a long absence

It's been a LONG time since I've been around!! I've been quite busy these last several months and I am going to share all about that over the next several days, weeks, months. I actually saw in my timehop that I started this blog exactly 7 years ago today! I can't even believe that!! I stated the blog to share my crafty hobby: scrapbooking, card making, photography, and more. And while I plan to continue to share my projects when I can, I want to morph this blog into something more. I want to share more, and I have already got a list of topics for myself to be successful in that endeavor!

You see, almost one month ago I had a baby. Our daughter came into this world after we believed for so long that we couldn't/wouldn't have kids. We had only ever talked about having one child when we started trying all those years ago, and that's still our plan especially now that we're quite a bit older than we had thought we'd be when we'd have our child. I want to share stories about the whole experience of pregnancy, birth, and postpartum, along will all the ups and downs of parenthood. I want to share what I've learned as I find my footing as a mom (still can't get over the fact that I'm a MOM)!! I want to share milestones, holidays, and monthly progress updates of our girl. But I still want to share craft projects. Finding time for them is a whole story in and of itself. (Confession: I'm still finishing up my 2016 December Daily, at our coffee table in the living room instead of at my craft desk because the baby spends most of her day time hours in the crib portion of her pack n' play in our living room.) I've got vacation albums partially done (MN-2013, Boston-2014, Disney-2015, SC-2016), annual album pages that need completing (I make a list and put page markers in the page protectors so I at least have a plan of what photos to scrapbook and where they go in each album), and my nephew's first year album to complete (he just turned 8 on March 12th...why rush into things...I really need to make this album a priority when I finish the December Daily). I am also planning to participate in Ali Edwards' week in the life that starts on April 17th. I'll still be on maternity leave from work, there will be lots of events that week to document (8 week shots for the baby, baby turns 2 months, meeting her grandparents for the first time, etc) and I think it will be fun to look back on years down the road. It won't be a normal week in my life since I won't be back at work, but I decided that it's still worth documenting. I know I'll enjoy looking back on the album years from now (like when my daughter graduates from high school...remembering and looking back on bottle cleaning, diaper changes, walks around the neighborhood, trying to find time to take a shower, etc). I did make one intentional decision to not purchase a WITL kit this year. I ended up getting 2 kits last year to document our Saturday to Saturday South Carolina vacation so I have lots of left overs from those two kits and a ton of 6x8 albums I can use, not to mention all the Studio Calico documenter kits and other supplies from my stash to put together a pretty great album.

That brings up another topic...supply stash! My stash is in need of a good purge! We want to use Expedite bookshelf that currently houses our annual albums (plus a few themed albums like our wedding) for toy organization as our daughter gets older. Instead of housing 12x12 American Crafts albums, it will house bins and baskets of toys. We don't have a lot of space in our house, so we figure the Expedite is a good way to keep the toys contained and under control. It's an 8 cubby Expedite so it should make for plenty of toy space!! But that means that I need to clear enough out of my space to move the albums in (and there are at least 7 cubby's of albums that need to move)! It's going to be a challenge, but I'm up for it. I want to share that process here as well.

So, if you're still with me here, I've got big plans to share a lot of stuff moving forward. And it's going to start on Monday!! I can't promise I'll blog every day (I do have a new baby), but I am going to do my best to blog a few times a week. Just share things even if no one is ready! If anything, it will be my record to document the stories later!!

Thanks for stopping by!
deb

I think this is the week of sharing lifted layouts, well at least for today again anyway. I was planning to share a photo of my workspace, you know for workspace Wednesday, but I lost my light to take the picture and had other things come up that took my attention away while I had the light. Don't you just love when life has other plans? 

That said, I still wanted to pop in and share, so I'm sharing the layout I had planned to share tomorrow. No big deal really since my plan for Friday changed too, it all worked out in the end. And holy bananas, I've now posted three days in a row!! What a change a challenge makes!!

For this layout, I lifted the fabulous Geralyn Sy and this layout from her Odyssey gallery over at Studio Calico. Loved the simplicity of it. I just stretched it out to 12x12 so it fit into my album and used a different chipboard circle. I changed a few other details as well, but overall I'm pretty happy with how this lift turned out.

I'm planning to be back tomorrow and Friday with more layouts to share, lifted or otherwise, before I take a break over the weekend. Hope your Wednesday is treating you well!! Thanks for stopping by!

deb

hello love

I love this photo. I love this selfie. I took it one day back in December as we were on our way to some event or something, to be honest I don't even remember. I remember putting on my Edelman jersey (NE Patriots and one of my favorite players) because I was happy that he was finally back at practice after being injured earlier in the season. Even though he wasn't cleared to play yet, I was, like most Patriot fans, excited that he was back at practice. I couldn't wait to scrapbook the photo and even changed things around in the 2015 albums to fit it in. Love the way it turned out. Loved lifting this layout from Marcy Penner's Cirque gallery. 

