Love these girls!

Now that I am up and running with my new computer, I've been going through my PSE files and realizing how many layouts I've created that I haven't yet shared here! I made these two while at a scrapbooking retreat with some on-line friends this summer. They feature two of my favorite scrapbooking subjects, my nieces! The photos were all taken last Christmas while we were visiting them in California.

The problem with waiting so long to post them is that I don't remember what sketches I used as inspiration! I think these were both based on Pagemaps sketches...my apologies if I am wrong!

Thanks for looking!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Hope you are all having a wonderful Thanksgiving! I'm celebrating at my parents' home, but here are a few favorite images from Thanksgivings past!

This lucky lady was "spared"...instead of becoming someone's dinner, she got to parade around at the local turkey farm attracting customers!

This man makes the best turkey, and the craziest faces!

The table is set, the fire is roaring.

Dad likes my cooking.

I like my desserts!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Thank you, Santa

As I mentioned yesterday, I recently took Allison Davis' Sketch Support Class over at My Creative Classroom.  I've enjoyed Allison's sketches for a while, but I definitely picked up some tips on how to tweak and modify a sketch to your own tastes. This layout was based on the sketch from week 4.  I didn't deviate too much from the basic design of the sketch.

The papers were some old Fancy Pants that I've had in  my stash for a while.

For the embellishments, I used Tim Holtz' rosette die, cutouts from the patterned paper, and buttons.

I also broke out some coordinating rub-ons I've had as long as the paper!

Thanks for stopping by!  I think I've found my blogging groove again...hope to be back soon with some more layouts!

What I've been up to...

Wow, a month and a half since I last posted? Yikes!  Let's just say October was a whirlwind, and I'm still catching up halfway through November!

October began with a lovely visit from my brother in law. He's never been to New England, so we gave him a quick tour of where we live along the Connecticut shoreline, and did a day trip to Western Massachusetts and Vermont.

My dad, brother in law, and husband exploring an old railroad bridge in Western Mass.

The Connecticut River, as seen from Gillette Castle.

Shortly after his visit, we had some problems with our furnace and it ended up blowing soot all over the basement, and even a little into the house. Thankfully, insurance covered the cleanup, and there was a crew here for two weeks. They washed every wall, cleaned every carpet, and wiped down anything that wasn't in a drawer! They also washed every item of clothing in our closet! Crazy!

During all of this, our desktop computer decided to die.  I knew it was coming, as it was over six years old and was having trouble starting up. Thankfully, I had already moved my photos and music to an external hard drive for storage, and had backed up everything else onto a second external hard drive. We were able to get by with our work laptops for a few weeks while I researched a new computer. I finally ended up going with a 17 inch Toshiba laptop. I don't plan on taking the computer out of the house, but I love being able to edit photos while sitting in the living room instead of the office! While I was at it, I upgraded to a wireless photo printer too...awesome for printing photos directly from my iPhone!

We experienced a freak October snowstorm right before Halloween. We only got a few inches of snow, but it was wet and heavy and knocked out our power for two days. Apparently snow in October has a strange effect on my husband, as he insisted we do a photo shoot outside in the midst of the storm, props and everything.

Yes, he put our porch rocker and garden gnome in the middle of the yard, and even made the sign.  His bare feet still make me shiver!

I at least has the sense to put on my shoes! Our lab Melody wasn't fazed by the snow at all.

Despite it all, I managed to scrap a little bit.  I took Alison Davis' Sketch Support class and loved it. I didn't have a chance to participate on the forums as much as I would have liked, but I enjoyed the sketches and videos she provided. I signed up for Shimelle's Pretty Paper Party, but have yet to use the prompts to make a layout.  Perhaps over January break? This past weekend I went to a day long crop and was pretty productive, making a lot of layouts from our trip to Ireland. I'll be back soon with some of the recent layouts!