Spring Ball
I find myself so busy these days, that I don’t pay attention to this ol’ blog -at all- but it’s important to me to chronicle these first days of Lulu’s first softball season. She is so incredibly excited to be playing softball, I can’t even explain how proud and accomplished she looked today. She made two outs and did one inning as catcher. I love t-ball, it’s probably the cutest thing in the whole world!
Here’s a couple videos for the friends and family to check out. If you aren’t my friend on facebook, I don’t think you’ll be able to see these. If you want to add me as a friend, you can find me on facebook at http://www.facebook.com/tania.shaw. If you are friends with me on facebook and still don’t see the videos, try logging in and see if that helps.
Laborious
Happy Labor Day!! Things have been hopping around here, kids back in school, working on some freelance sites, work is really busy this fall, and my sister had a baby! She was amazing, labored long and hard and two weeks ago today my little nephew Liam joined the world. Mom is doing good and their little family is adjusting. So happy for my sister and she’s got herself two awesome men in her life now.
JT is in Fall Ball again this year. He lives for baseball this kid. Last Spring was a good season for him personally, he had a lot of growth, but their team just lacked the wins. This fall his team is undefeated and these boys are flying on cloud nine. It’s fun to watch winning games, I could get used to this! He is also adjusting to school this year really well, which I couldn’t be happier about. I brace myself every fall for school starting, but he jumped right back in, and even joined band. He’ll be playing trumpet. Can’t wait for the practicing to begin, haha!!
Lulu continues to amaze us with every new thing she tries. She started Kindergarden this year, just two days after her 5th birthday. She is hitting baseballs, tumbling in gymnastics, adding numbers, writing her name, and wowing us every chance she gets. Love this girl so much!
It’s that time of year when I start to feel overwhelmed with all my obligations. This year I decided to cut back on my scrapbooking teams a bit early so that I’m not stressed during the next few months of birthdays, school stuff, and the holidays. Right now I’m only going to be scrapbooking for The Ardent Sparrow. Saying goodbye to my teams was tough, and a few of them kept the door open for me to return when I’m ready, so I’m very happy about that.
The Ardent Sparrow’s store recently moved to Design House Digital, so you’ll find all Rebecca’s kits there now. Here’s a couple new releases she has mixed in with some older stuff of hers as well.
Products Used:
Sweet and Spicy Papers
Sweet and Spicy Doilies
Paper Strip Templates
Lulu Page Kit
Pocketful of Posies Page Kit
Dressed Up Kids
Sorry for being so absent, life has just been keeping us so busy. The biggest event was our dear friend’s wedding last weekend in which my kiddos and I participated in the wedding party. I was a bride’s maid and JT and Lulu were the ring bearer and flower girl. They were awesome!
Here’s a quick page I scrapped with the only pictures I managed to take myself of the kids that day. I’m hoping more will make it my way in the days to come.
Supplies Used:
“The Polly Kit” from The Ardent Sparrow.
Fridays
I don’t have a layout to share this week for my Layouts on Fridays posts. Things have been pretty busy around here on the home front. I did manage to finish making a necklace and earings for a wedding that the kids and I are in next week. I very rarely wear jewelry, and I needed just the right piece. It was fun learning some techniques for jewelry making and I have a much bigger appreciation for those home-based jewelry designers after this for sure! Here’s a little instagram of what I created.
I hate to say that things might not be better for me next week, but I should be back on track in August. (Is it horrible of me to say that I can’t wait for my kids to be back in school??)
Layouts on Fridays
Another Friday installment of new releases at One Story Down! The third weekend of every month is the Block Party over there and one collab kit is released by two or three designers, then the other non-collab designers in the store can release new product inspired by the collab and the color scheme, so there is always lots to pick up and it all coordinates nicely.
There are also fun Block Party challenges you can participate in to get you using those new goodies that you just “have” to have 🙂
This first layout is for the Scraplift Challenge and includes the One Fine Day Borders that The Ardent Sparrow contributed to the coordinating products.
