Keeping Calm & Carrying On

New Years Reflections

I wanted to choose just one photo for today. I think this one pretty much sums it up. That's me, on Christmas Day........while at a family get-together.........I manage to sneak in some time to work.

This Year Technology has Transformed My World.

In an instant I can go from leisure family fun to serious work matters. In just a matter of seconds I can be confirming ship dates with Vietnam and China and then go back to my glass of wine and gift opening.

This world we live in is pretty amazing, but at the same time it's been truly very hard for me to find a balance between work and "play." I like to think I try my hardest and make every effort possible to step away and remember the work will be there when I return, but it is a daily battle for me that I hope to improve on in 2012. For me, written reminders help: a post-it note on my computer, a message on the visor in my car and the same on on my fridge at home. I know if I can find a way to constantly remind myself that I will continue to make an effort. 

I'm not huge on New Year's Resolutions because I believe as people we constantly change and evolve. But, this time of year is a great time to recognize your weaknesses and try to forgive yourself and others, and start fresh. Forgiveness stems from love. And love is the greatest gift we can give in 2012. Love holds with it just about every.single.great gesture, prayer and root of happiness. 

Give some Love in 2012. It's the best gift you can give!

Thank you for being a fan of mine and loyal reader, and for making this another fabulously successful year for me and Bella Blvd! Happy New Year!

An Awesome Birthday Gift!

Look what I got for my birthday a couple weeks ago!

I'm in love with this fun little gadget, the Instax Mini 7S! On Christmas Eve my Uncle Gary appropriately named it "The Marshmallow Camera". So that's what we call it now!

I decided to make it an Instax Christmas and picked up a bunch of film at American Eagle for 40% off and enjoyed every minute of it this past week!

For those of you that haven't seen this camera in stores....it's Fuji's version of a Polariod but it takes "mini" photos! It operates on batteries and the photo dispenses vertically out of the top of the camera right after you take the photo.

I took lots of pictures with my Instax....check 'em out!

Now...what to do with theis fun stack of photos?! I've been searching Pinterest and found these cool ideas:

I could create a fun little mini book! (photo credit) or...

Clip them in a fun-colored hallow frame! (photo credit)

Check this pretty one out!

(photo credit)

or.....check out this amazing-ness!

(photo credit) This is crazy awesome!!!!!

If you haven't bought one of these I honestly DON'T KNOW WHAT YOU ARE WAITING FOR! It's so much fun....and if you have a hard time getting people to take pictures, this marshallow camera seems to cure that problem! Everyone seems to be so intrigued by it's uniqueness that they'll smile for you....even the little stubborn kiddos!

More cuteness coming soon!

Hi there!

How was your Christmas? Merry & Bright? I want to thank you for "waiting" for my return as I took a short blogging break to finish the new Bella Blvd product collections and then took some time to spend the Christmas week with my family. As usual, it's all over much too quickly. But here's a quick recap in photos.

Christmas morning at Steven's house, opening presents and enjoying breakfast with the immediate family. 

Christmas Day was a "Packer Day" seeing that they played that night. ;)

As I like to call them, Trouble 1 and Trouble 2 enjoyed a "Kansas Jayhawks" Christmas ;)

Later that night, Steven and I hosted Christmas Dinner (steaks!) at his place with his entire family. Before the Packer game we opened gifts...and this adorable little lady had plenty! Baby Lauren is getting so big!! Steven and I engraved a jewelry box for her along with some other fun gifts like board books and clothes....

I didn't take a ton of photos this year because I was hosting .... but I did get an *awesome* birthday present that made me super excited about taking pictures! I can't wait to share that with you tomorrow!

A Beautiful Holiday Centerpiece

First off, I take absolutely NO CREDIT for this beautiful handmade centerpiece idea today! Just for the record.

On my birthday my dear friend Allyson walked in to surprise me with these beautiful roses.....with a handmade touch! Look at what she glued around the entire vase?! Omg....in love....and they are pink! 

I'm totally using it this weekend as my Christmas Centerpiece! What a great gift!

Allyson said it was pretty easy (once she got all the pink candy canes!), she just hot glued on a low temperature setting one-by-one and tied with a ribbon wrap. You still have time to make yours!!!!! Are you ready for Christmas?

A Very Bella Birthday

It was one of the most memorable birthdays I've ever had, thanks to so many friends and family and especially because of my wonderful DT Coordinator-Laura Vegas-and team.

The girls surprised me with this awesome Birthday Card Blog Hop

Here are some of the photos I grabbed from some of the blogs......

ooohhhh....it's good to feel loved! ;)

All these girls keep me very motivated by inspiring me everyday! Now I have all these handmade keepsakes as daily reminders........

And they're all made with BELLA PRODUCTS! Swoon.

You might as well have just wiped the drool from my mouth!

.....and then later in the afternoon delievered the handmade gifts in a darling pink box!

When the box arrived it had Laura's return address on it----so I thought, "How sweet of her she must have sent me a gift...."

What would be inside this adorable pink modge-podge-fabric-wrapped box.....????

SERIOUSLY!?!!!??? Every single handmade card that I saw on the blogs that morning was inside...with hand written message from nearly the entire Design Team! What a moment! I loved every single tiny detail and touch...all the pink! and all the birthday wishes! Wow. This is SOOOO COOL!!!

I thought to myself Why have I never done this for any of my friends?! This is so cool!

It just made my day! While I was still trying to meet art deadlines for CHA it forced me to look away from my computer and enjoy the little moments from my birthday!

Robin wrapped my office door and jazzed it up with some fun pink ribbons...and I had plenty of visitors including local Artistas, my mom, my aunt and plenty of phonecalls. I even was surpised when Steven bought me an iPad! I had NO idea, honestly! What a GREAT DAY!

