{festive february}

Well I shared yesterday that I completed several layouts at my retreat this weekend, and yes I did. So I am going to share a few of them with you today. All of these layouts were created with the Basic Grey Jovial line, which is on clearance right now for $8.50 over at Catch the Moments Kits find the that deal here: Festive Kit. These layouts feature my Christmas photos for 2010, and if you're curious about what size photos I used they are 2x3, 4x6, and 1 5x7 (Harper with Santa). I got all of the 2x3 photos from ScrapbookPictures.com; I love getting my photos from them, best quality out there! So I hope that you enjoy them. I will post just a little something about each layout and the products I used. Also, I hope that everyone is staying warm this wintery week!! It's 12 degrees outside in North TEXAS!! Yes, Texas, one of the hottest states in of the South!! We've had ice for two days straight, and UNT (my place of employment and where I go to school) has closed for yet another day!! That is unheard of; they are closed for 3 days straight!!! Plus there are state-mandated rolling 'brownouts' all over the state to conserve energy. Some folks are out of power for 5+ hours. Luckily we only lost power for a total of 40 minutes today, not bad at all.

"Trim up the Tree"

Trim up the tree with bingle balls and whofoo fluff. Every first

week in November we trim up the tree. This year Harper helped too.

Our Grinch tree looked even better this year in the living room.

Supplies:

Patterned Paper - Basic Grey

Cardstock - Kraft

Embellishments - Basic Grey

Stickers - Basic Grey

Die Cut - Cricut

"Joy"

Joy is a little people nativity.

Supplies:

Patterned Paper - Basic Grey

Stickers - Basic Grey, American Crafts

Brads - Scrap Freak Embellishment Kit

Paint - Tim Holtz Crackle

"Santa"

Sometimes Harper just doesn't want to get her picture taken.

This is a prime example. Picture with Santa, 2010.

Supplies:

Patterned Paper - Basic Grey

Chipboard & Stickers - Basic Grey, American Crafts

Flower , Pins, Brad - Maya Road

Ribbon - American Crafts, Pink Paislee, vintage

"So Gifted"

We have a tradition of opening one present on

Christmas Eve. This year Harper opened the Fischer Price

Medical Kit. Merry Christmas Eve Baby Girl

Supplies:

Patterned Paper - Basic Grey

Flower, Pins & Doily - Basic Grey, Maya Road

Stickers - Basic Grey, American Crafts

"On the Eve"

Now she wants to be a doctor when she grows up. Merry Christmas Eve '10.

Supplies:

Cardstock - Coredinations

Patterned Paper & Chipboard - Basic Grey

Doilies - Maya Road

Die Cut - Cricut

"St. Nick"

St. Nick arrived and brought Harper a kitchen. He ate our

homemade cookies and drank all of his milk. Even Mama and Daddy

got a few goodies.

Supplies:

Cardstock - Bazill Basics, Coredinations

Patterned Paper, Chipboard, Stickers - Basic Grey

Buttons & Brands - Basic Grey

Ribbon - American Crafts

Well that's all for this blog for today folks. I hope that you enjoyed my projects and they inspire you to scrap your 2010 Christmas photos!! Please check out my Catch the Moments Kits post from today to see other projects that I created over the weekend. Tata for now!

With Love,

Gabi Watson

{snowy day, new layout}

I honestly didn't expect a snow/ice storm to blow through North Texas and shut down over 400 schools and businesses, but I am glad that it did. I've been able to spend the day with my sweet family, all of them including my husband. This morning at 5:30 AM he got on the road and just turned right back around and came back to bed. Truth is, he works over 50 miles from our house, and it would've taken him at least 2 hours to get to work, and that's if he actually got there. Then there was the possibility that they may be shut down when he got there because they don't have an alert system for employees like a lot of companies do. Big mess, but he was able to take the day and spend it with Harper, Josie and me. What a treat!!!

I was able to read for my class and start on some homework, and I just found out that UNT (my job and school) is shut down for another day! Praise the Lord!!!

