Happy Halloween

I hope it is all treats and no tricks! Enjoy!! Eat lots of candy and have FUN!!

Non-traditional Halloween Layouts

I wanted to share some of my past "Halloween" LO's. I know that they do not have the traditional orange, black, PURPLE and green papers or embellies. I never buy Halloween papers. Well, I can not say never. I do have Teresa Collins line, but she is the exception to the rule. I like that her color scheme is neutral. Anyways, the costumes that Bryant wears would never match the traditional color scheme. I am ALL about matchy-matchy. LOL! Here are a few of my LO's from the last few years. In 2005 he wanted to be a Lowe's employee:

In 2006 he wanted to be Jeff Gordon:

Last year he wanted to be a Red Sox player. This one scored him tons of extra candy, because we were the champions:

So Halloween gets it's own kind of LO's for now. No vampires, ghosts, ghouls or witches here. This year he will be a Storm Trooper and that too, will get it's own unique LO. TFL

Our Little Pumpkin

After seeing all the amazing pumpkins at the pumpkin festival on Saturday, we decided on Sunday, it was about time to carve ours. We started with this 'lil guy':

I wanted to carve a scary face, Bryant wanted a more traditional look. We settled on this:

Scooping out the guts....fun...

Shaking out those pesky seeds...

And 'Voila'...Bryant trying to look so serious:

and silly:

and Eeeeeevillllll...hahaha...

It really was a beautiful day. I enjoyed the nice warm Fall weather. Happy scrappy Fall and I promise to share festival picks soon.!

I Finally have an Address Book!!!

I wanted to share a project that I have been working on for a while now. A little something for me, that I have been working on in between everything else. I have putting together this binder below as an address book for me. I have never really had an adrress book before. I always knew where all my friends lived, but over the past few years I have made so many new friends. Friends through this great hobby of ours, friends for life. I do not want to lose track of you all and I certainly could never remember everyones addresses. So I created this:

It actually started with a binder that I won from a Studio Calico kit called 'Paris'. Instead of using the Paris map that came with it, I used the beautiful Hometown Collection paper from 'October Afternoon'. I was really drawn to this paper after seeing the great projects created by the DT at Studio Calico. I LOVE the colors. Blue is my favorite color anyways, so I had to have this paper.

I really wanted to use all the patterns, so I decided to make a patchwork cover ala Liz. I always LOVE her creations. So voila, this is my address book. The cover is complete. I painted the whole inside cover black. I am still working on the inside pages. I have a page for each friend. On the front of each page is a picture of the friend and on the back, I have the address, e-mail and phone #. I have contacted some of you for your addresses. I know sometimes more that once, I know, still having some AOL e-mail issues. Sorry! I really LOVE how it is coming along and wanted to share this with all of you. It is still a work in progress...

Hope you all have a great weekend. We are going to a really cool Pumpkin Festival today. Of course, I will share pictures and LO's soon! Happy Scrappy Fall!!

Halloween Preview

Oh yes, we picked up the costume tonight. A Storm Trooper it will be! Gotta make a trip to Walmart this weekend to get a weapon. We can not have an unarmed Storm Trooper. No one will be getting our... (I mean his) candy from him! LOL!!

May the Force be with You!

Some More Birthday Happies and an RAK For Me!!

I LOVE to get mail, especially fun RAK's like this. I won this from Sketchbook Designs. A cool new site that I found out about here. Look at ALL the sweet goodies that they sent. There are two mini chipboard books ( one has a glass cover with bronze leaves on it and the other is round with a mirrored cover), a bunch of acrylic embellies and some chipboard pumpkin embellies. They even have an etsy shop on their site, where you can buy all this great stuff. So COOl, right? I love everything and I can't wait to play. These should make some really AWESOME Fall mini albums:

I really meant it when I said I had a lot of October birthdays coming up. Today was one of my co-workers B-days. I made her this FUN little banner to hang in her new office (I LOVE this bright Junkitz paper!):

Well, my Red Sox did not make it to the World Series, but this fan still LOVES them. I have to say my favorite pitcher (Josh Beckett) did kick some serious A$$ in game 5! Speaking of kicking A$$, how 'bout those Patriots?!! Ya, this girl LOVES her local teams!

Have a wonderful evening! The week is almost half over...WOO HOO!

More Birthday Happies...

I seem to have a lot of friends with birthday's in October. I recently realized that I missed sweet Jonelle's Birthday. So Happy belated Birthday my friend! This will be on it's way to you this week. I hope it was wonderful!!!

I also wanted to share this LO that I finally finished. It started from a card tutorial, by the very creative Nancy. I first learned of Nancy through her Junkitz DT days. She makes the most amazing cards. I took the idea from this one to create the LO below. I used the very yummy new Ambrosia line from Basic Grey and some cool Prima chipboard letters I had left over from a past Studio Calico kit. I also got to play with a couple of my favorite paper punches, my Threading Water punch from Fiskars and my new (Halloween) picket fence punch from Marth Stewart. Add a couple of cute Fall pics of Bryant and voila! Here is the result:

I hope everyone had a fabulous weekend. I am off now to watch a little baseball...GO RED SOX!!

Many Birthday Happies...

Happy, Happy, Happy Birthday to my SWEET friend Ki :

And Happy, Happy, Happy Birthday to my SWEET friend Diana :

Celebrate!!

I hope that you get all that wish for! Have some cake for me! I will be thinking of you both and I will be there in spirit!

