Outnumbered

Making the Most of Your Core'dinations Cardstock...w/a CHALLENGE!!

For my tutuorial, I decided to focus on making the most of your Core'dinations cardstock. 
Take a look at my video: 
 

I'm not sure that the details of the Core show very well in the video, so the following photos will give you a close up of the detail.

  Card front, partially sanded

Full layout with embossed and sanded birthday greeting

Close up of Kraft Core w/sanded/embossed birthday greeting

Putting it all together

Close up of putting it all together

And I found this layout in my stash using a lot of Core...the letters were embossed and sanded, as was the embossing folder.  I also embossed and sanded a die across the bottom of the page.

***CHALLENGE***

Now that you've seen some of the things that you can do with Core, your challenge for today is to do just that...create a layout using Core in a way other than just plain old cardstock.  Post it in the Gallery and make sure to let us know it's for Christy's Core Challenge!! 

Also, don't forget about my sketch challenge from last week. 
We've got LOTS to keep you busy as we celebrate National Scrapbook Day!

Happy Scrappin'!!
~Christy

Sweet Winston

   It's been a while again, I know. It's just so stinking busy. David is really busy this time of year (everybody wants you to "just squeeze me in before the end of the year because of deductibles") which has left me with almost no free time to myself. 

  Plus, I've been trying to come up with what I wanted to say about Winston, but just couldn't put it into words. Winston was our first baby. We adopted him when we were in Chapel Hill. The dog that was supposed to be a mere 40 pounds eventually maxed out at 100, but became the best pet we could have ever asked for. He has always been so sweet with the boys and is the gentlest dog. The boys adored him.

   He was what we dubbed "a close talker," always right up close to you. You could pet him for hours and he would never get enough. 

 

   He absolutely loved going on hikes, swimming, and going to the farm. He was always by our side, taking care of and watching out for the boys. A true protector, he was the one who alerted us to the bear and eventually stood his ground while the bear charged him to protect me. 

  This past July we noticed a mass on his face. We watched it for a bit thinking it was a bony mass and then took him in to get it removed. The vet called me the day of his surgery and said he couldn't remove it because his his facial nerve was knotted in it, but he sent a biopsy. The next week the biopsy came back as poorly differentiated carcinoma. A diagnosis that meant removal of his entire jaw on that side and chemotherapy. David and I decided we didn't want to go that route as it seemed cruel to us. After we decided, the vet agreed and said if it was his dog, he would have made the same choice. So, we watched him and when the pain seemed to arrive, we added meds to keep him comfortable, but eventually he got worse. Not going out, rarely eating or peeing, and unable to swallow his own saliva. 2 weeks ago we made the difficult decision to put him down. It was not easy to explain to the boys, but eventually they understood. David took him in while I kept the boys and it was awful. We have all decided that it just isn't right to pull in the driveway and not be greeted by him. We miss him terribly.

RIP Winston, we love you.

 

 

The back to school rush

I have no idea where the time has gone. I am blaming it on adjusting to new activities and schedules. Wanted to write down a few thoughts about the start of this school year though.

Sam has started 2nd grade and is doing awesome. His teacher is sweet as can be and he's loving it. He is still the same shy guy when meeting new people, but is really busting out of his shell otherwise. He is absolutely hilarious, with a very witty sense of humor. He is so sweet and caring and very helpful around the house now. Sometime over the summer, he became very into sports-both playing and watching them, and is always practicing. He has also taken off with his reading and is constantly carrying a book around. His favorites are magic treehouse, black lagoon, boxcar children, and wimpy kid. All his labs have still come back negative for any kidney disease, so we're just monitoring him as he is healthy and growing well. 

 

Jake started kindergarten this year. His 1st day, he popped out of bed so excited, but was apparently very nervous. I got called about 11:00 by his teacher who said he refused to eat lunch because his tummy was hurting and then threw up. She thought it was nerves and asked me to bring him a change of clothes. Since then he's been golden. He wants to tell you everything he learns and has amazed me with his ability to recite rather long memory verses for Bible. Following in his mother's true dork footsteps, he actually wants to have homework and if he doesn't have any, he makes some up. 

