Rainy Day Creative

Someone said I should start blogging again.

2011-06-03T15:09:00.002-04:00

And I kind of agreed!

Since I don't feel like moving to another blog again, I'll continue using this one... even though it WAS mainly my scrapbooking one. I do have another blog for my shop, but I'm not sure if I should use that for personal stuff or not.

So, where to start? Let me start by filling you on on practically an entire year. I know that's impossible... I think instead I'll just give you a quick list of what's happened and what's current:

1. My kids grew bigger and unfortunately, louder. :)
2. I practically stopped scrapbooking except for a few digital projects.
3. I am having a BLAST with the Etsy shop I run with my mom, Snookums & Me.
4. We live in the same town and are rapidly outgrowing our little town house.
5. I am focusing more on making and maintaining friendships.
6. In my free time I am sewing, working on embroidery, or drawing designs.
7. My husband has decided scruffy beards are cool.
8. I am waiting to send my 5 year old son to Kindergarten. So, I'll be doing preschool at home this year.
9. I love Yoga!
10. I lived without cable TV for more than a year. We recently got it back. Now I'm religiously watching the Casey Anthony trial on TruTV.
11. My new favorite food is Jasmine rice with a sprinkle of soy sauce.
12. I finally tried sushi (real raw fish stuff) and love it!
13. I will turn 31 in less than 2 weeks. YIKES!
14. My daughter is refusing to nap right now. I hear a little voice saying "Mommy Mommy Mommy" repeatedly right now.
15. My grandfather died in September, 2010. It was very upsetting for me.
16. I recently bought a huge stack of paper and paint to start illustrating again.
17. I am trying to lose weight!
18. My husband and I have decided to set aside 2 Fridays per month for a date night. It's been great for our marriage.
19. I make treasuries on Etsy and really enjoy it!
20. Since I last blogged I've made huge improvements to my photography.
21. The Local Scrapbooking Store in my city closed down 6 months ago. It was sad.
22. Our scrapbooking small group that meets at church is meeting for the last time tonight!
23. I'm thinking scrapbooking has seen better days.
24. My son is 4 (5 in a few days!) and my daughter is 2.5
25. The end!

:) I'm drinking a big cup of coffee that was sitting in the coffee pot from this morning (is that nasty?). I made 10 cups and only drank one before rushing out the door. Gosh, I hate to see good coffee go to waste. Even if it is a bit stale. LOL.

By the way, I think my daughter is sleeping now! Yay!

OK... better go. I've got to update my Snookums & Me blog and my shop before naptime is over! Glad to be back!!!

-Brook

I like to coupon! Coupon is nice!

2010-04-16T20:55:00.003-04:00

:)

Well, I have a new little hobby thanks to my friend Virginia and the mysterious Haitian man who I recently witnessed at Publix buying 40 tubes of toothpaste and paying a mere $4. I am forever changed.

Let me tell you the plain truth. I chuckled in a clenched-teeth kind of way at the couponing "creeps" who would take ages to check out of the grocery store because of their stack of coupons. I would invariably end up behind one and was always shocked at how much food they were buying. 15 cans of corn. Seriously? 12 boxes of Eggos. Say what? 6 bottles of laundry detergent. WHY SO DIRTY?

One day, out of the blue, I decided that, hey, I'm spending way too much cheddar* on groceries! This can't continue! Precious money that I could be using on scrapbook supplies and college savings for the kids was going into picnic roasts and delectable white powdered mini doughnuts. So, I thought back to the toothpaste guy and actually considered it might be a good idea. I happened to talk to Virginia about it and she made it easy enough to understand. I still had questions but friends on Facebook led me to websites that could help. One thing led to another and I have started couponing!

To sum it up:
1. Collect coupons from all different sources.
2. Start with one store (I like Publix) and look up their weekly ad for specials
3. Take advantage of Buy-One Get-One Free offers (BOGO or B1G1)
4. Plan your shopping list NOT on what you need now, but what is on sale that you WILL need.
5. Stock up on those items on sale (that you use... don't just start buying everything just because it's a good deal) by figuring out how much to buy (how much your family will consume) within the 4-6 week cycle (a cycle is the time until the item will be on sale again)
6. Use manufacturer coupons & store coupons to combine with in-store offers to get the most savings (you can use 1 manuf coupon & 1 store coupon PER item).
7. FOR ME: the key was changing my mind about how I shop. I buy what is on sale and resist buying something because I know eventually it will be on sale. I also plan my meals for the week around the meat & fresh produce on sale that week. :)

I learned most of this from Southern Savers where I scope out the weekly Publix ad and print online coupons. I'm just starting, but last week I saved about $84 on my grocery bill. This week I saved $113!

Anyways, pretty cool, huh? I am now that ANNOYING person in front of you at the grocery store with multiples of every item and a big fat stack of coupons. :) And I like it. :)

*cheddar= Urban slang term for money. LOL. I just had to use it.

Farewells & New horizons...

2010-03-23T15:39:00.006-04:00

Hey! I'm back! :) Boy, I've got lots to catch up on...

Snookums & Me, my little Etsy shop, is going well! Three sales in the first month... which I've heard is good for a new seller with 0 Feedback. Sales are always nice, but regardless of how many I'm thrilled with how it's coming along. Mom and I are making some really cute stuff! We have bunnies, robots, blankies, cards, and pre-made scrapbook pages so far... more to come.

Check out our Snookums & Me blog to read more about that part of my life: http://www.snookumsandme.blogspot.com/

My kids! They are growing soooo big. And beautiful, if I don't say so myself. ;) I am enjoying Grace so much at this age. 13 months is FUN! I love it how she's talkative and full of adventurous spirit. The girl has guts! She doesn't let anything slow her down. I can't wait to see what type of person she becomes and more and more of her personality comes out. So far it's looking like we'd better watch out! She'll be bungee jumping from the roof before we know it. LOL. Benjamin is at a more difficult age. He is acting like a boy now... no more baby. The baby is melting away from him every day... it's actually hard for me to see him change so much. He has his OWN ideas about things, for example: I should wear my hair in a ponytail and wear glasses - not contact lenses! The hard part of this is the daily tantrums, arguments, and stalling. They are wearing me thin. I pray for patience every day. :)

Gracie:

Ben:

Ok, is this not the sweetest photo ever? My kids! I caught them in my rear view mirror holding hands and grabbed my camera while swerving to avoid on-coming traffic (just kidding). Then, I turned around and held the steering wheel with my knee (just kidding) and took a few shots. Of course I had to adjust the ISO and bracket the shot just to make sure it came out OK (kidding!!!). But seriously, I probably shouldn't be doing photography whilst driving. Please do not judge. I mean, I couldn't let this moment go un-captured. :)

Another thing that I'm having a tough time with is this blog: BROOKS CRAPS. LOL. It's not really Brook's Craps. It's Brook Scraps. Seriously. Why did I not think about that? And why did I choose such a name to make me feel like all that belongs on this blog is my scrapbooking stuff? A change is in motion. I need a new blog, one that encompasses everything I do and my everyday life. I'm thinking of letting this one go dormant and heading back to my old Dilly Girl blog. I'll keep you posted.

Finally, I've stepped down from the Mosh Posh Design Team. :( BIG bummer. This was a not-so-easy choice for me, trust me. I have been thinking about it for months as my life just gets busier and busier. I've had less time to devote to using the kits to their fullest extent, and blogging on the blog like I should. I knew it was time.

My family has been urging me for some time to start my OWN business or use my time more wisely... and I mostly have disagreed with them because I LOVED being on the Design Team. Getting free kits and being able to create with them monthly was such a reward and honor. I truly enjoyed the challenge, the community, and the creativity. But, I did eventually feel like my time to enjoy working with the kits was getting less and less as the months passed. So, in order to allow for someone with more time and ability than myself, I stepped down. :( The March 2010 kit was my last one. I loved it so much... here's what I did with it:

So, if you're reading along with me, give me a shout in the comments! I know my readership is low because I'm so infrequent... but I'd really love to hear what you think and get to know everyone. :) Hi!

Yes, hi! It's me again...

2010-02-20T16:08:00.006-05:00

First and foremost... a new post can be found HERE on my Snookums & Me blog.

And, secondly... pictures...

Me and my hubby. This was a stretch your arm out kind of shot. :) Love those.

My girly-girl, Gracie. She is more than happy to accessorize her outfits. LOL.

Ben was so thrilled to meet the Strawberry-guy at the Strawberry Country Fair. He loves characters. And he is one, too! :)

Ben rides a bike now!!!! He has never been interested in even attempting to ride his trike... until the other day. So, we went straight out an buy him a bike. Now he begs to ride it.

So! Hi!!!! Where have I beeeen? Oh so busy. Although, it's all relative. Busy for me may not be busy for you... but I promise. I am busy for me.

You know, I've come to the realization that I have a small plate. Like, a dessert plate or a tea cup saucer. People say: "my plate is full" or "I can't, I have a full plate"... well, my plate fills up faster than the average person, I think. I'm not one of those people that can work 9-5, cook dinner, sign the kids up for 3 activities a week, be on 4 scrapbooking design teams, volunteer at church, go out with my girlfriends 2 nights a week, travel on the weekends, sew my own clothes, bake gingerbread houses from scratch, get my hair and nails done regularly, go to the gym everyday, tweet 10 times a day, and keep my husband a happy man. LOL. For me, it's like... do ONE big thing a day maybe two. That's IT. Otherwise I am so stressed that I can't do anything well. *sigh* I wish I was different sometimes. I wish I could be one of the busy people that seem to accomplish so much with their time. But, I have come to terms with who I am. I am the turtle, not the hare. But the turtle does win the race in the end, right. ;)

Things have been good in my little small plate world. :D The kids are growing up, the weather has been beautiful (but slightly too cold for my taste), I am making some changes in my life, and most importantly... I have an 85 minute massage scheduled for Tuesday. YeSSSS!!! Oh, and a few weeks ago at the zoo I got up close with a resting Peacock. Have you ever seen one up close? They are simply breathtaking...

Also... I had to resign from the Mosh Posh Design Team earlier this week. Man, that was soooo tough to do!!! Now that it's been a few days it hurts even more because I love that kit club. Kristen (the owner) has become a friend, the new Design Team girls I am working with are amazingly talented, and the kits keep me so inspired. I just couldn't devote the time to it anymore. You know, the whole plate thing. The March kit will be my last one. :(

I do have some exciting news for you, though! I will be offering pre-made scrapbook pages in our Etsy shop, Snookums & Me. So, if you follow my blog but you're not a scrapbooker yourself... you can buy my work and insert your own photos. How cool is that? :) I will also be offering cards and mini albums. The shop opens on Monday, February 22nd. Mark your calendars!

So, that's my lil update for you! Have a great weekend!
-Brook

Adventures in Etsy-land!

2010-01-30T16:03:00.004-05:00

So... have you ever heard of Etsy? Most of you probably have, and if you haven't... WOAH! Go check it out. :) It's basically an online marketplace for supplies and handmade things. Jewelry, sculptures, pillows, blankets, scrapbooking embellishments, albums, cards, clothes, stuffed animals, dolls, art, toys. Almost anything you can think of! And it's all special because it's made from people just like you and me, not mass-produced. I love that!

I love the concept so much that I've been mulling it over for almost a year now. I am passionate about creating things, and I love the idea that my passion can be shared with others while simultaneously helping to contribute to my family finances! From home! Doing what I enjoy.

My mother is a crafty genius. She works in the realm of cloth, mostly. She sews like crazy and collects fabric like it's in short supply. :) When I gave birth to my son, Benjamin, mom found a new niche for her hobby: making baby things. She made Ben little lovey blankets, stuffed toys, and blankets galore. One day, for Ben's 2nd birthday, mom surprised him with a one-of-a-kind stuffed robot toy. That's where it all started. Mom and I sat down several times and drafted up a cast of robot characters. The robots made us think about starting a shop of our own, together.

