Thank You

I just wanted to say thank you for all of the emails that I've gotten on the layout about my son's premature birth. Thank you for every story that you shared with me, every prayer and every well wish. I was floored by the response!

I rarely talk about the details of my son's birth, so it was good to get it out and on to a page. Sorry that I made so many folks sad. I know that the journaling and the photos are raw. But that's how it came out, so I stuck with it.

And for everyone that has asked - YES! - that tiny baby is the same Nico that you see on all of my pages. He's made a full recovery with some minor exceptions here and there. He's a little pip of a boy who lights up my life!

Prematurity

This was a hard page for me to get through, yet it was an important story that I wanted to tell. I've done some pages about my son's prematurity and our time in the NICU, but I haven't done a new one in years. Last week I was watching the Discovery channel and they had a show on about micropreemies. I remembered that there was a time before Nico was born that I would flinch at the site of a premature baby and I would quickly flip the channel. It's ironic how life throws challenges at you that you think that you could never handle - but you do. And you come out a different, stronger person in the end.

I know just how lucky we are that Nico survived the NICU with no long-lasting effects. I watched way too many babies pass away during our two months in the hospital to take that for granted. The experience though, was horrific and it changed me. It's a very big part of my life's story.

The journaling reads:
There was a time when I could not stand to look at a sick or premature baby. I remember having to change the channel anytime those type of stories were on the news or on TLC. I just couldn’t watch. The image of those tiny fetal looking babies made me flinch. How ironic that I would become a mom at just 28 weeks gestation to a tiny, sick, 2-pound boy. I found myself right smack in the middle of a nightmare that seemingly would never end.

And so I watched.

I watched a respirator breathe for him because he couldn’t.

I watched as all of his little veins collapsed from too many IVs. They put one in his forehead.

I watched as he turned blue one day because of apnea.

I watched a team of doctors rush in to save him at 3 weeks old when he developed sepsis and almost died.

I watched as he developed a hole in his heart.

I watched when an IV leaked a caustic substance onto his skin and burned a big hole in his forearm.

For 58 days I watched my boy struggle and suffer. I couldn’t change the channel, because this was now my life. I didn’t flinch anymore and this became my normal.

In the tiny envelope at the top is a note from me to Nico. I just wanted him to know that even though this was the most difficult thing I had to go through in my life, that he was so so worth it! And how blessed and lucky we are to have him in our lives.

Okay, so on to the details of the layout - almost all of the paper, the trees and the cloud are the Quite Contrary line by My Mind's Eye (love their paper). I made the "life" banner with some twine, cardstock, and tiny rub-ons from Doodlebug. The title is from Making Memories (cork) and Thickers (aqua).

Leaf Monster

Fall is one of my favorite times of the year in the northeast. The weather is perfect, the humidity low and the days are still long. This was the first year that we had to rake leaves. The one downside to living in a newer neighborhood - no mature trees = no leaves. We scraped up every leaf we could find to make Nico this pile to jump in. And jump he did - laughing and screaming "cannonball" the entire time. We buried him and he would jump out and growl at us. He said he was a "leaf monster" and this was the perfect title for my layout. The fact that his hoodie matched the theme was the proverbial icing.

I love these woodgrain papers from Cosmo Cricket and they were perfect for these pictures. Actually all of the chipboard accents, the letters and the paper are from Cosmo. The stripe paper is October Afternoon and the owl is from Michael's Recollections line. The wood tree is actually made out of wood and I found it at the NJ Scrapbook Expo this past year. A little bit of twine and you have my first fall layout since 2005. I guess that can be blamed on the lack of leaves?!

Until the next post...

Christmas Morning

I've been digging into my stash of Crate Paper and reminiscing about Christmas lately. This is what I came up with for our Christmas morning pictures. I love this mix of traditional red and green colors with a pop of aqua and lime. It was perfect for the vibrant reds in my photos. I always have so many photos of Christmas morning, so this is always a 2-page layout for me. I pared down from the dozens of photos and these are my favorites.

All of the paper is from Crate Paper's North Pole collection. I love the weight and texture of their papers. The chipboard accents are also Crate and I strung them along the top with some Martha Stewart baker's twine.

I added some ribbon from an old Creating Keepsakes kit since the colors matched perfectly. The red letters are Scenic Route and the pins are Making Memories. It's just a big old mix of new products and some of my old stash.

Until the next post...

It's a Halloween Parade!

