Valentines decorations...

These glittery hearts were originally on picks that I bought two bags of at the Dollar Tree with he intent of cutting down the picks and inserting the hearts around a styro ball-it was an epic fail on so many levels. So I put a sheet of patterned paper into a 5 x 7 frame I had on hand and glued two hearts on-super cute! L-O-V-E blocks-I spray painted 2 x 3 square blocks red before adding a piece of card stock and the letters I'd cut out with my cricut.

PIF crafts on facebook...

a few weeks ago on Facebook there was this post going around about pay it forward craft projects. You'd post it to your status and agree to make one homemade gift for the first five people to comment as long as they promised to post the same status and pay it forward as well.
I mailed out my first two PIF craft gifts today...
One of my rag-a-muffin wreaths is on it's way to a fellow police wife friend of mine in IN.

One of the felt circle wreaths I just started making this year is on it's way to another police wife friend in AL.

I can't wait to see what Jennifer & Jana think of their gifts!

Convo hearts...to eat or not to eat...

...not to eat!
I have come across tons of cute Valentines craft ideas using conversation hearts. I think this is an amazing idea because I do not eat the things and they are EVERYWHERE! Personally I think they taste like what I imagine chalk tastes like yet they are super cute!
I tacked a heart cutout on the back of a piece of glass from an old frame I had kicking around and arraigned and glued down my hearts then removed the heart. I sanded down the frame then sprayed it with red spray paint and set a sheet of hot pink card stock behind the glass before placing it up on the fireplace.
Super easy, super cute and way better than eating the candies!

Pocket sized "brag book"

I found this cute little business card holder on clearance at Target and scooped it up-I added a rub-on to the front and inserted a few recent shots of the twinadoes matted on some bright card stock and viola-simple, cute and completely pocket friendly brag book.

I {HEART} Valentines Day

I saw this super cute tutorial heart wreaths on the eighteen25 blog and just had to make my own. Does it matter that last year I made an adorable rag-a-muffin Valentines wreath and really had no need for another one? One can never have too many wreaths in my opinion, especially Valentines wreaths...

A final glance...

December Daily 2010

A trip to White's Nursery for their Poinsettia Festival with our besties Brian & Sarah

The twins Popsicle stick ornaments

Sunday's with Santa at the VMSM

Gingerbread House destruction

Book nerd alert!

My 29th birthday

Macy's Believe

Teacher gifts

Flurries!

Braden's class party

Actual inches on the ground!

New Santa hats

First Baby Bulls practice-YMCA B Ball

Little gamers

Connor's class party

Neighbor gifts

Yankee Candles-this just makes me laugh

Christmas Eve morning

Backside of Christmas Eve-reindeer food & Christmas morning

Christmas

More gift reactions

Dec 26th-though I usually stop at the 25th-our record 14" deserved a mention

as well as our frantic trip to the ER!

This years new handmade ornaments...

...for our tree. Every year the boys and I make a few new ornaments for the tree as well as buy them each a new one to represent their interest that year. Toy Story won hands down this year-surprise, surprise!

These rage ball ornaments are so adorable and so easy to make! I love making rag-a-muffin wreaths and these were inspired by that as well as Under The Table & Dreaming 4 days of handmade ornaments posts-there is an icon on my side bar to take you to all those goodies!

When we saw this years flyer from Bass Pro Shops Santa's Wonderland these little cuties were pictured on the front-we had to make our own set!
These jingle bell wreath ornaments were again inspired by Under The Table and Dreaming-check out the blog-I swear you'll got lost on there for hours!

The ever popular Popsicle stick snowflake-you can't go wrong with this timeless holiday craft staple!

Thankful is a state of mind...

It has been fluville here at our house this week so while I am not thankful for cleaning out "puke bowls", wiping little bums or the avalanche of soiled laundry I am thankful that I am crafty enough to keep us sane!

Give Thanks wooden blocks for the fire place mantel

THANKFUL banner for the kitchen I used Monika of i love it all free printable that can be found in this post thankful :: ideas, projects and free downloads and punched the letters out with a circle punch instead of making a pennant banner
A close up

Gobble Gobble Gobble

Our turkey's...

A close up of the twinkies pine cone & pipe cleaner creations

A close up of Mommy's block and mini painter sticks creation

We've been working on Christmas ornaments for another post too!

December Daily 2010

Just like last year my December Daily is 6 x 8 and goes from November 26th (the day the tree goes up) through December 25th.
Unlike last year I stuck with a "set" instead of a random grab of any and all Christmas papers and embellishments that I had on hand. Just for something different.
This years DD is made up of Scenic Route's Roxbury Collection papers, Cosmo Cricket's Jolly by Golly papers, stickers and chipboard elements and Elle's Studio Christmas Journaling Tags, Holiday Story Tags, Christmas Tiny Tags, Christmas Journaling Circles and Vintage Mix & Match Numbers.

The cover

Nov 26th-all set and ready for a vertical 4 x 6 shot of the tree!

A glance back at summer...

...through my Summer in the life album, I won't even call it a "mini" this thing is huge!
It is 5 x 7 but I went a little bananas and I have "stuff" (because yes I included every single scrap of our summer in here) sticking out of the top, the bottom and the side! I LOVE it! Honestly our summer was bananas-it was the twins first summer vacation from school and we jammed it packed with so much why should my "mini" be any different!
So here is a look at a few pages-by golly it's not even half of them!

Posing in front of the green screen produced this pic at our trip to the aquarium-season passes came in handy to beat the heat this summer! The hidden tag has journaling about our visit.

Father's Day at First Landing State Park (excuse this horrible pic-the real life pic they are not anywhere near that darkened out!)
Ocean Breeze Water Park the postcard has journaling on the back

I ordered a 4 x 6 collage print from Walgreen's just to include several photo's from our day

Swimming at the Y

Ice cream social at the library-the cones were their name tags-I glued them front to back and punched them in

Chuck E Cheese on July 3rd with pals while waiting for the fireworks-had to include one of many of these "sketches" we got that night

Don't tell my kids I stole a couple of tickets!

Keeping cool by the pool

This has been called our retro Three's Company pic because of the various 1970's shades of pool wear at Water Country USA

Summer wreath pic is "matted" on the packaging from those little button paper clips!

Bringing some "twinkies" cheer to our injured hero "fire fighter girl"

Braden hits the jackpot!

Aquabatics at Water Country USA & Daddy's new work "toy"

Date night

$ Tree had four rolls of BRIGHT sticky tape-I had to scoop them up they were perfect for journaling in this album

This is hard. Our family lost a very young member after a courageous battle with cancer. Three battles with cancer in his three short years. We were unable to head to NY to attend the services so we released a Sponge Bob (Drake's favorite) balloon in honor of him.

Like me my kids haven't met a mall photo booth they don't like! They can spot them miles away! I put in the mall directory because I figure even just a year from now there will be major changes-there is always is.

Our favorite place on earth! Great Wolf Lodge-end of summer trip there to meet up with the boys grandparents-another Walgreen's photo collage

Final date night of the summer-Cinema Cafe...you can enjoy a movie and a drink at the same time!