Kiss and Tell Scrapbooking

Sew-Simple Lavender Handmade Christmas Gifts

Of course I am buying presents (since I can't home-make Barbies & Bakugans) - but I am making some too like these sew-simple and very cute little lavender sachets that smell amazing:

I love simple sewing every so often.  I picked these co-ordinated fabric squares up at Joann's - they look a bit like scrapbooking paper don't they?  As I cruised through the fabric aisles, I noticed there were lots of patterns in fabric that I've seen before in paper.  May just get me back into sewing more often.  I did different stitches for each square just because my Brother Project Runway sewing machine has so many options.  I finally got a new sewing machine after using the same JC Penney sewing machine that my Dad gave me for Christmas in 1986 - I gave it to my mother in law and she's promised to leave it to Allison so it will stay in the family.

I also printed up little labels that say "Sachet Handmade by Katie Scott" with a drawing of lavender that I found here.  I love the google image searcher - how did we ever live without it?!? 

   

My New Thanksgiving Tradition: Left Over Turkey

Why not make Thanksgiving last a little longer?

Its 10:47pm on the Monday after Thanksgiving and guess what I'm doing?  Cooking a honey turkey, its almost done and smells delicious but its too late to eat.  So why did I start cooking a turkey on a Monday night after work?  Left-overs!  Every year we go to my sister-in-laws for a fabulous Thanksgiving dinner and I am thankful that its not my job to put on the feast every year.  But what I miss is the turkey leftovers for the next week, plus turkey is healthy and economical and my entire family loves it.  So last year I started making a turkey just for the leftovers!  This year I decided to make it a honey turkey so I used the bear bottle of Miller's Pure Honey from Salt Lake City, Utah that Ella Publishing's Angie Lucas brought to CHA Orlando this past summer. 

So thanks Angie! and I'll let you know how the turkey tastes tomorrow!

P.S. Go Check out Angie's Blog by clicking here - she's cooking up something yummy with bushels of apples! 

Working on a post for the Ella Blog :)

Happy Thanksgiving!

Had a wonderful Thanksgiving with my family:

Took this shot with my Canon Rebel using my gorilla tripod attached to a chain link fence.  I need to get the family Christmas card photo taken & I'm thinking i'm going to use that clever little tripod again.

We brought an advent calendar over to my sister-in-law as the hostess gift - she does Thanksgiving every year Martha Stewart Style.  I was out of wrapping paper because I've already wrapped 80% of my Christmas presents!  Mac made the paper here - my fingers are covering it up but it says "Mom Says" with a picture of me since I was dictating to him. 

And we all (most of us - a few of the men including Charlie somehow didn't do this) wrote down what we were thankful for:

Notice that both of my kids are thankful for meat.  I've been sort of trying to go vegetarian - or at least trying not to eat mammals - just fish and birds - so I don't make a lot of meat at home - so I guess they knew they were getting some meat today and they were pretty pleased about that.
 

Just a Little Scrapbooking for the Fun of It

Just did a couple of pages, just for fun:

sorry - having computer issues & can't seem to edit anything...but tilt you head to the right & take a gander.

 
Sallie happens to be visiting now for Thanksgiving - Hi Sallie :)  As an aside - we've been catching grouper in Mac's crab trap and I've been cooking it - after Charlie cleans it - and then Charlie eats it & assures me that its better than any restaurant grouper.  (I just can't cook & eat fish myself; somehow I can only eat it if someone else cooks it - weird I know).

 
Ha! another one on its side - I printed this photo collage out on 10-12-09 meaning to do the 12 on the 12th page but somehow just didn't get to it until now.  But there it is. 
This one was loosely based on a Stacy Julian photo collage thing she did for her nanny I think.  I've had this paper for years and years and finally found a use for it.  Here's to old paper :)

Finally Finished the 2007 Jennifer Stewart Inspired Project

Jennifer Stewart was one of the teachers at Donna Downey's 2007 Inspired Event and Jennifer got these landscaping things from a home improvement store, my project didn't come out exactly like hers - ok at all like hers - but Allison helped and there were 6 spaces which perfectly coincided with Allison's 6th birthday on Saturday:

Quick & Easy way to display family photos. I picked up the Family hooks unit at a discount store and tied pictures to ribbons and embellished a little and presto!

