I started this post last night but couldn’t get the random generator site to work. Fell asleep trying after midnight so happy belated Valentine’s day to everyone. Hope you spent it with your sweethearts. :) We finally went to see Fool’s Gold which was pretty good.

So I finally did get the random number site to work this morning (do people pay $60 for the deluxe version of that just for blog giveaways??) Anyway, I couldn’t decide whether to count starting first with the design blog or with the personal blog so I lucked out and the number that came up was low enough that I could pick one from each. :)

So the winners are Danielle from the comments on this blog. I’d already done a blog for but she’s got a new etsy shop so I’ll get her all hooked up with links and titles for that. Danielle, email me your new phone # and I’ll give you a call this weekend because I don’t think my emails are getting through to you lately. :)

And the winner from the design blog is Shawna Taylor. :) Congratulations!! Shawna, I’ll email you later today to find out which kit you’d like me to use. :)

Thanks so much everyone for the sweet comments and for entering the drawing. I’m still recovering from being computer-less for over a week and now starting full time work hours next week but I’m trying to respond by email to as many comments as possible. I appreciate the encouragement so much though. Really some days are great and I’m sure someday I’ll look back and understand the big picture better. Hopefully sooner rather than later. :)

So I haven’t posted much specifically here on this blog other than mentioning ‘my sweetheart’ here and there and he’s made a few sneaky guest appearances but I always get questions asking who this mystery guy is. I figured it’s about time I dedicate a post and thought what better timing than valentine’s (or the day after)?! :)

So this is the guy who has ALL of my heart.

He’s my once in a lifetime true love. I know without a doubt that he’s who I’m meant to spend the rest of my life with. I can’t wait to experience new things with him, travel to new places and just do the normal everyday things like fighting over who took the garbage out last. I will never take him for granted.

He’s my soulmate, my photographer, the greatest shopper in the world. :)

These scrapbook pages aren’t anything new (I haven’t scrapped in at least 6 months) but I’ve never shared them here on the blog. There are more but I won’t bombard you. If you want to see them you can check ‘em out here.

I haven’t gotten any of these notes in at least a couple weeks now *hint hint*. ;) But he’s a total gentleman. Seriously, the first time he got me a pop and took the cap off before handing it to me I think I totally melted. Who does that?! It’s the little things that are the big things after all, right? :)

Isn’t he perfect?! I’m pretty lucky. He’s a keeper. :) I love you babe. *muah*

In completely unrelated news, my sister Kimberly had her baby this morning. I got to see her at lunch and she’s absolutely adorable. I got pictures but I’m at work and don’t have a cord to transfer them but I’ll be back probably later tonight to post one or two. :)

Kay, gotta wrap things up for the day. Busy weekend of catch-up ahead and hopefully another trip to see my niece squeezed in there. Thanks for the warm welcome back to blog world. I really did miss it and hope to do much better at popping in now and then. Although hopefully with a little shorter posts. LOL

Happy belated Valentine’s Day and hope everyone has a great weekend!

First of all, thank you for all the incredibly sweet comments on my last post. I really do have the best friends in the world. I took a little break from the designing yesterday afternoon to watch some football games over lunch and do some retail therapy. Someone spoiled me and hopefully if we get some photos this week I’ll actually be wearing something different in them for once. I think someone may have been getting tired of seeing the same 3 outfits on rotation. :) He walked out empty handed though so we may need to plan a little day trip here, maybe on the way to some therapy of this sort?? We’ll see. A road trip would be good. That’s what finally gave me the breakthrough on Maegan’s blog design so maybe it would help with a couple that I’m stuck on at the moment.

As promised, a little video of Pixel and her best bud Murphy. I hung out with them Friday night for a bit while Nikki was working. They’re really quite hilarious together as you can see…

click here to see the video

Does that count for a Pixel update? Trying to check some things off that list a couple posts back. :)

And my to-do list for the week.

I used the template I’d made awhile back along with some Leora papers and goodies by Gina, Jackie, Shabby Miss Jenn, Natalie and Jennifer.

