Necessity is the Mother of Invention

Look closely at this picture, notice anything funny?

Yep, that's scotch tape holding the bear's hair out of her eyes, put there by MIL, who watches her on Tuesdays, for a lack of anything better to use! "It's removeable" she kept telling me...I'm just glad it wasn't duct tape!! I gotta say, I admire the ingenuity, and it's got me thinking, there's got to be an invention in there somehow...Whaddya think, add a few decorations, and scotch tape barrettswill be the next big thing for babies?! Or maybe post-its for your hair...stylish and practical at the same time, lol
...SO, I had seen these cute ribbon barretts at some baby boutique, and after I got over my initial sticker shock, I realized they were totally make-at-home-able. I totally forgot, until I saw this post at fellow typist blog, Hey Jen Renee. To make a short story long, I made these this weekend after a quick trip to CVS for the clips and a rummage through my ribbon box; I love how they came out!

I gotta add, they look MUCH cuter on Chloebear than they do on D, but isn't his braid just the best for displaying them all together? Hehe...

This picture gets me every time I look at it, that sweet sleeping baby, I loved when she would sleep on me like this. I have been waiting for just the right inspiration to make a layout with it--what better than some lovely Sassafrass papers? I included a few goodies from some happy mail raks, and a cool digital label freebie. (stash diet: 12/50)
ttfn!

Another Layout...

Golly, I just {love} nap time!

I tried out a new sketch/challenge site, called Sketch This, and this is for sketch #68!
Thanks for looking :)

A few random things

Yesterday was a day off from work, so the Bear and I went to the park. She just loves the playground, it's so cute to see her get all excited when I ask "Do you want to go play?" These are a few pics I took with my cell phone, and then edited using picnik on flickr. Fun stuff! I SO need a new camera, my digital is a piece of sh*t and I feel bad borrowing D's all the time, so I end up using my phone, which is not very versatile!




Next is my layout for the latest prompt over at The Creative Type, where the challenge is to use a quote as your background. Go check it out!



I had fun using the Heidi Swap distresser on the edges here, and playing around with the quote. I printed the background page on matte photo paper, using a colored background and white text. I love the way the white letters look! I wanted to highlight certain words of the quote, but when I tried in-lining them using black pen, the results were terrible. So I printed out the chosen words again, cut them out and pop-dotted them over the background. Voila--mistake fixed, problem solved :)

10/50 scrap diet

Stash Diet

Even though I totally don't believe in diets (i believe in changing habits), I am participating in a Stash Diet over at We Scrap Better...these are the rules:

1. Create 50 layouts using only products, tools, and supplies we have on hand.
   
2. Cardstock and adhesive can be purchased when needed. Who can make many pages with no adhesive?
   
3. Gift certificates, RAK's, DT kits and current subs to kit clubs can be used.
   
4. Larger altered projects count as 1 layout.

So, I have already shown you my first "layout," which is actually an ATC set, and I have only got 49 more to go! It has been a busy week, and I have enjoyed resisting temptation to buy with the knowledge that my stash will be SO much slimmer at the end of all this...luckily, I am participating in a Happy Mail swap, so if there is something I absolutely MUST buy, I can always RAK it off or send it to my partner (you are probably starting to see why I suck at dieting now, lol). Here's the layout I created for this week's Project Catwalk challenge. It's the last week for the challenge to be open to everyone, from here on only the top 25 point earners can play--I have been hovering at 27-26-25, so I don't know if I'll be in it. But it has been fun! This week's challenge was to lift another PC contestant's layout, I love doing this, so I actually made two! Here's the layout I lifted, and the one I submitted:



And here's the one that I didn't submit, I lifted MandyKay's ode to simplicity, which is so good it makes my teeth hurt. I didn't show as much restraint at MK did, but I am still pretty happy with the result:

Last night I had fun playing with the glitter in my stash, and made these two layouts:


Now is when I reveal what a true dork I am. A few weeks ago I won a free class over at Get It Scrapped called "Back to Class." Basically, it was instructions on creating a school years album for your child, from pre-school to grade twelve. She gives you a format and you apply it to every year, and she encourages you to make the pages ahead of time to save time and effort later. So, not to let this prize go to waste, I have created a double page spread for every year of Chloe's education, because, well...because I am crazy. Never mind that by the time she's in high school we'll both probably hate the papers I chose, and school pictures will probably be holograms, I mean, she's already 15 months old, I better get a leg up! I don't know, it was like once I started I couldn't stop, and now it's done. And how many people can say they finished their child's school years album before their child has even learned to talk? Just me, ocd crazy me! So since I started the stash diet last week, I made four 2-page layouts. Because there aren't any pictures, I think I 'll count each spread as just one layout. Here they are in all their glory (don't make too much fun of me!):


Whew! That's 9 down, 41 more to go for the stash diet!!

