Jillian Deiling Cassity

Some Cricut Shares!

2011-12-08T19:19:00.009-07:00

Hi All! Wew, how has your December been so far? Mine has been busyyyy ever since Black Friday, seems like it hasn't slowed down since! :) I have NEVER been shopping on Black Friday before, I've always been too scared. :) BUT, I started going through the paper on Thanksgiving night and couldn't BELIEVE the sales that a lot of the stores were having! Learning how much money that I would save if I went shopping that night was enough to convince me to deal with the scary crowds. I texted Amy (who was ready and willing to go shopping at short notice in the middle of the night- she's a night owl like me!) and she and I left for Target at 1:30 AM. The store opened at midnight so a lot of people were done with their shopping already and waiting in the check out line. My eyes almost popped out of my head when I saw that the line ran all the way to the back of the store! By the time Amy and I were done shopping an hour later though, there were about ten people in line, woohoo! We went to Kohls and Toys R Us after that and to my surprise the stores weren't even very crowded! Not to the extent that I had feared anyway. When we arrived home at 7:30 AM we were exhausted but so pleased. I can't believe that I got so many good deals! "Santa" is definitely going to deliver quite a haul to our house this year. :) I took a 3 hour nap and Alex, John and I headed out to hit the rest of the sales in town. Almost all of my Christmas shopping is done, yay! It took me awhile to recooperate from lack of sleep but it was so worth it! I'm going to be a Black Friday shopper each year from now on for sure.

This week I have been playing with my Cricut along with the Cricut Craft Room like a mad woman! If you haven't tried it, you must. Wow! I love it! :) Make sure to head over to the Cricut Blog to see the newest exclusive digital cartridges that have been released this week. The design team has been creating so many beautiful projects, I am constantly inspired!

Here are a couple Cricut projects that I designed awhile back with the Just a Note cartridge. This cartridge comes preloaded on the Cricut Expression 2: Anniversary Addition, along with 3 others. The Just a Note cartridge instantly became one of my favorites!

One of the other cartridges that comes preloaded on the Expression 2: Anniversary Addition is the Cricut Decals cartridge. Here is a layout that I created with it:

Hehe, I love these pics of my puppy in her bunny ears! :)

Here is another layout that I created with the Robot Party Cartridge that was released a few months back. This cartridge is full of cuts and designs in order to create a whole Robot themed party. Invites, party favors, party bags, cupcake wrappers, etc! What's so fun about it is you can use it to embellish your scrapbook pages, cards, decor as well, the sky is the limit! Since layouts are my favorite I decided to use two robot images and a big bolt cut to create a scrapbook page.

In other news, I have been on a health kick lately! I don't know why I was so inspired to take care of myself all of a sudden. Perhaps it's because my 27th birthday is coming up quick? Maybe I'm getting freaked that I'm almost a year closer to 30? I also think I just got tired of getting sick all of the time. I catch viruses and things SO easily, a big reason why is because I'm anemic. I've been taking more iron and vitamin supplements for the past couple of months and I definitely notice a difference. But you know what helps the most? Drinking a glass of Emergen-C every day! I can definitely tell the difference on the days that I don't drink my Emergen-C. I feel the need to put this message on my blog because it WORKS! I have some friends that get sick all the time like I do and I'm redudantly telling them "drink Emergen-C, you'll feel better immediately and it will prevent you from getting sick", and they don't do it! DO IT. I promise you'll be able to tell the difference! Especially once you notice that you haven't been sick in MONTHS since. :)

I'm also taking better care of my skin and eyes. I'm starting to see bags under my eyes, I'm sure it just comes with getting a little older but it's never too early to start trying to prevent it! I swear by The Body Shop face products now, wow, they're great! I used to wear contacts constantly but my eye doctor has been telling me repeatedly for years that wearing them so often is hard on my eyes. I finallyyyy took him up on his advice and got some glasses. I actually like them! My eyes feel much better, I'm not constantly rubbing them and they don't dry out all of the time like they used to. I feel like they fit my personality as well, since I'm such a nerd! :)

I hope all of my bloggie friends and readers are having a wonderful holiday season so far!

Happy Thanksgiving!

2011-11-24T02:44:00.004-07:00

I hope all of my blog friends and readers have a wonderful Thanksgiving! I'm pretty excited, aren't you? I've been up for nearly 24 hours getting the house and food ready. We're having friends and family over tomorrow and I'm making all of the food from scratch, eek! Those of you who know me should know that I am NOT a cooker, I'm terrible at it! I'm hoping that some of it ends up being edible. John says he plans to stand behind me with the fire exstinguisher the whole time to make sure that I don't burn the house down, isn't he sweet? :) Heh.

Make sure to stop on by the My Creative Scrapbook forum to check out the monthly challenge that I came up with this month! The challenge theme is to create a layout with a storage pocket. Here is the example that I made:

I made a page to store Alex's valentines that he received from all of his friends this year. They've been sitting in a bag in my scrap room since then and I finally came up with an idea in order for me to keep them for him!

And check THIS out! I actually had a little time on my hands awhile back and made a layout... JUST FOR FUN! I haven't been able to do that in ages! This was also my first shot at using Websters Pages paper and I loooove them. I'm definitely well on my way to becoming a Websters Pages addict.

Before I go... check out who got glasses yesterday!:

Poor Alex, he has crappy vision, just like his Mommy! He had his first eye appointment on Monday. I had a feeling that he was going to need glasses because I started wearing them at 5 years old as well. He's pretty excited about it though. Apparently glasses are "cool" now (wish they had been when I was a kid!) so he was hoping that he'd need them! :) He picked them out all by himself!

Happy Thanksgiving!!

Cricut Craft Room

2011-11-21T05:34:00.005-07:00

Have you heard of the Cricut Craft Room? If you haven't you MUST check it out! It's one of the coolest things to come out since sliced bread! You like that old school saying that I used right there? :) Cricut Craft Room makes it easy to have access to all of your Cricut cartridges right on your computer! Simply open up the craft room, plug your Cricut into your computer and get to cutting! For more information and where to download your own Cricut craft room, click HERE!

Provocraft has also come out with many exclusive digital cartridges, only available for purchase on the Craft Room online. Check out this blog post to see them and make sure to keep checking back, they'll be coming out with more and more SOON!

Speaking of Cricut, check out this advent calendar banner that I created for the Official Blog, it went up a few days ago.

I printed all of the papers used to make the banner from the Mr. Frosty Imagine Cartridge. I created 12 stockings with the Winter Frolic cartridge and embellished them with glitter and Cricut cuts. I put small treats and toys inside each stocking. On December 12th I'm going to let Alex start counting down to Christmas. He'll get to reach inside one stocking each day to get his special holiday treat! :)

Can you believe that Thanksgiving is in FOUR days?! Augh! I'm not ready! I'm cooking for nine people this year and I'm terrified, lol! I must quit playing on the computer and finish creating my menu and shopping list. I'm going to the grocery store this morning to buy all of the food, eek! Have a wonderful Monday! :)

My Creative Scrapbook November Layouts!

2011-11-08T09:15:00.006-07:00

This past week has been quite an interesting one! Since Thursday we've had several earthquakes here in Oklahoma. On Saturday we had a 5.6 in magnitude, which is the biggest earthquake recorded in Oklahoma's history! I'm pretty used to earthquakes, growing up in Alaska they were a regular occurance. Thankfully I know what to do if a really large earthquake ever hits, but I've just been fearful because I know that our house isn't build to withstand a large earthquake, not many of the structures here are. I'm also worried because all of these earthquakes of this magnitude are not normal here in OK. There was also a group of tornadoes that came through our state yesterday and that wasn't normal either! There aren't often tornadoes during the fall/winter here. What is up with this weather? It's scary! lol. I kind of wish that I could go to my Mom's in Montana for awhile until this craziness ends but since Alex is in school and I have a job we're kind of stuck.

Onto a more positive note though, my cousin Krissy just arrived from Illinios yesterday. She'll be staying with us for a whole week! It's so nice having her here. She's not only a cousin but a best friend and when she's around I'm so happy! :D I just feel bad that she scheduled her trip right around the time that all of our wild weather hits, poor girl, lol.

I've been a busy girl lately, scrapping like mad! I have so many new projects to share but to begin I'll share my My Creative Scrapbook November layouts. These were all made with the November Creative kit.

This one is probably my favorite. I love the photos of Alex cheesing for the camera and the fall colors in this kit are perfect!

Love this one too! Because of the pics. :) There is a school store at Alex's school. One of the "hot new items" in the store are these light up fiber optic mohawks. Every kid wants one! Alex and his friend Kennedy were lucky enough to each get a set and they were pretty excited about them, I had to take a pic when they got home from school! I love how they match in their school t-shirts as well. :)

And since I haven't posted to my blog in so long, here are some photos of Alex during Halloween! We had such a fun Halloween weekend. He got to wear his costume lots and had tons of fun with his friends. :) After trick or treating on Monday night he was EXHAUSTED! John had to carry him home because he couldn't walk anymore, lol! How was your Halloween?

These are photos from a church Halloween fair on Sunday that we went to with our neighborhood friends:

Here are photos from Halloween night! Alex had fun posing with his "awesome machine gun", lol! :) The gun was the whole reason he chose his Halloween costume. I have a feeling this means the end of "cute" Halloween costumes for him. *sadface*

Kenedy was a siberian tiger this year. Isn't she prettyyy? :)

Have a great week! :) I'm looking forward to having lots of fun with Krissy! We already went shopping yesterday and plan on going lots more. We're both TERRIBLE influences on each other when it comes to spending money, uh ohhh. ;)

My Creative Scrapbook October Layouts

2011-10-12T10:09:00.007-06:00

Heyaa! It's been quite awhile since I posted a blog post, yikes!

Things have been a little crazy around here. My aunt passed away a few weeks ago so I went to Illinois to spend time with my family and to go to her memorial service. It was really comforting spending time with my family and it was incredible to see how many people showed up to pay their respects at her memorial. She was loved by SO many, she was one of the most unbelievably responsible, caring, kind and smart people that I have ever met. I actually have always looked up to her, she is my role model, I have always and will always strive to be a mother just like her. I will continue to do so, knowing that she is watching and looking down on my family and I. :)

Since I've been home I've been working at my local Scrapbook store a lot. I just got to see a lot of the new Christmas lines that she ordered and ohhh my goodness. I pretty much want all of them! I know that I MUST have the new My Minds Eye, Cosmo Cricket and Websters pages lines, maybe more! How about you, any Christmas lines getting you excited yet? I'm ready to start scrapbooking Christmas photos already! :)

I've been helping out in the classroom at Alex's school a lot, it is so fun! I love it! Maybe I should have pursued being an elementary school teacher when I went to college? Helping to mold little minds is so enjoyable and fulfilling.

The new October My Creative Scrapbook kits went up for sale last week! This month I played with the Creative kit again. I LOVED this kit. Bella Blvd. is one of my favorite companies and I whipped all these pages out in two days! I think that's a record for me. :)

I also created a page for the Official Cricut Blog at the beginning this month, I made this one to celebrate Breast Cancer Awareness Month. It's a page all about how much I love my girlfriends! I used the Rock Princess cartridge, Lacy Labels cartridge, Paisley, Elegant Edges and Nate's ABC's on this one.

Have a great week everyone! I helped at Alex's school this morning, had a nice long phone convo with Delaina and now John and I are going shopping! We're going to get pumpkins for our lawn and the new Evanescence CD that came out yesterday, eee! Give this song a listen. :)

Zva Creative September DT Blog Hop!

2011-09-26T07:00:00.001-06:00

Zva Creative and our talented Design Team welcomes you to join us this month for a blog hop that we feel is always extra special! We thought it would be more fun to add even more chances to win our blog hop prize! See details below.

The summer trade show was in July, which means brand new Zva Creative products. So please keep an eye out for them at your local craft stores.

As you know, Zva offers so many beautiful color groupings for pearls, flowers and crystals. We want to make sure that they shine bright for you, so each designer was asked to share a creation using a specific color or color combination on their blog hop project.

The Blog Hop begins at Kim Hughes' blog. She will have the complete list of all blogs that are participating in case there is a glitch along the way. If you would like to play along, just follow along the blog path. I am linking to one of the Zva designers and that designer is linking to the next and so on. Be prepared to be inspired along the way. Hidden on FIVE of the blogs is a Zva Creative prize package...YAY! Winners will be randomly chosen after the hop is over, so it's important to leave a comment on as many blogs as you can along the way.

The Blog Hop starts today, September 26th and runs through midnight US Eastern Standard Time on Tuesday, September 27h and the 5 winners will be announced on Wednesday, September 28th on each of the five winning blogs. The full list will be found on Kim Hughes‘s blog as well (linked above). We will do our best to notify each winner, but it's best if you can pop in to all of the blogs once again on Wednesday...plus, you never know what kind of inspirational creation that you may find there. All you need to do is leave a comment on this Zva Blog Hop post...you do not need to leave a comment on each and every designer's blog post to qualify. The more times you leave a comment along the blog hop path though, the more chances you will have to be one of the lucky winners.

To increase your chances of winning:

* Comment to let us know that you posted on your Facebook page about our hop (link to any of the blog hop posts)

* Comment to let us know that you "tweeted" about our hop (link to any of the blog hop posts)

* Comment to let us know that you asked your local store to carry Zva creative products. If they already do, that's fantastic, maybe you can suggest other products that they don't carry

Sooo, you have FOUR chances on each blog to win one of our FIVE prizes! That's technically OVER 50 chances :)

Zva Creative products used: CR04CA102, CRC01CB103

The blog hop begins here: Kim Hughes

Your next stop is here: Guiseppa Gubler

Thank you SO MUCH for joining us

Cricut + Pink Paislee

2011-09-21T07:52:00.003-06:00

While going through the recent projects that I've created for the Cricut Circle Blog, I thought to myself: "Woah, I've been going a little Pink Paislee crazy lately!" lol. Pink Paislee has been one of my all time favorite brands since the beginning, and getting to mix them with my Cricut? Makes it even better! :)

Here's a layout that I created with the Hometown Summer collection. I love summer + primary colors! These are photos of Alex eating cotton candy at the zoo, one of his favorite treats. Although... anything that contains sugar is one of his favorite treats it seems, ha.

