Road trip to North Carolina

Our first road trip with a toddler, hmmmmm, what can I say except the next time we will FLY! We "the scrapNdiva family" drove from NJ to Nashville/Rocky Mount North Carolina to celebrate the 60th birthday of mr. scrapNdiva's husbands twin uncles. It was a nice trip, always good to see those relatives that you don't see often. This trip gave me the opportunity to see a side of Xavier that I've never seen before, mainly because we've never really traveled in a car with him as a toddler for longer than an hour and maybe fifteen minutes. I learned that after 2 hours, he looses his patience, gets restless, AGGRESSIVE and all the "tated's" you can be - irriTATED, aggeTATED and just MEAN-O-TATED! At one point, I found myself playing feety-toes with him, he enjoyed that for a long time, like 10 minutes..... (seemed forever at the time)

I think we stopped about 3 times so he could stretch his legs (didn't even think to take pictures at the rest stops), we backed out of our driveway at 9:28am and arrived at our hotel in Rocky Mount at about 5:45pm and Xavier might have taken a 40 minute nap - YES - you said it - HE DID NOT SLEEP - he gabbled, said Elmo at least a gazillion times (he loves Elmo)

Once we arrived and checked into the hotel, opened the door to our room, XAVIER was overwhelmed, he loved the rooms as he didn't know where to start, it was perfect for him, everything at his reach, no locks on cabinets, fridge or the dishwasher - HOG HEAVEN, he went room to room walking, crawling and scooting. He tried to leave the room many times, you couldn't open the door without him saying "out" or "nanna's house" he was just too cute!

The weather was horrible in NC, rain, COLD, FREEZING COLD!! It was coat and scully hat cold outside - here are a few pics from the get-a-way. Oh and Xavier loved that darn golf cart and all the cows he was able to see. ENJOY

How do you keep your toddler "busy" during a long road trip?

My Sweet Precious Baby

Oh how mommy just loves you, you are very well taken care of, you don't now and will never have to need for anything or want for much. You are still fed a bottle, because you refuse to eat, you are taken to feeding therapy every Monday morning, your mommy puree's food just for you to carry along with us (and it be good too, too bad you won't even try it), your clothes are washed, you get bathed, your diapers are changed at least every two hours, you get massages every night, I'll do anything for you precious miracle of mine, like this afternoon when I cleaned your room because you had everything everywhere, I made your little bed, dusted off your bookshelf since all the books were everywhere except on the shelf, I even took the time to arrange your books in height order, man oh man I'd love for someone to do this for me. It took me about an hour to clean your room and it only took you 5 minutes to do this:

Oh yea, what happened to the other wing on the butterfly? you know the one located on the frog garbage can..... I love you so much

Ed Hardy, what have you done to attract me?

I never considered myself to be a trendy person. I tend to make smart purchases that have no expiration date on them. I would never have been attracted to anything Ed Hardy but he came out with these tattoo'd low rise sneakers that I absolutely adore. I had to get them, I have to figure out how to wear them because I don't wear sneakers often, but these babies will get some airplay.

Were you serious when you asked me to move my car?

Who does that? Random lady in the parking lot is who.

As I was heading to the side of the door where Xavier's carseat is located, this lady stopped her car and asked that I move so she can park because she has a baby? What in the Fuggnicity - clearly she saw that I too had a baby. She then asked that I read where it says "and parents with babies" so I said, I did read it, that's why I parked here and if you wanted this park, you should have gotten here about 5 minutes before me. What nerve! As she angrily pulled off and parked in another spot, as I was pushing my cart towards the store, she stormed passed me and said "this is considered an infant, he's only 6 months old" OKAY lady, please when you wanna prove a point to me, please don't use your 6 month old infant son that weighs at least 30lbs more than my 18month old! Seriously, have you ever asked someone to move their parked car in a public lot so you can have that spot?

Layout Title: The Many Faces of You

My sweet baby Xavier loves the outdoors, he's truly an outdoor fiend! With that said, I took him outside and he felt confident enough to explore more, very ambitious even as he attempted to walk the stone steps (of course I stopped him) he wasn't too happy. It gave me the perfect opportunity to take a few pictures of him giving me serious faces. Pardon the uneven picture of the layout, I'm still trying to master taking pics of my pages instead of scanning and stitching.

