When it rains, it pours.....

Dang! I sure 'em the luckiest girl in the world! Well I feel like it anyways! The reasons....

-Last week, I had a page picked up for publication. Haven't had that kind of happy email in a while.

-I won the January Scenic route monthly challenge. This is the page that they liked.

and I have their new line coming to me soon. Yippeee!!! Oh and check out their site cause the february challenge is another good one.

-I finally got my projects back that was used by a manufacturer for their CHA summer 08 booth. I got them all in good condition and they sent me more papers. Double woohoo!

-I scored a shelf from my mom last Sunday that completed my newly reorganized scrapbook space. I will post pictures and details soon. After spending half a day moving around my shelves and table, I realized that most of my organizational stuff are free or recycled. Gotta love that!

-and finally, I entered a local craft store's scrapbook page contest and guess what...... I won!!!! The info is in their blog. The prize...a $50 GC for their store! Woohoo! And this couldn't have happened at a better time. After reorganizing my space, I have found that I "need" more stuff. Hehehehehehe!

My lucky stars where sure aligned this month. *wink*

Till next time,
Grace

My "recycled" Valentine

With everything that's going on with the nation's "economic" crisis, the whole reuse, recycle thing is making a comeback. People are trying to find ways where they can cut cost and still be able to live a good life.

That's the whole inspiration for this project. I turned these.....


into this.....


I used some of my scrapbook supplies and a few glue dots and brought new life to items that would be otherwise thrown away.

I turned the Victoria Secret shopping bag into a Valentine gift bag. I was inspired by the red bird paper, I believe it was from this collection. To my surprise I had one bird chipboard that I was able to use as a tag.

The tree was cut out from a pattern paper from the same paper line.

Here's the view from the back. I really love the scallop punch from Fiskars!


and the little girl stockings packaging was changed into a treat box. I loved the plastic clear window of the packaging. I used the same bird paper. I just loved it!




here's what the back looks like


more close ups


layered some flowers and scrap ribbons.


So there you have it, if you're looking for a "crafty" way to say I love you, go rummage through your trash (just don't get too dirty) and look for a fun alterable item to play with.

BTW, these projects were so easy to make. It took me less than an hour to alter them. While hubby was catching up on a Heroes episode online, I was making these. Now that's what I call good quality time. We were together and doing things we LOVE to do. LOL. Just kidding!

Till next time,
Grace

A taste of the missionary life.....

Our primary "missionary" activity finally came. It was previously set for fall of last year but with schedule problems we had to postpone it. I'm so glad it's over now. Don't get me wrong, I love this part of my calling/job. I think this is the best part. Imagine planning and executing three themed activities/parties every year. I admit I can get a little too stressed about these things but that's just because I'm too concerned about the details.

Anyways our children had a fun morning. Here's a little recap. By the way the pictures were taken by my sweet husband who was a BIG help for me today. I could not have done this without him. He sweetly helped me bright and early this morning cooking up the treats for the kids, helped me get my kids ready for the activity, chauferred all of us to the church and back plus he was my photographer. What a great "assistant"! (just kidding on that last part)

Back to the activity...

Here's the whole premise of it.... the kids would get to have a little taste of what missionaries do by going to a little "mtc" (missionary training center) where they get to learn what full time missionaries do on a regular basis then they're off on an "airplane ride" to go to a foreign land to "serve" their missions.

Here's our dear kids on their "plane" rides.




I had to crop the pics cause there were two other kids in the original photo.

Then they get to go to two countries. One was Holland where one of our teacher's mother came from and then they go to the Philippines where I was born and raised.

Here's some of the pics of my room...
Here's me talking up all the different displays that we have. Out of all this things, I would say only 1/4 of it was mine. Most of it was from my parents. Thank goodness I have them, I don't think I could've pulled this off correctly without my mom. She had the ideas, informations and right history to back up everything that I was saying. Thanks Mom!



See my top. We call that a barong tagalog. It's made out of Pineapple if you can believe that! They take the outside part of the fruit and turn it into sometype of thread to make this see through type of fabric. I'm not sure exactly how they do it but I'm sure it's fascninating. Oh and no it's not edible. hehehehehehe. One of the kids asked me that and I thought it was a funny yet great question.



I made this little house for an activity that I did with the kids. My kids helped me paint it and you can totally which parts they painted and which parts where mine. It's all good though!


Here's my dear Mom helping out with the refreshments. I served an "authentic" filipino snack of Turon (banana fritters) and gulaman (sugared drink with jello)


I had to get up at 7 this morning so I can cook about two big platters of this. Wow that's more work than I care for. That's why I don't do a lot of filipino cooking for my family, it just takes too long. Don't get me wrong, I LOVE eating them, it just takes too long to make em.


So after the "trips" to the different countries, we went back to the "mtc", took a class photo and made some cards for missionaries from our ward (church building) that are serving in the field right now.

So that's it. Everybody seemed to have had a good experience and hopefully all the kids are going to wanna go on a mission someday.

Till next time,
Grace

This Face!

This is based off of the sketch for this month at the PageMaps blog.



I can't believe that these pictures is about 1 1/2 years ago. I stamped some flowers and added stickles to them to add glitter to them.


for some reason I'm so drawn to pleating ribbons lately. I don't know if it's a new phase but I'm liking the result.


Thank you for looking,
Grace

My Cause for Living (digital)

Inspired by the one little word challenge this week which is LIVING. What could be better to use the word than to describe how I feel about my family.

Here's a digital page I made for the challenge.


