Wow!

I let my blog go for 4 months! I needed a break, but am wishing I kept up with it so I would remember all the little things that happened in our lives. After all, that's why I'm blogging anyway. It's like a scrapbook to me. Thinking back, these are some things I want to remember about the past 4 months:
August
-Vacation in Fenwick Island, DE with the Merkers. The big thing that happened that week was that Nicholas seemed to get over his fear of dogs and fear of the ocean. It was like he was a whole different person than last year and he enjoyed himself so much more!
- My 16 year old niece, Alexa, moved in with us. This was supposed to be for a few weeks until my sister sold her house and moved down here to PA, but the house sale fell through and she’s still with us. I love having her here. She's artistic and crafty and loves to bake!
- Kids started school; Nicholas – Kindergarten, Sophie – 4th grade and Alexa 11th grade.

September
- For a Labor Day barbeque we had lots of fun baking mini-cupcakes that look like Hamburgers, complete with a sesame seed bun!

October

- The tooth fairy made her first visit to Nicholas on October 4th.

-Sophie wanted so badly to join the school band and take drums, but there were too many kids wanting the drums and she didn't get picked. She thought about it and after checking out my flute decided to take flute...woot! I can't wait for the day we can play a duet.

- Halloween was fun even in the pouring rain. Thinking back, I can’t remember when it ever rained on Halloween. I don’t think it ever did. Nicholas was “Dark Vader” (as he calls him) and carried a “Life Saver” and Sophie was a candy corn witch like she was last year. We got some ruby slippers in the mail right before Halloween and Sophie said that next year she wants to wear them with Nicholas’ Darth Vader costume to be “Dorothy Vader”! I thought that was pretty clever. Let’s see if she remembers that next year.

November
-Alexa’s 17th birthday which means she got her driver’s license…Woo Hoo!

-Sophie joined the chorus at school and had her first concert at Barnes and Noble.
-We had a very small Thanksgiving celebration. We had just my parents and Krista. I tried “brining” a turkey for the first time. It came out super moist and smelled wonderful while cooking. I used Alton Brown’s recipe. That one’s a keeper (the recipe, not Alton Brown)
-After planning to make my Christmas cards with photoshop to make things easier this year I got a different idea while getting ready for work one morning. I couldn’t wait to get home to figure out how to contruct it and created the prototype. So much for easy this year.
-Decided to decorate the outside of the house right after Thanksgiving to avoid decorating in the freezing cold which I usually end up doing. I got everything out of the basement, tested all the lights, hung it all up, set up the daylight sensors and…the lights didn’t all work. That’s what we call “The D’Ambrosio Factor” . Love that!

December
- Still working on the cards. The idea was to have them look like an ornament from the front with a window to the photo inside.

- Sophie wrote Santa a letter asking for one of those Magic Elves that come to life at night and get into all sorts of mischief and fun. Santa not only left her the elf that she asked for, but left Nicholas a little brother elf. So lets see, they have taken out an old photo album and we found it out on the floor. They were looking at photos of Oakley when he was a puppy. We also found them in a drawer full of plastic cups and bowls. They had watercolor paint sets in the elves’ little sacks. The kids found them in the closet putting together a puzzle this morning. I wonder what they’ll get into tonight

- Tonight Nicholas started a book reading log for school. I decided to let him read as many words as he could on his own while I would fill in the longer, more difficult words. I was so amazed and proud of him. I had no idea he could read that many on his own.

The Y's Owls

Today we celebrated the Y's Owls preschool graduation.  It's hard to believe that they are all going to Kindergarten. 

CKC - Valley Forge

I had a great time at CKC this weekend. I volunteered again to be a Teaching Assistant. I was assigned to Quick Quotes for several classes. The teacher, Joy (who has a very fitting name, by the way) is actually the one who designs the paper for the company. How cool would it be to design scrapbook paper! Speaking of paper designers, I also met the paper designer for Marks Paper Co., Stacy Marks. Marks Paper Co. is beautiful and they have both real paper and digital...I love that!
I was really hoping to find the new Quickutz Letterpress, but unfortunately it's not out yet so I have to wait. If anyone knows where to find that baby let me know!

It's called a "Crop"!

