BUSY BEE

I have been so busy the last few days! Rob and I have been trying to figure out if we want to rent again or buy a house or condo so we do not have to move again. We have moved 5 times in the last 5 years! Some would say "that is crazy" and I am starting to agree. I hate moving!!
We have a realtor that has been trying to get us to buy a house for almost 2 years now. He has been hard at work finding us places to look at. Rob is pretty strict about where he wants to live. It can't be too far away from the boy's school and his work, it can't be too old, and it can't be in a crappy area! Well...that does not leave us very many choices! I would be perfectly happy just buying a nice condo or townhouse, but he says that is our last resort. Houses here in Colorado are very pricey compared to Washington where we had our last house. The house we used to own would be worth over $200,000 here and we only paid just under $100,000 for it 10 years ago!
So I have been trying to get all the paperwork together that the lender needs to get us pre- qualified. Plus I have been going through boxes to start getting rid of stuff that I just dont have the energy to move again! I figure if we have not used it in the last year than we most likely do not need to keep it! The less crap we have to move the better!

Website Down

Well I decided to close the website part of ScrappersBuzz.com. I still own the name and you can still purchase cards from my store at :http://scrappersbuzz.ecrater.com/. I am a bit bummed about closing the website, but am still excited that I can keep my store open and sell to all you wonderful people! You just have to put in the above link to get to the store! I will be updating it soon with all new cards!

Plus you can always contact me through my blog and through the store itself if you have any questions!

Thanks for all your support!

BUMMED

So I get this phone call from my hubby today, and he tells me "I have good news and bad news". In today's economy my mind automatically went right to "oh crap he got fired"! Luckily that was not it! He proceeds to tell me that our Landlord will be putting the house we live in on the market to be sold. Now normally this would not be a big deal to most people. However, it kinda sucks for us right now. Here is the story!

About a year ago our landlord who happens to be an employee of Rob's (my hubby) asked us if we would like to move into the house that she grew up in. Her brother had passed away a few months earlier and they needed someone to live in the house until they put it on the market. She told us she would give us a year to live there or however long after the year was up and it sold (so we knew we would be moving again soon). Anyway the cool part was that we only had to pay $225 a month in rent plus utilities (we were paying $900 a month plus utilities). We thought how cool is that we could get some of our bills paid off and be in great shape in a year! Well life happened as it always does and we have not gotten as far as we thought we would. We did pay off a few things but we still have nothing in savings. Now comes the hard part of finding a place to rent that has 3 or 4 bedrooms , allows pets, kids, and is cheap enough for us to afford! We should be used to this, we have moved 45 times in the last 5 years. My sister calls us NOMADS!!

So I am told that they will start this house out at $500,000. It is an old house (about 80 years old). It is not in the best of shape but the property is worth $400,000 alone and that does not include the house. I am sure that someone will buy this place pretty quickly being that it is lake front property. There is a guy in the area who has asked me twice when she will be selling so I know he will be the first to jump at the chance once it goes on market. The good news part of the phone call was that she is willing to sell it to us for $400,000! I just laughed and told him that was not good news, but it was funny!

I have to say that we are truely thankful for everything that her and her family have done for us. We are blessed to have them in our lives and think of them as family!

JEEPIN IN THE ROCKIES!!

Here are a few pictures of a layout that I did after my first trip in the mountains to watch the Jeep races!

It is the coolest thing I have ever seen. My hubby and I are huge Jeep fan's. We used to own one and loved it, so when I heard that they do this on the frozen lake I had to go see for myself. "SWEET" is all I could say.

I was standing there watching these guys and gals race there Jeep all over the lake, until I realized I was standing on the middle of the lake. Freaked me out a bit so I had to go onto the shore and watch from there..LOL

It is crazy, they drive there HUGE trailers onto the lake and park...did I mention it is ON THE LAKE!!

Sorry that some of the pictures are a bit blurry, my camera is on it's last leg!

SWEET

Hello Everyone!

Well I got a scrapbook bug again today so I decided to make a layout. I got the inspiration from Lynn again. I came across this picture of Andrew and my sweet Baxter and knew exactly what I was going to do with it.

