Scrapbook Pages » Mi Vida Ocupada

Prayers and getting my mind off things :)

Scrapbook Pages, Thoughts Wanted 7 Responses »

Aug 032007

Yesterday was such a sad day. Not only was it really depressing watching the news coverage of the bridge collapse, but I also got bad news from a couple of my friends (all unrelated to the bridge event).

**Please say prayers for the young dad in my hometown who took his own life on Monday and left behind a wife and 1 1/2 year old daughter. His friends and family are hurting really badly right now.

**Please say prayers for a friend of mine whose domestic partner was hit and dragged for hundreds of feet under a car while working in New Jersey a few weeks ago. He is now off life support but is going to need a long time to recover from all of the injuries.

**Please say a prayer for one of my college roomates who is now 34 weeks pregnant and suffering from a large cyst on her ovary and pre-term labor. She has been in/out of the hospital for the past six weeks and has been on bedrest for awhile now. Pray that she makes it another couple of weeks before giving birth.

**Please continue to say prayers for all the people affected by the bridge collapse here in Minneapolis.

*****************************************************************************************************

To get my mind off this bad stuff, I spent quite some time yesterday with my scrap stuff :)

This is the layout I made at Archiver’s the other night. I added the pics and lettering, this one is for Annika’s album. I had no idea what pics I was going to add when I first made the page, and the only letter we could put on our layout was the "F". Doesn’t go very well with "Easter", but oh well!

Using up most of my Love, Elsie stuff….

The pretty silk flowers (behind the paper ones) on this one were a gift to me from Sarah (birthday present) and this was the perfect LO to use them on! The right page is based on this sketch.

Going to scrap much more tonight when some of the girls come over!

I really scrapped!

Scrapbook Pages 6 Responses »

Jul 282007

This top one is my own design…Is it taboo/unpatriotic to do a 4th of July page that is not red, white & blue? Those colors just didn’t work well with the sunset in the pic!

This bottom is a scraplift of Jamie Harper’s LO on page 84 of the Sept 07 issue of Creating Keepsakes Magazine

6 hours of scrappin’

Scrapbook Pages 6 Responses »

Jul 122007

I sat down to scrap last night and about 6 hours later I had a whole stack of scrappies :)

(***I am sure everyone already knows this, but you can click on any picture to make it bigger. You can also save pictures to your computer by right clicking and then save as)

This layout is based loosely on this sketch

The left side of this Prince layout was inspired by this layout from Luvscrappin

This layout was inspired by this layout by Bonbitz

Productive….

Scrapbook Pages 3 Responses »

Jun 292007

Crankin out the scrappies :)

Would you believe I am all caught up with my photos???!!!

I did this one for Annika’s album :)

Friday night scrappies….

Scrapbook Pages 5 Responses »

Jun 232007

Michelle and I got togetehr on Friday night to do a little scrappin :) I somehow managed to crank these two out, despite the fact that I wasn’t feeling that great. ( I have been having dizzy spells every day for the past week).

Saturday scrappies and sweets….

Scrapbook Pages 3 Responses »

Jun 172007

Saturday was a pretty leisurely day. I got up early and went shopping and to lunch with Lanee. We tried a new place called Jake’s Grille….I will be writing the review sometime this week, but we both really liked it :)

Spent the entire afternoon scrapping my brains out:

I nearly forgot it was my cousin Kevin’s graduation party Saturday night until Michelle reminded me. I had no other plans for the evening so I went to the party for about an hour….they were serving desserts. These were all made by my aunt Chris, so delicious!

Annika spent some time playing with our cousin’s new puppy. Nothing like sweet puppy kisses!

Watched Night at the Museum (cute!) and Nacho Libre (stupid!) on Saturday night when I got home.

Its hotter than heck out right now, but I am going to have lunch and boating with the family. I am going to see Dir en Grey and Deftones tonight :)

Happy Father’s Day!

Memorial Weekend!

Family Gatherings, Great Outdoors & Weather, Scrapbook Pages 4 Responses »

May 292007

Wow, I LOVE long weekends! Especially when there is a lot going on like there was this weekend :)

Friday night I went downtown Mpls. to see Static X at First Avenue. Fun stuff! These guys are always good for an ass-kickin good time. The only thing I totally hate about these type of shows is that there are too many BIG, sweaty, stinky guys everywhere. I always try to stick by E but he always makes his way to the stage and I end up making my way to the back of the floor where I won’t get pushed around. Same story this time!

