Chele is getting ready to make a big move and she’s been having giveaways all month long to celebrate - today she asks what five things you could give up to simplify your life. One of my answers is my scrapbooking things!

A few years ago I attempted to try scrapbooking. I have no idea why I thought it would be fun - I’m the person who can’t cut a picture. I think they belong in a photo album…in order that they were shot. Yeah yeah laugh if you must, I’ve learned to. Since then I have managed to cut a picture here or there, but still haven’t been able to get into scrapbooking.

I’ve given away other items to a friend or two, but have never managed to get rid of it all. So I am passing a few things on to you as part of the Fall Bloggy Giveaway.

1. Stickers -

JoAnn Scrap Essentials, Typewriter Key Alphabet, 100 letters
Mambi Minis, Me & My Big Ideas, 3 sticker sheets, Easter theme
Creative Memories, Holiday Grandma’s Kitchen Stickers, 4 block sticker sheets
Creative Memories, Calendar Accent Stickers, 16 studio strips
Bo-Bunny Press ~ Sleepover, Girl Talk, Girlfriends, Girls, Friends

2. Paper -

Creative Memories, Coffeehouse Printed photo mounting paper, 6 colors, 12 sheets
Close To My Heart, Level One Scrapbooking kit, Between Friends (item 7022A)
Close To My Heart, Level One Scrapbooking kit, Fun-Tastic (item 7025A)

3. Accessories -

Stampin Up, Eyelets, Bold Brights 1 (Brilliant Blue, Glorious Green, Real Red, Yoyo Yellow)
JoAnn Scrap Essentials, Family, 60 quotes and sentiments on white vellum
Close To My Heart, Accent Beads (buttons), Buttons 4 Seasons (item 1790)
Close To My Heart, Craft Buttons, Buttons Winter (item 1789)

Rules & Such

I am not a consultant for CTMH or CM - the items might not be sold anymore so if you go to the website hoping to find a close up picture and one is not there, I am sorry.

There will be three drawings - one for each group of items. Comment and also say which group you want to be in on. You can be in on all three drawings if you wish, but you can only win one time.

Open to US and Canadian Residents

Everything is new and has just been stored (and then moved across the country once!) since I got it. The JoAnn Scrap Essentials in the Accessories has been opened but not used.

Any other questions feel free to ask in the comments!

There are days when my brain goes off on wild tangents. Today was one of those days.

I was listening to the latest Mom’s Money podcast, this week’s show is about teaching kids about money. This is a great topic for me because I want to start giving my kids an allowance and just don’t know how. I’ve mentioned they are price conscious and now seems to be a great time to start working with money.

While listening to Mom’s Money I decided my kids need piggy banks. I know I had seen one with multiple compartments for saving, spending, donation, etc., so off I went on a Google-quest to find said piggy bank. I tried Amazon - who had the one I wanted (the Money Savvy Piggy Bank) listed, but it isn’t available right now. Okay so tried and true Amazon failed me - but google won’t!

Back to searching.

I found the site that created the money savvy bank - and wow it is available in multiple colors! Alice immediately picked pink and Jake wanted green. I’m thinking this is a great idea but can I find it locally so I can save on shipping costs. Ahah, Toys R Us! But their phone number is busy no matter how many times I call them in five minutes. Since my brain is skipping from thread to thread, I quickly move on.

A quick glance around the bank creators site shows me a cow bank and a football bank - Jake sticks to wanting a green pig, Alice thought the cow was cute but she’s becoming attached to the color pink in general so there was no changing her mind.

Still thinking I want to save on shipping, I go back to Google - maybe there is a site that has it offering free shipping or low shipping. Darn Amazon anyway.

Then I stumble upon a post on the financial blog Get Rich Slowly about this exact piggy bank. Reading the post is merely verifying my want of the piggy banks and I’m ready to click back and buy the banks, sucking up the shipping charge (and the crazy fact that I would be spending a chunk of change to teach my kids to save money). Then I read the words

(Of course, the truly frugal can accomplish the same thing with four canning jars.)

His parentheses; and the link goes to a flickr picture of three canning jars with a child’s handwriting indicating saving, spending and donate. It took searching and bouncing from site to site and my finger on the buy now button before I thought *duh I have old Ball Mason jars* - I can just use a few of them! A little while later and we went from this

to this on the dresser.

Save, Spend, Donate.

I stayed with green paper for Jake and pink for Alice, used stamps from Stampin’ Up to decorate the punched out circle and look at that - a three component piggy bank system. It’s about time I use the jars for something, as they haven’t moved since I put them up on the shelves. Their allowances start next week.

How does your brain work when searching for something?

I am trying to make a conscious effort to buy (or make!) handmade gifts for the holidays. I suppose there goes the idea of buying my Mom new dishes - maybe she can be the exception! Then again I could always look for someone who makes dishes…

There is a huge craft fair in our area in November and the beginning of December where I bought a few gifts last year. The local grocery store had coupons for a dollar off the entrance fee and I grabbed up a couple of them already. The fair is in our local coliseum and it is covered from inch to inch in booths - can you imagine the crafty goodness? Some things people were even creating in their booths - I love watching the process. We didn’t get to walk around the entire area last year as it was too big and I had the kids with me.

