Scrap Mojo Challenge 5

New Challenge is up! For my paint technique, I used a mesh bag that had my onions in it! LOL. I love the impression that it made though. This LO is kinda crazy...alot of elements going on, a complete 180 from my white space layout. Ah well. That's me. :)

I've been a little busy bee working on handmade gifts, but I can't post them here. However, most of you who read my blog know where to find me elsewhere (ie AMM, SISTV, 2Peas, etc). I'll be sure to post them there and then I'll post them here once Christmas is over. I do have to say, my main project is almost done and I am in love with it. I'm not sure I want to give it up!

I'm glad to announce that I've found the Simpson's Calendar that was wanted by the girl I'm "adopting" this Saturday. I almost broke down and bought Bath & Body Works, but I thought I'd give the book section a second chance. Sure enough, there it was!! I was so happy, as it was the only thing she had asked for. I did also buy her a very pretty scarf. I'm really excited for Saturday. I hope I can keep her entertained and make her trip worthwhile.

And on some disappointing news...they're sending Josh to another city a couple hours away for about 10 days. :( There goes all the fun Christmas stuff out the window. We had a trip to Nuremburg's Christmas Market planned for Tuesday. We were taking the train with a bunch of people from his company. If I knew more people, maybe I'd risk going...but I don't and I don't want to go to a BIG, unfamiliar city by myself with 2 toddlers. So hopefully he'll be home before Christmas and we can do some things. Here's hoping....

I'm getting my hair cut tomorrow. eeeee! It's been a long time and it looks totally neglected.

ta ta for now.

xoxo

Every Thug Needs A Lady

Here's my latest LO and I love it's simplicity. It was for the A Million Memories "use your white space" challenge. For all my non scrapping buddies, white space is like negative space...there's nothing around it. Things like the space between graphics, margins, gutters, space between columns, space between lines of type or figures and objects drawn or depicted are considered white space too (thought I'd throw in some lingo from my old design lessons. lol). To me though, the most important part about white space is that it allows emphasis on your focal point...you're forced to look at one thing and not be distracted by other page elements.

Hee Hee. I was going through a box of mementos that Josh kept from Korea. It had letters, cards, scrapbooks, etc that I sent him while he was deployed for a year. After he opened this card (and like everything else I made him), I made him PROMISE to keep it in pristine shape so I can have it in my completed projects area. LOL. It's so simple and cute.

Here are a few pics of the kids decorating the tree. Anberlin took charge and did a really good job of hanging the ornaments. Sebastian did an even better job of dumping all of the ornaments out of the box and rolling them across the floor. He didn't have much interest in the tree, but had fun playing with the ornaments/box (as seen in the last photo...he's peering through the ornament box).

So I don't think I've ever mentioned how TALL Anberlin is. She's in the 95th percentile...basically there's only 5% of the population who is taller than her in her age range. She looks like a giant when she stands next to other 3 years olds and parents are surprised to learn her age. She looks so funny in her pants though. 4T is too short for her now. We went to H&M this weekend and thankfully the 3-4 year old size pants fit her PERFECTLY. And I love it even more when pants have the built in elastic that you can manually adjust.

Which brings me to my next point. Sebastian is skinny. I think he is in the 10th percentile for his age and weight. Given, he was just getting over his stomach flu when that was taken. BUT, I don't know what has snapped in him, but he's been eating like CRAZY! Before, he'd take a few bites and refuse to eat anymore. Now, he asks for seconds. It's awesome! His cheeks are getting chubbier, he's got a little pot belly...he looks like a typical toddler. :)

I was tempted to make an advent calendar for the kids, but broke down and bought a cheap one. I knew that by the time I got around to making one, it would be Christmas and the point would have been defeated.


By the way, it only lasted one day. Sebastian got a hold of it while I was cleaning and ripped the base apart. SO now we take a piece of chocolate from the roof once a day, count the remaining squares and put it in my "sweets" hiding spot.

I just ordered this for the kids and I can't wait to get it! It has the complete alphabet, numbers 0-9, and assorted shapes. It'll be great for our little lessons. :)

And here's some eye candy. I got this in the mail after a LONG day with the kids. Scrapfreak had an AWESOME black friday sale, as did this site:

She has awesome prices on most items, so it's worth taking a moment to check it out! I made out like a bandit on both sites. The order from everythingscrappn.com should be here any day. I can't wait!!!

And on a last note, I am starting on a "the faces of the Summers' kids" book (that is, once all the Christmas gifts are done). Here's a preview, hee hee.

xoxo

Nobody Dances Anymore

Ah, my musical recommendation for today...it's an older album but pretty darn awesome. I forgot about it and Josh popped in a few songs the other night in the car. :)

Soooooo, what up everyone? Things around here have been crazy, as usual. I have the kids on this "26 week" curriculum, trying to drill the alphabet, numbers, colors, shapes, animals, etc into them. LOL. Well, drill is not the right term. We take it one week at a time. Last week we learned the letter A, how to write it (Anberlin has mastered it), the number one (how to write it as well), color green, a square, and a baby cow is called a "calf." Each day we do an activity reinforcing the skills for the week. Lots of books that include cows and calves. Going out to see an actual cow. Playing "shape searchers" and looking for squares around the house. That type of thing. Alot of it is review for Anberlin, but Sebastian is learning. Hopefully at the end of the 26 weeks, Anberlin will be able to write her whole alphabet and then we can move on to bigger things.