We Still Believe

A Few of my Favorite Fall Farmstand Photos

Say that title five times fast...LOL! Anyhoo...we took our first of, at least once a year, traditional Fall trips to our favorite farmstand. I have been bringing Bryant, along with my Mom every year since he was born. We pick apples:

Fresh apples are the BEST!

We always have to checkout the antique tractor. It really is such a boy thing! Vroom Vroom..

The pumpkin pictures are always my favorite. I LOVE the colors of Fall!

This BIG scary scarecrow is the big (photo op) draw for all the tourists and locals alike:

I really LOVE Fall in New England!!

Scrap Happy Fall

I have been hunting everywhere, trying to get my hands on the new 'Vintage Moon' line from 'Pink Paislee'. I just absolutely LOVE it. I have been looking for it online and I have not found one site that carries the whole line. One site will have some of the line and another will have the rest. I guess I just want it all in one place. I even went to a few of my local scrap stores and none of them carry it. One of them even asked me if Pink Paislee is a brand name. She really did not know...and they call themselves a scrapbbok store. Not my favorite store, but I did manage to find some of this paper there. The beautiful Ambrosia line by Basic Grey. It is just so PRETTY, isn't it...

At one of the other stores I was actually able to get my hands on this whole line. The Spooktacular line from Teresa Collins . I know it is no secret that I LOVE anything by Teresa Collins. How fun is this paper and I even got one of the Bind-it All covers & leather closure to make a cool minibook.

Last, but not least, I picked up this really fun magazine at my local grocery store. All the projects inside are created using KI Memories/Love, Elsie products. There are some really great LO's inside. Lots of color and very 'Fun & Funky' as the title says. Check it out if you get a chance!

I have some really cool projects in the works and now I have some new pretty papers. It has really been a while since I bought anything new and I am just so excited and feeling very creative. I will share some new projects soon. I hope you are enjoying the long weekend and getting plenty of rest and YOU time.

Out with the Old...In with the New

Here is a cute view (from my seat) of what use to be my office. I used lots of color and fun to make it as cheery as possible. Do not get me wrong, I really do enjoy my job most of the time. LOL! But, things change, people get shuffled around and some people get new offices as a part of that. That would be me, as one of those people. Change is good, right? Lots of things have changed at work over the past couple of years. I have been in a few different departments and have had a couple of different bosses, but I have remained in the same position (that I do enjoy...do not forget!) during all of this. Well, it has changed again. This time in the mix, I become part of a new department. One I work with closely anyways and I get a new office, in a new building (new to us anyways..). So all of the prettiness below was packed up and moved:

Here are a couple of pictures after I cleared out:

Not looking so pretty any more. A bit dreary, I must say:

But, Check out my new digs. I took this picture this morning at 7:30, when I first arrived. You can look out my window and see the leaves changing on the trees:

Here is a pic I took later. Look at all that beautiful afternoon sunshine. Really makes this girl HAPPY!!

Can I mention again how I LOVE having a window??!! So, now I am adjusting to a new place, a new department, a new boss and a slightly different ride to work. It is just another day in paradise. Change really is good.

It's All Good...Almost

This past Saturday my friend I went to see an acoustic show by Richard Marx and Matt Scannell (lead singer of the band Vertical Horizon). I admit I did not know much about Matt, but I have to say that I was quite smitten by him. The show was a mix of both of their hits. They had great chemistry on stage. The music, the stories, the jokes made for a very entertaining evening. Plus Richard Marx still looks HOT! This was the best of the pics that I took. Though we were in the 3rd row, there was no flash photography allowed.

The weekend only got better on Sunday. My man Tony won at Talladega. WOO HOO! My friend Kathleen was there (my fellow Tony fan) and I can not wait to hear all about it!!

Oh yeah! The Pats Won too!! WOO HOO!!!

It was a total sports day on Sunday. The Red Sox also played, but lost. I did say almost (see title)...BUT I did get to see my guy Josh Beckett pitch. YUM!

So it was a great weekend and now I am back to work. Packing up boxes in my office. Oh yes, I am moving to a new office. More on that later. Have a great week!!!

***PS-You gotta check this out! Sweet Nancy creates the best cards... :-) ***

Saturday Happenings...

I love Saturdays. Just being able to take my time. Have fun and get a few errands done. First things first. This little guy was so HAPPY to have Mcdonald's hotcakes and hashbrowns. Good stuff...yummo!

Then it was off to the post office to ship off the next circle journal to Judi. Here are my pages for Jenn's. Her theme was fave's. She wanted us to use a favorite picture and a few of our favorite scrappy techniques. I chose this pic of Bryant at the beach from last month. We love the beach. Fun and a bit intimidating, but always a fave thing of ours. The techniques I used are tearing the paper (for the waves), handcutting (the flowers), layering (of the waves and sand) and a bit of bling. Good times. Good times.

Here is a close up of the first page:

And here is a close up of the second page:

Then it was off to Michael's to get a copy of Scrapbook Trends Magazine/Cards. The most recent issue features Aleida's first pub. A card that she made for Liz for her Birthday. I remember talking to her when she found out that it was picked to be published and how nervous she was to ask Liz for the card back. They needed the original card sent to them to be photographed. Of course Liz was more than happy to help her out. The card is beautiful and here it is in print. I am so proud of her. This made me smile today:

Hope that you are all having a great weekend so far. I am off to see Richard Marx in concert tonight with a friend from work. Yes, I am an 80's girl. It is all good.