Au Naturale Challenge Day 4: Follow!

Hi Ladies!
Just a reminder, today is the last day to download my So Sweet Kit. You'll find the link a few posts back. Also, today's part of the Au Naturale challenge is to become a follower. It's that quick! Besides, who wouldn't want to be a part of something that makes you feel so good about yourself! The kit is ready to play with and I can't wait to give it to you! Hope you have a beautiful [even if it's manic!] Monday!

I scrapbook too!

 

A cute little page for our engagement album. Made with Kat's Creations' new kit Fallen Leaves. I'm LOVING the stitching and the adorable papers. :) yum. 

Finished my button. :)

<br /><center><a href="http://callmekristindesigns.blogspot.com/" target="_blank"><img border="0"/><img src="http://i615.photobucket.com/albums/tt233/ssstoked34/Button-2.gif"/></a></center><br />

Au Naturale Kit Sneak Peak!

For your viewing pleasure and motivation, here's a little sneak peak of the Au Naturale kit!

Au Naturale Challenge Day 3: Cleanse

Hi Ladies! Have you enjoyed your break from me? We've been having intense internet issues lately, but I'm back on. I apologize for the delay. Here's day 3, we're cleansing today. There are so many messages out there in the media that are telling us to look this way, dress this way, talk this way, be this way, and they're all completely unrealistic.

Every marketing message is meant to make us unhappy with ourselves in one way or another, so today I challenge you to be stronger than the billboard, TV commercial, or in store display. You do not have to be free of wrinkles, perfect complexion, size 2, designer jeans, etc. to be beautiful. That's not what it's all about. So cleanse yourself of these influences today-however you want to. And come let us know how you're feeling now! 

Isn't that refreshing?

Remember, after completing these challenges, the Au Naturale kit is yours free! {sneak peak to come later today!}

p.s. my blog got a little facelift today-what do you think?

image courtesy of ohmishka.blogspot.com

Au Naturale Challenge Day 2: The Little Things

Welcome to day 2 my beautiful girls! Today, I'm challenging you [and myself!] to do one act of selfless service. It doesn't have to be anything big.

• Write a note to your husband/sister/friend/roommate/etc.
• Call your mom! 
• Give something to the man on the street.
• Take that load of stuff to the Salvation Army/Deseret Industries
• Call a friend and offer to take her kid home from school.
• Drop everything and kiss your man senseless when he walks through the door. [most likely sparking "ewww"s from the kids, but totally worth it! and how great do you think he feels when he knows he's your #1, and you've been so excited to see him all day?]
• Smile at somebody you don't know!
• Pay for the person behind you at Starbucks.
  

Really, just take a minute and forget yourself to focus completely on someone else & then come and tell us what you did! 

I'll go first: I bought a jar of hot pickled okra for my husband. He raves about it all the time, and it just grosses me out-so he hasn't had any since we got married. He's thrilled. :)

There's no easier way to boost your mood than through realistic service. You don't have to go and save the world every day. Just make one other person's day and it will change yours for the better.

I can't wait to hear from you!

Image courtesy of www.everythingfab.tumblr.com

Au Naturale Challenge Day 1: Love

To kick off our Au Naturale challenge, I’d love to know something you love about yourself. I’m asking to know what you love about yourself, not like about yourself, don’t hate about yourself, or can live with about yourself, what you LOVE about yourself. This isn’t bragging about yourself. I’m asking to know! And it’s always nice to remember your awesome qualities. They so often get pushed to the side by our weaknesses, but today, it’s time to be nice to yourself.
I’ll go first:

I love that I can create beautiful things.


Now I want to hear from you! What do you just LOVE about yourself?


Remember, after completing this challenge, the new Au Naturale kit is yours free!

Serendipity #1

I received this from an old high school friend and thought it would be just perfect for a new kit! I'd love to hear what you think!

Hi beautiful girls!

So an idea got brought to my attention regarding fasting. This week myself and some of the girls will be fasting anything we do to beautify ourselves or as I like to call it (enhance what we already have..lol). For some of you this type of fast may not be a huge sacrifice but for a girl like myself I love putting on make-up doing my hair every morning and dressing up. So the challenge would be to go all natural for 5 days and see what desires God has put in your heart "uncovered" not clouded with beauty products or fashionable clothing.

Im not saying make yourself look bad, just all natural. For some of you, you know your beauty is natural and this may not be a sacrificing fast. But if it is I wanted to challenge girls group to a 5 day fast I like to call "uncovered". Pray all week and see what God is speaking to you about your self-image, your true desires in your heart that have nothing to do with outward appearence but rather your heart. Do whatever you think God is challenging you to do. For example I may have to do something with my hair and clothes for the kind of job I have.

It will be interesting to hear what God does through this. Having a good self-image is so important to God, as we were made in his likeness and identity. We should be confident in our own identity and that starts in the heart and realize our true beauty and the way God see's us. As for myself I struggled with not just self-esteem issues but self-loathing, it tore me apart, it tore other people in my life apart, and everyday Im still being delivered from it piece by piece, my image and identity has been my biggest struggle,and I think most women struggle with this to a degree. Maybe not in the degree I did, but some degree. If your doing the fast I would love to hear stories about things God did in your life, through it and after it.

