Just some random LO’s

These 2nd and 3rd LO are quickpages that were offered free for The-Lilypad’s blog hop (product from the January BYOC!) a few weeks ago – still working on using those quickpages! And the first LO was done with a newer kit by Gina Miller at TLP!

Thanks for looking!

MandaKay

End of Week 3

Our week was largely focused on Selah and her 4th birthday! I finished week 3 of 365 project.

I did miss taking a picture on the 21st because I worked all day, and then taught a class at night, so I just didn’t have a spare moment to take a pic, but I’m not going to worry about it too much!

This week is going to fly by for us here! We leave Wed. night for Florida to do a big Disney trip, so there is a ton of stuff to finalize and get ready for! We are getting pretty excited though! The girls have never been to Disney, I have been probably 15 years ago, and Kyle was as a child – he doesn’t remember it, so pretty much a new experience for us all! I am looking forward to a little bit of warmth too – this Michigan cold does get annoying!

This morning we served breakfast at the Renucci House in Grand Rapids – a hospitality house for Spectrum Health. People can stay there that have loved ones in the DeVos Children’s hospital very a very low cost if they live further than 30 miles from the hospital. A group of us just brought in a bunch of egg dishes, cinn. rolls, fruit, and we made pancakes. It was super easy, and the guests seemed very appreciative! It was a great experience and we will definitely be doing that again (or something very similar!) After that we got the girls and also their cousins Sadie and Brooks and they have been playing ever since! They get to do a sleepover tonight again, so they are all thrilled! Lot’s of excitement this weekend as usual!

Signing Out,

MandaKay

Valentines – Digi Style

It’s time for all the fabulous valentine goodies to start coming out! I love valentine goodies – always great combination of reds and pinks and browns! Shabby Miss Jenn Designs just put out a new kit that is full of these valentine colors! And the great thing is, it is so versatile that you can use it for so many other things! Here is the page I created using the kit:

And she has these great packs you can buy that will make your kids valentine’s treats be the best ones of all! Who wouldn’t love a personal hand made little valentine treat from your kid this year?!

And her little hybrid party packs are the coolest too! Wouldn’t these make the shabbiest party ever?!

So, I have entered the Penscrappers monthly challenge. It is a site that gives tutorials, and information on scrapbooking and using a Wacom Tablet to scrap. I love my Wacom Bamboo Fun that I have, and they give our a free kit on their site! You can enter even if you don’t have a tablet to scrap with, so go ahead and grab the kit and scrap a page and submit it! And if you don’t want to submit a page, would you vote for mine?!!! You don’t have to register on the site or anything to vote!

VOTE HERE!

Thanks a bunch!!! Have a great Tuesday!

MandaKay

Project 365

So, I have posted a little about this a week ago, but I’ve decided to do Project 365 this year. I’ve known lots of people who have taken the challenge of taking at least one photograph a day and documenting it, and I thought I’d finally try it. I have this nice fancy camera, that I don’t really know how to use. What better way to get to know it than to use it daily! I have made a promise to myself though to keep this really simple. I figure that if I keep it simple then I won’t get overwhelmed and give up! So I am not really doctoring up my photos – I am using them pretty much as is. I am not going to post them on my blog daily or maybe even weekly. We’ll see how often I get to it. I am however trying to stay active in the Lilypad 365 Forum to keep me accountable! I’ve already posted my first weeks LO in the last post, so here is my week two that I just finished up. I think it will be really neat to put these together in a book at the end of the year – it’s kind of like a journal!

I have not posted recent LO’s in a while now, so here are a few pages I’ve finished up recently:

January is a very busy month for me, and I have not had a ton of time to scrap. Work has been busy with year end financial stuff to wrap up, and then I also have to report a bunch of Property tax stuff, so that is a fairly time consuming and tedious job. It’s fun to be busy at work though because it makes my day just fly by, and in this economy busy is good!

We don’t have a ton going on this weekend! We plan on hanging out at home and not spending money so we will see how that goes. Tonight is taco night, tomorrow is spaghetti! I am guessing we will go for lunch at least tomorrow afternoon – we usually eat out once a week somewhere kid friendly! Sunday after church we will celebrate Selah’s and my nephew Cobe’s birthday with Kyle’s family, and that’s always a good time! Selah turns 4 on Tuesday!!!

Have a great weekend everyone!

Bippity Bloggity Hop

Welcome! If you are here for the Lilypad Blog Hop, you’ve found your way! Isn’t it so fun! I hopped thru it myself to collect all the quickpages! I LOVE quickpages! I just adore the Lilypad store colors, so this months BYOC did not disappoint! I made this page with it, and now you get to download this link and create a page all your own with it!

