The Paustenbaughs

Almost, but Not Quite

I had a couple of projects that were requested for an upcoming publication, but unfortunately the issue isn't going to happen.  It happens, so no big deal, and the good news is that I can now share them here!

I made a layout with some of my favorite KI Memories paper-the beloved calendar paper.

I printed off contact sheet sized photos of some of the things we did during the month of May.  Lots of fun and lots of activities!  I decided to embellish the other squares with patterned paper and a few other embellishments.

And since it's lined, then it was perfect for adding the journaling on the side.

The other project I made I started out not being so sure of, but it ended up being something I was really proud of in the end.  I made a countdown calendar for Ella's birthday using mostly October Afternoon 5 and Dime. 

The pages were made from a 7 Gypsies 4 x 4 album I have had laying around for some time.  I was glad to finally get it out and use it!

Lucky for me I'll be getting it back just in time for her birthday countdown starting in January.  She should know when her birthday is, but every day we get asked, "how long"?  We could probably put it off until July at this point, but that's just mean, right?!

Thanks for stopping by to look at them!

Today is day 4 of the Spouse's Course and I am beyond pooped.  It's going better than I thought and making lots of Okinawa connections this week, which is key.  Today we are off to the Commandant's House up in DC and I'm very excited about that!  Love going to old homes and looking around at all the history!  Of course I'll be back with photos-assuming they let me take some!

Busy with a capital B

We are super busy this week with a "special" class for future commanders and their wives so I'll have a quick drive by a couple of times this week!  I'm already tired and it's only Monday!

I love October and just wanted to share a few pics from the fun we're having so far!  We're loving having Terry home for 2 weeks and trying to enjoy all our time together!

Oh how I love October!  Can't believe it's already over in a week.  That means cold is ushered in-not my favorite.

Have a great Tuesday!

New Ormolu

Last night was the debut of the new Ormolu lines out for the fall/holiday season.  The design team was so excited when we saw photos a few weeks ago, but then I got my order in the mail this week and they are seriously even better in person!

The first line is Fact or Fiction and shows some rich blue, yellow and red colors.  These are perfect for everyday scrapping with fun sayings and great journaling pieces too.

And these I kind of want to marry:

She also has a really great Christmas line out too.  This is perfect for anyone doing the December Daily this year.  Even if you're not, these are great for making holiday layouts or using as gift tags as well.

And my personal favorite:

Something else genius she came up with are personalized flair buttons!  I was giddy when I saw these and already grabbed up 4 of them, with more to come I'm sure!

Now, if you head over to Ali Edwards' blog this weekend you can enter to win a $30 Ormolu gift certificate to use in the shop.  And with things nicely priced at $4-5 then that is a lot of new goodies you can order!

Kaitlin is also running a special right now.  If you place an order this weekend, then she will throw in one of these as well:

Don't forget the design team has been having challenges over on the Ormolu blog where you can win a $5 gift certificate.  You don't have to use Ormolu products, although we all love seeing how you use Ormolu on your pages!

Have a great weekend!

Candy Corn...Oh How I Love Thee

I love candy corn.  I know a 38 year old isn't supposed to love sugary confections this much, but I do, and I always have.  Once Labor Day hits then I'm on the look out for the orange bag of goodness.  I try to limit myself, but it's difficult when you have absolutely no willpower.  Both girls love candy corn too so I figure that I'm really not eating as much as I think.  Did I mention I have no willpower?

This week our theme at the Pebbles Blog is fall.  I had already scrapped my photos from last year and we hadn't done anything truly fall-ish for this year so I thought and thought.  While I thought I consumed mass quantities of said candy corn, and then it came to me.  Fall doesn't just equal leaves, pumpkins and jackets in our family; it also means candy corn!!!  I know, you can get candy corn throughout the year, but it's just not the same.

I pulled from a couple of lines with bold orange and yellow papers to create my candy corn card/embellishment.  I cut a candy corn image from my Silhouette then cut the papers using it as a template.  

I did some handsewing around the edges, embellished with papers, a deconstructed dimensional sticker, a toothpick flag and voila-all done!

Speaking of candy corn, I'm all out which means there is a code red in our house.  There is still 10 days to Halloween and it's just not Halloween without candy corn!

I'm off for a fun filled day of physical therapy and the dreaded commissary!

Happy Friday!

M is for...

I'm up with a layout over at Ormolu today.  No rhyme or reason to this layout or "theme", but just a mix of various products put together. 

