Ten on Tuesday

1| An iPhone came home with me this weekend. I'm having a lot of fun with it! I'm texting with my niece. Talking to Siri. I got the Instagram app. minutes after I walked out of the Apple store. What other ones should I get?

2| I found White House|Black Market. There's no turning back. Definitely one of my favorite clothing stores now. But wow, it's expensive! I'm glad they are classic pieces that will last a long time.

3| I watched the Oscars, while also scrapping. I've been living under a rock. There's a silent film?! I have to see that!

4| Ali Edward's has a new self-paced class. I'm all over that. Her classes are always fabulous and inspirational and uplifting.  

5|  This past week, I had to push myself out of my comfort zone. Amazingly, I survived! I think this is the theme for 2012; doing things I've never done before and living to tell about it. I celebrated with my favorite pizza and a glass of Pinot. Perfect.

6| I saw the preview of The Hunger Games movie. I'm adding it to my very long to see movie list.

7| I've been enjoying big servings of sauteed brussels sprouts and broccoli, with some garlic and red pepper flakes, and some whole grain pasta. Simple and tasty.

8| A big snow storm is supposed to hit today. Ugh. I hope it slides north or south, like every system has this season.

9| I really enjoyed this series on Write.Click.Scrapbook about scrapping your heritage photos. There's so many great ideas for getting stories of the past told. I admit, it's an area that I'm hesitant about taking on. I'm afraid I won't do the photos justice. The series, however, inspired me to put that fear aside.

10| When I was flipping through the channels one night, I came across the movie, Overboard. Do you remember that one? With Goldie Hawn and Kurt Russell. Such a cute and funny movie.

Happy Tuesday!

Dear Lizzy Neapolitan

I played with the Dear Lizzy Neapolitan collection this weekend. I am loving the soft colors, the jars, the ruffle paper, the tags....all so good.

Making Donuts

I love the tags in this collection. I decided to use a bunch of them to create a banner. I usually hoard my supplies, so this was very different for me!

I stamped the date over and over using the Smash date stamp. I love how that turned out. I kept the page really simple. Just a couple of smaller photos and embellishments. I also love the wooden buttons.

Happy Golden

I knew I wanted to use the ruffle paper and the jar on this one. I built everything around that. More tags. More buttons. I love how this turned out. My favorite layout in awhile.

Have you been playing with Dear Lizzy? Link me up. I'd love to see.

Thanks for stopping by!

Favorite Part of Summer | Elle's Studio Sketch

This past weekend, I bought a new 12x12 album to hold layouts from last year that I hadn't organized yet. After I had put all of them in the new album and was flipping through the pages, I realized I was missing some stories I wanted told.

This is one of those stories. We're headed back to last summer...

Sorry for the wonky photo. Not enough light!

My family spends a week together during the summer and we always have an epic water fight. It's such a blast. I have pictures like this dating back several years. I should do a page lining all of those up. That would be fun to see. Last year, I was just the war photographer. I'm definitely going to get in on the action this year.

I used the sketch on Elle's Studio blog to get me started. I love Rahel's use of white space and she's so good at layering too. I kept that in mind while making this page. I've been hoarding the Hello There Sunshine tag from Elle's Studio for awhile. This was the perfect page for it!

Thanks for stopping by!

Ten on Tuesday

1| My attempt at trying to get a photo with my two nieces. They wouldn't have it. Well, I should clarify. D wouldn't have it. We had a really fun celebration though. Still can't believe she's 13. Makes me feel old.

2| I sent in my last student loan payment. Wahoo! Eureka! Yippee! Only took 12 years....

3| I'm headed to D.C. soon for work. I hope to get a few moments on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial. My favorite spot.

4| I had my first two four Samaos of the year yesterday. Yum, yum.

5| I'm looking forward to next month when life starts to slow down a bit. I'd really like some time to think about goals for the year, and now that I have a job and I'm back on track, think about establishing several future goals. I have some catching up to do.

6| I woke up this morning to a couple inches of snow. First real snow of the season and it's almost March. Still only a couple of inches though. What is up this year?

7| Spring has been in the air more than winter as of late, so I bought some orange tulips. They are so lovely. They make me happy. Simple pleasures are awesome.

8| This weekend, I picked up a new album for 2012 (an American Crafts cloth album) and some stuff from the Dear Lizzy Neapolitan collection. I dug right in and created a few layouts. I'll share soon.

9| I'm waiting patiently for my tax refund. On the list: a new mattress (very exciting!).

10| I'd like to take an online class. I'm hearing rumblings that Ali Edwards is preparing a new class for Big Picture classes. If so, I'm totally there. Have you taken any fun classes lately? I'm all ears!

The Castle | Elle's Studio Sketch

Today, I'm sharing my take on the Elle's Studio sketch.

When I use sketches, I'll often take a look at it, and then put it away, and start my page. So, in looking back at the sketch now, there aren't a lot of similarities, but that is what is great about sketches. They are a great starting point, but you don't have to use the sketch exactly for it to work for you.

I loved the banners the most in the sketch, so I used a bunch of those. I wish I had added some mist splatters, but all in all, I'm really pleased with how it turned out.

I appreciate you stopping by. Have a wonderful day!

Ten on Tuesday

1| No picture to post today. I haven't been taking any pictures lately. When I leave for work and return home in the dark, it's hard to get good photos. Even though this winter has been pretty fantastic, I'm ready for longer, lighter days.

2| My niece is 13 years old today. Mind boggling. She is such a fantastic person. I can't wait to celebrate. I'd like to do something special to commemorate this year. Any ideas?

3| I saw Extremely Loud, Incredibly Close. There were a lot of tears, but I thought it was a beautiful film.  I'm so pleased the grandfather, Max von Sydow, has been nominated for a supporting actor Oscar.  He was terrific.

