... just Laura

Our College Graduate

Yep, we've got a college graduate in the house and we could not be more proud of her! Alyssa graduated a little over a week ago, and it's taken me this long to finally sort through all of the photos, edit them, and get a handful selected to share. We had photos on numerous cell phones, as well as two DSLR's, and it was very overwhelming getting them all organized. 

Alyssa graduated from the University of the Pacific, a private university about 20 minutes away from us. She actually finished a semester early, so she's been done since last December. But she came back to walk with her class (she had the option to walk last May, with the 2017 class). She graduated magna cum laude from the Conservatory of Music, with a BA in Music Management and a minor in Business Management. 

I have to say, Alyssa took full advantage of her college experience and made the most of her 3.5 years there. She was highly involved in so many different clubs and organizations, joined a music fraternity and a sorority, held on-campus jobs her entire 3.5 years, and still managed to successfully carry a PACKED schedule of classes. Being in the Conservatory is hard. Really hard. There were semesters where she had 10 different classes, and even though a few might have been 1 unit each, she would tell us how they were still treated like regular classes as far as the workload. 

She took clarinet lessons most semesters and was a part of the wind ensemble, with concerts several times a year. She went to recitals and concerts for her fellow Conservatory musicians. She was a key part of the Arts & Entertainment team, helping put on all of the events on campus. I'm sure there's a ton more that she did that I'm missing. Basically, she took on all that she could take on, and she was pretty darn successful at all of it. 

The college had their main commencement ceremony in the morning, where all of the students graduating from UOP were in attendance. Following the morning ceremony, the individual schools had their own diploma and hooding ceremonies. The colorful banners in the photo above are for the individual schools within the university. Alyssa was in the Conservatory of Music, which is the pink banner (the 3rd from the left). 

  

My obligatory program photo. At just about every concert, play, ceremony, etc that I've attended during the girl's school years, I have always taken a quick program photo, with the stage in the background. It's just something I do. 

It's hard to see, but this photo was taken as all of the students graduating from the Conservatory stood to be officially presented to the president of the university as having completed their requirements for graduating. They were way up in one of the front rows, and a fairly small group.

I have lots of family photos that I want to share, and also just want to have documented here on my blog. I couldn't narrow them down any more then I did ;) I'll just add a quick caption here and there as needed. 

 

Our beautiful graduate. Photo taken right after the morning ceremony.

Alyssa, Joe, and myself. A very proud mom and step-dad (who has been a part of her life since she was a year old).

 

Alyssa and her proud dad. I think it's safe to say that we are both so proud of her and all that she's accomplished.

 

 

Alyssa and her dads. I am very fortunate that her dad and I have a great relationship, and that Joe and Ken have a great relationship as well.  

Alyssa and her grandpa on her dad's side. I only wish her grandma could have been here to see Alyssa graduate. She left us all too soon, but I know she's with her in spirit.  

 

Alyssa, her dad, and her grandpa. And Alyssa and my parents. Aka, Grammy and Papa. And dad - I'm sorry I had to use the photo where you were looking elsewhere, but the other one was blurry. Lol.

 

The second photo was taken later in the day, but I have to share a photo of her decorated cap. She had an idea of what she wanted, and loved this quote. I found it in the Silhouette store, and die cut it from gold sticker-type paper (can't remember what exactly it's called). The corner pieces were made using some adhesive backed foam and gold leaf flakes.

 

A program shot for the afternoon ceremony, which was the Conservatory of Music's diploma and hooding ceremony.

We split up as far as where we sat for this ceremony. I sat downstairs, along with my parents and my brother and sister-in-law. Alyssa's dad, his dad, Joe, and Sarah and her boyfriend sat up in the balcony (this was held in the concert hall where all of her concerts have been held). The shot on the right was one taken from the balcony, looking down at all of the graduates in the Conservatory. I was sitting directly to the right of the second row of students. 

 

I never have the best luck taking photos in the concert hall, but between Alyssa's grandpa and myself, we did at least capture the moment. She was the first one called up, and while they read off her degree and future plans, she was officially hooded and handed her diploma (well, the official diploma comes in the mail within a few months). 

  

The graduate, on the steps of the concert hall. The concert hall where she's spent a ton of time over her three and a half years at UOP. And that photo on the right? It's a new favorite of mine, and I have Alyssa's grandpa to thank for capturing it! 

 

Alyssa and Anthony, her boyfriend of almost three years. He was in a different school, within the college, so his diploma and hooding ceremony was earlier in the day. They were able to meet up for a bit after her afternoon ceremony, and I'm so glad we have some photos of them together from their big day. And check out his decorated cap. He was in graphic design, and a bunch of the graduates got together and each of them took a Pantone color to represent on their caps. I love it. 

 

Who knows what's going on in this photo, but they were all pretty much like this. Alyssa's dad took all of his photos on "live" mode on his iPhone, and it's pretty funny to go thru them. The live mode capture them almost more like a very short video, and then gives you a "photo" - but you can also view it and pick a different segment to be the actual "photo". Hopefully that makes sense for anyone that doesn't know about the live mode. 

I viewed some of them in live mode, but honestly just didn't want to take the time to go thru them all looking for a better photo for each photo. I had hundreds and hundreds of photos to work with, so I just picked the best ones I could find from whatever was captured.

We also had DSLR photos, and although I really wish we had moved to a better spot for photos, I was able to work some editing magic on the ones we did get. 

 

 

My brother and his wife came for Alyssa's second ceremony in the afternoon. We were limited on tickets for the morning ceremony, but loved having them for the second one. 

 

Sarah and Dom, her boyfriend, also came for the second ceremony. The morning one was too early for them.

 

It was such a great day. A long day, but a great day. After the second ceremony, and all of our picture taking, we all headed back to my brother's house, where we had food and desserts ready to go. A few other family members came to visit, and it was just nice to have both sides of the family together for her big day. 

And if all goes as planned, this will be Sarah in a few years ;)

Kerri Bradford Studio: The Ballpark

I've got a second layout up at Kerri Bradford Studio today! As another part of our family's little stay-cation back in July, one of the other things that we did was take in a minor league baseball game one evening. If you ask me, attending a minor league game can actually be more fun than attending a major league game.

It's a smaller venue. You're not dealing with the massive amounts of traffic, parking, and people. It's just got that small town feel to it, and it's fun to go out and support your local team. 

Joe has been umpiring high school baseball, and occasionally some college, for well over ten years now. Baseball is his thing, so he just loves being out there and watching the sport. I really only took one intentional photo during the game, and that was a photo of Joe watching the game, taken from behind. I knew he was in his element, calling balls and strikes from where we were sitting out on the lawn.

I did snap two very candid photos with my phone  - one of Alyssa, and one of Sarah and her boyfriend. I may have came back with three photos, but I knew it was enough to document the game.  

I kept my page design pretty simple. I started by adhering my three 4x4" photos from top to bottom, along the left side of the page, with a few strips of patterned paper. I don't have many sports themed products, so I pulled out some very old sports patterned papers from Bella Blvd. 

On the right side of the page, I started at the top, and worked my way down, adding in cardstock, strips of patterned paper, my journaling block, and even one of our tickets from the game. I'm glad I thought to save one, since it did cross my mind that I could include it somewhere on either a layout or in our Project Life album. 

If you know me, you know that I love to include some white-on-white action on most of my layouts. It works really well for the space behind my title, since I'm usually die cutting my titles from black cardstock and/or patterned papers. 

I used a piece of a white cardstock circle background, cut from Kerri's Background Basics kit, and adhered it over the top right corner of the page where my title was going to go. I then went straight to Kerri's older The Ol' Ballgame kit for the title, which I cut from black and red cardstock.

I knew I would keep my embellishments super simple, and started out with just a few enamel dots. But I couldn't decide on a third color that really looked right to me. I then remembered having some really old baseball buttons from Making Memories in my stash, and I think they were the perfect finishing touch for this layout. 

Kerri Bradford Studio: Destination San Francisco

Hey everyone! I've finally got a few layouts to share, and the first one went up at Kerri Bradford Studio yesterday. As part of our little "staycation" at the end of July, our family took a day trip to San Francisco. We only live an hour and a half away, and yet I can't even tell you the last time that I have been there. My girls have both gone here and there, on day trips with their friends. But I'm pretty sure the last time I went out that way was back in high school. Lol. I left it up to Alyssa to guide us to a few good places in the city, since she's been there the most.

While there were a few times that we purposefully thought to stop and snap a few photos, we didn't really force the camera on each other that much during the day. So I was pleasantly surprised when, between Alyssa and I, we managed to get a good variety of photos from the day on our phones. 

I do one photo order each month for my Project Life album, and I order just about every photo from my phone (and any the girls send me) as 3x4" photos. I knew that I would only include 2-3 photos from this trip in my actual Project Life spread for the week, so I had tons of photos leftover to create a layout. I did go and print the 3 photos I used in my Project Life album again, so that I could include them on the layout as well. 

Since I had quite a few photos I wanted to include, and they were all 3x4", with the exception of one 4x6" photo, I decided to arrange all of the photos around the outside edges of a two page spread. I've used this page design before, and it's a great way to get lots of photos on a two page layout.

And it's pretty typical that I'll line up all of my photos across the page, and I'm somehow left with a gap. Meaning a few of the photos didn't print at exactly 3x4". Never fails. This is why I simply added the small strips of black and white dotted patterned paper to the outer side of each page - to hide that gap!

I always build my layouts on white cardstock. Sometimes I'll end up covering up all of that white with photos and patterned paper. And other times, I end up letting some of that white cardstock be a part of my page design. Once I had my photos adhered in place, I realized that there wasn't really one or two colors that I could see myself incorporating in terms of patterned paper. I very randomly choose the black and white dotted patterned paper strips, while looking for a potential blue patterned paper, and from there I just gave up on adding anything other than neutral colors. 

After arranging all of my photos on the spread, I was left with a 4"x9" section on each page (or 18" across the spread). Since I decided to keep that middle section white, I knew that I wanted to add a little interest to it. I die cut a circle background from Kerri's Background Basic kit from white cardstock, and adhered it right over that center section. I love the white-on-white effect, and it adds a subtle touch.  

For my title, I combined the "destination" from Kerri's Pack Your Bags kit and "SF" from her Weathered Door Alpha kit, cut from patterned paper and black cardstock.

I finished off the second page of the spread by adding a 3x4" Project Life card and my printed journaling. Normally, I'll add a few simple embellishments, like enamel dots or buttons. But I just didn't feel like the spread needed much more. I added a kraft tag near the title, along with the date, and a little tab on the side of my journaling block as well. 

