New Beginnings

I was honored when this layout was chosen LOTW at Swirlydoos!  It is my stepson and his bride on the day of their marriage.  This photo was taken as they were doing a shell toss into the Atlantic.  I love the looks on their faces and the way that everyone seems to be looking out. 

This LO was done with Pink Paislee's House of 3 resist paper.  Fun, fun stuff!  I inked the paper and in so doing brought out the background flora images which are coated and therefore do not absorb the ink thur revealing the designs in the paper.

My Dad

This is one of my favorite layouts that I've done lately.  I think its because I love the picture so much.   For me, it really the essence of Dad, a big grin and laugh.  I can be seriously silly sometimes and I know I got that trait from him.

Most of the papers I used are from G45, A Proper Gentleman.  The silver paper behind the photo is Coredinations embossed with a Cuttlebug argyle folder and then inked with silver ink.  The heart is an image from Printmaster graphics program that I printed, cutout, and coated with Glossy Accents.

I made the tag using a technique found in the Composite of Compendiums book.  I stamped some ink on my craft sheet, sprayed with water and then dragged the
tag through the ink.  The two circle stamps are Tattered Angels Traveler stamps and the Smiles and Laughter stamp is Stampology.  The Metal clock face is a Tim Holtz piece.

Thanks for visiting!

First Denali LO for 2010

Ah, it's nice to be done with the gifts and doing something for me now!  Here's my first LO from our summer at Denali National Park. 

Journal says "

We saw this sow and her two cubs frequently during our 6-week stay at Denali.  On this day, the cubs were following Mom on the road when all of sudden the dark brown cub turns around to approach his sibling, hauls back his paw and smacks the other cub “upside the head”.  Notice the angry look on his face in the bottom photo.  I have no idea what provoked the smack, but it was classic sibling rivalry!"

Used Basic Grey Capella papers that I received in my awesome July Swirlydoos kit.  The chipboard is old, Fancy Pants I think.  I covered it with bronze UTEE and then added  TH walnut distress embossing pwdr to give it a worn look.  That's a Tattered Angels Glimmer Chip in the left top corner.  I made the biggest mess doing this.  I currently have embossing powder all over everything!!  I got a Zutter Distress it All recently and used that for all the ragged edges.  I really like that tool, takes the work out of distressing edges for sure.  I did discover something, it's made for right handed people!  LOL, I finally figured out that I need to turn my paper around 'cause it always seemed like the back of the page had the proper distressed look rather than the front.  Duh....the trials and tribulations of being a lefty.  Well at least I'm in my "right" mind, ;-)!!  TFL!!



Swirlydoos kit - La Chienne

Here's a LO I did using the November kit from Swirlydoos.  It is a really awesome kit featuring Pink Paislee's House of Three Parisian Anthology resist paper.  This paper is just awesome as it is white with lots of resist designs on it.   So you get out your inks and mists and make the paper whatever color you want.  This is Nika, our 7 month old standard poodle.  She is such a love!  She and Chena adore each other and are constantly either playing, eating, or sleeping together.

ACK!

it's been forever since I've updated my blog. shame on me!  All the projects I've done lately are gifts so I don't want to show them off!  Dear dear!

I did join the Swirlydoos kit club back in May and have to say that that was a good move on my part.  The kits are SO SO awesome and such a good buy.  Each kit is packed with the latest and greatest in products.  And visit the forum and gallery for plenty of ideas and tuts on how to do "stuff".  Love it!!  Click HERE to go to Swirlydoos. 

Finally back home

We spent a wonderful summer in Alaska.  See our travel blog if you want to know more about that.  Road trip - Alaska Bound.

Now that we are home, we have adopted a poodle puppy.  She is delightful and so, so pretty!!

What happened to my blog????

Geez, while I was running around in the wilds of Alaska, some gremlins changed the look of my blog!  Looks like blogger has changed the templates - I need to reformat and I will one of these days! 

Not much scrapping going on!

I've been a crazy woman lately getting ready for our trip to Alaska!  We leave tomorrow.  First we'll have a few stops in the US and then we'll head north.  I am taking scrappy stuff with me but I don't know how much time I'll have for it.  We'll be back mid-August.  I hope everyone has a great summer full of fine weather, friends and family!

Visit our travel blog to see pictures from our trip and find out where we are!

http://alaskaroadtrip-maggi.blogspot.com/

Another paper bag album

I just love making these little PBA's.  They are just so fun!  This one was a real challenge as I chose to feature the artwork of Salvador Dali.  So no lace, no flowers, I didn't think that look was right at all for Dali.  I did use G45 pps and thought they worked quite well. 

Cover:

There are tags tucked into a pocket on the left.

The right side has a flap that opens up.

Flap opened.

The left side striped pp is a pocket to put tags or photos into.

The right side has a pocket for holding photos.

The left side has a pocket.

Sorry, this is a bad photo, the blacks are appearing as gray.

Tags to put in the pockets.

Thanks for taking a look !!

Me at 20!

There aren't that many pictures of me that I like but I really do love this one and was quite amused when I came upon it.  What you can't see is a bottle of Chianti tucked in on my left side, and the cigarette. oh my, glad I gave that up in my 30's!  This is me on the train in Europe bumming around.

When I was twenty…

Life was a box of chocolates for sure!! I did find the occasional nutshell in my chocolate because like any 20-year-old single gal, life had its ups and downs with boyfriends and all those things that are so important at that time in your life.

