Daddy Daughter Dance

My kids' school does a Daddy/Daughter and Mother/Son dance for the 5th and 6th grade students around Valentine's Day. I think it's such a fun idea! Plus I'm much more comfortable with my daughter going to a dance with her dad rather than with a date as it will be in just a few years.

Thankfully I snapped a photo before they left for the dance. This photo was taken almost a year ago and Audrey is already looking more grown up.

Hope you are enjoying your last day of 2011 and that you do something fun to bring in the new year.  Happy New Year to you!

All layout supplies are from the Scrapbook Circle You + Me kit.

December Daily: Finished?

My December Daily album is now caught up to the 25th. Now I have to decide if it's finished or if I want to go another week and finish out the month.

The focus of the album has mostly been Christmas and the many things we do leading up to the holiday, so now that it's over I'm losing a bit of my steam with documenting something everyday.

So for now, here are the possible last three pages of my album.

Maybe I'll get excited about it next week, but for now I'm somewhat satisfied that it is finished. This has been such a great project and I look forward to doing it again next year.

If you did a December Daily, did you end with the 25th or do you plan on finishing out the month?

Project Life: I'm In

A few years ago I decided to give Becky Higgins' Project 365 a try where I attempted to take a photo a day for the entire year. I was doing pretty well until July of that year when my computer died and I lost 2 months of photos that hadn't been backup up or printed. That was the end of my project that year.

In 2012, I've decided to join in with Becky Higgins' Project Life. My plan is to keep things very simple so that it will continue to be something that I enjoy doing throughout the entire year. This is going to be a place where I record that daily happenings of our family life. It may not be too interesting or exciting most days, but I think it will be a treasure to look back on this album as time goes on.

I also plan on continuing to create scrapbook layouts highlight special stories and moments that I don't want to forget. Project Life will be something extra that I plan to add into the way our memories are preserved.

My supplies have arrived and are ready to go.

Project Life Clementine Core Kit
Project Life Clementine Patterned Paper
Photo Pocket Pages Design A
Photo Pocket Pages - Big Variety Pack 1
6 X 12 Page Protectors

I'm going to use an American Crafts 3-ring album that I already have on hand.

I don't plan on only using the Clementine items, but I wanted to keep it simple and this kit will help me do that. The cards are already cut to fit right into the page protectors. As the year progresses, I'm sure my plan will evolve. But one part of the plan will hopefully stay the same: Keep it Simple.

I'm excited to get started on this project. Only 4 days until the 1st!

Also, this year I have loved using some of the digital elements that Ali Edwards has created and has available on Designer Digitals. All of the Christmas products are 30% until January 1st at 6:00 a.m. I just bought a couple of sets. They may be used when I finish up my December Daily for this year. If not this year, then they will be ready for next year!

Ali has a cool tutorial on her blog showing how to trace the images so that they can be cut out by a Silhouette machine. Definitely want to try this.

Photo Frame Gifts

This month I created a few altered frames for Christmas and baby gifts and now that they are delivered, I can share them with you.

All of the frames came from Hobby Lobby. I like getting frames there because they have a great selection and they are always 50% off.

On the first frame I used the Baby Mine collection from Fancy Pants Designs. Even though I don't have a baby in the house, I find myself using this line a lot with making baby cards and gifts. It's a perfect line to have on hand!

The glass wouldn't pop out of this frame, so I put the paper and chipboard under the glass and then used E6000 glue to attach the little Tim Holtz clip. The clip makes it easy to change out the photo often.

The Baby Mine sticker made a great gift tag by sticking it to patterned paper and then I trimmed around the sticker and wrote a little note on the back.

On this next frame, I pulled the glass out and just altered the background with the Fancy Pants Summer's End line. I really love the colors in this line and think they work well year round.

For my last frame I used the Scrapbook Circle Note to Self kit for the alterations. I love all of the type on the background page. Once again, I glued a clip to the paper so that photos and be easily attached and changed out.

Hope you are enjoying a little relaxation time with your family this week. I've loved having our kids home. Today has been a Lego building and doll playing day. Love it!

You are My Favorite

Hope you had a wonderful Christmas weekend celebrating with family.

Last week my husband and I celebrated out 15th anniversary! One of our anniversary traditions is to visit a little row of shops in Phoenix where we pick up Christmas t-shirts and stocking stuffers. Plus we like to use the photo booth at Smeeks for some anniversary photos.

I shared the photo booth photos on Intsagram and decided to print out the Instagram photo and use it on a layout. So yes, it's a photo of photos. Are you on Instagram?

Every piece of this layout came from the upcoming January Scrapbook Circle Kit: You + Me.  The kit went live on the Scrapbook Circle site today, so be sure to stop by and check it out.

This page was so fun to create. One of my favorite things in the kit is a collection of borders and banners from My Mind's Eye. Love using those.

Can't wait to share more creations from this kit!

Merry Christmas!

From our family to yours...we wish you a Merry Christmas.

Happy Christmas Eve!

Our December continues to be busy and filled with time with friends and family.

Our wedding anniversary was on the 21st and we did a little shopping at some of our favorite shops while on our anniversary date. One of my favorite finds was this Christmas paper tape at Frances Vintage. If you are ever in Phoenix looking for a boutique where you may be tempted to buy the entire store, this is a place you won't want to miss.

My December Daily album continues to grow. I'm really enjoying the process of taking more photos and recording little details about our lives that probably wouldn't make it onto a regular scrapbook page.

Happy Christmas Eve to you! I wish you and your family a holiday filled with happy memories.

