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.