Greetings from Texas!

Howdy ya'll! I am Kris, or Texaskris on the internet. I will be your Thursday blogger. I am thrilled to be here, thank you for having me!
As for the introduction, I will try not to talk to much, but don't hold your breath.
I am a stay at home mom to two wonderful and active boys, ages 5 and almost 8. I have been married for 13 years to the most wonderful man. My husband is the full time youth and education minister at one of the many Baptist churches here in central Texas. We were called to serve at BMBC the weekend after we were married, and I wasn't much older than some of the youth! It has been a fun ride. I started selling Stampin' Up! 6 years ago. I have loved every minute of it. I have met some wonderful friends, have has some amazing opportunities, and have ministered to ladies because of it. How fun!?!?!
I met Laurie with S4I last year when she "randomly" contacted me about hosting an event. I get so much junk email, that I often delete them without much thought if I don't recognize the sender or title. Her message title had the word "inclusion" in it, so it instantly got my attention. I am familiar with that term, see, I am for all practical purposes a "Claymate". So I knew about Clay's foundation and dream of inclusion. It also hit home for me because in my area, there is a high population of children with autism. In our small church we serve 3 children with special needs. My heart for inclusion is watching how interacting with a special needs child affects my boys. They need that interaction. And it saddens me that their elementary school doesn't have a program at all for special children. I gladly took on the role of organizer for S4I in my area.
I am also VERY involved in the boy's PTA. In fact, next year I get to make the PTA scrapbook for our school. So, between my husband, children, church activities, running my Stampin' Up! business, and PTA there isn't much time for hobbies. But I do have a few. I have a great friend that I enjoy going to movies with, traveling to see music concerts with, and other silly stuff. I love music, magazines, and surfing the web for craft ideas to make and give. I love to have people at my house, and we often do. I tend to get overly involved in my children's interests, for example when Jeremiah loved Batman, I could tell you all kinds of stuff about Batman and DC comics, or when Jonathan loved The Wiggles, I could sing any of their songs and tell you all kinds of random facts. I have to admit I am really enjoying our current passions, Jeremiah is into the Marines (and also wants to sell Blue Bell ice cream, because you eat all you can and sell the rest) and Jonathan loves the Jonas Brothers. So what a happy home... which brings me to my first scrap layout to share, HOME.
Did I mention that my mom is living with us? Well, when I was looking through my files of what to start with, she suggested this layout, she loves the colors. So, being the mommy's girl that I still am, I did as she suggested. I have a monthly scrap book club that gets together and does a layout and then we order and take turns getting the hostess benefits. This is one of those layouts. It uses Groovy Guava, Ruby Red, Blush Blossom, Old Olive, and Certainly Celery card stocks and inks. I also used our punches for embellishments, the large oval, tag, scallop circle, 1 1/4" circle and 1 3/8 inch circle. I love roller wheels, they have so many functions, a background, or a focal point, an accent, the sky is the limit. I colored the houses from the roller wheel and the boys I stamped with our watercolor crayons and blender pens. The "h" of home is one of our new sticky cut letters. It is just like sticky strip, except it is in letters, I added some of our cosmo glitter to it and it just sparkles. I added a rhinestone brad to the tag for some added bling! Also on the tag I used the direct to paper technique with ink pads, just drag your card stock across your ink pad until you get the desired look. You can't go wrong with ribbon, ever. So I added some matching double stitched ribbon. A few stamps for accents and that is how I scrapbook. Simple with lots of photos. I love that everything SU! sells is in coordinating colors. The paper, inks, markers, crayons, glitter, ribbon, brads, EVERYTHING they make is in one of their exclusive colors, and it makes projects worry free.
I look forward to sharing some ideas, techniques, and Stampin' Up! products with you each week! If you ever have any questions, please feel free to check out my blog, http://texaskrisstamps.blogspot.com/ and I am pretty sure you can contact me through there.
Happy Thursday everyone!