December Daily 15 -1 9

The Christmas celebrations have been in full effect the past few days. We've had two choir concerts, a family party and our elf has remembered to move around our house every night.

Here's a look at my December Daily pages celebrating the past few days.

I hope you and your family are enjoying this holiday season!

This afternoon it's time to start wrapping presents. My kids want to see gifts under the tree!

Christmas Preparations Continue

For the past couple of weeks I've been slowly checking things off of my Christmas to-do list. With only 5 days before Christmas, I hope everything gets finished!

Today I made a few tags to attach to gifts to friends in my neighborhood. They were pretty simple, but it felt good to squeeze in a little creative time.

The tag supplies are from the Scrapbook Circle Jingle All the Way Kit.

Tonight we are going to our annual Tarwater Family Christmas party. I live near many cousins, aunts and uncles, but we don't see each other very often. Tonight we will all get together for dinner, singing Christmas songs and a visit from Santa.  Here's a picture of me at the annual family party in 1980 on Santa's lap.

This afternoon Max said, "It's disappointing that the Santa at the family party can't try to look more real. I mean really, garbage bags taped around his shoes for boots? You've got to be kidding me."

Haha! We'll have to hope Santa gets a shoe upgrade for this year's party.

Thanks to Pinterest, I'm taking these Santa Hat Brownies to the party. 

I have several other holiday treat pinned and hope for make a few others sometime soon. Do you love Pinterest as much as I do? I'm always happy when I actually make something that inspired me from that site.

Hope you holiday preparations are going well!

Joy & Jakey

A few weeks ago some friends and I had a craft morning where we altered paper mache letters for a Christmas project.

It was quick and simple and I like that a new Christmas decoration was created while having fun with friends. The supplies are all from my Christmas stash from the past couple of years.

I also just wanted to share a card I made for Max to take to his friend's birthday party.

I used the Note to Self December Scrapbook Circle kit for all of the card supplies. The colors in this kit are perfect for so many different event and they worked nicely for this card.

Hope you have a happy Monday!

Christmas is Coming!

I've seen a bunch of tutorials on Pinterest about how to capture great Christmas tree light photos. I played around with it a bit, but I wasn't happy with the photos. So I turned my camera to auto and asked my kids to stand in front of the tree.

The photo certainly isn't professional, but I still love it. A peaceful moment with my kids at Christmas time.

I used the Scrapbook Circle Jingle All the Way kit for all of the page supplies. Most of that kit has been used in my December Daily, but I still have enough left to make a couple of layouts.

I hope to spend a little more time with my camera figuring out how to get great twinkling lights captured, but for now, I'm happy with the photo I did get.

Lights, Singing and Memories

Wow, this past week has flown by. Each day I'm checking things off of my Christmas to-do list. Only a week to go! I've tried to squeeze in a bit of creative time since the quiet time is just what I need to keep balance in my life.

I have a few December Daily pages to share today.

One of my favorite Christmas traditions is going to a Messiah sing-a-long at church. There is an orchestra with soloists. The program is only an hour, so it's a perfect length for our entire family to be able to enjoy a quality night of music.

This past week has been full of reading for my kids. They have to earn AR points at school each quarter my reading books and taking quizzes on the books. The points were all due this week, so they were busy reading to make sure they would reach their goals. I'm happy to say all three of them meet their goals!

This spread includes that Christmas card that our family sent out to friends. It has a die cut envelope and then the black and white photo slides inside.

I played around with my camera and the Christmas tree lights and caught a picture of my kids in front of the tree. I like the big photo on the page and think more big photos are needed in my book.

It's been a full and busy weekend so far. A highlight was watching our girls in the Chandler Children's Choir Holiday program.

Hope you are enjoying your weekend!

Fancy Pants Chalkboard Stickers

Today I'm featuring the Fancy Pants St. Nick stickers over on the Fancy Pants blog.

These stickers are really cool because all of the black surfaces are little chalkboards. You can write on them with chalk and wipe off. I've also written on them with a white sharpie so the writting would be permenent for a scrapbook page.

Hope you'll stop by and check out the chalkboard sticker ideas!

Frosting and Fun

Today was the first Saturday in months that we weren't running out the door early to get to a soccer game or some other commitment. It was so nice to sleep in a bit and get a few things done around the house.

Tonight we have a Christmas party at church. For the past two years, I was the head of the party committee, so this year it's nice to not have to worry about all of the details of the night.  I do get to play the piano while the kids sing a few Christmas song, so that will be fun.

For the party tonight, we were asked to bring a dessert. I just whipped up some Ghiradelli brownies and topped them with some peppermint frosting. I make this frosting every year at Christmas time. If you like candy canes, you should give it a try.

Peppermint Frosting

3 cups powdered sugar
4 ounces cream cheese
1 - 2 Tablespoons of milk
12 candy canes, smashed into tiny pieces
Red Food Coloring

Beat the powdered sugar, cream cheese and milk until desired consistency. You can add more milk if needed. Mix in the red food coloring and candy canes.

Perfect for frosting brownies, sugar cookies or chocolate cake.

I have the past three days of my December Daily album to share.

Our Christmas elf left us a painting of a Christmas tree on day 7 and I thought it would be fun to write a bit about our elf.

On day 8 we had an end of the season soccer party at Peter Piper Pizza. The kids all had a great time. I used to really dislike going there because it was stressful keeping track of my kids every second. Now that they are a little older, it's not too bad going there.

Last night we had a family night out which involve a little choir concert, dinner at Cafe Rio and shopping at Target.

Hope you are enjoying your weekend!