Dora's Days

back in the saddle

2009-11-07T12:24:00.000-08:00

Finally. After several weeks of feeling all topsy turvey with my new schedule, I managed to phase scrapping back into my daily life. I feel so much better! I had a number of items to make for upcoming publications that I cannot share, but not that the must scrap list is done, I have time for fun scrapping. Yay!

I headed over to 2sketches4you and grabbed this week's sketch: Laura's Sketch 38. Fabulous! I used it for this thanks card for my inlaws. They were so sweet watching the kids when Drew and I were in Miami. A happy card and a gift certificate for dinner out was our way of saying thanks.

Cosmo Cricket papers, chipboard, ribbon from Earth Love, Jillibean Soup journal spot, and American Crafts Thickers with a hint of ink. I love how the colors are light, yet so warm. Yummy!

Off to scrap!

Halloween fun

2009-11-02T19:41:00.000-08:00

Halloween shopping this year was quite easy. Allie took one look at the darling ladybug and fell in love. Surprisingly affordable with everything from leggings to antenna, it fit her personality perfectly. And it fit my mom requirement--NOT sexy. Allie crossed into the tween size/age category this year and as we browsed online costume stores, I was getting nervous. I am just not ready to see my little girl in fishnets yet. I was thrilled with her choice:

While Allie and I shopped for her, Zack and Drew headed to the boy land. Zack had already decided on Harry Potter, so I was shocked when he came over with a snow wolf ninja costume. He loves wolves and was determined that this would be his costume. We arrived home to find that the mask was not in the bag.

Back I went. Although the bag listed it as included, it was not in any of the ones in stock. The manager offered to take it back and give me some $ off another costume for my trouble, but Zack held firm. He did not want a mask, anyway. He liked his costume, but did not make it to love and is certain that next year he wants to be Harry Potter. Here he is making his best evil ninja face:

I still think he is adorable--even when he is trying to be scary. Happy Halloween! Off to raid the candy bucket.

Back to scrapping

2009-11-01T19:11:00.000-08:00

Finally. After a couple of stressful weeks, I headed to my scrap room, turned on the tunes, and found absolutely no mojo. Eeek! Now that is a spooky Halloween. My favorite way to get my juices flowing is to lift one of my other works. Giving an old idea a new twist helps me get started.

I loved the paintbrush album I made for my mom's birthday and decided to put together one for Halloween. It let me use some fun premade embellies--like these darling monster felties from Sassafrass. How could you not love them?

The rich colors of the Pink Paislee papers are just gorgeous to work with and I definitely was in the groove by the time the project was ready for photographing. Quick, easy, and fun!

Life and fruit

2009-10-21T18:42:00.000-07:00

Life tosses fruit at us all of the time. Sometimes it is little life disruptions in the form of small fruits: lemons, limes, or berries. Other times you duck a coconut just to get hit with a pineapple.

In younger year we learn to take lemons and make lemonade. After a few years of experience, we laugh at lemons. Toss them at us and we turn them into a full meal from lemon shrimp appetizer to a lemon meringue pie. It is the nature of the hard working mom to multi-task our way through the fruit salad of life.

I spent a week enjoying juggling limes. Limes are my friend as they make great margaritas. Drew and I traveled to Miami for his work and enjoyed warm weather, good food, and friends. The Monday night football game was a definite highlight. Sure, I had a ton of prep before we left and make-up work when we returned, but it was worth every second.

While sitting in the airport waiting for my flight, life decided to add some more fruit to the mix. My dean called to ask a favor. Would I take an accelerated English class starting in just 4 days?

Eeek! Just one little 9 week request would change my life enormously. 4 days of work instead of 2. An extra 13 hours of prep, grading, teaching time. 13 hours less to manage the mom job and house stuff. The upside? More money, a happy dean, a chance to touch the lives of additional students. The tiebreaker: the woman scheduled to teach the class was called to active duty in Iraq. How could I not?

