To Pasalimani

My parents were here for 3 weeks.  FANTASTIC!!!  To have company is such a treat.  To have family is even better.  I think it is comforting because they can see where you live and how you live.  I was able to show them all the great stuff and they could see the stuff that drives me NUTS!   So it is a win-win.  Three weeks were not nearly enough time, we barely scratched the surface of seeing the island.  I will admit that 5 days of that time was spent on a cruise to the Greek islands (a real treat).

This LO is about one of our first lunches out.  We had gone down to Limossal to walk amongst one of the (many) ancient ruins that are found on the island. Afterward we walked along the boardwalk and found this little taverna by the sea.  We stopped for lunch.  My parents thought it was quiant and kept taking pictures of the grapes.  They thought that they were fake!  I had a big laugh when I explained that they were indeed real and we would probably be drinking them in the house wine and eating them on our fruit plate.  So it was hysterical when the fruit plate came  and piled high was a beautiful mound of grapes that looked exactly like the ones hanging over our head.

Snacky Bits

Hi my scrappy friends (and not so scrappy friend ;) you know who you are).  Anyway,  I was just having a moment when I filmed this short video.  Sitting in my scraproom.  Eating snacky bits and wishing I had some scrappy company.  The next best thing - talking to my scrappy buddies. 

Just A Little Jaunt

I thought I would share my LO process.  

Step #1 - I always pick my pictures first.  

Step #2 - Pick my papers. 

#3 - Lay it out.  I am a visual person, so everything is laid out so I can clearly see where everything is going to go or fit or get rejected.  

 Once I have the papers laid out the way I want them I stitched them down to my base.  As you can see the blues don't match perfectly, but they have the same vibe which is good enough for me.

Once I have the background established then I futz around with my picture placement then my journaling and finally my title.  I just go this Scrap'n Easel - LOVE IT!!!!!  Because my desk is used by myself and my 4 kiddos and occasionally my hubby I needed someplace that my works in progress could be kept without being in everyone's way.  Also when I work now I can just use the magnets to hold things in place and I can move them around until I am happy.  This tool was totally worth every penny. 

Movin' on . . . 

Sometimes I want an an embellishment in a certain color.  In this instance I wanted red brads.  I did not have any red brads.  So I used my copic marker and colored some white brads red.  Viola!  No worries. 

The finished layout.  I am pretty happy with it.  I like the little pops of red.  It livens up the photos.  It was a dreary day when we were out and about, but the people were lively and hustling here and there.  The photo of the big skyscraper is a huge financial firm. The atrium at the top is open aired.  Apparently inside that atrium is a full on park with trees and grass.  However it is only for the folks that work there and not open to the public.  

My son is a car fanatic.  So we had to get his picture with the Farrari.  And it was red, his favorite color.  The market square with the traditional buildings is where the Christmas market is held each year.  The buildings themselves are all reproductions.  The original buildings were destroyed in WWII.  

I like to cluster little emblishments together.  I think it give more impact. 

Baker's twine....love the stuff.  Just had to add a little here and there. 

Those white brads that I colored red.  Who would know.  Shhh?  Don't tell. It will be our secret. 

A better picture of my new favorite tool - the Scrap'n Easel.  

If you are interested I ordered mine off of Amazon.  Marlo, the owner of Contain'Ya Crafts is really friendly and helpful.  

Hope everyone has a good one. 

Peace, 

T. 

Pre-Informal October LOAD Blog Hop

Prepping for a LOAD

Messy, messy, messy. . .

(I like the little action figure.  There was a whole battle scene set up here.)

This is my mess.  I thought I would try to blame the kiddos, but I knew that you would know better.  This is how my desk looks after I have been in a really deep scrap groove.

Now this is totally my kiddos.  They were making posters for school and were digging through my letter stickers. 

The kiddos desk area.  Oh, the shame.  Oh, what a mess.  

{sigh} that's better - the way I like it. . . 

A clean work space.  My scrap desk is also my computer desk.  Multi-functional. 

Where my 2 younger kiddos hang out.  Now you can see the surface of the table!  Wowzer, that was a mess.

My cardstock, punches, stamps and misc tools live here.  My paper cutter lives on this rolling cart.  When I am scrapping I roll it up to my right side.  When I am not scrapping I can roll it to this corner.  This is a small room, when the cart is on my right side it is hard to get out the door. 

My inks and other supplies.  All my patterned paper is store in this box and I have it sorted by style - polka dots, stripes, boy, girl, floral, etc.

This is how I do my  menu for the week.  Each day is on a sticky note which are all pasted to the front of the fridge.  I even schedule when the kiddos buy lunch. 

