Make your voice heard!

Normally I wouldn't get on my soap box on my scrap blog, but like scrapbooking, I am very passionate about politics. I try to stay tuned in to the governmental things that effect me and my family, both at a local and a national level. This election is going to be very close again this year and everyone needs to make their voice heard! Register to vote and go out and vote!! If you can't make it to the election booth on 11.04.08, then find out how to vote early. But please don't select your candidate based on gender or race. Neither of those qualify someone to run our country. Vote on the issues that matter to you. There are several sites you can visit to find a bipartisan list of how they voted on key issues. You can check out selectsmart.com or knowbeforeyouvote.com Or you can find a site such as Candidate Calculator to see which person matches your values and beliefs the closest. If you are not registered to vote, you can check out Rock the Vote to help get you registered to vote in your state. Please vote. Whether or not your opinions and values differ from mine, I still encourage you to vote. And as my dad use to always tell me, "You can't complain about the government if you don't vote." I'll get down off my soapbox now.

Halloween Treat Jar

As most of you know by now, I have been hanging out with some talented ladies at Addicted Scrappers. They have posted some great challenges, ideas, and contests. One of the lastest posts is some Halloween treat jars. They are simply adorable!!! And when I saw them, I immediately had to make one!! This is what I came up with. If the paper looks familiar, it is from my circle layout from a couple of months ago. This was very easy to finish, but there are a couple of tricks. Put your paper on one layer at a time. If you try to put it together first, the top layer will pull when you wrap it around your jar. (Yes I made that mistake!) And the easiest way to do the ribbon around the lid and jar is to put adhesive on the top side of the end and wrap around and let it stick, then trim it. If you plan on putting the buttons on the top of the lid, make sure you hot glue the lid to the ring, so when you remove it, it will come off as one piece. (I learned that one on the Christmas treat jar I made last year!!) Thanks for looking, happy crafting!

Items Used:
Threading Water Punch
Ribbon: American Crafts, Dots, Dashes, and Checks, Hobby Lobby, unknown
Studio G stamps
Gel Writer pens
Buttons: Paper Studio, American Crafts

School is in Session

Here is a layout that I finished for Mason's first day of kindergarten. This was one of the easiest layouts that I have finished. It came together in about 30 minutes! The paper is part of the new line from KI Memories. The strips of patterned paper behind Mason's photo is all from one sheet. There were several different strips of patterns and I cut it into strips to use as accents. I also did the cheater "notebook" paper. The title and star was cut from Plantin' Schoolbook (Appropriate, huh?)



I liked the layout so much that I also used it for Dylan and Corbin's First Day pages too. They are a little different, but I did use the scraps from Mason's page. (More points in the Addicted Scrappers Use Your Stash Contest!!) There is also three different fonts on Dylans. Another challenge at Addicted Scrappers, thank you Dawn!! I really had to make myself use that third font. I still look at it and think that it looks out of place!! Can you tell that it is out of my comfort zone?!!

I still have to finish up Corbin's page, but I will use the same layout and paper. Thanks for looking!

Addicted Scrappers-Use Your Stash!!

I have been hanging out alot over at Addicted Scrappers. The girls there are just wonderful and have alot of fun with challenges and contests. I submitted my Halloween layout for the shaped paper challenge last month. This month they are having a Use Your Stash Contest!! Just what I need to use up my overflowing scrap supplies!! I bought this clipboard when I bought my son's school supplies. I wasn't sure what I was going to do with it, but when AS posted bonus points for really old paper, I dug through my "old" stash and found this. I like how it turned out. The tag is cut from the pattern paper on the bottom. I colored in some of the spots with a glitter pen. It doesn't show up well, but it gives it just a little sparkle. Hope you like it!

PP-Junkitz, REALLY OLD!!
Ribbon-Most of it's American Crafts, some is Dashes, Dots and Checks from Michaels.
Punch-Threading Water Punch, Fiskars
Die Cuts-Quickutz, Vixen
Flowers-Primas
Felt embellie-Queen & Co.
Buttons-American Crafts, Other
Cardstock is from Hobby Lobby
Pens-Uni-Ball from Sanford

I've been tagged!!

My friend AshleeM, from the Cricut message board, has tagged me on her blog. You can read her blog here. So I need to list either six random facts about me, or seven strange things about myself. Then I am supposed to tag some others so they can play along. I am not sure that I can come up with that many, but we will see!

I think that I will go with six random facts, because some of you may not like me if I list all of my weird quirks!

Fact 1: My husband and I have been together since high school. A total of 16 years! But we didn't know each other until we started working at the Winn-Dixie together. Our high school had over 1,600 students, so we never saw each other there.

Fact 2: I am out of pictures to scrap. No, I'm not caught up, but at the moment, there aren't any pictures that I want to scrap.

Fact 3: I am addicted to the show Dirty Jobs with Mike Rowe. I have seen almost every episode and have only been grossed out once or twice. I even watch the re-runs.

Fact 4: My life is surrounded with multiple babies. I have twins, my best friend across the street is pregnant with twins, the neighbor behind me has triplets, and on the office floor that my mother in law works on (and where I used to work); her first boss had twin granddaughters, the other secretary has identical triplet grandsons, and she of course has twin grandsons. All were concieved with out fertility drugs except my neighbors triplets. This is the reason why my husband and I will NOT try to have a girl!!

Fact 5: I have lived in four different states and eight different houses since my husband and I have been married, ten years. He moves alot with his work, and we will probably move again within the next year or so.

Fact 6: My family is debt free, except for our house payment! We were blessed to find Dave Ramsey and start doing his debt snowball, and in April we paid off the last debt we had. No more debt for us ever!! We have saved up our emergency fund, which is step three. The next step is to save for retirement, then college, and pay off our house early. After that, get wealthy and give. I can't wait! If you've not heard of Dave Ramsey, check out his program at .www.daveramsey.com
You don't have to buy anything. His baby steps are listed on the site and he has a radio and tv program you can check out. Being debt free is awesome!!