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.

Little Expeditions as Fall Starts

It seems like I can't fight Fall any longer. I dreamt last night that I decided to to swimming one last time and the water was just too cold. We're getting back into our homeschooling routines, and my husband is back into working his evening shift. Next week I'll be starting my new job and soon returning part time to my old job as well. Is it time for Pumpkinfest yet? {Sigh.} My good friend Jennifer and I went out last night for a bit. She had a gift certificate waiting to be used, and so we hit the scrapbook store and had some Mexican food. She is an awesome person. We disagree on things like politics, but she is super generous and fun, on top of being a super talented scrapbooker! Check out her blog for some inspiration.

I got these stickers at the store - can't wait to use them - I will have to challenge myself to post a project using them within the next week!

:

Hurricane Irene & Making the Most of this End of Summer

Hurricane Irene came and seems to have gone without much fuss here. As far as I can tell, we didn't even lose any branches from our four gigantic Norwegian Maples. I'm very sorry to hear about troubles others have had along the seaboard, and hoping that my friend Lisa, who lives in a flood plain, is doing okay.

I LOVE summer!! It is my favorite season - swimming, vacationing, but most of all, time with my handsome husband EVERY day! We normally work opposite shifts, so being able to spent a couple hours with him every evening is a real luxury. That bring me to why I HATE back to school. I don't mind going back to work myself too much, but I hate our most-of-the-year routine, and it weighs heavily on me this week that next week I'll have to say goodbye to him except for Fridays and Saturdays for the next nine months or so. Sigh.

I did get a chance to go and scrap with my friend Jennifer this week, sans daughter, because my husband was home. I have wanted to scrap with her all summer, but this was pretty much our first chance, so I took it while I could get it. I did this layout:



Are you sad to leave anything behind this summer?

snowed in AGAIN

Well this is the SIXTH day school has been cancelled in the city where I work this year. Luckily, my long term assignment ended yesterday so today I would have been off anyway. What's a girl to do when snowed in? Scrap of course!


Since I didn't have any page kits ready to go, I took a bunch of tags and stamps next door so I could visit Shannon and Baby Andrew and just did some experimenting. I am ashamed to say I am totally behind the times when it comes to all the cool mists out there. I have 2 store-bought bottles and one I made myself following tips from 2 Peas. I made three tags using varying amounts of layering, stamping, punching, and misting. Ready to give it a go on a page now.

I am part of a group of women making projects based on the book The Artistic Mother, and step one is to make background papers for our projects.


I started with pages from an old book of quotes that I acquired for such purposes. I used purple acrylic paints, water, and foam brushes to add color and patterns to the pages.


I was feeling rather crabapple and unmotivated today, but luckily I'd already made plans to get together with my cool friend Jennifer today, so I packed up a bunch of stamps, ink pads, paints, etc. and headed over to her house. She has the coolest scrapbooking room I've ever spent time in! She did an awesome job setting it up and has even helped me with mine.


When I try to get creative with my friends I usually spend more time yakking than working, but today I actually finished all my papers! It was easy, not having to worry about the final product yet. In fact, it was very freeing!

One of the best things a scrapbooker can ever has is a crop group with members who really care about each other, and appreciate each other's artistic talents. I was very, very lucky to meet my friends Ellen and Stephanie this way. Even though our group disbanded, we have remained friends and just recently started scrapbooking together on a regular basis again. I am so happy to have this back in my life! We each have our own distinct style and I love how I could spot their pages in a crowd. I love how we're always ready to share with each other and introduce each other to new things. It's not easy to find good friends anyway, but to find friends who are also awesome scrappers is nearly a miracle! I love you guys!

I did this layout at Ellen's house last night - the first of many of Chloe's first Christmas!