The butterfly pen work was done with my Pazzles Inspiration and then cut with it also. The title and background paper was also cut with my Pazzles.

I recently "found" Stickles....oh my word I am in LOVE!! I have used glitter glue before on many layouts but Stickles is so much better than regular glitter glue. It is not watery or runny like the cheap stuff. And the Colors...oh the colors! I get a smile on my face when I look at them!

Anyway! Thanks for looking, feel free to leave a comment!

~Enjoy~

EASTER SQUASH BOOK

So I have been busy this weekend making layouts and what nots!

This is a SQUASH BOOK that I made. I got the idea from my friend Dawn. She is Awesome and makes great stuff!

I have not added any pictures yet (not sure if I will use it for last year or this year yet!) Either way I LOVE IT!

~ Enjoy~

VALENTINES DAY

Here is a layout that I did for Andrew's Valentines Day Party at school. He had such a fun time and everyone loved the treat bags that I made. I had to warn them several times that the heart crayons were not food!! Didn't want any cranky parents calling me!

MATCHBOXES

How fun are these cute little guys??

On one of my Yahoo groups someone shared a file to make these cute little Matchboxes using your Pazzles Inspiration! I had to try it. The best part is that you can resize it to make them a bit bigger or smaller if you want.

I ended up making 21 of them with this sweet Valentines Day paper and putting them in the goody bags for my son's school party.

Thanks for sharing the file!

~Love it~

SURGERY CANCELED!

Well it looks like I will have to wait a bit longer for my surgery. My doctor just called to tell me that he has had an emergency come into the hospital tonight (someone broke their back) and he will be working on that person all night. He does not feel like he will be in any condition to try and work on me in the morning. Then he will be out of town for 3 weeks so he has moved my surgery date to March 9th.
I am a bit bummed! But I am sure the person laying on the table right now needs him more than I do! So please say a prayer for that person.

LAST MINUTE DETAILS

Hello everyone~
Well I am running around trying to get everything done before my surgery tomorrow. Cleaning the house is the big issue for me. I hate to come home and have my house all icky! Of course I will be gone for 3 days so who knows what it will look like when I get back. All this work may be for nothing but at least I will know that it WAS clean.

I am pretty sure I have enough groceries for at least a few days. I am leaving the boys to their own devices when it comes to cooking. Rob knows that it will not be all take out or I will beat him...LOL!

I still have to help Andrew fill out his Valentines Day cards for his class and put the little gift bags together. That should be an all day process since he only likes to buy the cards not fill them out.

My mind is in a good spot finally about the surgery. I started to question whether I really needed the surgey because my neck has not been hurting much for 2 weeks now. Rob pointed out that I really have not been doing anything during that time, just kinda laying around taking it easy. Then last night while at my sister house it started hurting a bit and I remembered why I was doing this. Silly I know! I guess I will try to "enjoy" my time by myself while in the hospital, if that is even possible!

I have been asked by several people to post an email or note on my blog once I am feeling up to it to let everyone know how everything is going after surgery. I will either do it myself or have my hubby do it.

I would just like to say thank you for all your continued support and prayers through all of this. I will be taking all of it with me into surgey! So thanks for that! So I guess that is it for now! Take care and I will post again soon!

SIXTEEN

I can not believe my baby is SIXTEEN! It seems like just yesterday I was holding him in my arms! He is growing into such a WONDERFUL young man! He is mature for his age (most days) and just the sweetest kid I have ever met!
I took this picture right after he opened his new X-Box 360. He is the type of kid that when you ask him what he wants for his birthday, he can not tell you anything he wants or needs. So this year when we asked he said he wanted an X-Box 360. My husband was so floored that he went online and bought it that night. When it showed up at the door Andrew was home so we had to swear him to secrecy that he would not spoil the secret. For a 7 year old it was TORTURE!! My hubby finally gave into his own squirms and gave it to Nathan a week early! I just laughed!
I got the idea for this page from Lynn at Prettypaperswirls.blogspot.com! Her work is FABULOUS!
HAPPY BIRTHDAY NATHAN!!