I love scrapbooking (have you noticed?) but I also paint, draw, and design. And sewing is something I do decently. ;) Between my talents and mom's, our little shop will be stocked with a variety of delightful things for both mom (or any woman) & kids. We're having a BLAST putting this together! Check it out:

SNOOKUMS & ME

Our Snookums & Me blog will continue to be updated with more sneaks of our shop offerings, plus some giveaways! :) Fun stuff!

Well, I better get back to my creative work. Hope you all are having an awesome weekend!
-Brook

Creative in January!

2010-01-25T16:24:00.009-05:00

Hey Everyone!

Once again I'm here just to post about my layouts from the Mosh Posh scrapbooking kit club. :) The January kit certainly did inspire my creativity. See the yummy (sold-out!) kit below:

Here are my pages:

This one is of my cutie-pie, Gracie. The stunning photo was taken by my friend and photographer, Dawn Yap: YAP ORIGINALS. I loved the pic so much that I enlarged it to an 8x10 to make it the centerpiece of the layout. Then, those cute little chipboard frames fit perfectly in the grassy area of the photo. I "hung" them there (they're actually glued in place) and framed hand-cut hearts & my journaling inside of them. I also did some machine sewing around the paper and photo... I think it finishes it off nicely without too much fuss.

This page... oh, this page gave me trouble! You know how it is sometimes? A layout just fights you the whole way... well, this one just didn't come together quite like I envisioned it. I tore it apart (very carefully) multiple times. I even changed the photo to a completely different one. It still isn't quite right. But that's how it goes sometimes. LOL! Anyways, this page is about me when I was a baby. The title it "Cozy with my Cup" but I would have liked it to be "getting Cozy with my Cup". ;) So... here it is...
For a tutorial on how to make your own Cupcake Liner Paper Flower, visit my post on the Mosh Posh Blog here: CLICK HERE.

The pictures on this layout were also taken by Dawn Yap. Isn't she talented? :) This layout is about how my son Ben is a cherished member of our family. There is so much more to this layout than I could even write in the space I had for journaling. He is such an amazing little boy!

I love my old vintage-y baby photos. I especially love looking at them and seeing the kind of life I had as a child. What my mom dressed me in, the places we went, what I looked like, etc. etc. I have always been a HUGE fan of photos... it kind of explains why this is my hobby. So, due to my love for my old baby photos, I try to make a point to scrap them whenever I find papers that match. These papers were perfect with the green blanket I'm laying on, but not too matchy-matchy. I used some green ink (martha stewart) to ink the edges of each punched (fiskars) scalloped square. Then I used the lines of the photo to create a quilt-like design. Some squares hold something delightful inside, some are plain, and 3 of them hold the initals of my name.

Finally, I created a banner to hang above Grace's crib. It says "Grace". ;) I've never made a banner before, it was super fun. I even incorporated some fabric into the triangles. I happened to have some cream terry cloth also, the terry is the background for "r" and "c". :) Fun stuff!

Well, thanks for checking out my blog! :)
-Brook

Merry post-Christmas!

2009-12-27T14:22:00.004-05:00

Hey everyone! How was your Christmas? Mine was wonderful!!!

This year, it was so great to see my 3 1/2 year old son, Benjamin, getting excited for Christmas. He was blown away on Christmas morning that Santa had ACTUALLY come to our house, ate the cookies & milk, fed rudolph the carrot, and left him presents. Presents he had asked him for! Amazing! :) By the way, this year I decided that Santa should only bring one or two gifts per kid (the rest of the gifts I get to take credit for... is that selfish?), and that the gifts he brings them should be un-wrapped (and out of the package) beneath the tree. After all, he carries them in his sack and brings them straight from the North Pole where the elves make them, right? :) It's also nice to have a few toys already out for them to play with immediately. It gave Aaron and I a little time to wake up and brew a BIG pot of coffee.

Actually, I was very awake by the time we started unwrapping gifts. I was the first one out of bed on Christmas morning... about quarter to 6 or so I woke up and couldn't fall back to sleep. I sat down here on the couch in the dark with the Christmas tree as my only source of light. It was very peaceful for me to think about the meaning of the holiday in the glow of the multicolored lights. It's easy to get caught up in the presents and pretend characters and forget about the birth of a Savior. The BIG reason for why we even celebrate to begin with. :) That's why I love the Christmas Eve service at my church. Every year the service ends with us all singing "Silent Night" in the dim light while holding flickering candles. The last verse we lift up our candles and our voices fill the church in praise. Mmm. It's heart warming. It's beautiful. And it's the exact reminder I need that Christmas is a simple holiday with a HUGE meaning. Not the opposite.

I realize I haven't yet shared the pages I made with the December kit from Mosh Posh! Here they are:

My mom and I are busy working on our Etsy shop. It's been in the works for a looong time. We hit a few road bumps along the way, my house flooded, the holidays approaching, busy stuff, etc. But now I have a renewed energy and I'm very excited about it. Here is a taste of the awesomeness to come: Stuffed ROBOT toys, dollies, babies, lovey blankies, bags for mommy, scrapbook albums, completed scrapbook pages (ready for your photos), cards, art, paintings, etc. A complete creative boutique for baby and mom. :) I'm psyched!!! Stay tuned for more about that!

Anyways, better go. The in-laws are in town and I have to take a trip to the grocery store to make one of my favorite meals, chicken white bean chili with corn bread and salad. Yum. :)

All about cards...

2009-12-04T09:04:00.006-05:00

The challenge at Mosh Posh this month is a card making one. I am not highly fond of making cards... mostly because I hardly ever send them to anyone. Gosh, that makes me sound SO cold and unfriendly!!! LOL. But, seriously, whenever I think of making a card I stop myself because I always feel like it's a waste of my cardstock and embellishments. And I never have envelopes to send them in, either! I hate taking so much time and putting in so much effort on a silly little card. Especially when I can buy a beautiful one from Hallmark for a couple dollars.

:)

I'm chuckling to myself over here because I am making a case for NOT making cards! Aren't I encouraging? Isn't this a great scrapbooking blog!?! Hahahahaha...

So, it get's better, I promise. :) I sort of had a change of heart about making cards. I went out and bought a pack of plain white envelopes from Target (or was it Michaels?) and I kept my card designs simple. Actually, making cards is a GREAT way to use up odd embellishments and scraps of paper you have left over after making layouts. See? I'm OK with making cards now. Especially after this batch of 3 holiday cards was completed and I felt so proud! Proud of a card! Who knew?

This month, the Mosh Posh December kit is bursting with fun goodies to play with. Especially if you grab the add-on, too. I just grabbed some ribbon and buttons from my own stash... oh yeah, glitter stickles too.

Here are the cards:

Now, if you're anything like me and you have NO idea how to go about making a card start by cutting a sheet of cardstock to 12x9 inches. Then cut it into two 9x6 sheets. Fold those in half with the non-textured surface on the inside (to write on). This size card is easy to find envelopes for. OR if you're super ambitious, make your own envelope from lightweight patterned paper, too: MAKE AN ENVELOPE.

Do you make cards? Have any to share??? Post a link in the comments. I'd love to see your work and get more ideas now that I'm an official "card maker".

TGIF!!!

Better Late than Never...

2009-11-19T16:41:00.003-05:00

:)

I'm late for the second week of the Mosh Posh blog hop. Sorry to confuse all of you visitors! My life has been CRAZY lately. We just moved back into our house after being away for 3 months due to flood damage. We are all (not) adjusting to being in our old routine, and our formerly familiar beds. My kids are (not) doing well sleeping in their room together after being in separate rooms for 3 months. And once again they are sick... or should I say they are STILL sick? Their ear infections weren't wiped our by the first antibiotic, so we're trying another one. I am tired-er than I've ever been but at the same time I'm thrilled at the improvements to our house. Once we are healthy and rested I think I will enjoy it even more.

Anyways, enough about my personal life! LOL!

About scrapbooking... do you love taking pictures, but when it comes time to edit them you are completely clueless about how to make them look professional? My all-time favorite quick tool is Photoshop Actions. Here is a link to the actions I use the most by Pioneer Woman: HERE and HERE. They are FREE and easy to use. My favorites are PW's B&W, BW beauty, and Fresh & Colorful. Such a quick and easy way to make your photos look like a million bucks. I use them on almost all of the photos I take when I don't have time to tweak them myself.

And just to quickly share a few ideas from my November layouts:

Cardstock is your friend!!! If you have some blank, un-used space that's screaming for some attention, grab some scraps of cardstock. A simple band of coordinating solid color can nicely fill an empty space without drawing attention away from the part of the layout you want to enjoy. Easy backstitching along the seam gives it polish without too much fuss. This vertical strip of brown cardstock completes the layout better than patterned paper, more photos, or embellishments would have and it took very little effort.

Use lists to tell the story! Not feeling like writing a paragraph of journaling every time you make a page? Try using lists to communicate your message when you don't have loads of space on your layout. Or use a list of key memories about the person, place, or thing you're scrapping about when it's becoming a challenge to write about them in a few sentences.

Can't choose one photo? Use them all!!! I had so many CUTE photos of my son during this single photo shoot that I had such a hard time choosing one or two of them for a page. I decided to use them all. To give multiple photo layouts the strength and impact of a single photo layout, try cropping them into a uniform shape and grouping them together in an organized way. Making them all black and white also helps give the group of them additional uniformity. Try using one of those B&W photo actions to make them even more stunning.

Well, thanks for dropping by! Sorry I am so discombobulated today! :)

Anyone who leaves a comment before 12 noon EST tomorrow will be entered into a drawing to get a goody from me. Hmmm... I'm thinking a package of chipboard Thickers sounds nice. :)

Congrats, Abbie!

2009-11-13T13:44:00.001-05:00

abbie said...

So stinkin' cute Brook! You have such great ideas :)

November 12, 2009 7:11 PM

Abbie was chosen by Random.org as the winner of my pumpkin RAK. Abbie, please email me at magee3 (at) gmail (dot) com with your address. Congrats!!!

Peter Piper Practices Paper Pumpkin Painting...

2009-11-12T10:16:00.000-05:00

Hey! Happy Thursday!!! Welcome to all of my guests from the Mosh Posh blog! Thanks for hopping over! :)

The November kit came with a fun little pumpkin shaped chipboard album by Maya Road. As soon as I saw it my mind started churning up ideas for how to use it. Make an album? Nah. Make a banner? Not this time. Attach dowels and make pumpkin decorations? Nope. Dip them in glitter and Hang them from my ears? Great idea, but nope. Smear them with icing and try to eat them? Definitely not.

What did I decide to do with them? (I know what you're probably saying: Get To The Point Already, Woman) :) Ok... I will!!! :)

Well, as a mommy who doesn't embrace dressing up in a halloween costume, I thought it would be fun to make pumpkin necklaces for the grown-ups (and kids) to wear. Something to add the festivity without the polyester witch hat or cakey face paint. Perfect!

Because painting is a hobby of mine, I pulled out my stash of paints and got to work creating folk-art style faces on each one. If painting is not your hobby, it would also work to paint the pumpkin a solid shade of orange (or use any solid or semi-solid patterned paper) and then just draw a simple jack-o-lantern face with a black felt-tip pen. If drawing is not your hobby, you can use punches to make your face. A circle cut in half for the mouth (you can even cut out notches for his teeth) and triangles for the nose and eyes.

Once I finished painting the faces on my pumpkins I traced the shape onto my Cosmo Cricket Nutmeg papers and cut them out. I covered the back of each pumpkin with a different patterned paper and cut out a stem from the brown wood-grain paper. To finish it off simply, I added a name on the back with my Basic Grey sticker alphas. Each necklace has the wearers name on the back. Then I cut some sheer ribbon and looped it through the hole in the top of the stem to make a necklace.

For children venturing out into trick-or-treating without parents or a large group, it might even be helpful to include their phone number or address just in case of an emergency. Just an idea. ;) FYI: Because the info is on the back side, it's not displayed for everyone to see.

So, now my family has matching pumpkin necklaces to wear every year!

Leave me a comment by 12 pm EST tomorrow and I'll enter you into a drawing to win one of my painted pumpkins (seen below in the nest). The back is still blank for you to decorate however you wish. :)

Thanks for visiting my blog today!!!

