Hello 29

Well I'm not there yet, just a few weeks away. But I wanted to share this page I made as part of Hello Story...which is almost over and makes me so sad!

This was for our numbers week and is a very close imitation of Ali's layout, except I condensed it down into one 8 1/2 x 11 page. 

Like last year's page, I made a list of 29 things about me at 29. I used a recent photo of myself and pilled a bunch of my favorite product onto the page.

Here's my list:

1. My boyfriend is Matt. 
2. My favorite color is yellow. 
3. My favorite sweet is Riesen. 
4. My little brother is 28 (eek!). 
5. My Mama is 50 & my Papa is 51. 
6. I have a kitten; her name is Mac. 
7. I live at 2121 Tannehill in Houston. 
8. My favorite city in the world is London. 
9. My nephew is 4, he lives in Katy with his Mama. 
10. I drive to the transit center and ride the bus to work. 
11. My favorite book is East of Eden by John Steinbeck. 
12. I’ve been listening to Taylor Swift on repeat in my car. 
13. My favorite TV shows are New Girl and The Mindy Project. 
14. I'm lately obsessed with neon, Project 12 and my new iPad. 
15. My best friends live in Fort Worth, Japan and New York City. 
16. Traveling is my favorite thing to do, I've been to 25 countries. 
17. I have new work playmates. Keely has been so fun to have around. 
18. Looking forward to visiting Louisiana, DC, Ohio and possibly Nashville. 
19. I’m applying for new jobs. It’s time for me to move on to a new challenge. 
20. I work at the British Consulate-General as a Business Development Manager. 
21. I make cards and scrapbook pages and am hoping to join a design team this Fall. 
22. My favorite movies are Pride & Prejudice (Drama) and I love you, Man (Comedy). 
23. Visited Wales, Edinburgh, Aberdeen, Chicago and Los Angeles for the first time this year. 
24. My little Jetta is on her last leg, which makes me sad. And nervous! I can’t afford a new car. 
25. I have all of my grandparents still, Nana & Popo, Lipa and Grandpa. I wish I saw them more. 
26. This year is my 10 year reunion for high school and 5 year grad school reunion. Time has flown! 
27. Only 2 of my besties are married (Sarah and Kim). Kim got married this year; I was a bridesmaid. 
28. My favorite season is Fall. I love this time of year, my birthday, the holidays, scarves, boots and tights! 
29. Currently reading, the 5th Game of Thrones book. Recently read Bossypants (twice!), The Corrections, and Life after Life.

I'm hoping to put together a list of goals for my last year of my 20's soon. First on the list though, throwing myself a fab party! That's coming up next week. And I'm excited!

cheers & besos,

She

Hello Story has been one of my most favorite classes! I'm loving these story structures, and for the most part, I'm keeping up with the class. Here's a page made with last week's prompt. It's about the places I've been. 

It took awhile to build that list on the left hand side there, and it isn't even complete. I had to delete a few of the repeated places to make sure I had room for all of the cities. But I'm so glad I have at least a good start of a list all in one place!

I typed this up in PSE and printed it onto vellum before adding it to my page. I like that you can still see the cloud paper underneath it.

I was originally going to make an 8 1/2 x 11 page and so I printed the photo that wide. But then I grabbed this gorgeous paper and knew I wanted to show case as much of it as I could. So it stayed 12x12.

At the very beginning, I had this vision of a line of embellishments along one side. I dug into my stash of October Afternoon Travel Girl and Basic Grey Carte Postale embellishments to place along the line of the Freckled Fawn London Underground tape (eek, I love it a ton! but it looks like they don't have it anymore which is a total bummer)

I added my title directly to the photo using Photoshop Elements (font: Windsor Hand). It's this title that's part of the Hello Story prompt which is about 6 word stories.

I loved this totally random photo that I snapped while we were driving to Austin (note: I'm in the passenger side so definitely NOT driving!). I love the movement in the photo. I love the selfie that's not me smiling at my phone. I love the landscape. I love the reflections (I'm big on reflections!) It's a special photo that so perfectly conveys this title of adventure seeking.

This is part of a series of "She" layouts I've made. Here are two other layouts [She] [She]. They are some of my favorites. I think its the words. And really, most of them are about travel. It's my absolute favorite thing to do!

cheers & besos,

Castle Gazing

ETA: I picked the winner! Or rather random.org chose commentor No. 4. That's you Marina! Forwarding along the code now. Cheers!

I have 3 things to share today: a confession, a layout, a small giveaway.

Confession: I totally caved on my Product Free Summer challenge. I couldn't pass up the 20% off at Two Peas a few weeks back! I just couldn't. But I'm back on a spending freeze. Especially after the $1000 I just had to spend fixing my car (eeeek!!)

Layout: This page features a ton of that new product I ordered, lots from Basic Grey's new(er) Mint Julep line. I only got three things for this line: the 6x6 paper pad, the badges and the title sticker sheet. I feel like they'll get you pretty far. I like to get at least a few things from each line so that they'll coordinate with each other.