I'll be back Friday with another layout share. It definitely felt good to do a few layouts, after not doing any for the last two months. I didn't even realize it had been that long since I last made one. But my Project Life album is seriously calling out to me as well. I'm falling further behind, and need to get caught up on that before it gets more out of control ;) 

Another High School Graduate

"A little over a week ago, this happened. The big moment that marks the end of a huge chapter of our kid's lives. After spending thirteen years going to school, surviving Kindergarten thru 12th grade, the moments comes when they walk across the stage (or the grass, if you're like our school) and get their high school diploma. It's an awesome moment for our seniors. And even though it's a hard moment for us parents, to realize that our kids have gone and grown up and are entering adulthood, it's also an amazing moment, and a proud moment for us".

And yes, I copied that from the blog post I did sharing Alyssa's high school graduation three years ago - because the words are still perfect and sum up the feelings about that big night. Actually, I'll let you in on a little secret. I'm coping and pasting quite a bit from Alyssa's graduation post, and just adding a few things, and switching out some facts/names as needed. Is that cheating? Lol.

Our graduation ceremony is held on the football field, with all of the seniors, teachers, faculty, and the band on the field. Depending what side of the field your senior is sitting on determines which set of bleachers you sit in. Home or visitors. I was so happy when Sarah came home from practice that morning and told me she was on the home side. When Alyssa graduated, she was on the visitor side, and it was much harder to hear over there.

Just like almost every other year, at graduation time, it was super windy out. Having been thru this before, I suggested to Sarah and her friend that got ready at our house, that they pin their caps on. But they said there were fine. They weren't, but I'm not even sure pins would have helped. There were hats and cords flying everywhere. Everyone spend a good portion of the ceremony holding their caps on their heads. Lol.

We heard a few speeches, all of which I thought were really well written and spoken. Then they got to what everyone was waiting for. The distributing of the diplomas. They had tables set up on both sides of the field, so that students could feed in from both sides at once. 

Funny-not-funny moment from the ceremony. Right after I snapped the photo of Sarah at the podium, and her name was called - my camera froze up and I realized my memory card was full. The worst possible moment, as my girl was receiving her diploma and I wasn't able to capture it. I did a "are you freaking kidding me right now", and rummaged in my purse to get another memory card swapped out.

My sister-in-law, sitting next to me, yelled out "SARAH! STOP!!!". She did, and I was able to snap the photo above. Whew. Kicking myself for missing part of the big moment, but glad I got the pics I did. And Alyssa actually captured Sarah's big moment on a Snapchat video, so I also have that, where we can hear them announcing her name. 

So there she is, diploma in hand. Well, the diploma folder in hand. I'm not sure if all schools do this, but they had to go into the office this week to pick up the real diploma. Which makes sense to me, since you really don't want to risk losing that important piece of paper in the craziness that happens after the ceremony.

After all of the diplomas were handed out, the graduates all walked out and spread themselves out around the edge of the football field (actually, the track around it). They were officially announced as the graduating class of 2017, and proceeded to throw their caps in the air. If the wind hadn't blown them off already!

And want to hear something weird? I didn't cry, or even tear up. And I ALWAYS tear up at stuff like this. Usually proud tears. But then again, I didn't tear up or cry at Alyssa's graduation either, so it didn't surprise me. Maybe it was the large venue, or the fact that it all went by so quickly. Or maybe I had just prepared myself so well for this moment, that I was able to just take it all in without it getting the best of me.

Once we all got out to the field, we made sure to get some family photos, before tracking down her friends for photos. It's not too noticeable in some of these photos, but it was starting to get dark. The stadium lights came on, which can be a challenge to work with. My external flash went from working, to not working, to working again. Luckily, with the magic of Photoshop, I was able to do my thing with most of the photos we took.

I just love my girls! It's crazy to think that I now have two college students. Alyssa is headed into her last semester in the fall, and Sarah will be starting her first semester of college in the fall. Alyssa will be turning 21 in a few months, and Sarah turns 18 in a few weeks. Again, that's just crazy to me! 

We were super bummed that my parents ended up across the country, and had to miss Sarah's graduation. They were on a cruise that was planned by someone else, and didn't realize the scheduling conflict. But we were happy that both my brother, and his wife, were able to come. We didn't have enough tickets for Alyssa's graduation, so only my brother got to come to her big day.

Alyssa's dad and her grandpa were also able to come. Ken and his family have always been super supportive of Sarah, and she's truly a part of their family. While Joe is Alyssa's stepdad, we always say that Sarah lucked out and got a stepdad too - even though he's not technically a stepdad to her. 

Me and my girl. We missed getting a photo together right after the ceremony, so we got one at the very end of the night, when we were one of the last ones left on the field. I can't even put into words how proud I am of this amazing girl of mine. She's a mini-me, who is taller than me. She's a smart girl, and can do awesome things when she puts her mind to it. I can't wait to see what she accomplishes next. Love you baby girl!

I have many more photos I would love to share from that night. If you follow me on Facebook or Instagram, you've probably already seen them. One way or another, they will all be appearing here on the blog sometime soon, as I'm excited to get them all scrapped and in her school album.

Tackling Christmases Past: Done, Done, and Done

Just a little over a year ago, I set out on a mission to tackle 6 years worth of Christmas photos that had never been documented and get them scrapped and in the albums. You can read more about this HERE, if you haven't read it already. I feel like I've repeated a lot of this while sharing each of the layouts I've created over the last year, but I'm going to do a little re-cap anyways! I thought it would be cool to share all of the layouts in one single post.

A quick refresher. I relied heavily on Kerri's Storyboard templates for this project, and created 16 different photo collages, that included a total of 143 photos. These collages covered 6 family get togethers from those 6 years, as well as 3 Christmas mornings with just our little family. In the end, my plan was to end up with 6 two page layouts and 3 single page layouts. Well, it's taken me a full year (and a month, if you want to get technical), but I've finished all 9 of those layouts!

[Post found HERE]

This design was a popular one with me. The full page photo collage, with a smaller collage on the opposite page. I've used this design numerous times for birthday layouts as well. It's just a great design for getting gobs and gobs of photos on the page.

[Post found HERE]

Every now and then, when working on these layouts, I would start to worry that they looked too much the same. With the same basic design, same photo collages, same title placement, etc. I was constantly reminding myself that I went into this project just wanting to knock these layouts off my list. I've mentioned how I don't necessarily enjoy scrapping Christmas's, so I didn't want these to be layouts that I stressed over. If using the same basic ideas over and over helped me tackle something that I don't enjoy, then more power to me.

[Post found HERE]

For most of these layouts, I just dug into my stash of Christmas product to see what I could use up. I did however, dig into my everyday papers as well. This layout is an example of that. I don't believe there's anything on this page that was meant to be a "Christmas" product. I always pull my colors from the colors in my photos, so the photos really dictated my color schemes, even if they weren't the traditional Christmas colors.

[Post found HERE]

Another thing that made these layouts quick and easy, for the most part, is that they're hugely made up of patterned paper, die cuts, and photo collages. I die cut titles with my Silhouette Cameo for every single layout, and on a few of them, I also die cut a few additional pieces for the page. I kept the embellishments super simple, with maybe a few enamel dots, buttons, brads, or pre-made 3x4" cards.

[Post found HERE]

And after looking at all of these layouts together, I guess my love of my scalloped border punch from Stampin' Up really shows! I do love that punch, and it's my go-to border punch when working on projects. I think I used it on six of these nine layouts. I do own other border punches, for the record, so I should show them all some love every now and then.

[Post found HERE]

I keep a 12x12" Iris container that's filled with Christmas themed product and patterned papers. It was so easy to just pull out the box and see if I had anything to coordinate with my photos. I certainly didn't plan on using glittered foam Christmas trees on the design of this page. But as I was digging thru the box, I pulled them out and thought they'd fill in some space on the page. So why not.

[Post found HERE]

I also love that this project gave me a chance to use up some product that I've been holding onto, with only one project in mind. I remember getting this Christmas collection from Chickaniddy over a year ago, when I guest designed for them, and at first glance, I didn't think it was something I would use. But the collection colors worked perfectly with these photos, so I held onto it, knowing I would use it for this layout and most likely this layout only.

[Post found HERE]

This layout looks soooooo similar to the first layout I created for this project, and that's totally fine with me. The beauty of using the same design, is that it saves you time from having to come up with a whole new design, over and over. And because these layouts are all from different years, they're not going to be side by side in any albums or anything. So no one is really going to notice that a few layouts are similar to each other.

[Post found HERE]

I also went into these layouts knowing that I most likely wouldn't include any journaling on most of them. Especially the ones documenting family get-togethers. I don't want it to sound like the holidays are boring and monotonous. Because they're not. However, they usually include the same family members, we're usually at the same house, eating the same foods, opening gifts and doing our pick-a-gift exchange game. So I don't necessarily feel like I need to add journaling to those pages, as it would most likely say the same thing, year after year.

So, what's next? I have Christmas 2014 to do still. I never did edit those photos, so once I edit them, I can get that layout knocked out. And with Christmas 2015 just a few days away, I will have that to scrap as well. I believe I have one more Christmas that was within my "digital years", so that's one more I need to take care of. If I want to continue with the earlier Christmases, it will involve film prints and/or negatives. We'll see how up to that I'm feeling. Otherwise, I'd love to tackle the girls birthday's in the same way, and get those all taken care of. We'll see what I'm feeling inspired to tackle once the new year comes around.

 

Scrapbook & Cards Today: Then & Now

Hey everyone! I had a new layout go up on the Scrapbook & Cards Today blog earlier this week. A few weeks back my sister came out from Denver for a surprise visit home. She doesn’t make it home that often, so whenever she does come out, we try and make a point to take new family photos. And this time, we were smart enough to get a few photos of just our little family. It seems like the only time we get a photo of the four of us together is at Christmas.

The last time we had a nice family photo taken (not including Christmas!) was back in 2009. That’s six years, which is a little crazy. I thought it would be fun to include photos from the two separate years, 2009 and 2015, onto one layout. Showing us then, and now.

  

Our photos were pretty similar in look and colors. This really helped when making my paper choices. If the colors had been totally different, I would have most likely printed my photos in black and white. I printed a family photo and a photo of just the girls from each year, all 3”x 4” in size. I knew that my plan was to split the page in half, so putting the two photos for each year together would make them 6” across (half the page).

This layout is pretty much made up of paper, paper, and more paper! I dug into some new Amy Tangerine patterned papers, from her Finder's Keepers collection (one might be from another collection come to think of it), that I had just bought, and found a few patterns that I thought went great with my photos. By cutting small strips of each pattern, and also using one for my die cut title, I was able to work 5 different patterned papers onto the page.

