Well November 4th is my 5 year anniversary with Close to my Heart.. They sent me this sterling silver charm for my charm bracelet. I love this company.. I haev meet some great women and been inspired by so many. Hopefully I too have inspired some. Here is to 5 years and many more to come hopefully.

My October club spread is not the traditional halloween one that most people would expect. I try to use the STOM in every club layout I do, and October's happens to be a Christmas stamp set. I just came up with this one using October's and the Consultant B&T pack. The left side of the layout is Front & Center - Space flipped from Reflections page 69 and the right side Quartet-Offset page 112. I don't have it completed just yet.. I like to add a title but it is good for now to share.



I think it turned out pretty darn cool.

We have finally come to the last post I have for my Paris Scrapbook. It has taken more time to post these spread out over 2 weeks or so then it did for me to create the album. Can you believe that? It is true. I am an addict and I wanted my book completed as quickly as possible so I did it in about 4 or 5 days.

These pages are some of my favorite memories pictures I have from the trip. The first layout I created at a CTMH album retreat last year so that was easy to put pictures on.


This page below is just a level 1 layout.. I did not do much too. I added a title, embellishment and some journalling.

This layout below are two of my absolute favorite pictures of the last sunset in Paris for us. It truly was so it was fitting to end the book with these pictures. The paper is something I got from Making Memories I believe. I really didn't have to do much I think the pictures talked for themselves.

Thanks for viewing I hope you enjoyed the layouts.

Now to the resons that we went to Paris. Like I have previously posted my host sister from when I was an exchange student in 1997 got married. I was only an exchange student for 8 weeks but my "sister" and I have kept in contact and have now visited eachother 3 times since then. I decided since this was the focal point of our trip to Paris that this event should be in different paper than the travel paper. Not to mention a wedding just doesn't seem to fit travel paper.


This is were the reception was held. I was about an hour into the french countryside at a great little chaetue called La Butte Ronde.

I turned the following pictures into black and white for two reasons. One I dont' normally print in B&W and I thought it would be fun. Two the pics were various colors with disco lights going that I wanted make them have some kind of semblance.

Finally since the whole wedding was in Versailles or the vicinty that of. I grouped our trip to the Palace in the wedding set. The pictures of on this page I love. I got a bit creative with the angles in the garden.

Here are some of my favorite layouts. The first are views from the top of the top of the Eiffle tower. I even made my Fabebook Profile Pic the bottom left photo. We went to the Eiffle Tower with our tour group and got to go to the second level. Then we paid the extra 5Euros each to go to the top. It was pretty neat to go up and see the city from an entirely different view.

Here is another layout that I loved. I guess I love these pages since they showcase Paris. The various buildings and their rich history and stories behind them all were pretty neat to see and hear. We heard a lot about the city on a boat tour we took on the Seine River. That was totally worth it.

The title is done in chip board and I used a lot of Flip Flaps from CTMH on this layout. I don't know if you can see the circle embellishment on the right surrounded by little brads but it is highlighting th word Paris in this great travel paper that CTMH used to sell. That way my title says Buildings of Paris.

The bridge layout was one that definitely took me out of my element. I see designs like this in Creating Keepsakes and I always thought they looked nice. So I decided to try. I think it turned out pretty good. The title is cut from the cricut and I found information on some of the famous bridges that cross over the Seine River. I like this page for its variety in the book.

New Moon Countdown Official Poster

These layouts are some more I came up with using Cherish and Imagine.. which for me is a lifesavor with scrapbooking. The Arc de Triomphe and Champs Elysees. The Arc is at the head of the famous street Champs Elysees where all the major stores are. Love it.

Today's post is Notre Dame. This layout is what CTMH is using for the Christmas Jingle Paper WOTG so I totally stole it for my Notre Dame page. I loved the way the title pops using the new Circle Dimensional Elements that CTMH sells.


The following two are the same layouts but just a "close up" of different aspects to the famous church. Did you know it is free to go into Notre Dame? Also it is really a home parish for people. That just amazes me. Check out the close up of the gargoiles (sp).

My third post starts with random pictures of the modes of transportations we used to tour Paris. I thought it was perfect to also use a map I got of the city as my background paper. There are also some tickets on the page just to hold on too.


The following pages are of the Louvre. I love the layout it is no peaceful looking which is how I would describe the Louvre. I used Flip Flaps on this page as well. I took so many pictures that those Flip Flaps from CTMH came in so handy on almost every layout. If you zoom in you can read the information I have on some of the peices in at the Louvre.

