the moments in between

a psa and a sneak

first of all...

 

check your carbon monoxide detectors.  our neighbors, the grandparents of alex's best friend annie, sent the street into a tizzy by having not one but TWO firetrucks in front of their house the other night.  their carbon monoxide detector had gone off so they called the fire department, who sent guys into the house in full gear to check it out.  luckily it turned out to be a malfunctioning detector, but EEPS. so glad it malfunctioned by going off when it shouldn't have versus not going off when it should.

and a sneak...

click here for more info =)

looking for inspiration and what we've been up to

but first - i have a tutorial up at the kenner road blog. here's a peek at the layout, click over for the full writeup. =)

after i finished that project, i cleaned my desk and tried to move on to the next thing on my to do list..  but i was stuck.  mind was blank, nothing was coming, i kept flipping through a stack of pp and wondering what the heck i was going to do.  and then i gave up and went outside w/ the boys, and took along a stack of books.

some scrappy, some not.  and my ipod touch, so i could bounce around the web.  i randomly flipped through books and watched the kids. i took a break to talk to my neighbor. we had dinner and put up shelves in the boys room and did the evening routine.  and then at bedtime, i let my mind wander, and it finally starting putting together pictures and stories and shapes and finally i had some ideas to chase.  i put together a page today based on one of those ideas and am hopeful my other projects will come together nicely.

saturday morning after ben's last teeball game we loaded up the car and headed to le mars, ia, for a weekend celebrating matthew's grandma's 90th birthday.  there was an open house sunday afternoon and the sheer amount of people there was amazing. at one point there were people lined up all the way down the hall of the church waiting for a chance to chat with the birthday girl. all seven of her children made it to town for the party, and a decent amount of her grandchildren and great grandchildren did, too. it was an amazing day for a wonderful woman.

le mars is also home to wells blue bunny, and for the first time, we stopped at the visitor center on our way into town.  the highlight of the tour was the ice cream shop at the end of it. ;)

good ice cream, bad lighting. ;)

there was a free concert in the park on saturday night, and the boys spent the time getting dirtier than i think they've ever been in their entire lives.  how?

by attempting to dig to china.  and then burying each other.  oy.  after the concert we had cake and  ice cream to celebrate one of matthew's cousin's graduation, and then hit the hotel pool with another cousin and one of her kids.

hotel math - 2 adults + 3 kids in 2 double beds = not enough sleep.  enough said.  we usually get a suite, but didn't have that option.  boo.

we came home sunday after the party and have had a lazy week.  it's been 105-115 w/ the heat index - too hot to do much of anything! =P  we have made some progess in the bigs new room.

we hung shelves for each of them next to the bunk beds, so they have somewhere to put their clocks and reading lamps.  i picked up a couple of these baskets that we are going to attach to the wall near the foot of their beds to hold misc stuff - they came today but we haven't had a chance to put them up.  we plan on replacing the short bookshelves with tall ones so that they have sam-safe storage.  i also want to get a new rug, some prints for the walls and some other odds and ends - i'm waiting till target brings out their dorm room stuff.  they always have funky fun stuff w/ a decent price tag, and it should be out in the next few weeks.  the cube shelves are empty for now - i am working on going through all of their toys and getting them purged and organized before we move anything in. it's coming together nicely and they're loving the bunk beds!!

kelly went up to ikea in mpls recently and was nice enough to pick up these jars for me - perfect for little boy collections.  we have 2 empties and are trying to figure out how to fill them.  any suggestions?

happy father's day

to all the wonderful dad's out there..

like my sweet husband, who is an amazing father to our three boys.  love you. =)

i'd like to go on the record and say -

this wasn't MY idea.

i love how sam has the "wtf" look on his face.  HA.

so.  this afternoon the bigs were already  w/ ethan & mason. it was hot and humid. sam took a short nap.  i was tired from coughing too much and sleeping too little (i'm mostly over this cold, but the cough is hanging on.  ugh.)  around 230 i called melissa and told her i was thinking i was going to break out the sprinkler as a way to kill this afternoon.  we usually make these "courtesy calls" because once 2 kids are in the water all 4 want to be - so we check in and make sure it's not going to be a problem. she mentioned that rita's, aka grandma rita to most of the kids on the block, birthday was tomorrow, and she thought it might be fun to have the boys paint her a sign. and that sprinkler-ing would be a good activity in case they got paint-y.  IN CASE.  hee.  yeah, they were painting, she and i started talking and stopped paying attention and looked up to see THIS.  and this is just where it started to go downhill, they got a lot more paint-y before all was said and done.

