A thoughtful fellow blog-reader wanted to pass along a shopping tip to those of you who are looking to get some of those albums that I use (mentioned in my last post). RitzCamera.com has them on sale right now and you can click here to take you right to the albums. The ones I use are called “We R Memory Keepers 12×12 Faux Leather 3-Ring Binder”. Thanks, Alexx!

Going back to home decor for a minute, I wanted to share a few areas of “texture” in our home. Adding texture can really make a difference. These textured balls sit in a hand-carved wood bowl we picked up in South Africa a few years ago. The balls are from Razmataz, which is a local store here in AZ.

This is a corner on our kitchen counter, and where we store our bread. Picked up this little number (the lid comes off, if you can’t tell) at Razmataz as well.

And this is a gathering spot inside the garage door. We don’t have a mud room, but we hang a few things on this pretty hook piece (got this so long ago, maybe from World Market? Not sure.). The textured star is from Real Deals.

I got a handful of those stars, in bigger sizes, for the boys’ room too. (Crew’s crib is tucked to the right; you just can’t see it in this picture.) And they were really inexpensive — $15 for the largest one.

Bedding from Target (not even sure it’s available anymore though?)
Wall color is Cloud Burst (490F-5), Behr brand @ The Home Depot
Chairs & ottomans from Creative Leather
Bed from eBay (got it several years ago)

(I know someone’s going to ask.) : )

Hi folks. There are a bunch of random questions out there and I’d like to get back with you on a few of those today. If you have asked me a really pressing question in previous Comments, and I’ve missed it, feel free to ask me in the Comments for this post. We’ll play a little bit of catch-up. If I don’t respond to your question, I either don’t know the answer or I simply don’t have time to answer them all (the latter is likely).

Q: What album is that on the cover of the new issue?
A: It’s the We R Memory Keepers 3-ring leather binder. My favorite for our family albums & all the kids’ albums too.

On a funny note, the picture they chose for the March issue cover shot is so funny to us, because Claire is so proud of her tongue and how she can touch her nose with it. So it’s really sweet that she happened to be doing that when the kids were looking at the scrapbook during this photo shoot. What you can’t tell, is that Porter was actually laughing so hard in the picture too. There were some really silly pictures on that layout. : )

Q: What camera do you use?
A: I shoot with the Nikon D90 (made the switch from Canon because this camera shoots video in amazing SLR quality) and I also keep my point & shoot in my bag at all times. That one is the Canon Powershot SD900.

Q: How did you hang your Christmas cards?
A: Scotch tape. Not a single bit of paint has peeled off over the past few years. The paint on our walls is Dunn-Edwards (and the color is Oak Harbor).

Q: What are your favorite home fragrances?
A: I have liked Gold Canyon candles for years, but I’ve recently found myself experimenting with different ways of making our home smell yummy. One is melting blocks of wax with products from Scentsy and another is burning oils from The Body Shop or Bath & Body. What’s the fragrance in our home right now? A mixture of 2 oils from The Body Shop: Satsuma & Summer Fruit.

Q: What do you do with all the Christmas cards you get?
A: In our on-going chronological family albums, it’s been a tradition of mine to display all the pictures from family & friends on a handful of layouts each Christmastime. As for the cards … I throw them away (actually, we recycle). Gasp! I know. But it’s the truth. Here’s a visual of what those layouts look like.

So here’s the thing. Since I’ve transformed my approach to our family scrapbooks (from scrapbooking layouts of themes & events to the Project 365 concept) … I actually have no idea what I’m doing with the Christmas card pictures from loved ones now. I’m just sitting on that one I guess. Haven’t prioritized figuring it out just yet. In the meantime, here are the pictures from 2007 & 2008 … waiting for me to do something.

Any ideas? What are YOU doing with the pictures you get? And PS – I will have to show you what I do with the baby, graduation, and wedding annoncements we receive. That’s a little system in itself.

Our Christmas cards usually stay up through Valentines Day. So yesterday’s picture of the day, naturally, was a shot of the display before we took them all down.

My mom’s always been super supportive of my endeavors, but this takes it to a whole new level. The other day, she saw some of you expressing interest in those cross-stitched pieces that I shared and immediately got in touch with me, saying that she wanted to do a give-away on my blog. So cute.

I know some of you have met my mom (she has traveled with me many times – back when I used to do CKUs & conventions). But in case you haven’t, I’ll put a face with a name. This beautiful woman is my mother. And since I’m a sucker for old pictures, I threw that other one of the 2 of us on here too.

Candice Stringham took that more recent one of us (3 years ago) at one of the CKUs.