I just started putting things together and lucky for me the Ormolu's lines complement so well that it just seemed to work and I just kept going!  I'm certainly not saying this is a masterpiece, but just that things come together more easily with these fun tags and flair!

I'm thankful it came together easily because I've been in a low creative funk.  We all have those weeks, days or months and I know my mojo will find it's way back home, but for now, pages are a little harder to get completed.  If someone could send some creative juice my way then I would be forever grateful!

Now, the other thing we need to point out: this layout essentially has no title.  I know I should just say it was intentional and I was using a play on the initial, but quite honestly when I uploaded my photos I looked at them and said "well, sh&*".  Luckily no little people were around to hear me!  I nearly got the layout back out to add something, but then decided I would use the embellished "M" as the title.

See?  Mojo has taken an extended vacation. 

You know I'll find it next week when I have a super busy week and my mother-in-law visiting, so little time for creating-hrmph.

My Memories Giveaway

I was contacted by the nice people at My Memories about doing a giveaway for their digital scrapbooking software.  I know, I know, I haven't done digital scrapbooking in my life, but I know there are so many people out there who are doing digital scrapping or who want to get into digital scrapping.  I've done a wee bit of hybrid in the past, so does that count?!!

I downloaded the software, which was super easy to do by the way, so that I could give it a try and actually give a recommendation for this.  Seriously, everything was so easy to use, and lots of different embellishments and papers to choose from too.  Of course I made something super simple that took way longer than it should have, but for my first try, I figure it was about the right amount of time!

I have lots of birthdays coming up so I figure I can print this out, fold it in half and boom, I have a card all set and ready to mail!  Again, I know this is no where near the caliber of digital scrappers out there, but it's a start!

If you would like to win a download version of My Memories Suite just leave your name here and I'll draw a winner on Friday afternoon!  The software is worth $40.00 so it's a good deal for sure!

If you don't happen to win then you can take advantage of a $10.00 off promotion for the software, just by going here to get the code for my readers:  My Memories software code

Have a great Wednesday!

Active Much?

We always tease that Ella is our little boy born in a little girl's body.  She is and has always been very, very active.  Not hyperactive, but always busy, always doing something.  It could be as little as bouncing a leg, but some body part is always in constant motion.

I remember going to the OB/GYN during those last few months when they ask you to do kick counts.  Those visit went like this:

Doc: "Are you doing your kick counts?"

Me: "I don't need to."

Doc: "No, you really do.  We need to make sure she's moving throughout the day."

Me: "Really, she NEVER.STOPS.KICKING. No kick count necessary.  Is there a non-moving count?"

 

She has also been relegated to her own bed during any and all vacations.  Why? Because once again: SHE.NEVER.STOPS.MOVING.  Even in her sleep she is either kicking, flopping, rolling and/or screeching because it's also important to move your mouth while sleeping too I guess.

I actually did a layout for fun this weekend (yay me) and as I looked through photos I noticed this very pattern.  There are lots of motion photos of Ella and not so many still photos of Ella.

 

Can we all stop for a moment and study the photo on the lower left?  Not staged, and certainly didn't ask her to do this either.  This is from 2 years ago as the girls were quietly watching tv.  I walk in and I see the head of the older child and the legs of the younger child.  She was watching tv upside down in pike position. 

Last week she gave us a scare (and still is) when she couldn't move because her back hurt so bad.  This is the same child who can bend in half with ease and show off her party trick: placing her feet behind her head.  Again, with ease.

We have been to the doc twice and we are now headed to ortho and an MRI.  She is much, much, much better this weekend, but of course a mother's job is to worry, so that's what I'm doing. Worrying.  I know she'll be fine and is fine, but you never like seeing your kiddo in pain.

For today, more activity and more moving around.  Non stop. 

I think I need to warn future roommates and boyfriends.  There is no rest for the weary around her!

 

Quick Share

I've been a little low key this week, but did want to share a couple of quick layouts I haven't shared just yet. Typing this while at the doc office to get my gimpy hip checked out. I don't do injuries very well so I'm hoping it's a quick fix!

Creative Memories has recently come out with a new punch for breast cancer awareness month.

I've always been a supporter to friends raising money for breast cancer awareness, but didn't think much else of it  until it affected my family this summer.  I was asked to make a layout using the Think Pink Specialy Paper for this month.  I have not taken part in any of the 3 Day walks so I at least got out my pink ribbon hat to take a photo and commemorate this very significant cause:

I really love the patterns and scalloped papers in this pack.  A portion of the proceeds from purchasing this goes to breast cancer research. 