For my title, "Then & Now" (but without the & because I just forgot), I used the Weathered Door Alpha kit from Kerri Bradford Studio. I cut the main letters from the blue dotted patterned paper and the outline of the letters from a dark brown cardstock.

I had already put my Silhouette Cameo away (it resides on the floor when I'm not using it) when I decided that I wanted to include a few die cut strips to mix up all of the solid blocks of patterned paper. I remembered a Die-namics die cut I had from My Favorite Things, and the 6" circle border die was perfect for what I needed. 

For my journaling, I typed up just a few facts about our family for each year. I could have said so much more, but I wanted to keep it fairly short and sweet to fit the space I had to work with. Journaling is almost always the last thing I add to my layouts, so whatever space is left usually dictates how much I can say ;)

Bella Blvd: Family Photos 2015

It's "Spread It Out" day on the Bella Blvd blog today, so that means I have another two page layout to share with you. I had a few ideas for layouts rolling around in my head, and even started printing out photos for one of them. And then I totally gave up on those ideas, as time was slipping away from me.

My sister came out for a surprise visit about a month ago, and we managed to take some new family photos. She doesn't make it home that often, so we try and do the photo thing when she is here and we're all together. We didn't actually plan this time, as to what to wear, but I guess our color mix wasn't too bad.

I printed out most of my photos as 3x4", 4x4", a 4x6", and then added in a 5x5" photo just to add some height difference since I was lining all of these photos up across the page. We took these photos at the end of August, and here in my part of CA, we won't see anything resembling "fall" until late October, maybe even November. However, the Hello Autumn collection was the perfect match for our photos, as the colors we all wore were represented in the colors of the fall themed collection.

I knew that I wanted to use the beige triangle tone-on-tone patterned paper for the background of my layout. It's a subtle design, so the photos, title, and other products all stand out well against it. I lucked out, as I only had two sheets of that paper left. I added a thin navy blue woodgrain patterned paper strip along the tops and bottoms of both pages.

I happen to have plenty of sticker sheets to work with, so I was able to use two orange scalloped border stickers (one on each side of the spread). If I didn't have duplicates, I would have simply used a border punch on some patterned paper instead.

For my title, I used a mix of Blueberry Simply Simona chipboard alphas and a die cut word (from Kerri Bradford Studio) which I cut from a green leaf patterned paper. As I was looking for some embellishments, I came across these brown chipboard banner flags from a prior fall collection, and decided they would be perfect for adding the year. I used some cream number stickers to add the year.

I couldn't really find any embellishments to fill in that space on the right side of the spread, so I decided to die cut a tree, using my Silhouette and some patterned paper. I embellished the tree with some threaded buttons.

If you haven't already, stop by the Bella Blvd blog today and check out the two page layout from designer Heather Leopard. I really loved what she came up with, and it was so similar to what I was originally going to do. So it's a good thing I gave up on my previous idea ;)

 

 

Summer Thoughts

I know I've been absent from blogging a lot this summer. In fact, I've only blogged 16 times in the last three and a half months. Which is pretty bad. I have no clue what my average was before that. I mean, I could go count, but I'm not THAT curious to know. I just want you to know that I am totally aware that I haven't been around as much as I might have been before.

Maybe that's because I honestly haven't scrapped that much the last few months. I've created a bunch of stuff, some of which I've already shared and a lot of which I can't share for a while. But I know that it feels like I haven't done that much lately, even though there are projects that I really do want to get done. It's that one little thing that stands in the way though. TIME.

My summer months always feel so hectic and busy. But not because we're having tons of fun, going on daytrips and vacations, and just enjoying life. It's because we're working. Well, more so Joe and I, as the girls definitely had some time to relax this summer. Although, in their defense (especially my college girl), I think they needed a decent amount of downtime after the busyness of the school year.

I've had all of these extra bodies in the house this summer. I had three summer daycare kids here with me. Although I did have one regular kiddo gone for the summer, since her mom just had a baby, and she got to hang out at home with them. I had my girls home for the summer, and most days, Sarah's boyfriend was here a lot too. Joe works nights, so he's here sleeping during the day. I'm shushing the kiddos in the morning, since the girls are still sleeping. And then I'm shushing my girls in the afternoon, while the kiddos all nap. I just don't get much done during the summer, since after working an eleven+ hour day with the kids (and squeezing my Bella job in there was well), I have no desire to do much of anything in the evenings.

I can't lie though. It's been nice to step back from scrapping in a sense this summer. I didn't worry about getting stuff done. I wasn't thinking about projects I wanted to work on. I can definitely get caught up in the things that I want to do, and not give my full attention to the things that I need to do. This summer, however, I really do feel like I just enjoyed the moment. Ok, I didn't enjoy every moment (too many little ones takes a toll on my sanity!). But I was present more than usual.

I've juggled a lot this summer, making a full time job and a part time job work, along with some freelance work here and there. We've spend several weekends doing much needed things around the house. We've been working, alongside Alyssa's dad (who honestly, did most of the work), to get Alyssa set up in an apartment across the street from the college for several weeks. And we've dealt with, and are still dealing with, the sudden loss of Alyssa's grandma from a very short battle with cancer.

I've also dropped the ball on stuff, simple because I didn't want to worry about things that didn't have to be done. Nothing of any importance, mind you. Just things that I've been pushing to the side here and there, with the "I'll do that later" mentality. I guess now is about that time.

Sarah went back to school about two weeks ago, starting her junior year of high school. Sigh. Alyssa is pretty much moved out and in her apartment now, and will be starting her sophomore year of college next Monday. Sigh. I have a two week "break" of sorts with the daycare kids. I still have four little ones here, but it's the least amount I've had all summer. I have my previous kiddo coming back in two weeks, and she's bringing her new baby brother! So that will be a big adjustment, I'm sure. Not to mention I have another daycare parent expecting a baby later this year.

Long story short. I haven't blogged as much. And I've missed it. I haven't scrapped as much. And I've missed it. I have a list of projects that I want to do, which includes some 6x8 album projects that I've been itching to start/finish. So I'm really hoping I can get back into the swing of things here, so that I'll have more to share with you all :)

*** And since I didn't even chat about the cards, as they're self explanatory, they were both made for Bella Blvd for their summer release booth at the SPC show in July. Both used the new Fresh Market collection, and you can read about them both HERE.

Tackling Christmases Past: Hello Christmas and Christmas Love & Joy

I'm back to talk more about tackling Christmases past. If you haven't yet read my post from Monday, you might want to read that first, since it explains the why, what, and how about how this project started. You can check it out HERE.

I worked on my first two double page layouts last weekend, to share for my feature on the Scrapbook & Cards Today blog today.

On this first layout, from our 2013 Christmas get-together with my side of the family, I got a total of 18 photos on my two page layout. I mentioned this in my previous post, but I really do aim to get the majority of my photos on the page. And I did just that here. I still had some photos left over that I didn't use, but most were duplicates or photos that looked very similiar.

When I have lots of photos to include, I will often create a 12x12” photo collage for one side of the two page spread. I then create a smaller collage to include on the opposite page of the spread, which still gives me room to include a bit of patterned paper, my title, journaling (if I feel it’s necessary), and a few simple embellishments. 

***When I first started thinking about tackling this project, I had THIS layout in mind, as I just loved the overall design.

Knowing that I wasn’t going to have room to add a ton of product really helped narrow down my choices as far as what I wanted to include. I stuck to 3-4 patterned papers for each layout. I have picked up some Christmas papers here and there, and have some olders ones in my stash as well. I looked thru all of those first, and then if needed, will find everyday papers to fill in the gaps.

I picked out three patterned papers from Simple Stories for this layout, and you can see that they're really not themed papers, but more simple patterns. You'll also noticed that I hardly used any patterned paper at all. I only needed a few strips of patterned paper to add to the page, and then I did use the same patterned papers to die cut my title as well.

My first choice for my titles was to die cut them with my Silhouette Cameo. These layouts end up being pretty "flat", especially since one side of the spread is just a large photo collage. So the die cut title keeps with the look. Also, I just really, really love die cut titles! Although I am open to mixing in some stickers or chipboard alphas if I decide I need them.

When it came to embellishing, I knew I would keep it simple by using brads, buttons, and a few basic punches. I also have a small stash of Christmas themed embellishments, both old and new, that I may pull from if they coordinate. These tags are a great example. They're from My Mind's Eye, and I've had them for about two years. They matched the Simple Stories papers so well, it's like they were meant to be used together. Those came jus as you see them too. The layered tags, with the brads already there.

I pulled the 4x4" "Be Merry and Bright" die cut card from the Simple Stories collection as well, as it matched the cream/yellowish patterned paper that I used for my title. It also helped fill up the space on the left side of the page, since I wasn't going to add any journaling.

Journaling. I guess that's something I should mention. I almost always journal on my layouts, even if it's something short and sweet. But I don't necessarily feel like I need to journal on these Christmas layouts. Maybe I'm wrong, and maybe I should be writing something down. When you get down to it, our family Christmas get-togethers are a lot alike. We're usually at my parents house, it's the same family members (every few years, we get a few extra family members that visit from out of state), we do the same gift exchange game, and eat a lot of the same foods. I feel like if I were to journal on these pages, it would be the same thing every year.

Both of the photo templates that I used on this layout are from Kerri Bradford's Storyboard #7 kit. This smaller template isn't too tall in size, so that I still had plenty of room to groove at the top of the page. I did combine a few of the openings in the template, since it was originally set up for 8 photos, and I only used 6 photos.

This was mainly because of the orientation of my photos, and not being able to crop them all down small enough to fit the smaller openings. So I just combined two openings, in several different places, in order to fit a wider photo. I actually did a video tutorial on this a few years ago, which you can view HERE.

This is by far my favorite photo template to use when I want a full page collage. Like I said, it's from Kerri Bradford's Storyboard #7 kit. That kit has another full page template as well, but this one just seems to work really well for my photos, while not making all of the photos too teeny tiny.

I always adhere these full page photo collages to a sheet of cardstock, just to make them a bit more stable. I know they get slipped into an album, so it's not that they necessarily need the extra stability. But it definately helps when I'm trying to photograph them.

My second layout is from our 2012 Christmas get-together with my side of the family. I used the same 12x12” photo template as I used in the first layout, but I used a slightly different template for the smaller collage on the first page. I then added two individual 3x4" photos right above the smaller photo collage, for a total of 20 photos on this spread.

But that wasn’t enough, as I still had leftover photos that I wanted to include. Some years I take more photos than others. This was one of those years.

So I also created two 6x12” photo collages, using Kerri Bradford's Picture That: Go Long kit, which I am including in a 6x12” page protector that will be inserted between these two pages in my album, for a grand total of 29 photos. Kind of hard to see here, as the photos all blend together, but it's there.