These photos are from my son's Halloween preschool parade. I had tons of photos so I decided to make this one a 2-pager. Actually it's more like a 1-pager stuck in the middle and a bunch of plain old 4x6 photos on the sides. Almost like a portfolio. It was a quick way to get alot of photos down.

Most of the paper and chipboard is My Mind's Eye. The green scallop paper and black title are Fancy Pants. The green letters are Thickers.

This was so hard to photograph. Sorry about the glare! It really washes out the colors and you can't see the studs on the scallop paper - but you get the general idea!

Until the next post...

The Magic Number at Disney

I'm still plugging away at all of the Disney layouts from our trip in September. There are so many pictures and stories that I want to tell, that sometimes it's overwhelming!

I love this monster line from Sassafrass Lass. When I saw the playing card with the "tall" monster, I knew it was perfect for this story that I wanted to tell. Finally, Nico was tall enough to go on all the rides that DH and I love at Disneyworld. This was a big milestone for him and us.

I made the huge arrow out of red Bazzill dotted swiss cardstock and sewed up the center just to add some dimension. The black ticket is from MME and the letters are a mish mosh of old painted Heidi Swapp and A-Z Essentials (teal).

My favorite part of the layout is the little blue monster on the lower right hand side. I poked holes in his hands and added string with the #40. I love to add little details like that when I can. It was fun making this, I really love the bold colors and the monsters remind me of my boy.

Until the next post...

Flying Flying Flying

I was browsing through some of my old layouts and these two caught my eye. Probably because they are my favorite color scheme - aqua blue and orange. Actually, aqua blue and anything is my favorite color scheme. It just seems to work with most of my pictures. Maybe it's a boy thing?

This one on top took me forever and a day because I really wanted to use the cloud paper (for the kites) and the sun paper. I finally made it work by combining the October Afternoon clouds, Fancy Pants sun paper and Cosmo Cricket everything else. The chipboard title is old and I painted it barn red. So in just a mere 3.5 hours (ha), voila - one kite flying layout.

And to make up for that kite layout, this one was done probably in an hour or so. I think this is a sketch from somewhere, but I can't remember where I got it from. It may be from amillionlittlethings.com - so thank you if that's where it originated from. And if not, my apologies! I love how it's almost a crisscross pattern. All of the patterned paper is vertically laid and all of the photos/journaling/title are horizontal. It's a cool effect.

All of the paper is from Cosmo Cricket's Lil Man line and the brown alphas are Pink Paislee.

A Swimming Snow Day

I wish, I wish we were doing this....

But instead we are doing this..

I miss the summer. I really do. Winter is not my thing. The snow makes it bearable, but...blah. Back to the layout - it's quick, simple and clean. And I did it today while the great State of NJ tried to dig out from one of the worst blizzards ever.

I love these pictures of the boy and his cousins. They were all born almost exactly one year apart and it's been fun to see them reach milestones one right after the other. This year it was really obvious in my Dad's pool. Each of them brave, but definitely big differences in what they could achieve swimming.

All of the paper is Cosmo Cricket (Snorkel), the wave border is K&CO, the cool spinner is Close to My Heart, the black letters are Doodlebug and the blue are Thickers of course!

A Boy and His Heroes

And I'm back.....! So I got this nasty computer virus that made me pull my hair out and then when it was finally eradicated, I was bombared with work. I usually work on a very part-time basis while my son is in preschool, mostly to give me a life and so I don't climb the walls. But this past month I've been working what amounts to full time hours. I haven't done that since circa 2004 and can safely say that I have a new found respect for all working mamas out there. It's tough to balance the priorities and keep your head screwed on.

I've pulled back to my normal hours - career be damned! And I've been getting to play with fun stuff again. I think it's so much easier for me to scrap continuously - taking a break gets me out of the groove.

I've made two 'alright' pages since and I'm digging into some more. This one is from our Disney trip this year and tell the story of my sweet boy meeting his cartoon heroes. It was a sweet moment from our trip and I didn't want to forget it.

I see a ton of Toy Story pages in my future - the boy is obsessed! Hopefully I'll be able to use those cutesy 3-D stickers that I have around here some where. They didn't work with this color scheme. The "clouds" are once again those nifty chipboard cupcake tops from Maya Road (love 'em), paper is all Crate and the title is old K&Co chipboard.

This is an impossible layout to photograph. It's got a glare from hell and the colors just look dead. And it was my first page out of the gate this year and I'm not really in love with it. Blah. A shame since I love the pictures. My boy looks like Prince dressed as a pirate. I wonder if he'll want this picture for his yearbook someday.