John cracks me up when he thinks he's using scrapbooking lingo correctly. I got home from my all day "crop" last night and he asks "How was your scrap?". Well...he tried.

As usual I didn't get that much done and was in awe of everyone else and how much they all accomplished. Just getting out and hanging out with a bunch of women (and one little chicken) who share my same passion for paper and glue is enough to make me happy.

yes, we needed ALL that stuff...even the rolling pin.

here's little chicken...(or is it ralphie?)

amy

em-i-lie

kristin

nathan, one of the silly goose monkeys, smiled like this all day!

friends...thanks for a fantastic day!

LEED® AP's

I'm very proud of my coworkers. 82% of us who took the LEED exam passed while the average for this test is only 30%. Woo Hoo Arcus Design Group...We rocked this exam!

{front: Brian M, Paul, Cassie, Suzanne.   back: Carl, Chris, Brian F, Patrick, Jeff}

GCD Studios

My project is up online on the GCD Studios blog Come check it out!
{They also just introduced some fabulous new collections last week}

This is a also great week for my favorite stamp company, Hero Arts, where they are having a week long celebration for their new website.

Sneak Peak

Remember this post? Well this week my project for GCD Studios will be online over on the GCD Studios blog. What a fun line of paper to work with. Here's a sneak peak...

Notecards

I really love making sets of notecards for gifts. These are the ones I made yesterday morning for Sophie to give her teacher today for her last day of school. One thing to make these fairly quick and easy is to figure out all the dimensions ahead of time. Then all I had to do was cut out the pieces emboss the solids and assemble. The scalloped circles were made on my Cricut and the butterflies are from one of my favorite Hero Arts stamp sets called Patterned Butterflies.The gift card was also made with my Cricut and I used the Bird Greetings set

Whew!

I took the LEED exam this afternoon. I don't think I've ever studied more for any other test in my life. I was suprisingly calm going in to it especially since I was in a total panic last week. I have to say that the questions were far from what I studied and from all the practice exams that I took. I thought for sure that I was bombing it. Then my time ran out when I was going through the questions I tagged to review again so I never got a second look at a bunch of them. I was so sure that I did not do well on the exam that I took the optional survey about the test center to delay the result. Then I had to click to get my score and at first I saw a 170 and I couldn't believe it....I got a 195 (out of 200) ! I said outloud..."What?! I'm still in shock.

c'mon...get happy!

Sophie wanted a Happy Face themed party this year. I love this because it's so retro. She picked out some retro fonts for the invitations we made and I just finished the cake some pretzel sticks today.

Don't Blink!

I can't believe how fast the past nine years have passed. Sophia turned 9 today. I remember so clearly the day she was born and it doesn't feel like that happened nine years ago....3 or 4 maybe, but 9? no way!

I remember this day when we had a photographer come to the house for her first photo shoot. Sophia was so interested in the camera, so serious, just starting at all the equipment. She was about 2 months old and this was actually on my birthday, August 17th 2000.



and here she is when she was two. Look at the innocent face!


four...closing her eyes because she was sick of me taking pictures. Liitle did she know how many I would be taking once I started scrapbooking in a year or so!


five...


six...


monday...so grown up


Happy Birthday my sweet girl!

I've been MIA around here

I've had so much going on lately that I haven't had much time to blog.  Right now I'm studying to take the LEED exam.  LEED stands for Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design. The United States Green Building Council (USGBC) created LEED as a rating system for green building.  So if, I mean when, I pass I will be a LEED AP (Accredited Professional).   This is what I've been doing mostly.  

Today I took Sophia to get her ears pierced for her birthday which is coming up on Thursday.  Could you believe that I actually forgot to bring my camera?  I'm trying to get the few photos I took off my cell phone, but not having much luck. Here's one that finally showed up in my email. I'm sure the girl piercing her ear wouldn't be happy if she knew I got a shot of her armpit!  She's was so excited.  She picked out cute little rhinestone flower earrings.
 

I was still able to squeeze in making a card because with all that studying I needed a little scrap therapy.

