more good news

What an exciting day!! I got another request from Scrapbook Magazine! They want me to create a sketch and a digital page based on my sketch. That’s going to be such an enjoyable project. And Kaisercraft announced the new Digital Creative Team and I’m on it! Such an honor to be among such talented women from all over the world! What an amazing team that’s going to be.

Here’s my latest page:

Well, actually that isn’t my latest page. It’s just the latest one that I can display publically at this point. I have a dozen or so that I’ve created lately that I can’t share yet!

So “National Digital Scrapbooking Day” is this Saturday. Designer Digitals is having their quarterly sale and special chats that are going to last all day! I love these festivites and am feverishly working on my to-do list so I can scrap and attend the chats guilt-free. What are you doing?

somebody get me a fire extinguisher

Cos I’m on fi-yah!

Since we last spoke, I’ve had a bunch more things picked up for publication, PLUS a request for a feature article plus four layouts for Scrapbook Magazine! (UK) I’m international now. :p A request for one layout for the February issue of Creating Keepsakes, one layout for the March issue of Scrapbook Trends, two layouts for Scrap n’ Art eZine Nov/Dec issue, and four layouts for the next issue of Scrapbook News & Review eZine. All digital. It’s super exciting for me. And somewhat surprising since I only started digi scrapping about seven months ago.

Saw this posted on Facebook and about a week and a half ago, I posted it on FB too. At that time there were 12K views and a few days later it had 16K views. Well, at this moment, it has 78,571 views! I’m happy for him, whoever he is. It’s a fun song (yes, I just admitted to liking a Miley Cirus song) but this video is WAY better than Miley’s. He’s using ALS (American Sign Language) to sign “Party in the USA”. And he’s just too cute. If you haven’t seen it yet, here it is:

Thanks for reading my blog today. And please forgive me for the lame post title. But I am pretty excited.

Why I Scrapbook

Ok, I know this is a “once-a-month” blog and this will make three whole posts for the month so far, lol. But I finished a scrapbook page today and I just love it so much, that I can’t wait to share. It’s the result of two challenges actually. The first challenge comes from the Creative Inspiration blog to Create a Grid Using Stitching and the other from the challenge blog at Scrapbooks, Etc to tell why you love scrapbooking. I’ve been scrapbooking for almost 8 years (next month is my scrapversary!) and I’ve never made a page about my favorite hobby ever. Until now. So here it is:

(you can click on the image for a larger version so you can see the details)

Isn’t it such a great feeling when you’ve made something you totally love?!

*squee*

Good Things

Well after my last crazy post, this blog needed some sunshine and happiness! I started by updating the header area. Isn’t that cute? Here’s some more good stuff:

Holly turned ten (!) and we’ve had a blast celebrating her birthday. Most notably, I took her on a horseback ride (her first time ever on a horse!) and we got her ears pierced too. I’ve already scrapped the horseback ride:

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Isn’t she beautiful?! And the sweetest girl!
< — Here's page 2 if you're interested.

The ear-piercing event (it was totally an event) was so incredible for so many reasons. You’ll have to wait for the scrapbook page for that!
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I’ve had three all-digital scrapbook pages picked up now! One by Scrapbook Trends (coming soon in the November issue!), one for Somerset Memories (woot! my first time in this publication – look for it in April 2010 issue) and one today by Scrapbooking.com e-zine for November. I’m not very familiar with that one (or many e-zines for that matter) but Paris Hilton is doing a monthly article there, so I’m thinking that means it’s somewhere on the industry map!

Jaimee turned one-and-a-half on the 14th. I seriously can’t believe it. Where does the time go?! She’s such a love and a doll baby. And she’s developing a little sense of humor! She cracks us up and she knows it! Here’s a page – note that it’s a very unflattering photo, lol, but this really tickles me:

Drew is turning 12 on Wednesday. We have a special day planned on Saturday to celebrate. He’s enjoying middle school and the jr. high group at church. He’s turning into such a gentleman before my eyes! No more baby boy! Though he knows he’ll always be my baby.

Oh, and to update on Ron’s surgery – it went very well and the Dr. is confident he got all the cancer. We’ll go back in 6 months for a check up. Thank you, Lord! A sincere thank you to everyone who prayed for us!

And here are a few more of my most recent pages:

the guy in the garage

You’ve just moved into the new house. It’s a Saturday and your first night sleeping there. You wake up Sunday morning and head for the garage ’cause there’s something in there you need. You open the door from the house into the garage. It’s dark in there and you can’t see a thing. But suddenly…
you
hear
something.

You hear some guy snoring in there. And it’s certainly not anyone you invited or knew would be in there.

You:
A. let him sleep it off.
B. send your husband out there to say “Hey buddy, what’s up?”
C. call the police.

My dear sweet husband, in his I’m-completely-insane-and-irrational-until-I’ve-had-my-morning-coffee state of mind, suggested plan A. We even argued about this for a couple minutes. Until I realized he was not of sound mind. I opted for plan C and called the police. Even the dispatch, who I’m sure hears a lot of strange things, was clearly surprised by the weirdness of this situation.

Can you imagine?!

So long story short, it was a guy who used to live here (apparently this house was previously rented out to a bunch of guys) who had partied so hard the night before he couldn’t even remember how he’d gotten there. He was passed out on a futon in there. Oh, and he was also on top of some kayak oars and some other stuff that was on the futon. That, my friends, is messed up. Who needs a special slick marketing campaign like “just say no”? Just show ‘em this winner and I’m sure that’ll do the trick.

Thankfully, we haven’t had any incidents since. Except for the guy from the cab company who showed up at our door the next day pretty ticked off that he’d given somebody a ride here and it turns out the credit card was bad. Really. What a shock. The cabby threatened that the police could come by to help him until he finally got it that we didn’t have anything to do with it. Ya, call the police. Please. They know all about it. And that’s the last I’ve heard. Hopefully, there will be no prologues of any sort related to this craziness.

So… yes, we’re moved in! The move was brutal. We’ve had movers for our last three moves, but self-moved this time (with the help of some of Ron’s awesome friends). It’s totally like having a baby. You forget how excruciating it is until you’re in the process of doing it again. Then Ron and I both got sick, so that has slowed down the unpacking. But we’re both starting to feel better now.

In the midst of the moving chaos, we decided to put the kids in public school. They started on the 28th (school had actually started on the 25th) and both like it. They’re at different schools now, though with Drew being in middle school (I’ll save that story for another day – or probably a scrapbook page) there are now two sets of Back-To-School nights, two different “PTC” (Parent Teacher Club) meetings, etc. I’ve been pretty busy with those sorts of things too.

Also in the midst of this chaos, Ron was diagnosed with skin cancer. Squamous cell carcinoma to be specific. On his left calf. Thankfully, this kind of skin cancer is very treatable. But still… was scary to have to have a biopsy and then to get a “cancer” diagnosis. The procedure to remove it is today.

That’s enough for now. Time to feed the baby lunch and get her down for a nap. Maybe I’ll nap with her. Just reliving this while typing it out has exhausted me.