Photo A Day (July)

I'm going to try something new, and I thought you might like to join me.



I've seen a few lists for taking a photo a day. This is the one I decided to try. It includes a prompt for each day of the month. I tried Project 365 a few years ago, but only lasted about 3 weeks. It's a project to take 1 photo every day for a year. I just ran out of ideas and then conviently started forgetting to take a photo, for an entire week, then I quit. I think the idea of having a prompt could be quite useful. So, let me know if you decide to join me. See fat mum slim for more details.

And remember tomorrow is July 1st. Here's to a brand new month full of possibilities!

Friday Wrap

It's that time again. Time to view all the exciting and fabulous details of my week, with the help of Instagram.

Friday the girls spent most of the day at a friend's house, so we were alone with the boy, Alec. We rarely get to spend time with him (very active social life), so we tried to think of something fun he could do with his parents. Unfortunately, no great ideas came to us. So, we went to Starbucks, then did some window shopping (found a few clearance items, I touched purses that whispered to me), then went to dinner at Chili's (boy's request since he needed spicy chicken strips. And this is what Alec did during most of the meal:

And Mark stared at the 7 t.v. screens (we ate in the bar). That's okay, I enjoyed some nachos with the cold beauty pictured below. When did I become a beer drinker?

Saturday was Sister's Day. Did you know that? The girl's heard about it from Nikelodean a couple of years ago and now they celebrate it every year. It's super cute. So 2 seperate trips were made to Target to purchase gifts (Emma gave a giant pair of neon pink hoop earrings to Katie, and Katie gave an owl necklace and earrings and $5 in a homemade card to Emma). Katie punched holes in the dollar bills and put ribbon through them to attach to the homemade card. Very clever, but we had to explain that you can not punch holes in money!

Oh, nice. See that blue pillow in the background? New, with the Target clearance tag still attached. And see the button on the pillow? Yeah, Einstein had to eat it off. Mark tried to warn me at the store, but I didn't listen. That's ok. I didn't like the button anyways. Total lie.

Can't you just feel the love surrounded these 2? You can check out their presents in the next photo.

The rest of the week was spent in Palm Springs. Wednesday was our 20th anniversary. My mom babysat (Thanks Mom!!!), and we went away for 3 whole nights. We picked Palm Springs because we were being cheap (and we love the mid-century architecture).  Maybe not such a great idea.

It was so stinkin hot! Now don't be silly. We knew that Palm Springs was hot, but we thought it would be more like highs in the 90's (vs. Arizona in the 110's). It wasn't. It was so hot we didn't want to leave the hotel room. Lucky for us, the hotel room was pretty cool swanky.

There will be a post soon with lots of photos of the hotel (Movie Colony Hotel). We relaxed all day Tuesday, then in a spur of the moment decision, we decided the best place to spend the official Day of Love v20.0 would be........

At the Happiest Place on Earth. Pause for all the groans from family members who think we go there too much, and a pause for the kids who are screaming "how could you go there without us??"

We had a lovely time, in the crowds and heat and sore knee legs/feet. So now we are home, and back to life as we know it. Today is even my first day back to work after surgery. I will be working all weekend. Hope you all find time for some happiness this weekend!

Sending our love your way!

Now go check out more InstaFriday love. Just click the link below.

Day of Love

We're in sunny Palm Springs enjoying some one on one time for the big Day of Love.

Yep. Today is 20 years since we said our "i do's".

And we still want to spend time alone together. I guess we must be doing something right!

image from pinterest via pinmarklet

Hey Girl.....

Hi everyone. Any of you see these Hey Girl photos on Pinterest? They crack me up so much! Like pee in my pants crack me up! Here's a few of my faves. I could have gone on all day long, but I have to get dressed at some point......


















Do you have any favorite Hey Girl images? Please share with me! Now go finish your day with a smile on your face!

New Art in the Shop

Well here we are at Monday again. Hope everyone had a great weekend. I enjoyed my last day of freedom (short term disability). I am officially released to go back to work today. But, lucky me, has pto until Friday. You know, for the Day of Love. The 20 yr celebration of wedded bliss!

So, I made sure to enjoy every minute of Sunday. I even made a few new canvases for the shop.

The first is Orange Capture Life. It is similar to the one that is featured here. Similar, but not the same, because as you all know, each piece is handcrafted and unique.

