Life, crochet, and ramblings... FREEBIE word art and printable

Every time I think I'll get this blog up and going, life gets complicated and I let it sit there in the background, neglected.  Not on purpose, but yet, neglected.  Tonight I decided to try again.  I can't promise to engage and stay consistent but I'm going to try to do better.  

Where has life taken us?  Well, last year we were on a journey of survival with my husband and I both teaching in the year we all felt like we were scrambling every day with each new curve ball thrown our way.  I'm not going to spend any more time talking about it though because it's now behind us and this year is already looming on the horizon with the 21-22 school year starting for us in another week.  Actually I have three days of in-service training next week and then the following week, our son starts his Senior year with Summer Band Camp in full swing. 

Our oldest daughter, Hannah, is a Junior in college, Nate is a Senior in High School,  and Rachel is an 8th grader.  I'm starting my 25th year of teaching in the public school and for the 4th year in a row my job has another twist and bit of chaos involved with it.  I am getting to go back to teaching 5th grade music and 6th grade choir, but due to the wonderful pandemic wrecking havoc on the choral world, my choir is half the size it normally is and lucky me, the dance classes filled up so I'm now teaching dance to 6th graders.  That's right, dance - to 6th graders.  I'm totally out of my comfort zone and honestly this has consumed me all summer.  Stay tuned for the humorous stories that are going to come out of this experience.  

So, to settle my nerves I've turned to my self-care stress reliever of crocheting. If you get to looking for me, you'll find me in the corner crocheting up a storm.  I've made baby blankets galore, which turned out to be a blessing for my husband since 5 of the staff on his campus were expecting a new addition to their families by the end of last school term.  I've spent the summer replenishing our stash.  I just finished up a shawl for me that I need to take a photo of and started another baby blanket this week. I think this about sums up my feelings...

If you like the text in the middle of the card, you can pick it up HERE for free.  It's in png format so you can size it down (never try to re-size things larger because that distorts it when you go to print).  

The graphics I used on the card are from the 2021 June: Strength digital scrap kit by North Meets South Studio. I kept it simple because I wanted the text to stand out a little more but this kit has a lot of lovely elements in it.  The card is a printable 4X6 size and if you would like it to print for yourself, you can pick it up HERE.

Sometimes I'm inspired by random images I run across on Facebook.  This was shared in one of the crochet groups I'm a member of and I thought it was really cool! This is Malaga, Spain, where the women who lived there crocheted and put together this shadow-giving miracle. Below this is a pedestrian street with shops and cafés.

I hope you have a wonderful weekend. I'm going to crochet, work on some motivational prints for my two classroom spaces, and maybe go take some photos outdoors. That last one may not happen but the thought is there. I'd love to hear from any of you that stop by the blog! My plans for the blog as of now are to still share scrapbooking ideas, inspiration, freebies, recipes, crochet ideas/inspiration, faith based posts, and just life in general.

See ya later!

Choose Joy Free Mini-kit

Today was one of those days where I started on a project and it morphed into something totally unexpected.  I started off with the idea of making a Word Art with some watercolor splashes.  Something that would only take a little bit of time but I was going to use that to make the front of a card for some friends.  Off I went searching through the CU files I had on my laptop which led me down a rabbit trail (I never found the brushes I was looking for.).  I started playing around with different things I found and before I knew it, I had a mini-kit designed.

Now, it's been a while since I really put on my designer hat and after today, I'm sure I'm not going to pick it back up for a while longer other than these random moments like today.  I'm too much of a perfectionist and I get wrapped up into the design and neglect other things (like laundry that was already piled up).  That was one of the reasons I stopped designing in 2012, I couldn't balance my design focus with my family's needs.  However, from time to time I'll have something here on the blog to share with my digital scrapbooking friends.

Here's what started my foray into designing today.  Super simple but it was fun to play!

I may offer that card front sometime but instead of that, today I'm giving you a mini-kit. Now, I have to be upfront with you.  I didn't include some of what is on the card in the kit.  The kit went a different direction but I think some of you may enjoy the mini-kit more.

DOWNLOAD FREEBIE HERE

If you wind up using the mini-kit, I would love to see what you make!

I'm off to crochet for a little bit and then off to bed because I have an 8 am class tomorrow.

Have a great week!

Susan

My Hope is Built....

