Ginger Grace

Chats and layouts and classes. (oh my)

On Monday, November 9th at 10 pm EST I'm hosting a chat over at Studio Calico. I'd love it if you popped over to talk!

Also, I have a few things I want to share. First, two of my very talented friends, Kayla Aimee and Wilna are holding a DIY Holiday Class with lots of great crafts and gift ideas. You should really check it out because these girls are insanely brilliant with paper and glue.

The Garden has bloomed over at 2Peas....here are my projects.

Copyright Two Peas in a Bucket.com

Copyright Two Peas in a Bucket.com

(You can see more of the mini in the Creating Garden, if you like)

I used a ton of Sassafrass Sweet Treats stickers for the Wacko page, as well as some Hambly rub ons that I am in love with. For the Summer mini, I used a Maya Road Oval Scallop mini book. It was a perfect way to house lots of little photos from this summer that didn't make it onto a page. 

I also need to thank all the wonderful sponsors that sent welcome packages to the Dream Team members. The amount of stuff we got is actually a little overwhelming, though exciting, and I still need to unpack it all, and more importantly, find room for it.

Adornit – Carolee’s Creations, Advantus, American Art Clay Company, American Crafts, Anna Griffin, BasicGrey, Bazzill Basics Paper, Bella Blvd, Bisous, Bo-Bunny Press, Buttons Galore,C.R. Gibson, Clearsnap, Close To My Heart, Colorbök, Core’dinations, Cornish Heritage Farms, Cosmo Cricket, The Crafter’s Workshop, Creative Memories, Die Cuts With a View,Dimensions, Doodlebug Design, Dyno Merchandise, EK Success, Elmer’s, Eyelet Outlet, Fancy Pants Designs, Fiskars Americas, GlueArts, Glue Dots International, Graphic 45, Hambly Screen Prints, Helmar Adhesives, Hero Arts, iLoveToCreate, a Duncan Enterprises Company,Imaginisce, Inkadinkado , It Takes Two, Jenni Bowlin Studio, Jillibean Soup, K&Company,Karen Foster Design, Krylon, Little Yellow Bicycle, Maya Road, McGill, Mimi Collections,Pebbles Inc., Piggy Tales, Pink Paislee, Prima, QuicKutz, River City Rubber Works, Sakura,Sandylion, Scrapbook Adhesives by 3L, ScrapGirls, Scrapper’s Guide, SEI, Singer, Sounds Easy,Spellbinders, Stampendous!, Stampin’ Up!, Technique Tuesday, Therm O Web, Unibind, We R Memory Keepers, Zva Creative

My husband and I are off to a Bears game tomorrow and I can't wait! It's been a long time since he and I have spent any quality time together and I'm looking forward to it!

Keeping this secret has been killing me.

The members of the 2010 Creating Keepsakes Dream Team were announced on the blog today.

They are:

Cindy Tobey
Deena Wuest
Jen Jockisch
Kim Watson
Laura Vegas
Maggie Holmes
Sara Winnick
Susan Weinroth
Suzy Plantamura
Wendy Sue Anderson

I'm so excited to finally be able to share this; this secret keeping business has been killing me.

I also just have to say how incredibly blessed I feel. When I began scrapbooking 5 years ago, I had no intentions of being published, making money, designing for anyone. I just did it because I loved it. And then I thought, why NOT try to get published? I'm going to do this anyway, so I may as well try to make a little money or get some free goodies out of it. And besides that, it's a kick to see my pages in print. So I tried. And it took a while, about a year before I was picked up for the first time. And breaking into CK? I thought it would NEVER happen. Took me YEARS to get picked up by them. 

I'm just so thankful for the direction my life has taken; for the opportunities I've been given and all the amazing friends I've made  along the way.

Happy Halloween!

That's Ayla's scary face. :)

So. Ayla's turned 3 on Thursday. That means that besides having a party and getting new toys and eating lots of cupcakes, Halloween kind of gets lost in the shuffle. So Mommy had to throw together a costume at the last minute which consisted of some of her dress up clothes. I think she's pretty cute anyway.

I participated in Cindy Liebel's weekly challenge over at 2Peas, this is what I came up with.

This was a super quick and simple page, but it's very special to me. About a week ago, Ayla was playing in my jewlery box and accidentally broke the sand dollar that I found right after my Mom died. (That is incredibly special to me, but that's another story for another day) I started crying, i couldn't help it. She just sat there and looked at me and her little face just fell and her bottom lip started to tremble and she started crying SO HARD. Harder than I've ever seen....and it was all because she made me cry. I felt so terrible; so we sat there and just loved and cuddled for a long time. I'm sorry I made her cry, but I'm glad we had that moment and I'll remember it forever.

November Studio Calico Gallery is up!

I was super excited to have been asked to guest design for them this month.

I'm not typically a kit girl; I've never subscribed to any, but this one has me re-thinking that decision. So MUCH, and such great mixes of product.

