Daydreaming

Oh summer has gone! It was such a busy one, it went by super fast!

Lots of road trips to Utah to see family, drop son off at an Arabic language camp, pick him back up, go to a funeral of a wonderful man. Another quick trip to NM for a favorite nephew's wedding reception. Also a family vacation to San Francisco, just because I've always wanted to go. My husband is the sweetest. :)

Lots of yard work. Move the dirt and put in a new garden. Plant said. Move perennials from front yard to back so we could get a tree taken out. Keep perennials alive. Keep vegetable garden alive. Weed. Put in a new deck (actually have someone else do that). Add rock border to various beds. It was so good to be outside so much this summer.

Scrapbooking for Cocoa Daisy's September kit collection, Daydream. I am happy with how the projects turned out. :)

enjoying summer

A quick recap on my life.

I taught seminary for my church this past year. That meant getting up at 5 every weekday morning and learning about the Gospel of Jesus Christ with the high school kids in my church. It was the best. It was hard, but like I saw on Pinterest, "If it's not challenging, it won't change you." So very true. We wrapped up a year of studying the Doctrine and Covenants, a book of scripture from the early years of our church. It's beautiful because it's the Lord speaking to His people. Encouraging them, teaching them, chastising them when needed, but most importantly, loving them. It was a good year. And now I'm having a hard time sleeping past 5. :) But I'll adjust.

Annie's doing great. She's still a missionary in Frankfurt. She's growing, learning, trusting, praying, and being formed into who the Lord needs her to be.

Ethan's doing great. He finished his Junior year in really fine style. He's really grown up this year, doing a lot of things without being asked. My favorite thing? He still tells me I'm the best mommy ever. I'm enjoying having him around. :)

Kelly is doing great too. He got released as Bishop of our congregation a week ago. He served for five years. It was a blessing for our family. He's enjoying not doing anything, but that will change very soon I'm sure. It's been nice to have him around more. We're doing a lot of yard work now.

Oh, and he's started eating spinach. He said he was wrong about it his whole life. He was thinking of Popeye version of spinach. I introduced him to fresh. Yah!

Here are my projects with the June Cocoa Daisy kit, Let's Go. I loved how varied this kit was, I have pink and turquoise and red and yellow. But somehow, it all works together so very nicely.

For my friend MK. Writing 50 things you love about someone is a good exercise, you should try it today.

Because reddish pink and charcoal grey go well together. Add some feathers, and life is good.

I think the triangle paper may be some of my most favorite ever. And this layout isn't about washing a car. :)

Here's the kit. It's a good one. All in all, it's just like life. It's good. :) I can't complain. Wouldn't want to anyway.

Thinking it's been a while. Understatement.

Let's see if I remember how to do this... Life sure has changed since my last blog post. Annie is now in Germany, she's been there since September. It's really cool to see her growing. It's also hard to not be able to just pick up the phone and call her. We get sad and droopy somedays missing her. But she's doing well. I update her blog fairly well, so if you'd like to follow her adventures, you can check it out: www.23epicthings.blogspot.com.  This is a layout I just made about her using the March 2015 Cocoa Daisy kit called Hello Again. She likes to take pictures of cute cars, the love of cute cars runs in our family. My mom loves them too. 

Ethan's now a junior in high school. He just planned out his senior year of classes. Holy cow. I know how this ends, it's not something I'm looking forward to. He's such a fun kid, I really enjoy our after school visiting sessions. He's got a great mind. I made this layout to let him know how much I enjoy picking him up from school every day. It's not cool for him, but he is almost always cheerful about the whole thing. I'll miss it. I erased the pencil on my journaling a little too soon, but it was all stitched down, so I just left it. Grrrrr. 

I have the best husband. This just happened last week. I was busy with my to-do list that was up to here. He gently reminded me that people are more important that papers and computers. I always tell the people I work with that very thing, but sometimes I forget to take my own advice. How blessed I am to have him to remind me. This layout was for the Bonjour add on. I loved that paper from Crate Paper. I just kept cutting it up. :)

And me? I'm loving teaching Seminary. It's been such an amazing opportunity, I am learning so much and feel very loved by my Heavenly Father and Savior. It takes a lot of my free time, I hope someday to figure out how to balance. :)

I did get a chance to get some decorating done for the main floor powder room (that sounds so fancy). I wanted to get it done for some wonderful guests who were coming to town, but didn't quite get it done, as usual... I will post a picture as soon as I have the last two elements: a plant stand and a garbage can. And I have to print off something for some frames.