It has been a beautiful day today.  I have enjoyed having our windows open and being able to listen to the birds outside.  It's peaceful and I've enjoyed taking a day just to enjoy being still and working with some digital scrapbooking things.  I actually started this post earlier today because of a piece of music and that led to me spending some time scrapbooking/crafting/designing.



The words I used in the WordArt title kept spinning through my head this morning.  The hymn " The Solid Rock" is a favorite of mine and was written by Bill Mote in 1834.  I felt pulled to use these words from that hymn in something creative today.  The kit I used is by Connie Prince called Garden Party.

There are pieces of music that I have held close to my heart that God has used to speak to me.  Some in instrumental form and others in song form.  Hymns of faith, songs of worship, and songs that have a depth of emotional connection beyond the notes on the page.  These pieces of music have the power to bring me to my knees in a reminder that I serve a God that knows my every thought, hears every prayer, and only wants to pull us closer to Him.

My heart is breaking for the brokenness of our world but my hope is built on the promises that God will bring us through these troubled times.  I have seen the resilience of His people.  That even when we are separated, we find ways to connect with each other.

This song by for King & Country spoke to my heart today and I hope it brings some comfort to you as well.

______________________________

Scrapbooking friends, crafting friends, I have a gift for you for stopping by the blog today.  It'll only be available for the month of May but I hope you can use it in some way.

BLOG FREEBIE

DOWNLOAD HERE

Jeremiah 29:11

From 2016 to 2020 ... Time warp

Well, that went well.  The adventures for the past 4 years have kept us rather busy and I honestly forgot about this blog that I started.  Hannah grew up and graduated High School then started her Freshman year at Angelo State University, Nate survived Middle School and is almost finished with 10th grade, Rachel has had one crazy last year/first year type situation as instead of finishing out Elementary School as a 6th grader she was part of the first 6th grade class at one of the newly established Intermediate Schools.  Well, that all was until COVID-19 hit. 

This last quarter of the 2019 - 2020 school year has been spent making the best of a horrible situation.  We keep looking for the silver linings and praying for better times to come.

So, what have I been up to?  Trying to keep up with the ever changing path life takes us on.  I'm still teaching music, just a slight shift in what that looks like.  This year I only taught 5th grade advanced ensemble (choral/instrumental) and 6th Grade Choir.  Next year, depending on how things play out with going back to school, I'm supposed to take up the mantle of teaching 6th Grade Choir and one other class still to be determined.  I'm still teaching piano, playing for Sunday services, and blogging for a designer friend.  Right now we're all back under one roof until the time comes that Hannah can return to her college campus and all the kids are trying to wrap up the school year with online/remote learning.  Gaylon and I have been teaching online but I think we're all ready to greet Summer and take a moment to regroup.

Now that we're all caught up on flash forward 4 years, you may be wondering what my plans are for the blog.  I'm hoping to be a little more active and share a variety of things.  Digital Scrapbooking of course because that's what made many of our paths cross, some inspirational/faith posts, music, recipes, and my rediscovered passion - crochet!  We'll see if I can keep up with this for a while.

Crocheting has been my stress reliever lately.  My family says it has taken over.  Well, not really, they love the things I've made for them but my yarn stash and WIPs (Works in Progress) have exploded around the front room and my bedroom.  However, as I've been listening to student recordings, I've finished up several projects and only have one WIP at the moment.  I actually have a couple of things planned out to start but I'm trying to use up some of the yarn I have.

Here are just a few of the projects I've finished in the past month.

Dragonfly Baby Afghan

2 Bonfire Totes
(The one on the left was a request, the one on the right is now one of my WIP bags)

A few cuddly Octopi.  Here are the first ones but I still need to take photos of the rest.

Messy the Fox
(Rachel asked me to make her a fox.)

And tonight I finished up Buddy Puppy.

I almost forgot!  My aunt gave me a crochet magazine that had an afghan she thought I might want to make.  Well, there were parts of the pattern that I loved so I took those parts and made a piano bench cover.

I hope you will come back to visit!  I would love to hear how you are doing and feel free to leave me a link back to your blog!

Hebrews 11:1

~Susan~

Family Vacation 2016: ART White Water Rafting Tour

It has always been my hope and dream to be able to take a week to two week road trip vacation with my family.  I remember going on trips like that every few years growing up.  Up until this summer we just couldn’t make it a reality for many different reasons.  This year we were able to take all three of our kids and visit part of New Mexico and Colorado and we loved it!

