Photo Tag

Good morning, everyone and happy Friday to you! A couple of days ago, I was tagged by Heidi, author of the blog From 3 to 5 in a round of photo tag. She's a delight! Stop by and show her some love. The idea is to go to your first picture folder and post the tenth photo in that folder, giving the story behind the photo. So here's my tenth picture in my first folder. I think I actually have older ones tucked away in my archives, but here we go....

This is Keegan just days after he was born. He was fussing a bit in this picture and we couldn't help ourselves. Being new parents we snapped pictures of every mood, every sneeze, everything. But I think he was hungry when we snapped this one. Nice of us to snap pictures of our kid while he's crying instead of feeding him, huh?! Hard to believe this was almost 4 1/2 years ago. *sigh*

Now, I am to tag 5 more bloggy friends to do the same.

1. Jes @ Exposing the Drapes to My 20s

2. Christina @ Pooh's Corner

3. Ginna @ The Abbey Family

4. Molly @ The Snyder 5

5. malmal @ mal mal's thoughts and such

Have fun with it!

My Ray of Sonshine

I snapped this picture a few days ago while Keegan and I played outside during our unusually warm spell here in Memphis. I was thrilled with the way it turned out, though it has a couple of blemishes. Still, I love the streams of light the camera captured.

Back On Track

Good morning, everyone! Though it is Monday. Blah. The dishwasher is going, laundry underway and I've only had to heat up my coffee once so far.

The kiddos and I made it back to Memphis safe & sound and were very happy to see the hubs and sleep in our own beds. We had a fantastic time with our friends and family. Wish we could have brought them all back with us. But such is life. We took lots of great pictures and to see all of them you can visit my family blog here. I would like to share one incredible picture with you. This is a gorgeous Kentucky sunset. I spotted this behind my parents' house one night and couldn't resist. Doesn't it look like the sky is on fire? Incredible indeed.

I enjoyed some quality time with my precious great-grandmother. She had found a quilt my grandmother had been working on before she passed and gave it to me to finish. She gave me a quick tutorial and I'm hoping to do her proud. Again, visit my family blog to see pictures of her teaching me to quilt. I didn't want to bore those not interested (one of the reasons I keep a separate blog). I do, however, hope to post some before & after pictures of the quilt once I finish. I worked on it a bit last night and there is something extremely satisfying about using my hands to finish this quilt - a quilt my great-grandmother, my grandmother and now I have all worked on together. I'm feeling creatively empowered. I just might find myself inside a quilting store very soon. Now THAT'S something I never thought I'd hear myself say.

Hope everyone had a great weekend! It's good to be back on track in the blogger world!

My Improved Creative Space

Good morning! I'm very excited to give you a little preview of what I've been working on for the last week or so. My 1/3 of the office started to feel very cramped and unorganized so I decided it was time to spruce it up a bit. I wanted something functional, organized and a bit on the girly and creative side. I also didn't want to spend a lot of money - I enjoy being married. I am not quite finished but finished enough to show it off a bit. Here is my desk. This is the first thing you see walking into our office. I tried to make the pictures bigger so you could get a better view but I somehow distorted them. Sorry. Just click on the images to get the bigger picture. I would love to eventually replace the lamp with something more artistic and girly but haven't found the right one yet.

The desk came from Pier One as well as the hutch that would normally sit on the desk. The hubs mounted it on the wall to give me more desk space. We've had these desks for a while now so I'm not sure you can still get them. But they've been great pieces to have. Hubs has a matching one on his side of the office (that space has yet to be tackled).

Here's a better look at the hutch. I LOVE my vintage cameras and hope to add more to my collection. The camera on the far left is a Brownie Hawkeye and was actually my great-grandmother's camera. This was the first in my small collection.

The baskets within the hutch came from Old Time Pottery a while back. They fit perfectly and conceal and organize a lot of my scrapbooking tools.