And so I find myself hitting 2 weeks without a bit of scrapping. I can not wait until this weekend when I can tap into my mojo. Until then, you will find me chopping fruit until I can turn this latest medly into a tasty treat.

Thanks for the fun

2009-10-05T17:02:00.001-07:00

The final challenge in the Cuttlebug Challenge Blog birthday celebration is to create thank you cards to send after the party ends. Normally, I do a photo birthday card showing some favorite shots of my birthday kid blowing out candles, opening presents, and playing games. It allows me to share the memory of the day with all of the family.

Even though this will not be our real thank you cards, it was still fun for Allie and I to put together. She felt we worked the tree image enough for our theme so we just used the same fabulous Earth Love papers, Thickers, our beloved Cuttlebug, and some favorite trim.

Thanks, Cuttlebug Team for the inspiration and fun!

Happy Card Day!

2009-10-03T17:11:00.000-07:00

Happy World Cardmaking Day!

My day began very happy when the Fancy Pants Designs blog announced me as one of their winners! I am so excited and cannot wait to see what darling goodies arrive. I adore Fancy Pants!

I zipped on over to 2 Sketches 4 You and grabbed Kazan's Sketch 36 to start my cardmaking day off right. I wanted to use this ribbon that I fell madly in love with by Jillibean Soup. How much did I love it? I bought 5 of the same exact one. Red is my favorite color and my son is obsessed with numbers--how could I not?

It is a happy card that is perfect to send as a pick me up to a friend that needs a smile. Thanks for the great sketch Kazan.

Allie and I also made our thank you cards for the Cuttlebug Challenge Blog, but a thunderstorm rolled in making it dark and horrible for taking a good photo. Will be back with it tomorrow!

Hope yall had a great day of cardmaking!

Fancy Friday

2009-10-02T15:24:00.000-07:00

Wow. What a long week. Filled with work, activities, meetings, volunteering, and more, every moment was scheduled. By the time I hit the couch on Thursday evening, I was all but brain dead.

Knowing that it was going to be crazy, I made certain to keep my Friday empty. The chores were done. The kids in school. The tivo full. I had all afternoon to scrap and play. Where to begin?

I stopped by the Fancy Pants Designs Friday Challenge. Their World Card Day challenge had me reaching for Rough and Tough and Krafty Boys collections. I was in the mood for a bit of paper piecing and had such fun putting together this little owl. Isn't he just too cute?

I am obsessed with pop dots lately and cannot resist layering items together. Using pop dots under letter stickers gives them such great look. Now the only question is who to send him to?

Bloom Ball

2009-09-27T13:45:00.000-07:00

Allie came running in after school on Wednesday eager to see the new Cuttlebug Challenge. She was stumped at first. hmmm table decorations. We do not have scrapping time midweek with after school activities, so we just peek and then run out to tackle the schedule.

"How about tree place cards?" Allie asked on Saturday. With each person's name and a cute little bird. Sounded good to me. We zipped up the cute little "lollipop" trees in a hurry.

Then came time to plan the centerpiece. "How about a real tree with lots of decorations?" Great idea. Except the real party is not until next July. Buying a tree now and then attempting to grow it indoors during a Chicago winter? Not quite the right plan. So it was back to the drawing board.

We had a ton of fun trying to make different trees. It was our own little Goldilocks adventure with too flat, too tall, too silly, but no just right. How could we make that top sphere? Then the light dawned on my darling girl's face: the bloom ball. Early in the school year, they created bloom balls as a book report illustrating and explaining different story scenes on each of the 12 panels. A little work with the circle cutter and the scor-it and we were off and running.

We started to reach for the bling or buttons to embellish the tree, but really thought the embossing was decoration enough. We added just a few items from Cosmo Cricket's Earth Love and left it simple. And we love it.

Thanks, Cuttlebug Challenge Blog for some wonderful challenges!

a mini tree

2009-09-20T18:09:00.000-07:00

Plant while you grow. This is definitely one of Allie's personal themes. She feels very strongly that with each year, she should be able to do more to make the world a better place. I could not be a more proud mommy.

