Webster's Pages: Day Out with Thomas

Good morning, friends! Thank you all for the sweet birthday wishes for my girls! I ended up taking a spontaneous trip to the zoo with the girls yesterday and then we went to Chili's for supper when daddy got home from work. Fun, fun, fun!

This week at Webster's Pages, we're blog hopping with Scrapbook Adhesives. I worked with their adhesives for my two-page laying using the "Game On" collection. As soon as I saw the trains, I knew that I would be documenting our trip to visit Thomas the Train last fall. We went with Grandpa and Grandma Nissen and had so much fun even though it was a dreary day! Both of my girls are obsessed with Thomas these days!

I used Scrapbook Adhesives Foam Squares behind the stars and a little Crafty Power Tape behind the flowers. 

For all my photos, I used the Click 'n Stick Mounting Squares.

I just love creating two-page layouts when I have a lot of photos to tell a story!

Have a great day and be sure to check out Diana and Emma's layouts on the Webster's Pages blog today as well!

Happy 3rd Birthday!

Oh, my heart! Today is our sweet little girls' 3rd birthday. I can't believe they are three and yet it always feels as though they have been a part of our family. I have such sweet memories of the day they were born and the days after in the hospital. If you are new to my blog, you might not know that our girls became a part of our family through the gift of adoption. Now, these two monkeys are 3-year-old loving, little girls who know how to keep mom and dad on our toes!

 They:

• are the best of friends! But, they know how to push each other's buttons.
• love all things girly and princess but are also huge fans of Thomas the Train and Cars. 
• will eat almost anything I put in front of them and are still allergic to peanuts, wheat and eggs so that makes cooking interesting. Luckily, they love most vegetables and are often asking for more green beans, broccoli and asparagus!
• love spending time with their grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins!
• are sleeping in big girl beds as of February!
• are potty trained as of January!
• are great helpers! They want to help mom cook and clean and help dad outside.
• love being outside playing on the swing set, doing sidewalk chalk, riding in the stroller and playing on their new tricycles!
• love participating in Tiny Tumbler's at the YMCA! We enrolled them around 18 months for a session and they ran around crazy most of the time. Now, they are old pros - doing forward rolls and walking on the balance beam!
• are so polite (at least we're doing something right!) and always saying please and thank you!
• love being read to by daddy at bedtime and having a sing-a-long with mom. We sing "Somewhere Over the Rainbow" and "Jesus Loves Me" (among others) nightly! 
• adore babies! If there's a baby in the room, that's where they go first!

Nora:

• is the older sister by one minute and has a pound on Lily (that pound makes a difference!)
• her best animal buddy is "Woofie" and her best blanket friend is "Bugs". But, she has to have a huge crew of friends on her bed every night for bed.
• Is usually a little more cautious in new situations than her sister.
• is all about the drama! Silly girl!
• for a while, called me "Cruella De Vil". (We no longer watch 101 Dalmatians). Just kidding! ;) Thankfully, she's over that stage and calls me "Jill Pill" these days. I'll take that any day!

Lily:

• her best buddy is her Cabbage Patch doll "Jillian" and she has two twin babies that she calls "Susie" and "Other Susie." She's usually content just to have the three of them at bedtime.
• will jump right into a new situation and always runs up to other people to say "Hi!" 
• Might give us a little more run for our money. ;)
• loves fiercely!
• loves to sing (we'll often hear many of the songs we sing at bedtime throughout the day.)

We celebrated their 3rd birthday on Saturday with our family (we're not quite ready to have a party with friends yet) and we had a pretty, girly tea party! I'm working on a blog post to share all the party details with you and I'll have that up within the next couple days!