Now, don't forget to hop on to my fellow Design Team members blogs:

Estee
Frances
Jenny

Scrappy Happy

2009-11-04T10:39:00.000-05:00

Despite my heactic and busy life lately, I've squeezed in just enough time to get some scrapbooking done. I'm extremely grateful for my Mosh Posh kits because they make it so much easier to scrapbook... none of the searching for coordinated supplies and cardstock. I love it that I can just grab my kit and just start scrapping. Anyways, here are some of my recent pages for the Mosh Posh Design Team:

September:
I just love this picture of Gracie! That little blue dress was one of my favorite things to put on her. The adorable flower buttons went perfectly with the Sassafras embellishments.

This is my husband Aaron when he was a baby. I had him help me do the journaling. His mom called him "Boo" and that's where the title of the page came from. The yellow/green color combo ended up looking very 70's, so it worked with the vintage baby photo.

This page is about how my mom and Gracie look very much alike. And how I look a lot like my mom as well. I didn't have any real journaling to go with these photos, but I wanted to scrap them so I just thought of something to say about the connection between Grace and her grandma.

I hand cut and layered these white flowers using the patterned papers in the kit. The yellow trim was something I purchased a yard of at Jo-Ann Fabrics months ago.

This is a panoramic photo of the backside of the beach house where we stayed for a week in August. I took 7 or 8 photos of the house and then I digitally stitched them together in photoshop to create this large image. Photoshop is amazing!!! Don't you just love the looming thunderstorm in the sky? Every afternoon at about 4 pm it rained like crazy. That's August in Florida for you.

Grace is a huge fan of baths. They make her intensely happy like nothing else! She especially loved taking her bath in the deep sink at the beach house. Her expression in this photo makes me smile every time I see it.

October:
The skies at Fort Myers beach were so beautiful... especially at the end of the day. I was pleased with how this photo turned out. My favorite thing about it is the little silhouettes of Aaron and Ben at the water's edge.

This was one of those random photos I took back when Ben was a baby. It's been just sitting in my box of photos waiting for the perfect papers to match it. The primary colors in this kit were just right. I used up some of the black chipboard numbers as a border on the top of the page. There's always numbers on every sheet of Thickers and I rarely use them... this is a great way to put them to use.

I took soooo many photos of the kids with their Great-Grandma Helen! None of them turned out "perfect" so I chose the best 3 for this page. These flowers were circle-shaped and I cut notches into them to make them look more interesting.

The green glittered chipboard draws attention to the green beer bottle in the photo. :) My brother is the star of this page, though. It's funny for me to do a page about him drinking beer, but hey! That's life.

Aaron is almost worse than Ben when it comes to making goofy faces for the camera. Ben is learning from him... it's too cute to see that he's looking over at his dad to see his face. I enlisted Ben's help with the journaling which explains how random it is! LOL.

Sometimes I get the itch to do paper piecing! Crazy me! I just draw (in pencil) the shape of character on the back side of the paper and cut it out. For this page I created a blocked layout and did a different design in each block.

November:
This is a rare two-pager from me. Click it to see it larger. I was feeling the urge to do a super clean layout. Two-page layouts are great if you have a long title or lots of journaling. This month I printed my journaling with my photos at Costco. Once again, the magic of photoshop. :)

Aw! She is growing up way too fast! She can already wear a hair clip!!! Journaling in list form like this is a great way to say a lot in a little space. Also, inking the edges of the papers with Cats Eye chalk inks gives the page a more polished feel.

I sort of embraced cardstock this month. I like the way it gives the eye somewhere to rest and I think it draws attention back to the wonderful photos.

Well, that's all for now. I am working on more pages with the November kit. I didn't get as much accomplished this month because of the kids getting so sick. Stay tuned... I will update again with more layouts. :) Happy Wednesday!

PS:
There's a kit giveaway on the Mosh Posh Blog. Just comment and be entered for a chance to win the beautiful November kit, Caramel Apple. The winner will be selected on Nov. 20th, so you have a few weeks. :)

Also, how cool is this: my scrapbook pages are on the Cosmo Cricket Blog!!!!

Where have I been?

2009-11-03T10:45:00.000-05:00

The answer to that is...

whew. It's kind of a loooong answer. :) Last time I posted I was telling the sad tale of a flooding at my house. Well, two weeks later I got in a car accident in my *new* car. The car had extensive damage (I was broadsided) and I was given a rental. It was all very very complicated by the fact that the guy who hit me avoided contact by the insurance companies for close to 3 weeks. When he finally gave his statement I was deemed "claimant" and they could begin the work on my car. That was in September and I still haven't gotten my car back.

We have been living at my parents house. They have been so generous to let us stay in their spare room and my brother's bedroom. My brother has been sleeping on the pull out couch this whole time. He is not so thrilled that we are still here. I can't blame him! My kids have been sick at least half of the time we've been here! The worst was on Friday. They both came down with flu-like symptoms which I discovered yesterday (in a visit to the Ped) are probably caused by their double ear infections and throat infections. Poor babies!!!

So, my life is turned upside down right now. You know, being away from home with sick kids and two insurance (home & car) situations. Our house is nearly ready for us to move back in. The kitchen is installed, the baseboards are in, and we removed the popcorn ceiling and painted. The carpeting was replaced with tile laid on the diagonal. It looks incredible! We're just waiting on our counter top installation so we can have a plumber come by and hook up the sink and dishwasher.

Here's a few pictures of our life these past few months:
Gracie loves the swings... especially when Ben is the one pushing her!

This is the newly painted & tiled livingroom looking into the dining area. The paint in the living room is Benjamin Moore Edgecomb Gray and the paint in the dining room is Benjamin Moore Silver Fox.

Dining Room/Kitchen. I am in love with the new cabinets!!! I wanted white cabinets at first and was a little nervous about the cognac cherry color, but I'm glad I listened to Aaron. They are so warm and beautiful.

Benjamin is really into basketball lately! I think we will enroll him in B-ball for ages 3 and up at the local YMCA.

Grace has grown soooo big. She crawls like crazy, eats finger foods, and even can say "duck".

At the pumpkin patch. Good thing we went and Ben got to dress up in his tiger costume because he was so sick on Halloween and didn't get to Trick or Treat.

He was the cutest tiger! He was in character the entire time the costume was on.

Here's Jack! Aaron and I designed a few options for his face on a sheet of paper and let Ben pick. He picked this face. It's the first time we carved a pumpkin with Ben... he hated the pumkin "guts" removal. LOL. I think it disturbed him! :)

In other news, I've still been scrapbooking for Mosh Posh. I am really loving the kits Kristen has been putting together the past few months! It's been tough to find the time, but it's always a great mental break to just sit in front of all the supplies and get crafty. It takes my mind off of all the stress going on in my life.

Here is the Mosh Posh November kit & add-on:

Oh man, this kit is delish! I love love love the colors. Those Cosmo Cricket papers are so fun and playful. I actually love the back side of them more than the patterned side, though. Each paper has a different faux wood grain in a different color. We posted our layouts to the gallery last night. Here's a link: Design Team Gallery, take a look. :) More stuff will be posted by Frances and Estee... and our Guest Designer Linda Albrecht. :)

Anyways, gotta feed the kids some lunch. I'll post some of my recent scrapbook pages in a day or two. :)

Duuuuude...

2009-09-02T14:13:00.000-04:00

My house is flooded! Yes. It's true. :(

We stepped into a puddle when we arrived home from our one week vacation to a wonderful beach house. Our NEW hot water heater, which is located under our stairs inside the house, malfunctioned and started leaking... probably the moment we locked the door and left! The carpet in the living room was slick with bacteria, the house was as humid as a bog, and the tile was a giant puddle. To say the least, there was a lot of damage. We are living with my parents right now until the house is fixed... which (shhh, don't tell them) could be more than a month.

I am so out of whack right now it's not even funny. I was looking forward to getting home from vacation and falling into our old comfortable routine again. Getting the kids to sleep in their room (all thru the night) and snuggling into my very own bed again. I was planning on getting lots of work done with scrapbooking projects for my upcoming etsy store, and cleaning up the mess I left when we were desperately trying to pack for vacation. Well, none of that is happening.

My friend had something similar just happen to her and I love how she described it. She said she felt frozen. That's exactly how I feel! There's just SO much to be done that I don't even know where or how to start. I am still in shock that my whole house smells like a sewer and that we have to go through the process of hauling everything out, ripping everything up, and starting all over again. It's exhausting just thinking about it.

I am sooo thankful that I have my parents living 15 minutes from my house. The kids just love them, and mom is more than happy to help me with them so I can go get paint chips, search for tile, and schedule repairs. My brother is not so psyched that we've taken over his bedroom, though. And I get cranky at night when I can't just sit in a comfortable spot and watch what I want to on the TV.

I used to live here, this used to be my home. It's so crazy to me how it doesn't feel like home anymore. I really can't wait to have my home back. Hopefully it will all go smoothly and within budget!

Anyways, on a more exciting note (hey, that shouldn't be hard)... Mosh Posh just gave their website a brand new look and the September kit was just posted yesterday:

Nice, isn't it???? I am a huge fan of Sassafras Lass and it seems like Kristen is too because she keeps giving it to us! The Sweet Marmalade papers are so cheerful. Also some YUMMMY Lily Bee Designs paper & tulle flowers from the new Vintage Poppy collection. I'm super happy about the new Jenni Bowlin sticker alphas & borders, too. This kit is going to be a blast to play with. Maybe it will get me out of my funk?? I hope so!

So, stay tuned. I'll post some pics from the magical vacation... and the not-so-magical flooding. :) Later!

Change is good. So is chocolate...

2009-08-19T22:07:00.000-04:00

A change is coming in our house. Something that I love (probably a little too much) is leaving. It's a good thing for many reasons. So, what am I losing? Cable TV. :( Bye-bye cable! Adios DVR! Good-bye. I will miss you. Kiss kiss.

Let me tell you, it IS a good thing. Don't cry for me. It's OK! We're going to be saving a good wad of cash. And I will finally have more free time to do other, better, things. Things like crafting, reading, scrapbooking, journaling, and... well, sleeping. My TV habits are certainly not the worst I've heard of. I don't watch hours and hours of it a day, but at night it is my go-to activity. I stay up too late watching Forensic Files. Haha. :) I DVR my favorite shows and sometimes I watch 2 hours at night after the kids are in bed. In the fall I watch a lot of TV, more than I'm proud to admit. I get sucked in to shows I would honestly NEVER miss if I didn't watch a single episode. So, it will be a healthy change to not have so much TV watching going on. Anything I absolutely MUST see (like LOST) can be seen online the day after it is shown on air. Or, I can always pick up live shows on the major networks with a fancy schmansy antennae.

I know, I know. A lot of babble about TV. But it is soooo connected to my creativity. You might be seeing changes around here after Sept. 1st. I could very possibly be bored out of my mind and driven to blog like a mad woman. Wouldn't that be nice?

I have been thinking about this blog. I want to make it even better... focus it into something I intended it to be. I want to share my creative endeavors, all of them, not just my scrapbooking stuff. Ben and I do fun crafts all the time that I would love to share with you! Also, I love to bake and cook. It's a huge creative outlet for me! And I like do a special creative project around the house here or there. That's part of who I am as an artist and I want this blog to represent that, too.

My former blogs have always been about my day-to-day life, and just talking about the everyday mundane stuff like a conversation with a friend. I've been slowly archiving those old blog posts into a new one (The Dilly Diaries: Revisited) because I realized that I didn't want to let it go. I stopped that blog right after my son was born in 2006. And now that he's 3 and my baby is 6 months I'm feeling the itch to start my personal blog again. Forget "revisited"! I think I will start up with it again. Especially in the light of my TV free life starting in September. :)

We are heading out for our very first official family vacation to the beach. I am sooo excited. I'm going to take gobs of pics and probably be so overwhelmed by them that I never scrap them (kind of like Christmas photos, they are the hardest to get scrapped). Anyways, I won't be around for a week or so... but you are used to me being sporadic. LOL. :) Until then!

Bathing Suit Shopping and other horrors...

