Family Faces

When we go to my in-laws for Thanksgiving the dynamics are hilarious! My husband & his brother are like a comedy show. We all could just stand around and watch the them. Throw in my father in-law and all bets are off.

We all bring our dogs, notice Angus & Rosie, and in all there are 5 dogs roaming around. Crazy!

This was the last Thanksgiving before my son goes away to college next year. Needless to say, I had a few "moments" were I was all choked up. But I am excited to see where God places him and I'm choosing to be enjoy this time.

Enjoy your day!

Give Thanks

Do you have your Thanksgiving pictures scrapbooked? I do!! I know, it's not nice to gloat but with Studio J I am on top of all the pictures I took at Thanksgiving.

Dreamin' paper packet works perfect for these pictures, so that's what I used.

Do you need help with your scrapbooking? Want to learn more about Studio J? I offer free 1/2 hour demonstrations at your convenience....let me know when you want to have a quick demo and I'll show you more.

Enjoy your day!

Making Cookies

I always take pictures. It's kinda my thing. But this is the first time I've taken pics of the day we do our holiday baking. Not sure why I never thought of it before....duh!

In Studio J I used the Believe paper packet and the Stickease that come with it. I will admit this isn't my favorite Christmas paper packet CTMH has ever come out with. But this paper was perfect for these pictures.

My sister and niece ham it up for the camera. It actually took a few shots to get my niece to smile for the camera. What is it about teenagers? Why can't they just smile normal for a picture? Oh yeah, that's right...they are teenagers! Ugh! But she is an amazing young woman, except when we want to take pictures, and she is going to be a good baker. Poor thing, this year she was the designated "ball roller". It seemed that all the cookies she helped with entailed making round balls out of the dough. By the end of the day it was the running joke...poor Steph!

My nephew was a trooper. He put up with his Mom & me, and kept everyone on track.

Enjoy your day!

My Baking is Done!!

A tradition in my family is the Saturday after Thanksgiving my sister and get together to do all our holiday baking. We have been doing this for about 20 years and though it is alot of work, it is done with so much love & alot of laughter. In the last few years we have added my nephew and niece to help too. And my Dad & stepmom stop by to help and visit.

The first picture is of the Spritz cookie we make. Now we each will take a dough, mix it up and then we all help with the baking. Except the Spritz cookie. This cookie is all mine.
Not because I'm better at it but because it's one of those cookies that can really frustrate you. I always start my day with a double batch in green which I made into trees. I then went into red flowers and finished with white bars. All the batches got decorations that really brought them to life

In the meantime, everyone else is busy making other types of cookies. All in all we make 8 different kinds of cookies. Several hundred cookies are made to share with family and friends. Whenever I have somewhere to go, I take them a plate of cookies. It's amazing the "Ohhh's" and "Ahhh's" I get. Really fun!

Do you have a tradition in your family? If not, why not start one this year. We only have one lifetime and when our loved ones are gone we can't get that time back.
So take time spend it with loved ones, laugh alittle, love alot!

Enjoy your day!

Windsor Knot

Way back in October was Homecoming. It seems so long ago.

Dalton decided he wanted to learn how to tie a Windsor knot in his tie. So out came the iphone and u-tube to the rescue. I'm still amazed at the videos out there. Seems like you can find one for just about anything. And yes, there are several on how to tie a Windsor knot.

While in his bathroom watching the video and tying the tie, I was snapping pictures. Dalton has gotten used to me and my camera. Not that he always appreciates it but too bad! The dogs also were watching him so I snapped a picture of Angus while I was at it.

I used the Roxie paper packet, believe it or not. I love this packet and I think it looks good! I used the Stickease and created my own colleague and layered over some of the sentiments.

Isn't he handsome? Thanks, I think so too!

Enjoy your day!

Honoring God & Coaches

At our Fall Sports Award night they called all the senior parents & athletes up to the front of the chapel to pray over them. How awesome it that?! Anyway, I loved that our friend was able to snap a picture of Duke & I with Dalton and Sebi. Let me tell you I was very choked up and this is just the beginning of the end of high school. Sometimes I wonder how I'm ever going to make it through this year....in His strength, not mine that's how!

Again, using You Rock paper packet in Studio J, I was able to create a layout quickly and with no mess, no fuss. I drag & dropped the pictures into the photo wells then started having fun playing with the Stickease and Text boxes.

I love that I can resize the Stickease, layer them and make my own design. I'm not hampered by what someone else thinks is good but I can use my own taste & creativity. I removed the pre-set text boxes and put titles on all my pictures with no paper behind them so they look like I wrote on each picture. I really like this technique and it's very easy to do.

When you don't want paper or vellum behind your text all you have to do is click on the text box area which will bring up the "menu" box. Click on the button to set the background color and click on the "none" button. This way when you click off there is no paper behind your text box. Otherwise if you don't pick a color of paper the text box will default to vellum behind it.

Want more hands on? Attend on of my Studio J 101 classes and learn more. Check out my calendar starting back up in January for dates and times.

Enjoy your day!

Team Mom

It's been awhile...so sorry! It is the holiday season and I promise I've been busy but you wouldn't know it by my lack of posting. So I want to share the Studio J layouts I've been working on.

This layout is from the fall sports award night. As you know, I finished up my tenure as Team Mom and thankfully, someone clicked a picture as I was gifted beautiful flowers & goodies.

This paper packet is called You Rock and I've used it alot because our school colors are blue & gold.

So what is different in this layout? I have changed alot of the papers to different patterns by bringing substituting ones that worked better for me  and removed text boxes to add my Stickease accents, then added a text box where I wanted to journal. I liked the toggle accents so I left them as they come on the pattern, where normally I remove them. I also almost always Distress my cardstock and I did that here too.

I love that I didn't have to have pictures printed or resized. I did this layout in about 30 minutes start to finish. Ahhhh! I LOVE Studio J!!

Enjoy your day!