A Rice Bag and a (R)ice Pack

One of my recent sewing projects has been rice bags. I've made about 7 in the past couple of months! I found the idea and tutorial here (another blog I've been loving recently!). I made them as Christmas gifts for all the ladies in my family, and I've been asked to make a few more. My mother-in-law's apartment building wants me to make some for them to sell at a fund-raiser!
These are very easy to make, and they are nice for aches and pains, or even to just warm yourself up. To use your rice bag, put it in the microwave on high for 2 minutes (with a paper towel underneath it), and then you put it wherever you want it. I've heard that they are also good for women in labor.
I decided to make a small one for Drew and put it in the freezer for when he gets a bump. I cut a 6 inch by 12 inch piece of fabric for his (r)ice pack, and I used a cup and a half of rice to fill it. I made this rice bag for Jim's aunt. I used a 25 inch by 12 inch piece of fabric here, and I used six cups of rice (a cup and a half in each section).

Here they are together.

These are a fun little gift idea or something nice to make to pamper yourself. I still need to make one for myself!

Blog Hop Winner

The Hoppy New Years Blog Hop at Let's Scrap ended on Monday, and there were so many participants! Lots of pages were made, and I think that the hop was a big success. I had 50 entries in my challenge, so I was thrilled! The (randomly selected) winner of my challenge - Resolution #10 - was Kathy Perry, and this is her adorable winning layout: I love the bubble wands she added to her layout - so fun! Kathy, send me a message with your address, and I will mail you your prize! :)
I have a few last pages to share from the blog hop. This first one was done for challenges #1 (scraplift another layout) and #4 (make a list). When I was born, I had six living grandmas, and I wanted to make a layout with photos of each of them. I listed their names. (Thanks to my parents for mailing me photos to scan for this layout!)

This layout is for Challenge #2 - a color combo challenge. I had a pen pal when I was in Jr. High and High School, and I got to meet her several times and even stay in her home for a week during one of our trips to France with my dad's summer mission teams. I recently found her again on the internet, and it has been fun to reconnect a little bit.

I enjoyed the blog hop very much and got a lot of pages done. I'm taking a week off from scrapping this week (to recover!), but I'll get back to it soon. :)

Our Valentine's Day

We have had fun celebrating Valentine's Day this year. We got out Drew's little mailbox again this year, and he enjoyed checking to see if the flag was up (a signal that something fun was waiting inside). We also made Valentine cards this year for a few people. Drew liked coloring the branch for the owl and sticking the buttons on for the owl's eyes.
I made this page for the Let's Scrap blog hop. It was for challenge 6 - using a card sketch to make a Valentine card or page. Drew and I were invited to a Valentine party yesterday by some friends from church. Our hosts have two little girls, and Drew wanted to bring some "boy toys" with him, but he ended up having a great time playing with a doll house!

This was the table at the party. We had a delicious lunch and a great time together!

Jim and I got Drew a Buzz Lightyear set with a belt, binoculars, and a little disc shooter as a little Valentine's Day gift. We hid it and had Drew go on a little hunt through the house to find it.

Drew LOVES his new Buzz toys!

I made a heart-shaped pizza and salad for dinner (notice my little section with mushrooms).

A few weeks ago (right before our blizzard) I got the supplies to make this wreath. I finished it a week or two ago, but we didn't have a hook on our new kitchen door, so I couldn't hang it. Jim went to Home Depot last night and got me a hook so my Valentine's rose wreath could be hung for a few hours on Valentine's Day! I'm going to keep it up for a little while longer!

I found the tutorial here (I am really enjoying this blog!), and I bought my felt by the yard instead of by the sheet. I think I must have rolled my little roses more tightly than the tutorial ones are rolled because it took me about half a yard of each color (I initially bought a quarter of a yard of each, but I ran out and had to go get more to finish the wreath). It was easy, but time consuming, and I really like the way it turned out!

I hope you all had a great Valentine's Day! I'm enjoying my gift from Jim and Drew today - a Nook reader from Barnes and Noble! I borrowed my first library book on it last night, and I'm having fun figuring it out!

I'll be back tomorrow to share a few more pages from the end of the blog hop and to announce the winner of my challenge!

