Timeless Treasures

As a mom, I have many blessings flow in and out of my life that represent my daughter and I know (she is my number one focus:)

Today is no different because the blessing is her homeschool program.  My daughter attends an online public school.  Now when most people hear about an only child attending Homeschool, their first worry is in the quality of education and their second worry is that of socialization.  So today, I'm sharing a blessing of a homeschool program.  

You see, I too, worried about these topics until yesterday.  Though rather than the program itself I worried about being able to supplement her education as any teacher or program tries to do with meaningful lessons outside the school book - my answer yesterday was yes. 

During her social studies lesson, we were learning about medicine and the improvements that have been made throughout history.  We studied penicillin and its many uses, we studied pasteurization of milk products, and we studied about the most wonderful Helen Keller.  

Now while the book covered the very basic of Ms. Keller's triumph's, I felt it was lacking in teaching the heart of her story and the lesson that "those with disabilities can overcome and succeed triumphantly" and I remembered that when I was a child our class was taught not only through a book but through the 1962 movie "The Miracle Worker".  But being a last minute learning coach, I worried how will I find the movie?  

Ahhhh thank you dear YouTube.  There on youtube for a mother that wants to do her best by her child was the very movie she hoped for in its entirety.   I was so pleased!  

Together with snacks in the middle of a school day, my daughter and I sat watching Patty Duke give an awesome performance of Helen Keller.  It touched my heart again as I watched it touch my daughter's heart for the first time.  

So today my blessing is three fold - one for the Homeschool opportunity and the other for YouTube and Helen Keller, I've named it Timeless Treasures in honor of the story of Helen Keller.  I am very grateful for the blessing of being able to share in this way the lessons of my youth and my knowledge through homeschooling my daughter.  

Blessings to All, 

GigiCharm

  

Blessings Blog Day 17 - St. Valentines Day

Ahhh the blessing of Valentines Day - Whether you are newly in love or celebrating an old, time-tested love, or simply saying you are a special friend, we all enjoy the meaning of this special day.  

For our house, we celebrate with funny e-cards, candy, and usually a very special meal.  Besides painting our nails a brilliant shiny red and dressing up, something special I chose to do is make a special holiday page for my most special Valentine gift from Heaven.  My Kennedy!  

So whether you are making a special phone call or sending flowers to someone you love, I wish you the most special day ever, create something beautiful with your entire being on your Valentines Day!

Happy Valentines from Snaps and Buttons Galore.com!!!

10 Reasons to Love FaceBook

Blessings are sometimes hard to see - we can miss the obvious ones when they're staring us in the face and sometimes we find a blessing in something that seems unlikely.  

Today's blessing - FaceBook- perhaps for many will seem to fall into the "unlikely" category, but for me it is one of the many I missed and it was definitely something obvious.

Facebook is my go to - I can't be everywhere I want to be; with my friends; with my loved ones; at all the parties; at the bedside of a sick friend or family member; but I can be on Facebook - letting each and everyone of those mentioned know that I care and that I want to be with them even in the smallest of ways.  

To me this makes Facebook one of the best blessings from GOD I know in 2012 - Mark Zuckerberg may have created it(with help) and perhaps the last thing he intended was that Facebook would be used in such a way but there it is nonetheless.  Facebook serves those that serve GOD - We love eachother through Facebook, we embrace eachother in times of need through Facebook, and we pray for one another through Facebook.  

So today I decided to dedicate my creative energy to making a Scrapbook page about Facebook and Mark Z.  Thanks again Mark - Your Creative Genius has been an instrument for GOD's Goodness!

Blessings, 

GigiCharm

Creative Sparks - Blessing Blog Day 15

Creative Sparks

Today's blessing is one I should have probably wrote about on my first blog but sometimes the most evident is the thing we see last or at least a little down the road.  

This is the case with today's blessing.  Creative sparks are actually few and far between when it comes to Digital Scrapbooking - what hasn't already been done?  So when a new idea or pic inspires a creative spark - I let it burn.  

Creative sparks come from many different sources; perhaps they come from a movie we watched; a song we hear; taking a walk in a park; many things can lead to a creative spark, but what do we do with them?  Do we let them die out and remain on a shelf in our minds or do we add more logs on the fire and really get to cooking?  I think perhaps there is balance in the answer.  Balance in that sometimes an idea is just an idea but other times that spark can be turned into a true fire burning into our souls encouraging us onward in our dreams.  

