The Cuz layouts

There's a million of them (64 to be exact) but here are a few. I didn't have the heart to post them all at a scrapbook website, too much flooding the gallery!

He's doing it again!

Today I turned into the livingroom to find Andrew looking at scrapbooks again. Unprompted. By himself. He was on his third one. Keeps a momma going, let me tell ya!



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Ch-ch-ch-cha-changes

Beverage of choice; no longer coffee
Favorite music; Led Zepplin and Jefferson Airplane
Favorite time of day; early morning
The Bachelor/Bachelorette; OUT!
Scrapbooking; infrequently

Its all shocking and strange, the unsought after changes that have been happening lately. I have no idea what is up, but I'm calm about it and waiting for what comes next.

Oh, and since I'm rarely scrapbooking these days, look at the transformation in my scraproom




I gotta go now, its almost my bedtime and I have some Rolling Stones to check out.

Will Have an Opinion for Money (and candy)

Months ago I signed up to be considered for future market research focus groups at a local marketing firm. They have called me several times over the past months, but I've always either missed the call, or been unable to attend the group due to scheduling issues.

Last week an opportunity arose that was just too good to pass up. For an amount of money similar to what a lawyer would make in two hours, I got to sit in a lovely air-conditioned room today and eat my favorite candy bar and talk about why I love it.

I also was asked, for a chance to earn additional money, to create a collage that talks about my perfect candy eating experience. I am sad to say my collage did not win, but it was still fun to make.

After I left, chatting up the other participants all the way to the elevator, I realized I felt like I was leaving happy hour, instead of a product meeting. The group of 8 people were great fun and many laughs accompanied this happy topic. I even found out after the meeting that I used to work with one of the participants...I should have realized from his warped sense of humor that this was a guy who had lived through the trenches of American Express and come out on the other side with a smile on his face.

What is your favorite candy bar? What do you love about it? How often do you have one? Do you keep candy around the house, or is it something that you have to go buy when you want it?

Coupla pages

little bit o scrapping happened yesterday, National Scrapbook Day after all!

It took 10 days...

But I finally scrapbooked again!  Fresh pictures always help!  This was a free night of scrapping too, as the papers were either part of a kit I won over on Scrap it Forward blog or from my mom, and the letters were from the kit and from Lisa.  Now I'm off to read the latest Donna Leon book, I'm almost finished!

Gravity and Scrapping

For my very own Easter basket I bought a jump rope, which I've been craving to do lately, and a bike pump.  Don't I sound healthy!  Thing is, 45 year old women who have had 3 near 10 pound babies should NOT jump rope...still I'm stubborn and will make gravity my friend!

Lisa came over this evening and we scrapped.  Felt good to get back on that horse.

I'm going to try storing my layout images somewhere new.  Its a place where I can make them private or not, and more importantly I can sort them into albums.  Another cross reference tool, because when you scrap three to four hundred layouts a year its hard to remember what you've done and what you've just dreamed about doing!  I don't want to get involved with another scrap community, because if I had time for that I'd be back at tallyscrapper, so basically I'll be making them private.

I will post them all here though, for my family and friends viewing.

And here are tonight's efforts.

I already blogged about this little adventure.  Love Scott's style of teaching!

A more recent addition to our homeschool group, this guy is so cool and handy and doesn't seem to mind helping out with the younger kids who all look up to him.

Andrew has been saying murff nearly constantly for the last few days.  Its what a character in the 39 clues book series says (a cat of course!)  So this layout about his funny birthday cake had to record this little verbal idiosyncrasy for sure!

Our neighbors are away at their dad's this weekend, which gave me some time to scrap some of the pictures I've taken of them!  

A fav of mine for the evening.  Just a silly way to record our Easter egg decorating for the year.  This is styled after Leachy, who always makes such bright and happy layouts.

This is way cute in person, the photos and paper got muddy in this evening light.  Just a simple little layout about Ben's ongoing development.

Again, colors way off in the photo.  I love this photo of A and K walking and talking together at the park.  I hope their friendship stands the test of time, because it seems like a very postive one.

