Rain Rain Go Away!

I am so thrilled that spring is here! But I am also very tired of the rain. I want to see blue skies along with all the pretty blooms that are everywhere. We did get a taste of spring a few weeks ago. We spent the afternoon of March 7th at a local park enjoying the warm sunshine. Here are a few pictures from that near-80-degree day...

One of my Favorite Things!

Jessica, a new blog friend that I also met in real life last week, has a weekly feature called "Frugal Friday". How appropriate that today I went grocery shopping and took full advantage of this...


I love saving money... or I should say... paying the lowest price possible! Our budget is extra tight, so I am very happy when I can stretch my sweet husband's income, and feed our family well. I give God the glory for that!

Now, usually when I make a triple coupon run, I don't buy anything but the stuff which I am purchasing with coupons. I like to see how little I can spend and how much I can get! In fact, since they limit it to 20 coupons per day, I will go back and use some more coupons I have before this sale is over.

This time, I had some groceries I needed, so I didn't use coupons for the veggies, tortillas, creamer or the salsa that was on sale. My friend Jenny just shared a yummy recipe for White Chicken Chili that I want to cook this weekend, so I had to get the big yellow pepper! And I thought is was very cute that the corn tortillas I found were a new brand I hadn't seen before... called Celia's.

So here is everything I got! Lots of rice (mostly free), 4 boxes of cereal (about $.50 a box), lots of frozen veggies (no coupon there), frozen rolls (they were free), iced tea bags and green tea, mustard (free), creamer for my sweetie's coffee, salad dressing, and lots of fresh veggies. The "retail" price would have been around $116.

I don't know why people say HT is expensive! I just saved 74% on my grocery bill!!!

"Toddler to Teen Album"!

What is a Toddler to Teen album? This album captures 18 years of a person's life all in one book!!! It is great if you have someone who will soon be graduating from high school. If you have never scrapbooked, this is the perfect album for you to start with!!! Is your child or loved one already done with high school? Well, this album works well as a gift as they get married, graduate from college, or celebrate a milestone birthday! It's never too late to make this quick and easy album. You could also apply this concept to your own childhood photos and make it for yourself. The complete instructions are here.


The Toddler to Teen album can, of course, be made as a scrapbook. In fact, if you have never scrapbooked, it can be a good first project. Not a scrapbooker? That's ok -- you can also use this idea to make a slide-in PicFolio album. Love digital? This is a great project for a hardcover StoryBook or digital page prints.

This album uses a "windows in time" format, as opposed to a chronological, or year-by-year set up. What this means is that you will have 4 pages, or 2 two-page spreads, for each topic. Topic sections include things like "First Years", "Birthdays", "Places I've Been", "Family", and more. Using about 18 or so sections, with 4 pages each, you can fit an entire life in one album! However, you do need to get really picky if you have lots of photos. You will be limited to how many you can use in each section. But that is exactly what makes this such a do-able project!

I have handouts and instructions I am happy to share with you! Just send me an email or leave me a comment and I will be thrilled to help you out! If you are local, I can help you in person, too.

World's Largest Crop!

At least that is what it is called in Denver, CO! Here it was called:
Celebrate! Charlotte

Imagine 900 women (and maybe a man or two) in a large exhibit hall, all scrapbooking to their hearts' content!! This crop, or scrapbooking workshop, started at 9am and ended at 8pm this past Saturday. That is ELEVEN hours of scrapbooking time!!! Some decided to go for the deluxe package and were admitted an hour early AND got a chair massage, too!

This wonderful, well-organized event also included hundreds of page ideas on display, numerous classes, and several hands-on demos. In reality, you could spend the entire day partaking of all the offerings and never scrapbook a single page.

My dedicated attendees were very productive and got lots of pages completed! We all had a fabulous time! Let me know if you want to join us next year!!!

Sidetracked!

I had planned to write on Memory Manager software this week... but I am a little sidetracked!

Instead, I am immersed in piles of pretty papers, working on a precious project! Here is a sneak preview...

I will share more when I am done!

It's a Digital Life!

What do you do with all those photos on the memory card? Are they piling up on your hard drive? Is it overwhelming to figure out what to print, or even if you printed it already? With digital photos, I think we are taking more photos than ever before! Sadly, we are probably enjoying them less... especially if they are stuck on the camera or computer.

I have a great little video to watch that can give you hope and ideas for managing all those photos! Scroll to the bottom of this screen (click the link) and click on "It's a Digital Life" to see a 10 minute presentation on Memory Manager and StoryBook Creator software.

If you want more information, I'd love to help you! In fact, starting Monday, I am going to be sharing tips about the awesome features of Memory Manager! Better yet, Memory Manager is currently on sale for 25% off! I do love a bargain, don't you? And if you want to play with StoryBook Creator, here is a link for a free download! I have been using these programs for more than two years and would love to share them with you!

Where's Mom??!??

Monday night, I had a sweet lady here for my Power Palette Layout Class. In less than 4 hours, we had 21 album pages planned and layed out! The photos were family pictures from January through April 2008. One things we both noticed: there was not one picture of this wonderful woman! Plenty of pictures, of course, of her precious children, husband, and other family members. But none of her.


As moms, we often tend to be the photo-taker. That means that no one is taking pictures of us. And, honestly, I know many of us prefer it that way! While we love to take pictures, we don't like our picture taken. We are always concerned with how our hair looks, if we have makeup on or not, how much we weigh, what we are wearing, etc. Well, at least that is what is always going through my mind!


I would like to challenge us moms, or other camera-shy individuals, to be a little less self-focused. Think about those photos from today, and how they will be viewed years from now. Your absence will be noticed! You will be missed. Years from now, you won't care about how you looked... and you might even look back and say, "Hey, I actually looked pretty good, then!" Your children and other loved ones will want to see you, as they remember you. You are a vital part of their lives today; they will want to see you in photos tomorrow.

I have been working on filling in the gaps in my scrapbooks. Most recently, I have been working on my 2004 family album. It was fun to see this page from Jacob's 1st birthday! Especially since my baby is about to turn 6 next month! This is one of those pictures that I can now look back on and appreciate. I am glad we took it. I am glad we all know that I attended this event!

But what is interesting, is that when I turn the page, I see my hair all chopped off. And I remember.

I felt really bad about my appearance then. I had been in a car accident about 10 months before, and a neck injury from another car accident in 1999 had been aggravated. So in 2004 I had two steroid injections in my neck. I had gained a lot of weight. I was sick of my hair and ready for a change. I was also a little depressed. So I had my hair cut.

This photo was taken a few weeks later. I had the pleasure to see Beth Moore live in Colorado Springs with some of my closest, dearest friends. This was right after I had moved 90 miles away from these dear ladies. How many times do we forget to take photos of ourselves with our friends? It is so easy to take those times for granted. But we never know where we might end up in the future. Having this photo brings back a great memory of sweet fellowship!

Now, I don't like my hair in the picture with my friends at all. I was glad at the time to get it all cut off, but never really liked it. I still felt fat and ugly.... However, looking back, I realized a couple things. One, is never to cut my hair when I am feeling depressed! I will regret it! I also realized, that despite how I felt at the time, I didn't really look as bad as I thought I did... in either picture. And having those pictures today is important to me and my family.

How many times do you choose "not to attend an event" by not having your photo taken? Will your family see your precious face when they look back at family photos? I have a challenge for you. Hand someone else the camera... and smile!