It was make a mini album week for the Cuttlebug Blog Challenge--one that went with the continuing theme. I loved my very first tree invitation card so much that I adapted the design into a mini. I layered a few circles increasingly smaller in size and connected them with the Bind-it-all.

Take a peek inside:
Each of the tree fronts features the darling Cosmo Cricket Earth Love while the backs are craft paper embossed with a hint of ink by my Bug. For fun, I used a different folder for each one and stitched them together.

I adored this saying found on a 12 inch border strip so I snipped it up and inked the edges. The little birds on each page were cut out of a Earth Love paper, embossed and given a bling eye. I popped them up a bit for some dimension.

Choosing circle pictures seemed just right for the album. I cropped them in circles in elements and then trimmed them making it easy on me.

I couldn't resist embossing and slanting the back of the album a bit, too. Why ever use plain cardstock again?

Just for fun!

2009-09-14T14:30:00.000-07:00

Ok, so scrapping is fun, but sometimes the list of things I "need" to do for my commitments takes over and it is a couple of weeks before I can just grab my supplies and scrap for just the fun of it. But no more!

I know that for most people New Year's Day marks the beginning of the year, but for me it is September 1. Not only is it my birthday so I start a new year, but it is the beginning of the school year. As a teacher (and a mom), that is the calendar that my life revolves around. As a result, I make my resolutions now.

One of my resolutions is to recapture the fun of scrapping. I will make one layout and one card just for me at least 3 weeks out of every month. That is totally doable, right? Please say right.

This layout documents the attitude Allie has had for the last year. She is all peace, love, and trees. And it all started with this Halloween Costume. Not much chance that this Halloween layout was going to be black and orange--not with that colorful ensemble. Instead, it is Cosmo Cricket with a title of Thickers and Pink Paislee and a touch American Crafts flair. Add in a few flowers and overlays from My Mind's Eye and I have a live out loud layout that can keep up with that Hippy Costume!

the tree party continues . . .

2009-09-12T10:17:00.000-07:00

The second in the Cuttlebug Challenge Blog party challenges is to create a card and giftbag. I am so loving the earthy tones I am playing with for these! If you do not have Cosmo Cricket's Earth Love run to the lss for it is adorable!

For this card I used all of my faves right now. Earth Love, Maya Road (tree/trim), Thickers, and my Cuttlebug. I tried the "ink the bumpy" side of my folder before running the card through technique again since I loved it on the tree trunk of the first card. I know that all the experienced buggers are probably giggling at me, but as a baby bug I am soooo enjoying trying each technique. I get so giddy at the different things I can do with it.

The gift back gave me a bit more trouble. I wanted to just run the whole bag through my Bug. *Looks at bag size. Looks at bug. * Darn. Let's face it--right now I am so into this machine that I want to run ME through it. I needed the bigger bag since the party favor is a little tree to take home and plant and it needs to fit in the bag.

oh, did I forget to mention that Allie is so into this theme that she has decided it is her birthday party for next summer? And with my decisive 10yo I do not have to think she will change her mind--I know this is it.

Allie wanted the bag to say "I heart trees". The heart was giving us fits. We wanted it to pop with a bolder color. We tried a dozen different ones before we decided on this orange one cut out of some Autumn Leaves tags. I am sure that each bag will be just a bit different as we make them. We will probably end up using all of the dozen hearts we discarded all over the scrap desk.

Here is the close up of the embossing:

Obvious in real life, but not so much in the big photo. I must admit that the most fun for me with this challenge is getting to share it with Allie. She really has some lovely design ideas and is so excited about everything we make. We are having a ball!

Boo!

2009-09-12T10:05:00.000-07:00

I know. Why be in such a hurry for Halloween? Or even fall? After all, September is definitely the best month to live in Chicago. The weather is flawless. There are a ton of things to do. But on my desk was a fabulous new package of Halloween papers and stickers by Reminisce as they are our October issue Showroom for ScrapStreet Magazine.

