Whatta Weekend!

Have you ever had a weekend that was just so packed full of stuff...especially fun stuff? Well, this was one of those weekends for me. We had a little scrapbooking mixed with a bit of baby shower and some more scrapbooking, a little roadtrip fun, some people-watching at the mall, a little more scrapbooking, some surprise birthday stuff and I wrapped it all up with yet another baby shower! How's that for fun and exciting?! I bet you are just dying for me to fill you all in, aren't you?
Friday night was our monthly crop get-together. We also planned to have a surprise for our friend Amy while we were there. It was so funny because when she came in we hollered "Surprise" but she thought we were just being silly. Moments later it hit her that all those gifts were actually for her. We had a good time doing that for her and of course, we always have a good time scrapping! We got us an updated picture with all of our gang that have purchased the ATG 700. Don't we all look so....uhh....crazy cool with our guns?We had a great time chatting and doing a little bit of scrapping too!

We got up early to leave for Birmingham on Saturday morning. With it being National Scrapbook Day, we decided to take a road trip to the Scrap Etc. store that was having such a great sale. We got there early enough to be one of the first 25 in and got this cool scrap apron.Got some good deals! Can't wait to use it all.After shopping there, we found our way over to Scrapbook Mania where our blogging buddy, Cheryl is on the DT. Cute store and such nice people. She took pics of us and said that we might end up on there website....but we didn't. :)

We ate lunch at the Galleria and enjoyed our time together talking and doing a little people watching. We were taking our time getting home because not only was this a fun scrapbooking trip for us gals, it was also a way to keep our friend Amy busy while her husband finished the decorating for her 30th Surprise Birthday Party. We pulled in and she was truly suprised! Wow...what a responsilbility to pull something like that off! I was so nervous and so glad when it was all over. It's hard to keep secrets like that.

And then on Sunday night we had another baby shower for a lady in our church. So it was a weekend of cake, scrapping and lots of fun! I'll try to get back on here to show you some more pics of my layouts I did complete....although I think I only did one!

I am WAY behind on my blog reading! I hope to get the chance tonight or in the morning. Don't go anywhere....I'm on my way over to read and comment! :)

Another Tag and Some Scraptivity!

I just love all these tags that come along and how they circulate through our little blogging community. My sweet friend, Kim, tagged me with this one on Wednesday. This one is the "Show Me Your Handbag" Tag! I have to admit that I love to buy purses. The one I am carrying now is handmade by a lady that lives a few towns over from me. She makes purses, diaper bags, you name it. I have a group of friends that get together to eat lunch and celebrate each other's birthdays through the year. For each birthday present, we got them a purse from this lady. This is the one they got for me in December for my birthday. I LOVE it. It has my favorite colors in it and sits just perfect on my shoulder. There are 3 pockets on the inside perfect for the small things that you don't want to get lost in the bottom. I can fit small notebooks and day planners in here as well when I need to.So now it's my turn to tag. Hmmm....let's see....whose purse have I always wanted to see the inside of?! I'm going to tag: Jamie (again), Jessi, Jolene, and Jude. I thought I'd just stick to the J names...Heh Heh!

Ok, on to some Scraptivity (don't you just love all the words that you can create for scrapping?!). I found an awesome site yesterday. It is just getting started and I can already tell that it's gonna be a Big One. So head on over to Feeling Scrappy and get registered on their message boards. Tell them that BamaButtercup sent you. :) Today I worked on a couple of layouts. One I did purely for fun. I really like how it turned out...and you see those colors again that I love so much.The second one I finished was for a contest held by PageMaps. I cannot post it, but I can post another one that I did for PageMaps last week.I'm planning on participating in an online crop this weekend with Leah over at I Love 2 Create. If anyone is interested in some fun this weekend, go register and maybe we'll see you there! Have a great weekend!

Weekend Recap

We had a great time on Friday night scrapbooking! Before we met to scrap, some of us met at the LSS, RSL. And do you want to know what my sweet friends did for me? They gave me a gift certificate to spend there for my birthday that is coming up this weekend. They also brought me a Birthday cake! I have such wonderful friends...such a blessing! Well, we may not have gotten a whole lot accomplished on our scrapbooks, but we did a lot of laughing and really enjoyed ourselves. You gotta go to Leah's blog to see what she said about it all. Her comments on the night were so good, all I can say is "DITTO"! I do have one picture that she didn't post. We decided to take a pic of us all looking as silly as we could. Everyone is going to kill me for posting this, but oh well!
I got the layout for the circle journal finished and I did two other layouts for Alex's First Year Album. Here are pictures of them.Saturday, the kids and I went to the craft fair with Crystal, her two children, her mom, and Nancy. I was somewhat disappointed because I didn't find what I had intended to get there, but did come away with a few things that will make great presents. Also got some yummy soup mixes! I love soup this time of year.

