rub ons, chipboard, stickers, trim, flowers, buttons and stamps.  The companies represented are: Studio Calico,  Pink Paislee, GCD Studios, Collage Press, Creative Imaginations, SEI, Imaginisce, Papertrey Ink, Kaiser Crafts, Prima Marketing, Doodle Bug Designs, lots of Little Yellow Bycle and some of my very favorite Tiny Type alphabets from Cosmo Cricket!  Phew!  Everything is new in it’s package.

You wil have until Wednesday, December 22nd midnight PST to post a comment to be eligible.  That way, I can try and pop in the mail before Christmas!  Be sure to check back to find out if you’re the winner. 

I’ll be posting soon with more projects.  Off to finish the teacher gifts.  **wink**

Spellbinders Grand Die Template Layout

Supplies: Spellbinders S4-207 Kaleidoscope Pendants; S4-290 Labels Fourteen; LF-114 Grand Circles; LF-127 Grand Scalloped Squares,Cosmo Cricket, Togetherness Pinwheels Patterned Paper; Trunk in the Attic, Attic Journaling Cards Patterned Paper; Worldwin Papers, Kraft Treasures Cardstock; Clearsnap, Colorbox Chestnut Roan Fluid Chalk Ink; Creative Impressions, White Bits of Bling Pearl

The first week of December….gone!  I’m trying so hard to slow down each day and just enjoy the season….enjoy the journey!  Isn’t it amazing how we can learn so much from our kids?  My sweet 6 year old seems to enjoy what ever she does, where ever she goes.  She is such an inspiration! 

I love, absolutely love using circles on my layouts.  All different shapes and sizes of circles!  On this layout I used the new Grand Circle die templates.

I thought it would be fun to share an ornament that I created back in July.  Even though I’ve already shared it, we are in the season of decorating our tree and this is a super fun way to do.  They also make special gifts!

This ornament has three sides to it.  One side for each my kiddos!  The handsome boy in the frame is my middle schooler.  He is growing WAY to fast! 

If you would like to see some step shots you can find them on this post.  There is also a tutorial on Split Coast with a video that Beate created that you can find here. 

I will posting a photo of my December giveaway this weekend.  See you then!  Have a fabulous day!

Paper Crafts Mag. and SHINE!

It’s December 1st!  Where or where did November go?  I love this time of year.  This last week has been full of all kinds of memories. 

I’ve been anxious to share two projects that I was blessed enough to have published with Paper Paper Crafts Magazine called Holiday Cards.  It’s got some amazing ideas for Christmas.  I’ve looked through it over and over and gotten some serious inspiration!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The card I created is with Hambly Screen Prints pattern paper, some Spellbinders Snowflake die templates and a Scenic Route rub-on.  The tag bellow has the sentiments stamped on.  

Thanks so much for taking a peak at my work!  Since it’s the start of my favorite month, I am wanting to do a giveaway.  I’m gathering goodies and will post about it soon.

Before I sign off and bury myself under all my new, fantastic die templates that arrived at my house today, **swoon** I wanted to show you this cool video by one of my favorite bands.  It’s by the David Crowder Band and not only is the song great, they did some super cool effects with a light bright and computer graphics.  It’s called ‘Shine’ and I think it’s so appropriate for this time of year.  It’s  a reality check.  Why are we here?  What is our purpose?   How fast the time flies.  And then declaring the Greatest Love of All.  I adore this song!  Check it out:

DavidCrowderBandVEVO

Happy Thanksgiving!

I hope you are having a fabulous time with your family during this Thanksgiving season.  I love spending down time with family during this time of the year. 

Supplies:  Spellbinders™ S3-026 Filmstrip; S4-194 Classic Inverted Scalloped Circles LG; S4-232 Blossom Two; S7-018 Big Scalloped Border Grand; I2-1004 Flowers Impressabilities™, Clearsnap, Colorbox Chestnut Roan Fluid Chalk Ink; Tattered Angels, Coffee Glimmer Mist; SCRAPBOOK ADHESIVES BY 3L, 3D Foam Squares, E-Z Runne; Patterned Paper- Basic Grey; Cardstock - Bazzill; Alpha Stickers - American Crafts; Pearl Sticker - Prima Marketing; White, Hat Pin - Maya Road; Trim - Prima Marketing; White Paint; Clear Glaze; Pop Dots; Ruler

I can’t tell you how thankful I am for my family.  As I woke up this morning, after a bit of a crazy night, I am so very grateful for them and that God richly blessed me!  This is one layout that expresses my emotion.  This lil’ sweet pea of mine is growing up so fast but I’m loving watching all the stages.  She is such a tender and sensitive girl.  I love her so much. 

I created this page for my second round entry when trying out for the Spellbinders team last year. Our challenge was to use this die template:

S3-026 Filmstrip

and this one:

S4-194 Classic Inverted Scalloped Circles LG

I love thinking outside of the box and trying to come up with something different! 

Thanks so much for stopping by!

My favorite day….

Wanna know what we were doing at 7 am in the morning?  Checking out the surprise we got from the Master Designer this morning!  We knew it would be cold because school was canceled.  Of course, I was thinking…sleep in day!!  Oh no, the kids where out in their PJ’s dancing in the snow!   In the past, school has been canceled due to icy roads and snow up river but not where we live here on the coast!  It has snowed one or two other times but has never stuck like this.  We were amazed to see the sky on fire as the sunrise grew.  Absolutely stunning against all the white we were seeing.

  The kids, who were barely dressed and definitely not properly dressed, hopped on their bikes right away because what would be more cool than riding your bike in snow??

Then it really started coming down and Ashley was jumping for joy!

Being Max’s first experience in the snow, he was showing just a tad and decided to try and catch the snowflakes that were higher than Ashley!

I knew it wouldn’t be too long before the snowball fights started!  (Remember…this is now maybe 8 am in the morning…I am clutching my coffee cup!)

Wasting no time at all, it was time to build their very first snowman in their own yard.  They’ve done it other places but they were so excited to be able to do it in front of our house. 

Kelsey says… “This is my best life ever!”  and then several minutes later, “it feels like we are in a dream!” 

I. am. soaking. it. up.

 

Truly, the ended up being more like ice sculptures as the snow began to melt and everything got quite icy.  He’s a bit sad looking but trust me…he’s happy and he is still standing!

Finally, in the house, cozy by the fire sipping hot chocolate.  We’ve had the fire going all day.  We’ve never done that before either!  It really feels like Christmas.  We played board games and created some art.  What a gift.  What memories. 

I do actually have some neat projects to share.  They will have to wait until tomorrow.  Having too much fun with our first ‘real snow day!’ 

Spellbinders Holiday Hoppin’ Day 2

 

Welcome to the first day of the Spellbinders™ Paper Arts Holiday Hoppin’ Blog Hop!  Spellbinders, along with some of their Cross Promotional Partners are showcasing their newest products just in time for your Holiday crafting and gift giving.  Lots of creative ideas are in store, as well as prizes galore!

* *Each participating company has generously donated towards the prize package listed on the Spellbinders Blog. **

A total of two identical prize packages, one for each day, November 18 and 19 will be given away!  To enter, just leave a comment on a participating blog!  Comments in the first 48 hours of the post are eligible.  One commenter each day will be randomly selected as the winner.  Winners will be announced on November 22, on the Spellbinders Blog!

Be sure to see all of yesterday’s Holiday Hoppin’ blogs for inspiring projects and another chance to win!

Visit all of today’s Holiday Hoppin’ blogs:

Mona Pendleton
Gina Hanson
Deborah Young
Becca Feeken
Julie Overby
Kimberly Crawford
AJ Otto
Margie Higuchi
Beth Pingry
Jennifer Holmes
Kerry Urbatch
Shona Erlenborn
Tammy Inman
Jessica Turner
Brenda Hurd
Julie Koerber
Rae Barthel
Rachel O’Crowley
Kellie Fortin
Kristen Cohen
Joy Dickson
Candy Rosenberg
Laura Craigie
Stephanie Hester
Leesa Crutcher
Nina Brackett

Today I am using Spellbinders LF-124 Grand Scalloped Circles die template to create a strong, visual backdrop on my layout.  This set comes with 6 different size templates which makes them so very versatile.  I like to use all of the sizes on my layouts but the largest one is what I use most.  For my style layout, it’s the perfect size to frame my photo, title and journaling all in one.  LOVE that!  There are many wonderful manufacturers represented on this layout and I’ve listed those bellow.   Supplies: Spellbinders™ GC-001 Grand Calibur, LF-124 Grand Scalloped Circles, S4-290 Labels Fourteen, S7-018 Big Scalloped Border Grand, S4-28 Fanciful Holiday, Pattern Paper: Fancy Pants Designs – Road Show (Vintage Stripes), Graphic 45: Renaissance Faire Collection (Romatique,) Fashionista Collection (Haute Couture), Donna Salazar – Grandma’s Garden (Tickled Peach,) Trunk in the Attic (Sage Swirls, Nutmeg Nostalgia), Melissa Frances, Crate Paper; Stamp: Sparkle N Sprinkle; Glitter: Sparkle N Sprinkle – Sparkling Snow, Shimmering Sea; Pearls: Creative Impressions; Burlap Buttons – Nikki Sivils; Stickers – American Crafts, October Afternoon; Ink: Clearsnap (Colorbox – Chestnut Roan); Foam Squares and Adhesive Sheets –SCRAPBOOK ADHESIVES by 3L

********************************************* Leave a comment on my blog to be eligible to win the Spellbinders Holiday Hoppin’ Prize Package.

 

**** One winner will be chosen from all the comments on all the blogs participating today.***  Comments made in the first 48 hours of this post will be eligible to win.  Winner’s names will be published on the Spellbinders Blog on November 22, and they will have 48 hours to reply to Spellbinders to claim the prizes.

While I was playing with my Grand Scalloped Circles I was trying to come up with some fun ways I could create elements to go on my layout.  Although this didn’t quite make it on to my page as intended, I still wanted to use it because I loved the look.

In order to create this, I cut/embossed two of the smallest (#1) Grand Scalloped Circles and used my score pal to score between each scallop. After making a slit to the middle on on of the the lines, I folded each scallop.  I taped the two of them together to get this full.   I then Stamped a Christmas Sentiment from my Gina K. Stamps Heirloom Ornament stamp set by Nina Brackett.  I then cut it out using S4-116 Standard Circles SM.

I love making quick fun projects with my left overs!  It’s a great way to use up scraps!

Thank you so much for checking out my creations! 

Fabulous Fall

Happy Friday everyone!!  I had a bit of time *gasp* to do a bit of blog hopping and I’m loving all the daily gratitude reads.  I’m a bit behind and can’t promise that I will be blogging daily but I’d love to share 12 things that I am grateful for!  That catches me up to Nov. 12th…..counting down to Thanksgiving day.  ; )

I am grateful for:

1)  The majestic sounds and beauty of the ocean.
2)  My amazing husband who loves me unconditionally.
3)  Four day weekends that slow us down so we can spend time together as a family.
4)  All the brave men and women who serve this nation.
5)  The mystery guest who gave my yard a make over.  ; )
6)  The word of God that brings life to my thirsty soul!
7)  All things chocolate.
8)  Music and all the different ways it is an inspiration in my family.
9)  My three precious gifts who are truly the best kids ever.
10) The paper crafting community that has given so much to me in the form of friendships and inspiration.
11) Our fabulous church and friends who have graciously accepted us and taken us as their own over the past six years.
12) Sunshine!!

Both of these photos are unedited and were taken five minutes from my house.  We are so blessed! 

I wanted to share something else without shocking too many of my local readers.  I’m loving all things fall and even though we don’t get the change of color in trees, we find other ways to feel like fall.  GUESS what I made…..hold on to your hats……this!

I promise you, I did!!  The kids even helped me.  Please don’t ask me how it tastes but ya know, not bad for not having made one in …..I won’t say how long.  My poor deprived hubby.  Not anymore!  I’m a kick!  I even tried to sew a purse with my daughter today.  For real.  Notice I’m not posting a photo of it.  One thing I am certain of, if I put all my paper crafting aside, creativity would still try and ooze out in some other form.  I just know it!  And trust me, you don’t want it to be in sewing fabric!  LOL 

So, for now, I’m sticking to the paper.  Here is a fallish card full of Melissa Frances yummy paper. 

I used the Spellbinders™ Labels Fourteen die template to cut out the sentiment and then the largest one to cut out the label stamp.  The stamp came to me from Laura of Layers of Color.  She has several stamps made to fit in Spellbinders die templates.  So fun!

On more thing that I have to say I am especially grateful for right now (just in case I don’t post tomorrow…the 13th; ) . )  I am so grateful for a very exciting happy email that I was holding my breath for!  Totally made my day! 

Have a fabulous weekend my friends!

All My Love **and a wee bit of a secret!**

Hi friends!  I have a little card that I put together a while back.  the die template is Spellbinders Labels Fourteen and that gorgeous heart is a Waltzing Mouse stamp.  I have just fell in love with the stamps from this company!  The sentiment inside is also Waltzing Mouse. 

I can’t let this post go on without telling you over the top excited I am about the happy mail I got yesterday!!  It was an envelop from Spellbinders….a very heavy envelope!  It was my new Spellbinders die templates that will be in the new release collection at CHA this winter.  I kept reaching in and finding more.  I couldn’t believe how many sets there were and EVERY single one of them were so awesome and something that I would and will definitely use.  Can’t. wait. to. tell!!!  You are going to love them!  Secrets are SO hard to keep.  Trust me when I say…start saving your money.  For real!

I do hope you are enjoying your week and that you are able to take some time out tomorrow to remember the heroes of this great country!  We have another four day weekend so I’m looking forward to some down time with my kiddos.  My fave!    This past weekend was full of some fun shopping time and an Ensemble Festival.  Although they were quite nervous, A.J. and Ashley did a fabulous job!  It’s always so hard to get good photos in the Performing Arts theater but I did my best and also had some parents send me theirs. 

I just think she is beaming in this photo and I’m so glad that she enjoys what she is doing. 

Since Kelsey didn’t get to perform, I just have to share a few photos I took of her recently.  She loves the camera…that girl!  

 

Now….if we can just figure out what to do with that hair!  LOL