On Saturday we had a party up at my parents house with my mom’s side of the family. My cousin Tyler was in town from Chicago and his mom flew in from Tucson to surprise him. He was totally surprised!! Gotta love it. The weather was better than it the forecast predicted, so we were able to do many fun things outdoors. I was only able to take a few pics (that didn’t require flash) with my own camera, but I took a ton with Bri & Mich’s Rebel. Here are a couple taken with my camera.

Tyler (who obviously was NOT smiling in this pic) and me sitting on the boat down at the marina.

My Aunt Connie with Bianca (who is getting so big at 4 months old!)

and my cousin Mackenzie with this adorable little 9-week-old weiner-dog puppy that belonged to my cousin David.

It was great to see some of my cousins…a few I hadn’t seen in three years!

Later Saturday night I watched the movie, Apocalypto. WOW. Very good movie, but hard to watch some parts because it is so brutal.

Got some time in the sun on Sunday afternoon (which was the best weather of the weekend)….I went swimming and to a BBQ. Later that night so went back up to my parents house for dinner and to spend more time with Connie and Tyler while they were here. My gram and gramp were up there too, so we enjoyed dinner, went for a walk and then had a bonfire overlooking the lake. I love sitting by the fire!

On Monday I lounged around and then went out to eat. I scrapped later that night. I wish you could see how cool these American Craft glitter alpha rub-ons look IRL! (You can click on any pic to make it bigger).Oh, and does anyone have any great ideas for a journaling pen that writes on transparencies???

Hope everyone had a nice and safe weekend!

Fishing Opener Trophies….

Scrapbook Pages 1 Response »

May 122007

Ha ha! Did I getcha with the title of this post? It wasn’t me, but rather a friend who was up at dawn this morning for the fishing opener. I figured I might as well get a little scrappin’ done while he was out :)

I love how the first one turned out, but nothing I tried after that meets my standards. I especially hate the bottom one, the more stuff I added to make it better, the worse it became. Oh well, I’ll live with it!

A Pain in the neck……

Rants, Scrapbook Pages 5 Responses »

Apr 222007

I’ve got one. A REAL pain in the neck. I’ve had this stupid crick in my neck since the day after Easter. That was two weeks ago!!? I’ve slept on it weird and had pain like this before, but never for this long. (Not since the initial car accident many years ago anyway). I’ve had many headaches again lately too. I totally need to see a chiropractor, but need to track one down in my network. One that is convenient for me to get to. Is there a huge difference in the type of chiropractic care you receive? I assume so, but not sure what would be best for me. Someone who can cure me of all my aches and pains would be great :)

It was beautiful here for most of the weekend. I scrapped with some of my friends on Saturday morning. Ironic to scrap this snowy layout while it was so nice out! This layout kind of looks like crap on here, looks much better IRL. Love this new Cricut font, the Mini Monogram. It was on sale at Michael’s last week for over 50% off, so I snatched it up.

I started another layout but haven’t finished it yet. This one I did sometime last week. I am getting pretty lazy, I didn’t even bother with journaling or a creative title.

I have so many more pages to do and haven’t been feeling too creative with the scrappies. I would be all about scraplifting these days, but I haven’t even seen too many layouts in the latest mags that inspire me or work with all the pictures I like to use. I know I am an unconventional scrapper….I am not all about "cutesy" titles, I just like to create cool pages to display all the photos I take from different outtings with my friends and family. I’m not trying to get published or anything, I’m doing it for myself. My scrap philosophy is that I have too many great photos to use just one on a page. I also scrap because I love all the products! Who doesn’t?

I really didn’t do anything else this weekend, other than sit around and read a lot, and hang out with my man. I was invited to a party at B & M’s, but was so tired and just wasn’t feeling that great. Sorry guys!

So back to reading…. I feel like going on a book-shopping spree. Any shopping spree, for that matter. I want new shoes, new clothes, a new camera….all sorts of stuff. I could spend a ton of money right now, but I am showing restraint! I am also thinking about buying a Blackberry phone. Anyone have one that can vouch for them??

