Wednesday, April 20, 2011

I couldn't help it, I just had to share

So, I was wandering around facebook. My other life line, that I have been addicted to since, well, since I was in college, back when facebook was only for college students. I came across a link that someone had posted about the worst paying collge degrees.

I went through the list, saying, "really?!? yeah, yeah, ok I can see. Yada, yada. yada." Then I realized they were counting down. I was very eager to see what number one would be --- and then, as I clicked on number one, of course... it had to be....


MY MAJOR....


Child & Family Studies. wonderful.

I think it cost me more to drive to work, than what I made at half the jobs I worked at. haha. Well, maybe it is cheaper now that I am a stay at home wife :)

If you want to check out the full list, click HERE. It was posted on a local news channel website in Iowa (which is where I went to college).

I found it entertaining so I just had to share it. I wish I knew what I wanted to be when I grow up, but I still don't know. With the lifestyle we lead I find it hard for me to have a career.

Any other military spouses out there with degrees that just don't know what to do with it? I mean we have been married for almost 3 years, and have lived in 2 different states... and in another year, we will move again.

Well, I should get to bed. I have a bunch to do tomorrow, including a couple layouts, and a much needed mani-pedi! Have a wonderful day (or should I say night)!

 Oh, I had to share with you my favorite picture of me. Gotta love the eye patch, I keep it in my car now, you never know when you need to act like a pirate! :)

Peace.Love.Dove.

Tuesday, April 19, 2011

Tulips Festival

It is Tulip time where we live right now. 
So I have been on a photo taking spree. Yesterday, the weather was GORGEOUS! So my friends and I took full advantage of the weather. And today, I spent it in photoshop playing with my new pictures. So you wanna see what I came up with without using photoshop? Here we go!







I am sure I will be scrapbooking these... I took over 1400 photos yesterday. So I have been busy! Have a great week. I am hoping to be able to post some more projects later this week!

Peace.Love.Dove.

Saturday, April 16, 2011

Storage and Leftover Scrap Usage

In my post yesterday I mentioned that I was going to be showing you something I made with my leftover scraps from the layout.

I used the buttons on the page, and then I needed something to put them in since I totally demolished the packaging they came in. So I looked around and realized I just finished a can of almonds the other day, and I could reuse the container. It was perfect. Plus I could store a few more things in it.

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I used my i-rock to adhere the jewels and all the paper is from the SEI Bridgeport collection. Here is what I put inside.

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I thought about putting a “b” in the middle of the lid for Buttons & Brads, but then I changed my mind. But I did get a good little giggle out of it! This is the first thing I have repurposed, so that is pretty cool to me.

Hope you have a fabulous weekend! Big event tonight! I will update you Monday with all the fun things that went on!

Peace.Love.Dove.

Friday, April 15, 2011

Love my Puppy

I love my puppy. She is a lab border collie mix, and she is 2 and half. My husband and I adopted her 2 years ago when we moved out here. And I LOVE her. yep LOVE. Here is a layout I made using SEI Bridgeport Collection.

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I had so much fun playing with this paper and picking out my embellishments. I love the little chiplets that comes with the line. There is something awesome to me about holding a nice, thick, sturdy piece of chip board.

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I love this little bow that I created too! I don’t play much with ribbon, but I am broadening my horizons. At first I think I thought it wasn’t cost effective, that I would WANT more. But now that I have ribbon, I feel more comfortable using it!

Hope you love the page. It’s finally FRIDAY!! Which means, I am going to be making Jello Shots this afternoon. I know, such a grown up thing to do… not. But big party tomorrow. *cough cough* excuse me, I mean, scholarship/charity event. Enjoy your weekend. Tomorrow, I will show you what I made with the leftover scraps from this project!

Peace.Love.Dove.

Thursday, April 14, 2011

Hearts

I have an obsession with hearts. I LOVE them. I mean they are even my sororities symbol (maybe that’s why I love them). But it got me thinking. So here, it was I thought up.

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I cut out all the hearts from Create A Critter. I used the Cricut Design Studio to layout all the hearts on the teal paper. Then cut it out. I then sanded the paper (Core’dinations Tim Holtz & Ranger Ink Distress Collection), and laid it over another color in the same collection sanded piece.

Here is a close up the the effects.

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I thought the effect turned out pretty sweet. I also tore the paper, and used Stickles Pearls to write the word LOVE.

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Again, I have to credit my AMAZING wedding photographer for the Engagement Picture. Olena Graphics is wonderful!!

Hope you enjoyed it as much as I enjoyed putting it together.

Peace.Love.Dove.

