Blank Canvas

Now that I have a totally empty room, Ive decided to turn it into my new craft room.  Currently my craft room doubles as the family office. Way to much going on in there now. Lots of furniture not much room to really spread out and be creative.

So now the fun begins.  A blank canvas and what to do. So for starts i went on craigs list to start searching for some vintage pieces of furniture that will serve as both storage and also functional, for printer, laptop, cricut and the list goes on.  Lots of hutches out there costs $50 and up. Im just not in the mood for painting anything so Im looking for white or black. Of course the first piece I feel in love with was way to much $950, dining room hutch but would be perfect, just have to figure out what to do with the wine rack....hmmmm but I love it and with my 10ft ceiling would fit perfect.  So I sent an email to the seller to see if price was firm. He said he would take $850. Charlie said "if you like it go for it", what a husband... i love that man! 

However still a bit much, as my last two pieces of furniture for my room were bought at consignment stores, my bookcase hutch was $50 had to paint it black, and a nice old side unit, $75 painted it also. Need some craft income to justify $850......May hit some consignment stores today to see whats out there. Until then the canvas remains blank. Lots of possiblites and ideas stiring around in my head.

Love this little piece, I know due to it's age and over all good condition, I shouldn't have painted it, but wanted all black furniture. Hmmm now Im attracked to the shabby chic white distressed hutch, see what i don't like to spend lots of money on my pieces. they may not be around long.

our little april a beautiful young women

A new beginning and a hard day

This was a happy and sad day.  Our youngest daughter April moving to her own place.  We are so proud of her. Almost done with nursing school and soon graduating from ASU. It's also sad seeing her go. As a mother you always want to protect your children, keeping them close and making sure they are always safe. I've learned that no matter how old your children are you are always a mother first. This has been hard for each of them to understand. Guess it's one of those things you learn when you have children of your own.  I know my parents were always there for me and always concerned. That's what parents do. They love their children always and forever. It's only been two weeks and I miss her.

Trey's Treasure's needs your help

You can read about Trey on his blog here

On February 27, 2010 join us for the 2nd annual "Trey's Treasure Chest for Hope" silent auction. This event raises much needed funds to support the Lane Family of Chandler, Arizona. Their four year old son, Trey Lane, has been diagnosed with MPS IV-A. While there is no cure or treatment for this condition, infusion therapy offers promise to help alleviate his symptoms.

Click Auction & Sponsorships

All proceeds raised at the event will go to the family to help offset the tremendous


bills incurred in order to improve Trey's quality of life. This event is only successful

with generous donations of silent auction items and sponsorships.


We Need Your Donations of Silent Auction Items!

We are looking for donations of auction items such large and small including:

Gift baskets

Gift certificates/gift cards

Sport and concert event tickets, suites

Sports memorabilia

Spa packages, massages, facials

Home services, car washes, yard maintenance

Vacations, time share weeks, airline tickets

Movie passes

Restaurant and bar gift cards

Wine and liqour

Furniture, art

Retail store gift cards, merchandise

Vehicles... the sky is the limit.

Silent Auction Donation Form


Flyer with great ideas for auction items


Event Sponsorships

We have exciting sponsorship opportunities available for the event. Sponsors

will enjoy tickets to the event, banner, web and e-newsletter advertising, as well

as other benefits.

For information about sponsoring this event,

silent auction donations, etc, please contact me directly or leave a COMMENT here.

What is a Silent Auction?

So you've never attended a silent auction? It's easy to participate and win some

great items while donating to Trey's Treasures.

We will have all of the auction items on display during the beginning 1-2 hours of the

event. Guests place bids on these items as they walk around the auction. You are

free to bid on as many items as you like. Bids are placed when you write your name

and dollar amount you are bidding on the sheet for the item. You bid competitively

with others on the same item. Your goal is to have the best bid (highest bid) at the

time bidding closes. Those with the winning bids claim their items at the arranged

"checkout" area.

Another House of 3 digital layout

Sunshine Today!

Some places to blog today.  Heidi is having another give-away here at Heidi's blog. Teresa also has several give-aways on her blog. Teresa Collins directed me to a new great find Scarlet lime, love these watches. Hotel picked out, plane tickets purchased for CHA this year in Anahiem, but thanks to the non-stop Arizona rain and poor landscape drainage our house took on water, lots of water. It's been 3 days of removing water, washing and drying 100's of towels, locating the leaks, removing drywall, wood floor and drying out the area. draining the flooded yard with 2 sump pumps, now how much fun is that? and to add to it, our washer went out just before the flooding. hows that timing. Yesterday spent the entire day doing laundry. I think today i will just relax, oh that's after I clean out the pool that is literally filled with leaves that the 50mph winds blew in. The sun is shining today and im getting out of the house to enjoy a nice long walk, so it's all good.

New addition- Jackson

Randall and Amy got a new little bundle of joy. Jackson, 5 weeks old and  so cute and cuddly!.

