Name Change & Etsy Finds

I have changed the name of my blog to the name of my first blog. I have always

loved the Hey, Pretty Girl name for my blog and have decided to change it back.

So if you all could change your links form Hip to my Heart to Hey, Pretty Girl (the link is the same though), I would appreciate it!

Etsy Favorite Finds

How cute and awesome is this whale tissue holder? I love that the tissue is comes out of his 'blowhole'. Adorable. I want this really bad, but it sold today :(

Found here

Love, love, love this Be Nice or Leave pillow. Wouldn't this look awesome sitting on your couch or chair? Love it!

Found here

This would look awesome above my bed. I need to learn to crochet!

Found here

This flower garland is so elegant and pretty. How beautiful would this look for a wedding?

Found here

Gorgeous! Love the colors here and this would look adorable in a baby's room.

Found here

OMG!! I NEED THIS RUG! How amazingly gorgeous is the colorful rug? Can you image how awesome this would look in a house?

Found here

I will be back later with more Etsy Favorite Finds.

Layouts

I really need to think of better blog post titles huh? Oh well. It has been forever since I last posted. I have gotten so busy and just plain tired. To make up for my lack of posting, here are 2 layouts that I did recently.

I did this layout for my critique group's (over at Scrapbook.com) January challenge. We had to use NO patterned paper, which for me, is hard considering I LOVE my patterned paper! I used a sketch from Becky Fleck's PageMaps 2 book. Love that book! This is my niece being a little stink pot! She is so adorable, I love her to bits! The title is one of her many nicknames that I have given her. :)

Material Used:

Kraft cardstock: The Paper Studio

Cardstock: yellow-The Paper Studio, teal & grey-Core'dinations, green-American Crafts, white-Bazzill

Chipboard:Basic Grey

Ink: Cat's Eye

This layout I did for Scrapbook.com's January Scraplift the Person Before You challenge. I had the honor of lifting ~{Puppet}~'s layout you can see here.

I really loved how she made a scallop around the edge of her layout and I really loved the white inking with the doodled border. I also loved her topic that she scrapped.

Materials Used:

Cardstock: Bazzill Basics Dotted Swiss

Patterned Paper: polka dotted-Pink Paislee, teal polka dotted-Echo Park, green-gcd studios

Flower: Prima

Misc: Buttons

zzz...

Happy belated New Year's! One of my New Year's goals is to become a better blogger, so I signed up for Elsie's Blog Love e-course (you can find info about it here). I have yet to fully get into the course, but I hope to soon!

I haven't made a layout in a long long time... I think it was a couple months ago when I sat down and made a layout. This is the layout I did on NYE. It is me and my niece and every time I visit her, we have to take pretend naps. I used a sketch out of Becky Fleck's PageMaps 2 book.

Products Used:

Pink Paislee (heart, polka dot pp)

Dream Street (green pp)

Scenic Route (cream lined pp)

October Afternoon (brown polka dotted pp, Notes card, date stickers)

Doodlebug Designs (teal scallop strips)

Bazzill Basics (pink title cs, title cs)

StampinUp! (owl, heart rubons)

Misc (button, twine)

I hope everyone had a fun filled Christmas holiday and Happy New Year!!

Christmas, Christmas Time is (Almost) Here

Who else is super excited that it is the Christmas season? I just love all the Christmas decorations, lights, projects, pictures, movies. I love it all! I wish it would last for more than a month.

Anyways, here are some "cards" I made for coworkers and friends. I decided to make them tags with little pictures, buttons, and twine. I do have to say I love the way they turned out!

Products Used:

Paper Studio (kraft cardstock)

Cosmo Cricket (patterned paper)--LOVE THIS LINE!!

Making Memories (twine)

Other (buttons)

Here is a Christmas gift I made for a coworker of mine. I made her a little favorite recipes tin.

Products Used:

Paper Studio (kraft cardstock)

Cosmo Cricket (patterned paper, small letter stickers)

American Crafts (thickers)

Other (tin bought at A Walk Down Memory Lane)

Christmas Cards

The best part of making family Christmas cards is the mess I get to clean up after they are all said and done.

