Teeny Tiny Bother and an enabler alert!!

 

 

 

I'm making two albums for my orthopedic surgeon, Dr. Sokunbi. He and his wife had twins back in October, one boy and one girl!!! I couldn't even imagine two at the same time...lol! It would be double the ....everything :-) I love making baby albums the most so I thought since he kinda saved my life it would be nice to say thanks the way I know best. Create from my heart. They must be pretty busy with two wee itty bitty babies at home so I thought a simple plug in style for them to just add photos would probably work best. I know when I had one baby it was a challenge getting laundry washed, a shower, dinner cooked and all that stuff a stay at home mom feels she needs to do. If I had a chance to do it over I would have just chilled with my daughter and enjoyed the tiny miracle God gave me. The rest can wait. It's not like the laundry was going anywhere, right?/??!! : )

These 2 pages are for the boys album, his name is Ore Isaiah.

What are you making these days? Holiday projects? Cards?
Time is ticking away.....Christmas will be here before we know it!
 Are you ready? I am NOT.

I tried to warn you about the enabling alert....beware...

HAVE TO SHARE!!!
The shaped photo mat (left page - 4x4) was made with my new favorite cartridge...."Artbooking" by CTMH. If you haven't seen it yet....brace yourself! Hands down - favorite  c a r t  ever!!!
You don't even need to be a scrapbooker to love it. 
There are tons of mini album sizes ( 8x8, 8x6, 7x5, 6x7, 6x6, and 10x8 )  to choose what suits your needs. Themes are endless and versatile! If you are still stumped for ideas just browse the handbook and inspiration galore will be had!!! Titles / Words are welded, frames (photo mats) are fancy or plain, overlay options are copious and borders are super trendy! The cart also includes borders AND a whole al-pha-bet!! O M G !!
Did I mention how much I love this cart????
Ok, catch your breath. Ready for more????
The cart comes with coordinating stamp sets!!!! Ahhh! Yes, it does! Seriously! Take a look at the catalog....get a tissue because you will be drooling!!
There are three exclusive carts that CTMH sells
Art Philosophy
Artiste
the best one in my opinion
Artbooking
Aren't you glad we are friends and I just shared this with you??? Now you can put it on your list for Santa!!!

Hugs and happy Sunday
xo
I had to share : )

 

Thankful for friends-update

The layout above is the first page of Chance's First Year album. Chance turned one on February 11, 2013 and I promised to make his mom, Michelle, a complete 12x12 scrapbook for him if three (3) orders came back to me from her referrals! You see, Michelle is my friend as well as my hair dresser so I made a deal with her. :-) Let me give you a bit of history so you understand how this all unfolded.

My mom passed away on November 3, 2009.   Eating, sleeping, cooking and cleaning all came to a screaching hault. It's a good thing breathing is involuntary, for me.   Scrapbooking, card making and crafting along with other significant parts of living were pretty much non-existent. Once I lost my mom a huge part of my heart went to heaven with her. I had no desire to do anything.  I'll be honest with you it was difficult to get myself out of bed and take care of my children on most days.  I give major props to my husband for getting me through one of the hardest things I've faced in my life to date.  Scrapbooks were the furthest thing from my mind, in fact I was so sure I'd never feel that passion again I began to sell off my supplies. Cricut cartridges were being boxed up and shipped out. Yup, even my prized possessions.

That is how bad I felt.

A looong time went by before I was able to touch my stash. My creativity was under what felt like deep layers of thick, heavy, wet sand that may have been buried somewhere in China?!  I did feel a shallow pulse that began to beat a little faster when I joined the Outlawz group. I love color so when I was asked to design for the Color Challenge Group it felt pretty good to connect with these girls and my stash.  Thank God for Colleen, Maureen, Trina, Theresa, Lisa, Pryn, Angie, Guylou, Amy and all the other girls that helped me get through a super dark time in my life.  They will never know how truly blessed I feel for their friendship.  Words cannot express my gratefulness for each one of them.