SO … on to the winners of this give-away. My mom has chosen 4 winners at random and they are:

1. Lisa in Aurora, Ohio (angel pattern)
2. Melissa in Marshall, Missouri (angel pattern)
3. Vanessa in Smithfield, Virginia (pillow pattern)
4. Anne Z in Mooresville, North Carolina (pillow pattern)

Winners, drop me an e-mail with your mailing address and my mom will get those patterns to you shortly. [ bhiggins@ckmedia.com ]

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Added note from Mom: The phone numbers to call for those patterns are …

Angel pattern: 760.942.5948 (Kathi who says she has just a handful left)
Pillow pattern: 614.481.0017

First, I extend my thoughts and prayers to those who are affected by the bush fire situation in Victoria, Australia (many of your fellow blog-readers live there). I am saddened to hear about the tragedy of homes and lives lost and pray that families and communities will be strengthened through this trial.

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The winners of Candice’s Valentines garland class are … Jenny in Greifswald, Germany and Lisa in Honolulu, Hawaii! E-mail me, ladies, and I’ll get you the code you’ll need to register for the class. [ bhiggins@ckmedia.com ]

In case you need a Valentines idea, I thought I’d share something we’re pulling together this week. These are for our kids to distribute to their respective classmates in school. They have been involved in the process and we’re having fun doing the project together.

Started with some packages of some classic Sweethearts candies:

Then both kids did their own Valentines art on a plain sheet of 8 1/2″ x 11″ paper.

Porter’s art:

Claire’s art (I added the text in Photoshop after I scanned it in):

I scanned them in, and reduced their size to about 2″ x 3″. In a Pages document (that’s like Word for Macs), I created a shape/box (like a text box), dropped the image in the middle, and duplicated this 2 more times on the page. This is what it looked like, ready to print:

After I printed the sheets, I trimmed along the borders to get the final sheets, all ready to wrap around each box:

The kids used a glue stick all over the front of each box, then we placed a wrapper on each one:

The final step, of course, is to wrap it around the box and adhere the wrapper to itself on the back of the box.

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Totally changing the topic, but keeping on a related note of GIVING to others … my mom wants to GIVE someone the cross-stitch patterns (see the past couple posts). How cute is she!?

So here we go again. If you are interested in winning the angel or monthly pillow patterns, leave your first name & where you live and my MOM will randomly choose 2 of you to win. She just ordered the patterns for this purpose, so as soon as they arrive, she’ll ship them to those 2 winners.

Yay for cute moms!

A few random things to start off this week:

[another home decor idea]

You were once a child, too. You are more likely to remember this — and you’re kids are more likely to believe that it’s true — if you have pictures from your childhood in your home. Kids or no kids, I think we all need reminders that we were once children. This is a little corner outside our laundry room. And that’s me & David, when we were little.

[cross-stitch patterns]

For those of you interested in those patterns that my mom used for the projects, this information (which my mom got from the back of the pamphlets) might be helpful in your search:

ANGEL: All Thru The Year by Heart to Hand Designs
Pamphlet #131, Cardiff by the Sea
(760) 942-5948 (California)

MONTH PILLOWS: Wreath For All Seasons
Pamphlet #3, Fanci That Designs
(Columbus, Ohio 1986, 1989)

[online valentines class]

Candice Stringham is doing an online class, where you can make a Valentines garland, complete with 14 days of fun activities. Click here to check it out (it’s only $5.59 right now!). Candice would like to give away this class to someone. Leave your first name & where you live in the Comments and I’ll choose a random winner to announce on Tuesday.

My mom has a thing for counted cross-stitching. She is excellent. That has been her passion most of her life, just as scrapbooking has been mine. I love having her “handiwork” sprinkled here and there in our home. It’s part of what makes our house feel like home. Here are just a couple things that she made for us, that are seasonal.

This angel hangs in our kitchen and her apron changes with each new month. My friend Nanci made this for her home and I fell in love with it years ago. Even though I’ve done counted cross-stitching and I quite enjoy it, I was in a particularly busy stage of life and my mom was kind enough to make it for us. (I have the best mom in the world.)

Mom also made 12 of these little pillow hangings, one for each month.

The “pillow of the month” hangs in our kitchen, above the light switches. I found the darling hook at Razmataz. And you can see our Christmas cards still on the wall in the background, in the hallway around the corner. They stay up at least through Valentines Day.

My kids love changing both of these monthly. And they know that these are gifts from their grandma.

I have a thing for grids. Photo grids, in particular. It’s just so orderly. Clean. Linear. Focused. Organized.

This one’s in our little bathroom near the family room. Found the frames at Ross or TJ Maxx or Marshall’s (one of those stores) years ago. Bookplates were already attached and everything. Pictures are of memorable travels over the course of our marriage.

And this grid of four includes each of our babies … as brand-new babies. And us.

I found this old, painted, rustic-looking crate at a boutique years ago and immediately fell in love. I had an instant vision for using it and knew that it would hang on my wall … somewhere, somehow.

And today, it hangs on a small wall in our guest room. The quote is from Ralph Waldo Emerson: “The ornament of a home is the friends who frequent it.”