I picked this line for these photos because of all the blue in the Edinburgh photo. I loved the blue in that floral print. I also definitely wanted to use it for that "So very charming" sticker.

I made this as part of the Two Peas CHA [Four Nature Elements] Challenge. There's flowers, butterflies, birds and stars on this page.

It's also for the [Five Senses] Challenge. This page is all about the castle gazing I've been doing over the years. I hadn't realized it until this year, but every place I've visited in Europe the last few years, has included visits to local castles and palaces.

Week 1 of Hello Story was the starting point for this layout. It's a loose timeline and a series. I used those great Chic Tags for each, to include the date, the city and country and the castle.

I also added small white letter stickers to each photo, to include the place and date.

The rest is just fun details. Love those clear mint Heidi Swapp letters. Like love! The color and the texture are fabulous. Also love that they coordinated with the Mint Julep line so well.

And I had to throw in some gold for good measure. Everything these days, needs a dusting of gold. Glad I picked up the gold star paper clips as well.

So I made my confession and shared the layout. Now on to the giveaway.

Giveaway: This apparently is the summer of the classes. First Camp Scrap, then Hello Story and I also signed up for Toolbox at Studio Calico. They were running a promo and I get to give a friend the class for free. That's where all my bloggy friends come in. I thought I'd share the class with one of yall.

Just leave me a comment below, to share which of the 4 parts you're most interested in learning more about: digital elements, mixed media, stitching or mist. [ETA: Please leave an e-mail address if you don't have one linked in your profile!!]

For me, I'm sooo looking forward to Shana's digital tutorial. Her work has been so inspiring to me lately!

I'm only leaving this open until Tuesday, 30 July at 11:59pm EST. I'll announce and e-mail the winner as soon as I can on Wednesday, 31 July. Class starts Thursday, 1 August which is why this is such a short one. I want you to be able to be part of the whole class.

Off to Los Angeles tomorrow for work. It's my first visit and I'm so excited! I'll be updating as and when I can. Catch up with yall later!

cheers & besos,

Summer Goals

It's back on!

Earlier this year, I decided to stop my scrapbook spending and focus instead on stash busting. But then something awesome happened and it had to end. This summer though, I've decided the diet is back on.

It got bad again guys...I just couldn't not hit buy on all of the very pretty things I was seeing.

It's cool. I've slowly backed away from the computer and stashed my debit card.

But the summer of my no scrapbook shopping has begun.

Same rules still apply, I do get to buy adhesive and refills when needed. But no new Thickers or Patterned Papers. Stamps or Stickers. No ma'am. Na ah. It's over, all done.

I'm working on doing some light purging, so I'll have a RAK up here in a few days. But for now and as of June 1st, I'm officially on the wagon.

Now that that's out the way, I thought it'd be a great time to talk about summer goals.

I seriously cannot believe it's already June. Where has 2013 gone?! But guys, I'm seriously excited for the summer to be here. 

Even though I'm working full time, there's just something about the summer months  that make you feel like you're going to get a break. Or that hectic life schedules will slow down for once. And that you'll have some free time. It might be a myth or a fallacy, but at least it feels that way to me.

Here's a few summer projects I'm hoping to tackle:

• 01-03. Finish three paper projects. I'm planning to create the Grandparents Mini,  Note Mini and Japan Mini that I've bought suppliers for and never got around to making!
• 04-06. Start three paper projects. I've semi-started one, but am excited to start two other new mini books. Geez, this is starting to sound like the summer of the mini!
• 07. Update blog design. Done last night! Well really the wee hours of this morning.
• 08. Catch up on classes. Specifically, I want to read through my Maggie Holmes Photo class (she's not even doing them anymore, that's how behind I am on this class!) and Wilna's Art class. But I'm also signed up for Camp Scrap and Hello Story this summer and I'm soo excited! Summer school at it's best!
• 09. Organize ephemera. That's going to help me get started on one of those paper projects I'm hoping to create. It's going to take some time and a lot of organization, but I'm excited about it.
• 10. Create art. I've had this idea in my head for a piece of wall art I'd like to make, for awhile now. I just haven't done it. I think this summer's the perfect time to get it done.
• 11. Decorate guest room. It's a junk room really. All of the stuff I don't know what to do with is just lined up against a wall. Something needs to be done and it should be today or tomorrow, I'm thinking it'll happen. Maybe...
• 12. Walk 100 miles. I have a pedometer and the Nike fitness app. Plus plans for when to do this (Saturday morning & Monday night, plus Zumba on Wednesdays). It's getting done this year.
• 13. Take pictures. I need more things to scrapbook. I've been so not inspired by my photos a lot  lately and that needs to change. So I'm determined to capture more. Not just with my iPhone but also with that fancy camera I invested all that money in. Plus this goes well with Goal No. 08. Let's throw a number at it, I'd like 100 new scrapbook worthy photos to add to my catalog this summer.

So there you go. I didn't really intend for there to be 13 but once I started, I thought why not?

I'm excited about this summer. I've already decided, it's going to be epic!

cheers & besos,