WWW Wednesdays for Jan. 11th

I just saw this meme on Should Be Reading and decided to play along.

All you have to do is answer the following 3 questions:

What are you currently reading?
I am currently reading Buzz Off by Hannah Reed (Queen Bee Mystery #1) on my Kindle and A Sheetcake Named Desire by Jacklyn Brady (A Piece of Cake Mystery #1) in paperback.

What did you recently finish reading?
I finished my first book of the year on Monday night.  Sinister Sprinkles by Jessica Beck (Donut Shop Mystery #3).

What do you think you'll read next?
Next up in my TBR pile for January is Goody Goody Gunshots by Sammi Carter (A Candy Shop Mystery #4) in paperback and I haven't decided yet what I'll read on my Kindle...maybe something that isn't a mystery!


To see what everyone is reading, link up over at Should Be Reading!

Birthday Sundaes #38

Good morning!

Birthday Sundaes is back for a new year full of new challenges, new and returning sponsors, and lots of inspiration!

Today's challenge is the easy peasy Birthday Card Challenge - just create a new birthday card and remember to include birthday wording/sentiment on your card front. Edited to add: We also have an optional added challenge to add something NEW to your card. If you do, please let us know what it is! Please enter your newly created birthday card {HERE}. Check out the inspiration while you are there!

This week we are sponsored by Whimsie Doodles and they generously supplied the DT with some fun images to use. The lucky winner will receive a $10 gift certificate to spend at Whimsie Doodles!

I used Gift Leah for my card along with a bunch of scraps from one of my LYB Winter Twig layouts.  The layout is from last Wednesday's SCS card sketch.

Thanks for looking!

SNC 52 Week Challenge #1

This year I took the dare, double dare and triple dare to join in the Scrappin' N Chattin's 52 Week Challenge. Each week we have to create a layout and at the end of the year, everyone that is still in it is included in the big prize drawing (a $ prize that we all contribute to).

This is week 1's page and my first page of the year!

I used a sketch from Jana Eubanks

Everything except the black letters are from the Bella Blvd. Tail Waggers and Cat Naps collection. Such a cute pet collection! I know the letters are a little hard to follow but the title reads 1 2 3 Strikes and Amber is out of beds.  The journaling talks about how we crate Amber during the work day and how she chewed up 3 different beds. These pictures were taken just a few weeks after we got her. The first picture is when she actually broke out of her crate LOL. It's since been reinforced with metal ties so she can't escape.  I have some other pictures to scrap from the day she escaped her crate. I hope to get those scrapped soon!

TFL!

It's a Fluttery Blog Hop!

Good morning and Happy Wednesday! Just a few more days til the weekend, yay!

It's the first Flutter By Wednesdays challenge of 2012 and it's also a blog hop! So if you are here from Leanne's blog, you're in the right place! If you just stopped by to visit, hello there. Our blog hop starts {HERE}. We are welcoming 4 new members to our team ~ Karen, Leanne, Lynette and Suzanne! Welcome ladies!

This week's challenge is an open one - just remember to include a butterfly, fairy or angel on your creation! Please enter your creation {HERE} and check out this week's sponsor, Bugaboo Stamps and see how you can win! We'd also like to thank the ladies that played along with our month long December challenge! It was so nice to see some people getting crafty during one of the busiest months of the year.

This is my first creation of the year~

I dug deep into my printed Bugaboo Stamps stash and chose Ava Fairy to play with. She's colored with prismacolor pencils and I've highlighted a few areas with Smooch Illuminate. The layout is from SCS363.

It's time to flutter on to your next stop ~ Mary!


Card Details~
Bugaboo Stamps - Ava Fairy digital image
Echo Park Paper Co. - Life is Good 
prismacolor pencils
Smooch Illuminate
flower & button from my stash

Mission Organization: Stamp Storage

One of my many goals for this year is to *finally* get my scrap room under control. I've been in it for 2 years now and I can't say that it's ever been completely workable and organized for me. Of course the fact that I never seem to stop collecting doesn't help!

Last week I started with organizing my unmounted rubber stamps. I have bunches of them organized by company in canvas bins of varying sizes but most bins are so full that I can't find what I want. I decided to transfer them to a binder system using baseball card page protectors.  This worked for 90% of the Paper Makeup Stamps that I started with.  Some stamps that didn't fit in one pocket ended up in two pockets. I split the pockets and then taped up the seam. Not an ideal solution but one that works for me to keep them all together.  As I was organizing them (first by category and then alphabetically), I numbered each pocket with a sharpie and then wrote out a corresponding list with the name of each stamp/set. The numbering of pockets is especially helpful with the large combo sets.

Here's a finished picture~

If anyone tries this for their storage, I recommend heavy duty binders as I tried a durable binder first and it wasn't sturdy enough for the weight of the rubber stamps. This 3 inch binder has about 28 pages in it.

Tomorrow I hope to start organizing my Stamping Bella stamps!

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year!

Last year was a bit of a difficult one for me. Nothing overly bad happened but I just felt lost and could not focus on people or things that needed my attention. I had big plans for my One Little Word last year but it did not pan out.

A new year is time for a fresh start and new outlook. This will be my year to succeed in a lot of areas of my life.

To give me more guidance, I am taking Ali Edwards' One Little Word class at Big Picture Classes (which I did not do last year). I think having the class will help me focus on my new word and bringing that word to life.

This year's word is~

IMPROVE

There are many aspects of my life to which this word will apply ~

• relationships (both marriage, family and friendships)
• art (broaden my skills with the tools I have)
• cooking skills (or lack thereof lol)
• housekeeping skills (get the clutter out the door!)
• health
• finances

 I've just finished downloading the class materials for this month and will start putting my album together this week.  Today my focus will be on cleaning up around here and finding my scrap table!

In addition to One Little Word, I have signed myself up for other BPC classes for February and have joined in the Scrappin-N-Chattin 52 week challenge, where I need to create one layout a week for the entire year. I wanted to join last year but did not think I could do it. This year I'm choosing to believe in myself that I CAN do this and WANT to do this!  Project Life 2012 is also on my horizon, I'd like to do a better job of keeping our everyday memories documented and focus the scrapping on the bigger events that have been piling up!

I also get to start all the reading challenges I signed up for. Yay!