What is so wrong in this photo shoot?

     

Lexi’s hair!!! That’s what.  Last night she cut it.  She still hasn’t talked about the why’s and all, but I wanted to get pictures for the scrapbook. 

It is so hard to make wise parenting decisions when it comes to things like this.  I want her to learn to take responsibility for her actions, but I don’t want to make a bigger deal about it than it needs. After teaching teenagers all these years, I am so very aware how parenting decisions have lasting effects.

So for now, unless I want her out of her room to do something that I have sanctioned, she is in her room until she admits to what she did.  Because while I am not really upset about her hair, I am very concerned about her refusal to admit what she did.  I think it really is easier for me to deal with the big picture on this since the hair will grow back.  In fact, anyone who knows me knows that I place little value on that type of thing.  As I explained to Lexi, if she wanted bangs, all she had to do was ask! 

For all of you parents out there, what would you do?  The punishment (after she finally admits to cutting her hair) will be 5 days without television.  Since she is 5 years old, I am using that as the guideline for how long the punishment should last.   One of my friends who’s daughter cut her hair took away scissors, and I really like that as the punishment fit the crime.. but Lexi didn’t even use her own scissors, she used her daddy’s scissors that were in our bathroom.  And, you know me and crafts, taking away scissors would be like cutting off my right arm!

If you see Lexi out and about, please ask her about her hair, and please pray for her parents as we seek to make wise decisions.

An album for a Daddy and of course, more scrap pages and cards!

Yes, Father’s Day has come and gone, but I wanted to show you all what I made for Doug.  These years are speeding past and I wanted to make an album that we could go back and look at all of the Father’s Days easily.  So here you have it.  A picture from each year taken on Father’s Day (or as close to it as possible). 
Amazing isn’t it! To make sure that we will have matching pages for the future, I have gone ahead and made 20 pages to finish the book. With kids spread out in ages as far as ours are, it’s a lot of years in order to get them all grown!

The above album is 8x8, so I had some great scraps. With the leftovers, I have made some regular 12x12 scrapbook pages and cards.  Here they are. I have to say, I love my manly cards!!

Thanks for stopping by.  Go do something creative today!

A Visit to the Children’s Museum

The girls and I went to the Fort Worth Museum today with a friend of mine and her daughter.  We all had a great time.  It was a little bittersweet though as the museum has had a total renovation and doesn’t resemble the museum of my childhood at all.  So many wonderful childhood memories are tied to the old museum… but times change and life goes on and the new museum is awesome!

What was really nice is that with 4 kids aged 10, 7, 5 and 10months, all the kids had fun.  If you live in the metroplex, you should make it a priority to visit here.  One of the best things about this place, they have staff everywhere! Including the restrooms.  And they are nice and even helpful!  Amazing!

Here are some of the highlights:    

More cards, less scrap piles!

I promise I won't post all of my pictures or pages created :)  But I really like these, so here are a few cards from a long ago paper pack!  And yes, I did make another 2 or 3 double layouts with the rest of the papers prior to making the cards.  I have to say, I am on a roll!

While I'm at it, if anyone needs cards or premade pages,

I could probably be persuaded to part with a whole truck load for a good price or some bartering!!

Meaningful Child Play meets Cost-Effective and Efficient Scrapbooking/Card Making!

As a mom I am always looking for ways to keep my kids busy and happy.  One of the best ways to do this is to allow them to scrapbook with me.  Yes, it makes THEM happy and keeps THEM busy, but it does pretty much take all the stress-reliever of scrapbooking away.  So, to find a happy medium, I have developed a plan… (yes, I always have a plan [and sometimes even a spreadsheet])!

Here is what I do with some of my scraps… I give them to my children to scrapbook with or to make cards.  Don’t you just love Lexi’s cards!  She even included a sculpture on the bottom right-hand card!
She was so proud of her cards, it kept her busy and it didn’t cost me a dime!

Moving on…one of my goals this summer is to get closer to being “caught up” on my scrapbooking.  I find that I can really get bogged down on a layout and could easily spend an hour on one double page spread.  To combat this, I really like working from premade patterns.  Close To My Heart has developed some really great books for this purpose.  I have tweaked the patterns some and then combined them so that I can get the most bang from my buck!  Instead of getting a layout or two from a set of papers, I make 10 or 12 layouts from one pack.

While some people don’t like to make pages without pictures, I find it freeing.  I use what I have and make it work.  I know that when I get pictures, I can move things around or add something else.  I DON’T embellish the pages at this point!  It’s also really easy to make pages with lots of stops and starts and interruptions when you work from a pattern!

So this summer, I am trying to use up all of my old paper.  I am in the simplifying mode and not the hoarding mode.  I am only purchasing paper for a specific event or project or in order to complete a page pattern that I already have started!

Here is what I have done so far!

Yep, it’s a lot of pages!  More than 100!  I have probably 50 more that already have embellishments.  My goal is that by the time I go on a scrapbook retreat in August to have around 200 premade pages to work from!  How freeing is that!  All I will have to do is print out the pictures, attach and then get to do the fun part of adding ribbon and stickers and stamp!!

Lastly, one of the things I have enjoyed the most about working from patterns is that I don’t have a ton of leftover pieces that take up space.  So with the leftovers I do have, I am going to make cards!  Here are some cards I made today.  My requirement is to use the pieces that are leftover from the patterns (to NOT cut into a new piece of paper.)   

So for those of you who say you aren’t creative enough to do this, I say YES YOU ARE!  If you can follow simple instructions you can make a scrapbook page or a card!  So no more excuses!  Get CrAfTiNg!!