serendipity

new cha goodies from melissa frances!!

yep, back to being a bad blogger. certain friends of mine finally talked me into getting on facebook and that kept me busy until I absolutely had to start my CHA projects. now that those are done and I'm getting back on a regular schedule (unlike going to bed at 8:30 am because I spent the entire night scrapbooking) I am finally getting back to updatingmy blog. and so the update...the last part of december into early january was crazy. we had one family emergency type thing after another. mostly involving wyatt. two days before christmas he was bitten by a dog (family member's)- in the face. now he looks mostly back to normal. it looks like the punctures might end up scarring. but considering that one of them missed his eye by half an inch, I was extremely grateful on christmas that he was ok. after his doctor told me he was lucky and came very close to losing his eye, I spent a couple of weeks hovering and freaking out over every little fall and bump, which naturally there are a lot of. a week later, he suddenly had a rash. he saw the doctor less than an hour later and we were told it was chicken pox. this was the morning after our neighborhood party/ gift exchange/ all the kids playing for hours until late at night get together. (pneumonia showed up in two other houses right after too). so after telling all of our neighbors, wyatt (and I) were quarantined for about 3 days until I was finally convinced that it was not chicken pox. back to the doctor and it turned out to be a delayed reaction to the antibiotics (for the dog bites). and then when he went back to school, he had what I'll politely call an injury of a personal nature. it occurred while he was using the bathroom and involved a whole lot of bruising. at this point I'm thinking he should really be put in a bubble.

now for the goodies...I have to miss out on the actual show this time around, but getting to play with the new releases from melissa frances was lots of fun. the Fresh Twist line is one of my all time favorites. the colors are absolutely perfect for me. if you're going to CHA, be sure to go by the MF booth (booth #4077) and check out this line as well as some additions to the Thankful line and the new Attic Treasures line (plus some gorgeous new albums and embellishments). here's a few layouts using the Fresh Twist papers and stickers...

     

looks like i'm back...

  scrapbooking, that is! just a matter of days and new CHA releases from melissa frances have arrived as I was finishing up some guest designer work. i'm exhausted but it feels good. I finally feel like the break is over and i'm back to doing what I love (and back to loving it again.)

so i'm going to give some of the credit to my friend, Diana, who asked me to be a guest designer for the kit club she co-owns - Scrap For a Cure. we've known each other since grace was a baby and we were in the moms club together. we became friends, she became friends with my sister-in-law and eventually we were all getting together to scrapbook. Diana was corrupted by the two of us when we started handing her chalk and paint way back when. those days were so much fun. and I am so so proud of her. this is not the usual kit club. they donate a portion of their kit sales to a different charity quarterly. their incredible vision is based entirely on their generosity and need to give back. Diana has inspired me for years in her dedication to the search for a cure to breast cancer. I am truly honored that she asked me to work with their december kit - because it's gorgeous of course - but also because i'm so happy to be a small part of their amazing club.

she put a few of my projects up tonight so I'll share them here (and a few more tomorrow) but please go and check out Scrap For a Cure for yourself!!

  

 

  

and in my scrapping frenzy I've gotten behind on my wishes, so i'm going to cheat a little bit. thanks to miss carolyn peeler and her sweet little goody bags she gives when i've worked the melissa frances booth at CHA, i've discovered quite a few little goodies from bath and body works. lucky for me one just opened at a brand new outdoor mall that I can walk to. so my wish list for b&bw includes several little things that are easy for the husband to get. check them all out at  Bath & Body Works.

days 4, 5, 6 and 7...
   

carolyn gave me the limeade liplicious gloss a few shows back and again last summer (good since grace likes to steal it). i'm a sucker for lipgloss.

days 7 and 8...
  

some more carolyn-introduced favorites. i got the mentha lip tint at my first show and still wear it almost every day. i have the red and it's getting pretty low, but i've always wanted the pink, too. see, love the lipgloss...miss C gave me the lemon sugarscrub maybe a year ago and it's been gone for a while so when I saw this little kit, I couldn't help but suggest it as a perfect christmas gift.

and for day 9, refills on some favorites that are very close to empty...
 

for a while the rice flower and shea scent wasn't around and it's my absolute favorite. the hand cream I have been using constantly the last month for those winter dry hands.

enough of my b&bw wish list. gotta think of something more fun to wish for tomorrow.

christmas in italy with nine 7 year olds...

