The Paustenbaughs

Pause

I've said this before and now I wanted to turn it into a layout in honor of Mother's Day.  I would love a pause button to pause time right now.  I love the ages of my girls and the place our family is in right now. 

I try to get out from behind the camera every once in a while because I want to be in those photos too!  We had this taken while in Indiana visiting family and I treasure it so much.  I'm so proud to be their mom and hope each day I am doing the best job I can.

I love this heart background from Silhouette.  A great way to add embellishment without lots of embellishments!

Today is filled with zoo animals and first graders for a field trip.  Hope I don't get anyone confused and bring home a baby panda instead!

She Grows

She's lost her lisp when she pronounces her "S's".

She's reading chapter books.

She's learning to make her own breakfast in the mornings.

She's outgrown those oh so lovely fits we had grown accostumed to.

She's fixing her hair and getting it just so in the mornings.

She's growing up.

A little too fast for us, but becoming such an amazing little girl.

We are loving this time with her and watching her learn so many things each day.

Trying to teach her how to navigate life, friendships and school.

She is still completely stubborn as a mule, but we know in time this will serve her well.

She certainly doesn't take "beef" from anyone!

Layout as seen on the Pebbles blog

 

Have a fantastic Monday!!

Easter Cards and a Giveaway

 First, I am so, so sorry I didn't get to this sooner!  I totally meant to, but with getting ready to travel and the actual traveling, it slipped my mind. 

The winner of the Studio Calico Kit is Amy Coose!!

Congrats Amy!

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 Don't forget that it's not long until the Ella Publishing Spring Training 2012 event!  April 23rd will be here before you know it!  If you head over now you can use the code SPRINGTIME10 to save 10% right now!

There's a great line up of instructors to help get you in shape in time for National Scrapbooking Day in May!

But today for one lucky winner I get to give away one spot in the upcoming class!  Just leave me a comment below and I'll draw a winner on Friday!

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Speaking of Ella Publishing, I never heard from the original winner of the Stamping Secrets eBook, so I'm going to try again!

This time the winner is Teka Cochonneau!  Just email me at tcpaustenbaugh (at) gmail (dot) com and I'll send you the pdf.

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 And FINALLY it's Easter week on the Pebbles blog and I had 2 cards up on the blog yesterday.  Still not the expert card maker, but feeling better about doing them.

Have a happy, happy Wednesday!

New Pebbles

**Don't forget the giveaway below is open through Friday morning!

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This week on the Pebbles blog we are introducing the new Country Picnic line!  I am in love with the colors of this line, especially as a mama of 2 girls.  The touch of kraft and green are really nice against the shades of pink.

I've been wanting to scrap these photos of Ella from late last summer when she finally lost some teeth.  Granted, they were pulled at the dentist, but they FINALLY came out!  She was happy to have her first visit from the tooth fairy!

I went with a simple design on this to showcase several different Country Picnic papers and products.  I tend to deconstruct a lot of products and that was the case here too!  I pulled off the flower on the dimensional journaling sticker so I had room for the year and replaced it with some punched butterflies.

And those corrugated alphas?  I might need to order about 10  more packs of each color of those!  Perfect size, super sticky to stay put and beautiful colors too!

Head on over all week to check out the ladies' beautiful projects!

Spring Weaving

So today we are back to our regularly scheduled season-SPRING!  First, let me just say though that this week is actually looking more like the beginning of summer.  It's crazy!  But I'm certainly not complaining because there could be snow right now.

Onto Spring!

This week on the Pebbles Blog we are featuring spring projects, layouts and cards.  I chose to make a project because looking at our photos I didn't have a ton of spring specific and we don't have so many spring decor items so that solved that.

I started with a frame from Michael's for just a dollar (score!) since it was oval/egg shaped.

Then I decided to get a little crazy, well for me anyway, and ventured down the paper weaving road.  I cut strips of paper to 1/2" strips and simply started weaving and gluing down as I went.  After I was done I felt a little nervous about it staying together, so I stitched along some of the strips for extra security!

I trimmed it down to fit the frame and may or may not have gotten a little tipsy off some Mod Podge.It actually went together quite easily, which is normally not the way for me so I was super excited!

I then just put some simple embellishments on it to enhance it but not overpower it too.  I cut my favorite banner out from the Silhouette (it's a Pebbles design ;) and applied the sentiment to that.

So that's that.  Simple, quick, easy and I must say pretty too!

 

Summer Mini

This month at write.click.scrapbook our gallery features nothing but mini albums!  I absolutely love seeing what the other ladies came up with for their minis, and in my case, not so minis!

Today I'm going to share a few pages of mine.  If I shared it all it would be the world's longest blog post I fear, so we'll get to it in installments!  Plus, it's a light crafty week for me, so it gives me something to blog about later when I'm at a loss.

I started with a Fancy Pants Brag Book as a base for the album.  As soon as I saw these albums, I went and stocked up on a couple of them.  After using one I'm thinking I need to stock up on more!

I kept holding on to this older map paper from Studio Calico and nearly threw it away a couple of times, but so, so glad I didn't!  I wanted that to be the focus of the front since it's a travel album and went with a simple title/cover for the bottom part.  I stitched it all together, put a fabrip on for added color and called it done!