Happy Birthday, girls! :)

Simple Stories: Fabulous 1st Love Party

Hello, friends! An unexpected post for me today as we're having a party to celebrate two little girls' 3rd birthday! Today I have a two-page layout to share using the Simple Stories "Fabulous" collection. My layout is all about the girls' first Valentine's Day party with their friends at church. They were so excited to create Valentine's for their friends and then the party was soooo fun! I had quite a few photos that I wanted to showcase plus I wanted to include the Valentine's they received so I used the 6 x 8 Odds & Ends Memorabilia Pockets (#2009) on the second page. (Make sure you click on the photo to see it larger!)

Here's a close-up of the title...


And the collage of photos...



And here's the pocket full of Valentine's! I added the journaling to the 4 x 6 Vertical Journaling Elements (#2112) from the Fabulous collection. The element actually said "My Top Favorites" so I simply added a few tiny alphabet stickers to change it to "Our".

Thanks for looking today and enjoy your weekend! I'll be back soon with party details and a special birthday post on Tuesday!

Emma's Paperie: 3rd Birthday Party Invites!

Good morning, friends! I'm afraid my blogging has been rather sparse in the past week and will continue to be that way through the weekend. I am busy, busy, busy creating decorations for two little girls' 3rd birthday party on Saturday. We're having a tea party theme this year and I am so thrilled with how everything is coming together! I am also cleaning, working on the menu (and baking) and working on some assignments that are due by Monday. Eek! I have faith it will all work out though! ;)

Today I wanted to give you all a sneak peek of their birthday party invitations. I'll definitely share everything I've created for the party plus the vintage touches I hunted for and found! But for now, all you get is a sneak peek. I fell in love with the Dear Lizzy Neapolitan collection from American Crafts and that's been the basis for the party colors and decor. I created the invites using kraft bags from Emma's Paperie that I folded and decorated minimally with a paper strip and stamped and embossed "You're invited" (stamp by Pebbles from the Hip Hip Hooray collection). On the fold, I adhered half a doily, either a cut out mason jar or Polaroid from patterned paper plus a die-cut "3". The invites were tied up with twine.

Here's another look... These invites were very easy to put together.

On the inside I printed the information on cardstock, matted it with colored cardstock and stamped the invite with a doily stamp (My Mind's Eye)

The color scheme happened to work for the April color challenge at Emma's Paperie. Please visit the blog here for my supply list.

I'll be back again soon with their party details and a special birthday post on May 1st (yes, they are May Day babies!)

Have a fabulous day! :)

Pebbles: A Few Vs. Many

This week on the Pebbles blog, the theme is "My Favorite Things". The first idea I had naturally involved the girls and their best buddies! The funny thing about these photos is that they clearly capture their personalities. Lily has just a few close friends and Nora has many, many dolls and animals with a couple that are well loved above the rest. And it's not that one of them truly owns more than the other, it's just that Nora has claimed more. I combined several Pebbles collections - Fresh Goods, With Love, Country Picnic and Hip Hip Hooray - for an eclectic, pieced together, simple project.

I used a couple toothpick flags to highlight each photo with their name.

I can't get enough of the alphabet stickers from Hip Hip Hooray. I love the variety of colors and patterns!

Thanks for looking today! My husband is whisking me away for an afternoon date - we're finally seeing "The Hunger Games." FINALLY. :)

Enjoy your day!

Emma's Paperie: Dear God

At Emma's Paperie, the designers recently featured My Mind's Eye and my layout today is what I created for the spotlight.

Prayer is a very important part of my family's day-to-day life. In the last 6 months, the girls have taken over the prayer that we have saying for them every day since they were very little. I just love hearing it from their little voices. We always pray at bedtime and then Nora is amazing at reminding us all to pray when we sit down to eat. The photo was taken the first night the girls slept in their big girl beds. We had our story and devotion in between the beds that night.

I printed the prayer directly on vellum and then backed it with patterned paper. The girls added the part about accidents to the prayer when they started potty training earlier this year. And no owie is too small - we pray for each one! ;)

The prayers of 2-year-olds - so sweet and simple! I love that this is captured forever. For a complete supply list, visit the Emma's Paperie blog here.

