Family Update- January 2015

I can't believe that January 2015 is almost over. Here are some of the highlights of our month...

This year, we decided to set goals. Mitch and I wrote some personal one and encouraged the two older kids to do some as well. Some of my goals this year was to organize more, loose weight and scrapbook more. I made some progress in all areas and the three photos below shows them...

 I worked on organizing my clothes and found out that I'm a bit addicted to camis and tank tops. I love the rainbow of colors that I see in this container.

Green smoothies are my favorite. This time I opted to use water instead of milk or yogurt to keep the calories down and I also added some oats for added fiber.

I had all of the intention to check off all of the cabinets in the kitchen but alas, I bit more than I can chew and only got the food cabinets reorganized.

The above picture is a Sunday meal of Elk meat roast with some mashed potatoes and veggies. Mitch didn't catch any Elk this past season but his hunting buddy was kind enough to share some with us from a previous hunt. This is our first time to eat Elk meat and I have to say, it was pretty good.

January was also a month full of snowy days. We haven't had any "snow days" from school, just lots of 2 hour delays but the kids still enjoyed the little break they got. I have to say, this is our 5th winter in Colorado and I am still in awe of the beauty of this area when it's surrounded by snow. I don't like to go out and drive around it but I marvel at the beauty at the comforts of my warm home.

This month, Marcus got his first rank advancement in Boy Scouts. He finished his tenderfoot ranking and was recognized during this month's court of honor. I already told him that we will shoot for Eagle scouts for him. We shall see. 

 And finally, updates on our little guy. Mason turned 5 months this past week and he is growing, literally and figuratively, in sensed of the word.
This month...
-We are slowly introducing him to solid foods. He's been eating about every other day (just one meal) because we didn't want him to be constipated. We can tell he is so anxious to eat regular foods though as his eyes always get big when he sees us eat.
-We found his ticklish parts and we love making him laugh and giggle when we play and tickle him.
-His cries has graduated to screeches. And he mostly does it at the wee hours of the nights. I'm not sure why he prefers screeching but this kid sure can hit pretty high octaves.
-He is still not sleeping through the night but we are slowly getting into a routine where he sleeps for a straight 45 minute -1 hour at a time. It's been a life saver, especially since I have to do school work during the day.
-He loves to chew on everything now. Anything he picks up with his hand goes straight into his mouth. That is usually his toys,  burp cloth, his own hands and sometimes my finger.

So there you have it. Our January in a nutshell.

Till next time,
Grace

What's new in the store....

Hello friends. One of the things that I would like to do once a month in this blog is to share with you what's new in my Etsy store. I hope this will help you as you navigate my papercrafting store. If you have not visited the store in a while, you can check it out here. Graceworthy Designs etsy store carries handmade card sets, minibooks and sometimes even products. 

This month, I added some of my most popular gift sets- Altered Post it note holders. Each listing comes with three post it note holders and I have three currently in the store. Here's a little peek at them...

These are great for gift giving and it definitely makes jotting down important notes more fun. If you would like to see more images of these items as well as the rest of the items in the store, please click here.

Thanks for stopping by.

Till next time,
Grace

Book Review- Life's Golden Ticket

Another thing that I would like to make a monthly post in this blog are book reviews. Over the past years, I've become a bookworm. Although lately, I am not able to enjoy reading as much as I did in the past because of school but when I can, I try to dive into a good fiction title at least once a month. 

I hope to share some of my recent reads here and I hope you will share your favorite titles in the comment section below as well. I like to add them to my "to-read" list in GoodReads. 

For my first book review/share, I invite you to read this one...

*click on the image for more info*

According to Good Reads: "What If . . . You Were Handed a Ticket That Could Magically Start Your Life Anew? In what is sure to become a classic, Brendon Burchard has crafted a triumphant tale of personal growth and change that will inspire any reader who has ever wished for a second chance."

