Five for Friday

#1. The kids started school yesterday! Hooray!

Well, Sage and Austin went for their staggered entrance on Tuesday afternoon and Jonah went on Wednesday afternoon. Yesterday, they all went for the whole day.

Yes!

As much as I adore summer and spending two months at home with the three of them, it was definitely time for them to go back. And so, it was time for our yearly first day of school on the front step photo. As you can see by the fingers they're holding up, Austin is now in the 7th grade, Jonah is in grade 4 and Sage is in grade 2.

#2. While the kids were in school yesterday, I tackled a big job that I've been putting off for a long time...


Putting my layouts in albums.

While I don't scrapbook in chronological order, I do like to place my layouts that way in albums. So I took my very large pile and sorted them by month, going back to February 2010.


Then I went through each month and put them in order and then slipped them into page protectors in the albums. I had four albums and was worried that it wouldn't be enough, but thankfully it was and I have room for a few more layouts in the last one. ;)

I got all of my 12x12 layouts done, but I have a bunch of 8.5x11" layouts that still need to be put away. Maybe today...

#3. It's my turn to post the Friday Praise Post at Scrapping Everyday Miracles. You can read my post here, where I share about how thankful I am for the great summer we had.

And here's the layout I made to go with my post (because it's no fun to post without a layout. ;) )


I used American Crafts (white) and PTI cardstock (kraft), The Girl's Paperie patterned paper, My Mind's Eye brads, PTI stamps (Fancy Flourishes) & dies (Beautiful Blooms II #1).

A few close ups:





#4. When I finished this layout, I decided to use the scraps to make a card for Mara's Papertrey Princess Challenge to include a banner on my card.


I used PTI cardstock (simply chartreuse, rustic white, vintage cream), The Girl's Paperie patterned paper, PTI stamps (Fancy Flourishes, Wonderful Words), twine, button & dies (Beautiful Blooms II #1, Two Triangles (to cut the end of the banner)).

#5. And one last card to share.

I made this one after I had made these tags (I just love the efficiency of using supplies more than once before I put them away!) Once again, I used this week's Make It Monday at Papertrey Ink: creating backgrounds with non-background stamps.


I used PTI cardstock (stamper's select white, hawaiian shores), stamps (Big & bold Wishes, Happy Trails) and die (Happy Trails). I also used some Pink Paislee patterned paper.

Thanks for looking!