Happy Memorial Day!

We spent the day yesterday getting the yard ready for the summer. We planted, cleaned up and put out all the patio furniture. Summer is finally here! After a long hard day of work, I walked into this up above. The big boy and the little boy cooling down. I'm not sure who enjoyed it more. And, yes the minute I put the camera down, I became the hapless victim of that competition.

We are off today to a family picnic with my husband's family that we haven't seen in a while. I'm looking forward to it, should be fun. Nico will run around with a dozen of his second cousins and Patrick and I will kick back with the adults. A perfect Memorial Day.

Have a good one! I'll be back tomorrow with layouts...

Fatherhood Looks Good

This is my entry for this month's PageMaps blog contest. I love the PageMaps sketches and I've wanted to participate for months. But either I missed the deadline or I couldn't get the sketch to work for me. You can see the original here http://www.pagemaps.com/blog.php. I've changed this around a little bit and of course, I had to fill all of the empty white space. I wish I could leave it be, but it's just not my style and I have a hard time making it work.

The page is about my husband and how until he became a father, I had never been able to capture the true him on film. He waited a very long time for Nico and the gratitude and happiness shows in every picture I take of these two together. It makes my heart happy.

The journaling reads: I’ve just realized that although I have a mountain of photographs of you that I’ve shot over the past decade, not once did I ever capture the true “you”. You were always so guarded and stiff in pictures – it drove me nuts! Since Nicolas was born though, I can see “you” in the pictures. The shy smile, the kindness in your eyes, an aura of calm and happiness. You can see just how happy you are to have a son and fulfill that role of Papa. You waited a decade for him and your gratitude shines. Fatherhood truly looks good on you. xoxo

All of the paper, chipboard frame, title, heart and brown letter stickers are from Basic Grey (Max&Whiskers and Basics). The felt star is from Making Memories and the metal studs are Zva.

Thanks so much for taking a peek! Hope you like the new blog makeover. Many thanks to Kristina at http://blogdesignsbytwohappymama.blogspot.com/ for making my blog happy and colorful. She was wonderful to work with and I highly recommend her.

New Stash Stuff

I spent a few glorious hours this afternoon at a local Scrapbook Expo. It was so much fun! It's a really small show and there were probably 3 booths with newer stuff. But I can't complain because we are down to 2 LSS within a 70-mile radius of my house. The pickings are truly slim. I do almost all of my shopping at 2Peas and most of the time I'm happy with that. However, there's something to be said for the instant gratification of bringing home a big bag of loot. I unpacked my new stuff and laid it out all over the desk. That was almost as much fun as buying it. There is some really random stuff in the mix, Basic Grey Basics and lots of new letter stickers (my love). Now I just have to get scrapping!

Stay tuned for a big blog makeover...
Nancy

Christmas Eve Roundup

This is a quick and to the point layout. I didn't take too much time or fuss over it. Probably because I don't really like any of the pictures. But I thought the story was imporant. These are the 'best' shots I have of our Christmas Eve celebrations over the past 5 years. I know they are pitiful flash shots with ugly backgrounds but what can you do? What I do like is how they show the progression of our family and how quickly the kids are growing up.

The journaling explains how these are my best shots because I am usually running around entertaining, cooking and serving everyone. This is a holiday that I inherited from my parents' divorce and honestly it sucks. After five years, I'm finally starting to come to terms with it and am trying to stop and enjoy it more. I've recently realized how important it is for me to keep these family traditions going and how I want Nico and his cousins to celebrate Christmas Eve just like I did when I was a kid. I kept the journaling 'real' on this page, because sometimes holidays/my life/my family ain't a bowl o' cherries.

Have a great weekend everyone! I'll be back early next week with another Basic Grey Max & Whiskers page...

Nancy

My Little Yankee

I thought I'd share a few of my favorite T-Ball pictures from this season. This was the first time Nico played and it was quite the experience. I think baseball in general is a very slow moving sport and he got bored in the outfield.

What he loved most about it was this snazzy uniform. I swear he was more excited about putting that outfit on and pretending to be a Yankee, than actually playing. I thought he looked stinkin cute in it too.

And really, it wouldn't be Nico without a little 'tude on the field. He wasn't happy about how long it was taking his team mate to hit the ball. He was waving his arms around at the poor kid, but I couldn't get a picture because I had to supress a laugh and then reprimand my little Napoleon.

This up here is what he liked to do. He told me that batting is where the action is. He didn't want to play the outfield, he just wanted to be a batter.

And then a little more Nico attitude on the field. Let's just say that it was a long season and Nico learned that being part of a team means doing the boring stuff too.

And the final shot...

Every single day he loses more and more of his sweet little baby face. In this picture I can see a glimpse of what he's going to look like in the years to come. My baby boy is growing up right before my lens.

Have a good weekend everyone! I'll have some Christmas and summer layouts up soon...Nancy

A Late Entry

This was the April Page Maps Blog sketch contest....

And this is my interpretation of the sketch...

This layout was a day late and a dollar short - actually a mere month late. It was my entry into the contest for April and I just finished it recently. Sometimes I have a hard time following a sketch that I like. Either my favorite photos are the wrong shape or my titles are too big.

This time I was having a really hard time with all of the "white" space that the sketch called for. Although I like the look, I think I'm a 'use the whole page' kinda scrapper at heart. I tweaked it, added more pictures, more patterned paper, more everything and I was finally happy with it. But now, it doesn't really look like the original sketch as much. Sigh. Maybe this is a sign that I can't follow directions - hee!

