Freebie Fridays

Who doesn't love something for nothing. Today there are lots of freebies available. Check them out on Mommysavers at http://mommysavers.com/boards/blog.php?b=1787.

It's Almost Time for a Crop

Have you ever wanted to participate in an online crop?

It's a great experience especially because you can crop at home in your pajamas and you don't have to pack your stuff up. There is no one around to fight over space and you can watch whatever you want on TV.

Here's your chance to participate. Head on over to www.mommysavers.com and sign up for a free membership. You can participate in our crop, engage in some great conversation and best of all learn how to save money in the process.

Need more incentive? Anyone who reads this blog and then signs up at Mommysavers will be entered into a drawing to receive a gift. All you have to do is leave a comment on my blog with your Mommysavers username and make sure you post an introduction on Mommysavers so we all can welcome you.

If you're already a Mommysavers member, just leave me a comment with your Mommysavers username and I'll enter you into the drawing as well.

Blog Candy Alert

Next week is our monthly crop at Mommysavers. You can check it out by clicking on the Mommysavers logo on the right hand side of my blog. Each month we have an online crop that rotates between scrapbooking and cards. This month is a scrapbooking crop. It is being hosted by one of our members and she has posted an awesome giveaway on her blog. You can check it out here ~ paperscissorsthread.blogspot.com.

Free Food Anyone?

Arby's is offering free food Wednesdays. You can get a regular roast beef for free when you buy a drink. Check out more details on Mommysavers at http://mommysavers.com/boards/samples-freebies-offers/125171-arbys-free-food-wednesdays.html.

Wonderful Site

I just wanted to take a moment to share a wonderful site with all of you. If you are looking for ways to save money on anything and everything or are just looking for some friends that share your frugal ways you need to check out Mommysavers.com. It is a wonderful community of people who are all interested in living well for less. You'll find tips on saving money on groceries, back to school items, gifts, and even ideas on how to save money on scrapbooking and stamping. It is a wonderful community and I encourage all of you to check it out. You can get there by clicking on the Mommysavers logo on the left hand side this blog.

Anybody Want to Win a $1,000 Gift Certificate

Go to http://www.thecuttlebugspot.blogspot.com/ and check it out. They are giving away a $1,000 gift certificate to Custom Crops.

Awesome Giveaway

Check out this giveaway for a great prize:

http://lisafalduto.blogspot.com/2009/06/more-blog-fun.html

Online Card Crop This Weekend!!!

Join us at http://mommysavers.com/boards/crops/ for an online card crop this weekend. It will be lots of fun for all.

New Projects

After the crop on Mommysavers and the Stampin' Out Alzheimer's event I got a little burned out so I've been taking it pretty slowly with the papercrafting. I did work on learning two new techniques this week. The first is a pillow box and the second is a butterfly box. Here are pictures of the ones that I made.

Check this out!

There is a great giveaway at http://keepsakesbymelissa.blogspot.com/

Final SOA Projects

Well I managed to complete 25 challenges for the Stampin' Out Alzheimer's Event. That's in addition to the 12 I did for the Mommysavers Crop and the other miscellaneous pages I did. That made this a very productive week. I'm happy with everything I made. I'll update next week to let you know if I won anything. Here are my last 3 projects.

Lots of New Projects

This week and weekend have been busy scrappin' and stampin' times. This week I have been working on the SOA projects. This weekend is a mini crop in celebration of National Scrapbooking Month at Mommysavers. It's good to have all these challenges to do though because it sure is making me catch up on the books for the kids. Here are some of the newest things that I have created.

Mommysavers Crop Stuff



SOA Projects

More Cards for SOA

Here are the newest cards that I have made for Stampin' Out Alzheimer's.

Card Project for SOA

Here is the first card that I made for Stampin' Out Alzheimer's. I plan to make a few more, but we'll see how tomorrow goes. I have a 2 day crop Friday and Saturday so I want to get all my SOA projects done tomorrow.

More SOA Projects

I'm having a blast creating the projects for the SOA challenges. Here are two more that I did today.

This is a 3D box.


This is a memory journal made from a composition book.

SOA Projects

Here are a few of the projects that I have been working on for the Stampin' Out Alzheimer's event.

This is a keepsake box that I made to keep special things in.


This is a post it note holder.


This is a cupcake box. Jodi helped me with this one.

Stampin' Out Alzheimer's

Some of you may know that my Nana had Alzheimer's. We dealt with this horrible disease for over 15 years as it slowly stole her away from us. It started with a small amount of confusion and led us to a place where she didn't even know who we were. She never knew my children. I was able to take Jodi to see her once, but she never actually opened her eyes and saw her. This is a terrible disease. It is debilitating to the patient as well as to the family. The toll it takes on the family is often greater than the toll that it takes on the patient. The patient has no knowledge of what is going on so they don't feel the pain or miss the memories like we do. Nana was so lost in her Alzheimer's that she wasn't even really aware when Papa passed away. We were fortunate to be able to have them both in the same nursing home. Papa ate with Nana every day. Even in his last days they were together. They were married over 50 years and he cared for her at home until it wasn't safe for him to do so anymore. It wasn't long before he joined her in the nursing home. She outlived him by several years. She was like a baby in those last years, unable to talk, walk or do anything for herself. This disease is a regression through all the stages you go through as a child. It is something that I wouldn't wish on my worst enemy.

This week there is an event going on called Stampin' Out Alzheimer's. It is an online paper crafting event that is designed to bring awareness to Alzheimer's, raise money for research, and to bring all of us together that have been touched by Alzheimer's. This event is my focus for my projects this week. I look forward to sharing them with all of you.

For more information on this event you can check out their website at www.stampinoutalzheimers.ning.com

Paper Bag Album

Some of my friends on Mommysavers have been talking about and creating these albums out of paper bags. I had a project that I wanted to do for my mom and this seemed like a great album to try with this project. For those of you who knew our dog Pepper, my mom had to have her put to sleep a few weeks ago. She was almost 16 years old and she had quite a few health problems so we decided it was time. We've all been really sad about this and missing her greatly so I wanted to make my mom an album of pictures of Pepper so she would have it for the memories. Here is my paper bag album and my tribute to Pepper.

My Newest Projects

Here is one of the projects that I've been working on today. This is a post it note center made using a 5x7 acrylic frame.

Awesome Value for Pictures

I just wanted to share about my online photo ordering experience. I have ordered from several places and just not been happy with the quality, service or the price. I was in a situation where I desperately needed to print my pictures because I have an online crop next week and I would need them to work on pages. I had decided that I was going to go ahead and pay the price at Walmart. Well, one of my wonderful scrapping friends at Mommysavers shared about a site called Artscow.com. If you have never checked them out, you need to. They offer a ton of free prints each month along with all kinds of other incentives when you first sign up for their service. I got my first order today and I have to say that I am super happy. I ordered them on Monday and got them on Saturday. That's an awesome turn around time. Then there is the quality. I had several pictures that I had taken with my camera phone. I was "warned" when placing my order that these images were low resolution and the quality of the print couldn't be guaranteed. Well I can't tell the difference between those pictures and the ones that I took with my regular camera. The quality of these prints is awesome. I can't wait to start working on some pages with them.

Look for some super neat projects in the next few days. I'm going to be doing some major stamping and scrapping over the next few days and I can't wait to share how everything turns out.