Friendship with No End

Hey yall! Happy Monday =)

I'm in such a good mood because I was a crafting beast this weekend. Basically, I did nothing but sit at my desk and play. 

It was wonderful. 

It was cathartic. 

It had been sorely missed.

It had been too long!

I made 1-20 page 6x6in minibook. And remembered why I don't make them...

I made 10-Christmas Thank You cards.

And I decorated 3-6x6in trays as gifts for my besties. (I must confess being sick all last week put my Christmas gift making on the back burner.)

Sharing them all in good time, but speaking of besties, I made this page with my 34th Street kit a few weeks back.

I had fun with this page. I've never painted directly onto a picture before! 

There were a few random things in the background and since I don't know photoshop well enough to crop them out, I just decided to go old school and paint them out. Plus, I wanted to highlight the three guys behind us, who were also posing together for a photo. Then I thought I would doodle on the white, since it was so stark. It's not perfect, but I think it looks fun!

I knew when I started this layout I wanted my title to stretch across the entire page. So I cut it out using my Cameo (which btw, I have a total love/hate relationship with that thing. It never cuts how I want it too!!!). I originally wanted the chevron paper to show through but it wasn't translating very well with the font that I chose, so I backed it with some of the leftover paper from my Hello/Goodbye page.

At one point I was criticizing myself for choosing so lame a title, but then I realized that "end" is written write there in the middle. And that's when I thought up "Friendship with no end". (I added the with after I photographed this.) I'd be lying if I said it was my intention all along, but I'm so glad my mind stumbled upon it. It's perfect for this page of me and my besties. Ours is a friendship without an end.

After that, I pulled out a bunch of red accents from the kit and added my journaling. Viola! My page was complete. 

Thanks for stopping by. Be sure to check back later this week to see my projects from the weekend. Oh, and don't forget about the RAK! Comment on this post to win!

cheers & besos,

Baby Shower

More 34th Street funness to share today. This was surprisingly a quick page made easier with the help of my Silhouette machine.

I cut a bunch of ellipses, because I don't know how to do circles yet :P (I really need to read more about this thing!) And then I backed some of them with photos or paper and embellished just a few.

These photos are from Susie's baby shower. She had quite a few but I went to just the one. I loved this shot of Susie and Kim. They are truly BFFs. Their friendship is going on 20 years and it's still so strong!

And here's hulking me (seriously I need taller friends!) next to tiny Susie.

Thanks for dropping by! Be sure to check back tomorrow for a big announcement and a chance to win some goodies!

cheers & besos,

Hi/Bye 2012

Happy New Year everybody! 

I hope you all had fantastic nights. MT & I had a super quiet night in, as both of us weren't feeling great. I'm still in recovery mode, but hopefully back into the swing of things by tomorrow. And also slowly but surely, back into the swing of blogging as well!

This week on the blog I want to share:

the last few 2012 pages,

a RAK,

& my plans for 2013!

Today I'll start with sharing this wrap up page for 2012. I used my Studio Calico 34th Street kit (finally!). 

2012 was a fairly quiet year for me personally. I saw my friends hit a lot of big milestones but didn't have much going on myself. Which was absolutely okay with me. Had to love that the stamp in this month's kit echoed those sentiments =)

Journaling Reads:

2012 was a good normal: work, home, travel. I got to visit new places and see old friends. Mama & Papa celebrated their 30th wedding anniversary. Papa turned 50. Kim & Eric got engaged. Baby Lauren was born. Urijah turned 3 & Cadie joined the family. In December, Matt & I moved apartments  It was a big year for some of my favorite people but a quiet one for me. And that's absolutely okay. I'm happy to celebrate with my family & friends. 2013 will be a bigger year for me. I can feel it.

This entire page literally resulted from that "hi" binder clip. And then the fact that the photo was from January and I was scrapping it in December. That's how "hi" and "bye" 2012 came about.

As far as design, I ended up using a lot of arrows in this page. I love how they're all pointed one way, while the triangles in the background paper are pointing another. I feel like it emphasizes the "hi" and "bye".  Looking back, thinking forward. All that fun symbolism and stuff.

Also loved that one of the little brads says house & home. It's perfect since MT & I said bye to our old apartment and then hi to the new one!

Which btw, speaking of the apartment, I'm about 95% done setting up and organizing my new scrap area. I'll be sharing that with you all too!

So be sure to check back this week for more 34th Street pages, my scrappy plans for the year and of course, don't forget the RAK!

cheers & besos,