TGIF...or maybe not.

I would be happy it's Friday if it wasn't followed by Saturday. Tomorrow is going to be crazy for me. I made it better by skipping the hockey game in Midland tonight. Bus should get back about 3am. Ouch! I work Saturday morning at 9:45. I needed more sleep to make it through and 8 1/2 hr day and then hit Kaiti's play. She's in WestSide Story. She's a Jet's girl. I can't wait.




But today I'm chillin till I have to go work the Basketball game. I did finish up a card for the AMR card challenge. I sent it to my Niece Lauren. She's been very sick this week. Bronchitis and Strep throat with a high fever. Poor kid. I'm hoping the card cheers her up.

I also worked on my 52 Weeks layouts. I've got to finish week 2 and then do week 4. As it's here right now. Maybe later tonight.




I also managed to finish and fold 2 loads of laundry. So not a total waste of a day, just a relaxing one.

JV Basketball game 1

Opening tip off. Brendan's buddy Conner was the center and Brendan played guard. They play 2 minute shifts and then it's massive subbing. The game was very entertaining. Some of the kids could play and some could NOT. Some I wondered if they had ever watched a game. Lathers played Farmington, and lost 14-20. B's buddy Drake plays for Farmington and they had to guard each other. They were funny. Over all it was a good game to watch and I'm sure as the season goes on all the teams will get better.


Here's my favorite player. Check out that defensive stance. Good job B.

MORE White Stuff.....awe man!

Well guess what? It's winter in Michigan and there is MORE white Crap falling from the sky. We've had so much snow already this year and it continues to fall and accumulate on the ground. So here's a couple pics out my windows today.





So today I think I'll stay in the house and enjoy the ability to hang on my computer. The wireless internet has been out at our house for over a week now and last night my wonderful nephew R.J. came over and fixed it. I was so excited!! I love that kid (who's almost 30). I do have to venture out to a hockey game. Driving should be fun later.

Wonderful cause.

I follow Taylored Expressions Blog and today she was all excited about a new blog design and a new banner. She contacted a friend of a friend who did it for her. The ladies name is Karen, she's a graphic designer and the blog banners and blinkies are a pet project. Her work is fabulous.

Nancy has decided that she'd like to continue creating blog banners, sidebar labels, and watermarks, but with a little twist! Instead of the standard payment for services rendered, she will design your blog banner and a watermark in exchange for a minimum $50 donation to Sick Kids, Canadian Immunodeficiency Society, Starlight Foundation, or a children's hospital in your area. Nancy's son, Henri, made an amazing recovery from a bone marrow transplant and an underlying immune disease with much thanks to Sick Kids. Now that Henri is better, Nancy is hoping to be able to raise some money for Sick Kids and other organizations who help children with similar diseases. If you'd like to contact Nancy about helping you with a new blog design, leave a comment on her blog or email her at nancy.mckinney3@gmail.com.

Check out more of Nancy's banner designs on these blogs:

Card Worthy (Nancy's blog)
The Paper Playhouse
Dana's House of Cards
Willow and Paisley

I think this is very note worthy endeavor and wanted you all to know. If your interested give her a shout. It would be money well spent.

More Scrap Camp Layouts.

Here's the one page layouts I did over the weekend. This first one might be my favorite. I don't usually scrap myself, for some reason I'm never in the pictures. Humm wonder how that happens. We made one of the kids take our pic on the Beach in Gulf Shores.


This next one really needs no explanation.


These two are really Best Buds. They are cousins and only 6 months apart in age. Our backyard can really flood if we plug up the drain. In the winter of 08 we had the biggest sheet of Ice I've ever seen. The boys lived out there and it happened while they were off school on mid winter break.


Even the bigger kids got in on the act. We had a couple guys over from the Ice Dogs Jr. team and they spent the day skating and goofing around. We built a fire later in the day, we needed a place to warm up.



So much to scrap and so little time. I really could use another weekend soon. But all I'm going to get is a day. This Saturday we are "Croppin for Cougars" at Garden City HS, raising $$ for the girls cross country team.

A Historic Day!

Well this was a Historic Day for the United Stated of America. Now lets get past all the hype and get down to business. We have so many things that need fixing I'm sure the man is over whelmed. But I believe he was the right person for the job and I voted for him not because of the color of his skin but because I truly believe he can get the job done.



I am very proud of my country right now. We seem to have put race aside and voted for the person with the best qualifications. He has a tough up hill battle ahead of him. I hope Congress can gets there heads out of their butts and puts all their "pet" projects in the trash and work with the man. We need to show the rest of the world that we truly are a Great Nation. We need to solve some of our own problems before we take on "Anyone" elses, lord knows we have enough of them.

