everything which is yes

filling with holiday spirit

I just love this time of year. LOVE it.  And really from the moment of my last bite of turkey on Thanksgiving day I begin to get gooped up on the Christmas gop.  I love the whole anticipation of it all and joy of the little moments...the whole advent of it.  The hunting for a tree, the lighting of smell good candles, the hanging of decorations, the sounds of holiday music, the watching of holiday movies, the baking, the wrapping, the shopping.  I love it all.  So this year I'm finally taking part in creating a December Daily.  I've always been enchanted with the idea of it and I'm excited to give it a shot.  Not sure I'll be able to create a page every day, but I'm definitely going to try to capture and scrap the moments of the month. 

Last year was the first year we didn't travel anywhere for Christmas and while we missed our families terribly, it was fun and special to start creating new traditions and have a cozy Christmas at home.  And in the whole spirit of the season we are undertaking two new traditions this year.  We are going to have tons of fun with Elf Magic and the Jesse Tree tradition.  Will share more about this as the month progresses.

bugga thanks

Sooo remember how we've been counting blessings throughout the month?  It's been fun to see what Bugga says every day.  There have been fun ones and profound ones and they all add up to give a fabulous mosaic of who she is right now, what's important to her, and ultimately what *should* be important to all of us...because the things she is most thankful for, are the simple and beautiful things.  The ones that really matter.

Anyway, for a challenge I decided to create a page that showcased her thankfulness.  I think it will be fun to do something like this every year...so consider this the first annual "Bugga Thanks" page (please click for full credits):

giving thanks

Every year this season of holidays and family and faith seems to easily get lost in a blur of hub bub and preparations and all kinds of distractions...and so in my attempt to slow things down a bit and keep us focused on the day-to-day blessings, we've decided to give family thanks each day this month.  And when I saw Teresa's post over at Weeds and Wildflowers I knew it was just the little thing I was looking for...the idea is that every day in this month of thanks we will share and record something we are for which we are thankful.  Big things, small things, goofy things..whatever we count as a blessing that day we are going to write it down and create a little "chain of thanksgiving".

I used these adorable Turkey Day goodies from Jacque Larsen at The Lilypad (it's part of this month's amazing BYOC) to create the thankful strips:

Then we cut the strips and staple the ends together to create "rings" which we link together...you know old school paper chain style.

The fun thing about this little project is that Bugga and her ideas of thankfulness take center stage.  The links of thanks mostly represent the things she's most thankful for, in her own words.

hippity hoppity

Happy Digital Scrapbooking Day!!

DSD is upon us and I'm really thrilled about all the goings on at The Lilypad.  On top of the usual amazingness of sales that come along with DSD, there are some fun announcements and festivities happening at The Pad!  Be sure to check out the brand new public forums, including tons of fabulous challenges to get your creativity flowing.  Annnd it's BYOC time too, so there are TONS of gorgeous new releases.

I'm excited to be hosting the DSD Color Challenge and this month's BYOC Challenge and hope you'll play along with me!  Here's a peek at my pages for the challenges:

 

In fact, all this fun at The Pad is probably why you're here.  If you've come here from Julie's blog looking for the next stop on the Blog Hop, you've found it! :)

And I am sharing a QP based on my layout like macaroni and cheese made with the fabulous Mac n Cheese collab by Spotted Dog Designs and Amy Sumrall:

You can pick up your QP version HERE HERE HERE HERE

 
Next stop on the Blog Hop is the fabulously talented and sometimes witty Peppermint.  She has another fabulous something something for you! 

Happy DSD and Happy Scrapping!  Hope to see everyone in the forums!

gooped up on the scrapping gop

This week is one of those "overwhlemed, but in a good way with more gorgeous scrapping goodies than I know what to do with" weeks.  With International Digital Scrapbooking Day fast approaching there are new releases galore and lots of fun festivities to gear up for.  I could easily scrap all the live long day if I could and if there were more hours in the day.  I'm excited for all that's in store all over digiland!

In the meantime I have also been working on a challenge page...which had me going out of my box for sure.  My first photoless page.  I don't know why I was so intimidated by a page with no photos, but once I got going with it, it felt good to focus on words and design and lots of scrappy elements to tell my story instead of building everything around a photo.

I decided to scrap my "life verse", which ultimately at its core is about focusing on all the good things (click for full credits). 

verse: Whatever is true, whatever is noble,whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable, if anything is excellent & praiseworthy, dwell on these things. Philippians 4:8

journaling reads: I’ve always had a struggle with worry with focusing a little too much on the worst case scenario. I suppose it’s a self protection thing. But I’ve made a commitment to myself and more importantly to God, to dwell not on that which is worrisome, but that which is beautiful. This is my “life verse”. My reminder to count blessings, give thanks, have faith and be God centered.

kitty cat bugga

Bugga loved her costume.  Loved the whole imagination of it.  You know "being" a cat.  In fact, she's "been" a cat ever since we got the costume and first let her try it on. 

But isn't she just the cutest kitty?