Spring is in the air...

It is 51 degrees here in Michigan, and I want to put my sandals on. Seriously. After months and months of snow, I get Spring Fever when the mercury manages to climb past 45 degrees. Sad, I know. The funny part is, I am not an "outdoorsy" kind of gal. I prefer to cuddle up with a book and a pot of coffee, cozy fireplace, and a supply of chocolate nearby. It is absolutely delightful - for the first three months. But by February...

Lush landscapes and festoons of flowers are what I want :)

You make me smile...

I say this all the time to Johnny, my little boy. He makes me smile with the silly things he says and does. He always has some contraption he wants to make, a game to play, a story to act out, or a costume party for us to attend instead of taking a nap!

This idea, along with some of the altered art and found items I have been playing with lately, were the inspiration for my latest layout. While done in pinks, and more suitable for a little girl, I loved how the title worked out with the game pieces and various flowers...

Sales, sales, sales!

I know that next week, we will all be thinking of the Pilgrims, and be thankful and such. We will eat too much turkey, ask for another slice of pie, and take home leftovers so we won't have to cook for at least three days....

...and then we can really get down to business - shopping!

I don't know about you, but even though I enjoy the "thrill of the hunt" I don't like the "chill of the a.m." so I plan on staying home, eating pumpkin pie for breakfast, and doing some online shopping :)

My design team is planning a great sale for "Black Friday" and the weekend after. Some deals are only good on Friday, so be sure to check us out!

LolliShops, LolliShops, Oh la-la-Lollishops...

I am sooooo excited! I am now a member of the LolliShops Guild, a juried website of unique artisans that is a marketplace for lovelies and pretties! Specializing in vintage, shabby chic, cottage style, whimsy... I think I am in heaven! Click on the link to apply to this fabulous group of artisans, and be sure to check out the LolliShops Blog!

The LolliShops will be opening near the end of November, so be sure to keep an eye out for some sweet and unique pretties!

If you do apply, tell them that the Queen of Nostalgia sent you :)

Frost on the Pumpkin...

The witch has stored her broom in the closet, ate the last of the chocolate, and is now getting ready for Thanksgiving...

Hard to believe that October is here already! My favorite holiday (tied with Halloween of course!) is coming up - Christmas! But before I get all my jinglebells in a row and start trimming the tree, here are a few Autumnal pieces that I recently created...

Happy Haunting

I love Halloween! I love to decorate, and a few weekends ago my husband and twin boys helped me to "haunt" our house. I still need to finish up the inside of our home, but with two three-year-olds, I am somewhat leary of putting out all my breakable pretties :)

Here are some pictures of my husband and his "helpers"

Come Scrap with me... Vintage Teapot Class

I am sooo excited to be teaching a how-to class the first Wednesday in October! Participants will be creating a vintage teapot album using the fabulous new papers by Graphic 45. Very nostalgic and perfectly pretty, this album has a ton of olde fashioned charm. Lots of ribbon and flowers, tags and pretties.... and lots of pockets and mats to add your pictures and other little bits of memories! This is the first in a series of teapot albums I will be teaching at Capture A Memory , so be sure to check out their website for future projects!

Something Witchy This Way Comes...

Now that school is in full swing, time to focus on that most glorious and ghoulish time of year - Halloween! I am so excited! Costumes to choose, candy to eat, decorations to hang, candy to eat, pumpkins to carve, candy to eat, apples to bob, candy to.... you get the idea.

I love to make Halloween projects. Scrapbook pages, altered books, picture frames... There is something about pumpkin orange and raven black, the jarring but lovely juxtaposition of purple and green...


I love the vintage and shabby look. A little ink here, some sanding there, and a piece of new paper looks like it has been in a witch's broom closet for years and years...



I have been making scrapbook pages almost exlusively the last seven months or so, but while perusing my gallery, I feel the need to do some altered books. I love working with paper bag albums. So many nooks and crannies to tuck in unexpected trinkets! Working with vintage photographs and postcards is always a treat - I haunt local antique stores searching for some "new" old photographs to work with.



The lovely thing about altered books is that the can be displayed as decorative pieces themselves, and to me, the chunkier the book, the better! One of my favorite embellishments to put in these little pretties is a homemade witch broom. Made with stems and twigs from my gardent, along with some tightly tied raffia, these little brooms are a nice primitive touch to Halloween projects. A vintage inspired tag that reads "broom parking: 5 cents" adds a whimsical touch.


One of my first projects was an ABC board book devoted to Halloween. I hadn't discovered rub ons yet (they may not even have been available then) so I used large letter stamps. The paint seemed to take forever to dry, but the effect was worth it. The letters worked well with the transparencies and scrapbook paper. Using transparencies has been such an exciting technique - much better than vellum. From printing on the transparency to painting on it, I love the flawless effect.


I also created a Witch Book, altered from yet another board book. I included some "spells" written on handmade mulberry. Vintage photogrpaphs and carefully selected bits of ephemera created a hauntingly pretty effect... one of my absolute favorite projects.

School Days...

Quick question: where did the summer go? I am just curious. It seems like yesterday I was filling the baby pool with water and plastic dinosaurs, and today I was searching for long sleeved shirts, size 3T, so the munchkins could play outside and not get chilly. September is just a few days away!

