Scrap your freakin’ Heart out!

Look for more info at The-Lilypad for this fun little contest coming soon! A fun contest with no drama, and a way to get some LO’s done!

Quickpages

I started digital scrapbooking in April of 2005. Digital scrapbooking had really just started becoming “known”. It was growing a “following” online. Designers were starting to emerge! It was an exciting time for me! I had just a year earlier had my daughter Braelyn, and so my first digital experience was working on Anna Aspnes’ Baby Daze album. The templates/quickpages really helped me to learn the art of digital scrapbooking without having to worry about the design of your page. I have all three girls 1st years documented in a hardbound Shutterfly book done with that album! Over 5 years later I still love using templates and quickpages. There has definitely been controversy over the years in the digital scrapbooking industry as to whether templates and quickpages are “real” or “art”. I have a real problem with that argument because to me scrapbooking, digital or paper, is all about preserving my families memories. Telling our story. This is not about art to me. Sure…it is art, but that’s not the reason I do it. So I will continue to use templates and quickpages! I just wanted to give a quick little informative post about the differences between templates and quickpages, and how they are each used.

TEMPLATES:

templates are basically a design of a scrapbook page. The basics of the page are all laid out for you. You can take your own papers and elements and “clip” them to the design.

This is an example of a set of templates that you could buy. You will notice the grey boxes on these are general guidelines for where you would put pictures. The flowers are general guidelines for where you would maybe place elements. There are usually places for a title and journaling too. Templates are fun because you can pick all of your own papers/kits and elements to use, and you can also twist turn and rotate the whole LO or just some of the pictures or whatever you want, but I love that it is a design starting point for me! I use a “clipping mask” command in Photoshop to “clip” my photos and papers to the boxes/shapes. There are many tutorials out there for using templates! Here is my page using the template in the upper left LO in that preview:

You will notice that I rotated the template and I also made the whole cluster of things a bit larger than in the original template, by linking all of those layers and enlarging them.

QUICKPAGES:

quickpages are fun as well, and they make creating a scrapbook page even a little quicker! A quickpage is a scrapbook LO (layout) already made for you, papers, elements, the whole thing except for the photos!

Here is a quickpage pack ready to buy and make those back to school layouts. With quickpages you can ADD things on top of the quickpage layer like a title and journaling, but you cannot take things AWAY from the quickpage. Here are the two pages I have made with these quickpages:

Here are a few resources for templates:

The-Lilypad albums and templates section

Shabby Miss Jenn templates

Shabby Miss Jenn Quickpages/albums

Janet Phillips templates

and of course there are SOOOO many more out in the digital scrapbooking community and often you can pick up freebies on people’s blogs and stuff!

Go, explore, and embrace the template/quickpage method of digital scrapbooking! I am sure you will love it, and if nothing else it’s a great way to become a little more familiar with your photoshop program!

MandaKay

Outdoorsy

Just wanted to pop in quick to post a few of my latest LO’s! Seems as though I have been on an outdoorsy LO kick!

(as usual, all of the credits for the digital supplies used to make these LO’s can be found in my galleries – links on the right)!

Just a quick one tonight! Thanks so much for stopping by!

MandaKay

Themed Movie Night

It was a gloomy rainy cold fall day yesterday here, and Kyle was gone for the night, so it was just me and the girls. I decided to throw a little themed movie night! I got the movie Alice in Wonderland, probably against my better judgment. It was a fun movie to do a theme for though! It was a bit dark for my girls, I think the cartoon one would have definitely been better. Here are a few pics of what I did. I basically just made the cute little card guys, which was super easy, and then made the cupcakes and set up a tea party with raspberry ice tea! I set it up while Gracyn and Selah were napping, and Selah came out and her eyes got big and she said “Wow…it’s so pretty”, in the most sweet voice! Made my day!

Braelyn played in her first soccer game yesterday as well! Besides sitting out in the cold rain, we really enjoyed watching her! I wasn’t sure if she would like soccer, but she seems to be enjoying it – even in the cold rain! She did really well too for her first time ever playing!

And we also went apple picking on Fri. night! Nothing like starting all the fun fall activities in one weekend right?!