We put up our scrawny Christmas tree last week. Anberlin did most of the ornament hanging. Oh, I look forward to the day that we can have beautiful, ornate glass ornaments, and not the plain "looks like glass but it's really plastic" type. We had to place our tree in our dining room of all places. The store here on the base only sells christmas lights with the european plugs, and there aren't any of those in our living room. It doesn't look bad though, I just would prefer it elsewhere. We have presents under the tree, mostly from my parents, and somehow the kids have refrained from ripping into them! I need to get our gifts wrapped and under the tree. Josh and I started shopping in October, buying a little at a time and we've got all the gifts for the kids done.

Next Saturday, I will be "adopting" an orphan for the day from one of the orphanges in Nuremburg. The base has lots of activities set up for everyone. There will be free bowling, free pizza, things to do at the activity center. The problem is, I believe most of these things are geared towards a younger child and the girl that I am sponsoring is 17! We'll have to play it by ear. My girl has asked for one thing...a 2008 Simpsons calendar. We went to 4 different bookstores this weekend and no one had one!! I bought her a scarf to give her ontop of the calendar, but I"m going to feel horrible if I can't get a hold of one before Saturday. I guess if worst comes to worse, I'll have to give her a card with some money in it, along with the scarf.

There are lots of things going on with the family.

My mom went home to the Philippines to visit her mom and other family. It's so sad though. My "lola" has developed Alzheimer's and doesn't recognize my mom. I'm not sure to what degree her alzheimers is...hopefully she has good days and will recognize my mom while she's there.

My dad is receiving an award in Washington DC on Tuesday for the secretary's third annual Department of homeland security awards. I think it's pretty neat.

Josh's music has a slight delay as the other member is in the states visiting family until the middle of December. I can tell Josh has the itch to make more music. lol. They will be putting another single up very soon and this one will sure to make the gals swoon.

Anberlin is getting better with her speech. I still plan on taking her to a developmental researcher to make sure her language skills aren't something to be worried about. She will be 4 in May and still does A LOT of baby talk. And when she does say a sentence, she slurs her words. I think she has a lazy mouth.

Sebastian. Oh my poor little boy. In January he will be having surgery to correct a "hydrocele." His surgery is on a Friday morning and if all goes well, we'll be released on Sunday. I'm a bit nervous of the whole ordeal, mainly because it's in a German Hospital. I'd get into the details of his condition, but it's not exactly the thing I want to be plastering all over the blog. lol. If you're curious, you can read about it here: http://www.babysurg.org/hernia.html. He doesn't have a hernia though, it's not that extreme.

I've been busy not scrapbooking. :( I'm not "busy" per se, but my days are filled with the kids and then keeping up with the housework and cooking...by the time I have some free time, I'm exhausted. I finished all of my Christmas cards. I need to get ontop of doing the handmade items for my family. Maybe tonight. Josh has duty and he'll be gone until 8 am tomorow.

I'm sure there's more I want to talk about, but it's time for me to go play teacher. Hopefully I'll update more and have pictures to post.

Oh. The sneakie peeks are up at Scrap Mojo! This is an easy challenge and a super fun technique!! I hope you'll take the time to do it. :)

xoxo

uuuuuuuuuuuuugh

i'm still here. i'm still alive. i've been fighting a wicked head cold for the past few days. all the projects that i've been hoping to accomplish have been put on hold. but i did some major cleaning last night so i could wake up to a clean house and concentrate on scrapping today.

the day after thanksgiving i took some photos of josh and his best friend to use for their band stuff. this is one of my fave shots of him:

ignore anberlin's hand in the middle right. LOL. kyle brought over this spotlight. i love the way it made my bright red couch even brighter. anyways, the guys have a myspace page now. http://www.myspace.com/hitsandmrs they only have one single up, but hopefully that will change soon. check them out if you haven't already. they're pretty darn good.

off to work on some things. :)

Just for Christine

One of my best friends turned me on to this wine. It's called Eiswein, or in english, "Ice Wine." This is taken from wiki:

Icewine (or ice wine or, in German, Eiswein) is a type of dessert wine produced from grapes that have been frozen while still on the vine. The sugars and other dissolved solids do not freeze, but the water does, so the result is a concentrated, often very sweet wine. In the case of ice wines, the freezing happens before the fermentation, not afterwards. Unlike the grapes from which other dessert wines, such as Sauternes, Tokaji, or Trockenbeerenauslese, are made, ice wine grapes should not be affected by Botrytis cinerea or noble rot. Only healthy grapes keep in good shape until the opportunity for ice wine harvest, which may be in the next calendar year. This gives ice wine its characteristic refreshing sweetness balanced by high acidity. When the grapes are free of Botrytis, they are said to come in "clean".

