Torture de Santa!

I wasn't sure if this was fun or torture for the boys. We told them before we left that we were going to see Santa. I thought the announcement would be followed with cheers and excitement to tell Santa what they hoped to get for Christmas. Instead they were both quite certain they did not want to see Santa. Grant was "nervous" he said because he was afraid he was not on Santa's good list. I re-assured him that I was positive he would be on the good list. Cole was unsure how he felt but willing to go along with it. That is until he saw Santa in person. Then the lower lip came out and he said "I no ant ooo O" which means "I am not gonna sit on that man's lap, no way no how." I explained to him that he would probably get a candy cane from Santa if he talked to him. Suddenly Cole was very excited to meet the man in the red hat. When it was Cole's turn he said to Santa "I ant a andy ane" translated to "I want a candy cane" Santa said he didn't have any, but he would be sure to bring some on Christmas. Cole had a complete melt down. Can you see how red his eyes are in the picture?

Cloudy with a chance of glitter rain!

This weekend I worked on making an ornament (and holiday cards, plus a hat for my two year old). It was a creative weekend for me. I haven't had one of those in a long time. I was in the mood this weekend, for sure! So I cleaned up my area and got to work.

Back to the ornament. I had a picture in my head of how I wanted it to turn out. All the pieces were sitting there calling to me to create this image I had in my head. For the first time in a long time, the image in my head is exactly how this ornament turned out.

All in all, it was a great weekend. Everyone was healthy (finally) and we didn't have a hectic schedule. We put the Christmas tree up and we also had to say good-bye to one of my favorite ornaments. My four year old dropped it on the floor and it broke. It was my favorite because he picked it out when he was two years old. He was mesmerized by this ornament and had to have it. How he didn't break it when he was two, will remain a mystery! I am now keeping pictures of the ornament remains. I think I will start a book called "Another one bites the dust" and compile all the pictures!

Have a great week! OH, the Girl Next Door Collection goes on sale tonight at Scrap in Style. I've seen the sneaks. LOVE IT!

Holy Rotten Sweet Potato!

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!!!!!

I should have known things were not going to go well this year. I say that with a smile on my face because none of these things are bad, actually I find them all funny. It started last week with the napkins I made for today. I thought they turned out pretty cute. Then I went to wash them and the color ran in the red thread. Oh well.......then today happened!

Seems nothing I do today is going as planned. The great thing about it is we are getting some really great laughs about all of it. I am still living in the haze of this cold so I am using that as my excuse today. First I get up at 7 am, I am not a morning person btw, to make my turkey. Normally I don't make a whole bird. Instead I make turkey and dressing sandwiches. I found that the family is happier with the sandwiches than the plain turkey. So it has become tradition in our house. Only this Thanksgiving Jenni-o has a new package that looks like the package of the turkey I normally buy and this new turkey has a bone in it still. ACK! I can't use that for my turkey dressing sandwiches. Plan B we are having a normal turkey this year. I had to promise my husband I would make the turkey and dressing sandwiches sometime during the winter. Back to the story. After we laughed about having to change up the menu a little bit, I start to season the turkey breast. I purchase most of my spices at Sam's so they are industrial sized. I went to put some black pepper on the turkey and didn't realize I had the huge opening opened. I had about one cup of pepper pour over the turkey! We laugh about that and move on. No big deal. Then I go to cut up the sweet potatoes, rotten! I mean gross and completely nasty. Ted runs to the store and they say they got a bad shipment yesterday so he could get six new sweet potatoes from a new shipment. He comes home, we peel cut and bake thinking they looked better but not quite normal. They were bad too! So, no sweet potatoes this year. By the way, did anyone else have bad sweet potatoes this year?? So, my turkey is cooking, cheesy potatoes in the oven and the green bean casserole. Let's hope all else goes well!

Do you have any funny Thanksgiving stories this year?

The Turkey is thawing in the sink with care........

With hopes it will be a tasty affair!!!! Dad with his sniffles and mom with her snot, settle down and wish they could sleep A LOT!

We have been so sickly around here. I really believe I just had the worst cold I have ever had in my entire life. If I say that again this winter, it is because I think it is like being in labor, you forget how bad it is until you do it again. The worst of it has past but I still sound terrible and I have a heck of a cough!!!

The first day of not feeling very good I received my kit "The Homebody" from SISTV. The hardcore cold hadn't revealed itself yet so I did a little scrappin'. Here's what I came up with.

I literally took the kit into my bed along with a few supplies and did these layouts. I still have a lot of pictures left to scrap with and a lot of this kit left to scrap them. This is not a kit I would have pictured myself liking so much, but I really liked it. Sometimes I think it is the best thing to spark creativity, getting stuff you normally would not choose for yourself. I know I usually choose the same thing over and over again.

Etsy...Oh, how I love it.......and OMG! It is so much work!