I changed up the look on the Twin Cities Restaurant Blog this week and was able to solve my category problem. I also included drop-down menus and it is much easier to navigate now. I’ve tried only one new restaurant in the past two weeks, but hoping to try a couple of new places this week. I’d love suggestions for good Mexican restaurants that are out of my normal geographical area :)

More scrappies :)

Scrapbook Pages 4 Responses »

Apr 072007

A few more scrappies. Cranked these out this morning while watching Season 2 Grey’s Anatomy. I love Saturday mornings when that happens :)

Some scrappies…

Scrapbook Pages 6 Responses »

Apr 042007

My net’s been down the past few days or I would’ve posted these sooner. Haven’t done nearly as much scrappin’ as I had thought I would…just not feelin’ the creativity….these are both lifts from the March and April CK Mag.

Yikes, its already Wednesday night?

Snow Day Scrappies….

Scrapbook Pages 5 Responses »

Mar 032007

We got another 16" of snow Thursday-Friday…so much that they cancelled school pretty much everywhere. (PS jennifer H…cancelled/canceled can be spelled with either 1 or 2 "l"s according to dictionary.com ).

So what else is a girl who just recently received about $100 worth of fun new papers supposed to do with her time off besides scrap all day while watching episodes 13-18 of Grey’s Anatomy season 2?

Hurray for snow days!

Hard to stay away…

Friend Time, Great Outdoors & Weather, Scrapbook Pages, Special Events 8 Responses »

Feb 252007

Its only been a week since I last had a meaningful post and I thought I would be fine to let it go for awhile, but what can I say? I love blogging too much to stay away too long.

Does that make you happy to hear?!

Thanks to all of you who were concerned about my apparent hiatus. Nothing to worry about! There was some concern over how much time I spend on my computer…..TOO MUCH time. Time that I should be spending on other priorities when I actually have time to spare. Its hard though…. there is just so much to do on my computer….checking e-mails, IMing, blogging, reading all the blogs in my blogroll (I have about a gazillion), keeping up with Scrappjazz message boards & gallery, online shopping, MySpace, Facebook, tracking my finances & paying bills, photo editing and uploading, scanning and stitching layouts…..I could go on & on. How have I let myself get so wrapped up in all this stuff??? Is there a way I can balance all of this and continue to lead a busy life? To maintain a healthy relationship with those who mean the most to me?

I’ve had all sorts of stuff to blog about this week, try to make this short and sweet :)

We had a BLIZZARD last night. Like12 inches of snow. Whoa!

Instead of staying home all safe and warm and snug, I went to a party in honor of Lanee’s 30th birthday…good thing we live so close or I would not have gone. The roads were treacherous because the plows couldn’t possibly keep up with the blowing snowfall. Only half the guests were able to make it because of the weather, but we still had a lot of fun drinking, playing cards and eating a ton of good food. Me duele el estomago hoy!

Lanee had several beautiful flower arrangements and while I was trying to get a shot of these pretty lilies that were in her bathroom, I attempted a self-portrait in the mirror.

****************************************************************************************************************

Earlier on Saturday I went to Bri & Mich’s to scrap with Michelle. We both got some really cute pages done :)

Ms. B is getting big! It was fairly easy to scrap with her around because she was content sleeping/laying in her little chair. Annika, however, couldn’t resist all the beautiful supplies we had strewn all over the dining room. Can you blame her? Too much new, fun stuff to look at and touch. It’ll be great when she is old enough to do some scrappies with us!

*****************************************************************************************************

Here is one other funny picture of my cat Phoenix. He sleeps like this all the time….he is part dog, ya know.

Have a great week :)

Babies and scrappies….

Babies & Kids, Family Gatherings, Scrapbook Pages 7 Responses »

Jan 282007

Visited my sweet baby niece again yesterday morning. She is still very tiny, but it is amazing how much she has changed already. At first I thought she looked just like Annika did when she was born, but now I am not sure who she looks like…I guess we will have to wait and see! Michelle looks gorgeous, as always. She is such a good mamacita!

After visiting with Bianca, Brian and Michelle, I went and had lunch with Kara and Mandie at the new Granite City Brewery at Rosedale Mall. This was the first time I got to see Mandie’s baby, Aubryana, who will be 5 months old next week already! She is so cute and is already looking so much like her daddy! There was so much for us all to catch up on and talk about, I wish my girls lived closer…they are each about 45min-hour away from me in opposite directions :( Can’t wait to see both of their new houses too!

