create the life you love

Once Upon a Time I was a Scrap Booker ..

It's been years now that I have done a single scrapbook page and I miss it so. For many years  - I started this hobby when my youngest, Griff was one year old - I scrapped almost every day.  My little hobby turned into being published in a few different scrap booking magazines,  being a 'Garden Girl' at Two Peas in a Bucket for many years, becoming a Creating Keepsakes Hall of Famer, participating on a few design teams, and even traveling to various shows/conventions/crops. (Please know that I am not bragging here .. seriously, it is no big deal.. it's only scrap booking!)

 

Then .. I added card making to my scrap booking and somehow this turned into a little business. This 'little' business has kept me very busy over the past few years and now, instead of scrapping every day, I work almost every day. Don't get me wrong .. I really do love it and it is a way to still be creative and make a little money to help support my Lilly addiction  ;) .

I do miss my scrap booking days though and hope to some day (I keep telling myself this), be able to find the time to get back to it again. I still have a closet filled with supplies and still like to buy them. Maybe if I just set a goal of 1 layout per week .. although, I am the slowest scrapper on earth.  

I spent well over an hour this morning going through a big, rubbermaid bin full of completed layouts, all in page protectors but not yet in albums (need to do this, I even have the albums). Shed a few tears too .. just looking back a few years to the different stages of my boy's lives. Time passes way tooo fast.

A few of my oldest son, Bear ..

 

This just cracks me up. He was in the 8th grade play, Wizard of Oz and played one of those weird monkeys! One of my very favorite memories, being that this was such a departure from my usual life of boy sports and I loved seeing a different side of him. Bear did confess that he only tried out for the play so that he could miss classes ;)

 

He is just a little older than Griff here ... my first to drive and her I am all these years later doing it again.

Again .. Griff's age!

On the weight lifting team too! He played 3 sports his freshman year.

 

~ This post reminiscing about days past has encouraged me .. I just re-subscribed to Creating Keepsakes Magazine ~ :)

Pink Saturday

Happy Pink Saturday to you all!

A few photos of the album I made for my god daughter. I took the photos at her party, which I featured last week and made a very simple album ... 

For more of Pink Saturday, please visit our lovely hostess, Beverly at How Sweet the Sound
   

Hope you all have a nice weekend. Mine is filled with sports. Homecoming game tonight (I had to write this post early), Griff's lacrosse games Saturday morning and them I am going to watch my niece play in a volleyball tournament. So excited about that - girl sports! :)

old photo (scrapbook) monday

Two older scrap book pages from years ago. Griff on a field trip to 'Pioneer Village' (one I remember oh so well, being a chaperon) and Griff busy doing his homework. Looking back at these pages from my scrap booking days motivated me to actually get something going again!

About 2 weeks ago, I made a label and attached it to an album ... but that was it (pitiful)

A few days ago, I got together all Griff's 6th grade papers and photos (notice the picture of Griff and all the girls at a school dance. lol)...

And last night I actually did a cover page (1st day of school last year) - very simple, which is just my style when it comes to scrap booking. Took me about an hour though!

You scrapbookers will get a kick out of this. I got out my Revolution thingy that cuts the letters to use on this page, but could not for the life of my figure out how to use it! I had only used it a few times (at least a year or maybe 2 ago), so I had to go on line and watch a tutorial! ;)

old photo monday

It's been months since I posted any of my old photos, so I thought it would be fun to post old scrap booking layouts too. Layouts that I did back in the day when I was a 'garden girl' at Two Peas in a Bucket. I am also hoping this may give me the motivation I need to do some scrapping again.

 

Barret & Connor, my now college boys. Oh, how I miss these days.

