Happy Fifth Birthday!

Charly's birthday party was on the 28th and it went really well. 3 boys came, 2 from church and one from school. One of the church kids and the one from school didn't get along well at times, but kept away from each other for the most part. At one point the school kid punched the church kid because he took Charly's toy. Starting fights already, I know! Other than that, it was a nice party. The cake was good, the company was good, and the party was about 2 hours. I made a slideshow so you can see most of the pics. I let the kids run around with Charly's camera, and they took some photos, but Nate has the card for that camera with him and he's not here at the moment. So I will get those pics up soon. :) Here's the slideshow:



I've entered a design contest at Inspiration Lane. The winner gets to sell in their store, which is a pretty popular store. We will have to complete 4 challenges, and along the way we'll be given tips and tricks to help us grow in our craft. I thought my challenge one entry was really good, but of course there were things for me to work on, namely staying within the assigned color palette. To my eye I did that, so now I have to figure out why what the contest judge saw doesn't match what I'm seeing. In case you're curious, here's my kit: Springtime, Kiddo!



I made a Photoshop brush that makes it look like I've sponge painted on the paper. So I let Charly make her own ladybug :)



She chose the colors and colored it in herself, though I did select the image and make sure she couldn't color too far outside the lines.

The challenge was due by 11:59 pm this past Saturday, and I wasn't able to really start working on it until Friday. Then no matter what I was doing my computer would freeze. I couldn't do anything in Photoshop, I couldn't do anything online, I couldn't even edit an Excel spreadsheet. Praise the Lord we still had our tax money in our account so that I could go to Best Buy and pick up a new computer. We're so blessed! You can find it HERE if you're interested. So then I got PS loaded onto it and was able to make the kit Saturday. Even though I was trying to learn a new operating system, and set up, and keyboard and all that, lol. This is my first Vista computer, and I hate to admit it, but so far I don't mind Vista. It's not so bad. :) And so far the computer has been able to handle all that I've thrown at it, which is awesome!! But we'll see how long that lasts. *-)

So that's about it for now. I'll update more later. After this post, I will be updating the Project 365 blog with pics from the 2nd half of Feb and the beginning of March. Yay!

-S

Just a note to say...

...hi! I know this blog needs a major REVAMP!..And I'm currently working on that. It's been way too long since I said anything on here, I've been so busy with the Silly Beans stuff. I added blinkies in the sidebar to the left of this post so you can see my shops, and another image so you can see my design blog. There's not much Silly Beans stuff yet, but there will be. :)

We just got back a few days ago from our awesome Christmas vacation! We spent a total of 7 days in the car and 8 days visiting. We got to see nearly everyone, and had a great time. This week I've been playing catch up, with designing, starting the Bible in a Year study, and cleaning. Can't forget cleaning. We also decided to get a dog. Don't know why, but we did, lol. I prayed about it, and then received an email about a dog someone had found that needed a home. I had said I'd like to have a puppy so it would grow up around Charly, but I don't want one because I would need to potty train it. Then this one comes along, and it's a puppy, and it's being potty trained. So there ya go, in the true spirit of my mother's child, I will probably be bringing home a rescued dog. And it's so goofy looking too! If we get it, I'll be sure to post pictures, which I'm sure will be accompanied by rants along the lines of "Why did I ever agree to get a puppy?!"

But anyways, we sure are happy to be home. I worked in the nursery last night and got to play with some awesome toddlers. Nate resumed his games duties at Awana and got to play too. Charly is learning O and P this week in school and painted with pine needles yesterday. Her shirt told me what color the paint had been. I'm looking very forward to being back in church on Sunday. I'm so blessed to be attending a church I love.

I started a Project 365 blog last night, there should also be a link for that in the left sidebar. Basically I'll take a picture a day for a whole year. Should be fun. If you know me, and we see each other in person, then you'll probably wind up in my Project at some point. But hey, gotta use the super fancy camera sometime!

Speaking of pics, I have none for this post, but I will soon.

So that's it in a brief nutshell. Thanks for stopping by!

-S

The Effects of a Homecoming....and some FREEBIES too :)

(Yes, there's a freebie in this post, two freebies actually, but they're at the end of the post. Feel free to read before you download!)

Well, since the last time I blogged I was "promoted" to ad director on the Duchess Designs CT, Nate came home, we went to the beach, and I took that tentative first step toward being a digi-scrap designer.

Woah, wait, Shannon. Slow down. Nate came home? YOU BET HE DID!! It's great to have my dishwas--uh I mean HUSBAND home, heehee. Seriously though, it's been nice, and Charly's been stoked. We were able to get in a little family time before he had to go back to work. We went down to Wilmington and had a pretty good coupla days at the beach. Nate had Charly out in the water, and this big wave came up and smashed right into them. Here are the before, during, and after pictures of that wave:

Here comes the wave.

There they are right in it!

And Nate's going, "WOOOOOO!!"


We got new desks and so these last couple of days have been spent putting everything away that was on the old desks. I'm the kind of person that clutters things up, especially my home workspace, for some reason. And now I have a HUGE desk to clutter up even more! But hopefully not.

Next week is VBS, and I am for sure doing some photography for it. It'll be so fun! I'll just have to remind myself that I'm taking pics of everyone, not JUST Charly.

This is the latest kit by Duchess Designs. It's been out a little over a week, and I love love love working with it!! Click the preview to pick up yours! Maria's working on some rockin new stuff right now, and everytime she shows me something new, I get totally excited. I'll let you know as soon as it's out!