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I made this a few weeks ago, and while I added a bit to the right side of the title, quite honestly with all this rain and my own personal laziness I haven't taken another photo.  That's on the "one of these days" docket!

I made this using the Studio Calico Paper Moon kit.  These photos are fairly old, but they are some of my favorites!  She is not our snow lover at all, but mix some snow with beach front and she was all over it!

Hope you all have a wonderful Thursday!

 

 

Grateful

 

First, sorry I'm late on this (will explain further down), but here is the winner of the Scrapbook and Cards Today magazine:

adele said:

Love your blog! And I would love to win your extra copy of S&CT. I used to get my copies from my LSS but it closed 2 months ago :(

Just email me at tcpaustenbaugh (at) gmail (dot) com and I'll send it along!

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Feeling very grateful this early Tuesday morning for many reasons. 

Fall

It's starting to look more and more like fall around here and I'm loving all the colors.  We aren't quite at peak color here yet, but should be soon and I really, really want to go on a photo tour.  Especially since we will not get fall for 2 more years while we're in Japan.  I will definitely miss that (aside from Target ;)

Running and Health

  So grateful to be out running and capable of completing the Army 10 Miler.  It was a beautiful day, a really great race and happy to have (most) of my family there to cheer me on!  I have heard great things about this race for several years and took the plunge to run it this year.  I love running through DC and seeing all the landmarks along the way!

My right hip has had other plans post race though so I'm off to the doctor to finally get it checked out.  Should have done it a long time ago, but I kept running through it.  Since I was Gimpy McGimperson the last 2 days I figure it's time to pick up the phone!  So for that, I'm grateful for free health care and hoping to get this figured out before the race that was created for me!

Friends

Very grateful for friends and training partners.  If you've been a blog reader for a while (thank you!) then it's no secret that friendship is something I value, struggle with and appreciate.  And if you're a runner and run with friends then you know the value of that running time and it truly becomes your therapy, with the best part being that it's FREE!!!

Renee (right beside me) and I trained for the Marine Corps Marathon last year at this time and trained together for this race and I couldn't have been more grateful for that!  She is such a great friend and training partner.  We don't see each other too much outside of these running times, but I appreciate our time together for sure.

Candy Corn

You know that Sesame Street skit "One of these things is not like the other?"!!  That would be this category, but let me profess my gratefullness to candy corn.  You may or may not be seeing a layout about this love affair very soon.  Oh how I love thee!

So, what are you grateful for today?!

Five on Friday

Do You Like Sales?

Does a bear *&^% in the woods?  Why yes, yes it does!  If you love Ormolu products as much as I do then a little birdie told me that you would want to head run over to the shop and stock up before some awesome things are "retired". These are perfect for any of you Project Life-ers:

And you may or may not want to come back in a couple of weeks to see some awesome new things in the shop-just sayin'

Everyone Loves A Giveaway

If you like a sale, then you MUST like a giveaway, right?!

You might want to head on over to the Pebbles Blog later today (noon-ish EST).  We have been having guest designers over the last couple of months and that normally  means some goodies being given away too! 

I'll Take Door #3 Monty

Um, if you like a sale and like ONE giveaway, what about another giveaway?!!

WHAAA???!!!!  Woman, you have lost your mind!

I have an extra copy of the fall Scrapbook and Cards Today and I'd like to give it to one of you that stop by to read my little old blog.

 Just leave me a comment and I'll draw a winner on Monday afternoon.

We Have A New Puppy

Her name is Ella and luckily, she is house trained (mostly).

This one was a cow last year, a puppy this  year and informs me that she will be a bunny next year.  Easy enough.  And thank goodness for ebay and super cheap plush animal costumes!  It may be worn appproximately 300 times between now and October 31st.

 

Apple is More Than A Fruit

Of course there are many, many people with tributes to the amazing and revolutionary Steve Jobs. One of my favorites I read today was from Elizabeth Dillow.  We are not a hard core Apple family, but I can tell you that the iPod changed the way I run and I would marry the iPhone if I weren't already married.  I had never read Steve's commencement speech until Lisa Truesdell posted it.  I took a brief excerpt that I really, truly want to frame and keep by my side:

Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people's thinking. Don't let the noise of others' opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition.

I need to remember this always. 

 

A New Puppy