Weekend Wrap Up...

We live near a town that is the "Pumpkin Capital of the World." There are pumpkin fields everywhere around here, and they have some very celebrated traditions. This weekend was the annual pumpkin festival, and they have a parade and a small carnival. My favorite part is the yummy pumpkin food that they have each year. The pumpkin chili is the BEST (I know it sounds weird, but it is absolutely delicious!) I wanted to try the pumpkin doughnuts this year, but they were all sold out. Bummer, I will make sure that I get one next year.


The kids waited patiently for the parade to begin. This picture makes me smile. Tanner has his hands full of animals, as always. Those squishy lizards are his favorite right now, and the other hand is full of little monkeys. There is never a time where you won't find his hands full of animals or cars. So cute. And Chloe just had to bring her kitty in it's little carrier. All of this had to be stored in my purse so that they could pick up all the candy that was thrown to them.
Some more waiting...

And the parade finally arrives. This is the biggest pumpkin of the season weighing in at 582 lbs. Holy moly, that's a big pumpkin. It seemed so precarious on that little platform, bumping around up there, I thought for sure it would just roll off of it and smash into a million pieces.
In other VERY exciting news...my brother and his wife just arrived home from Myanmar this morning! What an answer to lots of prayer it was. They have been waiting for her to get her visa to come to the states for a year and half! I am so excited to have them back home. I haven't seen them since we were in Myanmar for their wedding.
So welcome home, I am so glad that you are back! I can't wait to catch up!

Thursday...

I seem to have 2 new residents living at my address. They are always hanging around the yard lately, even while I mow the grass they watch me from a distance, and only run away if I get too close to them. This is what we saw when I pulled into the driveway after school today.

They *almost* look like those plastic deer you see in people's yards. LOL. I think that we should give them names...any suggestions?

Speaking of names, the kids both won big stuffed animals at the Pumpkin Festival we went to last night. (It's a carnival.)Guess what they named them...Tanner names his stuffed snake "Beauty" and then Chloe quickly chose the name "Super Beauty" for her unicorn. Real original I know! So we need to come up with names other than those...those are taken. LOL
I also wanted to share some little gift bags I'm sending to the designers with their Oct. kits. Oh and in the background you are getting a little sneak peek of what's to come in our next kit! This little pumpkin bag is super cute and even little kids could help make them. (Especially if you had things pre-stamped and cut, etc. so all they had to do was glue them together.)
I went a little crazy with the chalk here, but I liked that it looked like Halloween and a little grungy. I used my decorative scissors to cut out each of the "Trick" and "Treat" letters. And I finished it off with a ric-rac smile.
Have a wonderful day!

September Newsletter

Freehand Scraps Newsletter

Well it's time again for another Freehand Scraps Newsletter! It seems this summer just flew past and it's hard to believe that school is back in session and that the leaves are beginning to change. Time to put on a cozy sweater and sit down with a cup of hot cocoa and get some of those summer pictures scrapbooked! Wouldn't it be great to get those precious memories documented while they're fresh in your mind? This month our "Little Bird" kit is full of just what you need to find some inspiration. I feel so blessed to have such great designers I get to work with. I am always so amazed with all of their wonderful ideas each month. Here is just a little sample of what you'll find in our gallery this month.

I fell in love with this cute birthday card that Amanda Smith made using the vintage book paper that comes in the kit! How cute is that!
I love the details on this layout by Celeste Smith, and of course the pink color scheme!

I love the way Katie Haddox used water color paint to tint the background patterned paper. Something I definitely am going to try!

This is a layout from my gallery. I am seriously in love with that white flocking!! It just adds that fluffiness and a little bit of texture to your page. You get a whole jar of it with your kit this month, and the Doodlebug alphabet that has the adhesive already on it. All you have to do is shake it on, and then tap off the excess. It's such a fun concept, and the possibilities are endless!

Be sure to check out "Little Bird" and see what an amazing value you're getting at Freehand Scraps. Also make sure you are reading the blog to see sneak peeks of what's to come for October! It has loads of brand new product from CHA and includes some of my favorite things from the show!

Once again I want to thank you for your support of Freehand Scraps. You make this job so much fun!

Heidi

Quick post!

Thought I would share a quick project I made. It took me about 5 minutes to make. I was inspired at CHA by the 7 Gypsies booth. They had an old white plate that said "lucky 7" on it and I loved the way it looked! I started looking for an old white plate when I got back home, and found 3 or 4 at the junk/thrift store. (Even a square one that I gave to my sister. It was really vintage!) I tried to find some that were really thick and older, to fit the look I was going for...I didn't want anything new and shiny or fancy looking. Then I had to decide what I wanted my plate to say...that was the real dilemma! I finally decided on "So lucky" since I had a rather small plate and the sticker letters I was using would be a perfect fit. I was thinking of Thanksgiving and displaying it in my kitchen above the sink. It would also be cute to spell out something on several plates, or even put numbers on them and line them up on a wall. Really there is so much you can do with an old plate that cost $1.00 and some imagination! (Mine has an old spot on the bottom left corner...to me it adds to the charm. *smile*)

In case you are wondering the "so" letters are an old Chatterbox transparency alphabet. And the "lucky" is an American Crafts alphabet. (Using up my stash!)