Well I just got back from a well-deserved vacation weekend with the girls from Oh Crop (a meet up cropping group for North Texas). We spent the weekend at Elm Street Crafter's Retreat in Denton, TX. It was the cutest house with all the details. I scrapbooked Thursday through Sunday. It was just a grand ol' time. Our host Penni Abbott, who owns the Elm Street Craft Retreat, was so generous. The bedrooms were mega cute, and the cropping area was a great size (the chairs were a big hit, definitely very cushy). It easily fit all 10 of us very comfortably. The dining room is situated with 2 bar height tables. The kitchen is very large, and Penni thought of almost every detail with her new inn. Of course we had just a couple of suggestions for her new place, but overall all of the gals including myself had a fabulous weekend, and I know that I CAN'T wait to go back. It really was the best crop weekend ever, and I am looking forward to my next stay there in the future. Hopefully I'll get to stay there at least once per year with my friends, but that depends on my pocketbook :) Oh I forgot to mention that she has a masseuse Natalie, and well I got a deep tissue massage; I was sore when it was done, but it was worth every moment of pain, believe me! I had such an amazing time!

Tomorrow I will be sharing a few creations on the Catch the Moments Kits blog!! Check it out tomorrow for new layouts and one very cute Valentine's Day project!! And tonight I leave you with a layout I created over the weekend!!

Have a lovely evening, and I hope that you are all staying warm wherever you are!

{weiner, wiener}

Teehee... well I have a winner for some lovely scrappiness today!!! I don't have any new projects as I still haven't taken pictures of some of the stuff that I've created lately. People, I know I'm getting lazy, but I am totally overwhelmed by school this semester (and it's only just begun, eep!) Oh well...

On to the good stuff!!!

According to Random.org... Marcie is the winner!!!!

" Marcie said...

Good luck Gabi!

January 19, 2011 3:42 PM"

Congratulations Marcie!!! You get your pick a homemade gift for your home or a custom scrapbook kit built by me!! Just email me what you would like to receive and your mailing address at tinyscrapper at yahoo dot com

{don't forget}

I am doing an RAK this week!!! Check out this blog post for the details!! Whee!!

I hope that everyone is having a lovely week. This is the first week of school, and well I was a bit overwhelmed by my load at first, so I made some changes, and now I am taking:

Anatomy & Physiology II
Entrepreneurship
Child Development
Sociological Theory

I'm getting really excited about my retreat that starts a week from today over at Elm Street Crafter's Retreat in Denton, TX, and thankfully my pictures that I ordered from ScrapbookPictures.com finally came in, yay!! I just love ordering from them. They do great work and the prices are pretty fair! I will finally have the time to create some beautiful LOs that I'm creating based on challenges and sketches that I've gotten from all over the place including All About Me, Scrap That Baby!, and Scrap Chicks!

Yay, yay, yay!

{nominations and RAK this week}

Okay well I'm out of sorts today because I'm am uber sick. I've been sick since Thursday, and well it just kept getting worse from there.... fever, chillls, coughing, runny nose, runny eyes, runny ears, ear aches, headaches, body aches, stiff neck, stiff back, sinus pressure, stuffiness, congestion, sore throat and more!! I was and still am miserable, and the doctor was finally open on Monday, so I went, and I have a sinus infection and bronchitis. She prescribed some antibiotics, mucinex, aleve, alahist, rest and plenty of fluids since I haven't been eating or drinking much. I am just plain worn out over being sick, and I refuse to be sick anymore for the rest of the year!!! lol

Well so I am here pleading for your help!! It would be an absolute dream come true if I could make the Cosmo Cricket design team, and well they are taking nominations!!! I think this is only for a guest design team gig, but I would be plenty happy and grateful to be given the opportunity to show off my creative skills with their ingenius paper lines!!! I don't know if you have seen what they've come out with for this CHA, but it's AMAZING, and I demand to own every paper, every button, every alpha and every little bit of all of these lines!! They are to die for!!! Quite literally!!! So because I would love for everyone's help and participation in this...I will be hosting an RAK from my stash to yours this week!!! I will be creating a lovely kit for you including embellishments and paper, but in order to win, you must do two things for me, pretty please!!!!