I hope you all enjoy this blog hop.  From here you can head on over to Pam's page by clicking on this link:      http://dailypamage.blogspot.com

Blog Hop Hostesses: 

Lisa:                        http://lisahausmann.blogspot.com

Katherine:            http://www.csmoferret.blogspot.com

Pam:                          http://dailypamage.blogspot.com

Katrina:            http://k84mansramblings.blogspot.com

Christie:            http://mrsingie.com

Lisa:                         http://lisamzepponi.blogspot.com

Fun-tabulous Mad Hatter Birthday Celebration!

My daughter's 11th birthday celebration.  

Teacher Gifts

In an attempt to make something special and meaningful I decided to make mini albums of the students to give to the teachers.  

For my son's 3rd grade class I made this. 

 The album has a title page which has the school year listed and a note of thanks.  The subsequent pages are all the same format.  Pictures of the kiddos with a little note of thanks from them to their teacher.  I used my Cricut and cut these speech bubbles for each of the kiddos to write their note on.  Each page follows the same format with the same embellishments.  The papers are all coordinated so it is cohesive without being boring.  I snuck onto campus one day and with parents permission took individual pictures of the kiddos.

This is the album I made for the grade 5 teacher.

Again, I followed the same format that I used on the other album.  Super simple an really quick to put together. 

The last pages in each album are a collage of photos from the entire year; assemblies, class projects, and events that the students participated in.  On the last page of the album I gathered each class and had them jump for joy, a nice action shot. 

Thanks for dropping by. 

T. 

Mespila

I love to participate in scrapbooking challenges.  Last month I participated in theThe Crop Circle Monthly Challenge which is the Paperclipping Community.  I have to tell you that I really enjoy these monthly challenges and I'll tell you why - you get great feed back. If you want to see what I mean go check out this blog post at Paperclipping. 

And, just FYI - The Crop Circle is a free community.  Come try out the challenges.  It's fun! 

Tambur

LOAD Update

Day 16 of LOAD - Wow!  That has come up quick.  So far I have managed to do a page a day.  I am so amazed at that.  I think of the times when I have had 'scrappers' block, you know the desire, but not the follow through.  Doing LOAD no block, no excuses and no stopping me.  All the credit I must give to the lovely Lain Ehmann - her daily prompts are fantastic, no denying that, but I think that she has built such a great community of scrappers and that is where I feel plugged in. Between her ScrapHappy group and her LOAD group I find such inspiration and camaraderie that I can't wait to jump on Flickr each day to see what's new.

Anyway - day 16 and I have done 16 LO.   Here are a few of my favorites so far.

Hope you enjoy.

T.

(sorry about the smudge from my camera lens  - oops!)

My oldest and his best bud.  Love this LO of him.  I like the large circle that anchors my focal picture.  By the way, I ended up cropping this page down 1/2 and mounted the whole LO on a piece of chocolate  card stock.  It just looked better, to me. 

  

My munchkins - changing my old screensaver from 2008 to the new 2011 for my iPhone. I love seeing how the kiddos have changed in 3 short years.  But mostly I love that they still hang on each other. It makes me smile. 

My dad celebrating his birthday.  That's how I want to celebrate mine - doubt that will ever happen as my birthday is in November. 

Ode to Kettlecorn......I mean what's not to love. 

My daughter and I spent the day together.  The boys were camping so we went out on the town. 

Mother's Day and Week 1 of May LOAD

For mom.

On holiday in Greece. 

Baby girl at age 6.

My friends that I miss.

Wishing all Momma's a very happy Mother's Day. 

T. 

May LOAD

I am doing another round of Layout A Day or LOAD.  Just thought I would share my first 2 LO for the month..... So far I am staying on target ;> )

Day 1

Day 2

Patience

My oldest son, who is now 15, is just the most patient kiddo.  I mean from the day he was born he would wait patiently for me to nurse him, to change him, to feed him.  My mom used to say that it was because he was born in England, it was the British influence on his personality.  Perhaps.  Anyway,  still to this day he is Mr. Patient.  When he does loose his cool it is almost comical, because even that is still rather calm and collected.

The picture for this LO I took way back in February of 2009.  Not so long ago, I know, but in terms of his growth it seems like ages ago.  In this picture he still looks like his toddler self.  Not anymore.  Now he looks very manly.

I digress.....

I have four pictures that have hung on my wall since 2009 and wherever I go, they go.  I mentioned this before in this previous post which you can read here.

Anyway, I have had this 5x7 copy in my stash of 'to-be-scrapped' photos for, well, 3 years now.  Today I finally got around to putting this one down on paper.

Here it is.....

I think it turned out rather well.  Man-oh-man, I love this kiddo.  I have the best job in the whole wide world - being mom to my 4 McKids.

Have a good one, 

T. 

u {heart} soccer

My boy....

Ev LOVES soccer.  Every-single-day, everyday, he is out there kicking the soccer.  He loves Saturdays, because that is Saturday Soccer.  As I am typing this post I can hear the ball slamming up against the concrete wall of the house.  He practices for hours.  EVERYDAY!!!

