The Paustenbaughs

Eight is Enough

I took the Ella Publishing challenge this week and made a layout using only 8 layouts.  I started off thinking it might be a little difficult, but not so bad.  Boy was I wrong!!  I realized how many little bits and pieces I use on my layouts that equals WAY more than 8 products. 

I chose to use 3 sheets of patterned paper because I knew that I could at least use punches to break down that paper.  I use twine on almost all my layouts so I knew I would definitely use that too.

That library card is downloaded from Shimelle, via 2 Peas In A Bucket.

And since there is a new Stamping eBook debuting this week, I dug out some stamps to use too!  Until March 7th the ebook is 29% off!!!

This book has some really great expert tips from some phenomenal stampers and includes video instruction too.  Seriously, for an amateur stamper like myself, it has some amazing tips and tricks in it!

Head on over to Ella, or you can link on over from the button to the left.

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Random

Nothing profound or creative to put here today, but I do have a bit of randomness.  Oh, and an awesome giveaway!

Head on over to Ella Publishing for a Leap Day sale this week!!

Lots of ebooks available and you can save a bundle with this sale!!  I took a peak at the Stamping Secrets book and it is so good, especially for an amateur stamper like myself!!

Ella is also having a giveaway this week in honor of the new stamping book.  Head over to the Ella Blog and leave a comment here to win $150 worth of stamps!!  Seriously some good stamps being given away there and so wish I could enter to win!

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In non craftiness, Terry and I had our first date night in more months than I care to admit this past weekend.  We headed up to DC to see Jim Gaffigan perform.

We had so much fun!  We had dinner, some drinks and a whole lot of laughs too.  Just what we needed this weekend and hopefully it isn't as long until the next date night!

If you have never heard of Jim Gaffigan you have to watch this and have kleenex available for the tears as you laugh-hysterical!

 

 

I'll be back later with some craftiness this week!

52 Fridays: Time

This week from The Bloom Forum our theme was Time.  I had an idea of what I wanted to do when I first saw the theme, but it just didn't pan out.  I really wanted a photo of Ella flitting around to indicate how fast our time is coming to an end here in Virginia, but well, weather and time just didn't work in my favor!

Instead I went literal with this one:

This is a mantel clock Terry and I got when we got married over 14 years ago.  It hasn't worked in many years, even with a new battery, but for some reason I can't bear to get rid of it right now!

Now head over to Amy Schilling to see how she interpreted this week's theme!

Scraplifted

This week on the Pebbles blog our assignment was to scraplift a layout from another member of the team.  I knew immediately that I wanted to scraplift talented member Mandie Pierce.  I have loved her style since before she was on the team and love what she is doing with Pebbles now too!

I chose this layout of hers to scraplift:

I took the basic design and just tweaked it a little to fit my size and amount of photos.  I decided to take the photos and story from my On The Shelf 52 Fridays post and put them into layout form for this one.

I kept my title on the top and the journaling block on the bottom of the page as Mandie did.  I swapped out the stitched leaves for Silhouette cut hearts on the side.

I had a lot of fun with this challenge/assignment and have been honored to have my work scraplifted this week as well!

Tough Conversations

Remember when your tough conversations included negotiating with your toddler about wearing the pink overalls and not the purple overalls for the FOURTH DAY IN A ROW??!!  Or eating peas versus carrots??

These are still the tough conversations with Ella at the ripe old age of 7, but for Maya, at 9.5, we have certainly moved on to the really tough conversations.  They are necessary, but tough.

I will say I am so happy that she is totally comfortable with both Terry and I to ask questions and explore possibilities in life.  I am hoping and praying we are fostering that and she will continue into that age that kids aren't quite as open and willing to sharing.

Last night dinner conversation went from what their favorite part of the day was to why kids bully.  No, thank goodness she is not being bullied, but it's a common conversation in schools these days and at home too.  One thing she said that struck me is "I can deal with a boy bully because they won't bother you for a long time, but a girl bully might".  Wow.

We talked about why kids do it, what she can do if someone does say or do mean things to her and the most important thing-we will always, always, always be there for her and go to bat for her.  Always.

I see the detrimental effects bullying has on kids. I've worked in a high school environment for most of my working career and makes my heart hurt to see the pain on kids' faces.  I know what she'll be facing and it makes me want to wrap her in a bubble until she graduates.  Kids are cruel and pre-teen and teenage girls especially are extremely cruel.  I didn't have the heart to tell her that grown women can also be cruel-very cruel.  That's for later!

I think she's feeling a bit out of sorts about the upcoming move.  She is over the moon excited, but also going into 5th grade where going to a new school goes from exciting to slightly terrifying.  And I'm pretty sure there will be many  more of these tough conversations in the upcoming months and I welcome them.  Hard to navigate and explain, but so open to having these conversations with her. 

And because I don't like photo-less posts, my sensitive, big hearted 9.5 year old:

**I promise to be back with crafty posts soon!  Working on a giant mini (oxymoron??) right now and will share next week!

I Am Healed...

I sat in Mr. Brown's 5th grade class in the back because I was little miss Goody Two Shoes of course.  As the year progressed I started squinting more and more and finally had to confess to my mom that I couldn't see the board very well. 

That began my glasses history.

Let me just tell you that in 1984 glasses were big and entirely unattractive.  But since my horrible eye sight had begun, I had to wear them.

In 8th grade I could have kissed the eye doctor that told my mom that contacts would actually help slow the decline of my eyesight since they cover my eyes at all angles.  Although money was always tight, she gave in and my 4 eyes days were done, but my horrible eye sight was not.