Journaling:
These wonderful people are definitely the reason for my living. They put the swagger in my step. I cannot ask for any better inspirations to live the best life I can. 2-09

Source:
Kraft paper, flowers, scallop edge and paint- MissMint_coordinatedkits_KindergartenCrafts, Peppermint Creative.com
Blue dot pattern paper and blue/beige ribbon- MoodyBlues, ShabbyPrincess.com
Stripe patter paper- EmbraceLife_SandeKrieger, MemoryMakersMagazine.com
Fonts- (my and for) Asenine ; (Cause) Amaze ; (living) Adler; (journaling) CK_Ali'swriting, all downloaded from the internet

Till next time,
Grace

it's wishlist time.....

Now that CHA is over, it's just a matter of time before all the "good" new stuff hit our lss shelves. So since I'm still salivating and waiting patiently for all these fun items to arrive, here's some of the things that I'm going to "save" my money on.....

Jenni Bowlin Studio





Sassafrass lass


And Fiskars


Oh if only money grows on trees!

Till next time,
Grace

In the middle of it all......

I'm having one of those weeks again where there's too many things to do and too little time. Wanna hear what I have instore?
I have to plan, prep and execute a Primary activity on Saturday
I have sharing time lessons all this month
I entered myself in a scrapbook contest that's due on Friday and I haven't started on it yet. (I might just drop out of it cause I don't have any ounce of inspiration to do it)
I was planning on making a few projects this week that I won't normally have time to do

and to top all this off, I'm a single parent for five days.

Mitch went to a construction show/expo in Vegas for work. They're hoping that this will help the business. We're crossing our fingers here. Anyways since he's there all week long, I had to take a vacation from work and be with my kids all week. I don't mind it at all, I love being home and just being "mommy" again. I love that I don't have to hurry everything, miss out on reading and tucking them to bed and all that stuff but bec. I have all those "other" things mentioned above, I'm feeling a "tad" overwhelmed.

Today is shaping up to be a good day though. I was very happy to see this on the CK site. I think Jaime Ward is so awesome to add the link to where she learned to make the post it note holders. Wow, I'm still in shock why that project has taken up such interest. The tutorial is here incase you wanna check it out.

And I was reading my Ensign magazine (LDS publication) and came upon an article with this quote in there...
"The Saints should always remember that God sees not as man sees; that he does not willingly afflict his children, and that if he requires them to endure present privation and trial, it is that they may escape greater tribulations which would otherwise inevitably overtake them. If He deprives them of any present blessing, it is that he may bestow upon them greater and more glorious ones by-and-by"- Elder George Q. Cannon (1827-1901)

WOW, now that is totally what I needed to read at this time in my life. Yes there are "trials" right now but like my husband says, "we could be in a worst situation". And I know that but sometimes the child in me just likes to complain. Hahahaha.

But joking aside, I was uplifted by it and I will try my hardest to remember this quote during those times when I want to whine and complain.

So that's it for now.

Till next time,
Grace

My CHA experience

It's come and gone and my first time going to the Craft and Hobby Associations big show was a blast!!!
Yup all four hours of it!!! I went on Monday morning. Walked around with Robin. Thanks Robin for letting me tag along with you. I did some make and takes and just cruised around the diff. booths.

But isn't CHA a whole week thing? you ask... Yes but unfortunately with little kids, work and my so called life just couldn't let me enjoy it anymore than that. But I'm not complaining. I got to observe a lot of things and let me tell you.....there are a TON and I mean a TON of cool stuff coming our way. I can't wait till all the new releases hit my local scrapbook stores' shelves.

Here's my recap in pictures....
Here's me proudly showing off my ID. This was actually taken when I got home. I felt I needed something to visually represent where I was so I had my son Marcus take this photo.

So onto the details...
I got there bright and early. Walked around and when I was just about to start making a very cute make and take, the fire alarm of the convention center went off.....I'm not that fazed about this cause we always get it at the mall but apparently there was a small fire so everybody had to be evacuated. And I thought the show was 'inside' the convention??? LOL.

So after that whole thing we were let back in the building and I was able to finish this cute project from Daisy Bucket. I made the pink one. These chipboards are so adorable and can't wait for them to start shipping to the stores. The prices are great too.

And here's some great projects that was on display. Man! there's definitely talented people out there....
Kaiser Craft

EK Success

Martha Stewart

7Gypsies

I just love the whole feel of this booth.

I was very surprised at the "traffic" during that time. I really honestly thought that the center would be packed and I would be walking around continuously bumping into people. I think the economic problems have hit CHA. Just my thought.


And when I thought things couldn't get any better than this...I met up with my good friend Heidi. She's a blast! I loved seeing her make her ways through the booth. She certainly have such a fun spirit. Love ya girl.



So there.... CHA was a lot of fun, met up with new and old friends (all of them fun), got to do some cute projects, took home a LOT of Catalogs (can't wait to see what I can do with them), learned a few things about the industry and definitely wanting to go back there again (if they're in town)

Till next time,
Grace

Together forever card

With another challenge blog and a new embossing template in hand I was inspired to make this card....


I loved the result! I was very surprised at how easy this all came together. As you can see I'm a big fan of die cut machines now and can't see myself not using the cricut expression and my cuttlebug.


added an SEI ribbon to finish off this card.


thank you for looking.

Till next time,
Grace

My Valentine Project for this year......

I was inspired by this challenge and made this for valentine's.......

"heartfull" frame


I made 2" squares of different kinds of hearts. Used pretty much scraps here.




a close up of each block....
word block


painted, glittered and added a rubon


full of flowers


stitched with bling


buttons


transparency plus a heart felt


I stitched a ribbon in the middle.


I added a word "love" outside of the frame. It was cut from cricut. I added it outside cause with the middle ribbon in there, I knew the word wouldn't hold up so I left it outside.


thank you for looking.

Till next time,
Grace