Stamps: Hero Arts
Ribbon: American Crafts (stamped with white embossing powder)

Flowers:  Prima and Making Memories

Ink:  Tsukineko

Uncle Billy

This is a friend of mine's son, Billy. He was tragically killed in a car accident in November of 2006. Next month his sister is due with her first son. The family baby shower was today and I was asked to help all the guests create pages of their part of the family so the baby would have a family scrapbook. I was also asked to make a page about the baby's Uncle Billy. There's a pull tab on the side so that they can add some journaling about the baby's uncle.

I just wanted to show you a layout by my friend Emilie using my digital layered template. You can download this template here. She's an amazing scrapbooker. You can check out her work here and while you're at it go visit her other site, The Scrap Review, for all the info. you want to know on scrapbooking products.

Make everyday Earth Day

Did you know Earth Day has a symbol? I had no idea.

Earth Day, celebrated April 22, is a day designed to inspire awareness and appreciation for the Earth's environment. It was founded by U.S. Senator Gaylord Nelson as an environmental teach-in in 1970 and is celebrated in many countries every year.

Reduce. Reuse. Recycle...everyday.

Digi Scrap Design!

There's a new digital scrapbook store called Digi Scrap Design opening it's doors on May 5th. There will be FREEBIES and contests so come on over and join in the fun.
I'm really excited to be a part of the Design Team!

Guess what?

I'm so excited to be selected as a GCD Studios Product Tester. I get to play around with a box of goodies they send and they post the projects I create in their gallery. How fun!

two peas...

GCD Studios Party

So I didn't get a call for a Design Team position {boo hoo}, but they are having a big celebration on Monday to announce the new team. Lots of GIVEAWAYS! They also have some other positions they are announcing; 4 Guest DT gals, 40 Spotlights and 21 Product Testers. Maybe I'll make one of those. It would be cool to be a product tester or a guest designer. I have no idea what a spotlight is.

GCD Studios Call Day

Today is the day. GCD Studios is announcing their new design team starting at 9 am PST. There were 471 entries! You can go visit there site here to find out who makes it. {wish me luck}

Happy Birthday Hero Arts Blog

One of my favorite places to go for creative inspiration is turning 1 this week. I discovered this place last summer and have been coming back ever since. They are having a week of celebration with lots of giveaways. Here's a 10% coupon to use in the store, too (use code BLOGBDAY at checkout) You can get to the blog here.

Just sharing

I've been playing around with making my own layered digital scrapbook templates. Here is a template I created and a layout using the template. If you would like to download the template you can get it here.
template:


layout:

Patterned paper and flowers - Paislee Press

Journaling Block - Jessica Sprague

Bracket - cassie d'ambrosio

just a few cards

Here are a few I made this weekend in an online crop.

Can you say INNAPROPRIATE?

I went to the doctor yesterday for my shoulder. After waiting for almost an hour the doctor finally comes in and plops this little white dog down on the countertop where he sat, slept and started at me throughout my appointment. After getting ove the initial shock that a doctor would bring a dog into work where you would expect the most sanitary conditions, I started to think about it. It's good thing that I love dogs (and isn't he cute?), but what if someone was allergic? I know this breed doesn't shed, but still! What if there was someone completely terrified of dogs (of all sizes) like my son? She didn't even ask if I minded the dog being there...just plopped him down as this was a normal thing to do.
The doctor left briefly to take a phone call so I snapped this photo with my cell phone as any scrapper would. Now looking more carefully at the photo...is that an exam gown he's sitting on?

Cecily and ...Astronaut Adventure

This weekend Debby and I took Sophie and her friend Grace to the American Girl Doll Fashion Show benefit. The shows
benefit Dragonfly Forest, Inc., a non-profit organization committed to offering seriously ill children an
overnight camp experience in a safe environment, and The Saturday Club Children’s Charity Fund. The show we attended was hosted by the one and only Cecily Tynan, meterologist for ABC news. She's got a terrific personality and is even prettier in person than she is on TV.

Also this weekend Sophie finally finished her big Science project. This is one she put off as long as she could. It truly was like pulling teeth trying to get her to work on this. The assignment was to create a board game about the solar system complete with instructions, game cards, playing pieces and the board. This is when it comes in handy to have a scrapbooking mom. We used photoshop elements, the Cricut Expression, Xyron 510, paper trimmer, cardstock from my stash and punches. Here's the result: