the moments in between

the littlest

seriously had to get that sweetness onto a page.  love that boy. the hanging hearts were inspired by a color me pretty post over at decor8.  so many of those posts have sent me straight to my desk, and i'm sad to see that there won't be any new ones until march.  i guess i'll just have to dig into the archives. the paper and fabrips are all home front by studio calico, and the hearts and border punch are fiskars.

the boys had a friend over this afternoon - i snapped this silly little pic as i walked past to go photograph my page.  they are way into bakugan these days. the amount of information in their noggins about these crazy little balls just blows my mind.

i can't believe that tomorrow night is new year's eve.  we don't have any exciting plans - i'm not much of a night person, and prefer to stay out of the way of the crazies.  we're going to let alex and ben stay up as long as they make it, and then camp out in the living room under the christmas tree.  i'm kicking around some one little word ideas in my head, trying to find the right one. we're planning a library trip, because alex was complaining about not having anything to read when he headed up to bed (me and the bigs read together each night, and then they get 20 min to read in bed before lights out).  and i'll definitely be back at my desk, as i have a couple assignments to tie up before the year is over.

i hope you all have a wonderful new year's eve - however you spend it. =)

oh so very merry, oh so very white

the current landscape here looks a bit like this :

lots. and lots. of snow.  there's at least 2 feet in most places, with drifts that are much, much higher.

 

 

it started snowing on christmas eve.  we made decorated sugar cookies in the morning, to pass the time. we went back and forth on whether we out to go out to my mom's (20ish min away), or have her come here (since she has an SUV and no kids, LOL) - but we ended up going out there in the early afternoon.

we opened presents, had an early dinner, tracked santa on norad for a bit and headed back home by about 5:30. definitely a rushed celebration!!  now that the bigs are, well, big enough, we had finally been getting back into our tradition of playing board games after christmas eve dinner, but we didn't want to be stuck there for the night.  the wind was gusting big time and the snow was blowing a lot, and the roads were going downhill fast even as we made our way home.

when we got home the boys played with new toys from grandma and grandpa, and we let them open a present from us - connect 4x4.  we played a few rounds of that - and it's waaaaaaaaaay harder (and more fun) - than connect 4.

 

 

then carrots for the reindeer and cookies for santa, and an annual attempt to get a pic of all three of them under the tree.  which was an annual failure.  LOL. and a little more santa tracking before reading our stack of favorite christmas books together, and then off to bed.

 

 

 

up early. had to break out the speedlight for the stocking pics, but we took a break for cinnamon rolls after that and the sun came up while we were eating, so i was able to ditch it for the rest of the pics.  sam packed and unpacked his stocking about a zillion times, and his little head just about exploded when his brothers gave him the play food set that he'd seen at target and had been talking about ever since. matthew got a video of it, and it's awesome. he also got a stove from us and spent the rest of the day cooking.  the bigs were thrilled w/ their legos that matthew had run all over town for, thank goodness, or he might have thrown them out into the snow. ;)

 

the socks and underwear, however - well, they went over just as well as they did last year. ;)

at this point matthew bundled up and went out to see what the road conditions were like - we're about 1/2 a block from a major road, so he walked down there.  and decided there was no way we were going anywhere.  we spent the rest of the day in jammies - the boys played with all their new toys, we opened presents from family that wasn't in town, and we generally enjoyed having no where to be. legos were built, play food was cooked, and we were thankful that my mom had sent us home w/ leftovers the night before!

 

 

we'd been plowed by saturday, so we forced the boys to get dressed up and go celebrate with the rest of the family at my grandma's house. sam's sweater vest = the cutest thing ever. we were all ready to get out of the house by then, and it was good to see my extended family. i'm glad everyone's schedule worked and that we were able to get together a day late.

on sunday matthew took alex and ben sledding, and then we celebrated with his dad (and i haven't even started sorting through those pics yet!)  matthew had yesterday off and we ran a few errands, and then matthew and his dad took the bigs to see rudolph at the children's theater.

and now it's back to reality.  me and a house of three crazy boys.  no fun plans. a tree that needs to go away. cleaning and purging that needs to happen so that new toys can be put away.  scrap assignments that need to be done this week.  i guess i should be happy that it's never boring around here, huh?

whodunit projects

the gallery went live last night - i have enjoyed browsing it while having breakfast this morning, since i was too tired to stay up for the reveal fun. =) this kit was a favorite among many of the design team members, and it shows - everyone totally outdid themselves.

i got the main kit, whodunit, and two of the add-ons - colonel mustard and in the billiard room. i didn't get with the candlestick, just because my kids aren't the right age for vday treat boxes, and i already had some of the paper - but how cute is that stamp set?? i *love* the christmas tags that dav made with it - you can see them here. i'm totally smacking my head for not grabbing the to and from stamp when i was making MY christmas tags.  LOL.

 

i've meant to use these pics for a couple different assignments, but have always switched to something else at the last minute. i'm glad i waited, because these colors were absolutely perfect!!  the label stickers, flowers, yellow grid paper and the green pp punched into a circle down at the bottom are from the main kit, the border, kraft patterned paper, asterix chip, brown button & bird stamps are from colonel mustard, and the wood letters (LOVE) are from in the billiard room.  i used timber brown stazon for the stamps and tied the button with red baker's twine. the little camera sticker was actually from the labeling on the sticker sheet, but i had to use it as an accent. i also used a fiskars XL round n round punch and apron lace border punch on this page.

 

i'm writing up a tutorial on the background of this page - it will be up on the SC blog this week.  almost everything is from the main kit - i just added the clear buttons & star rubons from in the billiard room.  the red buttons were pulled off of the sassafras flowers from the main. i also used red baker's twine, silver plated maya mist, white paint and a fiskars L block party punch on this one.

this was one of those happy pages that just fall together. the grey, yellow and red pp are from the main kit, as are the label stickers & pins. the vintage ledger paper and bird stamps are from colonel mustard, and the red letter stickers and silver button are from in the billiard room. i used more red baker's twine, charcoal mist (on the background), blue raspberry mist (on the chipboard) and broken china ink on the stamps.

 

i love this page.  love. mostly because these are photos that my boys took, and i love that they have an interest in photography. when we are out and have a camera, they'll frequently ask to take photos of things they see.i loved the studio calico paper with the circles on it and tried to use it as a big piece, but it wasn't working for me. i'm just not a big piece of paper scrapper, lol.  once i started working with bits and pieces, i had no trouble. i punched most of the circles from the sc paper using fiskars L and XL round n round punches - i also punched a circle right through the bag that the vintage ampersand decal came in, and one from the studio calico label sheet.  i masked off the middle of the page and sprayed the outside with hydrangea mist. the solid stars are stamped with broken china, and the outlines are stamped with stazon black - i love that the fiskars M twinkle twinkle punch fits right inside the outline. this one uses bits from the main kit, colonel mustard and in the billiard room.

if you have any ?s, i'd love to answer them.  i'm hoping to get some more pages done with this kit - i've got one half done on my desk, it's just about finding the time.  i'm enjoying having all my boys home, but i could use a little me time soon. =)
 
 
 

come find out whodunit!

have i mentioned that i love this kit?? the shop update and add-on presale for subscribers starts at noon est, and the kits and add-ons go on sale to everyone with the full reveal at midnight pst. there will be lots of chatting over at the message board, come join us! =)

studio calico is running a couple of fun promotions this month -

love this alpha, LOVE the stamps. i use the pinked circle and coffee stain all the time, the buttons and carter alphabet are other favorites.  AND the stamps from the november kits will go into the store at noonbut you can't go wrong with any of them. =)

and a free ampersand stamp with an add-on purchase.  a good excuse to pick one up. ;)

we're celebrating christmas yet again today.. all this snow just let us extend our merry making this year. i've got to get this house under control - it currently looks like a christmas explosion happened here.

last minute whodunit sneaks!

i have peeks at 2 more whodunit projects to share. =)  i've still got the kit out on my desk and will definitely be working with it more - this one has earned a spot on my all time faves list. the color scheme is spot on - so fresh and pretty.

i usually try to do one page that uses just the main kit - but i didn't manage that this time.  i worked fast and had such a mess on my desk that i failed at keeping things seperate.  this page was the closest, though - it just has a button from in the billiard room and a bit of the vintage paper & the bird stamp from colonel mustard.  i used blue raspberry and charcoal mists on this page, and broken china ink on the bird stamps.

this one uses bits from whodunit, colonel mustard and in the billiard room.  i used broken china distress ink and hydrangea mist.  love the the medium star punch from fiskars fits right in the outline star stamp.

and a sneak peek outside my house..  this was taken yesterday afternoon, there's even more out there now.  with all the blowing snow and unplowed roads, we had a snowed in christmas.  we're hoping to get out to celebrate with family today.

 

it was kind of fun being snowed in on christmas - we spent the day on our jammies, and the boys had lots of new games and toys to keep them busy. =)  i hope you had a wonderful holiday as well - i'll be back later w/ more pics from our day.

the waiting is the hardest part

the cookies are frosted.

the presents are wrapped.

the stockings are hung.

and now we wait.

some of us are not big fans of the waiting.

iphone pic, so it's not stellar..  but it cracks me up, so i had to share.  this is the first year that sam *gets* christmas - and with all that excitement, i guess there has to be some downs, too.