I feel like the photo of my brother in the orange cone hat really clashes with the rest of the page. Lol. There's a story behind that. And it's not even a hat. It's been traveling around our family for years, and is sort of an inside joke :)

I used a mix of die cut words, using my Cameo, and chipboard alphas for the title on this layout. See that word "love" there? It's such a skinny little outline word, but I love it. I was running it thru my Xyron sticker maker thing, and it totally ate it up. It was a jumbled mess. But I really didn't want to re-cut it, since I had already put my Cameo away and really didn't want to set it all back up again, dragging my laptop back into my scraproom.

So I did the best I could to un-jumble the word and re-shape it, as most of the backside did end up with adhesive on it. It doesn't look perfect, but it's good enough for me. And I even told myself that "no one will ever know, except for when you tell them all about it on your blog". Lol.

The silver chipboard alphas were from the dollar section at Target last year. I’m pretty sure I bought about 14 packs of them, because silver was all the rage at the time, and because I loved the font. And because they were only a dollar. I know, I know. By buying so many packs, they soon became a $14 purchase, but you know you need several packs in order to spell out anything when you only get one of each letter in the pack. Lol. It felt nice to actually use a few of them! 

Instead of adding a simple strip of the black text patterned paper along the top of the page, I used a scalloped edged banner punch to create the fun row of flags across the top of the page. I also wanted a bit more silver to tie in with the chipboard letters, so I used my scalloped border punch on a sheet of silver glittered paper to create a thin border strip to add along the side of the page.

Personally, I have no problem with having layouts that look very similar in my albums. Usually, these layouts don’t end up next to each other, so it’s not going to be super obvious that I used the same basic page design. This is especially true with Christmas layouts, since they’re a full year apart in the albums. 

I figure if using the same basic design, some of the same elements, and even the same photo templates helps me tackle something that I’ve been avoiding, then it’s all good. I would rather create quick and easy pages and “get it done” … then to keep pushing these photos and memories aside, all because they’re subjects or themes that I either don’t enjoy doing, or am too overwhelmed to dig into.

I'm hoping to have a few more of these to share next week, if all goes as planned. Stay tuned.

Kerri Bradford Studio: Family Love

I have a new layout up over at Kerri Bradford Studio today.  It's not often these days that I have new photos to scrap with. But every few months, I take photos for this adorable little family. This is my cousin Brad, and his wife Issa, and their kiddos, Zachary and Madison. I'm behind on editing photos for them, from the last two times we've gotten together, but I just had to edit a few of them to use on a new layout.

I know I've mentioned this before, but I'm going to mention it again. I remember talking to a scrapper friend (who does not own a die cut machine) a few years ago, and she commented on how if she had a die cut machine, she could probably get by with only cardstock, patterned paper, and die cuts. I thought she was crazy. But I'm finding that as Kerri's store grows and grows, with new kits popping up almost weekly, it's becoming even easier to create layouts using only my Cameo and paper, and just a small sprinkling of basic embellishments to finish off the pages! 

  

One of the things that I love to do when I sit down to create using Kerri's cut files (or even from the Silhouette store), is to pull my photos directly into my Silhouette software to help with the planning of my layouts. Did you know you can pull your photos into your software? You just click on "open", and then make sure to select "all files", so that it will show your photos, instead of only wanting to show you Silhouette files.

I simply open up each photo and size it to the exact same size that I've printed that photo. This allows me to move the photos around on my cutting mat (within the software), and figure out where I want my photos to be on the page. I start playing around with different shapes, backgrounds, words, and phrases, until I come up with exactly what I want. I always save what I'm doing as I'm working, since I usually don't do my planning and cutting at the same time, or even on the same day or week. And if there's any shapes that I think I might want to use, but I'm not positive, I just move them to the side of the cutting area. This way, I can swap pieces out if needed, and those shapes are all still there when I pull up my saved file to work on it again.

Another advantage of planning out the page design this way, is that you can size all of your cut files according to how they fit on the page with the photos, so you have a much better chance of cutting them the right size, instead of guessing how small/big they need to be. It's always a good thing when I don't have to cut things several times, because my "guessing" was off.

Once I have the design set up the way I want it, I separate the shapes and start the cutting process. After everything is cut, I use my planning "layout" as a guide to simply place everything where it belongs on the page. 

For this layout, I had a pretty good idea where I wanted my photos to fall on the page. I wanted to create a grid-like design for the page, so the first few shapes I picked where these smaller background pieces from the Life Centrals: Circles kit and the Life Additions: Backgrounds kit. I sized them both to 3x4" and cut them from pink tone-on-tone patterned papers.

I cut the word "perfect", from the Something To Say kit, from green cardstock, to add a bit of green to the page to compliment the green in my photos. And the fun little "date" cut is from the Say What 3 kit, which I cut from the brown tone-on-tone patterned paper that I used for my title. I cut both of those from white cardstock as well, and layered them together.

I knew I wanted to use one of Kerri's handbrushed script words for my title, so I chose "family" from the All In The Family kit. I added the "love" from the February Fourteen kit to complete my title. I cut both words from patterned paper and white cardstock, and layered them together.

While I love to dig through my patterned paper collection and mix and match from different manufacturers, sometimes I don't want to put that much thought into things. I made my choices very simple for this layout, as all of my patterned papers came from Pebbles. With the pinks, blues, and greens in the photos, my mind immediately went to Pebbles. I also am a huge fan of their tone-on-tone patterns and knew they'd be perfect for this layout.

A lot of the patterned papers are on the older side, but they're still favorites of mine. The tan text pattern is a newer one, and I always love a good text paper for backgrounds. I pulled the cute little clouds from Kerri's newer Happy Camper kit. They were perfect for adding in a little blue to the page, to go with the boy's shirts.

Like I mentioned earlier, with all the fun die-cutting pieces, I find that I don't need a ton of embellishments on my page. I did add a few basic ones here, and they're all from Pebbles as well. A few buttons, a few enamel dots, and a chipboard flower.

I didn't end up with very much green on the page, even though I had lots of green in the photos. So I cut two hearts, from the XOXO kit, and and ran them both thru a dotted embossing folder. I layered them together and machine stitched down the center, so the sides of the top heart have some lift to them. 

I find that if I take a bit of time to plan out my pages like this ahead of time, everything comes together so much quicker once I sit down to actually work on it. I start with all of the cutting, and then piece it all together just like I had planned out, and then finish it with the journaling, machine stitching, and embellishing. Always a good thing when pages can magic themselves together so easily.

 

Making Of A Band Mini Album: The Photos

Back to bloggin, back to blogging. So, what should I blog about first? How about the second part of the band mini album project that I believe I said I would share a full month ago? Geez. I specifically typed: "I thought I would do a few posts, spread out over the next week or two (or three, depending on how life goes), on the process of creating this project and getting it all assembled". I guess we know how life went for me the last month!

I talked about my supplies for this project in THIS POST, and today I thought I would share a bit about the photo process of the project. Which was kind of a huge process, and one that I'm still working on getting finished. I would guess that 98% of the photos I am including in this album came from Alyssa's iPod, older cell phone, and/or her iPhone. So the first step was waiting for her to have the time to get all of the photos together for me. I had her put everything on a flashdrive, so that I could easily transfer it all to my laptop.

Alyssa did have the majority of the photos seperated into folders for each year. She had very little for freshman year, a small amount for sophomore year, and tons of photos for junior and senior year. Then there were lots of random photos that we had to figure out which year they fell into. It's nice when you can hold your curser over a photo and it will give you the date the photo was taken. But that doesn't always happen when they're from cell phones, screenshotted from other friend's phones, etc. We did the best we could to figure out where everything went.

The next step was sorting out the photos within each year's folder. I knew I could pretty much group the majority of the photos into "events", which would make them easy to organize into the album. Like having all the photos from one concert together, all the photos from the football games together, etc. I created folders for each concert and/or event, and just started plopping photos into those folders. 

The next step was going into each event folder, and getting the photos ready to print. I ended up doing a little bit of editing on most of the photos. Not too much though. There were definately photos that I wish I could have worked more magic on (remember, a lot weren't the best quality), but they were what they were and I was ok with that. Once I had edited the photos, I moved the original photos into a new folder, just to get them out of the way.

Then it came time to figure out what sizes I wanted to print each photo. I knew that my photos would be either 4x6", 2x2", 3x3", 4x4", or 2x3" in size. For each event, I picked at least two photos that would make great 4x6's, and would look good on the opening and closing page of that event's section in the album. For events that had a large quantity of photos, I often choose even more 4x6" photos, but I knew from the start I wanted at least two of that size.

I tried to get a good look at how many photos I had for each event, how they could be cropped (would squares work, or would they have to be kept in full), and then determine what divided page protectors would hold them the best. From there, I would start cropping and getting them ready to print.

For each photo I was going to have printed, I named them with the year and the event name. So the photos in the screenshot above are labeled "SeniorYear_FallConcert_1", "SeniorYear_FallConcert_2", etc. This made it easy to sort them out after I picked up my photo order.

For the smaller sized photos, I cropped them and placed them onto 4x6" canvases, so that I could fit multiple photos together. I could put two 3x3's on a 4x6 photo, four 2x2's on a 4x6 photo (you can technically put six on there, but I found they were cutting a little bit off one side of my print, so I stuck with four), four 2x3's on a 4x6 photo, etc.

I even put my 4x4's on a 4x6 photo. I could have just printed them as 4x6", but by cropping them myself and sticking them onto the 4x6 canvas, I knew exactly where to trim them to get that 4x4" square. If that makes sense.

I had a folder within each event folder to plop my "to print" photos into. Once I had gotten all of the photos from an event ready to go, I simply signed into my Costco account and uploaded those photos into my "Band Album Project" album. Since I live about two miles from Costco, I would usually do an order each day, since it was easy enough to run and pick them up.

I really got into a good workflow while working on these photos, and I got pretty quick at deciding what size to print, cropping them, sticking them on canvases, etc. I could whip out events left and right. It's been a while since I've worked on this project (I blame summer!), so when I go back to finish these, I know it will take me a while to get in my groove again.

I'll share the next part of this project in the next week or so (don't sit around waiting for it, but it WILL be coming!), and I'll show you what I did with all of those photos once I picked them up and brought them home.

My High School Graduate

Last Friday night, this happened. The big moment that marks the end of a huge chapter of our kid's lives. After spending thirteen years going to school, surviving Kindergarten thru 12th grade, the moments comes when they walk across the stage (or the grass, if you're like our school) and get their high school diploma. It's an awesome moment for our seniors. And even though it's a hard moment for us parents, to realize that our kids have gone and grown up and are entering adulthood, it's also an amazing moment, and a proud moment for us.