I have

Home Again Finnegan. Ever heard that?

Home again Finnegan. It was in a cartoon I saw in a Family Science college class. I have not a clue what it means. I just say it. :) But I do know what Home Again from Cocoa Daisy means!

I wasn't sure about this month's Cocoa Daisy kit (are you sensing a theme?), but once I started cutting things up, I fell deeeeeeeep in love with Home Again. The kit will go on sale TUESDAY, the 26th of November. We moved Reveal up a few days so as to not conflict with the US Thanksgiving holiday. So be sure to join us on the message boards on Tuesday night.

It's the chartreuse paper that Stephanie designed, along with the Maya Road chipboard alphas, and the huge chevron paper from Lilybee (that totally freaked me out at first, but when I started cutting it up, I changed my mind). And how could you not love the little tiny wood bits? I haven't used the houses yet, but have an idea. Hopefully I can whip it up before I leave for our Thanksgiving break.

Anyway, you are going to LOVE Home Again. The colors are sooooo perfect together. Chartreuse may not be your favorite color, but pair it with red and turquoise and it takes on a whole new feel. I have a chartreuse coat I got last Christmas, I think it's the new IN color :)

I admit, I poo poo'd the potty people, it's a trend I was ready to say goodbye to. Then [b]this[/b] happened and it was PERFECT to have this cute flair from Evalicious to scrap with. I LOVE this layout.

And this is about my boy and how he's not little anymore. Or maybe about his hair. I haven't journaled on it yet and it could go either way... You'll have to wait and see I guess :) All next week, some of the DT will be posting to the blog what they did with their Maya Road chipboard alphabets. This is one of the techniques I'l share.

And my final one, about my new couch. How could I not with that flair?

I've been texting Christine the past two days admitting that I was so wrong, professing my love for this kit. It's seriously awesomeness in a box. And I didn't even get an add on this month, I knew I wouldn't have time to scrap, so the less options, the better for me. But wow, if you get all the add ons as well, you're going to be even happier than I am right now.

I don't know how that's possible really.

Yes, it's the kit, but also we get to see Annie soon! We are SOOOOOO excited. And happy. :)

Getting cozy with Cocoa Daisy's Sweater Weather

I kind of took last week off from most computer stuff. I had the huge task in front of me of putting the finishing touches on the basement bathroom we were building. Kelly had done all of the dirty work, the parts you don't see like using the concrete saw to move the shower drain plumbing. You know, the fun stuff. I'll give a full report with pictures soon.

Not doing computer stuff meant I didn't get my Cocoa Daisy work blogged about. But I am rectifying that today! I LOVED Sweater Weather. I think it may be my favorite kit to date! The perfect combination of color/texture/products made every design I worked on fun.

First was Personalities: Matched

Like I said in my sneaks, this was my old style–the Simple Scrapbooking days–married to my new cluster style. Quite blocky, but with little groupings and lots of overlapping. I journaled on the tag and stapled it to the top of the page, it's tucked behind a popped photo of Ethan, I love how it worked out. I wrapped some twine to look like a lasso and then softened it up with the resin flower from Fancy Pants. The patterned paper is a new thing from Cocoa Daisy. Stephanie Wheeler is now designing paper for us! I love how this paper turned out! I thought the "What's Happening" sticker from My Mind's Eye was pretty funny for my horse. Here's what the journaling says:

When we rode the ponies up to the zip lines, they said our pony would match our personality. Annie's was fast and focused. Mine was bringing up the rear. Kelly and Ethan's ponies varied greatly. So while not spot on, they did get a couple of us matched perfectly. Mexico, June 2013.

Next we have Best Day Ever.