 

  Alex started a few weeks later and is doing good in the 3 year old classroom. He loves his teachers Ms. Pam, Ms. Ann, and Ms. Dana. He goes half a day and is already learning so much. He is very spunky and tough, strong willed and funny. The looks he gives us are just hilarious and we nicknamed him the Hulk because he clenches his fists and hollers when he's mad. He absolutely loves Scooby Doo-watching the show, playing with the toys, reading the books, you name it.

 

The rest of our vacation

   While the mornings and afternoons were spent at the beach (thanks to the boys' inability to sleep in we were frequently the only ones there aside from a few runners and the beach chair rental guy from the resort), the evenings were up for grabs.  We did a number of things. Sometimes we hung out and watched a movie (the boys were watching Harry Potter), we watched shark week on discovery, we golfed, and we went out to dinner. 

    Our first golf day was Monday evening. All five of us played. Sam is really good, so he beat me. The boys all hit tee shots, but we pick up Alex's ball and he hits again on the green. 

 Jake and I rode together in the party cart, as we called it.

  Alex eventually joined us because he had eaten all the ice in his cooler and came to eat ours. 

 

Alex was kept quiet playing games on the iphone when he wasn't hitting the ball in Happy Gilmore like style.

 

  Jake is still learning, but played all 18 holes. 

 

   And Sam, who has always been good at golf (and I mean, always, since like 2), smacked the crap out of the ball every time and most of the time into the fairway. I can hit the ball far, but not with his accuracy. I frequently lose balls in the water. I wish I could hit like him.

 

  This guy greeted us on the cart path, way too close for comfort.

 

  We golfed twice as a family and just David and Sam went one afternoon.

  We left on Saturday and stopped at Patriot's Point to see the ships. Last year we did the aircraft carrier before we reached hunger meltdown with Alex and the boys wanted to go back this year to see the submarine. 

 

  Sunday after vacation is always spent trying to reclaim the farm from a week's worth of weed growth and harvesting the corn. This year, we got there at 8 am and finished at 6pm. David pulled 60 dozen ears of corn while I started picking the vegetables and weeding the rest. Then he tilled, the boys shucked, and I kept plugging away tying up tomatoes and stringing up the beans. Once all the corn was shucked, we loaded up and hit Bojangles for fried chicken (the boys' favorite reward for working hard at the farm), and headed home to eat. Then we spent the rest of the afternoon cleaning, blanching and putting up the corn.

 

  49 quart bags for the freezer, 16 quarts and 8 pints canned and we were done. We also dug the potatoes and got a pretty good harvest this year. The rest of the veggies got canned Monday.

 

  Spent last week enjoying the last few days of summer at the pool, with friends, and and picking apples.

 

 I can't believe school starts this week-summer just flew by! Still in shock that Jake is starting kindergarten and Sam is a 2nd grader. When did they get so big? Sam has really matured over the last several months-he helps out, he works hard at the farm and around the house with chores, he even has an ability to calm Alex down, and he has started to become more interested in doing a job right as opposed to fast. Jake is still in the little boy phase where he is not as focused, but I think that will improve when he starts school. He is a sweet little boy who always tries hard so I know he will do great!

Back from vacation

  We spent the last week at Kiawah Island on our annual beach trip. We love it there and had so much fun this year. We truly needed the break. For the first time in 7 years, we sat in chairs and supervised the boys' activities instead of having to be right on top of them the entire time. A very nice change for David and me. We arrived on Saturday afternoon, unloaded, cooked dinner, and headed to the beach for an evening swim. We went to the beach every day from 9 am until about 2 pm then left for other activities. 

 

 

  The boys always want to build something in the sand. One day several years ago, they asked for a shark and now a tradition has begun. Each day a new sea animal is built by mostly David, the boys "help." This year we built a sea turtle, lobster, hammerhead shark, crab, shark, and an octopus.

The Lobster:

The hammerhead shark: (which is being uncooperative and will not turn)

 

   All three boys have really enjoyed riding the waves on their boogie boards this year and Sam and Jake thoroughly enjoyed diving under with their goggles on. 

 

    I would never risk my camera in the sand and surf, but when we upgraded to the Nikon D90 last year, we saved the D40x for just such situations. So I set up the camera on the cooler and set the timer for a family shot, over and over again because 10 seconds of looking is entirely too much to ask of a 3 year old. A sweet lady walking by saw us attempting the 6th shot and took this for us. I love it-random guy's leg will be cropped out and we now have a picture of all 5 of us. 