Ali Edwards Free layered digital templates

Have you ever want to learn how to do a layered digital scrapbook page? Ali Edwards offers a free 12x12 page with all the elements to make a digital scrapbook page like this one. You can download the free template design here at Ali Edwards. If you read her blog you will also find She offers a awesome tutortial to go along with it. I love how easy it is to create a page to capture a special event. This was my grandaughter Zella's 5th birthday party. I love digital. The possibilites are endless.

Zella's Birthday Party

Teresa's Collins new lines

I love Teresa Collins line.  She is getting ready to release several new lines you can view on her new website here. Welcome home, Mr and Mrs and BeBE. Love all of them. we have a family wedding this Valentines day and a new baby coming early june so they are all perfect. As you can see lots of ideas created with the new lines. I hope we get to meet her this week at CHA Supershow in Anahiem. Girl's road trip.

Free giveaway by Lisa Leonard!

 Look what's she's making.....check out her blog. Lisa Leonard, It's the little things...

Combining Paper with Digital

This is why I love Photoshop and digital. The first picture is a canvas that was created out of a 24x30 canvas.  It was our "girls craft day"get together. We took 3x3 squares of scrapbook papar and covered our canvas's.  Each of us coming up wiht a different layout design.  Then added various emblishments, ribbon, ornaments, and yes Terri gave me a beautiful Butterfly to add to mine.. The idea was to later add christmas pictures each year.  the biggest challenge was getting the heavy card stock to stick to the canvas. Required lots of patience and trying different adhesives.  Loved the finished paper project, but then instead of adding my pictures,  I let adobe photoshop help me change my Christmas memory into a digital project.  Added pictures and stamps all using adobe photoshop right from my laptop.  Love It. no mess no clean up and done in about 30 minutes. Now See if up can spot all the digital fun.I had.....Once everyone is done, i want a picture of them all together.

I love PSE

Charlie made a daisy stamp and added our pic of the gkids to create my 101.

UStream on Wednesdays

House of 3 gals have started Wednesday nights UStream live.  They teach inpire give away freebies and just have fun.  If you can't watch live you can go and watch at a later time here. Just need to log onto Ustream. The first one had 150 of us in the chat room, last wednesday there were almost 500. It was crazy. charlie connected my laptop up to our 42 flat screen. They unleased a new House of 3 kit, demo had use print and assemble.  next wednesday is on the Silhoutte.  They have partnered with the company that makes the Silhoutte machine and you can now download House of 3 images and cut away.  I have the cricut and love it however I know once they get done with me, I will want a Silhoutte. It's different as you only purchase the images you want where the cricut you buy a cartridge full of images. Wish they would partner with cricut too.
man i need a bigger craft room.

Magnet Calendar

Last summer House of 3 offered a summer project to create a magnet board to display their digital calendar.  i found a very large clip board that was covered in a striped canvas, but had metal flashing behing the canvas,.perfect and at only $8 clearance it was a great find. When I got it home I tore off the canvas, then primed the clip board and then painted with one of my favorite paints....chalk board paint.  Then I framed it out with some scrapbook paper giving it a vintage look. Printed off the days and months on card stock cliped them to a magnet and hung the days from a ring. I loved chalkboards and magnets, so I was pleased with the final project. .

Westville Illinois

Since I had heard alot of snow had fallen in the midwest I texted my brother and asked him to go over and take a picture of our home in illinois. Sure was nice of him to go out in the -2 degrees and get a few pictures for my blog.Nice brother.... makes us glad to be here and not there. pretty to look at but sure dont want to shovel it.

This is the picture that we made the silhouette out of ella and dallas very easy in photoshop.

My blog design 101

Ok I actually made my own blog header and backgroud, using house of 3 digital images and an image of my own that i took today of ella and dallas at the park playing inside a culvert. As 101 is my trademark it fit perfect into my design. I love PSE but most of all charlie for giving me the idea thanks babe!

Barrett Christmas 2009

How do you choose from 35 years of collecting.

Today Andrea and I started to pack away the Christmas decorations. Every year i say this, why do I have so much stuff.  So this year while packing it all away I made the decison that next year i would only get out two boxes instead of 6. I gathered up exactly what would go into those two boxes. it's been 35 years of collecting and early morning after Christmas "sales" but at some point I know I need to scale back.  I did quit buying a few years back, maybe a new ornamet here and there but for the most part, kept away from having to fill yet another red and green storage container. Every year i also try to give a few things away, so not sure why my container count isn't going down. hmmmmm.  I plan on labeling these two special containers just in case next year the ole memory isn't what it should be.  Im also thinking my word this year may be "simplfy", just like last year. I know your supposed to pick a new word every year, but this one sure makes me feel good once accomplished.  Just a few of my favorites.......and this is just one wall. They were placed there just for the photo shoot, they actually get placed all over the entire house.

Zella turns five on 1/1/2010

It's hard to belive that our youngest grandchild is now five! Where does the time go. Seems like just yesterday we were rushing off to the hospital to see her after she was born.  I wish my mother and father would of gotten the chance to see her grow. She is such a smart beautiful little girl who we are so blessed to have as our grandaugher.  Looking forward to celebrating her 5th birthday with her!