Our graduation ceremony is held on the football field, with all of the seniors, teachers, faculty, and the band on the field. That's the band you see in the photo above, and Sarah is in there somewhere. Depending what side of the field your senior is sitting on determines which set of bleachers you sit in. Home or visitors. Alyssa was closer to the visitor side, so we sat in the visitor bleachers. My only complaint was that there is only one set of speakers on the visitors site, where there are 3-4 sets on the home side. So we didn't hear the ceremony as well as we would have liked.

About a week or so before graduation, we had Senior Awards Night. Alyssa received her Life Membership Award for the California Scholarship Federation, along with her gold cords and tassle. The 16 students that received this award sat in the front row at graduation, so we knew it would be easy to spot her. That evening, she also received the Pinnacle Team award, as one of three students in our school to represent the top 1% of her class. Yes, we are unbelievably proud of her!!!

That's her, third from the right in the front row. Just like almost every other year, at graduation time, it was super windy out. I hadn't even though to pin her cap on, but I honestly don't think it would have helped. There were hats and cords flying everywhere. Everyone spend a good portion of the ceremony holding their caps on their heads. Lol.

We heard a few speeches, most of which were shorter than I thought they would be. Then they got to what everyone was waiting for. The distributing of the diplomas. We had about 370 students graduating in the senior class. They had tables set up on both sides of the field, so that students could feed in from both sides at once. That's Alyssa at the podium, having her name called out.

And there she is, diploma in hand. Well, the diploma folder in hand. I'm not sure if all schools do this, but they had to go into the office this week to pick up the real diploma. Which makes sense to me, since you really don't want to risk losing that important piece of paper in the craziness that happens after the ceremony.

After all of the diplomas were handed out, the graduates all walked out and spread themselves out around the edge of the football field (actually, the track around it). They were officially announced as the graduating class of 2014, and proceeded to throw their caps in the air. If the wind hadn't blown them off already!

And want to hear something weird? I didn't cry, or even tear up. And I ALWAYS tear up at stuff like this. Usually proud tears. Maybe it was the large venue, the fact that we couldn't hear that well (we were also surrounded by people in the bleachers that wouldn't stop talking, which didn't help matters), or the fact that it all went by so quickly. Or maybe I had just prepared myself so well for this moment, that I was able to just take it all in without it getting the best of me.

Sarah surprised us by being the most emotional one that evening. After she got done in the band, and had her instrument put away, she came rushing over to Alyssa. She was tearing up and gave Alyssa the biggest hug ever. I think it really hit her, watching her big sister walk up (pretty much in front of her, since she was in the front row of the band) and accept her diploma, that she wouldn't be around as much after she goes off to college.

Of course, the next morning, as soon as Sarah woke up, she came running into Alyssa's room, all happy to see her. And within about five minutes, she was talking about taking over Alyssa's room while she's gone. Lol.

 

Alyssa and her dad. His parents were there as well, along with her aunt, who flew in from Colorada to see her graduate. My parents and my brother were also there. I wish I had enough tickets to include my brother's wife, but luckily, she understood.

Alyssa and Joe. He has been a part of her life since she was just a year old, so he's been there for the entire ride.

Me and my girl. I can't even put into words how proud I am of this amazing child of mine. She's smart, she's a hard worker and self motivated, and she's driven and determined to be the best she can be. She's just an all-around good kid, with a kind heart and great intentions. She's got a good head on her shoulders and makes smart decisions. I can't wait to see what she accomplishes next. Love you baby girl!

I have many more photos I would love to share from that night. But since I'm already working some into layouts, I figured I won't bore you with them here. And if you follow me on Facebook or Instagram, you've probably already seen them. One way or another, they will all be appearing here on the blog sometime soon, as I'm excited to get them all scrapped and in her school album.

#alyssasenioryear: A Final Look

Earlier this year, I did a blog post simliar to this post. I shared a quick look at the first part of Alyssa's senior year of high school. All of the photos were ones that I have shared on Instagram, with the hashtag #alyssasenioryear. I have continued to share photos related to her senior year, using that same hashtag. I think it's so fun to pull up all of the photos at once, just by clicking on a simple hashtag, rather than having to scroll thru my entire Instagram account looking for photos that fit what I'm looking for.

I was going to share a small handful of photos from graduation. But I thought that before I share those, I would take a final look at all of the photos under my #alyssasenioryear hashtag (excluding the ones from graduation). These certainly aren't all of the photos from her year, and they don't give a full overview of all that she had going on. But they're the photos that I happen to share to help document her year, from my viewpoint.

I was going to add a brief description of each photo, so they would make more sense. But I know myself well, and I know my descriptions would NOT be brief. So, if you're really dying to know what they're all about, follow me on Instagram (link is in the upper right sidebar) and click on that #alyssasenioryear hashtag ;)

I'll be back tomorrow to share a small look at graduation.

Kerri Bradford Studio: Hello UOP ... You Make My Heart Sing

My oldest daughter, Alyssa, is graduating from high school in less than three short weeks. I still can't wrap my head around that, let alone the fact that she'll be headed off to college in a few short months. College. It's such a huge process, especially when it's your first child and you're learning the ropes as you go. Every family and every student approaches this process differently, but we picked up some good tips from fellow parents of seniors and I now feel that I can even pass along some good tips to future parents of seniors.

The entire college process was a big part of Alyssa's senior year, and even with the big decision made, there's still a lot of steps that need to be checked off the list in the next few months. While choosing a college was a hard process at times, in the end it came down to an easy decision for her. I wanted to document her college choice and how she came to decide on the amazing college that she will be spending her next 4 years at. And where exactly will that be?

Alyssa is beyond excited to be attending the University of the Pacific this coming fall. UOP has been her dream college, and at the very top of her college list since the beginning. She fell in love with the school, the programs, the campus, and just about everything it has to offer. And we, her parents, loved it just as much as she did. UOP is a small, private college, just about 20 minutes from us. With everything we learned about the college, we knew it was a perfect fit for our girl. And it doesn't hurt that she'll be staying pretty close to home :)

Once the college decision was made, I knew that I wanted to document it. When I sat down to create my next layout for Kerri Bradford Studio, it was the perfect opportunity to do just that, as Alyssa had just confirmed her registration. My layout is up on her blog today, and I'm excited to share it here too.

About a month ago, Alyssa and I attented UOP's Profile Day. It's a day dedicated to all admitted students, where you could go visit the campus (for some, their first time, for us, our third or fourth time), attend a welcome assembly, hear from students and alumni, attend workshops on financial aid, housing, sit in on a Q&A session for your students department/major, and so much more. It was such an informative day, and we ended it with Alyssa stopping for a photo with the school mascot, Powercat.

I spent more time than I care to admit trying to come up with a title for this layout. Oftentimes, I will do my title work towards the end of the layout design process. But for this layout, it was one of the first things I did. In fact, I was originally going to have my title filling up the entire left side of the first page. It took me a while to realize that I wouldn't have enough room for my journaling, and it made more sense for my title to span across the tops of the two pages.

I played with a mix of words from a variety of Kerri's kits, trying to come up with a fun title that "announced" her college choice. I looked at a ton of Kerri's brush script hand-written words, as I'm loving the look of them. I loved the idea of using the large "hello", from Kerri's Let's Go kit, and then adding her college choice directly after it.

I used the Weathered Door Alpha kit for the name of the college. The University of the Pacific is simply known as UOP to most, which is definitely easier to fit on a layout. Lol. I had dug out a wide variety of orange patterned papers to chose from, and ended up using a smaller 6x6 diagonal striped paper from Echo Park for the "UOP", as well as the arrow on the second page.

It finally dawned on me that the "you make my heart sing", from Kerri's Happy Stuff kit, was the perfect subtitle to use, as Alyssa is attending college as a music major.

I un-grouped the words, so that I could arrange them all going across the top of the right page. Once I had them sized to fit, I cut them out of black cardstock. I then decided to go back and cut out the words three more times. I adhered all four of each word together to thicken them up, mimicing chipboard.

I also wanted to include some photos of the college, but didn't have any of my own to pull from. So I did a Google search for images, and used those to create a collage using a template from Kerri's Storyboard #6 kit. Tell me that's not a gorgeous campus, right! It's actually ranked the 31st most "amazing" colleges in the country, and rightly so.

I can't remember the last time I journaled this much on a layout. I knew I had a lot to say, but I didn't have much wiggle room with a 5x7" photo and a 9x7" photo collage. It took me a while to condense what I had to say, into the space I had to say it in, and still make sure I got the most important details in there. I think I did fairly well.

Now wish us luck getting through these last 3 weeks of school. We have so many end-of-the-year award ceremonies, final band concert, and all of the senior/graduation activities that lead up to the actual graduation event. It's all happening so fast, with so much going on, that I haven't had much time to let the reality of it all set in. It's going to hit me like a ton of bricks before I know it!

A New Favorite Photo

I just have a quick photo share today. It's that time of year again, when the almond orchards are in full bloom. There's a short amount of time to take advantage of the gorgeous blooms before they all fall, and this year the few days of rain that we've had made that timeframe even shorter.

I did manage to get Alyssa out there one evening, trying our hand at her first round of senior photos. Sarah tagged along to keep us company on the side of the road, and eventually came out to help get some natural smiles out of her big "little" sister (since Sarah towers over her by about 5 inches).

And somewhere along the line, I captured this moment between the two of them. And I love it more than anything. It doesn't bother me that Sarah's eyes are closed, or that she's smushing Alyssa's head so tightly. These two are not only sisters, but they have become great friends as well. And this captured how much they really do love each other.

I already had this exact image printed as an 18"x24" print (complete with text, by Ali Edwards), and it's hanging up on the wall, looking gorgeous. Now I just need to find two more great shots, to switch out the two other frames on either side of the one holding this photo.

#alyssasenioryear: part 1

When I redesigned my blog banner, I wrote "scrapbooking and a little bit of everyday life". I've always had something to that regard up there, but I know I haven't had as much of the "everyday life" stuff in the last year or two. Not counting any life stuff that gets shared because of a layout or project. I know most of you probably come to see the crafty stuff, and that's all good. But I'm thinking I should make more of an effort to sprinkle in just a little of the "everyday life" on here every once in a while.

I thought I would start with a little look at the first half of Alyssa's senior year. Honestly, I've been super bad about using my big camera. But I have gotten pretty good about taking photos here and there with my cell phone, now that I have a phone with that option. I actually rely on her for a lot of photos, as she's always taking photos with her friends at school, band, football games, band concerts, etc. And I have something really fun planned with those, as soon as I can get her to share them all with me.

