BasicGrey Design Team Blog Hop!

Welcome to the BasicGrey Design Team Blog Hop! If you’ve been following along, you would have arrived here from Jana Eubank‘s blog. And before this post is over, I’m going to tell you how you can win a free digital kit, how you can download right now for free a different digital kit, and how you can enter to win a $10 credit to use in the BasicGrey store!

I’m thrilled to have been asked to join the BasicGrey Design Team for a 2nd term. I first started scrapbooking with paper and BasicGrey was my first paper love. When I started digital scrapping, I was so excited when BasicGrey started putting out their collections in digital form. You can imagine what an honor is was, and still is, to be working with them!

Today I’m going to share a back-to-school layout with you. Have your kids started school yet? Drew started last week on Monday! And Holly started this week on Tuesday. For this page I used a BasicGrey template called So Special 2 Me. You can see how I altered it to accommodate my portrait-oriented photo. It was such a great start to this page and it was so easy to add borders and such to the paper strip area. And this template? Only a buck. Yep! One dollar! For all the paper and goodies, I used BG’s Recess Collection. I adore Recess… the colors, and the use of graphs, numbers, and letters… and you can win the Starter Kit!

I mean seriously… it’s cool, right? Take a closer look at the awesome monograms:

Here’s my page using Recess and the template:

See how I changed the colors of the stitched button border? I just adjusted the Hue slider until the red buttons turned teal (the black things stay black).  I *heart* digi. I also added an outline to the “h” monogram because I wanted it to stand out a bit more. To do this, use the stroke function (in Photoshop and Photoshop Elements). I added a 7px stroke and added the shadow affects after that.

So… to celebrate the new design team, BasicGrey is allowing me to give away the Recess Starter Kit. For your chance to win, just post here on my blog in the comments section and tell me if you’re a paper, hybrid, or digi scrapper and what you love about it! One person will be chosen at random to win this kit!

And right now, you can download the Dasher Starter Kit for free! Just click the image to be taken to the item in BasicGrey’s store. See the price? Yep! $0.00! Gotta love it.

Ok, another giveaway. On the most recent project of mine posted on the BasicGrey blog, if you make a layout using the awesome sketch provided (and here’s my page using it):

and leave a comment there by August 26, 2012 at 11:59p MST (that’s this Sunday, people!) linking to your project, one winner will be chosen at random to win a $10 credit to spend in the BasicGrey store. For paper or digi supplies! Odds are good, people, head on over there! As of the time I’m writing this, there’s only one entry in the comments section!

Ok, my work here is done. It’s time to hop on over to Kim Jeffress‘ blog. Remember, if you find a link that doesn’t work, you can always hop back to the BasicGrey blog for a list of direct links to all of the blogs in the hop. Happy hopping!

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trippin’

Drew starts school in two weeks. And this “back-to-school” is going to be a little different. Because… he’s going to be in high school. HIGH SCHOOL?! What is this time warp? It doesn’t seem like so long ago that I was in high school. Or that long ago when Drew was just a little boy.

I created this page to document his graduation cerimony from 8th grade:

(click image for supply details and more info; all supplies Designer Digitals)

and he looks so grown up (and handsome!) to me. Since then he’s gotten his hair cut short (see updated blog header!) and I love it. I think it makes him look even older. You know what’s crazy now? I will be the mother of:

a high schooler

a middle schooler

a pre-schooler

and a nursing baby.

This is wild. But definitely, an awesome wild that I wouldn’t trade for anything. I love my life. I’m living my life’s dream come true. I’m a happily married, stay-at-home mommy to four beautiful wonderful children.

A quickie update on my other babies:

Holly was invited to go to the Europe trip with her school. It’s a big deal to be asked and for a couple weeks we seriously entertained the idea:

(click image for supply details and more info; all supplies Designer Digitals)

Ultimately, we decided it wasn’t the right time and we’d rather spend the money on a family vacation. But I was still very proud of her that she was asked.

Jaimee is such a sweet girl… she’s becoming more “girl” and less “baby” quickly! I took these photos of her at the park a few weeks ago and love how they turned out:

(click image for more info; all supplies Basic Grey)

Bennett of course, makes changes weekly! From this:

 (click image for more info; all supplies Basic Grey)

to this!