At twenty, I was just drifting through life absorbing all that I could and having a good time. I was in and out of college; I just couldn’ t figure out why I was there so I quit, numerous times! I started out as an art major at East Carolina University and it took about six weeks for me to discover that I was not going to make it in the world as an artist so I dropped out before I flunked out and moved in with some girlfriends in Raleigh. I worked at Hudson Belks through the Christmas holidays in the hosiery department. Then I took a temporary job at the Department of Motor Vehicles checking annual vehicle registrations. Talk about BORING! It was a proofreading job and I hated it but it was a paycheck! After that job ended, I became a telephone operator and that was kind of fun especially in a college town where the drunken college students would call in to call the White House or something equally silly.

However, my heart was in the mountains and after only a short time as a telephone operator I moved to Cherokee, NC. I went back to college at Western Carolina, this time as an English major I think. That didn’t last long either. Then I think it was history. In 1974, I finally decided to be a business major, but that’s another story.

I met a great gal, Susan, in music class and we became fast friends. She and I decided to save our money and go to Europe to see the sights. Europe was crawling with American young people as the Vietnam War was raging and there were lots of draft dodgers there. In retrospect I’d have to say we were probably an embarrassment to our country but, oh well, we were having fun, making love not war and all that.

So, I spent $600 for a six-week stay in Europe. That’s hard to believe isn’t it? I bought a Eur-Rail pass for $125 that gave me unlimited travel in most countries in Europe for 2 months. Susan took this picture of me on the train. As you can see, I am diligently studying my Europe on $5 a Day book. That really was an invaluable aid as it told us where we could get cheap eats, safe lodging, and student discounts. Of course, there were youth hostels but you had a 10 pm curfew. Hello?? At 20, I want a 10 pm curfew?? I don’t think so!

One thing that helped us out was that my Dad was stationed in Augsburg at the time so we had somewhere to go to get our laundry done, a nice long bath, a good hot meal, and a refill for the peanut butter jar.

Being twenty was not easy, but it was fun!

 I made the little travel journal in the right corner using some bazzill cardstock, lots of distress ink, Karen Foster stickers, and crackle paint.  I added journaling pages inside.  The rest is just different things from my stash, K & Co, Little Yellow Bicycle, TPC Studios, Jenni Bowlin letters, MME letters, Tim Holtz film strips, Stickeroos,

God has Another Angel

Thank you my dear friends that have sent us messages about our sweet Chili.  You'' never know how much we appreciate your caring words.

Our angel has gone over the Rainbow Bridge

We had to say good-bye to our dear Chili today.  Her pain was more than she should have to bear and her body was so debilitated by the autoimmune diseases.  It was time to let her go to the Rainbow Bridge to be with our other animal friends that passed before her. We miss you and love you Chili.  You brightened our lives for 7 years.  We will miss you always.

Cards for Lennon

Please take a moment of your time and brighten the life of a little boy, Lennon, and his family.  Lennon has 3 cancerous brain tumors and has a 20% chance of living.  Lennon is the grandson of Karen, at Pages in Time, and we are all banding together to spread the word and bring a little cheer into all of their lives.

Lennon has had a tumor removed but unfortunately, when he went for his MRI and check up, they found 3 new tumors.
The DT at Pages in Time is starting a project, "Cards for Lennon". I don't know if any of you have seen the movie "Miracle of the Cards" which is a true story, but it shows what just a card can do to make someones day. Just to know someone is thinking about you, praying for you, giving you hope is a blessing in itself.

Please take the time to purchase or buy a card for Lennon and his family so that they will know that people everywhere are praying for him. Let us ask God that Lennon be in that 20% of survivors!!!
You can send your cards to:
Amanda and Lennon Hunt
c/o Pages in Time
5221 South 48 St
Lincoln NE 68516

I truly hope you take the time to touch this little boy's life. It would be greatly appreciated by his family.

Chili update

Well things are not looking so great right now.  It appears that she may have 3 or 4 different auto-immune diseases, although we are still waiting for test results to come in.  She is really weak in the rear and has to be helped to a sitting or standing position.  Once she is on all four paws, she walks fairly well but has to helped up and down stairs.  the doctors so far are saying that cortisone treatments will change things for the better for her and that we need to give it a month to see how it goes.  Right now I am not feeling like she's improving much but I must be patient.  she's such a little trooper as she very seldom vocalizes her pain but I know she is experiencing some degree of pain.  Hard to say how much, dogs are absolute masters at masking their pain.  Please say a little prayer for our little girl.

Update on our sweet Chili

We went back to NCSU vet school on Friday for a follow up visit and had a much better visit I think.  We saw one of the neurologists there whereas last time we saw an intern and a resident.  The nuerologist has decided that the cerebellum problem is just something she's always had and is not related to her current problem. We go back next week for a spinal tap, joint taps and muscle/nerve electrodiagnostic study. They are thinking it is most likely polyarthritis which is different from osteoarthritis. More like RA I think. Anyway, onset can be quick (it was), often doesn't show up on Xray or MRI - it didn't, Can be autoimmune or infectious. Treatment will be either steroids or antibiotics. I'm betting its auto immune as she has allergies which are autoimmune. If it is polyarthritis, it is manageable and she should have quality life again. Could also be some other itis, meningomyelitis, or polymyositis/polyneuritis, although the doc is guessing polyarthritis.  So I guess things are looking up if this is what the diagnosis turns out to be. I think they got side tracked initially by the weird brain scan that they were all amazed to see.

I feel so badly for my sweet Chili as I know she is in pain.  The vet described it as just generally feeling very miserable.  I can relate somewhat when I remember the summer I went through before I had my back surgery-I was in pain most of the time and quite miserable. 

Do pray that we have found the cause so we can work on the cure now!