The 2nd one is Raspberry Capture Life. I can't seem to get enough of these cameras. They are just so cute! I feel like there needs to be one in every color! And it's hard to see in this picture, but the camera is painted a metallic grey color, so it has some shimmer to it.

If you are interested in checking out all the items in the shop, just click on "my shop" right above today's blog post, but under the banner (photos at top of page).

Have a wonderful day!

Man

Wanted to share a new layout I made based on The Green Frog Studio Sketch Wednesday challenge. 

I was inspired by the layout by Nulka. It is incredible! Mine, not so much. But I did have fun playing with misting with various stencils. And I decided to use a smaller page (8.5 x 11 turned sideways) than the 12 x 12 one in the challenge.

This is a photo of Trevor from the Spring Break trip (from the mini album I created earlier this week).  See this post.  When I looked at the photo, I felt like there was a story to be told, so I wanted to make a stand alone layout rather that including it in the mini album.

Journaling: My little boy man. I took this photo this past spring.  I just can't wrap my brain around the fact that he is all grown up! Even though he no longer lives at home. Even though he has a fiance. Even though he has been taller than me for years. At what point does a mama bear stop seeing the little boy, and start seeing the man?

Hope you enjoyed! Do you have any layouts to share with me?

The 9 Nanas

Happy Sunday everyone!

You HAVE to click on the link below. It is truly an amazing story!!! A triple exclamation point story!

The 9 Nanas

And all my posts MUST include a photo of some sort. Hope you enjoy!

Quotes

Here is some eye/heart candy for your Saturday morning! Have a happy day!


Found this gem on Pinterest. It's from The Lettered Cottage. Love this take on a Summer Manifesto!






This can be found here. It's $10. Yep. It's going on my wish list. It wants to be framed and added to the gallery wall along the stairs!






Oh so true.... from pinned via the web.





And one last one.....in honor of the upcoming Day of Love.




All images are from Pinterest. I tried to provide links wherever they are available. But sometimes there is no link to the original source.

Hope you have a Happy Saturday!

Friday Wrap

Happy Friday everyone!

It's time to catch up on the very exciting highlights of my week. Yep. Very exciting!

Most of the week has been spent on Mark's eyeball. His left eyeball turned blood red the week before last. It was diagnosed as pink eye. Then last Saturday Mark woke up with vision problems. So we ended up at the E.R. making sure it wasn't something more serious. Nope. Just pink eye. And new antibiotic drops.

With the vision problem, Mark hasn't been able to drive. So he ended up home on Father's Day. Since his eye is so light sensitive, I thought we'd take Mark to the movies. We went to see The Avengers and then out for a fancy lunch at Culver's (burgers, shakes). Avengers was fun, but my favorite summer movie so far is still Men in Black III.

But before leaving for the movie, Mark spent some time cuddling with Emma.

Warning: this next shot is a little scary! It's Mark's cyborg eye. Emma thinks he looks like a zombie.

While at Walgreen's, I had to pick up this patch for Mark. And we spent a bit of time practicing saying "aarrrrrr" like a pirate.

On a more serious note, it turns out that Mark did not have pink eye. He saw the opthomologist on Monday and he has iritis, which means his iris is attached to his pupil. Which could result in permanent vision loss if not treated quickly. He started on steroid drops and it looks like he will be okay. He should be ready to return to work this Sunday.


Another memorable moment this week was when my car hit the 200,000 miles on the odometer.  Poor girl. She has to drive so many miles every month!

The Murano hit 200,000 miles on the way to dinner at Wildflower Bread Co. After a yummy bread bowl of Chicken Coconut Curry soup, I split a cupcake with Mark and Emma. It was pretty and the frosting was perfectly sweet!

The last photo I have to share is from Thursday night. Mark and Katie rebuild a bookshelf that had fallen apart. Literally. It was great to hear them working together. Daddy and daughter. And Mark is not the handyman type at all. So I was really proud of him when the job was done and the bookcase was moved back into Katie's room!

Well, that's it for me. What have you been up to this week? Seen any good movies? Any good pirate imitations? Leave me a comment and let me know!

Check out Life Rearranged by clicking on the button below to see lots of other bloggers joining in InstaFriday.

