Year in Review

LOTS of changes around here in the last year!  First, of all, we are no longer homeschooling.  This was a very hard decision for us, since we had homeschooled our daughter in grades K-5.  However, we decided that she would benefit from having a greater diversity of teachers, strong academic programs, and the chance to be more independent.  We found an awesome school for her and she is already thriving there.  Here is a photo of her from our summer vacation, ready to take on the waves!

Another BIG and AMAZING and AWESOME change is that my husband and I now both work during the day!  For years he worked at night to acccommodate homeschooling and keep our daughter out of child care. It was great for her - she got tons of time with each parent.  However for the parents, it was the worst!  I am really crazy about my husband and for 8 long years I only saw him two evenings a week plus summers.  It was SO HARD.  I cannot emphasize enough how hard it was.  I felt near cracking point. But this past Spring he got a job offer within the organization and is now home with me and our daughter every evening!  It's wonderful and relaxing and the best thing that every happened.  And great timing - we celebrated out 15th wedding anniversary this summer by renewing our vows at the spot we had our first kiss. 

We have an amazing new family member - my second nephew. He is one of the sweetest, happiest babies I have ever met.  We hadn't had a new baby in the family in 5 years so you can imagine how much kissing and squishing he got immediately!  I've been extra lucky to get to spend lots of time with him.  Hard to believe he is almost 10 months old.  

My one-year anniversary of my "new" job is tomorrow and I still love it as much as I did on day one.  I really feel like I am where I belong, sharing art with kids and helping them interpret the museum, as well as helping young adults gain experience and find their next steps.  I have also been very forturnate in the last year to have the opportunity to go back to school and I have been taking one class a semester, choosing things that relate to my job.  Last semester I took Arts of China and this semester I'm taking Printmaking 1. 

I will say I find the homework for printmaking much less stressful than writing papers.  I am not sure why - I've always been a strong writer - but wow college is a lot of work.  I can't believe I ever took 5 classes and worked full time!  

Since last year there has been another major change in my life. I have entered an adult weight management program.  Technically, I was in it last year, but I was only doing the counseling portion of the program.  I was getting ready to jump in and really get moving. I'm doing great in it and I'm really happy!  I will have a whole separate post on that soon!

A New Project

I decided yesterday that I would like to try my hand at a December Daily.  I realize I am late getting into the game, but a month in the life style album has always appealed to me so I am jumping in head first.  I chose a SN@P mini album to use and I'm going to start tomorrow and go through Dec 31.

Why I Love My New Job

Although I really enjoyed my old job as Museum Educator, I was getting a little restless, mostly because of my unpredictable schedule. Last month I became the new Art Discovery Center Coordinator at the same museum.  The ADC is a hands-on, interactive area of the museums with books, games, arts and crafts, dress up, and other activities for families.  So while I had grown to be fine with holding snakes, when this opportunity came along, I said goodbye to the ball python.  Now that I've shifted from a primarily-Science focus to a primarily-Art focus, I suddenly feel like I've come home.

This job is very different in other ways as well.  Now I'm responsible for staffing the ADC with qualified volunteers and staff, managing the yearly budget for supplies, and making sure that we are providing visitors with the highest quality experience we can.  As someone who spends a lot of my life volunteering, offering our volunteers the opportunity for development is a high priority for me. 

My new workspace is BEAUTIFUL.  There's no denying it's one of the most interesting and inviting places in Western Mass.  The murals are all on Asian and Buddhist themes, and it's going to take me a while to memorize the meaning behind all of them.

My First Heritage Layout!

Finally! 

How I Spent My Summer Vacation

I don't always work in the summer, but this year I got lucky!  I got to do a preschool music program at the museum where I work the rest of the year.  It was the first time we've tried a program like this, so it was new for everyone.  I thought it went very well, and I even got to be in our local newspaper, and got a letter from the mayor about it.  

It ran for six weeks and last week was my first week off!  I went to Cape Cod with my family.  We spent most of our time on the National Seashore.  My daughter's favorite thing is the "big waves," and we hear about them all year.  She swims and boogie boards for hours and hours, and I join in too.  

We also took her to Provincetown for the first time, and went to Carnival, which is something none of us had experienced before.  Thanks to Project Runway, Esme already knows all about drag queens, and how much goes into their elaborate costumes.  The people on the street before the parade were just as awesome as the parade itself.  

When I got home, I had a box from Sassafras Lass waiting for me!  When they closed up shop I was super disappointed that I'd never ordered one of their warehouse boxes so when this chance came up I jumped on it.  Love all my flowers, patterned papers, felties, foldies, etc.  So now I want to get to work!  I took lots of pics on vacaction so it's time for me to get scrapping!

My Birthday (and my fun presents!)

My sweet husband invited my brother to come up for my birthday.  We went to my favorite sushi place, and my brother even tried some!  Afterward we went to our favorite open mic night, and Ethan and I each performed two songs.  He did two original and I did two country western songs with my autoharp.  This was my first time performing solo in public and I was nervous!

Being anywhere with them is fun, but I was lucky that a couple of my friends stopped by as well, and I did pretty well once I got up there - just a couple minor mistakes.

I received some awesome scrappy birthda presents!  Here are two of my favorites:

I'm looking forward to adding some color to my projects, especially scrapbook pages, with these two new things.  I have always been into really BRIGHT colors, so I am loving the neon trends.  Hoping to get some scrappy time as early as this afternoon.  