Head on over and check it out!

It's a good day.

Two reasons:

This and This. Even if Dav spelled my name wrong. :):)

So far from perfect.

So, my title is actually describing these 2 photos of Ayla I want to share that I just love and adore. But, it really applies to so many aspects of my life. I've been crazy busy lately; trying to figure out how to balance it all and honor my commitments, my friendships, my family. And not just to honor them, but to do it well. Plus, the fact that I have the WORST memory in the entire world doesn't help. There are days that I swear I have early onset Alzheimer's. Which segues into the question I want to ask....does anyone have any suggestions for either a great planner (Read: cute, fun, functional) OR a good system via a particular cell phone or some on-line application to help stay organized? I love reading about what works for YOU, so please share, if you don't mind.

I'll leave you with my two so-far-from-perfect-but-so-very-loved photos.

Pigs fly.

They must, because 2 posts in 2 days? This is new.

Anyway. Took some pics of the kiddo today and I'm dying to share 2 of them because they make me smile.

 I have this weird tonal issue when processing, especially with my fair skinned child. She either looks dead, or way too warm. And no matter what I try I can't get it right. (Though adminttedly my PS smarts are pretty limited) Does anyone have any suggestions, or know of any good tonal fixes?

She's beginning to hate the camera a little less, but it's still a struggle to get her to actually look at it.

Did some American Crafts work today. Please disregard the random 'N' on this next page, I had this idea that didn't really work out.

This page is about how I've kind of had this chip on my shoulder for a while about certain things that happened in my life and things, long ago, not turning out the way I 'thought' they should. But it occured to me the other day that I've been given so many amazing opportunities and discovered parts of myself I didn't even know existed...and none of this would have happened had all those things I was so bitter about not happened in the first place. It was a good moment. Photo by the ever talented Amber Ulmer.

Have a great week!

I'm bored, so I'll overload you with photos. Fun.

It's Saturday night and I'm bored. I've been sick for the last few days, so I've been cooped up in the house, but I'm starting to feel better and am getting stir crazy. So I'll share some photos from the wedding last weekend....most of them are from the little make-shift photo booth Jana came up with. It was THE best part of the night, I laughed harder than I have in YEARS.

P.S. Please ignore my cleavage. I can't help it. My cup runneth over. (HA!)

Our little family. I was so proud of us that day. Except when the almost 3 year old of the family was throwing tantrums, or running circles around the wedding cake, or just being generally crazy. She did walk down the aisle though.

Maids and Usherette. Had a blast with these girls.

The bride and her consorts.

Our version of the cheesy prom photo.  

The next handful of photos just make me so freakin' happy when I look at them. These 5 people mean more to me than I can ever express; there is noone else whom I feel safer with, happier with, and completely at ease with. And they're my family...how lucky am I? So now I'm going to inundate my blog with photos of us.

 

 Heeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeyyyyyyyyyy.

Jazz hands. Note the look on my husbands face, he was forced into that one.

 I'm not entirely sure what I'm doing here, but it cracks me up.

 

American Gothic. Hyde style.

Yes, these are my brothers. Yes, it is semi-inappropriate. Yes, I love and adore this photo. We're all crazy, and it shows. :)

The end.

Winners and Weddings

So...the randomly chosen winner of the RAK is Lexie with this comment "

It would take ALOT of space to type just the crazy, kid-related events of today...but I think the highlight was a few minutes ago when my 18 month old said, "pee pee"...as in he wanted to pee pee off the porch like his almost 4 yr old bro. Sure! Why not?! (famous last words, right?? :)
I took off his diaper, let him try to pee pee like a big boy, ran in his room to get a new diaper, only to come back to find he did in fact pee..and MORE...smeared all over himself and the porch..
and the great thing is the day isn't over yet!!
Yiikes!!!
Have a good one ;)"

Send me your address (jenjock1@yahoo.com) Lexie and I'll get a box full of goodies to you. Thanks to everyone for commenting, and stopping by!

On another note, my very best friend in the entire world got married Saturday. It was a beautiful day, the bride and groom were both just glowing, it all turned out perfectly. Here's a link to her amazing photographers blog with a few sneaks of their images up. I can't wait to see the rest. Congrats, Jana and Wes, we love you both!

Since I have nothing interesting to say...(a rak)

I'm boring. Seriously. There's not much to talk about. Except Ayla singing Old McDonald in the tub tonight, but I doubt you want to hear that story. Or maybe my best friends wedding this Saturday that we are all 3 in....but there will be much more on that later, I'm sure. So...I'll do a RAK. It may not be the best rak ever, but there will be some fun stuff in it. Leave me a comment, tell me something...hmmm...tell me what a normal weekday is like for you. I'm curious to know exactly how odd I am, by comparison. :)

I'll leave this open for a couple days.....

Thanks for stopping by!