Let's Scrap Hoppy New Year Blog Hop

I'm so happy that you have decided to join us for the Let's Scrap Happy New Year Blog Hop! For those of you who are new to the site, Let's Scrap is a wonderful group of scrapbookers who encourage and motivate each other in our love for scrapbooking! New sketches are posted every Wednesday, with sample layouts done by the Design Team to provide inspiration. Members have one week to complete and post their interpretation of the sketch, and one random winner is then selected to win that week's prize, provided by many different sponsors.
In addition to the weekly sketch, one of the Design Team members posts a challenge every Friday, and there are often special monthly challenges, with chances to win a prize for every challenge entered. Our forum contains tutorials, a place to "toot your horn," a 'Question of the week,' and much, much more. We believe that we have one of the friendliest communities of scrappers on the web, and we are so glad that you have decided to check us out during our blog hop!

And now, a little bit about this blog hop:
The Let's Scrap Hoppy New Year Blog Hop starts Friday, January 14, 2011 and runs until 11:59 pm central time on Monday, February 14, 2011. That's right - it runs for a whole month! Because it is the New Year, we thought it would be fun to name the challenges, "Resolutions."
There are 15 members of the Design Team from Let's Scrap who are hosting the blog hop. They will each have a Resolution (challenge) for you to do and a prize that you can win. Also, one of the members who doesn't have a blog is posting a couple of great challenges in the Let's Scrap Forum, and there will be in-depth rules and other important information posted in the forum, so make sure to check it all out!
Not only do you have a chance to win a prize for every challenge you enter, but if you complete and post an entry for every challenge along the blog hop, your name will also be entered into a random drawing for a wonderful prize supplied by Cosmo Cricket!
On every blog in the hop, you must become a follower, and leave a little love (a comment) for the host.

Okay, are you ready to start this section of the Let's Scrap Blog Hop? I am stop #10, and you should be coming to me from Mandy's blog. Here is the tenth Resolution (challenge).

Resolution #10 - I like to be as frugal as possible in my scrapbooking, so I like to look for inexpensive ways to make my layouts special. I am challenging you to find an old item from your home (not originally meant for scrapbooking), and use your "trash" to make a treasure! Make an embellishment from something in your home, or use your old item as a page element. There are so many ways that you can do this, and I have a few examples here:
This is the page I made specifically for this challenge. I used two "trash" items here. The first is the yellow twill ribbon. I was tied around a Christmas gift I received, and I thought it would be useful someday. The other old item I used was the Thomas tag at the bottom. It came on a Thomas toy that my son got a while ago. I saved it to use on a future Thomas project.
This is a layout that I did this past fall. I used some old fabric (from a pair of pants that I hemmed for my husband) to make the little tree trunks.

For this last example, I cut the circles that are behind the flowers from one of those cardboard rings that you put around hot drink cups to keep from burning your hands.

Other "trash" ideas I had are packaging, tags, book pages, fabric from old clothing, . . .

Specific Resolution #10 Rules:

1. Use a Let's Scrap sketch to make a 1 or 2 page layout. There are lots of sketches to choose from!

2. When you post your layout in the gallery, list (in the comment section) any "trash" items you used in your layout.

3. You must tag your layout correctly in order for it to be entered into the challenge. For my page, I used a sketch (from the MarchSketches2Print page) called MemorableSeasonsMarch, so my tag would be: Resolution#10, MemorableSeasonsMarch. NO space between Resolution and #10, comma, sketch name/number with no space either.

4. On February 14, 2011, I will randomly select one person who completed Resolution #10 to receive this fun prize.

Okay, now it's time to hop on over to the next stop - Wendy's blog!

And, just in case you get lost along the way, here is the full list of participating blogs:

Resolution #1 - Betty Ann

Resolution #2 - Kristen

Resolution #3 - Beth
Resolution #4 - Cori

Resolution #5 - Carolina

Resolution #6 - Roulien

Resolution #7 - Kristie

Resolution #8 - Bev

Resolution #9 - Mandy

Resolution #10 - Megan - you are here!

Resolution #11 - Wendy

Resolution #12 - Debby

Resolution #13 - Dawn

Resolution #14 - Tracey

Resolution #15 - Amy

Thanks for stopping by!

More Blog Hop Pages

I have been scrapbooking a lot this month for the blog hop at Let's Scrap.
This first layout is some pictures from the day my in-laws were married. I did this for Resolution #15 - using the colors teal, yellow, gray, and silver and the word happy. My in-laws wanted a very private wedding, so they were married in their pastor's living room. They forgot to find witnesses, and the church secretary and her husband happened to stop by to drop something off, so they were the witnesses. The family had a little party at Jim's Aunt Maxine's house after the wedding. This next page is for Resolution #11 - using the colors blue, white, and silver. I love these pictures of Drew helping Jim with the snow blower.

