“Being fully present is the best guarantee for a bright future.”

–Guy Finley

I read this quote last week and it has stuck with me. I actually can’t stop thinking about it, which is a sure sign that it was something I desperately needed to here. I really have a lot going on in my life. Probably too much. But there isn’t really anything I can take off my plate. In my quest for finding balance, enjoying my life and not feeling guilt … I have realized that I have have to be present. What does that mean for me? Well, I have started to compartmentalize my life. When I am working, I am working. I have been trying to block out very specific times where I dedicate myself completely to the work I have to get done. When I’m working, there is no play. There is no Facebooking. There is no distractions. I am fully present. This has been huge for me. I can accomplish so much more when I just ignore everything else in my life and work …. and I can do it in less time and with less heartache.

I’ve also applied this to my kids and family. When I’m done working I completely disconnect from work and turn all of my attention to my family. I have so enjoyed the time with my kids the last few weeks, as I’ve stopped checking email, blogging or doing anything that doesn’t have to do with them. I get on the floor. I roll around with my baby boy. I chase my big girl. I laugh. I feel so much less stress. I’m present and I enjoy it. And I’ve stopped feeling frustrated, because I’m not multi-tasking myself to death.

When I think about crafting, I think aout another area in my life that’s neglected and where I’m often not fully present. I had the awesome opportunity to attend Creative Escape last week with Jennifer, two of her cousins and another girlfriend from high school. We spent four days enjoying time together and being creative. I feel so recharged and ready to focus on doing things that make me happy and being present when I’m creating. I signed up for an online class fromJessica Sprague. Thanks to the class I took from Claudine Hellmuth Iknow know how I’m going to finish a painting I’ve been working on for months. I have already started on Christmas presents for my mom and my mother-in-law.

I feel like a whole new person. Isn’t it amazing what being fully present can do for you (or me in this case)? I challenge you to make a goal to be more present in your life. It’s not easy, but it’s so worth it.  

So, I’m typing on my new laptop that is finally working exactly the way I like it. it’s amazing how attached you can get to a particular computer after you’ve worked on it for a time. All my icons are in a certain place. Documents stored where I can find them. Links and bookmarks easy to access. I have tried to recreate my old machine and I have to say I’m SO grateful I have been backing up all of my files and have them living on external hard drives. What a relief when my old machine just started locking up, over heating and crashing. But backing up your files (photos, layouts, digi elements, etc) is a whole different topic and worthy of blog post all its own.

Anyway. Here are the August Kits. They are adorable if I do say so myself. And the Main and Mini are totally different, so you need them both!

August 2010 Main Kit

August 2010 Mini Kit

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Special offer:  For the month of August all subscribers get a free grab bag, so if you haven’t joined our club yet, now is the time to do it.

In honor of summer, our July 2010 Mini Kit features the super fab Basic Grey “Slice of Summer” mini album kit. Yep, this month you can get a mini book in the mini kit too! Isn’t that awesome?!

Create a special mini-album perfect for scrapping your special memories! This kit is a limited edition kit from Basic Grey … never to be offered again. Create as shown or add your own special touches. This album can EASILY be modified to showcase another topic (such as springtime memories or a day at the park).

Order yours now and it will ship with the main kits on July 10th.  Hope you have a wonderful weekend and a happy and safe Fourth of July.

Layouts from Katie Turner using the June 2010 Main Kit.

I have tried to make some time this last week to get some digital scrapbooking in … like every week of my life, it’s been a crazy busy week. But, each time I finish a digital page or any page for that matter, I feel like I just scaled the world’s largest mountain. Here are two of the layouts I have finished today. The first (above) features some photos I took in Rio last week. I don’t scrap about myself too much. I know, this is a bad thing. I want to be better about telling my story and not just the story of my family. So here’s a page featuring something I did ALL on my own.

The second page is about my son. He’s 14-months-old and is repeating some of the things we say. I said to him the other day, “The ducky says quack.” And he looked at me, smiled and said “quack.” It was so precious. All day I could say quack and he would repeat it. I tried to get a picture of Cooper holding his rubber duckies (his current favorite toys), but he wouldn’t sit still. So the photo for the page is of his duckies … gotta do with best with what you have, right?

Both pages use elements from house of 3 (overlays and frames); paper and embellishments from Basic Grey; and templates from 2 Peas in a Bucket. All three of these are some of my favorites when it comes to using, getting or creating scrapbooking pages.

My kids are at the pool. Thank goodness for great weather and an adventurous nanny.

I have had so much to do. And I have had meetings out the wazoo. But I can’t stop thinking about this blog, what i want to say and just being creative.

As I was trying to figure out what I wanted to blog about today, I stumbled on this video when I stopped at the Spark web site to see if there was anything new there. I’m sitting in a Starbucks right now and as I watched the video below, I had to fight back tears (mostly because I am in public, so I didn’t want to look like a crazy nut as I sobbed). It inspires me and makes me feel like though some times I have no idea what I’m doing, how I’ll get it all done or what’s next for me … being a mother to Shelby and Cooper makes me great.

I have been working on a piece of art. I have been working on it for more than a week now. I’m a little obsessed with it. I have a whole blog post planned about it, since I learned a valuable lesson during this whole process, but I’m not ready to share that lesson yet!  But until then, here’s a little peek at what I’m working on.

I have some big plans for the weekend. I really want to scrap and finish the art piece above. I want to do the House of 3 summer scrapbook challenge (three pages a week) and I was also thinking about singing up for May Flaum’s  class at Big Picture Scrapbooking.