When did this happen?

When I was pregnant, people always said to enjoy your children, because they grow so fast. What they didn't explain was that having children puts your entire world into the fast mode. It isn't just that they grow fast, it is that they make your entire world go fast.

When I was a child, summer was endless. An ice cream cone lasted a long, sticky time, and an upcoming weekend trip to the beach seemed forever away. Now summer is gone before I had a chance to tag the tag off the sandals I bought in May, my ice cream cone seems to melt entirely away as I chase my sticky toddlers running around with their ice cream cones, and that trip to the beach... did we even go to the beach this summer?

I want to stop and smell the roses, but then I will notice they need to be deadheaded and pruned...

I'll just pick up a nice Chrysanthemum instead.

Feeling Nostalgic...

No surprise there :)

Now that my twins are "big boys" now, I was looking through their scrapbooks and found some of my favorite layouts I made of them :) I don't often share my personal layouts, so I feel a little shy...

Classes and Barbecues and Babies No More...

First of all, who decided that summer was going to be played on fast forward? Seriously - it is going by way too fast! I feel like I have 12 pots on the stove, they are all boiling over, and 357 guests are about to arrive... and by the time I have everything ready, it is time to clean up after the party.

Speaking of parties, my two little babies turned THREE yesterday. THREE. Does that mean they are officially not "babies" anymore? I guess that the toddler title was actually official at age two, but somehow having my twins turn THREE makes them seem like they are little boys, not babies anymore at all, whose next step is kindergarten, then a driver's license, then college, then marriage...

Not fair. Stay little, darn it!

They will start preschool in the fall, and I too have been contemplating going back to school. As the teacher. In my "past life" I was a high school English teacher for over seven years. Then I had the munchkins, and was lucky to be able to stay home for a few years. Now that the boys are bigger (sniff sniff) I have dusted off my resume and had a few interviews. I have also been taking classes to finish my Master's Degree - just a few more left!

Of course, my favorite class will be the one I am teaching at my local scrapbook store! Mid-July I am going to teach fellow scrappers how to add stitching to their pages. So if you are in Michigan in mid-July, head to Capture-A-Memory and we can scrap and chat! :) I will post a link to the store where I will be teaching.

The boys are still sleeping (all the fun yesterday and they are wiped out) so I need to get scrapping! My design group, BTDL, has a BBQ challenge for July, so if you are an eBayer, look for BTDL in a search to find all our pretties! I am finishing up a layout with the cutest little cow....

Enjoy the holiday weekend, and if someone finds that remote control - would you please hit "pause"? I need to catch my breath :)

So, if I had another 4 hours in the day...

I wish I had more time. Is it just me, or just this time of year, that everything feels so rushed? My one little boy had his last day of "school" today, and I wanted to make his teachers some pretties :) Of course, I waited until the last minute. This morning. I was going to do it last week, and then I promised myself I would do it last night... and then woke up in a panic this morning...

Anyway, here is one of them:


It is a little 5x7 piecing that is in a magnetic clear frame. His teachers loved them! I was pretty happy how they turned out too :) The bears are my new design, and I think my favorite part is the little book he is holding! I just finished a layout with this style of bear, and listed it on Ebay tonight. Of course, no pictures, because after we got home from school, we played in the baby pool, then the boys took naps, I cleaned the house (I should have scrapped), then it was time for Speech Therapy, then home again to make dinner, then a spontaneous trip to the park...

Did I say four hours? Can I change that to 12? :)

Paper Doll

I love the look of paper dolls, and my latest layout reminds me of the dolls I played with as a child. My favorite part? All the little buttons on her sweater! I also like how her little wagon turned out :) I decided to go with blues and greens rather than the traditional "pink" of girliness... Of course, this little doll was so fun to make, I just may have to do a similar one with pinks!

Oh, boy!

Well, it seems like the last few weeks I couldn't create anything without pink and ribobn. Now, I am gravitating towards "boy" colors :) I just finished a layout with dinosaurs, and I have to say - one of my favorites! I have paper set aside to make another one for me, as I have about 395792 pictures of my cuties in their dinosaur pajamas, and this layout would be perfect.



Yes, I have my boy-mojo back! Next up...
Puppies!

Princesses and fairies and dolls, oh my!

Being a mama to two lovely boys, I don't get to scrapbook many pink and girly layouts :) Designing with BTDL (Better Than Doing Laundry) and selling my work on EBay and BTDLDesigns has become my outlet for all things pink and pretty! And a nice venue for using all my lace and pretty trims....

Lately I can't seem to make a boyish layout! I have been dreaming in pink and eyelet lace, tiaras and tutus... I don't think I would even know what to do with a piece of blue paper right now.

Perhaps it is the Spring weather Mother Nature has been teasing us with. The grass is greening, the dogwood tree just started to bloom, and my magnolia tree is full of waxy pink petals. Soon my backyard retreat will smell like heaven with lilac and Korean Spice competing with each other, vying for loveliest scented plant.

It is this environment of sweetly scented air and lush green plants that makes me believe a fairy or two could be hiding in the hydrangeas, or playing hide and seek in the roses. After a long winter of frosty windowpanes and austere landscapes of snow and ice, even a weed or two are welcome...