I used the following Cricut cartridges to create this one: Nifty Fifties, Robotz, Sentimentals, Accent Essentials. And don't forget to use your Cricut Expression 2! If you don't have one, get one! I *heart* mine. :)

Now for the Soiree collection, my fav! I loooove the bright colors. Here is my sister at her high school graduation back in 2007. I can't believe it took me 4 years to get these photos scrapped!

Cartridges used: Paper Lace, Wrap It Up

This next one was created for a challenge. About things that BUG me. What bugs me more than anything? The big messes that my dog's make... every day! :)

Cartridges used: Paper Lace

I'll be back with even MORE Cricut projects! I haven't put up any in awhile so there's lots to share.

I'm off to work at Paper Crown. If you live in the OKC area, come visit me! :)

Where Have I Been?

2011-09-19T10:13:00.011-06:00

Where have I been? Over these past couple of months it seems like I've been everywhere! lol. We went to the Chicago area for 5 days last week. My cousin got married and it was a beautiful wedding! Krissy is my closest family member, we were born 6 hours apart and even though we've always lived across the country from each other we're super close! :) I love her. Her husband is such a good guy, I'm so happy for them! Here are a few pics that I snapped during the wedding:

The beautiful couple!

My cousins, Jake and Dave (Krissy's brothers)

My Mommy!

HAD to get a pic with the bride!

Please excuse my peeling, red face. I got SO sunburnt a few days before I left, ugh. Story of my life, lol! I tried to wear a dress that covered most of it up but can't hide the face. :)

Can you tell that I got a new camera? Yes, after YEARS of whining John finally broke down and let me buy a Canon Rebel T2i. I am in LOVE with it! I still have a lot to learn but oh my goodness, the quality of the photos that it takes compared to my old camera is insane!

While we were in Chicago I got to see lots of family, cousins, aunts, uncles, my mom and sister came over from Montana too. The 5 days that we were there went by WAY too fast. John and I wanted to go exploring in Chicago and we ventured our way out there last Sunday. We wanted to take Alex to the Shedd Aquarium because I went when I was about ten years old and I remembered it being the most incredible place that I had ever seen back then! I wanted Alex to experience it too. Well, once we got near the aquarium we figured out that the opening NFL Bears game was going on in the stadium right next to the aquarium! It took us two hours to find somewhere to park and it cost us $50! After that experience and once we were done with the aquarium we were done with Chicago for awhile, lol! We are definitely not "big city" kind of people! :) The aquarium was AWESOME though! All of the sea creatures were fascinating, Alex loved it! We saw the beluga whales and dolphins perform, but Alex still says that he liked watching the sharks swim around the best. *shudder* I can't wait to go back to Chicago again though, there are so many things that I still want to see and do!

I've been scrapping LOTS since I got home, will share more soon. Here is a layout that I created for the August 2011 issue of Cricut magazine. I highlighted the Freshly Picked cartridge here.

Check out the Cricut blog to see the Grandparent's day kid project that I came up with!

Happy Monday! :) It's going to be a great week. I'm working at the Scrapbook Store on Tues. and Wed. again, then after work on Wednesday John and I are taking Alex to the state fair!

Heh heh hehhh....

My Creative Scrapbook September Layouts!

2011-09-07T01:40:00.003-06:00

The My Creative Scrapbook September kits are up and for sale! Make sure to check out the Design Team Gallery this month. WOW. The DT girls are so talented!

I got to play with the Creative kit this month. It featured new Pebbles papers and embellishments, I loved it!

Here are the layouts that I came up with:

This one is an altered wooden frame. The photo is of Alex at his school field day this past Spring while he was holding a giant parachute. I love how to colors of the kit matched the parachute perfectly! :)

I am finally off to bed. I'm working at my LSS tomorrow and Thursday and then we're leaving for Chicago Friday morning, eek! I'm excited!

New Layout and Wedding Pics!

2011-09-03T21:18:00.000-06:00

I finally received all of our wedding photos! I'm so stoked, can't wait to get started on scrapping all of them! :)

Here is the first batch: everyone getting ready for the wedding!

Looove these pics of Sarah and my sister getting Alex ready! :)

All of the girls got ready at my Mom's house. Poor Mom, the upstairs of the house looked like it had exploded once we were done with it! Mom made all of the necklaces and earrings for the bridesmaids and I.

Our BEAUTIFUL niece, Sarayha! The most gorgeous girl alive! In my opinion. :)

It took the girls foreverrr to get my dress laced up! I made Sarah loosen it when we got to the church too, I could barely breath on the way there! lol.

John and the guys got ready at the church. I guess they waited around for us for awhile... hehe, oops.

My flowers! I am still so in love with them! :)

Before I go, here's a new layout. The photos are of Alex at our friend, Kaci's, wedding in Bellingham. The green balls that he's pretending to eat are decorations that were on her tables at her reception. I love how goofy my baby is, just like his mommy! :)

Layout created for Zva Creative. Products used: CR04CA148

John's Birthday and Alex's First Day of School!

2011-08-28T21:22:00.002-06:00

Last Wednesday was John's 30th birthday! Poor guy, everyone was making fun of him so much. :) I was the worst at making fun of him, he was getting so sick of me! lol. I tried to make his birthday as special as I could though. I surprised him with a cake in the morning at work and bought and made him lots of gifts! Here is the card and little present that I made for him. :)

Melissa gave me the idea for the "30 Sucks" tootsie pop basket, I cannot take all the credit!

John's dad ended up giving him half of the day off of work so he decided that we should take Alex to the Oklahoma Science Museum. Alex loved it!

I apologize for the horrible photos. My camera hasn't been working properly lately and I can only get it to work sometimes. It's been driving me nuts! I had to use my cell phone to take pics of John's birthday. Anyways, I have a warranty on my camera but to get it fixed I have to send it in to Nikon and I keep putting it off because I constantly have new layouts and scrap projects that I NEED photos of. I have a feeling it's going to take me awhile to get it back once I send it off to them.

Thursday was Alex's FIRST day of Kindergarten! He was so excited. I was nervous. It's a new school for him and Kindergarten here is a full day of school, rather than a half day like it was for him last year. Alex is a superrr hyper kid, and he can never seem to keep his mouth shut, lol! He had problems with it last year in Pre-K, he got in trouble a LOT for talking, although he got better at it after a few months. I knew that paying attention for a full 7 hours a day was going to be a huge challenge for him this year. And. I was right. He's gotten in trouble a bunch for talking already, but at least it's only talking and not anything else that he's getting in trouble for, lol!

Photos of him on his first day. I love the last one, cracks me up!

The first few days of school were pretty hard for Alex. I think he thought that it was going to be just like Pre-K, that he was going to walk into class and know everyone but of course it's a new class at a new school with a new teacher! Thankfully a girl from his class last year is in his class but it didn't seem to help much during the first few days. He was sad after school, telling me about how no one seemed to want to play with him at recess and things like that. I was SO sad for him, and shocked as well! He's the most outgoing person I know, and ask anyone, I am NOT kidding, lol. Not getting someone to play with him is so unheard of, he's never had a problem joining in. I spent the next few days making things as fun as possible for him, trying to keep his mind off of school so he wouldn't cry about it.

This week has been MUCH better though. He's come home happy the last couple of days babbling away telling me about his new friends and how much fun he had at recess. I am SO relieved. :) Hopefully he won't have this problem again since he'll be going to this school for the next 4 years. :)

Alex and I had an exhausting weekend. We went to two birthday parties yesterday! Chelsea's daughter's was a pool party and our neighbors was a big waterslide party. Alex's muscles were sore for the first time ever last night and this morning. It freaked him out, he thought he was dying, poor kid! :)

Be back asap with all of my new scrappy layouts!

My Creative Sketches- New Sketch Blog!

2011-08-22T15:08:00.003-06:00

The My Creative Scrapbook owner, Pam has started a new sketch blog: My Creative Sketches! The first sketch challenge just went live today. Make sure to check it out, the prizes are AMAZING, I wish I had a chance to win them, lol!

Here is the layout that I made based off of the sketch:

Alex with his basketball trophy last winter. This photo of him is one of my favorites!

My First Wedding Layout and My Ring!

2011-08-14T22:24:00.005-06:00

Yep. I did it. I scrapped my very first wedding photo, eee! I don't have any of my other photos back from the photographer yet. I'm trying to patiently wait for them, lol! At least I had one to scrap though, yes?

Title: We're A Classy Couple
Journaling reads: At least... we looked like it for a day!

Ha!

Zva Creative products used: CR04CA125, bulk flowers

And speaking of the wedding... one of the most exciting things that happened to me during the wedding was when John surprised me with another wedding ring while we were exchanging rings! I thought that we were just going to use the same rings that we used last year when we got married at the court house, but he got me a smaller one to go with my big one for our religious ceremony. He is soo sweet! I love how they look together. :)

Before I go... check out the layout that I made for the Cricut blog last week. This one features book paper. You can see more details on the Cricut blog HERE!

Alex starts school this Thursday! I can't believe summer will be over in three days! It definitely went by way too fast.

Vacation Layouts!

2011-08-07T14:18:00.003-06:00

I've been having a blast scrapbooking lots of my vacation photos this week! I have so many new photos from our wedding/vacation I have enough photos to scrapbook for years without running out. :)

Here's Alex on the beach in Bellingham, Washington. We went for our friend, Kaci's, wedding and I immediately fell head over heels in LOVE with Bellingham. I reminds me so much of Alaska! Their food was incredible. There were cute little restaurants and sandwich shops everywhere and everything I ate was more amazing than anything I had ever tasted. I swear, we ate so much there, I'm surprised we didn't all gain ten pounds! Only fallback to Bellingham was that it was COLD! lol. I'm used to the summer's being nice and hot but it was only in the 60's during the day there. That's how Alaska summers are too but I'm not used to them anymore!

Zva Creative products used: PEB02CB103

Layout of Mom and I at Kaci's wedding. Sigghhh. I miss her SO much already!

Zva Creative products used: CRB04CA115, CRB04CA105, FL04CA135, bulk flowers

After Kaci's wedding my mom, sister, Alex and I were supposed to go to Seattle the next day to spend a couple days there as well. My sister ended up getting sick so Alex and I only got to spend a couple hours there before our flight back to Montana. I was REALLY bummed that we didn't get to go, I had our two days planned full of fun stuff to do in Seattle, grr. Hopefully we'll get to go back soon so that we can really experience Seattle to the fullest! Alex and I just went to the beach before our flight. It was so fun! When I was little one of my favorite things to do was combing the Alaskan beach when the tides would go out. That's exactly what Alex and I did and he loved it! He was fascinated by all of the crabs, fish and snails that we found. :) We walked out on a couple docks and saw a bunch of jellyfish as well, too cool! I really miss living by the ocean!

Zva Creative products used: CR03CA120

Zva Creative products used: CRB04CA120

I made this before I left but I never got to share! This was our guestbook for our wedding. Now it's full of all of our friends and families signatures (along with lots of inappropriate comments that people wrote later on during our wedding night when they were drunk, lol!) I shall treasure it forever! :)

Have a great Sunday! Don't forget to watch True Blood tonight, woohoo, I love True Blood Sundays!

My Bachelorette Party and Wedding Shower

2011-08-02T22:32:00.000-06:00

My friend Sarah threw both my wedding shower AND my Bachelorette party, she's the best! :) They were both AMAZING parties, I had so much fun!

My bachelorette party was on July 9th, the Saturday before the wedding. I told Sarah to plan it for then because I knew that I would be WAY too busy the week before the wedding to be able to go out and have fun. :) The party ended up being INSANE, especially near the end. We ran into a bunch of NFL players at one bar and Macaulay Culkin at another. Now how many people can say that happened at their bachelorette party? And in Montana, no less?

Here's a quick rundown of the party:
Just the bridesmaids that were in town (Naomi, Jennifer and Krissy couldn't get here until a couple days before the wedding, since they're from out of town) came to the dinner before the party. During the dinner Sarah gave us our goodie bags that were full of bachelorette party favors, most of which were innapropriate!

Amanda, Kelly, me, Sarah and Suzy

After dinner we went bar hoppin! Other friends joined us at the bar and we all traveled around in "style" in a big van that the bridesmaids got for the night equipped with it's very own driver! The poor driver probably hated us by the end of the night, I know we must have been super loud and annoying, lol!

It was such a fun night. I made everyone take turns being the bachelorette, it was hilarious. Then I had a checklist that I was supposed to fill out, I wont even tell you what was on that checklist, but I made all of my bridesmaids complete each task on the list instead of me. Everything was checked off by the end of the night except two!

The following Thursday Sarah thew my bridal shower at my mom's house. She made SO much delicious food- and enough food to feed about a hundred people! (This is just some of it...)

A bunch of my out of town family and friends ended up arriving right when the shower was coming to an end, so the party kept on going. A bunch of other people ended up coming over and we celebrated all night. I wish I had gotten more photos but I was too busy to think! I only have the few that Sarah took. :) I swear, the week before the wedding was pretty much a non stop party blur, but I LOVED it. I have never had a better time in my life!

June Zva Blog Hop Winners announced

2011-07-27T22:07:00.003-06:00

We'd like to congratulate the FIVE June Zva Blog Hop winners! Their names will be found on the following blogs:

And my winner is...

