Creative Play

The weekend goes by and I make plans to dedicate a day to finishing some type of project. It never works out, which is why I try to get away for a day to scrapbook outside of my house at least once a month.

This weekend was a good weekend. I was able to finish a word project that me and my scrapbook buddies are working on jointly. Six other girls and myself are altering wood letters to form a creative word. The word is IMAGINE. Each girl was given a letter and we each have to alter it with only black, white, and Ocean (CTMH color) paper. My letter was “A”. See my creative letter below. We do not all have to use the same black and white paper, but keep with the Ocean color.

I created a rosette flower in Ocean paper and sprayed it with Tattered Angels/Pearl Glimmer Mist. The Glimmer Mist is messy to work with, but I really like the effect it gives. I’ll definitely be buying more colors. When I receive all of the letters from the girls, I will post a picture of all of our altered letters.

Below are some pages I created for two circle journals in my scrapping group. I created these a couple of weekends back I was just got lazy and never uploaded them until now. The Disney page is for Brenda whose book is about family and family vacations. She is a big Disney fan and family vacations there quite often. I hope this page fits with her many pictures. I left a journaling area on the upper right so that she could journal the page of her trip or cut and paste character autographs.

The second set of pages is for Lori. Her circle journal is about songs that her family likes or that describe someone in her family. I chose “Brown Eyed Girl”. She requested that you use the title somewhere on the page with the wording of the song and leave somewhere for her to put pictures. I feel like I have used this paper line a thousand times over, CTMH More to Adore, but I like it! I guess it’s just that pink and brown combination.

Cyber-Site Tuesday

Okay this whole recycling craze is nothing new to me. If you only knew the ways my grandmother would recycle items and because of her I have learned a lot about making that one item last a little longer.

I’ve always recycled gift bags, birthday and Christmas. I have often fussed with family members for sticking gift stickers and writing on the bags. Of course their comment is “It was only $1 I’ll go buy you another”. That is besides the point it has many years of good use. To this day I use glass pickle, mayo, and condiment jars to store lots of household items. A good cleaning from the inside and boiling with hot water takes the stink of the product that was previously inside of it right out.

Well this week’s Cyber-Sites are about ways of recycling products. Take a look at this site Recycle This from the UK. It’s a great site and has given me lots of ideas. Speaking of recycling and bringing another item back to life, a neighbor of mine was throwing away this perfectly good portable tool keeper the other day. I went over there and told him I was taking it and he said “go right ahead”. It was a little dirty with cobwebs and rust from the tools, but with some soap and water it became brand new. It will now be my new portable scrapbook crop keeper. It has lots of great compartments to load up with lots of my scrapping goodies when I go on crops.

The crafters reading this post check out this blog: craftside.typepad.com. It teaches you how to use recycling products to make craft items. Scroll down to the posting on February 12. How cool is that! As you know I am a big Tim Holtz fan and I plan on creating something like this soon!

Before you throw that empty can, box of cereal, jug of milk, or glass container think of another use for it!

The season of atonement begins – LENT

Unless you’re Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, Lutheran, Episcopalian, or Methodist there isn’t a season of Lent. Growing up I never really understood the whole season of Lent. I was just forced to practice it. As I became an adult and became more involved in my church, I started to study many of the Catholic teachings and there symbolism.

I remember growing up Lent meant fish on Friday and Ash Wednesday and giving up one of your vices, but I never understood why were celebrating this season. I’m not going to get into the whole meaning here, but if you want to know more read here: http://www.crivoice.org/cylent.html.

For four years I have taught Catechesis (faith education for children) at my local church - Epiphany of the Lord. I have to do a lot of lesson planning and preparation before class on Wednesdays and because of this I have learned a lot of what I never have understood about Catholicism. The kids keep me on my toes. They ask me questions sometimes that I never would have thought of. Sometimes I cannot answer them and I ask them to “table it” until next week and I will get back to them. I do make an effort to find out the answers for them, because I don’t want them lost like I was about what things meant in our religion. This year we are studying the Ten Commandments in depth. Every time we complete a commandment I make them make a collage of what the lesson meant to them and I display them every Wednesday as a reminder of what we studied. It really helps in keeping the lesson top of mind.

