A blur of wrapping paper...

was pretty much what our Christmas consisted of. Well that and Guitar Hero.



Whoever invited that game is a genius. It has got to be the most addicting game ever. I would have loved to have gotten a picture of me playing bass, Stacey beating the drums, Jeremy on lead guitar and Mike singing vocals. Half the time I was laughing so hard I couldn't even see the TV through the tears. I don't know what was making me laugh harder, Mike's rendition of 311's Beautiful Disaster or Jeremy's surprising rock star alter ego.



Drew was beyond excited that he got the train table. He ran out in the living room and said, "Which one is the train table?" It took a few seconds for him to figure out that the huge odd shaped present was probably it. He refused to open the rest of his presents until an hour later.

This little guy didn't waste time.



He's in that reach for everything phase and all the bright colored wrapping paper was catching his attention. Most of the time he was more interested in the paper than he was the present.

I hope everyone had a great Christmas!! :)

He must want that train table pretty bad.

Because I never would have expected this drastically different reaction to Santa.


Before we left to go see Santa we explained to Drew that he had to tell Santa what he wanted so Santa knew what to bring him. Much to our surprise he hopped right in his lap and told him about the train table that we've been hearing about for months. He even told Santa what he thought Jackson might like.



I think Jackson was a little confused and was looking a little scared but he didn't make a peep. Drew got a little confused on how the Santa system works. Immediately afterwards we had this conversation...

Drew: Okay, where's my train table?

Me: Well sweetie you don't instantly get it. Santa will bring it to our house on Christmas.

Drew: Oh. (He then peeks around the counter holding the cash register.) SANTA! Hey, SANTA! You need to come to our house. Don't forget!

Me: Drew he won't forget.

Drew: Maybe we should give him directions.

It's almost here!

I can't believe that it's almost Christmas! Drew's excitement is making me as anxious as I was when I was a kid. I love that I get to relive that feeling through our kids. 

 

Last week I made this mini photo board to display our Christmas pictures from last year. It's amazing the difference a year can make. Drew looks so different and has grown so much in the last year! 

A little tougher with two.

Last week we took our usual Christmas card photos and let me say, it was work! Every time I would get a good picture of Jackson, Drew would be looking the other way.


Or, I would get a good picture of Drew and Jackson would be looking away. 

I ended up using the key element that seems to help in these situations. M & M's and strawberry milk. It worked like a charm and I finally ended up with one of both of them that was perfect. 

And by perfect I mean that... 

1. They are both looking at me.

2. No one is crying or screaming.

3. Jackson doesn't have drool running down his chin.

4. Drew isn't covering his eyes.

Finally getting a chance to blog!

• The pictures of these layouts are horrible. I was in a huge hurry, the wind was blowing and it was almost dark. I'll have to re-take them tomorrow.

Wednesday

On this page I stitched around the bare chipboard circles that are framing three areas in the photos.

This had to be one of the hardest pages all because of that leopard print blanket! Lesson learned. No animal prints allowed in photos!

Thursday

Then I turned around and use animal prints on my next page.

Here I made a lion out of a chipboard circle and patterned paper. ( and no, I'm not planning on leaving my journaling in pencil. :) Long story.)

This is as far as the page a day is going to go until at least after Christmas. :( It was just getting to be too hard and when it becomes a struggle I stop. I'll pick it back up again soon. I've got 13 more weeks of products and page a day stuff planned out and ready to go!

The winner of the bare chipboard giveaway is...Kodi Logan! Email me at alidavis1919@hotmail.com.

#17 and #18

Monday

There's nothing better for a winter page than flock. That stuff actually looks like snow! I covered three different snowflakes with paint, flock and glitter. I learned by trial and error that the paint is a must. The first one I made didn't look very good without the paint behind it.

This page is for a class I've got coming up at the Scrap-a-palooza mega crop in January hosted by Star 105.1. Usually when I make my class layouts I still use them for myself but this time I was all out of pictures. I've already used all of my snow and winter pictures. At least I've got a page done and ready for pictures from this year!