I loved the Fancy Pants wood veneer, it's HUGE. I had to be a title, but finding a photo where the sentiment was appropriate was a bit harder. I mean how many days are the best ones ever? I had to go back a year on my phone, but think I nailed it with this one. Much to our kids' disgust, they haven't had the latest and greatest in technologies, and yes, Annie probably missed out most because she was a senior when we finally got her a phone, and Ethan will have one the entire 4 years of high school, I'm sure she'll be OK in the end. This is about the day I ordered their phones. I had to use the Twin Set add on for this and love how I managed to use most of that in such tiny proportions. Again, I'm hearkening back to my more Simple Scrapbooking days.

And finally, the hardest one to design because the photo had a big street light shadow in it, but I'm ever so grateful to Hayley for taking this photo because we didn't get one of Annie when we were dropping her off at school (she's doing quite well by the way).

I love how this ended up, it's not a color scheme I normally use, but it works! I used some Maya Mist and water to create an ombre effect on the letterpress card. Man, do I love that Cocoa Daisy includes letterpress in every kit, it's such a unique element for the kit! I used the left over diamonds from the die cut background to add some more dimension. I'll be doing that more :) Loving the Fancy Pants resin flowers too. And perhaps you can tell I loved the mini tags in the Twin Set add on? I used them on every page. It's the perfect touch.

So there you have my October layouts for Cocoa Daisy!

And as soon as I can take pictures, I'll post about the work I did in the bathroom! It looks so lovely now. We are housing the missionaries until the end of the year, they moved in on Saturday night so we barely got done! But it's done! :)

Cocoa Daisy's October kit, Sweater Weather goes live tonight at 9 EST. Be sure to join us for chatting that starts at 7 PM.

My friend Stephanie designed two exclusive papers for the kit and I was so impressed at how they worked in my scrapping. I didn't think I'd use the wood stump one, but why yes, you dosee it in the first sneak! It's got a great texture, looks like kraft behind the stumps. Love. And the other paper is on the third sneak, but you can't see it. I LOVE how it looks cut up. It's a swirly yarn pattern, blue on blue. It makes me happy. I'm so excited for Steph and her designs for CD, I've seen November and wooo boy! Even better than this month!

Also loved this month: 

• Lawn Fawn's Into the Woods papers and embellishments
• Fancy Pants resin flowers, wood veneer, paper frames, and paper tags--all from the Happy Go Lucky line. Oh my goodness. This line is so me :)
• The stitches stamps, one of them can be seen in the second sneak. I know I'll be using all the stamps because I just ran out of time to use the herringbone stamp and that's like my favorite thing ever. Have you seen all the sneaks on Instagram from the team and our guest designer Suz Mannecke? So many cool ways to use the stamps this month. They are awesome.
• Wood grain alphabet. I'm big into mixing upper and lowercase in my own handwriting, its fun to have a font that supports that. :)

I went kind of minimalist this month, using more embellishments than papers on a couple of my layouts, but I love every single thing I made. Sweater Weather made Top 3 Favorites, I'm going to even say it might be #1...  

Totally stole the circle background idea from Alissa's gallery last month. I will be using this idea many many more times in the future. I LOVE how it looks. 

This is my old Simple Scrapbooks style meets modern day Emily style. Kind of blocky, with a cluster. It was fun to make it work.

I made this layout at our CocoaDays2013 retreat in Michigan last weekend using the Twinset add on exclusively. I was struggling with what photo would work with the wood veneer (I knew I had to use it as my title. Absolutely HAD to), once I found this poorly lit photo, I knew it would be perfect. :)

I need to remember to tilt right up to left more next time when I take sneak photos...

taking a stroll down 5th & Main by Cocoa Daisy

Here are my full Cocoa Daisy's 5th & Main layouts. I really thought I'd posted them along with the sneaks because I'd written my last post and forgot to hit publish until the next day, but apparently that didn't really happen.... So here you are!

