I’m here! I have been ultra busy, and not necessarily with designing. Real life can tend to put the designing on hold from time to time. I live in Florida, and as I am sure most of you know, we were recently visited by Tropical Storm Fay. What a pain she was! She invited herself over, stayed way too long, and then left a huge mess behind.

My husband works at the EOC for a neighboring county and, as we found out, is essential personnel. He went into work on Wednesday and did not come home until Saturday. He was only home long enough to sleep and then was back to work for another 12 hours on Sunday. He even missed our summer handbell performance. We had to grab one of the youth who happens to read music and have him fill in. Poor kid had to sight read, and the music was HARD. He did a pretty good job though, and we muddled through the concert. Nobody in the audience seemed to even notice, thankfully.

I took the kids and our dog and headed over to my parent’s house during the storm. They got some flooding, which we expected, and we watched their neighbor’s mailbox float down the road.

My grandfather also had some flooding in his apartment. Other than that, we lost some branches at my house and that’s about all. It could have been so much worse, and I am so grateful that we all made it through with such little damage.

We also made the mistake of starting school last week, just before Fay came by. The kids were excited about starting our year, and then everything got put on hold. Right now, our favorite part of school is science. I found a nice and FREE science curriculum that I am using with the kids. The unit is 33 weeks long and the focus is on the human body. You can find it at ourlosbanos.com. Since J1’s favorite subjects are math and science, I figure we will do this as additional science for him.

Want to know why the kids are enjoying science so much? They love the interactive activities and projects. We did a project this morning where we created edible DNA. J1 LOVED it and looks forward to learning everything he can in regards to DNA and cells. J2 seems to have a slight grasp on the concept now, and the girls enjoyed getting to match the colored patterns, which was more age appropriate for them. The best part, of course, was that they got to eat it after their picture was taken. The original project called for colored marshmallows to be used, but the grocery store did not have any in stock so we used gummy bears instead. I think it actually worked out better since the colors were brighter and easier for the kids to see. The drawback was that they were a little harder for the younger ones to stick onto the toothpicks without them breaking and causing a slight meltdown period.

Did I mention the great collab I made with Wendy of Neverland Scraps? It is still on sale through this weekend at my Divine Digital store, and you can also find it at NDISB and Pixie Treasures. There are even some cute QPs and BB pages available at Pixie Treasure, so be sure to check them out!

One final thing before I go! I will be adding a couple of new pages at the top of my blog in the near future. Actually, one will be going up today - freebies. These will rotate from time to time. If you happened to miss my Teacher’s Pet submissions, they will be available for you to snag. I have no idea how often I will add to that page, so be sure to check back every so often and see of anything new has been added.

With that, I am off! Have a wonderful day!

Yes, it is still a little ways away, but definitely on the minds of kids and parents everywhere. School is starting soon (already has for many), and therefore the end of summer freedom is upon us. We plan on starting school next week. I’ve just been waiting for some library books to be put on hold for me, and they appear to all be ready as of this morning. Yay! We’re going to ease into it slowly and hopefully we can find a good schedule pretty soon. Last year worked out great, but this year my husband’s work schedule changed and it is putting a kink in the schedule I thought I would have. So, we shall see how I schedule things now.

For those of you who have been following the Teacher’s Pet contest, I did not make the third cut. That’s ok though, because those that did make it are all wonderful and totally deserve to be there. I can’t wait to see who gets chosen for the spot or spots.

In the meantime, I was able to pair up with Neverland Scraps for a collab kit appropriately named “End of Summer”.

I had so much fun working on this and with Wendy. We are selling this at Divine Digital and Pixie Treasure. Right now it is on sale for half price. On Monday, at Divine, the price will be going up, so be sure to grab it while it is cheap.

Happy weekend everyone!

This one was a challenge for me. I do not typically include extracted elements in my kits aside from flowers, so this one stretched me a bit. I finally finished the assignment though, and it is ready for download! I hope you can use something in here on your pages.

http://www.funkyplaygrounddesigns.com/gallery/showphoto.php?photo=5423&cat=522

So head on over and grab this and all of the other awesome goodies in the Teacher’s Pet gallery before they are taken down on Monday morning.

I just got word that I am moving on to round two of the Teacher’s Pet program! I am so excited (and surprised)! Thanks so much for all of the sweet comments that you guys left for me in the gallery. They made me smile.

