27 years.

...ago today, I had the incredible good fortune to marry my best friend. he is impossible to shop for, so I put together this layout and intend to give it to him in a frame. a small reminder for his desk that we were once very young and somewhat silly...and that we are still very much in love.

photos from 1980, 1981, 1997 & 2008 - we need a new one this year!

happy anniversary, marc! I truly can't imagine my world without you!

beaufort 2010.

...finally. and no, those 4's aren't a reference to how many months have passed since our trip - they mark our 4th mother-daughter weekend in beaufort, sc. A tradition my sister and I started six years ago - we took trips to st augustine and fernandina beach before settling on beaufort as our permanent destination. after playing around with photoshop and all the fun designer digitals "stuff" last december, I knew I wanted to make this year's beaufort album digital. I just didn't know how long it would take! seriously, the learning curve was steep and long - but I think I'm in a pretty good place with it now. and I gave my mom her album this week, so sharing the images won't spoil any surprises!

the whole album is here. and really, it's only 12 pages, so all of them are "favorites". but these two pages pretty much sum up our weekend:

the place - beaufort in the spring is simply lovely,

the company and the food. 

the story.

moving to nyc.summer 2009...I didn't really know until just this morning how the album would come together. honestly, I didn't decide until just a few days ago there would even be an album. but after I picked up the 62 prints from the move, I knew it was just too big for the regular photo album (especially after the 58 prints from the apartment hunting trip). I was thinking - as usual - photos + a few words (and hopefully a bit of pretty paper). so yesterday morning I visited aaron brothers since they have the best selection of kolo albums. and (lucky me?!) this location is going out of business and everything is 50% off. and of course this is bad when you don't have a plan, but I picked out six (maybe more!?) albums that seemed like they'd work. and sara helped me decide on the camel catalina album. same format I used for paris. plenty of room for the photos. and the coloring is perfect for my favorite basic grey periphery papers. I roughed out the format - three sections, one for apartment hunting, one for the transition/packing and one for the move. and it must be meant to be because that left one slot for closing thoughts.

this morning I started on the journaling for those four pages. searched my ali edwards collection of digital and found the perfect one. the story. used photoshop to add a subtitle (part one, etc) and the journaling to each one. then the title piece.

thank goodness for flickr to help me remember the captions for the photos. that part went fast. and I'm very pleased with the final results.

here's the first page.

and the last.

and images of the journaling.

one down, three to go.

102/365 - travel albums
Originally uploaded by mere2007

...about the only downside to so much travel (beaufort, nyc, paris) in just two short months is that I have almost no time between trips to document them. but I made good progress this weekend on beaufort and nyc. my goal is to have them all done this month so I can focus all my attention in may on graduation and paris.

I really enjoy making these albums. most of the time is figuring out what to do (format, "theme", etc) and once that's done, the pages go really fast. I've got the "what" figured out for beaufort and about 80% there for nyc. hopefully next weekend I'll get it all together. because I don't have plans this year to take a day of vacation to do it!

weekend wrap-up.

...feeling very good about 10 of the thirteen items on my to-do list, done! plus some fun, like watching sara win a tennis match, and making cards with karen, gratia and sharon.

first up, accomplishment #3. my week in the life album is done. I love the way it turned out. especially now that it's finished.
and you can see evidence of accomplishment #2 in this photo of our dining room table, now returned to being our dining room table and not my scrapbook project table. put out our fall decorations.
then accomplishment #9. only one more week to do and I'm back on track with create 08. this entry is for week 42, layers.

slowly but surely.

...my week in the life album is coming together. Sara thinks I've made noticeable progress. I am pleased with it so far and hoping I get home from work today with enough energy to get even a few of those divided page protectors filled with photos, pretty paper and a bit of ephemera.
oh, and in case katie checks in here, our russell+hazel order arrived!

first day of school.

...so much different without carpool or the bus. yup, sara got her parking pass and headed off by herself this morning. and no, I didn't cry taking this picture!
leaving me free to get those beach photos into an album (many thanks to ali edwards!). all I wanted to get done today. and I did it. barely. but it was too dark when I finished to get any really good photos. so here's a taste of what the 18 photos looked like. and the mess that was my kitchen table in the process.

boy birthdays.

...what I call the month of may. when all the boys in my life (save marc and my dad :-) celebrate a birthday. yes, so that would be my brother and his two sons. we're planning a belated celebration in dillard. brownies, ice cream and presents. (more photos to come!) and boys, happy (belated) birthday!

our new york.

