that get me every time I added a little dimension by crinkling up the flowers (cut from pp) and adding foam pop dots. Crinkled the "swirly frame" (swirls cut from pp) around the picture. Misted the printed canvas with Tiger Lily Maya Mist to add orange. Used the dots mask by Heidi Swapp to get the polka dots. Cut a scalloped frame out of sheer white paper. and added more sheer white paper around the flowers. and made a few crinkled clouds. I added both green and black Hambly transparencies, stamped on a blank transparency, cut it out with a circle punch and added it to my layout. I did a few more things, but that's all the time I have for today. Off to the post office to mail off 5 boxes! Mary Jo, I need your address please! Karen, I put a few things aside for you. And Roxie, I have a box started for you too. I'll give it to you the next time we crop! Happy Saturday. xo Continue reading

a little more about my son's photography skills. Well, off to stalk blogs. Have a fantastic morning! xo Continue reading

is staying out of your dusty house!!! And spending the day at Target! I. Am. Brilliant! Target smelled so nice and clean. I didn't sneeze all day. But, then I had to go home :( Because I have children who needed to be picked up from school. 2 boys that can't spend a full day at Target without driving me completely INSANE! So I picked them up and took them GROCERY SHOPPING! They were BORED OUT OF THEIR MINDS!How fabulous. I had a blast!....slowly dragging my feet down each and every aisle. I spent 20 minutes in the boring detergent aisle, reading EVERY label... payback for getting on my nerves this morning. But then I looked at my little Christopher. He's got the biggest eyeballs. And when they look up at me.... Anyway, we went home. And I started working on that layout I posted. It's not finished yet, but I'm totally inspired. I have to tell you, scrapping after being absent for nearly six months is pretty rough. My good friend, Damaris, said it's just like riding a bicycle.No it's not. My little "scrapbooking bicycle" is all jacked up, with no seat and no frickin' wheels. My memories of riding a bike as a little girl were fun. Putting a layout together today was like falling off my jacked-up "scrapbooking bicycle" and skinning up my knees.It sucked a little bit. sigh. And speaking of sucking... Here's what my "yard boy" is currently working on. Notice how I demoted him? In my last post, he was "yard guy"...almost "cool" sounding, right? Yeah. Now?........not so much. Remember that "shovel picture" I posted the other day... yeah. sigh. I can't talk about it tonight. Too. Tired. I'll take guesses though. So what do you think "yard boy" is doing now? xo Continue reading

Rita O, Greta B, Christie..... and Amy Harle. Send me your addresses please. I'm sending you boxes of scrap goodies. And YES, there are 4 names instead of 3! Christopher chose the names and felt bad for the last person who posted."People always win for being first, but no one ever wins for being last." So congrats Amy, for posting last! *yawn* I want to stay up and blog, but I'm tooooo tired. I spent the entire day cleaning my scrap area and scary house. All of the dust gave me horrible allergies. I finally took Benadryl and now I can't keep my eyeballs open. I'll come back and blog tomorrow. I have to tell you all what's going on in my backyard. My "yard guy", aka "hubby" has a few projects he's working on. Oh lordy :( See you guys tomorrow. I love all of your emails and comments welcoming me back. Thanks so much. Oh, and if anyone has any advice for controlling allergies, please let me know. I've tried Claritin, Sudafed, Zyrtec, and Benadryl. They're all yucky. x0 Continue reading

looking for a new home. So I have these empty boxes that used to contain some of these things: along with some other stuff that I've been hoarding for awhile: So, if you're interested in taking any of it off my hands, let me know. I have more stuff to purge that I didn't have time to photograph. I have to get it out of my house. It's stressing me out! Since I promised this giveaway back in December, I'm randomly choosing 3 names from this post. Just leave a comment here letting me know you want my stuff. I'll post the names on Wednesday and tell you all what I've been up to lately. I'm still in recovery mode from the Sea World trip and have to get some sleep now. But before I go-- My son, Alexander, took this picture of me. He got into a Photography Magnet program for Middle School next year. I'm so excited for him! See u soon. xo Continue reading