Wednesday, April 13, 2011

Wonderful Wednesday

Oh Wednesday. You fall in the middle of the week. I am ready for this week to be over, even though it just started. 

Anyways, I wanted to let you all know that I got the Stylish Blogger Award again! Thank you so much Victoria over at Victoria’s Creations! Be sure to stop by her blog and visit her. Her work is awesome!

Also, sorry for all the blog post on Monday. I wanted to make sure that I got all my challenges in before they ended. So, if you missed any be sure to go through and check out all four post. Here they are if you don’t want to scroll through.

CR84FN23 Color Challenge

Frosted Designs Brad Challenge

Flair & Frills Let’s Celebrate Challenge

Fantabulous Cricut Challenge

I am currently working on another scrapbook layout that I will share with you tomorrow!

Have you ever dreamt about a layout or technique and then HAD to try it out the next day? Well that’s what happened last night as I drifted to bed. I used my new Tim Holtz Core’dinations paper… I can’t wait to share it with you tomorrow!

AND… I HAVE 100 FOLLOWERS!! I am so excited. Two months ago I had like 20! Thank you all for being so wonderful to me! I will have to have a giveaway in a few weeks to celebrate! (Life has been busy lately)

Hope you have a Wonderful Wednesday too!

Peace.Love.Dove.

Tuesday, April 12, 2011

One of those GREAT days

Have you ever had one of those AMAZING days, but you didn’t know it was going to be that good until the day starts?

Sunday was one of those days. My husband didn’t have to work, and we had no plans. When we woke up Sunday morning I asked my hubby what we should do that day. Well, let’s see if the Mariners are in town. And sure enough, they were! So, we went to a baseball game. He is a Cardinals fan, and I am Twins fan, but we thought, hey, its baseball, who cares!

So we jumped in the car, went to the mall, bought some Mariner’s t-shirts, and headed down to Safeco field to watch them play the Indians.

We had amazing seats!

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3rd row! They were amazing. I think even better than the ones we had behind home plate the one other time we went to a game together there.

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I love my cameral. I even got great shots like this one above… FROM MY SEAT!

The Mariners lost, but that didn’t ruin the day for us. We then headed over to Pike’s Place Market to get some King Crab Legs to take home for dinner. While we were there my husband let me pick out a bouquet of flowers to take home too! Aren’t they beautiful!

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We got home, and had a delicious dinner and got to sleep in Monday morning. These are the days where we are happy we don’t have children. We can do things on a whim. Take spontaneous trips, and enjoy the day!

I know, I am going to go backwards here, but I didn’t know I had this picture. On Saturday, my friend and I went to the Anacortes Wine Festival. Thirty wineries, one wine glass, and FOUR hours. Here is us at hour TWO!!

DSC09981 We had visited all 30 wineries… We had a blast, and a super fun girls afternoon!

Hope you had an amazing weekend. And enjoy the rest of the week! I am excited to see what pans out for the rest of the week, hopefully more crafting!

Peace.Love.Dove.

Monday, April 11, 2011

CR84FN23 Color Challenge

When I see colors I love I have to go for it. These colors were a GO in my book!

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There are still a few days left, so if you love these colors head on over to CR84FN Color Challenge and participate yourself!

This layout uses a photo I took of my friend Ann at her wedding. She is adorable! She has a blog, and she loves to sew and knit. So check her out at Annabellebumps.

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Isn’t she beautiful. I used just solid colors. I cut out the Bride from Tie the Knot Cricut Cartridge, and used a border punch for the trim. The butterflies are from the Hannah Montana Cricut Cartridge. I used Stickles Pearls as accents. Here are some close ups.

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This is my last post of the day. I wanted to get all my challenges up and out before they closed. Tomorrow is a busy day, so I won’t be crafting. Please be sure to read all FOUR of my posts today. I am so excited to have gotten all of these done!

Peace.Love.Dove.

Frosted Designs Brad Challenge

This challenge happened upon me. I was so excited to make a page for my own wedding scrapbook that I used ALL of my favorite papers. But the layout needed something more. Then I saw these brads sitting in front of me that matched the color scheme perfectly. As I was putting it together I remembered that the Frosted Designs challenge was exactly that… USE BRADS!

So here is my layout for the challenge.