I've shared all of these photos on Instagram, with the hashtag #alyssasenioryear. I love pulling up all of the photos at once, even though there's one stray photo from a stranger with that same hashtag. Lol.

So hard to believe we are less than 4 months away from graduation. I try not to think about it too much, as I'm just not ready for it. Luckily, there is so much to do in the meantime, that we don't have much time to think about it. I'll be sure to share more as we go.

Happy Holidays

I got caught up in the busyness of the holidays and just never made it back here to wish you all a merry Christmas. So I figured I would stop in before New Year's rolls around and I miss that one a well. From my house to your house, I just wanted to say "Happy Holidays" to all of you! I'll be back to posting more regularly next week, so stay tuned :)

Kerri Bradford Studio: Perfect & Priceless

I have two new layouts up over at Kerri Bradford Studio today. When I sat down to do my project for Kerri last month, I decided to lift one of my own layouts, using a page design that I loved. This time around, I used the same basic page design to create two layouts at once. I'm a big believer in getting the most out of your products/designs/time, and an easy way to do that is to use the same page design for multiple layouts. Most likely, these pages won't end up next to each other in the albums anyways.

I've said on numerous occasions that a lot of my layouts start out with new products that I'm wanting to use. I will even go so far as to start a layout, getting a good majority of it put together, without even knowing what photos I'm going to use. That's kind of how both of these layouts started. I had recently gotten a few new 6x6" pads of patterned paper, and set aside two of them from My Mind's Eye (from the Cut & Paste collections) that I thought I would make a point to use right away.

I pulled out four coordinating 6x6" patterned papers from each pad and paired them up with two sheets of white cardstock, to create 2 layouts. Then I went about finding photos to match the two sets of papers. There's no rhyme or reason to how I find photos. I just dig around on my external hard drives until I find something that works, and hopefully that I haven't scrapped before. I ended up with a few photos I took of my brother and his wife a few years back, and a set of photos taken at my parents 40th wedding anniversary party six years ago. 

I created a photo collage for my first layout, using a template from Kerri's Storyboard #8 kit, as I had quite a few photos that I wanted to include.   

Each layout has the same basic page design. I arranged the four 6x6" patterned papers on a white sheet of cardstock. I had one paper on each layout that was more of a solid, sort of ombre', color. From each of those, I cut a 6x6 background piece to add a little interest to the page. For my first layout, I used my favorite circle background from the Background Basics kit.  

I'm still loving the look of combining a chunkier font and a cursive font for my titles. I came across this "together" cut, from the Love: Every Little Thing kit, which was actually a page tab. I tucked that under my photo collage, and then added the cursive "perfect" taken from the Oh Baby kit. And that little green chipboard heart? I've been cleaning out a lot of my supplies this past week and had gone through some drawers of chipboard the other day. I guess I missed that little heart, and I randomly found it on the desk while working on this layout. Rather than put it away, I just adhered it by my title :)

I cut a flower border from Kerri's Borderlines #1 kit, and adhere a piece of it along the left side of the photo collage to add a bit more green to the page. 

I kept the embellishments simple on these pages. I remember talking to one of my all-time favorite scrappers a while back, who is also a good friend of mine, and she mentioned that if she had an awesome die cut machine (which she didn't), she could probably get by scrapping with just cardstock, patterned paper, photos, and a few basic embellishments. 

I'm not sure I agreed with her at the time. But I'm finding that I'm fine with the simpler look for a lot of my layouts. I'm sure if I dug through my stash, I could find lots of fun little things to add to these layouts. But I'm totally cool with adding just a few buttons (my favorite basic embellishment) and calling it done!

For my second layout, I printed out three photos to line up across the page. I printed the main photo as a 4x6", and the other two as 3x4" photos. I cut a few scalloped borders from the Borderlines #2 kit, and adhered one above and one below my row of photos. I pulled out these navy blue jewel borders that I've had laying around forever, and adhered the larger strip along the bottom scalloped border.

I chose a flower petal background (once again from the Background Basics kit) for this page.

I love this chunky "Love" title from the This+That: Love kit. Once again, I wanted to pair a cursive word along with the chunkier word to create my title. "Priceless" is from the Giving Thanks kit, and once again, I misplaced the dot to my "i". Happens every time. I cut some smaller pieces from the smaller navy blue jewel border and added them to my title letters.

One page design, two layouts. Created at the same time, saving me lots of time. Love it!

They Really Did Rock: Treat Bags

This is new. I created a project just for fun. Not because I had to or because anyone told me too. It was created just because I wanted too. I really should do this more often. If only I had more hours in my days! Of course, this project has a story behind it, and the story is what inspired me to create the simple project. But if you don't care about the story (I won't be offended, as I know some only want to see projects ;)), just scroll down a ways.

This past Saturday, we had a soccer game worth sharing about. We have a U-19 team of 16 players, but on Saturday we only had 10 players show up for the game. A few we knew weren’t coming and a few we found out weren’t coming at the last minute. Meaning, we found out when they didn't show up to warm up. We play with 11 players on the field, so we knew it would be asking a lot of the 10 that did show up. Our games are 80 minutes long (40 min halves), so that’s rough with no subs. Especially when we have 2 girls with really bad asthma, who definitely need those breaks during the game when they’re having a hard time. The coaches gave those 2 girls strict instructions to come out the second they had any problems breathing. No questions asked.

We put those 10 players on the field to start the game, but we had one go down with a bad injury about 15 minutes in. We were playing in the next city over from us, and they are not known for their fields, to say the least. This player stepped in a hole and did something to her knee, ending with her getting carried off the field by the coach and the referee. She felt so bad, and kept trying to convince the coaches she could go back in, but they weren't having it. Since this put us down to just 9 players on the field, in a show of good sportsmanship, the other team did remove one of their players (but still had 10 out there). Another 20 minutes or so in, we had another player go down. She has asthma, which is what I thought the problem was, but it was actually her ankle (that she was already having issues with) that took a good hit. We finished out that first half with 8 players on the field, and were up 2-0. 

We started the second half with our same 8 players, and the 2 injured on the sideline, knowing that one of those 8 players had to leave halfway into the half. These girls were playing their hearts out and giving it their all. Which is why I knew it was only a matter of time before Alyssa had issues with her asthma. And about 25 minutes in (as we were playing with only 7 players), Alyssa went down hard with an asthma attack. It was bad. We knew she was done for the day, even though she kept saying she had to stay in. This meant we were down to just 6 players (that includes the goalie), and you’re required to have 7 players on the field to play. 

With only 15 minutes left in our 80 minute game, we weren’t ready to just give up. Our team had worked too hard to just walk away from a game we were dominating, even with less players. We were also finally playing a team from our own city, as we had been up against teams from the opposing city for the last 5 weeks, and the girls had been looking forward to it. And this other team came in undefeated (we've only lost 1 game). The player with the injured knee said she would go out on the field, just to be a body. After being given strict instructions to not move at all, and to literally just stand there, she slowly made her way onto the field, as Coach Joe was carrying Alyssa off the field. Our injured player did exactly as she was told, and stood in one spot like a statue. 

So the other 6 players (with one in the goal) kept the game going for another 15 minutes. We were strictly playing defense. But as you defend your goal, you do end up kicking the ball to the other side of the field, so then Sarah had to hightail it back to her forward position, as she’s one of our faster runners and our main scorer. The other team did finally score against us in the last few minutes. But Sarah took it right back and scored another goal. With their 10 players to our 6 players. We ended up winning the game 3-1. It was really awesome to watch our 10 players come together like that. They all gave 200% of themselves and worked their butts off during that game. They left that field exhausted, beat up, and worn down. But I think we all left that field feeling very proud too! 

For the rest of the weekend, I kept thinking about how those 10 players deserved a little something special. And I knew I wanted to put something together, as I'm the team parent. It would have been simple to buy some clear cellophane bags to fill with goodies. But I'm a crafty person, and I always prefer to make something if I can.

I picked out a treat box from the Silhouette library. It's a little flap box that I've used before. I decided to cut them all from kraft cardstock, as I have a ton of it in my stash (and I very rarely use kraft). I sized each box to the largest I could get it out of a 12x12 sheet of paper. I also added a few stars to the part that would show on the front, to create some little star cut-outs. After each one cut, I lightly misted them with some purple spray mist.

I was going to go with "you're awesome" for the front of the box, but in sizing the word "awesome" to fit, it was going to be too small to cut well. I have had issues with certain cursive words not cutting as well when I try and make them too tiny. So instead, I used this "you rock", which was taken from the phrase "you rock my world". I cut these all from one sheet of black cardstock.

I added the sentiments to the box templates before assembling the boxes. It's a lot easier to do this step first, since you can really push down on things to make sure they're adhered really well. I also added a silver brad to the hole in the middle part of the front piece, since it's harder to add those on once the boxes are assembled.

Then I went about assembling the boxes. I won't lie. I found this step to be the most annoying. No real reason. They're easy enough to do. Just make all the folds to get the shape, and adhere a few pieces together to get them to hold. But it still annoyed me. These boxes, once assembled, aren't huge. They're about 4 inches tall.

I added a second silver brad to the flap piece, and then tied them to each other with some purple/white twine to hold them shut. Our team color is purple, hence the purple misting and twine.

I put some black crepe paper in the bottom of each box, before filling them up with goodies. So on some of the boxes, that black showed thru the cut-out stars. But on most of them, you could see a little silver peek at what was inside.

Hershey's Kisses was my candy of choice! Everyone loves chocolate! I filled up those 10 boxes with chocolate and sent them off with Joe to hand out to the girls at practice on Tuesday. Just a little something-something to let them know how much we think they rock!!!

Scrapbook & Cards Today: Friday Night Football

I'm back to share my second layout that was featured in the Fall issue of Scrapbook & Cards Today. If you still haven't downloaded this issue, you can find it RIGHT HERE.

I was asked to create a layout about a family tradition for this assignment. This wasn't actually my first attempt, but unfortunately my first layout was to similiar to a theme that another designer covered. So I started over. And now I'm sort of glad I had to start fresh, because this layout is one of my very favorites in a long time. I talked a bit about that in THIS POST, where I also shared a layout inspired by this layout.

Friday night football games have become a favorite fall family tradition for us. It started when Alyssa was a freshman and playing in the marching band. If I'm being honest, out main reason for going to the games IS to see the marching band. I mean, isn't the football game just the opening act for the half time show ;) Just kidding (to any of you football moms!). While we're definitely there for the band, we do enjoy everything else that happens out on that field as well.

I used a storyboard template from Kerri Bradford's Storyboard #8 kit for my photo collage. I took most of these photos during a Homecoming game two years ago, and I also snuck in a photo of Alyssa and her friends that she took with her iPod.

