How cool is this???

Thanks to my dear friend Cathy at The Playground for nominating my blog for these 2 awesome awards. I am truly honored.

The rules for receiving this award are:

1) Put the logo on your blog.

2) Add a link to the person who awarded it to you.3

3) Nominate at least 7 other blogs.

4) Add links to those blogs on yours.

5) Leave a message for your nominees on their blogs.

These are the blogs that I will be nominating for these awards

http://www.lifeaslou.blogsome.com/ This is the coolest blog. Leah is soooo talented. I love all her stuff. I vist Leah's blog every day.

http://www.thekreativekarma.blogspot.com/ Karma is very inspiring. Remember my altered flipper?

http://www.kawiscrap.blogspot.com/ This one isn't in English, but her layouts are absolutely gorgeous

http://www.lucyscraftylife.blogspot.com/ very talented. I saw lucy already received one of these awards, but I had to nominate her for the other as well.

http://www.creativelysavvy.blogspot.com/ Beautiful layouts and lots of Disney, right up my alley.

http://www.kimberly-crawford.blogspot.com/ Some of the most beautiful cards I have ever seen. That is if you can pry yourself away from the CHA pics she just posted.

http://www.familiafilo.blogspot.com/ Michelle has a unique style and gorgeous projects.

Beauty

Happy 4th of July!

Wishing you and yours a safe and happy Independence Day celebration.

Canyon's Birthday Party Invitations

Just had to share Canyon's 4th Birthday party invitations. They turned out awful darn cute.

This is it!

Here it is, my last day at work. As of approx 5:40 this evening I will be officially unemployed. Well.... I did volunteer to come in for a couple hours on Monday so that a friend could have the day off for an out of town wedding, but it doesn't really count! Hopefully this unemployed deal works out for me. Wish me luck!

A couple layouts

playing with my new doodlebug glitter and new stamps.

Woo Hoo!

Woo Hoo! 500 visitors to my blog. Wonder how many of them were me?!

Mother's Day Card

Inner Turmoil (Should I Stay Or Should I Go?)

I have been at the same job for 13 years. Since I was 19 years old. I have loved my job, and I have hated my job. There have been days where I cried because I didn't want to go to work, and there have been days when I couldn't get there fast enough.

I gave my notice just over a month ago. I signed up my son for preschool in September and paid a registration fee. I also signed him up for swimming lessons and tennis lessons this summer. I signed my daughter up for 2 different sets of golf lessons and swimming lessons. I also bought weekly movie passes for the 3 of us. We have waterslide passes, maze passes, and Bear Country passes all lined up and ready to go. I admit, perhaps I got a little carried away, but this was going to be "the best summer ever".

Now I am thinking about the money. Why does money have to have such a pull on us? We are finally seriously paying down debt. We finally have extra. I finally don't feel like I have to hound my husband for his paycheck on payday because I already scheduled the bills to be paid or sent out the checks. We are finally at a good point and I have to go and quit my job. What if we can't make it? What if after all of this I have to go back to work next fall making half my current pay at a job I hate?

I have 3 weeks left and I am sure they will be the longest 3 weeks of my life.

My brain is screaming at me... "What are you doing? In a couple years you could be almost debt free. Think about how rich you will feel. You could be a business owner. You could never have to worry about work again."

My heart is telling me... "Look at those kids, they need you. Your babies have grown up before your eyes." I looked down at my little guy 2 nights ago, on his 4th birthday, and I couldn't believe it. He isn't a baby anymore. I no longer have a baby. My last baby is now a little boy and I missed it. Marissa is becoming a gorgeous young woman and needs her mother to guide her now, not in a few years.

I am so torn between what I want now and what I want later. I don't know what to do.

Mickey Acrylic

I found the idea for this acrylic album on Two Peas. Then I scraplifted the idea for the circles and used the same Mickey paper, the rest is mine. I joined the small circles to the big circles with my cropadile and some buttons, then covered up the back side with rain dots. I used lots of rain dots throughout the album (large and small), the flowers are also rain dots. The paper is reminisce, creative imaginations, and bazzil bling. The flowers were stamped with stayz on. The buttons are making memories chipboard buttons and shapes.

I absolutely love how this turned out. I have been hoarding all my Disney pictures, waiting for the perfect layout idea came to me. I don't think this could have been any cuter. The album has to be, by far, my favorite project I have ever done.

The Playground has most of the supplies that I used if you are interested, or drop me a line if you would like me to make you one. ScrapWithTessa@aol.com

Altered Alphabet Flipper Toy

After many requests and a lecture from Cathy at The Playground about updating my blog :) here are pictures and instructions for the alphabet flipper I made. I used the TLC Urban Threadz line of paper and rub-ons.

This project was inspired by KreativeKarma on Two Peas, also a TLC consultant.

