The Paustenbaughs

May PageMaps

I have worked with PageMaps in the past and just love them so I was stoked when the Write.Click.Scrapbook team was asked to take part in this month's PageMaps sketches! The new sketches are all up now so head on over to take a look at the team's layouts!

This is the sketch I worked with:

I stuck pretty closely with the sketch and it came together pretty quickly!

I wasn't so sure about using the larger iPhone photo, but it ended up working.  I really wanted to document this change in my life recently because it was HUGE!  I've had horrible eyesight since I was 11 years old and was dependent on glasses and contacts to see anything beyond a foot in front of my face. 

I finally broke down in February and had Lasik surgery and it is the absolute best thing I could have done!  And like everyone I have talked to who also had it done, I'm kicking myself for not doing it sooner!  Love it and love waking up and not blindly feeling around for my glasses!

Thanks for stopping by!

Holiday Mini

I have a giveaway for this very kit if you scroll down to the bottom of the post!

This month at Write.Click.Scrapbook it's been mini month for all of March.  This week we are focusing on a Studio Calico kit.  Today is my turn and I made a mini about our recent (ish) trip to the Bahamas over our Christmas vacation.  I started with the smaller Studio Calico journaling kit/album and went from there!

I love these Pink Paislee mistables!  I was unsure at first, but they are so versatile with a little mist.  I've started hoarding some of them!

I'm so glad to finally get this mini album together!  It normally takes me a year to put one of these together, and I only wish I were kidding!

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And now for the best part?  I'm going to give away a Daydream Believer Kit to a lucky winner!  I subscribe to Studio Calico and thought I would need the extra to put this together and come to find out with my stash and small album I had plenty of leftovers!

Leave me a comment by Friday 4 pm and I'll draw a winner.  It will be mailed out Easter weekend.

Final Mini

I wanted to share the final pages of my mini album I made for the gallery this month at write.click.scrapbook  I have another one I'll be sharing later this week.  Much shorter, but was still fun to put together!

After our trip to the mountains, we almost always stop by for a day of fun at Hershey Park.  The girls love that place and again we had a great time despite it feeling like 200 degrees while we were there!

I thought this roller coaster paper from Studio Calico was perfect for this trip.  I punched out little cars from a Creative Memories punch to use as the coaster cars.

When Maya and Ella were visiting my parents we had to pay homage to Pittsburgh and Heinz Field on our way back to Virginia.  It was an absolute great getaway before Terry started his new job away from us and of course he was in his element at his "roots"!

The last stop on our summer tour was traveling down to Williasmburg to see Terry and save him a trip all the way back home for at least one weekend.  The girls and I entertained ourselves at Jamestown for a day and absolutely loved it!

And a trip to Williamsburg isn't complete without a day at Busch Gardens.  We can never pass this up, especially when it's free for us to go!

Thank you so much for stopping by and letting me share my album!  I want to put one more section of our fun at home then I'll be able to call it complete!

Summer Mini Part Ni

Ah, yes, trying to do some Japanese cramming just 8 weeks before take off!  Here's hoping cramming college style works when you're nearly 40 too!

But quick before I get to the mini, there is one day left to Save 17% on up to 3 items at ellapublishing.com through March 19  so head on over before midnight for savings!

Tomorrow I'll be back with a fun Ella giveaway!! _______________________________________________________________________________________

I wanted to share a bit more of my mini album I made for the write.click.scrapbook gallery this month.

After our annual trip to Myrtle Beach, I headed off for a girls' weekend with my college friends and had the most fabulous time with those ladies! Man how I miss them and wish we weren't spread out so far apart.

I cut the "SC" from my Silhouette, then misted with a little bit of Mr. Huey to make it a bit more green.  Again, loving the lined journaling pages inserted  in this book for all the stories!

Next we headed off to what Terry refers to as "The Motherland" - Pennsylvania mountains.  We love it here and as the girls have gotten older they have come to love it more and more too.  No technology, just the family being together and enjoying some wildlife friends too.

Again, the Silhouette cut for the "PA" and just layered it over one of the American Crafts cards since these are perfect for our trip to the cabin!