I pulled out the most perfect patterned paper from Little Yellow Bicycle, as well as some coordinating die cuts. Our school color is green, along with black and white. I added in touches of tan/kraft as well.

I trimmed off the sides of the football field patterned paper, so that the sideline yardage would show on either side of the page. I also used that same green patterned paper to cut the "Football" part of my title. I used Kerri Bradford's Weathered Door Alphabet kit to cut the "Football", and "Friday" was a shape from the Silhouette store. And just a little FYI - I did dot that "i" in Friday before sending in the layout. I'm always losing track of my dots. Lol.

I journaled about how we all spend out time at the games. Alyssa is in the band, so she's out on the field before the game and during half time, and playing in the stands during the game. Sarah ran around with friends the first three years, but now that she's a freshman, she's in the band as well. Most games, you'll find me working the snack bar for the band boosters. And Joe can usually be found sitting in the stands, actually watching the football game.

In the magazine, they mentioned that I included an old ticket stub from one of the games we attended. While that woud be cool, we don't have actual tickets or anything. This fun ticket stub, along with the two pieces on the top half of the page, are all die cuts from Little Yellow Bicycle. I also cut the layered football with my Silhouette, using a shape from the Silhouette store. A few chipboard stars and wood buttons helped embellish the page.

Friday Night Lights

Happy Monday everyone! I hope you all had a great weekend. I thought I would share just a few peeks into what many of our fall Friday nights look like around here. Friday nights are spend under the lights, watching our high school's football games. It's been part of our family routine for four years now and w all really love it.

I try to watch at least two of the games each season, from the stands. Any other given game, you'll find me working the snack bar for the band boosters.

I love that Alyssa takes photos before and during the game with all of her bandmates. They show up early to get ready and she usually helps with face-painting.

A not-so-fabulous shot that I took while walking to the field from the back parking lot. On my way to the snack bar.

I'm already feeling sad that the next football game will be Alyssa's last game, as she's a senior. They all love marching season, and have so much fun together.

I'm so glad that Sarah decided to give band a try for her freshman year, along with her BFF Natalia. These two are always hilarious together, and never disappoint in taking tons of funny photos of themselves.

My view from the snack bar, located in the end zone. This isn't the best shot. We can actually see a TON from down there. 

And tomorrow I'll be sharing a layout I created about our Friday night football game ritual. Hope you'll stop back by and check it out :)

Two Point Five Months Ago This Happened

Since today is the girls first day back at school, I figured maybe it was about time I shared a few photos from last school year's graduations. Better late than never, right?

Sarah. Our 8th grade graduate! It seems like just yesterday that Alyssa was graduating from the 8th grade, yet three years have gone by and it was Sarah's turn. She looked gorgeous in her gown, and proudly wore the silver cord for making honor roll.

The entire class at the start of the ceremony. Since they walk in by height order, and Sarah's a little on the tall side, she ended up in the 5th row. So you can't see her here, but trust me, she's back there.

Accepting her promotion diploma from the school's principle.

One of the neat things about her class, is that it was the first class to go all 9 years at the school, from Kindergarten thru the 8th grade. When the school opened up, Sarah was in Kindergarten. They even took a group photo for the yearbook of all the kids in her class that had actually been there since Kindergarten. Suprisingly, there were only about 18-20 of them (out of about 90 that were graduating). The previous principle of the school that was there at the beginning came back for graduation, and this is Sarah shaking his hand.

Jump ahead to some photos of Sarah and her friends. She has a great group of very close friends, and they have all stayed friends over the years. Some have been friends since Kindergarten.

Sarah and Natalia.

Sarah and Vanessa.

Sarah and AJ (Alison).

Sarah and Karissa.

Sarah and Breanna.

Sarah and her big sister (even though technically Sarah is taller/bigger).

Joe and the girls.

Family shot that doesn't happen often enough.

And the next night, Alyssa was back at her own school for high school graduation. No, she didn't graduate (don't rush it!). But she's in the band, so they play for and get to attend the graduations. She shared some of her photos from the night (all iPod pics and cell phone pics).

Alyssa, Ruby, and Damon. These three have been friends since Kindergarten. And they've all been in the band together since the 5th grade.

She's got a huge group of band friends that are her core group of friends in high school. Or as any of them will tell you, they're all really like a big, musically gifted family!

Alyssa and Stephanie. I believe it was a bit windy that evening.

This was their last time having to play Pomp & Circumstance for a graduation. EVER. Well, for most of them. Some of these friends are still sophomores or even freshmen, so they'll still have to play. But I know Alyssa was excited to be done with that song!

And then there were a few graduating seniors, all fellow band members, that Alyssa had become really good friends with. Alyssa and Clayton.

Alyssa and Mario.

And Alyssa and Anna. These two played in the band together, played against each other in city soccer for years, and played together in high school soccer.

That's a quick look at how our last school year ended. It all goes by so quickly, and almost feels like a blur sometimes. Summer flew by too, and it's weird that they're already back in school. I can't wait till they get home so I can hear how their day went!

Three Years Later

I've been making a few changes around the house lately. Simple things. Easy things. One of them I'll be sharing tomorrow, in fact. I thought I would share a little peek into something I started a few years ago, and show you how far I have come since.

A few years ago, 3 to be exact, I re-painted my kitchen, with the same green paint that I have in a few other areas of the house. At that same time, I got rid of all of the fake plants that I had above the kitchen cabinets that were covered in about 2 inches of dust. I purchased a variety of frames in different colors and sizes at Michaels (all during a fabulous sale), and displayed them above the cabinets. I added in a few other odds and ends that I had laying around the house for extra decor. 

I took that photo three years ago. April of 2010. I didn't realize it had been that long ago that I stuck all of those frames up there. And yes, I totally put them up there with the cardboard and plastic packing on them. You can see that some of the frames came with those fake "photos" in them (the lighthouse, the flowers, the bride and groom), which I left in there, and some of those frames are even upside down. Classic, right ;)

I did add that photo of Sarah to the black 12x12 frame about 6 months after putting the frames up there. I had taken her out for a little photo shoot, loved that shot of her, and thought it would be perfect for the square sized photo. Sooooo. Six months later, I did add a photo to ONE frame.

This is how that section looks today. The photo of Sarah is in the same exact spot as it was before. I did add one of my Kerri Bradford Studio projects to the white frame (THIS project). You can see that the black frame is out of it's cardboard packaging, and the photo of the bride and groom is gone. I had actually used that frame for a design team project and had to get a new one to replace it. So it's there empty.

This is to the left of the photo of Sarah. The frames are a bit different. I switched a blue frame for the red frame and I believe that's the same black frame, just turned on it's side. It might seem weird to have a pencil drawn photo of Joe from high school displayed in the kitchen. Maybe it's not weird to some of you. This photo was laying around, backed with a heavy mat board, and I finally got smart and put it in a frame. The frame came from above the cabinets, so it only seemed right to put it back up there. Otherwise, I'd have a gap. So that's honestly the main reason it's there. Plus, it's kind of a cool photo. I have better shots of it that I'll have to share.

Three years ago, this is what the left side of the kitchen (above the cabinets) looked like. I got the lighthouse frame right side up, but the black one was upside down. Cardboard and plastic still on the frames.

And here's what it looks like today, three years later. Here's the red frame that I had switched out for the blue in the previous photos. And what's in that black frame? There's that bride and groom again. Lol. At least I took the cardboard and plastic off the frames, even if I still haven't put anything IN them.

This is what the right side of the kitchen (above the cabinets) looked like three years ago. That lighthouse photo sure is popular, isn't it? And will someone please remind me to switch out that ugly light with the gold trim. Ugh. Such a simple fix that will look 17 times better, I'm sure of it.

And here's what that section looks like today, three years later. The small photo of Sarah is gone. BTW. Alyssa totally comments on how there's a photo of Sarah and Joe up there, but not of her. I need to take care of that. I did fill one of the frames, with a digital word art image that I had printed out. In my last photo order from Costco over the weekend (because my photo printer is having some issues), I did have another digital print done to add to that white frame. It's sitting on my kitchen counter. We'll see how long it takes me to climb up there and add it in.

This gives you a pretty good idea about how I do a lot of things in life. Halfway. I don't set out to only do half, and it's not my intention to forget to go back and finish things. I mean, I have been up there at the top of the cabinets a few times over the past three years. I go up there, take everything down, and give it all a good scrubbing. And then I try and remember how to put it all back the same way. But it happens. Life gets busy, there's 57 other projects and things to do and worry about, so I do often get sidetracked and forget.

It's still a bit pathetic. I mean, come on. THREE years, and I've only filled four of the ten frames. I really need to make it a point to finish these and get something up there. I will make that one of my summer goals and will hopefully come and report back with all my fabulous filled frames of goodness!

Bella Blvd: American

Last Friday we revealed our new All American collection on the Bella Blvd blog, and this week we are sharing All American projects from our design team all week long. Five full days, with a new project from every single designer on the team. My layout was included on today's post.

This collection was perfect for scrapping some of the photos I took on Memorial Day last year. I did use a few of these photos before on a project sheet layout, but I really wanted to create a layout using more photos from the day to give a better view of the day. I used a storyboard template from Kerri Bradford Studio to create my photo collage, allowing me to get 9 photos on this one page. I also love that when I use a photo collage, I'm really just trimming one large photo, rather than trimming and adhering 9 individual photos.

I wanted to use the blue star patterned paper, but I didn't want it to overwhelm the page. So I used my Cameo to die cut this circle border to go along the left side of the page. I like that you can still see plenty of the star pattern on the blue paper, but it still allows bits of the white cardstock background to show through. I think it helps to balance out the white on the other areas of the page.

I wanted to add a little embellishing to the page, since it was mostly paper, stickers, and a few chipboard pieces, so I added some simple metal star brads along my circle border.

I used the "American" chipboard letters from the Chipboard Icons package for my title, dotting the "i" with a silver star brad. Since I was adding my journaling strips directly to the white cardstock background page, I lightly inked the edges of my strips with a navy blue ink pad to help them stand out. I had also lightly misted my white cardstock background with a light blueish misting spray.

Check out the Bella Blvd blog all week to see a wide variety of cards, layouts, and altered projects featuring this new collection (which begins shipping April 1st). There's a good mix of patriotic themed and everyday projects as well, showing how versitle the collection is.

Bella Blvd: District Honor Band

I have a quick layout share today that went up on the Bella Blvd blog over the weekend. Twice a month we have designers do their own takes on a sketch from Becky Fleck, and last week it was my turn.

It took me a while to figure out what I wanted to do with this sketch.The one thing that I really liked was how the photo and small blocks of paper formed a long row from one side of the page to the other. It actually reminded me of a recent photo that I thought would work perfectly for this layout.

