January Sussies and Scrap Whispers

I've got a lot of scrappy stuff for today, so here we go..
The January kit at Scrapbook Sussies was a lot of fun to work with. I especially loved the extremely girly stuff that was in this month's. I had an idea for making a door sign for Natalie's room, and with the embellishments that came with this kit it worked out perfectly.

For the door sign, I used a 10x10 canvas. I sprayed glimmer mist all over the base. This was a very easy quick "paint" job. I then cut an 8x8 piece of the poodle paper and then layered my embellishments on top of that.

I need to take a better picture of this next layout. I do see that it has a bad glare on the left side. But here are my other two layouts using the girly side of the kit.


For the boy side of the kit, I was really wondering what I was gonna do because well, I don't have boys. But as I was looking through some of the pictures I've recently printed out, I noticed how well our clothes matched these papers in these family photos. I cut up one of the rubons (a frame with "this boy" in the center) and re-purposed it. Using the frame to house "love" and using only the "this" as part of my title.


Now with this last one. I doubled up. It is my 4th layout for the Sussies kit, but it is also my very first layout for Scrap Whispers. A few months ago, during their down time, I was asked to join their team. What is scrap Whispers? Well I'll get to that in just a minute. The first challenge for the new year is "Stars and Spikes". That's it, no more direction than that. You can interpret it any way you like. I chose to simply include stars and added a spikey banner along the edges. (By the way.. these pics are of my cute nephew!)

Be sure to head over to the blog to see how the other Design Team members took on this challenge. And play along! We have a new challenge every week, and at the end of the month one lucky participant wins a scrappy prize.
Now.. what is Scrap Whispers? Remember that game you played as a kid, where everybody sat in a circle. The first person thought of a phrase or sentence and whispered it into the person's ear next to him and then that person whispered it to the next, and so on and so on. By the time it made it all the way around and the last person said it out loud to the whole group it was usually NOTHING like the original phrase. Well Scrap Whispers is the scrapbooking version of that. It's played by scraplifting a layout and passing it on to someone else in a team. If you'd like to know more, stop by our blog. I believe there are a couple more days to sign up if you'd like to participate in our next round that is beginning soon. In the meantime we also have new challenges every Sunday that are open to everyone, whether you're signed up for the "whisper" round or not.

Have a great week and ROLL TIDE!!!!

2009 Top 12 Pics

As I start this post I realize that picking one picture from every month is an impossible task, but I'm going to attempt it anyway. And it's so hard because I took roughly 9,000 - 10,000 pictures in 2009! Good thing I've resolved to only scrapbook my favorites!! And I'm already predicting that these will mostly be of the girls.
OK, here we go.

*January - This picture is a result of some "practice" for a Valentine shoot I was gonna do of the girls. I didn't get Christmas cards out for Christmas of 2008, so I decided to send a Valentine's Card instead. My cousin let me borrow this vintage quilt of hers. This isn't the one that made it onto the card, but it's a fave.


*February - This is the one that made it onto the card.


*March - Abigail is the spittin' image of her daddy..


*April -Natalie was in my cousin's wedding in April and was an absolute doll in her white dress. This was one I took before the wedding. I just need to learn some better photoshop skills and take my dad's hand out of this pic.


*May - I didn't take many in May for whatever reason, but htis one makes me smile.


*June - My baby turned one!


*July - I have a whole host of favorite from this month because I took a series of pictures of the girls that I totally fell in love with, but since I'm picking just one..


*August - We went to the beach with my family in August, and I never posted any of the pics from that trip. I've printed a bunch of them out, so they will probably show up in scrapbook pages on here over the next few months. But this one stands out to me. I love that I caught this expression on my Dad's face.


*september - Is there really any explanation needed for this one?


*October - This month is impossible to choose. I took two separate fall sets of pics of the girls that I LOVE. Natalie turned 3, we went to the pumpkin patch, carved pumpkins, had a family photo shoot on Grant Mountain, and Halloween. Just in October alone my pic count is 700! But here is my fave from Natalie's birthday.


*November - I love catching the two of them in simple interaction.


*December - Another impossible month because of the sheer quantity of pics I took.
But because of the sheer happiness and fun these two were having, it takes the cake. So there you have it. I VERY quick glimpse of 2009. Happy New Year everyone!
Come back tomorrow for a very scrappy post.. January Sussie Reveal and my first challenge reveal with Scrap Whispers.