Please leave a comment on this blog nominating me: Gabrielle Watson for the Cosmo Cricket design team :) this will also put you in the drawing to win some stuff over at Cosmo Cricket!! And please leave a comment on this blog letting me know that you nominated me, and I will have a drawing at the end of this week for the winner!!!

I know that you are going out of your way for me, so I am happy to host this RAK for one of my readers!!! Please nominate me at Cosmo Cricket, and leave a comment on this blog for your chance to win!!! Yay!!! And for my non-scrappy readers, if you win, and don't want a lovely scrappy kit.... I will make you something sweet for your home and send it your way!! Your choice: a custom kit from my stash or a button heart frame for your home!

Thanks my fellow readers and friends for helping me to succeed in my scrapbooking dreams!! Here are some LOs that I've made with past Cosmo Cricket lines:

{friday deal and jibber-jabber}

CTM Kits is having a HUGE sale for this Friday's Deal of the Weekend!! Basically everything in the Etsy store is on sale, and you can visit the Flickr account to buy individual items. All the details are listed on the CTM Kits blog, so check it out TODAY!!! I think there are a few things that I am going to get... like that Sugar kit, yum!

Tonight a girlfriend of mine is coming over, and we are going to scrap to our heart's content. She is new to scrapbooking, so I am going to let her borrow my supplies to make some lovely pages of her own, so that she can get a taste for the craft and well get an idea of what she likes and dislikes, so she can purchase some of her own products to SCRAP with :)

I am still feeling a bit under the weather. I took someone's advice yesterday and drank 4 tablespoons of Jack Daniels mixed with 4 tablespoons of honey, warmed. First I gargled and then I swallowed, and it wasn't the tastiest concoction, and it made me drunk (because I don't drink but 1-2 times a year), but it did soothe my sore throat. But the my throat felt... swollen, and like I could barely swallow. It was odd, but I slept well and that's all that matters there. I woke up with a sore throat again today, so I am just drinking water, and I might... just maybe drink some tea. Blegh! The thought of it makes me kind of want to vomit.

Well in other news. Harper seems to be feeling better, so she went back to school today. That girl. I sure do love her. She really is so sweet, and she impresses me with her intelligence and empathy. She is amazing, and I love her more than words can say! Last night she was crawling on me because she wanted to snuggle while we relaxed and watched a movie after our bath (yes we bathed together, I think it's ok for mommies and their babies to share a bath on occasion) and she smushed my right boob, and if you've been reading this blog for a while you'll know that I have a large painful lymph node in that one that hurts quite a bit, and only recently found out it was a lymph node and not a benign tumor like we all thought it was (my doctor included), praise Him. Anyhow she smushed my very tender breast, and I yelped. I didn't mean to scare Harper but she began hugging me and telling me how sorry she was. I felt awful, but she is so caring, and I told her that it was ok and only hurt for a minute, and that her hugs really helped. I just love her. Here is the most recent picture of her from last week. When Harper and daddy were joking around :)

With love,
Gabi Watson

{oh heaven's and a project}

So I've been MIA again lately, but for good reason. My sweet daughter has been so sick lately. Yucky cough, ear infections and just overall crankiness. I haven't had the time to get on the computer much with such a sick girl, and work has been brutal. Our heater went out at our house too, so we had that fixed. It's really been one awful thing after another.

This week I am gearing up for school that starts on Tuesday; another full load (yes I am crazy, I know), and I am purchasing textbooks so that they will be here in time for school. Luckily this weekend is a 3 day weekend with MLK day. I am tired, overwhelmed, and READY for the WEEKEND with a capital W!

I ordered some pictures to get ready for my scrapbook retreat at the end of the month. It will be the first retreat weekend hosted by Elm Street Crafter's Retreat, and I am excited to be a guinea pig with my girls from the Oh Crop! meet up group!

Today I would love to share with you something that I created as a holiday gift for my parents and my in-loves. I each made them one. I gave my parents the black frame, and I gave my in-loves the white frame.







Products: Pink Paislee pp, Sew Easy floss, Pink Paislee alpha, BG button, Jenni Bowlin button, Tim Holtz key, Making Memories metal decal, Prima flower, Maya Arts ribbon, AC lace

Thanks ya'll, and have a lovely Thursday!!

With Love,
Gabi Watson