HEART CRAYONS

So I was told about this great idea for kids to make their own heart shaped crayons so of course I had to try it out! With Valentines Day just around the corner I set out to make these with Andrew. I went to Target today and found those silicone heart shaped muffin tins (if you will), only $2.50 each one that makes 6 . Then they had some really cute cello bags with hearts all over them for $1.00. So I got two bags so I could put my crayons in them when done. I then went home and we peeled a bunch of crayons and cut them up and put them into the pans. We cooked them at 350 degrees for about 7 minutes and let them cool....walla! Aren't they cute and so colorful! I sure hope the kids like them.
Unfortunately I ended up almost cutting off the tip of my finger in the process. I finally got it to stop bleeding so I guess I don't need stitches!!
I guess the saying a little blood, sweat and tears fits here...LOL
~Enjoy~

LOGO KEYCHAIN

This is a key chain that I made with my ScrappersBuzz Logo on it. It is a bit worn down from being rubber by my keys in my purse but it is still pretty cute! I used Shrinky Dink, my Pazzles Inspiration, colored pencils and Slick Writers markers to make it.

It is very simple to do. Here is what I did: load your Shrinky Dink into your Pazzles machine. Select an image that you want the machine to draw for you. Make sure to size your image 3 times the size you want the finished project to be (remember it is gonna shrink when you heat it). Put your pen tool in (where your blade usually goes). Hit the "Cut Project" button. In the cutting panel select "DRAW" in the select your media box. Then hit "cut project" button. This will now draw your image onto your shrinky dink. Once it is finished drawing your image take your pen tool out and replace with your cutting blade, put your media type to "Pazzles sheet plastic" in the select your media box and select only the outside line for cutting (in this case I had a circle that was my outside line). Then hit the "Cut Project " button and let it cut. Once you get it cut then you want to color in your image using colored pencils or markers. Punch your hole in the top where your ring will go (remember use a larger hole punch.. it will shrink). Then I put my cut image on a tin foil covered piece of cardboard and used my heat gun tool to shrink it down. And that is it!! Oh I also added some glass effects to the back of it once it was cool so my colored pencil would not rub off over time.

~Enjoy~

IT IS TIME

It has been almost 6 years since my parents passed away! I am finally strong enough to start an album from their funerals. I have tried so many times to do this and just could not mentally bring myself to look at the pictures or think those thoughts. A few days ago I was sitting in my craft room and it hit me...IT IS TIME. I opened the box with the pictures form the funeral and reception and just got to work. I admit they are very simple layouts and there is no journaling on them at all, but I feel that it isn't needed. I will still do individual pages of their lives or pages of my greatest memories of them, but this is a start.

FUN CARD

This is such a fun card to make. I have seen them online several times and finally decided to try my hand at it. I think it turned out pretty good. I asked my hubby what he thought about it and he said " looks like booby's" so I am guessing that I must have made it correctly...LOL!

~Thanks for looking~

SHHH...FOR ROB

SHHH...don't tell Rob but this is the card that I made for him for Valentines Day! I got the idea from a site that I frequent..Thanks Dawn!! I of course made a cutting file on my Pazzles so that I don't have to cut each piece by hand. It is a fun card to make and I am sure that I will make a bunch of different ones later.
Thanks for looking!

ONLY 6 DAYS TO GO!

Hello everyone~ I hope everyone is having a great Tuesday!
So I had my Pre-Op appointment today. All went pretty well, they asked all the usual questions and took a boat-load of blood! I paid for the surgery and have all the instructions that I will need to get me through Sunday night and into Monday morning.
I had to have a talk with Andrew today to explain to him that my surgery is on Monday and I wont be coming home until Wednesday. He of course asked why that was and I told him that the doctors need to make sure that I am feeling better before they will send me home. I don't want him to think that something went wrong when I don't come home Monday night. I am sure he will want to call and talk which is perfectly OK with me!
So I ask for prayers for me, my surgeons and my family! And I thank you for all your support through all of this!