on a totally different note : 

denise tweeted about 26olivestreet a couple weeks ago and i peeked at their etsy shop.  and had to buy these for sam's room, because they're too fitting.  they have some fun vintage goodies, and i love their packaging.  i'll definitely be keeping an eye on their store and shopping again.

summer school!

so.  my bigs are in summer school this week.  and it's only fitting that it's MY turn to teach summer school over at fiskarscrafts!

if you haven't heard, fiskars is hosting a whole summer full of fun craft lessons, brought to you by the fiskars design team and other inspiring designers in the industry.  there's a new lesson up each tuesday and thursday - you can find all of the lessons here.  be sure to check out susan's awesome tutorial on using fabric scraps on a layout - i will definitely be doing that soon!

my lesson is a step by step guide to making these fun patchwork circles.  i love taking quilting ideas and adapting them to paper - so much easier. ;)  click here for the whole lesson.  if you use this technique, i'd love to see what you do with it! =)

kenner road

the june kenner road kit went live last night - and it's beautiful.  i worked with the main kit and the salmon creek addon. the whole thing is bright and playful and happy. =)

i used fiskars punches for the border - and left uneven spaces so it would be gappy like his grin. ;)

this page gave me fits.  i actually had to scrap version one and this is what happened when i started over.  so glad i did.  i wanted the punched butterflies to look like they were flying out of the glassine bag.

hee.  as soon as i saw the chip utensils, i thought of this pic of little sammy.  this one is fairly simple, but i love it. =)

and a mini - this wood album from the salmon creek addon is AWESOME.  love it.

i masked off the "09" and the side and then sprayed it with turquoise maya mist.  the letters were painted orange and then i misted them w/ orange maya mist.  the sun is just punched circles + strrips of paper.

here's a couple of the interior pages - i'm creating an album here - summer09mini  - to keep adding pages as i do them. i'm planning to keep this up all summer.  i've been mostly doing a weekday / weekend format for each 2 page spread, but there will probably be vacations and special days that get their own pages. i need to print 2 more sets of pictures and make 4 sets of pages to get caught up to current on it.

the gallery is beautiful - kl has some of my fave scrappers on her team. my absolute faves were this one and this one and this one, but there's lots more to look at there. =)

my bigs are off to a quest camp through our school district every morning this week - so i'm enjoying the quiet this morning.  well, in between sneezing and coughing. i've got a bad summer cold and i am NOT happy about it.

one crazy week

baseball for both, skating for ben, a soccer clinic for alex.  three mornings at the school library program. a trip to the public library, where the bigs got there level 1 and level 2 reading club prizes, and sam got his level 1 prize.  lots and lots of running around outside w/ the kids on our street.  

and a monday, we made an impromptu trip to the mart to see if they had any good bunkbeds.  they did. and the one we liked was on sale. until tuesday.  snap decision time. we bought them.  they were delivered friday.  and we SO should have paid the $35 to have them assembled, as matthew spent the afternoon putting them together.

we had talked about bunkbeds and moving the bigs in together last winter, but decided to wait to make the transition till this summer.  and i had *intended* on doing it in about a month - we were going to move both beds into ben's room so i could deep clean and organize all of their stuff before getting bunks and putting them in alex's room.  and then this sale came along..... eeeps.  we are currently shoving everything into ben's room and will sort and purge and organize it back into alex's room.  we need to buy a couple of tall bookshelves before we can really get going.

here's ben and sam's room before : 

sam's never slept in here - he's been in our room.  we moved his crib into our room so he can start sleeping in it and will eventually get moved back into this room.

alex's room, before :

alex's room is smaller - but ben's room had no wall that would fit the bunkbeds.  also, alex's closet has the stairs that access the attic - and we'd like to finish it someday & use it as a sleep space for the bigs, with alex's room being a study / playroom.  i'm not 100% sure i like the bunkbeds where they are... but we shall see.  we need to get alex's old bed all the way out and move the other furniture around.

and, i spent a lot of time scrapping.  here's a little peek from the kenner road newsletter :

the june kit and gallery will be up june 14th at 9pst.  the kit is absolutely gorgeous and was a total joy to scrap with.  i'm really happy with my projects and can't wait to share them. =)

green tangerine winner!!

dear random.org, who's the lucky winner??

and that means :

Amazing technique! I might try it and link it back to you. Thanks for sharing and inspiring me.

