Note to self....

A look at the December kit from Scrapbook Circle, have to tell you the colors in this are NOT typical for a December kit--it's very diverse and FUN!  I loved working with this and have plans for more projects....

 pictures to come of my projects.....

Who I am.

I've been thinking about this for a while, seeing several of my blog friends share about themselves.  This morning Ronda Palazzari shared about herself and got me thinking while I fixed breakfast about WHO I am:

(picture taken by my 11 year old)

*I am Diana, DD, or Dinanny to my family...NEVER Diane--it's NOT my name and I WILL correct you.
*I'm a ground hog (think February)
*Wife to my best friend--almost 15 years (in December)
*mom to 3 wonderful kids who just happen to ALL play soccer (makes life a little crazy but fun), their nicknames: Psycho, Crazy and Freakazoid.  Yes, I'm proud to say I came up with two of those names and want to get a shirt made "mom to psycho, Crazy & Freak"--one day....
*I'm a morning person--I wake up at 5:30am--I read my scriptures then.
*I talk to myself *often*
*I am lactose intolerant, but refuse to give up cheese!
*I love to sing (I'm in my church choir and currently in a combined Christmas choir Catholics & LDS Church we will perform at the Mesa Temple in December)
*I am an active member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (people call us Mormons), I currently serve in the Primary (kids ages 4-11) as the chorister--love it!
*I served an 18 month mission to Venezuela when I was 21, it was an adventure that helped me GROW spiritually and understand myself better, it also means I speak Spanish.
*I enjoy trying new recipes especially ones that aren't to complicated or have strange ingredients.
*I can my own meat & beans.  I make my own bread from scratch (yes, I own a wheat grinder)
*I cut coupons and THRIVE on making my $$ work for me!
*I am a gym goer (5 times a week)--hey, I got to keep up with my active kids!
*I like to dance, yes the 80's kind of dancing--I'm awesome! :)
*I would rather be cold than hot. (my theory? it's easier to warm up than cool down)
*I have an active imagination, as a child I would get nightmares after watching Wonder Woman & Scooby Doo--thankfully I've outgrown that!
*As a child I loved Wonder Woman & Bionic Woman, I hoped one day that I would grow into my super powers, in a way I have--I'm a MOM!
*I'm a dog person.
*I'm outgoing but shy too....
* I like to read, it's mostly teenagery juvenile books, I like to be able to talk to my kids on what they are reading....FAVORITE series?  Harry Potter!
*sort of closet superhero, sci fi nerd, but I also like a good mystery.
*I love taking pictures, so much so that people NOTICE when I don't have my camera on me.  Love that I can shoot in manual mode now.
*I LOVE to scrapbook I look forward to the therapeutic time it gives me--RELIEVES stress for me!

So, Who are you?


One more thing I wanted to share was this BEAUTIFUL video of one of my FAVORITE Christian artist:

another Happy Toot! sketches and layouts?

So happy to announce I won over at Elle's studio for the sketch challenge!  you can see the post HERE.  Speaking of Elle's studio did you see this?  Yep, I should be receiving these any day now!  So excited I'm finishing up my December Daily.  AND my daughter has a school project where they have to sell something, I thought that it would be fun to make gift tags, using my cricut AND this WONDERFUL product!

So I was thinking about sketches and layouts and inspiration this morning.  I read a blog that commented about giving themselves permission to use a sketch.  I TOTALLY understand that!  Why do we think we have to do it ALL ourselves?  it's okay to look and be inspired (THANK YOU PINTEREST!).  I love the challenge of look at some one's layout/sketch breaking it down and making it my own.  I think that "study" came from the MANY hours that I spent in the DREADED fabric store with my mom with nothing to look at but pattern books. (my brothers HATED this as well...)  this is NOT very exciting for a little child.  ANYWAY, my point is, that my mom would ask me if I liked a certain pattern.  As a child I couldn't get past the material used.  My mom would ask me to look past the material and LOOK at THE PATTERN!  As I got older the "vision" came, and I understood what she meant.  Thanks mom for those TORTUROUS hours in the store I did learn something but I still DON'T like the fabric store.... :)

Okay now I feel better, got that off my chest!  I do have a layout I wanted to share of my BEAUTIFUL mother on her birthday.  I used the Hallow's Eve kit from Scrapbook Circle....

closeups:

 Oh, one more thing before I go!  On NBC there is a new show called Grimm, I wanted to watch it from the commercials--looked kind of good.  I had to screen it first (to see if hubby would like it) and ended up watching it twice yesterday.  Once by myself and once with hubby, he liked it.  You can watch the first 3 episodes online (the pilot will screen until 12/3).  It's basically your good vs. evil with a twist of Grimm's fairy tale...
Gotta run--well, actually can some beans!  Thanks for stopping in for a visit!

a TOOT! Hot Air Balloon and does anyone....

Hey everyone!  Today is a GREAT day, I'm finally feeling like myself again--YIPEE! :)  I've got something exciting to share.  Two of my cards were featured on the Jillibean Soup blog today!!!  A first for me and I'm TOTALLY excited!  I have shared them from this month's Harvest Festival kit from Scrapbook Circle.
yesterday I came home from dropping my boys off to piano lessons and noticed a hot air balloon-SUPER close to my house.  So close that I could hear the people speaking and the fire being blown into the balloon part.  What did I do?  I ran into my house grabbed my camera popped the zoom lens on and start shooting like crazy (in manual--thank you Amy!) My hubby happened to be home and came out with me too, so fun!  thinking I need to scrapbook a page--I have ridden on a hot air balloon when I was young it was a right place right time thing and it was AWESOME!  Don't know that we have pictures of that (we have video) but this would be fun to write down those feelings....

