my weekend, and some new layouts

ok well first a super speedy recap on my weekend. First Seth's grandmother passed away on Thursday. I stayed up late working on some photos for a memorial board, then slept too late but rushed to get the board almost done before packing up for my weekend scrap retreat. I SERIOUSLY love this place! http://www.thehamburghideaway.blogspot.com/ the second I pull in the driveway I can feel the tension in my shoulders ease. Lots of good food, new friends, and scrapping. but I had to leave early (or really late as it turned out - lol - I had to leave Saturday night to be home for the funeral, but I wanted to stay as long as possible so I didnt leave until midnight!) Sunday I woke up and finished the board before getting ready. Then it was off to the funeral. Ellie was FAB! I got so many compliments on how well behaved she was. It was a long, hot, stressful day. I almost think that the relaxation at the hideaway was bad in the long run this time, because I came back to instant stress higher than before and by Monday I was having panic attacks. I stayed home on monday to try to relax and spend some time with ellie. It helped but I am still pretty beat.

Ok, now onto some more interesting happier things. Here are a couple of pages with Sassafras lass that i made at the retreat. I dont tend to do my best work at crops but I like this first one a lot! It's from a pencil lines blog sketch



then this one is for the music challenge over at acherryontop.com


So, if you live in PA (or NJ or NY or nearby) check out the hideaway. and if you need a group to go with, check out this site: http://www.itsscraptacular.com/main/

I met the owner this weekend and she was really great! I signed up to go with one of the trips she organizes to the hideaway. Seriously, you know something is great if you are barely finished and paying for the next time.

new card

This one is for the flourishes newsletter tuesday challenge.

challenge layouts

this one is for the scrappers block monochromatic challenge
and for the scrap a meal across the universe challenge:

Some Cards

Here are some cards that I made for some challenges.

This one is for the Sketch Saturday Challenge blog. and for the two tone ABC challenge. The papers are Webster's pages. Stamp is art declassified, label is ymbd, trim is chatterbox, brad is chatterbox, punch is fiskars.



this one is for the sp color combo challenge and for the house mouse sketch challenge and for the paper play sweet treat challenge. and for the dancing pj's martini photo inspired challenge. I was inspired by the colors of the photo.



and this one is with Webster's pages and for the pink elephant sketch challenge and the window card caardvarks challenge. label is ymbd. paper is websters pages and prima.

yippee look at me!

on the sassafras lass blog again! woohoo!

Page Maps and My Little Shoebox contest layout

Here is the layout that I created based on the sketch from PageMaps for the My Little Shoebox contest. Unfortunately I didnt have any My Little Shoebox papers so I used October Afternoon. And strangely, the My Little Shoebox tiny letters that I have been using on everything for the last couple of months, are not on here either. weird. Oh and how could I forget. This is also for the "Good" Challenge at One Little Word blog. Love their challenges but I havent had a chance to participate in one in so long. I guess this is what I have to look forward to now that I am taking a break from DTs. Fun!



Tree is Maya Road, trims are Sass Lass. Letters are American Crafts. Label is YMBD

and in other news, I just have to share these photos that I found on one of my friends' blogs.

they are called Fallen Princesses from Dina Goldstein.







they are all great but I think the snow white one is just fabulous! it totally cracks me up. With princesses seriously taking over my house, it just makes me laugh.

Bunnies on the porch!

I had a great weekend! Went scrapping on Saturday and made some new friends, got about 8 pages done, and found a great new store to go to! Then on Sunday we did Father's day stuff. When I got back from the party at my grandmother's house, I thought I would garden for a few minutes since it has been raining too much to do it lately. And look what I found in the planter with my tomato plant:








m thinking that mom picked the spot because we have a fox in the neighborhood but he doesnt come in our yard because it is fenced in, and - I thought - because we have a dog. But apparently mommy rabbit thinks that my lazy beagle is less of a theat than the fox. (and she'd be right, my hound dog didnt even know that there was a nest of bunnies on our porch, some hound dog she is, huh?)

and its funny because last week I looked out the window and saw the mommy bunny sitting there in the planter. I didnt know the nest was there at that point. So I literally pulled my lazy Beagle out of bed and pushed her out the dog door to make her chase the bunny off. I was so mad that she was going to eat my tomatoes, when she is already the likely the culprit for eating all our strawberries! The dog is sick of chasing the rabbits because they always get away. So she halfheartedly gave chase but didn't even bother to bark - lol!

Creative Team Spotlight! woohoo!

