You are Creative

Here's to being creative...getting messy....and making beautiful things in the process! Let your awesome  creative self shine today! 

Good Things on Monday

...and its Monday, again! The weeks are seriously flying by! It's been a couple of week since I  have posted a 'Good Things' post, so I am going to include some good things that have happened and stuff I have loved over the last couple of weeks.

1. Both of my boys celebrated their birthdays. Ben is now 14 and John is 12. Oh my goodness. I am so proud of the young men they are becoming. They both have kind hearts and are sensitive to others and creative out the wazoo! LOL I snapped tons of photos of them in the last couple of weeks and once I get them downloaded I will post some. 

2. Today is Mother's Day! Alex made me breakfast in bed and let me sleep in. It was so nice! We then had lunch with my mom, dad and Alex's mom and dad. It was nice and relaxing. Once we were home, we added more Koi fish to our pond and spent time working on the yard. Our flowers this year? They are amazing. 

3. I've done absolutely no work in my studio lately. Thats ok, too. I needed a break and a chance to step back and refocus. I am starting to feel the urge to create again, and new ideas are starting to consume my thoughts again. I also have been working with a manufacture that wants to feature some of my work soon. --grinning from ear to ear --- Stay tuned. I will let you the details when it gets closer! 

4. Alex and I are starting to think about redoing our Dining Room. At Christmas Alex bought me a new farmhouse table and buffet and well...the walls need painted and lighting needs changed. I am starting a Pinterest Board with ideas. You can check it out here.

5. This week should be a slow week. Yoga and working out is really all I have to do this week. Hoping I  can spend some time cleaning out a couple of closets and getting my summer clothes organized. A tidbit about me: I am clothes horse. I LOVE clothes! I have a walk in closet and it is full-to-the-brim of clothes. And shoes. I love flipflops. :) 

Happy Monday, friends! 

Simple Scrapper Blog Hop + Giveaway

Good morning! Thanks for stopping by! Today I am participating in the Simple Scrapper Blog Hop and sharing the layouts I created using the Simple Scrapper Templates available to their members!

(products)

My first layout uses one of the templates from the May collection from Simple Scrappers. I had snapped this photo back in December of my grandmother's hands. She is well into her eighty's and I know we probably won't have her around for much longer. This photo sat on my desk, literally for months, while I decided what I wanted to do with it. I ended up journaling about the things her hands had 'saw' throughout their life: she lived in the depression, buried a child and husband, loved on great grand kids.

I love the simplicity of it + how quickly it came together using the May template.

(products)

My layout for this month's Story Starter is based off a free template that debuted in October 2012. I choose to journal about how awesome my husband has been this past year. I have been struggling this past year, and Alex has been my rock. He is most definitely awesome.

I have loved using templates from the Simple Scrapper Premium Membership. Would you like to try out a membership? Use the Rafflecopter widget below to enter a giveaway for a one month trial membership at Simple Scrapper. There are three ways to enter and three winners will be selected. To be eligible, you must enter by 11:59pm CDT on Wednesday, May 8.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

My teammates from the Simple Scrapper Design Team have all worked with the templates this month and we'd love for you to check out their blogs and be inspired by their work!

Simple Scrapper (Jennifer Wilson) 

Lisa Corbin-Polak Ronnie Crowley 

Margrethe Aas Johnsen 

Amy Kingsford

Samantha Landay 

Pam Lozano 

Aimee Maddern

Jean Manis 

Van Nguyen 

Melissa Priest  <<< thats me! 

Mandy Ross 

Celeste Smith 

Sara Strickland

The Premium Membership at Simple Scrapper provides skills and shortcuts to help you simplify and find more meaning in your memory keeping. Each month members receive a new collection of sketch templates and Story Starters, story-focused prompts for pages and projects. Want to work with our collections for FREE? Simple Scrapper is having a call for new team members.

Good Things

Happy Monday! I had a good weekend - girls night out (hello, sushi!) on Friday, working in the yard on Saturday, and then dinner at Mom's on Sunday.

A good weekend, indeed.

Here's a random list of Good Things going on in my life!

1. I am working out at a new women's - only gym, and honestly, it is so good. This week I am adding in a couple of Yoga classes as well as my usual TRX and cardio. I am excited.

2. My son, John, is turning 12 on Thursday. Seriously, he is growing up to be an amazing young man. He makes us so proud. Handsome, smart, polite.

3. Got my parents moved to Amarillo and they are pretty much settled into their new home. Working on their guest room now. My parents love all things rustic/cowboy, so I am designing their first guest room around this painting.

I love the colors...and the two cows? Perfect. A very non-traditional start to a guest room but it will be perfect for my parents house.

4. Cleaning out & going to be selling a bunch of PL and Scrapbook supplies. Lots of Thickers. And embellishments. If you want to know when I have them listed, leave your email in the comment section.

5. Going to cook some Salmon on the grill tonight. Cannot wait. Since it just Alex and I these days, we have been trying new foods. I will let ya know how it goes.

Boston

When the world seems loud, we must be quiet. When the world seems evil, we must be good. When the world seems terrifying, we must comfort each other. 


Sending quiet, good, and comfort to all of you, and to all of Boston.

This Picture

This photo? I love. It has the three people that I love more than life itself. These three people bring me such joy that I cannot put into words their effect on me.

Tonight was family dinner night - at the boy's request, we went for Sushi at a Japanese steakhouse. And oh was it so good! This photo was snapped with my iPhone as we were walking out of the restaurant. They were goofing off & just enjoying being together.

The way life should be. No worries. No rules. Just enjoying being together.

And I loved every single minuet of it. 

Adding a 'Pin It' Button

I have gotten a couple of emails asking me how I added the 'Pin It' buttons to my photos. Well, it took me awhile to research how to do it so I thought I would show you (an easy) way how to add a Pin It button when you use your mouse to hover over a photo. 

The Fine Print: I am no means an expert. And I know this works for Blogger. So if you have your blog on another platform (like Wordpress), well, then, you're on your own. 

Let's get started.

1. In Blogger, go to "Template" > Edit HTML.

2. Find the </body> tag that is near the bottom of the template.

3. Insert the following code (found below) and insert it right above the tag.

<script>
//<![CDATA[
var bs_pinButtonURL = "http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-y3xzTGiGzH0/UK4XOaUpdaI/AAAAAAAADw8/Z1MH4Jr4Efo/s1600/pinterestx1_72.png";
var bs_pinButtonPos = "center";
var bs_pinPrefix = "";
var bs_pinSuffix = "";
//]]>
</script>
<script src='http://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquery/1.8.2/jquery.min.js' type='text/javascript'></script>
<script id='bs_pinOnHover' src='http://greenlava-code.googlecode.com/svn/trunk/publicscripts/bs_pinOnHoverv1_min.js' type='text/javascript'>
// This Pinterest Hover Button is brought to you by bloggersentral.com.
// Visit http://www.bloggersentral.com/2012/11/pinterest-pin-it-button-on-image-hover.html for details.
// Feel free to use and share, but please keep this notice intact.
</script>

4. To move the location of the pin it button, delete 'center' in line 4 and replace with one of the following: 

      top right

      topleft

      bottomleft

      bottomright

5. Thats it. Easy Peasy. All you need to do now is hit 'save'. 

Thanks for stopping by today. I hope I helped you learn a new trick for your blog. ;) 

(Most of the info for this tutorial was picked up from this site. Awesome site. So much good info there!)