I am by no means a drinker. I lost the taste for it after I turned 21. Go figure. I sampled some at a Bazaar, and yumm-o. It is really, really sweet. The lady told me it's more of a dessert wine. Well Josh brought me home a bottle of it. It is by no mean cheap. 25 Euros for this particular bottle.

AND, apparently a bottle of Absinthe is making our way to our house too. lol.

No it is not illegal (here anyways). The US is the only major country banning it, but apparently that is going to change soon. Absinthe is a strong-herbal liquor distilled with wormwood and anise. It can contains other aromatic herbs like star anise, anise seed, fennel, licorice, hyssop, veronica, lemon balm, angelica root, dittany, coriander, juniper, and nutmeg.

So it's going to taste alot like licorice, which I'm not a big fan of. I'm sure there will be pics up tomorrow of it though. :)

xoxo

Thanksgiving goodies

I really have a ton of other things to do, but typical Jessica...puts it off to work on crafts. LOL. I made these ADORABLE placecards and napkin rings for tomorrow and I thought I'd share them with ya'll before I start preparing things for Turkey Day.

Step 1: Cut strips of cardstock. My dimensions are 3.5"x10". This is going to depend on the size of your stamp of course.

Step 2: Stamp your image near the middle of your paper. I am using the limited edition stamp that I won from Inque Boutique. It's called “Chanteuse.” It's not for sale, but they do have the mirror image set, "Nightingale." Anyways, I then reoutlined the stamp using a Gelly Roll Glaze pen to give it that embossed look.

Step 3: Using a craft knife, carefully cut around the top half of your image.

Step 4: Fold your card in half.

Step 5: I trimmed my card once it was folded in half to measure 3 inches from the top fold to the bottom of the card (6 inches once opened).

Step 6: Cut and adhere a patterend piece of paper to the inside of your card. I made sure mine was 1/4" smaller than the card so there would be a nice 1/8" border. Don't glue it to your cut out image though!!

Step 7: Color in your image. I used Pebbles Inc. chalk and a watermark ink pad to make the chalk stick a bit better.

Step 8: You can see I stamped an additional image in the corner and went over that as well with my Glaze pen. Add your guests name to the placecard. I also inked the edges with Tim Holtz Ranger Inks and used more pink chalk. *Voila!*

Note: If your card won't stand in place (i.e. it keeps falling flat) take a strip of cardstock, about 1/2" wide, fold each end in, and glue it to the inside of the card to keep it standing properly.

To make the napkin ring:

Step 1: Cut a strip of PP. I believe mine is an inch or so.

Step 2: Form into a circle. Glue. I was in a hurry, so I stapled mine. :)

Step 3: Stamp your image on a seperate piece of cardstock.

Step 4: Cut out and adhere to your ring using a foam dot or something similar to help it stand out a bit.

That's it! If you make something similar, link it up in my comments! :D

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

-xoxo-

Dear Santa

Dear Santa.

I've been really good this year. Please give me an art studio like this:

http://www.timholtz.typepad.com/

xoxo,
Jess



ladies, be prepared to drooooooooooool.

eeeeee!

I got Layout of the Day at A Million Memories for my "I Can Fly" layout. :) http://www.amillionmemories.com/forum/viewtopic.php?id=10289

The new challenge is up at the scrap mojo blog! And my gal MJ is our guest designer! Go play!

Doh!

It just dawned on me I didn't put up the last Scrap Mojo Challenge. Here it is! I cut up one of Anberlin's OLD shirts for the appliques. I'll admit though, I originally had that in mind when I bought the shirt b/c the birdies and flowers were so gosh darn cute.

The new challenge is up today, so I'll edit this post once Marie has the blog updated.

Tschüs!

(that's "bye" in German. it sounds like, "cheers.")

Sometimes I Crack Myself Up

MJ, these are coming your way, along with a box of goodies. :)

I laugh everytime I see these gingerbread men. LOL.

Thanksgiving in a few days! What's on everyone's menu?

On My Menu:

-Herb butter roasted turkey breast (forget the whole turkey, it just gets wasted).
-Homemade corn bread stuffing with fresh italian sausage.
-Fresh cranberry chutney.
-Deviled eggs.
-Sauteed fresh green beans with turkey bacon.
-Fresh baked crescents from the town bakery.
-Mashed potatoes courtesy of our friend.
-Cake
-Homemade apple pie (I'm attempting my own crust too!).
-Pumpkin pie.

A pretty big meal, but not HUGE. I need to figure out some appetizers too I think. Ok. Got to attend to my neglected house.


xoxo