Tuesday, July 27, 2010

Monday, July 26, 2010

awww, she wants to be just like me!

Sunday, Ellie asked if she could have one of the pictures that I printed out. I had a duplicate, so I gave her one. She picked this piece of paper from the stack of old papers that I have for her. (you can't tell from the photo, but it has muted yellow squares overlapping on it)

Then she glued the one scrap on behind the photo, put the flower on - she poked the stem through the paper and then couldnt figure out why it didnt have prongs like a brad. I glued it on for her.

Then she used her deco scissors to decorate the corners - all by herself, all her ideas! I did tell her she should write our names on there as a title. (anything to get her writing and spelling.)

anniversary card

This card is for my grandparents' anniversary. I used the ICS sketch, and the spcc color combo with my new Sass lass indie girl papers!





















and oh yes I am an addict! I stopped at Sonic again this morning for a diet cherry limeade! argh! I had a rough weekend - not feeling too good but getting a lot of scrapbooking done, so that was good.

Sunday, July 25, 2010

Birthday Card

I have loved using my new Sass Lass Indie girl papers. This card is for the priscillastyles sketch challenge, the project tuesday paper flowers challenge, the digi tuesday happy birthday challenge the paper play blue cream and one other color challenge and the papertake weekly cutie patootie challenge. digi stamp is from sliekjestamps .

design dollies trifecta

This layout was for the design dollies trifecta challenge - color, sketch and misc element . The misc element this week was to use a vintage movie as inspiration.

Saturday, July 24, 2010

Bo Bunny Layout challenge

This layout is for the Bo Bunny Layout Challenge Friday July 16, to use a favorite movie as a inspiration or a title. I used the Great Outdoors movie as my title.

Monday, July 19, 2010

sonic and missing my sewing machine

It's funny how you often don't appreciate something until it is gone. My sewing machine broke about a month ago and I thought - eh I can make do without it. But every layout suddenly seemed to just REQUIRE stitching! I did a bunch by hand, but finally decided that I will just have to get the machine fixed. Now, it is in the shop, and will be another 2-3 weeks until I get it back. Who knew that sewing machine repairmen in the middle of nowhere were SO busy!?!

So, yeah, I am totally missing it. Pretty much every page I have made for the past couple weeks, I look at and think, "this would be better with a little bit of stitching right HERE."

Anyway, today I was late to work. So, I stopped at the brand new Sonic that is literally IN the way of my commute. - seriously, they messed up the turn lane that I use to make a special entrance for it. So, I stopped today and got a diet cherry limeade as recommended by the ladies over at ACOT. It was really good! I don't really drink anything other than water, diet coke and coffee. (and the occasional glass of wine) so it was a real treat and a different experience to have something fruity and bubbly and a little tart, and yet guilt free! and caffeine free! (not that I really worry about caffeine intake, I mean, heck I live on that stuff. But THIS I could count as water intake for the day.)

Sunday, July 18, 2010

My Mind's Eye Blog Challenge submission

Here is the page that I created for the latest blog challenge at My Mind's Eye. It was a sketch challenge but you had to use the word hope. Well as soon as I hear the word hope, I think of the song, I hope you dance. I love that song! so I wanted to use it as my title, but there are soooo many good lyrics in it that I decided to just go ahead and print out the lyrics on the large circle so I could have them all there. I made a few lines bold so some favorite lines stand out a little more.

Then I used my brand new Cricut to cut all different sizes of flowers to make these handmade flowers. I just love how it turned out!




























Here are a couple of closeups so you can see the layering, because boy is there a lot of it!

Tuesday, July 13, 2010

I was featured!

I submitted a few Christmas pages from this past Christmas to the Websters Pages ning gallery and they picked one to be one of the weekly featured layouts. I must say that I was rather fond of this one also. It was part of my Jan ACOT reveal, or was it December and this pic was from the year before? I can't remember.

