Tuesday

This time I used embossed chipboard letters, covered them with glimmer mist and then sanded them so the embossed design would stand out.

I thought it would be fun to post a few of my mom's page since someone had asked and since I "copied" her design.


You can definitely tell where I got my style from. We both have very similar styles and yet at the same time very different.

This page is for her Girl Crazy kit club.


And this one is the tree that I copied. It's not exactly the same but the same concept. I love this page of hers! It's for her Generation Page kit club. My kit club is "everyday" type of layouts that will work for many different occasions and hers are all holiday, seasonal or themed pages.

How I stay motivated: (question from the last post.)

I have a list hanging over my computer of all the pages I want to do. One day I got really ambitious and went through all of my pictures. I made a list that has the month and year and then a short description of the page I want to do. Example, drew in green shirt, jackson laughing at toys, etc. I don't look at the list and get overwhelmed, instead I look at it and think that I've got plenty of subjects to scrapbook. In other words if I'm not feeling one I can find another. Sometimes a simple little switch from one subject to another can rev up the creativity. Another nice part about my list is when I get to check something off. It gives me a sense of accomplishment. 

I jump around a lot. Some days I'll work on something from years ago and then the next day I'll use pictures from two days ago. I think if I were to go in order I would get bored and it would seem like more of a chore. I just go with whatever is jumping out and screaming, "use me!"

Looking through books and magazines is a great motivator for me. Every time I look through one I'm ready to get in my scrapbook room and work on some pages! 

Lastly, when I get tired or overwhelmed I stop. Doing a page a day can get a little stressful at some times. Sometimes I don't have the time or the energy. When I don't want to do it, I don't. Simple as that. It's just like a diet. So you have a bad day and get off track. Don't stress over it, just pick it back up again the next day. 

Chipboard, again.

Between a few deadlines and Thanksgiving I had to push my page a day onto the back burner for a bit. I started it back up as of yesterday and I'm going to continue the bare chipboard this week since I only got one page done with it.

Sunday

On this page I used chipboard squares underneath a part of the photo. There are two ways you can do that. Order or print two of the same photo, trace the square onto the photo and cut it out or lay the square onto the photo and cut it out with an exacto knife. Either way, it's really simple and a great way to make a certain part of the photo stand out. You can also "cheat" and cut out a square of the photo and use pop dots for the same effect.

I had a few people ask how in the world I can do a page a day with two kids so I thought I would share a few of my page a day secrets.

1. Plan, plan, plan. I sit down on Saturday or Sunday and figure out what pictures I want to scrapbook during the week. I order the photos and organize them in a photo box when I get home. Sometimes I'll take a few minutes to pick out the papers to go with each group of photos all at once. At the beginning of the day I decide what pictures I'm going to scrapbook that day and put them in a place where I can see them often as I go about my day. Sometimes I'll walk by them and get ideas for the title, journaling or design.

2. Clean up. When I'm doing a page a day I make myself clean up my area after each page. When I don't clean up immediately that stuff piles up and before I know it I hardly have room on my table. I save myself a lot of time by cleaning up then instead of waiting until later.

3. Photo Placement. I use the same photo placement a lot. To make each one different I just change up the papers and embellishments. Each layout is completely different than the others but I didn't have to waste time trying to figure out where to put the photos. Plus there is only so much you can do with 4 x 6 photos. If I have 3 vertical photos, chances are I'm going to use the same photo placement several times. I don't worry about having a new arrangement each layout.

4. Make a rectangle. A lot of times I figure out where I want my photos to go on the page and then use patterned papers to fill in empty space and create a rectangle on my page. Not only is it easy but it's a no fail option. Look through my posts and you'll probably see a lot of rectangles.

I added a few more items to the chipboard giveaway since I'm doing it again this week. :)

I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving! :)