4| I was reading an article recently about sugar and how much is appropriate to ingest daily. I read that it's best to eat cereals with no more than 8 grams of sugar per serving. I immediately went to my cereals and was shocked to find only one had less than 8 grams. I thought I was being very careful about getting healthy cereals by looking at the ingredients, etc., but not so. Will need to be even more mindful of what I'm buying. Back to the basic.....Cherrios and Shredded Wheat.

5| Josh Ritter has a new CD coming out next week. Hip, hip. You can listen to one of the new tracks here.

6| My email inbox has been out of control, so I finally sat down and unsubscribed to a bunch of stuff. My sanity thanks me. 

7| I thought Adele's performance on the Grammy's was awesome. Glad she's back!

8| I love, love this idea. 

9| I bid on two silent auction items thinking I'd be happy to get one. I ended up with both. Oops. Need to be more strategic next time! I'll be touring here and eating here. 

10| I'm off to write letters to my niece and nephew. Best idea of 2012 so far. 

The Only Way Out Is Through

You may be saying to yourself, "Wait a second, I thought Stamping and Misting Week was awhile ago." Well, you'd be right! But I had one more layout I wanted to share that I wasn't able to post during that week. I knew you wouldn't mind. You can see the rest of Stamping and Misting Week here.

Create a title using stamps

I went back and forth about whether to stamp the entire title or not. I finally decided not to, mostly because my stamp collection is fairly small, and I didn't have enough alphabet stamps to get the look I wanted. I'm not a huge fan of how the title turned out, but I'll definitely keep working at it.

This quote from a poem by Robert Frost, "The only way out is through," was my mantra last year. When I read it for the first time, it completely resonated with me. This was what I was going to have to do, and it comforted me some how.

While this isn't one of my favorite pages design wise, this is definitely one of my favorites for the story it tells. I have it hanging in my bedroom as a reminder that I made it through; stronger and wiser.

Have you stamped your titles? I'd love to see. Link me up. Thanks for stopping by today!

Ten on Tuesday

1| Take a look at my haul of Martha Stewart labels! Do you think I went overboard? No way? I agree.

2| This past weekend, D, M, and I took a road trip to my parent's house. This has become my gift to my sister and brother-in-law for their anniversary. We had a great time. D is allergic to peanuts, so she never gets to eat bakery donuts, so we made our own donuts this weekend. They were donuts with the hole in the middle and glaze on top and everything. They were delicious. The next morning, she had me take a picture of her eating the donuts....the first time ever. She was thrilled.

3| My pen paling with S and A has caught on. In addition to writing me back, S wrote letters to his cousins too and they wrote him back. Love it.

4| The other day, when I was getting ready for bed, I found my pajama top, but I couldn't find my pajama bottoms. I looked everywhere, for about a minute, before I realized I was already wearing them. I had put them on earlier in the evening. Oh my goodness. Cracks me up every time. A sign of my life right now. My brain is too full!

5| I watched Smash. I thought it had a very slow start. The dialogue is a tad painful. But I enjoyed the last 10 minutes immensely. I'll give it one more week.

6| I picked up the ruffle paper from the Dear Lizzy Neapolitan collection. It's so pretty. I will have to work hard not to hoard it!

7| I'm bummed that I completely missed out on getting tickets to the Florence and the Machine concert in April. It sold out in minutes. Boo.

8| My taxes are done for another year. Hooray! Thank goodness for CPA Fathers!

9| I won a gift card for Two Peas and I'm making a list. I'm waiting for Amy Tangerine's new line, Sketchbook, and I am happy to see Elle's Studio is now sold at Two Peas too.

10| February completely snuck up on me. I can't believe January is behind us. I hope I can find a balance with home and work soon. I want to plan things. I want to start and finish books. I want to create and create and then share it here. I want to spend time with friends. I want to cultivate new relationships. I want to travel. Here's to figuring it all out....

Birthday Questions

I'm back with Day 3 of Stamping & Misting Week. See Day 1 and 2 here.

Today, I'm sharing another project using the mist and masking technique, but I'm using several different mist colors on the same page.

1. I started with the butterfly masks from Studio Calico. Aren't they cool?! I used Candy Apple Red Glimmer Mist from Tattered Angels and Heirloom Blue and Calico Shine Mister Huey's from Studio Calico. I misted the red first and the blue next. I followed that with the Calico Shine.

I added a few paint splatters by unscrewing the top of the mist bottle and using the wand to flick the paint across the paper. I kept the mist primarily to the one side because I knew the other side will hold the photo and journaling.

I put the page inside a box to keep the mist off my carpet, so I spray pretty close to the paper. Spraying from a larger distance may give you a different look.

2. I added the photo and printed the journaling from my computer. I asked my niece to answer a bunch of questions. I create layouts like this every once in awhile to get a snapshot into people's favorites and how they spend their time.

3. Next, I added the patterned paper behind the journaling and I used my circle punch to make a few circles to add as a border along the bottom.

4. I then added two Elle's Studio tags and several brads to the centers of the butterflies. I spent quite a bit of time trying to decide which brad to use where. It's interesting the things I get stuck on. I realized when I was writing this post, that I didn't have a title. Oops. I may add one, I may not. We'll see.

This page came together quickly. Once I had the masking on one side and the big journaling block on the other, it didn't leave a lot of room for variation.

If you've never tried misting, I would totally recommend trying it out. I was hesitant at first, but once I played around with it a couple of times, and watched a couple of videos, I was hooked. I was worried that it would be messy too, but using the box works brilliantly. The sides of the box catch it all! I love the finished look too.

Thanks for stopping by for Day 3 of Stamping and Misting Week. I'll be back with one more stamping technique. Happy February!