Mel said...: LOVE that LO Jill! Alex is growing up so fast! Cuter everyday:)

One winner from each of the 5 blogs will receive a Zva prize package worth $30.00. Congrats winners! Email me at jilly12268(at)hotmail(dot)come with your mailing info and Zva will get the prize out to you! Congratulations Mel!

Zva Creative products used: CR-04CA-138

Zva Creative July DT Blog Hop!

2011-07-25T07:00:00.001-06:00

Zva Creative and our talented Design Team welcomes you to join us this month for a blog hop that we feel is always extra special!

We know that it's a busy time of year with kids home from school and vacations, so we thought it would be more fun to add even more chances to win our blog hop prize! Details below.

It's CHA time which means brand new products. So please keep an eye out for them at your local stores.

As you know, Zva offers so many beautiful color groupings for pearls, flowers and crystals. We want to make sure that they shine bright for you, so each designer was asked to share a creation using a specific color or color combination on their blog hop project.

The Blog Hop begins at Kim Hughes' blog. She will have the complete list of all blogs that are participating in case there is a glitch along the way. If you would like to play along, just follow along the blog path. I am linking to one of the Zva designers and that designer is linking to the next and so on. Be prepared to be inspired along the way. Hidden on FIVE of the blogs is a Zva Creative prize package ...YAY! Winners will be randomly chosen after the hop is over, so it's important to leave a comment on as many blogs as you can along the way.

The Blog Hop starts today, July 25th and runs through midnight US Eastern Standard Time on Tuesday, July 26th and the 5 winners will be announced on Wednesday, July 27th on each of the five winning blogs. The full list will be found on Kim Hughes‘s blog as well (linked above). We will do our best to notify each winner, but it's best if you can pop in to all of the blogs once again on Wednesday...plus, you never know what kind of inspirational creation that you may find there. All you need to do is leave a comment on this Zva Blog Hop post...you do not need to leave a comment on each and every designer's blog post to qualify. The more times you leave a comment along the blog hop path though, the more chances you will have to be one of the lucky winners.

To increase your chances of winning:

Comment to let us know that you posted on your Facebook page about our hop (link to any of the blog hop posts)

Comment to let us know that you "tweeted" about our hop (link to any of the blog hop posts)

Comment to let us know that you asked your local store to carry Zva creative products. If they already do, that's fantastic, maybe you can suggest other products that they don't carry

Sooo, you have FOUR chances on each blog to win one of our FIVE prizes! That's technically OVER 50 chances :)

Zva Creative Products used: CRB03CB114

The blog hop begins here: Kim Hughes

Your next stop is here: Camilla Ekman

Thank you SO MUCH for joining us!

I'm Baaack!

2011-07-24T22:11:00.004-06:00

Hmm, blogging? What's that? I was just in Washington and Montana for over a month! With everything going on I just kind of took a break from the blog for awhile but oh, how I've missed it!

Our wedding was on July 16th, it was AMAZING. Planning for it was a LOT of work but it all paid off in the end. I have so many fun photos, stories and memories to share! Seeing all of my friends and tons of family was the best part. This month has been the best month of my LIFE, thus far.

We just got home on Friday night. We all slept for about 14 hours- we were exhausted! Now we all finally feel like getting back into the swing of things. It's incredibly hard to get back to the normal routine after taking a month off!

Here are just a couple photos from the wedding, photos taken by Daniel Sullivan, he is AMAZING!

Be back soon, make sure to check in in the morning for a Zva Creative hop. :)

It's Crunch Time

2011-06-14T21:28:00.005-06:00

Howdyyyy! I have been running around like a chicken with my head cut off for the past week. We leave on Thursday, eek! I'm finally seeing the final results of my hard work though. I'm finally done with all of my invites and they have been mailed off. I have almost everything made and ordered for the wedding. Our suitcases are already half full. Yay! I still have a long two days ahead of me though, wish me luck! :)

Have you been keeping up with the new Cricut blog? Here is a new project of mine that was featured on the blog awhile back. I used the brand new Sweet Shop Lite cartridge to create this one, it's for sure one of my favorite new carts!!

Here are a couple projects that I created exclusively for the Cricut Circle blog. For information on how to become a member look HERE!

A St. Patty's Day layout. This is seriously one of my new favorite layouts EVER!

Fairytale cards that I created during Fairytale week. Perfect to include with baby gifts. :)

I'll be back before I leave! I'm so excited!

My Creative Scrapbook June projects!

2011-06-05T22:18:00.006-06:00

Hi All! I was asked to guest design for My Creative Scrapbook again this month! I got to play with the June Creative kit and I LOOOVED it! Here are the projects that I created:

These are photos from field day at Alex's school a couple of weeks ago- so cute! :)

I also made an altered jar to hold Alex's collection of seashells.

Now I am off to do more wedding planning! I leave for Montana in TEN days! Omg! Where did the time go?

John and I decided on "our song" for our first dance at our wedding today. Here it is!

It was so hard for us to decide. We're weirdos but I love it. :) We didn't want one of those first dance songs that everyone and their mom uses for their song, plus we wanted a song by one of our fav bands. John was actually the one that picked it, isn't he sweet? :)

Zva Creative May DT Blog Hop!

2011-05-30T07:00:00.002-06:00

Zva Creative and the Design Team welcomes you to join us this month for a blog hop that we feel is always extra special!

As you know, Zva offers so many beautiful color groupings for pearls, flowers and crystals. We want to make sure that they shine bright for you, so each designer was asked to share a creation using a specific color or color combination on their blog hop project.

The Blog Hop begins at Kim Hughes' blog. She will have the complete list of all blogs that are participating in case there is a glitch along the way. If you would like to play along, just follow along the blog path. I am linking to one of the Zva designers and that designer is linking to the next and so on. Be prepared to be inspired along the way. Hidden on FIVE of the blogs is a Zva Creative prize package ...YAY! Winners will be randomly chosen after the hop is over, so it's important to leave a comment on as many blogs as you can along the way.

The Blog Hop starts today, May 30th and runs through midnight US Eastern Standard Time on Tuesday, May 31st and the 5 winners will be announced on Wednesday, June 1st on each of the five winning blogs. The full list will be found on Kim Hughes‘s blog as well (linked above). We will do our best to notify each winner, but it's best if you can pop in to all of the blogs once again on Wednesday...plus, you never know what kind of inspirational creation that you may find there. All you need to do is leave a comment on this Zva Blog Hop post...you do not need to leave a comment on each and every designer's blog post to qualify. The more times you leave a comment along the blog hop path though, the more chances you will have to be one of the lucky winners.

Zva Creative products used:
CR01CB106
CRB03CA112

The blog hop begins here: Kim Hughes

Your next stop is here: Kim Hughes

Thank you SO MUCH for joining us

Wedding Invites

2011-05-25T19:27:00.004-06:00

Last weekend I spent the WHOLE weekend making wedding invites. I have about 50 done, only about 150 to go! lol. I had to take a break after that to work on other assignments. Thank goodness for my Cricut though! I used my Paper Lace cartridge to make the title and my Mother's Day Bouquet Cart to make the flowers.

The Cricut blog is in full swing! The DT girls are already posting beautiful projects and tutorials! Here's a little card that I created with the Cricut decals cartridge.

I am so grateful to be sitting at home with my family today. A bunch of tornados hit Oklahoma yesterday and destroyed many homes in it's path. They ended up skipping our town but other towns were not so lucky. Please pray for those people! This is the first tornado warning that we've had in our town since we moved here. When the sirens went off I freaked, ran to my neighbors house and we went to her Grandma's because she had a tornado shelter, thank God! Last night and today I have been nagging John that we need to buy a storm shelter now. I'd rather be a few thousand dollars in debt instead of losing my family due to tornado! We'll see if he gives in. I definitely want one by next Spring! :)

In TWO DAYS Alex is done with school, woo! I can't wait to start sleeping in again! His Pre-K graduation ceremony was today. It was pretty much the most adorable thing ever. :)

Cricut Winner!

2011-05-23T08:51:00.002-06:00

The winner of my $150.00 Cricut.com give away is...

JenL said...

I'm now following both blogs, so excited to see what comes next! I also added the blinkie to my blog.

Congratulations Jen!! I'll email you with info on how to claim your prize on the Cricut site! :)

BIG BUG NEWS!

2011-05-18T10:55:00.003-06:00

If you love your Cricut Machine like I do or if you're just looking for a little scrappy inspiration, you will be THRILLED to find out that Cricut is launching The Official Cricut Blog TODAY!

The Official Cricut Blog will be THE PLACE to go to for announcements, information, inspiration, and MORE. It will feature all types of projects using all of your favorite Cricut machines: the Expression, Imagine, Cuttlebug, Yudu, and MORE! Find the latest news and videos and don’t forget to check in the third Thursday of each month for the Hello Thursday NEW Cartridge Releases! The May Edition of Hello Thursday is tomorrow. Be sure to stop in and check it out!

Guess what else?!!! Because the New Cricut Blog is sponsored by the Cricut Circle, each of the Circle Design Team Members is holding a GIVEAWAY for a $150 Credit to Cricut.com. All you need to do to be elligible for the Giveaway is to help us get the word out about The New Cricut Blog. 1) Become a Follower of the Cricut Blog and 2) Share the news on Facebook, Message Board, or somewhere else and 3) Post here that you have done both of these things. Easy peasy! You have until Midnight on Sunday, May 22nd, 2011. I will announce the winner here on my blog on Monday. Have fun and GOOD LUCK!

Broken

2011-05-16T20:27:00.008-06:00

Monday already, wha?? Where did last week go?

Have you ever had one of those weeks where it seems like EVERYTHING in your house breaks all at once? Yep, it's definitely been one of those weeks for us!

First our dryer quit working. It's a ten year old cheapo dryer so there's no way to fix it. THEN on Friday Alex decided to "help" me dust and sprayed a TON of Windex all over the cable box and Playstation 3 in the living room. They're both dead, augh! lol. The cable guy is coming over tomorrow to replace that cable box at least but John's pretty bummed about the PS3. We're getting a new dryer delivered on Wednesday, hooray! We're running out of clothes and I'm going to have to go to the laundry mat when Alex is at school tomorrow though *shudder*. Wish me lots of luck!

Poor Alex was "broken" this weekend too. He has an ear infection and to make matters worse he's been throwing up today, poor little guy! He seems better tonight. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that he'll be all better by tomorrow.

Wew! Otherwise last week was really fun! My sister in law, Suzy, came to visit up from Wyoming. I love her, she's so much fun! Here are just a few snapshots from her visit:

And sighhh, we took him to Hooters when he was here. He liked it there a little TOO much. He was running up to every waitress in sight and giving them hugs and of course they all loved him! Omg, I was about ready to DIE! lol. They gave him a tshirt and balloons, he was in heaven. I didn't even notice until later that all of the waitresses signed the tshirt, bwahahaaa! I know, I know, you're all wanting to give me a "Mom of the Year" award, I don't blame ya!

Tomorrow Jennifer is coming up from Texas for a couple days and Chelsea is coming over on Thursday and Friday to help me make my wedding invites! I realized that with everything that I have to make and finish there's nooo way that I can make all of my wedding invites on my own. Sometimes I get a little too excited and inspired and bite off wayyy more than I can chew! lol. Chelsea is my savior. :)

Oh and LAST weekend was an amazing weekend! In between two different kids fairs and a zoo trip I still scrapped a ton on National Scrapbooking Day and Johnny gave me a charm bracelet for Mother's Day, I love it! He's so sweet. :)

RAR! Have a great week!

My Creative Scrapbook GDT

2011-05-06T07:54:00.006-06:00

I was asked to guest design for My Creative Scrapbook this month. I was so stoked, I absolutely adore their kits! I got to design with the May Creative kit and these are the layouts and cards that I created with it:

Love it, love it. This kit is perfect for Spring and Easter photos! :)

I am in a fantaaaastic mood today. We had the carpets professionally cleaned yesterday so they don't smell like dog anymore, just nice and fresh!

TGIF! This week has seemed really long for some reason. Hopefully the weekend does too. ;)

Some Cricut Shares

2011-05-05T07:49:00.005-06:00

Here are some Cricut projects that I am able to share on my blog! I specifically created these for the Cricut Circle. If you would like to become a Circle Member you can find out more about it HERE.

And here is some more exciting Cricut news! Are you the craftiest mother in the world? Do you want to win a new Cricut Expression 2? Check out the contest link here for details! If you would like to see the Expression 2 in action take a look at the Provocraft Youtube channel!

I shall be back later to share some projects that I created for My Creative Scrapbook! :)

My Head Is Spinning!

2011-05-03T23:17:00.006-06:00

Over the past few weeks my head has been SPINNING because I'm so overwhelmed with trying to figure out wedding details. Planning a wedding is harder than I thought! I guess I've just been determined to make my wedding elegant while still incorporating my own style into it. I don't want everything to be generic and the same old thing that you see at every other wedding out there, but at the same time I don't want to over do it either!

I just ordered some cute custom stickers to use on my wedding invitations HERE. I'm nuts and I've decided to make my own invitations. After looking for wedding invites for countless hours and not finding anything that I liked I have accepted that I just need to make them in order to be happy. :) I also ordered some custom magnets for wedding favors from the same shop. They are going to be so CUTE!

These are pins shown but I wanted magnets.

Don't worry, even though I've been going a little nutso while in the midst of my wedding planning I've still put aside a little time to scrap!