My world got a little brighter because of the sharing, caring and designing with the Outlawz girls They were truly brightening my life a little more each day.

 I desperately needed to make an appointment with Michelle to get my hair done so I had an idea.  I should surprise her and make her a baby boy book! That's what I did.  She knew she was having a boy, the colors for his nursery and even his name! I brought it to her without all of the pages completed (90% done) but I was so excited to share with her what I had so far.  I was even more excited to share with her the fact that it was her and her unborn child that restarted my heart!!!  My favorite books to create are for newborn babies. The soft colors, pureness, miracles and itty, bitty feet!
 My mom had a lot of influence on me when it came to babies and decor. Her thought was keep them babies as long as you can.  Soft colors and fabrics like a wooly, baby lamb. I remember when I put Osh-kosh denim overalls on Thea when she was only 2 months old. My mom was not thrilled at all. ;p  I can hear her voice now, "Alright, hurry up and take your pictures already so I can me get her out of those darn jeans!!!" Lol!  She was all about soft, cotton, chenille, flannel and details like smocking and adorable ducky buttons!  I must admit, that is all of what I love to create with now :-) She was right!
I showed Michelle the book and she absolutely loved it.  Yaaaay!!!! She asked me to make one for the shop owner who at the time was pregnant with her first baby. The theme was Noah's Ark.  Can you believe I didn't take any pictures of that album??  Bummer, I know. That is when I said that if she got three orders to come my way I would make a one year book for Chance.  She was up for the challenge :-)

To date Michelle has placed three orders with me and from those orders three more ladies ordered from me a total of five, yes, 5 books!!! Wow! Right?! Michelle is working on Chance getting his 2nd year album completed...for FREE!  It would be my pleasure to make it too! <3 br="">

This story made me smile as I shard it with you. I'm happy to say my heart is steadily beating these days and I owe a lot of that to my friend, Michelle. xo Thank you girl for all of what yo do and everything you are.
{{{YOU ROCK!!!}}}

Have a great Thanksgiving and may your heart beat on...

Hugs,
 Jenn 

Who doesn't love to look at pics?

Heavy Photo post .....playing catch up with layouts I made that never got posted to my blog!

I have my laptop here that I am going through folder by folder trying to grab pics to post. I had a super, scary incident a few weeks back. My MAC (it's really old too) which is where ALL 10K+ photos of mine live. Well, I went to turn it on and..... nothin...... No power. No nuthin? Gasp...............
I freaked out and started to shake. I cannot imagine what I would do if all of my photos disappeared.
The weirdest thing happened. A friend of mine said her DH would take a look at it because he is the guru of computers and if he can't fix it no one can. I was sick to my stomach until I heard from her. He plugged it in and it turned on.
What?
He didn't do anything to it.! It just worked! Happy dance!!!!! :-)
I learned a valuable lesson. BACK UP!
SO, on that note,  I am sharing, posting and backing up to Snapfish and some cloud thing! I had all of my moms' pics on the MAC too that I cannot ever get a copy of. Whew....talk about close call, right?

This post contains various layouts and a card along with random pics I wanted to share to kind of get caught up in blog land. Lol!  

Family

Travel  2-12x12 pages

A card I made for my surgeon. (sorry for the blur-took w/phone)

I captured this on the way home from the bus stop one morning. Seeing light or hope through the darkness and pain in my heart from missing my mom. 

Random canvas shapes I cut and misted with Heide Swapp mist. Center is seed beads on top of stickles and wired beads glued down

Solar light my mom bought for me years ago. She lights my path :-) <3 br="">

quick and simple Halloween layout

another simple fun page to add to my Halloween layouts (right side)

left side of layout

love how the title is popping off the page a bit!