The first week of school went off without a hitch! Braelyn is now in 1st Grade, so our first year of all day every day! That’s quite an adjustment, but she’s liking it! Our morning routine has been going well, I usually wake up by 7:00 and get my workout in while she usually wakes up about that time as well and gets dressed and eats. Then I pack her lunch and finish up getting her ready so we can be out by the bus stop by 8:10am. Then I can shower and get ready after getting her off on the bus. Selah starts preschool two mornings starting this week, so hopefully that doesn’t throw off our schedule too much. I don’t think it will because I should still have time to shower after bus b/c Selah won’t need to be at school until 9:15. Our Wed. night church activities start up this week too, so that should be fun. Kyle and I are both teaching, so that will make for busy Wed. nights!

Nothing new on the job front. Some days I get really bummed about the fact that my workplace was shut down. I loved that job. I miss that job. I don’t think I will ever find a job so good. I liked the small office, only working for two guys. I liked the flexibility. Just really bums me out. I know it’s going to be really hard to find something I will like as much. I am still keeping my eyes and ears open though, so if anyone local still hears of something let me know. I know Kyle would like me to get a job sooner than later, although I will admit I do enjoy being home with the girls. We have definitely been keeping busy!

Nothing new on the home for sale front either. We’ve had quite a few showings, so that is good. We know we are a bit high for the market, but we aren’t in a hurry, so no big deal. We’ve got no real plans after this if we do sell, so when it happens it happens. Lots to be praying about!

So there is our life in a nutshell right now! Have a great week!

MandaKay

Blessed

Isn’t it easy to forget how blessed we are? I am given constant reminders by God about how blessed I am, and sometimes I ignore them. Sometimes it is easier to ignore them. It’s easier to whine and complain about “little” things, rather than focus on the big things that are right in front of my face. I have three beautiful, healthy kids right now. I have a husband that I adore. I have a great extended family. I have great friends. I have a God that loves me and who will NEVER let go of me! There is no doubt about it…I am blessed. Will I yell at my kids tomorrow morning? My guess is yes. Will I be irritated with my husband over something small and stupid? Maybe. Will I sin against the God that loves me without fail? Yes. But I am writing it down right now, and may my words be marked, that thru this life I AM BLESSED (even if I mumble otherwise under my breath at times).

I am getting more emotional as I get older. I don’t think I was even this emotional when I was a teenager raging with new female hormones. I cry over the smallest things. I hear a song, think of someone I know/love, even cry when my girls are fighting because it hurts me to see that. Geesh. What am I to do?! Sometimes it’s even a joyful cry. Tonight at a funeral I was crying tears of sadness, joy, awe, and frustration – all at the same time – I was even somewhat laughing at myself internally for not being able to figure out at least one thing to cry about at one given moment. Anyway – enough about that – I am sure I sound like a crazy woman by now and that you are all trying to look up medications that I should be on! ;)

We had a great weekend camping last weekend! Braelyn lost her 1st tooth! This has been a long time coming since she is going on 6 1/2 yrs. old already. Many of her friends/cousins had lost teeth by her age, so she was more excited than worried about it! We had noticed late last week that there was a new tooth that just popped up behind the loose one, and apparently that is all it took to really loosen the baby tooth! She had corn on the cob with us while camping and my peanut butter rice krispie bars with choc. on top, which really loosened the tooth, so once Aunt Jen came to stay a night camping and brought up some yummy m&m bars, that was all it took! Luckily Braelyn didn’t swallow it, and so we had a tooth fairy visit while we were camping! Braelyn so badly wanted to keep the tooth for a “memory” she said, so I told her we could leave a note for the fairy asking to leave the tooth (and the money yet too)! I don’t think Braelyn spoke any other words the rest of the weekend besides about the tooth! The girl was non-stop about that tooth. It was fun to watch her excitement though and crazy how even a milestone like losing a first tooth can make you proud as a parent!

It’s our last week before school starts! This is the first year I feel like that we actually have a true “end” to summer, now that Braelyn will be in first grade – full time school. We have done NO school clothes shopping yet, and not sure if I will this week or not. It’s still so blasted hot here, that I could get away with what she has. I am not a big shopper and I don’t like to spend money, so I think I am procrastinating. I do have her school supplies shopping done though. Selah will need a few new items of clothing too I think. Girl can’t have all hand me downs! I’m so apprehensive about Braelyn starting the 1st Grade. Will she choose the right friends? Will she get along good with her teacher? Will she finally pick up on reading? Will she be okay without me?! So much to worry about! ;) Selah is of course excited about preschool – she’ll settle in quickly and I think she is ready for the structure of a classroom again. I know I am ready for them both to be in school! They are fighting an awful lot lately and it’s really driving me insane.

