Wishing my life away

I've found myself wishing the days away this week. You see, it's almost spring break! We are taking the girls on a 7 day cruise and I'm so freakin' excited. I'm not sure if it's the whole being away from work thing, or the no housework or cooking for a week thing...but I really can't wait. It's like being a kid a Christmas time all over again. Makes concentrating at work really hard.

I've been spending my time at Cruise Critic reading the boards for ideas and getting to know some of our fellow passengers. If you are planning on going on a cruise, Cruise Critic is an awesome site to visit before you book and then while you are waiting to cruise - careful, it's addicting!

In between now and our vacation departure it's field trip season. Katie has 3 field trips in the next week and a half. Each one requires her to be at school early or for me to drive her, plus world drum practice every Monday. She's getting to the age where I'm becoming a professional driver for her. (Well, minus the sparkling clean car and drinks and snacks - he,he). I can't believe she is in 5th grade - graduating from Elementary school. Where do the years go? (apparently with me wishing my life away to get to my next cruise)

So in between doing piles of laundry, driving kids, going to work, making dinner, yadda, yadda, yadda - I got some scrapping done this week. Here are a couple of layouts done with some new releases at the Digichick (coming tomorrow, April 1st).

Pool Fun - featuring Seasons of Change by Karen Lewis and an awesome new template pack by Nikki Epperson


Birthday Girl - featuring Cuppycakes by Jennifer Fox and that adorable alpha is by Sarah J - who I am so glad is back at The Digichick!


Stay tuned folks! If you haven't voted on your favorite Hybrid Project for Kelleigh Ratzlaff's Blog Hop then see the post below - hop along to all the blogs and vote for your favorite project. You could win $10 to Kelleigh's store.

I've got a few new Traci Reed hybrid projects coming up next week for you. Off to search for some inspiration. Have a great day!

Blog Hop Monday!

It's super, hybrid blog hop day! So if you are in the mood for a ton of great hybrid ideas using Kelleigh Ratzlaff Designs' fabulous templates you are in for a great day. Grab a cup of coffee and come hop along! Did I mention there's a prize? Make sure you hop to Kelleigh's blog and comment on which of the projects you liked the best (vote for me!). You can win a gift card to Kelleigh's store at the Digichick and I could win too!

My project features Kelleigh's Toolbox Template (The Digichick) turned into a makeup box party favor. I mixed it up a bit and made it all girly!


I used Traci Reed's and Meghan Mullen's Girl's Day Out (Sweet Shoppe) kit to decorate the box. To make this easier on me - I opened Kelleigh's template in Photoshop Elements and colored the box black. To figure out how big to make each of the paper pieces I used the shape tool to make a template for each section by making the box just smaller than the actual box. I then moved all the pieces to a printing sheet. I printed on glossy presentation paper and trimmed. I pasted the decorative pieces on to the box before assembly (makes things much easier!!! I added a simple ribbon handle, a button and some little bows on the side to make this extra girly. What little girl wouldn't love this as a birthday favor??

For the invite I used my Cricut to cut the 4" scalloped paper for the background. Everything else was done in Elements.

Here's a few close up shots for you.




For more awesome hybrid ideas hop along and check out a few more cool projects on the blogs below.
Kelleigh
Tracy
Sally
Laura
Julie
Christy
Dana
LuAnn
Jacinda
Viva
Dalis
Holly
Sharyn
Karen Lewis
Linda
Alice
Meg
Sunghee
Carolina
Debbie
Kim

Have fun hopping! Oh yeah and as a bonus for my readers today....come check out my post on Eva Kipler's Blog for a step by step on how to make this adorable Chick Candy Dispenser using another of Kelleigh's rocking templates!