2009-08-04T08:49:00.000-04:00

Well, today is Tuesday and here I am sitting at the computer with my pathetic cup of coffee. I am drinking it without any enjoyment because we are completely out of cream or milk. I don't like black coffee. Gag. But I need the caffiene so I am sipping it anyways.

Also, today I am going bathing suit shopping. Gag. Thankfully, my mom is coming with me so I don't have to drag the kids into the fitting room 18 times. Gotta love mom! She's also GREAT at picking out clothes. I love having her opinion. It's just such a downer to shop for a bathing suit. I hate trying them on because it's so awkward to look at yourself in the mirror with the blaring lights, your underpants peeking out from the edges. LOL.

And is it just me or has the selection of decent bathing suits declined? Or is it just that I'm getting older and more modest?

Well, it's August! Can you believe it? I'd love to share my Mosh Posh scrapbook pages with you. I really really loved playing with these June Bug papers by Basic Grey. The colors are so saturated and they scream summer! It made me so happy to find photos that paired well with the colors because, to me, these papers even make my photos look more wonderful. In fact, I loved them so much that I hopped over to Two Peas In A Bucket and bought the whole June Bug collection. :)

So, here they are:

This one is about Grace at two months old. She was a difficult baby, but it was encouraging to see her personality and sweet smile. I Loved this patterned paper, but to make it shine even more I added stitching, Stickles glitter, and cut & folded it. Here's a close-up:

It was a little time-consuming, but well worth it. This page is even better in person. It sparkles just like my little Gracie.

It's too funny... when Ben was 18 months or so (I still have to look up the date of these photos) I taught him how to put his orange peels in his mouth and smile. From then on, everytime I gave the kid an orange he would do it and demand that his picture be taken. I have dozens of "orange smile" photos because they are soooo cute. I haven't scrapped it until now because I was looking for the right papers. Bright, cheery, with an orange to match. These were perfect. So were the ribbons I added from my own collection.

I'm not a card maker, but the August Inspiration Sketch by Jenny had a great scalloped rectangle with 6 squares in it and I immediately thought: card. What really makes this card work is the navy inking on the edges of the squares. I think it unifies them and gives it polish.

I love old photos! Especially when I can scan them and give them new life by correcting the damage and age. This photo is of my mom and her brother Eddie. They have the same birth date, so all of my moms old childhood photos of her birthday are always with Ed. I just LOVE it how my grandma made such frilly cakes and cupcakes. The colors in these photos are just yummy.

Ben loves his Comfortable Pants. He has 4 pairs of these plaid flannel pants, handed down from my Aunt and her 8 year old son Brandyn. Ben can't nap with out "comfortables" on. I thought it deserved a page of it's own! I will be sad when he grows out of them.

And lastly, this page about summer memories at my childhood home. The house number was 9871, so I used that as the title. The subtitle is smaller and up at the top, it says "summer memories". I am really into using BIG photos on my scrapbook pages lately. I printed this one out at 8x10 because there were so many details I wanted to see more clearly. When I scanned the original, I scanned it at 800 dpi so that I would be able to enlarge it without losing resolution. The result is a picture that brings me back to those times... my dad's Mazda GLC, the trees in my yard... that house is where I spent the majority of my childhood. Good times!

Anyways, I'd better get off the computer and get dressed! Wish me luck bathing suit shopping. I'm not having much luck with this black coffee, though, it's cold now. Better hit Starbucks!

Have a great Tuesday!

Every 3 hours...

2009-07-14T10:28:00.000-04:00

Imagine... you're in your soft warm bed, enveloped between your 300 thread count sheets with your face in that "sweet spot" on your pillow. You are just drifting into dreamland, a droplet of drool happily forming at the corner of your fully relaxed mouth. The crickets are chirping. The moon is pregnantly hovering over the roof of your quiet home. All baby monitors are silent. And miracles of all miracles, your husband is actually NOT snoring. You fall asleep...

... and then the baby wakes up.

Repeat every 3 hours. Seriously. My daughter is 6 months old. She SHOULD be sleeping much longer stretches than that. But, without fail, the past week this has been my nightmare. 10 minutes after I crawl into bed she is waking up. Then she wakes up two more times before morning. I feel like I have a newborn again! And it's really doing damage to my days because I feel sleep deprived and lazy. I just want to sit on the couch like a vegetable.

She is cutting her first tooth. It's got the smallest layer of skin over it... as thin as rice paper. I know it will break through if not today than definitely tomorrow!

So! Scrapping has been good lately. My Aunt and Gramma came down for a visit and I was busy with my Mosh Posh layouts and lots of sewing. We were so crafty! We found the cutest doll patterns on Etsy by Bit Of Whimsy. I made a baby doll for Grace and for a friend as a gift. I'll have to post pics of them soon.

Here are my pages for the Mosh Posh Design Team this month:

I love October Afternoon! I really enjoyed these papers because they are double sided with a colorful pattern on one side and a black & white one on the other side. It was very versatile. I also had tons of fun playing with the Maya Road chipboard bird mini album (which I took apart to use the birds as embellishments). I'm making a decorative mobile from the rest of the birds. I can't wait to see how that turns out!!! ;)

Anyways, I better go. I have errands to run today. Once the baby wakes up from her nap (lucky her) We'll have to be ready to go. :)

Feeling kinda snazzy!

2009-05-27T10:35:00.000-04:00

Tidy house. Clean sheets on my bed. Baby asleep in the swing. Toddler busy with Thomas the Train. Hot coffee beside me. New colorful clothes hanging in my closet. Visit planned with my friend this afternoon. Sun shining outside. Mosh Posh scrapbooking kit on my desk. Mmmm... it's a good day! What's making your day today? Anything to be thankful for? Some days I have to really dig to find that thing to be thankful for. Sometimes it's just that I brushed my teeth, for heaven's sake. Some days are like today. I'm in a positive mood and the birds are singing outside and I have rainbows shooting from my ears. Love that. Imagine my big smile:

So, today is another Mosh Posh blog party BLOG HOP! I had so many ideas, I tell you. So many rich plans which fell by the wayside when I got buried in a pile of laundry up to my ears last night. That kind of ruined my plans. This is what my face looked like last night as I was folding clothes:

I didn't do a stinking thing all weekend as far as chores are concerned. It was a holiday weekend! I was on strike! And yesterday I was paying for it with the numerous domestic tasks on my to-do list. So... I whipped something up for you. Something to make you feel like at least you got a nugget from my blog today.

I got the new June Mosh Posh kit yesterday. My trusty mail man came up to our gate in the drizzling rain. I saw his shoes under the fence before he even knocked! He's this happy old man with white hair and mustache. I call him my skinny Santa... although not to his face. But he gets a kick out of delivering my boxes to me because of my reaction. I can tell it makes him happy to be a mailman. I'm glad I can make him happy about that. He's probably wondering WHAT is in these boxes I get. Maybe someday I'll tell him. Although, that would probably ruin it for him. LOL!

So, I got my kit... and because I can't keep a secret, no way no how, I took some shots of it this morning to share with you. Please beware of electric shock as you drool onto your keyboard:

And because I like to give you something to make your visit worthwhile I leave you with this final facial expression.

What would you call this face? Snooty? Pompous? Spoiled? Gassy? Hmmm... I do love my QuickCam distortion photos. That's another thing I'm thankful for today! ;)

Man, do I love my kiddo...

2009-05-20T17:41:00.000-04:00

My son Ben is weeks away from his third birthday and as that date fast approaches he becomes more and more precocious. The kid says the most hysterical things. He's even arguing with me at great length several times a day... about nothing at all. When I ask (or tell) him to do something he usually replies with a 5 paragraph long dissertation about this and that instead of just saying "yes, Mommy". I would prefer the "yes, Mommy" but I completely understand where he got this lengthiness from. It's 100% me. It's one of my most annoying, and endearing, personality traits. My whole family calls me the lawyer. I really should have pursued law instead of art. I thrive on healthy debate and heated arguments. And I LOVE being right! I am right. Always. ;)

Anyways, today we had yet another of these moments where my child when told what to do tried desperately to come up with an argument. And instead of letting it annoy me I ran to a sheet of scrap paper and wrote it down. It went like this:

Me: "Oh, look, Benjamin! Gracie is awake!"
Ben: "I need to get down and see her now."
Me: "Nope. You need to finish your lunch first."
Ben: "UGH. I'm just... too thirsty for this. I just... can't eat any garbage! Or apples! Or nothin'!!!"
Me: ...writing...
Ben: *sigh* "My teeth can't chew any more of this food. I just can't. I'm finished."
Me: ...writing...
Ben: "I'm tired about this lunch! Because... this is a bad noodle today!!!" *sigh*

The funniest things about this is that A: he was pausing to wait for me to respond... which I usually do. B: he was not even eating noodles for lunch C: he continued this silly talk for 3 more minutes before he finally finished his lunch.

Well, yesterday I promised a downloadable version of my paper-pieced Birdie Family Pattern. Thanks so much for all the compliments on it! I really would love to see your layouts if any of you use the pattern. About the pattern: the image of it in yesterday's post is not printable... it will be super blurry if you try. So please download this version if you want to print it. Click here to download the printable file.

Now, since I haven't updated my blog in ages and ages, I figured I'd post my May Mosh Posh layouts today. Better late than never, right? I loved loved loved this kit. I gobbled it up. I really love the new Lily Bee papers and the Sassafras Lass papers combined.

The kit didn't come with any flower add-ons and I wanted MORE (I'm very into flowers lately), so I hand-cut my own flowers from the papers in the kit. With just a little folding and creasing it's hard to tell which are handmade and which are purchased. This is a great tip if you ever need a flower but don't have any that match. Just grab another flower and trace around it on the paper... then cut it out. I like to fold each petal in half and then curl the petals back with my fingers. For an extra dimension I sometimes ink the edges with my cats eye chalk inks.

So, those are my layouts for the May kit! Oh, and some news... my hubby bought me a Cricut on ebay for mother's day. I plan on trying it out for the first time sometime this weekend. It needs new mats. I'm definitely excited about it but also apprehensive because I've never used a die-cutting machine before. I hope I like it!

:)

Happy Blog Hop!

2009-05-19T08:08:00.000-04:00

Well, other than waking up twice with the baby last night and once to pee and then spilling my coffee all over myself this morning I'm doin' good. Surprisingly good! How are you this fine Tuesday?

I've been doing a little scrapbooking lately... and by a little I really mean "a little". It seems like I go through cycles. The gathering cycle and the consuming cycle... and right now I'm definitely gathering more and more and more supplies. They just pile up in their crinkly little cellophane wrappers, all shiny and new. I like to look at them and imagine what I would do with them. And then I go dig through my scraps and squeeze out one over-worked layout. I'm buying a lot more than I'm using! But I know that I'll end this phase (when my hubby stares and my piles and says no. or when I feel guilty about my self-indulgences) and then I'll start using it all up.

Speaking of pretty things to collect... have you SEEN all the cute baby & kids clothes out there? The influx of adorable mermaids, ice creams, robots, dinosaurs, fish, snails, frogs, and fruits is too much to resist! I am constantly inspired by the cutesy little characters embroidered or pieced onto them. Like this adorable little outfit my daughter wears (from Gymboree):

Which leads me to my next topic... paper piecing! Have you ever tried it? Officially? I was feeling particularly crafty the other day and designed a few birdies to put on the layout I was working on. Here's my layout:

Here's the pattern:

I have to run now, but I'll post the printable pattern for you all to download tomorrow!

Tootles!!! ;)

It's a Mosh Posh blog party!!!

2009-05-18T14:44:00.000-04:00

Want to win this awesome prize? Go to the Mosh Posh blog today! The party has started!!! Tomorrow we're having a blog hop, so be sure to come by and visit me for a scrapbooking freebie. CLICK HERE!

Mosh Posh May Specials!!!

2009-05-06T14:16:00.000-04:00

Lots of great things are going on at Mosh Posh this month, including some awesome deals on new memberships. If you purchase a new 6 month membership you get your choice of a free february or march kit.

Here's this month's kit:

The February kit:

and the March kit:

...how cool is it that you get one of these kits for free just for signing up???

