Well I told you all that I took the week off last week to scrap, but I forgot to share my pages! So I thought I’d take a little post to catch you up on all the scrappin’ I’ve done recently.

These four I did last week:

When I jumped in on making “Freckle Face” with Eva at SSD, it was these little freckles on Owen’s nose I was thinking about, SO I have been dying to make this page since! See credits HERE.

This page makes me laugh! This is Reece last week, I made the page right after he got “dressed” in nothing but his snow boots and pullup and tromped right out the back door! Credits HERE.

This was also a page I did right after the moment I snapped the picture, Owen was all dressed up as a pirate, but was quite offended when I just called him “pirate”, because apparently he was a SPY pirate people! See Credits HERE.

“As you are getting older, your little personality is really starting to shine through… My favorite part, is seeing your little face light up when you see me!” Credits are HERE.

Also, here are a few more I just never posted here on the ol’ bloggy that I’ve done since I last shared:

Some pictures I snapped of Tennyson and I, I thought mine and Lauren’s You and Me Baby was the perfect kit for us! See Credits HERE.

“you saw me scrapping this page so i asked you what you wanted me to write on it. you said “i love you owen” so i did, and you know what owen… i do!” See Credits HERE.

You can probably guess that this page is about Owen’s trip to Disney with my parents! I just love this picture they got of him! See Credits HERE.

I adore this picture of Tennyson’s BIG eyes, I just think they are so striking! Credits for this page HERE.

YAY! I love seeing them all together like this, my pictures and my families memories all wrapped up like this This is exactly why I love scrapping so very much!

This week has been a busy one, so not a lot of time for page making, but I did finish a few new things for the Sweet Shoppe, I’ll have to share those soon!

So I think I’ve found a new addiction… I’m a few steps behind the rest of the digital community, but it is called “Hybrid” and it is basically printing out digital supplies and then scrapping with it in three dimensional form in some way.

Well for gareth’s last day of school I wanted to make some special card for a few of the members of the staff and his teacher, so I decided it was time to give hybrid a go – and I HAD SO MUCH FUN! I officially LOVE hybrid! I can guarantee you will be seeing more and more of this from me!

Here’s what I did (for credits, please click the images to see them in the gallery):

Aren’t they totally cute! and how fun is it to see tangible things made out of those digital kits??? Like a said, a new addiction! (as evidenced by the five new cards in one night!)

-also FYI I’ve been learning to use windows live writer for posting, and i’m LOVING it… but I’ve had a few snags in the Timestapms and posting things in advance… so there are several new posts that kind of all posted all clustered up yesterday and monday so scroll down to check them out-

This week I hosted the Sugar Free Challenge over at SSD. Every Wednesday in the Sweet Shoppe Forums we put up new challenges that people can play in and earn points that get them a coupon code to the store. The Sugar Free Challenge is my baby, I started it with Sugar Babe Mandy like a year ago and it is awesome to watch scrappers thing and get honest and play along with us.

The premise of the Sugar Free Challenge is to scrap those not so picture perfect things in our lives and to capture a piece of ourselves that we might normal keep hidden. Ever since I started scrapping I have loved making cathartic pages, there is something extra therapeutic about using my favorite art to work through struggles and emotions that are consuming me at any given time.

Anyways, so as time went on I got busier and we started sharing the challenge with all the staff members, so I haven’t hosted it in quite some time – but this week I finally signed up to host again. The timing ended up being perfect because my frustration with feeling like depression is always lurking just on the fringe of my sense of sanity was really on my mind these past few weeks. It was good for me to get it out there and to work through it.

Here’s my page:

All in all I think it really helped me to look at my struggle with depression, not as something that I have to completely beat and be all happy forever… but instead to realize that my victory is in the fact that I continue to fight, and that although it threatens me, it doesn’t have to consume me.

And you know if it does consume me… I know I can face that too.

I challenged everyone to “scrap their demons” because we all have things that we have to face regularly, battles that we fight again and again. And we all should give ourselves a bit of credit for fighting that fight, and making it through to an brand new day.

