Friday Fave-- Lanae Hale

I wanted to share my excitement about Lanae' Hale, a new artist I've been listening to for about a year. She released her album, Back & Forth, last May. I just LOVE her sound, and found that she has quite an amazing story about persevering through hard times in her christian faith. You can read more about her at her website or her blog.

I'm so excited about it, that I wanted to send you the title song off of the album called "Back & Forth." You can download this song for FREE from:

http://www.centricitystore.com/back_and_forth.zip

This is my current fave song from her, "Let's Grow Old Together". Enjoy! (You'll need to press pause on my music playlist on my sidebar so you can hear this. It's worth the work!)


Heading out to the Rock and Worship Roadshow this weekend-- can't wait! My other fave artist Francesca Battistelli will be there! I've blogged about her here and here. Maybe I'll get lucky enough to see Lanae Hale there next year...

I hope that you too will enjoy some good music this weekend!

Wordless Wednesday

Guest Designer at My Little Sketch Blook

I'm honored to be a guest designer over at Liz Qualman's blog, "My Little Sketch Blook". Liz is super talented at creating sketches to inspire, and she has many designers working for her to design from her sketches.

This week is my first of three assignments with Liz. Here's a sneak peek:

I added a challenge to creating this layout from her sketch-- I decided to use products I have on hand. I'm beginning to own more scrapbooking product than I think I can use, so rather than buying new for this specific project, I went through all of my fun stash and found some things to work. I even used photos that I had printed and just waiting for inspiration.

It was fun to combine old and new, different manufacturers, etc. I used a wide variety of products including iron ons, brads, rub ons, letter and word stickers, acrylic, chipboard, felt ribbon... I felt like I got to be super creative to combine so many things that weren't created to go together!

So, go ahead and visit Liz's blog. I'm sure you'll see a lot of other creative scappers there too!

Friday Fave-- Chipboard Buttons

One of the scrabooking embellishments I've seen more of recently is epoxy chipboard buttons. They're more intricate than a typical button-- they're little works of art!

You can find them at local scrapbook stores made by K&Co. or Little Yellow Bicycle pictured here:
However, I think that I know someone who made them "big" before the scrapbook companies did. I know a lovely lady who is intensely creative named London Tierney. I was lucky enough to be on the Paper Pals Design Team with her until she moved to the big city. But I've always admired her buttons, and finally bought some!

So you've seen this layout before. It's a recent favorite of mine.

But after I saw one of London's latest button designs released, I had to add some to my layout. Here it is with the addition of London's chipboard buttons.
I think it adds the perfect extra embellishment!

Happy Friday, friends!

Wordless Wednesday

13 Years

Today is our 13 year wedding anniversary (but this IS a photo at christmas... need another updated shot together!). Had a lovely lunch and afternoon out w/ my hubby yesterday to celebrate. Love you, Dwayne!

Something we talked about at lunch brought me to tears... not in a bad way, just as a surprising revelation (those of you who know me won't be surprised at an "extreme" emotion of tears over a simple idea).

In 13 more years, we will almost be empty nesters. My time with kids at home is already halfway gone.

Days like this:

And this:
are already gone.

Days like this:


and this:

will be gone before I know it.

And then we'll be back to this:

Just the two of us. But older and hopefully wiser. And sans the perm in my hair. (Gotta love old school scrapbooking... most photos I found of the two of us together were cut into a heart shape! :)

God has been faithful to provide more than I need these 13 years. And I have faith that he will continue to do that for my marriage and my family. I'm excited (albeit a little scared) for the next 13 years!

Where will you be in 13 years?

Wordless Wednesday

GREEN Scrappy Storage

Okay-- let's get real here, scrapping friends.

I'm willing to bet that your scrappy spaces aren't quite as cute, organized and STOCKED UP as the ones you see in magazines.

Yet, I'm quite sure that you have some system of storage for your scrapbooking supplies. It may be a Rubbermaid tub in a closet, but you have a space for the stuff you use for this great hobby.

In the interest of 1. saving money and 2. saving the earth, I've collected a variety of repurposed items to store my scrap supplies. Here's a photo of my whimsical little collection:

Do you recognize all these items? Like the look and want to use it too? Here's what they are:

1. canning jars. I'm quite sure these all once held fruit. Or veggies. Or jam. Yum!My fave is the blue glass canning jar with the glass lid. Love those classics.

2. a bandaid box. Yup. It's the smaller plastic one in the front holding paper flowers. Haven't seen bandaids in these for a long time, but I like that I saved the packaging for this when I got it!

3. a licorice tub. I should have an entire bookcase with these considering the amount of licorice I eat while scrapping. It holds ribbon spools well and I can find what I want before even opening up the top.

4. floral arrangement containers. These are my really "green" items. A basket and the frog. Got a beautiful potted plant in the green basket long ago, and since I don't have a green thumb, I used the green basket to stash my stuff. The green frog is the best-- while in high school I was given a potted plant that lived in this adorable pot. The plant is long gone, but now my writing utensils have a happy little home inside this ceramic critter.

My newest addition and FAVORITE container was a birthday gift from my friend Anita. I just mentioned it to her one day, saying how cool I thought it was... and when my birthday came she showed up on my front step with this gift! Don't you love that? Thanks again, Anita!

These are actual bottle caps. I miss drinking soda from bottles (Thankful I can still enjoy a bottled beer now and then, but their bottlecaps just aren't as colorful). When I saw this basket at the Bookie on the WSU campus, I was intrigued. Here's what the label reads:

Recycled Bottlecap Magazine Tote
In Africa most sodas are still sold in glass bottles, and the bottlecaps become waste and litter the streets. The bottlecap art was born out of artist's need to find alternative sources for materials to use in their products. They cleverly found their new material in this colorful, durable and reuable waste. This is both-- a great new resource for the artists, and great for our planet.-- MBARE Ltd.

It's a great space to hold various embellishemnts in flat packaging. Isn't it clever?

So-- what "green" storage do you use for crafting? Please share your ideas!

Wordless Wednesday