I hope you all are having a lovely holiday season. I made some time today to scrapbook today and it was just lovely to sit back and not think about the Christmas hustle and bustle. Ahh, nice.

I have a simple little template for you. Enjoy it here.

Here is one of the pages I made for a little inspiration.

Happy scrapping or Christmas shopping or whatever you’re keeping busy with.

Hi, I’ve got some new 5×7 Christmas Card templates in the shop just in time for the holidays. Go check ‘em out. Click on the image to go straight to the cards.

And if you are on a shoe-string budget like me, you can grab this one from out of the package for free (through Dec 3rd.) Click here to download. (expired) Make sure to leave me a comment if you did. I love to know who liked it.

And here is my card. Very simple and easy although this was my first attempt at a subway styled something. Don’t laugh, okay. Aren’t you seeing subway prints everywhere? I like the fun modern look to them so thought I’d give it a shot. Just re-color the text to match your paper or photo.

Merry Christmas from us. Happy card making.

If you were wondering why my Sept and Oct postings were so few and awful you can now say “Oh, that makes sense. She must have been busy puking her brains out!” or perhaps you’ll think, “Gosh, I had my suspicions!”

So yes, I’m expecting our forth baby. It’s so odd to make an announcement over the internet, I know, but there really is no other way. I’ve been putting it off because it seems so weird. I’m due around the end of May although I’m not expecting this baby to arrive until the first week of June according to my previous history of lateness. So that makes me 15 weeks right now and I’m feeling so much better now that I’m into my second trimester.

Since I’m on the subject, I have some crazy, wild pictures to share. Now remember, I’m only 15 weeks. Actually, I took these photos last week on Thanksgiving day so I was technically 14 wks and 4 days along. I’m not showing at all other than my expanding love handles due to so much snacking.

Let me give you some background. These pictures were taken in the morning right when I woke up. My stomach is empty and my bladder if FULL. I also slept on this particular night on my right side.

Please don’t be grossed out.

I tried to get multiple angles/shots for the full effect. I’m completely lopsided.

Now, this baby bump isn’t very big. It feels like I have a grape fruit in my abdomin. This isn’t the normal lopsided baby belly of 30+ weeks. I haven’t even felt the baby move yet. This bump has to be my uterus being pushed up from my full bladder…

because… here’s the best part, when I get up, go to the ladies room, come back and lay back down…

GONE. Nothing left but some belly fat. My baby bump has disappeared into the depths of my pelvis, guts or whatever else is inside of me, hidden again until the next morning.

Crazy, eh? Have any of you experienced anything like this so early in your pregnancy?

Hello everyone, I hope you all had an awesome Thanksgiving Holiday. We certainly did. I ate mountains of mashed potatoes and sampled every single pie I could. Delish.

Now it’s time to turn our focus to Christmas shopping and finding all those great black Friday deals.

While you are at it, make sure to stop by my shop because I’m having my annual black Friday sale and everything is 40% off with the code mandasblackfriday. I’m only running it on Friday (midnight to midnight) so make some time to snag some templates. They’ll make your life easier.

Happy shopping!

Hello ya’ll.

Been scrapbooking a little bit and I’ve got a new template to share. Hope you put it to use. Grab it here.

And here are my pages. Credits at flickr.

That’s it for now, enjoy!

It’s Jeremy’s birthday today and I’m wish I could… do something… huge, wonderful, amazing.

Instead I’m making a lame-o collage of him in picasa.

His birthday wish was for me to not spend any money on him.

How unexciting.

So I’m left with my own resources which includes a homemade card and his favorite lasagna dinner and (if he’s lucky) some blue berry muffins might be included.

There’s not even a cake. What a winner wife I am.

Happy birthday, honey. Love you!

Have any of you given in, bought some Toms and then wore them to death?

I did. I bought some classic grey ones about a year or so ago and fell in love. I love slip ons and these were perfect for me. I wore them every single day that I could. I wore them until the holes in my toes were so bad they were unwearable.

Then I saw some pictures on pintrest of fabric covered Toms and thought “I can do that.” So I grab my beat up Toms, some old scrap fabric left over from my Rollie Pollies, and some liquid fusion glue. I cut my scraps, patched up the holes from inside and out and globbed on tons of glue and let dry. I tried to reshape the fabric like the original Toms toe. I didn’t take any before pictures because I wasn’t thinking about my blog and I was having doubts that it would even work. I knew I sure couldn’t make them any worse than they were.

I was pleasantly surprised. TA DA! Almost good as new shoes!

I’ve been wearing them for a while and are so happy to get more life out of them. Less socks in the laundry, the better! I know they are pricey shoes for what they are and I’m hesitant to buy another pair (even though I want!) but when you consider the fact that Toms donates a pair of shoes to a child in need when you purchase… I think it’s pretty darn cool.

