a wee bit of reminders...

How was your weekend?
Well thank you guys for playing along with me on Sundays with my Let's Share & Be Friends Party :)  I love what you guys share!!

So a few things wrapping up this week:

My Memories Suite Scrapbook Software giveaway!!  Very low numbers folks!  This is a great scrapbook software.  If you are wanting to try Digital scrapbooking, this is a great place to start!  This Ends tomorrow night!

UPrinting Giveaway Ends Wednesday Night!  You have a chance to win 50 printed brochures!  These are great quality prints to help you with your business needs! 

You gotta get on these!  You don't want to miss out on this.

Also, a heads up, another eCraft blog hop will be happening on Sept. 5th!!  This time, we are doing anything sewing with it...So excited about this!  I love experimenting with fabrics.  Hopefully something good will come from it :)  But you have another chance to get in the big drawing for an eCraft ;)  So watch for that.
Have a great Monday!

Let's Share & Be Friends Sunday Party #2

Thanks everyone for linking up last week!!  What a great turnout.  I love seeing everyone's links.  You guys are awesome!

So the link with the most clicks was from The Liz Marie Blog with this number right here:

I LOVE mason jars!  What a cute way to serve drinks!
Well it's your turn!
link up anything you want to share:

-thrifty finds

-something you've made

-tutorials

-scrapbooking!

-Thrifty redos

  

Grab a button and help spread the word!!
Please link up specific posts
Add button or text link to it so people can find us :)

<a href="http://www.bornagaincrafter.blogspot.com" target="_blank"><img src="http://i529.photobucket.com/albums/dd340/lyssabz/sundaypartybuttoncopy-1.jpg" /></a>

Blueberry picking.

 A month or two ago, I was driving around the countryside that I call home and saw a sign that said "Pick your own blueberries".  I immediately turned right there and pulled in.  It was a home business that had  rows and rows of blueberry bushes.  It was such a beautiful home with a beautiful little garden.  It was so ideal.

This man lived there and told us how to pick them.  THe kids had so much fun picking them.

See how beautiful?!  I want this exact garden in my own house stat!

Now Luke just ate the whole time, mainly sour ones ;)

The girls snuck a few as well, as you can tell by their lips.  They also had a delicious cherry tree that we could sample.

I LOVE this place for this very reason.  Orchards and fruits aplenty here.  Can't beat that!

Blueberry picking.

 A month or two ago, I was driving around the countryside that I call home and saw a sign that said "Pick your own blueberries".  I immediately turned right there and pulled in.  It was a home business that had  rows and rows of blueberry bushes.  It was such a beautiful home with a beautiful little garden.  It was so ideal.

This man lived there and told us how to pick them.  THe kids had so much fun picking them.

See how beautiful?!  I want this exact garden in my own house stat!

Now Luke just ate the whole time, mainly sour ones ;)

The girls snuck a few as well, as you can tell by their lips.  They also had a delicious cherry tree that we could sample.

I LOVE this place for this very reason.  Orchards and fruits aplenty here.  Can't beat that!

UPrinting Giveaway!

I am excited to share with you another great giveaway this week.  It's kind of odd, having awesome giveaways on my blog, but I have been lucky to have been contacted by these lovely companies.
UPrinting is one of those companies!  They are a printing company that can meet all your advertising and marketing needs!

They have everything from UPrinting custom business cards to Calendars and everything inbetween.  You seriously need to check out their website for their large array of items that they can print.  It's a businesses dream!

Another great thing they print are wonderful Brochures!! 

Do you know what you could do with brochures?
Well, for one, it's perfect for a new business wanting to get the word out!
You take them around local businesses and have them available to customers.
These brochures can be customized with the highest quality printing.  It will be a perfect addiction to your company.

I haven't told you yet but I am starting a photography business, Lyssa Beth Photography and these brochures will be perfect to help me grow this little venture of mine.  They make it really easy with their brochure templates.  I can't wait to get started on designing them.  And when you are done, order them off and no more worries.  Their print brochures are wonderful.  I can't wait to see how mine turn out!

Sooooo UPrinting is giving one of you 50 custom brochures!!!

That's right, you get:
-50 pcs Brochure printing for One (1) Winner
-8.5" x 11"100lb Paper GlossWith Folding (Half Fold, Trifold/Letterfold, Z-Fold, Roll Fold, Accordion Fold),
-Outside and Inside Printing
-2 Business Days Turnaround
-*Free shipping

Restriction: Limited to *US residents 18 years old and above only

So in order to win, i'm going to make it really simple:

Leave a comment and tell me what you would do with your 50 brochures.
That's it.

If you want extras:
Spread the word about the giveaway via Twitter or FB (there are buttons for those beneath this post, super simple!).  Leave a comment for each.

Giveaway ends Aug. 31st at midnight :)


Disclaimer: This giveaway is sponsored by UPrinting and I will receive brochure printing services for hosting. Visit UPrinting.com for more information about brochures and available brochure templates.

My Memories Suite giveaway.