This page is for Resolution #8 - using black and white photos and blue and yellow embellishments. These are some pictures of my mom and Aunt Pam when they were growing up.

This layout is for this week's sketch. I used some photos from our putt-putting afternoon back in September.

This layout is for Resolution #7 - using a banner. These pictures are from this past Thanksgiving.

This page is for Resolution #13 - using only cardstock and some small embellishments. These photos are from a couple summers ago. Drew had a little Frosty and enjoyed eating and making a mess of it! I embossed the paper strips with my Cuttlebug.

This layout is for Resolution #9 - scrap something that makes you smile. I thought that Drew was so cute helping Jim cut the grass with his little mower. He wanted to roll it along the sidewalk and driveway and then carry it across the grass to the sidewalk again.

This layout is for Resolutions #3 (use 3 patterned papers and stitching) and #12 (use eyelets). These pictures are from all the gift openings at Christmas this year.

This is last week's sketch. I scrapped some older photos of a zoo trip with my mom and sister.

This last layout is some random photos of fun things we did this Christmas (Polar Express, Christmas book each day, baking cookies, decorating our trees, and see in the lights at BJU). This page is for the sketch from two weeks ago.

The blog hop ends this coming Monday, and I've enjoyed scrapping so much! I have one more challenge to do and a few more layouts to share next week. I usually scrap on my living room couch (with a lap desk) in the evenings while we relax as a family and also after Drew goes to bed.

I hope you are all having a great week. It is very cold here, so staying in (and scrapping) has been perfect this month!

Our Blizzard

We had a little blizzard here the past couple of days. It didn't end up being quite as bad as they originally thought it would be, but it was very cold and windy, and we did get quite a bit of snow. I spent a lot of time inside wearing these warm socks that my dad knit for me for Christmas. It snowed all night Tuesday night and through the morning on Wednesday until about 2:00 in the afternoon. It started back up again for a few more hours, and then it was finally done late Wednesday afternoon. Jim and Drew went out to do their first round of snow clearing/playing around 9:00 in the morning. This was how deep it was at that point on our driveway.

Here is a view down my street, from my front porch.

Here are the guys out on the driveway.

Drew made a snow angel in the front yard.

Then he crawled out to the sidewalk to see Jim.

He threw some snow.

And slowed down progress.

It took them about an hour the first time they went out. They went back out after the snow was finally done and cleared it all again.

Today it is bright and sunny, and the plows are getting to the side streets. Things are getting back to normal. Of course, I'm not going anywhere - this South Carolina girl doesn't like to drive in snow if she doesn't have to!

A Little Update and an Idea

We have been busy this past week, but not really busy doing anything worth taking photos of. :)
Jim started back to work this past Wednesday after being laid off for seven weeks! We were so happy to hear that the City Council, after delaying their decision, taking a six week Winter Break, and then not having the contract on their docket their first week back from break, finally stamped the contract last Tuesday. Jim is now the general manager at the golf course, which is a promotion for him. He is thrilled to be back, and he is really liking the new company so far. God was very good to us during the weeks of waiting, and He provided for us during that time. We truly enjoyed the weeks together as a family, and it has been a little bit of an adjustment for us as Jim has gone back to work.
We are preparing for a blizzard today! I was able to get to some stores yesterday, so we are well-stocked and should be fine. The weather people are predicting 8 to 12ish inches, so it should be interesting!
I do have one photo to share today. I had read on-line about a cookie dough idea, and I decided to try it last week. I made a batch of cookie dough, scooped it all up with my little cookie scoop (which I highly recommend!), put the balls of cookie dough on waxed paper-lined cookie sheets, and put them in the freezer for a little while. Once they were frozen, I put all the balls of dough into a big Tupperware bowl, and put it back into the freezer. Now, I can pull out the number of cookies I want, bake them, and have a few fresh cookies whenever I want or need some!
A tip I saw was to pull out the number of cookies you want and let them sit at room temperature for a while before you bake them. I just let them sit on the cookie sheet while the oven preheats, and that worked well for me. I used our favorite Chocolate Chip Cookie recipe, and it worked great!
I hope you are all having a great week!