This first one is about how Annie became Annie, no longer simply "the baby." I'm a little nostaligic you know, so you get some momma sap this month. I've included the journaling below, don't mind the randomness of the capitalization. I've been trying to be better about capitalizing, for my dear father, the English teacher's sake, but I wrote the journaling in a font that didn't have capitals, then copied and pasted, so you get what you get. The navy and white striped heart card is exclusive from Simple Stories and may be my favorite ever. I also loved the gold embossed triangles stamp way more than I thought I would. :)

you didn’t have a name until about two weeks before you were born. we didn’t know if you’d be a girl or a boy. If you were a boy, we were going to call you ethan kelly, but we just couldn’t decide on a girl’s name. we liked a few names, but nothing felt right. dad liked the name addison, but I thought it was a boy’s name. i was talking to my dad on the phone and told him we were thinking annie might be in the running. he said he liked it too.
suddenly it was right. we decided we’d name you annie with the middle name of addison. i knew annie would sound good with pitts because of the actress annie potts who’d been in one of
my favorite movies, “pretty in pink.” and the annie you were named after, your great great grandmother was a woman you could look up to and emulate. after her husband Neil died, she supported and single-handedly raised six girls to be strong and independent women. When we told your great grandpa, allen williams, we were naming you after his mother-in-law, he cried. he admired and loved annie. it was said that the boys dated the
gardner girls so they could be around their mom, she was that amazing of a lady. it’s turned out to be the exact right name for you. we love you annie addison!

Speaking of capitalization, not really, but I'm happy to report I know the difference between capitol and capital. :) As seen below. This is another of the Simple Stories exclusives, the B side this time. It was perfect for the photos. I'd found them while cleaning my scraproom over the last few weeks. I print off photos and never use them, please tell me I'm not the only one. I thought they worked well with the kit though.

And this layout happened because Annie was packing her hair accessories and for some reason, these were left behind. Make me a little sad, but thought they might be happy here on a scrapbook page. More of the embossed triangles here, so much fun!

And I Skyped with Annie today. She sent me her first day of school picture, I was so impressed! She's doing great, we are really proud of all she's done on her own since we dropped her off a week ago. I just miss her something fierce. I guess that's a good thing to enjoy your kids that much, right?

Nearly Perfect Is Now Minus One

So this weekend was a big one for our family.

My sweet Annie, our precious daughter and Ethan's treasured sister, graduated high school this past May. This means she is now a college student. Meaning for us, we had to drop her off, say goodbye, and drive away, with her seat in the car empty yesterday.

It's been pretty emotional.

We packed up the car and drove to Provo, it's closer than I thought when we go I70 :) 500 miles door to door :) We took her to The Creamery where she'll be buying most of her groceries and went through what to look for, aisle by aisle. We went and picked up her books from the bookstore, my how buying books has changed! We also went to a local grocery store that had more selection, just to give her an idea of what to do when she had access to a vehicle. We went to dinner at the Olive Garden where I started into labor with her almost 19 years ago. Then we checked her into her apartment and got her mostly moved in. We still had an hour drive to get to my parents house so we left her kitchen supplies for her to unpack and headed to Grandpa and Grandma's for the rest of the weekend.

It was a special time for our family. Full of good times and more than afew tears. We drove away Monday morning, leaving her with my parents, she wanted to spend a few days with them, and they'll drop her off for new student orientation. We had to get Ethan back to school... And now we are adjusting to missing her. What a huge hole such a little girl can leave. Thanksgiving can't come soon enough.

I'm so blessed to have been her momma for the 18+ years (yes, I know I'm still her momma, it's just a bit different without her here). It's been nearly perfect, we have a really good family life, something I was promised a long time ago. I was talking to Kelly about how we got married because we really liked each other, then we got two awesome kids as a bonus, and now Annie will be spreading her wings, closely followed by Ethan, which means it will be just Kelly and me again. It's a good thing we still really like each other. The thing I didn't realize when I became a mother was just how much of a bonus my kids would be for our family unit. Makes it hard when they start to leave, but how great it's been! 

So here we are, checking our phones for texts far too often than I care to admit. And enjoying every single minute of the next three years we have with Ethan. It goes way too fast.

She promised to send me pictures of her first day. 