Speaking of being featured, I think I forgot to share with you that I was also featured on the My Mind's Eye blog recently for this layout that was part of last month's ACOT reveal. (I did post about it on Facebook so you might have seen it.) But I know I just got the prize a couple of days ago and I was shocked! They had asked what my favorite line is, and I said Quite Contrary - Mary Mary. They sent me the whole Quite Contrary line, not just Mary Mary, but Little Boy Blue and Little Miss Muffett and I think there is one other one. They even included some Lush matching brads in three colors! Wow! And to think - this wasnt even a contest that I entered or anything. Just so suprising! So thank you My Mind's Eye!
























And now for some randomness. Boy did we have some rain today! It took me almost twice as long as usual to get to work and at one point I drove into a 'puddle' that was at least a foot deep. I seriously thought I was going to stall out. And I am writing this now because my shoes and socks are STILL wet, despite having been taken off immediately and laying on my office floor all day. Thank goodness I had an umbrella is all I have to say!

Monday, July 12, 2010

ACOT Bo Bunny reveal

oh how I loved these papers! I love how bright and fun they are! And the PURPLE, oh the purple! It is my favorite color, but it isn't very often that I find a scrapbooking line that I like that has purple in it. This is the second line containing purple in less than a year from Bo Bunny that I just adore!

This page is very unusual for me, but I just loved the whimsy of this line and had to exploit it. Check out the rest of my reveal HERE.

Sunday, July 11, 2010

family layout

this page is for the pagemaps sketch and color combination. the blue moon something blue challenge and the got mojo summer pic challenge

Saturday, July 10, 2010

quick card post

I did a lot of scrapping today, but this is the only thing I can share right now. Sorry for the bad photo, I will try to update it soon, it was raining out. This is using an ICS sketch - I turned it sideways.
and using the spcc color scheme.

Friday, July 9, 2010

Day 3 part 2 - and new look to my blog

For those of you who don't read this through a reader, you will notice that I changed the look of my blog yesterday. It just felt like it was time. I made a new header last night and Im really proud of myself because I created it from scratch - not using any digi kits (since I wasnt sure what the use policies were)

Anyway back to the Acadia trip.

After our long rock hopping adventure we went to lunch at the Jordan Pond House restaurant, for some of their famous popovers with strawberry jam. I have to say that I wasnt blown away by the place, becuase it was pretty touristy, but the popovers were good. And really, what did I expect? Look a picture of me that I don't hate! And then Seth and Jack being silly.









































After lunch we went to the top of Cadillac mountain. (and look! ANOTHER pic of me that I dont hate!)






































Then back to camp for some campfire cooking - hotdogs, corn, popcorn and smores.


Thursday, July 8, 2010

Day 3 - Acadia

This is a picture heavy one, because there are just so many beautiful pics!
First we went to the July 4th celebration in Bar Harbor and had blueberry pancakes - yum!

Then we totally got out of there, because the place was a zoo with people and vehicles getting ready for the parade. Im sure it was a nice parade, but we wanted to see Acadia. So we headed for sand beach and the start of the Ocean Path trail. which was supposed to be easy and short, but we got distracted along the way and it ended up taking a lot longer than it should have and we all got sun burned. not ellie because I always slather her with sunscreen, but do I do that for myself? no! just my face, so my arms and neck were fried.

First is ellie showing off her moose tattoo that I got for her in town while they were on the boat. Then one of the many gorgeous views. Followed by Ellie and Seth looking at tide pools - because who doesnt love tide pools?






















































































Here we have some more rock hopping / clamoring pics, still on the ocean path trail - or rather, OFF the ocean path trail.


























































I think I will save the rest of day 3 for tomorrow - it was a very busy day.

Blue Moon BIG contest


there is a big contest going on all month over at Blue Moon Scrapbooking.

NVS July Challenge is up!

Here is the collage for the July Challenge over at NVS girls challenge blog.




















And here is my example. I created a card this time, inspired by the colors and the girly-ness of the collage. Stamp is Greeting Farm and papers are Prima

Wednesday, July 7, 2010

Day Two - Acadia

Seth and Jack arrived at about 5am on Friday morning after having driven all night. Ellie woke up at about 5:30. (I think them moving around was what woke her) They crashed, she started talking/bothering me. I managed to get her to color and play for a while then we got up around 7am and left because I didnt want her to wake them.