This morning, we're off to our last session of Tiny Tumblers for a while. It's time for a little break. Much to do in the coming weeks - a big birthday party and we're planning a garage sale too!

Have a wonderful day! :)

Webster's Pages: Sunday Picnic Card Set

First of all, I still have some stamps for sale. Please see this post and link for more details. If there are several sets you are interested in, feel free to make me an offer!

Today, I have a sweet and simple card set to share that I created using the "Sunday Picnic" collection from Webster's Pages.

Each of the cards has a banner somewhere that helps them have a cohesive feel. I also cut apart some gems (the pearls) to use here and there for a pretty accent. 

I love that sweet bicycle with a basket full of flowers. I cut the image from Webster's Pages new 6 x 6 motif pads. These images are perfect for layering and adding a little something extra to your projects!

Finally, this card set was intended to be a gift so I created a little wall pocket to hold all the cards. I simply cut a piece of cardstock to 8" x 12" and scored it at 4.25" and then stitched the sides and bottom and embellished. My sweet friend, Melissa Phillips, was the inspiration behind the pocket.

We had a wonderful weekend with my family but experienced one of the craziest days on Friday. We had our carpets cleaned and had quite a few things going on at once. Having carpets cleaned with toddlers was interesting! We got back yesterday and had to put the house back together.

I'm looking forward to hopefully a somewhat more relaxing week ahead. I'm very excited to working on projects for an upcoming birthday party in two weeks. We're having a tea party theme for two very excited soon-to-be 3-year-olds!!!! I'll hopefully be able to share the invitation soon with you with more details to follow! (I did a little antique shopping over the weekend and I was thrilled with my finds).

Have a beautiful day! :)

Webster's Pages: On the Hunt

Last Easter, we had an Easter egg hunt with the girls in our back yard and my two-page layout today highlights all the fun we had! I made a banner using the "Everyday Poetry" collection by Webster's Pages and filled in little bits here and there with punched shapes, ribbon, vellum and trim.

I made the mistake of putting candy in the eggs so after each egg was opened, the candy went straight into the girls' mouth - foil and all! Oops! I learned my lesson for this year, that's for sure. :)

A new punch I picked up recently is this doily punch by EK Success - I just LOVE it! 

Today's our big haircut day! I've been trying to talk it up to the girls all week so hopefully it goes smoothly!

Have a beautiful day! :)

Emma's Paperie: Happy Day with Grandma

For the sketch at Emma's Paperie this month, I turned the card sketch into a layout. I loved working with circles this month and think I need to do that more often! More lovely My Mind's Eye along with an Amy Tangerine stitched paper as the base. My girls love spending time with both of their grandma's and on this particular day got to be with their Grandma Mary and have fun at the park with her and daddy. (Mommy was on a rare shopping trip with her sisters!)

I just love this photo of both girls with grandma sitting so nice!

I layered a couple ivory Prima leaves with the pinked edge chipboard circle. These leaves are so rich with texture!

For a complete supply list, visit the Emma's Paperie blog here.

And this week is officially crazy busy! (Like most weeks around here.) But for some reason, we have a lot going on this week. Haircuts for two little girls, events at church, a night out with friends and then preparing for carpet cleaning on Friday. And on that note, I'm off for the day!

Have a beautiful one! :)

Spring cleaning - Stamps!

It's spring cleaning time at my house! I have several stamp sets for sale that you can check out here: Stamps for Sale - Photobucket Album. Many of these sets are rare and many are brand new! Be sure to click on each photo in the album to see prices and the description.

U.S. shipping and paypal only. Shipping is NOT included in prices but I will ship as cheaply as possible in a padded envelope.

Please send me an e-mail at: cornellgj@yahoo(dot)com with the name and brief description of anything you are interested in.

Happy Easter!