Sort of a Scrap Book

 

Once again this summer, one of my things 'to-do' was get some scrap booking done ... or started, or even just get photos into an album! Again, for 5 or 6 summers now (maybe even longer), I failed to do so. The only project I managed to accomplish is a little album of the photo from our trip to Sea Island this past February. No journaling, no scrapping, but I did get the pictures in an album and it only took about 2 weeks - pitiful! There was once a time that a scrapped almost every day. I keep buying albums, thinking this will motivate me, but no such luck. I still have Connor's last year of high school all together waiting for me to get to ... it's been waiting for over 2 years now :(

12 of 12

I have been a 'member' of this group, 12 on 12 for a few years now, but have only participated a few times. Mostly due to the fact that I am not scrapbooking these days. The goal is to take 12 photos of your daily life on the 12th of each month and then scrapbook and journal about the day. Yesterday was the 12th, so I decided to join in. Not that I will ever get a scrapbook page made of these photos, but I do have a nice college.

 

7.12.09

- the all imporant morning coffee

- an hour power walk

- shower, dress

- church

- lunch on the ave

- Whole Foods Market

- few loads of laundry (never a day off)

- griff arrives home from a 4 day beach trip with a friend

- dinner

- homemade strawberry short cake (for those wondering -maggie ;) - no, I did not eat any, only plain berries)

- walk/play with pups

- read in bed

 

Just a nice, easy summer Sunday!

 

 

 

A Little Something I Made

Which just happens to be pink ;). I used the same paper as I did for the stationery box and made a birthday calendar book to record friends and families birthdays.  You can download the month pages here and see the project tutoral here. I changed mine a bit, no stamping involved and I didn't include the envelopes to hold stamps, etc.  I also took mine to Kinkos to have a spiral binding added instead of  using rings as shown.

  

 

 

I ALMOST did it

.... scrapbooking, that is! Most of you scrapping friends know that I haven't really scrapbooked in years but once in a while I do get the urge to scrap again, or at least the urge to do something creative.  I didn't quite get there this time, but I did put together this little album for my god daughter of our Christmas celebration. Not that it would be called scrapbooking, but I did mount the photos and added a title and ending page  - maybe it's a start ;)

   

  

A few of the pages and I added in lots of photos of Baxter & Murphy since she loves them so much

                                  

Wrapped up ...

Monday, Monday (and a BOOK GIVE AWAY)

• I have absolutely NO photos of 4th of July, but then again, we really didn't do much. Dan & Griff played golf earlier in the day and we had rain storms in the early evening, so we decided against going to the club for the pool bbq. The fireworks were still on though, so Dan & Griff rode the Vespa over to watch (no room for me on it, so I stayed home!). Actually, I chose to not go (I was ready for reading in bed!) but, I did see a bit of the fireworks from our front driveway.

A few layouts of Griff on 4th of July a few years back ...

• Today, I had the carpet cleaners come to clean all the upstairs bedrooms - always a load of fun :(. Bax and Murph were mad at me since I had to keep them both downstairs, back in the media room, out of the way. Sad pups ...

• Went to the gym again TWO TIMES today. This morning, I did cardio (elliptical) and weights and back again this evening for pilates. Since I have been doing pilates 3-5 times a week now for the past month or so, I am starting to feel the results. Guess this is what is takes to stay in shape at my age - working out two times a day - jeez!!

• AND ... I must mention this book, Year of Fog. This book was sooo suspenseful, so riveting and beautifully written. A great summer read. I do not want to spoil it, so that is all I am saying! If you would like a chance to win this book, post a comment here and I will draw a winner on Friday, July 11.

*** ETA: The reviews on Amazon are very mixed. Many readers did not like this book at all! Although, I did enjoy reading this book - very compelling hard to put down, I do have a few 'issues' with the ending and one of the characters. Still - I give it 4 stars!!

What Ever Happened to ...

Melissa Caligiuri? LOL, Connor was googling his name the other day at work (must have been checking to see if he is mentioned in the big corporate world with his new internship!) and came across this post. He emailed it to me saying, 'you better get scrapping again!'

I have to admit, it's nice to know someone misses me ;)

* Link fixed!