Today I spent much of the day posting lovely vintage items in my Etsy store http://www.etsy.com/shop.php?user_id=5431107. I cannot believe how much time it takes to get everything in there. I love selling on Etsy so every minute is worth it! I'd love to hear about your Etsy stores too! If you have one, please post a link to it in my comments section. I will be sure to check it out!

Tomorrow I am going to be posting more items. That is if my kids will let me! Right now they are both sick, so I am thinking they will be doing a lot of resting tomorrow. Keep your fingers crossed the lighting will be good for taking pictures. I wanna get this amazing shirt posted in the store too. It is vintage and has green cherries on it!

One of the items I will be posting tomorrow is a great collection of vintage items for scrapbooking.

Night Owl and PJ's!

Night Owl will be available tonight at Midnight! I loved playing with these colors. I loved using these colors for a summer page I did (see photo below) and I love it for Halloween pictures! I think it is a really versatile color combo.

We are hosting an online PJ party at http://www.scrapinstyletv.com/ on November 15th starting at 8pm CT. Games, challenges, free classes and lots of laughs! Get in your pj's and have some scrappy fun with your SISters!

Why I am certain my 4 year old has a lot of my family in him!

Grant: "Mama I really want that police toy."

Me: "I know buddy but you have not really been listening very well and little boys that don't listen very good don't get cool new stuff like that."

Grant: "What things do I have to do to be good?"

Me: "You need to listen when I ask you to do something. Also, you can't say no when I ask you to do something you don't want to do. Screaming and having a bad attitude is another thing you have to stop doing."

Grant: "Ok mama. I can do that."

Me: "One more thing. You have to stop being so bossy."

Grant: *long silence* "Ohhhh that's hard Mama. I don't think I can stop doing that."

Just an end note to this. When I tell either my mother or father this stuff about my son they both say "I wonder where he gets that from?" With the implication that it is me he gets it from. I just reply, "The same place I got it from."

Mom says, "Yeah, your father."

Dad says, "Yeah, your mother."

Can you tell they are divorced? LOL!

It's Been 7 YEARS since..............

I dressed up for Halloween! I am so glad I did. We had a great time with the other families at the party. My husband was very happy since Halloween is one of his favorite times of the year. This year he and I waited till the very last minute to get costumes. Why did we do that? Good question. It turned out ok, but as always we were running around like chickens with our heads cut off. So here is how the conversation went down the night before the party.

Me: "Ted we should go to Goodwill early in the morning to see if we can find costumes."

Ted: "Yeah that's probably a good idea, but Grant has a soccer game in the morning."

Me: "AACK! I forgot! Alright I guess that blows the plan. So, we won't go early, we will go after the game. Oh yeah, and we have to figure out what we are going to make for a dessert we signed up to bring. Also, I suppose we will have to make the dessert too. UGGGGHHH."

Ted: "Ok."

Yep, just OK. "OK" like it is very reasonable plan to do all that and get to the party by 5pm meaning we must leave our house at 4:30 pm. I am really lucky he is so calm and cool all the time. Even more lucky he encouraged me to purchase the desert! LOL!

I loved my purple hair! Can you see the "bling" I put on my face? Yeah, got that straight from my scrapbooking supplies. I personally thought it was genius! I did mention this costume was last minute!

Vintage Finds!

I have been having such a great time going to rummage sales and thrift stores. Sometimes I have no idea what I am going to do with my finds, other times I know exactly what I am going to do. Recently I found some place mats. As soon as I saw them, I knew exactly what I was going to attempt to do with them. Here are the results:

See the floral valance in between the green drapes? I re purposed the place mats and turned them into valances! I love that they didn't cost me an arm and a leg! I did have to go and get a little piece of new fabric to match, but other than that, I used only the place mats. I wanted to fancy them up a little so I created a ruffle in between the two place mats.

You will see more of my vintage finds being transformed. I have an idea for vintage pillowcases that I can't wait to show you! I am doing a crash course in sewing. It is called Sewing: Trial and Error 101. My teacher.....................me. So far both the treasure hunting and learning to sew have been adventures!

One last thing. If you signed up to be a SIS affiliate through my blog, please email me at keriazakos@sbcglobal.net. I will need your address so I can send you a little something! There is still time to sign up!! You just have to make sure you email me and let me know.

One more thing. I was at Craft Fancy today http://www.craftfancy.blogspot.com/

As my two boys and I were pulling up, so was the UPS guy. He was delivering this:

Yes, I did buy some! :)

*Traci*

One week away from civilization!

One of the many sites on the way up to Minocqua, WI.

I am back from my lovely vacation in the northern WI woods. We really had a great time. My boys were full of excitement with each new discovery. Their favorite day was the day we went to Lake Superior. The entire beach is covered with nice smooth rocks. I could not believe the rocks held their attention for so long. They played for hours and still didn't want to leave. We were the only ones on the beach, in fact, we didn't see anyone the entire time were were at the beach. It was peaceful. At the beach we didn't have a toy, a radio, a game, nothing. And yet, we were happy. I realized how much we need to do that more often than we do now.

