Happy Easter! and a couple of layouts

Hope you had a wonderful Holiday, whichever way you celebrate it.

As you can see from my previous post I got a chance to spend time with family a few weeks ago. I hadn't seen my nephew and great nephew in years.  It was so nice to see them and get to spend time with them. I only wish that my two could have been there too.  Of course when you haven't seen someone in a long time you get as many photos as you can.  Josh was 2 the last time I got photos of him and he'll be 9 in July.  

I won some BoBunny Ad Lib at my LSS Picture This a week prior to getting together with family.  With the colors in the photos it was easy to use Ad Lib for the layouts I did. I only wish it wasn't discontinued.  I will have to see if I can find some online when pay day rolls around.  I like the wording of document everyday, celebrate life, etc.  I think too often we only take photos and scrap special occasions.  When we should also let our future generations know what everyday life was like too.  I enjoy history, so it was easy for me to think that way. I always enjoyed reading the post cards and cards my grandmother saved from family and friends.  I remember she kept them in a wooden box.  I enjoyed getting a little peek into their life.  Well enough of my jibber jabber. Here are a couple of layouts I came up with. I was inspired by PageMaps (March Maps) for the layouts below. I really enjoy that site, Becky Fleck is so very talented. I was so lucky to have a friend loan me her cricut so I was able to cut the title for the Siblings layout below. 

Four Generations of Olson Men Sam, Jayson, Josh and Dad

Me, my brother Sam and my sister Kim

 I am entering the Four Generations layout in the Here Comes the Boys Anything but a Card challenge.  I found the challenge listed on Feline Playful. You can click the graphic to the right to find challenges for scrapbooking, cardmaking and altered art.  I'm trying to find more masculine challenges since as you can see there are quite a few men in my family.  Smiles.

Thanks for stopping by! Sure hope your holiday weekend was wonderful!!!

Stamptacular Sunday Challenge & Updates

I've been busy creating cards for Cards for Heroes. I decided to look up One Sheet Wonder to see if I could make some cards quicker. I felt like I was behind in my promise to make some cards for CFH. So I found a couple of templates and thought I'd give them a try. I didn't cut the first one out quite right, turned the paper or something, but of course that doesn't mean that I can't use the paper. So that is why you'll see a few different papers. I started with the one and then went to the other and then decided to add another for some variety. So I can't tell you exactly how many cards I got from one 12x12 page this time. Double sided paper like the MME and Graphic 45 paper I chose works so nicely, because you have more choices. Here are the photos of the cards and the one card works for the Stamptacular Sunday challenge #15.


Here are the rest of the cards that I did. I made these last Monday while at Karmanos. Then I just had to add some decoration to each of the fronts.



I was also able to do a LO of Mitch when he was about 2.5 yrs old. I entered it in the Cosmo Cricket challenge on scrapbook.com. I actually started it last month, but with all that has been going on in our lives it took me this long to finish. I'm glad I was able to use it for this month's challenge which was to have 2 or more photos on the LO.

Also this week Hero Arts has been having some fabulous giveaways to mark their new and improved website and blog. I follow them on Twitter and I re-tweeted regarding their upcoming new and improved site and I won a Design Block. I've been eyeing one up at Hobby Lobby, but just can't swing it right now. So it was so sweet to see that I had won! So excited to see what one they send me. Here is the one I've been eyeing. The only thing is I do not see it in their 2009 catalog. Oh well they have plenty other fabulous Design blocks! So stop by the Hero Arts blog or add Hero Arts to your Twitter to see what you can win!