The red paper and wood sign are old Karen Foster, the stripe is glitter textured from Making Memories, flag is Jolee's and the letters are Thickers and Making Memories.

Thanks for sticking with me!

My Pet Dinosaur

Another sketch and another page done in two hours. Hooray! This great sketch is by the very talented Jana Eubanks and was posted over on A Million Little Thing's blog. One of my favorite scrappers and my favorite store - thanks!

The small pictures are from our recent visit to Disney World this past fall. I wanted to capture the story of Nico's first visit to the T-Rex restaurant and the making of his first Build-A-Dino. I didn't have a good pic of him with Spike, so I posed him after we got home. The restaurant was fab, but the lighting was horrible for taking pics.

The paper, dino and tags are all from My Mind's Eye (which I'm in love with). The green letters are Bo-Bunny and the cork alpha and numbers are from Making Memories.

Thanks for looking and for bearing with me during this busy season!

Baby Essential Part Deux

This disappeared from a post entry that I made a couple of weeks ago. Blogger's acting up and I can't get it to post under the appropriate date so I think I'll just stick it here!

This Halloween Sketch

This is my entry to My Mind's Eye Blog Challenge #5. This was the first time I was actually able to use a sketch successfully! I love the idea of sketches, but it's rare that I find a design that works with the size pictures I have or the products I want to use. The only rules were that you had to use 80% My Mind's Eye products and stick somewhat close to the original sketch design. Using MME isn't a problem, since I love almost all of their lines. I added a row of extra small pictures, but I pretty much stuck to the original sketch. This page took me just under ONE HOUR to finish! I think that's the fastest I've ever churned out a page. So a great big thanks to MME for their great products and excellent sketch artist!

The Circus

I was putting away a bunch of layouts when this circus layout caught my eye. I wasn't that crazy about it when I first created it but now many months later, I really like the way all of the photo "tiles" fit inside the circle. I like the bold dark red color. And I love how all of the not-so-great pictures look way better cropped into smaller sizes. Isn't it funny how sometimes when you take a second look at a layout, you see things you never noticed before.

I think I might copy this sketch for a layout that I'm struggling with right now. Maybe expand it into a 2-pager. Now if I could just get my hands on another of those huge circles by Technique Tuesday.

Now on to the supply list. All of the paper is by We'R. The chipboard letters, circus sign and flowers are old K&Co. And the brown scalloped paper is by Crate Paper. I just cut out the middle and lined it up with the circle as a faux border.

Spring & Candyland

This is my son in his Spring Show last year. I can't believe how little he looks in these pictures. He has lost that baby face recently and I miss it.
I love the bright colors and whimsy of Doodlebug Designs and I usually find myself buying entire collections of their releases. This is all from their recent Key Lime line. I love the bold blue and green and I thought that they really screamed "spring."

Love the Doodlebug firefly brad and I decided to highlight it inside of a chipboard circle. I painted the circle with metallic green paint to give it some sparkle. It looks much better in person, but it's hard to photograph!

And this layout is to document the 289 games of Candyland that my husband and I have played in the last year. Nico loves this game and asks to play it over and over and over. Oh, and he's not happy if both Mami and Papa don't play. I have a feeling Santa will be bringing him lots and lots of new board games this year - for variety.
The stripe paper is from Bella Boulevard and it matches the colors in Doodlebug's candy/cupcake lines (border & gumball sticker) . I used the dark chocolate brown and aqua to tone down the pictures a little. The gumball sticker and 2 photos are mounted on chipboard squares by Bazzill Basics. One of the photos is tied up with a bit of bakery string from Martha Stewart. The letter stickers are American Crafts and the journal spot is from My Mind's Eye.
Have a great weekend!

I Had P-neumonia

So after a not-so-brief bout of pneumonia, I'm back! It feels so good to be back in my studio going through old pictures and playing with paper. I'm not a chronological scrapper by any means, so I still have plenty of baby pages to do. I keep a journal so I don't forget the stories behind the pictures and this frees me to scrap what I want when I want.

I had fun reminiscing about my son's babyhood with this layout. I wanted to remember the three most important things that got me through that first year. I took the pictures way back then and wrote out the story. Fast forward 3-1/2 years later and the layout is done!

This "Essentials" layout is a mish-mosh of paper by Crate, envelope by Creating Keepsakes KOTM, stickers from Cosmo Cricket and the animal border by K&Co. They all had the same color tones and I thought they mixed well together.