New Year’s Layouts That Pop

My 7-year-old is obsessed with those plastic New Year’s Eve party poppers. Pull a little string and you’re treated to an explosion of paper confetti and a computer-generated fortune–depending on where the favors were made. The ones my daughter has been playing with were clearly made in China… but I digress. When it comes to making your New Year’s scrapbook layout pop, consider adding bits of wisdom and inspiration from your favorite celebrities. For example: “Cheers to a new year and another chance for us to get it right.” –Oprah Winfrey “An optimist stays up until midnight to see the … Continue reading

A New Favorite Quote

Yesterday, a friend of mine from my mission posted this quote on his facebook page: ‎”Never forget that these little ones are the sons and daughters of God and that yours is a custodial relationship to them, that He was a parent before you were parents and that He has not relinquished His parental rights or interest in these His little ones. Now, love them, take care of them. Fathers, control your tempers, now and in the years to come. Mothers, control your voices; keep them down. Rear your children in love, in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. … Continue reading

Experimenting with New Products

I’m a stickers, stamps and die cut kind of scrapper. For years I rarely strayed from my standard combo. My method was safe, effective and looked good enough for me. Then, I was introduced to the magic of vellum and my layouts starting taking on a whole new dimension. So, yes, there are downsides of refusing to experiment with new or new-to-you scrapbook embellishments and accessories. For starters, you simply don’t know how much better your page designs can look if you are too afraid to incorporate different items into your repertoire. My reluctance to work with vellum stemmed from … Continue reading

Mastering New Techniques

How many times have you seen a stunning scrapbook layout that takes your breath away, and then tried to recreate the same look at home with limited success? Guilty as charged. I constantly drool over fancy page designs, but don’t take the time or neglect to muster up the courage to inquire about the techniques used to create the amazing layouts. Rather, I try to guess at how it all came together, and end up frustrated and disappointed when I can’t duplicate the results on my own. I remember the first time I pressured myself to recreate a layout featuring … Continue reading

Scrapping Your Child’s Favorite Sport

Are you ready for some football… scrapbooks? High school football is huge around these parts. We live in a rural area, so there isn’t much to do on a Friday night other than cheer on local high schools as they battle it out on the gridiron week after crisp fall week. Given my child’s age and gender, my family doesn’t frequent the games too often, but when we do, I am always shocked by the number of parents jockeying for space on the sidelines in order to snap keepers of their kids. Our neighbor’s son plays for one of the … Continue reading

Our Prophet Quotes Mother Theresa

Recently, I went to the 2010 General Relief Society Meeting that precedes General Conference every year. It was as wonderful as always. Full of words of wisdom from our leaders, full of beautiful, heavenly music, and full of wise words from our Prophet. President Monson gave a wonderful talk you can find here. I could not help but feeling a little bit called to repentance while also feeling encouraged and loved. Isn’t that what is so wonderful about having a living Prophet? My favorite part of his talk was when he quoted Mother Theresa in saying, “If you judge people, … Continue reading

New Homeschool Curriculum for Writing: Time4Writing

It is no secret that Time4Learning has been one of my favorite online curriculums for elementary school students. I liked it because it is interactive and teaches language arts, math, science, and social studies to pre-kindergarten through middle school children. The program fully prepared my kids to be able to hit the ground running when they transitioned into taking local co-op type classes. It also made the learning process fun. Time4Learning now had a new sister online curriculum called Time4Writing which focuses of teaching students writing skills. Time4writing was created in response to parental requests for writing tutorials. There are … Continue reading

The Pets Blog Week in Review for July 21-27

What did Aimee and I write about during the last full week of July? In case you’re wondering because summer vacation plans kept you away from the computer, here’s the Week in Review recap. Monday, July 21 Just how much does your pet influence your lifestyle? Do you even know? Or are you well aware of their impact? Because of Aimee’s experiences with her own dogs, she learned about inflammatory bowel disease in pets and passed her knowledge on to us. Tuesday, July 22 I explained why I am absolutely loving “The Greatest American Dog!” Apparently Aimee’s become the crazy … Continue reading

The Marriage Blog Week in Review June 2 – June 8

Wow, we’re wrapping up our first full week of June and has summer gotten started off with a bang? It’s the most popular month for weddings and we’ve got a lot of marriage in the news, marriage tips, and marriage advice and much more on marriage. So let’s take a look at our week in review: Saturday, June 2 My Spouse Won’t Go to the Doctor and it’s frustrating for you to cope with their illness and your own concern. So what can you do? Check out this article for some ideas and tips. Sunday, June 3 Marriage in the … Continue reading