honey, i'm home!

WHEW!! What a weekend!!! :)

we had a splendid time!! I think Ivey summed it up when she said "I feel like i'm home!" EXCEPT BETTER!! No laundry calling your name, no dishes, no obligations!! It was AWESOME!! I personally accomplished something i've never done before!!.......i completed 29 LAYOUTS this weekend!! I am SOOOO proud of ME!!! Just call me the Michael Phleps of scrapbooking!!! :)

This brings something to mind.....while cropping this weekend, several of us got into a conversation about HOW we prepare for a crop!! It is always good to get ideas from others at a crop - i think!! But, i thought i'd share with you what i did for this crop, that seemed to help me get so many layouts done without killing me, or wearing me out!!!

This crop was a little different, as i didn't have a TON of pictures that i needed to develop ahead of time.....i developed about 100 pictures a few weeks prior - but anyway ........ i usually buy EVERY magazine that we subscribe to....no, i don't have all the time in the world to peruse through them....but i do pick my kiddos up from school five days a week!!! So, i put them in the car and read through them daily.....jana has inspired me to include my inspiration journal with the mags from now on - but what WE do (jana and me combined, since i'm going to adopt a little of her routine!!!) is rip and tear out all that we love in the mags....whether it be a TITLE, the LAYOUT itself, a TECHNIQUE that was used, the COLOR SCHEME, etc.....then attach them to our journal (mine is a spiral notebook that i can easily rip out and write on)......jana includes her journaling and thoughts of each sketch or idea on the actual notebook paper....this will allow you to pull it out and put it in your page kit - rather than having to carry your magazines with you and flip through them when you're cropping!!!

So - i just pull all of these things together in page kits...my sketch, or LIFT as we sometimes call it!! Paper, photos, embellishments all in a page planner. This makes actually cropping the layouts so much easier as i'm not sitting there trying to 'remember' or 'create' a layout - i don't always scraplift EXACTLY from the sketch, and sometimes i do when i either REALLY like it a lot - or am just NUMB and brain dead!!! :) So, i really believe that this helped me tremendously to complete so many layouts!! just thought i'd share that with you!! Sooooo, Kristy, Jana and I thought it would be fun to show you all of the layouts we completed this weekend!!! Mom had already packed her stuff away when we were taking photos - so her's aren't included on here - but she completed 26 counting the calendar she did!!! :) Wasn't this a great idea of Jana's - to photograph our layouts on the stairs?!?! I love it - this will be a tradition we do EVERY TIME we go to Maple Memories now!!

These are Jana's layouts:

Kristy's layouts:

and mine:

last crop we went to, i posted some of my layouts........so i thought i'd do my favorites from this one....i do NOT claim NOT to scrapLIFT!! i do it OFTEN and LOVE it!! So you might see some that you recognize!!! I'm hoping that Jana and Kristy post some of their favorites on their blogs so you can enjoy them as well!!! **** i'm using a new photo software organizer and am not familiar with it yet, so i haven't edited them at all - some of them are really bad lighting - so i apologize...but HEY - it's not even MoNdAy yet and i'm BLOGGING already!!

this one was one of my personal favorites!! for several reasons...the topic but also the colors really came together well!!! i wish the picture came through better, cuz it doesn't do it any justice!

don't we all have pictures that we DO NOT wanna scrapbook but we KNOW we should....you know the ones that you continue to push to the back of your pile, thinking - i'll get to that page kit NEXT crop!!! Welllll this Sesame Street one was that for me!! i've had the pictures and junk for it since 2004!!! FINALLY completed it.....nothing fancy - but IT'S DONE AND DOCUMENTED!!!

this was has great meaning for me....rocky's aunt that passed away this year - i didn't have HARDLY ANY pictures of her - but wanted to salvage the ones we did have........i lifted this from Ali Edwards.....i really like the way it turned out..

i used the Home Accents Cricut Cartridge on this layout - AM IN LOVE WITH THAT CARTRIDGE!! it's AWESOME!

my mother in law will kill me - but owell!! i wanted to let her know how important she is to us!! i really like the colors and simplicity of this layout!!

do you ever have RANDOM pictures that you just can't get onto a certain page or layout.....so you save them!?! i do this A LOT!! so, these are just the favs of hayden from birth to now!!

i'm really liking this way of grouping my photos.......i didn't think it would be easy to achieve but really it's easier than matting and calculating and measuring and straightening!! i see lots more like this in my future layouts!! i was also VERY excited because i decided to journal ON THE PAGE (via computer) after i'd already placed my photos.....so i took what i learned from digi class and walahhhh, it turned out pretty good, if i do say so myself!!!....not only that - but i don't know about ya'll but i get really tired of all my holiday layouts looking the same!! so this doesn't SCREAM EASTER and that's okay this year!!

i love that i was able to use the Southeast High School paper for this layout!! you'd never know huh!?!

okay - so FUN stuff.....we had SO much fun - lots and lots of laughing....the group we went with was SUPER and really co-existed well together, i think!! but we had to share some laughs with you!!! as most of us around the attic have grown to LOVE the SMELL of scrapbooking.... i didn't realize that jana was SUCH a sniffer!! :) i caught her (on several occasions!) SNIFFING her THICKERS!!! crazy girl!!

AND - a new wine for us ladies!!!.........i'm LOVING the bottle - how about you!?!?! *notice in the background.....jana made a LOAD of her tool caddys this weekend, and they will be in the store this week....i FINALLY bought one and am IN LOVE!!! i'm hoping she'll have coffee coozies for us by ganza time as well!!***

Check out the BACK of it!! :)

So - now that i've spent THREE hours updating the blog while watching the closing ceremonies of the Olympics......it's time to turn in - we're HOPING for lots of NEW arrivals this week - so i'm expecting to be cleaning and clearing the store this week - so forgive me in advance if i don't update the blog as much this week!! Make sure you read the ticker above for ganza countdown - I'm FREAKING OUT!!!! Have a great week and thanks for spending the time to check in on our blog!!! We appreciate YOU!!! ANNNNDDD....thank you SO much to Renee, Kelli and Sarah for filling in extra this weekend so mom, kristy and i could go together and enjoy the weekend!! you guys are AWESOME!! thank you!! muah!