My review: 

I read this book over the Winter break and the story line was so engaging and touching that I finished it in three days. I love how the story line helps me, as a reader, to take stock on my life and the track that I'm threading. My favorite part of the book was in the beginning when it was mentioned that  it's better to have a life of SUBSTANCE rather than a life of SUCCESS. It takes me back to a famous talk by a leader in my church named Dallin H. Oaks. You can find that here. There are always good things to reach out for, maybe even better things but the really best things to commit to is anything that would bring substance to our lives. 

So now it's your turn. What kind of book have you read that have left you inspired? Please share in the comment section. 

Thank you for stopping by. 

Till next time,

Grace

DISCLAIMER: I am not paid to review the books that I share in my blog. I am just a big book worm and loves to share the great reads that I find.

Double page spreads with Scarlet kit

Happy Friday dear crafty friends. Today I'm sharing my last two pages created with my scarlet kit. If you have not seen what products I combined for my homemade kit, please check out the video here. 

Bishop's Castle

These photos are from 2011. One of my goals this year is to get all of my pictures from 2011-13 scrapbooked. Most of them are from events like holidays and trips so there's a lot of pictures to use and maybe that's why I haven't scrapped most of them lately. But I'm committed to getting them checked off this year and so you will probably see more double page spreads from me this year than years past. 

I used a stencil to create this blue effect on the top left and bottom portion of my page. I only had one blue and pink cardstock so I used both of them here, making sure to use both in each page so there's a cohesive look despite not having he same background color.

I decided to go with handwritten journaling since I had this pretty big die cut/journaling block from My Mind's Eye.

I used some chipboard letters for my title and added some twine to the top to make it look like a banner.

Take me out to a ball game layout

For this one I used a busy pattern paper for my background. It had blue, white and red which was perfect for this baseball themed page. To make sure that my pictures doesn't get lost in the background, I added a piece of 8 1/2 x 11" vellum on both sides of this double page spread.

Since this is my last page, I didn't have much pattern paper left from my kit so I punched what I had left and created this border for my page. I loved how it turned out.

I used the die cut frame in this page, highlighting the 4x6 photo of the ballgame and added the chipboard stickers for my embellishments.

I used multiple letter stickers to spell out my title.

I also added the rosette trim in this page. I adhered some of the chipboard elements with foam adhesive to make it stand out better.

Thank you for stopping by. Do you have any scrapbook goals this year? Please do share  in the comment section. I'm curious to know if I'm the only one that makes up scrapbook goals each year.

Till next time,
Grace

Celebrating Freedom double page layout

Hi there! I love using sketches for my layouts. I love it even better when it's a double page spread. If you have followed me before you know that I do a lot of two page layouts to document events. When I found this one from Stick it down blog, I knew I had to use it...

And here's my take on the sketch....

One of my goals this year is to work on pages that are from 2011-2013. The event above is from 2012 and I feel so accomplished that I finally got it scrapped. I like to mat my page with a background paper to ground it but since I had limited resources with my kit, I decided to cut 1/2 strips from the gold paper and then adhered that to the white background paper to act as a border all around the page.

I moved some of the elements in the sketch to accommodate my pictures and supplies I had to work with. This page is my third one made with the homemade scarlet kit. You can view my kit items here.

I did a combination of handwritten and typed journaling. I wanted to use this die cut piece but I had more to say than what is allocated in the block so I created a circle one where I typed more info about the event.

It wasn't intentional but when I saw that the stamp set that I had put in my kit had bikes, I was super thrilled. It worked perfectly with my page.

I will be the first to admit that I suck at creating titles for my pages. But I thought that this one suited both the holiday that we were celebrating in the picture as well as the "freedom" that the kids might have felt as they rode their bikes.

So that's my page share today. I wanna know...how do you get inspiration for titles? As you can see, I'm in need of help in that department.

Thanks for stopping by.

Till next time,
Grace

Little Lady layout

Happy Wednesday friends. I hope that your week is going great. We are experiencing a winter wonderland here and although it's a pretty sight, I am deciding to admire it from the comforts of my warm home. 

Speaking of comforts, I am enjoying working with my homemade scarlet kit this month. It has all of the colors that is within my comfort zone.  If you would like to see what I included in my homemade kit, please see the video here. 