Last night, we had the kids from church over for a youth devotional and game of Dirty Christmas. Both the adults and children got to play. I think everyone enjoyed that...we always do!

Well, the laundry is calling my name. That is my goal for today is to get it all DONE!

Happy, Happy, Joy, Joy

For Christmas this year, we have 8 kids to think about for presents. That starts adding up to lots of money especially when the grandparents are divorced and so we have to get together two times to do presents. When they were all small, it wasn't so bad. But as you know, the older the children get, the more expensive the gifts get. So, this year, we decided to draw names at one house...that way we only buy one present per person in our family...that's fair! And then for the other house, we decided to make our gifts. Me and my sister-in-laws have been doing that for each other for sometime now. We have had gifts such as ornaments, jingle-bell doorhangers, and even a cute winter penguin made from a bowling pin. So, we decided to let the children make gifts for the other children as well. (Of course, some of us have more time than say the mother who is in nursing school, so we know that the crafts may be of all degrees of difficulty and that is totally understandable.) All of this to say, that I came up with an idea after seeing another idea at my LSS on Saturday. The owner had her Christmas tree up with ornaments. Some of the ornaments she had hanging were large circles with scrapbooked pictures of her family on them. She told me she was doing a class on them this month and that they were made from c.d.s. Well, when I got home, Annessa and I made one. It was cute but it got me thinking about what else I could make out of c.d.s. So here you go. I made this for Annessa today while she was at school. When I showed it to her she loved it. So this is what we are going to make for the other girls. We'll make something different for the boys and little babies. I have just one word to tell how I did this...Crop-A-Dile! There is no other way I could punch the hole through the c.d.s and thick paper.

Before....















After....

What I've Been Up to Lately....

Wow! I can't believe how fast time can go by. I didn't blog anything the last part of the week or through the weekend. I stayed busy, busy last week....got ALL my housework done and in shape for our Thanksgiving company. Now all I have for this week is my regular laundry and just maintaining what I've done so far. And that's no small task with the three I have running around here! As a reward to myself for staying home all last week and getting so much accomplished, I took off to Huntsville on Friday. The boys and I met Leah and Natalie at Hobby Lobby and then on to the Mall for a little lunch and playtime (they have a indoor playarea in the foodcourt...gotta love that!). After we ate, we walked around and went into a few stores, then met up with our friend Amy C. She was there to get pictures made of her cutie-pie daughter. We left and went to Michael's and then on to this LSS. We got a few goodies there and then I needed to head home to be there in time for Annessa to get off the bus. But I stopped by one last LSS on my way home. It is here that I have preordered Chatterbox Doodle Genies, but she has not received them yet. :(

On Friday night, I met Heather at this place where she was on a Scrap Retreat. I stayed for a few hours and worked on some stuff. It was a lot of fun...I wish I could have stayed longer or come back sometime on Saturday. I spent Saturday afternoon and Sunday with the family. We really enjoyed each other's company.

Today, I met a dear friend, Wendy, for lunch and then I met Amy C. at Hobby Lobby again! I know, I know...I'm addicted and need help. So when I got home today, instead of doing my laundry and house maintenance, I played! Here are some pictures of my desk that I moved into my dining room/scrap room. Amy M. will be proud of me...look at those labels! The last picture is of some of the goodies I got over the last few days.




I hope everyone is getting ready for Turkey Day! We are here...got me a 14 pounder today...Yum Yum. I'll be adding my recipes for Turkey and my Mom's Cornbread Dressing to my recipe page this week....be on the lookout!

A great time with friends...

Several of us got together at W.H. for a night of cropping last Friday night! It was so much fun as usual. But it was even better this time because we had some special guests. First of all, Jamie (whom I met through Amy M.'s blog and found out that she lived so close) got to come! It was so great to meet her finally after corresponding through emails and blogging! She is very sweet and we hope that she will come back (if we didn't scare her too much with our craziness).Secondly, my friend Heather got to come too. It was great to get back together with her and get to introduce her to my other scapping friends. And she fit right in, as did Jamie. I hope that both these girls will become a regular part of our monthly crops. Heather even took out her camera and was the one to take these pictures. I wish I could have thought to take some of everyone else that was there as well.


This is my good friend Amy pictured with me here. Everyone please leave a comment that she needs to get her a blog started!

Look What I Did...

I worked for a few hours this morning at Redstone. After I left, I decided to stop by a LSS that I haven't had a chance to visit. Bad Idea! I should have known that going in would lead to buying things! But I found some things that I really needed (wanted)! I got a date stamper by Heidi Swapp, some cool flower stamps by Autumn Leaves, a few tags and a few embellishments. So of course when I got home, I had to play with it all. Here is the page I created. I had these pictures on a different page I did earlier but I didn't like it too much. I like this one a whole lot better. The journaling says, "You have such big and beautiful blue eyes! I love to take pictures of you close enough to capture the twinkle of your eyes."