These letters are actually chipboard and came from Hobby Lobby. I painted them with acrylic paint and covered them with scrapbook paper. Then, of course, EMBELLISH! I'm very pleased with the result and how they immediately catch your eye the minute you walk into the room. This little project rekindled my love/hate relationship with my glue gun.

Excuse my impatience but I posted these pictures a little prematurely. These organizational shelves from Michaels will eventually be painted black. However, I didn't want to wait a minute longer. These shelves are nothing fancy but they are affordable, easy to assemble and I love the little baskets within to conceal those things that might not be so cutesy. They are pretty deep and hold much more than I ever anticipated.

This is the area to the left of my desk. I found the shelf on sale at Michaels. I added some pictures of my kiddos and another vintage camera. Just some things to girly it up a bit.

This spin organizer came from Hobby Lobby and I was so excited to find one in black rather than white. Why is most scrapbook furniture white? Anyhow, I've been continually impressed with it since the purchase. It holds all of my scissors, all of my sharpies and other pens & markers, as well as tons of other things. It fits nicely on my desk within arm's reach.

A peak inside my baskets on my hutch. Again, from Old Time Pottery.

These little "paint cans" came from Michaels as well. They are great for ribbon...

and stamps. They have larger ones as well.

These are the bookshelves. The one on the left is filled with scrapbooking supplies and the one on the right complete with the kids' TV (now showing: "Horton Hears a Who"), movies and a collection of books. Office supplies (paper, photo paper, USB cords, envelopes, CDs, etc.) are concealed in the baskets purchased from Old Time Pottery. I'm not terribly satisfied with these shelves and will probably find a better way to organize them in the future. But it works for now.

This is a better look at the top of the bookshelves. There are two cameras - my first ever digital cameras. The paintbrushes were my grandmother's. She was a great painter, something I did not inherit. Because they were so important to her, they are important to me and I wanted to display them somehow. The box underneath the pot of brushes was her art box - chalks, charcoals, etc. It's as she left it. I hope to one day pass it on to one of my kids to use.

I hope you enjoyed your tour of my creative space. As I add things and improve it, I'll be sure to post new pictures. I would LOVE to hear any suggestions you might have for improvement - the more creative the better. Next on my list is to spruce up the kids' little area of the office. Then, on to the manly side. Any suggestions for that would also be appreciated.

Happy Hump Day!

The Ice is Pretty But...

we sure are ready for it to move on out. Us southerners aren't used to all this winter weather. I posted some pictures of our winter storm here in the Memphis, TN area as it was happening. Here are some additional photos. The ice sure did make for some pretty pictures. I thought the pine trees were the coolest. Check 'em out!

Happy Monday!

Simple but Fun

While the President was giving his State of the Union speech, I decided to do a little scrapbooking. The hubs and I watched it in our office so I was able to dig in to all my scrapbooking supplies. While these pages are simple (again, at this stage I'm all about just getting it done) they are colorful and fun. The first is "I'm just a Toddler" and it's inspired by a little embellishment kit about toddlers. I just picked out some colorful paper and took off. Brads were used on the journaling box to spruce it up just a bit.

This next one is very simplistic. I had only one picture so I printed a 5x7 & just backed the picture several times. I also used photo corners on the picture itself. Brads were used on the journaling box to add just a little embellishment. I didn't want to do too much with this page because the paper is so busy and it pretty much speaks for itself - "Boys".

Happy Scrapbooking!

Splish Splash

This weekend I had some time be creative & I thoroughly enjoyed myself. This scrapbook page is of my son playing with the water hose in our backyard when he was about 16 or 17 months old. Yes, I'm that behind - he's now 4 years old. The page is pretty simple because of limited time. I'm all about getting it done. The letters I cut out using the Jasmine font for the Cricut. I LOVE this machine and if you're a scrapbooker, you should definitely look into getting one. Then after backing my pictures and arranging them on the page, I added some splash stickers to play up the "Splish Splash" water theme. To add just a little something extra, I added a simple bow to my journaling box. Very simple, but I think it turned out very cute.