Happy Together

For my modern, bold, independent, and now-married friend Vivian and her now husband. May you live your lives happily, together.

Paper is old (use what you have and buy beautiful paper when you don't!)

Washi tape by Amuse

sticker = from soft spoken by me and my big ideas (I think)

Happy Halloween!

I'm getting ready for Halloween by making cards with orange and purple. These cards look fancy, but they were really simple. A little spritz, a single stamp, a little sticker, a little washi tape. You still have time!

Happy Halloween!

Orange and Purple Spritz by Smooch Spritz

Washi tape by Amuse

Glitter Foam Stickers by Making Memories

Brown splatter stamp by Paper Tray Ink

Please note the orange and purple spray and the South Carolina-style tree in the back. It's a little nod to my roots.

SnowVenture

So I've been eying this type of picture for a while but have been too chicken to try. Lesa Snider at CreativeLive and later Tara Malone at Creating Keepsakes have inspired me to just go ahead and make color pop photos. I know this is totally out of season, but whatever. It's happy. Plus Tom's hat is a Clemson one, and Clemson is 8-0. And Boston might get a snow storm this weekend. So this is kind of appropriate.

We have this awesome state preserve across the street from our home which is wonderful throughout the year for all sorts of adventuring. I love our adventures. Hurricane adventures, hiking adventures, snow adventures: I'm down with whatever. In the Spring and Summer we go on picnics and watch the geese and baby duckies. In the winter, we go for walks, and Tom finds sticks (i.e. broken branches) that he uses for walking. One day we will find one and carve a face on it like the ones we see at Hillbilly day. Maybe. Probably not. I digress. There is an echoing bridge that goes across the river, and the picture in the bottom left is from the top of the bridge. I can't believe the ice had formed hearts! Very cool.

Mess Around

I am the master of clutter.

The queen of clean.

And this is my workspace:

Right smack dab in the middle of our living room floor. Our place isn't big enough to have any sort of permanent, accessible working area. Instead, I have the bottom half of a closet that I stuff like a jigsaw puzzle when I pack up. Which means when I pull stuff out to work on, I'm making a week of it and a HUGE mess.

...And now I get to clean it up. Every itty bitty piece of paper. Oh my!

A busy fall

It's been busy around our house as it often is in the Fall. We've had one free weekend since August. There's been a Bachelor party, a Bachelorette weekend, 3 weddings (1 more to go), and 3 weekends with my old friends. I realized I met each of these old friends 8 years apart: at 6, 14, and 22.

at King Richard's Faire (I met this friend at 6. We go waaaaay back.)

Showing Dutch friends around Boston/Cambridge/Newburyport
(I met this friend at 22)

After dinner with my high school buddy who was down from Vermont

(I met this friend at 14)

Twinkle, Twinkle

Some friends of ours had a baby boy in September. We're so excited for them! We are sending them a card and gift a little late, but I assume they will appreciate it just the same.

The ribbon is from an Antropologie bag (reuse, recycle!). The paper is double sided and possibly out of print. But it was perfect for this. I used scalloped and circular punches. Often, simple is best.

Paper (back and front) is Persian floral by chatterbox inc.

C-L-E-M-S-O-N

Another week and another win! This streak, 7-0, is really, really rare, and I'm nervous that Clemson is going to 'pull a Clemson' (i.e. do really well to difficult teams but losing to the easy ones, etc.). Sports Center uses the term now, so it's legit. But even if we do go downhill now, we've done better that we've done in aaaaages, so I'm pretty happy. Plus our coach is reeeally nice. Which is a glorious change from the last guy. That, and we're top 10. Crazy!

The writing is about growing up in the southern/college football culture. The pictures are semi-recent with my sister, college friends, and husband. My husband and I met my last year there. Does he count as a college-sweetheart? Hmm...I'm never thought about that. I guess he does even though it was pretty late in college. Cute.

I digress. Since I haven't quite figured out what I'm going to consistently do with my digital pictures, I went ahead and did a digital orange and purple page with digital 'flags' and 'paper' that I won from Danielle Young Designs. (see here. Thanks Danielle!)