I used another AC card on the right, but this time I cute out the center and used the outside as a frame for our biking photo-worked perfectly!

I used up the last bits of my Campy Trails from American Crafts and sprinkled in some Amy Tan for AC as well-the colors blended beautifully!

Still not done with this mini so I'll be back with more soon!

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If any of you remember me asking for prayers for my sister-in-law last summer we could use more prayers for her.  She has finished all her treatments for breast cancer and went in for a follow up MRI last week.  They found something else suspicious and did a biopsy on Thursday.  The results should be in any day and we are all on pins and needles hoping against hope that it is nothing. 

Thank you.

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!

Ready For Adventure

Saturday's over at Write.Click.Scrapbook there is a different focus each week.  The 1st Saturday of the month is "write" and we focus on journaling.  Amy Sorenson puts together these 1st Saturdays posts and requested layouts about something you are looking forward to and of course music related layouts since that was the gallery theme for the month.  Luckily, I had some time to put something together and knew exactly what I would scrap about!

One thing we are definitely looking forward to once we get to our new home in Japan is all the traveling.  We've already started a list of places we want to visit and I plan on using our passports to their fullest!  I love to travel, especially internationally, and now that the girls are older and can pack and go much easier than babies and toddlers, then we will definitely set off on many an adventure!

Not only do we plan on seeing all there is to see in Okinawa, but will definitely be venturing off to other countries as well and I cannot wait!  There will be no excuse for 2 years, besides the excuse of "we're only here 2 years-LET'S GO!!" 

I nearly put this map paper in the donate pile because although I think it's gorgeous, I just could not figure out how to use it and where to use it.  So glad I hung on to it and found a place for it! Of course that only furthers my paper hoarding issue!

Happy Monday!

She Beats To Her Own Drum

Today is February 1st, which means that a new gallery is up at Write.Click.Scrapbook!!  This month our theme for the gallery is music.  Love this theme! 

We aren't exactly a musical family, but love music and love to dance.

However, I took a different approach to this month since not long ago I created a layout about Maya and her love of piano.  This one was still about Maya, but also about one of the many reasons I love and respect this little girl: she is different and embraces her differences.

She has always been quirky and likes what she likes and I love that about her.  She is self conscious, but not so much that it stops her from doing what she enjoys and what makes her happy.  She definitely beats to her own drum and I think she enjoys that music!

I keep these random photos around that I know I want to scrap, yet not sure how I want to use them and what direction I want to go and they were perfect for this layout.

I also created this layout for the Ormolu blog and took one of the Fact or Fiction Dots and Spots and trimmed it down to portray sun rays against the embossed sun rays behind it.  I just love her tags and the versatility they offer for layouts and cards.  I normally end up cutting them down or using them in a different way, not because I don't like them, but because there are so many possibilities with them!

So head over and take a look at the rest of the gallery from the collective! I always love seeing how everyone interprets the theme for the month!

**Also, head over to the Ormolu blog to take part in 2 different challenges from Melanie and Stephanie.  A gift certificate and 2 Day Hooray buttons are up for grabs!!!

The Calm Before The Storm

There's a new gallery up at Write.Click.Scrapbook and this month really spoke to me and I knew what I wanted to do immediately.  I created this layout about 2 weeks ago and at that time it definitely felt like the calm before the storm.

 

We have so incredibly much to do in the next 4.5 months and I literally felt the tide turn on January 1st.  That started Operation Organize.

We started organizing the holiday decor according to what we were taking and putting in storage.

Next up: closet organizing to prep for the (hopeful) sale of our house.  Luckily, the Mister is in charge of that tomorrow since he has another day off!  Although it does make me a bit nervous since he tends to throw things out that haven't been touched in approximately 4 days.

Mentally I'm feeling the storm too.  I enjoyed the calm for a bit though and am ready to ride it out. 

 

Year End Review

I normally lose track of time and don’t get around to this, but absolutely love catching up on some of my favorite blogs that do post this. 

It’s my top ten favorite layouts from 2011.  It was fun looking back and seeing what has been produced over this past year!  Of course after having lost all of my layout photos from my external drive, it was a little more labor intensive going to my galleries to try to retrieve all of them!  (Mental note: back up your back up!!)