I started earlier this week and just cannot stop! What fun they are to play with. I will have a sneak peek of all our work up soon, but for now I am playing with the scraps left from my own projects.

This cute little card is one that I will tuck in a lunchbox for a happy note for one of the kids. I love being able to give my munchkins that extra "mom loves you and is proud of you" hug even while they are away from me.

I used Laura's sketch 34 from 2 sketches 4 you to inspire me:

I loved the simplicity of the sketch replacing the circle with my pieced pumpkin. It only took a few minutes since I built the pumpkin over a journaling block of the same shape from Reminisce. The little pops of green are My Little Yellow Bicycle.

Aren't these patterns just too cute? I cannot wait to show yall what else we are all up to with them!

Time to Party!

2009-09-10T17:26:00.000-07:00

I loved reading that the Cuttlebug Challenge Blog is celebrating their birthday in September and is partying all month long. Not only is it my birthday month, but it is also ScrapStreet's 4th birthday! What could be better than for me to just party all month long.

CCB asked us to pick a party theme that could run all month long. hmmm what to pick? I asked Allie and she was quick to respond that we totally needed a tree planting party. She is all about peace, love, and green. Wait until I show you her new backpack (layout in progress). Darling!

I decided to start with a simple circle card and then add in a trunk. For some fun, I rubbed ink on the folder before I ran it through to give the trunk the extra depth. Love the way it turned out!

The paper and diecut are Cosmo Cricket's Earth Love (what else?) and the bird is Making Memories. A few pearls from Kaiser (a current obsession) and I have a quick and cute invitation to start off the party month.

Thanks Paper Trunk

2009-09-02T17:44:00.000-07:00

Paper Trunk is featured this month in ScrapStreet.com Magazine Showroom column. We received several lines to scrap with and the game was on. All of us found mojo and went to town creating beautiful items.

Although I enjoyed all the lines, Maybe Baby just grabbed me and would not let go. I found uses for every spare inch of paper. Honest. There are no scraps. *looks around room* That is such a first for me.

You can see several of my pretties in the issue, but I have more to share. These cards were simple and fun, made from the die cut sheets. One is going to Carrie at Paper Trunk with all my love and thanks. The other two are going into the Cards for Heroes box as we are still creating for our soldiers.

I could not resist using Swiss Dots Cuttlebug folder for this one. I may never be able to leave white unembossed again. The pearls are Kaiser, letters are American Crafts, Paper is all Paper Trunk.

These two could not have been simplier. I love you is simply a diecut with the edges trimmed close and a few Kaiser pearls for flower centers. It took seconds. XO again built on a diecut with a bit of another piece (left from making Thanks) and a hint of Thickers. This line is just so classy!

Birthday

2009-09-01T18:43:00.000-07:00

Birthday present time! What did I ask for this year? A new phone. Honestly, mine was so old students would ask to see the rotary dial. I didn't have unlimited texting, but I didn't need it since it would take me so long to text that I would give up.

Which phone to pick? I called Lauren and asked what to buy. After all, if it is recommended by a 7th grader, it has to be cool, right? She screamed out enVtouch and so I am now the proud owner of:

A front touch screen, 3.2 camera, video, music and a zillion things I have not figured out yet are all included in this nifty little machine. It opens up to look like a mini laptop and I can catch up with all my gang even at school.

Shopping for it was enlightening. I made Drew head to the actual store with me instead of just ordering online. We figured it would be $100 for the new phone. Except when they pulled up our account, Drew had all kinds of credits as he is such a good customer. Turned out that they paid us to take the phone. Yep. Free phone, free case, and tossed in some free minutes to boot.

I tried to convince Drew that meant he still owed me a present, but he was not buying that one at all. I have to say I am one happy camper. Happy Birthday to me!