...it would be an understatement to say I love this album. It was a complete blast to create. One of those projects that starts off slow and then gathers momentum and by the end, the pages are practically creating themselves (which was good, because it was nearly 11:00 last night when I finished decorating the covers and that is way past my normal bedtime!)

I had purchased the simple spiral bound album before we went. I even took it with me, along with a ziploc bag of supplies, with the best intentions to make a travel album like ali describes here. But I didn't have time. We were only in our room long enough to sleep and bathe and I wasn't going to give up either of those things! So the whole kit came back home with me. I finally decided to take an afternoon off work so I could have focused time to pull it together.

I wanted to use the very cool cupcake scrapshop kits (march, april and may). and once I got everything out, and sorted through it, the idea to use the transit authority maps (the bus was a huge part of our trip) and then to make sections for each day came to me.
I didn't have the first page created til around 3:00. Sara came home from school at 4:30 - "wow, mom, you've only made four pages in 5 hours?" yup! but then I got into a groove. Had so much fun matching up the papers to the ephemera and the photos. and I'm really proud of the covers - the big transit authority map that was really dog-eared by the end - adhered with matte gel medium.
and my first ever hambly overlay.
(and mom, I watched la vie en rose, too - a beautiful movie, but such a sad story!)

keeping busy.

...when a few days go by (especially a weekend!) with no posts, it's a good sign I've been busy. And this past weekend was no exception. Filled with knitting, family (even a game of phase 10!), and card making. (click photos for more details)

a solid start to the twisted float shrug thanks to two hours at starbucks on saturday (waiting for sara) - and more progress yesterday (sorry no photo) so feeling pretty good about my commitment to be ready for the armholes by knitting class on sunday (and so sorry - had intended to post links to the sweater (from Vogue Knitting) and the class (from Cast on Cottage - Susan is teaching and she's awesome!)...but no luck finding on-line) trust me it's good?!

my second pair of socks - finally finished (I've already planned my outfit for work on wednesday to show them off!) the blocking really helped - not that they didn't fit well before, but now they're perfect and I especially love the way the turned heel fits my foot! ...oh and I'm really looking forward to meeting yarn dyer (among other things!) melanie when the yarn harlot visits in two weeks!

true to our sheffield heritage, we enjoy a game of phase 10 (and wine) to pass the time between meals on sunday afternoon! we played the version where you get to pick your phase. much fun!

not an original layout, but I love this new paper!

pretty paper.

...lots of it. and some fancy rick rack, a few tags, stamps to say "happy birthday" and wow. all six of the the wonderful women (other than katie, who got hers last weekend)in my life with January or February birthdays...cards done! and on the off chance that one of you might actually see this blog post and feel slighted because your card is very similar to five others, please know that I planned out the paper and rick rack color combination to suit you. and of course the messages on the inside are all very personal. not to mention that I pored over my stamp idea books for hours and hours before I finally settled on this paper (basic grey stella ruby - I love the vintage dress patterns, flowers and colors) and this design. so - cutting paper and ribbons, with maybe just a little stamping is my new favorite way to make cards. good thing - I have LOTS of paper ♥

in other news - I'm going to be doing some serious (for me anyway) business travel in February. check out the sidebar. and I ordered a blackberry today. an attempt to stay connected with my team while I'm wandering near and far. promising myself that this time around will be better and I will not allow myself to check the messages on a saturday afternoon "just to check in". no...work belongs at work. and the rest of my life still needs me.

the month of January has just flown by. I'm really thankful for that extra day in February. I need it to catch up.

oh, and check this out. yes, definitely thinking I need to join in.

souvenir, commit, walk...create.

...or how I spent my saturday morning. first up, the 4x6 create 08 entry for week 2 of the paper adventure. I got off to a slow start with this one. I think a lot about what I want to impart, share, etc. with Katie and Sara. but I don't really think about it from the aspect of memories I want them to have of me. and then I re-read the inscription from Katie in the beautiful Principles of Uncertainty she gave me for Christmas:

for my mom,
who is always
blossoming with her
own joie de vivre,
in no uncertain terms.
and who makes others
wish they could be so lucky -
until they finally realize
they can.

and I decided that's it - my souvenir - my joie de vivre. and I remembered this photo of katie and me from her 2007 spring break - playing around with the continuous shoot feature on my then-new camera. 3 hours of photoshop later I have a black and white with words. I did the journaling on a favorite sheet of basic grey patterned paper and glued it to the back of the photo. I completely love this format of a photo with pretty paper on the back!