Here's a single page layout that I made recently....

and it's based off of this sketch from Stuck! sketches blog...

I had mentioned in my video where I share the contents of this kit that I wasn't sure if I will be able to use thus die cut title. I was so thrilled to find these set of photos in my stash that worked well, not only with the title, but with the colors of the kit.

The sketch had a flower on the bottom portion of the layout and I didn't put any flower in my kit so I went through my stash and found this hot pink piece which I layered with a white one and a brad.

I heat embossed the white arrow stamps on this layout and sprinkled the white sequins.

I bought some new ink for my typewriter so I'm happily using that for my journaling lately.

So there you have it. Thanks for stopping by.

Till next time,
Grace

Scrapbook Process Video -Beautiful Blooms

Hi there. I'm sharing another layout with you today plus a process video. 

Going with my "pile it up" theme this month, I decided to pull out some of my stamps (clear and cling) and try to add as many of them into one layout. Here's the result...

Beautiful Blooms

I haven't done an 8 1/2 x 11" spread in a while and so I thought I'd give it a go, especially since my photos are smaller in scale. Because I was focusing on stamps, I was even able to grab some scrap cardstock and use them in my page. Here's the process video for this layout...

And here are some more close ups...

What did you think? What are other ways you add some stamping to your scrapbook pages? Please share them in the comment section.

Till next time,
Grace

Card share- January

Happy Friday! I love making scrapbook pages. They are what drives me to continue playing with paper. But I have to admit that one of my favorite parts of papercrafting is going through my scraps and what is leftover after I create a page and make a card (or two) with it. Here are two cards that I was able to "whip up" after making a few pages...

Birthday Wishes card

Two of my favorite card themes to create are a. Thank you cards, and b. birthday cards. You can never have too many of them. This time I wanted to add to my birthday card stash. I used some leftover papers and used some new (to me) black stickers on this card. I also added some flowers, rhinestones and twine to add texture to the card.

Happy Birthday card (with flowers)

This one also started with scraps of paper and then I used the same black stickers that I used in the first card to spell out my sentiment. I had this one itty bitty piece of green glitter paper that I placed on the top of my card but it looked kinda lonely so I went to my flower stash, added some and then finished it off with some homemade enamel dots in hot pink color.

As you can see they are two different colored cards (one's a little muted and another super bright) but using somewhat the same sketch and lots of leftover scraps.

I hope this inspired you to use your scraps to make cards that will sure brighten anyone's day.

Till next time,
Grace

Open your heart and learn layout- One Little Word 2015 + process video

Hi there my crafty friends. Today I'm sharing a layout that is doing double duty. First is it's a layout where I am documenting my goals and one little word for 2015. If you haven't heard of OLW, you can check out the premise of it from the creator herself, Ali Edwards, here. I've never really done an OLW before and after much thought and reflection I came up with the word LEARN. I think it sums up all of my goals and plans for the year, both inside the crafting world and in all other areas of my life. 

The second reasoning for this layout is because I wanted to play along with the latest sketch from Creative Scrappers here. Here's the sketch that I based my layout on..

and here's my layout....

As you can see, I turned the layout on it's side and changed up the blocks/accent sizes just a bit to match the rest of my layout.

Wanna see how I did this layout from start to finish? Here's my process video to go along with this page...

And here are some more close ups....

I used the latest Scrap Stash kit inspiration to put together my homemade kit for this month and this was my first layout using that kit. You can find out more about what I put into my kit by watching my video here.

Thank you so much for stopping by and I hope you have  fantastic and creative day.

Till next time,
Grace

Scrapbook Process Video - Happy Mr. Fishy

Happy Monday dear friends. Today I'm sharing another layout along with a process video. I was able to pile this one up with some dies created with a manual die cut machine. 

Happy Mr. Fishy layout

I had a hard time with this one as my ideas weren't looking good once I tried to put them into action. You can check out the process video here...

and here are some more close ups...

If you would like to check out the dies that I used in this particular layout,  you can find them here.

Thank you for stopping by and please share your favorite metal dies on the comment section below. I would love to add them to my metal die wish list.

Till next time,
Grace