Well, today's is just a playful spark I created yesterday, my new DigiTrims called County Fair were sparked as I began to create a summer calendar for my daughter and her best friend.  I think the end result was one of fun and whimsy, just like I hope my daughter's summers always remain. 

Enjoy those creative sparks in your life, you never know where the fire will take you!

SneakPeek at County Fair DigiTrims!

Until Tomorrow Blessings,

GigiCharm

Love Letters - Blessings Blog Day 14

Love Letters

Have you ever wrote a love letter? One to your honey, your boyfriend, or your partner?  If you are trying to be romantic and really set a mood with your love letter, it can be tough.  When it comes to putting emotions down in a letter to my special someone, the words don't flow as naturally for me as when I try to create something from art.  

Now my husband, he can always write me a love note that touches my heart and usually in 5 words or less.  That's a special talent. :) 

With today's blog, I am giving back to the blessings I have received over the last 11 years of love notes from my husband.  I have created a love note page, (I know forgive the mushy) and with Valentines Day just around the corner this is a project that you too can create for your someone special.  

Below are the Kuler.adobe colors chosen for my project and the page.  

Please Enjoy!

Until Tomorrow Blessings, 

GigiCharm

Blessing Blog 13 - Cowboy UP

CowBoy UP!

My family is a long line of cowboys. No they weren't infamous or notorious western hero's like the Lone Ranger but they loved anything and everything Western.  From horses and cattle wrangling to shoot'em up spaghetti westerns, if cowboy was in the air they were and are still participating.  

I love these men in our family history - these Cowboys.  They have taught me the true meaning of Cowboy UP!  Cowboy UP defined simply means when you get knocked off your horse, you brush the dirt off and climb back on.  That is courage in my world and alot of the men I love have this kind of courage and teach this kind of lifestyle to their children.  

In a world, where coddling our children has become synonymous with lawsuits against teachers or principals for discipline, I miss this kind of lesson.  Lessons where you do something wrong, you apologize or you don't make the team in your first try, you try try again.  This is Cowboy UP in my world - not western per say but straight forward and to the point - no dillydallying!  

I'm thankful that I grew up with men who were plain spoken - who said what they meant every time and if they apologized you knew it was sincere.  My daughter's Uncle Travis is one of these special men and I love him for being true to who he was born to be - A True Cowboy that knows the meaning of Cowboy UP. 

As a great cowboy, Wil Anderson said "It's not how your buried, it's how your remembered." Now that's true Cowboy UP!

Well here is my tribute to all the cowboys out there in Texas and the world over! 

Until Tomorrow Blessings, 

GigiCharm

Blessings Blog - Day 12

Most Wonderful Sunday Everyone!

Time!   Today's blessing is time.  Time is so little to enjoy or reflect on the moments we ought to be enjoying.  Time with loved ones both near and far, time with friends we miss from years gone by, and time for oneself is possibly for us mother's the most fleeting.  

This weekend while my daughter and husband were having a weekend adventure, I got that time to reflect and be joyful.  I chose to spend the time scrapping and ended up reflecting on pics of my beautiful daughter and her first birthday party.  

It's not unusual that another day of scrapping has given a reflection on blessing as I held each pic in my hand - looking at the faces of loved ones that we hadn't seen in years.  A dearly loved ex-colleague, my husband's childhood pals, and a grandmother who is now in Heaven with her Lord.  Those pics made me yearn for the clock to rewind both for me and for my daughter who won't fully know all the blessed gifts each of these dear friends gave to our lives or how deeply they adored her from her arrival in this lovely world.  

So today I am so thankful for time; time to reflect, times to enjoy, and of course time to scrapbook!  I hope you take a moment to enjoy those you love dearly both near and far.  

Until Tomorrow Blessings, 

GigiCharm

Snaps & Buttons Galore: Blessing Blog 11 - Starbucks and Scrapbooks

Snaps & Buttons Galore: Blessing Blog 11 - Starbucks and Scrapbooks: Happy Saturday:) This morning's blessing is from my mini-scrapbook retreat - being held at my home. Having a blast with new friends...

Blessing Blog 11 - Starbucks and Scrapbooks

Happy Saturday:)

This morning's blessing is from my mini-scrapbook retreat - being

 held at my home.  Having a blast with new friends in my 

ever-growing scrapbook world.  

Nothing I think pleases me more than scrapbooking my

 daughter - today I'm scrapping her 1st birthday (long overdue!)

