I've been HO HO HO'd!!

So in the tradition of the "I've been BOO'd" game, (info here if you've never heard of it), I wanted to create an office version of the "I've been HO HO HO'd" game. Our office was taken in by the ghosties before Halloween to BOO each other with anonymous treats, and usually at Christmas time we have a secret pal where everyone draws names and then you leave treats or do random nice things for your secret pal until the reveal day, when everyone goes for lunch and trades one last larger gift with their secret pal. I never participate in this for two reasons, first of all I'm usually too busy and don't want to put my name in if I can't put the time and effort in to do it properly and two, I've often seen people put their name in, get awesome gifts from their secret pal and yet do nothing for the person whose name they have drawn. That being said, this year our office is slacking and hasn't drawn names for the secret pal, so I've decided to spread some Christmas cheer around and couldn't find a "I've been HO HO HO'd sign, so made this one up. The Santa Element is from Sahlin Studio's collab kit with Jenn Barrette Kitschy Christmas.

I'm hoping it gets everyone in the Christmas spirit of giving. Merry Christmas everyone!

Happy Halloween!

We carved our pumpkins tonight, the kids were so cute, Chase carved "Frankie" all by himself except for the eyes! He even carved his name into it, he's pretty proud of it. Rayna didn't
want anything to do with cleaning it out, it was "totally gwoss, totally, totally gwoss" lol!

So of course since we cleaned out the pumpkins, we had pumpkin seeds, which I roasted using the yummiest recipe! Check it out:

Here is the recipe:

Pumpkin Seed Roasting

1 cup raw pumpkin seeds

6 tbsp white sugar, divided

1/4 tsp salt

1/2 tsp pumpkin pie spice

1 tbsp vegetable oil

Preheat oven to 250F. Spread pumpkin seeds in a single layer on a baking sheet. Bake for 45 minutes, stirring occasionally, until dry and toasted.

In a large bowl stir together 2 tbsp white sugar, salt and pumpkin pie spice, set aside. Heat oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat. Add pumpkin seeds and sprinkle remaining sugar over top of them. Stir with a wooden spoon until sugar melts. Stir seeds into bowl with the spiced sugar and stir until coated. Allow to cool before serving. Store in an airtight container. 

That's it! It makes these wonderful almost candied pumpkin pie seeds that are sweet but a little salty too, and very crunchy! I wish I could remember where I got the recipe, it's from someone's blog or something from the net, but I've been making them for a couple of years now and have no idea where I found it now! If you know please leave it in the comments, so I can link it up! Thanks, enjoy them if you try them, happy Halloween!

Or...not SO back

Ok, so I keep saying that I'm back, when the truth is I ultimately don't have the time to BE back. Summer is flying by without me, at least it feels that way! Just coming off my two weeks vacation, back to work Monday, and then two more weeks and school starts up again! (Got all the shopping done today except for socks!). We have had a very warm summer, and are loving it, the kids have had a blast, I know Chase will have mixed emotions about going back to school. I hope he's not too nervous for his first day. I have had a little time for scrapping, I stepped down from Mel's CT (again *shame*) as I just can't commit the time. At least this way I can scrap when I want to with no pressure for release dates, and my time isn't always free when I want it to be! And I realized, that I never print pictures anymore. I also have a very crappy system for storing and preserving them, if my hard drive crashed I would be in some serious mental states. I have done all these layouts and rarely print them, so have no hard copies of all the photos I've taken, and moments I've scrapped. I decided to do an actual album, plan it out and scrap my photos and then either print it through Costco or Creative Memories. So here are the first three pages of our summer vacation album:

Scrapped using Summer Bucket List collab by Lilypad Designers as well as template by Emily Merritt.

Scrapped using Treasured Moments kit by Sahlin Studio, Shmootzy alpha by Nancie Rowe Janitz, template by Katie the scrapbook lady and "writing stuff" font

Scrapped using Summer's End collab kit by Zoe Pearn and Kristin Cronin-Barrow, template by Darcy Baldwin, fonts Tiza and Writing Stuff.

It's all I've gotten done so far!

And here are some other random layouts from this summer:

Rayna's first "real" haircut...kit "Hair Day" by Kristin Aagard, template by SM (stolen moments?)

— with Kristin Aagard.

Scrapped using "Fresh" by One Little Bird and Sahlin Studio, background paper - beach house wood papers by Sahlin Studio, "Sweet" in title was stamped alpha by Sahlin studio. Journalling font "Rockwell" and template by Amy Martin.

Scrapped using A Wonderful Day, Jacquard Trims, Typeset Alphas No 2 as well as July challenge template all by Sahlin Studio.