I’m going to be sharing highlights over the next little bit but they won’t be in any particular order.  Yeah, I’m random that way.

Part of our adventure was going on a white water rafting tour down the Arkansas River.  Let me pause here and clarify that none of us have ever been on a white water rafting tour before and only my husband can claim to be a “outdoors” personality.  We of course did a beginner level tour but I would be remiss not to admit that I did have some fears to overcome such as worrying that the raft would flip over or that we’d loose one of the kids (namely the youngest one) overboard while going through the rapids. 

After we received and put on our PFD (personal floatation devices) and helmets, we had time to visit with the two families that were going with us. There was another young girl Rachel’s age and they immediately started talking as if they had been friends forever. It was sweet. None of us had the heart to tell them that they wouldn’t be in the same raft on the trip.

I don’t know what special event led to me being the one chosen to document the checklist as they gave the safety guides but there were moments that I was afraid I would miss the directions on what to do if you found yourself outside the raft in the river while trying to keep up with the checklist. Maybe the guy that handed me the clipboard and asked me to keep track thought I looked scattered and hoped it would keep me focused.  Really it just jacked up my anxiety another notch (oh who’s kidding it went up several notches!)  Another thing I didn’t realize at that moment was that my family was the only one that had volunteered to paddle! More on that in a moment.

When we went to get in the vans that were going to transport us to the starting point Rachel and her new friend immediately went to sit together.  At this moment the brother (about the same age as Rachel as well) asked Hannah if she would sit with him.  Watch out, I think he may like older women when he gets older!  Nate sat with them and we got in the same van along with their parents.  Skip ahead to the moment the girls realized they weren’t going together, you would have thought that they were BFFs going off to separate universes!   Hugs, tears, and good-byes said we got our instructions on how to sit in our respective spots on our raft and off we went.  It was about this moment that Rachel realized she wasn’t getting to paddle.  Cue one unhappy 8 year old who thinks she’s going on 16.  Our guide, Audra was amazing though and tried to convince her that she had the best seat in the raft.  Really it was for safety reasons, Rachel just wasn’t quite big enough to stretch her legs into position to be sure to stay in the raft in the rapids.  It was also at this moment that I realized the other two families weren’t paddling in their rafts.  It worked out for us because there were four of us plus our guide and I have to say, it was a lot of fun!!  Hannah and Nate loved it and it was a great bonding experience for us.  Rachel had fun too, especially when Audra told her that one of the rapids didn’t have a name and asked Rachel to name it.  Now there is a rapid in that section of the Arkansas River called Rachel’s Rocky Rapid, at least with the ART tour when Audra is the guide.

Out of all the things we did on our vacation this ranked as one of the top adventures and something that the whole family says they want to do again.  Of course Rachel wants to go when she can get to paddle so here’s hoping Gaylon and I can still do things like this for the next 5 – 10 years!

Kit: Floating Along by Designs by Connie Prince
Photos by Arkansas River Tours

Here is my favorite photo from our time on the Arkansas River!

Welcome 2016!

Let me introduce myself.  My name is Susan and like many of you I wear many different “hats” or “labels.”  Here are just a few of mine that you might relate to: wife, mom, Christian, elementary music teacher, piano teacher, crafter, scrapbooker, and designer.  Those are just a few of my “hats” and I wear most of them daily and often layered on top of each other.  Exhausting?  Sometimes.  Loved?  Definitely.  So you may be asking yourself, “What is this blog about?”  It’s my return to the digital world.  It’s random and honestly you’ll never know what you’re going to find next.  A bit about life in a a busy family, a bit about my faith, a bit about food, a bit about teaching (the good and the interesting odd moments), and a bit about the scrapbooking/crafting that is part of what keeps me sane.  Well, sane may be debatable….

So there you have a bit of my background and what this blog will be about.  I know some people have several blogs that are dedicated to one specific subject and those are all linked together.  Sorry, I’m not one of those people.  My mind doesn’t work that way and I’m hoping to keep up with just this one blog.  So, if you like random, welcome to my small part of blogging land! 

Welcome 2016 – New Beginnings….. and yeah, getting my 7 year old to finish the project that I just remembered is due this week after we return to school………

~Susan