Monday, May 31, 2010

Memorial Day

I'm so thankful for this beautiful country...for freedom! I'm thankful for those who have volunteered to fight for our freedom!

I thought I had shared this page before, but I guess I had not. I created this layout using some of my own designs: Post Me Strips Love, Travel Along kit, and Circle Your Date.



I've been enjoying the extended weekend! How about you? When I haven't been outside, I've been knitting. Actually, I even took my knitting outside on the deck yesterday. I've been having so much fun with this cable knitting project. I think I'm hooked on cable! I'm actually really glad I made the big mistake that I did with following the pattern wrong last week because now I understand how to cable knit. It's been fun!
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Friday, May 28, 2010

Felted Slippers

It is a gorgeous day!! The sun is shining and it's somewhere in the 70's! That's pretty awesome! May and June are typically our best and driest months in Southeast Alaska. So even though it's not cold enough to wear felted slippers, I wanted to post a picture of these today before I head outside. I started knitting these slippers when I was in Michigan. Amanda and I saw some ballet-type slippers at the yarn shop and so I asked for the pattern for the slippers. As always, I made some mistakes, but this time I would like to blame it on a sentence that seemed to be missing from the directions. I had to fill in the blanks when I started the second slipper. Since it was my first pair I didn't care about pulling out the first slipper. The first slipper is the right one in the photo. This was my first time felting anything. I bought a zippered pillow case and turned my washer to the sanitize cycle so the water would get really hot (since it wasn't getting hot enough on a different cycle). I set the timer and checked on the slippers every 5 minutes. I actually had to go through the process twice on different days because the slippers were still a little too big for me after the firs time. It was a great experience and I have some yarn to make a second pair. And these are really awesome for sliding around on our floors. I better be careful!

Thursday, May 27, 2010

Beautiful

I have talked so much on this blog about the importance of being who we are, who God has made us to be...without comparing ourselves to others, without worrying what others think of us, etc. So when I saw this video I knew I had to share it. Do you have 4-1/2 minutes to watch a video? This one brought tears of joy as I watched it...

Wednesday, May 26, 2010

Sweetheart

Well, it doesn't look like I'm going to make it in time for the Shutterfly sale. I decided that I don't want to rush myself because there are so many pictures left to scrap from that trip...and it's going to be a gorgeous day here today! So I plan on soaking up some sun, playing in the garden, reading outside, etc. But I am in a creative mood, so this morning I worked on this layout...


{credits}

I had been eyeing the template set from List Girl Designs for some time now. And I'm really liking that paper from Brenna Coleman! And of course these sweet pictures of my little sister just make my heart sing!
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Tuesday, May 25, 2010

Late night scrapping

So I may have stayed up until 1:00 am scrapping. Just maybe. But I was having so much fun! I forgot how much fun it is to stay up late when the creative juices are really flowing like that! I am not sure if I will meet my goal of getting the photobook completed for the Shutterfly sale which ends tomorrow (26th). There are just so many more pictures left to scrap. I'm trying to be careful that I don't just rush through them just for the sake of rushing. I really want to enjoy the journey! And speaking of journeys...

Here's a page I started awhile back. I had this really fun dotted background, but it just wasn't working for me. I worked on this for a long time and then finally decided to just walk away from it for the time being and start some other pages. Last night I was looking at the Little Dreamer shoppe and saw this new set by Brenna Coleman, Michelle Coleman's (owner) 10 year old daughter. I fell in love with the paper set right away! And the butterfly was a plus for me too. Michelle Coleman owns Little Dreamer, but she also designs for Fancy Pants. I think these papers that Brenna designed could totally be something for Fancy Pants (but hopefully not because I want my digital!). Cheers to Brenna for an awesome set of digi paper! You should definitely check it out!




One of the challenging things for me with scrapbooking our vacation photos is there are a lot of photos for just one place that we visited and the photos are so amazing that I don't want to leave any of them out. And I don't want to add so much to the page that it takes away the beauty of the pictures. So if I can just add a little embellishment here and there, then I'm set! I found Christine Newman's Simple Pleasures set was the perfect kit for doing that on this layout.
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Monday, May 24, 2010

NEW kits 5-25-10

Here are some new kits that are now in the Little Dreamer Designs shoppe!



By special request: Post Me Strips Months



Because I love adding a little colorful touch: Floss Stitches

Everything is 33% off for the Little Dreamer birthday sale through May 29th!
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Hurry, hurry

Hello! I hope you had a great weekend! We test-drove some vehicles (time for a new one!), constructed a garden plot, went to church the first time in months, and just enjoyed relaxing! I put a lot of hours into the cable knitting project over the weekend only to realize last night that I was following the pattern all wrong! It was so wrong that it was hilarious to me and I just laughed and laughed. Oh dear! So I pulled out the entire thing and started over again. It's ok though because it was good practice with the cable stitches!

I've also been working on meeting a goal for this week. Shutterfly is having a pretty awesome sale on their 12x12 photobooks. It's an early Father's Day sale, which is 50% off! That's incredible! So...I have until Wednesday if I want to finish scrapping our Montana trip photos. Eeek! For some reason I thought the 26th was Thursday so now I'm really not sure about this. We'll see!

Here are a couple of pages I created using my Travel Along Kit plus another kit that will be coming out soon!


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Thursday, May 20, 2010

Oh the places you will go

My Travel Along Kit came about because I wanted to use a digital kit that would go along perfectly with the pictures I wanted to scrapbook of our Montana trip. I tend to be more "simple" when scrapping our vacation photos, so I wanted something that would reflect a more simple design. I also like bright colors!



Here is another page I created using the Travel Along Kit. This is also a page using a template!

This morning I was looking at the Little Dreamer gallery and I found some projects created by the Creative Team that I wanted to share with you. RuthsKris created this hybrid graduation card! I love it! Jude created this beautiful layout; I just love the green in the background like that! It really makes the pictures pop!

Greener Grass Designs are for sale at Little Dreamer Designs for 35% off through Friday! And then there's the birthday sale this weekend! Whoohoo!

The past couple of days I've been putting some finishing touches on some kits that I'm hoping to put into the shoppe next week. And sometime in the future I plan on making some more travel/vacation kits!
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Wednesday, May 19, 2010

Reflecting

I've been doing a lot of reflecting in the past week or so. And then today I was looking through my blog trying to find the sweater pictures from 2008 and as I was scrolling through posts I realize just how much I have blogged over the years. There are so many pictures of cards, scrapbook pages, and other projects I have done over the years. It's amazing! When I found a post entitled "My New Obsession" about my newfound love for digital scrapbooking, I had to smile and chuckle to myself because little did I know... I look back at to where I started. I look back and see the journey that has brought me to the place I am today with scrapbooking and creating. I can look back through the posts and see spiritual growth and maturity in my life in general. It's been like a journal to me over the years. I've also journaled in a regular notebook-type journal for years. I've filled so many pages. This blog has been a great avenue of creative expression. It first started as a place to share what I've created with my family and friends who live across the country (because there's no way I'm going to bring a hefty 10+ pound scrapbook with me in my luggage).

Looking through the posts I was thinking about the main reason I have this blog: to inspire. And I really hope I'm doing just that.


This is one of the first scrapbook pages I created following a tutorial from twopeasinabucket.com. It's one of the first pages I created that I liked (and still like). And wow, look how young my little Panda-girl looks! (I love you, Amanda!) It's also the page that I posted to talk about my new obesssion (digital scrapbooking). Some of the older pages I created make me laugh out loud because they are just so...so...hilarious!

I have a lot more on my mind to share, but I will save that for another time.
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Toddler Sweater

Back in 2008 I knitted this sweater. I talked about it here. The pattern came from Soft + Simple Knits For Little Ones by Heidi Boyd. Back then I didn't know much about [the price of] yarn or knitting for that matter, so I spent quite a bit of buckaroos on this little thing. Whew! I wanted to make a little sweater so I could understand so I could one day make an adult sweater. Turns out that the adult sweater I made was totally a different ball game. It was fun to get this sweater out of storage to take pictures of it. It's so cute! It's softer than I remembered, too.


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Tuesday, May 18, 2010

Greener Grass Designs!! 35% off!!

The excitement has been building up inside of me for a long time now! I've known about this new adventure for awhile, but I didn't want to say anything until it was official. So here it is!! I am the new designer at Little Dreamer Designs!!! I feel so honored and blessed! I'm excited, but nervous--yes nervous! Today my designs are 35% off!! You can get them here!
















Monday, May 17, 2010

Knitted Purse/Bag

Hello!

I finally finished the purse/bag I knitted yesterday. It's probably the softest purse I've ever had! The pattern can be found in Closely Knit: Handmade Gifts For the Ones You Love by Hannah Fettig. And of course there's a few of Christina's personal "touches" to the purse. Ha! The yarn for this purse is SUPER bulky. I used Blue Sky Bulky Naturals: 50% alpaca/50% wool. The colors I picked were Azalea and Brown Bear. The yarn is so bulky that when I held up the brown yarn to my hair it looked like dreadlocks! Why did I do that? I do not know! Ha! I did make some changes in the pattern for the pocket. When I was in Michigan I found a big pink button that perfectly matches. I used Velcro to keep the pocket closed, which was an interesting, adventurous endeavor. Have I ever mentioned how I'm not a seamstress? I feel totally clueless with some of the things I do, but somehow it all works out.

I have a few more completed projects to share with you this week; I can't wait to show you! I started a new project over the weekend that involves cable knitting...so far so good! Cable knitting is really quite simple; it just looks complicated!





Don't forget about the Greener Grass Designs blog! I'm trying to keep both blogs updated at the same time, but I may have to revert back to this one for good. I've been posting some sneak peaks over there!
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Wednesday, May 12, 2010

Masks. Love. Trust. Freedom.