Four things I want to try:

1. Layout a Day (LOAD)

Have you heard about Lain Ehmann’s Layout A Day challenge? Three times a year, she leads a month-long layout a day challenge (LOAD). As a writer I always heard “If you want to be a better writer, then you have to write.” Write more. Write about different things. Just write. When I became an editor, I told my reporters the same thing. I assume it works the same for crafting. The more you do it, you unleash your creative beast within. I want to unleash that best. In March I took an online class from Shimelle and it was the best month ever. I created more and was happier with my work than I have been in a long time. For me, I just need a little push and a challenge like this seems like the perfect answer.

2. Spanx Swim suit

Not to toot my own horn, but in the last year I’ve lost some weight. I had a baby, so that helps (you lose a lot of weight when you drop that baby!). But I also managed to lose all the extra weight I’ve put on from having two children, living a chaotic life and not caring if I was eating healthy (I adore ice cream more than just about anything). Since my son was born a year ago I have lost just over 60 pounds. Still with all that weight gone, I’m a little nervous about swimsuit season. Enter Spanx. Ever tried Spanx? Best invention ever. These body shapers suck everything in and make you look amazing. And they just came out with a swimsuit line.  I also like how modest they are. I’m not a skimpy bikini kind of girl. Never have been. Never will be. These suits are cute, modest and figure flattering. What could be better than that?

3. Auto Collage

I was listening to the Paperclipping Roundtable podcast on a flight the other day and Stephanie Howell mentioned FotoFusion by LumaPix. It’s photo editing software and the offer a scrapbooking specific solution. What made me curious to try it is that Stephanie mentioned that this particular software has an auto collage feature. You can select the 5 or 10 photos you want to use, click on auto collage and it will generate a photo collage for you. From there you can add digi background papers and embellishments … or just print out your collage and scrap it traditionally. I thought this would be a tool that would allow me to quickly scrap a lot of photos that I love, but no feel compelled to spend a lot of time on. This would allow me to spend more time on the stories I REALLY want to tell, but also find a home for some of the cute photos that I want to look back on year after year.

4. Under Eye Cream

I saw an ad the other day for this under eye cream. It says that it will take away my dark circles. I have had dark circles under my eyes for as long as I can remember.  Getting more sleep, eating right … all those things don’t help. I hear it’s genetic. Whatever it is, I’m tired of it. Id like to buy a wonder cream that takes ‘em away. Maybe this is it? Who knows, but for $59 it’s worth a try … if anyone knows of a cream that really works or a home remedy, send them my way. I’d love to get rid of these suckers.

I think I made the clues way too easy! Or you all are just way too smart!

The March 2010 Main Kit went to South Africa and will be crafted with by Sophia Allison.  Check back in a few days to get to know Sophia a little better and see what she did with our March Kit.

The winner of the very first “Where in the World is Crazy Daisy” giveaway is Gloria Gomez! Gloria, I’ll send your goodies ASAP!

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 Hi Everyone!! I am here today to show you how to make the easiest treat bag ever!! This will take you about 10 minutes and is perfect for Easter gifts, teacher appreciation gifts, neighbor gifts…just about anything. What you will need it this:

-1 piece of paper cut 11 inches x 4 inches
-something to create score lines
-clear plastic treat bag (find at your local craft store)
-embellishments for front of the bag

1. Score your paper at 1 inch, 5 inches and 7 inches.

2. Crease the score lines. The 1 inch flap will hang over the top. Seal the 1 inch flap over the top of the bag.

3. Using your circle punch or a pair of scissors, create an opening in the top. It could be a half circle with a circle punch or cut an opening with scissors.

4. Fill a clear treat bag with treats. Put the treat bag inside your folded treat bag and thread the top through the opening. Tie shut with a matching ribbon. Add embellishments to the front of the bag and/or add a tag to the bag.

There you have it!! A quick, fast treat bag that you can coordinate to any occasion! Thanks for stopping by the Crazy Daisy Blog and I hope you found some time today to be creative!

Aren’t these scrappy pin cushions adorable? There is a tutorial on the Craftzine blog. Have you checked out Craft? There are some awesome ideas and really cool inspiration on the Craftzine blog.

I’ve started listening to a new podcast, Paperclipping Roundtable. It features a panel of professional scrappers, including Noell Hyman, Ana Cabrera and Stacy Julian to name a  few. It’s informative as well as inspirational. Download it and listen to it while scrappin, driving or working out. You won’t be disappointed.

While at CHA (actually, the consumer SuperShow before CHA), Jennifer got a new sewing machine. We did a bunch of fun make ‘n’ takes at various booths sponsored by the National Sewing Council. We both left itching to sew more. I really want to make my daughter some fun little skirts and hopefully teach her to sew, just like my mama taught me. I think I’m going to try this skirt (picture below).

I was reading a bunch of tweets today (I’m a Twitter junkie … you can follow me @crazydaisykits). Someone mentioned this old blog post of Ali Edwards‘ that caught my attention because the link to the post was proceeded by “one of my fave posts of all time. refer to it all the time.” Now that I’ve found it, I will be refering to it often as well.

Another one of my favorite scapbooking blogs that I read regularly is Donna Downey’s “Simply Me.” She’s a phenomenal artist. Her regular Wednesday feature, “Inspiration Wednesdays,” always leaves me in awe. I love, love, love everything Donna does. You have to check out yesterday’s post and the canvas she created.

Last but not least, I am really loving Craft Gossip. It’s a one stop shop for all things crafty. They find all the cool tips and tutorials around the Web and post them in one convenient location. Looking for inspiration or ideas … head to Craft Gossip.