We went into Bar Harbor because I NEEDED coffee. I drink coffee every morning and joke about needing it, but some days I can get by without it if need be. Not after that night though. And I had brought some old instant coffee, but I couldnt find the lighter to light the stove to heat the water. So, we went to find breakfast. We found a cute cafe and had coffee and popovers with yummy blueberry jam. Then we headed to Sand Beach, to wait for the 9am kids themed ranger discussion about the beach. HAHA - we had to WAIT for the NINE AM event. We had a blast though. We had the beach all to ourselves for about a half hour. We found sand dollars and shells and tide pools. The beach was GORGEOUS! just gorgeous!


















After about an hour the rangers showed up. We asked some questions about the stuff we had found, then they got into their presentation. They told us about the sand - all the shells and stuff that were broken up to make it. We also learned why the sand accumulates here but not on any other places on the island and that when it is stormy the sand beach turns into a rock beach because all the sand gets sucked out to sea. The kids dug to see what is under the sand (rocks) but couldn't seem to get deep enough even though the ranger said she was here a couple days ago and had no problem. then we moved on to looking at the rocks and seaweed and snails. At that point Ellie got bored because we had already done that, so she went back to digging and throwing sand. So, then I decided it was time to go see if the men were awake yet and bring them their muffins.


















They were awake and ate their muffins, then Jack tried to go back to bed. Ellie wasnt really having any of that though. So after hanging out for a little while, we went into town for lunch at the Mad Hatter pub where we had, among other things, some yummy portabella mushroom french fries.


















At 1:30 Ellie and I had tickets to go on Diver Ed's dive in theater boat ride. Diver Ed wears a dry suit and takes a camera and mic down under the sea and broadcasts real time up onto the boat where the kids (and adults) watch him talk about sea life. then he brings some of his finds up and has a touch tank kind of show. Well, originally I had planned to take Ellie and let the men sleep, but since they were awake anyway, I told Seth he should take her since I hate boats. So all three of them ended up going while I wandered around Bar Harbor and shopped. It was relaxing for me and they had a great time. Ellie was pretty excited that she got to help push Diver Ed over the side into the water, and then she got to touch a lobster and a crab and a starfish.

Tuesday, July 6, 2010

We're BACK!

In case you didn't know, we went to Acadia National Park in Maine for our vacation this last week. Ellie and I left on Wed morning and drove to somewhere outside of Boston before stopping for the night. Then on Thursday we continued on, stopped in Freeport Maine for lunch, then on to Acadia. We set up the tent BY OURSELVES! and Seth and Jack drove all night and showed up around 5am. All in all we had a GREAT time! the 12 hour drive really stunk, but other than that it was awesome. We hiked, rock hopped, checked out some tide pools, learned a few things, ate some lobster and lots of things made out of blueberries, and just relaxed. We really didnt have much choice except to relax since there was little to no cell service there. We couldnt get any data connections, so - no email, no internet, no gps, etc. We all went through a little withdrawal at first, but then it was kind of nice.

So, here is a recap of day 2 for ellie and I.


We stopped in Freeport, for lunch and to check out the LL Bean headquarters. I kind of thought that Freeport was like a quaint fishing town. It was more like one big LL Bean store and some other misc outlets. We did get Ellie a new backpack though. She needed one and she got to pick her own color for the monogramming. Here she is posing with the giant boot and her new backpack. She was leaning against the boot like a model. I didnt tell her to do that, just to show me her backpack.






















Then we had lobster rolls for lunch. They were yummy.























It was two more hours to Acadia where we got checked in, got lost trying to find our campground and got our tent set up. Yep, just the two of us managed to get that giant tent set up. Ellie was a BIG help! Here she is assembling the tent poles.



















After we had a place to sleep we went down to the town and had dinner, followed by some candy and a stroll around the town.


























oh and with dinner I had a blueberry martini - YUM! It would be the first of MANY blueberry foods - blueberry pancakes, syrup, beer, soda, coffee, muffins, jam, ice cream, fresh blueberries from the mountain. Im sure there are more but I cant remember them right now.

more stuff tomorrow. Now I have to get back to unpacking/washing.