dream big.

Gingerbread Houses

This is another Christmas experience I am doing with my family next week...and the book the idea comes from as a Christmas gift. My find of the week is the book No-Bake Gingerbread Houses For Kids.

So, if you know me just a little, then you know I am all about saving sanity and enjoying all life has to offer. I think that this little book is perfect for doing just that! How stinkin' cool is creating gingerbread houses with all premade cookies, graham crackers and supplies. And this little book is filled with easy to follow directions. LOVE this!

Here is a peek at the cool projects inside:

 

I LOVE that this book is filled with little houses that can be made for any season of the year. My girls will be all over making houses after the Christmas season.

 
And how cool is it to make a house that is different than most gingerbread houses? Beautiful.

And there are plenty of FUN ideas for the Christmas season as well! How fun is this?

 
So, if you have kids home next week and are wanting to add som fun and easy experiences to your holiday season, I recommend checking out this book! Imagine the fun photos and memories you will be creating!

Experiences

One of the holiday experiences I have decided to do with my girls was to take them to Winter Fest at the Seattle Center and to a holiday show at Seattle Children's Theatre.

The Center House is a beautiful display of a miniature snowy village with trains running throught it. The lights, and magic there had my kids captured in the beauty and magic of Christmas.

 
 Experiences create treasured memories. This is what I want to fill my Christmas season with this year!

This one line is the beginning of my story for holiday experiences. The rest of my story is being told by quotes from my children as we enjoy each holiday experience. I am coupling these quotes with my own brief perspective of how these experiences have made an affect on our holiday season.

I'll share some more photos later this week.

 

Limits on Time ... Write it Wednesday

With the craziness of the season in full force and because I am all for saving a little sanity, I am going to only be doing the Write It Wednesday portion of Illustrate Your Life until the new year. Ah, there I said it and I feel so much better. You see I have not had time to get my new scanner, but I did enjoy attending two Christmas parties last weekend. So, I will be writing stories and then when all of the fun gatherings of family and friends slow down after the holidays I will spend a couple of weeks illustrating the stories and sharing the results with you.

Today I am going to write a story about a fun holiday experience. The holidays are full of gifts that can fill your home and since I have been on a mission to end clutter and chaos in my home, I am trying to give the gift of experiences this year. This experience may be a family tradition, or something new that you are experiencing for the first time. Remember that experiences are all about doing something, and experiencing something. The great thing is you get to decide what that experience is. Maybe you want to focus on an experience from the past, or maybe you have one from the present holiday, and you may even want to think of a holiday experience you would like to do in the future. Simply write the story and share what this experience means to you and why it is important.

Okay, have fun, and write about a holiday experience.

Scanner Woes...Illustrate it!

So, I am still having scanner issues...this is just not fun. Good news is I can return my scanner, get a new one. Just not in time to post my Illustrate it Friday photos and layout.

Good news is that I have a story and I know what pictures I am using, plus I have my story printed and most photos printed. It feels good to be prepared and by the end of the weekend I hope to have my new scanner up and functioning. Sigh.

So, I thought I would post a couple of pictures I have taken this holiday season.

 

 
 
 
 

Completely loving this holiday season. Today I am taking my girls to a darling little place called the Java Clay Cafe. We are headed there to create some Christmas gifts for family members. Should be LOTS of fun.

And even though I do not have my scanner working to finish my Illustrate it Friday page. I hope you get some time today or this weekend to finish yours!

Print it Thursday!

I am having scanner issues. Grrr. I am going to re-load my scanner to my computer and hope that solves the errors. It is a brand new scanner. I shouldn't be having issues, yet here I am.

Anyway, the reason I bring up my scanner woes is that I really wanted to upload some pics of my grandmother for you to see, as she is the BEST person I have ever met, and I want to share her with you.But you will have to wait until tomorrow ( I say with my fingers crossed) once my scanner is up and running.

Today, I will be taking a few final shots of my angel ornaments and scanning some shots of me and my grandmother to illustrate my story. That is what today is for. Simply read through your story and either take photos or gather photos that will help you illustrate your story. Oh, and print out your story!

 

Speaking of stories here is my story that I wrote yesterday.

My grandmother and I did everything together. Every weekend we would get together to craft, create, and share life with each other.

In November of 1998 my grandma Irma and I were making these darling Raggedy Ann and Andy angels to add to my Christmas tree decorations. It was my grandmother and her eye for spotting anything cute that found the pattern at Ben Franklin. I had been spending lots of extra time with my grandmother because she was not feeling well, but she seemed to light up and enjoy our time creating together. I had hoped that this project would lift her spirits.

That year time together would not be enough, as she passed away before Thanksgiving and before we had a chance to finish these darling ornaments. This moment was the most difficult and heart wrenching moments of my life. It was as if my grandmother knew I would need these little ornaments to help me get through it all. I finished making these ornaments by myself that year. It was hard, sad and therapeutic all at the same time.

