{ dream...THINK BIG } **REMOVED FOR PUBLICATION**

I ADORE her so...

Shawn said that I challenged myself to cram as many stickers, tags, and "bits"

onto one LO as possible...And more importantly, he deemed me it a success!

I'm not sure if he meant that in a complimentary way, but whatever...

I have a tendency to layer until I pick up a piece of something and literally

cannot find a place for it, so this isn't too much of a departure for me.

And I love all of the stickers in the American Crafts Dear Lizzy book so much

I didn't want them to fall to the bottom of a drawer and become dusty and sad.

Everything is from the Scrapbook Circle Kit for October, 

except for a couple little bits...

Anything with teal, gold & chevrons is on my love list right now!

So, about the photo, Sofia LOVES animals, and she loves Lola like

no one else in our family.  And Lola will follow Sofia, mind her and let 

her basically "hug" her like she won't let anyone else do.

This is one of those huggy times...ever though it is hard to even see 

the features in Lola's face, she is so black.  

Which is the reason for the black background.  And white splatters

since Lola is actually getting some gray in her "beard", 

she must be going gray early for a teenager!

HOLLYWOOD STUDIOS...Scrapbook Circle

Well, here it is...first LO from our Disney trip.

I will probably end up with an entire album of Disney or

maybe 4 mini albums making up the 4 places we went,

but, I couldn't resist doing just one from one of the kids 

most memorable parts of the trip...getting their faces 

painted.  Funny how some of the things we thought would be 

trivial or not near as special as the rest of it, considering where we

were and all.  I didn't think they would enjoy Hollywood Studios

as much as they did, and the face painting was a big part of it!

This was for the Scrapbook Circle Challenge #39, which was a color palette 

challenge.   Here is the link to their post:

http://www.scrapbookcircle.com/2012/10/challenge-40-news-flash-color-palette

I know these aren't the colors that are normally associated with Disney and I
probably will use something different for that album.  However, these are some of my favorite
color and the October Kit is full of them and so many other wonderful products.
Even though their faces were painted such vibrant colors, I wanted to make the
picture black and white to focus on the smiling faces, and not compete with
the color palette.  I also that thought all the gold in this month's kit was perfect
for anything about Hollywood!

MakiNg SpoOKy...

I love Fall!

Fall in our house means lots of school activities, football Saturdays,

lot and lots of leaves to rake, and a super Halloween!

I love to change things up, move artwork or shift furniture,

mix things up a bit to see how things feel or work in different light,

in different ways or sometimes, just to keep my husband on his toes! ;)

And I love decorating for Halloween...My bins of decorations get bigger

and bigger every year, mostly after things go on sale!  Even though

that means waiting another year to take them out...

I enjoy using the same decorations year after year, but 

changing them around a bit, or putting them in a different place.

Now, that the kids are older and really into more scary things, 

they are all about "making it spooky"!  

Just about all of this came from the Scrapbook Circle October Kit, which

could be my new favorite...I thought the triangles were perfect for carving

out pumpkin eyes and all the tags and colors are great.  A Halloween 

page without too much orange and a great challenge!  I am liking the copper,

gold & ochre for Halloween colors this year, with some charcoal grey!

Sam went to a birthday party where they picked little pumpkins and

decorated them with those styrofoam stickers...Shawn change its

eyes at some point to take this picture like it was looking up at him.

I thought it was hilarious and begging for a word bubble!

eight days a week...Little Black Dress Kit October

This was taken on the first day of school, a Kindergartner
and a 3rd grader...Still don't know when that happened...?*#!

Anyway, Shawn has this brilliant idea that he wants to make a
"Music History Dictionary" for the kids, that will be comprised of
photos, historical background of the artist and obviously songs
from that artist that we think are important, somehow attached to an MP3??
Kind of like a little mini Pandora lesson!

And The Beatles would be a prominent artist in this project and so we
have been listening to a lot of Beatles lately.  Lots of my layouts seem
to be inspired by song titles too...It started with the LBD Challenge from July!

Soooo, this month's kit includes these wonderful journaling 

cards from Ormolu that had the days of the week and the extra "today" card.

I knew if I didn't use them soon, I would end up hoarding them. 

I love Ormolu's designs.  Eight cards, seven days of the week and one extra for today.

That was the inspiration, as well as the Pink Paislee paper with the postage

marks on it. I die cut a little envelope with my Silhouette and used my 

postage stamp punch a lot on the cards to make them burst out of the envelope! 

COLOR outside THE LINES

I wasn't sure it would happen.
The love for drawing and coloring that Sofia shares so passionately with Shawn and I.
Maybe it took longer than it took for her to love art.
Maybe it just seems that way because you still seem like my baby
and  I'm not ready to admit you are growing up so fast.

At any rate, you are drawing, coloring and painting up a storm.
I can admit that I am pretty anal retentive about a lot...okay, about lots and lots.
But, not art.  That is where I encourage the kids to paint the sky yellow
and the trees purple if that is what they want to see...
It is where I want them to color outside the lines, not to feel confined
by a definition.  I know that practicing and a lot of coloring technique
they do at this age is to help with dexterity, motor skills, and coordination...
( Not that you are going to inherit any of those traits from me! )
It is just that I also think this is the time to be free with your
interpretation and artistic license...before it gets spoiled with reality.
That might reek of cynicism, but there it is!

Most of this was from the September Scrapbook Circle Kit.  A few bits from

past kits and several Elle's Studio tags.  I loved this patterned paper by Glitz,

 but didn't want it to be too flowery since I was trying to make it a little more masculine.  

I used the vellum overlay to mask a little of the floral-ly bits.  

**REMOVED FOR PUBLICATION** the call of the WILD