More and More Back to Normal

So things are slowly becoming more normal in the new house, and I’m slowly trying to get my life back closer to normal. I believe that as of today I have unpacked and half organized all my art supplies, so yay for that!!! I have enrolled in a couple workshops for various things because I have realized that being creative is such a huge part of my life and the past few years I’ve just been too focused on work and the kids to do much of anything for me.

Well that is now over! I bought myself some new clothes last week for the first time since the last time I went maternity clothes shopping. I can’t even begin to describe how much better I feel now that I have some normal non-maternity clothes that are newer than about 6 years old. After I realized how nice that felt, I thought that maybe it was about time I did something else for me, something I enjoyed in the past. So here I am, with unpacked art supplies waiting to work on some of the projects and techniques in the workshops I signed up for. I really think it will help me feel more like myself again and help me be a better person, which of course helps me be a better mom and a happier more whole person. I will be posting the things I work on here and talking about them as well, so be on the lookout for that!

I am in the Battle of the Creative Teams for Geek Chic Scraps and our first round entries were due last night. I had a layout all nice and mostly done for it, but then hated it and redid the whole thing with a new kit. I’m still not fully happy with the layout, but it was a vast improvement on the original!

MOST of the supplies I used came from the kit Thankful for You which was just released at Scrap Matters yesterday! I did however also use some other products by her as well, I used some parts of Book Worm and Falling for You which I’ve done full pages with in the past. I also used an alpha out of Kind of a Big Deal and 2 alphas that are sold alone (Recycled Newspaper and Ohh Shiny) and the white stitches came from Scrappers Toolbox Vol. 1 by Tara (Geek Chic Scraps) as well. We had a “recipe” for this first challenge and the hardest part of it for me was probably using 10 ribbons. I’m still not happy with the ribbons, but I am my own worst critic and others have told me that they aren’t as bad as I seem to think so we’re ok! I am anxiously awaiting the results of Week 1, and looking forward to the challenge for week 2 to come out.

But for now I must go, lots of things in the works for the next week until the man is done school!

Lovin Life

That’s right, at this very moment I’m loving my life! We’re pretty close to being completely unpacked now, furniture we have is in place, furniture we need has been ordered in. The baby has nicely transitioned to his crib and the girls bunk beds are only a week away. Halloween candy has been purchased, we have the babies costume. The girls costumes have been found, but not yet purchased. The man said he’ll do it right away, and bring them up for the girls to wear. We managed to get most of our “ready for winter” yard work done, lawn was mowed one last time, leaves raked and blown, I got about half the flowers cut back and we tilled the garden. The garages have been mostly organized and the trucks, lawn mowers, etc. have all been washed. I’ve been able to do some designing in my new, more me style. I’ve also been able to do some scrapping! Things are just all falling back into place and it feels wonderful!

We’re doing our Thanksgiving supper tonight, even though Thanksgiving is really tomorrow. The man and his mom have to head back south tomorrow so he can be back for school Tuesday morning. Since it’s an 8 hour drive we decided just to do our big meal tonight. That means 2 things. 1) Deep fried turkey!!!! 2) Stretchy pants. We’ve got our turkey deep fryer all found and ready to go, we have brand new oil for it and a nice full propane tank. It will be nice to do it on a cement driveway instead of trying to find a flat spot in the grass, so yay! We’ll also be having salad, vegetables, potatoes, biscuits, cranberry sauce, stuffing and pumpkin pie for dessert! I’m pretty excited and so is my stomach.

I’ve been able to scrap a bit lately and have 2 new layouts. The first one is a milestone because after scrapping only girls for the last few years I finally tackled my first boy layout! It was nice, different and not as scary as I made it out to be in my head!  I’m glad that I did it too because with a baby boy around there will be a lot of layouts to scrap of him. The second layout I made I can’t share just yet, because the kit I used hasn’t been released but it was a fun kit to play with too! Both pages are made with products from Colie’s Corner, her design style meshes well with the way I like to scrap, so it’s always fun to play with new things.