Since I was feeling so good (something I used to take for granted), I stopped at Archiver’s after lunch to pick up some new magaziness for inspiration. I have not even cracked these magazines yet, but I was in the scrappin mood and had nothing else to do and spent most of the afternoon/evening creating these fun new scrappies:

I have quite a few pics to get printed from the past few weeks and CANNOT WAIT to get my hands on all the gorgeous new scrap products that are being released this weekend at CHA. Monique at Scap Etc. has done an excellent job of posting sneak peeks of all the good stuff….go check out her blog!!! Be prepared to drool and drop a lot of moola this season :)

Hope everyone has a nice weekend…its FREEZING here!

$1.96 A Gallon!!!!??

Current Events, Raves, Scrapbook Pages 7 Responses »

Jan 112007

The way gas prices were looking last spring, I never thought I would see gas get this low again. Its awesome! How long can we expect this to last, I wonder?

Wanted to share the layouts I started last weekend and finally finished up. I got sick and tired of staring at them unfinished on the kitchen table after 4 days and did something about it :) Scrapping has been a struggle lately…just not feeling it. I bet that will change once all the new products from the upcoming CHA show come out next month (and right in time for my 30th birthday!)

And me and my Jenny.

So, I went to the ENT specialist yesterday. I found out after a CT scan that I have the largest sinuses the Dr. has ever seen (and this is the 2nd Doc who has told me this). Weird, huh? Well anyway, there is no sign of infection in my sinuses or my ear. I do have significant clicking in my jaw that he thinks might be causing the headaches and ear pain. I will have to go to an oral surgeon and see what might be the next step. The ENT Dr. also sent me to get extensive allergy testing to find out why I have chronic nasal congestion, hopefully we will know what I am allergic to next week. One other discovery at my visit yesterday is that I have a lump on my thyroid. I have to go to the hospital Friday afternoon to have a biopsy done. I was a little nervous about this at first, but my dad sent me this article and I feel much more relieved afer reading it. My mom told me that there is a history of thyroid problems in her family, so it could just be genetic. Either way, there is no sense in dwelling on it until I know what is going on, but I wanted to document it here anyway. Asking for extra good thoughts my way couldn’t hurt either :)

Looking forward to the 3-day weekend, this week has been much longer than usual!!

Hope everyone has a good one :)

New Scrappies…

Scrapbook Pages 4 Responses »

Jan 052007

Just a quick post with a few layouts I worked on the other day. This was from my mom’s bday back in November.

And this one was from Thanksgiving. Both designs are from Becky Higgin’s Sketches v2. She makes scrapping so much easier when you have a lot of pictures and are running behind!

Sorry I have been such a blog slack….its really rough being on vacation for two weeks!! LOL

Where did the week go?

Scrapbook Pages 3 Responses »

Dec 292006

Could it really be Friday already? That means that week one of my vacation is already over. Where the heck did it go??!!!

Anyway, I finally did a little scrapping today :)

This one is for Maria’s CJ. I have had her book for almost four months now and finally got my rear in gear to get it finished. Maria, I hope you like this…it could never be good enough to justify how much time I have had it :( Thank you so much for your patience, it will be to you very soon!

*****************************************************************************************************

This next one has actually been finished for about a month now, but I finally just got around to scanning and stitching it.

***********************************************************************************************

Love the mix of colors on this one. There is just something about red and turquoise that I dig :)

And this last one is from Lanee and Roger’s wedding. I think it turned out cute, but it seems so spring-themed with these colors and it was actually a fall wedding. I wish I would’ve turned the pics to sepia and used fall shades instead of these pastels. Oh well, I’ll keep that in mind for future fall weddings!

*********************************************************************************************************

I have yet to pick a winner for the banner giveaway. Someone will get a lucky e-mail from me soon!

PS I am less than 500 hits away from 50,000!!!!!!!!!!! Crikey!!! Do you think I can hit 50k by the New Year???

Mini Donuts, Madeline album, etc

Random Thoughts & Updates, Scrapbook Pages 6 Responses »

Dec 112006

Where do you suppose one gets fresh, hot mini donuts at this time of the year?? Fair donuts, the kind that are warm and sugary. I missed out by not getting any at the Fair last year, I guess, but they sound incredible to me at the moment!

I scrapped all darn day on Saturday. Like 12 hours straight, with just a few breaks here and there. I was on a roll working on my Madeline Island mini-book, figured I might as well just keep truckin! Check out this slide show, I love it!!!!! I plan to do just one more layout, of pics from inside our cottage. Other than that, it is finished :)

Other randomness:

** Still no snow here in the Twin Cities. It was very cold last week, but this week it is supposed to stay slightly above freezing. There are already fisherman and shacks out on the thin ice!!!

