Nut Slightly Cracked

Believe it or not...I survived the island! I remain shocked as I tell you that I won the Survivor Contest over at the Scrapbook Chalet by a small margin of 22-20. I am now the proud owner of a Cricut die cutting system, as well as the Guest Designer for I believe April. I used a Becky Fleck sketch and photos that my great friend, Angelina took to create Week #10's layout. It was an ad challenge where the ad was comprised of 4 letters that were cropped photos. We had to draw our inspiration from the ad. It took me HOURS to figure out what I was going to do. I dreamt about it..I thought about it for days...I drew sketches and jotted down ideas. When I finally did the layout, the day it was due, my idea to crop letters out of a photo and place on the same exact photo creating a shadow effect just popped into my head. I really didn't want to use the letters as a title and not have the remaining pieces of the photo. It just wasn't large enough and I felt the rest of the photo was important. I was lucky enough to have some SEI So Girly patterned papers left from my Design Team projects over at ScrapNCircle that matched Kaila's jacket in the photos perfectly.

It was a thrilling contest filled with absolutely AMAZINGLY TALENTED women. I am honored to have been in the contest with them. I thank everyone who voted for my layout. It is greatly appreciated. Congrats to Amber and Didi who also won prizes with their creations! You ladies are AWESOME!

Scrapbook Chalet is getting ready to launch another great contest with the grand prize being a gift basket full of products worth $250! Be sure to check it out and enter soon!!! Just click on the link, go to the message board and look it up under Chalet Contests.

We're about a month away from taking our long-awaited trip to Texas. And when I say "We" I mean my Husband and I...just us :) You read it correctly! We are taking a litle 8 day vacation to visit friends in Texas. Chris is actually Charlie's best friend from high school. They were in each other's weddings. The first and last time we flew on a plane was in 1996 to go to Chris and Becky's wedding. So, it's been a while. Charlie's parents are nice enough to watch the children for the week we're away. I'm excited, but nervous about what may or may not happen on the plane. If I didn't have to fly I'd be ecstatic! I just don't want to take 24 hours to drive down there. We're planning on going to a bed and breakfast for the weekend we're down there with just the four of us. Chris and Becky have two children of their own. We're easily entertained and just are happy to see them and visit. We're all counting down the days, because we haven't seen each other since May 2000.

On the homefront, there is mud everywhere...not just outside. These children and husband of mine have tracked mud into the house on numerous occasions. I can't wait for the dry season. So, I not only have to deal with a trashed house, but mud all over too. Needless to say, it's a cleaning day today. I better get back at it!

See ya!

Shawn