Umbria and Florence

My, oh my, I so want to return to Italy.  It is one of the most beautiful and vibrant places I've ever visited.  The Italy pages are now complete and next I'll tackle Paris.

As I uploaded these pages, I just realized that I have the date wrong for Assissi. These are the only pages that I actually dated.  So, I'm happy that these are digital pages and I can easily correct the error.  It also means that I'll have to put the pages in a different chronological order.  Hurray for digi and the electronic eraser!

Rome - the pages

So, this leg of the trip is finished. Now I'll need to back track and complete pages for Paris, Florence, & Umbria. It's so much fun reliving this trip.  It was amazing indeed!

I also created a page highlighting the fundraising we did for the trip. The kids just weren't that interested in raising money, even their spending money, so I was the most aggressive on that front.  Ruben didn't go on the trip and he was at almost every event to raise cash - so very special!  Ashleigh managed to save enough of her work dollars to have the spending money she wanted.  Since I was not working at the time, I budgeted myself and even came home with a few dollars.  Very different from when I was a teen trying to find money for retreats and trips!

Europe Album

The album is coming along -- I've focused on London this week.  Those of you on the MM boards have seen the fruits of my labors.  Well, some of them anyway!  Here are a few more pages and these complete London.  I think.  I'll have to go back and reassess those early pages that I created.  I remember doing a page on the Flowers of London, so it will be added to these when the book is assembled. 

It's so much fun going back over these photos and reliving the trip.  I was the best trip to Europe - EVAH!

Yippeeeeee -- Mojo has returned!

and I've been able to create a couple of digi layouts this week.  It feels good!

Yesterday afternoon, I went with a crafty friend to a class and learned how make roses out of Tim Holz grunge paper.  The roses were awesome, the grunge paper not so much.  I believe it is a really cool medium and I'll be attempting other projects with it; however I think I'll stick to just cardstock when making these flowers in the future.  His tattered flowers die rocks!  Here's the end result of the class with an awful photo and a pretty cool end result.

The LOs I did this week are from our summer trip to Europe.

I'm still trying to figure out how to save CM Storybook pages into .jpegs that can be uploaded.  Ditto for the Scrapbook Factory Deluxe version 5.  Why do software developers change how you do things and then hide them or rename them to some function alien to the actual users?  It's mondo frustrating!

Ohhh, I'm so excited - I did figure it out in CM.  However. I was helping DH with our 2010 taxes.  Now I cannot remember how I did it. Geez it's terrible getting old.

I'm Missing Mojo

Can't believe that so much time has passed since I blogged.  2011 has arrived, is rapidly passing, and I'll try to do better this year. Ha! If you believe that I've got swampland to sell...  Mojo has been missing for quite awhile now and my new laptop wouldn't recognize the hardware when I tried to download the photographs I had taken.  Not that I'd taken two shots every weekend; however I had taken some.  Last weekend, before the Pine Cove retreat, I took one last try at downloading and voila! it worked! Don't know how, don't know why -- I'm happier now.

I should have some fabulous photos to share. I do not. So much time has elapsed that I'm not really feeling any of those shots. Well, okay.  Here are a couple of the ATCs I did for an M&M swap a few weeks, uh months ago.  They were fun and I absolutely loved all the ATCs received from my scrappy peeps. I'm hoping Mojo will return soon and we can play again.

I created a December Daily digi album that I'm working on now to add photos and journalling.  Yes, I did say I'm adding some journalling!  This is DD last Christmas at home and I thought I'd document all the family traditions of the season.  We tried to do as many as possible this year and even added a new one.  One page from the 2010 December Daily...

One Weekend, Two Shots (Sept 11 & 12)

Ashleigh had a car accident yesterday evening. She's lucky to be alive. The photo says a lot about the damage that has decreased my trade-in money even more than the age/condition of the vehicle. She's lucky to be alive. Her dad hasn't seen it yet and he won't for a couple of weeks, as he's on vacation. I took photos and sent them to him. This one shows how the car door no longer seals with the roof.  The full impact isn't seen in this view. Just wait til her father gets home... Did I say she's lucky to be alive?

One a happier note, I've been working in the Krafti Korner. I won't reveal the total project, just an element.  And leave the other elements as a surprise for some of you who will see the end result in just a short 18 days at the Texas Scrap Retreat!

One Weekend, Two Shots (Sept 4 & 5)

Labor Day weekend was busy with shopping for the new office bathroom. I should have photos of ALL the rugs I looked at and returned. Who knew buying a bathroom rug was such a challenge?!  I didn't even think about toting the camera with me.  The weekend slipped by quickly, as I had to work the holiday. It was nice being one of two on the whole floor.

Over the weekend, I came across the most unusual bromeliad with stiking colors in the bloom. Seems like this is my summer of flowers and foliage pictures.

Our front yard is finally looking good this summer. We had major damage a few years ago from a spring storm and our huge trees were old & rotting.  They were both taken down two years ago and we redid the front. This year I waited to prune the hedges along the house and DH was afraid I'd killed them.  Well here's proof that I didn't.  They look healthy to me!