So in no particular order, here goes.

Ormolu

I applied for the Ormolu design team on a whim after seeing a link from Nicole Harper on Twitter.  Boy, am I glad I did because I haven’t loved a particular product this much in a while.  I kind of would marry her tags and buttons if I could!

I’ve done a few no photo layouts before and this one is my favorite.  It didn’t start off as a no photo, but ended up that way and I’m glad it did.  Love the colors in the travel line.

Fact or Fiction? I’m in love!  I like the colors of this one, but most of all that I finally sat down to scrap just Terry and I. I don’t have many of those and am always glad when I sit and do one of just us.  Like taking a vacation with just us-rarely done, but always needed!

Pebbles

Of course I love Pebbles and will become a fossil design team member there if they’ll let me!  Each release gets better and better and I’m honored to be able to design with each one.

I always love teaming up with American Crafts and doing a product swap.  This is one of the layouts from our swap this year and the products blend so well it’s nearly effortless.  The title technique I saw on April Foster’s blog and had to try it out!

Our summer was jam packed and so amazing.  I loved being able to do a general highlight of it all and this year was the wallet sized photo kick on my layouts.

These 2 crack me up!  This is from Halloween 2010 and every time I look at this photo I start cracking up!  I don’t normally use purple on layouts, but it blended well on this one and brought out the witch next to the cow!

WCS

I have followed Write.Click.Scrapbook since it began over 2 years ago and was beyond thrilled to be part of the collective.  Always love our gallery theme each month and that I get to go into my stash to create my layouts!

I love this one for the sentimental reason and for that stamp.  I’ve only used it that one time and need to bust it out again!  We sure miss our old truck, but hopefully we paid it a respectful homage with this layout!

Miscellany

And of course when not creating for design team work, it’s nice to have free reign and just create for creating’s sake!

Hm, thinking I should make more layout about my husband and I because for having so few, 2 of them are in my top faves!  I love the oversized photo and wanted a lot of space for journaling because the Capitol Building means so much to us as a couple.

What do you get when you combine a crazy Ella photo, Silhouette circles and October Afternoon goodies?  One of my recent favorites!  This one came together pretty quickly once the circles were cut and I laugh every single time at the photo and layout.  This is so her!

My friends mean a lot to me, even if I do leave them every 2-3 years.  I think that’s what makes them even more special, yet I always get anxious when we move, afraid I won’t find that one (or more) special friends.  I’m definitely not one to only scrap the happy and good; it’s therapeutic to scrap the anxious and not so good too.

Finally, our family.  We have tons of fun together, although it’s not always sunshine and roses in our house, we do laugh a lot and never, ever take life too seriously.  It’s too short and too many fun things to do.

 

Thank you for letting me share these and thank you for even reading (if you made it this far).  I appreciate everyone stopping by this year and commenting on my posts, especially the non scrappy ones.  I am always grateful for opportunities that come my way and try to never take them for granted.

Happy New Year!

Our New Friend

The winner of the Echo Park goodies is Cheryl Leong!!

Email me at tcpaustenbaugh(at)gmail(dot)com and I'll get these out to you very soon!

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Yesterday was the debut of another gallery at Write.Click.Scrapbook. and this month we focused on Holiday Homes. We took several different spins on this theme for the month, with some doing home decor projects and many others doing layouts and cards. I put our little friend Jed into this layout as a new holiday fixture in our home for the holidays.

This photo was taken last year during his escapades. I grabbed up some October Afternoon Sidewalks and thought it would go really well with the photo and theme! I prefer to use non-holiday papers and embellishments for holiday layouts because I'm a horrible holiday scrapper and this makes it easier for me!

I ended up using an older Jenni Bowlin journaling circle and cut a strip of Studio Calico paper to go over the green edging because it matched better!  Finally dug into my washi tape too-yay!

This year Jed is getting a little more creative, partly because "he" gets bored in the evenings after the girls go to bed.  Gotta find a way to fill that time when "his" significant other isn't home!