Christmas in Pictures

I took over 300 pictures this Christmas and it's hard to pick just a few to share. You can click on these collages to see them larger.

*Christmas with my parents*

*Family Gatherings - and I know you're wondering about that bra.. I ended up with the boobie prize..literally.. and my bro thought he'd model it for us.*

*Christmas Eve before bed and then morning*

*Christmas Eve with the Wrights*

*Natalie's Dinosaur*

*Family Photo*

*Family Photo 2**More Family Christmas*

I hope your Christmas was Merry!

Christmas Eve Eve

I don't know what it is about this year, but I have been just like a kid this Christmas Season. Maybe it's because last year I was really sick for most of December and didn't get to enjoy it, or maybe it's because both the girls are so into it and having so much fun.

Last night I helped Santa wrap gifts. There are a few more that we'll wrap tomorrow night and I have a few other gifts to finish up, but other than that, we're ready.

Today the girls and I are going to make cookies and rice krispy treats for Santa. The rice krispy treats were Natalie's idea and I know Santa will LOVE them. She also wanted to fix him a banana smoothie (??? the girl cracks me up) but decided that he'd like a Dr. Pepper instead.

I hope you are enjoying time with your families. We have a fun few days ahead of us!

A recent Layout to share:

Journaling Reads: A peaceful moment between you two is sometimes hard to catch. I love that you two were being so sweet and reading together under the tree. You girls bring me such joy that you'll never understand until you have children of your own. Love You. Dec09

Christmas Videos

I can't believe how fast the last week and a half went by! Christmas is in 4 days! I still have just a couple of gifts to take care of, and then I have to help Santa wrap everything at some point in the next couple days!

The girls have really enjoyed the holiday season. Especially Natalie who loves all Christmas songs.
Today I have a couple of videos to share. We discovered that Abigail could say one whole line of Rudolph, and while this video doesn't capture her line at it's very best, you should be able to make out what she says at the very end. John is the one talking/singing throughout most of it, but listen closely at the very end.


And then Natalie singing the entire song: You may have to turn up your volume, she wasn't singing very loud.


Today was also my day to post on the Sussies Blog. Head over there for some last minute card ideas.

Ho Ho Ho

I just got in form our ladies Christmas party, which was so much fun! But I am so ready to hit the sack! Just wanted to post these pics of the girls I took yesterday!

Around the House

We are really getting into the Christmas spirit around here. Natalie has sung Rudolph a thousand times the last couple of days. We've watched both How the Grinch stole Christmas and Mickeys Twice Upon a Christmas today. We've also been wrapping presents!
Here are just a couple of pics as we enjoy the day at home.

Srapbook Sussies December Reveal

I don't have a lot of time, so I'm gonna be quick! Here are the rest of my Sussie Layouts for this month. These really got me in the Christmas mood!!





I had a photo session today out at a local Mall. They have a huge tree that made the perfect backdrop. Well, I know Santa is watching because he showed up!!
I hope you've been good!

O Christmas Tree

We don't have any presents under the tree yet, but I wanted to experiment with taking some pictures and getting some different effects.
So here's what I did. For this one I turned the manual focus on and blurred my picture just a little.
Because of the low light situation I had my shutter speed at 1/60 and my aperture at 1.4fFor this one I left my setting the same, the only thing I changed was bringing the picture into focus.


Now with this next one you can see what a difference it makes simply by changing your shutter speed. When photographing Christmas lights, you can achieve a really bright look by leaving you shutter open longer. For this one I set the shutter at 1/10.

These aren't ideal.. I obviously need to move that air filter propped up against the wall.. but you get the idea. If you have a camera that you can actually control the settings on, I encourage you to experiment!

It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year

A few pics from Thanksgiving..

The girls with their uncle..

and with their Obie (grandma)..and having some fun!!

and a group shot of the Wright family..
Currently I have about 6 running to-do lists. Everything from Christmas lists, to household chores that need to be done, to Christmas projects, and so on and so on. I have LOTS I want to do this month. I was hoping to post something for every day of December leading up to Christmas, but I'm not gonna stress myself out over that, so it may or may not happen.

We got our tree up and decorated over the Thanksgiving holiday. Natalie had so much fun doing that with me.


And here's one of my layouts for December Sussies kit. These pics are from last Christmas.
I'll share the others later, for now I'm off to bed!