Zva Creative products used:
CRS-04CA-112, CR-04CA-131, CR-04CA-120

Now I am off to scout the internet for more wedding junk. :D

April Zva Blog Hop Winners announced

2011-04-27T20:13:00.002-06:00

We'd like to congratulate the FIVE March Zva Blog Hop winners! Their names will be found on the following blogs:

Ingrid Danvers

Jillian Deiling Cassity <--- That's Me!
Nancy Doren
Guiseppa Gubler
Jolanda Meurs

One winner from each of the 5 blogs will receive a Zva prize package worth $30.00.

The winner drawn randomly from MY blog is...

kashagray5 said...

Wee! What a fun bunny page! Beautiful design! Asolutely adorable!

Congratulations Kasha!! :D Please email me at jilly122684(AT)hotmail(DOT)com with your mailing info to claim your prize!

Zva Creative April DT Blog Hop!

2011-04-25T07:00:00.001-06:00

Zva Creative and the Design Team welcomes you to join us this month for a blog hop that we feel is always extra special!

As you know, Zva offers so many beautiful color groupings for pearls, flowers and crystals. We want to make sure that they shine bright for you, so each designer was asked to share a creation using a specific color or color combination on their blog hop project.

The Blog Hop begins at Kim Hughes' blog. She will have the complete list of all blogs that are participating in case there is a glitch along the way. If you would like to play along, just follow along the blog path. I am linking to one of the Zva designers and that designer is linking to the next and so on. Be prepared to be inspired along the way. Hidden on FIVE of the blogs is a Zva Creative prize package ...YAY! Winners will be randomly chosen after the hop is over, so it's important to leave a comment on as many blogs as you can along the way.

The Blog Hop starts today, April 25th and runs through midnight US Eastern Standard Time on Tuesday, April 26th and the 5 winners will be announced on Wednesday, Apeil 27th on each of the five winning blogs. The full list will be found on Kim Hughes‘s blog as well (linked above). We will do our best to notify each winner, but it's best if you can pop in to all of the blogs once again on Wednesday...plus, you never know what kind of inspirational creation that you may find there. All you need to do is leave a comment on this Zva Blog Hop post...you do not need to leave a comment on each and every designer's blog post to qualify. The more times you leave a comment along the blog hop path though, the more chances you will have to be one of the lucky winners.

Zva Creative products used:
CR04CA143
CR04CA110

The blog hop begins here: Kim Hughes

Your next stop is here: Tanya Tahir

Thank you SO MUCH for joining us

Charlie the Cheetah

2011-04-19T20:56:00.000-06:00

Each weekend a student from Alex's class gets to take home a stuffed animal cheetah named Charlie. The parents are supposed to take photos of their kids doing stuff with Charlie and then put all of the photos on a page for a scrapbook that the teacher had dedicated to Charlie the cheetah photos. Alex got to take him home this weekend. He was thrilled! I was excited for him but a bit nervous. I made it clear to Alex that he needed to keep Charlie up or keep him with him at all times because my dogs like to chew on EVERYTHING. I kept my eye on Alex and the cheetah all weekend until I took a shower after I worked out on Saturday afternoon. I came out of the bathroom and discovered my puppy laying on my bed shredding the cheetah! I freaked! I collected the pieces and tried my best to sew them together but there were pieces missing. I got him back to looking semi normal but I still felt TERRIBLE. I searched the internet for quite some time and finally found the cheetah for sale on ebay. It was the only one that I could find and the price was outrageous for a stuffed animal BUT. I had to buy it!

We went to school on Monday and explained the situation to his teacher. Alex was soo upset- STILL! His teacher just laughed and told me there was no need to replace it, she's so sweet! I was relieved! I'm still going to replace it though, of course. :)

Chelsea came over on Friday and we hung out, scrapped and went to an antique store in the town next to mine. It was an AMAZING store, it was huge! I bought a few things, including an old printers tray that I'm going to refinish in order to use to display these little beauties that I've been buying on Ebay:

Aren't they cuuuute? They are vintage Hagen Renaker bone china animals. The deer is from 1953 and the ducks are from 1953 and 56, wow! They are still making Hagen Renaker animals today but I'm going to try to get lots of the old vintage ones too. :) My sister and I used to collect them when we were little but mine were thrown out during our move to our new house somehow. :(

I've become SUCH an Ebay addict lately! I am bidding on a couple of these right now...
Eek! Do you remember Popples? They were my favs when I was little! I had a couple stuffed animals, lots of videos and even a Popples lunchbox! :) I wish that I had kept them. Now I just have to buy them all over again. John's going to kill me, lol! I must. have. all. of. themmmm.

I actually have layouts that I can SHARE! Eek! I've been scrapping like crazy but most I have to keep on the DL for awhile. Here are a couple new Zva Creative layouts though:

I didn't get the best photos of my layouts this time but ehh, it works. :)

Gardening

2011-04-13T08:16:00.009-06:00

John, Alex and I just spent the last 3 days working on our front gardens. We're finally finished! I wish I had a "before" photo so that you could get the full effect. It looked TERRIBLE before! I haven't done anything with the gardens since we moved in a year and a half ago. On Sunday I was sitting outside and I don't know what came over me but I just went and got the shovel and got to work!

I guess I inspired John to get to work too because he had Monday and Tuesday off and he spent both days with me working away! We made 5 trips to Lowes to get all of the stuff. Ugh, gardens are expensive! Alex had a blast picking out flowers though. Most of the flowers that you see are ones that he picked out. :)

We planted blueberry bushes too! Blueberries are my favorite fruit, nummyyyy...

These are John's favorites.

We put in the scalloped brick border and took out all of the gross wood mulch and replaced it with rubber mulch. It's really windy here and the rubber stuff won't blow away like the wood stuff!

I'm sooo glad that it's done and so excited that we have nice front gardens! It's our first garden so John and I are both pretty proud. :) We had NO idea that gardens were this much work!

Oh. Later on Monday night I saw that John posted this fabulous facebook pic/update. Sighhh. Ohhh how I love my husband! hahaaa.

Jill is trimming her bush for the first time since we got our house!

Cricut Circle Projects to Share

2011-04-04T10:51:00.003-06:00

Just dropping by real quick to share a couple of projects that I created for the Cricut Circle blog a few months back.

These are projects that I specifically created for the Cricut Circle. If you would like to become a Circle Member you can find out more about it here. Here are some creations by me from October and November!:

Thank you so much everyone for your sweet comments about Alex's surgery and my layouts, you are the best! :)

What a Week!

2011-04-03T12:24:00.004-06:00

I'm sorry that I've been MIA this week! On Friday Alex had to go to the surgery center to get put under to have his teeth fixed. I was terrified! Everything went just fine though. He's not in any more pain today and it's such a big relief that his teeth are finally fixed, hooray!

Here he is while he was waiting to get taken back to the OR, poor poopie!

He was in a lot of pain but after we got home but after he took a nap he seemed much better. I went to a crop at Paper Crown later that night and scrapped with Chelsea, it was so much fun! Definitely a nice end to a stressful day, lol.

Since I haven't blogged in awhile I have four new layouts to share!

This one is definitely my fav. I love these pics of Alex AND I am in love with this Bo Bunny line!

Layout created for Zva Creative. Zva Creative products used:
FL04CA128, CRB04CA118

Now I am off to do yard work! I'm thrilled that spring is finally here and everything's turning green but I'm not so thrilled that it also means I get to start mowing and weeding again, ugh. :)

Have a great Sunday!

March Zva Blog Hop Winners announced

2011-03-30T08:00:00.000-06:00

We'd like to congratulate the FIVE March Zva Blog Hop winners! Their names will be found on the following blogs:

Lou Collins
Camilla Ekman
Angelica Franssen
Windy Robinson
Gail Lindner

One winner from each of the 5 blogs will receive a Zva prize package worth $30.00. Congrats winners!

Zva Creative March DT Blog Hop!

2011-03-28T07:00:00.002-06:00

Zva Creative and the Design Team welcomes you to join us this month for a blog hop that we feel is always extra special!

There is now an added twist to our blog hops, YAY! As you know, Zva offers so many beautiful color groupings for pearls, flowers and crystals. We want to make sure that they shine bright for you, so each designer was asked to share a creation using a specific color or color combination on their blog hop project. This month my color is BROWN.

The Blog Hop begins at Kim Hughes' blog. She will have the complete list of all blogs that are participating in case there is a glitch along the way. If you would like to play along, just follow along the blog path. I am linking to one of the Zva designers and that designer is linking to the next and so on. Be prepared to be inspired along the way. Hidden on FIVE of the blogs is a Zva Creative prize package ...YAY! Winners will be randomly chosen after the hop is over, so it's important to leave a comment on as many blogs as you can along the way.

The Blog Hop starts today, March 28th and runs through midnight US Eastern Standard Time on Tuesday, March 29th and the 5 winners will be announced on Wednesday, March 30th on each of the five winning blogs. The full list will be found on Kim Hughes‘s blog as well (linked above). We will do our best to notify each winner, but it's best if you can pop in to all of the blogs once again on Wednesday...plus, you never know what kind of inspirational creation that you may find there. All you need to do is leave a comment on this Zva Blog Hop post...you do not need to leave a comment on each and every designer's blog post to qualify. The more times you leave a comment along the blog hop path though, the more chances you will have to be one of the lucky winners.

Zva Creative products used:
CRB04CA134

The blog hop begins here: Kim Hughes

Your next stop is here: Susan Lui

Thank you SO MUCH for joining us

Winning!

2011-03-20T16:34:00.006-06:00

Thank you all who commented on the St. Patrick's Day blog hop giveaway post! The winner of the Cosmo Cricket prize is...

LesleyfromWI said...

I love the design of your LO and think it is perfect! TFS

Congratulations Lesley! Please send your mailing info to me at jilly122684(at)hotmail(dot)com and I'll get that out to you asap!

It has been QUITE a week for us! Alex and I got home from Texas Thursday afternoon. Oh, and the reason why we got home a day late is because my dog threw up in the car on the way there on Monday. OMG, it was soo gross, lol. I had to stop and I spent about an hour cleaning it out of the car but it still smelled TERRIBLE. We had to drive to Texas with the windows down! When I got to Jennifer's I aired out the car the whole next day but I think the smell got worse. On Wednesday we took the car in to get detailed because there was no way I was driving home with that smell! It took them all day to clean it out and I didn't get the car back until about 7 at night. I didn't want to drive home in the dark so we just decided to stay another night. Not that I minded, it just meant I got to spend more time with my Jenny TP! :)

We had lots of fun in Texas. We went to the amazing scrappy store and I got to meet Richelle for the first time on Wednesday! :) Dakotah and Alex played their behinds off, they're so cute together.

When I got home on Thursday John and I went out to dinner for our FIRST wedding anniversary! Hard to believe it's already been a year... but at the same time it seems like I've been married to him for longer, ha! I tried to get some good Saint Patrick's Day pics of the boys but they didn't turn out very well. Oh well, at least I got some this year. :)

I framed this layout and gave it to John for our anniversary.

Check out the Imaginisce blog! One of my newest layouts was featured, thank you Imaginisce! :)

I'm off to get Alex ready for bed so he can get up for school tomorrow. I can't believe his Spring break is over, it didn't even feel like we got a week off!

Another good song! :)

St. Patrick's Day Blog Hop!

2011-03-17T15:44:00.004-06:00

Hey all! I'm a little late posting this today but better late than never, right?? :) I was in Texas visiting Jenny TP and I was supposed to come back yesterday night but didn't make it home until this afternoon. Long story, will explain later!

My new friend, Brynn, asked me to participate in her St. Patrick's Day blog hop this year and I jumped at the chance! :)

Here is the page that I created for the hop:

It turned out a little more flowery than it was supposed to! Alex just finished his basketball season last week and since he was on the "green team" this year I knew that I could make a fabulous green layout to go along with his cute pic!

Please leave a comment on this blog post for your chance to win the brand new "Social Club" line from Cosmo Cricket! I will draw a winner at random tomorrow!

Thank you so much for stopping by! Please stop by these fabulous girls blogs for your chance to win a prize from them as well! :)

Brynn
Alex
Amy
Elizabeth
Jenny
Kris
Kristal
Raven
Sandra
Stephanie
Summer
Theresa

Duh, WINNING!

2011-03-11T22:27:00.004-07:00

Ohh good ol' Charlie Sheen. I've been driving John nuts with Charlie's "Duh, winning" phrase all week!

John calls me while he's at work:

John: "Hey, whatcha doin?"

Me: "DUH! WINNING!"

John decides that he's going to go to bed early:

Me: "Sighhh, John, you're sooo not duh, winning tonight."

Heehee! Poor John! :)

I watch wayyy too much of the E! channel, that's for sure!

Anyway, this week has been quite a week. Alex had his last basketball game of the season. He got his very first trophy at the end of the game, he was SO proud! It was adorable. :)

A couple days later he had his very first T-ball practice! He seems to love it so far and even has a friend from school on the team with him. We went shopping for all of his T-ball supplies yesterday (ugh, expensive stuff!) and he ended up having to get a teenager sized batting helmet! hahaaa. Poor kid, his head has always been huge! He was all disappointed that he couldn't get one of the cool decorated kids helmets and was trying to jam it onto his head. He was NOT successful. :)

I've barely gotten any sleep these past couple of nights. Poor Alex is sick with an ear infection. :( His antibiotics finally seemed to start kicking in today though, thank goodness because his birthday party is tomorrow!

We're having his party at the bowling alley, it should be awesome! I'm even all giddy and excited about it tonight, I'm such a dork.

Before I go here's a new layout! I used the new Imaginisce "Garden Party" collection along with some soft pink Zva Creative Pearls.

Zva Creative supplies used: PE02CB102, PE03CA116, PE02CB150

Listen to pretty song before you go. :)

P.S. Thank you all so much for your amazing American Crafts comments on Wednesday, I have the BEST bloggie friends!