Have you ever wondered what it would be like to just BE who you are and to say what's really on your heart? Or maybe you are one of those people who is fine doing those things. I have to admit, I am not. Over the years I have come to realize just how much of a private person I am. There are so many things about me that I'm not willing to share with others. I think that's ok, but I often step back and ask myself why I do that. Is it fear? Am I afraid of what others will say? Sometimes I feel that the more people know about me, the more they have to use against me. But that's not a very loving way to think. Love believes the best, thinks the best. I do value being a private person at the same time because it's who I am. It's not that I'm ashamed of who I am, but there are certain tender parts that I don't want crushed under people's criticism or judgment. But is that a loving way to think? Or is that just having wisdom? I do know that the more I open up, the more others open up. But the foundation has to absolutely be love: where there is no condemnation, judgment, or criticism. Love builds trust. Trust. Being who we truly are means removing the mask. It means tearing down the walls we have spent so much time building and rebuilding--because there is no reason to hide who we are. I've talked about this before, but for years and years I wore a mask and I built walls. I felt safe behind them. It's downright scary to be vulnerable. Some of us hide behind our work, our children, our career, our weight, our beauty, scared to show the world our tenderness, flaws, weaknesses, or whatever we are trying to cover up. That's not a very freeing way to live. I want to be free. How about you?

Guess what?

Guess what?
Something is happening...very soon!

Friday, May 7, 2010

Coloring Eggs

I've been working on editing my Michigan trip photos. When I took pictures of when we dyed Easter eggs, I knew a fun scrapbook page was in the works! I LOVE bright colors! Of course my siblings made it so much fun, too! It was creativity at work...all around! And I couldn't resist scrapping these photos NOW!

I worked on these set of pages for a long time. I was inspired by Ali Edwards' page. I'm pleased with the result!





P.S. The font is called Pee Pants Script...really! I colored underneath the font to give it a "colored" effect.
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Wednesday, May 5, 2010

What I did today...

About a month ago and then again last week I had some digital pages printed through www.scrapbookpictures.com. I'm [still] impressed with the quality and price per page, but I'm not so impressed with their shipping rates for Alaska. But...it's still cheaper than how I used to have my pages printed. So today I had all the pages (which was right around 100) and I put them in order chronologically. There are a few pages I created last year with last year's pictures that are hybrid (traditional + digital scrapbooking), and I have to say that I loved the way they looked at it made me want to do more! There's only a few hybrid pages, like maybe 10...maybe. I've definitely become a digi-scrapper! With some of the digital pages, I looked at them and thought, "What was I thinking?" Ha! I will probably do that for the rest of my life. Styles come and go. Creativity changes. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder (at least at that moment). It might not be as beautiful looking the next moment. Was that too cruel to say?



Tonight I was looking at a blog and I saw the blog post title had May 4, 2010. Honestly, my first thought was, "Wow! Why are they blogging so far ahead?" And then it hit me that May 4, 2010 has already come and gone! That was YESTERDAY! Is this year going by fast or what? I couldn't believe it!

Tonight I basically finished knitting the purse bag. I'm feeling a little frustrated because the pocket on the outside is giving me some difficulty. I tried on the slippers I made and one of them is too big so I should probably put that in the washer again. It's a little frustrating when things don't work out the way we want them to...but we cannot give up! I will not give up!

Back to photo editing...
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Tuesday, May 4, 2010

May Desktop & Iphone Wallpaper

Just in case if you haven't looked over at Little Dreamer's blog to catch these FREEbies...{click here}. I signed up to make the desktop and iphone wallpaper for May. I don't have an iphone (I don't even have a regular ole cell phone), so it was interesting creating something for one. Anyway, please feel free to check Little Dreamer's blog to get these images FREE!




In my mind I wanted to create something bright and colorful, but what came out was something with neutral colors.
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Sunday, May 2, 2010

Sweater

Happy Sunday! What a week! I hope you all had a great week and are having a fun, relaxing weekend! I'm trying to be as lazy as possible today. *smile* I thought today would be the perfect day to show the picture of the sweater I knitted. It's a cowl neck sweater from an older issue of Creative Knitting. It's my first adult-size sweater. It's SUPER soft! I made it with Knit Picks yarn. My goal was to make an adult-size sweater that was simple. When I saw the picture of the sweater I knew it was the one, but it's largest size wasn't going to be big enough for me. My friend LaDonna suggested I just go one size up for the needles and that's just what I did. Funny thing is that I've lost weight/inches since knitting it, so it's a little loose on me. I'm ok with that though! The sweater has a few mistakes, but that makes it personal to me, right?



I'm just really enjoying knitting. I finished knitting some slippers that will be felted and I'm working on finishing up the purse bag I started a couple of months ago. And I'm looking for a pattern to make a baby hat and possibly booties for my friend Janae's little Owen who was born just a few days ago.
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