1st day of school

Ok, so I am a little late at posting 1st day of school pics... but I have a good excuse. Does having eye surgery on Thursday count? Either way - Here they are...
Ethan was SOOOOO super excited to start 4th grade. We went to meet his teacher which ended up being teacherS - plural. Mrs. Place, his 4th grade teacher was due to have her 3rd baby on Thursday so we also met Ms. Liakos - the sub. I hope he has a good year with all this happening. The last time his teacher was pregnant and was due early on in the school year- it ended up not being a good year!
Hope that is not the case here...
 Anyway, here is my little man - looking so handsome for 4th grade!


Mrs. Place and Ethan



Ms. Liakos and Ethan





ETHAN READY FOR THE 1ST DAY!!!





Becca wasn't as excited for school to start - which was a first. Usually she is very excited to go back, but I think she had a fun summer and was not wanting it to end. She is an 8th grader this year, so this is her last year at Timberview before she heads to High School!



My Haul from the SB Garage Sale

I went to the 1st ever Scrappers Boutique Garage Sale today and got a bunch of cute stuff!
I spent less than $25 and walked away with lots of goodies!!!
Here's a shot of all of it together...

In this next pic you can see a close up of my flowery stash. I got several packages of Prima flowers in bright pinks, blues, greens, yellows, etc... plus a package of prima flowers that have what looks like a grey pattern on them - Just beautiful. I got Prima bling, some really pretty satin ribbon teal and orange flowers, 2 big white butterflies, some blue, green and burgundy sprigs (blueberry looking things) and some Prima pebbles.

My next grouping is my mini albums and paper. I got one Basic Grey mini bracket album, a Prima mini 6x6 and a half circle shape mini. All for like $1-$2 each. Great deals! I also got a Golden Oldies stamp that I thought was right up Terri's alley, so I got that for her, plus 1 got 2 paper pads, both from Prima. One is a 6x6 Prima Space Boy pad - great for my little man and the other is a 5x7 Prima Rock on Love pad that will match all those beautiful bright colored prima flowers from the pic above.




The last thing I got is a chair pad for when I go to crop at the church and have to sit in those hard metal chairs. I have been wanting one of these for a while but refused to pay the price they wanted for them. This was the most expensive thing in my loot today. I paid $10 for it. I think I will love it because attached to the cushion on each side is pockets to hold my stuff close by! Cant wait to try it out!!!

Chris was nice enough to drive me since I just had my eye surgery 2 days ago. We got there at 9:40am and were the 2nd and 3rd people there. About 30 minutes after they opened the doors, it got packed and was VERY crowded. Everything was very well organized with like items together but there was soooo much to look through and there was a lot of people there. I do have to say many of the ladies there were very nice and would let you get through when you needed to, there was just a lot of stuff and I would have liked a little more room to move around and look at everything. All in all, It went very well and i am very pleased with my purchases.
Next time, I hope to participate as a seller and then I will be able to shop Friday night when it's not so crowded!!!

New Class: Technique Boutique

We now have a new monthly class called Technique Boutique.


This class will be a recurring class on the first Saturday of the month. The class fee will be $25 or $10 if you choose to B.Y.O.S (Bring Your Own Supplies). We will have a list of supplies needed to create the project in the store. We will be focusing on adding different techniques on a 2 page layout every month. Different instructors will also be featured.


Technique Boutique: Distressing on your Pages

Instructor: Denise Cook
Saturday, September 3rd
10:30am to 2:30pm
Class Fee: $25 or $10 and B.Y.O.S

Call Scrappers Boutique to reserve your spot!!!
(817) 503.0777

Scrappers Boutique Garage Sale

Come shop at our first ever Scrap Supply Garage Sale! We have over 30 Consignor's who have cleaned out their stash and are ready to pass it on to you at great prices!
When: Saturday, August 27 10am to 2pm
Please bring laundry baskets or shopping bags to carry all your treasures

http://scrappersboutique.blogspot.com/

More Layouts...

More layouts like I promised using the beautiful My Minds Eye Lost and Found 2 line.
The first is a one page layout using the BREEZE collection. It is perfect for all those boy layouts you have!
This line is beautiful with lots of tealish blues, greens and browns... So Masculine!!!

The 2nd layout is a 2 page layout using the ROSY line. It has lots of corals and greens, and brown and yellows. I incorporated more of the greens and browns in this next layout with a little bit of the coral color but you can go so many ways with this beautiful line...

These new lines from MME are SO Much fun to play with! THere are SOOOO many embellishments to choose from, like LOTS of decorative brads, to chipboard stickers, to diecut shapes, ribbons and trims, bling, diecut phrases and tons of different pattern papers to choose from in each line!!!

If you havent seen it yet, go to the Scrappers Boutique to see them in real life... they are BEAUTIFUL!!!

Hope you like them!!!

New Layout!!!

Here's one of the newest layouts I have made. I called it "You make the world better"
I used My Minds Eye's Lost and Found 2 BLUSH line.
You can see it in person at the Scrappers Boutique and if you would like to copy it, we have started a new thing at the Boutique where all the product we used on the store layouts are posted on the back, so it is easier now for you to pull all the product used and replicate the layout!
Hope you like it... leave me a comment if you do.
I also made 3 other layouts using other lines of the MME Lost and Found 2 line so be on the lookout for those soon!

