Saturday... Shoes & Siteseeing - Awesome!!!

It was a busy Saturday....


First was A~'s soccer class... followed by Sergio taking her over to Soccer Scene for some new shoes, shin guards, and those fancy tall socks (there totally may be an actual name for those things... but my non-athletic self has no idea!). The class is more of a skills class and not a game-playing team, so we didn't have to have all the accoutrements for it. After a good slip and fall, my little girl's knees needed extra protection... hence the impromptu shopping trip!






Second was my lunch of homemade cheese enchiladas, rice (plain so little girl would eat it), and salad. Actually, the salad was more Bolivian style... you chop everything up and put it on a big plate in little piles. Each person just helps themselves to the parts they want... so kind of a salad bar on your table! I like it, and everyone else seems to as well. I think it was excellent and I have 7 enchiladas left for later. Sorry, no photos of the food! :)



Next we went to see the cherry blossoms around the Tidal Basin. The Metro was packed like I've never seen before. Sardines have more room than we did on our trip! I tried to look at it as just part of the adventure! We walked and walked and gazed and gazed. The weather was fabulous and it's Spring Break... so there were crowds everywhere. Everyone was really friendly and polite, so it wasn't bad. Sergio made the best of it... although crowds are not his thing. Thanks, honey for being so flexible! :)











After the blossoms we watched Sergio play soccer, missed our exit and took the long way home, and crashed upon arrival right into bed.


It was a great Saturday! As A~ would say, it was AWESOME! Beginning this week, everything has been awesome... dinner, tv, whatever... it's all awesome. Sounds too funny! :)



much love,
erin


PS. Here are my last 2 layouts... enjoy!

April Design Team projects

Wednesday was April 1st... so it was time to turn in my projects for April. This month we used My Mind's Eye's "Bloom and Grow" line and some of the new, yummy chocolate brown Cordinations cardstock. I didn't get as much done as last month... but here's what I've got.




Here is a two page layout of the Weise reunion last June. I put the lines of photos a little bit askew to keep it from being too regimented. I love the journaling block from the MME die cut sheet that coordinated with this line. The tree is a clear accent also from MME. Of course I added buttons... layouts just aren't the same without a few buttons! :) The layout is better in real life... it was very tough to get a photo with no glare with these darn glossy photos!




Staying on the June 2008 theme, I moved to Uncle David's farm and the kids petting the goats. I was a bit nervous about the goats... they are not the little bitty breed and I AM a city girl after all. Luckily Uncle Donnie was there to show the girls that it wasn't scary. I just checked them out from a distance. I added some paper flowers from SEI's Mimosa line, a couple of Fancy Pants pins, and used part of a Prima stamp for the journaling lines. (Actually I stamped them and they weren't complete so I tried to put it back down and failed to ge the same spot... but I thought that the imperfect lines worked fine with the subject and kept them!)

The final June 2008 layout was the group at Pappasito's in Houston. I have been wanting to use a photo of a sign instead of a title... and here the restaurant sign fit the bill! You can see the green core on the brown torn edge... love it! Otherwise a simple layout... cardstock, patterned paper, a few MME die-cuts, buttons, and penwork.

I also did a couple of cards.... one anniversary card, since all guys needs a mushy card every now and then, right?! The Martha Stewart aquamarine glitter is for me though! :) ...and one card with a die cut tag, some of the Bazzil edge sprayed with Glimmer Mist, and a little ribbon. I'm not a great cardmaker, but this turned out very cute. I will probably be copying it with the tags I have left so that I can have a few more.

And a desktop caddy that I found the instructions for on Pinky's Much Ado about Nothing blog. It was the perfect project to feature these papers!

much love,
erin

Homecoming

I'm back from Houston... and with the frost on the ground outside this morning here, I'm wishing I was back in the lovely springtime weather admiring the azaleas. We have A~ first soccer class today and I hope it goes well. Sometimes she takes things so personally (he pushed me or she took the ball from me), and I've been talking up the fact that this is just part of the game.... I just hope that some of it sunk in and I don't come back with photos of a temper tantrum! :)

I still need to download the photos of the trip... but looking over all the old photos and trying to guess the dates when nothing was written on the backs reminded me that I have a few layouts that are in need of journaling. This one is one of them... so mom, I need your assistance. I think that the year is 1968 or 1969 and I want to add the numbers next to the the picture and over the journaling block on the right. I know that this is Homecoming, but don't know what you did at Homecoming. Does everyone get a huge corsage? Is there a dance? Did Spring Wood H.S. win? Anything you can share would be great!



Off to get ready for soccer....

much love,
erin

The last of the new stuff!