One last share.  I have been project life (I have to do some major catch up--like 3 weeks, I do have my pictures and calendaring stuff I just NEED to do it!) ANYWAY, I also follow Becky Higgins blog and a few weeks ago she announced that she was coming out with some new product (different styles of page protectors and Envelope pages).  I JUMPED at the opportunity to buy her things--they ALWAYS sell out and I didn't want to miss out.  (they also inspired me for one of my Christmas gifts which I can't tell you about because the person READS my blog!)  I wanted to talk about the Envelope pages--they are AWESOME for organizing!  I'm trying to figure out how to organize the top of my desk a little better--anyone have great ideas to organize photos?  Anyway, this is what they look like:

they are sturdy so that you can put heavier items in there.  I placed on of my grandma albums (pictures to come!) unbound in there and it fit and closed just fine.  I'm really happy with my purchase, the quality is guaranteed.

I'm off and running.  Actually, I'm sitting and typing while my laundry washes... :)  Thanks for the visit today!

on a roll....

I'm telling you I LOVE pinterest!  Last Friday I rolled out a few pages from wonderful layouts I spotted and pinned.  Today one of the layouts that inspired me was featured on the Studio Calico blog with a challenge!
So here is the sketch:

and here is my take:

and of course closeups:

 I had a few kits from Scrapbook Circle with "leftovers" I couldn't throw them away!  I searched through my pictures and found this ONE of my husband!  He is 11 years old in this shot, the same age as my middle boy now.  So fun to see some similarities between them....

the journaling was a little hard because I wasn't there and wanted to make this as surprise for my hubby.  After the page was done, he says he doesn't remember the event but he TOTALLY remember his shirt and jacket...funny the things we remember...

Truth be told my favorite part of this layout besides the punched medallion circles are the clouds, love how they just popped off the page.  YES, it's okay to LOVE something on your page!  And yes, it's okay to say so!  (I give you permission!)

Anyway, don't know if I really qualify for the contest because I made this last week, but I was inspired by the layout (if you click on the link above it will take you there).  I really enjoyed the challenge of stretching myself a bit!

Thanks for stopping in!  I'm off to continue working on a grandma gift! :)  Have a great one!

Big deal!

I had the opportunity of "lifting" fellow design team member Diane Payne's layout:

This was SO fun!  I loved working and getting messy, and scrapping some pictures that were a little harder to find "matching" papers for.  This is my youngest son receiving his religious knot in cub scouts (one of two patches that can transfer to his boy scout uniform) he worked really hard to receive this and I took like 20 pictures of the event.  His face was so funny while he was being presented his award, I HAD to use the best ones on this layout:

and of course I have some closeups:

 *the brads and twine are from my stash the rest came from the Harvest Festival Kit from Scrapbook Circle.*

Well, it's a busy Monday for me!  Hope that I can figure something interesting to make for dinner! :)  It's HARD to be creative EVERY DAY when it comes to food!  Thanks for stopping in for a visit!

Two takes on the same sketch!

this whole week I've been fighting the crud, started in my chest and it's in my head...I don't get sick EVER, so this hasn't gotten me all the way down but I decided to take it easy so it wouldn't!!  Yesterday, I had a bought of the creative and completed 3 1/2 pages!  I pinned this wonderful layout from Elle's studio, guess what?!  They have a challenge using that sketch today, so here is the sketch (I really liked the buttons but didn't have enough of the color I wanted, so I improvised):

And my two takes on it, with some closeups:

supplies used:

American Crafts

Bella Blvd.

Twinery

ek success

making memories

some other old stuff that I'm not sure!

And my second layout:

 supplies used:

Hallow's Eve Kit from Scrapbook Circle

buttons, twine, mist, paint is from my stash

Yes, they are Halloween, heck I've got a lot of pictures!  I started each layout by painting on them with acrylic paint, then I applied the paper then misted and splattered....no I didn't use any Elle's studio but I sure enjoy looking at her pretty tags....

Life has been crazy of course, today was my youngest musical...SO cute!  It's fun to see personalities come out when he sings, he just BARELY does the action and sings, but it's not that he is to cool or doesn't know them, that's just HIM! :)  Glad I took pictures and video to remember today.

Well, I'm off to finish Christmas gifts for Grandmas! :)  Thanks for the visit!

Friends hiking together...

for this layout I knew I wanted to do tone on tone but I also wanted the stitching to really show, once I had the vision it came together rather quickly.....
here is a little closeup:

it is hard to tell but the title is popped up a bit over the subtitle (the letters are from the printable, so is the journaling box....)
One more thing I wanted to mention about this layout are the pictures.  I told you about the collage feature over at snapfish, I did both of these but at 5" x 7".  I really liked them when I made them but once they got home I wasn't sure how I was going to scrap them!  After I did the background I just decided to place them side by side (best way to tell the story!)  I made this page using the Harvest Festival kit from Scrapbook Circle.
I'm off and running --thanks for the visit!

It's november 1?!

REALLY?!  That being said I have something FUN to share with you using the new Harvest Festival kit from Scrapbook Circle--I LOOOVE the colors they are FABULOUS and the kit is just AWESOME!  My assignment for today was to use the Jillibean Soup bite size bits (yes a mouth full!)  Here's view of what they look like:

Totally cute right?!  The gnomes just spoke to me and I made these:

 The twine and buttons are from my stash....

the greeting here on the second is also popped up with pop dots!  you need to go check out the blog post for today to see what Michelle did with hers!  SO clever!!
Thanks for stopping by for the visit!  Hope you have a WONDERFUL day!