Supplies Used:
Everything from the One Story Down July Block Party
One Fine Day By Tracy Martin, Flutter Expressions, and Sissy Sparrows (July Block Party Collab from One Story Down)
Your My Heaven by JM Designs
One Fine Day Page Borders by The Ardent Sparrow
This second layout I did for the Fashion Show Challenge, just a simple challenge to use at least 75% of the product from the Block Party. Mission easily accomplished!
Supplies Used:
Everything from the One Story Down July Block Party
One Fine Day By Tracy Martin, Flutter Expressions, and Sissy Sparrows (July Block Party Collab from One Story Down)
Your My Heaven by JM Designs
Instamatik No. 2 Templates by Peeps & Milo
Thanks for stopping by and I hope everyone has a great weekend!!
Homespun
My friend has been learning to die and spin her own yarn. She made this just for me and I can’t wait to do something. I haven’t been knitting much lately, but this beauty has me inspired!!
They Are Home!
Wordless Wednesday
Well almost wordless, love those grandparents!!
Kidless
So we’ve been kidless here at home since Monday while the Grandparents have them. They are enjoying some beach-front cabin living and Joel and I are just doing our daily thing. I always think I’m going to get so much done while the kids are gone, but that is never the case. I’m inherently lazy I think. I always find ways to do absolutely nothing while they are gone. I am starting to miss them too. They still have the weekend before they start making their way back home and it’s looking like it’s going to be a pretty long weekend!
There weren’t a lot of new products up this weekend with my teams, so I was happy to grab some things from One Story Down that I missed when they first went into the store and that went on sale this week. Peeps & Milo is a great designer, her stuff is so fun and I just love her Mila’s Spare Time kit, so eclectic and different! Here’s what I did with it, and with her Mistyped Borders.
There is a whole lot else on Sale at One Story Down right now, including The Ardent Sparrow’s beautiful “The Avery Kit” that I used in this layout from a few weeks ago.
Click here to go to the sale and stock up on what you’ve been keeping your eye on!
Our Garden
One thing I am not really good at all is keeping plants alive. I just don’t have the knack, but luckily my husband enjoyes gardening and he is passing that love on to our daughter as well.
I thought this photo was perfect for the “A Happy Home” kit by Team Kitten at Kitschy Digitals.
Supplies Used
Kraft paper by Valorie Wibbens
Layouts on Fridays
It seems that Fridays are the days that makes the most sense to show all my scrapbook layouts, most of the designers I scrap for release new products on Fridays, so most every week I’ll come and post my pages.
Back in January, I applied to work with Lauren Reid on her scrapbook inspiration blog One Story Down. It was a dream gig for me, I got to make pages for her blog challenges and take photos with her prompts, I really liked it. Little did I know she had a bigger vision in store! She expanded One Story Down to a full service digital scrapbooking site in March and I decided to stay on as a creative team member. It was there that I became familiar with The Ardent Sparrow and the list of other designers there is very impressive.
I’ve done quite a few layouts for OSD since opening and you can view them all in my flickr gallery.
Here’s what I did for OSD’s new releases today.
featuring Pieces of Me by Snips and Snails Designs | Dear Diary Flairs by JM Designs | Photo Stripped V1 by Lauren Reid Designs | Up The Woods Alpha by Peeps N’ Milo
Here’s this week’s layout with The Ardent Sparrow’s new releases, The Ombre Painted Papers and The Ombre Painted Journaling Cards
Ombre Painted Papers, The Ombre Painted Journaling Cards
also used elements from:, Pocketful of Posies Elements, Pocket Full of Posies Tape, Bunting from Kate Fabric Elements, Claire Alpha, Doily Borders, & Soho Bits and Bobs
I’ve also been creating for Rachel Young Designs close to 3 years and have no desire to stop doing that any time soon! Rachel always has new releases for the The Lilypad’s Build Your Own Collab release every month, and her contribution this month inspired me to scrap a page about my All-Star. I don’t do enough JT layouts these days and I was so excited to see that alpha, it was perfect!
featuring Rachel Young’s Stars That Shine Patterns, Solids and Alphas, Wraparounds Elements, and the red paper from Funky Junky Family Tree | also used from The Lilypad-Amy Wolff’s Back to School stitching.
Hope you have a wonderful weekend!!
Pixels N Glue 