Here is part 2 of my Paris Scrapbook.. Don't worry there is like another 10 more parts to go. I will share a few pages a day. This is one of my favorite pages and layouts from Cherish in this first layout. It is all on the Eiffel Tower. I love these photos they are perfect.


In this page below there are just random pictures of us with my Host Sister Julia and her new husband Nicolas.

Food!! need I say more. Oh but I will say check out the wine glass in the top picture on the left page. Do you see the reflection on Notre Dame in it? One of my favorite pics that I took by accident.

So I finished my Paris album and here it is. I will post it in over the next week or so. My mother gave me this CM scrapbook which was perfect for the trip. However I forgot how much I didn't like the pages having to be permanant in the book.
This is our opening page for the album. I made this at the CTMH album retreat and I love it!!
I used the Vintage Travel paper by CTMH for most of the spreads in this book. However the metal tiles I used for the title I got at a scrapbook convention. This spreads shows the hotel in which we stayed and the view from our room of the Eiffel Tower. We were 5 blocks from it in a quiet neighborhood. It was a great place to stay if you are going there.

So I have been busy scrapbooking Paris and I am done. It is by far my best completed themed album I have ever made. I am not just saying that...it truly is!!! I will share photos but not this weekend. I have my nephews wedding and the chaos has already started. My sister in laws for the East coast came in last night and we were up at my house till 10:30pm talking. Then I (the only one) had to get up and go to work today at 6:30am so I am dragging a bit. But it should be a great weekend hanging out with family. I will post pics next week of the scrapbook.

JEN

Dan and I just got back from a week in Paris and it was amazing. We saw so much and took so many pictures that I can't wait to scrapbook it. From the Eiffel Tower, Louvre, Notre Dame, the Seine River Cruise and every other old building and street it was amazing. The main reason for going was that my Host Sister Julia was getting married in Versailles. I was an exchange student in 1997 to Germany and she meet a great guy in France Nicolas. They got married in Versailles on August 27th at the City HAll (fabulous building). Then we drove out to the French Countryside and had an amazing reception. It was a long flight and a great week but it will be memories that last a lifetime.

Sorry I have been so silent this past month. We have been finishing our deck and I have been trying to get spend the last few days of summer with the boys. I am back at work starting last week and today is my first day teaching. It is kind of werid being back and having a new set of kids with teaching the same things. I keep seeing my students from last year and missing them. It is easy when you already have a relationship with student to teach them. However most of my students I have had an older sibling so I know the family..sometimes that is good and sometimes not.

I am going to be really busy this week packing for Paris. My husband and I are leaving next Saturday and I am so excited. I can't wait to see my Host Sister Julia get married in Versailles. Well go to go teach..
talk to you soon.. hopefully.

So at my crop this past weekend we made this cute little stationary purse.. I used the Amore Too paper pack (because it is really not my fav, but I won a pack so I need to use it). It turned out cute. I added some little accordian sides to keep things inside. It has pockets on front and back. Now I want to figure out how to make this more economical and only used 1 peice of cardstock. My upline Roxie was the one that made the direction for us to do this. Thanks

Well Caleb' turned 5 this July and we had his party at Whittle's Train Stop. We had such a good time and I wanted to put pages in all the books about it. So this is Josh's layout. I used scraps to make this layout and it is from Cherish or Imagine.. I can't remember and I am too lazy to go look right this minute.

As every scrapbooker knows: YOU NEVER THROW ANYTHING AWAY! We cherish everything even small peices of paper. The problem with that though is that you end up with a pretty big pile and you got to challenge yourself to using them. SO you if you have a pile in your scrappin area...go play!!

Here is Caleb's page using those 6x6 squares. There are actually 6 whole or peiced pages on this spread can you find them all?

My favorite part is the way that the bottom pages flow in to eachother.

My goal while scrapbooking my 4th of July pages was to use these old 6x6 scrapbook squares that CTMH used to do as a customer collection like 2 years ago.. and I still had them. So I challenged myself to use them on my layouts and here is the family layout that is going in my book. The verticle picture of my oldest behind the pipe is a flip flap and there are more pics of him learning to be a pyro.

So I have always wanted to do this layout in the Cherish book but could never really figure out a layout to do it with. Well I did it!!! And I LOVE IT!! Now I only wish I would have done these pages for my family album and not the boys albums, but oh well..they better love it when they get these albums. These are more pics from Keokuk where my famous twin sister lives.. (she famous because I talk about her a lot and I am working on making her famous).