Hymn Challenge

When I saw these pictures which we took a few weeks ago, I immediately thought of the lyrics to the song "On Christ the Solid Rock" a hymn I've been singing since I was in diapers.

I challenge you to do a layout using the lyrics to an old hymn with a photo of yourself.  It should be a hymn that has a deep history and speaks to you deep inside.  I especially liked using this photo because so many put their faith in government or other things in this world, and our hope needs to be on Jesus only.  I love the dichotomy of the photo and the message.

New Work

The first one is a page for my Boston album which I am working on again.  I did a page for a challenge about the time spent at her house and then realized I wanted to do a companion page about her.

I love doing series photos and these in the second page are Andrew on Jesse's pogo stick.  Shortly after these photos were taken, Andrew decided that after four months of saving up for a WII, he was going to take half his saved money ($150) and spent it on toys instead.  Scott and I were understandably happy about that!  One of the toys he picked was his very own pogo stick and then he special ordered a discontinued lego set that he has been wanting for a year.  We've dodged the video game bullet for another year, and are so proud that he made the decision.  

Homeschooling Scrapbooks and such

Developing review and analysis skills is one of the things that throws Andrew.  In his mind at this stage of development, a class he takes is just that, read the title of the class, and move on!  It is hard for him to explain what he learned and what he liked and didn't like about a particular schooling subject or project.

Thanks to my fellow homeschool mom Julie, we work on these skills using scrapbook pages.  He pulls together photos that represent something we have done recently in homeschool and then he needs to write down something he liked or something he learned.  As a writer, his rudimentary skills at this point are a bit tough for me, I know he has so much more inside him, but it is good for me to learn more patience.

I am very proud of his efforts, and although his writing is still rough, I think he's starting to understand what we are looking for better.

Above are some of his recent pages.

More Wedding

Lisa came over today SANS Benjamin and we got to spend the afternoon doing our favorite thing, laughing and scrapping together!

I did five layouts and so did she.  Above are a couple I did just for me.  A friend of mine challenged me to do a layout with a title from a TV show last week, so I used the title of Dancing with the STARS on the layout from the reception.  Lisa challenged me to do a layout inspired by an altered jar that I fell in love with at Tallyscrapper.com.  I love how that one turned out.  

The second layout was from a color challenge I posted on tallyscrapper.com today, to use three colors randomly chosen by dice roll.  My colors for the layout were two tones of green and my title had to contain either the word Midnight or the word Blue.  I love these little 2x3 photos I printed at my local grocery store for cheap!

For Scrap It Forward

A lovely woman I "met" on tallyscrapper.com asked for submission to her challenge blog called Scrap it Forward, and I love the concept she has going there. Charity combined with scrappy goodness. Wonderful idea. She was looking for baby pages, and it just so happens I have 1 or 1000 baby pictures of that sweetie, Ben. So here goes Christine!

More Erin

Bree, a sweetheart of a lady I met at tallyscrapper.com designed some cutouts for me for an idea I had that didn't fly. I couldn't let these beautiful samples go to waste though, so I am happy to design some pages around them.

They are so delicate and elegant, so of course I thought of the wedding. The other page is Erin's highschool grad photo. That was taken over seven years ago. Freaky!

Bree, you are a wonder, and thank you so much for helping me!

Snow Scootering

Andrew has the misfortune of having a Christmastime birthday.  That means all his really big gifts come in the dead of winter.  Last year it was a new bike...which he had to wait nearly 5 months to enjoy outside.  This year it was a scooter.  He wasn't having any 5 month wait this year.  This week we still have a foot or so of snow on the ground, but the sidewalks are relatively clear and the weather was doable, so three days in a row he was out on his scooter, breaking it in.  

Its been great as all of us are benefitting from the higher level of natural exercise.  

I love his Xtreme Sports attitude!

The March Kit

Nice and early, I received the March kit from Tallyscrapper.com tonight and began designing right away!  The many elements and colors took me in several directions.  Here is one of the scrapbook pages I did tonight, more to be posted in the daylight!