**I watched Pirates of the Cariibbean last night and then watched a show on the Discovery channel about Giant Squid. Any guesses about what I dreamt about all night ???? Yep, giant squid. I must be the most suggestable dreamer out there! (Or do you think most women are like that?)

**I was soooooo craving Mexican yesterday (Susan, where are you??????) and needed to get out of the house, so I went to La Casita for dinner.

**Hoping to get started on my Christmas shopping tonight. I still don’t know what to get anyone!

**Ordered the wrong type of hard drive enclosure, so I still have not recovered any info from my old laptop. I thought I needed SATA, but I really need IDE. The IDE enclosure should be here in a few days :)

**My brother Jeff took a trip to LA last weekend and ended up in the Presidential Suite at the Hilton. Read his story here.

**My poor Gramps just had several surgeries to remove skin cancer again. He is having another big one right before Christmas. Poor guy! My Aunt Carol is also having major surgery again right before Christmas :( I wish them both a speedy recovery!

** The stomach flu is running rampant around here. Just about everyone I know has had it….including all but like 4 people that I work with (including me). I have been washing my hands even more than usual, my poor skin!! Please, please, please don’t let me get it…especially not at Christmas!

** I would like to see if there is any interest in getting a group of girls together to attend Scrap Mania at Archiver’s in Roseville some Friday or Saturday night.

"Need time away to get your scrapbook pages done, and have some fun with friends? Scrap Mania is the answer! Now on both Friday and Saturday nights, we make our workshop available to you from 5pm–11pm.

Now you can enjoy food and drinks right at your table, and sign up as many friends as you want—reserve a table or even the whole room for your private mania, up to three months in advance! The $15 fee includes a free gift or coupon, dinner and a variety of snacks, prizes, and product demos."

This is open to anyone!!! If you are interested to do this sometime, let me know. I am sure it would work best to plan something for January, but they have not put out their January calendar yet. Stay tuned, I will mention this again soon!

**I haven’t been the best about the birthday shout-outs lately :(

Happy belated birthday to:

Nicole B (Dec 10th)

Maria H (Dec 5th)

Amber Nichole (Dec 4th)

Meaghan B (Dec 1st)

Jules M (Nov 24th)

Have a nice week everyone, only two weeks until Christmas!

Long time, no blog

Concerts, Scrapbook Pages 7 Responses »

Dec 032006

After five days without blogging, I hardly know where to begin!

Friday night was a rock-star party night. A friend of ours got us on the guest list to see Twisted Sister at the Myth. What an awesome good time! I frickin LOVE jammin to 80′s rock!! The song, "We’re Not Gonna Take It!" brings back a ton of memories from college and I knew it would be fun to see Dee Snider and all the original members rockin out and dressed up. I was not disappointed! Heather and Lanee came out with us too. I am pretty mad that I didn’t bring my camera out that night. I always have it in my purse but took it out before we left because the show was at Myth and I didn’t think they’d let me bring it in. Of course it happened to be a night that cameras WERE allowed, so I got screwed out of taking a ton of fun pictures. Oh well! After the show we met some friends at The Bird in Mplwd. I hadn’t been to that dive in about 10 years and once I got inside, I realized that not a dang thing had changed. Even the music! It was all the same old-school stuff I danced to 10 years ago, so I had a great-ol’ time shaking my booty on the dance floor!! Several shots of tequila and some beer made me feel pretty groovy!!

Drinking and staying out so late wasn’t the best idea since I had plans to get up early Saturday morning to scrap with some of my girlfriends. This gave me about 5 hours of sleep….not nearly enough to free myself from the effects of the night before. Oh well! I wanted to get started on my Madeline Island scrap project. Check out what I got done so far!

Here is the cover. I bought book board and covered it with papers from the Magnolia line. I am using the coordinated line to do this whole mini-book.

***************************************************************************************************

I have about 30-40 pictures that will go into this album when finished. It was very hard to narrow it down from the 200 pictures we took on this trip! I have to do the pages chronologically and in order so that I know where to punch the holes.

Intro page

Lunch and margaritas in Duluth

and the ferry ride!

Thats all I got done so far, but I will get to work on it soon :)

*******************************************************************************

I have some other layouts that I did in the past week that I finally got to scan in. I have to say, this new computer is soooo much faster than my old one, I was able to scan and stitch all of these layouts in like 1/4 of the time.

These are all lifts/sketches from the new BH Sketches book.