Long Overdue Layouts

Scrapbooking layouts, what are those? I haven't made a scrapbook page in about 3 months. I have been super busy making family Christmas cards and lots of birthday cards so I haven't really had any time to do a layout. I kinda miss it.

I thought it was about time to take a picture of the layouts I did 3 months ago. I know, how horrible is that that it took me that long to take pictures of them as well?

BIG RED TRACTOR... Here is my niece "driving" her papa's tractor. She loves to sit up here and pretend to drive. This is based off of an Inspired Blueprints sketch.

Products Used:

Cosmo Cricket (brown background)

My Mind's Eye (dotted and teal pp)

Doodlebug Design (title stickers, sun, tractor, hay bales, mouse, journaling spot)

24 THINGS, FAVORITES, WISHES... This is a layout for my book of me album. The journaling is just what the title is... 24 things about me, my favorite things, and wishes. This is based off of a Pagemaps sketch.

Products Used:

Bazzill Basics (kraft cardstock)

October Afternoon (patterned paper, journaling strips)

American Crafts [thickers] (title)

Cosmo Cricket (letter stickers)

SWINGING... This picture is horrible I know. My niece loves, loves, loves to swing. Every time she is at my house, she has to go on the swing set. I am happy now that she is at the age where she can pump herself! :) I stitched the pink border by hand. It took me some time, but it sure did come out nice. This is based off of an Inspired Blueprints sketch.

Products Used:

Dream Street (all patterned paper)

Core-dinations (pink and yellow cardstock)

American Crafts [thickers] (title)

Other (embroidery floss)

SWIMMING... These are pictures of my niece swimming when we went to the Black Hills on vacation in June 2009. We (my stepmom and dad) bought her a little Dollor Store blowup pool to swim in--she loved it!

Products Used:

Sassafras Lass (all patterned paper)

Other (purple cardstock--can't remember the brand)

Happy Thanksgiving Weekend!

Happy Belated Thanksgiving! I hope you all enjoyed family time with lots of delicious food to eat! I ate too much and now am enjoying a nice long weekend.

I do have to say that I am kinda excited for it to snow--minus the ice that comes with it. I just love the falling snow with all the Christmas lights and decorations. Christmas is such a magical time of year. I only wish it lasted longer!

Both images found here.

Tomorrow I plan to make a bunch of cards and maybe start on my family's Christmas cards if I get to the scrapbook store.

Enjoy this long Thanksgiving weekend!

Halloween is Near!

I'm alive. I have been busy busy lately that I haven't even thought to blog.

Halloween is a week away! I am not going to lie, I am excited. Even though I don't go out on Halloween and I don't live in a place where we get trick or treaters, but I love the Halloween decor and the Halloween movies. I do have to say that Halloween is one of my favorite holidays!

Picture found here.

We Went to the Zoo, We Went to the Zoo...

I have not been to the Omaha Zoo in such a long time, I was excited to go, I'm not going to lie! It was fun, but we didn't get to see everything that I would have liked to see. I am also sad that I didn't take more pictures, but I think my sister took a lot more than I did.

My niece, Turk Face, was super excited to go to the zoo! We left after I was done working Friday and she and my stepmom were waiting outside for me. My stepmom said that Turk was getting so upset that I wasn't getting home fast enough! It was about a 3 hour drive down to Omaha (due to a ton of road construction) and Turk did so well on the ride. Normally she doesn't sit still too well on car rides.

We got to our hotel around 7:00 p.m. and checked in and then tried to find a place to eat. We drove around in circles for about 1 1/2 hours trying to find somewhere to eat. We ate at the Ameristar Casino at Bourbon's BBQ & Steaks. I was nervous at first because I couldn't find anything to order that I thought I would like. I ended up ordering the ribs and chicken with garlic mashed potatoes. It was delicious! My stepmom got sea scallops and I tried them and actually like them. Surprising since I don't like seafood and fish!

We went to the zoo this morning and left around 2:00 p.m. It was a lot of walking, but I could have stayed there a little bit longer, but everyone else was ready to go.

Turk was excited to see the monkeys and orangutans. My stepsister and stepmom holding Turk looking at the orangutans.