Isn’t he adorable!!!!! The kit I used for this layout is called Serenity and it worked perfectly! I loved that plaid paper right off the bat and knew I had to use it. I also used a template set by Colie for this, For Starters template set 33. I flipped it because I wanted to and changed some element placement and removed some elements as well. I love the way this page came out though and I love that I was still able to use flowers on a boy layout (that was a major concern for me!)

I’m looking forward to being able to be productive this week, hopefully get some designing done. I have another collaboration contribution in the works as well as the very starting of an actual kit! I’m hoping I can get a few smaller things done this week too, so hopefully everything goes well and I’m able to get some actual work done! With all the leftovers I’m sure that we’ll have I shouldn’t have to cook for a week, so that saves a whole lot of time right there. The sheer fact that so much stuff is now set up and organized helps a ton too, it lowers my stress levels tenfold.

I, however, am off for now. Lots of things I want to finish up today and lots of things to get ready for tonight. Hope all my fellow Canadians are having a fantastic Thanksgiving long weekend, and of course that all my American friends are having great weekends as well!

It’s Coming!

The staff at Enchanted Studio Scraps have been planning some Halloween fun for you! Come check us out in the forums for all kinds of Spook-tacular activities! The Scavenger Hunt starts this Friday, Oct 8th. If you find all 10 of the pumpkins that are hidden you will win an ESS Mega Kit of your choice. Also for the whole month of October the regular ESS challenges are all Halloween themed as well, so there is tons of fun to be had! If you need some new Halloween scrap supplies there are a whole lot of Halloween themed products in the store right now too, so stop in and take a look around.

In other news, I am in fact designing again, so yay! I have been working on a few things here and there, but I’m going with as little CU as possible and have been adding in a lot of hand drawn doodle elements. Once I find my scanner I’m going to be in fighting shape because I’ll be able to add handcrafted elements as well, which will be super fun! So be on the lookout for some new products from me (finally!)

The house is coming along. I started to unpack kids clothes today but didn’t get too far. I got the babies stuff all set up, and started working on the girls clothes. Man do they have a lot of clothing, it’s going to be an insane feat of organization to get it all put away! Tomorrow I think I’m going to tackle me and the mans clothing first, then find any other unpacking I can do that will put off getting their clothes out as long as possible…ok, I know I shouldn’t. If I’m good then I’ll just get their stuff out, sorted, organized and put away.

It’s Thanksgiving here this weekend coming up, so I need to have the house as organized as possible by Friday. Not an easy task, but I will give it all I can. The man is coming home for the weekend from school before heading back for his last 2 weeks of it. I can not wait for him to be done. Can not. He will, however, hopefully be smart and hook our satellite dish up this weekend while he’s here because if he doesn’t there’s a good chance he will be doing it in the snow when he gets back from school! I really don’t think I can go much longer without having the TV all set up. I don’t watch it a ton, but I do have certain shows I like to watch and of course I got to see the 1st episode of the new seasons and then have been tv-less since. I also enjoy listening to the radio station and DJ programmed stations on the satellite because we have it hooked up to a nice sound system and it’s much easier than rifling through CD’s. (We have no good in service radio station in our area because we live to far north to have one that isn’t news or doesn’t have the evening church hours cut in.)

But since the little guy has calmed down a bit I’m off to do some more designing for awhile! Hope you all have a wonderful evening!!

Woo Hoo! Could This be THE Return of my Scrapping Mojo?!

I scrapped a layout completely template and scrap lift inspiration free last night! Go me! I can’t tell you how long it’s been since I felt the desire to go above and beyond and do a layout on my own from scratch, but it’s safe to say it’s been a while. I had fun, really enjoyed the process. Cut irregular squares and layered and layered and layered them!

I used a super cute and fun collaboration kit by Sweet Mesquite and Berry Sweet Designs called Messy Girl. I wish I’d had some of my old pictures because I have some great ones of our oldest daughter playing on her quad and in many other messy situations. I found these pictures to be quite suiting too. These girls sure do know how to make one heck of a good mess! Of anything and everything.