I had to finish up my Cocoa Daisy work before we left, I was a little melancholy, so two of the three designs are based on Annie. They make me smile. I ended up really liking the kit, it was hard to get into, but once I got going it really worked well for me. :)

Reveal of 5th & Main is tomorrow at 9 EST. Christine has a special offer for her 3rd anniversary, it's really a good time to be at Cocoa Daisy. Join us!

circumnavigating for 80 days with cocoa daisy

I'm really more into bright colors, but the August Cocoa Daisy scrapbooking kit, 80 Days was the perfect kit for me this month. It was a fine balance of color and neutral, and really nice to have a more gentle kit after July's awesome bright Cabana kit.

I only got two layouts done because I had to leave for a week to attend CHA, but I have plans to do more.

This was just a fun kit to document some fun photos; lots of playful elements from Basic Grey, October Afternoon, and Evalicious that really made the kit easy to work with. There were also some cool vintage German flashcards that couldn't have been better for my layouts, it was serendipity. I also used the Calcutta add on, I had to have those awesome burlap Thickers. I ended up misting them on both my layouts, it turned out really well.

This first layout is about my kids and the statues outside our vacation rental. They are huge Dr. Who fans and Weeping Angels is an oft discussed topic in our home. The German flashcard was so so perfect here.

My husband is always making me laugh. I love that he knows how to make me happy, even at the beach. I loved all the little bits and pieces in the kit, they made this page really easy to create. I wrapped the Maya Road wire camera with twine and I love how it turned out, the perfect pop of yellow!

You'll have to pick up your own 80 Days and add ons; together they make for delightful creating, and they are packed full of awesome product. It may seem travel themed, but so many of the CD team made layouts not at all travel based, you'll have to check out the DT gallery. Mou Saha was our guest designer this month and she did a lovely job! 

No Blinking for 80 Days Sneaks!

I had a fun time with Cocoa Daisy's August kit 80 Days. Christine and I tossed around names for the add ons that would go with the kit's name. I love that we finally settled on some of the stops in the original book by Jules Verne. They just sound exotic! I got the main and Calcutta (loved those burlap letters, I inked and misted them to get some great variations).

This is a layout about my kids and their love of Dr. Who.

Loved how this layout turned out, it's about my funny sweet husband. I added a lot of mustard yellow to this one via Maya Mist and floss.

I've got one more in the works, but not enough time. I leave for CHA in the morning.

hanging out in cocoa daisy's cabana

Here they are, the full layouts I made from the Cabana kit and add ons Striped Awning and Hammock. I thought these kits were perfect for bright and warm summery layouts, if you are on vacation or not. We happened to have the perfect vacations photos, I have a bunch more and will share eventually :)

I don't have a favorite this month, I love how they all turned out, for different reasons.

 This one because it's my sweetie and me. The trip was really good for us, we had lots of time to talk and connect again after being apart for a month with his travel and then with mine. I love how the Jillibean Soup frames worked as a background mat for the photo. Just fun :)

Uses Cabana (the letter A) and Striped Awning (everything else).

This one because it kind of tells the story of why we were in Mexico. I also love it because she looks so happy. She loves the water. She loves heat. She loves the beach.  

Uses Cabana, Hammock, and Striped Awning

And this one because it was a sketch from the PageMaps July sketches. We had Becky Fleck as our guest designer and to trade off, she asked 10 of our DT to guest design for PageMaps. It was really fun, I got a grid design and ended up really enjoying it. I used to do more straight line/grid sort of designs, but have strayed from that type of layout. I think it really made these photos shine and I enjoyed the process. I will do more I think :)

Uses Cabana, Hammock, and Striped Awning 

My favorite parts of the July kit? The glass head pins in the main were a surprise love. The Jillibean Soup corrugated words were awesome, especially on the 2 Things layout above, I covered it in turquoise Maya Mist, glue, and then dipped it in the bag of glitter. It turned out perfectly!

I also loved the yellow chipboard and turquoise foam alphabets. I will sometimes get a kit just for the alphabet. The yellow one reminds me of the Brady Bunch font a little. It's funky!

There are still a few kits left, and Christine's got a special going if you spend $75 domestic or $125 international, you can get free shipping on the 4th of July. Pretty good deal! So hurry over and get your own Cabana!

sneaking into the cabana, cocoa daisy style

Hello there! Some sneaks for you using the Cocoa Daisy July kit, Cabana. Such a fun kit. 