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These photos were taken by my amazing wedding photographer, Olena, from Olena Graphics. No joke, if you are getting married in Minnesota. She did some amazing work. These photos are of the first time my husband saw me that day. The first picture he hadn’t even seen me yet, and the second is completely us, doing our own thing, at how we look at each other all the time. I love these pics. The back ground paper is Martha Stewart and it is ALL glitter. No glue would stick to it except for the tacky glue. So that is what I used… and those brads (which are SEI). Blue and Silver were our wedding colors, with white and black. The blue paper is DCVW Shimmer Stack. Love the shimmer!  Wait till I scrapbook my wedding cake! (My cake lady is on TLC’s Amazing Wedding Cakes. Check out Gateaux Inc. --- AMAZING) She even made Justin Morneau’s wedding cake!!

Anyways about the layout. Here are some close ups.

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Ah, I love this! It is so me. Hope you like it!

Peace.Love.Dove.

Flair & Frills Let’s Celebrate Challenge

This challenge at Flair & Frills was a theme, and the theme was Let’s Celebrate! I will admit, I made two different layouts. The one I am submitting is my first layout I made. The second one, I used this thin silver paper and it got all wrinkly and I got frustrated that it look bad, so I went with the first.

My celebration that is layout represents, may need a little back story. Back in high school, I was captain for two years of our High School/District Figure Skating team. I am pretty sure we were the only school district that had a team, but it was a ton of fun! The team consisted of five different high schools combined to make up about 40-some members. Since there were 5 high schools, there were 5 captains, and since there were 5 seniors that had been on the team all of the years, we all happened to be the captains. (I am sure I mentioned I grew up in Minnesota.)

The photo on this layout is the five captains, our senior year, at our very last ice show of the season. (we were in the locker room)

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I used the All About Girls stack from DCWV for this layout. Celebrate is from Tie the Knot the cartridge, and the font is Alphalicious. I added little pearl accents to the page since the background is slightly off white.

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I hope you like this layout since I have held on to this photo for so long (since digital cameras were not even something anyone talked about back then). I am so happy I finally got to do something with it!

Peace.Love.Dove.

Fantabulous Cricut Challenge

Today I finally got come time to scrapbook! I have had a few very busy weeks, and I am not able to do what I want in my scrap room, not what I HAVE to get done. Not that I didn’t enjoy it, but I can guarantee, that you will be seeing a ton of my wedding photos.

For this Fantabulous Cricut Challenge the theme was Spring Fling (use Pink, Green, and Yellow). I wanted to use just solid colors, and stick as close to those three colors as possible. Here is what I came up with.

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This is a picture of my hubby and I back when were in San Antonio for a weekend several years back. I used the Create a Critter Cartridge on everything except the lettering. The letters are from Making the Grade.

Here are some close ups.

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I am finding that I have not had my new camera long enough to have some amazing pictures of things, and my husband does not like his picture being taken, so I am working on using old photos.

I hope you have a great day!

Peace.Love.Dove.

Saturday, April 9, 2011

Relay for Life

I am doing relay for life this year and I can’t wait! I was unable to attend last year since I was working, it didn’t fit well in my schedule. But now I am!!

I thought for all my friends and family that donated I would make them a thank you card. This card below is for my mom, and it is totally her. I just thought I would share it with you.

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Anyone else participate in Relay for Life? My grandfather passed away of Lung, Liver, and Colon Cancer when I was in 9th grade. My parents aren’t always around for these events so I like to do it to support my family since I am thousands of miles from them. I also have a close friend whose father passed away of cancer soon after we graduated college. My heart goes out to all of those who have crossed paths with cancer. It is not an easy battle on all parties involved. I hope you have a wonderful weekend. More to come next week!

Peace.Love.Dove.

Friday, April 8, 2011

Link Up Love Party

Oh joy! A party! I LOVE Parties.

I really do love parties. I am not sure if I just love to be social, or I just love to have a drink every now and then, but parties with a THEME are the best!! Next weekend I going to a party. The theme is HEE HAW. My friend and I are in charge of the decorations, this next week I will finalizing my costume and hopefully my husband will let me get some cowboy boots. (I have been asking for some since I was in Wyoming 2 years ago).

Anyways, Kristal over at Getting Cricky with K. Andrew is having a link up love party, and how could I pass up a party! To go join in the party click HERE, and it will take you to the post.

I love finding new blog friends so I think this is a GREAT way to Link Up Love!

I am going to share my one special thing that most people don’t know here, but I will let her know in her comments as well. I am a huge dork. I think deep down I am still 15 years old, because I love teen movies. No joke I rented Ramona and Beezus on Netflix and watched it yesterday. I don’t think any of it was sad, but I balled my eyes out, just cause I felt emotionally attached. I also love 17 Again, High School Musical 1, 2 & 3. John Tucker Must Die. You name it, and love those high school movies… So basically instead of being 26, I am 16… haha. No wonder my husband and I aren’t ready to have kids yet!