Alyssa loves band more than anything. She's been playing the clarinet since the 5th grade, I believe. She loves being a part of the high school band. It's become such a huge part of her life, and the majority of her friends are all fellow band members. Yesterday, while trying to persuade Sarah to join band next year as she had to turn in her class picks for freshman year (Eek. I'll have a freshmen and a senior next year!), she said that "all of us in the band are like one big family". She also said today that "Sometimes I want to ask people NOT in band what they do with their life". I love that she loves it that much!

Alyssa is in Honor Band at school, and was also selected to be a part of the District Honor Band and the County Honor Band this year (same as last year). This photo was taken at the District Honor Band concert which took place back in February. Since it was such a long group of band members, I knew that I could crop out a lot of the excess space above them and end up with a long, narrow photo. I think I ended up printing this at 11 inches long and only 4 inches tall.

I knew I wanted to use the aqua tone-on-tone music note patterned paper from the Birthday Boy collection, and that I wanted to mix it with lots of black and white, since band members wear concert black and white for their preformances. I really, really wanted to mix in another color, but no matter what I tried, it didn't work. So I kept with the aqua, black, and white color scheme. I pulled some scraps of patterned paper from lots of different collections to layer behind the large photo.

I am pretty sure that I meant to add a few of the black text buttons to the "D" and the "R" text chipboard alphas. I must have forgotten after I got done adding the clear star buttons to the black chipboard alphas.

You can see more takes on this same sketch, from a few of Bella's other designers, HERE.

The Craziness That Is December

Things have been crazy busy around here lately. I feel like I fall more and more behind on things every day. I mean, I stay on top of the important things. But there's still a lot of things that fall into the cracks and get forgotten along the way. Or put off for another day, which then turns into another week. I guess that's life, right? Here's just a small taste of what my December looks like.

I'm taking on two new daycare itty bitties starting this week. It's been a bit quieter here the last few months, since I had two kiddos move on. So it's really just been the 12 month old and the almost 3 year old here with me. I thought it would be super fun to add an 11 month old and a 4 month old into the mix. I know. You're thinking I'm a little crazy. But I really do love the little ones, and they keep me on my toes.

The girls both finished up their fall league soccer a few weeks ago. But that doesn't mean soccer is over. Sarah's fall team is going on to a huge state tournament, which takes place the next two weekends. Luckily, it's taking place only 10 minutes from here. Which is perfect, since I certainly don't want to be traveling the weekends before Christmas. After that, she moves onto All Stars, which Joe is coaching and goes through March. Alyssa is doing winter league, and starts her games this coming weekend as well. Lots of running back and forth between fields to watch both of them.

I'm team parents for Sarah's teams. Between just finishing with fall league, preparing for this tournament, and also getting the All Star team in place, it's been busy. And confusing. I forced myself to sit down last night and organize the two different teams and all of the players emails in my contact lists, which took me forever. I'm collecting info for both teams (some players are on both, and some are only on one team), turning in that info to different league people, and trying to keep track of who is who, who paid for what, who needs hoodies/uniforms, etc. Joe and I both are constantly asking "is this for Founder's Cup or for All Stars???".

CHA is coming up in January. Much earlier than it was last year. Right now, we're just in the planning stages for Bella Blvd. I'm working on figuring out the assignments for all the projects we'll need for the booth. New product will be coming soon, and I'll have projects to make, to collect, to organize in my files, and lots and lots of blog stuff to set up. With this falling right during the holidays, I'm sure it will make things a bit hectic. Then again, CHA time is always hectic. It's always exciting, but always hectic.

With the holidays, comes school activities. We already missed the annual Omelet Breakfast at Sarah's school this past weekend. Not on purpose. We just forgot. And because we had soccer. We had the Christmas Parade on Saturday night. The weather report called for rain. Lots of rain. Which we had Thursday and Friday. The band at Sarah's school ended up pulling out of the parade, because of the weather. The high school band was all in though, so Alyssa did march in the parade. Luckily, they were 15th in line at the parade. So much better than previous years, where they were in the 100's. They only got caught in a bit of rain, and had their ponchos on over their uniforms. I guess all of the other bands pulled out because of the weather too, so they ended up taking 1st place for bands. Of course, I think they would have taken 1st place anyways, because they're amazing! Both the girls have winter band concerts coming up in the next few weeks as well.

And somewhere, in the midst of all that craziness, we need to Christmas-fy the house. The Christmas tress, ornaments, and decorations are all up in the attic still. No idea when we'll get them down. Or put them up. I'm thinking the daycare kids are going to be all over the tree this year. For the first time ever, I may have to only decorate the top half. Lol. I've never had to do that in the eleven years I've been watching kids. But I have a little ones that will get into anything and everything he can. And Christmas shopping? I havn't even thought about it yet, and have NO clue what the girls might even want.

Long story short, it's busy and crazy. Please tell me I'm not the only one.

The Happiest Place On Earth

Yep. That's where my girls are for a few days this week. At the happiest place on earth!

They have the week off school, for some sort of break. It's the end of their first quarter, so I'm guessing that's why. Alyssa's dad was on vacation this week, so him and his mom (Alyssa's grandma) decided to take the girls to Disneyland for a few days.

I wish Joe and I were there too, but we're both working. It's nice that they get to do something fun this week, so that they weren't stuck with me and the daycare kids all week. They love those kids and are a huge help to me. But they also get bored with it pretty quickly.

I love that I can pull up Instagram throughout the day and find photo updates from the girls. That I then take screenshots of on my iPod touch, and email to myself so that I can then pull them up on my computer. They're not always the best quality, but I'll take low quality pics over no pics any day.

I'm extremely grateful that Alyssa's dad's family always includes Sarah in what they do. I also LOVE grandparents that aren't scared to do the crazy stuff, like go on roller coasters (that's Alyssa's grandma behind Sarah). We have a few grandparents like that in our families.

They are showing off how wet their tushies got, after going on Splash Mountain. Which was fine with them, since it was super hot out. I think they're in the mid 90's all week.

I'm using my free evenings to work on some new projects, with Bella Blvd's new mid-release, which we will be revealing tomorrow! Stop by tomorrow to see the collection in full, and then I will be sharing all new projects the rest of the week!

A Birthday Girl & A Birthday Layout

I had a birthday layout up on the Bella Blvd blog on Tuesday, and it seemed fitting to share it here today. How about the layout first.

This was another one of my layouts for CHA, using the new Birthday Girl collection. If I'm being honest, it wasn't one of my favorites that I made. But it was also the second to last of about 24 projects that I made for CHA, so I was at the bottom of my creative well, so to speak. Lol. I dug out some older photos of Alyssa from her 10th birthday party, since I knew the colors would work well with the papers. Most of our birthday parties are swim parties, but I wanted more traditional "birthday" pics for a booth layout.

I took the "happy" chipboard letters from the Birthday Girl chipboard icons, and then added "b-day" with some Sienna chipboard alphas.

A few of the chipboard accents that I wanted to use were banner shaped, so I thought it would be fun to create an entire border across the page of banners. This was a great way to use up a lot of the scraps of patterned paper I had from my other projects, since I only needed small pieces of paper.

I just trimmed them into strips of varying widths, and roughly the same height, and cut banner notches at the bottom of each piece. I also added in some stickers here and there. I adhered them across the page, "hanging" off of a few strips of designer tape that I had layered together. On either end of the border, I added some fun embellishments. Buttons, chipboard pieces, a crochet flower, and some flags.

My journaling says "So hard to believe you turned 10 years old this year". Which was so true at the time. I think we say that just about every year, right? Every birthday I think "how are you another year older already???". Just like every school year, I say "how are you another grade higher already???". And before you know it, this happens:

Your daugher, that in your head is still just your baby, goes and turns SIXTEEN YEARS OLD!!! Seriously, how did this happen? How has it been sixteen years since she made her way into our lives, taking her sweet, sweet time to come into the world? I am so very proud of the young lady she's becoming, and she amazes me more and more every single day. Happy birthday Alyssa!

Friday Nights With The Band

As of last week, Friday nights are all about football games again. And the marching band. The marching band that plays at the varsity football games. You know everyone only comes to the games to see the band play, right ;)

I had to miss the first game, since I was at CKU (still need to blog about that), but Alyssa captured these fun photos of her and some of her closest band friends before, during, and after the game. Love that she has her iPod touch for things like this.

We're headed back out there tonight. I love watching the band together. I love the music and how much fun they have, showing their school spirit. I can't wait to see their half-time show. Especially "Party Rock Anthem". And you know what? I might even watch some football while I'm there :)

Kerri Bradford Studio: Summer Escape

I finally had a layout up yesterday, over at Kerri Bradford Studio. I say "finally" because my Silhouette Studio software stopped working for a full week. My laptop was having issues too, so I knew it was somehow related. Got the laptop back up and cleaned up, but the software still wouldn't work. Finally, the fine folks at Tech Support got me back in business, and I was finally able to work on this layout.

About two weeks ago, Joe and Alyssa's dad took the girls, our two neices, and one of Sarah's friends to Great America for the day. They were both on vacation, so it worked out perfectly. Sadly, I had to stay home and work. Bummer. Anyways. The girls all took photos with their iPod Touch's, so I made sure they sent me all of the photos.

Because the photos from the iPod aren't the best quality for printing, I printed all of the photos at 2x3 inches. I really didn't have a plan for how I was going to arrange them on my layout. I just started with some white cardstock for the base of my pages, and lightly misted the pages.

Next, I laid out the photos, in a semi-collaged way. Once I was happy with the arrangement, I adhered all of the photos down. Then I went about adding my pattern papers, die cut pieces, and embellishments around the photos. 

All of the pattern papers are from My Mind's Eye. I originally picked up that ticket stub paper to scrap some photos from a trip to the county fair a few years ago. But it just seemed to go with these photos. I die cut the sun from Kerri's This & That Summertime kit, and layered it with a punched pattern paper circle and a large button.

I really went looking thru Kerri's kits to find shapes that I could use on this layout. I knew I was looking more for words/expressions, rather than fun little shapes, just because of the theme of the layout. I choose this "summer escape" title from the Escape kit. I'm always a fan of titles that have the different fonts, and where I can mix different papers together.

I randomly came across the fun quotes from the Say What #2 kit, and thought they would be fun to incorporate along with my journaling.

I typed up the journaling from the girls point of view, so it looked like I was quoting them.

I also cut the word "park" from Kerri's new Summer Lovin' kit, and added the year with a shape from the twentyTWELVE kit.

These 5 girls had a great day together, and I love that I was able to capture the day through their eyes/lenses, and with their journaling.