You can also purchase a 3 month membership at the 6 month membership price.

Read about it on the Mosh Posh website.

** also we're having a contest to choose a guest DT member for the month of June. The contest runs until May 15th. You can read more about that here: Mosh Posh blog.

My December Mosh Posh Layouts...

2008-12-20T16:29:00.000-05:00

Well, I'm finally posting my December pages! And my January ones are already finished, too... I'm so behind. But I have a really good excuse. I'm SO VERY pregnant right now. Baby #2 is due to arrive in about 12 days. I am tired... exhausted to the bone, but I am getting awful sleep at night. And I'm having the craziest dreams, too!

We are ready for her to come!!! We've chosen the name now, but we're still not sharing until she's born. I love her name... it's beautiful. I'm sure it will fit her perfectly. :) It's been a great couple of weeks because I've had all this time to spend with Benjamin... just me & him. I realize that these are my last days of being a mommy to one, and that pretty soon he will have to share me. It makes me sad in a way, but I know he will be fine. I'm just so overly sentimental and emotional right now, it's kind of skewing my perspective on a lot of things. And causing me to write lots of Honey-Do lists for Aaron. Poor guy. :) LOL!

So, about these pages... I'm not usually one for Christmas things with pink, but this year I had to embrace it. The Dec. Mosh Posh kit forced me to make a real effort to do "pink-ish" Christmas pages. Turns out, I really love the combination of pink, red and green! I even did our card this year in those colors (remember, in my previous post). Anyways, so here are the pages I did with the kit. Sorry, the photos aren't the best... especially the first one. I had to adjust the levels in Photoshop to try to fix it. The sunlight wasn't the best.

I'm taking a 2 month (possibly 3) break from Mosh Posh to adjust to life with 2 kids. So, it will be a few months before I have any pages to share. I can't imagine I'll have much time for scrapbooking. But, I will be taking lots of photos, so I can share those.

Feeling Good...

2008-12-07T17:11:00.000-05:00

Yay! Our tree is up (still no star yet, though!)... it's really feeling like Christmas in my cozy little bungalow house. I love Christmas decorations.

I am REALLY REALLY enjoying scrapbooking now that I'm on bedrest... er, "house arrest" as my doctor calls it. Thankfully, I can sit at the table or couch for some time. I don't have to be horizontal all day and THAT is a huge relief. I can live a somewhat normal, albeit lazy & sloth-like, existence. Anyways... back to scrapbooking. I always liked it, but now it's so much more than a hobby. It's sanity. It's therapy!!! :) Here are some sneak peeks as to what I've been up to with the December Mosh Posh kit:

I can't share all of my December Mosh Posh projects with you all yet (I have to upload to the Design Team gallery, first). So those will have to wait for another day. But I CAN share this really neat-o serving tray I made for the online class.

It was an easy project, it just takes a little time... basically waiting for paint to dry. I have it sitting on the lamp table by our front door now. It's going to be the permanent place where I keep all the Christmas cards we recieve this year (hello! send Christmas cards!).

Speaking of Christmas cards... want to see the evolution of our Christmas photo/card? The first year we just did a Costco card, so I only have the photo for that one. But, here they are... my changing family:

2006:

2007:

2008:

Next year our family will change even more on our Christmas card... we'll hopefully have a healthy baby girl, almost 1 year old. :)

She will still enjoy scrapbooking... in bed.

2008-11-30T10:36:00.001-05:00

Well, it's been a crazy week for me! I started bleeding on Saturday morning last week and we freaked out completely. There were clots and it was pretty fresh, so we zipped over to the hospital after calling my OB on the emergency line. They checked me in every way possible... we got some very detailed ultrasounds, I was monitored, blood was taken, urine was taken, and my doctor came in to examine me. The bleeding didn't continue for long and wasn't heavy, the baby and I were both fine... so we were released. I was told to take it easy until I called the office on Monday for follow-up.

So, Monday I called and got an appointment with one of the OB's around 2 p.m. She said everything seemed to be fine and that I needed to stop lifting my son, Ben. I agreed to that and left feeling relieved. Well... that relief was short-lived because at about 9:40 p.m. on Monday I used the toilet and started bleeding again. Heavy this time, with huge clots about 3 inches diameter. I called the emergency line, but I already knew the doctor on call would have me come to the hospital, so I was prepared. It was scary. I thought I was losing the baby. My parents came to get Ben and Aaron and I headed to the hospital again. My OB told me on the phone that she would be admitting me this time. So I had my pillow and a small bag packed.

I ended up bleeding that time for about 24 hours. They hooked me up to an IV and monitors and began a round of steroid shots to help mature the baby's lungs just in case of a pre-term delivery. She still seemed to be 100% fine and not in distress at all. A perinatologist (sp?) came in to see me and said it seemed to be a subchorionic (sp?) bleed between the uterus and the sac. The thing is, no one can really say where the bleeding is coming from. So, I've been put on bed rest. I was released in time for Thanksgiving.

Bed rest has been hard so far. I'm mourning the loss of some of the usual activities I've taken for granted up until now. Also, it's the Holiday season and I will be missing out on a lot of that. No hustle and bustle for me. Or shopping. Or tree decorating. But I'm doing OK... my spirits have been up the past 2 days. I'm settling in to a routine, which is nice. My husband, parents, friends, and in-laws have been wonderful to me.

I will learn more about the situation when I visit the OB and perinatologist this week. As long as I am resting, the bleeding is not likely to re-occur. I think I'll be on bed rest until the end of December. At least I think that's when we'll re-evaluate my activity level.

So... that's the scoop. I am able to do digital scrapbooking very easily from the laptop, and I plan to try to use my Mosh Posh kit this month and see how easy (or difficult) it is to scrap in bed. :) I think I need to keep scrapping or else I'll go completely crazy!

Anyways, keep us in your thoughts and prayers. I will probably be better at blogging now that I'm spending all of my time here on the laptop! So, that's a positive!

Can you believe it's November already???

2008-11-17T14:51:00.000-05:00

It's been such a fast month... and for that I'm glad! I'm finally in my third trimester, but I'm ready to meet this baby already. Lots of the usual aches & pains, and the kind of exhaustion that just smacks me down. But despite these few complaints I'm really enjoying this pregnancy. I mean, look at me! I'm even scrapbooking. That's a miracle in itself because when I was pregnant with Ben I didn't do anything but nap and stare at the TV like a vegetable (don't get me wrong, I still do those things... just not as often).

So, speaking of scrapbooking. I want to share my contribution to the Mosh Posh Design Team for the month of November. I LOVED this kit... like I love coffee and chocolate. It was THAT good. And even after making these very generous pages I still have gobs of supplies left from it. I was very into hand-stitching with colorful embroidery floss this month, as you can see. I have it on almost every page. It makes the page feel richer and more homespun. If you have the extra time, try it. It's great to do the stitching when you're on the couch watching something with only half your attention (like, say, Sunday and Monday night football). I just punch the holes first with an awl and then go through with the needle and floss... although I've seen newfangled tools that you roll along the page and it punches evenly spaced holes. How cool is that?

So, here are my recent pages (including my first ever attempt ay a 6x12 layout):

And here's a shot of the whole kit:

The December kit is going to rock, too. I designed a custom stamp for Kristen which is hopefully being quickly produced right now! I hope it gets finished in time to make it in the kits. It's pretty swell, if I don't say so myself. I also know we'll be getting some nifty add-ons which involve a cute house to decorate... and messy glitter. Can't have enough of those!!!

Anyways, I'm parched and quite hungry for a nibble of something yummy, so I better go! I'm really going to try my hardest to post before this time next month, OK? Talk at you later!

October Mosh Posh Layouts.

2008-10-16T14:06:00.001-04:00

Thought I'd share my contribution to the Mosh Posh DT Gallery this month. This kit (Kimono) was BEAUTIFUL but for some reason I was having a major creative block with it. I did have a break through and got these layouts done with only minor hair-pulling and teeth-knashing. Enjoy.

I also did a cute little project with the kit. They're snack baggie toppers... a great solution to make little halloween gifts. You can see my online class HERE.

Telling those stories...

2008-10-10T13:43:00.000-04:00

To me, scrapbooking is telling the everyday stories that make our lives what they are. It's fun to scrap big events and holidays, but in reality, that's only 3% of our lives. I am excited about Jessica Sprague's FREE online class coming up because she will help us learn how to get better at capturing those life stories in our scrapbooks. ;) I can't wait. Here's the flyer... mark your calendars!

BAM Designs Digital Mini Kit FREEBIE!

2008-10-01T20:06:00.000-04:00

So... you all probably thought I'd forgotten my digital scrapbooking, right? Hah! ;) I'm back with a bang! I did take quite a long break because, well, early miserable sick and tired all the time pregnancy and stuff. But I'm feeling more creative energy lately and decided to revisit some papers and elements I started to work on months ago. So, in honor of the fading summer I created this free digital mini kit, "farewell summer". It's completely original designed by yours truly (BAM Designs) and comes with 5 elements and 4 patterned papers. Of course, it's 300 ppi (print quality) so you can print anything and use it for your paper scrapping also.

I hope you enjoy it! Please let me know what you think in the comments. I'd love to hear your feedback since this is my first attempt at a digital kit. Thanks in advance!!!

Get your BAM Designs freebie here!

Here is an example of how the mini kit can be used to create a layout. The stitching and "I Love You" are not included in this freebie (I'm saving those for later). ;)

Updating my gallery!

2008-08-27T14:41:00.000-04:00

Busy, busy, busy! I got my September Mosh Posh kit in the mail today! WOW! Have you seen it? Here are some personal sneak peeks and close-ups to give you all something to drool over:

Isn't it YUMMY? I got some of the add-ons, so what you see is the main kit plus a few extras... but it's a ton of product. This kit is loaded with embellishments and fun new things to play with like tulle (!) and crepe paper ribbon. Did you see the acrylic keychain album? How cool is that?

I have lots of energy today!!! I woke up groggy, but as the day has progressed I really am feeling somewhat normal & energized. I feel pretty darn great, minus one little thing. My left wrist is aching... I think it's the pregnancy-induced carpal tunnel that I got when I was preggo with Ben around 5 months. I really hope that since I'm not working (painting everyday, doing stage seta & physical stuff) like I used to that it won't flare up as bad as it did. I'm trying to rest it (well, except for typing this) and I hope it goes away. I think it's related to swelling, and my hands were really swollen when I woke up this morning. Ah, pregnancy! SUCH a blessing!

Anyways, I'm finally updating my scrapbooking gallery on the Two Peas website. The link is over there beneath my photo --------> I had lots of pages to post there. Including my Mosh Posh Design Team layouts. Even though I already posted those to the gallery at Mosh Posh, Two Peas allows me to upload them at a larger size... so you can actually read my journaling and see more details. I'm still in the process of uploading. I'm trying to do 3 or 4 at a time because I don't like to flood the gallery. ;)

Here are a few layouts that I especially loved:

.... um, hi!

2008-08-25T13:47:00.000-04:00

Yes, I know I have been very very bad about blogging! Bad bad bad badbadbadbad. I've also been bad about scrapping... so, see? The two are connected.

I'm good about keeping up with my commitments to Mosh Posh. But between finishing my August assignments and now I have done one layout. One. :) I am busy, you know? Things like napping, eating, and getting sick with colds and stuff like that. I can't even blame it on television because that's been slim pickings. Aaron and I did rent the second season of Big Love and watched all of those episodes in the span of a week. But other than that no tv, really. Just a little Olympics here and there. And a dash of Project Runway.

Do you want to know where I've really been? What I've REALLY been doing?

Me too!

It's like my brain is 50% vegetable. Pregnancy brain is to blame and that's not just an excuse. I read (somewhere?) that it's scientifically proven. I think a lot... about what I should be doing. It takes me 30 minutes longer to go grocery shopping! I get "stuck" mentally several times during a visit to the grocery store. One of the stickiest places is the aisle with the pens, batteries, lightbulbs... I just stand there thinking I need something but can't put my finger on it. What I need IS a lightbulb. Above my head, that is.