This kit is pretty bright, the colors are intense. DO NOT LET THAT SCARE YOU! Once I remembered that oh yah, I really do LOVE color, I had a blast creating with Cabana. Absolutely loved everything I did. There's just enough kraft and wood to tone down the intense colors, you'll be more than fine! Did I mention I LOVED this kit?

Reveal is tonight starting at 8 PM EDT, with chatting on the message boards, and then the add ons go on sale to subscribers at 9 PM. Stephanie is hosting it and it promises to be a really fun evening, I hope you'll join us!

This kit had a little bag of glitter. So much fun to play with on the Jillibean Soup corrugated words!

It had the SC cork arrows, which I wish I didn't love as much as I do.

It had a delightfully glittery alphabet in the Striped Awning add on. It's foam. And glittery, did I mention that? The main has a fun and retro funky glitter font too, reminds me of the Brady Bunch font. Love it. It's chipboard, and glittery. There's also a perfect little cardstock alphabet from Basic Grey in the main. Nice balance of alphabets.

The Striped Awning add on has some fun pinwheels from the Pier line by Crate. I didn't know if I use them, but you'll find them on two layouts, so yes, I used them.

The green paper? That's from the patterned paper add on, Hammock. It's a surfer line from Bo Bunny. I'm not a surfer, but found the tone on tone to be really easy to use and if you don't read it closely, it really doesn't matter :)

I think the surprise favorite of the kit were the elegant skinny glass head pins in the main, see the above square. So pretty, not a embellishment that shouts at you, but a unique touch none the less.

And there you are, my sneaks. It could be that this kit was designed for our Mexican vacation, Christine is so thoughtful! Only she had no idea we were going :) Serendipity.

blogging monthly

I guess it has come to that.

I did have another post in the works, but it obviously didn't happen :)

Since it's the first of the month, I'll share my Cocoa Daisy pages with you. I'm so happy with how these turned out. I saw the storyboard for this kit and just really didn't like it. It seemed really pastel and I didn't care for a few of the papers. I whined a lot.

Then I got the kit and this happened and I completely changed my mind. I got the patterned paper add on, Line Drawing, and that really helped me, I used the pinky red Glitz paper on every layout, it was just the bright I needed!

Christine increased the quantities of the kit and add ons this month, so there should be a few left when the kit goes on sale tomorrow, so yay! :)

Here is my interpretation of Sketchbook, Cocoa Daisy's March kit, starting with a recent observation by Ethan. He had hopes of living on the moon. I used a cut file we're testing out at Cocoa Daisy for the background, totally cool how it turned out. AND now I have a bunch of confetti stars for another layout! Hee hee!

I sprayed the alphabet with gold spray paint. I think I'm developing a problem :)

This is for my sweetheart. He really is my perfect match and he is so patient with me. I am blessed. I used the City Streets Map stamp as a block of pattern, it works really well with the Jenni Bowlin dye inks. I'll be using that stamp a lot! It's much larger than what you see here, I just needed a small block. :)

And finally, Annie found out last week that she was accepted to BYU. To say that we are thrilled would be an understatement. I wanted to be a Cougar from the time I was a little girl. Even though both her parents were Cougars, she wasn't sure that's where she wanted to go. She loves being home with the family and I think going a state away, 8 whole hours by car, was a bit too much for her. But as her friends started going away to college and she saw that they were OK, she eventually decided it might be alright to apply there. That and EFY helped a lot. So now comes the fun part of getting ready! I'm not even going to think about the fact that she's going to be a whole state away 8 hours by car. I can't handle that part yet.

Behind that vellum below, that's the Wood Handle Stamp Collage and it's super graphic and funky and cool. My friend, Stephanie Wheeler, is our graphic designer at Cocoa Daisy and she does the most lovely work ever. I'm always excited to see what she's got up her sleeve and I loved this month especially much!

There you have it, three layouts that just fell together, layouts that I love, out of a kit that I thought I'd hate. Kind of funny how that happens.

Happy weekend!