next up, my first attempt with playing cards, the format I've decided to use for a 2008 art journal with emily falconbridge. prompt #1 - commit. the idea for the "i*" on the front and journaling my list of commitments on the back came early. but I found the paper with "joie de vivre" just this morning. and it seemed fitting to continue the theme. here's the front & back. I need to figure out how to take the photos! and get some "creamy white" acrylic for the card backs. I only used a very very tiny bit of yellow in my white paint, and it still looks like egg yolk (yuck!)

then a 4-mile walk with Sara to the park. she educated me on the writers strike and the various formats of TV shows. and I learned that my favorite shows are dramedies (gilmore girls, greys on a good week) or process dramas (house, monk). cool.

and I finished the creative storm with a good start on my pinecone press kit. lots of diamond glaze out to dry. should be able to finish before the class tomorrow at 2.

happy friday.

...first the fill-ins:

1. My favorite photo of 2007 was a tie between this one, this one and this one.
2. I'm most tempted by a book store, especially if there's a coffee shop nearby.
3. Today I want(ed) to get my work back under control (and I did - except for one last to-do that can certainly wait til next week - yeah!)
4. The last thing I took a picture of was my bulletin board at work (see below).
5. You and I have memories ... good ones I hope!
6. The most recent movie I’ve seen that I really enjoyed was Juno - and that's also the most recent movie I've seen period - it was great!
7. And as for the weekend, tonight I'm looking forward to r-e-l-a-x-i-n-g (wine, tv, not much else), tomorrow my plans include finishing the paper adventure and my pinecone press kit and a walk in the park with Sara and Sunday, I want to sleep in til 6 am!

and now the rest of the post.

From an online chat with Katie around 9pm last night (I'm sure she was shocked that I was still online at that "late" hour!)
k: what are you doing
m: making thumbtacks to match my new calendar
k: haha, that sounds like you
(m: i think i'm flattered)
right - I didn't actually send that last message, but that's what I thought!

because yes, I did think that the mish-mash of t-pins, push pins and stampin up tacks was ... tacky on my bulletin board. come on, of course you thought the same thing, didn't you, when I posted this photo?

so...

1. thumbtack step 1, 2. thumbtack step 2, 3. thumbtack step 3, 4. thumbtack done

and now this:

one last project.

...my office calendar for 2008. actually finished last night, but I was too tired to photo it then! there are 1" binder rings to hold the months together. I plan to display three months at once - or maybe for january, just two - I always like to see last month, this month and next month at a glance.

so today is back to work, back to school. and I guess we're as ready as we could be...

three cool things from Sunday.

...thing #1 - I went to the gym with Sara and we worked out together for an hour (how cool is that!?! you can bet I love it - except of course, no way am I going to get a picture!)


thing #2 - cutting and pasting with patterned paper to make two gift cards for two baby girl gifts (Goodnight Moon and the softest pink satin-y blanket, of course)


thing #3 - gumbo ala Marc (which means with spinach and okra) from this yummy mix my mom gave me last summer.

only three good photos.

...wow, this past week has been a slow one photo-wise for me (except for knitting progress :-). Just uploaded pics to flickr and to ritz. And there are only three blog-worthy ones, not counting the lunch photo that I shared on Friday:

Birthday card for my friend Donna. I've used the idea before, but this time I used aqua pen in the stamp lid and love the colors so much better. I also used the white shimmery cardstock and it's perfect for watercolor.
At Donna's birthday party - Shari, Patty, Bunny, Dawn, Michelle, Lise. Nothing of the birthday girl. And not because I didn't take lots of pictures - just none of them turned out (red-eye, blurry, scary faces, ugh!).
Sara's ALTA teammates after their last fall season match (wins for all these girls :-). Emma, Sarah, Elizabeth, Sarah and Sara...yes, 3 Sara(h)'s, but only one without an "h"!

exploding box fun.

...mary, lydia and karen. beautiful papers. wine, cheese, vegetables and dip. and these directions (many thanks to glitter adventure!). equals one very terrific project and lots of fun! the directions were easy to follow. start to finish not nearly as much time as we planned (so more time for food, wine and laughing!) The hardest part was picking the papers and the inks to color the edges. There was also a tense minute when we had to decide about rounding the corners or leaving them square. Then I measured, cut and scored, while Lydia cut out corners and sponged edges and Karen was a whiz with the corner rounder. Group projects are usually more fun and this was no exception - especially when the results are so beautiful!

p.s. thank you Jill for taking our picture and p.p.s. to p&r - note the update to the "upcoming" sidebar - johnny, we're there!