Thank you to everyone that contributed to making my birthday so special. I truly loved it! How are you possibly going to beat this next year ;) wink wink!

Ciao ciao for now....off to do some Christmas shopping.....

NEW! Bella Blvd Newsletter Dec. Edition

It's here! The last issue of 2011 is now available for download (see link at end of post)!

Here's a sneak peek!

The featured Bella of the Ball this Issue is Diane Payne.

I loved her fun facts and her layouts were so great! They're inspiring me to pull out some old-school photographs I have and use some of my modern colorful Bella products! 

 

In the "Challenge on the BLVD", Megan Klauer & Vivian Masket accepted this seasonal challenge:

Create a Christmas Layout, Combining Christmas Wishes & Winter Wonder Products

Are you as excited as I am? I this this is our best issue to date! The Bella Buzz has a total of 6 fabulous and juicy pages of content.

Begin Downloading the NEW Issue Now by Clicking Here

or

Visit Bella's Newsletter Page to see the newest issue and previous issues too!

Enjoy!

Changes Ahead

There's a lot going on this time of year normally, but this year it's amplified. There are a couple big moves (my parents and sister) are closing on houses, packing and moving. This includes me too!  I'm doing my best to keep up around here....but if it's a bit spiratic for a week or so, you'll know why! Thanks for understanding!

Layout: Self Portraits

I'm sure plenty of you can relate to this! What happens when your four-year-old-nephew snatches your camera from your purse without you knowing?

Well....I was surprised to see these silly pictures he took of himself while riding in the back seat last fall. When I put my memory card into the computer they cracked me up because I never knew he took them! Especially that photo of his toes! What a funny angle! So I wanted to scrap a layout with them----it's a true testiment to his little mischevious personality at 4. (And to the fact that he knows how to use a digital camera all on his own!)

In reality there was about 40 pictures on my memory card. Some were blurry some were scary! So I chose my three favrote for this layout.

Love these little journaling coasters from Elle's Studio!

I choose three vibrant characteristics of his to use on the layout: goofy, silly and funny. I wanted them to be subtle so that the pictures would pop off the layout. So I went with a yellow tone-on-tone for the adjectives. WIth a black pen and ruler I added several straight lines (resembling a penmanship structure) and then added the chipboard letters to the top. The black lines help the chipboard letters not to get lost with the background pattern.

Have you ever scrapped funny self-portraits like this? Or have you found any on your camera that you didn't know were hiding there!? 

 

Layout: School

My favorite "little people" are getting so big! Each year I like to create a school page with wallet-size photos. These are from 2010.

You can always find some Bella Blvd products hidden on my layouts...even if just a little bit ;) I layered chipboard penants from my Making the Team collection with Studio Calico's chipboard numbers. I loved the sharp corners of the chipboard along the soft round boarder of the October Afternoon paper.

A simple print out on blue cardstock included each of their current grade and age. Then, I punch them with a 1" circle punch and added them throughout the layout next to the corresponding photo. 

I even added that chipboard apple from my Finally Fall collection! I love when I can mix and match seasonal products with other layout themes, like school! 

(photo credit)

One more quick shout to my younger sister Nicky. Today's her birthday! Happy Birthday!!!

Layout: Remembrance

There was recently an article in Creating Keepsakes magazine that resonated with me. It was about creating layouts and mini albums about someone that has passed away and how important it is, no matter how hard to get it documented. It's been more than one year, and chronologically I was recently ready to create layouts about my brother-in-law, Chris.

I created a couple different layouts but I thought I'd share this one with you because it has a pocket with several sentimental memorabilia inside. This is the right-side of a page layout layout. The text is continued, and is my entire eulogy from the funeral. I wanted to type every word so that I have it to read again, that my nieces and nephews have it to read when they want and most importantly, so I can remember his life's "work" and how much he accomplished in 29 short years.

Here are the items inside the pocket:

(1) A scanned copy of a handwritten letter by Chris oldest daughter, Anabelle. At the time she was 11 years old. She pasted a photo of her from when she was little to it and put it on scrapbook paper. It broke my heart at the showing when she put it in the drawer of her father's casket. (My sister and I weren't 100% aware that she wrote him this letter-so we quickly asked the funeral director to make a copy of it for us for later). 

(2) The newspaper's obituary. I kept the actual newspaper clipping and just laminated in hopes to trap the acid inside.

(3) A DVD disc that Pastor made for us that is a copy of the entire funeral service from 10.10.2010. It includes the two eulogies after the service by myself and Kyle, Chris's brother.

(4) The funeral/memory card

(5) One of my favorite lack and white family photos from one of our big family vacations to Myrtle Beach, South Carolina.

It was more difficult to prepare the elements and print the journaling for the layout than it was to actually create it. I'm so thankful I have this documented, it was definitely healing for me which is another reason I'm so thankful for this hobby.

I've already spied Anabelle laying on the floor in my scrapbook room reading through the entire 4-6 pages that I have created. It broke my heart but warmed it at the same time. 

This holiday season we will definitely all be thinking of Chris.

LOCK DOWN

That's what I like to call my life these days. Do you know why? Because I'm in hiberation until I finish designing new products for Bella Blvd! It's the hap-happiest season of all!

I must confess: I am much more creative at night! Wish me look and send good creative juices my way! Poor Baby Mio is stuck working with me too! (He looks kind of annoyed, huh?!)

One more quick thing before I leave....today over at Bella I'm sharing a SUPER QUICK & EASY home decor idea! Stop by to check it out, but here's a peek for now!

Ciao ciao for now! Hugs...