Guest Design Work for American Crafts!

2011-03-09T10:14:00.004-07:00

A few weeks ago I received an email from American Crafts asking me to be the guest designer this week. Of course I said YES!! I ADORE American Crafts!!

You can check out the post on their blog HERE.

Here are the projects that I created for them with their Campy Trails line. I LOVED working with this line! I adore earth tone colors and all of the camping embellishments were so fun to use!

I love this little frame of Alex with his very first basketball trophy that he got at the end of the season this weekend. He was SO proud of it. I promised him that we would put up a trophy shelf in his room so he can show it off, lol!

Thank you again American Crafts!! I love your company so much!

Shhh....

2011-03-04T14:07:00.001-07:00

Just watch and learn the most amazing rap evaaa.

The end.

I Love My Imagine!

2011-03-03T08:01:00.005-07:00

Last week I finally busted out my Cricut Imagine and really got the chance to sit down and work with it. After I started I couldn't stop! I made 6 cards in a row and it was a little painful to put the Imagine away when I ran out of time and had to work on other things. You can now call me and Imagine addict! Here are three of the cards that I made with it, they were all created with the Nursery Tails cartridge.

Zva Creative products used: PEB03CB104

Zva Creative products used: PEB03CB108

Here's a layout of Alex from his FIRST birthday back in 2007, aww. Sometimes I miss those days SO much! Created with my Birthday Bash cartridge.

This week I've been getting ready for Alex's birthday party next Saturday. I can't believe he's going to be 5! Augh! Half a decade! His party is going to be at the bowling alley (his choice). It should be lots of fun but I'm also nervous because we invited close to 30 kids. We invited his whole class and all of his other friends, eek! Wish me luck, I'm going to need it. :)

February Zva Blog Hop Winners announced

2011-03-02T15:37:00.003-07:00

We'd like to congratulate the FIVE February Zva Blog Hop winners! Their names will be found on the following blogs:

Teri Anderson

Jillian Deiling Cassity <---- That's me!

Carole Maurin

Jolanda Meurs

Susan Lui

Using a random number generator I selected the winner from my blog comments. The winner is....

Sylvia said...

perfect! These circles inspire me!

Congratulations Sylvia! Please send your mailing info to me at jilly122684(at)hotmail(dot)com and Zva Creative will send your prizes to you!

Thank you all so much for your thoughtful and sweet comments this week, they mean the world to me! :)

Zva Creative February DT Blog Hop!

2011-02-28T07:00:00.003-07:00

Zva Creative and the Design Team welcomes you to join us this month for a blog hop that we feel is always extra special!

There is now an added twist to our blog hops, YAY! As you know, Zva offers so many beautiful color groupings for pearls, flowers and crystals. We want to make sure that they shine bright for you, so each designer was asked to share a creation using a specific color or color combination on their blog hop project. My color this month was purple!

The Blog Hop begins at Kim Hughes' blog: Paper Hugs. She will have the complete list of all blogs that are participating in case there is a glitch along the way. If you would like to play along, just follow along the blog path. I am linking to one of the Zva designers and that designer is linking to the next and so on. Be prepared to be inspired along the way. Hidden on FIVE of the blogs is a Zva Creative prize package ...YAY! Winners will be randomly chosen after the hop is over, so it's important to leave a comment on as many blogs as you can along the way.

The Blog Hop starts today, February 28th and runs through midnight US Eastern Standard Time on Tuesday, March 1st and the 5 winners will be announced on Wednesday, March 2nd on each of the five winning blogs. The full list will be found on Kim Hughes‘s blog as well (linked above). We will do our best to notify each winner, but it's best if you can pop in to all of the blogs once again on Wednesday...plus, you never know what kind of inspirational creation that you may find there. All you need to do is leave a comment on this Zva Blog Hop post...you do not need to leave a comment on each and every designer's blog post to qualify. The more times you leave a comment along the blog hop path though, the more chances you will have to be one of the lucky winners.

Zva Creative products used:
PEB03CB109
CRB03CB117

The blog hop begins here: Kim Hughes

Your next stop is here: Tomoko Takahashi

Thank you SO MUCH for joining us

A Little Out of Season

2011-02-24T08:54:00.005-07:00

Morning! Or as Melissa and I like to say to each other "Mormon!" haha. Her phone auto corrects everything she texts so whenever she would text me good morning it usually always ended up saying "Mormon". Now we just do it on purpose, easier that way I suppose. :)

Here's a new layout a little out of season but I had a craving to create a Halloween layout the other night. Halloween is my favorite holiday to scrap, it's so fun! Costume pics are some of my favs. :)

These Girls Paperie Halloween papers are amazing! I love the fun flourishes with skulls and spiders, they were a blast to fussy cut.

The photo is of Jennifer, Dakota and I last Halloween in our costumes. None of us wore a scary costume for once! Hence the title.

Before I go, I have some more cell phone pics to share! John and I get to CUTEST pictures on our phones all the time since we have our phones with us everywhere we go. Even though they're not the best quality a lot of them end up being some of my favs. :)

Here's Alex at the mall a few days ago. John was clothes shopping and Alex and I were sitting there all bored. Alex grabbed this hat and started dancing around, it was soo cute and funny! :) I kind of want to get him one of these hats now, he looks so adorable in it!

Here are the dogs earlier this week too. They fell asleep together and luckily John snapped a pic. Aren't they sweeet? Here you can really see how big Riley is now, what a big boy!

Now I am off to scrap! My car is in the shop... AGAIN. It was there last week too. John had to take Alex to school which was awesome for me because I got to sleep in a little. :) I must use these next couple hours of quiet time to my advantage before they come home, haha. Have a great Thursday!

Cricut Oldies but Goodies

2011-02-22T09:16:00.007-07:00

Hi All!! Happy "Monday!". It feels like Monday to me since Alex and I had a three day weekend. :)

The Cricut Circle design team got the go ahead to post projects that we created for the blog that are a few months old. These are projects that I specifically created for the Cricut Circle. If you would like to become a Circle Member you can find out more about it here. Here are some creations by me from October and November!:

Alex carving our pumpkins last Halloween. I used lots of cuts from the Happy Hauntings cartridge and the Martha Stewart Crafts Seasonal Cake Art Cartridge on this one.

And check this out, I actually made a mini book!! I rarely make them but when I got my hands on the new Your Story Photo I couldn't wait to make one! I made this one with Teresa Collins Designs Papers and embellishments and the Heritage Cartridge for my Mom. I gave it to her for Christmas, she loved it!

This weekend I've been working with my Imagine. I haven't worked much with it before and OMG! I can't believe it took me this long to get hooked, I absolutely love it!! I'll share some of the stuff I made with it soon. :) After I get off of the computer I'm going to go play with it some more!

Making My House Prettyyy

2011-02-13T22:53:00.004-07:00

Today I spent the whole day painting and organizing Alex's room. I'm so happy that it's almost all done! :) Here's some photos of his BLUE walls:

They're just crappy cell phone pics but I'll take better ones once the room is actually done.

I still need to hang all of his stuff up on his walls. John and I have been shopping for new furniture for his room too. Soon he'll have a full sized bunk bed, new dresser and bookshelves!

The red dresser in his room used to be green to match his baby room but I painted it red last year because the light green clashed with all of his blue/red cars stuff. The kid has Cars EVERYTHING, that's all he ever wants! John decided to "help" me paint the dresser and he messed it up pretty badly. I was thinking about sanding and re-painting it but we decided to just toss it and get him a smaller dresser so he'll have more room for bookshelves. Alex definitely needs more shelves for all of his TOYS, he's such a spoiled boy. :)

I've been shopping around for new bedding for his room and I like this the best so far:

Pirate Bedding from JCPennies!

I'm really thinking about just making him a quilt though. We'll see how motivated I feel, lol! :)

I got a little etsy crazy this weekend- since I've caught the decorating bug again! I ordered these for MY room!:

From The Little Fox

My sister and I used to collect these little Hagen Renaker figurines when we were little. I had a TON of them! Somehow during our move to Oklahoma I lost ALL of them. I was so bummed. I got a little crazy and bought a bunch of replacements today. I'm not usually a big knick knack kind of girl but I love these things! :)

Now I just need to find a cute way to display them in the living room. Hmmm...

I think I want these prints for Alex's room. What do you think? I still haven't decided.

Okay I NEED to get off of the computer and get to bed! It's going to be in the 70's here tomorrow! Can you believe it?

Gypsy Winner and new scrappy stuff!

2011-02-11T08:09:00.005-07:00

Well it's about time! We just had three snow days in a row again this week, eek! The snow is finally melting again and there's no more snow in the forecast for awhile now. Hopefully we won't get any more!

I tried to keep Alex entertained at home, even though he and I are both tired of being stuck in the house. I took him out to lunch, to the movies and then bowling on Monday because I knew we were going to get snow on Tuesday. I wanted to make sure to get him out and let him have as much fun and possible before we got snowed in again!

Look at all of that snow!

Now for the winner of the Gypsy give away...

Andrea said...: Congrats! Awesome giveway! Good luck everyone!

Congratulations Andrea!! Please send your mailing info to me at jilly122684(AT)hotmail(DOT)com.

Thank you to all who entered my giveaways this week!! I wish that I had enough prizes to give one to EVERYONE! :)

Speaking of the Gypsy, I made a couple little birthday cards with mine.

I used the Simply Charmed and Birthday Bash cartridges here.

And I guess that I was in a Christmasy mood the other day, probably because of all of the snow. I went Christmas Cosmo Cricket crazy on this layout!

Have a great day everyone! I am headed off to Alex's school for his Valentines Day party. :) It's going to be adorable!

WINNER and Last Give Away!

2011-02-07T07:51:00.004-07:00

Hello all! I'm sorry I didn't post the winner over the weekend, we had a busy one! The snow finally melted enough so we could get out. Alex had basketball games and we ran around and did lots of fun things before we get snowed in again later this week!

The winner of the Fabulous Finds cartridge is...

Linda said...

Hello Jillian! Great layout! Love the bling!

Congratulations Linda! Please send me your mailing info at jilly122684(at)hotmail(dot)com.

And now for my final Cricut give away this week. I have a Gypsy up for grabs!!

Just sign this blog post for your chance to win!! I'll draw a winner in a couple days, good luck!

Winner and Yet... ANOTHER Give Away!

2011-02-03T20:54:00.005-07:00

The winner of the Freshly Picked Cricut Cartridge give away is...

Monique Nicole Fox said...Congrats Cathy.

I love this giveaway.

Thanks for the opportunity to win.

Congratulations Monique! :) Please email me with your mailing info at: jilly122684(at)hotmail(dot)com!

Today I'm giving away a Fabulous Finds Cricut Cartridge! Just sign my blog post for your chance to win tomorrow! :)

I made this the other night. Cricut layout. I created this one with the Simply Charmed cartridge, one of my favs! I added some pretty Zva Creative bling as wHell. (that "h" is not a typo, get it??)

Zva Creative products used:
CR03CA111
CR02CA105

John just made me watch Archer with him. If you don't like dirty things and fowl language I don't suggest that you watch it. But if you're like me, you must! I wouldn't watch it for the longest time because it looked really stupid. I was a little wrong buuuut... it's still pretty stupid.

Winner and New Give Away!

2011-02-02T11:42:00.004-07:00

Hi All! Thank you so much for your happy stories yesterday. :) I enjoyed reading all of them! Using a random number generator I picked and winner and that winner is...

Cathy said...

How exciting Jill. Cricut products can be so expensive. Let see a happy story.....My camera was starting to take dark photos. We go to Best Buy to look at new ones. I jokingly say to DH I want one of these DSLR. He says ok pick one out. New Canon 60D and 3 lens = super incredible happy me.

Congratulations Cathy!! That is awesome that your husband bought you a brand new DSLR out of the blue, what a sweet guy! Maybe I should have him talk my husband into doing the same thing for ME! lol. Please send me your mailing info at jilly122684(at)hotmail(dot)com.

Today I'm giving away a Freshly Picked cartridge! Just sign my blog post for your chance to win. I'll announce the winner sometime tomorrow. :)

Have a great day! We are snowed in again today so I've been hanging out with Alex and cleaning a ton. The house definitely needed it! lol.

Jill's Cricut Give Away Week Begins!

2011-01-31T20:49:00.004-07:00

This week I will be giving away FOUR prizes from Cricut!! Make sure to check in on my blog every day this week. :)

Today I'm giving away a Rock Star Princess cartridge! In order for your chance to win sign this blog post and tell me a HAPPY STORY! This Winter is getting old pretty fast, I'm tired of the dreary and cold weather. It just snowed a ton today! SO. I want to hear some happy stories from you guys that will brighten my day. :)

Good luck everyone! I'll be announcing the winner sometime tomorrow, along with posting my next give away!

Before I go, here are two new layouts that I created with Zva Creative's new Winter 2011 releases! All of their new bling is sooo pretty, I love it!

Have a great Tuesday all! There was no school for Alex today, hopefully we'll get another snow day tomorrow so we can sleep in again. :)

January Zva Blog Hop Winners announced

2011-01-26T07:00:00.000-07:00

We'd like to congratulate the FIVE January Zva Blog Hop winners! Their names will be found on the following blogs:

One winner from each of the 5 blogs will receive a Zva prize package worth $30.00. Congrats winners!

Zva Creative January DT Blog Hop!

2011-01-24T07:00:00.001-07:00

Zva Creative and the Design Team welcomes you to join us this month for a blog hop that we feel is always extra special!

There is now an added twist to our blog hops, YAY! As you know, Zva offers so many beautiful color groupings for pearls, flowers and crystals. We want to make sure that they shine bright for you, so each designer was asked to share a creation using a specific color or color combination on their blog hop project.

