01.10

Hey everyone!  We are having a snow day here in the Ghahary household.  Everyone is home today including my hubby as we are in the midst of a 48 hour snow escapade.  They called off school this morning but I think it will be canceled again tomorrow as the snow is not supposed to stop until sometime Friday afternoon.  Again, I ask you, does Mother Nature need a calendar?  March is just a few days away and with nearly 2 feet of snow predicted we probably won't see green until May at this rate!  Ugh!

So how about some cute photos of my oldest to cheer me up?  Sounds good right?  LOL!  This is the last of the projects I created for my guest designer role for Pink Paislee this month.  Actually this was the first layout I created but the last one I am sharing.  LOVE these photos of Darian!  Doesn't he look like such a little man wearing his Daddy's tie?  I can't believe how fast he is growing up but I am SO proud of him for the little man he is becoming.

 

This layout was all about the layering and the embellishments.  I always love the Punch Outs that Pink Paislee has to go with their collections and the 365 degrees die cuts are no exception.  Really fun shapes!

And the Cork Buttons and Bella Brads?  Heaven!  Do I really need to say more?  LOL!  Seriously though they are very fun to work with.  The cork is soft and you can literally just pierce your brad right through it.  And I love that the brads are so chunky and opaque to boot.  Gives them a really cool look!

 

And finally just playing with one of my Martha Stewart punches.  I have collected quite a number of these punches recently along with  all of the Stampin' Up! punches I own from back in the day when I was a demonstrator.  I was having issues with how to store them all since the drawers of the Store in Style cubes I was using were getting too heavy and the bottoms kept falling out - not good!  LOL!  I finally decided to buy a Making Memories Embellishment Center that now hangs on the wall by my work station and I have a bunch of my punches sitting on it now.  33 to be exact.  With room for lots more.  I love being able to see them all now and not have to rifle through drawers to find which one I'm looking for.  And I bought the embellishment center with a 50% off coupon which makes it an even more rewarding deal.  LOL!

That's all for today folks!  I'm off to snuggle with the boys on the couch while we watch the Garfield movie.  We've already gotten in a game of Super Mario Bros monopoly as well.  And all before 10am!  Kinda makes all the snow worth it - just a tiny bit!  :)

outtakes

I had a lot of fun with this next layout that I created for Pink Paislee as their guest designer this month.  Every year since Darian was a baby we take an annual family vacation down to Ocean City NJ with my mom, my brother's family, and my sister's family.  And every year I attempt to get a picture of all the cousins together.  This particular year didn't go so well ... notice the foot in the air and the general craziness.  And, of course, it my boys causing all the mayhem.  Go figure!  LOL!

 

I played with my mists on this layout.  I'm a little late to the whole misting party but as they say better late than never, right?  hee hee!  I used the fabulous new chipboard letters as a mask for a play on the word "out" and then misted my paper with cream Maya Mist.  I also used the new Expressions stickers for the word "takes."  Mine were white and I simply colored them with a Copic marker.

I used my Martha Stewart sunburst punch to punch a few different patterns of paper and then stitched them haphazardly to a strip of red paper and then I used some pieces of the new Press Ons to finish off the page.  All in all this page came together really quickly.

 

That's it for me today.  I'll be back tomorrow with my last project for Pink Paislee.  That is if I'm not buried under 2 ft of snow.  LOL! Why did I not realize that we're supposed to get a crazy huge snowstorm tomorrow and Friday?  I guess I need to watch the news a bit more.  And, more importantly, why does Mother Nature not realize that spring is less than a month away?!?

Oh and can I just add a very Happy 1/2 Birthday to my boy Darian today!  Having a summer birthday means you don't get to celebrate in school with all of your friends so we celebrate our 1/2 birthdays as well!  He wanted some stamps and ink so he could stamp with his mama - gotta love that boy!  :)

enjoy the journey

I was so very blessed to be asked to be a guest designer for Pink Paislee this month.  I adore their products especially their new releases from CHA this month.  The new 365 degrees collection is hands down my favorite and I have to thank Rebecca for letting me play with it.  The colors and patterns in this line are just ... so ... me!  LOVE it!