Catch the bus

2009-08-31T18:39:00.000-07:00

Allie and I were wandering through Target doing our grocery shopping, she spied this:

It was filled with yellow apples and just waiting for us to come along. Since both of my kids will happily eat 2 apples every single day, it was a no brainer to toss it in the cart. Especially when Allie turned with that gleam in her eye and said, "think of the craft we could do, Mom." I am so raising her right.

We arrived home, emptied the apples into the fruit bowl and dropped the bus off in the scrap office. The very next morning, I pop on to the Cuttlebug Challenge Blog and see a back to school gift/craft challenge. Kismet! I would have raced to my desk to create, but I knew Allie wanted to make one together. She had dolls all picked out to ride in it, after all.

She wanted a "hippie bus" which was not at all surprising as she has been on a peace, love, and trees kick since last Halloween when she first donned her hippy costume. Anything with a peace sign or a recycle theme has been huge in our house this year!

It took us a couple of days (5th grade homework is insane!) but we are proud to debut the Girlfriend Bus:

The paper and pretties are all Cosmo Cricket. We started with the Earth Love line since just it's name excited Allie, but quickly switched to Girl Friday to get the bold colors she was in the mood for. A little pearl action from Kaiser and some Cardstock trim embossed with our newest Cuttlebug plates:

I love how the two different circles play together. So yummy! Time to run. I need to stitch up a few ponchos for the dolls. They need to be stylin' to ride the bus.

smooches!

98, 99, and 100 . . .

2009-08-24T12:01:00.000-07:00

I made it! I wanted to finish 100 cards for the Cards For Heroes Drive at ScrapStreet before I head off to fall semester. Last night, I finished up my Showroom items with the absolutely fun Paper Trunk Socialite collection. I had some fun scraps on my table so I zipped out a few more cards.

I am sure that I will be able to make a few more before we finish the drive, but I am so happy to have my goal met. Just in time, too, as I head back into the classroom tomorrow morning to meet my new students. If you have not picked up this Paper Trunk yet, you must! Our entire team embraced mojo the second we spread them out in our spaces.

Happy Monday, friends!

Cuttlebug and Cards

2009-08-22T08:44:00.001-07:00

I blame Jackie. I have long resisted purchasing any machine other than my computer, photo printer, and wide format printer for my scrapping obsession. Oh I have marveled at them all, but still avoided them happily.

Until Jackie. She won our Star contest and a spot on our magazine staff this spring. And I began following her blog marveling at the cards she makes--amazing, really. And then she acquired a Cuttlebug. And her cards somehow managed to get EVEN BETTER! Clearly this machine was magic. I kept stalking her waiting for the moment it got shoved into a closet and forgotten. But instead, Maggie chose her to join the Cuttlebug Challenge Blog Team and she made more and more and more yummy items.

Off we headed to CHA and our entire team was determined to see the Cuttlebug in action certain that we would be able to talk ourselves out of wanting it. But then we met Maggie and were lucky to escape from the booth ordering only the Cuttlebug. She almost had us talked into Yudu's as well (I am still thinking!). Darn wonderful enabling people.

I am now the proud owner of a Cuttlebug and my first 2 folders. And I am still working hard on the Cards For Heroes Drive at ScrapStreet. I bopped on over to the Cuttlebug Challenge Blog in time for the Wednesday Challenge and made this shaped card.

For You by Dora Phillips. Supplies: Cardstock: Bazzill, Paper: October Afternoon, Pearls: Kaiser, Rub Ons: October Afternoon, Kaiser, Tools: Cuttlebug, Scor-it, Other: Ribbon.

I had such fun making my first Cuttle Card! And I am certain some little girl is going to love getting this from her soldier mommy or daddy.

92 cards and counting . . .

CFH Continues

2009-08-21T08:26:00.000-07:00

92 cards and counting . . .

I am having a ball making cards for such a great cause! But sometime after card 85 my mojo left me. eeek! I headed back to 2 sketches 4 you for a refill. Honestly, the talented designers there never fail to make me want to scrap cards again. Fabulous team!