I am tired, too. The worst case of tired I've ever experienced. Lord help me, isn't the second trimester supposed to bring that much-desired oasis of "energy burst" that all the pregnancy books talk about? That sense of well-being? Hah. I will say, it's great to not be nauseated 24/7 anymore... but why is it that I still can't brush my teeth without gagging? Or clean out the fridge without getting the heebie jeebies? And why is it still a stomach-turning experience to cook dinner, I ask you? (well, that last one might be slightly fabricated, but it works for me) ;)

I'm just glad I'm not sick anymore. I caught my son's cold and between the two of us we killed 3 mega boxes of puffs (nay to Kleenex). The cold kept us home bound for close to two weeks. No playdates or social encounters with friends... but in the thick of it I did slip away with Ben to the bookstore because I needed some reading material. It doesn't count when you get strangers sick... right?

Anyways, I will try my darndest to give this blog some TLC. I do have some layouts to share with you. I also have to update my gallery at Two Peas because I've done a lot since the last time I uploaded there. If you miss me, take a visit to the Mosh Posh message board or blog. I make appearances there often. The September kit is going to be one of the best ever... so if you're looking for a great scrapbooking kit, take a peek!

Later!

Layouts up in the Mosh Posh Gallery!

2008-07-02T17:52:00.000-04:00

View my July layouts here:JULY GALLERY(ps, I'm Brook). Didn't the team just ROCK this kit??? I love the product Kristen puts together. Awesome stuff!

Where have I been!?!?

2008-06-28T12:53:00.000-04:00

Whew!!! What a month it's been! Sorry I've been so absent. It really has been a heck of a month since I posted.

So, here's the news:

1. I'm pregnant! :) We are so excited... but of course I'm feeling totally sapped of energy and nauseated every day. We did have a little fright several weeks ago and thought I might be having a miscarriage, but all is well now. *phew* ;)

2. I'm a Design Team member! I'm on the Msh Posh design team. It's a real blast and lots of work as expected. I've never been one to sit down and shoot off LO's at a fast pace, so it's been an adjustment for me. I think I'm handling it well with the exception of maintaining the blog.

3. Speaking of the blog, I designed one for Mosh Posh: Mosh Posh Blog. It should be really fun for everyone and all the DT girls will contribute to it. If you subscribe to Mosh Posh, the blog is having a giveaway drawing for July, so go leave a comment!

4. On the above blog, I have a webisode with instructions on how to do an altered frappuccino bottle. You can see me in all of my cheesball glory.

5. Our hot water heater burst on Monday and flooded part of my living room and bathroom downstairs. :( What a pain!!!

6. On Tuesday morning we discovered that my car had been stolen in the middle of the night. With the carseat and stroller inside, of course!!! Double whammy!

7. Lastly, I am working on my design team projects for the July kit. It's so much fun! I tried to upload some new layouts to my gallery on Two Peas today but it was acting up. I'll try again later. I have a ton of digital ones and stuff from the June Mosh Posh gallery.

So... hopefully this month I'll be better at updating the blog! ;) Until then!

Those pages I said I'd post...

2008-05-28T13:00:00.000-04:00

Here they are!

I used the May Mosh Posh kit on both of these:

In other news, we had a great Memorial Day weekend. On Sunday we celebrated my brother's 23rd birthday at a really really (really) nice resturaunt called NY Prime. My in-laws got to watch Ben for us that night... they were in heaven. On Monday we spent time with my family. Dad made sausage & pepper sandwiches that were out of this world. We had potato salad, fruit salad, watermelon, and corn on the cobb. Then we played Mancala out on the patio and had birthday cake. Lots of eating! The long weekend also was a great time of visits to the pool, escaping the heat in the mall (shopping!) and some dedicated scrapping time! It's so nice to have that extra day with my hubby... but it does make it even harder to get into the swing of things on Tuesday.

Anyways, I am exhausted MAJORLY. Aaron woke up last night sick to his stomach. He thinks it was something he ate when we grabbed Pollo Tropical for dinner. He was up from 2-4:30 a.m. and I couldn't fall asleep either because I was so worried for him. This morning he woke up and felt fine, if a little tired. Thank God. ;)

I'm anxiously awaiting my Mosh Posh kit to arrive so I can start creating with it. I'm excited to be part of this Design Team, it's going to be so much fun!

EXCITED!

2008-05-22T13:13:00.000-04:00

I'm on the MOSH POSH design team!!!! Holy cow! Yay!!!

I've been waiting to share the news because... well, it didn't seem real to me. haha. It was a shock at first because I've never tried out for a Design Team before but when I saw the call on the website I thought: "eh, why not." So I did and wouldn't you know? I made it!

I couldn't ask for a better bunch of ladies to work with, or a better kit. The design team is super talented which makes me tremble with fear. All of a sudden I am feeling nervous about scrapbooking which is totally lame of me! But it's like the first day of school. I am scared & excited in a really good way. Gets the blood pumping, you know? I think being on the team will stretch my creativity and challenge me in new ways. And I hope I will do Kristen and her kit club proud!

I have a few things I've been working on to share. Some digital, some pulpy... AKA paper product. But first, some thought on digi VS non-digi: It's funny, but digital scrapbooking has made paper scrapbooking easier in some ways. And in other ways, way harder. When I'm digi scrapping I can move things around a billion times if I want to with no worries of adhesive or having to make a final choice about placement. I can stop working at any time and when I come back everything is in its place. That's nice! But with paper scrapping I'm finding a whole new bravery when it comes to layering and layout that I never had before I was a digi scrapper. I'm also more likely to get in there with the scissors and use stuff up. I know I will never be without scrapbooking supplies at my disposal because I have a computer hard drive full of them. ;)

Credits: BAM designs (yours truly): buttons; Little Dreamer Designs: tied ribbon (michelle coleman), hullabaloo staple (Lauren Reid), hullabaloo journal spot green (Leora Sanford); Ah! Designs: Melon Madness alpha, Melon Madness transparency; Designer Digitals: Kellie Mize Ad Challenge freebie (blue and striped papers); Natali Design: blog freebie stitches; Digichick: mira spring garden add-on frame; fonts: CK Becky & another typewriter.

Anyways, on to the sharing. I made this LO above as a RAK for my friend Bonnie. I'm hoping once she gets it printed out she will decide to try her hand at digital scrapbooking (*wink, nudge*). Also, she's super busy with her 3 kids and I wanted to do some pages for her since she has even less time to scrap then I do! This is one of three I plan to do for her. She still has to send me the other pictures (hurry, send them, chica!).

Credits: BAM designs (that's me): pink grid paper; Memory Makers: wild sorbet flower rubons & blue paper & scalloped frame & enjoy word art (michelle coleman), frosted blue bow (michelle coleman), art nation blossom acrylic flower (emily powers); Little Dreamer Designs: hullabaloo scalloped edge (heidi larsen), loveable chipped paint frame *recolored* (michelle coleman); Jackie Eckles: textured bracket brushes freebie.

This page above was created for my mom for mother's day. I bought her an album and started filling it with pages for her. I love digital because when I make a page for her I can print two of them (one for me!) and vice versa. I love the pink & blue in this one. I hardly ever get to use pink because I have a son but the other day I was thinking: "why the heck not?" so I did. And, you know what? I don't feel like it's all of a sudden a girly page because of the pink. Power to pink! ... and stuff.

Ok... I've gotta go now. I'm meeting a friend in 30 minutes, but I have more LO's to share. So, I'll post them tomorrow OK? :) Until then!

Mostly non-creative things...

2008-05-14T09:01:00.000-04:00

Ah! What a week! I feel like my head is spinning.

Where do I start? Aaron's car broke down on the highway on his commute home from work on Friday. By the time we picked it up last night it was up to $1,000 in repairs. OUCH! I'm busier than ever, too. This freelance job is a tough one. I'm working more than I expected to during the day. And that's not an easy thing to do with an almost-2-year-old. Speaking of, Benjamin has been such a difficult... or different... kid lately. He whines and demands so much time and attention from me now. There's a lot of frustration going on because he's trying to tell me what he wants and I still can't understand most of his babble! The past few weeks he's been up earlier than usual. He'll sit in his crib and say: "Daddy... daddy. Daddy! Daddy. Daddy. Daddy, DADDY!!! Hey! Daddy!" until one of us comes to get him. He used to just lay quietly for 20 or 30 minutes (we're guessing) before officially waking up. Not anymore! :)

Today I'm trying to get last minute things wrapped up here at home (laundry, packing, running to the library to return overdue books) because tomorrow Aaron and I will be heading out for a short 2 night trip to Disney. We decided our last trip fell short in so many ways, and because we had 2 days left on our 4 day park hopper ticket we decided now would be the best time to go back. Before the blistering summer heat hits us. And, we even decided to go without Ben right off the bat. If you remember, last time (2 months ago) Ben got sick and couldn't go. It actually was a blessing in disguise because after seeing all the miserable parents with 2 year olds, I can't imagine it would have been fun for us to drag him around the parks after all. By the way, it turns out these next few weeks are going to be a busy time at Disney World. Almost all of the lower priced Disney hotels were booked and most of the Disney resturaunts. I see waiting in lines in our future. But, it will be fun because I will not be sick this time!

Scrapbooking!!! I know, this is supposed to be a crafty creative blog. Well, I've been spending a lot of my usual scrapping time designing digital scrapbooking supplies. I have completed a huge set of buttons, stitching, and lots of doodles. I'm planning a few digital kits to possible release for sale in the next few months. I just have to figure out exactly HOW to sell them. Or where. Suggestions, anyone?

The freebie was a huge hit. In fact, I've seen more hits than ever before. I think I know now why people offer them! So, on that note, you will definitely be seeing more freebies. Fun, fun!

I have some pages to share with you that I made from the most recent Mosh Posh kit. It was such a bright and colorful kit... tons of chipboard! I had a blast playing with it. Unfortunately, I won't be able to get those up until later this weekend. Maybe Sunday!

Wish me fun and safety on our little trip! I'll be back soon.

First BAM Designs Freebie!

2008-05-09T16:16:00.000-04:00

I am so excited to share with you my first ever digital scrapbooking freebie! Yay! Yippie!!!! :) It's a digital stamp (aka brush) so you can make it almost any size and any color you want. A .png file is also included for those of you who aren't able or don't want to use it as a brush. For more info on how to use brushes visit this tutorial by scrapologie: HERE.

Get your freebie here!(expired)

Here is an example of how I used this brush on one of my layouts:

(layout credits here)

Designing is a blast...

2008-05-06T13:38:00.000-04:00

So, if you've been keeping up with me you already know that I'm dabbling in designing some digital scrapbooking supplies. This weekend I was busy making patterned papers! It was a ton of fun. Before I knew it I had 12 papers made... unfortunately they're not the best when it comes to a set of papers. I still have to work on making a good variety of patterns (for example, not 3 striped papers and 3 papers with grid, etc.) and stay within a color pallette. It's harder than it seems. I've been scanning in textures & illustrations and studying up on my photoshop skills. There's a lot I had forgotten how to do... like how to make a dotted line! Here's a preview of what I've been working on: everything is my own creation with the exception of some free roylaty-free texture brushes. I did my illustrations of the bird and flowers in illustrator. Fun fun fun!!!

Anyways, I hope to have a decent set of papers up for you guys to download very soon! Yay!!! Now this weekend my challenge is to create some elements like buttons, ribbons and stitching. Wish me luck!

As far as paper scrapping goes, I have a new one to share. I finally finished it! These photos of Ben have been sitting in a pile forever waiting to be scrapped. They're so stinkin' funny! He's sucking on the sliding glass door... silly boy.

Orange-y Delicious!

2008-04-28T19:58:00.000-04:00

Here are a few of the pages I've been promising to show you! There are more to show but I'm not satisfied with them. For example: one is a ghastly Disney page, and two are still works in-progress.

I used the April Mosh Posh kit for these layouts... tried to make myself use nothing but the kit. It was a challenge since I'm used to adding stuff from my own stash of supplies. But, I know that if I am chosen to be on the Design Team there I will need to stick to the kit with only minimal additions. So, I did add a few bits of my ribbon because I love the texture it adds. But I have to say it was fun to restrict myself to the amount of supplies in the kit. It made me get more creative and forced me to use everything available to me... including my pen! I love doodling and drawing on my scrapbook pages.

