Homeschooling... A learning experience

I'm baaaaaaaack!
Wow. Have things changed!
We've had a super busy summer and time surely got away from me.
One of the biggest changes is that we decided to homeschool our daughter.
I know.
I never thought I would homeschool. I'm still nervous about it, I hope that I can live up to the task. But after a lot of thought and prayer, my husband and I (and Hannah, too) decided it would be the best thing for her.
She was getting bored in school and the school here doesn't like to let kids skip grades. And honestly, I don't think skipping a grade would have been emotionally good for her. But intellectually she needed more challenge.
I spent most of the summer checking out websites, making lesson plans, printing worksheets, and doing other teacher/homeschool things.
So here we are. Third week of homeschool.
For the most part it's going good. I think she's learned more in the past two weeks than most of last year. Nothing against her first grade teacher. It's hard to challenge those who need it when you have 22 other children clamoring for your attention -- and many of those need help to keep up.
There have been struggles and I'm sure there will continue to be.
My main struggle is giving up "me" time. I have always been a person who has needed quiet time and time alone. My daughter not so much. She craves to be in the same room with me or my husband - regardless of what we or she are doing. I'll be honest... it's a BIG adjustment on my part. When I find myself getting cranky I know I need to take an hour or more by myself. I usually try and go into my bedroom but sometimes that doesn't work either. So that's something I will have to work on - finding time for me.
I think Hannah's main struggle is not being around a lot of other kids all the time. She really likes to socialize but I teach two other girls Spanish twice a week, so that's good for her. Also all the activities with our congregation keep us hopping. Lots of kids there!And some good friends are starting up a homeschool group because so many of us are homeschooling now.
Hannah likes that she's being challenged and that I'm keeping her very involved with projects, lapbooks, folders and more. She gets a little upset when she gets an answer wrong because she's so used to knowing all the answers but she's getting better.
I hope it continues to be this good - although I know it will be a challenge for ALL of us.

Here's our precious daughter on her very first day of homeschool. She was working on a social studies project.

Haitus

Hi all!
I took an unplanned hiatus and it's going to continue for a couple more weeks.
We have decided to homeschool our daughter and so I've been extra busy finding curriculum and supplies. Since I'm creating my own curriculum, it's taking a bit longer but I'm close to being done.
I should be back before the end of July, hopefully before that.
She's gone right now visiting her bio-mom and you would think we wouldn't be as busy. But you would be wrong! LOL. There's so much to do.
So far not much creating going unless you count my redesign of our daughter's room (taking advantage of her absence). I will post photos when I come back from haitus.
So.... see you in a few weeks!
Hasta luego! (Yep, Spanish is one of the subjects she will be learning... as I RElearn it)

Buttermilk biscuits

I would say I've hit a temporary creative block, but it's more like a TIME block. Sometimes I just can't find the time to scrap or do creative things.
But I do however, have time to cook. Well, it's more like if we want to eat I must cook :0)

I've always been kind of leery about making homemade biscuits because well, honestly, my mother taught me to make biscuits when I was a kid and let's say they never turned out good. They would have made good hockey pucks, though.
Well, a few months ago we were visiting one of my best friends and her husband. She made some very good buttermilk biscuits and my husband REALLY enjoyed them, so much so that he asked me (many times) to make them.
So I did.
Lo and behold, they were very good. But I had to send my friend photographic evidence so she would believe that I actually made them.
But the recipe is very easy and not that complicated to make.
AND you can freeze them before you bake them so that you don't have to make them every time you need biscuits!

 

BUTTERMILK BISCUITS

Ingredients:
2 cups all-purpose flour
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1 tablespoon baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
6 tablespoons unsalted butter
1 cup buttermilk

Directions:
Preheat oven to 450 degrees.
Mix the flour, soda, powder and salt.

"Cut" the butter into the dry mixture with a pastry cutter.

Add milk and mix just until the ingredients come together.

Toss a few handfuls of flour onto your counter.

