The winner of the Luxe RAK is...

From Random.Org:
True Random Number Generator
Result: 19

~*~ Stephanie ~*~ said...
Such fun stuff! Thanks for the chance!
August 26, 2009 7:32 AM

Congrats Stephanie!! Please e-mail me at stacimtaylor@gmail.com with your mailing address, and I'll get your Luxe goodies out to you :-)

Busy weekend complete with a ladies night, surprise party, a bris/baby naming for my girlfriend's new twins, and some outdoor play. Oh, and this photo opp:


Nice, huh? My kids both love to play house with Noah being the daddy and Chloe being the mommy, but she took it just a little too far, lol!

School in our county starts tomorrow, so our n'hood is buzzing with excitement. Noah turns 5 in October, missing the cut-off by 1 month, so I get a bonus year of having him home (although he'll be in pre-school 4x/week). It's hard to believe that my "baby" will be off to kindergarten next year at this time!

I'm finally almost done clearing out some space in my scraproom, and i'm itching to scrap after going through all this paper! Hoping to get a layout done tomorrow :-) Hope everyone had a great weekend!

Little Sprout Rub-ons

Today's Fancy Pants blog post shows layouts that use the rub-ons from the newly released Little Sprouts line.

Although Little Sprout is a baby line, it has so much versatality, and the papers and other items can be used in many other ways. For my layout, I rubbed the animals from the rub-on sheet onto glossy photo paper and cut them out. I thought they would be perfect on a layout about my little animal watchers at the zoo.




My regular blog readers have seen this layout before, but I also used the rub-ons on this layout for the title and the little block with Chloe's birth stats.

Check out the Fancy Pants blog for other examples of how to use these rub-ons.

Don't forget to leave a comment on my previous blog post for a chance to with the Luxe Rak, if you haven't already done so. I'll be back over the weekend with a winner :-)

Hope everyone is having a great week!

Luxe RAK

Ok, everyone, I need you all to help me clear out my scraproom! I've been trying to go through all my patterned paper and purge over these last few days. I have sooo much stuff in my scraproom, and I'm running out of room. Some of my stuff is so old that I doubt anyone would want it in a RAK, lol, so i'm planning to donate it. Other stuff I thought I would give away in a RAK, such as some Luxe goodies. Luxe was so generous to us DT girls and gave us so much stuff - I received two of most everything! Anyway, this package has about 25+ sheets of patterned paper (including some from the newest line, Lovey), several sheets of jotters, transparencies, die-cut letters and a couple of sheets of labels. Just leave me a comment in this post, and I'll pick a name over the weekend.

Check back in a couple of days for a new Fancy Pants layout i'm almost done working on :-)

I'm off to go recuperate - the kids and I went on a 45 minute bike ride earlier, and it's hot outside today!! Hope everyone is having a great week!

Karate kid...

Yes, it seems that i've got my very own karate kid on my hands! Noah had his first lesson last week - we are doing a trial where he gets three lessons (before joining a long-term class) to see how he likes it. The first lesson was a private lesson, and the next two will be with other kids his age. Chloe, Tony and I got to sit in the room and watch him, and he was seriously the cutest thing i've ever seen. He was really attentive with his teacher, and we could see his confidence grow in just the short time he was there, which was so cool! By the end, he even broke a board with his foot! I, of course, wanted to take pictures, but my mean hubby wouldn't let me, lol. So, I got a few when we got home since Noah was trying to see if he could break the board again ;-)


I wanted to share this little project I did recently for my scrap room. I'm a big wall hanging kind of gal, and when I found this piece of corkboard in my office, I thought this would be a cute project. It was a pretty quick project, too, which always excites me, lol, since i'm normally so sloooow.


I'm super happy to report that many of my fellow DT members and friends from CMK have come over to my other online home, A Million Memories. AMM is another super friendly and awesome site, and i've felt at home there ever since I found the site over a year ago. There are a ton of chatty, friendly ladies, and loads of inspiration there!