I really want a pair for Leah and Emma.

I found a pretty good tutorial here on how to cover your Toms. I found it after I had done mine. I like the buttons and fabric scraps she used. Cool, huh? She used a different glue too- E6000. She said it’s flexible which the glue I used really wasn’t.

Well, what do ya know… the chickens are interested in my red-toed Toms too.

Hello, Ladies.

I am completely capable at copying other people’s really good ideas.

I used this skirt tutorial to make skirts for me and my girls. I know that this picture from my camera phone is completely dull and uninspiring so imagine us all wearing our new cute skirts and running about on a sunny autumn day in a field covered with red and yellow leafs and our skirts bouncing, twirling and looking completely darling and stylish.

I also thought a kitchen table map would make wiping down my dining room table easier and make for some fun dinner conversations. I bought this fun map from Utah Idaho Supply Map World because where else should you go to get a map but Map World. When I came home with it my husband wasn’t sure about the whole vinyl tablecloth look on our dining room table but after taking it off for a few day for a dinner party, he kept asking me to put it back on.

Yes, it does make wiping down our table much easier. There are just too many darn decorative cracks in our table top.

(I’ll admit I was temped to photo shop my banged up chairs to look perfect but that’s not real life, is it? I’ve gone crazy with stain and a sharpie marker before and it helps but not for long. I guess it matches the whole vinyl look. Ha.)

Leah, point to the elephant.

And last but not least. I made myself one of these awesome weekly menu boards in hopes of feeding my family more regularly. So far so good , too. I’ve let everyone pick out one meal a week. It’s fun to have the kids read what we’re having for dinner and hear them say “It’s your night for ____!”

So there you have it. I’m good at copying. How about you? Are you naturally clever or do you need some inspiring ideas to spring off of?

If you’ve been wondering why my posting has been so infrequent lately, part of the reason is because I’ve been all consumed with planning, following through, and picking up the pieces for our church’s Super Saturday Emergency Preparedness Fair (which we ended up calling our Back-to-Basics Bonanza). I had this big event dumped right on top of me the minute I was put into the Relief Society a month or so ago.

Sheesh.

Anyway, things are all over now. The event was last Friday and everything fell nicely into place. Have you ever been in charge of big event? I’ve done small events but nothing quite this large scale. Now I know from experience that it can be pretty overwhelming.

Because of my photoshop experience, I was able to whip up some posters, fliers and graphics for emails to help advertise our Preparedness Fair, so of course I’m going to share. I hope these will be useful for you and save you some time in front of the computer when it’s your turn.

Download here for a limited time until it goes into my shop.

I had fully intended on taking pictures of our event but because I was in charge, there were so many other things to do. So you’ll have to imagine what my signs and banners looked like hanging up in the church gymnasium. Here’s a look at my digital versions.

My poster I used for advertising:

Perfect size for printing out a Costco.

My flier for passing out at church and to friends and neighbors:

My template is for printing 2 fliers per page. Design the one side and then duplicate it for the other side. Make sense?

Here is my email insert for dressing up all the emails that had to be sent out:

I had signs hanging up at the event to help direct people and to show where each station was located:

This template is an 8.5×11 but we blew up them up a little bigger so they’d be easier to see.

And last, but not least, is my flag banner:

These were pretty big flags because we were going to be in such a big room. If you are doing a birthday party or shower would might want to have smaller flags. I just duplicated the template and add different papers for more flags. You can print out as many as you need. This banner turned out super darling and I wish I had a picture of it hanging up. I spelled out the word BONANZA and also had blank flags without letters on the sides. I also made some paper circle fans (two ways to make them here or here) to go in between banners.

I used Digital Design Essentials Generations of Love Kit for all my pieces. That way everything coordinated.

So that’s it. I’m so glad it over. If you ever have an event fall into your lap, I hope you’ll be able to utilizes some of these templates.

Later skater.

This year wasn’t such a good year for Halloween costumes. No family themed costumes here (but if you’re looking to be inspired for next year, you can check out some all-star ones here).

I put as little effort into ours as possible.

How sad. Isaac was Batman last year, and Leah’s pink poodle is a hand me down from Emma. The nice thing is that neither Isaac or Leah cared a snitch. In fact, Leah was in heaven. She thought being “Super Puppy” was the coolest thing ever and wore it a solid two weeks before Halloween.

Emma is old enough to know that we didn’t buy or make a new costume this year and most of her friends did. She was a bit disappointed with having to use something from home. In the end, though, I think she might admit that she was quite happy with her witch costume. Especially the make-up part.

If you are ever in need of some bright Halloween face makeup, considering using markers. They work very well! Just plan on scrubbing faces thoroughly for the next 3 baths. Ha!