 

  And just a few of the boys.

Sam (who has recently gotten into playing baseball more and so loved this catch game we found):

Jake (who we believe got stung by a jellyfish-those red marks are the remnants of the welts)

Alex (who really wore those goggles just for show):

   Jake got the camera and I got some good pictures.

 

  We came home Saturday evening and now are back in full swing here. Nobody was ready to go back to the grind at this house. Everybody looked pretty dejected on the car ride home. Decided we really need another beach trip in the year. More vacation fun to come!

 

July kits!

  The July kits are now for sale and I just love them! The Pink Paislee hometown summer line in the main and add-on kit is fabulous. We were so lucky this month to have the fabulous Amy Tangerine as our guest designer this month and she rocked this kit! I love how fun her LOs are and how she incorporates stitching in her work. She is one very talented lady! If you're in the market for cute tshirts, you should really buy some from her. They are adorable!

And check out the onesie Heather made for her daughter using the kit.

 

 Kimberly made this LO using the July trio kit. 

 

 

Even I managed to get some scrapping in and my kit is almost entirely used up now.

 

  We have a huge sale going on right now. Mystery boxes with approximately $100 worth of stuff for just $25 and a 3 kit pack for just $35! You really need to go grab some of the sale stuff! Great deals! Have a good rest of the weekend,

Heather
 

Rain, rain go away!

  The summer has been busy and rainy these last few weeks. I am pretty tired of it now-the farm is suffering because of it and the boys are going stir crazy. We've gone to the pool and it rained on us. We've gone to the park and it rained on us. 

   The biggest part of the last few weeks-Sam, my sweet, funny boy turned 7 . I can't believe it. We are so very proud of the boy he's becoming. He's caring, helpful, and really taking some responsibility lately. My neighbor recently informed me that his class mate says he's the class clown. That is typical Sam. He always has a witty remark, though sometimes he says it days later just to let you know he actually heard you. Yesterday Jake was reading the newspaper and said "I wish I was in the news." Sam's response-" we can't be in the news. We don't do stupid stuff." Already he's realized that stupidity frequently gets reported. 

  His request for a birthday party was to have a nerf war or battle royale as he called it down at the fort. 

 

   Sam's request was cookie cake-my favorite too.

 

   Sam and Jake had their first swim meet. So funny to see them in their suits. They did good, even got a few ribbons. Jake did not like the backstroke though and refused to do that race. 

  We went to Gatlinburg for the weekend with some friends of ours. 3 couples, 7 boys 7 and under. It was loud, but so much fun. Spent the first night just hanging out, and the next day at Splash country. Went to Dollywood Sunday but got rained out at about 11 am. No biggie though, since it was overcast, there were no lines. Alex and I rode every ride he was tall enough for at least twice and David and the bigs did the same. 

 

  Had a great 4th of July weekend. Hiked to a swimming hole at Skinny Dip Falls and had friends over for the 4th. It was a nice relaxing weekend.

 

The water was a little cold.

 

   In the midst of all this fun stuff, we also did VBS. The boys all went and I was in charge of crafts. It's definitely been a busy, fun few weeks. It's supposed to rain all weekend, not looking forward to that, but am looking forward to another relaxing weekend. 

 

There is a monster sale going on over at my store now. You should check it out! I'll be back soon to share some recent projects made by me and the design team with the July kit.

 

How lucky I am...

...to have this man as my husband and the father of my boys.

 

 

   Father's Day weekend was a whirlwind and I have just now gotten around to posting my thoughts. I feel very lucky and blessed to have this man. He is the very best dad a boy could ask for. He works hard all day (and quite frequently, all night) to give us not just what we need, but things we want too. He comes home and spends time with the boys and he has from the beginning. When we just had Sam, he would come home, take Sam with him and hang out in the recliner. Many times they fell asleep. Now it takes much more effort to spend time with them, but he does it anyway, no matter how tired he is. His boys always come before rest. He coaches their teams, is Sam's assistant den leader, and goes to just about everything they do. He takes them to do all kinds of fun things. Right now, they don't get how lucky they are because they assume all dads do these things, but I try to tell them all the time. One day I know they will look back or look at their friend's Dads and realize just how much their Dad loves them. It is evident in everything he does. 