Kazan's Sketch 33 inspired this card and got me back on track:

Pretty Please by Dora Phillips. Supplies: Cardstock: Bazzill, Paper, Rub On: October Afternoon, Brad: Eyelets & More, Tools: Scor-it, Sketch: 2S4U, Other: Ribbon.

Cards For Heroes Continues!

This week's special guest is:

Jennifer McGuireis our guest host this week at ScrapStreet.com for our Cards for Heroes Card Drive! She is AMAZINGLY talented and we are so lucky to have her this week! If you get a chance, pop over to our site or her blog and get in on this weeks challenge!

Make sure to keep checking in on the card drive! We have a few more FABULOUS guest hosts that will be gracing us with some really great challenges and prizes!

Now that my mojo is racing I am off to scrap! Smooches!

Winner!

2009-08-18T09:35:00.000-07:00

Time to draw a winner from the Cards For Heroes Blog Hop!

Thanks to all of you who commented and who participated in the hop! LetUmom, please send me an email at Dora@scrapstreet.com with your address so I can get your prize right out. Congrats!

CFH Blog Hopping

2009-08-13T18:09:00.000-07:00

I am signing up for my first mini blog hop with other talented crafters in honor of the Cards for Heros program. This amazing organization has sent over 170,000 cards to our military men and women in service to our country.

If you get a chance today, make a small Christmas card and send it in to CFH so that a solider can let his/her family know how much they mean to them from so far away. If you want, you can participate in our CFH Card Drive at ScrapStreet.com too, and not only get the chance to win some great prizes but truly make Christmas special for the "waiting families" at home. The deadline for getting Christmas Cards to CFH is November 1st and right around the corner! Make sure you get those holiday cards in soon!

Here is my first holiday card:

This is a hybrid card. I am crazy in love with shaped cards right now. To make one simply find a digital embellishment that you like (this one is from NitWits), resize it (I went for 4x5), and print on white cardstock. Fold the cardstock in half and trim around the image remembering to skip a piece at the top or side along your fold. Add a bit more embellishments if you like. This one has brads and a rub on.

Time to run! I printed out some darling penguins that are calling my name. Smooches!

A Hop, A Sketch, and A Rak!

It is time for the Cards for Heroes mini hop to begin! Yay!

I am so excited to be a part of this fabulous cause. My younger brother was a Navy man and many of our relatives are proud to serve in the Army. Add to that the wonderful Army wives I count among my closest friends and how could I help but jump in with both feet and scissors in hand.

Not only am I playing in the hop, but I am also working for the ScrapStreet.com CFH card drive. If you have not checked it out, peek here for details: CFH Thread. There are some great prizes to be one for a great cause.

For my part of the hop, I have created a sketch:

It is a simple one allowing for plenty of play!

Here is my own take on it:

And for every person who leaves a comment today on my blog, you will be entered in the drawing for the rak. If you actually use my sketch you can link back each card as many times as you make them in additional comments to up your chances of the random number generator picking YOU!

What is this Rak? It is the Little Sprout Collection Kit from Crate Paper. I will happily mail one to our winner. Please note that since the items are glittered, this will be something for you to play with just for you, but not to make CFH cards with.

One of my personal favorite scrappers, Jackie, scrapped with this cute kit in her Cuttlebug challenge this week. If you want a closer look at the die cuts that come with the kit, peek at her blog Luv 2 Scrappp.

Where do you go next? Your next stop is Diana's blog All the little things that matter! Have a great blog hop and thanks so much for contributing.

Please remember that all Holiday cards need to be on their way by November 1. Thanks!

Card Crazy!

2009-08-12T11:02:00.000-07:00

Cards for Heroes is a non-profit organization that supports our nation's Armed Forces by sending blank, hand-made cards overseas for our soldiers to write home on, as well as, cards of gratitude to encourage them.