I created 3 projects and I'll be sharing a new one each day over the next few days.  First up is a layout featuring my little cutie Brandon.  I snapped this picture of Brandon during our annual family vacation to Ocean City a few years ago.  He had sand all over his face (and in other unmentionable places! LOL!) but didn't care one bit!  He was just one with the beach! 

The 365 degrees collection has so many gorgeous colors in it but I decided to just focus on the different shades of blue, soft yellow, and vibrant green to compliment my photo. 

I used a fun color blocking technique to draw the eye right to my photo and added some little touches using Pink Paislee's Punch Outs, Cork Buttons, and Bella Brads.

Be sure to stop back tomorrow for another project I created using this fabulous new collection!  :)

The cat's outta the bag!

If you mosey on over to the Pebbles blog you will see a very exciting announcement concerning yours truly ... or you can just keep reading!  ;)

I have been asked to take on the role of Design Team Coordinator and Blog Hostess for Pebbles Inc.  So very excited about this!  Pebbles is a wonderful company to work for and I am looking forward to continuing to work with all of the amazing ladies on the team and bring some well deserved attention to Pebbles and the design team blog.  Speaking of amazing ladies, the wonderful Lisa Johnson is also joining the Pebbles family.  I love Lisa's work and know she'll be a wonderful addition to the team. 

I will begin as blog hostess on March 1st so be sure to stop by the Pebbles blog and see what the team and I have been working on! 

scooter fun

Happy Wednesday blog readers!  Is it really the middle of the week already?  I'm all out of sorts with the holiday on Monday and some snow days last week.  At least the weather person was wrong about the 6 inches we were supposed to get yesterday and the boys ended up going to school.  Whew!  ;)

Today's layout is one that I contributed for Sketch 98 over on the Got Sketch? blog.  This was a really fun sketch to play with and I used some of the adorable new New England Clam Chowder collection from Jillibean Soup. 

 

I love this picture of Darian.  He was new to the whole scooter thing but absolutely loved it as soon as he got the hang of it.  I thought these papers were perfect for this photo.

Can I tell you how much I love these corrugated cardboard alphas from Jillibean?  They are just SO. MUCH. FUN.  So easy to paint and give such fun texture to any title.  And the stickers I used for the word "scooter" are also a new release from Jillibean.  Isn't that a great font?

 

And just another little detail shot of my journaling.  I used a circle punch to punch out some of the cars from one of the sheets of patterned paper and popped them up with some dimensional adhesive.  FUN!

goofy

Just wanted to share a layout I have up over on the Pebbles blog today.  The challenge was to create a layout showing your "style" and while my style does tend to sway a bit depending on the products and photos I'm using I most often create very clean and linear pages with fun little details like this one about Darian and his goofy glasses.

 

These glasses are from one of those play doctor's kits and for awhile there Darian was obsessed with wearing them.  Kinda hard to take him seriously with his big brown peepers on display behind those huge blue circles!  LOL

I played off the circular shape of the glasses and replaced the "o's" in "goofy" with these blue buttons tied with a little floss.

 

  

More concentric circles to emphasize the shape of the glasses and a cute little bird sticker finish things off.

 

We're looking at another 6-8" of snow to fall overnight tonight and I gotta be honest after the weekend and having the boys home today for the holiday I am so NOT looking forward to the possibility of having school canceled again tomorrow.  This mama needs a break!  ;)

Happy Valentine's Day!

Just wanted to wish everyone out there a very Happy Valentine's Day!  I hope you are celebrating with the ones you love.  Last night my hubby and I went out for a hibachi dinner (YUM!) followed by a movie.  We saw Valentine's Day and I just have to say it was so adorable!  So many famous faces and such sweet story lines. 

What's a post without a picture right?  Here's a card I contributed for this week's sketch over on the Got Sketch? blog.  Perfect for today's occasion!  ;)

I've been in one of those "creating but not sharing ... yet" modes lately hence my absence on the blog.  Sorry about that.  I hope to have a few things to share this week though so be sure to check back in!  :)

TGIF!