This second one was tough for me. I wanted to add all of these photos on one page. I didn't want to sacrifice a single one because I felt they told a story about that day. I also wanted to add snippets of all the beautiful patterned papers. I envisioned the page being like a mosaic of the textures, colors, and sights in nature. I think it's successful in that it's very earthy, albeit a bit busy and eye-sore-ish. I tried, I really did, to simplify the page... without any luck. I think I need to just accept that that's what happens when you add a billion patterns and photos!! Haha. The thing that really irritated me was that my journaling looks so muddled on that orange floral. I thought it would be tame enough to write on. It's OK for me now, but when I'm eighty we might have a problem. Try it: if you squint, you can read it! :)

Alrighty then. These are two pages. Many more to come God willing. ;) And some digital pages, too. I just bought a whole bunch of new kits from Little Dreamer Designs. I love their stuff. I'm attacking some of my pregnancy photos to make a seperate 8x8 album devoted to lots of belly & everything cravings, gas and... you know. I want to remember this stuff but have it in an album of its own so that way some poor unsuspecting person looking through my main albums won't see something like this:
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AAAaaaaakkkK!

Oh, I'm sorry... were you unsuspecting? See. Now you know what I mean. LOL!

Well, have a delicious evening. I sure will. What with a turkey sandwich & chips for dinner and Medium at 10, life is sweet. :)

I'm heeeere! I'm here!

2008-04-27T09:36:00.001-04:00

Don't worry my dearies... I am not gone! :)

I've been very preoccupied the past few weeks. I'm working on some freelance design jobs which is really taking 80% of my brain right now. It's funny, but this is what I used to do full time before Ben and it came so easily to me. Now that I'm only doing it now and then it's so much harder and takes a lot more brain power! Plus, the added difficulty of working when my very active toddler is trying to get my attention. Not so easy. Anyways, I will be in the midst of that job for at least another month... but I am getting better at managing my time. And taking advantage of Grandma's free babysitting services!

Also, have you been outside lately? It's wonderful weather here in South Florida. Today, not so much (it's 85 degrees today), but it's been in the 70's... just ideal. Ben and I have been spending a lot of time park hopping and hanging outside. The computer has only been my friend for work and yes, the occasional digital scrapbooking adventure.

Speaking of digital scrapbooking, I am REALLY into it! I know that I can use my computer and design skills to really dive into it. I am excited about exploring my abilities in drawing and design to create original elements and patterned papers. I think I can do it! I certainly want to try. It would be so much fun. So, I've been gathering up supplies (textures, my illustrations, color inxpiration, etc.) and dabbling in Illustrator to sharpen my abilities. Hopefully within the next month I'll have a few freebies here for you all to enjoy... and you can help me grow as a designer by testing out my stuff. Sound good? :) LOL!

I'm also very into regular scrapbooking. The next kit at Mosh Posh is too cute:

I love the colors and all the chipboard. Can't have enough chipboard!!! I have to clear off my half of the dining room table (the other half is hubby's, he sits there with his laptop) and get to scrapping! My pace has certainly slowed down the past month, but I'm getting back into it. I was having fun trying to fit as many photos on one page as I possibly can... and then it got not fun, so I abandoned a couple of pages mid-creation.

Anyways, off to go upstairs and get ready for church! Hope you all have a wonderful Sunday!!!!

One more new digital layout...

2008-04-17T16:23:00.000-04:00

Don't worry guys, I haven't gone COMPLETELY digital even though it is all I've been posting lately. I'm just on a huge digital kick right now. It's so much fun. I'm even working on creating my own digital papers and elements. Fun, fun, fun. Did I already say fun?

I've been busy paper scrapping too but, once again, haven't photographed them. The weather has been so beautiful here the past couple weeks. Ben and I have been busy outside almost everyday. So, whenever I seem to think to photograph my layouts, alas, it is night (and I use the daylight to get good photos). Please be patient with me... they are coming. Maybe this weekend.

Today Ben seems a little off... not sure if he's fighting the arrival of that cold it seems everyone has right now. But I'm babying him and we're chilling here at home today for a few hours. He's on the couch watching the beginning of his favorite movie ever: CARS. I say beginning because it's really only the first 30 minutes of the movie that interests him. The rest: eh. So, to keep his brain from rotting completely, I don't think he's ever watched the whole thing.

This page was in response to a template challenge at The Creative Life. It's the first time I've ever used a template. It saved me a lot of time, that's for sure. I like the way it forced me to do something different that I might not have thought of on my own. Credits= shabby princess: harvest spice stitching festival green button; Corina Nielson for Memory Makers: (blue paper, safety pin, butterfly, hanging tag); Scrapartist.com: artsy fartsy kit (blue/green circle paper); Little Dreamer Designs: The Sweet Life kit (green flower, floral frame, striped paper) & These Little Moments kit (fabric scraps); Jen Wilson Designs: template; and finally... butterfly trail created by me.

I did it! I did it! Digital layout!

2008-04-09T08:32:00.000-04:00

Oh, this one was so much fun to make. It's a moment that I love to remember... there's nothing like capturing that first taste of ice cream. I bought a few digital kits from some of the sites I listed in my column... anyways, they were loaded with goodies! I did this page in about an hour and a half or so. I used mainly the French Countryside kit I bought from the Shabby Shoppe. Then I added some stitched flower stems from a free kit I downloaded from Shabby Princess called Harvest Spice.

I've also been busy with paper scrapping, but I haven't gotten a chance to photograph the pages yet. Next time I update I'll post those, too.

Better go! Off to meet a friend at the playground. But I have to swing by for some coffee on my way there. I'm actually in the mood for a big cup of hot coffee from Dunkin' Donuts. YUM! Catch you later!!!

Doing the digital thing.

2008-04-07T13:04:00.000-04:00

I've dabbled in digital scrapbooking. Tried it out with a few free kits and supplies I scrounged up on the internet, and it was fun. I was somewhat interested in doing it again, but never did any more pages. Fast forward to this past Friday when I decided to take the plunge and print out those 2 pages I did digitally. I sent them in to Costco and picked them up an hour and a half later... and WOW. They looked awesome! It was incredible how much they looked like a "regular" scrapbook page once they were 12x12 and in my album with all the rest. So... I think I'm going to do more pages digitally. I could never give up paper & paste scrapbooking, but it's so appealing to be able to sit down at my computer and create a beautiful page... without any mess. The dining room table can stay clean!

So because I've decided to officially enter the world of digital, I've been "shopping" for great supplies and a few kits. I've found a whole bunch of awesome websites and designers that I want to share with everyone, so I'm adding a new column to link to their pages. And stay tuned because this afternoon I'm downloading some supplies. I hope to have some new pages up for you to see very soon!

Until then!

Petrified Lizards and other tall tales...

2008-04-02T13:59:00.000-04:00

Funny things that aren't really funny at all:

* I still haven't brushed my teeth today. Isn't that funny? Or, stinky?

* Yesterday, at my mom's house, Benjamin brought something to my mom and handed it to her. She then handed it back to him and told him to give it to Mommy. On his way over to me she said to be calmly: "Brook, don't scream." I immediately knew what was in his hand by the shape of it jutting from his chubby fist and bolted! "Benjamin," I cried, "follow Mommy to the trash can!" The look on his face was a combination of puzzled and curious. As I power-walked to the kitchen all I could think was: don't put it in your mouth. Then he walked to the trash can and tossed in the dead, mostly dry, lizard. Funny, huh?

* My son has started screaming at me for no apparent reason. I mean bloodcurdling-banshee-gonna-pop-a-tonsil screaming. I think it's because he can't communicate what he wants to and it infuriates him. I am trying to be humorous about it. I think the terrible twos have really begun. ha. ha.

* I have three dryer loads of laundry piled on my couch waiting to be folded.

* My favorite pair of jeans has erupted with one of those knee-holes. You know, the kind that actually sorta looks trendy when it starts? Well, now it's a hole as in HOLE and doesn't look trendy anymore, just raggedy like can't I afford to buy another pair of jeans already? And you know what's (not) funny? I can't!!!

Ok, so if my not funny funnies isn't awful enough, how about some scrapbook pages? I've been creatively stuck for a week and then I kind of went crazy and did 8 pages. Some are awful, but a few really shine. Here are a few... the rest are in my gallery at Two Peas (the link is on the top right hand side of the page under my photo). Enjoy!

My kiddo...

2008-03-16T21:52:00.000-04:00

... should interview for the position of Easter Bunny. I'm dead serious. Even though he's clearly NOT a bunny (although he is cute) he could whoop the Easter Bunny's tail. My kiddo is the best stinkin' egg collector I've ever seen.

We had our first ever Easter Egg Hunt this past week with our Mommy & Me group and the kid was so into it. As I stared out into the field dotted with pastel eggs I was worried he wouldn't have a clue what to do when they blew the whistle. Standing in the crowd of other moms and tots I felt like we'd be lucky if he even could get to an egg before all the other kids grabbed them away. But oh, were my worries unfounded. That whistle blew and I bent down to hand Ben his basket, but he was already gone. I turned around to find him and saw him running back to me with an egg in each hand. Being the proud mama and scrapbooker that I am I immediately dropped the basket and fumbled for my camera. Before it turned on Ben had two eggs in his basket and was galloping back to me with two more in his hands... and a third nestled safely under his happy chin. Just like that he had 5 eggs.

And this is where my chest puffs up and I get all chocolate pudding inside. My boy. Such an egg collector. *sniff*

I mean, Ben was like a pro out there. It's like egg-hunting is in his blood, streaming through his veins. Pure instinct: FIND EGG, PICK IT UP, PUT IN BASKET. Repeat until tiny little plastic basket is overflowing, then pretend you're eating the eggs. Cuz brightly colored eggs are yummy, right? Totally!

Busy, Busy Brookie!

2008-03-12T13:03:00.000-04:00

I have been quite busy with scrappy things! I printed some more photos and BAM instant inspiration... just having new photos in my hand. I decided to take the time to bring each photo into Photoshop CS2 and get them printed in the sizes I needed them. I created a 8x10 canvas and dragged my photos into it... then I color corrected them and cropped them. When I picked them up from the printer all I needed to do was cut them apart. It was a huge time-saver in the end. I also found it's much cheaper this way, too. Anyways... I have posted my new layouts to the scrapbooking gallery at Two Peas (see link on the right column) but wanted to share a few with everyone here.

This first one (above) was a challenge for me because I had so many photos I wanted to include... but I forced myself to keep it to one page only (I'm not a fan of 2-page spreads because I hate having to do two pages with the same papers, etc... I guess I'm just too ADD-like to focus on two pages). Another challenge was the colors. The yellow swing, blue jeans, brown mulch, green trees, faded red... it's not that there were too many colors it's just that I don't have many papers in these tones. I went deep into my reserves and found this old Basic Grey plaid paper... it was perfect. Then I decided to make blue a focus and the back side of a Fancy Pants "free spirit" paper was the ideal shade. Finally, a scrap of green floral (Autumn Leaves I think) added a spash of "life". I used the wonderfully yummy MM ledger paper for the title plate along with my Martha Stewart letter stamps. I was glad it all came together! Despite all the patterns it doesn't feel overdone. And, oh, isn't my boy so cute at the playground??? *squee* I just love that little guy!

This one (above) is an old baby photo of yours truly. I let myself really play with this page and did some hand-journaling & words. I even did my journaling on the big white space on the photo with a special non-smear pen. The striped paper is Basic Grey and the polka Dot is Sassafras Lass. The buttons... well, yes, I did go crazy with them! But there was this freaky shirtless guy in the photo right behind my little baby head. I never even noticed him in the small original photo, but this 5x7 one made him very noticable. My solution was a halo-like mass of buttons. I quite like it. ;)

Lastly, this page... I went way out of my comfort zone. I really pared it down and let it speak for itself without a gob of embellishments and patterns. My baby photos had so many conflicting tones and didn't really "match" but I wanted to keep them color because I DO want to remember that green dress and yellow jacket. :) I decided to group them in an organized way in the center of plain white textured cardstock (gotta love Bazzill) with a splash of coordinating color on the bottom. The brown felt flower and vintage button were a perfect accent. On the top I added a quote in a very neutral color... then it was time for a title... and I BLANKED. I didn't want to add anything to it! But I felt it needed some sort of direction in time and space... so I went with these great white chipboard Thickers by American Crafts. A simple title indicating the year of my birth seemed to sum it up just dandy. And it was complete!

