How is it October in my Sweet Life?

My mind is realing at the fact that is October 17th…apply all the cliche’s here about how quickly time goes by! Time really does fly.
In some ways that is frustrating when I have so many things to get done in the day. I want to clone myself and send each of me to take on different aspects of my life just so I can keep up & do all things well. Working, Creating, Wife, Mom, Friend, Auntie, Sister…finding the balance. The sweet spot where everything just jives is a hard persuit.
In some ways it’s exciting that time is going by so quickly. It means we are getting closer to the holidays (my favorite time of year) and also closer to vacation which is 33 days away! We have planned for a year for this family vacation. It is a treat we are so excited to give my parents & siblings – perhaps once in a lifetime trip although I hope it spurs a tradition! I am so looking forward to boarding the big cruise ship and checking out of life for a solid week. Just pure relaxation and family time. It’s so needed right now. I live a sweet life and I don’t spend enough time savoring that so I hope time sloooowss down for our vacation so we have loonnng days to enjoy.
I did take some time this week to do some creating which re-juvenates me so much. Here is a layout about one of the sweetest parts of my life, my amazing husband. It’s hard to remember my life before him, we met & started dating when I was 17 years old – just babies! Now he turns 30 this week which is just crazy in my mind…again time flies. I wish him a very happy 30th and look forward to making more sweet memories in years and years to come. XOXO

Me with my basket of sweetness & the Pink Paislee owner Rebecca




Back to my layout, which I couldn’t share without talking about the awesome product. 99% of the goodness I used for this page is Pink Pailee’s Sweetness line. It is a non-traditional mix of colors in a line about love & valentine’s day. There are amazing rub ons, papers, & stickers to coordinate. And guess what??? I WON ALL THE PRODUCT! I was the very lucky recipient of a HUGE Pink Paislee prize basket at fun scrappin’ event. Our LSS, Signed, Sealed & Delivered brought in Rebecca Cross who is the founder & owner of Pink Paislee to teach for a day. We all got tons of product for the great classes she taught and then to win was just the icing on the cake. Stick a fork in me I am done! She’s amazing… the entire day was amazing and getting to create with heaps of free scrappin’ product is amazing. Another sweet spot in my life this week

Echo Park Paper

I think I have mentioned on the blog previous how blown away by Echo Park Paper's entry into the scrapbooking world. Now I wanted to share that you can get them for 20% off MSRP from 2Katie Designs. Please visit our blog at www.2katiedesigns.com/blog for details.

I am working on designing a mini album kit with their Summertime line that is full of pinwheels and bright colors which provide plenty of inspiration for summer fun photos calling to be scrapbooked. Anyway, busy busy bee here so I am off and running but wanted to share of few pics of our summer which is gardening, grilling and SMORES!

Graduation Album

So I have the best 5 year old neice the world can offer. She is a living, breathing, walking, TALKING - miracle and I love her to peices. The little diva  graduated from her pre-K program a couple weeks back and as a gift I decided to create an album of some of my favorite photos of her along with quotes. I think it turned out pretty cute. I used a lot of sparkly paper with flowers and girlie stuff because that's what a princess would want!

For Blaklie's miracle story you can view the link below too. HAVE tissues handy!

Blaklie's Miracle on Video

Teacher Appreciation

The end of the school year is just a few days away and I haven't gotten to share the exciting goodies we gave as gifts to Kaia's teacher and staff on Teacher Appreciate a few weeks back.

They are too stunning not to share. My friend Becky who is an artist of everything baked was given the simple request to create something Chinese themed (to coordinate with the theme of the week at school). This is what she came up with! Over the top fortune cookies, personalize with my daughters names and other cupcakes that looked like chow mein and lo mein - it's kind of a mind freak!

I also just wanted to share a few photos from the actual luncheon set up for the staff which also reflected the Chinese theme. I can't take credit for any of it, just that I got to help set up which was fun. We have great teachers & staff along with very hard working volunteers at Elm Tree.

Toilet Paper Crtafts

So maybe this is taking the whole up-cycling / receycling thing too far but interesting nonetheless. Us crazy scrappers are making use of what normaly would be disposed in the weekly trash pick up - empty toilet paper rolls. I have seen these rolls transformed into gift card holders, mini albums, seasonal decor and more.

Well now the joke is on me, because it turns out there are very fun to make...photos of my own toilet paper projects coming soon!