I know that not everyone was able to get the round one link, and I am really sorry about that. We were asked to remove the links by 9am today. However, I will be putting it in my store shortly after the contest is over. Be sure to check back in a few days to see what I make for round two and grab it while it is available. If you haven’t done so already, be sure to also register for the FPD newsletter so that you can get the password to unzip all of the freebies.

I’ll post again in a few days! Have a great day!

I decided to enter Funky Playground Designs’ “Teacher’s Pet” program. We are given assignments each week, and like most contests like this, there will be eliminations. This one, however, allows us to stay and participate even after being eliminated so we can continue to learn, hence why I decided to give this one a try.

That being said, I signed up pretty late and had just a few days to throw a mini kit together. The only requirement was that we try to figure out today’s trends and put our own spin on it. Here is mine:

http://www.funkyplaygrounddesigns.com/gallery/showphoto.php?photo=4939&cat=522

You have to subscribe to their newsletter to get the password for the zip files. There are TONS of great kits in the gallery! Make sure you go have a look and grab some wonderful goodies for yourself!

I decided to take this past week off to get some things done around the house. I spent the time decluttering and rearranging my house. I moved a piano, a large pantry, pulled up some carpeting, went through all of our school supplies and books and decided what still needs to be bought for this year. I was on a roll until I woke up Tuesday unable to stand up straight. There was a shooting pain in my lower back and I thought I was never going to be able to stand straight again. Standing hurt, sitting hurt, laying down hurt. Ugh. LOL The next morning I was still a little sore, but I could at least move around. When I moved my arm though, I could still feel pain in my back, so I ended up skipping bell rehearsal. I love bells, so you know it must have been bad for me to skip out! I’m much better now, and the areas I cleaned have stayed relatively clean this week with my constant reminders to the kids to put things back where they go.

While I was limited as to what I could do, I decided to scrap a little. I never seem to find time to scrap these days, so it was really nice! I made a birth announcement for a friend of mine and then headed over to see the new Scrap Matters template challenge. Here’s what I made:
(click for credits)

Did I mention before that my store is on sale for 30% off the remainder of this month (discount shows at checkout)? We are having Christmas in July at Divine Digital right now. There are lots of fun challenges, prizes, games, chats, and freebies right now, so be sure to stop by. I will be hosting a social chat next Tuesday, July 29 at 9pm Eastern time. I hope to see some of you there! No challenge will be given, just chatting a bit. I may even have a little something for those that attend.

Well, I am off to get some things done around the house and finish my grocery list for the week. Have a nice weekend everyone!

I have a new kit to show today, but before I do that I wanted to show my latest page. I thought it turned out pretty cute myself. I have been reading Britt-ish Designs’ blog for a month or two and her talk about the speed scraps finally got me to go over and take a look at the Scrap Matters site. I joined this week and I have to say it is quite a friendly and welcoming group there. I feel at home already! I jumped in and played along with this week’s template challenge. It’s a great one and you should definitely check it out! I’m hoping to attend tonight’s speed scrap, but we shall see how long it takes for the kids to actually fall asleep and let me scrap. Anyway, here is the LO I made using the template. It had to be about a special day, and I chose Cassidy’s first Easter.

{click LO for credits}

Ok, onto my newest kit. As a child, my cousins and I used to blow on the dandelions and make wishes as the seeds blew away in the breeze. That memory inspired my latest kit, “Wishing on Dandelions”

Also available is another great brag book by mizamigo. It includes six 5×7 pages and front and back cover pages.

Thanks for looking! I hope everyone has a great weekend!

My newest kit was completely inspired by my kids and their love of horses and donkeys. Yes, you read that right, DONKEYS! *lol* My 5yo is insisting she wants a donkey, because she rode one at Vacation Bible School a few weeks ago. When I asked what she was planning on feeding this donkey she is wanting, her reply was grass and doughnuts. Can you tell we live in the city? LOL

Well, we may not be getting her a donkey, but I do have a new kit to scrap pictures of her encounter with Donkey Boy at VBS.

I also added in a couple of mini kits for the little cowboys and cowgirls:

Retiring items will be on sale for just $1, so make sure you grab them before they are gone! All of my other items will be priced at 50% off. You don’t want to miss this sale!

My new kit was made with my son, Joshua, in mind. He loves cars, and he was especially excited to see me making a kit that had his interests included. There is a new kit, but also matching quick pages and a brag book, and all are on sale for half off through this Friday. Don’t miss the sale!