I had another page chosen to be featured in the Creative Team Spotlight at A Cherry On Top! You can see it in the article HERE mine is the last one so scroll all the way to the bottom.

It's kind of funny though, because after I created this page and posted it, I showed it to DH and he said that he thought it was too 'dark' and the more I looked at it the more I agreed with him, so in an effort to give it more color, I replaced the background paper with a green patterned paper from Graphic 45, and added a couple of YMBD labels. Now I wonder if I like the original better? What do you think?

This is the original, the one that was chosen for the spotlight:



and this is the updated one (sorry for the blurry pic)



I dont know if it is the blurry pic or what, but the more I look at them side by side, the more I like the first one. Dare I tear the paper back off and try again? LOL

Who me? Digi?

Yesterday I was inspired by a challenge at ACOT, to buy a kit. This is the first kit I have ever bought for digi. And then I ended up staying up WAY too late (almost midnight when I am usually in bed by about 9) playing with it while I watched my Tivo'd shows. What did I decide? nope, not switching to Digi, I still spend too much time on the computer already at work, and I still love the tactile part of paper scrapping, but Digi is fun.
Here is the kit: sweet digi scraps fruit salad kit
http://www.acherryontop.com/product/9005357
and here are the pages:

This one is for the CT Reveal challenge to only use one kit for a whole page. (super easy for me since I really only HAVE one kit)



This one is for the Digi Do-Able challenge to use the provided template. You would think that using a template would make it easier, but this one took me the longest. and boy, my computer did NOT like the fact that I had like 100 layers on this one.



and here are two versions of the same thing, and I dont like either one. This was inspired by the Ad challenge at ACOT and I had initially planned to do it hybrid for the contest, but then I was having so much fun that I kept going digi, but I think now I am going back to my hybrid idea, so look for yet ANOTHER version of this in a week or so.

oh my busy

yes I have been so busy it is ridiculous. did I share this one with you yet?



Papers are scenic route from scrapbook star and the die cuts are YMBD scrapbooking.

this weekend

was great! Friday night Tracie came over to Friday night dinner, and we got to chat for a while. Gosh am I going to miss her when she moves. Then Saturday I wasnt feeling great and bailed on a baby shower I was supposed to go to, but I did get to relax a little and get a few things done. man I can't even remember what those things were now - oh yeah cleaning out mine and ellie's drawers of winter clothes, and cleaning out all our medicine closet like areas and throwing away anything expired (we had stuff that expired in 2005)

Then saturday evening ellie went to her grandparents and Seth and I went out for our anniversary dinner. We had a really nice time. then we went home and chilled out, played some games and talked. Sunday I slept in, then Ellie and I went to a pool party for one of her friends. I was dreading it because I didnt know anyone and I would have to wear a bathing suit, but it went well! I really like the moms I met and hopefully we can all get together for a playdate sometime soon. When we got home we tackled the closet under the stairs because I wanted to get our camping stuff out and take inventory. We have a few things that we need to buy, but mostly we are good to go. We even took the tnet out back and set it up. Ellie wanted to sleep in it but we told her maybe Thursday since we all have Friday off. So I guess we are backyard camping on Thursday night. no fire to roast marshmellows but it could be fun. I also went through a bunch of boxes of old clothes and had an entire car load to give to good will this morning.

Then today I got ellie's precamp schedule all settled, even got a credit on our account. At lunch I spent the credit on clothes for her at gymboree - unintentionally, I went in for underwear and ended up with a whole outfit, but oh well, its cute and it was on sale. and she will love it! I also donated all that stuff to goodwill.

and now for my first layout for the 92 days of summer at YMBD scrapbooking - chronicling last week and using a sketch from our very own Heather!

My Weekend!

Wow, what a weekend! We left Friday morning for Savannah. Arrived, had lunch, swam, had dinner, went to bed. Saturday we got ellie's hair cut, relaxed a little, swam some more, went to dinner for my in-laws anniversary, walked the riverfront, went to bed. Sunday we had brunch, went home, I weeded, went to dinner for my MILs birthday, relaxed a little, went to bed. now here I am at work, and still reeling!

Ok, so dinner was amazing! at Elizabeth's on 37th. They loved our gift. Ellie looked gorgeous and totally behaved herself.

Here is my gorgeous girl all ready to go with her new haircut, pretty flower barette and red dress.


Here we all are in front of the restaurant.


and here is my cheese plate.


Hmm, what else is new? It is June 1st which means new challenges, reveals and another month of fun!

Here is my Anniversary card and part of my reveal at Scrapbook Dreamer: