Jugs #35 - Dry Embossing Challenge

Time again for another JUGS challenge and I'm the hosting this week! It was a wild card so I choose dry embossing for the challenge. Little did I know how crazy busy this week would be. My Dad officially retires Monday, but that is a holiday, so yesterday was his retirement party. He has been the county engineer for over 26 years and has worked at the county highway department for over 39 years. It was a very nice celebration and he got to see so many people that came out to congratulate him.

I've been working on a scrapbook of him from his childhood through now and spent many days working on this. Well.....I thought I had this all figured out and ordered the prints from Scrapping Simply late Wed night. She guarenteed that they would be here overnight, but something went wrong and the time the post office told her they would be here was incorrect. They were to arrive Friday morning.....just in time. I even called our local post office and had them hold our mail. When I went up yesterday morning to get them they weren't there and in fact they couldn't find the package anywhere. The postmaster finally tracked the package down and it was in St. Louis. We live about 2 1/2 hours from St. Louis and it was 10:00 in the morning and I had to be at this celebration by 11:30. I couldn't drive and get the package, but we figured something out and to make this long story shorter, we finally got the package via the Bee Line Express and one very nice worker at the St. Louis Post Office around 4:00 yesterday afternoon. It turned out great and I quickly put it together so he could still have it yesterday. Needless to say it was one busy and crazy week.

I did manage to get my card finished for JUGS. My Mom made the beautiful flower that is the focal point. It is actually a pin and she is sending this as a retirement card for a dear friend that is retiring from teaching next week. She is also my God Mother too. I embossed the background with a cuttlebug embossing folder. I love the bright summery colors. So give the challenge a try. Just link your project up on the JUGS blog .

Hope everyone has a wonderful holiday weekend. We don't have many big plans. We have a wedding reception to attend tonight and then I think we are sticking around close to home.....maybe some swimming at the neighbors, but other than that it will be pretty low key and that is the way we like things around here. Hope everyone has a wonderful holiday weekend!

Jugs 34 Template Challenge

It's Saturday.....what a week! It was another busy week around our house. I keep saying that they will slow down, but I'm starting to wonder. I did get a chance to make a template for this week's JUG's challenge. Dana is the host this week and Lauren with My Time Made Easy is sponsoring us! A friend of mine is expecting at the end of July and she is doing her baby room in this bedding, isn't it adorable. So I decided to make her a matching gift to give her when the baby arrives. For now I just filled it with baby items I had, but I'm hoping to make it a little more personalized when the time comes.
Isn't this bedding adorable! I can't wait to see the room when it is finished!
Here's a close up of my Trendy Toto template from My Time Made Easy.

I made a matching tag so she can use on her diaper bag too.

Hope that you all have a wonderful weekend. We have a fun one planned.

JUGS 33 - Color Challenge

It's time for JUGS Color Challenge. Lisa is the hostess this week and the color pallette is a fun one. It is Red, White, Blue and an optional Kraft. I chose to make a boy baby card. I've been VERY short on time lately.....planning Ethan's Rodeo and getting the details worked out on our house plans, plus all the other day to day stuff that is always there. We feel like we have been running around like crazy people lately. My stamps have been very neglected, but I did take the time this morning to work on a card for a few minutes before we had to head off to Dr. appointments and a graduation. (I'm writing this late Friday!) Our weekend is pretty busy, but I'm hoping to start on a book for my Dad. He is retiring from his position as the county engineer. He has worked there for over 39 years and has been county engineer for over 26. Pretty amazing! I have 2 weeks to get that accomplished.....always something to do!

Hope you enjoy all the gals creations this week. I was absent last week.....internet issues.

Have a great weekend. I'll be back to share new pics of my kiddos soon.....I've got some good ones!

http://justusgirlschallenge.blogspot.com/

JUGS 31 Sketch Challenge

This week Maria is hosting a sketch challenge. She asked if any of us wanted to do a scrapbook page because it is national scrapbooking month, so I took her up on that. I used my SU digi software to create this page of my Ava girl. This was back in 2008 and she wasn't 2 yet and she was trying on her flower girl dress. Aren't these pictures so sweet! I love how this turned out. This week I received my 12x12 prints that I ordered from Scrapping Simply......LOVE them! The quality is just awesome and I can't say enough about the customer service. I will definitely be ordering from them again.

Hop over to JUGS to see what all the gals have created!
LeAnne Pugliese is our Featured Designer

and

Teresa Kline is a special Guest Designer for the month

Hope everyone has a wonderful weekend.

Kale is 5 months old!

My baby is growing soooo fast! I took some time today to grab a few shots! Isn't he just a doll! He learned how to roll over finally! He likes to grab anything and put it in his mouth, some of his favorites are his toy rings and regular old burp rags! Now I need to get Ava's 4 year pics taken!

Some Digi Scrapbooking!

I got to spend a "few" minutes yesterday organizing my scrapbooking pictures. I LOVE to scrapbook, but after Ethan got sick I just didn't have the energy to do it. I have done some pages here and there, but I'm literally a few years behind now and I'm trying to rethink how I am going to "catch up". It's not something I have to do, but it is definitely something I want to do. All I have left now are memories of Ethan and I want those to live on forever, so me creating his scrapbooks is very therapeutic. I found this link via another friends website called www.widdlytinks.com I tried some of their pre-made layouts and thought....maybe I should just do some digital scrapbooking to try and catch up and if I want to actually do the page myself I can. Here is what I ended up with for Ava's 1st birthday pages. I ordered them from www.scrappingsimply.com 12x12 pages are $1.99 each. I have 2 on order so I'm going to wait and see how they turn out.

Right now I scrapbook everything for all 3 kids. I have separate books for each and I don't mean one per year, I have several per year. I'm rethinking my system and am wondering what kind of advice any of you might have to add. I'm definitely not going all digital because I love to scrapbook too much. I'm thinking that I'm going to start buying some pages for my books that I can just insert pictures in like a typical photo album, but mix the book up with both pages and pictures alone. We'll see. I need a weekend with just me and my pictures so I can get them all organized....they are organized on my computer so at least that part is done.

I'm home today....finally! I went to work and dropped the kids off at my Mom's because Ava still wasn't feeling up to par. She was fine Sat, but later on Sunday she started with diarrhea again and it didn't let up this morning, so we waited for over 2 hours in the walk in. What a long morning. We'll see what tomorrow brings. Both kiddos are down for a nap right now, but should be waking up soon. I'm sure hoping that she is on the mend! So far noone else in the family has gotten this bug.

JUGS 29 - Color Challenge!

JUGS is hosting a great color challenge! Maria is the hostess this week and picked such bright springy colors for us to use. All of us gals made a birthday card for our DT memeber Lisa.....it is her birthday on Monday! Happy Birthday Lisa! Hope you have a great one!

My card had to be very quick as the last couple weeks have been crazy busy and this week was no exception. I used a new template from PTI and just love how the flowers turned out. I made this card in about 5 minutes.....really!

Hope everyone has a wonderful weekend. We had a great start to ours with our monthly dinner club at our house and then we got a call at midnight that our Ava girl threw up! Oh how fun, she did again once she got home in our bed, so I'll be doing extra laundry today! We had to cancel out on my college friends coming for a visit because we don't want anyone getting sick! She is feeling better this morning so hopefully it was just a little bug and it is over with now!