I started out with one of these flip and play toys. If you don't have one you can find them on ebay under alphabet flip. I took it apart and painted everything brown except the faces of the blocks, it took several coats. I layed out and bunched together all the blocks on the table and measured how large I needed the actual layout to be. I created the layout and used my paper trimmer to cut it into the small squares to attach to the blocks. I then attached the layout layer by layer to the blocks using Modge Podge. Next, I layed the completed blocks out in layout form to embellish. I trimmed off the excess paper on the sides. (Do not sand, it takes off the paint) I then inked with brown ink and finished it with Modge Podge.


This is the hard part.
Flip each of the blocks up to show the backs and bunch them back together to create the layout on the back. I had to keep checking to make sure I had everything flipped the right way so that all my blocks would be the same direction when they were flipped after I reattached them to the toy. Create your layout on the back the same way as the front. It might not be a bad idea to attach the backside of your blocks with removable adhesive the first time, flip all the blocks the same direction, as you would if they were on the toy, and make sure all the other sides of the blocks are the same direction before using the Modge Podge to attach. You don't just flip the whole layout upside down like you might expect.


Remember to be careful with how you layout the pictures, you don't want a face cut in half. The last picture above show the back side of my blocks. I managed to get my children's faces entirely on one block. It took me quite a while to find a picture that would do this.


I embellished the sides and the top of the toy with rub-ons then coated it with Modge Podge before putting it back together.


If I did another one of these, I think I would create a grid of the blocks on 2 transparencies, lay them over my layout for placement, then cut the transparency along with the layout for perfect placement.



I took this project with me the Scrapfest Midwest in Shakopee Minnesota a few weeks ago and I won first place in the project contest!


If you would like to see this project it is currently on display at Altered Art and Scrap Playground in Rapid City on Main Street next to the journal.

Happy Easter

This is one of the first layouts that I did. Believe it or not, it took me forever. The bunny and the basket on the second page are hand cut. It is all a little too busy for my current style, but I remember loving it at the time.

The kids are currently scrounging through their Easter baskets, begging to go outside every couple minutes to play with bubbles. I am currently stalling on getting ready to go to Grandma and Grandpa's for Easter dinner. I have to keep reminding the kids that we are going to have a big lunch and to go easy on the candy. Canyon keeps telling me "I won't puke Mom, I won't puke."

Last year we drove to Casper Thursday afternoon to spend Easter with JT's family. We picked up Canyon at daycare after his Easter party. He got a bag of jelly beans from daycare and was happily eating them in the car when he promptly threw up. In our defense, we didn't know he had eaten tons of junk at daycare already, or we wouldn't have let him eat jelly beans. About 2 1/2 hours outside of Casper we were on the side of the road, in a blizzard trying to clean up Canyon. Let me rephrase, JT was on the side of the road, in a blizzard, trying to clean up Canyon. I was behind the suburban dry heaving. I can't handle puke. I can do just about anything else, but give me puke and I fall to pieces. We stoped in Gillette, WY at a convenience store and bought an air freshener. It didn't help a whole lot. Luckily in Casper there was a car wash with an extractor and that took care of the problem. Since the candy puke incident every time Canyon eats lots of candy he has to let me know that he won't puke. It is actually pretty cute, gross as it sounds.

Happy Easter Everyone!

Happy St. Patrick's Day

Happy St. Patrick's Day everyone! This is a layout I did for a contest at a local scrapbook store last March, and I won! It is another one of my favorites, plus I was much skinnier then. The picture was taken at the Mirage in Las Vegas, which is also one of my favorite places.

Someday someone is going to have to show me how to get a good picture of a layout. The only way I can take it so there is no glare is to take it kinda sideways, then it looks like it is bigger on one side.

A friend and I are heading to Shakopee Minnesota tomorrow morning for TLC training. We are driving out on Friday (600 miles), and back on Sunday. We are in training until 6 on Saturday with a crop into the wee hours of the morning. I am wishing we would have set aside a shopping day, maybe I can make a sneak trip to Archivers Sunday morning before we head back. Not that I should be spending any money on scrap supplies. I am 100% positive I have enough 12x12 paper to wallpaper my entire house, and probably the ceilings, the floors, the outside... As a matter of fact, I am on a paper buying strike. I will not allow myself to buy any paper unless I use some. "Pretty easy" you might say. You would be wrong. I bought a few sheets at Altered Art and Scrap the other day anyway, but they don't count because I committed myself to buying them before I started my strike :)

So Cute

Used the same TLC retro runway kit shown below to create this layout. Purple Felt Prima, love it!

I buy toys why?

JT hurt his neck a few months ago and has been going to physical therapy a few times a week. He brought home this hard foam cylinder a few days ago from his physical therapy doctor. Canyon immediately decided it was his buddy.

This cylinder has been a dinosar stand, a christmas tree, a sword, and a chair among several other things. Yesterday Canyon decided it was his "bes' friend". The cylinder watched TV with him and sat with him for dinner. We decided to dress it up for even more fun. He played with this foam thing for longer than I have seen him play with almost any other toy. It is watching Tigger and Pooh with him right now.