I think it is great that he has such a passion for the sport.  He plays during his free time at school.  He plays after school, he plays all weekend long.  He plays by himself, mostly practicing his skills - shooting, juggling, passing and footwork.  Most often the house is his partner.  Sometimes I am his partner and on good days when the big boys finish their homework early they come out and pass the ball with Ev.  To me the sound of a ball hitting the wall is a happy sound.

A Birthday Card

Today my daughter hosted a surprise party for a classmate of hers.  I thought it was sweet that the girls in the class wanted to do something special for one of their peers.  I agreed that our house would be the venue.  I also volunteered to make a birthday cake for Alina.  

I decided to make a special birthday card for Alina.  The inspiration for this card came from the True Scrap event that I participated in recently.  The card/mini book below was one of the virtual make and takes.  I know, what is a virtual make and take.  Well it is basically this - you watch a live (in my case recorded - time difference) demonstration that's the virtual part, but you use your stash to actually make the project.  Pretty neat. 

Sorry for the crummy picture - focussed on the background paper and not the flower - ooops!  Anyway, you get the idea of how cute this card is.  But is a special card.....

Inside it has 4 pocket with tags.  I thought it would be sweet if each of the guest wrote a special birthday wish for Alina on a tag. When she leaves she will have a little birthday momento that she can keep and cherish for years to come. 

Thanks for dropping by, 

T. 

Time Flies

This is a LO made from a Technique Tuesday Kit that I have had in my stash for a long while now.  I used the clock to look back at the last 12 months.  The center picture was taken recently, April 10, actually.  Placing it in the center it defines that this is the now -present.  Looking at the clock face we go back in time.

3 months ago when we rode out to the beach on a sunny winter's day.  It was windy, a little chilly and sunny.  They kids would have splashed in the water if I had let them.  Instead they spent about an hour exploring the beach, skipping rock in the sea and collecting rocks that were unusual in shape and color.

6 months ago we were hiking in the Toodos mountains.  After our hike to the waterfall we had a nice Souvla lunch at a Taverna in the mountains.   It was much colder in the mountains than we thought and during lunch outside under the trees we were wishing we had brought jackets with us.

9 months ago we were in the Boston area and visiting the house that inspired the House of Seven Gables by Nathaniel Hawthorne.   We were moved out of our house and in two days time we would be flying to Germany to meet friends before we headed off to Cyprus.

12 months ago I took the kiddos to Fredericksburg for the day and we had lunch at Fudruckers.  Their very first lunch at Fudruckers, and they LOVED it.  My hubby was away on a very long business trip.  We were homeschooling and they had just finished a testing period and I thought they deserved a treat.

So much happened in a short 12 months.

I get a kick out of looking back at same/near date pictures from previous years.  It is a habit of mine.  When I download a set of photos I will often go and click on pictures taken on the same date from previous years.  I love that when I look back I instantly recall what was happening at that time.  It also amazes me at how quickly time flies.....it all goes so fast.

Have a good one,

T.

My Sweet Niece

This is a LO I did using a Melissa Frances Page kit that I picked up last summer at the Great American Scrapbooking Convention.  I pretty much followed her page design and used all the elements from her kit.  I did add the CTMH Irresistibles Lots Of Dots letter stickers.  I inked them to match the LO.  Isn't she sweet!

Have a good one, 

T. 

Strong

My daughter, whom I think is quite clever, wrote this really moving poem. I wanted to preserve it some way that would have meaning for her later in life.  As soon as I read the poem I knew exactly which picture to use.

I love this picture.  It was one of those random shots.  Not planned and in reality a really poor photo...the lighting was off and the picture is a little blurry, but I still loved it.  You see, my daughter is always singing and making up songs and twirling and dancing.  She jumped up on this rock and started doing her family concert at the same time I snapped a photo.  I loved how her arms are open, waiting for any possibility.  I also loved how it is almost a silhouette of her against the cloudy sky.  I see her up there and I think of all the grand adventures that she will have in her life time.  

When I read her poem I was shocked at what a mature little lady she is.  She is 10, in the 5th grade and I think back to myself at that age and I don't think I could have written a poem so profound, with such depth and emotion.  I was amazed. 

Her poem is titled Strong.  And I think she is a strong young lady.  She is also confident and sweet, happy and giggly and klutzy and kind.  

Here is her poem:

Strong

I look around
I can't see
The bright colors blind me
There's more and more each day
They don't understand me
They take one look and mark me as something I'm not
As they leave the stains of tears trickling down my cheek fade
the loneliness flees
And the joy of LOVE takes its place
My foundation is not shaking

In honor of my daughters lovely poem I made this page

I hope it conveys the love and admiration I have for her.  

Peace,

T.