Scrap Honest Award!

You meet the nicest women out here in blogland. I just got my third award, Scrap Honest from Noelle at Lil' Bits and Pieces of Me today! She is so sweet and always leaves the nicest comments for me. She's a teacher in training and wants to be a kindergarten teacher, so right off the bat you know she's a fabulous woman even before I add that she scrapbooks too!

The rules for this award are:
1. Choose a minimum of 7 blogs that you find brilliant in content or design.
2. Show the 7 winners' names and links on your blog, and leave a comment informing then that they were prized with "Honest Scrap", the nifty icon they can display proudly on their blog.

3. List at least 10 honest things about yourself.

Here it goes, 10 honest things about me although I don't think I'm nearly as humorous and interesting as Noelle!

1. If I'm in a bad mood, I can eat an entire bag of Spicy Nacho Doritos during the course of a day.

2. I have serious foot phobia issues, I can't let anyone touch mine...EVER!

3. I am addicted to Bravo reality T.V. shows, especially The Real Housewives of O.C. and Top Chef; while I like to pretend I only watch quality shows like documentaries on the History Channel...

4. My secret shame is that I also LOVE Bret Michael's Rock of Love and Love Bus on VH1. Those girls present themselves as so trashy; I should be embarrassed to admit in public that I watch it, but I was a HUGE Poison fan in their heyday. Bret wasn't where it was at for me, no siree, I was a C.C. Deville girl, I always liked the guitarists. Saw him on Surreal Life and boy was he irritating, he'd have driven me nuts in minutes!
Still following along on the reality reel of shame, I'm addicted to the Girls Next Door on E!, and I am completely aware a good little Catholic girl like me should NOT be watching anything to do with Hugh Hefner but I cannot stop watching. I'm horrified yet fascinated, and hmmm what would it be like to be a Playmate, although I know one thing I don't think my parents would be "cool" with it or think it was an honor like some seem to.

5. I was a big metal head in the 80's and loved hair bands like Skid Row, Whitesnake, Slaughter, and Warrant. I plastered my closet doors, walls, and ceiling with their pictures. Oh sure now, when I watch their videos on VH1 Classic I wonder what was I thinking...and yes that is Def Leppard's Greatest Hits in my car's CD player and yes I do listen to it all the time!
6. I am so G rated that my idea of a big night out is going to Borders, getting a Raspberry Mocha Kiss drink, sitting in the cafe, and reading magazines.

7. I was so nervous about having a c-section that as the spinal started kicking in I FREAKED out, this while already in the operating room. My husband had to be brought in quickly and ahead of time while they simultaneously gave me a little something something to calm me down. Evidently, it conked me right out cause the next thing I remember was, "Look over here, it's your baby," all I could do was mumble somewhat incoherently, "Oh that was so fast!" They must have been like, "Yep that one's loopy!" This is an example of ummm...how do you say it, maybe how high strung I can be!

8. I really, really, really wanted a little girl and even though I said the normal politically correct things like, "All I want is a healthy baby," I'd have been really, really, really upset if ER had been a boy. Oh sure I'd have gotten over it and loved him just as much but we're being honest here!

9. I'm adopted from South Korea; my younger brother is also adopted. This next part is what always surprises people, I don't have a burning desire to visit my "homeland" nor do I have an overwhelming urge to find out about my birth parents. Sure I'm curious, and if that information came to me I'd take it, but I feel like I know about my HOMEland. It's called the United States of America, and I KNOW my parents. They were over my house yesterday along with my brother, and for the record I REALLY want to travel to England.

10. Even though I have no idea of how to house train or take care of it and I definitely don't want to walk it everyday in the freezing cold, I want a puppy! A little fluffy Pomeranian...my mom thinks I'm nuts! The sensible part of me knows we have to wait until the kiddo is older and the husband says NO, I secretly want one all the same. Wonder how the two kitties we have would feel...

Passing The Bloggy Love On: Now for the seven blogs I'm to pass this along to, this is the best part for me, getting to recognize the great blogs I read. It was hard to pick just seven because I enjoy so many, head on over to to see them and tell them I sent you :)

1. My friend Vickie of Vickie's Scrapbooking and Tidbits, is so popular she gets a ton of these, I think this one might actually be one she doesn't have yet! Yea! She gave me my first blog award and I was sooo thrilled, I've been wanting to give her one back and this is my first chance.

2. Tori, at The Breathings of My Heart, is a super sweet girl; reading her blog brings me back to my early college days and young love. She's an amazing writer and writes from the heart.

3. Jessica at Kid's Napping? I'm Scrapping! has the prettiest vintage inspired art work. I love the details she puts into everything, check out her paperbag books!

4. Jeanne at Jeanie's Happy World has lots of reason's to celebrate right now, she just found out she and her daughter got scholarships to go to college, yea to them! She's also just as funny as can be and is the very definition of honest!

5. K E Household, is full of fun toddler antics and easy crafts; it's fun for me to see toddlers around the world (0r at least North America - they're in Canada) be very similar and yet so different!

6. Mrs. D. Lightful has a great recipe blog, I'm so going to make chocolate covered heart shaped brownies for Valentine's and the homemade Oreo's sound yummy too. She also has mommy blog with good crafting ideas like the Love Birds Paper Craft, and the one on how to make your own baby headbands, wish I'd known how to do that when ER was younger.

7. Julie at Journey to Family I immediately liked because she lives in a purple house, then I found out she's an adoptive parent and of course I liked her even more. Then to top if off she has an awesome attitude toward open adoptions and keeping ties to her daughter's native country and family.

FREE Graphics Coming Up!!! And while there isn't a prize per say for this award, I decided to share my favorite links for free graphics on the Internet. The second and third resources I found when I was looking for fun ways to decorate the weekly newsletter I sent home with my students as a kindergarten teacher. I also used the stationary in writing centers, the kids loved seeing new seasonal choices and such a little thing made practicing writing fun again, and who doesn't love having a matching envelope to put their letter in afterward. At my last position, when I was a special education teacher even cutting out the envelope was a lesson, working on fine motor skills. Unfortunately, I had to use black and white copies most of the time to save on ink costs but they still loved them. Once in a while I'd print them out in color or on colored copy paper and they loved finding this surprise in their work box.

Lettering Delights is having a promotion for 10 free alphabets and free Valentine candy bar wrappers. I don't know how long this is going for so if you want them head on over soon! From time to time they have free graphics and other free alphabet/font promotions.

Cute Colors has sweet graphics for sale, and also has a free section with clip art sets, lists, journling cards, and greeting cards you can print out in color or in black & white so your kids can color them in. The coffee bears are my favorite, the housework bears make it look not so bad, and I love the variety of children that she provides in sets like Winter Kids so that most of my students could be represented at some time or another on the newsletter.

Graphic Garden and Art 4 Crafts are both by Helena and are two more great sites. She has graphics for purchase, free websets, and printables such as stationary with and without lines, envelopes that coordinate with some of her free stationary, calendars, scrapbook tags, school awards - these are great for a teacher on a budget, print them out on white cardstock and save yourself a bundle, bookmarks - again great as prizes for reading goals, recipe cards so your recipe collection looks as good as the yummy food you make, and patterns for crafting or as coloring pages. There are even cross stitch charts and you can send a fun digital postcard too. A lot of these have seasonal options; on Art 4 Crafts she has ideas on how to use her graphics under Projects for You and Photo Gallery.