If you are new to my blog, WELCOME!! I have a million things going on in my life, but scrapbooking is great stress relief, so I so it as often as I can! Let me know if you become a follower, I will come follow you too!

Peace.Love.Dove.


Whimsical Wednesday Challenge #1

The time has come! I have been looking forward to these new challenges for quite a while at Whimsical Wednesday. I have finished all my HAVE to projects, and I can finally focus on me. Sorry for not posting earlier this week. I have a million things on my to do list, and to top it off, I hadn’t seen my hubby in quite some time this week either cause we were BOTH super busy. I am hoping tonight we can do something fun, maybe even hit the casino!!

Anyways, since I finally had time this morning, I whipped up a page for the challenge. The these was spring/easter and it had to include a bug or critter. Out here in Washington it is Tulip season. That is what April is all about out here, but the Tulip are not out yet… so I took some pictures last year, and made a layout using them.

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I used the worm from Create A Critter Cartridge, and it went PERFECT with this page. I also added some stickles for a little bling. Here are some close ups.

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The letters are K & Company. They are kinda felty. I don’t usually use letters they I don’t cut from the Cricut since I am saving money, and they usually match better, but for some reason, I wanted to use these. Plus, I loved this font.

Well I am going to try to fix my lawn mower. My grass is super tall and I can’t get the thing to start. If all else fails, my hubby will be home early from work, and I hope he can get it work. Otherwise we might have to get a new lawn mower… (we are renting so the lawn mower is for us to use, and we don’t technically own it, so I guess it wouldn’t be a terrible thing, I just have to find that Home Depot gift card we got for Christmas…)

Have a great weekend!

Peace.Love.Dove.

Saturday, April 2, 2011

My Core’dinations Creative Frenzy

As of recently, I have discovered Core’dinations papers, and have fallen in love. The texture, the colors, the CORE. Everything about them in amazing. I do have to say, my favorite Core’dinations Collection is Black Magic! There is something that I love about Black and another color. It is is amazing what the paper can do. I have three projects to share with you (and a fourth at the end). I just couldn’t do three. I needed one more so here is what I have made.

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For this frame I used Core’dinations Gemstones Collection in Amethyst and Pearl on the base of the frame. For the words and the flowers I used the White Wash Collection in Window Pane. I sanded the White Wash paper, to bring out the black core. I think it made this contemporary frame look vintage and timeless. Here are some other angles and close ups of the details.

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Next I wanted to make a scrapbook page. Scrapbook pages are my favorite, and I am always looking forward to what I can dream up next. This page uses my favorite collection. Black Magic. When I knew I wanted to try this collection, I went to the store and all they had was ONE color, and ONE of that color! So I grabbed it and here is what I came up with.

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In this layout, I used Core Essentials for the background red in Scarlet. The gray border cut out in the Martha Stewart punch is also Core Essentials in Stormy Grey. Framing each picture I used the Cardmakers Pearls Collection in Silver Pearl. The lettering, and the polka dots is done in the Black Magic Hypnotic color. For the dots, I ran the paper through my Cuttlebug and sanded the embossed dots to expose the red color. What a cool effect! Here are some more detailed photos.

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The texture on this paper is awesome. I love the lines in it. They are thick and sturdy. I love that.

For my third project I made a card. I loved the colors I picked out, but I couldn’t think of what kind occasion to make it for. So my mom suggested Father’s Day. My mom was in town for a few while I was working on these projects, and she was amazed at how fun this paper is! So here is the card I made.

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I like to keep my cards fairly simply. Especially a masculine card. For this card I used the Gemstones Collection in Emerald for the green. The best thing about the Gemstones Collection is that is has a great shimmer to it. I love glitter and sparkle, and this paper has a simple shimmer that adds the perfect touch. I used a scrap paper of black (since I only had one page of Black Magic) – If I could have got it in the Tada color, that would have been perfect! I again used the White Wash Collection in Window Pane for the embossed look and the lettering. I used the diamond plate in my Cuttlebug and sanded the paper to reveal the black. I also sanded around the green rectangle to soften the edges. Here are some close ups.

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For any jewels or metal brads, I used my i-rock from Imaginisce. I am going to show you one more scrapbook page I made. For this last project I used the Vintage Collection in Burnt Sugar, and Gemstones in Jasper. I also used some Core Essentials in a couple different blues. You can see how awesome the Vintage Collection is used here when I tore it.

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I hope you all have a great weekend! I think I am going to go play with the Core’dinations Tim Holtz Distress Collection I just got! The possibilities are endless!

Peace.Love.Dove.