Spring Break Mini Album

Hello everyone.  I know Spring Break was over 3 months ago, but I just now finished the mini album (started it yesterday). I even have some unfinished projects that are older (2011 December Daily would be one of them). So, I'm crazy about this album because it has lots of everything. Photos, receipts, brochures, journaling....but not lots of everything for every day. It just seems like the right balance for documenting the trip.

See all the bits and pieces sticking out? Love it!

I used a Smash book that I decorated before the trip. Just added random bits of paper and embellishments (Disneyland themed and colored) and stamps (ocean animals for the beach days). And I pulled a few things from my stash.

I packed a gallon size Ziploc bag in my purse to hold anything and everything I might want to save from the trip. I save everything that is flat and can be added to an album. Then I make decisions later as to what goes into the album and what gets tossed. This trip I saved extra copies of stuff to share with Chelsey, since she wanted to make her own album.

So, now we are back from the trip, photos are printed, and free time is available. I decorated the cover with a panda photo that was included in the photo pack I purchased at the San Diego Zoo. Didn't even know it was there until I was digging through my Ziploc bag! Out came the gel medium and I had an instant cover. I also added the Mickey key chain that I picked up while at Disneyland.

So here are a few of the pages out of the album.

Brochures and parking stubs for hotel.....

Simple pages...

pages with just journaling....

You can see that I used washi tape to layer photos again in the album. I like that I can fit so many photos on one page, but not have it so cluttered.

photo booth strips and entrance tickets to zoo....

Disneyland postcard (sent to my house before the trip) and my photo on the bottom...

lunch receipt and journaling...

Page documenting the trip cost.  I questioned doing this (do I want to share costs with other people that might see this album?), but in the end I wanted to include this because I have wanted to refer back to costs of previous trips before. And it will be fun to see what the costs are 10 years from now.

This is another first in a vacation mini album: the notes to self for future vacations. Sometimes the memories fade and I don't remember things that may be useful in the future. So now I have a place to note things.

I highly recommend these Smash books. They are just so fun and they come with the pen/glue stick attached to the book. The glue does not work great with photos, so I just use washi tape instead. The glue does work great with paper items though.

Have you used a Smash book yet? What project have you used your book for?

My Top 5 Blogs I Love to Read

I follow quite a few blogs, and the list changes over time. Thought I would share my top 5.



1. Elise Blaha - enJOY It @ http://eliseblaha.typepad.com/golden/

I recently started to read her blog, but I quickly fell in love. She posts almost daily, so I always wait for that post to hit my reading list. And she always has a variety of topics. I have a tendency to read her blog, and think "I need to try that". Like that desk redo with washi tape. Went and bought the tape. Hope to redo my desk later this week. So many cool projects on this one!

2.  Meg Deurkson-Whatever @ http://megduerksen.typepad.com/whatever/

This one I have been reading for years. I fell in love with her large, beautiful photos and her home projects and crafts, and I also love to hear about her family life. She has lots of kids and lots of craziness, much like my family life.  And I'mtotally wanting to attend one of her craft weekends. I need to make a ruffle apron. Not at my house, but at hers. Maybe for my birthday? Hint. To my family.

3.  The Nester - The Nesting Place @ http://www.thenester.com/

Another one I have been reading for years. Her motto is "It doesn't have to be perfect to be beautiful". And that's so me! Not perfect.And she is constantly changing things around in her house. Like I do. And she is not afraid to try something new. Like me.

4.  Donna Downey = Simply Me @ http://donnadowney.typepad.com/simply_me/

Um. Donna Rocks. Seriously. Ever seen her Inspiration Wednesday videos? I love that she posts a free video every Wednesday. I have been lucky enough to take classes from her the past 2 times she has traveled to Arizona. And I grinned the entire time. She has been a great inspiration for me and my inner artist!

5.  Tara Whitney - Just Be Blogged @ http://tarawhitney.com/justbeblogged/

Amazing photographer. I love, love, love her work. Should I ever receive a bundle of money unexpectedly, I will book a session with her. In California. With my family. She brings tears to my eyes sometimes, just from looking at the love she captures in her photos. And from recording those everyday moments that are so easily forgotten over time. She is truly gifted!

This is just a few of my favorites. Who do you follow? Any suggestions for me? Leave me a comment if you have any other blogs to share.