The Blog Hop begins at Kim Hughes' blog: Paper Hugs. She will have the complete list of all blogs that are participating in case there is a glitch along the way. If you would like to play along, just follow along the blog path. I am linking to one of the Zva designers and that designer is linking to the next and so on. Be prepared to be inspired along the way. Hidden on FIVE of the blogs is a Zva Creative prize package ...YAY! Winners will be randomly chosen after the hop is over, so it's important to leave a comment on as many blogs as you can along the way.

The Blog Hop starts today, January 24th and runs through midnight US Eastern Standard Time on Tuesday, January 25th and the 5 winners will be announced on Wednesday, January 26th on each of the five winning blogs. The full list will be found on Kim Hughes‘s blog as well (linked above). We will do our best to notify each winner, but it's best if you can pop in to all of the blogs once again on Wednesday...plus, you never know what kind of inspirational creation that you may find there. All you need to do is leave a comment on this Zva Blog Hop post...you do not need to leave a comment on each and every designer's blog post to qualify. The more times you leave a comment along the blog hop path though, the more chances you will have to be one of the lucky winners.

This month I highlighted navy blue Zva Creative pearls! They coordinate perfectly with my winter layout and photos!

Zva Creative products Used:
PEB03CA106
PE02CB129
PE02CB102

The blog hop begins here: Kim Hughes

Your next stop is here: Kim Hughes

Thank you SO MUCH for joining us

2010 Recap

2011-01-18T08:09:00.000-07:00

Can you believe that I started this blog post almost 3 weeks ago and am just now getting it up? Ooops. :)

SO many amazing things happened to my family and I during 2010! I can barely express in words how grateful I am for everything in my life as of now. Here's a quick recap of last years major events and my favorite scrapbook creation from each month!:

January:
Fav layout of the month, Lover Boy.

Nothing major happened it January. My Mom came to visit us in Oklahoma for the first time since we moved here and I loved spending everyyy minute with her. I love my Mom SO much. We stayed up late scrapping nearly every night for three weeks, I made about a million layouts and even made about 50 Christmas cards! My Mom is an amazing artist so whenever I'm around her I'm instantly inspired.

February:
Favorite Layout of the Month, Scissors, Paper and Glue.

I love this layout because I made it with my February Scrapbook Circle kit AND it expresses my love for my most coveted hobby.

This month was pretty huge for my little family. John and I had been discussing his officially adopting Alex for a long time and we finally scraped the money together in order to make it happen! John has always been Alex's father but now we're making it official! We are still going through the long process almost a year later but we're almost done. I didn't want to say anything at first and wanted to wait to say something on my blog until we were all done with the process but I couldn't wait any longer. :) I can't wait until Alex is officially a Cassity!

March:
Favorite Layout of the month, My Poopsie when he was a baby. :)

This month was HUGE! The most amazing month during 2010! John and I got married at the court house on March 17th. I still can't believe that we're married! I love him so much, he's perfect. :)

Alex also turned 4 on the 13th, He had a big birthday party at The Incredible Pizza Place, he had a blast!

April:
Fav layout of the month, Two of a Kind!

Lots of people came to Oklahoma to celebrate our marriage including my Mom and Sister, Sarah from Montana and Jenny TP from Texas! It was a busy but super fun month!

May:
Favorite project of the month, My LOVE Wall hanging!

The weather started to get really warm and Alex and I spent nearly every day outside or at the lake with my friends this month. I also finally bought a sewing machine and started to sew again! I still have SO much to learn but I would love to be able to design my own clothes someday.
I also joined the Zva Creative design team which is a dream come true for me! I have a bling obsession!

June:
Favorite layout of the month, My New Crafty Obsession, sewing!

Alex and I spent all of June just doing summer things. Yardwork, going to the lake and playing outside. Alex got his first big boy bike! At the end of June Alex and I left to visit Montana for almost a month.

July:
Fav layout of the month:
My Favorite Boys

We spent over three weeks in Montana with all of our friends and family, it was amazing! At the end of the month it was hard to leave but it was exciting to get back home to John. The poor guy didn't get a day off of work all summer!

August:
Fav layout of the month, 4 Years.

Alex started school this month! It's still hard for me to believe that he's in school already, sighhh. What a big boy!

September:
Fav layout of the month, My Bff.

My best friend, Stephen, came to visit me from Alaska. We also found our puppy, Riley, when we were out at the lake with him that week. :)

October:
Fav layout of the month, Our Crazy Pumpkins.

I was asked to join the Cricut Circle design team and the Circle blog was launched on the 1st. I pretty much fell over backwards when I received the email inviting me to the team, it's still sinking in that I'm a part of such an amazing project!
We had lots of fun Halloween happenings that month as well. A few Halloween parties- including Jenny TP's party in Texas!

November:
Fav layout of the month, Girly Girl.

The holiday hustle and bustle already begins! November and December were such a blur, as usual. I can't believe how fast they came and went! I spent most of the month doing holiday things with the fam and taking Alex to the dentist nearly every other day.

December:
Fav layout of the month, He Believes.

We had a fabulous Christmas this year! We had a quiet Christmas at home alone, which was a weird change for us since we are usually always in Montana with our families! It was fun though. :)

I'm looking forward to what the year 2011 has in store for us! I've already made many goals for myself and my family, which are....

-We are going to have the best wedding EVER on July 16th.

-Later on this year John and I are going to get to baby makin! :D

-I want to be more organized, in order to get more accomplished each day.

-I must get my house painted and decorated this year.

-I'm going to scrap lots more!

-Learn to sew more.

-BLOG more!

What are your 2011 goals?

Texas Cricut Stampede!

2011-01-12T21:08:00.000-07:00

This event is a Cricut Circle sponsored event that has been open to the Circle members for a couple of weeks now. There will be some special activities that are for Circle members only, but this weekend event is an all inclusive crafting retreat that is available to everyone!

Click HERE to go to the website for more information and to register!!

Guess Whooo

2011-01-09T21:47:00.003-07:00

Guess who started playing basketball on Friday?

Yeahhh-heahhhh, this kid!! He had his first practice on Friday and first game on Saturday. He has really never played basketball. Ever. And he's already catching on and getting all into it. He's a natural!

Me? I've never liked sports. But I LOVE watching him play! I swear I was so disappointed when his game ended, I wanted to watch him play more!

We spent the past four days hanging out with my niece and sister-in-law's who were visiting from South Dakota. They're going home tomorrow, I'm going to miss them so much!

Alex and our niece, Sarayha, get along soo well now that they're older! Isn't she adorable? I almost stole her so Naomi couldn't take her back home, lol.

Tomorrow I plan to do nothing but SCRAP. I have a box full of Zva Creative CHA Winter releases to play with, yay!

Scrapbook Circle January kit!

2011-01-03T01:12:00.005-07:00

The Scrapbook Circle January kit went live this weekend! I loved this kit. Right when I got my hands on it it put me in a Valentines Day mood. I started creating cards with it right away. It's never too early to get started on Valentines Day cards, right? :)

I also made this layout of Alex, the pic was taken by Jenny TP this summer. He's all sweaty because it was probably about 100 degrees outside but he still looks so cuuuute. :)

And now I'm skipping Holidays completely, here's a new Halloween layout! Halloween is my favorite holiday to scrap. It was so much fun scrapping Alex in his cute Cars costume that he wore this year!

Layout Created for Zva Creative.
Zva Creative supplies used:
Orange crystals: Item #: CRW03CB117
Black flourish: Item #: CRB03CA114

I am off to try to get some sleep. School starts again tomorrow, yayy.... Alex is excited but I'm not happy about waking up at 6 AM again. Winter break was much too short! :)

Fa ra ra ra raaa!

2010-12-30T20:56:00.003-07:00

It's so sad that the Christmas season is pretty much over, isn't it? For me it is. It's the one thing I look forward to in the winter. After Christmas time I just want the weather to get warm again because I'm ready for winter to be over, lol.

Even though Christmas is over I have a few more Christmas cards to share. :) I made them awhile back with the Scrapbook Circle December kit but forgot to put them up online.

The December kit had just been screaming at me to make cards with it and I couldn't stop!

I loooove the way some people decorate their houses at Christmas time. Christmas decor puts me in a cheery mood. We are slowly but surely collecting Christmas decorations now that we're settled into our new home. The day after Christmas we went to Target and Hallmark to hoard all of the half off left over holiday decorations. That's the way to do it in my opinion! :) Here is what our house looked like this year:

See my dinky little tree? lol! I bought that tree when I moved into my first apartment years ago. It was $20 at Target. We've decided that we definitely need a new one next year. It looks so tiny in our big living room!

I still haven't done anything with our living room. It looks OKAY in this pic because we have our Christmas stuff up but once it comes back down it's going to look bare again. I've been collecting things to hang on the walls but I haven't hung them up yet because I need to paint first. I'm going to paint two of the walls in the living room red (I've always wanted a red living room with black accents) and I have to repaint pretty much everything in the house that I'm going to leave white. After we moved in last year we discovered that the paint that the contractors used to paint the whole house is soo cheap and crappy. Alex often runs around the house with sticky fingers. As hard as I try to keep his hands clean sometimes I don't catch him in time! Every once in awhile he'll touch the wall with his sticky fingers (eww) and when I go to whipe the wall off the paint comes off with it! I wasn't pleased when I first discovered this.

Anyways, so I have to get my behind in gear and get to painting! :) Now that all of this holiday hoopla is over I can't use my "I'm busy with the holidays" excuse anymore, lol. The only room in the house that's painted is Alex's room and I haven't even finished the edges along the ceiling yet. I've been doing them by hand because they look awful otherwise.

Here's a pic of my kitchen. I love it! It needs some jazzin up though. I haven't decided what to do with it yet. Any ideas?? I need ideas! John isn't very good at coming up with ideas. He'd be happy if EVERYTHING in the house was blue, gag. I need an artistic woman's perspective. :)

Have a happy happy new year! We get to go to a party tomorrow night! :)

Zva Creative December blog hop winner info

2010-12-29T13:32:00.000-07:00

We'd like to congratulate the FIVE December Zva Blog Hop winners! Their names will be found on the following blogs:

Angelica Franssen
Tanya Tahir
Debbie Olson
Windy Robinson
Gail Lindner

One winner from each of the 5 blogs will receive a Zva prize package worth $30.00. Congrats winners!

Zva Creative December DT Blog Hop!

2010-12-27T07:00:00.000-07:00

Zva Creative and the Design Team welcomes you to join us this month for a blog hop that we feel is always extra special!

There is now an added twist to our blog hops, YAY! As you know, Zva offers so many beautiful color groupings for pearls, flowers and crystals. We want to make sure that they shine bright for you, so each designer was asked to share a creation using a specific color or color combination on their blog hop project.

The Blog Hop begins at Kim Hughes' blog: Paper Hugs. She will have the complete list of all blogs that are participating in case there is a glitch along the way. If you would like to play along, just follow along the blog path. I am linking to one of the Zva designers and that designer is linking to the next and so on. Be prepared to be inspired along the way. Hidden on FIVE of the blogs is a Zva Creative prize package ...YAY! Winners will be randomly chosen after the hop is over, so it's important to leave a comment on as many blogs as you can along the way.

The Blog Hop starts today, December 27th and runs through midnight US Eastern Standard Time on Tuesday, December 28th and the 5 winners will be announced on Wednesday, December 29th on each of the five winning blogs. The full list will be found on Kim Hughes‘s blog as well (linked above). We will do our best to notify each winner, but it's best if you can pop in to all of the blogs once again on Wednesday...plus, you never know what kind of inspirational creation that you may find there. All you need to do is leave a comment on this Zva Blog Hop post...you do not need to leave a comment on each and every designer's blog post to qualify. The more times you leave a comment along the blog hop path though, the more chances you will have to be one of the lucky winners.

I was asked to create a layout with an olive and/or lime color combination for Zva Creative this month. Here is what I came up with!:

Zva Creative Products used:
Item #: PES03CB109
Item #: CRB03CB122

The blog hop begins here: Kim Hughes

Your next stop is here: Kim Hughes

Thank you SO MUCH for joining us

26 on the 26th

2010-12-26T23:59:00.000-07:00

It's my birthday today! (technically it was yesterday, the 26th. I started this blog post this morning but had to run off and couldn't finish it til now, ack!) Goody... I'm a year older, woo! I stopped getting excited about turning a year older once I turned 21, lol. I had a great day though, who doesn't love celebrating their birthday and getting treated like a queen for a day? :) We spent my birthday hitting all of the after Christmas sales and going out to dinner with friends, it was fun!

Our Christmas was amazinggg. We got up and opened presents immediately, of course. Alex tore through his presents in about 45 minutes. John and I kept trying to slow him down but he wouldn't listen, big surprise. It was so much fun watching him get all giddy and excited while he was opening them. This is the first year that he REALLY understood the meaning of Santa- I had a blast playing "Santa" this year and watching his face light up when he woke up on Christmas morning to lots of new Santa presents under the tree and in his stocking!

Here's Christmas Eve night after Santa's visit....

And then the morning holiday madness begins!

John and I didn't really get to open any of our presents until Alex was done. Here was MY favorite gift this year!:

I pretty much pooped my pants when I opened this one. I have the best husband everrrrr!

John's dad and step mom came over for a dinner a little later and then we spent the rest of the night playing with our new WII. It was John's gift for the family. We actually opened it on Christmas Eve because John couldn't wait any longer, haa. Silly boys. At my request John got the Just Dance games to go with it and OMG! They're so much fun! Alex is actually sooo good at it too. He's such a smart little Poopsie, he knows how to work the thing better than I can already!

I hope you all had an amazing Christmas!! :)

P.S. Check it out, a card that I created with the Scrapbook Circle December kit was featured on the Lily Bee blog!

