Backyard Camp-out

Today I am thankful for simple activities that bring such joy to the boys.

Jeremiah set up the tents in our backyard a few summers ago and the boys had so much fun playing outside until it got dark.  We then slept in the backyard and had a fun night with the kids.  

For this page I used a denim looking blue card-stock and backed the photos in an orange card-stock to match the tents in the pictures.

I used diamond dew drops to create the stars here in the page.  I cut stars out with a punch and placed the dew drops on them.  I like the look they created.

For this sleeping under the stars sign I used my cricut and the camping critters cartridge.  I used the stars that were cut out from this and placed them on the top part of the page. This little sign came out really cute.  I love using my cricut to help add more character to my pages.

Overall the backyard camp-out was a lot of fun and I am glad we got a few pictures of the fun time we had and was able to make a fun page for our family album.

Happy Crafting, 

Tara

Riding Lions

Today I am thankful for little boys who just wanted to "ride the lion"  When we went to Disneyland a few years ago with the kids the hotel we stayed at had these lions out in the front.  Porter and Tyson love lions and of course wanted to climb on and have their picture taken.  So of course I pulled out the camera and took pictures of them "riding the lion".

The Robin's Nest had the PERFECT card-stock for these photos. I used the Red Lion card-stock. I used my cricut to cut out the letters as well as the brown side borders.  

I added a little swirl of dew drops also from The Robin's Nest as a final detail for this page and it really completed it for me.  

Happy Crafting,

Tara

Purple Fries

Today I am grateful for the fun things Jeremiah and I do, such as our purple potato fries....

Jeremiah and I have tried so many fun things since we got married.  We are always coming up with new things to do.  This was especially fun.  We grew a great garden a few years ago.  We decided to plant potatoes we had seen purple ones and decided to grow them.  Once they grew and we dug them up we thought it would be fun to make homemade fries with them.  Here I am frying them up.  The kids thought they were so fun and they tasted so good.  

This page was a fun one to do but a little difficult because really how do you scrapbook french fries?  :) There was nothing to fancy about the page but I love the memories.  

I embellished with some diamond dew drops from The Robin's Nest, then I used some cute chipboard die cuts from Gina's Designs.  I distressed the edges of the two and covered the heart with the same purple I used running down the side of the page.  I added the yellow ribbon as a final detail and loved how this page turned out.  

Happy Crafting, 

Tara

My Niece Kyra

Today I am grateful for my oldest niece Kyra Leigh.  I wanted to share my pages I made about her.  She is the oldest of my nieces and nephews. She is my sister Tammy's oldest daughter.  I was about 11 when she was born, by the time I turned 16 Kyra was my little side kick.  I took her everywhere with me and I loved her.  I enjoyed spending as much time with her as I could.  I can not believe she just turned 20 this last week.  Wow how time flies.  I am so happy to have such an amazing young lady as my niece.  I love you Ky and I'm proud of the young lady you've become.

These photos are from Kyra's prom she went to her senior year with her boyfriend Tyler.  I was able to see her this day and she was I'm sure the most beautiful girl at the prom.  

I used my cricut to create the frame and letters on this page.  I punched out some black hearts for the page and also placed some multi-colored twine on the corner of the frame.

Here are some pictures of her and with Tyler, what a gorgeous couple.  Also a small black and white photo with her mom, my sister, Tammy.

I used the same green that I backed the frame with from the other page and placed it behind the pictures and also cut out some circles and hearts to embellish this page.  I finished up with a few pieces of twine on two of the hearts.  I loved the bright colors and enjoyed making these pages.

Happy Crafting, 

Tara

Creative Fun

Today I am grateful for the creative things the boys put together to have fun!

Over the summer we were working on a project in the garage.  Weston wanted to run wild and I finally put Porter on the task of keeping an eye on him.  Next thing I knew they were playing with the shopvac and a rope.  Weston was in heaven!! We don't own a wagon but I guess this was the next best thing.  I love the creative mind Porter has to put things like this together.  The fun lasted for nearly an hour.  

Oh to be a kid again!  These two are so cute together.  I used my cricut to cut out my letters and added a touch of white around parts of the letters with a gel pen.

On this page I scattered some red dew drops.....placing these on black card-stock they lost the red and really blended into the black, so I used my hole punch and cut out some red circles and placed them under each dew drop so they kept their vibrant red color.  I also used my white gel pen in various places and I added a few pieces of ribbon on the top right corner of the page, using staples to keep them in place.  

Happy Crafting, 

Tara

My little sister, Rachelle

Today I am so thankful for the best little sister anyone could ask for!  I just love my baby sister Rachelle. She just celebrated a birthday this past week and I wanted to celebrate her on my blog today!!

If anyone has been following, I was doing really good with my blog....got two full weeks in....then Christmas came and with that our mom and dad O'Crowley were here visiting with us and the kiddos.  We jumped right into to more of the kitchen remodel and had some very long days working hard on that, then the kids were all sick for about a week.  I had to take a brief break from the blog to enjoy time with the family and take care of the little ones.  I am excited to get back to my everyday of things I am grateful for.

So back to my sister Rachelle - 

I could not find a picture on hand of Rachelle alone, but as you can see everyone just loves her and so does the camera! Anyone that knows Rachelle knows that she is a pint size spit fire, and I do mean this in a good way. ;) She is maybe 5 feet tall and tough as nails.  She played full contact women's football a couple years ago, she is certainly not one to mess with lol. She is so funny and has such a great personality.  There are a few photos of her with her husband Richard and oldest son Zhane, they just added another adorable baby boy, Brody to their family.  Rachelle and I are 3 1/2 years apart and I always wished we had been closer in age as I always enjoyed having her around.  She was there for the births of 4 out of 5 of my boys. She has always loved my kids as her own and was often a huge help to me with them.  Rachelle and I were able to work together a few years ago and we really enjoyed being together each day.  She lives in Utah with her family and I am in Colorado I miss her dearly and wish I was still able to see her and her boys often.  I am grateful for the phone calls and messages we share even if sometimes they are few and far between, I always know I have a sister there if I ever need anything at all and I hope she feels the same way. Happy birthday this past week Shell, I love you very much!!

For these pages I used The Robin's Nest, Green Glitter Butterflies card-stock. I also used the Distressed Purple card-stock to back my photos on both pages.  I used the pink glitter alphabet stickers for the name, also from The Robin's Nest.

I took some clear glass gems I've had kicking around my craft room and the dragonfly stickers from the Summer stickers sold by The Robin's Nest and used mod podge to keep the glass look over the stickers.  I love the accent these gave to my page.

On the opposite page I used these chipboard dragonflies from Gina's Designs and painted them two different shades of purple and dusted them in glitter.

Around the glass gems and across the bottom on the right page I used some white fiber ribbon as a final touch. Really loved how these came together!

  Thanks for reading today and hearing a little about my sister Rachelle.  

Happy Crafting, 

Tara