 

  They spent Sunday together building wooden guns in the garage.

 

 

  Thanks David, for being more than we could have ever imagined!

Summertime and the living is easy!

 The first 2 weeks of summer break have flown by!  We have spent 3 days a week at the pool and it is hot! The boys are comfortable with the water and have been jumping in like crazy as well as snorkeling their way through the deep end. 

 

  Sam gets out and lays in the sun to rest. I asked him if he was working on his tan. His reply-"It's for the girls." The boy's sense of humor is just hilarious-always keeps me laughing!

  Sam and Jake are doing the swim team at the club in an effort to get them learning the strokes. They have been twice so far and are doing great. Practices are at 8:30 am on Wednesdays and Fridays and they like it so much that even Sam (who is so not a morning person) when I woke him up this morning said "yes, I love swim team!" 

 

  For years I have watched other mothers do the unthinkable like relax and read while at the pool and wondered "will that ever be me?" Well, look at what I did yesterday!

 

    So strange to not be needed, but oh so refreshing. It lasted about 15 minutes, but it was lovely.

    Got a dump truckload of mulch delivered and gave the boys squirt guns and a bucket of water to play in while I spread the mulch. They had a blast, but poor little Alex had trouble filling up his gun and nobody would help him. So, since he's super resourceful, he decided to make his own "gun." He snuck up behind his brothers and peed on them. I laughed so hard, I about peed my pants. Serves them right for not helping the little guy.

 

   Swim practice ends at 9:30, but the pool doesn't open for public use until 10:30, so we've been killing time at the club in between. We tried tennis this week and the boys really like it. They even played when they got home tonight. 

 

   We've been hitting the pool in the morning and then relaxing watching movies in the afternoon this week. It's a much needed break after the tiredness of swimming for 5 hours. The weekend coming up is busy, but hope to find time to share a few pages I've done lately.

 

 

 

The last days of school!

This week has been filled with end of school year activities. We spent the weekend at Dollywood and Splash Country. Alex is now tall enough to ride some slides (instead of just hanging out with me in the wave pool and playground)  and he just loved it. "Let's do that again!" was heard over and over from him. So nice to spend the day together as a family instead of split up.

 

   On Saturday David took Alex to baseball while I took Sam  and Jake to Dollywood. We had a blast, but Jake unfortunately got this black eye when he walked right into the swinging gate exiting the ride. It didn't look bad at first-there wasn't even a mark, but as the day progressed, it got swollen and bruised.

 

  On Monday night we juggled baseball with Sam's last scout meeting of the year. I took Jake to our neighbor's house and they took him to baseball with them, David took Sam to scouts, then I met them there with Alex (since David is assistant den leader, I needed to participate in the rank ceremony with Sam), then I left and headed to baseball to see the last 2 innings of Jake's game while David stayed with Sam. He moved up rank and is now a Wolf. He has enjoyed this year and the boys in his den are really fun. 

   Tuesday, I served lunch at Veritas then helped with Sam's end of year party. It was a hot day so the water party theme was great. Sam has really worked very hard in school this year and was lucky to have great teachers who really went the extra mile. We are so very proud of him.

 

 

  Wednesday brought Jake's end of year party-a beach theme. I stopped by to help out with that as well. He sat with his "BFF" (yes, this is the term the 2 of them actually use), Henry. These two have decided they are going to be ski instructors when they grow up and live together on the mountain. Henry just barely makes the cut-off date for school and is going to go to half day kindergarten, but Jake is going full. Henry has rather emphatically voiced his dismay with this telling his mother that he can't believe she's splitting them up and  do to him while crying. We will clearly be having play dates this summer with them.

Thursday brought Jake's pre-K graduation. Each kid was supposed to say what their favorite part of the day was in preschool. Jake's answer- "saying goodbye to my mom and dad." What-are we that awful? No, when prompted he said "I just really like getting hugs and kisses from you guys before you leave." So sweet, that little lover. Clearly, a ham though. 

 

 

  Today was Sam's last day and it was a short day, so we came home to hang out and watch a movie. Nice to have just some downtime after this long week.

 

Hello, lazy, relaxing days of summer!