Jason Update and a change

I'm back, after too long of an absence, and I've made a decision.  Scrapbooking is back on Minda's blog!

My reasons are my own, but hopefully even those who follow my blog who don't scrapbook will enjoy the added burst of color.

February brought some big news for my son Jason; he moved into his own apartment!  I cannot stress enough how important a step I think this is, learning how to manage a household on your own and the internal growth that happens when there is no parent keeping you on track...I'm so very proud of him and his growth.  

This week we were invited over to take a peek and he has really started to make it a home.  Of course he has a killer entertainment system, no surprises there, and we quickly got caught up in watching a bluray version of Phantom of the Opera.  Now I see what all the fuss is about!

Anyway, here is a little scrapbook page tribute to this big move for Jason.  For the scrap techies, I used a piece of cardboard, centered and affixed my title letters and then painted the whole thing the same color.  This is a technique I learned from Jen over at Tallyscrapper.com, where all my scrappy friends hang out.  Once it was dry I took a brown ink pad and scrubbed it over the title to give it a little more depth, then added some layered pen work and the photos.  Nice and simple!

Erin and Lance are dealing with an out of order bathroom as they deal with a leak and mold issue...yes, in a one bathroom house!  Jason is helping out when he can between starting his new job at the Eagan Little Caesars.

Today is my daddy's birthday, and he just got home from a cruise.  I haven't read mom's whole post about it, but I guess it wasn't their best cruise.  

Thanks for sticking by this blog even with my huge absences, I'll try to refocus here a bit going forward!

Trudging Through the Tundra...

As told by Andrew---

We went to the moon and walked on the solar snow today.  Not really, but we did go for a snowy walk.  I wanted to get my crabbiness about homeschool out before we did our work.  Little did I know that I would want to hitch a ride even before we were half way done.

Mom made it fun by adding in a trip to McDonalds and to get a movie too.  At McDonalds mom blow dried my boots in the bathroom and gave me her dry socks.  I decided that I want mukluk boots like hers because her feet never get cold or wet when we walk.  We ate two orders of french fries; mommy ate the majority of the first order, then I ate most of the second order.  Mom taught me about McGyver when we outfitted my boots with ugly McDs bibs to keep my feet dry.

We ran to the move store being chased by intergalactic space aliens, and looked at the WII games.  The movie I picked out was Star Wars Phantom Menace.  

On our way to the grocery store, we were chased by people wanting us to take surveys, and then we searched all over the grocery store for dry, robotic gloves.  Foiled!

Trudging back over the moon's surface was TERRIBLE!   All our energy was wiped out by the survey and intergalactic chases.  

When we arrived home, wet, cold and dizzy with tiredness, we crashed against our hover bubble couch.

25 Sold Out Kits Can't Be Wrong!

Something that almost never happens has occured at www.tallyscrapper.com and it means good news for all of you!  The kits at tally are famous for selling out, 25 of the past 26 kits are sold out, and the 26th only has three left.  This month's kit, which came out on Thursday is such a bargain!  Its a little cheaper than some of the kits, and its got more paper and product than ever.  I love what my compadre's have done with it on the design team, and I've shown you some of my layouts too...and more are to come.

Here is a video showing you all the great product in the kit.  Run, don't walk and get yours before they too are all gone!

Design Team Chick once again!

The incredibly sweet folks over at tallyscrapper.com have voted me back on to the design team effective January 1 and I'm so excited to be "home". This place, well, you've heard me go on and on about it so many times, and all the same good stuff holds true. Great people, lots of inspiration, and a scrappy place to feel at home among those who "get scrapping".

A new kit comes out on the 15th and here are my creations so far using it!

Happy Birthday He's Nine!

And he's out sledding with his papa and friends right now!  We're kinda spreading his birthday celebration out over several days, tomorrow he and I are going to toys R us to use his gift certificate, Sunday he gets breakfast in bed, Monday its dinner at the Mall of America and one friend for ride at the theme park,  and hopefully Tuesday night will be a small family gathering!

He really is growing both in maturity and height right now.  We love him like crazy!