I made a very simple inside cover/first page to the album to list all the places we ventured off to during our crazy busy summer last year.  I wanted to keep the focus on the pages of our adventures.

We first headed off to our annual Myrtle Beach vacation with Grandma.  She is so extremely good to us and every year for the past 4 years has taken us down to their timeshare/condo in Myrtle Beach.  We always have an awesome time and come home with luggage that is a few pounds heavier with all the sand!

The lined pages for journaling are so fantastic in this book.  I really can't say enough about them.  I also covered several of them up with paper and photos for the book too!

Although I used a little bit of newer stuff, I tried to focus on using up some stash too and clearing out some bits and pieces I had left of Studio Calico kits.  Kind of invigorating to use up things that have just been sitting there for some time!

And those photo sleeves? Also an awesome touch with this book!  I didn't want it to be so thick you couldn't look through it, so these sleeves were great for those extra photos that didn't need another story to go with them.

Thanks for stopping by!  I'll be back with more later!

Natural Competitor

This one:

definitely got her dad's competitive spirit.  Maya and I are in it for the experience and if we win great, and if we don't, well better luck next time.  Terry and Ella are in it to win it for sure!!

We saw this first hand last summer during swim team.  Ella started in the "mini" Rays, where it was glorified swim lessons, but she was quickly moved up to the competitive team after one practice.  She wasn't so much into the daily practices, but boy her first meet rolled around and she had fire in her eyes!

We told her what to do and where to swim and she was on it!  We watched her as she took a breath, looked around at her competition and kicked it into high gear to get to the finish line.  She didn't come in first place, but she did place in several events.

She lived for Saturdays when she could get out and race again and was disappointed if she wasn't in a particular race.  I believe this summer we have a competitive swimmer on our hands!  Should be fun to watch her bloom.  And p.s.-her dad is ecstatic that she got that competitive spirit!

I have been hoarding this Custom Flair from Ormolu for a while now and decided I needed to get it out of the packaging and actually USE IT!!  I thought it was perfect for this layout with all the intense bright colors and it sort of pops.  The ribbon was perfect too from this Studio Calico kit to highlight a swim ribbon.

I took a chance and tried some rub ons on the fabric swatch too.  I was nervous that it wouldn't work and then my absolute favorite swatch would be ruined, but yay for experiments working out!  These are older rub ons too and they went on beautifully.  I highly recommend them.

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Just a reminder that you can still save 20% on the new Ella Publishing Stamping Secrets eBook now through March 7th.  I can't say enough about this book-I'll be reading and re-reading it to help me in the stamping department!

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!

Quick Share

Just wanted to do a quick drive by post today to share a card I made from last week.  I created this for Ella Publishing during Heart Health Awareness Week.  I have been fortunate not to so far not be affected by heart disease (yet), but know that it is a serious issue for women and am so happy Rachel brought it to our attention.

The Pebbles With Love line was absolutely perfect for this card so I went with lots of pink and red!  I've become mildly obsessed with heat embossing.  Or moderately obsessed.  Not a great "regular" stamper, but for some reason I'm embracing embossing-go figure!

Have a happy Wednesday!

Heart Healthy (and some cards)

This week at Ella Publishing we are celebrating Heart Health Awareness Month.  Yesterday Rachel and other Ella Friends shared how heart conditions have affected them in their families.  I encourage you to go take a look and read these amazing stories of courage and faith. 

Today we are highlighting projects that promote a heart healthy lifestyle, specifically in women.  You have probably read the statistics and have seen the news stories related to the increase in heart related conditions in women and the steps we can take to combat this.  This is a subject I could contribute to and it was a layout I have been wanting to make for some time anyway, so Rachel gave me the kick in the hiney I needed to get it done!

Terry and I have been running for a quite a few years now.  He started way back when he joined the Marine Corps in 1995 and I started when I couldn't get those last pesky pounds off after having Maya in 2002.  Now, well, it has certainly become a way of life for us.  I always say I run to eat chocolate, when in actuality I run to stay healthy and combat those ailments lurking around.

We also run for those beautiful little people in our family.  We want to set an example and we want to be around for many, many years to come to torment them into adulthood!!  They both say they'll "do running" when they get bigger too and I couldn't be more proud to hear them say that.  We don't use the word "fat" or "skinny" in our house, but healthy.  As long as they are healthy, I am happy with that!

Tomorrow on the Ella Blog we'll be sharing heartfelt cards too and want everyone to know it's National Wear Red Day in honor of Heart Healthy Month.  So bust out that red to honor those you know affected by heart disease or just to bring awareness!

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Yesterday I was up over at the Pebbles Blog too with some cards. I'm finally getting over my fear of cards-yay me!!  That's not to say that I'm totally comfortable with them, but it does mean I don't start immediately sweating when someone asks me to do one!! 

I made this one for a certain special someone who had a birthday last week!

I love making cards for them and they get so excited when they see one made.  Ella said "you made that for ME??!!"  Love that reaction!

I also made this one as well that she can use for all those many gifts she received from friends and family:

We are out enjoying this amazing freak weather we are having this week!  I know winter will return soon so for now I push the children outside and we all enjoy it while we can!!

Happy Thursday!