I created a 2 page spread using 9 pictures:

The last picture if of the "opened door" under the first picture, that's where I journaled.

The Expression Scanner by Epson

I want this Epson Expression Scanner so bad. It absolutely makes sense to the scrapper that spends time on 12x12 layouts but don't want to spend time scanning by stitching (time consuming) and for the scrappers such as myself that haven't mastered the technique of taking photos of my layouts with my digital camera.

The perfect space - Share your space

I don't know who it belongs to but I love it. Look how functional, organized and spacious this studio is. Please share pics of your space with me via email. Thanks

Cricut Design Studio: scrapNhot or scrapNnot?

Ahhhh, the Design Studio. It took me a few tries to master the technique behind welding, I'm almost there but not good enough. I "heart" this program A LOT! It allows you to actually cut on your layout page if that's your choice. You have access to all the carts but you can only cut out using carts that you actually have. Kudos to Provo Craft for this software. It's user friendly if you are computer literate. All in all, I highly recommend this software. Explore the link below, they actually allow you to download a trial version, trust me, you will not be disappointed.

The Jukebox: scrapNhot or scrapNnot?

I had to see what all the hype was myself. I "have" the cricut jukebox and can honestly say as an advanced scrapper that it's one of those "it's okay to have" NOT a nice to have, nor a need to have. Truth be told, it takes up too much space and if you have to take the time to change out the keypad, why not just change the cart as well. I was under the impression that you can use multiple carts within one cut, but that's not the case I haven't experienced that function yet and I tried multiple times. If this review was helpful to you and/or you can offer any suggestions on how I can make my jukebox work, please leave me a comment.

My scrapNstudio

First, without the jetmaxx storage cubes, this would have been impossible.

This is inside my studio closet: bottom and top storage

Patterned paper, page kits and foam alphabet stamps are all stored in the Cropper Hopper Vertical Paper Holder , the drawers house most of the cutting tools, adhesives and themed rub-ons. On the clothing rack bar fibers are stored in baggies that are attached to the clothing bar by two three ring binder circles. Ribbons are stored in sectioned art bin containers. Photo boxes are used for all of my extra supplies or supplies that I don't use on a regular basis. I use the rubbermaid shelf savers to house many of my smaller items such as chipboard alphabets, metal alphabets and other what-nots.

The shoe rack on the side, houses my ink pads. I truly love the system I created for myself. The ease of getting to my supplies are wonderful and best of all, I can simply close the closet and the room looks just as neat.

The next pictures are of my bookshelf, I maintain my hand punches in one of the pull out canvas boxes. I also keep my magazines and how to books there too. The top racks houses all of my small embellishments like brads, snaps, staples, buttons, eyelets, phxoto corners and metal words. On top of those racks are my paints. Oh and I also store my 8x8 papers on this shelf too.

My last tour will be of my work space, I made function out of the dead space between the inner bottom of desk and floor:

The Ultimate Guide for Storing your Scrapbooking Supplies

Truly is the Organization Tips for Scrapbookers! Generally, I'm an organized person, at times, it's hard to stay that way. This book not only suggest tips for organizing, it also offers support on how to maintain an order to you scrapbook studio. I find that the more organized my space is, the less I suffer from scrapbookers block and the more I actually create layouts and not search for supplies. If you suffer from scrapbookers block, please read overcoming scrapbookers block. I give this book 5 out of 5 stars.

The Cricut Expression: scrapNhot or scrapNnot?

If you own the baby bug, please, don't rush to invest in the expression UNLESS you have the need to cut out super large images. 99.9% of the time, I'm only cutting out smaller items, since I've had the expression, I've yet to cut out anything large. With the expression, you can no longer cut on 9x12 sized paper, it's either 12x12 or 12x24 which is a waste of great paper. NOW, if you have the expression, good for you because the added features are awesome! I'm still trying to figure everything out, I'm constantly looking for the upgrades so I can download them, I hear they are coming and coming soon. How do you like the expression? Compared to the baby bug, could you take it or leave it?