OK I'm going to get off the political soapbox and call it a night. I'm going to use an image from today as "Week 3" photo for my Gratitude Project. As soon as the LO's done I'll post it.

A Chair with a View!

This chair was my inspiration all weekend. I just couldn't get over how comfortable it looked, with a soft blanket of snow cushioning it. The chairs we sat on all weekend, Thursday to Sunday, were just hard metal folding chairs. Ouch! It may take days for my butt to recover. Had I known I would have taken a cushion. I want to go back and crop there again when the sun is shinning and I can relax in this Adirondack chair and gaze at the lake below.

We cropped at Somerset Beach Campground near Jackson Michigan. It was wonderful. Had we not had sub-zero temps it would have made walking down for meals no big deal. But with windchill's around -20 we bundled up and walked, or warmed up the car as some of the girls did and drove. I rode twice. Once because I had my laptop (carried it on the walk back) and once because I froze my forehead on the walk back after lunch and had a headache the rest of the day.







We really had a great time. And truthfully the snow didn't dampen our spirits until we had to drive home. It took me about 2 hrs to make a 1 hr 15 min trip. I saw at least 35 cars off in the ditch or turned around facing the wrong direction. Driving was made even more hazardous by people that insisted on driving above the speed limit. But alas there is justice in this world. One guy from out of state who flew by ended up in the ditch about 5 miles up the road. And yes I did point my finger at him and LAUGH loudly.

I made it home safely and this is what greeted me:



Be sure to go check out AMR's new Royal Challenge Blog. It's going to be so much fun. Who will be the first Princesses and who will be Queen? We also have new daily challenges over on the message board. So much fun so little time.

Scrap Camp is over.

What a bummer! We had such a good time. Kelly that owns the Scrapbook Zone organized this event with Patty from Scrapbook Memories in Chelsea. There were 18 of us that went which meant everyone got a 8 foot table to crop at and boy did we need the room. I had a Trailblazer full and it was just me and Wendi in it. The crop room was wonderful, with BIG picture windows at one end, over looking a lake. Of course we couldn't see the lake most days on account of the SNOW! We had to walk to a common area for meals which would have been OK, except for the sub-zero temps and blinding SNOW! But who needs to worry about SNOW when your croppin' all day inside.

I accomplished a total of 23 pages, 24 ATC's and 1 card. I taught many Cricut lessons and learned some new things from my new BFF Mary. Mary is the Cricut expert for the Chelsea store. We traded tips and tricks all weekend. I have to admit I think I used the Cricut on every page. We went through 2 mats and 2 blades.

I can share all my LO's but not the ATC's. They are being traded so I can't reveal them just yet. The card was for the new card challenge over on AMR. Stacey picked me to be on the design team. Yeah! My first Design Team.









I need to take pictures of the other LO's I completed so you'll have to wait for the next post to see more. I took more pictures of the camp too. I'll post them tomorrow.

We have tons of snow here. Driving home was quite the challenge. I saw at least 35 cars off the road. If people would just take their time maybe they wouldn't end up in the ditch. It was encouraging to see the idiot in the little car, from out of state, end up in the ditch after he went flying by all of us doing 75. Sucks to be him. Lets hope he learned a lesson.

Take care.

Congrat to Kaiti!!

Our Kaiti got named "Kid of the Week" over on the "Kids can Scrap" blog. They loved her Attitude layout. So big shout out to her. Way to go!

I have been working like crazy at the Zone cause things are changing. Kevin has had me really busy helping move merchandise and rearranging everything. I have one more day to work and then I'm off with Kelly, Wendi, Debbie, Kelly and Sheri to scrap for the weekend at Somerset Beach Resort. I'll have tons of layouts to post and blog about when I get back. Have a safe weekend everyone. Stay warm. ha ha ha I can't believe what they are predicting for weekending temperatures. Yeks!

Another Kaiti LO for KCS blog.

Well Kaiti was at it again. She checked out the new challenge at Kids Can Scrap Go check them out it's a cute site. She won a prize last time. This challenge called for an adult to start a layout and the kid to finish it. Here's what I gave her.



She had to finish it. She picked out the paper I had to use but I cut and placed the stuff on the page. Then I looked a her and said "it's all yours sweetheart". And what did I get back? "Thanks Aunt Cindy" and this:



Her journaling reads: You see me walking down the street. I move my feet to the beat. I see you wonder my mood....Well girl, I've got an attitude!