This is just a cute drawing that Tanner's BFF drew in Sunday School this week of the two of them. Isn't it cute how the apples are falling out of the tree? It's just the details in it that put a smile on my face. They have such a sweet relationship, and are two of the silliest boys you'll ever meet!
Hope you have a wonderful night! I will be getting a newsletter out tonight or in the morning, so if for some reason you don't see it in your inbox, I will post it here also tomorrow!

School...again

The kids were thrilled to say the least about the first day of school. It unfortunately was pouring rain and not the best for picture taking! But I did manage to peek my head in the door and catch them in action. Chloe caught me in this one...can you see the excitement in her eyes? She is about ready to burst!
Tanner's such an old pro, he knew exactly what to do and went straight into his room and got right to work (or should I say play?) gotta love preschool!
Later that night Chloe just lounged on the couch and told me all of the stories from her day. She was exhausted from all of the fun. (On a side note: it will be a very sad day when she grows out of this outfit from my favorite children's store in Paris. It's one of our favorites! (Thanks Nana and also Auntie Holly!)
And one last thing to share...a baby card that I made for Amanda Smith. I really wanted to try to make some clouds to cover with the flocking from our Sept. kit, and I also used the Chatterbox chipboard sun shape. I love that flocking! This was a super simple card and it turned out pretty cute!
I hope you have a wonderful weekend!

Tagged!!

I mentioned that I had been tagged in my last post by one of our designers Jamie Warren. So you know what that means...

Of course I get to tag some of my favorite blogs! Here's the rules:
(1) The winner can put the logo on their blog. (I didn't)
(2) Link the person you received your award from.
(3) Nominate at least 7 other blogs. (I've also seen 6...)
(4) Put links of those on yours.
(5) Leave a message on the blogs of the girls or boys you have nominated

So, without further ado, I nominate:

Holly Stork my cute sister who is embarking on scrapbooking my niece's baby book, and has been using her Freehand Scraps kits! Super cute!

Amanda Smith one of my BFF's and a important part of our design team here at Freehand Scraps! She is my scrapbook sister!

Celeste Smith another designer for Freehand Scraps (are you sensing a trend here?) She is amazingly talented and I am going to scraplift at least one of her layouts in her gallery for September using our "Little Bird" kit.

Katie Haddox yet another designer for Freehand Scraps and she has the CuTeSt handwriting ever! I love the diversity she brings to our gallery each month!

Molly Peckham take a little look at what she made with our "Little Bird" kit this month. Too cute!

Dina is one of Celeste's friends and I love her artsy style. We met for a bit at CHA and this girl is so creative! You won't be disappointed when you see how much fun her work is!

So there you have it...you're it!

I am working on getting together another newsletter to send out in the next few days. So be on the lookout for that in your inbox. And thank you so much to all of our customers who are such a big part of Freehand Scraps. It means the world to me! Hope you are wonderful!

Labor Day Recap...

Well since I haven't been feeling like the most fun mom on the block, I decided we would take a picnic lunch to the water fountain park to play for Labor Day. I have been telling the kids all summer that I would take them there, and they were totally excited. They didn't quite understand why they couldn't just eat their lunch in the car on the way so that right when we got there they could play and play and play! It was a scorcher so I was very happy that we had a fun place to go outside, but still stay cool. Looks like fun huh? I think the adults were having just as much fun as the kids!
If Chloe gets much taller I'll have to stand on top of something to get shots from above her!
She had fun in the water, but she would have rather been visiting with all of the puppies that were trying to fit in the small patches of shade. This one was particularly friendly.

Today was registration/orientation at the kids' preschool. So I was supposed to be in both of their classrooms at the same time to meet their teachers and be informed of all that's to come. But I decided to just stay with Chloe and dropped Tanner off in his room. She proved that she is going to be just fine at school and went straight inside and followed the teachers instructions. There was one very sad little boy who cried the whole time the teacher talked and sang, and read a story. Chloe kept looking at him like he had lost his mind! She has been wanting to go to school for so long now. They will be just across the hall from each other. I hope that's not a bad thing, or too distracting. I was happy to meet each of their teachers and I feel good about their teaching styles and personalities matching up well with the kids'. They will go their first day on Thursday...they are looking forward to it SO much, and the calendar is full of their school activities already! Let the games begin!

And in Freehand Scraps news...if your subscription has gone through, then your kit is on it's way to your front door! Yea! So be on the lookout in the next few days for it!

My blog just got tagged by one of our designers Jamie Warren! I will post my links tomorrow for that, since this post is getting way too long! Thanks Jamie for the compliment. I am a huge fan of yours! Have a wonderful day!