Scrap with Me- Inspiration at And Something More

May is "Help Whip Cancer" Month

 As some of you may know, I am also a Pampered Chef consultant. Every May Pampered Chef runs their "Help Whip Cancer" Campaign. This year this campaign means more to me than it ever could. My Brother in laws sister, Shelly Bovee, is battling breast Cancer. Read Shelly's Story here

Not only are our friends and family who have been diagnosed with cancer accumulating high doctor bills for treatments, but when they are unable to work they are also faced with paying their everyday bills, their mortgages, food bills and utilities.  Of course we all want to do everything we can to help.

Here is what I am going to do, I am going to be donating my earnings from Pampered Chef to help Shelly. Please help me do this by purchasing our wonderful Pampered Chef products.

You can have a party and earn free product for yourself or just make a purchase for yourself from my Website. During May Pampered Chef has exclusive items available only this month that Pampered Chef will donate portions of the sales to the help cancer research.

When your local Scrapbok store closes

I walked into Scrapbook Boulevard yesterday to pick up some things, and I was caught off guard by the Store closeout sign. I looked at it for a minute trying to absorb what I was reading. "All sales final, 25% off everything." I then noticed how empty the shelves were through out the store. I wanted to cry.  This was more than just a store I bought my scrapbook supplies from, they knew me by name, I knew their names, I took classes, learned things, attended crops, had laughs and made friends.

I felt knumb as I walked through the store putting things in my basket. It wasn't just that I didn't have a place to buy my product from, I have an online store for pete sakes. It was losing something that had become a constant in my life. A place to walk in and destress, it was therapy.

Local scrapbook stores offer us something online stores can't; atmosphere, face to face customer service. Don't get me wrong, online stores have advantages too. Lower overhead which makes the product cheaper most of the time, they can carry a larger inventory and most have online communities. But sometimes you don't want to live in the cyber world, you want to have hands on instruction and sit next to a warm body.

There are few more crops before the close date, I will attend and I will take pictures. I hope the economy picks up, after all people still need to preserve their memories, I just never thought I would now be preserving the memory of my favorite scrapbook store.  Vesta and Steve, I wish you the best of luck and thank you for giving us the Boulevard.

What can I do with That?

This Layout was created on Bazzill Basics New Plastic Paper. Carstock used was also by Bazzill and available in our store. Check out our Halloween Section.

 

Close up on the house, sorry it is blurred. I am not the best Photographer. 

 The edges of the 12x12 plastic was stamped with black Sta-zon ink using the flourish edges stamp by Basic Grey.

 

Show me what layout you create with this new fabulous paper.

July already

Wow, I can't believe were half way through the year already. There are so many things I have not finished.

I was hoping our store, www.andsomethingmore.com would have been revamped by now, but it is not so. I will get that done so to all of our customers who read this, please do not abandon us, I promise new things to come. I am hoping this will work and we won't have to close our doors.

I am also hanging on to my Pampered Chef business. I love to cook, scrapbooking and cooking are my two true loves. If cooking is also one of your loves, I am currently working on a blog that will feature recipes and quick tips to make your experience in the kitchen a pleasant one. The address is http://scrappyinspirations.typepad.com/the_cooking_monster/  please subscribe to this blog to get all the goods when it is up and running.

I am hoping my husband will be back at work by the end of summer, then I can put more focus on my two businesses and this blog will be what I had intended it to be, a supplement to our store.

I must leave you for the night, I have to get up early for work.

Godnight.

The Things We Can Not Control

If I was the wind, I would blow luck your way

If I was the water, I would wash the sad away

If I was the sun, I would warm you every day

If I was the sand,I would rub the rough spots away

But I am just me, thats all I could be,

To be your strength, to catch your tears, to stand behind you through the years

I will be here to help you roll, through the things we can not control.

By CMS

I dedicate this to my husband. You are my hero and I want everyone to know. I love you and we will get through this.

Smile my love.

How do you choose?

