UA October sneakie peakie

This month's Urban Anthology kit is loaded with lots of Websters Pages, Graphic 45, and a little Hambly thrown in for good measure. Add those to the yummy embellishments and I'm super excited about this kit! You pre-order yours at the UA store! According to the store count, there are only 3 left so you may want to act fast. ;)

Coming to an end

This season's coming to an end. And while it's had its challenges, I still love coaching. The girls are super sweet, and I hate that we're just now coming together here at the end of the season. Today we quite possibly play are final 2 matches. If we win both of them then we'll continue in the tournament, but if not, then we're done.






I took a brief second to practice on my sports photography during JV warm-ups, and I was happy with a few of the shots. These are of my setter and co-captain Liz. Her mom's my assistant, and so I have permission to put these up. I have more of the other girls too and hope to make a LO about the season soon.

Wish us luck!! Fingers-crossed for an exciting finish! ;)

Cousins and more

I've been posting a lot of scrap stuff lately, and while I really love the creative process and sharing my stuff, I don't want to forget all the other stuff too, ya know? So here's a little of what we've been up to.

A couple of weekends ago we went to a cousin's wedding where all the little cousins got to hang out. We felt like ours were too little to go to the actual wedding (and we wanted time to ourselves) so that sat that night out, but got to chill with the rest of their cousins the next day.

First of all, these 3 crack me up!

There's less than 2 yrs. between all 3 of them, and we're still figuring out the pecking order. So far I think Gracie's top dog.

That doesn't stop them from getting in to stuff, though.


Emma's always been the more protective one, so happy to see her little cousins.


And Adin was eager to help read a story.


And all five of them make such a good looking bunch!

Missing one you might ask? Yep. He punked out on us and went to the ballgame with his Daddy (which is someplace we all secretly wished we could've been too.)

But then each one was willing to let me take some individual shots of them. Can I just say how much EASIER it is to shoot a subject that actually LOOKS at you!!! Or better yet asks, "Hey Aunt Dee, I got another pose. Will you take a picture of me like this? How bout this? And this one too!) Ahhhh, much better. Someone who'll look and smile at the camera simultaneously!

My all-too-willing model would be Emma




But Gracie did her fair share of it too.


I had to ask (ahemBEG) Adin to let me take some of him.


And finally, StinkerPot let me get one of her. (rolling my eyes)
Some days she can be so opposed to the camera! Sheesh!


But at least she let me take some. SK wouldn't even let me do that. I had to catch hers on the fly.


But overall a very fun weekend! It's always good to catch up with the fam.


And one last pic. One of my faves, I think. The wedding reception was at THE Club, which is very swank in a Sinatra kinda way, and it overlooks B'ham. Even though it was getting dark, I passed my camera over so I could get a shot of me with my handsome date! :D


Fun weekend indeed!

Scrap Street

A while back I was asked by Stacey Michaud, a staff member for ScrapStreet.com, if I'd like to Guest Design for their online magazine. Of course I said heck yeah, and now it's here! Woohoo! You can check it out on page 33.

Sights and Sounds of Game Day






It's a part of their Off Road feature, and I was asked to specifically journaling about the sounds I hear. It was an interesting assignment, and really got me out of my comfort zone, but I'm excited with the way the LO turned out. It's also a bit different from my usual style, but it's good to change it up every now and then, right?

Of course I reminisced about the sounds of game day, walking through the Grove, and hearing our fight sound echo across the canopy of oak trees. (You don't want to get me going about how much I love Ole Miss and Oxford. I get realllly sentimental about it. Can ya tell?) I cut up a ticket stub to use as some embellishment on the page. And I also jazzed it up a bit with lots of glitter and then used the foiled thickers for a nice shiny effect.

Thank you Scrap Street, and Stacey, for giving me such a great opportunity!

Some more Boo-tiful

I thought I'd start off the first day of October with another LO I made using Nikki Sivils' "Boo-tiful" paper. If you haven't guessed it yet, we have a 3 year standing tradition to go trick-or-treating with the Jones family, so all my Halloween photos are of all 4 of the girls instead of just my 2! It's a fun tradition that I hope we're able to keep up for a long time!
Here are our not-so-spooky spooks:

Not so spooky






I also finished up some projects with my September Urban Anthology kit. (sold out) WHICH, by the way, they're are still having a DT call which is an ongoing set of challenges. The deadline is Oct. 22 and you can see more info about it on the UA Blog. (And even though they're about to start challenge 3, it's not too late to join in the fun!)

Baby Kate and Me

Sk's my child that's always been my little shadow. She's always in the room that I am in, and as annoying as that can be, when she does venture out, I miss it. Or if she's not feeling particularly cuddly that day, I find myself needing a hug. So she and I are kind of a package deal. In fact, when asked what she wants or needs for Christmas, I jokingly say "Q-tips, tupperware, or new pots and pans"

Family (photo shoot at the lake)


Can you tell I loved those Jillibean papers with the Fancy Pants die-cut?! I had to use every last piece of both of them!

k, that's all for now. Our last regular season volleyball game is this afternoon. It's a bittersweet feeling because it's been a tough season. We've been on the losing end of some hard fought games and that's been heartbreaking. Not to mention we lost a key player due to a broken arm. I feel like the girls are just now really coming together, and it's just in time for the end-of-the-season tournament. So maybe we'll be able to pull out a good finish! Regardless, we're done next week. If I'm honest, I'd admit that I am looking forward to afternoons at home again. Off to go bake a cake for my JV team! ;)

Sketch #39

Sketch #39 went up on Sunday over at 52 Sketches. It's a fun one that let me use a lot of scraps I just couldn't throw away.



Adore

Obviously I decided to use circles instead of squares. I still love this line from Bella Blvd. (with a little My Mind's Eye added in). I think it's one of my all-time favorites! Sorry the colors are off, apparently I didn't get very good lighting when I needed to take pictures of it. That salmon colored ribbon is actually pink.

Anyway, speaking of Bella Blvd. my Guest Designer package arrived yesterday full of goodies that are coming out soon! EEEEKKK! You can catch a sneak peek of them over on the Bella blog and be entered for their giveaway too!

Some Jillibean love

I guess I can now share with you 2 of the LOs I submitted for the Jillibean Soup DT call. Until very recently, I hadn't gotten to work with their product, so I was very thankful to find a good amount in the Sept. Color Me Daisy kit, as well as a kit purchase I'd made this earlier this summer.

Family

"I'm always in search of a good family portrait hoping that one will "turn out". This is another one that didn't. Caroline refused to let go of Bear. Sarah Kate was fussy because she was hungry. So I didn't get the photo I was hoping for. But I'm realizing that this photo better describes us than any posed one would. It's true to our life, true to us, and that's what matters most. And this? This is who we are at the moment. And we are...(family)"

Blue

The whole title actually reads, "You bring BLUE in to our lives" and the journaling explains that a little more. "The crystal blue of your eyes and your fanatic Duke blue, without you we'd be all pink!" cause even the dog's a girl, and there's LOTS of princess paraphenalia around here (none of it my own ;) ).

I did much of the last LO with Color Me Daisy's September kit "ABCs and 123s". And as I type, I'm wondering if I ever posted my creations with this kit. hmmm... Well, sadly, this was my last month to design with CMD. I wish Mike and Michelle all the best and much success in the future! I had a great time designing for them for the past year!

That's about all for now. I need to go hunt for those other CMD LOs and get them posted! I tell ya, I'm ready for life to settle down a little bit. Volleyball's over next week, so it should be headed that way...