Now why did I never think of that?!

We have been doing a recipe exchange once a month in our ward. We pick one of our favorite recipes in a topic (we just did salads) and then make recipe cards on 6x6 scrapbook papers and then have lunch and swap cards. It is so much fun to get together and get great recipes on adorable cards and put them in an album. At the last swap a couple of the girls in the ward came up to me and asked me if I wanted to join their scrapbooking group. I, of course, said "YES! YES! YES!" (Okay, I was more calm and non chalant about it but you know me!) They said that it was a little different than just coming and scrapbooking. Each month you put together a 2 page layout for each person in the group and yourself (on your own time) and then get together and swap one night. At the swap you bring your pictures and journaling and put them on the pages and have food and chat. You go home with layouts that are completely done. They showed me a few of the layouts that have been done in the past and they were amazing. But it makes total sense. When I usually do scrapbooking, I load up all my "crap" and haul it to where we are scrapbooking only to get a couple of pictures done. Maybe 1 page at the most. (I love to talk!) So today was the deadline and I spent the weekend trying to get the pages finished. But I must say...it wasn't that bad! There are 7 girls in the group and it was kind of nice to just get out the mess and put everything together for one layout. Since this was the start of the new group we will pick up our pages tomorrow (one member gathers them today and divides them up) and then we will get another layout done and also get all of our pictures put together and then come the next time in a few weeks and put the pictures on the pages from this month and swap new pages! I might finally actually tackle the 2 FULL picture boxes I have! YEAH!!! Josh also got me the Cricut! (yeah tax returns!) And I must say....I ABSOLUTELY LOVE IT! It makes it so much easier to scrapbook. Anyway, I had bought some vinyl lettering at the Wood Connection when I was up north. When I put it on the board when I got home it was put on crooked, it wasn't long enough and Maddie had ripped the "s" in half. It looked pretty bad. Yesterday when we were waiting to go to church (2:30 in the afternoon is a crazy time to have church) I got an idea and fixed the board myself with the Cricut. It turned out pretty good! This sits above our couch in the family room. In each of the windows of the frames I put family pictures and pictures of the kids in them. I got the frames at Roberts and the metal hangers at Wood Connection. The wreath was from Michaels. The big knob board I got at Roberts too. (I love the 40 and 50% coupons!) I just drilled holes in the frames and strung them together with ribbon.