grace is a girl scout. I am one of her leaders. it is crazy most of the time. we have 9 girls and I love them. the slightly shy ones, the wild and silly ones, the loud and opinionated ones. but every two weeks, as much as I love doing it, those girls drive me crazy. they leave me so drained that all I want to do that wednesday night and every other thursday is absolutely nothing. part of it is the insane detail that I put into the planning, that and my serious lack of patience, so it's my own fault mostly. then there's those big days- when we have a lot to get done or there's some big event. that was today. holidays around the world and we had a booth about italy. so between that and the thera-flu I'm about to drink, I am headed to bed at the shockingly early hour of 10! and I just know that tomorrow I'll be right back to prepping for our next meeting in 2 weeks. that's after a quick headshot/business pic for my brother-in-law, on my way to a photo session for a sweet little 7 month old (that I get to photograph for the second time), and making the ornament favors for our ballet company's tea with clara fundraiser for nutcracker with my friend M. 60 "simple" ornaments involving clear glass ornaments, transparencies and ribbon, and the fundraiser's on sunday. should be a fun, fun day.

before I head off to bed I'll share my wish for day 3...
   

it's a little of an undecided wish. I've wanted one or more of these perfumes forever. I think it's been on my christmas list on sephora for 3 years. and I can't really decide which one I like best. the vanille coco and vanille abricot I know I love. the aloha tiare is a little bit of a stronger scent but I like it too. I don't think I've actually smelled them, but vanille pineapple and caramel sunset sound so yummy. I haven't really worn perfume since I was pregnant with wyatt. I couldn't stand strong smells and it sort of stuck, most perfumes give me an instant headache, even ones I've always loved. but these are light and so tropical. love love these. check them out at sephora. now off to dream about the tropics... 

wishes

I have another cold. it's really only been maybe 3 weeks since the last one was finally gone. I really hate being sick. so...pictures still on the camera, but I will share some of my nieces soon.

in the meantime, as I'm trying to finish up my christmas shopping, especially for my hard to buy for husband (I don't want anything!!)...I'm thinking about wish lists. I'm still a little bit like a kid. I still make a wish list, or sometimes a bunch if I can make them online, and send them to my husband. I wish for much, much more than I would ever need or want or get. but I think it's the fun of it that I love. grace made her own online wish list this year too- at justice. I'm slowly creating a monster. so just for fun and because our real christmas will be on the small side this year, I'm sharing a wish for every day.

for the 1st...

pretty, pretty green ipod. will has been trying forever to get me an ipod and once the green came out, I had to have it. so I know it won't be until after christmas, but it's still at the top of my list.

and for the 2nd...
 

really, I can't decide which of these camera straps I like best. love love love them!! check them out at My Funky Camera . they have very cool little wristlet straps too that I'm thinking would be pretty useful. now off to do some more online searching for that hard to shop for guy.

ending november

wow. it's been a while. and not just since I've blogged but, wow, this year, these last few months have gone by way too fast. I think I've finally come off of my self-imposed scrapbooking break. it's been months and I've done very little. but it's been good. about 3 and a half years of this crazy pace is a lot to take. I'd like to say I've had some actual down time, but it's been more "real life" time. school and dance and sports and girl scouts. kids. it's been a kind of reminder. they've got to come first, and this time when they're this young will only last so long. and now my desk is clean and organized and ready to go. the inspiration is back and I'm finally ready to jump back in.

but because I never took a break from putting my camera down, here's a little rundown of november (and october and september too)...

september...
a neighborhood birthday party for 3 year old brooks...and just about every kid in the neighborhood out on "our corner" hangout...

october...
a trip to disneyland during the 2 week fall break, where we saw quite a few friends from home...

and a fun and crazy halloween...

november...
holiday parade in the streets of our downtown. grace's dance team won best novelty entry (and her lipstick didn't come off for a day and a half)...
  

and today, on the last day of november, my baby nieces turned one. I'll share pictures of my girlies tomorrow. and maybe even a scrapbook page...

just a few photos to share...

too tired to write a post that makes any sense, so I'm showing a few photos from grace's 7 year old portrait shoot a few months back. she asked me for a slideshow with her music choices- and it was almost 10 minutes long! it took so long to download off my site and a lot of people couldn't view it and are still reminding me about it. so I'll start posting here, a little at a time. since I really didn't know what she or we would do with this dvd slideshow (that she's shown to 2 people) I created the slideshow pages as 8 1/2 x 11's, kind of a super simple digi scrapping, that I'll have printed into a coffee table book. so these are some of the pages for the book (I'll share a bunch at a time because there are LOTS! and I should mention that 95% of the posing is all her)...

 

little boys...