Scrapped using kit "Just Add Water" by Kristin Aagard and template by Nettio Designs

Scrapped using Sahlin Studios beach house wood papers and Art and Soul collab kit by Sahlin Studio and Holly Designs. Scraplifted from "Vixen" at the lily pad.

I would like to promise to post more, but the plain truth of the matter is I just don't have time, so for those of you who actually read my drivel, thanks for hanging in there, and I apologize for being so...unavailable? Not the word I was looking for but I'm sure you get the idea :)

I'm BAAAACCCKKK!

I'm BAAAACCKKK! Mel Hains of Mel Hains Designs was kind enough to ask me to be on her CT again! So I'm diving back in to the digi world, boy I've missed it! I have to carve out a little time for it, there have been so many moments in the last year that I've missed scrapping about, and I don't want to miss out on recording any of it for my kids. This is one of the things that has always been important to me. So, I'm going to just dive right in with my preview for Mel's new kit, Just Crusing! It's on sale for only $1 starting today so grab it while you can!

She also has quickpages available if you need a fast scrap solution!

And here is my layout, featuring my firecracker daughter! The days of the sprinkler are upon us, and she couldn't wait!

Template by Dido Designs.

It felt really good to be scrapping again, and I'm so excited about the next few kits as well so stay tuned!

Happy Mother's Day

Hi all, just wanted to quickly say happy mother's day to all you Mom's out there trying your best to raise the next generation, like me!! Hope you had a fantastic day with your family. This picture says it perfectly for me, I know I feel that way most of the time! Stumbling along, figuring it out as I go, and hoping my kids will see the love in my decisions at the end of it all.

I am so in LOVE with this chicken!

Hey all, I bought the cutest pattern for a little Easter chick yesterday, and I was so excited to make it! Bought some fuzzy yarn and made it tonight. It makes me SO happy ;)
The yarn I used was 60% cotton 40% polyamide although at the moment I can't remember what the brand was as it's not something I've worked with before (and let me tell you this stuff is SLIPPERY! And hard to see stitches around all the fluff but the end result was worth it). The basket I made up myself using two strands of brown and tan 100% cotton by Bernat and the edging I used a fun fur type (again I can't remember what brand as it is also new to me. I will edit this post later with the brand names!). I also ended up using some safety eyes left over from another project, as the wooden beads (called for in the pattern) that I paid for didn't end up in my bag from the craft store. Isn't she cute?!

And here she is from the side...

Oh, and look what she's hiding under there!! My favorite of all Easter treats EVER, the Cadbury Creme Egg. Mmm. I originally wanted to have the little foil wrapped mini eggs, which I thought I had left over from last year, but I didn't have any so we either ate them all or I have since thrown them away. Lucky the hubby had a Creme Egg tucked away in his not so secret stash lol.

What a sweet little hen.

I found the pattern on zoom yummy's blog, (here) which led me to her Etsy store (here). She has other goodies there too, so check her out! I was also inspired to make the nest by one of her "favorite" Etsy items, which you can see here.

Hooky Happiness

Have I told you what my most recent obsession is? Have you heard of David's Tea? It's a new tea store that opened in the mall, crazy flavored teas with chocolate and jelly beans in them, they have so many to choose from! Sometimes when my in-laws come to visit I'll make us tea, but I didn't have a teapot so it was a pain steeping three different cups of tea in individual cups with three different steeper baskets so I bought a teapot set last time I was there. Then I got to thinking that maybe I needed a tea cozy to keep the tea warm...so I googled and googled and Etsy'd and Ravelry'd and found a photo on pinterest (see it here) that inspired me to make this version (keep in mind that these were taken on my iPhone at night so quality is a little off):

I will have you know that I made this completely without a pattern (i never make anything without a pattern ir instructions at least). I'm pretty proud of myself although I do have to admit I may make another one that is maybe not so busy? Then I thought maybe a little hot pad to go under the teapot would be a good idea too, so I made this one from a tutorial I found here. I love the colors and my teapot and cups are a light lime green so I think it looks very fresh and springy and it just makes me happy.

Knook?!

Have you heard about this? The knook? You can now knit with a crochet hook. I'm so excited to try it! Just ordered it today. I've tried knitting before but have never quite mastered the whole two needle thing. This should be interesting, as I've always been frustrated with the crochet patterns out there in regards to socks, mittens, and slippers and even the occasional afghan. If I really was interested it always turns out to be knitted. So I'm curious to see how this will go. I'll let you know once I try it. Also wanted to share a happy moment from today, my highlight of today actually. Came home from work, fed the kids, just sat down to piddle away some time on my iPad and Rayna takes a book over to Chase and says, "Chasey, you read me story?" So he takes the book and looks at it and reads it to her. Pretty awesome. I love that he loves reading as much as I do... ♥