I cherish these ornaments as I alone know their real story and purpose, and I make certain I get to put a few of these angels on the tree myself before the hands of little girls grab them and place them haphazardly on the tree.

As I hang these angels on the tree and look at them over the Christmas season I am reminded of the importance of family, especially my grandmother, as these ornaments are the last thing we created together…angels.

Care to share your story? Leave a link in the comment section, I'd love to read your story.

Write It Wednesday!

Well, the holidays are obviously here! Getting a simple photo of a completed page needs to be scheduled into my day. Here are some pics from my finished Illustrate Your Life page from last week.

 

 

 
 
 
 
 

Today I am inspired to write about a holiday memory. As I snapped a shot of this simple ornament this week, a flood of memories came back to me.

 

My kids also love these ornaments and asked about them. So, I am feeling truly compelled to write the story behind the ornament.

Today think about a holiday memory that you have, which most in your family are unaware of. They may not be aware of it because they were not born yet, or because it was a moment that happened to you at another time in your life, or simply when you were off by yourself. Any holiday moment will do as long as your moment is one that truly has touched your heart. It is funny how writing has this easy way of feeling so magical when a moment or story is told from the heart.

This week I will be posting my story tomorrow once I have it printed, along with the photos I am going to include to illustrate the story.

 

 

Halloween was great, other than the fact I was NOT feeling well. But it's not about me, it's about them, so I kept all of our plans going and took care of myself last week. So, here is my better late than never update on Halloween and our first annual Halloween party.

 

We had LOTS of fun decorations and food. The girls are excited about increasing our Halloween decor!

 
 
The kids made edible eyeballs as a project during the party. They were SUPER easy and delicious. What is not delicious about pretzels and chocolate?

 
They also wrapped each other up like mummy's. Toilet paper can be so much fun!

 
 

We finished the evening off with a trip to the church carnival with friends, and trick-or-treating with dad.

Not a bad day, even if I was sick.

Trick-or-Treat Bags Completed!

 

I am absolutely thrilled with the trick-or-treat bags I created this weekend. I decided to make the bag out of burlap and used a LARGE bowl to help draw the basic pattern for the bag. I used orange flannel to trim off the top with black ribbon for the handles. Then it was time to embellish!

I knew I wanted to personalize each bag with the girls names. I used my Slice to cut out the patterns for the letters. Love when I can use tools for scrapbooking with other types of crafting. 

 

I really was wishing I had some heat n bond for these letters, but I managed with what I had. Note to self need to restock that in my craft arsenal!

After creating some patterns to embellish the front of each bag, I laid out the pattern pieces to ensure a great fit.

Ella requested a pumpkin bag. I am really happy with the results and most important so is she!

Natalie requested a witch with bats on her bag. She is excited to collect candy next weekend with her new bag!

The pattern pieces were sewn with my machine and some that were on the small side were sewn by hand.  
 
  
At the last minute I added gingham ribbons to the base of each handle. Can you say super SWEET?!

There is still 1 week before Halloween ... there is still time to create heirloom trick-or-treat bags...or save the idea for next year. It will make a great gift!

Hope you are having a fun creative weekend!
 
 

 

Weekend Halloween Project!

Halloween is fast approaching...CRAZY!

This year I am making each of my kids their own trick-or-treat bag to haul around all of their sugary loot.

I am headed to the store to pick up all of the necessities. Here are a few ideas I found to inspire me to create and personalize my daughters treat bags this year.

 
Love this! On a larger scale this could be adorable!

 
Found this...super cute.

 

 

 

All three of these I found at Better Homes and Garden! Plus there are directions!

I am not certain which I will create yet, or maybe my own version of pieces from each...I know my girls will be completely delighted with our outing for the day. And I will love getting creative.

If you create bags this weekend leave a link here so I can see what you have created. I will post my finished bags next week!

As the holiday season quickly approaches I have been giving a lot of thought to my piles of holiday photos. And by piles I really mean computer piles of photos, because I still have not printed a lot of my holiday pics. {blush}

 

I spend some time on how to handle recording holiday memories and photos in my new class Saving Your Sanity: Throughout the Holidays. And I think that if you are struggling to record or find a new way of recording the same holidays year after year, I provide a LOT of very useful information in this class. Since creating this class I am now looking at all of the leftover photos from past holidays. Wow, there are still so many…since I over photograph EVERY holiday, I simply have tons of holiday photos! Please tell me I am not the only one who does this!

I am now developing a new process to help me use up these leftover holiday photos. One where I will be using holiday photos on pages that have little to do with the actual holiday they are from. They will be pages that tell a story…and the photos I use on these pages just happen to be holiday shots. I will share more of this idea and concept as I create pages this holiday season.

I am just really excited to be scrapbooking holiday photos instead of hiding from them!