ScrapStreet is running our second annual card drive. We have a goal of 1000 cards this year to make the lives of our soldiers and their families just a little brighter. At the end of three weeks of challenges, we will all ship our cards into our leader--and military wife--Bri.

Today our first special Wednesday Guest:

Karen Russell, a military wife herself, has recently stepped back from teaching scrapbooking classes and designing scrapbooking products to focus on teaching photography classes full time. She has offered this AMAZING prize to one lucky winner in today’s challenge at ScrapStreet's Cards For Heroes contest:

a seat in her next photography class!!!!!

If you have not read anything about this class or seen the amazing photos that come OUT of this class, you need to check it out here: Snapshots of a Good Life.

So head on over to Karen’s blog and get involved in the challenge!!!! You will have from now until Sunday, August 16th at midnight to submit your cards!!! You may upload your creations to the CFH Gallery here.

So what am I doing for the next few days? I am making cards like mad!!!!!!

My son has a birthday party to attend tonight at the ever popular Chuck E Cheese, so I warmed up with a card for a 7yo boy. To get my mojo started, I headed over to a favorite sketch site 2s4u and used Laura's sketch 32 to make this card:

and now I am off to make a ton of cards! I hope all of you will join in and help us support our troops.

Home again

2009-08-08T15:08:00.000-07:00

It is so good to finally be home! I definitely had a ball, but it was time to be home. Over the past month, I have been home only 4 days! Between camping, CHA girls trip, and a week at Disney, it has been fun, but totally crazy.

Of course I have hundreds of pictures that I could share, but since so many will be popping up in layouts now that my mojo is humming overtime, I decided to just share one favorite moment from each of us.

Zack wanted to be chosen for Jedi training--what 7yo boy wouldn't? I crossed my fingers and made sure we were standing right up front. Zack wore his lucky video game tshirt. The force was strong in my boy and he was chosen to be the first Jedi at the first training (saving me an entire day of trying again and again). Here he is defending us all from the evil Darth.

Allie always roots for the underdog and Disney was no different. She noticed that Daisy Duck is "underappreciated" as a character. She has almost no merchandise. Barely a visual anywhere in the park. But on day three, we did manage to find her for a character signing and Allie simply glowed!

Drew has done Disney several times now as Daddy. However, with young kids we spent most of our time in the shows, character lines, and small rides. This year was totally different--with Allie as a courageous 10yo, he had a partner for all his roller coasters. Day one had us all on the Rock-n-roller coaster!

What was my favorite moment? Watching my family is always a joy for me, but the best picture we have is me hugging my beloved coke while it mists water on me. ahhhh perfection!

a new card

2009-07-03T19:01:00.000-07:00

I fell madly in love with this paper set from Crate Paper this week. Now, the old me would have "saved" it for the perfect layout. Yes, every piece of it in case I needed them all. But the new me is using supplies and not afraid to start with a card. Go me!

This card uses Laura's Sketch 29 from 2s4u. When I peeked at the card on Monday, I saw a window instantly. Then when I found the Crate paper, I just had to put the adorable glittered squirrels inside. Thanks for the inspiration!

Gather Love by Dora Phillips. Supplies: Paper, Die cuts: Crate Paper, Flowers: Prima, Buttons: Making Memories.

Downtown

2009-07-03T18:10:00.000-07:00

On July 1, we headed into downtown Naperville for an afternoon photoshoot. It was a chilly and overcast day--only 63 degrees for the high! I love the variety of backgrounds to be found in just a couple of blocks worth of walking.

Here is Zack hanging out in front of a painted mural brick wall:

Sidney decided to give me some of her "Tyra eyes". Think she watches enough America's Top Model? I think it is my fave of the whole shoot.

I wanted a classic teen pose from Lauren. She is so gorgeous that it is hard to get a picture where she looks her age instead of much, much older.

I love the way Allie tilts her head and smiles at me. This is definitely the look she gives most often--my happy girl.

One of our goals for this visit is to take lots of photos of mom with her grandbabies while they are all together. Don't they look darling?