Hope you have a fabulous Tuesday!! Thanks for stopping by!

deb

february...a lifted layout

Happy May!!! I've been ignoring the blog for a few months but I've issued myself a personal challenge of blogging Monday through Friday during the month of May!! Hoping it takes and continues into June and throughout the rest of 2016. And really, how is it May already?!? Didn't we just celebrate Christmas???

I've got some projects that I am planning to share over this week that I lifted from other scrapbookers as I work my way through some of the older kits in my stash. With school and other life commitments, staying current with my Studio Calico kits really isn't an option. I supposed I could use the current one and work backwards through them, but that's just not how my brain works.

I've got a few layouts left to share from the Cirque kit then I'll be moving onto Lisse St. (which was a favorite of mine and I haven't completely loved a kit like I loved Lisse St. in a long time...I might have gotten 3 of these kits that's how much I loved it)!

In 2014 and 2015 I was using the collect app on my phone to document the month and this is the monthly layout for February 2015. I lifted this layout from Lisa Truesdell's gallery.  I made a few adjustments in terms of color scheme and stretching the layout to 12x12, but it's a pretty straight forward lift. Love lifting layouts when I'm trying to work through my backlog of kits at a pretty quick pace. I'm thinking of pulling out of of my old sketchbook classes for a few layouts in the very near future. Those are some of my favorite classes!!

Happy Monday and Happy May!! Did I mention that I can't get over the fact that it's May already?!?

Thanks for stopping by!!

deb

love

Happy Tuesday!!! I'm back today to share another layout I put together. I lifted this layout (as I have the past few that I've shared) but this time, I lifted Marcy Penner. I wish I could link up the original layout, but I actually lifted her layout from a class over at Studio Calico, ironically called "Lifted." Seriously loving the Cirque kit and wish I had picked up the more pattern paper option (more of the main kit pattern paper) when I originally got this kit! But oh well that I didn't. I am almost through the kit and it got me thinking about a challenge I want to issue myself about the upcoming March kit (that will be released later today...noon for current subscribers and 3pm for non-subscribers). I'll get into that another time!! For now, I'll just share this...

Have a fabulous Tuesday!! Thanks for stopping by!

deb

a birthday selfie

I've been rethinking what and how I want to post on the blog in 2016 (yes, even as we head into the third month of 2016) and how I can be more consistent with blogging. I'm also going to be doing a little construction and changing things around. Bear with me through the changes and while I figure out a bit of a schedule for myself.

With that said, I did want to pop in today to share another layout I lifted from Stephanie Bryan. You can see her original layout in this post (the same as I shared last week). LOVED her gallery for the Cirque kit over at Studio Calico, and since I'm WAY behind on using my kits I figured why not do some lifting to get through them!! I am off from school this week (ten week terms with a week off between terms at Southern New Hampshire University) and I am hoping to get through a few kits this week and do some "for me" reading (which means I am going to bust through Divergent!).

The layout doesn't have a title, which I am not quite sure how I feel about yet. It's been moved into the stack of layouts that I have to put into albums so right now it's an out of sight out of mind kind of thing for me right now. The photo I used on this layout is the selfie my husband and I took on his birthday before we left to see Trans-Siberian Orchestra. It was such a GREAT show!! He's loved them for a long time and when I noticed they were performing on is birthday, I decided to get us tickets. They were really great seats, but to be honest, I don't think there would be a bad seat for this show. They really play to the audience! He loved it and I loved it, too. I think I am going to see if they'll be back this year and try to get tickets again!! Such a great way to spend his birthday and be a bit festive too being that it was right before Christmas!

Hope you are having a great Monday!! I'll be back tomorrow with another layout to share. Until then, thanks for stopping by!

deb

Love, True Love

I was having a bit of trouble figuring out exactly how I wanted to scrap the selfie we took outside of Fenway park as we waited (with thousands of others for the sold out game against the Yankees) so I decided to scrap-lift a layout I loved from a person that I'm a big fan of...Stephanie Bryan. I loved the "Love, True Love" layout she put together, which you can see in this post, and decided that would be a perfect fit for this photo. My husband is not a fan of crowds AT ALL, but he has humored me several times by going to very crowded places, this game included. Since it was Derek Jeter's last season, I am so glad we went. And it's a bit ironic that the home team was playing the Yankees...just as it was when we went to the Twins game in Minnesota during the summer of 2013! We are always trying to schedule a local sporting event on these trips if we can. It's fun and, honestly I know people who live in Boston who can't say that they've seen the Yankees play the Red Sox in Fenway. It's pretty cool that we can say that!!

I hope you are having a fabulous Friday and have a great weekend!! Thanks for stopping by!
deb