Country Fair

I'm starting the year with a bang!!! I'm living my OLW everyday and I can honestly tell you that it feels so good.  I've used my January kit " Country Fair" to its fullest potential. It's amazing to me how many layouts you can do with just the main kit.  I'm done hoarding these beautiful kits every month and not creating beautiful layouts.

The Sunday Sketches by Studio Calico have jumpstarted my creativity and with them I've made three  layouts, an original layout and a birthday card for a friend. 

Journaling reads: D had an awesome day with the Boy Scouts.  He was invited to ride the float thru Coral Gables.  They won for best use of creativitiy.  What a great way to start 2012 and his journey in Boy Scouts.

Journaling reads: This little girl makes us all so happy and joyful.  Gracie is such a happy baby.  She lights up a room.  When I'm with her I can't help but carry her and snuggle her and give her tons of kisses and tell her over and over again how much I love her.  I'm so proud to ber her Godmother. I plan on spoiling her to pieces...

Journaling reads:  I love my Vera Bradley Stadium Blanket that Jorge gifted me for Christmas this pas December.  The "Happy Snails" pttern is my all time favorite.  It give me joy every time I use it.

Journaling reads: I truly love us... We make a great team.  We work well together. We love unconditionaly. We listen to each other. We make each other happy.  I love that we get to spend the rest of our lives as husband and wife.

I have some scraps that I plan on making some cards... I'm making it a top priority to give out more cards this year... Cards are such a nice personal touch...

I'm really happy on how I've stretched this kit and can't wait to get my hands on February's kit from Studio Calico. It's filled with new releases for CHA winter 2012.  I haven't even been looking at sneak peeks because I'm holding true to my promise of using up my stash before buying new scrapbooking supplies.

Goodnight... I'm exhausted from a fun filled day.

Happy New Year!!!

The  end of 2011 and the beginning of 2012 have been amazing thus far.  I have been blessed with amazing friends and family that it fills my heart with so much happiness that I truly am grateful for. 

We brought in the New Year at Schnebly's winery for the second year in a row. Good times, Good times I tell ya.

I wish you all a wonderful New Year filled with a plentiful of love, happiness, peace and family. I'm looking forward to a New Year of new ventures, new goals and new dreams to make a reality. 

Merry Christmas

to all my family, friends, bloggers and stalkers too. LOL I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas.  Mine was filled to the rim with greatness.  My home was filled with family and friends this holiday season and that is truly what I enjoy the most.

The festivites started on December 23 for my brother and cousins birthday. Since my brother was leaving for Christmas and New Years to celebrate with his wife's family, we celebrated a couple of days early.  It was great spending time with the cousins and exchanging Christmas presents.  I sure hope someone in my family took a picture blowing out the candles because I sure would like one. Hint!Hint!

December 24 was celebrated at my in-laws house.  It was great to catch up with old friends.  I haven't seen this couple since our wedding day almost 7 years ago.  This was a nice surprise for my husband.  My husband and his dad have a tradition of making a big in a "chinesse box".  This really doesn't translate well in English but they roast the pork for many, many, many hours and then we eat it in a minute...

Christmas morning gives me so much joy.  My boy was so surprised that he got everything he asked for.  Since he doesn't believe in Santa I really need to make him sweat a little so he can have some type of surprise.  For weeks, I've been telling him since he didn't make his wishlist that I was not spending any money on stuff he wasn't going to use.  We took him to Universal Studios with a friend so I told him that was his gift.  The look on his face was priceless.

Even I received some great presents.  My husband played a joke on me and wrapped my presents with newspaper. 

We visited family and friends in the evening, exchanged presents and just had fun...

The best way to end the evening was seeing my beautiful God daughter Grace on her very first Christmas... I love this little girl so much and it's so awesome to have a baby in the family again that I can spoil.  This is one of my favorite photos. D looks terrified holding her and she is having a ball.

I'm off to pick up the mess in this house and continue working on my December Daily.  I'm determined to finish before starting any new projects. 