Today we did a ton of running around. I finally found the box I was looking for so I was able to deposit a check and return a movie (both of which had been packed inside it!) I also managed to get down to the post office and do our change of address/mail forwarding form with them. A few other errands were run out of the house as well as some more downstairs organizing and cleaning.

The house is very slowly getting unpacked. I can’t wait to be done and back in normal routines again! It will make things so much nicer and so much easier to deal with. Tomorrow I’m taking a slight break from unpacking to do some normal tidying up. Clean bathrooms, laundry, clean up kitchen, vacuum and wash the floors. Then after that I’m going to keep on going with the unpacking. I want to haul the rest of the Christmas stuff down to the basement to put in the storage area under the stairs, unpack the last box (that I’ve found) of kitchen stuff and get the girls clothes unpacked and sorted and put away. That is my goal. I rented myself a movie to watch tomorrow night when I get all that done and have the kids bathed and the girls in bed. My incentive for hopefully achieving a good chunk of my overall weekend goal.

But, I have a cranky, upset baby right now, so I’m off! Hope everyone has a great start to their weekends.

Just One of Those Days…

Yup, we all have them and for me today is one. You know, one of those days you wish you could just go back to bed and not wake up til it was over? That is definitely today.

Why? Well, the kids have been whinier than normal, which would be ok if we were in a house that was completely unpacked and under normal circumstances. But we aren’t. I think I have unpacked a grand total of 5 boxes today because it seems every single time I start to unpack a box there is a kid crisis of some sort. It doesn’t help that I am looking for a specific box because it contains our bills for this month, a check for me and the case from the movie I rented a week ago. Do I know what it looks like? No, because I didn’t pack it, the man and his buddies did. That means who knows where it is, what the box looked like or whether it was all packed in the same box. It should have been since it was all in the same location, but that never means too much.

I am however slowly getting boxes out of the living room and out of the house, there is walking space now so that is a good start. I know that about 4 or 5 of the boxes out there are packed of Christmas stuff, and that can go right downstairs, which will also help out a lot. I’m hoping to have everything unpacked by Monday. Maybe not all organized, but unpacked at least! That is my goal. That and to not go crazy while unpacking.

I have managed to scrap a layout in the evenings when I’m trying to wind down and relax for bed, so yay! I used another kit from Geek Chic Scraps called Book Worm because it was too cute to not use with these pictures! Our middle child can’t quite read yet, but she likes to pretend she can and she loves to look at the pictures. She also likes to try and flip the pages too quick when you are reading her a story. She will pick up anything that looks like a book. One day I caught her sitting on the couch “reading” an information book about business loans! Yes, it was upside down, and French but it was still a pretty cute sight. I frequently catch her with her books upside down and a big goofy smile on her face!

I had a lot of fun editing pictures and creating this layout. One of the other things I’m working on in regards to scrapping (I mentioned shadows 2 posts ago) is the photo editing aspect. I used to take my picture as is, yes maybe I would turn it black & white or do selective coloring on it, but that was really it. I never played with curves, levels or my brightness/contrast. If I used an action on a picture I never went through and played around with all the layers to make it work better for my photo. There are many things I would like to learn about photo editing, so I’m happy to be playing around with it and learning new things from various tutorial and photography sites!

I must say though that I am getting mighty jealous of all the Halloween layouts I’m seeing. Since all our pictures were on the other computer holiday kits are going to be a sore spot for me this year I think. I mean of course I’ll be able to use them after the holiday has passed and I have pictures from this year, but it sucks to see everyone else have tons of fun with them right now!

But I guess that’s all for now, must figure out what is for supper and attempt to unpack some more. Fun stuff.

We’re in!