One of the things I love about digital scrapbooking is that I can download a picture on the computer and immediately scrapbook it!  I have done digital scrapbooking mainly through free sites, like scrapblog.com until the end of last year, when I got a photo editing program on craigslist for a killer deal.  That has helped me to get more familar how things work on the computer.  Yet the program I was using wasn't digital scrapbook friendly...BIG learning curve!

Well recently I was contacted by My Memories about their digital scrapbook software called My Memories Suite.  My fears and confusions are out the window folks.

The program is so simple.  It immediately downloads into your computer so you can access it right away.  Do you want to see what I made in 5 minutes after downloading the program?  Seriously, i'm not kidding.  This thing is so easy and user-friendly...

And this wasn't even their papers and embellishments that are found on the program!  So you can imagine how much easier and faster it would have been to make something already in the program!

Speaking of stuff, their designs are adorable and so fun to play with!
I made a chore chart recently from them just to show you that there are many things to do with their scrapbook software:

Inspiration is from here.

Do you want to hear GREAT news?

My Memories is giving away a My Memories Suite Scrapbook software package to a lucky reader!!

That's a $40 value for free :)

So how do you win?

1- head on over to My Memories and pick a favorite digital goodie they have :) come back here and tell me!

Extras-
1 - Follow My Memories Suite on Facebook, Twitter or their Blog.  Leave a comment for each.
2 - Follow yours truly via Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest or Blog. Leave a comment for each.
3- Tweet or FB about this giveaway!  LEave a comment for each thing you do.

Giveaway will be open for one week.

So for those of you who can't wait and want the software right now, have I got a deal for you...

My Memories is giving you readers your very own coupon code that provides a $10 discount off the purchase of the My Memories Suite Scrapbook software AND a $10 coupon for the MyMemories.com store - $20 value!!!

Coupon Code:  STMMMS33862

You will not regret having this product in your home.  It makes digital scrapbooking a snap.  Think how much family history you can do with this thing?  ;)

Good Friends.

It's humbling to know that I am not alone!  I appreciate all of your comments and phone calls.  Seriously caught me off guard because, well, wasn't sure who read my lovely blog ;)  You reminded me that I truly do have great friends all around me.  And most of the feelings and thoughts are of my own making.
So thank you guys.  Seriously made me feel really good.  I am just a "friend" person.  It's hard for me when i'm in a new place and don't really know people all that well.  But I just need to be patient.  It'll will come. 

And thanks for your advice.  I do need to declutter my life and focus on what's really important.  I can easily get caught up in so many things and think I can handle it.  I can't.  So I hope to go with that plan and see what happens.

But most importantly, I need to believe in what I know.  I know that whenever I feel alone or sad, moody or having a bad day, Heavenly Father & Jesus Christ are just a prayer away.  I need to rely on Him more.  I need to implement more of Him in my life.  I have taken that for granted and I shouldn't have.  I know what I should be doing.  And when I do, I feel so much better.  So why do I always forget?!  Sigh...that's life, right?

Thank you again.  It's good to know that I am not alone in feeling this way.  And that I can fix it :)
Love you ladies :)

Let's Share & Be Friends Sunday Party

Today's the day!  I think it would be fun to link up anything you want to share:

-thrifty finds

-something you've made

-tutorials

-scrapbooking!

-Thrifty redos

The possibilities are endless, my friends :)

So for now, it'll go for a week.  We will see how it goes.  This is a test, this is only a test.

And I would love for you to help spread the word!

Grab a button and add to the post you link up.  Or you can do a text link too.
Either way, just link up back to here.

<a href="http://www.bornagaincrafter.blogspot.com" target="_blank"><img src="http://i529.photobucket.com/albums/dd340/lyssabz/sundaypartybuttoncopy-1.jpg" /></a>

other days....

life is good.

some days....

Some days....

-I hate that can't handle 3 kids.
-I feel jealous when I see a mom with 5 kids and looks happy.
-i think I have social anxiety.
-I think everyone doesn't like me or my family.
-I wish I could do it all...seriously how does a mother of 4+ maintain a household scrapbook, run a photography business & blog?
-I want to find a balance between motherly duties & things I enjoy on the side.
-I am horribly disorganizied.
-I may look like I got it all together but I don't.  I am in a corner of a room that keeps getting smaller and smaller.
-I want to enjoy life.
-I take for granted things that came too easy for me.
-Joe & I both feel lonely and wish we had some good friends.
-I wish other kids understood my kids a little bit better instead of jumping to conclusions and being mean.

Am I the only one who feels this way?  Solutions? 

4th of July.

These are WAY over due!
It's been a  busy summer for us...but at the same time not...I hate that...

Anyways, we decided to stay home for the fesitivities because we didn't want to deal with the traffic and crowds of Wenatchee.  Ironically, there probably wasn't a crowd...I mean, come on, it's Wenatchee!

So we got a big pack of fireworks and waited until dusk to pull them out.

The girls loved them.

Luke got tired and did not like them.

It was one of those nights where it was mainly for the kids for memories sake.  It was fun, don't get me wrong but we didn't finish until 10:30...by then, I was tired!