Check out BuyHandmade.org and pledge to buy handmade this holiday season. I’m taking a second look at my gift list now. A few things I’ve already planned to make and it’s just a couple of my nephews I need to think about. I’m sure I can find something boys would like! Oh and when I found this site earlier this week they were at about 280 people pledging, as of this post they are just over 1400!

The Halloween crafts, ideas, recipes and costumes are coming out of my ears. Seriously, I’ve never seen this many but then again I’ve never looked around like I have either.

My Paper Crane shared cat and pumpkin images - she made them initially for suckers but others turned them into a sort of banner. We had the neighbors over yesterday and made a few different things.

Here are Alice’s cut outs ~

She cut out two more sheets worth, having 18 total, and strung them together top to bottom. She did stick with the pumpkin/cat/pumpkin/cat pattern and attached them to each other with pink and blue brads. She’s very much into patterns and alternated the colors pink/blue/pink/blue. She was very happy with herself for sticking with it! I’d have a picture but it has disappeared to the abyss that is her room (I swear I didn’t think kids rooms could be that messy!).

But one of the neighbor girls made the same kind of top to bottom stringing, and her Mom attached the younger girls into a wreath. The kids all lasted cutting them out and then they were done. Course they had already cut out and put together a skeleton.

The skeleton is awesome - you can find it here at the Sewing Stars blog. We made four or five of them and they quickly were traded back and forth, then attached to the banners that were made. I’m going to hang the banner up tomorrow and have the kids make a few more skeletons and hang them in the window! I’m proud of us for doing these crafts, we usually don’t decorate for Halloween other then a few stuffed pumpkins we’ve had since Alice was a few months old.

I printed all of the things at home and did have to adjust my printing - the margins and the size of the file. My printing option (or maybe it’s my printer?) lets you adjust the image by 10% at a time. It was very easy though.

Technorati Tags: My Paper Crane, cat and pumpkin images, Sewing Stars blog, halloween crafts

So I had this idea - I’m going to go through all the pictures saved of my nephews when they were babies (I’m thinking of the two 8 year olds) and print them out. I probably won’t print all of them but just the ‘good’ ones and I’ll stick them in an album for Christmas. One nephew doesn’t have any pictures of himself as a baby and the other does, but these are pictures I took, and no one but the hard drive ghosts have seen them.

Then I found this ~ Blurb ~ from abby try again (she has a book ordered and they give you a preview link, check hers out if you are interested!). You can upload from Flickr (hhmm, I have a professional account, I can just upload all of my pictures of said nephews) and add text or whatnot from there. And the prices are definitely reasonable - considering I wouldn’t have to spend the time printing, yeah definitely reasonable.

These would be Christmas gifts and would you believe I already have five of seven done or bought for my nephews? Okay I counted two as ideas for these picture books, but that is a pretty good start considering it isn’t even Halloween yet.

Oh! And I could do a picture book of our old house! And one of here, someday. And the vacations we’ve been on. The possibilities!

I should just sell my photo printer, I’ve used it so few times (seriously, I’ve printed maybe six pictures). That’s just not right.

We went to a Barbie Island Princess birthday party today - it was so cute! I’ve never ordered any set for a birthday party and my neighbor found a pin the crown on the princess game, well it was a stick the crown since it used stickers. They also had a couple of craft kits to make necklaces and bracelets, everyone had a lot of fun with that.

The little girl loves the Disney Princesses so we found a purse and lip gloss pack for her. I figure all little girls that age (the same as Alice) like makeup and sure enough we were right on the money. All the kids had a good time. And since it was so girly, Chris took Jake and had a Daddy/Son day - they played miniature golf and ran to the grocery store to buy some treats.

Alice isn’t into Barbie yet, not really anyway. She likes the Groovy Girls (my personal favorite!) and plays dress up, plays with blocks and cars with Jake and isn’t really attached to any one thing. I hope that continues, I don’t know how to handle an obsession it seems some kids have with Barbie or other dolls.

So we have Barbie as The Island Princess and Groovy Girls - I suppose it is kind of even.

Oh and Alice drew a picture on the top part of the card for the little girl, when she opened the card she said “Oh wow Alice, I didn’t know you could draw so good!” Little kids are so funny.

I’ve been thinking about tattoos a lot lately. I think this has happened before but I can’t pinpoint when. It started a couple of months ago, and I can’t draw at all so all of my ideas are in my head. I think of the snake my Uncle has, but doesn’t talk about, and the partial initials my Dad has (he did it himself, in a class in school), and the elaborate sleeves a friend of ours has. I watch shows like Miami Ink and LA Ink and think of driving there to get a tattoo done by one of them.

I have a short stack of journals/notebooks (all designated to certain topics of course) and on top are a few blank moleskines - I need to just get a pencil and start sketching. Of course it won’t be perfect, but it’s not about perfection. It’s about expression and art and the love of whatever you are drawing.

I’m browsing craft blogs and came across an article at The Storque on Etsy about home made tattoos (really reminds me of my Dad’s initials on his hand). I have new colored pencils and a moleskine, I just need to do it. At least it will be a start.

I saved the picture after browsing tattoo art online - if it is yours please let me know and I’ll link it! I saved it because I like the bird, I’ve been attracted to sparrows lately.