Peace, joy and happiness...

OLW 2012

Hi y'all... I am diligently working on my December Daily. I'm behind a couple of days but I'll play catch up on Saturday before I leave on my mini-getaway... I love vacations even if they are short...

Anyway... I've been thinking of my new year resolutions for 2012 and my biggest goal is to "SAVE".  It started with the concept of just saving money but it's evolved into a lot more for me.  So my One Little Word for 2012 is "SAVE".

Save is defind as:

1. to rescue from danger or possible harm, injury, or loss: to save someone from drowning.

2. to keep safe, intact, or unhurt; safeguard; preserve: God save the king.

3. to keep from being lost: to save the game.

4. to avoid the spending, consumption, or waste of: to save fuel.

5. to keep, as for reuse: to save leftovers for tomorrow's dinner.

I'm really excited about my word and the possibilites I can accomplish in 2012 if I stick with it.  Have a happy Thursday and I'll be back with more DD photos this weekend...

December Daily Day 1-4

(PHOTO HEAVY POST...)

I wish I could post these daily but I'm being totally realistic in this journey. It took me awhile to decide on the design of each day. I want it to flow easily. I also wanted a technique I know I could do without resizing photos because Photoshop doesn't like me. I need straight out of the camera photos.  So my Epson PictureMate printer is truly my workhorse during this project.

Day 1

Each day has a front and a back side. I'm keeping the journaling consistent througout the album.  I'm writing  one story each day.  If you click on the photo you may be able to see the journaling.

Day 2

Each day is divided with a Hambly overlay with ribbon on the edge. This was a great project because I really used a lot of ribbon that was sitting around for an eternity.

Day 3

This was my second annual Boy Scout Christmas Party.

Day 4

Well that's all for now. I hope your enjoying the process of your December Daily...

December Daily 2011 Album Cover

I'm excited to be posting again... I jumped on the Ali Edward's bandwagon and I'm attempting yet another December Daily. I say this because I've been unsuccessful in completing an album as of yet.  I'm determined to get it finished this time around. Please wish me luck...

This is my album cover, spine and inside cover.  I loved how Ali's cover turned out so I made my cover similar but with a pop of color. This was an interesting journey for me because I am a simple scrapper and I hardly ever use techniques.   I painted a layer of Claudine Hellmuth Studio Gesso and then gave it a couple of layers of the semi-gloss acrylic paint.  I had to be extremely patient and my friends know I have none. This is big peoples...

When it came time to emboss, I visited Damaris.  She was my cheerleader and guide in getting it straight and done correctly...We laughed alot because I kept saying " I'm scared "

The inside cover was misted with Mr. Huey exclusive from Studio Calico's December Daily kit by Ali Edward's. 

Thanks for stoping by. Days 1 through 4 to follow.  The picture taking took longer than actually creating the layouts. LOL

Giving Thanks...

I'm back!! Did you miss me? Well I sure did miss blogging. My home computer wasn't working for a couple of months and of course that's where all my pictures are and that is the computer that I use for blogging. I don't like laptops. 

I'm thankful for my wonderful family that I get to spend quality time for all special occasions. I value these special moments.  My hubby was away on business this Thanksgiving so I was a bit bummed but I made the best of it. 

My brother and sis-in-law... 

We had a total of 24 people for Thanksgiving dinner...

Me and my not so baby, baby!

My cousins... You can totally tell she had food in her mouth. LOL 

My thirteen year old cousin that looks like a man. I have to remind myself time and time again that he is only a kid. He has a heart of gold.

The leftovers...

My niece and her friends...

Black Friday started way to early but my friend Damaris and I had a blast. We started at 8:15 pm on Thursday and we didn't get home until 1:30pm on Friday. I finished most of my shopping and got some amazing deals.  I'm looking forward to Christmas and my December Daily album.

Now that my computer is up and running I hope to be blogging more often. I sure hope I didn't lose my faithful followers.