I love this picture of Turk sitting on this gorilla. While we were in the gorilla complex, one of the gorillas came running up to the window and banged on the window making Turk jump about 5 feet off the ground and she started crying. Poor kid!

I was excited to go to the aquarium. I wanted to see the sharks and an octopus. I saw the sharks, but not the octopus. :(

The guy who drove the tram told us that the elephants' tusks can grow up to 10 feet! That is huge!

We went to the desert dome and I didn't really care for it. It was hot in there and it was smelly. Turk was sitting in her stroller and started touching the cacti that they had in there. My dad told her not to touch them and as he said that, she pulled her hand away and had some cactus needles stuck in her finger. I think it scared her more that hurt her as she couldn't pull them out herself.

All in all, it was fun, but I would have like to have visited more things there. Next time!

Few Scrappy Things

I haven't been in the creating mood lately but I had to finish my niece's 3rd birthday invites. Turk wants to have a princess party, but I opted not to use princess paper so I just found some really girly paper and just put a stamped image of a castle on the bottom.

I also redid my baby page in my book of me and this is what I came up with.

I did this layout for the September Color Challenge at Scrapbook.com. We had to use red, aqua, and white as our main colors. I made this about how much I do not like to do the dishes. It has got to be my most hated chore ever! This is a 6x12 layout.

The weather here is getting cooler and that means fall is around the corner. Some trees are starting to turn pretty colors and am loving it!

More D.C. Layouts

Boy have I been slacking on the blogging lately! So sorry for that! Time has gotten away from me and by the time my head hits the pillow at night, I am completely out! My niece's birthday is coming up in October and I made her invites and had to make 30 of them. I have them all completed except for adding the photo and a small little touch. I will post pictures as soon as I get them all the way done. In the meantime, here are some more layouts from my trip to Washington D.C.

When we were walking behind the White House, we saw this lady who was living in this "tent" across the street. Locals say that people bring her food and such and she never leaves. At this time, 2006, she was protesting Former President Bush. She was a little creepy looking I'm not going to lie.

I attempted to take pictures of awesome sights at night, but back then I had just a film camera and they didn't turn out so well. I am so glad that I had friends who took awesome night pictures!

I am loving this layout! Just letting you know! :)

I hope everyone had a wonderful Labor Day! Fall is coming and I am extremely excited!! Cooler weather has been here in Northwest Iowa for about a week and I am loving it!

She Gets You In The End

Here is another layout I did for my Oh, Scrap! critique group challenge. We had to scrap about our favorite book, but I did my favorite author instead--Jodi Picoult! I love to get lost in her stories. She writes about things that can happen to anyone and I just love that when you get close to the end of the book, and you think you know what is going to happen, she throws you for a loop. I love it!!

I used a sketch for this layout.. It can be found here at Got Sketch?

Can I just say that I am in love with the new company Echo Park. I love the colors and the designs and it was kinda hard for me to cut into this patterned paper for this layout. I guess that is why I usually buy two of every pattern of paper I get.

It's Almost Here..

Oh, how I can't wait for fall. I love the smells, the colors, the cool weather, the crunchy leaves beneath my feet, and the fall decorations.

All photos are from here

Oh how fall cannot get here fast enough!

More D.C. Layouts

Just Plain Cute

Just another layout I did of my niece. This picture was, I think, when she was 5 or 6 months old. I did this for my Oh, Scrap! Critique Group summer challenge. We had to 'lift' ourselves. I don't have the original on this computer, but you can see it here. I usually have a hard time matching Sassafras Lass paper with other manufacturers papers and especially making sure my pictures don't disappear. I must say that I am extremely happy with the way that this layout came out! The papers (Sassafras, Martha Stewart-background, American Crafts-big pink dotted, and Bazzill-orange and teal cardstock) work so well together! I am loving this layout right now!

I hope you all have a marvelous Monday!

Books, Books, and More Books

I made this layout for the August Scraplift the Person Before You challenge over at Scrapbook.com. I lifted CatScrapsHere.

There is just something about having a lot of books on my book shelves that I love. I love to get caught up in an awesome book and forget about life!

More D.C. Layouts

Just posting some more D.C. Layouts.

I love that guy sleeping on the metro behind Lisa.

More to come soon.