Merry Christmas!

2010-12-24T23:50:00.001-07:00

Wishing you all a very Merry Christmas from my crazyyyy Family to yours!

:)

Who's Ready?

2010-12-23T01:14:00.005-07:00

So it's only 2 days until Christmas. Who's ready? I know that I'm not! I have been such a slacker this year, seriously! I did all of my Christmas shopping, almost all of my presents are sent. Only about half of my cards are sent and only about half of my decorations are up. Bad Jill!

These past couple of days I've gotten a LOT done though. Now that Alex is feeling better (he was sick for about 4 days, the poor Poopie!) and now that Winter break has started I'm back on my regular schedule. Staying up late! John knew that I would have a "relapse". I told him that I wouldn't but I secretly knew that I wanted to. :) I've been on a school schedule these past few months, getting up at 6 AM and going to bed at 10. Yuuuuck. I have never ever been a morning person and never feel like I get much accomplished during the day. I usually get all of my computer time and scrapping time in at night. I'm sure most of you have noticed that I'm not online nearly as much as I used to be and I don't scrap as much as I used to either! I'm not happy about it. I'm trying to get better at being a "day person" though, I haven't given up yet. I'm just going to soak up the enjoyment of Winter break and get us much done as possible! :)

The Cricut Circle blog has been HOPPIN this week! Last week Cricut introduced a bunch of fabulous new cartridges and I got to play with the new "Life's a party". Immediately when I saw it I knew that I wanted to make favors and decor for Alex's birthday party coming up in March! Here's what I have created so far:

Alex was pretty stoked about the glasses:

Make sure to stop by the Circle blog if you have access! If you don't check out the site to look into how to sign up for a membership. :)

I totally forgot to share some new pics of Jenny TP and I! She came to stay for a few days a couple weeks ago and it was so much fun! We checked out Bohemian Spirit Vintage, which I've been wanting to do for awhile. The store was awesome! Jennifer didn't end up buying anything but I bought a cardigan and some pretty pillowcases. We got to try on lots of funny hats too!

We went to a new scrappy store and we scrapped lots that weekend too. Ahhh, good times. I love this girl. I still wish she lived closer, sighhh.

So what is on your wish list for Christmas? I asked for a new jacket, new uggs, and EVERYTHING from THIS WEBSITE! We'll see if I get what I want this year, lol! :)

A Few Updates

2010-12-17T15:39:00.006-07:00

I have more than a FEW updates, it's been two weeks since I last posted, eek!

I have spent most of my free time getting ready for the holidays. It's soo much work but so much fun! I'm pretty stoked today because it was Alex's last day of school today. Now we get to sleep in for 2 weeks, woohoo!

It was pajama day at Alex's school today. I think that I was more excited about it than he was. I had to coax him into wearing his pjs, he was afraid he would look like a dork. I didn't think that kid's paranoia about how they looked started this early but Alex is already paranoid about looking like a dork or wearing the wrong thing! He's a boy for goodness sake, boys shouldn't care what they're wearing or what they look like, right? lol.

I got him to wear his pajamas though, I even convinced him to wear his santa hat, but it came off about 5 seconds after we entered the school! :)

I told him to give me a biiig smile and this is what he did, sighhh. lol.

This is my favorite, the look on his face is hilarious! It's now my new facebook profile photo, heh.

Alex had a blast handing out THESE to his classmates at his Christmas party at school today:

I spent all week making them, they were so much fun! I punched out all of the kids names and cute christmas shapes on vinyl using my Cricut to create each jar.

The school Christmas party was soo cute! I love his little school parties. 4 year olds are so adorable and funny! :)

Before I go, here's a layout that I created for Zva Creative. I am IN LOVE with the Pink Paislee "Father Christmas" collection, I want to scrap every christmas pic that I have with it! :)

Zva Creative Products Used:
Zva Creative clear flourish item #: CR03CA116

Have a grrrreat weekend! I will be back soon I still have lots more to share since I'm so behind!

Holy Moly Donut Shop!

2010-12-02T07:48:00.005-07:00

Holy Moly Donut Shop is my new favorite saying this week. Thanks Jenny TP! :) lol.

Yet again we've had a crazy week this week. I was pretty bummed earlier this week. I took Alex back to the dentist for more dental work on Monday and he went to the back room to get worked on as usual. (I'm not allowed to go with him, it makes him uncooperative with the dentist when Mommy's around, lol). I wan't concerned this time, he's been amazing at the dentist, hasn't complained at all. After I sat in the waiting room for a few minutes I could hear him crying in the back room. I started to worry and was about to go ask the receptionist to go ask what was going on when the dental assistant came out and asked me to go see Alex with her. I went in the back room and there was some old fat man dentist working on Alex, instead of the nice pediatric dentist that worked on him previously. Alex was crying hysterically and told me that the old guy hurt him. Alex's mouth was all red and raw around the outside, he had a big red welt on his cheek and he was holding the side of his mouth. I asked the assistant where our regular dentist was and she said that she quit that week to start her own private practice. I couldn't believe it!! The old man dentist was rude to me, told me that he refused to work on Alex again and walked out. I was pretty much livid. NO ONE had told me that our pediatric dentist was quitting and NO ONE told me that they were going to have this old man work on Alex instead. It was obvious that he wasn't a child dentist and it was obvious that he wasn't being gentle with Alex at all. It's Thursday and Alex's mouth is still cut, red and chapped.

John and I spent hours on Tuesday and yesterday calling multiple dentist's offices. We had words with the manager at our old dentist office that we had been going to and managed to get our money back. We had already pre paid for all of Alex's dental work there. We finally found a pediatric dentist that we HOPE will work for Alex, and we made SURE that he wasn't quitting any time soon to start his own private practice, lol! Our appointment is tomorrow, I'm super nervous. I'm hoping and praying that this guy is as nice and gentle as he sounds. This whole dentist thing has just been so frustrating and turning out to be way more complicated than it should be! I just hope that old man dentist didn't make Alex develop a new fear of the dentist. I guess we'll see.

I wanted to thank everyone who commented on my previous dentist post last week, you all are so sweet and made me feel 1000 times better! :) I will thank all of you personally, I promise! I just haven't been able to jump on the computer as much as I wish that I could this week.

Other than that I've been going to the eye doctor lots (I'm pretty much blind without contacts and glasses. Every year I prob end up going to the eye doctor like 10 times!) and taking the pets to the vet for all of their junk. I like going to the vet though, everyone there likes my kitty. :) lol!

In between all of that fun stuff I've had a little time to scrap! I had a blast playing with the December Scrapbook Circle kit. I loooove scrapbooking Christmas things, it puts me in a jolly mood, haha.

I still have lots of my kit left over. Today I'm planning on making more Christmas cards with the leftovers. I'm in a card mood all of a sudden, yay!

If you have access to the Cricut Circle blog go check it out. I posted a new layout on Monday using the Echo Park Everybody Loves Christmas collection and the Winter Frolic Cricut Cartridge. I LOVE the bright Christmas colors in this collection! Here are a couple sneaks:

I am off to make some cards and HOPEFULLY Alex and I will get the tree up this afternoon. We'll see how that goes though, haha.

November Zva Blog Hop Winners Announced

2010-12-01T07:00:00.000-07:00

We'd like to congratulate the FIVE November Zva Blog Hop winners! Their names will be found on the following blogs:

Camilla Ekman
Ingrid Danvers
Jolanda Meurs
Susan Lui
Lou Collins

One winner from each of the 5 blogs will receive a Zva prize package worth $30.00. Congrats winners!

Zva Creative November DT Blog Hop!

2010-11-29T07:00:00.000-07:00

We have a NEW Zva Creative Design Team and we welcome you to join us this month for a blog hop that we feel is extra special!

There is now an added twist to our blog hops, YAY! As you know, Zva offers so many beautiful color groupings for pearls, flowers and crystals. We want to make sure that they shine bright for you, so each designer was asked to share a creation using a specific color or color combination on their blog hop project. We anticipate that our hops will become even more breathtaking with such stunning products to showcase by concentrating on color..

The Blog Hop begins at Kim Hughes' blog: Paper Hugs. She will have the complete list of all blogs that are participating in case there is a glitch along the way. If you would like to play along, just follow along the blog path. I am linking to one of the Zva designers and that designer is linking to the next and so on. Be prepared to be inspired along the way. Hidden on FIVE of the blogs is a Zva Creative prize package ...YAY! Winners will be randomly chosen after the hop is over, so it's important to leave a comment on as many blogs as you can along the way.

The Blog Hop starts today, November 29th and runs through midnight US Eastern Standard Time on Tuesday, November 30th and the 5 winners will be announced on Wednesday, December 1st on each of the five winning blogs. The full list will be found on Kim Hughes‘s blog as well (linked above). We will do our best to notify each winner, but it's best if you can pop in to all of the blogs once again on Wednesday...plus, you never know what kind of inspirational creation that you may find there. All you need to do is leave a comment on this Zva Blog Hop post...you do not need to leave a comment on each and every designer's blog post to qualify. The more times you leave a comment along the blog hop path though, the more chances you will have to be one of the lucky winners.

The specific color that I was asked to design with this month is Ginger. I absolutely love brownish colors of any kind. I actually think that I wear the color brown more than anything else and I have found that I love to scrap with the color!

I decided to use my Zva Creative flourishes to scrap yet another one of my engagement photos of my husband and I!

Zva Creative products Used:

Ginger pearls: PE02CB140
Roses: bulkflowers

The blog hop begins here: Kim Hughes

Your next stop is here: Susan Lui

Thank you SO MUCH for joining us

Scrapbook Circle Sale! (and a Visit with Santa)

2010-11-28T22:13:00.005-07:00

Hi everyone! Make sure to check out Scrapbook Circle's HUGE sale this week! So many of their sale prices are practically a steal! :)

We had a super fun weekend that was filled with Christmas Shopping!! I'm proud to say that my shopping is nearly done already. :) I only have a few more things to buy but they're just things that I need to order over the internet so no more malls for me, whew. The mall was wayyy too crowded this weekend.

I finallyyy ordered John a shirt from Johnny Cupcakes this year. I've been in looove with this brand for forever, I felt like it was finally time to get John his own Johnny Cupcakes shirt, since he's a cute little Johnny Cupcake himself. :) Lots of my friends are getting Johnny Cupcakes stuff for Christmas from me too!

Alex got to go see Santa this weekend as well. He said he loved it and told Santa that he wanted about a billion things for Christmas, lol. He looks uncomfortable in the pic though, just like he did last year! Poor little guy! :)

Have a great Monday everyone! Make sure to stop by my blog tomorrow for your chance to win some Zva Creative prizes!

Happy Thanksgiving!!

2010-11-25T14:48:00.009-07:00

Happy Thanksgiving friends and family! I hope you all are having a blessed holiday. It's been such a nice day for us so far. This has been the first Thanksgiving we have ever spent ALONE without other family and friends with us. It ended up being one of my favorite Thanksgivings to date. :) We spent the morning cooking, cleaning and then eating. Afterwards we all decided to lay on the couch and veg for awhile. I think that's something you HAVE to do after Thanksgiving dinner to let everything settle and digest! lol.

So this week has been a little nutso. Alex and I spent all of last Saturday at my friend Amy's daughters birthday party, we had a blast! I looove little kid birthday party's, they're so cute!

That's him with one of those party blower things, if you couldn't tell! :)

On Sunday my dogs dug out under our fence and I had to go chase them. I was chasing them down in the fields behind our house and I stepped in a hole and sprained my ankle, yuck! It hurt like the dickens. It feels a little better now, it's just all bruised up and sore. I blame it all on the dogs, lol! John and I are both kind of a mess this week because while he was dumping trash at work yesterday he cut his hand on a glass bottle and got a big piece of glass stuck in his hand. The poor boy's hand is super swollen and he can't use it. We're both handicapped now! lol.

Since I'm handicapped I've spent the past couple of days scrapping. I actually made a layout JUST FOR FUN, it wasn't a DT assignment! How cool is that? Haven't done one of these in forever. :)

That's me on Halloween this year! I used the Circa 1934 Cosmo Cricket papers to create this one. I have fallen head over heels for these papers! :)

Which is why I used them again to scrap a layout for Zva Creative! Here's Jenny TP and I on Halloween again.
Zva Creative products used: Item #: CR03CA116

I also used my Cricut and Heritage cartridge to create the frames on both layouts.

Before I go, check out how big my new puppy's getting!

Isn't he cuuuute??! You like the action shots that I got of him? lol! When we got him two months ago he weighed 8 pounds. Now he's over 35! He's going to be a biiiig boy once he's full grown! :)

I'm pretty stoked that I can get awesome dog kissy action shots with my camera now. I went back to Target last week to exchange the new camera that John bought for me last month. It was a Sony Cybershot and it was AWFUL! None of my photos turned out. They were all grainy and fuzzy no matter what setting the camera was on and if anyone slightly moved while I was taking the photo? Forget it, the photo wasn't even usable! I was soo frustrated because I've never really had a GOOD camera and to even get a good layout shot with my old camera I'd have to take about 30 photos of my layout to get a usable photo out of it. Even then I'd have to photoshop it like crazy so it wouldn't look awful.

Anyways, I did lots of research before I exchanged the camera and ended up getting a Nikon Coolpix S6000. It. Is. Amazing! I only have to take one photo of each layout. I can take close ups of my layouts now and EVERY photo that I take turns out perfectly! The camera was only a little over $200 so for the price I can't believe the quality of the camera. I am now a super duper happy gal! Expect LOTS more photos from me from now on! :)

I hope everyone has a great rest of the night! If you're going shopping tomorrow... good luck! I'm staying home, no way am I going to fight that crowd. lol.