Also, Tracey just released her Dinosaur papers, doodles, elements, and alphas in one big kit, click the image to pick it up, and check back here to see the layout I'm working on with it!


Here are some layouts I've done since the last time I posted (click images for credits):

The Hero Shot

Quiet Time with Dad

My Little Photographer

First Time Drumming

And now for the freebies. I have recently discovered that I'm pretty good at making templates. I also created the name Silly Bean Scraps to go along with them. (It sounds cooler than putting Shannon H on them!) Silly Beans is one of our most frequently used nicknames for Charly. So here are my first two free, personal use templates, just click the template images to download them and enjoy! And as you'll read in the TOU, I'd love to see what you make with them!

Here's my first template: Bulletin Board. It was made for a partner challenge at DC, which you'll see below this image.


Here's the layout I made with Amanda.

And this is my second template: Here Comes the Sun

Priceless

WHEW!! That's all for now...I hope! We're having such a good time over at Digital Candy with the month-long birthday celebration, you should come check it out if you haven't. There's lots of challenges, prizes, random goodies, and awesome sales. See you there!

-S

Catch Up Time

Where to start. It's been a couple days, so sorry! Today Charly said "Sweet!" for the first time. And no, not just the "This cake tastes sweet, mom." It was "Sweet! This shirt is soooooooo pretty!" Lol. On the inside I went "Yes!" She's such a cool kid. Today she had a friend over for awhile so his mommy could have "me time. " Charly was being her usual bossy self and trying to tell him what and how to play. Good kid, he wasn't having any of it! So she got upset and whined to me, "Mommy, he's not doing what I tell him." When I told her that no one is going to want to play with her if she keeps telling them what to do all the time, she said, "But Mommy, I'm nice to them AFTER I'm bossy!" At least she comes by it honest :) Poor Nate, two bossy women.

Another funny story. Last night I went into the bathroom to potty and there was a roach on the ceiling. Being the shorty that I am I sprayed it with that mild daily shower spray so it would fall down and I could kill it. It fell into Nate's sink, which I have closed so nothing can climb up it. And I had to fumble to get the sink open and turn the water on so the roach could wash down the drain. While I was fumbling it crawled out of the sink, and I was so tired I tried to BLOW IT BACK IN. LOL!! It's so funny that I was tired enough to think I could blow a roach anywhere! So it fell on the floor and I squished it with the stool. True story.

I have Maria's permission to finally announce that I am on the creative team for Ferg Designs (Maria Ferguson). Her new kit SECRET GARDEN was released today (Friday May 16th) and I made a two-page layout (Tea Ladies) to show it off. I'll put it at the end of this post. It's a lot of fun, so far, to be working on a CT, and I think Maria is awesome. I bug her a lot on the Yahoo IM. But hey, I'm a multi-tasker. If I'm online, and she's online, it's hard not to say SOMETHING. On another CT note, I was officially turned down for a position on one of the other CT's I applied for, but I was offered a guest spot instead. So for the month of August I'm slated to create for JenLin Designs. The cool thing about guesting is that I get to play with her kit(s) without having the responsibilities that come with being on a CT. So yeah. Makin friends, makin art, life is good :)

Oh hey, I have a rant. And I have a blog now, so I can be like all the other bloggers and rant! Lately when Charly and I have been out I've been more aware of the way some people talk to their kids. And it's really offensive, at least to me. Like when a mom is yelling at her kid to sit down, sit down! and gets tired of saying it a couple times so she says "Sit your a** down on that chair," it makes me want to go over and tell her that she shouldn't speak like that to her children. Or when I hear a parent ask their child, "What the h*** is wrong with you, get your a** over here?" I want to ask "What's wrong with you, lady?" So what do I do in these situations? When Charly asks me why those people are yelling at their kids, in normal speaking voice I say something like, "Well, those kids must be making bad choices. But that mommy's not speaking very nicely to them, is she?" Yeah that's me, daring. I know. But yeah, it bugs me. And it's not like it's on tv, and I can change the channel. It's right there in Wal Mart or the PX food court.

So anyway, I've been busy busy busy, building up my online profiles, playing silly games in the online forums, making stuff, and socializing in the "real" world. Whew. In the week and a half since we've been back we've had church (Wed and Sun), a church dinner with other military wives, Chuck E Cheese's on Mom's Day, Charly's sleepover, my allergy appointment, the kids were over today (I watched 3 kids today, including a baby!), I joined and did stuff for a CT, tomorrow we've got a baby shower, and Sunday we're going to the Ft Bragg fair. I think I'm going to spend all day Monday on the couch :) Plus I've had to unpack and put 4 suitcases of stuff away and generally clean the house.

Ahh anyway, I think that's about everything. At some point I hope to get caught up on editing the pics from the AZ trip so I can get those out to everyone. And I get to mess around with Charly's MyFamily website. That should be tons o fun. Oh, and it was mentioned to me that I might want to change the name of this blog. I had thought that the name Charly and Those Other people was fitting because I'll probably mostly talk about and post pics of Charly. However, it was pointed out that this is MY blog, not Charly's, and so the name should be about me. It's a good point, but I can't come up with anything catchy. If anyone reading has suggestions, lemme know!

Here's the Tea Lady LO, click it for larger image. The template is by Moriginals and the fonts are Liorah and Lydian. Everything else is Ferg Designs :)


Goodnight all!
-S