I finally got everything off of my camera and loaded into Photobucket... so here goes!


I totally love this layout... I love the photo that I caught of A~ running on the playground Thanksgiving 2007. She is having a great time and doesn't even notice that I'm snapping away. A lot of the pics I took that day were blurry... or I wasn't fast enough to catch her in the frame... but this one captures her spirit so well. I was thrilled when I saw it! I distressed the papers and photo edges to fit the feel of the picture. I also punched circles from the papers and crumpled them up before placing them on the page. I wanted to get the magical feel of bubbles floating through the air. The large chipboard corner is filled with blue-green beads to add some more texture.




Here are my March cards... both featuring flowers... it's springtime (almost) after all!

The first has a flower layered over a cardstock sticker from the Marrakech line... it's actually a peacock-designed sticker... but you can't tell with just the tail peeking out. The ribbon was some that I saved from the packaging of a bulb-forcing kit I picked up on sale at Jo-Ann's.



The second card is one of my favorite basic designs... a bunch of boxes with one box missing and filled with something else. In this case it is a flower cut from the blue patterned paper. I just followed the pattern and then used a pencil to curl up the edges of each petal. A tiny button makes the perfect center! :)



I need to get moving and enjoy our beautiful weather... more later!


much love,
erin

Design Team Work

Hi all,


Some of you know that I am on the Design Team for my local scrapbook store, Scrapbooks Plus in Chantilly, Virginia. We just finished up our first year of Design Team work and are continuing to support the store and plan on being even more active with store events. Each month one member designs the kit for the month... picks out the papers and embellishments and packs it all up for us. The Designer of the Month also plans a class to teach at the store during their month. This is a little different from last year and should be a lot of fun! We recently had a call for new members and started year number two for the team. Last year we received kits on the first of the month and had two weeks to work on our projects and bring them back to the store. Now we are doing our reveal on the first of the month... so we just brought in our projects yesterday, which means that I have some new projects to share!


This month we had the Marrakech line from Basic Grey... a Morrocan inspired line of oranges and blues. The colors were beautiful and versatile too. I only need to make 4 items each month... one 1-page layout, one 2-page layout, one altered item, and one card... but I rarely do the minimum. Once I start pulling out photos that look good with the paper, I just keep going until it's pretty much used up. Besides, I'd rather have too much than too little. This time I had an extra four 1-page layouts and an extra card. Sometimes I see what everyone else has made and then pick what goes up on the wall... especially if one of my layouts uses a paper that wasn't used as much or an embellishment in a different way. We are trying to give customers ideas... so I don't want to repeat the same look if possible! :)


A few of my items are still on my camera... but here's what I've got on the computer so far. I'll put the rest up this weekend.


My 2-page layout of the hotel in Copacabana. I have some notes that will probably go on my hidden journaling on the Scrapbooks Plus DT Blog.





A 1-page layout of the fences in Bolivia. The bottom right is the gate at Sergio's grandparents farm... the other two were in Copacabana.




A 1-page layout of A~ in Kansas a couple of years a ago. Luckily we got this shot before security came over to say that the kids all needed to get down! Oops... missed that sign, officer! :)


My altered chalkboard... a $2.50 steal from the Target dollar spot:


A 1-page layout of the sunset over Lake Titicaca:



I'll post some more later! Have a great week!

much love,
erin

A little bit lonely

It is way too quiet over here.

I know that Sergio and A~ are having a great time in Bolivia, where it is summer! I talked to her yesterday and she was just bursting with energy.

Over here, I'm just trying to keep extra busy.. organizing recipes, pulling out fabric, baking bread. Sad to say, my Christmas tree is still up... I just haven't had the heart to take it down... BUT I promise it will be down in the month of February! I hope! :)

Our new design team season just started, so I'm working on some new projects with the Marrakech line from Basic Grey. The colors are lovely and the patterns are exotic. I actually finished one project already. I may be pulling out some of my photos of Copacabana and actually scrapping them. So far they have all been waiting for me to create a plan for a vacation album, but I can always get reprints and scrap them again... that it if a great idea hits me!

Since it's too early to show my new project... here are a couple of layouts from last summer...

First is A~ and N~ at Uncle David's house... I like how us mom's are both watching and smiling at our precious little girls together.




The second is our day at the fair. Notice the band-aids since this was also the day of the infamous 5 year check up which included 4 shots, a TB test, and blood draw. Poor baby!




thanks for stopping by!

much love,
erin

Mothers and Daughters

Here is a recent layout featuring a picture taken last June. I love generations pictures... they are so special! Love you Marmar! :)