The second week of Tim's drug trial was last week and things were going well until Thurs night. Tim got a pain in his back/side and it went up to his shoulder/neck on his right side. So when he was still in pain on Friday morning I called his primary doc for an appt. His doc examined him and then prescribed a muscle relaxer. Well by Sunday he wasn't any better, so he called into work. He didn't look good, was sweaty and in a lot of pain. By the time I was ready to go to Adrian to get Mitch he had a fever. He wouldn't let me call 911 so I asked his sister to come over while I ran to get Mitch. On Monday he was to go to Karmanos to have a check up. I had to get a wheelchair to get him up to the fifth floor. Since he wasn't doing well they had to take cultures and then the PA came and checked him out and then sent him for a chest xray and also requested a sinus xray as well. Well when they got that all back and she conferred with the oncology doc they diagnosed him with pneumonia. So he was off work through yesterday and returned to work today. Today was supposed to be OT to make up for missed time. I keep worrying about not working, but then I've also been able to be there and support Tim through all this, so there is definitely a reason I'm still unemployed. On Monday Tim goes again for the drug trial but it will only be about a 3 hr day and we don't need to get there until 11am -noon. Then he'll go again the following week, after that they will do another CAT scan to see how things are going. So please keep Tim and all of us in your prayers.

National Scrapbook Day

Yesterday when I wasn't running Noah somewhere, shopping or cooking I spent NSD on scrapbook.com. They have great challenges there all day and so many chances to win. It was my fourth year participating with them. I still haven't won anything, but it's fun to get some things accomplished. I had made a card, but not quick enough since I didn't see that challenge til about 1/2 hour into it. I also participated in the all day challenge which was to create a LO about me. Rarely do I do that, I always create LO's of the boys, Tim or family. There still is a chance to win door prizes I do not believe they've drawn for them yet. Maybe because they're PST and it's only about 8:40 am there.

Here is the card:

Here is the LO:
The hidden journaling under the photo says: I love to read! I've always enjoyed reading for as long as I can remember. I've read the back of cereal boxes, shampoo bottles and anything I can get my hands on. I've been reading quite a bit over the past month, here are some of the titles: Crossroads, The Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet, 39 Years of Short -Term Memory Loss, Home, Note to Self. **Also I want to give credit to person who created this sketch. Her name on scrapbook.com is Beggahunna and she creates some wonderful sketches and posts them on scrapbook.com. I've been collecting her sketches for awhile, so I guess it was about time I use one!!

I seem to be taken with autobigoraphies lately. Home is by Julie Andrews, 39 Years of Short Term Memory Loss is by Tom Davis - a SNL writer, and of course you can see the ones I just picked up Friday in the photo. I'm reading Always Looking Up right now. You can always scroll down to the bottom of this blog to see my bookshelf from Shelfari, I usually update it after I've finished a book.

Margy from There's a Wocket in My Pocket gave me a blog award yesterday. Thank you Margy I'm honored that you thought of me! Here is what her award looks like. Stop by and give Margy's blog a read!

Take Care and have a wonderful week!!

Back to School...

I have decided to go back to school. I've been considering this for awhile now. My brother informed me about a week and 1/2 or two weeks ago that he's going to school to be a motorcycle mechanic. He did not graduate high school and has his GED. So if he can go back to school after all these years I can go back for my third time around. I'm really happy for him and only am sad that he'll be much further away. He'll be going to school in Phoenix AZ. I haven't seen him in nearly three years since I moved to Toledo. That year he moved to NW Wisconsin by my parents as did my sister and her hubby. I told Sam that he'll probably stay in AZ after he graduates. His schooling is 62 weeks I think?? He said he didn't think he'd be able to stand the heat and that he'd be back. You can see a pic of us here in 2006 at the end of my farewell party. I am on the right and Sam is on the left. So wish me luck! I hope I can start with the summer session. I still need to fill out FAFSA and see if I can get financial aid, that's the only way I can go back. When I went back 12 yrs ago it was through NAFTA/TRA/Unemployment. I had to have the instructors sign a paper weekly so I could get unemployment. It also paid for my schooling, my books and any necessary school related items. I sent for my transcripts from the previous two colleges I've attended. I really should call a counselor/advisor to see what else I need to get. Tim does not have chemo tomorrow so we'll get a few errand ran and I'll call to see about an appt with an advisor.