I really have to organize my photos better and start blogging again. I miss you guys out there :-)
I'm currently working on orders now for baby books and a first birthday. My surgeon had twins so guess what that means? Yup! A set of books for him and his wife!!! I couldn't find a neutral album for both so I got a pink and a blue 12x12 album for each baby! I am going with the CAS style for these. I love newborn babies and I don't want to take away from the photos of their precious, itty, bitty feet and first smiles so this will probably come together rather quickly for me. I plan to use a lot of lace and trims though. I'll be photographing these with my good camera and not my phone, promise!
The other order I have paralleling this is a volley ball album. I decided to make one for my daughters coach and a mom asked if I could make her daughter one too. Of course!  Look for these pics to come soon.

Glad we could catch up and it feels great to post after all this time. :-)

Are you working on any projects right now? Send me a comment and share. I'd love to hear about it!

Hugs,
Jenn

Wedding Album

I'm working on an order now for a Wedding Album.

The bride has chosen such inspiring colors that if I were getting married for the first time I'd use her palette for my own :-)
The order comes from her mom. She wants to surprise her daughter with a 12x12 album on the day of her bridal shower so I am plugging away working on pages for this!

Here are just a couple I have uploaded so far....(it's a destination wedding taking place in Jamaica)

I'll have more to share later on today, I just need to take the pics then post :-)
Have a sunny day!!

Eye candy to share

This is such a great find!! Hostess with the mostess is packed with inspiration, ideas, crafts and more!
 Immediately I was drawn to the design and colors of the very friendly, chic site.
 It has everything from fresh colors to pull you out of a lull, simple ideas if you need a fast craft and then much more elaborate projects and ideas for the super detail oriented ones out there. Party planning ideas for weddings, showers and birthdays just to name a few.

I definitely see myself referring to this site quite often for motivation and kick starting my mojo :-)
 This could also be a great site to use for card challenge colors!!! Hmm!!!

Had to share with you! If you knew about it already, why I ask, didn't you share with me? Just teasing!

Enjoy.

While I recover from surgery.....

..........I thought I would return to my long lost blog!

Merry Christmas, Happy Thanksgiving, Happy New Year, Happy President's Day and Happy almost Valentine's Day....lol!! Geeeeesh! I have missed a lot. ;-)

I have been MIA for quite a while but plan to make a come back in 2013!

On January 14th, 2013 I had a major operation on my neck. This surgery will hopefully eliminate the neck pain I have had for years now. Back in 2007, I had a fusion on C4-5 but come to find out it never healed :-( or formed a union with my bones, like the other 2 cervical fusions I had (2006,2010).
The 4th dr I saw, this one from NY, was/is amazing!!! He ordered a CT scan and saw the space between the plate and my bone as well as a crack in one of the scews - right away!!. Not good at all. SOoo,  he put in 2 rods and 8 screws over levels 4,5 and 6. Ughhh! I stayed in the hospital for 4 days and 3 nights.
I am recovering slowly at home now. It was awfully painful because they had to go in through the back of my neck this time which cut through my muscles. I still can't sit up for too long at one time but it's getting better every 3 days or so. Try to imagine carrying a bowling ball in place of your head.....doesn't sound fun, does it? It's not.
I'm wearing a hard neck brace for now but will eventually go to a soft collar as soon as I can stabilize my head on my own.

Now that I got the update on my disappearance out of the way, I'd like to share some photos of the last projects I was able to complete before surgery. I had several scrapbook orders to fulfill right up until Christmas and since I never uploaded any pics I thought why not play catch up now?!

There is nooo way I can even think about scrapbooking at the moment so I thought at least I can update my blog, refresh my design and revisit some old friends from blog land :-)

 I've missed you <3 p="">
Baby Girl Baptism Book

The Cricut was used for almost all of the cuts you see unless otherwise noted. Inspired Hearts got my attention as soon as the order was placed. This cart is perfect for words that you do not have to weld independently and so versatile for many other popular occasions.


I plan to post each album I made individually. :-)