My Summer So Far

We have yet to take our family vacation, so when the people around us are talking about summer drawing to a close, it doesn't sit quite right with me.  I have been working three days a week, and a big part of my job is running a preschool music program.  It's pretty close to a dream come true - playing my autoharp and singing with little kids!  My daughter has been with me some days, but mostly she's been enjoying camps and time with family.

This has also been the summer of scrapbooking!  I have a new friend who lives about a mile from me, has a daughter close in age, and loves to scrap!  So she's been encouraging and inspiring me!  Here are some of my recent layouts. 

Swim Layout

I spend A LOT of time waiting to watch Esme swim.  The team has been a wonderful experience for her in so many ways - exercise, skill, friendship, routine, independence, and discipline.  I am so glad she gets to be a part of it and so grateful for her team of awesome coaches. 

I am trying to scrap more this summer and would really like to get back in to going to crops as well.  I love seeing how other people work.

Ecotarium Layout

I haven't been scrapping as much as I would like to lately.  I have a lot of demands on my time and my desk has been so cluttered, it's demotivating.  But I want to get back into the game so I'm organizing for fifteen minutes a day and then making time to scrap.  Just finished this layout using a mix of very new (WeRMemoryKeepers For the Record) and very old (K&Company Dinosaurs) supplies.

Random Bits

•Summer is my favorite season.  I didn't even mind the recent heat wave because I was so glad to finally leave the cold weather behind us.
•Celebrated our fourteenth wedding anniversary with Ethan this week - sushi and a movie.
•I am on (unpaid) vacation for the next week and a half.  I am planning to get my house ready for the people who are going to come give us quotes on a new furnace, and hopefully scrapbook a lot!
•I have been working hard to help Esme finish up this year's Math unit.  Not giving her a summer break, so that she starts out ahead next year.  Also preparing to immerse her in next year's theme, which is American History.
•Looking forward to starting my new preschool music program at work.  This is my first time getting paid to do a music series.

Instagram Mini Album

Sometimes during these busy weeks it's easier to sneak in time to do six by six layouts than full twelve by twelve, so I've been concentrating on my Instagram Mini Album.  To make it even easier, I've been using all the new BasicGrey Fact & Fiction supplies that my wonderful husband and daughter got me for Christmas.  The album won't be super matchy, but it will coordinate throughout with a certain color scheme and feel.  Here are the first seven pages.

2013 and What's New

I'm beating the post-Christmas blues by spending lots of time with my family and working hard with my Girl Scouts!  Here's what's new around here:

• My sweet husband is our city's Girl Scout Cookie Sale Manager for the first time ever.  It's pretty awesome to see him working this way, but stressful to see him get stressed when people are unresponsive.
• I feel so lucky to have a job that I love, working at the museum.  I haven't been working as much as I'd like lately, but hoping now that Winter vacation has passed things will pick up.
• I started a Girl Scout troop at our local Boys & Girls club.  I have girls ages 9 through 13 and we've only had one meeting so far, but it was fun and it will be a different experience for me to be with older girls who have not had a previous Girl Scout experience.
• I haven't been scrapping a ton, but I have made good progress on my new mini album made entirely of my Instagram photos.  (I got a tablet for Christmas and was so excited to finally join the world of mobile devices!)  Esme has been scrapping with me a lot and I love it.  I gave her my extra Instagram prints and this is what she made:

• This week we start Robotics!  I attended training on how to coach a FIRST Lego League competitive team but I still feel a little unprepared.  The trainers assure me that soon the girls will be teaching me what to do.  Definitely happy to be offering more STEM activities for Girl Scouts.
• I love having an instrument that I can play.  I haven't quite gotten to it every day, but my autoharp has definitely been getting use since its purchase in late October.  At the moment I have a touch of laryngitis, but I hope to get back to it full force once this wears off.  
• I can't wait to get back to the beach this summer.  On these cold days when it gets dark so early, I think even more about the night we had a fire on the beach and how late it stayed light.  That's my favorite time of year!

Loving Grid Layouts

I have been working harder to give weight to certain pages in my albums. It can be hard to balance having 100 adorable photos when they are of a not-particularly-significant event in our lives, or when I have similar photos year after year of the same activities. I have been turning more and more to grid-style layouts, where I can get lots of photos on a page.

For this page I wanted to include lots of photos because I am looking back at a time that my daughter and my entire Girl Scout troop was so much littler! Half the layouts I've pinned on Pinterest seem to be grids as well.

Girl Scout Camp Layout

We are so happy that our daughter has had such positive experiences at Girl Scout summer camp these last two summers. The photos from last year were so special to me I had a hard time scrapping them. I wanted the feel and look of the page to be bright and expressive. I finally took the plunge and did the layout today:

I am pleased with the result - I used products from a wide range of companies including Jilibean Soup, K & Company, Echo Park, Colorbok, Doodlebug, and American Crafts.

Scrapping with Mists

Thanks to Shimelle and her Glitter Girl videos, Esme has been super into scrapping lately and that means I have been getting a lot done too! Recently I was lucky enough to participate in a local scrapbook store's tag sale, and I made over $100! I bought all kinds of goodies with my gift certificate, including six new bottles of mist. I got Mister Huey's, Glimmer Mist, and Dylusions. I am finally catching up and learning how to incorporate these onto my pages. Here is a page I did recently using them:

I also busted out my Fiskars texture plates for the wood grain paper on the right. I dry embossed and rubbed with ink to add a little more texture to the page.

Anne Fisher please email me - I have a Slice card that's waiting for you!

2 Songs by Ethan

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

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!

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.

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.