Love you my beauties!!!

Love and Blessings!

Alexis

The new kit will be called "Au Naturale." If you decide to participate in the challenge, and share your experience with me, the kit is yours free!

Can't wait to see what blessings come from this for all of us!
Image courtesy of Candace Napier.

Birthday Update :)

Dear Blog,

I’m sorry I have so terribly neglected you for the past couple weeks. I not only have TONS to post, I also have fun things to post. I think about you a lot, it’s just very very hard for me to find the time to sit down and spend some qt with ya. You’re loved. I promise. To make up for it, I’ll write about our birthdays WITHOUT posting pictures. I know. The sacrifices I make.

Love,

Kristin

My birthday is on August 20th. Cameron’s is on August 21st. It’s quite convenient, what with all the free meal coupons to our fave restaurants. We got 2 huge burgers and bottomless steak fries from Red Robin for absolutely free. We went to Coldstone after that and upgraded our “free creations” to waffle cones, extra mix ins, etc. for only $3 total. That rocks. This week, we ate completely free at Noodles & co. [If you haven’t been there, I highly recommend it. YUM!]

For my birthday, Cameron went above and beyond anything I was expecting. I’ve mentioned in the past how keeping a family history is really important to me. [Honestly, it’s the main reason I scrapbook.] I’ve also talked about how  much I would love to preserve the music we love and the home videos we’ve taken. Cameron, took note of all these hints and put together a video of our first year together. [My birthday marked 1 year of us being in the same city.] He started at efy, and had slides of his journal entries about me. Pictures, video, music, everything. He took me back to the dates we went on, through the proposal, engagement, wedding planning, wedding, honeymoon, and our first 8 months together. I sobbed through the entire thing. It was fantastic. He’s incredible. I also woke up to a dozen daisies. LOVE HIM. We went to education week all day, went to Zupas for dinner with my mom and sister and saw Joseph and the Technicolor Dream Coat, followed by gelato at Maestro’s. It was great to have my mom and sister in town too! [Which was unexpected.] My presents were delivered by balloon. My mom took me shoe shopping [got flats from Lindsay-thanks Linds!, sandals & boots from mom]. Then my mom took me for a pedicure and left me with money for a massage. talk about awesome.

At dinner, Cameron let me open the rest of my gifts. [He’s a fantastic over achiever.] He got me good & plenty’s which I love, but he won’t even kiss me if he can smell them. A new puzzle [secret: I LOVE puzzles…but I get bored with the ones I have because I can do up to 1,000 pieces in an afternoon. It gets annoying/addicting.] And my favorite: a new white flower for my hair. I wore a white flower on the day we first met, and on our wedding day. He’s wonderful.

For Cam’s birthday-we were still at education week, but I had everything wrapped and ready for the morning [I was so proud]. We constantly talk about what movies/books we want to have when we have kids, and Cam’s favorite storybook as a kid was Where the Wild Things Are. He has watched the trailer for the movie coming up tons of times and has even downloaded the background music to it. I bought him the book, and [since tickets weren’t on sale yet] put an “admit 2” ticket inside for seeing the movie in a REAL theater. To make it even better, there was a card inside for Taco Bell before the movie, and a jar of pickled okra. The kid is a little weird, but we love him. He raves about pickled okra every time he goes grocery shopping with me, so I figured his birthday is as good a day as ever. Also, I made him a peanut butter cup dessert to put candles in. We ate at Brick Oven with the Fam complete with jungle print balloons tied to his chair. [Balloons are a tradition in my family.]

It was wonderful! and we learned so much at education week that I can’t wait to share with you! It completely changed the way I see Cameron and how we both communicate. It may seem juvenile but I just thought it was so great.

In a nutshell update: the birthdays were wonderful, and we’re more in love than ever. Hope you all are doing well too!

If you've got a minute:

Check this out!

A while back, you said you'd be interested in a digital scrapbook blog, so here she is! I've finally polished up my latest kit, and would love to hear what you think about it. o-yeah-and you can get it for free. :) I'm also working on buttons for you lovely ladies to put on your own blogs.

Click Here

and become a follower! :)

So Sweet Kit Freebie!

In my search for a shop, I thought I'd let you take a look at what I've been working on. :) This cute kit was inspired by Corinne Bailey Rae's Put Your Records On.

Click here to download the kit for free!
 
and please leave me a comment if you download-thanks!

Scrapping some overdue stuff!

In my scrapbooking life, I'm currently working on 3 different books. 1 album of 2009. 1 album of 2008. and 1 album of our wedding. I managed to finish up 4 more pages and I thought I'd share the beauty with you!

These first two were made with Amy Teets' new kit "Spring Fling" it goes on sale at A Cherry On Top on Friday. I really can't get enough of those scripted clouds and trees. Mmm. It seemed like everything I made with this kit looked good! These pages are to go in the 2008 album. They're some of our engagement pictures. My goodness he's handsome, don't you think?



