How Anna Got Her Groove Back...

true confessions.

I spent most of the afternoon scrapbooking.

at least from 11 am till 2:45pm. (oh, and from 8-10 with Lori last night, too)

I completely neglected most of my responsibilities and got in touch with my creative side again. Felt guilty the entire time, and realized while cleaning up how very much I needed it. The last 3 or 4 months in the Thoreson household have been insane non-stop and I am so grateful to have a bit of down time.

So now you get to see what I was up to.

This first picture is for Lori. I was raving about these ancient stamps that I paid way too much for back in 2002 or something. Ordered them from twopeasinabucket.com and they were backordered for months. The day they finally came I was so disappointed by their general cheesiness (and over-price-ed-ness, just made that word up for ya) but I love the way they actually stamp out. Some of my favorite stamps to this day, and I rarely use stamps any more, mostly out of laziness. (I told you this was true confessions)

Next is a layout I threw together on Wednesday afternoon. I just wasn't feeling well and couldn't focus and I'm not too thrilled with it, sadly too, because I love these pics of my kids.

Then we get into last night's work. This plane just lifts my heart to heart to happy places. I saw this paper at Michael's yesterday for a whole $.59. Normally cheapo paper annoys me, and this was extremely thin, low quality paper. But the design was so happy and I was instantly inspired. So I handed over my 59 cents and brought this paper home and immediately backed it with some cardstock for stability, popped the plane with an exacto knife and some pop dots and went at it with alpha stamps and stickles. Love the end result. (even though there isn't a photo, ha ha) I'm on a big kick to scrapbook our family values lately. Years ago (when Eli was a newborn) I decided that scrapbooks would be a history album for our family. If anything ever happened to me or Rob, there our love would be, poured all over the pages of our family scrapbook. He'd know us, inside and out. So we scrap the good with the bad. And now I'm really trying to document our core beliefs, our dreams for their futures, and anything I can think might help them along their journey one day. (for those of you that don't know, my dad lost his mom when she was 27. I thought for the longest time I wouldn't live past then, I had her exact same name. Made me a bit paranoid about leaving a legacy for our little ones.)

This next page was inspired by a project that Heidi Swapp is organizing. Love her stuff. Don't have time (or money) to follow all of her inspiration, but this little .pdf was a very fun freebie and just happened to work perfectly with my already written New Year's Resolutions. Love it in the blue and grey and black and white. Messy, but fun!

And while I was photographing, I realized that I hadn't photographed the two albums I recovered. I'm partial to the D-Ring American Crafts albums. Because I'm uber-cheap (big shocker, right?) I usually buy the naked album and then cover it with fun wrapping paper from IKEA or Hobby Lobby. It's a process, but it makes my albums extremely unique. Plus, I love the way they line up on my bookshelf. Eventually I want to go through all my albums and put them in chronological order (ha ha, only ten years of albums) and replace all my old, broken post bound albums with these great American Crafts ones. Then it would be really cool to stamp the year on the spine so they all line up cool-like on the shelf. Quite a plan, isn't it?

I wasn't very pleased with the results on the red and black houndstooth one, but I liked the pink pretty well. Need to be on the lookout for some more fun colored wrapping paper, but it's been a while since I've been to IKEA again.

Back to the matter at hand. I started this page last night, and then finished it this morning. Love the story of this, just thinking about fairy tales and dreams coming true. I want Sarah to dream big for her marriage one day, and save herself for that godly man that the Lord has designed for her. I pray for my children's marriages almost on a daily basis. I know what a good marriage can be and it is the greatest gift and I'm so grateful for it.

Can't believe I got to do another snow page this year. I had bought this page kit about 2 years ago and then got it home and thought "I live in South Texas, when will I ever use this??". Lucky me, it's snowed two years in a row!

Next in line is our Trinity Christmas card page. Fun because I designed this card. Well, mostly. And we printed it with my company, so it felt like a pretty massive accomplishment. :) Did the pictures, too.

And this is by far my favorite page of the day. I love this photo, it just makes me warm on the inside. And you have to understand that Sarah asks for hot cocoa almost every day. :)

These last two pages are a spread from youth convention. Had a lot of fun with them. And I should clarify, Rob was trying to show how big my head was when I took the picture, but I thought it was a great statement about youth convention. Oh, and that bottom picture is Rob on the stage, receiving the offering. I love how his head is on the projector. (love Rob)

So that's it for now. Might scrapbook a bit more tonight. Feels good to relax a bit.