School vacation insanity

Gotta love February vacation! An unseasonably warm end to the week last week, followed by freezing temps, high winds, and snow. You just never know what Mother Nature is going to dole out weather-wise this time of year in New England! The kids will be busy crafting and playing all week, along with squeezing in a trip to the movies to see Never Say Never (I am so not taking them! My mother is! I think if I hear the name "Justin Bieber" mentioned just one more time, I'll kill myself!) I'm sure it will be full of Go Fish as well, Patryk's newest obsession. It's adorable to see him sit there with a handful of cards, all fanned out, one hand under his chin deep in thought, "Mommy, do you have any 10's?" I still can't believe a kid who just turned 3 a few short months ago can play Go Fish so well! Even Candy Land doesn't go this smoothly!

So after a weekend filled with sales of potty charts, I had some time to do a couple of layouts yesterday. This first one has been a work in progress since Thursday afternoon, more playtime with Fancy Pants Love Birds after being scorned by a certain sketch blog. I think being forgotten about made this layout super special...it's my best layout this year! I love the mix of textures, and I didn't use a sketch. I was reminded of the N*V*S collage challenge when I created this, full of pinks and flowers, so I am entering it there, I also used it for a ribbon challenge over at s4a, and the ABC Album Challenge at Colorful Creations. I loved this paper and didn't want to molest it too much...so I fussy cut around the flourish-y music-y bird-y design, flipped over the paper that was trimmed off, and used blue side of the paper in the lower right corner (I don't know why but this made me want to make a joke about the cool side of the pillow!) I also cut the flourishes out and tucked a photo behind them. This is little ol' me, back in 1981, enjoying a lollipop at my Grammie's house. It's funny, I look at the first, darker picture, and I see my son's face...it's like he's wearing a wig...and the second picture has my Rileigh written all over it! I never thought they looked like me until I looked back at these old pictures. It's incredible!



The paper is all Fancy Pants Love Birds. A mix of Prima (the red) and SEI (orange and brown, the Claire collection) for flowers. Recollections glitter brads, and that adorable doily from The Chip Chop Shop has a Fancy Pants cardstock sticker flower in the center. The title is done with Doodlebug alpha stickers. Random ribbon stapled down with blue staples (Swingline), I am probably going to be doing this often on my pages. I just love the messy look! Doodling all over this page...

...see?
Queen & Co. bling. The Chip Chop Shop chipboard journal box, altered with my own recipe of silver mist and red pen. Fancy Pants papers adhered to back for journaling purposes.
Crocheted flowers provided in RAK, more glitter brads. That blue cloud piece is from The Chip Chop Shop, as is all the beautiful dyed twine I adhered in the shape of flourishes and a heart.

This layout was fun to do, it was for the sketches4all Get Sketchy challenge #1. I chose to use this My Mind's Eye paper, and let the photos take center stage here, the less is more approach (really hard for me to do sometimes!) Thickers alphas, Fiskars border punch, and The Chip Chop Shop for that fab flower. This page features pictures of my great grandmother and great grandfather with my grandmother when she was just a baby. It's so cool having these old photos (these from 1925, I have some from the late 1800's!) This will go in the Mills family album I've been working on off and on for the past 7 years!

Isn't that flower rad?
I never want to run out of these glitter Thickers!

So that's that. I plan to do a bunch of challenges this week, along with creating potty charts to post in my Etsy shop. Right now I only have a custom order only posting, it would be nice to have some all ready to go! I hope you all have the chance to get crafty and that your kids don't drive you too insane if you, too, are stuck at home with them. TFL!