Friday, July 20, 2012

2 Songs by Ethan

My sweet husband celebrated his birthday yesterday by playing at a local open mic.  I love these songs!


Monday, July 09, 2012

Red Sox Mini Album - A Gift for My Brother

My brother has done a ton of work on our house, from resealing toilets to hanging doors, and really wanted a special way to say thank you to him!  He is a huge baseball fan and luckily I was able to get some Red Sox tickets for a song!  We loved having a special night out with him, and then this album was the second part of his gift.  I'm posting a few pages to give a sense of the whole album.


I purchased the round, chipboard album and a 6 by 6 Authentique collection at the nearest local scrapbook store.  I also went to a local sports collectibles store to score some supplies.  The cover is made from printed packing tape - only $1 with purchase at the second store.  I used Stickles to jazz it up a bit.


I covered a couple pages completely with a photo.  My favorite place for processing is Costco, both for quality of prints and for price.  I was so touched that my brother made this such a special night for my daughter.  When he arrived he told her it was a night she would never forget.



Esme was really spoiled this evening - she got to try all kinds of Fenway snacks, plus Charles let her use his binoculars to watch the game and made sure to explain everything that happened as the night went on.    Using the collection of papers helped to make this a super fast and easy album.  I also used navy blue paint on the edges of every page for a cohesive look.




I tried to throw in some fun doo-dads to help document the night even if I didn't have photos of a particular event - Charles had given us the complete background story on, "Sweet Caroline," so I wanted to be sure that was included.  Even though we could see the game easily from our seats, it was hard to photograph the players so I included some baseball cards too.  I made sure to get the very common ones, so that my brother wouldn't be too concerned that there were holes punched through them.  


In additional to the red and blue patterned paper I threw in a fair amount of green and white, from baseball stickers to gingham ribbon, and even a bit of sparkly felt.  Esme doesn't realize how lucky she is, but because of Charles she actually go to go down on the field at Fenway Park!  I just gave Charles the album a couple weeks ago.  I new he liked it, because he proclaimed it a Home Run!



Sunday, July 08, 2012

Making Memories Slice Basics 2 Giveaway!

I was lucky enough to get several copies of this card for free! It's an older card but Making Memories flowers never go out of style, and neither will this classic font.
Please note, I am only going to ship the card in the little plastic case and the booklet - not the entire box. This makes it cheaper for me and I will give away three cards! To enter, please leave a comment telling me what papercrafting projects you are working on this summer. For an extra entry comment again with a link to one your Slice projects. I will choose winners Wednesday night and post them here.

Friday, July 06, 2012

Adult Time

 


Our daughter is away at camp, and my husband had the first four days of this week off!  We had a wonderful time together.  We shot off some fireworks in our yard, went out to eat, went and visited a waterfall, swam in the lake, read together, listened to music, went to a city fireworks display, went out for ice cream, etc.  Time alone with him is extra precious to me because most of the year we work opposite shifts and don't see each other very much.  It can be very hard - I spend a lot of time missing him.  So four uninterrupted days together was such a gift!

That said, we really missed our daughter too!  He went back to work on Thursday and lucky my best friend, Lisa, was there to help me beat the missing-Esme blues.  She met me at a scrapbook store that is equally distance from our houses.  Time with Lisa is also very precious since we live an hour and a half apart.

Here's the layout I did - these photos are of my niece around this time last summer.  I have been hoarding some 6 by 6 paper pads so I broke one of them out for the patterned paper on this one.  I also used Doodlebug stickers, BasicGrey rubons, and a Simple Stories bingo card.


Thursday, July 05, 2012

Plants Program

This summer I am working on developing a new plants program for the museum.  Luckily for me, part of  creating the program is experimenting with seeds and determining which ones we want to use in the classroom.  


So far (with Esme's help) I've planted peas, carrots, parsnips, two kinds of sunflowers, cilantro, basil, and more.  They all have to be in containers so they can be moved out of my yard and into the museum, and I have to plant some more this week so I have plants in different stages of growth.  The biggest challenge is the lack of sunlight in my yard.  In a city neighborhood with 4 huge maple trees and a big Victorian house, we almost entirely in the shade.

Tuesday, July 03, 2012

Girl Scout camp!


This is Esme's first time being away on her own for more than just a couple night, and our first time as parents being apart from her for that long.  She is learning to sail this week - so lucky! - and we are having some couple time.  We do miss her, but so far we are doing pretty well and keeping ourselves entertained by using restaurant gift certificates we've been amassing over the last few months, going to the movies, etc.  Today we're going to be outdoorsy and check out a local waterfall.

Because Esme is homeschooled, it's really important to me that she have the chance to be out on her own and independent.  We are lucky we have a couple Girl Scout camps not too far away, and we can feel completely comfortable sending her there.