ZIVA

We adopted a new puppy... Ziva


The other day Ellen was coming home from work and stopped to get gas. She witnessed a truck drive by, then slow down next to the empty field by the gas station and toss something out. She saw it was moving and rushed over to see what it was and found it was a little puppy. Of course she brought it home, which I am glad she did because I would have felt awful if she hadn't and something happened to it... But at first I didn't want to keep it. A little puppy is a lot of responsibility!

Jason said It looked like a pit bull at first but now we are thinking maybe boxer because of the coloring???
It is the sweetest puppy ever, just wants to cuddle right up to you or nestle in your neck, Cute as can be and just calm!

After a day or so, we decided to keep it and as of now - it is being spoiled by the kids, but especially Becca!

The name became a family feud. Jason and I liked "Widget" but Ellen did not. We could not agree until Ethan came up with Ziva. We all liked it (although some still like Widget better), and so here is Ziva.
I will be taking her to the vet soon and find out how old they think she is and what breed!

All I can say is how cruel some people can be... Tossing a puppy out of a car and expect it to survive on its own!~
At least take it to a shelter or a vet!!! Don't be cruel! Karma will come around and bite you in the ass Someday!

How could you not love a face like that?

Homemade Laundry Soap

Here's another recipe from the same blog http://beingcreativetokeepmysanity.blogspot.com/2010/11/homemade-laundry-soap.html?m=0 
but it is Laundry soap!!!
I HATE spending money on laundry soap so I am excited to try this!

Here is the jist on this one:
Ingredients for Homemade Laundry Soap:
You should be able to find all of these items at your grocery store.


1 4 lb box Borax

1 4 lb box Arm & Hammer Baking Soda
1 4lb box Arm & Hammer Washing Soda
3 bars of Fels-naptha soap
2 small containers of oxyclean or store brand oxyclean
this is optional, I added it into mine because I have pretty messy kids and the cleaner the better
(you can also use pink Zote soap found at Home Depot instead of Fels-naptha.)

Start out by grating your Fels-naptha soap just like cheese. You can use a food processor or just use your hand held grater, what ever you have.

Toss all ingredients in a 5 gallon bucket lined with a garbage bag. This part makes your whole house smell great. Once everything is mixed store soap however you like.

I chose a jar that I keep above my washing machine, I also got a little scoop to keep inside. Wasn't that easy? Sure was! Enjoy your soap. Use 1-2  Tbsp per load to do the job!

Home Made Dishwasher Detergent

OK, I know... this is so totally off topic of what I usually blog about, but I read this on Happy Happy Joy Joy's blog (http://www.obsessedwithscrapbooking.com/) and decided I might just want to try it out.
She got the recipe and the idea from here: http://beingcreativetokeepmysanity.blogspot.com/2011/01/dishwasher-detergent.html?m=1

Here is the jist of it: Here is what you need.

Dishwasher Detergent ingredients:

1 box Borax

1 box Arm & Hammer Super Washing Soda
24 packages of unsweetened lemonade drink mix, like kool-aid. (**Note: lemonade will stain soap dispenser yellow, another option would be to use citric acid instead of lemonade)
3 cups Epsom Salt

If you want you could cut this recipe in half or even smaller to just try it out. You will still have to buy large boxes of Borax and Washing Soda which you can store for later use.

If you need a rinsing aid use vinegar. I personally use Lemi Shine as my rinse aid and it works wonders. I just sprinkle about a tablespoon in the bottom of my dishwasher before I start it. This stuff is awesome!!

Mix Borax, washing soda, salt and lemonade together in a large, very large, bowl. When ingredients are mixed together well put soap in a container of your choice. I picked up a container at Walmart in the kitchen center with a pouring spout for $5.00 and it is big enough to hold an entire batch of dishwasher soap. The soap does harden up after a while so you may also want to store it in 2 different containers, one should be air tight to help if from hardening.

It even has a pouring spout to make things easy.

Use 1 tablespoon per wash cycle. It has no fillers so you do not have to use nearly as much to get the job done! This recipe is for hard water users, if you have soft water you may want to browse the internet for a better recipe for soft water.

It is BENIGN!

I forgot to share the best news of the day!!!!
Nurse from the eye doctor called and said the 2 biopsy's they took from my right eye were benign! It is NOT cancer!!!!
Still have to have the surgery on my left eye to remove the pre-cancerous cells in there and so they dont continue growing, but that wont be till Aug. 25th.
Again, It is NOT cancer!!!! Thanks for all your thoughts and prayers!!! Keep them coming for the same results for my left eye!

I WON!!! I WON!!!

I won an awesome blog giveaway over at For the First Time - Daniela Dobsons blog.                                 
It consisted of a Maya Road mini album, heart pins and two mists, Impression Obsession Covar-a-Card Screen background stamp (5.75" x 5.75"), 15 Prima notecards, a fun mixture of Prima flowers and Say it in Crystals, brads and doilies.

I am SUPER excited... I have left comments numerous times and entered many, many times to try to win things but have never won until now! I am so excited because not only is it a bunch of cool scrapbooking stuff but because I won it from Daniela - a beautiful local fellow scrapbooker who I met through another friend and a beautiful designer. When I met her, she desgined for Prima and did absolutely stunning work...
I think she was the one who got me hooked on prima and started my obsession. She designs for other companies and mostly designs cards but on ocassion she does do a page here and there and they are stunning! Check out her blog when you get a chance!!! www.danieladobson.blogspot.com



Here is what I won... I CAN NOT wait to get it and start playing!!! WOO HOO!!!! I am super stoked!
THANKS DANIELA!!!!