Another time...

I will write all about what happened with Sukey. I'm not quite ready to go there yet...I have a big hole in my chest, and I miss her terribly.

I want to share an ATC set I made for a swap over at SiStv. This is only my second swap--I can see how ATC making can get addictive! The theme of this swap is Your Superhero Name. I went back and forth on what I wanted mine to be, for a while I thought I'd be "The Organizer" but I couldn't really come up with a design for that. Somehow I got stuck on using the Ghost Buster logo, and everything sort of fell in place from there.

I made the logo using an image downloaded from the internet and edited in scrapblog. The Fortuna Dot font is another freebie, from dafont.com. The combination of that font and the black glitter makes me wish my superhero name was Glitter Buster instead!

And while I'm at it, I might as well show my very first ATC set--this one was for a sweet candy swap. Still haven't gotten these back, hmmm....

Finally, here's my layout for last week's Project Catwalk. The challenge was "avant garde" use something in a way it was not intended to be used. I used poly-fill stuffing as clouds on my layout.

The Duke

* Sukey-duke * Dookster * Dookie doo *

I'm saying goodbye today, and it totally sucks.

Love those bulleted lists

It's tough keeping up blogging since I have been back to work. Had a great 1st day with the kiddos, they were super sweet and shiny, I love the honeymoon period! Too bad it never lasts past September. A few things...

• Sukey is home! I have to help her walk, and D carries her up the stairs at night, but I am happy she's home (five nights in the animal hospital is a lot!) and more importantly, SHE'S happy :)
• A few more pics from our trip to NYC last weekend.

camera phone self-portrait with D

Our friends posing with a sun flare

We took the 'water taxi' all around Manhattan island--such a cool way to see the city, and for $20 you can hop on and off all day (I sound like a commercial, but it was really fun)!

Under the Brooklyn Bridge.

• My Project Catwalk week 7 submission. I love how this came out, I am glad I made this layout for me rather than trying to make something that would win (since I never get picked anyways, it kills me, but I gotta say everyone's entries are pretty damn good!).

• and finally, keep an eye out Monday for the new prompt at The Creative Type challenge blog--it's a good one!
  

Hey there Blogworld...

I have had a busy, hectic week. A lot going on, between going back to work and everything else I've barely had time to check my email, much less blog about anything! My birthday was fantabulous, I went to lunch with my Mom and she watched the baby while I got a much-needed pedicure, then D and I went out to dinner with the bear and I was surprised when bff and her hubster joined us. We had yummy sushi, like the best I have had in a long time, and champagne and lots of laughs--a perfect birthday evening! The next day was tough, as Sukey seemed to have a really hard time walking--by the end of the day, she was basically using her front legs to drag herself forward. The next morning we took her to the animal-emergency room (I am really lucky to live super close to an amazing animal hospital called Angell), which was complicated by the fact that my parents were coming to stay with bear because we were supposed to catch the shuttle for NYC. Here's Sukey in the waiting room:

She was still pretty much herself at this point, by that I mean not in pain and cheerful and goofy as always. So we decided to take a later flight, and left her at the hospital overnight for some tests, and landed that afternoon. D forgot his glasses, so after a hair-raising taxi ride into Manhattan and checking into the hotel, he rushed to a LensCrafters to see if he could get glasses made. He couldn't (so much for 'in about an hour'). I was spending my first night away from bear, we had a wedding to go to of a dear college friend of mine, and we were determined to make the best of it!

The wedding took place at Battery Park Gardens, which is at the tip of Manhattan overlooking the statue of Liberty. Here are a couple of camera-phone shots of before the ceremony:



(If you look really closely you can barely make out Miss Liberty in the distance in the pics above)

We just let our hair down and enjoyed being out, baby-free, dressed up and at a happy occasion. D wore his (prescription) sunglasses most the night:

I enjoyed showing off my pedicure in my cute shoes:

...and we got some great photo-booth shots that I can't wait to scrap!

Sukey is still in the hospital, and it has been pretty tough. She may come home tomorrow, and it's my hope that she still has a few more walks left in her :)