Take biscuit dough and put on floured counter. Pat dough to about 1/2". Fold dough in half five times.

Press dough to 1" and cut out round biscuits.

Bake 10-12 minutes.

Conservation Center with photo stacks double layout

I have a confession.
I have been scrapbooking for more than 10 years and I've never used photo stacks on my pages.
Whew. There.
I know?!?!?! How could I have gone so long without using them?
But this week, I had some photos from the autumn field trip Hannah's class went on and I didn't really want to make more than a double-page layout. So I decided it was time to bite the bullet and just do it!

First I decided which photos I wanted to feature and see when I opened to the page, then I decided which photos went better beneath the photo stacks. Finally, I used washi tape to make sure they stayed put!

Since most of the kids wore red that day and it was fall (not to leave out my red hair!), many of the photos had red and orange undertones. I don't have many papers in oranges and reds since I don't use them that often. My friend Keri (see? shout out again this week) had a couple beautiful orange flowery background from a Colorbok paper pack. I paired those with a printed orange and a watercolor orange from my Basic Grey Fiction paper pack I used for the photo mats.

I used my Bugs and Hugs stamps from Close To My Heart and stamped three dragonflies and two butterflies for some embellishments.

Using my new CTMH watercolor pencils and watercolor pen, I colored the dragon flies and butterflies for some pretty designs.

I also used my CTMH pearls to give dimension to the bugs and highlighted them with my CTMH Liquid Glass for a little glimmer.

I had some "paper bag" color scrap paper I used to make a couple banners with a mushroom stamp from my Bugs and Hugs stamps. I highlighted the banners with two orange flowers (borrowed from Keri) and used an orange flower brad for the middle of the flowers. I then used my Liquid Glass on the brads.

I used the second side of my printed orange paper for the title banner. It was a cool grid patter that I felt went very well with the page.

After all was said and done, I used my new CTMH distress inks and inked the pages and the title banner with the chocolate distress ink. You can see the distressed look on the main page in one of the above photos.

I then went back and journaled a little on each photo with my new CTMH gold metallic marker. It dries super fast so I didn't even have to wait.

My family single-page layout

I'm working hard on scanning in photos from my husband's family and I'm finding some wonderful gems and photos he didn't even know existed. I think he's enjoying it almost as much as I am. Now, I just have to get my mother-in-law to identify a lot of the older photos.

And now here's another family layout using mostly items from my stash.

I have absolutely no idea what brand the background paper is, mainly because I think I picked it up when my friend Keri was purging some of her papers. But I just love the cheery colors. 

I found a large scrap of Chantilly paper from Close To My Heart and another large scrap of unidentified paper and used these as another layer to the page. Just goes to show that not all layouts need "matching" papers. If they have similar colors I think it gives a page an imperfect look and I like that.

I framed two of my favorite family photos with sparkly red paper, angling the smaller photo to give some more umph. And also to bring attention to the look on Hannah's little face. :) She's so precious and has the funniest expressions. I also placed a word sticker "cherish" below. It's moments like this that make up my most precious memories.

Below both photos is an embellishment bundle of deconstructed fabric flowers. It was actually two fabric flowers turned into five -- with a small clear gem in the middle of each them. I highlighted each of them also with CTMH's Liquid Glass (which I've used in several areas on this page, but I'll get to that later) to appear as if there is dew on the flowers.

On the lower left of the CTMH Chantilly paper I used a small, blingy border from Michael's to give a little more depth to what I felt was an empty part of the page.

On the bottom left of the page I used a small scrap of my sparkly red paper and placed three word stickers, "love," "life" and "treasure." I framed "love" with a photo slide frame and added two butterfly stickers (also of unidentified origin) to give it flight.

On the lower right of the lined paper I added a "harmony" sticker.

Now for my favorite product (right now), CTMH's Liquid Glass! I cannot stop using it. It brings a bit of shine that I love so much. If I could add glitter to it I would be ecstatic!