Digital flags and paper from Danielle Young Designs

More of Eight

These are the pages that I did a while back that go with the teasers from yesterday. I am severely lacking in pictures from eighth grade, but here are some more! Also, if anyone from these posts spots a picture of them that they can't stand, email me, and I'll blur you out.

striped paper = hoboken by lime rickey (Basic Grey 2008)

orange paper = double sided bookshelf/Crichton by American Crafts

white polka dotted paper (under yellow) = Yellow Splatter by Making Memories

crazy colorful paper on the right= tutti frutti by lime rickey (Basic Grey 2008)

yellow paper = handmade from my favorite scrapbook store in NC (sorry)

stickers = from soft spoken by me and my big ideas

+ blue stripes paper + string

paper = pink damask (from previous post)

stickers = from soft spoken by me and my big ideas

+ blue spritz

Eighth grade

Since I began my first album in the 9th grade, I'm working backwards and scrapbooking my childhood. First stop: middle school.

There was a lot of phone talking with massive cordless phones. We had VHSes and CDs. Hunter green was in. Instant messages started taking off. I loved plaid and hippy things (yay, plaid!) and began experimenting with clothing by getting my mom to make me empire-waist dresses to my specifications. I did a lot of musical theater. My 11 years of dance experience--yes, 11--were finally handy. My mom, totally oblivious to my age, was still buying me dolls, and I displayed them for fear of her retribution. Ha! Nah, she's not that scary. Dolls though?Seriously? I was 13! I didn't even like dolls at 4!

So middle school it is! I kind of like going through my old pictures. (shocking, I know) But it's like I'm making my own yearbook with the people I like! And I can cut out all the bad photos I want! I'm not going to because let's face it--none of us were our best in middle school, so whatever: I was who I was! More to come!

(the two pages above to come)

background paper=tutu pink by Bazzill Basics Paper

floral paper = fresco by june bug (Basic Grey 2009, re-stocking soon)

glitter paper = pink damask by Recollections

stickers = eight grade by soft spoken/me and my big ideas

+ glitter tape + glitter paper + scrap paper + old string

Punch-buggy orange!

It's football season! And Clemson is 6-0. YAY! I just wanted to say that before this weekend when something terrible is bound to happen. We might "pull a Clemson" as the sports blogs like to say. But we've made it this far and by golly, I'm gonna cheer. We haven't been doing this well since I was in high school. High School! Go Tigers!

I made this page some time in the past 6 months with pictures from 2005. I have so may football pictures that I break them up by year. I haven't done an "over the years" page because it makes a small impact when you've been an adult during all the digital days. Did you know I didn't even get a digital camera until 2005? After I studied abroad? I know, right?

So, about the page: this was the first page I ever used a stamp on. And let me tell you, until a month ago, I hated stamps. (I know, I know.) I'm turning around now, but they are just so permanent, and I'm a control-Z kind of girl. My favorite part of the page is the patterned stripes that overlay the blue. That and the pop-up letter buttons I found at a scrapbook store in Durham, NC. The set was on sale for a buck. The soft texture of the buttons is fantastic.

I suppose my real favorite part is the picture. See Fuzzy? He's the one standing by me here. He went by "Fuzzy" and drove an orange VW convertible bug. The people standing around us are part of the tailgating gang: some of my dad's fraternity brothers, friends, and their kids. We are missing a significant number of people here, but the picture is great anyway.

Birthday gifts

It's my sister's birthday again! This paper reminds me of her. I think it's because she used to have bulk versions of similar paper back when she was making stationery. The one I used is light brown stripes on white. I added a little blue glitter because the card needed a little something to break up the monotone colors. And because none of my "plain paper" was doing it for me. (oh glitter...I'm such a sucker for you at the moment.) And for the record, I did try pink. My sister loves pink, but it just wasn't jivin' with the gold. Sorry Jenna! Happy Birthday!
It always makes me a little sad that my pictures don't look as good as the real thing. Oh well. I think we're aiming to get a fancy camera for Christmas. Maybe then I'll get the focus and the color right. :)

Glitter paper by Recollections from Michaels

Background paper Andrea Victoria "Wishing Flowers" 2009 My Mind's Eye

The presents were from a New Year's card from a friend
(Reduce, reuse, and recycle, I say!)