There will be a lot of posts coming I scrapbooked on Saturday and I have a lot to share...but I am spreading them out because I don't want you to stop visiting. till next time

Here are some favors I have been working on for my nephews wedding shower. These remind me of old lemonade packets from my childhood. All I did was cut a 12x12 sheet to 6 4x6 rectangles and used redline tape (very tacky tape) on the short side and rolled the edges to meet and make a cylinder with no bases. On the inside edge of one side I put a small peice of tape and then squished them together. Next fill with candy and tape the other side shut in the opposite direction. I used a crimper from Michael's to make the edges look like a prepackaged container.. and presto.. I pretty quick favor that looks store bought.

Here is another Shannon Buck layout using the Back Country paper pack. I personally didn't purchase the paper pack because we are not an "outdoorsy" family, but it works with the park look. I used our dermacoat paint and sponged it down the side to journal on.

Did you know that you can use the "negative image" of a sticker as a stencil. When you run out of a certain letter use the outline that is left from the missing letter and sponge it in with ink, paint or some other type of medium to create the letter. I also used the negative image of a sticker pack I had to stencil with paint the title of the layout. The "K" in Keokuk is a transparency sheet that I have with all the letters on it. I love the little detail of the page with the sewn look and using eyelets again..who knew?

Here is another layout that I created using the Animal Crackers paper and the Workshop on the Go guide to create this awesome layout. I have never tried to do the stripe mini photo look or whatever you would call it. But it worked. I didn't have alot of great photos so this layout lent itself to working with just a few. Notice the ticket on the page to help journal the date the event. This is a great technique when you are trying to limit your journalling and yet tell a story.

I have been a bad blogger. . Things have been so crazy around the house with working on the deck, subbing in a few summer school classrooms, the 4th of July and then Caleb's big 5th birthday on the 13th. I am sorry about my absences. But I have done a little scrapbooking in the past few days so I will post those layouts over the next week. To start with this is my first to post and it is a really one of the first layouts I have done about something that I did without the family.
This is a layout I created for that VIP party for the new Premium Tequila 901. This is not CTMH paper actually found at Michael's awhile ago. I didn't use a particular book for inspiration just played around with the layout. Enjoy

I've now been tagged by my bloggin' friend Roxie with 4 questions to answer and 4 people to pass this along to!!

So here we go...............

1. 4 things I look forward to:

1. Paris
2. scrapbooking
3. spending time with my family
4. alone time

2. 4 things I did yesterday:

1. Dusted
2. Shoveled Dirt
3. Cleaned up scrapbook area
4. Subbed in Summer School

3. 4 things I wish I could do:

1. Shrink my waist
2. Sing-my voice has been raspy for a year now
3. See my family more
4. Sell more scrapbooking supplies

4. 4 shows I have watched:

1. True Blood
2. Heros
3. Big Love
4. Lost

Now comes my nominations of 4 people:
Jessica
Erin
Sarah
Nikki

HAPPY FATHER's DAY to all you dad's out there. Here are the two cards that I made my husband. I always do one from the boys and one from me. He is also getting some polos. Hope you all have a great weekend and spend time with your father even if it is just a phone call.

JEN

SO I just noticed today that I recieved a BLOG AWARD from Mrs. Tina Sutton the fearless leader of the Scattered Hearts Unit I am in with Close to my Heart. She is an inspiration having thousands of women working under her and earning enough commission to stay hom and add onto her house a huge scrapbook room. Here blog is http://www.missgingerdots.blogspot.com/



The rules are:



1) Accept the award, and post a link on your blog with the person name and blog who granted the award.



2) Pass the award to 10 other blogs that you've newly discovered. Contact the choosen 10 to pass this along.


Here is my list of blogs I love to check out for a variety of reasons.
1) http://roxiestampincorner.blogspot.com/
2)http://www.nonapearl.blogspot.com/
3) http://www.stampingspot.com/blog2/
4)http://www.stampinbuds.blogspot.com/
5) http://ncscrapaddict.blogspot.com/
6) http://gotsketch.blogspot.com/
7)http://www.charmcitycakes.com/blog
8)http://www.pocketfullofpapers.blogspot.com/
9)http://jess-speaks.blogspot.com/
10)http://erinsepisodes.blogspot.com/

This is the Club page for the month that I created using the Animal Crackers paper pack from CTMH. I used the August STOM for the cake and the number 3 is our new Foam numbers. This is a layout from our Imagine book. Well I have to go club starts in about 20 minutes and I have to get set up. Talk to you soon.

Here is Caleb's page of the spaceship park. This is still the Tinker'n paper pack. I got the idea from the workshop on the go flyers that CTMH puts out each month. Check out my website for more inspiration by the company.


The concrete is now complete at the house and now we are working on the deck. We can finally drive on it on Friday. The boys are loving the big driveway and riding their bikes on it.