These next two layouts were done with the "I Love You This Much" kit from Foxy Designs. Also set to come out on Friday. Yay for new things to work with! The first page is from our first dance at our wedding.


This page is illustrating the amazing-ness that is the last day of school party! Text reads: Grandpa Frost passed away the week school let out in AZ. Everyone came home for the funeral, and managed to get there in time for the last day of school party, a tradition that has been in my family for decades. It was so fun to have everyone in town again! It normally involves shaving cream fights, pie fights, water balloons, junk food, watermelon, silly string, and super soakers. Since Cameron was new to the family I didn’t know how he would take the mayhem. Turns out he fit right in, and whooped my fanny at just about everything. I’m so grateful to have a husband who doesn’t expect me to be a boring grown-up all the time. We’re immature together! That's why I love you.

Scrappy Scrap Update! :)

1. Finishing my internship

I worked all summer as the marketing intern at a cute little shopping center called Gardner Village. It really was a blast. I enjoyed everything about it except for the hour-long drive during rush hour traffic there and back. It really took a toll on our gas budget and made it hard for me to ever cook dinner. If I did cook, we ate at about 8. I love LOVE being a housewife, but I’m so busy a lot of the time that I don’t make a very good one. I was set to finish my internship on the 31st of July, but when I went in on the 28th, my boss surprised me with my check and a super cute mail organizer. I submitted my portfolio and took this picture on the drive home. When I told Cameron that I never had to make that drive again, he scooped me up and kissed me good. :) That Saturday he promised me we could celebrate. We did a session at the temple and set off to find a restaurant for dinner. Sushi is my favorite food ever, but it is very expensive. Cam spoiled me rotten by letting us go to The Happy Sumo for some yummy sushi rolls & edamame. He loved it too, which is lucky for me! He didn’t even complain about the $50 cost of it all and made sure I ordered exactly what I wanted. We wandered through Borders so we could make some room for dessert. Cam let me pick this too, and we grabbed a couple frapps at Starbucks. The night had “Kristin” written all over it. I am so lucky to have a husband who makes me feel so special. There are very few things in this world that make me smile like that. Cameron is one of them.

2. 4th of July

Wayne, Adrienne & Amberlee came up for the 4th of July this year. We had a barbecue for dinner out at their campsite. When the grill was hot and ready for the burgers, we realized we had forgotten the patties! Adrienne, Amber and I drove to Wal-mart to pick up our favorite burgers, ate super quick, and headed off to the Stadium of Fire.

3. Yay :)

4. Flowers 4 Grandpa

Grandpa Frost passed away after a long battle with a variety of illnesses. He grew up in Kanab, so my Grandma asked me and Cam to pick up some sagebrush on our way home, to be used in some of the flower arrangements. We stopped in Kanab and asked a few people if they knew what sagebrush looked like. As it turns out, it’s everywhere up there! We were honored to be able to bring a little bit of comfort to my Grandma and some flowers for Grandpa.

5. At the Hot Spring

on June 12th, we hiked the hot springs with Cameron Crockett and his fiancee Tyne. The water was beautiful and felt great after a long day. This was part of our fake second honeymoon, where we just disappeared for the weekend. Sometimes I really love not being “find-able.”

Today, I am grateful

grateful for being a part of a worldwide church whose members are so willing to help people they may not know. And grateful for a Heavenly Father who knows His children, and for the miracles He works in order to bring them back into His arms.

I have a friend named Katie from junior-high. She has mentioned in the past how she’s been praying but doesn’t know how to find an answer. She believes in personal revelation. She recently got married and is so absolutely in love with her husband that it’s infectious. I can’t help but think that “forever” would sound so much better to her than “until death do you part.”

Katie is an actress/singer who spent months in New York apart from her husband and stayed until she couldn’t take it anymore. She returned to live with him in Virginia earlier this week. They’re having a rough time. He is in the Navy and was deployed less than 48 hours from the time Katie got home. She doesn’t have a car and doesn’t know anybody. She has no way to get to her job, and their bank accounts are completely overdrawn.

When she said, “I don’t know. I guess God just wants me to be alone right now.” I knew that I had to do something, anything, to keep her from feeling that way.

I asked her if it would be OK for me to call a bishop out there who could introduce her to a young married woman who’s in a situation similar to her and if she would be comfortable getting a ride to and from work for the next little bit until her husband came home.

She quickly gave me her phone number and address and was impressed that I could even know someone who could help her all the way out there.

She said, “Wow, you mormons are crazy networkers!”
I said, “No…we just like taking care of our friends.”
She said, “I guess so! I’ve never made friends at church before. No one was very welcoming.”

I called Bishop Austin about a half hour ago and left a pretty obscure message on their answering machine, asking them to help her find a ride to her job. I can’t wait to see the kind of people she’s going to meet. I can’t wait to hear about the conversations she’s going to have. My heart is pounding and I can’t help but know that she’ll be taken care of.

I’d love for you to all meet my friend Katie. Check out www.theyouandmeshow.com. Leave her some love. It would mean a lot to a girl who’s feeling awful alone right now.