It is very important to our family to teach our girls about the true meaning of Easter but we also enjoy the fun of Easter eggs and pretty spring dresses! The girls are all too excited to put on a pretty dress and have their hair done and then they have to give a little twirl for daddy to show off their new dress. Today I have a layout to share using the new collections by Pebbles.

I combined a few pink elements from Country Picnic with the happy colors of Hip Hip Hooray. I gave my layout a little fringe (grass) to ground it and then highlighted each photo with scallops. I added some texture with machine stitching.

Look at those two sweet girls! I just love their Easter dresses this year and they are all too excited to put them on!

I hope that you know of the ultimate gift and sacrifice we have through Jesus Christ and what the true meaning of Easter is all about. I am thankful everyday that my Savior paid the price so that I might live!

Happy Easter!

Emma's Paperie: Shy, Lovely Flower Girls

It was a month of working with beautiful My Mind's Eye collections and for our stamping feature at Emma's Paperie, I created this layout of our little flower girls at my sister's wedding last summer. They were rather reluctant to walk down the aisle so daddy came to the rescue and carried them down. Photo is by {studio m} Photography.

I stamped the doily border with a set by My Mind's Eye and then filled in the banner with chipboard buttons. 

I also stamped a few little butterflies here and there and just kept the whole layout soft and pretty. 

For a complete supply list, please visit the Emma's Paperie blog here.

Thanks for looking today! Have a beautiful day! ;)

Simple Stories: She Says...

I just love the bright, girly colors in the brand new Simple Stories Fabulous collection. And with two girls, I have plenty of uses for it! Today I have a layout to share of one of my daughters and some of the funny and cute things she's been saying lately. My girls are just about 3 years old and this age is quite hilarious! We recently had a photo session in our backyard and little Nora was quite the poser.



I cut up one of the Journaling Card Elements (#2111) to use at the top of the layout as well as a doily from the Sweet (#2106) patterned paper. A little trick I do to add texture is to place my photo on a vellum mat and then rip up the edges.



I love the Fabulous Flash Cards (#2109) for adding journaling (there's just enough room to tell a good story!) and the Bingo Cards (#2121) are great for adding descriptive words.

Journaling: "Mama, mommy" so that it echoes in a room. Repeats exactly what is in a Happy Meal when asked. As soon as she sees her daddy, asks to play with Tom the cat on his iPhone. Asks for "ice-bert" for dessert. Will often say she is "too shy" in new situations." And our favorite, "Woofie, you're the best dog I've ever had."

Love this girl! :)

While I have a collection out on my desk, I also like to create a card to add to my stash. The Expression Cardstock Stickers (#2103) helped provide the perfect sentiment for this "Hey, Girlfriend" card.



A very simple and easy card!

After the garage sale excitement of last week (we did really well - yay!), both of the girls came down with a bug and have now passed it on to me so I'm feeling really yucky and have a bunch of things I need to be doing - cleaning and getting groceries for Easter company, coloring Easter eggs, Easter egg hunts and a visit to the Easter bunny among all the everyday stuff that needs to be done. I can't wait to share the girls' CUTE Easter dresses this year! My favorite ones yet! ;) 

More soon!

Pebbles: Birthday Sandbox

Hello friends! Sorry for the lack of posts this past week but I have been super crazy busy sorting through (baby and toddler clothes - sniff, sniff) for the moms of multiples garage sale this coming weekend and working on some other projects in between. I will be so happy when this week is over!

But, today I have a new layout to share with you using the brand new "Hip Hip Hooray" collection by Pebbles. Aren't the colors just scrumptious?! These photos are from the girls' birthday last year where one of their fun gifts was a turtle sandbox from grandpa and grandma.

I created a grid design and then punched a few starbursts for a tone-on-tone effect. I love the little pinwheel toothpick flags in the collection!

And check out the banner flags...I love the mix of shapes. I put a few sequin candy dots on the banner pieces. 

For a complete supply list, please check out the Pebbles blog here.

Have a fabulous day! :)