(the pjs are babygap - i went in search of christmas pjs and fell in love w/ these instead. i think he should wear them every night.

happy christmas eve!!!

are you ready?  i have to confess that there was panic in the gluestick house last night.  major, MAJOR panic. it seems there was a miscommunication and alex and ben's main presents went unordered. um, OOPS!!  some desperate google-ing turned up the fact that toys r us on the other side of town had alex's gift, but we couldn't find any online info about ben's. matthew went off to toys r us, got alex's gift, asked about ben's and was told it wasn't in their computer, so they didn't know if any stores had it.  there were frantic phone calls.  we came up w/ a plan b, that involved buying ben something (more expensive) at the toys r us that matthew was at and getting alex something (more expensive_ at the toys r us near us (thank freaking goodness for the "check if your local store has this" option, it was well used last night). because, of course, they are old enough and close enough in age to compare, and we were trying to keep the gifts somewhere near even. i told matthew to buy alex's option a and ben's option b and the toys r us across town and to go to the toys r us near us and see what our choices were there. and, thank freaking goodness, the toys r us near us had ben's option a.  matthew bought it, and returned the option b.  so now we have what we originally intended to give them, and they are safely wrapped and under the tree.  WHEW.

and now on the christmas panic #2 - snow.  and ice.  and blowing.  and is it going to be baaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaad, or do the weather forecasters just have their panties in a bunch?  it's hard to say.  but they're down to just 1-2in for today, so we're heading to my mom's later this afternoon..  and we'll see how overnight and tomorrow pans out.  we may be spending christmas day snowed in.

 

speaking of snow..  i've got a page up over at the jbs inspiration blog..  go check it out. =) loving her new release - especially these mini circle papers!! i used blue raspberry mist on the gray background a loved the result - it's fun to layer dark colors together, it's a much more subtle effect.  i also broke out my new martha stewart crown border punch.  LOVE.  and i turned my hydrangea punch into snowflakes w/ some stitching.

i will be back after christmas with a couple more sc january sneaks before the big reveal on sunday..  in the meantime, merry christmas, safe travels and happy end of the week to those who aren't celebrating. =) i'm off to frost cookies w/ the boys. =)

popping in...

to tell you to check out the scrapbook and cards today blog for a chance to win studio calico's homefront. =)

we're off for a day of swimming & fun at coco key... happy monday!!

finally.. sneaks!!

snow days and sickies have definitely slowed down my scrapping this month..  i am fiiiiiiiiiiinally getting to crack into the january studio calico kit. i'm disappointed that i won't get to do as much with it as i had originally planned, but what can you do?? so it goes. i've got two done so far, and am hoping to finish two more..  it should go a lot faster now that i don't feel like i have an elephant standing on my chest.

 

i had a lot of fun w/ this page..  paint, mist, stamping... i'm planning a tutorial for the SC blog later this month on this one.  i need to get a better pic that captures the glimmer.  it just *looks* snowy. =)  i used mostly the main kit, with buttons from in the billiard room.

 

 

this page used the main kit + both addons. the colonel mustard add-on is a beautiful mix of browns and greens, and i took my color scheme from that, w/ a few accents in yellow, blue and red (LOVE the sc exclusive labels in the main.  LOVE.)

my bigs are officially on winter break..  matthew has tomorrow off and we're going to an indoor water park.  the boys got passes from the summer reading program at the library and they expire at the end of the year - so it seems like a good way to kick off the vacation. =) i'm sure i'll be back later this week w/ more peekies. =)

teacher's gifts

last night i took advantage of my underage labor and ran a little crafting sweatshop. ;)

we used this quilted list taker tutorial - which i LOVE. it's well written, and an easy pattern.  plus it's useful, and makes a good gift. lots of straight stitching, so it's easy for the boys to help on the sewing machine. we made one of these for alex's teacher last year, and i adapted it to a smaller pattern for our bagel handmade christmas.  LOVE these.  and am wondering why i haven't made one for myself yet.

 

the one for alex's teacher is on the left, ben's teacher's is on the right.

 

they each wrote a note to their teacher, and we tucked borders gift cards into the pockets.

 

we didn't really wrap them - i just stitched  together the ends of a piece of scrap fabric to make a band that fit around the notebooks, and then tied on tags that i'd made earlier.  if i'd had more time, i would have had the boys make tags.

i went to the doctor this morning, and this cold that just won't leave is actually bronchitis.  so now i've got antibiotics.  good times.  i'm hoping this means the sickies will be gone before christmas.