I think I've figured out one of the reasons that I love taking photos of grace (aka torturing her) so often. sure she's my daughter and she's willing to indulge me, and I happen to think she's pretty much the cutest little girl ever (an opinion obviously related to reason #1). but she's my way of getting a girl photo fix. photography clients of mine are almost always boys- seriously. yeah I have one, boys are great and all that. and when I get to photograph a newborn or baby boy, it's really such an amazing honor that I fall a little bit in love with each of those boys. and then I remind myself as I'm driving home that I have one of those at home- a wild and monstrous 4 year old one of those, whose latest mess/disaster/behavior issue awaits me. that baby fix is satisfied instantly. but I miss the girl thing. I find myself begging friends to photograph their girls, just for fun. and I buy girly things with the intention of using them as super cool photo props. so that's my explanation and my defense for my grace pictures. as for the boys, here's some of my favorite little guys that I recently spent a long, long day with.

these are my friend J's boys. J is one of the funniest, most sarcastic people I know, which means we get along pretty well. I've been pretty lucky to get to know her over the last year and love that we've become friends. so I spent more than 4 hours at her house a few weeks ago hanging out, talking about her new business, oh and doing a photo session. I was technically there for photos of her 5 month old, and a little with big brother, mom & dad. it was the most relaxed, no pressure session- so much fun. and I like J a lot, but I am now so in love with her boys...

this is montana, a mellow little guy who was a perfect, easy little subject...

...which I always love.

but I especially loved him because he let me do this...

...and not only did he let me do it, he loved the basket so much that he sat in there FOREVER!

and this is montana with his big brother dallas, who loves montana as only a three year old boy can...

...meaning he likes him and he's "big brother" until he remembers that it's all about him (because he is 3 after all).

and while J had to feed montana and dallas and I were hanging out on J's bed having conversations about the dogs and whatever else we saw out the window (in "dallas-speak" of course, which is seriously the cutest thing), I let him have his all about me time. and this is why I am in love with dallas...

...because how could you not be? his sweet smile, those eyes, his silliness...and I wish J only the very best of luck in a year. when he's 4. thanks J!!

and that new business of hers?? totally cute custom baby blankets, burp cloths and even adult blankets, with seriously amazing super-soft fabrics and modern designs, that make me wish I had a baby for them (reminder: 4 year old boy at home!!) I can't wait to use some of her blankets in some baby sessions (90% chance of that being a baby boy, which won't stop me from getting girl blankets too). check out her blog while her website is under construction...

Blankets By Baby Inkie

check me out...

at the MF blog. because there are thrilling little facts and tidbits about me there! yeah, not that thrilling. but it's an honor to be the spotlighted designer for the month. I've been so fortunate to have worked with MF for the last 3ish years. not only are the products beautiful, but the company is pretty wonderful too! here's another recent MF layout I did, just for fun...

and a few more pics to share...the classic first day of school pics from july 28th (yep, that's pretty early isn't it?!) I also took some (actually normal looking) pics of wyatt on his first day of pre-k a few weeks later, but those I accidentally erased from my memory card, and am still horribly guilty about that. so here's just grace...

off to finish up some proofing and celebrate missing a typical monday this week!! 

neglected.....

my poor little blog. I really am so bad at this. it's one of those easy things to say I'll do tomorrow and then I just don't. so labor day is now over, fall is slowly on it's way here (my favorite time of year) and I've got some fun stuff to share coming up. ok and some fun stuff that's come and gone since I've been ignoring my blog. during that time I've been right in the whirlwind of school and the start of grace's first year competing in dance. it's been pretty crazy but actually fun, and I'm so proud of how hard she's working and how dedicated she is just because she loves it so much. both the kids are back in school, I'm back to volunteering in grace's classroom, trying to drag myself to the gym on a regular basis, and working. kind of a lot lately, which is fun and exciting. I'll dig up some photog stuff to share this week. the actual work (the paid kind) has been great, but I've gotten some fun stuff of my own, mostly of grace (wyatt's still in his bad picture stage, really really bad.)

scrapbooking's been a little slower. I guess I needed a big break after CHA. I've downsized a lot of my "commitments", in and out of scrapbooking, and I'm finally ready to get back into the swing of things. I've got a fun little something with one of my very very fave manufacturers coming up very soon and I can't wait to share! and tomorrow, I am determined to clean off my desk (and even the floor surrounded my desk) so I can actually create something.

for now, I have some fun pics from my mom's house where we spent the weekend. and I'm having a hard time deciding which image I like best and whether I like regular color or vintage color. and I have about 50 or so more to go through from my little mini-session with grace. here's two so far that I love...

more CHA peeks...

Here's a few more peeks at the Little Boy Blue collection, including a couple of patriotic cards with the line.

now back to packing!! if you're going to CHA have a great time!