Nam's Baskets

For those of you who don't know, my name is Nam to my grandchildren. Named by Tyler when he was teeny, and it has stuck.

I've had some wicker baskets in the upstairs hallway for the grandchildren; they have learned to run up there and see what's in their basket whenever they come for a visit. Usually it's just a relatively small thing--a treat, maybe a book or some stickers. Right now this is what awaits them. They don't look at blogs just yet, so I'm safe revealing this secret.

Did you notice the cute tags? I've been trying to make those forever, wanted to hang them on their baskets, and have planned to use my Cricut for that. There is a tag option on the Plantin SchoolBook cartridge, that I've seen demonstrated and wanted to use. But I have had so much trouble figuring out how to use the "end caps" feature which would allow me to make the tags I wanted. As I said, I've seen it demonstrated, and I've read the instructions, and tried it several times. Never could make it happen. Somehow I just couldn't seem to get all of the steps right. Then today, for some reason, I finally figured it out. Yay for me!

So now we're all set--just waiting patiently for the next visit.

Kayla's Scrapbook

I've made scrapbooks for each of my grandsons, Tyler and Jaden. I love documenting their lives for myself, and their parents, and hopefully for them some day. I hope they'll enjoy them in the years to come, and mainly I hope they'll realize and remember how much I loved them and how special they always were to me, right from the beginning.

The first page in each book is just a title page -- their name. This is Tyler's (uh, I guess that's fairly obvious, isn't it).

On a side note--I enjoy looking at my old scrapbook pages. Besides documenting a particular stage in a child's life, or a specific event, almost every page I look at reminds me of my own scrapbooking experience. I can tell what new technique I'd learned, or what I was experimenting with at the time. Sometimes I did pages that didn't work at all, really, but they served a purpose, if nothing more than allowing me to try something new or to discover, the hard way, what does not work.

When I was first scrapbooking about Tyler, for instance, I did not have much equipment, and embellishments consisted mostly of stickers, or maybe a few die cuts or rubber stamps. Six years later, I remember how jazzed I was to have discovered the embossed vellum and the large letter stickers I used. (I never much like my own writing, and was happy to figure out a way to avoid it. I know, I know--all you CM fans will be horrified by that admission!)

A few years later, when I was working on Jaden's book, I had acquired quite a few little "goodies," including my favorite at the time, a Sizzix machine and several different fonts. Almost every page included some lettering made with the Sizzix. Again, a neat way to avoid having to handwrite the information.

Jaden's title page was no exception. I was pretty happy with the lettering, as it was my most recent Sizzix font set acquisition.

And now we come to 2009, and Kayla's soon-to-happen birth. I've been looking forward to this experience of having a granddaughter ever since we learned that's what we were getting this time. I've of course also been collecting "girlie" scrapbook supplies for a few months now, in anticipation. This last week, I started her book, and I made her very first page, the title page. I had to wait until the decision was firm about her name, and I am assured by her parents that it is. I was initially going to wait until her birth, just in case. But then I decided, though, that even if they were to change their minds and name her something completely different, this would make a funny story in the future--how her grandma made a scrapbook page with the wrong name in it!

So here is Kayla's title page, not yet even in the book when I took this picture. And, true to form, it includes my newest obsession--the Cricut machine I have gushed about in a previous post or two. Still loving it! And love Kayla already--can't wait to meet her!

I LOVE NERDS!

Yesterday, I went to visit Erin, ostensibly to help her get the nursery ready for the baby. Really, I think it was an excuse just to look at and play with all the cute little clothes and goodies she has waiting for her. Jeff and Jaden were in the room with us, when we realized we hadn't heard from Tyler for quite some time. What was he doing? What mischief had he gotten into? Playing on the computer, or watching TV? He finally came and proudly showed us what he'd been up to. Math. Yes, MATH! He had made "number sentences." Including, mind you, square roots! (Did I have a clue about square roots at 6? I think not!) Then he had cut out his writing, and had six or seven "crazy shapes" to show us, with his various math sentences and problems on them. He had obviously been quite absorbed, and had clearly enjoyed this project. Erin smiled and whispered, "Isn't he a nerd?" Yes!

I LOVE NERDS!