Quick & Easy Happy Birthday Banner using patterned paper scraps!

Ella-phants

Seriously Cute Ideas for Christmas Crafts and Scrapbooking!!!

The latest ebook from Ella Publishing is

Vintage Hip Christmas Crafts

10 step-by-step layouts, decor, gifts, and more.

by Margie Romney-Aslett, with daughters Megan & Brooke

Get in the Christmas spirit any time of year with the Aslett girls' complete, step-by-step instructions for creating three seasonal layouts, three festive garlands, three handmade gifts, and three Christmas cards.

With projects targeted specifically to "super simple," "sorta simple," and "artsy-fartsy" scrapbookers, this eBook has something for every skill level, no matter how much (or how little) time you have to play. Also enjoy helpful tips, bonus printable templates, and fun product recommendations!

I've seen it and let me say that it seriously delivers on the cute and do-able.  I can't wait to start on some of these super easy projects that will help me use up all those lovely patterened paper scraps (I just can't throw anything away in the pretty paperscrap department).

You can take a peek at it too by clicking here.

There's a contest on Wednesday to win one of two monthly kits from The Girl's Loft, Margie's kit club.  Check the Ella Blog for all the details - click here for the Ella Blog.

Sick Day

Allison & I have a bad cold - I'm guessing its the same one.  So we're staying home today drinking tea and apple juice and making crafty things for her birthday this coming weekend.  And thanks to the internet, I can log in to work a bit and sign up for scrapbooking classes online for free that I can do in my jammies.  I'm signing up for this one by Jessica Sprauge called Holidays in Hand now.

Scrapbooking with Kindergarteners

I spent the morning teaching my daughter's kindergarten class how to make a scrapbook.  I bought some Fiskars / Heidi Grace 12x12 double sided heavy weight paper/cardstock at a discount store for $1.00 per 25 sheet pack! Then I cut each page in half so I had 12x6 pages.  I put 4 pages together, folded them in half, punched some holes with the cropodile and attached the books together with ribbon.  I took some photos of the kids last week and brought in the pictures today.  All went well except that one boy was absent the day I took the pictures so he didn't have any and started to cry which made me feel horrible - luckily I had some "special" pictures of the whole class that I just gave to him to make him feel better. And the sticky tabs completely confused them so we ended up using good old glue sticks.  But fun was had by all.  This afternoon I'm going to teach my son's 2nd grade class.  I'll post some pictures of the projects soon.  Friday fun :)

In the meantime, I snapped this picture at my kids' school recently and thought it would be a good frame for a picture of them in the middle -

With my very limited digital abilities, I made this:

 

Jumpstarting Christmas

I saw some pretty ornaments about a month ago (at the Dollar Tree of all places) and just got all excited about Christmas super early this year.  I've got all sorts of things planned and I've been like one of Santa's elves working on all sorts of things to make the holidays special this year.  Here's one thing, actually several things, but a Christmas tag/ornament project that I did with the help of Google's Picasa's face finder thing  and the collage function, first I printed out the pictures in black and white on one sheet of photo paper:

Nice looking family right?

Then I cut them out and put them in the ornaments for instant gratification - its fun to have a project that is quick and easy and gives instant and good looking results if I do say so myself.

 
I plan to make towers of presents for each person on my list and to tie them up with ribbons and there will be this cute little tag at the top so that the person will know its for them.  They'll know its from me/my family because we'll be handing it to them & the rest of our presents will look the same - and most of these people will be here on Christmas morning in case there's any question.  (Which reminds me, one Christmas when Mac was very small, he opened every single present in about 2 seconds Tazmanian Devil style so that we had no idea who the presents were for and who they were from - although we did have fun trying to figure it out.) 

Ella Product Showcase: Board Book Albums "Take Your Pix" Photo Albums

Want a quick way to make a minibook for someone?  Go to www.boardbookalbums.com and check out these sturdy and versatile "Take Your Pix" photo albums.  Along with the Ella Friends, I made a minibook with the Board Book Albums, some paper and stickers from www.3bugsinarug.com using their "Happy Bird-Day" line, and some 4x6 photos.  And despite being all kinds of busy this fall and despite having computer issues and despite my complete October Organization project in my house (which is thankfully just about over); I got this baby done in less than 2 hours!  Seriously! 