but extremely busy with my new job! For those of you who don't know, I transitioned from a 3-day 2 year old Pre-K class, to a 5-day, Pre-K 4 classroom. I officially started on November 10th and have been running around ever since. I'll be back to do a post on my birthday....December 15th. And yes, I'll be doing a giveaway....I am purging my scrap room in preparation for the new year so I'll be putting it in a box and sending it out to you guys!!!! See you on the 15th!!!!!! xo Continue reading

on the BASB website. I do hope you all play along. It's super easy, will definitely get you into the holiday spirit, and you could win this: The new 7 Gypsies ATC & Photo Display. I don't have time to post the details here on my blog just yet. I'm expecting company in an hour and my house is a crazy disaster. Please visit the BASB site and tell me what you think. My family and I are doing the challenge and they're pretty excited about it! xo Continue reading

is good....and even a bit challenging for me :) I created this layout using Studio Calico's kit, Playground. And although the layout looks simple, using this particular piece of patterned paper was actually quite challenging for me. I wish I'd photographed it prior to doodling, but if you look in the upper right-hand corner (paper with the tricycle), you can get an idea of what the sheet of patterned paper looked like before I started: I wanted to use the entire piece of paper, but felt that the pattern needed to be "grounded" first, so I added some doodling with my superfine black sharpie, and defined the boxes. See the doodling around the boxes? I added doodling to the "Yesterday, Today, Forever" boxes (cut from Studio Calico pp) and the Jenni Bowlin labels. I'm a collector of clear stamps. Yes, I admit it. I'm not in denial. But on this layout, I actually DID some stamping! First I stamped the outline of each letter. Then I stamped it's "solid" version. I cut out each letter and then added a small piece of cardboard (trick i learned from maryangella) to the back of a few letters to add a little dimension. When pop dots add too much bulk, try using the cardboard trick. Sometimes that's all you need to give elements of your layout a little dimension. I also used this stamp (by Studio Calico) all over my layout. And if you haven't tried misting, it's pretty fun. I cut three of the striped "boxes" out of the patterned paper and filled them with white bazzill that I sprayed with blue Maya Mist, metallic yellow Maya Mist, and lime twist Glimmer Mist. I also used the mists for my journaling. And for fun, I cut my pictures the same size as the striped boxes and outlined them with a black sharpie as well. That's all for now. Oh before I go, here's a picture I snapped of Christopher earlier this evening. Only in Miami... can you splash and play in your swimming pool... at the end of October. Oh, and that white bucket underneath the slide isn't full of toxic waste. It's empty. My pool guy put it there. Remember my pool guy? Well, I asked POOL GUY...aka HUSBAND to fix the slide. And apparently POOL GUY, aka HUSBAND calls propping WHITE BUCKET under slide FIXING SLIDE. *sigh* Fortunatley, pool season is almost over. I'm hoping by Spring or maybe next Summer...yeah, probably next Summer, I'll be able to show you pictures without WHITE BUCKET. xo Continue reading

Remember the whole pet rock bathing incident? Well, despite my very best efforts to resolve my clogged sink... yucky... I still have to go to the supermarket to buy some liquid plumber. The clog is behind the wall :( And now onto more pleasant things.Sunday giggles. The moment between my boys and my father unfolded so quickly, I grabbed his iPhone and started recording. This is the reason it's so important for my boys to spend Sundays at my parents' house. The video is password protected. The password is: sundaygiggles Sunday giggles from laverneboese on Vimeo. Isn't it funny how my oldest son, Alexander is shoving Christopher all over the place in an effort to win this little game my father is playing with them? *sigh* Sibling rivalry... But even a hand in the face and practically being tackled, doesn't stop Christopher's constant giggling. I love Sunday giggles. Happy Monday. xo Continue reading

is really not all that organized. So, I'll be making some changes to my website. You may notice a few "funky" things going on with my blog in the very near future. Please bear with me while my site is "under construction". But no worries, I'll still be blogging. In a week, I'm hosting the November 1st challenge on the BASB website. It should be a lot of fun, super easy, and will definitely get you into the spirit of the upcoming holiday season. Check back this weekend for a sneak peek. xo Continue reading