The other day I mentioned that I would post a couple more layouts. I did some more of Noah skateboarding. These are of Parmelee park in Lambertville, MI. For Scrappin in Toledo Yahoo group we have a Saturday Sketch challenge every week. I used that sketch to create this layout. I love the photo Noah took of himself. I printed it in Sepia.


Well that's it for today. Hopefully I can create some more tonight. We'll see how things go. Hope your Wednesday was super nice!

Grandparent LO

Just thought I'd post the layout I did over the weekend. I wasn't sure that it was finished, but most people seem to think it's fine. I posted it on my Yahoo group and scrapbook.com. So I guess I'll post it here. I didn't use my BoBunny yet and it wasn't the photo I said was staring at me from a box, but these still needed to be scrapped. I tried one of Pam Callaghan's carvings templates. They were featured in CK's October issue. I also have the wave one and want to use that. I like being able to get more than one photo on a layout and in a cool way. The photos are of my son and my parents when Mitchell was about 7 months old. We usually took vacation the end of June or 1st week of July so that's when I'm figuring this photo is from. We are at a roadside restaurant called Tourist Haven.
It was owned by one of my mom's cousins for a time. I have lots of memories as a kid there. Just a side note Mitchell will be 19 in December, so these photos are old. But since I no longer worry about chronological it's not a bad thing. I just scrap those that just seem to ask to be scrapped. It's strange sometimes I sit down expecting to scrap some photos and I can't for the life of me figure out how design the page. Then when I don't look to scrap some photos there they are and an idea is present also. That's pretty much how this LO came about. So what do you think, is this LO finished? Don't you just love the quote? I found it on scrapbook.com

Holiday weekend

We were invited over to a friend's house for bbq and to watch the fireworks. I asked if she wanted me to bring salad or dessert and she said dessert. So after looking at a few recipes and not really wanting to run out to buy any ingredients I opted to make a chocolate pudding pie and a pistachio pudding pie. I got those done right away and put them in the fridge. We pretty much took it easy on Friday. The bbq wasn't until 6pm. About the time it was time to get ready to go Tim wasn't feeling well. He had some acid reflux and thought it was gonna be worse. So I waited around for a bit to see if it would settle down and he'd want to go. I asked Noah to go and he said he didn't want to. Tim decided he didn't want to go in case he felt worse. So I packed up my pies and was about to leave. I told Noah to take the garbage up front as Sat was pick up since Fri was the holiday. He said do you want me to go with? I said if you want to. He disappeared so I started backing out the driveway and then he appeared and got in the car. We got there about 6:20pm and went in to visit and put the pies away. We chatted and watched Noah fall asleep (he hadn't slept all night). I was super tired too because having the teenage zombie walking the house didn't help me sleep much. We chatted for a bit and then my friend went outside to see about the food and invite a gal in to chat. When she came back Noah was awake and she said your mom woke you didn't she? When he awoke he said he wasn't sleeping. Funny when I yelled Noah while sitting only a few ft away he did not respond. More friends showed up and Noah had someone to play the Wii with. He is the same age as Noah and likes to skateboard too. So it worked out that he finally had someone to bond with. We finally were able to eat supper and chat some more. We went out to watch the fireworks. Sitting in my friend's backyard you can see the fireworks at Promenade park without having to deal with all the traffic, people and parking or should I say lack of parking? After the fireworks were going for a bit I decided to run in and get the camera. I took some awesome photos of the fireworks! Thank God Tim has a semi pro Fuji camera. When I downloaded the photos to my computer I found that I had taken 142! Only three of them were of Noah. I deleted some that were blurry or not so good and got it down to 128. After the fireworks we ate some pie and chatted a bit more. Feeling very sleepy I said I'd better get going. We got in some of the downtown traffic, but all in all it wasn't too bad.

Here are a couple of layouts I did today. I wanted to do them before midnight last night to enter them for my Yahoo group's challenge, but was unable to get it to work with that sketch. Today after looking at some galleries on sb.com I was struck with an idea! I was able to enter them in Scrap N Art's Fourth of July challenge.