Posted by: Ramintessah | June 10, 2009 at 11:25 PM

please send an email to kitclub@mygreentangerines.com and they will get your prize to you!  congrats and enjoy!  and thank you to all of you for the sweet comments - i'm glad you liked my projects with this kit.  it really was a lot of fun to work with! and keep an eye on the blog over at the green tangerine blog for even more chances to win. =)

and now if you'll excuse me..  i'm in panic mode.  i have bunk beds being delivered tomorrow and the room is NOT READY FOR THEM AT ALL.  eeeps!!  and i need to finish up 1 more project that needs to be turned in tomorrow, too. yep.  it's kind of crazy around here right now!!

green tangerine

so.  green tangerine has this fabulous new kit club, and they are hosting a HUGE blog party that runs through july 1st to help get the word out - how fun is that?  every mon, weds and fri they link to a new blog. on top of oodles of inspiration all around blogland w/ different designers using their kits, they're also giving away over $1000 in scrapbooking goodies to lucky giveaway winners.

i worked with their january kit, which was perfect for this mama of boys, and here's what i did.

i had a little fun w/ maya mist on this page, but everything else was from the kit.  love that the kit colors matched sam's stripey pjs. 

love that little face - he was talking to me about the truck. =)

the ledger on the reverse of one of the october afternoon papers was perfect for journaling.  and i love those fuzzy brads!!

here's a quick tutorial on how i did the background.  i started by laying out my page design with scrap paper.  i kept track of all of the dimensions, because i knew i wanted each piece of patterned paper to be lightly smaller than the masked off area. once i was happy, i tacked them down w/ temporary adhesive.

here's a shot w/ the photos placed - i was trying to get a sense of the balance of the page.

then i misted!!  i used the charcoal mist, i liked the contrast against the aqua cardstock and the bright patterned paper.  after that, i peeled off the thickers and all of the scrap paper.

next i trimmed my patterned paper and added it to the background.

and the final step was to add stitching and embellishments to each piece.  this technique was pretty easy, and i loved the results.  i'll definitely be experimenting with it again!!

i loved that little custom circle embellishment that came w/ the kit, and it was perfect for the minimal journaling that this page needed.  i used my fiskars punches for the stars and the wave border, and used the mesh that came w/ the kit as a mask for some orange maya mist.  here's a couple of detail shots:

and here's another quickie project - the bigs helped me make them.

we trimmed down kraft cardstock and added stamping, the prima tape, and strips of patterned paper that they picked out.  i stitched the sides shut so they each have a place for all of the "spy messages" that get passed around here. super quick, and they love to help w/ projects like this!

so.  now that you've read this far..  here's the good part.  leave a comment and you'll be entered to WIN your own green tangerine kit containing over $50 worth of scrapbooking goodness. comments must be posted by 5pm pst (that's 8pm est, i believe) on thursday, june 11th to be eligible. i'll post tomorrow night w/ the winner!!!

happy monday!

(my two + one of the neighbors, peering over the neighbors fence down into the alley (it's a 10 foot drop from the level of their yard on the other side of the fence)

taking a few minutes this morning to regroup (with mcd's diet coke in hand ;) and thought i'd share my guest LOs w/ the june tari kit since the gallery went live.  there are some amazingly beautiful things there - so many perfect details.  don't miss page 2, there is a lo by sweet gigi using the lace trim as flowers that absolutely blew me away.  this kit really challenged me - the color scheme was pretty muted compared to what i usually reach for, and there were a lot of items that i've never worked with before. but it was an wonderful mix of products and i really enjoyed the process.  i'm happy with my projects - as i usually am when i'm forced out of my comfort zone. funny how that works. =)

this was my favorite page.  i wanted to do lots of circles to go w/ the spinning pics.  the hearts were made of some red wire clips that were in the kit, i'm uncertain what they really are.

these collage press papers made me think of train schedules, so i went digging for pics from ben's preschool field trip to an old train station.  i even went multi photo.

for the last page i knew i wanted to dig into the fabric that came w/ the kit, and came up w/ this rolled border. i took pics as i made it, so i'll get a little tutorial up later if anyone is interested.

my last project is an anniversary card for matthew..  and since our anniversary's not till september, i'm not going to post it here.  but it you go to the gallery i linked about, it's the first project in the second row. =)

it's gray and 55 here this morning..  hoping for some quality pjs + puttering time. ;) i'm off to print some pics and see if i can sneak some desk time.  enjoy the day!