I drew this sun freehand and cut it out. Then I sewed and sewed and sewed on it and inked it all around with chocolate chip ink. It was the perfect place for my title and added a special little something to the top of the page. It was fun to make and I really want to try this technique out with a really huge shape in the future.

(Supply list: Paper: October Afternoon (brown) and Fancy Pants. Chipboard swirls and brad: Fancy Pants. Gems: Basic Grey. Letter stickers: Basic Grey (brown), Thickers (aqua).

Thanks so much for stopping by. Oh and thank you to Becky Fleck at Page Maps for the great sketch!

Baltimore Album Part 1

Here is a peek at a project that I was supposed to post a very long time ago. Last year, I made this mini album for a guest designer spot at amillionlittlethings.com and I totally forgot to post it here! I was lucky enough to be given all of these products from Little Yellow Bicycle's Traveler line. It was my favorite line last year and was perfect for scrapping our weekend in Baltimore.

I used the Making Memories 8x8 Great Escape album because I love the size and it came with a bunch of cool transparencies, envelopes and pocket pages. I used a collage of embossed stickers for the cover along with some patterned paper and Thickers for a bold title. After a few months, the stickers started to lift, so I did have to decoupage the entire thing.

This transparency came with the album and I love how it looks for our tour of Baltimore.
The cover page is made up of mostly LYB. The script letters are Webster's Pages and the pins are Making Memories. I was finally able to use the Making Memories tag maker for the photos along the bottom and I love how they turned out.

A description of our trip "by the numbers" and a cool pocket for all of the receipts we collected along the way. The pocket envelope came with the MM album and I covered it with patterned paper.
I love to use enlarged photos in my mini albums because I think they really stand out and break up the pages. This one is of the view from our hotel room.

I have to break here, because Blogger is acting up and won't let me post more than 4 pics. On to post #2.

Baltimore Album Part 2

These were the only two pages that I didn't stick with the LYB Traveler line. I wanted to emphasize the aquarium theme and I couldn't find a good pattern to go with it. I dug out my old stash of Creating Keepsakes kits (that's where the orange dot came from) and added Doodlebug fish stickers and swirls from a Fancy Pants paper. The round transparency is from LYB.

This is my favorite page from the entire album. I love the colors and how the title came together. This took me forever and a day to do. I knew the look that I wanted but had a hard time getting it all to fit together. Finally, the round transparency gave me a focal point and I worked from there.

This is a mix of LYB Traveler and October Afternoon (another favorite travel line). Most of the colors from these two lines can be mixed. I punched holes into the transparency and added it as my title page. Yes, you can see the backside of the letters when you turn the page, but that doesn't really bother me.

The last and final page. A parting shot of the inner harbor and a pocket page for our memoribilia. This page came with the album and again I covered it with paper from October Afternoon and LYB.
Thanks so much for taking a look at our trip!
I'll be back Tuesday with a Rusted Sun summer page...

His Best Pal

Oh thank you powers that be over at Basic Grey for making this great Max & Whiskers collection. The color palette is a perfect combination of my favorite colors. The dogs are supercute without looking weird and many of the patterns can be used for my non-pet pages too.

This one up above though, is one of the dog pages that I've had in mind for a while now. These are some of my favorite pictures of Nicolas with my Dad's dog, Boo Boo (as in ouch). My family tends to go for eccentric pet names. Come to think of it, my uncle has had dogs named Godzilla, Leroy, Killer and Corona, all of them lap dogs. So I guess Boo Boo isn't that bad.

We don't own a dog, but all of Nicolas' grandparents do. Boo Boo is the only dog out of the four that will play with him. These two have a special understanding - Boo plays and allows himself to be gently hugged and Nico gives him food. It's really funny to watch. Boo Boo is 14 years old now and I wanted to create this page so Nico could remember his first best pal.

Every single thing on this page is from Basic Grey except for the aqua letters (Thickers) and the brown ball ribbon (Maya Road). It came together in a snap because BG designers did an amazing job on their products!

Until the next post...

Disney Day by Day

I'm almost finished with the mountain of Disney stories that I want to tell. I think I have just 4 more to go, which is pretty good considering the number of photos I came back with. This layout is a day-by-day account of our trip. I've always wanted to do a page like this since I spend so much time (obsessively) planning our Disney trips. Up on top is my favorite picture taken on that particular day and below is a summary of what park we visited, where we ate and highlights of our day.

All of the paper is from Little Yellow Bicycle's travel line. I decided to use a tone on tone look for each day of the week. I like how it blends into the cardstock, yet is still dimensional. They are all from my collection of Thickers.

Thanks for taking a peek!

National Scrapbook Day!

This was the first time in 8 years or so that I actually scrapped on National Scrapbook Day. In between Nico's T-ball game and a birthday party, I managed to squeeze in a page. I was totally motivated by Basic Grey's new Max & Whiskers line. I love love love everything about this. The dogs are so cute and the colors and patterns are perfection!

I took a picture of my mess, because this is how I scrap. I can't put anything away in between steps. I just scrap right on top of that mess. And yes, it's lumpy and it's a pain but it's how I do it. Sometimes it spills over on to the other shelves and counter space, but this time I kept it on the desk. I was short on time, so it was a quick layout. I'll take pictures of it and post later on this week.

Thanks for taking a peek. Until the next post..