New Exclusive Cricut Circle Cartridge!

2010-11-17T18:29:00.004-07:00

Today on the Cricut Circle Blog the Design Team showcased the new cartridge coming out next quarter for the Circle Members.

This cartridge is full of cute cuts featuring Cricut Logos, Machines, Scrappy Supplies, an alphabet, phrases, and more!

Here are the projects I created with it this week, more to come! :)

I made this framed wall hanging for my scrap room. Now I need to make one about how much I love my Cuttlebug and Imagine too, lol! I'll have a whole matching set!

And since I have fallen in love with the Cricut Circle soo much I had to make a layout about it. I ADORE the cute Circle logo, don't you?? :)

If you are interested in joining the Cricut Circle you can join on the Cricut Website HERE.

Make sure to stop by Jana Eubank's and Cindy Royal's blogs today as well, they made lots of cute stuff with the new Circle cartridge too!

Ohh Goodness

2010-11-17T07:52:00.004-07:00

Has it been over a week since I posted AGAIN?? I'm so sorry! This past week has been crazy. I feel like I've been living at the dentists office and at the mechanics, lol.

We've been getting the car ready for winter again. We didn't update everything that we should have last year so we needed new tires and got a bunch of junk fixed and updated. I don't really know what I'm talking about when it comes to cars- I just know that everything that they're doing has been EXPENSIVE, bleh.

I mentioned that I took Alex to his first dentist appointment a couple weeks ago but... I didn't want to admit just then that he has a bunch of cavities. I honestly had no idea, I thought his teeth were just fine. I've always taken fairly good care of his teeth. John and I skip brushing his teeth every now and then, usually just when we are both soo tired and we don't want to deal with his fits. Seriously, he has been getting his teeth brushed since before he was one when he first got his teeth but his still throws HUGE fits over it. I used to have to hold him down to brush his teeth most times up until last year but now I can usually get him to sit still- usually after lots of yelling and threatening. I definitely wasn't flossing his teeth like I should have but I thought since I was brushing his teeth 2 to 3 times a day most days it would be okay. Obviously not! My dentist says he probably has really sensitive teeth too. She lectured me for letting him drink too much juice AND for keeping him on the bottle too long when he was younger. Sighhh. I definitely don't have sensitive teeth. I take care of them but not the BEST care, I just brush twice a day and floss... SOMETIMES, lol. I still have never had a cavity in my life! I guess I just thought if I treated his teeth like I treated mine they would have been just fine.

Soo I've been feeling really guilty about Alex's teeth. I've gotten over it for the most part, I know that I made a mistake and it won't happen again. He's gotten REALLY sick of me being so strict about brushing and flossing his teeth a TON over these past couple of weeks but he's just going to have to deal, lol. We went to the dentist on Monday to get his first two cavities filled. I was SO nervous I could barely sleep the night before! He was JUST fine though, thank goodness. It only took about an hour, they didn't hurt him at all, he cooperated and didn't cry at all. Hooray! We're going back today, I'm hoping that every appointment will go as smoothly as the first.

Sorry to blab on and on about my son's teeth! :) On to the fun stuff...

Here is a layout that I created for Zva Creative this week. About how girly I am... hahaaa. I just needed an excuse to use these fabulous papers that Amber and My Minds Eye sent to me, I am in looove with them! :D

Zva Creative products Used: PE02CB148

Here's a new layout using the Scrapbook Circle November kit. I love these photos of my little Poopsie wearing his big ol backpack!

A layout and wall hanging of mine went up on the Cricut Circle blog today. I was one of the lucky girls that got my hands on the new Cricut Circle cartridge early. Looove it! Here's a couple sneaky peekys of my projects:

Using lots of Cricut shapes and more new My Minds Eye. :)

Now I am off to play for a bit and then we're off to the dentist again. Have a happy hump day! :)

Holy Moly

2010-11-07T07:36:00.004-07:00

What a week this has been! I can't believe how fast time is flying by. :)

I've been super busy creating for the Cricut Circle blog. The blog is now locked down for members of the Cricut Circle only. For information on how to gain membership go here!

Here is a sneaky peek of the project that I created this week using the new Birthday Bash cartridge along with festive Cosmo Cricket papers.

Here is a new layout created for Zva Creative. This pic of John and I is my favorite!

Other than that there aren't many new happenings to report. I took Alex to his first dentist appointment on Thursday. He LOVED it, I was a nervous wreck, lol. He's gettin so big. :)

Have a great weekend everyone!

Happy Belated Halloween!

2010-11-01T11:11:00.008-06:00

Happy day after Halloween! :) I'm sorry I didn't wish all of my friends Happy Halloween sooner, it was one busy weekend!

Alex's school Halloween party was on Friday, it was so cute. The kids had a Halloween parade and walked around the school to show off their costumes and then we put on a little party for them in their class room. They sang us some Halloween songs and then they sat down to eat the cookies that I made!

I tried. My cooking decorating skills aren't really up to par but they're better than nothing, right? :) Lots of parents brought in candy and little goodies for the kids as well and the other home room mom put together big goody bags for everyone!

Here are the photos that I got of Alex in his Lightning Mcqueen race car driver costume that morning (that he picked out himself!) My new camera is awful so most of the photos didn't come out, these are the few that turned out, boo. :( He was posing and laughing like crazy though, so cute!

After the party we headed off to Texas right away to see Jennifer. She had a Halloween party on Saturday and it was so much fun! :) Here we are in our costumes!

I was a flapper, Jennifer was a sexy sailor girl and Dakota was Ariel.

Can you tell what Jen's husband, Chris was?

Yeah, I couldn't tell right away either, but he's Zack Galafinakis from The Hangover! Best costume EVER! He carried "Carlos" the baby around for most of the night too, lol!

And this was too good not to share. This was my favorite snack display of the night!

Don't worry, we bought the toilet seat at Wal Mart the night before. It was kind of a joint idea of ours, lol! Soo gross and awesome! :)

Oh and can't forget my little devil dog Riley. He got to wear a costume too! I thought this one was pretty fitting for him.

Alex and I headed home early on Sunday afternoon. I was planning on taking him trick or treating yesterday night but found out that my town decided to change trick or treat night to Saturday instead of letting kids trick or treat on Halloween night! How messed up is that?? I guess a lot of places are doing that now but I just don't think it's right. :( Alex totally missed out on trick or treating, boo. :( We stayed home last night watching halloween shows and eating the left over candy that I bought for our trick or treaters, lol. Hey, it's better than nothing right?

How was your Halloween? I hope you had a blast! I've been having so much fun taking a peek at everyone's cute and fun Halloween pics today! :)

Before I left for the weekend I managed to create two layouts with my November Scrapbook Circle kit, that went up for sale today, yay!

I LOVE this photo of Kenedy and Alex with the sea lions at the state fair! It's definitely one of my new favs of theirs for sure!

AND I realized that I totally forgot to share the stuff that I made with the September Hip 2 Be Square kit0 last month. I loved this kit! Unfortunately I had to say goodbye to Hip 2 Be Square after only being with them for a few months. I just don't have the time to devote to them anymore since I've taken on my Cricut Circle blog team position but I had a blast for the short time that I had the privilege of designing for them!

I thought this kit was just PERFECT to use to scrap Alex's first school photo! :)

I also made a fun cork board for Alex's room as well. The colors match his room decor perfectly! I used an old cork board that I have had for years. I sanded it, painted it, sanded it again and got to decorating. It was so easy and although it looked like practically a piece of garbage before it looks brand new now!

Have a great week all! I'll be back soooon!

Zva Creative October Blog Hop WINNER!

2010-10-27T08:10:00.006-06:00

We'd like to congratulate the five October Zva Blog Hop winners! Their names will be found on the following blogs:

Jillian Deiling Cassity <--- THAT'S ME!
Veronica Goh
Ingrid Danvers
Teri Anderson
Carole Maurin

The winner of the Zva Creative October Blog Hop is....

Romaine said...

Lovin' the bling! :0)

Congratulations Romaine!

Please email your mailing info to me at jilly122684@hotmail.com so we can send your Zva Creative prize package to you! :)

Thank you for playing everyone, same time next month? :) I would like to thank each and every one of you for your sweet blog comments, I loved them!

Here is my more Zva halloween inspiration for you!:

This is the ONE photo that Amy and I got of our kiddos smiling and not looking all crazy last week while at the pumpkin patch, haha. Of course I had to scrap this one as well. Along with using lots of Zva goodies I used lots of new American Crafts and Cricut too!

Zva Creative products used:
Thriving Lime Pearl and Crystal Flourish- Item #: PEB03CB112
Leaved Branch Lime Pearls- Item #: PEB03CB104

Zva Creative October DT Blog Hop!

2010-10-25T07:00:00.001-06:00

It's time again for the Zva Designers to join together to share a project that we have created using some of our favorite Zva Creative products. I am hoping that you will take some time to join us for a little bit of fun again this month!

The Blog Hop begins at Kim Hughes' blog: Paper Hugs. She will have the complete list of all blogs that are participating in case there is a glitch along the way. If you would like to play along, I am linking to one of the Zva designers and that designer is linking to the next and so on. Be prepared to be inspired along the way. Hidden on 5 of the blogs is a Zva Creative prize package ...YAY! Those blogs will be randomly chosen after the hop is over, so it's important to
leave a comment on as many blogs as you can along the way.

The Blog Hop starts now and runs through midnight US Eastern Standard Time on Tuesday, Oct. 26th and the 5 winners will be announced on Wednesday, October 27th on each of the five winning blogs. The full list will be found on Kim Hughes‘s blog as well (linked above). We will do our best to notify each winner, but it's best if you can pop in to all of the blogs once again on Wednesday...plus, you never know what kind of inspirational creation that you may find there. All you need to do is leave a comment on this Zva Blog Hop post...you do not need to leave a comment on each and every designer's blog post to qualify. The more times you leave a comment along the blog hop path though, the more chances you will have to be one of the lucky winners.

Zva Creative Products Used:
Black Haunted House, Item #: CRS03CB117
Black Flourish, Item #: CRB03CA109

The blog hop begins here: Kim Hughes

Your next stop is here: Benedicte Raphalen

Thank you SO MUCH for joining us

Oh My My

2010-10-19T14:28:00.009-06:00

Where has this week gone?? Seriously, last week went by so fast I barely remember it!

Let's see- this week has been a whole big jumble of me cleaning up after the puppy, the boy, and cleaning up after the puppy some more! There's been some scrapping in between, more wedding planning, planning Alex's school Halloween party (Oh the joys of being homeroom Mom, holla) and hiding in my house being creeped out by a vacuum cleaner salesman- don't ask. Just don't ever be nice to those people, I learned that the hard way!

Anyways, I'm pretty stoked to announce that I actually have some scrappy stuff to share on my blog, woo! I haven't been able to do that for awhile. :) Here are the layouts and cards that I created with the Oh-so-fabulous October Scrapbook Circle kit!

(Sorry about the smooshed twine on the cards. I took photos of them earlier and once I uploaded the photos realized my camera must have been on the wrong settings when I was taking the photos, they turned out all dark so I just scanned them. Better than nothing right? Ha.

I had a BLAST with this kit, as usual. The cards are for my mother-in-law and sister-in-law's birthday. They both have birthdays this week and MY sisters is today, augh! So many birthdays all in a row! lol.

I made a layout for my blog post on the Cricut Circle blog yesterday, you can see it HERE! If you don't have access to the blog here are the cute photos I used on the layout:

Alex and I carved our pumpkins last week and they're already falling apart! I'm not used to Oklahoma, since it's so hot your jack-o-lanterns rot pretty much immediately the day after you carve them- oops.

Speaking of the Cricut Circle blog, I only had ONE of my Gypsy winners contact me with their mailing info. Since it's been over a week and no response I get to pick two new winners!

Craftygirl said...Looking forward to following your blog. Thanks for the chance to win.

Chris Wooten said...wow really great project. awesome giveaways and fun, thank you so much woohoo!!!!!!!!!!!

Congrats ladies! Please email me at jilly122684@hotmail.com with your mailing info by Saturday, October 23rd.

Update: Cricut Circle Gypsy Winners I need your mailing info!

2010-10-12T10:17:00.002-06:00

I have still not heard from my winners Jenn and KDBrown911. Please email me by Saturday, October 16 or I will have to pick two new winners! Thank you so much!

Here are the three giveaway winners that will receive a Cricut Gypsy!:

Yvette said...: Congrats in getting into the team!

pisces_9315@yahoo.com

Jenn said...: Congratulations, I am looking foward to following your blog.

KDBrown911 said...: I just joined the Cricut Circle and was taking the opportunity to see the Design Team's Blogs. How exciting for all of us to get so much inspiration from all of you!

Congratulations girls!! Please email your mailing info to me at jilly122684@hotmail.com. I will get those sent out to you right away!

Cricut Circle Gypsy Winners!

2010-10-09T15:17:00.002-06:00

Hey there! I just got back from vacation yesterday night, I'm so happy to be home!

There were many boxes full of exciting goodies on my door step when I arrived home, including a box from Provocraft containing THREE Gypsies! Can you believe how generous they are? Wow!

Here are the three giveaway winners that will receive a Cricut Gypsy!:

Yvette said...: Congrats in getting into the team!

pisces_9315@yahoo.com

Jenn said...: Congratulations, I am looking foward to following your blog.

KDBrown911 said...: I just joined the Cricut Circle and was taking the opportunity to see the Design Team's Blogs. How exciting for all of us to get so much inspiration from all of you!

Congratulations girls!! Please email your mailing info to me at jilly122684@hotmail.com. I will get those sent out to you right away!

I'll be back later with new scrappy stuff! :) I'm still trying to get back into the swing of things here at home!