 Until today the pics were in a gorgeous leather bound photo

 album and today they enter the digital world!  So fun.  Here's

 a glimpse of a page that includes some of the new papers

 coming soon to www.snapsandbuttonsgalore.com called

 Grape Satin and Pink Lemonade Sparkle.  Hope you

 enjoy your weekend! 

Until Tomorrow Blessings, 

GigiCharm

Landee See, Landee Do: Meltaway Cookies

Landee See, Landee Do: Meltaway Cookies: Let me create a little scenario for you... you are invited to a cookie exchange at the last minute and don't know what to make. OR, scenar...

Snaps & Buttons Galore: Blessings Blog - Education Me

Snaps & Buttons Galore: Blessings Blog - Education Me: Today's blessing is a 2 for one - making up for missing yesterday! :) The first one is the blessing that can distract me like no other, th...

Blessings Blog - Education Me

Today's blessing is a 2 for one - making up for missing yesterday! :)  The first one is the blessing that can distract me like no other, the one that either makes me laugh, makes me cry, or makes me proud every single day....well maybe not cry but certainly worry!  That blessing is my darling little girl, Kennedy - the blessings a child can bring are so many and yet today just seemed to be about her somehow.  

As a first-time mother, a mother of an only child, and a late-blooming mother there are always multiple reasons for both worry and joy.  You worry should I have had more children (if I could have) or perhaps I was too old to have children and this has made for complications in her life, each are reasonable worries (if there is such a thing) but what can I do? 

I am definitely too old now to have a child so I take my worry and choose joy! Joy can come from seeing her work on her homework, cleaning her room, or even just looking at photographs that I am so BLessed to have in my porfolio. So number 1 blessing is a pic of my beautiful daughter that blesses me each day with a new reason to feel blessed.  

Now my second blessing doesn't come with a pic simply the words I live by "You are never to old to Learn something new!"

I love these words, they both comfort and excite me.  When I think how much work and opportunities there are for each human to learn something new each day - it literally boggles my mind (in a good way).  Whether it's new medical information of how to better take care of ourselves or learning to build a 50+ page website on your own, the avenues are unending.  I am so blessed to both understand this and to act on it.  I love learning!  I will never be done!  

So there you have it two blessings all wrapped up in one!  

Until Tomorrow Blessings, 

GigiCharm 

Divine Baking: Deep Dark Chocolate Cookies

Divine Baking: Deep Dark Chocolate Cookies: Last week I went shopping for a KitchenAid stand-mixer, and I couldn't be more excited. I went to four different stores to compare prices. ...

Blessings Blog Day 8 - 2012 Relationships

Good Afternoon!:)

Relationships are changing. 

 Business's, friends, families, and the world over are full of new relationships.  Each day, myself alone I make connections with over 25 new acquaintances a day through my interest.  Our world seems to want to connect more, to serve one another more fully through relationships.  

I, like many, tire of direct marketing schemes that sell this or that, we want relationships with the items we choose and the right to show our loyalty on our own terms.  Terms like Facebook me, Like, tweet me, pin me, and blogs aplenty are words that almost everyone knows and uses in everyday language of relationships.  We are finding new ways to grow in our social sets through these many technological advances and I must say I am one of the many.  

In our busy, busy world, we all still want to connect with our friends and family but letters and dare I say it "even email" seems such a time-consuming effort when really you can say it all in 45 words or less in a update to one of the latest web tools.  

With my Facebook, I can be updated on the latest birth announcement from a dear friend far away the day the doctor announces - where in years past, I might have heard it through a grapevine the day after the baby was born.  All thanks to the convenience of status updates from our cell phones.  

The same goes for Twitter and Blogger, these sharing tools allows me to share deals of the day, coupons, contest, or even a recipe simply with the click of a button, depending who or where I want the information posted. 

With my new love - Pinterest.com - I find many ways to learn, share, and market the different items that I make, love or find interesting.  And the beauty is its a Community of Free Help - Each time I pin another friends blog or friends interest or product that they sell or promote - I'm helping them.  When the world tells me there is no beauty anymore and we are all a greedy lot - I tell them - NO - all of these sites tells me that while sometimes it may start out as greed based - it soon becomes a service to each person who reshares.  

How beautiful is that!  I love it so today's Blessing is to My Web of Relationships!  Try one of these share tools today to reach those you love and those you might help too!  And don't forget to like or share this blog with your friends and family too! :)

Until Tomorrow Blessings, 

GigiCharm