Havin’ a really hard time juggling everything lately so hopefully this will help. I’m finding when I let other priorities slip that my creativity seems to go downhill too so maybe keeping things balanced better will make me more productive in the blog design area. Right now I’m spending far too much time ’stuck’ on designs and I really think it’s because I’m trying too hard. Now if I just need to step away from the laptop for a bit and refocus I’ll have this pretty list of things to remind me what else I need to be taking care of. :)

I know I’ve posted the template before but I tweaked it a bit while I was making this list so if you didn’t get a copy earlier or you’d like the new (hopefully improved) version you can download it here. I don’t claim to be a template designer and it would probably help if I used more templates for my own scrapping. In fact, if I did I could probably even add a little bit of scrapping for myself on that to-do list huh?! :)

Oh, and did anyone else watch the Sound of Music last night on tv? Well, if you missed it it’s on again tonight. I have the DVD but somehow there’s just something nostalgic about watching it when it’s on tv. It’s quite possibly my very favorite movie as you can maybe gather from my blog banner (which is WAY overdue for a rehaul). I put a little Sound of Music playlist on the blogpod for your listening enjoyment. :)

Kay, off to get ready for church. Then a full two days of blog designing with a little house cleaning thrown in here and there. Maybe a walk with Pixel. An episode of Big Brother tonight. Back to work on Tuesday, dinner at my favorite restaurant before they close for the season and ice cream at Charlie’s.

I’ll try and pop in here again before then with a couple more new blog links and that recipe I promised (if you can really call it that).

Hope everyone is enjoying their holiday weekend so far.

You ever have that when you go to the mall with a couple hundred bucks in your pocket and you can’t find a single thing that says ‘take me home’? And then the opposite is true when you go with a friend to shop and don’t have a dime to spend on yourself but you find the greatest shoes or the coolest t-shirt that’s just so perfectly you. I haven’t been to the mall in a long time but I’m finding the same scenario to be true online lately. So I figure I’ll just be an enabler for those of you with a little extra money burnin’ a hole in your pockets. If you don’t have money to spend you may want to stop scrolling down right about now ‘cuz you will find like me that you almost NEED to have these items, I’m sure of it. First I stumbled across a blog (an evil evil blog although I can’t remember who’s it was anymore) that mentioned Sarah Jessica Parker’s new line at Steve & Barry’s. Like these little numbers…

Those prices, believe it or not, are for the entire outfit. Can’t really beat that.

And tonight I got an email from Max Studio. I don’t know why I even open these things. Is this not the perfect summer dress?!?!

And there were about 6 other great combos in this collection. I can totally see these working right into fall with a cute matching cardigan.

There there’s 2 perfect jewelry pieces. I’ve been wanting a skeleton key necklace and this one has a little added vintage sparkle to it. And then what’s not to love about Amy Butler fabric combined in a soldered pendant and does anyone else notice how PERFECTLY it would go with that brown and green dress above?!

And in the digi-scrapping world…

Amy’s Ribbon Flowers                   Kylie’s Sparkle-Arkle Vellum Alpha

Amanda’s Threaded Petals             Marcie’s Curled Cardboard Pockets

Weeds & Wildflowers Doodling Days #1: Curled Alpha

Fun stuff. I did pick up this free kit at 2 Peas. I think it’s their best freebie offered so far. If you haven’t gotten it yet definitely check it out. :)

Oh, and I thought I would share a little secret about a LO that I posted recently. I got a number of comments on my ‘creative’ use of Natalie’s ribbons with Nancy’s new comic frames and I have to come clean and admit that the idea behind using the ribbon that way was born of necessity more so than creativity. The photo I wanted to use in the top section of the frame wasn’t wide enough to fit properly so I decided that if I could find something to cover at least a section of that frame I could clone trees from the left side of the photo and extend it enough to make it look as if the photo was much wider than it was in reality. And by golly if Natalie’s ribbon didn’t work perfectly to accomplish what I was trying to do. :) You can check out the original photo here.

So that’s the real truth. Creativity born out of necessity. Does that still count for creativity?? Anyway, I guess that’s more of a tip than a tutorial. If anyone’s unfamiliar with the clone tool and wants a little lesson in that I can see if I can put together something more tutorial like. Just holler. :)

Oooh, one more bit of enabling speaking of Nancy. As I was looking for links to the comic frames I noticed that her newest paper pack is up at the Lilypad. The texture on these is gorgeous. I’m lucky enough to get to play with them a little in advance and I’m working on a LO that I’ll hopefully finish later today with the fabulous cardboard included in this pack. Looks like she’s got it marked down at least for today so check it out.

Thanks to my new favorite software you can click on the preview above to get right to the Lilypad to buy this. Never could figure that out before. Not sure I’ll ever wanna blog without this software anymore.  This whole post (which I realize is insanely long) would’ve taken me hours to do without it.

Kay, gotta finish getting ready for Jill to come over. Been feelin’ a little (read a lot) lonely in this apartment lately and she decided to spend part of her 4th of July holiday with ME. She’s picking up bagels on the way and then we’ll be workin’ on Eclectic Whimsy stuff for awhile. Other than that have a quiet day planned. Hopin’ to do some more sewing in the studio and scrap a page or two. Maybe a nice long walk with Pixel (and the camera). Hope everyone else is enjoying a nice holiday with your families.