Shhh....my favorite part of the vacation, besides watching my boys be so blissfully happy in the great outdoors, was all the yard sales and thrift stores I was able to find. I thrift shopped and yard saled from IL to the far northwoods. By the time we were returning to IL, my husband and I were humming the tune from Sanford and Sons. I even had stuff tied on the top of the van!!!

I also found these:

This one I found in Cedarburg, WI. Loved how they had things set up. They were really great to talk to also! And they were especially kind when my son (who was suppose to be being watched by my husband, was twirling their display around!)

Scrapbook store in Woodruff!

Very friendly! I could not believe how much Tim Holtz stuff they had!

Tomorrow I am hoping to have pictures of all my great finds. Some of it is soaking in the sink right now. I found the most amazing valances ever! EVER! Really, I found some cool stuff!

Did I mention I saw a real bear? REAL, as in, wild. Not in a zoo. It was so cool! We also saw bald eagles. Michelle, I did not have a mint on the pillow. :) Our accomodations were pretty good though.

One More Post Today!

I forgot that I wanted to post about this.

In June I took at class at SISiversary. It was taught by Jo-Anne, our wonderful and amazingly creative Fashionista. I.was.blown.away! She has a view of scrapbooking that is real and everyone needs to hear. I watched people walk out of the class with a new appreciation for their paper and glue. They were inspired, to say the least.

If you need some inspiration, even if you are not a scrapbooker, I strongly encourage you to take this class with Jo-Anne. It's easy too. Just click on the SIS TV banner one the side of my blog and sign up!!! I promise you won't regret it! Did I mention it is only $12.95! What a steal!

I read.

I am a huge fan of Philippa Gregory. I am working on reading everyone of her books. So far they have all been pretty good. When I saw this book, I had to get it right away. I am in the middle of another book, but I couldn't wait to start this one. I can't finish it. I just can't.

This book is so haunting and so horrifying that I can't read it. It is giving me nightmares and my heartaches from the utter evil that human beings had to endure through the days of slave trade. I say "human beings" because through out the book the kidnapped Africans are called everything but humans. They call them animals, they call them stupid, they call them property. YES, I have heard all this before, but never have I been taken on the journey from Africa through the voice of one of the humans abducted. Read this if you can stomach the details of children raped, murdered and people beaten to death (let me say again, it is described in detail). Philippa Gregory is a spectacular author, I adore her and I appreciate that she told it like it is. I do find it interesting that she choose to have the setting in England rather than America. I wonder what made her decide to do that. I wonder if she thought it would be less difficult for Americans to handle if they thought it was someone else committing these crimes against humanity?

Maybe I need to continue to read this. Look at how much I have thought about this and what it has sparked in me.

Let me just add, this is required reading at the high school here where I live. I just don't know how I feel about that. I was always totally against censorship and I still am. I just don't know why of all the good pieces of literature out there we need to feed this kind of violence to high school students.

I am a SIS TV affiliate!

YAY! Anyone who knows me, know I am very happy to be part of Scrap In Style TV. I have been a SISter since last year. Since March, I have been part of the team. Now I get to be an affiliate also! How much better can this get? If you want to become an affiliate also, please click on the link here on my blog and sign up. Then you can reap the awesome benefits that come along with being an affiliate! If you have any questions, please send me an email! Really, it is as easy as posting a banner on your blog!


There is a rak for anyone who signs up to be an affiliate through my blog!!! Please leave a comment and let me know you have done it!!!





Have a great day everyone!!!!


Traci

I am finally gonna do this!

Finally, I have my blog going. I have had it for a while but only played around with it once in a while. Now I am going to commit to posting and keeping it updated. YAY! I am so excited. Now I can do RAKs and post other fun stuff here!

Please, if you stop by, say hello!

Bored, so what better to do........

COLD day here in Chicagoland. Have I told you how much I dislike the cold? More than a lot. I am pretty sure I was born to live in a tropical climate sans the hurricanes. People tell me all the time, "You don't want to live in a hurricane prone place." Ok. Let's think about this for a moment. I live in a place where a town was just wiped out, in January, from a tornado. I was in a tornado once, no warning, just BOOM tornado. Yeah, I'll take the three day warning of a hurricane coming anyday over a tornado out of the blue. LOL!

Today I cleaned. The kind of cleaning you do when people are coming over, because, well, people are coming over. I will have put lots of hours into cleaning this house only to have my dad come over for a couple of hours to watch the boys. We'll see if all the cleaning was worth it. I think I should have steak and lobster tonight. That would make it worth it. Throw in some tiramisu and well, yeah, happiness. :)