Dressing Up for Halloween

Only two more weeks until Halloween! My kids are very excited and they have been finalize their costume over the past couple of weeks.

I came across a couple of Halloween photos from a few year ago of my youngest and her friend.  Here's a layout of the same girls from last month. It's so fun to look at older photos and see how they've grown.

Everything came from the Scrapbook Circle Hallow's Eve Kit. I'm excited to use a few other older Halloween photos on pages. I think I'm a bit behind on documenting Halloween!

9 Years Old + Quick Party Favors

Today, my Max turned 9 years old. He's such a funny, clever and determined kid.

I made the traditional birthday breakfast with candles this morning to start the day off right. He choose Oatmeal Waffles topped with strawberry freezer jam and sausage for our menu this morning.

Yesterday, we celebrated Max and Hannah's birthdays with a party with their friends at Amazing Jake's. Amazing Jake's is an indoor amusement park with laser tag, mini golf, go carts, rock climbing, video games and carnival rides plus a dinner and dessert buffet. All of the party kids seemed to have a great time and I was happy to safely return all of the kids to the parents at the end of the night.

Since I knew most of the kids would be getting a bunch of prizes from the ticket redemption from arcade games, I didn't feel like we needed to give out a big goodie bag.

But I wanted each of the party guests to go home with something personalized from us, so I put together giant candy bars covered with patterned paper wrappers.

Some of my favorite things about this project:

* All of the supplies were in our house (except for the candy bars)
* It was a great way to use up lots of paper scraps
* Simple project that my 3 kids were able to work on with me
* Personalized name tags
* Who doesn't love a giant candy bar?

We had seven girls and seven boys at the party, so the styles reflect some more girly styles (flowers, butterflies, pink) and some my boy styles (starts, numbers and blue.)

I used this Scrapbook Circle printable for the two different labels on the candy bars. I love that I can select just one element on the page and them print a bunch of them in Photoshop.

If you want your own copy of this page, you can download it HERE and print and use as many times as you would like. Hope you enjoy it!

Party Time!

It's birthday season at our house. Two of my sisters had birthday already this month plus my youngest celebrated her birthday last Wednesday. Then it's Max's birthday this coming Wednesday.

Just to make the celebrating even more fun, my kids just finished their first week of a 2.5 week fall break.

We celebrated Hannah's birthday by starting off her day with Oatmeal Waffles and candles.

After breakfast, I surprised her with one of her presents >>> earrings! She has been wanting to get her ears pierced and she was so excited about her present.

We also saw Dolphin Tale which was a great family movie. During the week the kids also went swimming and we went to a Diamondback game. It's been great to have a lot of relaxed family time together.

Tonight we had the grandparents and aunts and uncles over to celebrate the kids' birthdays. We grilled sliders and made Pioneer Woman Mac & Cheese.  For dessert, Max wanted creme puffs and Hannah wanted a Chocolate Fudge Cake. My dad also made homemade vanilla ice cream. It was quite a party!

Looking forward to another fun week with our kids and I'm hoping to sneak in some crafting time too!

Cousins and Game Night

The new Glitz lines make me happy and excited to create! This month I choose to create two layouts with the Dance in Sunshine line. I'm really loving the yellow/aqua/purple color combo in this line.

My first layout has a collection of photos my kids and their cousins playing together this summer. We live on opposite sides of the United States from each other, so we don't get to see each other very often. But when we are together, I love watching the cousins play.

When I saw the big circle patterned die cuts in the Glitz Whatnot pack, I knew I wanted to use them on this page. I just cut them in half and used them behind the photos.

My next layout has a collection of photos from a family Guesstures game. Some of the photos captured some pretty funny expressions.

I love all of little bits and pieces from the Dance in the Sunshine line. The Glitzers, stamps, epoxy stickers and trims make it easy to embellish a page.

Thanks for stopping by today!

Playtime with Cousins
Glitz Designs "Dance in Sunshine" Patterned Paper: Raindrops, Stripe, Polka
Glitz Designs "Dance in Sunshine" Whatnots
Glitz Designs "Dance in Sunshine" Peek a Boo Transparency
Glitz Designs "Dance in Sunshine" Glitzers
Glitz Designs "Dance in Sunshine" Epoxy Stickers
Glitz Designs White Type Teeny Alpha

Sunday Night Games
Glitz Designs "Dance in Sunshine" Patterned Paper: Polka, Stripe, Damask, Raindrops, Birds
Glitz Designs "Dance in Sunshine" Stamps
Glitz Designs "Dance in Sunshine" Trims
Glitz Designs "Dance in Sunshine" Glitzers
Glitz Designs "Dance in Sunshine" Epoxy Stickers
Glitz Designs "Dance in Sunshine" Giant Rhinestones
Glitz Designs White Type Teeny Alpha
Other: Scrapbook Circle Printable, Ink

Birthday Card and a Video

Happy birthday to my awesome sister, Melanie!

Card supplies: Scrapbook Circle Fresh Picked Kit, Glitz Designs Teeny White Alpha

With the new month, comes a new Scrapbook Circle Video showing what is coming in the October Kit. I'm really not one to enjoy being in front of the camera, but it is fun sharing the kits. We just do one take of the video and roll with it. I'm thinking it's best to keep it casual and unscripted. What do you think?

30 Things We Love About You Album

When I turned 30 a few years ago, my siblings started a tradition of creating an album for the birthday person filled with photos and things they love about them for a gift. Pretty cool, right? We've continuted the tradition as my sisters Michelle and Melanie turned 30. (I wasn't blogging when Michelle turned 30, so no photos of her album. 

This weekend our youngest sister turned 30 and it was her turn for a birthday album. I started the process about a month ago by emailing my brother and sisters and asked them to email me their favorite memories about Kristen. They also sent some of their favorite photos.

For the album, I cut 16 chipboard pieces for the pages of the album. I kept the design pretty similar for each page so that it would be faster to put together.

Once the pages were finished, I punched two holes in the top of each page and tied it together with twine. Originally I thought I'd bind it with large circle binding clips, but the album ended up being over 2 inches think and twine was a better option.

My brother and one of my sisters live nearby, so they came and wrote their memories in the book. I liked having everyone write memories in their own handwriting to add more of a personal touch.

Kristen said that she laughed and cried while looking at her album, so I think it was a success!

Album supplies: Precocious Paper Embellishment, Scrapbook Circle The Good Life Kit, Scrapbook Circle Anniversary Kit, an assortment of tags from Scrapbook Circle Printables, Amy Tangerine Bits.

Fancy Pants Card Challenge

Hope you are having a relaxing weekend and enjoying World Card Making Day. Fancy Pants has a card challenge starting today. Simply create a greeting card with any theme that you'd like—make sure to use at least some Fancy Pants products—and post it to the Fancy Pants Facebook Wall between now and Oct. 8, 2011.

The rest of the challenge details are on the Fancy Pants Blog.

Here's a look at a few of the cards I've created with Fancy Pants products. Love the variety of colors and themes offered by FP.

Happy card making to you!