She did a great job. I love the little owl. He's a Quickutz die sitting on a Rubon tree. Finish it off with a couple Prima flowers and the layouts a winner. So I'll go submit it for her and we'll see what happens this time. Good Luck Kaiti.

And the" White Stuff" falls again!

Oh man it's snowing again. Good thing I have scrappy plans. My buddies over at AMR are croppin' again today. Last night was a blast. I did one challenge, a 2 pger about my crop space. I can't post it yet because Heather hasn't given us the go ahead. I also did a mini book to keep track of all my stuff in 2009. This I can post so here it is.



Isn't it cute. Yesterday I spent some time cleaning my stuff up and putting away Christmas wrapping items that I store in the closet. I found some interesting things. A cute little chipboard mini, a sheet of CKU rubons and a bunch of other stuff. So I put it all to good use. I pulled out the Quickutz Owl die I just had to have and used some of the rubons to make my cover. I used a couple sheet of OLD patterned paper to make the pages and some old QVC letter stickers. Now that's what I call using your stash.

Today I'm going to take a shower, when the washer is done and try to get one more challenge done before I go to work at 4. It's Crop till you drop weekend at the Zone, that means I'm working till midnight. I'm hoping the boys stay outside till 2:30 playing in the snow and leave me alone. Poor Spencer they won't let him off his leash and he's just dieing to go play with them.

Cindy

The Gratitude Project

There's a ton of talk this year about Becky Higgins 365 project. I don't know about you but to take a photo a day and then do a layout and journaling every week is a little daunting. It's keeping up with something that big that concerns me. There are days I don't take a photo. I know it's strange but it happens. So I decided to try Brenda Arnall's Gratitude Project. It's taking a look at the blessings in your life. Big and small and taking 1 photo a week and journaling about it. Now this I think I can handle.

So I dug through my scrapbook stash to see what was there and found a 6x12 album and 2 refills. Glory be. I don't have to buy anything. That should make Rob happy. My goal for this project is to buy nothing but adhesive. Good goal and at the end of it I'll be grateful I had such a great stash. I've done the title pg and intro.





I'm please so far and I've decided that my first page will be about my new Trail Blazer. I find that I am very grateful to be able to afford a new vehicle right now. Our old 96' Blazer had seen better days and was going to be in need of some big repairs soon. Money I thought would be wasted and better spent on a new car. So off we went and found a 06' Trail Blazer that fit our budget. Tomorrow I'll take a picture and get week 1 finished.

Tonight is the big night over on the AMR mb. It's crop night to celebrate their one year anniversary. I'm so glad I found them. They have become wonderful new friends.

Hope you have a great night. I'll try and post pics tomorrow of the LO created tonight.

Cindy

Cricut Creative corner?

Well when your boss asks you to come up with a Cricut project involving candles and a photo frame this might be what you get.


I needed to spice up the big candle a bit so I glittered the branch frame. I still think it needs a bit of pizazz! I might try flocking on the heart in the middle of Be Mine. Or maybe cut the Be Mine out of Bazzle Bling paper.



I really like the photo frame. The XOXOX will be cut out of vinyl so it can be removed if you like after Valentines day. The hearts are Bling and folded to add dimension. A photo of your Valentine would finish the project off nicely. We are offering the class for $25, you will get all the supplies to make each item as well as instruction on how we did it. I used Cricut Design Studio for much of the cut work. For people new to DS this could be a very informative class.

I hope it goes over well. We have a different project planned for each month. Katie and I had better get busy and come up with something really cool every month.

Cindy

A clean start.

Well I decided to start the new year with a good cleaning spree. I think I failed in a big way in 08' when it came to keeping up with the cleaning. So Jan 1st was a good day to begin the cleaning process. Brendan asked to move his Wii upstairs and I said only if you help me clean things up. Up we went and a big trash bag later we finished his living room and his bedroom. Yeah! I kind of got started yesterday with the bathroom and today finished with my bedroom. I still need to clean up my scrap room but thats coming cause I'm going for a weekend in 2 weeks. I'm hoping that with using the orange oil on all the wood surfaces that will help cut down on the dust. Maybe if I can keep it cleaner I will be able to breath better. Tomorrow will bring some wall washing up there and then next week I'll move to the main floor.

2008 was a rough year for me. I'm ready to make some changes and move forward instead of standing still. So my resolution for 2009 is to keep up with the house work. Today was a good day.

Good luck with your New Years Resolutions.