As I digress - what does Lent mean to me now? Well it is a season of atonement, but it’s more than that. Father Jack, our residing priest, said it graciously one Sunday morning in mass “Lent is not giving up, but giving in.” What he meant was Lent does not signify you have to give up something, that’s kind of self serving, but give back something. Be a great advocate in your community. Time is a precious commodity, giving up your time for someone else is a big sacrifice. In my effort to be the good Catholic and in my resolution to give back this year I hope to step up and volunteer more this Lenten season. I’ve even asked my 6th grade kids to do a service project for Lent. I gave them options like: take some socks, toothpaste, toothbrushes etc to a homeless shelter or nursing home, take a bag of dog food to their local pet shelter, help an elderly neighbor with the trash or walking their pets, etc.

And remember your don’t have to be Catholic to give back, everyone needs a hand

Cyber-Site Tuesday

I consider myself to be a semi-thrifty shopper and always looking for a great deal – aren’t we all! At one time I never went to the grocery store without coupons in hand. Then they became a hassle and I quit cutting them. I’ve learned there is no better way of saving a dime than to put forth the effort to save.

I’m back to coupon clipping again and since I do not receive the local paper anymore, I had to look for alternative options. Target is my store of choice for shopping, for both non-grocery and grocery items. In Texas, HEB claims to be the cheapest grocer - NOT! I’ve saved almost $2-$3 dollars on meats and other items at Target.

A lot of my friends are using weekly menu planning and checking local grocery ads for sale prices before planning their meals. It’s a great idea - I just don’t have the time. I found this site the couponsavinggame.com as an alternative to having all coupons including clothing retailers in one spot. Check out the Blogroll in the toolbar above right, there are other coupon sites. Since I am a Target shopper I tend to use more of their coupons. This past Sunday I went and saved $9, not much when you see it written, but every little dollar adds up.

Hope this site helps in your next grocery trip!

Cyber-Site Tuesday

This week in Cyber-Site Tuesday the links to the sites provided are about weight loss, which I’m suffering through right now!

We have a Biggest Loser competition that started in my office 3 weeks ago. Needless to say I have not been successful. It’s not because I haven’t been watching what I’m eating and not working out. Believe me I am working my butt off and no results – only 2.3 lbs. Hector made the comment I must have syrup in my blood, because my metabolism is soooooooo slooooooow! He sees how hard I’m working out too.

I’ve used CalorieKing.com for many years as an alternative to the Weight Watcher’s site. You can search for any food or restaurant menu items to get the calories, fiber, and fat content. I love this site because I can plan out a daily meal menu and keep my calorie content at 1000 calories, which I’ve been trying to do.

Hungrygirl.com is a site I found a couple of weeks ago as I was browsing for alternative healthy recipes. The site provides you with healthy alternatives to food cravings. If you seen the book Eat This, Not That, this site is very similar to the book with a lot of other great information.

Enjoy healthy eating and see ya next Tuesday!

Cyber-site Tuesday

There are some days I appreciate my job because I have the opportunity to do a lot of internet surfing and it is part of the job, not just goofing off. Most days it is for research purposes and other days it can be rather boring.

Sometimes I get into browsing a site and it takes me to another site, and that site takes me to another site, and so on and so on. Some of the sites are pretty interesting. I thought why not present a weekly feature on my blog every Tuesday of those websites that are fun to use or interesting. I’m calling my feature Cyber-site Tuesday.

Today’s site is a flicker link which allows you to create your own words in picture type font! Think of the fun possibilities you could have. Have fun using it and let me know if you used it on your blog.


See ya next Tuesday.