what's going on...

and yet again, Monday arrives quicker than it needs to...

after a great weekend attending a family reunion in Va Beach, the kids and i had planned on spending our Monday in our jammies... (well, i'm in lounging clothes since i went to the gym this am...) doing whatever we want; being semi-productive around the house. i had no plans of sitting at my computer all day today. instead, i got a little carried away and decided to make a few changes to the blog, which takes forever! i added a new chevron background banner, some pointed sidebar buttons and enlarged some sidebar images, etc. the font used on the banner is marmellata jam. it's still a big transition coming from typepad to blogger. i'm happy w/ blogger, just need to learn how to navigate better.. the new changes still need some tweaking. thinking of adding a few simple brush elements to the white strip across the banner... we'll see. but so far so good. i like the overall look and feel much better... for now it will do.

it's the last month of summer and we are enjoying every last minute of it. keeping our days simple, productive and fun, w/ a few lazy days in between. the past seven days we've enjoyed the pool w/ friends, bowling, painting, admired the sky after a thunderstorm, baking treats, played outside, collected all the school supplies and soaked up sunshine at the beach...

good times... xo!!

Lily Bee cards | with a little sunshine...

Tuesday night i drove to Va Beach to pick my babies. they were hangin out w/ the grandparents for eight days... the longest they've ever been away. they weren't suppose to be home until Friday, but Tyler was becoming homesick and started crying. we talked on the phone every single day while they were away. and then he cried missing me... my word. i felt so bad and drove down to get my babies early. ha. love that they are home and i did miss them like crazy.

we were going to spend some time at the beach before heading back, but we were all so tired and drove home. probably a good thing since i had so much going on.

anyway, i made cards... my post on the Lily Bee blog went live yesterday here...

"fun in the sun" uses an enlarged 3x4 card free cutting file by Chic Tags here...

"hello sunshine" banner word is a free cutting file made by Chic Tags found here...

"hello, you're so sweet" sun cutting file can be found in the Silhouette online store here...

products used can be found here...

xo!

summer solstice

today i'm sharing a layout i created using a good mix of Lily Bee products, old & new. i love to mix & match these products together... this layout went up on the blog yesterday here, documenting one of my favorite summer traditions.

Spending time at the beach, running through the sprinkler in the backyard, and just plain grilling are just a few of my favorite summertime memories.  Though, celebrating the Fourth of July with my family is probably the most favorite and setting off fireworks is probably been our family tradition since the beginning.  We spend several hours outside counting down the clock and awaiting the sunset so we can begin our fun.  I get a kick out of my kids excitement as they watch the fireworks explode.  Their reaction is comical, nervous, and full of joy.  Sadness always weighs in once all the fireworks are done, but then we get to sit on our front porch and watch the professionals shoot off fireworks into the sky in our neighborhood.  A perfect ending to a wonderful summer day celebrating our freedom.

xo!

organized clutter...

hello there!

last week was crazy, so much going on that i find myself losing track while trying to keep up w/ everything we have going on around here. i don't see it slowing down much either. we have some house projects in the works and just the thought of making a mess to get it all done is stressing me out a little. but i know it will all look so nice in the end. we finally bought tile for our kitchen backsplash, we have tile cutter & equipment to get started, we picked out the paint color for the walls and we even have a guy coming out to paint the kitchen, bathroom & foyer ceiling next weekend. i'm super excited to get this all knocked off my to do list.

today, i have a layout that went live up on the Lily Bee blog, featuring the circle & tag stickers. i broke out my circle punches for this page. it's been a very long time since i have used the same shape, repeatedly on a layout and it was quite liberating. for my design, i created a little organized clutter with layers of embellishments and stickers. i love how it turned out.

i used snap shots of the bed & breakfast we stayed while vacationing in Nags Head last year. i loved that place and looking forward to staying their again.

to continue with the arrow element from the top corner of my page, i converted the chipboard airplane into an arrow by snipping off the top end of it's body. like how that turned out.

thanks for stopping by. i hope enjoy your day off relaxing, xo!