Gracie’s doing great too – doing awesome on her potty training – seems to be 100% potty trained now which is WONDERFUL! No school for her this year – she will get some one on one mommy time!

And of course a few LO’s ( I think…I better go make sure I have some new ones to share…seems I haven’t sat and scrapped in a few days now).

See – only one!

Ciao,

MandaKay

Everyday Beautiful

First off – thanks for all the nice comments on my last post. They somehow make me feel more human and more normal! I never imagined being a mother to be such a big job, and one with so many emotions! It’s such a journey, but it is fun.

So Shabby Miss Jenn just put out a great kit – Everyday – and it is only $3.50 right now! It’s such a fun fun kit – the pages that the creative team have made with this kit are amazing! I got a chance to play with the kit a couple nights ago, and I know I will get great use out of this kit!

Head on over and pick up this kit – you won’t regret it!

Here are a few more LO’s since I last posted:

I think that’s it for now. I’m going out with the kids today to the Conference Grounds because my mom is camping there, so it should be a fun day!

MandaKay

Am I going to make it?!

Thru this parenting thing, I mean?! Sometimes I feel so inadequate! If you are a parent reading this blog, do you ever feel like that?! There are a few things I hope for in my kids, that they love God, that they love each other, and that they love others. Of course I also hope that they excel in their schooling or activities, and that they are in general well behaved kids, but if I can accomplish those first few things, then I think the others will maybe fall into place. I am placing myself in the world of failure right now, and I hate it. I know it’s just a funk I am in, and I know that in a few days things will be easier – it just seems to be the natural cycle here for us, but I hate the here and now. What does this stem from, you ask? Well, today the gymnastics instructor had to pull me and another mom aside and said that some not so nice words were being exchanged between one of my girls and the other girl. The words “Jesus doesn’t love you anymore” or something to that matter. Our gymnastics instructor is a Christian, so I don’t think she took that lightly and nor do I. I was steaming mad. I had a major talk with “said” child about it, and about how it hurt me to hear my child speak like that to anyone and how that is not true because Jesus/God made everyone on earth and loves everyone – and how we know that to be true. So hard to explain why that is such a terrible thing to say to someone. I just feel like I am doing an inadequate job at raising my kids. Often times I feel like we don’t have control of them and that they whine and complain too much, and I don’t know how to make it stop without yelling at them (which I am sure is not the way to teach them). The disrespect they have for Kyle and I at times is not acceptable to me, but I don’t know how to teach them that – I tell them, but it doesn’t seem to sink in. Are they too young to really get it yet? Am I expecting too much out of them for their age? Just some of the things I am struggling with right now. I know in the scheme of life and in comparison to what some moms are struggling with right now, it is sooooo not a big thing, and again…this too shall pass.

I am still without a job, I think I am going on 4 weeks now. It' is funny how when I was working I always thought "I think I will get bored staying at home all week”, and now I am thinking quite opposite. I wish I was bored! We have definitely been keeping busy! I always used to chuckle when I would hear retired people talk about how they are more busy in retirement than they were while working. I never understood how that can be, but now I understand! I think you just busy yourself with other things! I don’t miss having to get out so early in the morning with the three girls, but I miss working just a little bit. I have had more time to workout and take care of myself, though, which I love! Money/budgeting is tighter of course, but it helps a little now that we don’t need to buy diapers, and I have still be doing my coupon saving as well! Today I ran to Family Fare during gymnastics because I had a $10 register coupon that I needed to use and I needed just a few things. I bought 2 Tropicana OJ’s, 2 Classico pasta sauces, a box of lasagna noodles, and a box of texas toast and I paid only .48 cents! I was grinning from ear to ear walking out of there, and I think the cashier and bagger lady thought I was robbing the place, but with the $10 Catalina coupon and a coupon for most of the other items, it was all legit, and the grocery store still gets the money back from the companies of the coupons! It’s a win-win! Last week I did Meijer and got just a TON of stuff for under $80!

And of course I have new fun LO’s to show you! What would a post by me be without some layouts?!

These first two are made with Shabby Miss Jenn Designs:

And this batch is done with mostly The-Lilypad goodies

And this is just another for my Disney album:

Ciao! Here’s to a better end to the week than the beginning to the week!

MandaKay