I am entering it in toilet paper roll mini album contest on http://www.scrapbook-crazy.com/ so wish me luck!

Feels like summer

Arkansas weather feels like we are just on the edge of summer. The season I love the most!

I love no school, which equallys sleeping in!

I love a sweating kiddo

I love big sunglasses and sunscreen

I love afternoons splashing in the pool & the smell of chlorine

I love having time to read (currently enjoying Jodi Picoult's "19 Minutes")

I love Watermelon and BBQ's

I love NO agendas, NO activities, NO sporting events

I love watching her jump in the sprinkler & eating popsicles

We are right there, so close! A few more weeks of school then we are home free. Awe

Of course we have to scrapbook all those amazing summer moments as well! I LOVE bright colors for summer and I have a few favorites I can't wait to use, they are really just screaming to have photos on them of swimsuits, beaches, big sunglasses and kite flying.

The first is from a new company Echo Park Paper Company. Summertime is their first and only line released so far and they have my mouth watering as to just what they will put out next. It is very bright and great for boys or girls. It features a lot of banners which are the "it" thing right now too.

The second is from October Afternoon and it's called "Fly a Kite". It is more muted but still summer ready and very kitchy which is totally cute. Good for far more than kite flying pics.

As soon as I get my pics on this paper I will share! Happy Scrapping.

Do over

Do you ever wish for a do over with your life?

Wonder how you go to the place you are today?

I suppose everyone's life is different from how they invisioned it in some ways. I have just been wondering lately about the little descisions we make along the way that lead to massive impacts to our life path. Sometimes I wish I could go back to those moments and take a mullegan. A do over.

But then, what would I have missed?

Maybe it's like trying to "have your cake and eat it too" or "the grass is always greener on the other side".

I'm not saying I don't love my life. I have so many blessings.

Today I feel like it is me I don't like. That the events and choices along the way shaped me into something I don't want to be.

Strange.

I am a perfectionist, a very driven people pleaser who doesn't want to let anyone down. Doesn't want to fall short of someone's expectionations of me. Riggid. Hard. Wants to climb the ladder, achieve and conquer everything. Passionate. Smiling with a heavy spirit, because it is again what is expected. A care-taker. But that's not the me I was always going to be.

Is this me? Or did the me I could have been get squeezed out, squashed by those little choices I have made. Little by little until me wasn't me anymore. I don't feel like I'm a fake person. I just feel like I am not me...the me I am supposed to be.

I think the real me was supposed to be free. Passionate. A creative spirit without limitations and bounds. Smiling from a deep and light place. A dreamer. Unaffected by the pressure of society & life. Someone who loved like crazy, like it was the only thing that mattered. Because it is.

Maybe I need little of both "me's". I need to become the me I want to be.

I want a tomorrow that doesn't look like yesterday. So what are you going to do? When the rubber meets the road Katie, when you can't have a do over and things are what they are?

Are you going to fight like hell for everything that matters? Give up everything that doesn't? Do something drastic, or stay static?

2Katie Designs

Chances are if you know me, you know my BFF Katie Tillman as well. Call us Thelma and Louise, Twiddle Dee and Twiddle Dumb, Thing 1 and Thing 2, Dumb & Dumber...you get the point. When you get one, most of the time you get the other too. We work together professionally, our families hang out together, we scrapbooking together and now after years of dreaming and discussing we are entrepreneurs together with the birth of 2Katie Designs. Our friendship began with scrapbooking and I can't wait to see where it takes us in this new venture.

We didn't start this business because we think we are rock stars (that's just fact -j!), but because we see a lack of class options and scrapbooking events in our area of the woods. We hope to share or love and cultivate more scrapbookers to get into the hobby. It's a hobby that records our families legacy and it's an awesome creative outlet for us.

The business side of things has taken weeks but it feels good to be official and actually teaching our "students". We are glad to have all of you along for the ride with us. Join is at www.facebook.com/2katiedesigns or at http://www.2katiedesigns.com/.

Mother’s Day

Do you here the angels doing an AAAAWWWWWW from heaven? They are at my house. A day just for me!!! And all the other Mama’s out there too I suppose. One of the things I wanted most for Mother’s Day was help cleaning the house – not the “picking up” kind of clean but the scrubbing, organizing, nitty gritty cleaning kind of help. Since I have gone to working more full time it is hard to manage this task. So Jon and Kaia chipped in. Kaia made my little heart flutter by organizing my shoes for me. This is the perfect task for her Obsessive Compulsiveness. All my shoes are perfectly stacked, matched and clipped together with clothespins. It is fun for her to tackle the task and I get to reap the benefits…I promise to try to keep up with it Kai!