So far I haven’t had any takers brave enough to play along…. perhaps I’m the only scrapper masochistic enough to want to put these things out there for the world to see…. but I’m telling you I feel 100 times stronger after putting out there and scrapping it. So seriously if you are a scrapper, I challenge YOU to play along. You don’t really have to post it, or if you feel the need you can blur your journaling, but I’m telling you you will feel lighter when you are done!

If you do play, let me know, I’d LOVE to see your page!

Seriously it was a happy one! I love mother’s day more and more each year as a mom – and this year was soooo wonderful!

I woke up to sweet presents that they boys had all picked out for me, including jewelry that each of them had picked out – I looooved seeint what they chose lol, in the world of little boys bigger IS better, and so ofcourse they went for the biggest pieces they could find! I can’t tell you how much I love it! Yesterday I wore the green one from gareth and the bracelets from owen, and today for our trip to starbucks I wore the blue one from reece -:) Nothing like an excuse to wear those big necklaces that have been secretly calling my name for so long! (the boys must have known!)

G got me some great things too – including lots of Bubble Bath and (I love my baths!) and some great coffee mugs and new dishtowels perfect “mom” presents. After presents we all went out to lunch together at applebees (where I knew I could find something with not too many weight watchers points). Then we went to play some miniature golf together – our first time as a family… and I have to confess it didn’t go ideally… LOL maybe in a few years! But still we were all there together and we made it through all 18 holes . After that the boys took me shoe shopping! YAY, I’ve been wanting some new shoes, and I love the ones they helped me pick! And last but not least we all went together to TCBY where we had some yummm frozen yogurt, and moms got theirs for free! When we got home we played some video games together as a family filling our day up with some together time!

I even got some scrapping time – perfect because I was dying to make a page with the pictures i got with the three older ones (tennyson was sleeping, no messing with the sleeping baby at the restaurant!)

Here’s my page:

It’s true, I’m pretty stinkin’ lucky! It really was a perfect day.

Is that bad to say? I don’t know what has happened lately, but I went from feeling like I really can’t seem to put a page together for the life of me, to feeling like I have it going on! I’m starting to have visions for pages left and right when I see my pictures, and I’ve been trying to take advantage because I really do love capturing these amazing moments with my family before they slip away.

So – last weekend for National Scrapbook Day, I scraped quite a bit – we had a bunch of fun challenges at SSD, and a zillion great kits, it was impossible NOT to scrap I think!

Anyways, I’m just anxious to show them off!

This page I did for a challenge in the Forums for the NSD weekend celebration. The challenge was to scrap your dream date with a hottie… and all I could think of, was how I’ve been so craving some alone time with my hubby!!! I couldn’t help but scrap this page, with the two of us, and a zillion things between us keeping us from snuggling up See the credits HERE.

This was a “spin-a-lift” challenge, where we had to scraplift the page of the person who posted above us in the thread. I couldn’t believe how beautiful jaylensmom’s gallery was, and had soooo much fun picking a page of hers and spinning it around for this layout of gareth and tennyson. In the end, I loved her gallery/page so much that I asked her to join my creative team! For my page I used Jessica Bolton’s (my idol) kit. Here are the full credits.

This page I did for a NSD “Speed Scrap” chat I hosted late at night. Basically, I gave out templates an hour before chat started, and people had an hour to scrap, and then had to finish their layouts before the hour long chat ended. It was SO fun and I got a TON of people participating…. Although… I have to admit, since the chat, I’ve switched out the background paper on my page… I guess I was rushing it a bit too much! It was fun to just do a page though, get it done, and then not look back. HERE are those credits.
I did another one last weekend too, but I have a whole post I want to do with it so you have to be patient

And here is one last page I put together just yesterday, I was dying to scrap my pictures of my smiling baby, and I’ve been singing that Van Morrison song “I’m in heaven when you smile” to him, so this page just had to be made:

See the full credits HERE.

So that’s all I’ve got for now – but I’m lovin’ them! I have been having so much fun lately scrapping, and I have a few pages in my head i’m DYING to make with some of my new releases, and some of the other amazing stuff to hit the Sweet Shoppe recently!

Tomorrow is mothers day too, so I have a feeling if I so desire there is some good scrapping time in my near future   And just incase I get caught up in it – happy mothers day to all my fellow moms out there – we are great people I say!  Especially my own mom – happy Mothers Day to you, I love you.