We're having a good weekend here which started with another gathering with my neighbors last night (yes, we do that a lot, lol!) It ended up pouring in the middle of our hanging out, so we moved into my house. It was a fun night! Today has been pretty chill, and tomorrow is our family day, so i'm looking forward to some QT with my favorite people :-)

Hope you all are having a great weekend!!

I'm fancy :-)

Yesterday was my day to be the featured designer on the Fancy Pants blog. This is the "about me" layout I did for it, using the new Dancing Girl line. This line is so fun and whimsical, and I love that it can be used for many subjects outside of little girls :-)

I have a cute Chloe coversation to share from the other day. She was looking at a wedding photo of Tony and me in our foyer and she said, "look mommy, it's you and daddy." Me: "That was the day that mommy and daddy got married and we became a family. I got to wear a pretty dress, and I married the man of my dreams." Chloe: "I want to get married, mommy." Me: (stifling a chuckle) "Well, honey, you have to wait until you're an adult. And you have to wait until you find a man that you are in love with." Chloe: "But I love daddy, mommy!" Hhehea, she's so cute. I am already envisioning that conversation on a daddy/daughter layout ;-)

Busy week here - getting back into the swing of things at work. I'm VP on the board for Noah's preschool, and today we have a board meeting. We have a couple of mother's helpers to come help with the kids, so hopefully everyone will cooperate! I hope you all are having a wonderful week!

So sad...

So, for those of you who are members of CMK, you have probably heard the news that Lisa is closing the site. I'm so sad to be losing my online "home." Not only do I love and adore the fellow DT girls, but i've enjoyed getting to know the members and getting inspired by all the amazing work over there. I guess this is a classic example of "all good things must come to an end."

Onto happier topics ;-) - Round 2 of our vacation pics:




I was so lucky that I got to meet my dear friend Sherry Steveson while I was on vacation. Sherry and I have been on two DTs together (Luxe and CMK), and we really got to know each other while on the CMK team. She is such an awesome person, and I just knew I would love her in real life, too, and I was right! We totally hit it off - I felt like i've known her for years! Unfortunately our visit was short and sweet, but i'm hoping we will get to connect again soon when she comes down my way!
My awesome parents:




Last, but not least, I have a layout to share that I did for a contest at A Million Memories (my other online home!). The requirements are that you include a vintage image and lace. I googled vintage beach images, and I found the photo that I printed out for my layout. It's pretty cool - if you look closely, you can see the people holding umbrellas on the beach to shield them from the sun :-) I used the lace to create a center for my flower. And, do you remember seeing that photo in my last set? Well, Sherry actually edited it for me and gave me six awesome versions! I was so inspired by how gorgeous she made my photo look, so I pulled it out and went to town :-)

PP is Pink Paislee and MM. Diecut circles are Collage Press. Letters are doodlebug and MM. Bling is Prima, and charms are MM. Journaling reads: Your beauty takes my breath away - you are gorgeous inside and out!

I can't believe this weekend is already over - it went too fast (don't they always??). We had another fun block party with our neighbors last night - definitely the highlight of my weekend! Hope you all had a great one, as well!

I'm baaaaaaaaaaaack!

Now I know why people say they need a vacation from their vacation - i'm beat, lol! We had a GREAT time, and it was sooo cool to see how much fun the kids had! We went with my family to Myrtle Beach, SC, so the kids got to play with their cousins (who are 9 and 3) for a week straight - they were so excited! I took a ton of pics (of course!), so i'm only going to show some highlights here, and i'll break it up into two blog posts so as not to bore you *too* much, lol.








(this is my SIL here with me)

I also have a Fancy Pants layout to share that I did for the blog before I left. I wanted to show how to use leftover pieces from chipboard books. In this case, I had a bunch of chip circles (and I also cut around them to use their negative spaces) left from a FP album, so I used them to add dimension to this layout about Noah and his cousin Kaela. The journaling talks about how close they are, despite their 5 year age difference.

Well, I sure did miss my blogging friends while I was gone, and I hope to catch up with what you guys have been up to very soon! Thanks for keeping my blog warm for me while I was gone ;-)