So we managed to get all moved into the new house this weekend!!! Man flew home Friday night, we moved 2 loads Saturday, 2 more on Sunday and then he had to fly back south Sunday night so he could make it to school yesterday morning. Now, the fun begins. Unpacking with 3 kids, 3 kids who got vaccinated yesterday and were horribly upset about it. They seem to be doing fine today though.

Yesterday I found the important stuff…you know, kids toys and most of the kitchen related items. I also have the bathroom upstairs set up enough that its usable and the kids had their first baths in the nice, new, bigger tub last night!! They had a blast! I can not tell you how happy I am to have a real bathroom. One with shelves and drawers and places to store all your bathroom stuff. A big mirror and proper lighting, oh, and a window that isn’t in the shower. There’s also a downstairs bathroom with a nice big corner shower in it.

My kitchen is fantastic. We have a dining room, which of course means we now have to buy a dining room table and chairs because at the other house we had a small table stuck in a corner so the kids could sit and eat, but we always just ate in the living room. They also left us with their basically brand new appliances! I did the first load of dirty dishes in the dishwasher last night…a dishwasher that will let me put them through without having to heat dry them. The old dishwasher I had to pay attention to when it stopped washing so I could go and stop it from drying them. The fridge is so much nicer than the old one, it has shelves that slide out, you can adjust the humidity levels of both crispers and it has a hanging egg carton shelf! The built in microwave above the stove is a fantastic thing too. The less appliances I have on kitchen counters the better!

In non house related news I also had to take the kids to all be vaccinated yesterday. Because I was a bad mom and never took our youngest girl, she has to play catch up and that poor girl had to get 5 needles yesterday while her older sister and the baby both only needed 2. Her and the baby have to go back in 2 months time for another round, while the oldest is now good for 6 months. I tell you it was sure quiet in the house when we got back, they were all cried out and sleepy from the Tylenol! It was lovely to have a few hours silence. So far no nasty side effects, which is good, I couldn’t handle all 3 of them ending up with fevers.

We also got to eat food yesterday that didn’t come from a restaurant! I am sure I gained 5 lbs in the last week and a half because we’ve had to eat out since everything was packed up. I feel all blah and sluggish and gross. My body hates me, as do my jeans. Once everything is all unpacked and set up I’m going to have to start dragging my sorry butt up to exercise again, because this will just not do!

Anyways I must go, I have a little girl who apparently hates pajamas running around in only a diaper and it’s a bit chilly today. Also must continue with the unpacking and organizing during the day so that I don’t feel too bad about sitting around at night scrapping once the kids are asleep. Oh and I also have to find a movie case for one rented DVD and the DVD I rented the kids (which I found the case for) because someone, not me, packed them up and they need to be returned by well, probably today! UGH!

Falling For You

You must check out this gorgeous new fall kit from Geek Chic Scraps!! I am in love with the colors and the fun fall elements. It is seriously the perfect kit for all your fall pictures! You can check it out at Gotta Pixel (image linked):

Even though my computer died and all our pictures were lost, I had the perfect use for this kit. This is the last fall we are spending in our rental house, so I took a picture to celebrate us getting out of here! (Which is happening this weekend. Yay!!) It was fun to scrap again, and I did something different with my shadowing, slightly more realistic. I still need practice and some tweaking but I like the effect a lot more than my previous shadows!

This layout was done using the kit above “Falling for You” by Geek Chic Scraps and also a blocked partial template by Libby Weifenbach from Sweet Shoppe that I duplicated to make a completely blocked background. I wasn’t so sure about it at the beginning, but I am happy with the layout now that it’s all shadowed and everything. I did some editing to my photo, which is shocking since usually I just black & white it and slap it on. This time I used some actions and even a photo texture from Paint the Moon. There are some gorgeous photo actions and textures available for purchase there!

Now, I must go, the kids and I are having cold pizza for lunch. I never thought I’d miss a microwave so much but this week has been hard to deal with food wise because everything’s been packed up. I still have some last minute packing to get ready for the move tomorrow! Hope everyone has a great weekend and I will most likely be back Monday!