I used it for the center of the "atoms" on the main background paper, on portions of my Chantilly paper and on a few of the "atoms" themselves (as seen in above photo). I just adore Liquid Glass.

Tomorrow, Keri is coming over and I'll be scrapping some more! Using some of our newly acquired stamps and products will be lots of fun! I may even scrap some of Hannah's last school trip to the Nature Center in Springfield (MO). I really should do that before she goes to Roaring River in a couple weeks. :)

Simple and rustic page

Most of my pages are girly and glittery, so it's a welcome change to work on a "manly" page.
I chose to do one about my dad and his good friend Ralph. Ralph and his wife live in another state but spend several weeks a year in the town my parents live in. Ralph, like my dad, plays guitar and when they are in town, my parents spend a lot of time with the couple.
These photos were taken a few years ago at my old house.
All the products used on this page are from the Close to My Heart Dakota paper collection and coordinating products. I chose to do a simple page because they are simple men. And, yes, that's a high compliment.

I used a portion of piece of paper on the left side and then used a portion to place a border between the two.

I inked the edges of the large paper to give it a bit of variety. And yes, that is pink ink. Did you really think I would let a page get past me without using some pink or purple?

I used precut stars and stamped them with a CTMH stamp to create two different embellishments. The top right is an extremely simple embellishment of two stars.

The bottom left bundle was created with one star and a precut ticket stamped with a CTMH saying stamp. The two were coordinated with three metallic brads.

I also used the metallic brads on the edge of my dad's photo. I distressed the edge of the photos to create a more rustic photo.

 

Two-page family layout

 It's very hard to schedule a time for family photos so many times we have to get a few in when friends are over.
In the fall, our friend Jenny and her family were visiting and we managed to get a few family photos in at the end. And I've FINALLY got around to scrapping them!

Most of the materials used are from my "stash" which I am trying very hard to use up. It doesn't prevent me from buying new stuff, though, much to my husband's dismay.
The main paper for both pages is from Karen Foster Design. I really love the muted watercolor effect. And it's a perfect blend of greens and purplish burgundy, blending together Brian's favorite color and mine.

The first thing I did was create a large curly forest green background with a border template I have. I then used dark purple chalk to "antique" it because it was just way too bright.

I then matted our photo on burgundy cardstock, leaving more room on the left side.

To create an embellishment to go on that left side, I used a bright yellow paper flower on the upper left of the photo (with a gem in the middle), and placed seven more purple gems in a semi-circle below it, creating a bit of a border. I then matched the bling (you can NEVER have too much bling) with three purple gems on the upper right of the photo.








I had two large purplish tags in my stash and used those to anchor my larger embellishment. I had a large purple butterfly -- I think it was leftover from a flower bouquet -- and adhered it to both tags.

The lower tag is further embellished with paper flowers -- the larger flower was created by using three different flowers, popped up with pop dots and a gem in the center. The other two flowers also had a gem in the center.

On the upper tag I cut out the bottom portion of a Close To My Heart stamp and popped it up from the tag to continue to create dimension. I took the upper portion of the same CTMH stamp and placed it directly below our photo. I used CTMH product Liquid Glass to highlight portions of the stamped words.

In the upper right of the page, I used leftover glassy alphabet stickers for our last name. I only had one 'O' so I used a small purple gem in the first one's place. I placed a larger purple gem at the end of our last name for symmetry.

The second page also used the Karen Foster paper as the anchoring paper. I used an 8 1/2 piece of burgundy cardstock to offset both photos.

I kept with the flower, gem and butterfly theme by creating several different embellishments with more yellow, pink and white paper flowers with gems at their center.

At the top right, directly above the top photo, I used a blingy border I found in my stash.





For the embellishment bundle on the right I grouped three sets of yellow paper flowers and added a butterfly covered in Liquid Glass. A friend of mine made the butterfly for me several years ago and I thought it fit perfectly with our photos.

I just LOVE the top photo. Hannah is such a goofball and both of these photos, but especially the top one, captures her little personality.