I love this girl, and being her mommy is the joy of my life. She is growing up before my eyes, changing everyday. I love who she is – a creative, direct, unconventional, animal loving, sweet child.

Pink Hair

Pink Hair
…yes I colored my hair pink. Well I added hot pink Peekaboo highlights in a few select locations on my head. I guess I am known to drastically change my hair from season to season but this is a new one for me. I needed to embrace my fleeting youth I suppose and what better way that to do something pure fun! So I chopped it off into a cutie bob, went blond and added the pink.
I am also still playing with making different hair things and such. As you can see I made this LARGE flower for my hair and put in on a ribbon. I wore it to a scrapbooking class I was teaching since our colors are black and white and teal so it went perfectly. Makes me smile.

Foods I love

It’s no new news that I am a foodie. I love all sorts of foods – included in my hobbies are cooking, entertaining & trying new restaraunts so I thought it time to share some of those favorites…drum roll please. Now Katie’s top fav foods (from restaraunts) in no particular order please.
Salt & lime Chips, Table Mesa, Bentonville
Pork Carnitas with Pineapple Pico, Table Mesa, Bentonville
Bread Pudding, Famous Dave’s, Rogers
Fried Bowtie pasta & Spinach dip, Copeland’s, Rogers
Street Tacos, Yolos, Las Vegas
Spanish Fried w/ Onions & Jalapenos (w/ Ranch) , Ron’s, Bentonville
Tamale Cakes, Cheesecake Factory
Sticky Rice with Coconut Ice Cream & Mangos, Taste of Tai, Bentonville
Mongolian Beef, PF Chang’s
Cotton Candy Ice Cream with Reesies pieces

Things I love

In trying to practice an attitude of more gratitude I have been pondering a lot on the things I love. Here are some of my favorites. Sorta my verion of Oprah's favorite things, except I am not giving any of them away : (

[caption id="attachment_305" align="aligncenter" width="140" caption="Twilight Anything"][/caption]

[caption id="attachment_306" align="aligncenter" width="150" caption="The colors Teal & Yellow"][/caption]

 

[caption id="attachment_307" align="aligncenter" width="132" caption="The number 13"][/caption]

[caption id="attachment_308" align="aligncenter" width="101" caption="Hair accessories from flowers to feathers."][/caption]

[caption id="attachment_309" align="aligncenter" width="127" caption="'nough said"][/caption]

[caption id="attachment_310" align="aligncenter" width="116" caption="All things vintage"][/caption]

[caption id="attachment_311" align="aligncenter" width="116" caption="Hobo International Wallets, Lauren Style"][/caption]

 

[caption id="attachment_312" align="aligncenter" width="128" caption="Cupcakes!"][/caption]

[caption id="attachment_313" align="aligncenter" width="116" caption="Coffee with too much Vanilla Creamer"][/caption]

 

[caption id="attachment_314" align="aligncenter" width="115" caption="Bare Minerals Make up"][/caption]

[caption id="attachment_315" align="aligncenter" width="104" caption="Pedicured Toes"][/caption]

[caption id="attachment_316" align="aligncenter" width="81" caption="Hollister So Cal scent...yummy"][/caption]

[caption id="attachment_317" align="aligncenter" width="107" caption="A good book (especially on a plane trip)"][/caption]

Easter

All the Easter fun has come and gone but I would still like to share. A few of the things that made Easter great for me this year.

Decorating...I had so much fun bringing "Spring" into our new house. Literaly there was snow on the ground and I was willing Spring to Spring already with all the bright colors and decor. I couldn't take another flake falling from the sky. Here are some of my favorite Easter decor ideas.

Of course we also colored eggs which is in everyone's Easter traditions I think. We chose a tye die kit since Kaia is almost 9 she can handle something a little more advanced. Well it wasn't a "kit" really just a few baggies to put the eggs in to smear around the color but we still had a great time even though we had egg dye stains on our hands for 2 days afterwards.

We also had perfect weather on Easter Day and it was a great day to be our on the McMullen "farm". Kaia and all her cousins had an egg hunt with more eggs than they could fit into their baskets! Great food, family and fun sums it all up! We even enjoyed a walk down to the creek and saw some of the new critters on the farm.