I've had contacts ripped, lost, wedged into my eyelid, you name it it has happened. 

I still maintained glasses in the mornings and evenings and on those days that a contact just wasn't happening. 

Ever since I had heard of the LASIK technology I was dying to get it done, but I'm also a giant chicken when it comes to the thought of cutting my eye.  I have no problem jamming my finger in it, but for some reason a laser correcting it gave me chills. 

On Friday I finally took the plunge and am legitimately no longer a 4 eyes!!  Terry and I have been in awe all weekend that a less than 2 minute procedure took me from about a 20/60 eye sight to 20/20 with very little recovery.  It's amazing.

Of course a certain someone says I may be scared now that I can *really* see him!

I still reach for my glasses in the morning, but I'm sure with time that will pass.  Things are now presented in a whole new light!

52 Fridays: Pink

It's Friday and another week from The Bloom Forum group.  This week the theme is Pink.  Of course our house has been full of pink since 2002 when a little pink bundle of joy entered our lives!  We added another one 2.5 years later and the pink was overflowing.  As I walked around their rooms though I noticed that the pink has quickly gone to the backburner and their things are exploding with colors, and with their fashion sense: the louder and brighter, the better!

Then I wandered over to some beautiful flowers that my sweet husband brought to all of us this past weekend.  He has always gotten flowers spur of the moment and I absolutely love that about him!  He always makes sure to put a flower in a small vase for each of the girls' rooms too.

He did good!

Now head on over to Emily Bjornson, ND Photographer for her take on the theme!

 

Super Tiny Mini

I have a project up on the Ormolu Blog today that I've been wanting to make for a while.  I love the little ticket books that Kaitlin puts together and I have been wanting to make a itty bitty mini out of them, but wasn't sure how.  I kind of wanted to do more with this, but time, work and life got in the way, but I'm still proud with how it turned out!

I made a little ticket reward book for the girls of places to go (hence the GO ticket book!) for good behaviors.  I used the original tickets as a template and cut out patterned paper to use the pages of this.

To add a pop of color I embellished the front cover as well.

I stitched up the side of it and realized I had a wee bit too much paper in the sewing machine and the adhering stitch came out fairly ugly and and not stitched well!  So I covered it with some washi tape to finish it off and cover up the ugliness!

Finally, I tied it all up and voila, a reward memory mini book! 

If you are automatically a fast scrapper you won't be impressed with this, but I completed the entire thing from start to finish in 30 minutes!!  Yay for quickness!  I wasn't trying to throw it all together, but once I got going it went quickly.  This is a new record for me for sure!

And Now Onto Spring

Now that Valentine's Day has officially passed, I'm full on ready for spring, warm weather and Easter! I'm not a big Valentine's fan anyway, so it passes fairly quickly.  My husband made out pretty easy in that department - I'm happy with an "I Love You" and that's about it!  Very, very low maintenance.  Truth be told I think it still kind of scares him and he feels like he's doing something wrong!

I received my new Scrapbooks, Etc.  yesterday and had completely forgotten about the layout I had in there this month!  Believe me, the excitement is still always there to see work in print, but I think with all the moving stuff cramming my wee little brain, it just plain slipped my mind!

Although I don't normally like doing holiday layouts, but this one was fun to do with the adorable Crate Paper chipboard goodies!

We were lucky to spend last Easter down in South Carolina with my in laws and of course the egg hunt and baskets didn't disappoint!  Always a good time at Grandma and Papa's house with eggs hiding in palm trees.

We will miss seeing them this year, but will have to make due with our own little private egg hunt at our house.  Next year I think we'll need to put eggs in the freezer because it will be fairly hot in tropical Okinawa, Japan!

For the basket of eggs in the layout I simply cut down some brown cardstock in a square and used a corner rounder on 2 of the edges.  Then I cut a thin strip of the same cardstock and stapled it to the "basket".  I  used tons of leftover pearls from my stash to create different sizes of "eggs" in the basket.  Very simple and easy to do!  I wish I had a good photo of it, but unfortunately my external hard drive deleted itself a few weeks ago and I had to go to all my galleries and re load it.  Super pain in the hiney, but mostly recovered!

 

February Take 12

Did you take part in Ella Publishing's Take 12 Challenge yesterday?!  It's still not too late if you didn't participate last month.  No right or wrong start day or way to do it!  And if you did participate, just upload your work to the Flickr group or to the blog and you could have a chance to win a prize pack!

I was really afraid I might forget yesterday since it was a weekend, but I remembered (yay me!).  This month I did a combo camera and phone photos and it worked out well!

1. This month brings a for sale sign in our front yard. Hoping it's short lived!

2. The girls making one of their 4629 Power Points for the day-you never know when someone will want to see a Victoria Justice Power Point by a 7 year old!

3. That snow on the ground, plus super cold temps equals a run on the treadmill instead of outside.  Not happy about that, but happy to have a friend on the treadmill beside me.

4. Cold day=lazy day.

5. On our reading lists right now.  Harry Potter for Maya, Horrid Harry for Ella and 11/22/63 for me.

6.  Because my husband is the best he brought flowers for all his girls on Saturday since our Valentine's is once again spent apart.

7 & 8.  Laziness went out the window for swim team practice and because of the Open House we took some fun time too!

9.  Always the hard working hubby, even at swim team practice!

10.  Oh, did I mention the cold?!!  Me no likey!  And unlike last month, no open windows at home.

11.  I have no words for this one.  She keeps us entertained to say the least.

12.  Working up on some math before the school week.

 

Those are mine for this month!  Love seeing the changes already between the 2 months!

Happy Monday!