(click image for supply details and more info; all supplies Designer Digitals)

He’s 8 months old here and you can see his bottom two teeth are already in. Right now, his top right tooth has come in (I’m calling him “snaggletooth” right now cause it looks pretty funny!) and his top left is just about to break through. So early with this teething! *pout* And yes, I agree. He looks just like his Daddy. Even I can see it. It’s so adorable to me that I have a baby version of my husband!

I hope you’ve been having an awesome summer break. We have! I can’t believe that it’s nearly over!

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CRAZINESS!

There’s crazy good and… well just plain crazy. Today, I share with you both.

Let’s start with some crazy good. Like how you can win a Basic Grey collection of your choice!! Check out today’s Basic Grey blog post. If you create a layout based on today’s “Basic Sketch”:

"Basic Sketch" Nov. 7, 2011

and comment in the blog post with a link to your layout, you will be entered to win. Here’s my layout on which the sketch was based:

I mentioned in my last post another Basic Grey blog post with a layout of mine, but couldn’t share the layout here at that time. Here it is now:

This uses the Lauderdale Collection from Basic Grey Digital. So vibrant and fun and perfect for Holly’s tropical-themed birthday party.

One of my favorite Basic Grey creations so far is this layout using a photo from when Holly and other family and I were at the mall… we turned around to see her being this adorable:

What a cutie!! She makes me smile all. the. time.

Ok, ready for some just plain crazy? First, I’ve got only about 2.5 weeks left in this pregnancy. That is CRAZY! My most recent page documenting the pregnancy:

(all supplies from DesignerDigitals.com, click image for larger view and details)

What’s even crazier… early in the morning on Saturday Oct. 22, Ron was awakened by excruciating pain. He’d had an episode about a week before with terrible pain in his back. Now it was worse and was radiating around his right side and a bit in front too. I finally convinced him he needed to go to the ER. If you’re one of my FB friends, you saw me post about the saga. Turns out it was gall stones and he had sugery that evening to remove his gall bladder. I spent the first night in the hospital with him and was so glad I could. He was able to come home late the following night (Sunday). He was mostly recovered within a week. Which is a good thing because…

Are you ready for more craziness?! That week, I starting having some outrageous pain myself. Thank goodness Ron’s mom was here for the week to help with meals and stuff since Ron and I were both incapacitated. That Sunday, it became so bad, I couldn’t take it anymore… the pain coming from a pregnancy-induced problem. Ummm… I hate to say the ugly word, but it was… hemmorhoids. If you’ve never had a serious case of these, you have no idea how painful and incapaciating these can be. There are actually lots of nerve endings there. Anyway, Ron took me to the ER. They couldn’t offer the full hemmorhoidectomy surgery since I’m pregnant, but they were able to do a smaller procedure. Within three days, I could tell it was a good decision as I was able to at least be up and around and take care of the kids. My OB has told me to stay resting for the rest of the pregnancy. Thank goodness it’s not too much longer!

I hope to be updating this blog within a couple weeks and share some wonderful baby news and happy just-had-a-baby kind of craziness!

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cooling off

Thank goodness the weather finally cooled. The 90 and 100 degree temperatures were killing me! Lately it’s been cool enough to open the windows and let the fresh air in. Ahhhhhh! Tomorrow I hit 34 weeks pregnant. I had Drew take pics at 32 weeks and made this:

It’s getting pretty tough now. The pain from the Sympysis Pubis Dysfunction has kept me reclining for most of the day. Even just sitting upright is bad and makes things worse. Things should resolve after the baby comes as long as we’re careful and don’t cause further injury during the delivery. And nope, still no name! We may just leave the hospital with “Baby Boy Summers” like we did with Jaimee!

Today, my first assigment was posted on the Basic Grey blog! The challenge was to use their Lauderdale collection including three specific products from that line. You can see that blog post here. I think my page turned out pretty cute!

On Saturday, this page:

was featured at Gallery Standouts, yay! Love when that happens!

Ok, time for me to get out of this chair! Ouch!

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