   

And it is sturdy enough that I will actually let the kids look at and hold this one (sometimes I'm a little nervous to let my kids actually hold my minibooks because I'm afraid they'll rip them - but they won't rip this one!) And it is so cute!  And it goes with my November theme of birds and birdhouses for home decorating and kid projects! And it stands up on its own and I put it on our entertainment center shelf with some birdhouses and birds! And I just love it!

Want to see more board book albums?  Go to the Ella Blog!

Happy Scrapbooking

Want to do some happy scrapbooking?  If you haven't already, go check out "20 Simple Secrets of Happy Scrapbookers" by Stacy Julian and Lain Ehmann at www.ellapublishing.com.  Here's a page I made using Stacy Julian's Smile Layout as my inspiration:

The colors on the actual layout are way better than they appear in the picture.  I've been having computer issues - my Picasa has been photo face finding - which is really awesome and helped me to create these photo collages - but has been slowing down my computer to the point of being unusuable (which explains my absence from the blog in October).  But I miss the blog, so whatever computer issues there are, I'm not going to let it stop me from getting back to the blog.  There's always the iphone.

Ok, so what was I up to in October?

1. Work Work Work Work Work - this is not going to change in November - its my busy season -I actually enjoy it because there's lots of action and I get to close up things I've been working on for year(s).

2. Allison cut her head open at a park and had to have staples - she's all healed now and was quite brave about the entired incident.

3. Of course we went trick or treating - and yes, of course, I dressed up.  Our friend Kathy came over with some of her family & we did the neighborhood - we have about 10 houses that we hit every year and it was lots of fun.  Later a neighbor friend had a Halloween party and we discovered that our kids (she's got a boy and a girl too) play really well with each other and we're planning some play dates.  Fun :)

4. Our housekeeper quit and I assumed the role.  I cleaned every inch of our house.  I got to all the nitty gritty corners and places - like underneath the fridge - that don't normally get cleaned often.

5. I completely re-arranged the downstairs of our house and I'm loving the new set up - more pictures to come.

6. I'm color organzing everything in my house - more pictures to come on that too - I got the inspiration for that from Stacy Julian's blog - her new one is www.stacyjulian.com (maybe) and I think its under the color tab.

7. I have been buying Christmas presents and wrapping them.

8. I bought girly Christmas ornaments and plan to have a Christmas that includes pink and purple in our decor.

9. I handed out the most adorable skeleton head trick or treat bags filled with candy and you know, I don't even think I took a picture of them!  Whoops.

10. I completely re-organzined the supply room at work and made gifting shelves - so if you're having a baby - I'm all ready for that!   (Oh, yes, October was definately about organization.)

11. I'm not sure I even want to say this because I don't want to jinx it, but I've lost 21.5 pounds since this summer, ok, actually since I had Allison - I haven't been able to take off this weight - no matter if I worked out and ate nothing or if I sat around and ate pizza and nachos - I've been the same exact weight since she was born - she'll be 6 this month!  But somehow I've cracked the code and made the scale move downward.  I've still got a lot more to go, but it is really really really really good to experience some progress.

12. I think I'm having some sort of mid-life - oh my goodness I'm going to be 40 years old in June 2010 - thing.  It is completely freaking me out.  Not the age / vanity thing.  Its more like some kind of life report card.  Like I'm studying for finals and my final exam is in June and I've got to get all the areas of my life worked out before then.  I know, I probably do have most of the areas under control and I'm exactly where I want to be in life.  But, there's just something inside me trying to kick my own butt into becoming better - especially before my 40th birthday.   Ahhhh.  I don't enjoy angst but I've been having angst this past month.  I'm hoping a gratitude journal this month will cure some of that - but there are some things that I do want to get in order - which is probably the reason for all that organization this past month.

13.  I want to take my kids to see snow this year.  I say this every year.  But I've got my mind made up to make it actually happen this year.  I've been thinking about travel plans for the next year or so, but haven't taken any action on them yet.

14. I went on a field trip with Allison's class and will be teaching them how to scrapbook - I'm going to take pictures of them in a bit.

15. Had a family date to go see Where the Wild Things Are - really great movie - we all loved it.

16. Ok, I was going to do 31 things, but I'm just out of time and have got to go!  Have a great Monday!

:) Katie.