Download the quickpage here! I hope you like it!

Next up you will be heading over to Kate Hadfield’s blog for the quickpage!

I’ve also finished up my first week of Project 365! I am going to try to take at least one photograph a day, which some days shouldn’t be hard, but I am sure some days it will just not be an option. We’ll see how I do! I am thinking it will be neat to compile these LO’s and have them made into a bound book! I am also hoping that it stretches me a little bit photography wise, I’d love to be able to become more comfortable with my great camera and get great shots on purpose, not by just chance alone! I am going to try to stay active on the photography forums at TLP to keep me accountable!

Peace out everyone! Thanks for stopping by and I hope you enjoy the rest of the blog hop! If you finish a page with my quickpage I’d love to see it, because I have it in my head that no one will use it! :)

Have you hopped over to The-Lilypad yet?! Lot's of fun stuff going on in the forums! Prizes to be won,games to be played, frogs to be kissed, etc... And the store is loaded with Lilypad goodness - the new BYOC!!!

Did you notice I finally got my blog changed up! My sister is the mack at working blogs - thanks a bunch!!! My girlfriends were all teasing me about my fall themed blog, so it was definitely time to change it up!

Not much going on this weekend. We have small group at our house tonight, Kyle works all day tomorrow, so hanging out with the girls again all day, and then pizza at friends at night. I am afraid the weekend is going to fly by this time.

See you tomorrow for the blog hop - you are not going to want to miss it!

MandaKay

All things Digi

A few of you that read my blog (and really I am sure there are only a few) have recently gotten into digital scrapbooking, so I thought I'd share a little list of some resources that I use in my process!

Extract Now - extracts a bunch of files at once! It's the bomb. It's free - just scroll down to

the bottom of the site and click download now - pretty easy!

Pioneer Woman's Photo Actions - they are perfect for me. They aren't too harsh usually, some of them just give a little boost, or a little light, or a little coolness or warmness to my pictures. I don't monkey too much with my pictures, but I do usually run a pioneer woman action on them! They are free, but I don't think they work in Photoshop elements - you may need to read up on that.

Kristen Rice's Shadows Perfected Styles - For $3.49 (and watch for AfterFiveDesign sales to get it even cheaper) this shadow style set is well worth it's money! I use these styles on almost every single LO! They are quick and easy and with a click of a style button you have great shadows, and if you want to tweak them a bit you can as well! These are compatible with CS versions and Elements! (here are two links to a few free ones, but I have not used them: by Flergs, and by Megan - and by the comments it looks like these were pretty combatible with most photoshop versions!)

TheDailyDigi - A GREAT all around knowledgable site for all things digi! Wealth of knowledge it will keep you busy for hours if you are just getting into digital scrapping! Some little freebies every once in a while too! They also off what's called The Digi Files - for $5 you get a whole slew of kits by different designers - I bought last months and it did NOT dissapoint - wow! I got a ton of stuff for $5 and got to play with some "new to me" designers stuff!

Scrapping Simply or ScrapbookPictures - Everyone always asks me where I print my LO's. Lately I have been using the first site - Scrapping Simply. They charge only .99 for 8x8 prints. They are full bleed which means there is no white around the edges - and they don't cut off much of your LO either, which is important. I usually try to leave anything of importance, like journaling, or a pic I don't want cut off, away from my edges a bit anyway, but nice to know they don't crop off a bunch to make it full bleed! They have a flat $5 rate for shipping. ScrapbookPictures also does a great job, but they are higher priced MOST of the time. They do run sales , but their 8x8's are regular priced at $1.49. So I have been sticking with Scrapping Simply!

DigiShopTalk (DST) & MyScrapbookArt (MSA): Forums, open galleries, challenges. I like to frequent these sites to find out what's going on in the digi world! Also I post all my LO's to these galleries because they are open galleries, meaning you can post your LO's that are done with any store's stuff!

Stores I love:

The-Lilypad (TLP): I am bias because I am on the creative team, but seriously we have some of the best designers around at TLP!

Shabby Miss Jenn Designs (SMJ): Again, I am bias, because I have been with SMJ with quite some time now, but very shabby chic awesomeness at her store!

After Five Designs (A5D)

Little Dreamer Designs (LDD)

Scrap Artist (SA)

Catscraps

SweetShoppeDesigns (SSD)

There are so many more stores and sites, and tools I am forgetting to mention, but I wanted to just get a little list together of my favorite tools and sites!

And now for a little announcement! Be sure to check in this weekend at The Pad!

See you all here on the blog for the blog hop this weekend!

MandaKay