Have a Blessed Thanksgiving

Today I am thankful for a great many things. My loving family, a warm home, plenty of food, my health, the unending love of God, my freedom, and you, my blog readers!

May you have a Blessed Thanksgiving, and a full tummy today!

(I still have spots for the family photo shoot if you're interested. Info is a few posts down).

Digital Supplies (all from www.jessicasprague.com)

A couple more Photo Cards

Here's a few more photo cards I designed. They have a more "designer" feel to them (cleaner lines).

If you want a family portrait taken, I still have spots available, here's the information.

Family Photo Shoot

Just in time to send out Christmas cards....

For those of you in the Okanogan area, I am scheduling a Family Photo Shoot. You will receive one or two poses, edited and available for download via a photo sharing site (full file - not compressed). You will also receive a copyright release so you can print as many photos as you want in whatever size. (additional shots & time may be available, please ask).


To schedule, please e-mail me at okanoganphotography@gmail.com

Also, I put together a few digial cards that I can insert your picture in and you can print as 4x6 prints at Walmarts one hour photo. (this is totally optional). Envelopes are readily available on the internet for a 4x6 photo.

I am working on more designs, but here are two examples.

Happy Holidays!

Winners & Freebie!!

First order of business, the winners of the advent kit. Two people entered that wanted it, so I'll send one to both of you! Heidi & Diana, e-mail me your addresses & I'll get them cut and in the mail by Wednesday!

Now onto something else I've been working on (and a freebie). A customer of ours just had a baby. She's also a scrapbooker, who hasn't started albums for her three younger kids, so I thought I'd help her be caught up for a brief moment in this baby's life! (Yes, I am pathetically patheic). I designed the album in inkscape, used SCAL to cut it out of lightweight chipboard on my cricut and viola! A stinking cute (if you ask me!) album!

The paper & title stickers are all Creative Memories. Ribbon, mostly American Crafts, and a few other misc. (oh, generic cardstock as well).

Crazy thing I noticed as I was putting this album together. I don't like pastels. I know that. But I realized that I loved this paper. Then it hit me, put pastels with brown, and I like them (more anyway). Hmm.....

Here is the zip file for free download: Star Album SVG files

How's this for coincidence?

These pages came up randomly to load today. With the exception of the first one (from the fourth of July), the rest all have a similar color cast. Hmmm.....must of been in a mood for those colors this month! :D

Stashin' Away

Over the summer we went somewhere, can't remember, oh yeah, to Colville to sell some piglets and found this awesome antique store (I will call it an antique store, most antique shops we call junk stores, but this one was really cool and not terribly outrageously priced). In the basement they had used old magazines as wallpaper. It was awesome! Of course, had to snap a picture!

I just love the pictures in this next one. Goofy girl has found a new way to smile at me.

Advent Calendar

It's that time of year already! After wracking my brain for weeks of how I was going to do my advent calendar, I saw a digital one that inspired me. However, you had to do all the cutting by hand. I'll pass thank you. Then I got to thinking, hmmmm.....I bet I could make my own SVG files and have the cricut cut it for me using SCAL and use up some of my patterned paper from last year.

Alas, that is what I did. I used the Martha Stewart stack from last year because I wanted to save my new yummy Christmas paper for new projects.

Have no fear, I will share the files with you below.

Here's a little video I did of it. It's pretty simple, you can probably figure it out yourself. But since I was a kid I always liked to pretend I had my own cooking show on tv. So, I'm just trying to use my own blog as my creative outlet to fulfill that dream (and no I don't really want a show anymore - I'm very content with my life, I guess it just comes from the gift of teaching I've always had).

(You will have to resize these in SCAL - I sized the envelope to be 2 3/4" wide and the tags 1 3/4" wide) You can purchase SCAL by following the link on the right sidebar of my blog.

Scalloped Tag

Scalloped Envelope

And for those of you who don't have a cricut, or SCAL, I'm giving away a kit (minus the chipboard sheet & number stickers) to assemble your own calendar.

Please leave a comment about your favorite holiday tradition and I'll draw Friday!

Stashin' Layouts

We have this joke in our house about fly swatters. You see, they have to have a plastic handle, the metal ones just don't work. Unfortunately, I couldn't find any new ones with a plastic handle, and ours was toasted. So one day after picking up some chrome ducttape for a repair on my car (yup, I'm redneck :D), Robert repaired his beloved fly swatter with it. He swears his success rate skyrocketed, that the flies were attracted to the bling. yeah, whatever, but it made a fun scrapbook page!!


The following pages are from our "mini vacation" to Grand Coulee Dam in August.

Happy 300!!

300 posts already! Wow - and to think I started this thing as a fluke! Thanks for hanging in there with me these 2 years!!

Here's some scrapbook layouts I've been working on from my stash! I'll be loading lots more over the next few days...

This paper is especially cool, it's by Debbie Mumm. She's a Spokane, WA native so my ho-dunk town of Okanogan made it on her map!

Vinyl Application

Oi! Crazy week here! Birthdays, birthday partys, family coming, family not coming, and a tight deadline in the shop made for a week with lots of pictures and projects, just not posted yet! But I wanted to get this up because I've had a lot of people asking about applying vinyl. Super easy, and super professional looking. Here's a video how to.

Also, if you want to purchase SCAL, there is a link on my sidebar, over here -->



And here is a link to the vinyl I prefer to work with. Sign Warehouse Vinyl

Big Shoes To Fill

Being Silly!! I remember when Cody was about 9 months old, he'd go all through the house dragging Roberts shoes. Roberts shoe was his FAVORITE thing to play with. Sometimes he'd even be like a dog and carry the lace in his mouth while crawling. Funny.


Last Wednesday was crazy hat night at AWANA. We had to make a train hat for Cody for the event. Pretty cool!! (I cut the train out with my cricut & SCAL).

I LOVE this picture!!! :-)

And Frosty Was No More

Snow! We had about 5 inches of the cold stuff this week. We bundled all up and went out to play. (note to self: find winter gloves)



After being disappointed all last winter that we could never make a snow man, we finally tried to make one. It still didn't work fabulously, but we eeked one out.

And then Cody, being the boy he is, decided he needed to knock it down. It took every bit of persuading I could do to have him leave it stand at least until I took pictures. Afterall, you never know when we'll be able to make another one!!

And this is how Frosty met his demise.

Tragic destruction by snow shovel.

And for those of you inquiring about Aly and the snow:

Yes, she STILL plays in the snow like last year. Watching through the window. (Guess I can't fault her too much though - that's how I'd like to play in it too, she's her momma's girl).

A Princess & A Steam Engine

Last night we went to the annual Hallelujah Carnival. It was awesome. (Sorry, I had a long post typed up, then when I hit publish, I received some weird error - so this will be shorter....)

We don't do Halloween in our house. Just don't like it, and I don't like all the icky stuff that is part of the day. No reason to expose (and scare) my children to stuff. Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable--if anything is excellent or praiseworthy--think about such things. Philippians 4:8

Cody wanted to be a steam engine and Aly a princess (these costumes are for their birthday party next week, so you'll see them again!)

Cody & I spent a few hours on Friday making the train. It was great to work together with him.

And THANK YOU to the awesome team that puts the even together each year. It is an amazing event to pull off, especially in the size of community we live in. So thanks!!!