Laura and Hans' fall visit mini journal...

Hope was here for a week and then my sister, Laura, was here the week after. Their trips overlapped by a couple of days, which was a lot of fun. We went to Scrapfest at the Mall of America together and then went to the Minnesota Landscape Arboretum on the day that Hope left. Laura was here for the rest of the week, which included my birthday, a dinner with our cousins, some fall fun at the pumpkin patch and apple orchard with little Hans and some good crafty sister time together. I decided to use the book we made in Amy Tangerine's class at Scrapfest for a mini journal of the week Laura and Hans were here.

Journal of Hope's visit....

This is the third year that Hope has come to stay with my family for a week in September and we always have the best time. The first few years it was fun to have Junk Bonanza going on during her visit and now the last couple of years we have also attended The Creative Connection and Scrapfest. It's always a busy week fitting in three events, plus celebrating Lowell's birthday, going to as many estate sales as we can sneak in, spending time with the kids (they love Hope!), getting outside and having some time to chat and journal before we go to bed each night.

This year was as busy as ever. Luckily the weather was at its peak fall form. Crisp and clear with brilliant blue skies! Hope posted her journal over on her blog if you want more details of the events and the visit from her perspective. Hope you enjoy!

For the journal itself, I used a mixed paper pre-made journal from Amy Tangerine. We took a class from her at Scrapfest that we really enjoyed and she showed us this fun journal that's all put together and ready to go from her new collection. I wanted to complete my journal shortly after Hope's visit while all the memories were fresh in my mind and this was just perfect to get all my pictures and journaling in lickety split!

We had fun taking pictures of our matching shoes at the markets that we visited.

It's going to be a smashing summer!

As the kids wind down their last few days of school, summer is definitely on my mind. The nearly 100 degree temperature outside certainly doesn't hurt. I've been brainstorming with the kids all the fun things we hope to do this summer: camping, sailing, swimming, lots and lots of family time. You know me, I'm always one to want to document our journey, ideally as we are living it. After feeling inspired by the concept of these smash journals, I decided to take Kidding Around 2, lead by Tami Morrison at Big Picture Scrapbooking and get the kids involved. The journals are by K and Co., but you could certainly make your own as well. What a great way to "smash" the summer into a very fun and interactive art journal. The kids and I will each do our own so that we each do it in our own way. Can't wait to get started!When I gave Chloe and Lowell their smash journals tonight, they were eager to get started right away. Can't wait to see how they fill up over the summer!
I’d love to hear what you’ve got in store for the summer. What are your plans?

How does your garden grow?

I thought I'd share this cute little garden mini book I made to store all the tags that came with the veggies we planted in the garden. I supplmented it with some photos and notes on how our garden came together this year. I hope to keep up with jotting down which plants did well and which didn't and other facts that may come in handy. All that I used was some polka dot tape and a pen. A simple way of documenting the process as we see how our garden grows.