I love this page... it's really made me re-think my need to fill pages to the brim with STUFF. I definitely have a new fondness for simple scrapping and will be more likely to do it again and not feel the urge to add and add and add. :)

Anyways, baby Ben will be up from his nap pretty soon here. Better go! I will update later with some super cute photos I took at the Easter egg hunt this morning. Until then!

Musical Brothers

2008-02-29T14:47:00.001-05:00

Here's a recent page... it's pictures of my hubby (bottom photo) and his brother playing music together. They're both very musically talented and I didn't really have much to say about the pictures other than that... so I used some stickers to tell the story. The circle where the title is was hand-cut to fit the available space. I used Love, Elsie rub-ons to make the title. The felt shapes are Fancy Pants... I attached them & the buttons by stitching them to the page with DMC floss in a few colors. The chipboard accents are Scenic Route. The patterned papers are Scenic Route and Basic Grey.

I haven't been very busy or inspired lately when it comes to scrapbooking. I think I need to get some new photos printed, maybe that will trigger the creativity? I'm working on a special project for my mother-in-law right now, so it's kind of a nice change of pace. Maybe next week I'll be back to my old scrapping self!

Going to a concert tonight...

2008-02-23T16:10:00.000-05:00

Can't wait!!! I'm so excited about the concert I'm headed off to tonight. Casting Crowns! Never heard of 'em? I'll post a little clip here for you to listen:

They're a Christian band. My dad got us tickets that his friend (who has membership seats at the venue) didn't want. So, they're ours... free! 5th row. Niiiice.

Anyways, I'm off to spend some time with my dad, mom and sister-in-law. It'll be nice to have a free night without my guys. ;)

Didn't get much scrapping done today but I have 3 LO's in the works. So maybe tomorrow I'll find more time to finish them.

Have a great weekend!

Magical... or something

2008-02-20T19:28:00.000-05:00

May I point out a few things of interest in this photograph (the best photo taken of us out of the two days were were at Disney):

1. We are both wearing camo shorts. This was not an accident or some kind of oops-we're-matching thing. It was actually planned... although I am now regretting it immensely after seeing this photo. Immensely. It looks like we just came from the Bass Pro shop or something! LOL!

2. I need a tan.

3. This is a nice picture of the magnificent Cinderella's Castle, huh? What castle, you say? Well, maybe the castle would have looked nice in the photo. However we are almost complely obstructing it. It's coming out of our heads! And don't even mention the street light. *sigh*

4. Notice the sea gull over to the left? I was dodging those buggers the entire time. I've seen them poop on people's heads and did NOT want that to happen to me. It seems the gulls are a serious issue here... there were tons more of them than the last time I was at Disney (about 3 years ago).

5. The girl in the black pants to my left... is her leg... broken? It's bent at such an odd angle. Totally creeping me out.

6. The fanny pack. Yes, I went there.

Now tell me how I am going to scrap this photo? Talk about a challenge!!! :)

Busy, Simple & In-Between

2008-02-13T21:34:00.000-05:00

Well, when it comes to scrapbooking I wouldn't say I have a certain "style" that I tend to stick with. Sometimes I feel like doing a quick page with minimal embellishments and other times I can't stop adding things! These past few days I've done three very different pages. One I feel I went a little overboard, one is plain (too plain?) and the other is just right. Can you guess which is which?

Just to update you about Ben and our upcoming Disney trip... it turns out he has croup. It's contagious and even though he got steroids and a breathing treatment on the nebulizer, he will not be well enough for Disney on Friday. I wouldn't dream of dragging him there in that condition, especially since there was already a 50% chance he would be miserable in perfect health! :) Also, the doctor didn't say this but after some research I found out that the steroids do suppress the immune system a bit. And the last thing I want is for him to pick up something else! Poor baby! The funniest part of this all is that he will most likely have an even more magical time at his grandparents house than Disney could have ever offered! It was honestly for our enjoyment more than his. And now we will get a romantic vacation for ourselves that we would have never arranged on our own if this hadn't happened. Everything seems to have been divinely arranged for us.

It will break my heart to leave Ben feeling sick, but he is in expert hands with my mom and dad. Hopefully he will be much better by Friday. It will still be hard for me to leave him. Does that ever go away, though? It seems like everyone I talk to says it is tough to leave their kids. I think it will be less tough on Saturday morning when, for the first time since his birth, I will sleep in with absolutely no reason to wake up at any particular time. Amen! ;)

Sick... again.

2008-02-12T09:04:00.000-05:00

I just can't believe this... Benjamin is sick again! We had 5 days of non-sickness and then BAM! Sick once again. He came down with a fever yesterday and then came the hacking cough deep in his chest. We've got an appointment with the Ped at 9:45 a.m.

Here's the worst part: we're supposed to be going to Disney World on Friday!!!! :( AGH! I hope hope hope he is better by then. If not, we might have to go without him and leave him with Grandma and Grandpa because our Disney hotel reservations are non-refundable. It would be awful to not have him there... but it would be even worse for us to drag a sick baby around the park. Although, a little mini vacation just hubby and me wouldn't be bad. We haven't gone on a vacation just the two of us since 6 months before he was born. Maybe this is a divine intervention? ;)

As for scrapbooking, I've been busy but haven't gotten to photograph the layouts yet. Right now it looks like rain, but maybe this afternoon the sun will shine again and I can go out to take pictures of them. We'll see.

Sharing is nice!

2008-01-30T16:28:00.000-05:00

Finally! Here are the pages I was talking about. The third page needs one more thing before I'm finished with it. I can't find my sandpaper anywhere! These are two I wanted to share...

Doing a few pages about myself feels really good. I LOVE doing pages about my son, but I've been enjoying recording my own memories, too. After all, someday when my memory is fading I want to be reminded of who I am as well. :)

Well, I'm off to air us out. We've been inside all day... I honestly don't have the energy but Benjamin is going bonkers! We're still dealing with colds so I'll have to find a remote playground somewhere and let him run around. Better go!

P.S. I updated my scrapbooking gallery with layouts (old and new), so if you have time, check them out. The link is on the right column.

Ugh! The COLDS, the TEETH...

2008-01-29T20:02:00.000-05:00

Did I already say UGH!? First Ben gets the sniffles, then I get a kind of annoying sore throat... and it all goes downhill from there. Now Ben is cutting his eye teeth on top of a miserable cold and that's not good considering he is the worst teether... it just takes forever to cut through and he refuses to drink or sleep. I now have an awful cold with body aches, sore throat, cough, runny nose, the whole shebang. Hubby called me from work this afternoon with some great news: he has the cold, too! UGH!

Ok, so enough complaining for me. On to more exciting things! I finished the pages PLUS more. One leetle bitty problem though... I didn't photograph them yet. I intended to get that done this afternoon during Ben's nap (HA) but alas, naps were not had. I could scan them, but it takes me forever and the colors just don't turn out right. So, maybe tomorrow?

For now I will share a few happy things:

THIS scrapbooking kit from Mosh Posh! Yummy yum yum. It gets my creative juices flowing. I just love the combo of pink, red, and bright blue. The blue is the part I really love. Now I can do valentine-ish lovey dovey pages with photos of my guys without completely immasculating them! I can't wait for these supplies to be delivered to my doorstep next month.

Me and my sweet baby boy in the Western NY snow, a few days before Christmas. We had so much fun playing in (and eating) the snow. I just love snow, it's so beautiful and sparkley... but maybe I love it so much because I don't have to live in it. I just get to visit it!

And finally, this set of 4"x4" decorative scrap blocks I made for my Grandma Rowe. They have pics of her 5 kids on the sides. Most of the supplies are K&Co. She loved them, they made her cry... and that's pretty good considering she's not usually sentimental like that! :) It made me feel super good to give them to her.

Well, that's all from me. I'm going to go cuddle with my hubby on the couch and watch more hilarious American Idol auditions!

Fastest week of my life!

2008-01-25T15:31:00.000-05:00

Wow! This week just flew by! I can't believe it's already Friday... and I'm glad it is. My hubby and I are going out to eat with another couple tonight, sans children. We're going to a great place for seafood right on the water. It's been a cool day and very breezy so it should be wonderful there because it's outdoor seating. I'm looking forward to a dinner where I don't have to worry about feeding Ben and myself at the same time. I'm also looking forward to the Mojito I plan to order. YUM-O!

As far as being creative, this week was not so great. I did get 3 pages started. STARTED. They are all sitting there on the table unfinished. I guess I was sort of scattered because I had all of these ideas and just wanted to get them out there so fast that I wasn't patient to finish what I started. This weekend my mission is to seal the deal on those pages. Get 'er done.

Well, I'd love to chat but I have three bathrooms to clean. It's an absolute must. I HATE cleaning bathrooms, but if I don't do it it certainly won't ever happen. Hubby doesn't seem to notice that kind of filth! But my scrapping stuff all over the dining room? He notices that! Gotta love men! LOL.

I hope to post those layouts I was talking about sometime this weekend.

Been Scrapping...

2008-01-12T13:54:00.000-05:00

This past week I did a few pages with my January Mosh Posh kit. I loved this kit! Blue and green are my favorite colors (these particular shades of blue and green are great together) and lately I've been having a lot of fun using black accents on my pages, so I was psyched when this kit arrived on my doorstep.

Anyways, the first page design was lifted from Kelly Bryan's LO in the Mosh Posh DT Gallery. The second page was inspired by a technique I've seen where strips of ribbon or patterned paper are used to create a sort of sunburst pattern around the photo. It's something I always wanted to try because my ribbon collection is getting out of hand! I was glad to use some of it up!

I'm really trying to loosen up when I scrap and not be so precious with my supplies. I'm bad about agonizing over cutting up papers and using things up, but now my stash is growing so big that I realize that's what I bought it for: to use it. Duh! I know it seems so simple, but I have to let go of the fear that I'll mess up or waste and just go with the flow. Sometimes mistakes can turn out to be a good thing in the end! Right?

Yummy things...

2008-01-11T11:14:00.000-05:00

Sakura Souffle pens! I love pens and hoard them, so these recently caught my eye.

I haven't purchased any yet, but they look like tons of fun. They are opaque and can be used on dark or light paper which is always nice. But here's the best thing: they puff up into a soft foamy texture. Welcome back the 90's puff paint craze, only less messy and archival safe (or at least it seems). I guess these pens can be used on almost anything, but obviously I'd want to use them on my scrapbook pages. My only concern is that this fragile texture might stick to or be crushed by the page protector.

I think I might go out and buy one to test it out before splurging on the whole colorful set. ;D I LOVE finding new things to try.

I don't know why...

2008-01-10T12:18:00.000-05:00

I think I'm going to keep up with a blog! But, I've had a few in the past and really loved having a place to express myself. With this blog I'm hoping to use it more as a place for creative sharing and inspiration for my artistic ventures.

I am a stay-at-home mom to my 18 month old son, Ben. But before my days of diapering and playdates I got a BFA in studio arts (with a focus in painting) and worked as a graphic designer, Visual Arts director, set designer, and freelance mural painter. I really enjoy crafts and art making. My current obsession is scrapbooking. Ever since Ben was born I felt such an urge to hold on to the memories of his babyhood and tell the story of my own life for future generations (and myself!). It seemed like every day held such a special moment and I was worried I would forget all of those special times. Also, I've always been drawn to using photos in an artistic way. Since I was a little girl I've used photos to create mini books, mostly as gifts for family. So, I think I was destined to be a scrapbooker, a keeper of memories. It's my passion.

So, I hope you will enjoy my little blog!