We make choices everyday. They may be as minute as what type of coffee to have or even if you should stop for coffee. How many times have you made a choice on what to have for lunch or to bring your lunch, and how many times have you made the choice to either cheat or not cheat on your diet.

These are just some choices that play a part of our everyday life and we make choices like these multiple times in our life, more than we can count.

What about the more important choices we need to make. The hard decisions that have to be made.

How do you decide if you should stay home or continue bringing in the second check. How do you choose between the comfort of the money and the comfort of seeing your child grow  and learn.

I have not been able to let go of running my household, even thought I am back at work, 4 10 hour days, I come home and still feel like I am the one who has to put her foot down with the cleaning, organizing and finances. When I say "Don't spend anymore money", how does that translate into, "My father and I went to the mall with the baby and I bought lunch".

Where is the balance? I have to get up at 2:00am and I won't get home until about 4:00pm. I really don't want to go, tomorrow or the day after.............not because work its self, I am actually having fun. I just have the desire to be with my son. He needs me........ or is it that I need him?

I keep thinking "We can have that credit card paid off by Such and Such date", then some how we end up putting such and such amount on it.

So how do we choose?

I want to beable to give my son what he needs with out feeling a fincail strain, or putting us more in debt.

How do you balance?

Laughter and those who make us laugh

I love my family dearly. I am very fortunate that we are all close no matter how much distance is between us.

My oldest sister came to visit a few weeks ago. She lives out of the state and it had been a few years since I had seen her last. I really do miss her. We are close now but as kids........it was a much different story.

I finally downloaded the pictures from her visit.

We, all of my brothers and sisters, exept one, were able to get together during her visit and oh my goodness, did we laugh. We laughed about things we did as kids, we laughed about things we did as adults, but best of all it was so wonderful just to be there laughing, all of us forgetting our individual problems we were facing in life at that moment and just laugh until we cried.

We even got yelled at by our mother...........just like old times

Sometimes Plans Change

1 month ago I was a Stay at home mom with an online scrapbookstore in the midst of getting my Pampered Chef business into full gear. I have learned how quickly life can throw a curve at you. I just finished my 4th week back at work, 10 hour shifts, I am too tired to have any home shows right now and I am getting ready to close my online store because I don't have the time to commit to keeping it up to date.

I had to go back to work, for reasons I will not get into right now, I really can't complain though, the money I am earning is great and going back to work has actually been fun. Its just that I have to make some adjustments in my life and focus on the things I need to do for my family right now.

Right now as I write this I am fighting to stay awake, so I will be brief, its time to look back at the way our lives have changed over the past year and remember that we really never know what the future will hold.

My handsome Tux and a goodbye to Jazz

Yesterday was a tough day. I went to visit my kitty in the hospital, he is having some problems and has to be onan IV for a few days. He is not very happy and wants to come home. He also has a feeding tube in his neck because he has not been eating on his own. Today I am going to bring him one of his toys so he can have familiar smell with him. I Hope his spirits are better today.

My Fabulous Tuxy, get well soon. We love you.

We had another event yesterday that was hard to deal with. My wonderful little white  mouse  passed

I love you Jazzer

you will be missed.

We are already in Summer

Are things slowing down in Summer?

Of course not! Summer is full of family activities, Graduation, Vacation, Holidays, getting outside and spending time in the sun, hiking, swimming and just plain celebrating life!

We take our photos to remember these events. For us, we have a special event coming up. We are going to court to finalize the adoption of our baby, YAY! We also have his first birthday party coming up soon. For us this summer is full of wonderful events and memories that we want to cherish and capture to share with future generations.

So what do I use to capture these timeless memories? Well, my trusty Kodak Digital camera and some wonderful scrapbook items. I am going to scrap an 8.5 x 11 landscape album by Bazzill Basics. I may have a boy, but prima flowers still make wonderful embellishments on a baby page. I plan on using lots of Bazzill card stock of course and I think I will use pattern paper to enhance, not overwhelm my layouts. I will post each page as I get it done, so you can follow me on my album adventure. Along the way Fez will share Techniques that we used.

I hope everyone enjoys their summer, be safe, be happy and get scrapping!