Flying Away

I'm still here. Promise. Just getting ready for the last hurrah of summer....making lists, packing, planning. Here's something that I did recently for Right at Home Scrapbooking.


I was given the Out and About line from We'R Memory Keepers and it was so easy to work with. I love the colors and icons. As soon as I saw the "up, up and away" strip, I knew what I was going to do. It became part of my title and it was perfect for these pictures of Nico with his first airplane.


I used the chipboard clouds to ground my title and draw the eye to the bottom of the layout.

And last but not least, a little brown baker's twine through the die cut paper and some stitching around the focal point photo complete the page!

Sorry to post and run, but it's crazy around Casa Damiano. I'll be back next week with 4 layouts from the Work in Progress kit.

Have a good one!

More Mosaics

As the end of summer nears, I'm rushing to get some of my favorite summer pictures onto layouts. This picture and memory is one of my favorites. Technically, the group shot is not a great photo because of the harsh lighting, but I love what it represents. Summer at my Dad's house (my son calls him Lelo, but that's another story for a later time). I love that my family gathers here and this summer it seems that almost every Sunday found us barbecuing by the pool.

I had to laugh when I saw the picture of my grandmother (bottom right) with her Life Alert securely around her neck. She doesn't go anywhere without it, yet she refused to press the button when she was having chest pains because the police would come to the house and what would the neighbors think? Ha. That's my grandmother. I'm glad that I have it in a photo.

This layout is a mixture of so many different manufacturers - Bazzill, Little Yellow Bicycle, Bo Bunny Press, Bella Boulevard, October Afternoon and Basic Grey. I love to do that. It's more work than using a coordinating line, but sometimes a challenge is good.

Here's a peek at another tile mosaic. One that was very cheap ($1) and simple (it came on a sheet). I love the look and it was so simple!

Have a great weekend! Let me see if I can go squeeze out a few more summer layouts before the season is over....

3 Kids 3 Days

Recently, I had my niece and nephew sleep over our house for a few days. Going from having an only child to three was quite the experience. I don't think I've ever been so tired, overwhelmed and happy at the same time. Here are a few of the things that I learned...

1. The house will never be clean. Even with a playroom and great storage, the toys were EVERYWHERE. As were the crumbs, the clothes and the towels.

2. It's amazing what it costs a family of 5 to spend the day at a waterpark. Ditto for dinner at the Rainforest Cafe.

3. Girl drama is just......wow.

4. You would think that 120 tickets is plenty for 3 kids to enjoy the rides at the boardwalk. It's not even close.

5. The house was full of laughter, chaos, playing, life and family.

6. The loads of laundry accumulated in just 3 short days is seriously daunting.

7. Having two siblings would've done my son a world of good. His behavior improved dramatically once he wasn't the center of attention anymore.

8. And last but certainly not least, you shall not sleep through the night. Inevitably, someone will have to go pee-pee, is scared, or falls out of the bed. We experienced all of these.

The house and I are still recovering but it was fun. We're planning to do it again in the Fall.

And to all you Mamas of multiples who do this day in and day out, I bow down to you!

I Lost my Mind

I’m not sure why I went insane with this page, but once I made up my mind to create a mosaic, it was the beginning of the end. It was crazy intricate, crazy expensive (those glass tiles are not cheap!) and took a crazy amount of time (3 days) to create.

Here's a quick look at how I created the mosaic. I bought the tiles at Michael's. They come in two different sizes which made covering the area easier. I used a chipboard circle from Technique Tuesday and backed it with a sheet of Basics paper. The grid made getting the mosaic straight much easier than if I had just eyed it. This circle took 2 packages of large tiles and 2-1/2 packages of tiny tiles. Phew! Talk about tedious.

I like the way it turned out, but I won't be doing anything like this again any time soon. Next page will be something very simple and cheap and quick!

Right at Home

It's been awfully quiet around here don't you think? I know I've been really slow to post new pages, but I do have a great big exciting reason! I was recently asked to join the design team over at Right at Home Scrapbooking and I've been busy creating pages and projects for their blog. My first two assignments were working with Bo Bunny's Block Party line and Queen & Co.'s Wild Thing.

I'll give you a sneak peek at what I did and if you'd like you can head on over to Right at Home for the full reveal later this week. I think Lisa has a fun game and prize over there you just might be interested in!

This is a sneak of the cousins page I did with Bo Bunny's Block party. I love these bold colors!

I can't tell you how excited I am to be working alongside the RAH design team. They are very talented and I'm inspired by their sketches and projects. I think this is going to be a fun ride and will push me to try new things. So thank you Lisa, Kathy and all of the girls over at RAH for allowing me to join you!

I'll be back later in the week with a 2-page spread I like to call the crazy page (you'll see why when I post!).

Five

And just like that, my boy turned 5 this past week. Part of me wants to say, "that went fast", but in reality it wasn't fast at all.

Maybe I feel that way because I've been there with him every day for the past five years, or since I knew he would be an only child I stayed in the moment more, or maybe because he was a preemie and took so long achieving each milestone, I was really ready for him to grow out of each stage.

I dunno, I just feel like we are where we should be. I'm really enjoying being a mom to a 5-year old boy with all of the independence, noise, love, dirt and mischief that goes along with it. He is absolutely the best thing that ever happened to me (even on the days that I want to bang my head up against a wall. Ha.). We are grateful and blessed to have him.

Nicolas' very first picture. August 2005.

What a difference a year makes! August 2006.

Serving his ring bearer duties at 3 years old. August 2008.

Celebrating turning 5 with his cousins. August 2010.

So I've been busy celebrating, throwing birthday parties and hosting sleepovers. I have a ton of new pictures, but no time to scrap. I'll be back early this coming week with more layouts. Promise!

Tinkerbell Birthday

I won't lie, when I first got these pictures of my niece's party back, I cringed. Purple and green are so not my colors and they are very prominent in the pictures. But then I came across this Sun Kissed line by Bo Bunny Press. It's almost as if they had made it especially for these pictures. There's water (it was a pool party), bright purple (matches the pics) and green (for Tinkerbell. And so this is what I came up with...

I think I got incredibly lucky with the release of these products! This layout came together pretty quickly for me. It includes some of my favorite pictures of the kids, my cousin/brother and his kids and a picture of me (miraculous).

To further tie in the theme, I added a tiny Tinkerbell on top of the water sprinkler portion of the layered sticker and cut off the top of the hose. I can't wait to show this to my niece, I think she's going to love it.

Thanks for taking a peek. I'll be back towards the end of the week. We are having my niece and nephew sleep over for a few days just for fun. I wonder how I'll do as a temporary mom of 3 - this should be interesting!

Birthdays & Twilight

We were supposed to be doing this today.....

But sadly, my Dad's backyard looks like this right now...

So we cancelled the party and rescheduled it for next Sunday. Thank goodness the pip is at an age where he doesn't have a full grasp on the concept of time, so he doesn't realize this.

And so later today, I'll be going to see him up above at the movies. I've never been a fan girl, but something about this English dude just totally does it for me. So strange, he's actually almost the antithesis of my "type". I've read Eclipse again and so I'm all ready for a good movie, some popcorn and my man.

I can't even tell you how thrilled my husband is....ha!

I'll be back Tuesday with a purplelicious Tinkerbell layout.