It's a Blog Carnival!

One of the best places that I know of to go for digital scrapbooking materials is Scrap Girls. Right now they're hosting a Blog Carnival, complete with a sale (yahoo!) and prizes. After all, what's a carnival without prizes?

Browsing through their latest offerings, I came up with my latest wishlist of digital scrapbooking goodies...hopefully my husband is taking notes...

Coffee House Collection Biggie: Seriously, I have never seen a more perfect collection for me. Caffeinated Papercuts, Coffee House...it's gorgeous!

ScrapSimple Digital Layout Album Templates: 4x6 Cook It: I love templates. Templates mean I can take an idea, add my own special flair by means of paper & embellishments and come up with something that's uniquely me. I'm thinking Caffeinated Kitchen needs these for keeping track of all my recipes...and since it's a template, I can make some for me and then turn around and make holiday ones, too! Talk about a money saver!

ScrapSimple Templates: Basically Bordered Eyelet: I still love templates, and I love punched borders. Seeing as I can't reach through the monitor and use my punches on digital paper, this is the perfect solution. Again, being able to reuse things again & again with different results - perfect!

Ok, enough drooling...if I keep looking my basket will overflow. Besides, I have a napping baby which means it's time to get my butt into the craft room!

Happy Crafting!

New Challenge over at Scrap Girls!

After many months I've finally picked up my digital scrapbooking tools, dusted them off, and have started creating again. My inspiration? The latest weekend challenge over at Scrap Girls in the Saturday newsletter to make a layout around the phrase "The happiest day in my life was..." While things like my wedding were right up there, the happiest day I could think of was the birth of my son, Kieran, 10 months ago today.

While I'm certainly no Photoshop genius, I like how it came out. Go check out the whole gallery and get some inspiration for your next layout!

Happy Crafting!

My New Photo Book from Shutterfly

Click here to view this photo book larger

I love getting coupon codes for free items, don't you?  Today I got one for a free photo book from Shutterfly. I almost always stumble over what pictures to use and how to arrange them (and then usually wind up with a 100 page book...can you say 'extra charges'??) so I tried their Simple Path books this time.  Choose the style, choose the photos, and voila - they create a book for you!  You can go through and change things afterwards like the page layout and how many pictures are on there, then add  your text and you're done. Great time saver and that way it's harder to go over the 20 pages included in each book price. I will definitely be using them again!

The theme this time was a trip we take each year to a waterfall for our wedding anniversary. This time we went to a waterfall in Cherry Valley, NY with a stop in Sharon Springs, NY as well for a peek at theirs. Kieran came along for the first time (ok, technically second - first time outside of me) and thankfully loves hiking with Mama & Daddy. It was a beautiful hike and the falls were spectacular. We rounded out the day by having lunch at Ommegang Brewery's new cafe, stopped by Bear Pond Winery and Fly Creek Cider Mill, then finished at Brooks BBQ for dinner. Yum!

Water Fun Monday

I hope everyone had a drier weekend than I did! We've had rain nonstop since Tuesday...welcome to summer?!? All this water everywhere has me dreaming of the beach and inspired this paper.

Warm sunny days, waves lapping at the shore...yeah, I'm ready for the beach! In the meantime I have to go stack some blocks for my son to knock down.

Happy Crafting!