Whew!  Been a rough week in the Ghahary household.  We've had a nasty stomach bug making the rounds since the weekend but it seems as though *knock on wood* we are finally finished with it.  Just in time to get dumped on with nearly a foot of snow tomorrow (or so they're predicting) - oh the joys of winter!  LOL

The layout I want to share with you today is one that I created using the February kit from My Scrapbook Nook that features the fabulous Origins collection from Basic Grey.  LOVE LOVE LOVE this line!  I know I've said it before but I'm gonna say it again!  Seriously.  Love.  Okay enough about that!  ;)

 

I snapped this picture of Darian just a few days ago.  He was sent home from school as a result of above noted stomach bug and was just so worn out that he fell asleep on my bed.  He just looked so peaceful and I couldn't help but take a picture.  I know I'm not the only mama out there that loves watching her babies sleep, right?

I did lots of layering again with the "pieces" and "elements" stickers as well as used both the Micro Mono and Mini Mono stickers for my title work as you can see above.  And below you can see I used one of the "pieces" to note Darian's name and the date and tied it all up with some baker's twine and added a gorgeous little Maya road stick pin for good measure.

I'm hoping to get a lot done this weekend while stuck inside from all of the snow.  Some of it won't be fun - bills, taxes, laundry, etc - but I'm hoping to get lots of scrappy time in as well so I'll have more new projects to share with you soon.  Until then, stay warm and stay healthy!  :)

only you

While at CHA last week I had the pleasure of meeting the lovely April and her husband Greg of Studio Calico fame.  Not only do they run an AMAZING kit club but they have now branched out into the world of manufacturing their own collections.  Their first collection Home Front debuted this past November and their second collection Anthology debuted at CHA.  Both are fabulous.  I love that they are not too themed and not too feminine with just the right amount of graphic appeal for a gal like me.  LOVE them!

April was a doll and gave me some goodies to play with so play I did and here's what I came up with ...

 

I pulled out some older photos of Darian for this one - I think he's just about 3 years old here.  And I scrapped in 8.5 x 11.  Again.  This is the third layout I've done in the last week in this size.  Not sure why but I'm just loving this size layout lately.  It's fun to be able to switch it up between 8.5 x 11 and 12x12 I think.  One thing I never do is limit myself with the size of a layout just because my albums are more 12x12, etc.  Sometimes things just look better on a smaller scale.  At least I think so.  LOL

There are lots of fun stickers with this collection like the postage label, light bulb, and the tiny bit of green houndstooth scallop border that you see above.  I love to just layer stickers and pop them up with some dimensional adhesive.  And the Sass flower is actually from one of the Studio Calico January kits - don't remember if it was in the main or one of the add ons.  The colors were perfect with this collection.

There are some really fabulous letter stickers with this collection as well.  You can see the printed type stickers above.  They also have letter stickers in the same peacock blue that you see in the Typo Thickers from American Crafts but I just opted for the Thickers for a bit more dimension.  Also the green number circle you see is actually one of the journaling cards from the collection that I simply punched with one of my circle punches.  And a cute little heart punched from some yellow houndstooth paper and zig zag stitched down the middle finishes off my title work.

Thanks for stopping by!  :)

what i've learned

Hey everyone!  Just wanted to share a layout I created for GCD Studios using the new Lydia collection by Melody Ross today.  This will officially be my last layout as a design team member.  I was asked to continue on with the team for another year but I declined to extend my contract.  I want to free up my time a bit and leave myself open for some new opportunities although I'm not really sure what those are t the moment!  LOL 

 

The Lydia collection is beautiful - I think it might be my favorite new release from GCD Studios this winter.  The colors are so refreshing and fun and the patterns are simply beautiful.

We were given the theme of "lessons learned" to work with for this month - a really great topic but hard to get down on paper sometimes.  The lesson pictured above has to be the hardest one I've learned to date.  I lost my father very suddenly nearly 6 years ago and I still long for the chance to be able to just have one more day, one more hour, one more minute with him.

 

I love the combination of yellow and gray and this line has some of that as well.  It's such a refreshing color combination especially against a turquoise background.

That's it for me today - thanks so much for stopping by! :)

Life is Sweet

Hey everyone!  Just wanted to share a layout I created for the Collage Press blog using the ever so yummy collection Sweet Shoppe!

 

Of course I had to do a sweet and sappy layout about my "sweet life" with my dear hubby Salar for the month of February.  We met when we were just 16 years old and have been inseparable ever since.  He seriously is the BEST man I know and I am so thankful for the life we have together.  

I used lots of fun die cut shapes and journaling tags on this layout.  I love layering these all together and creating some really fun embellishments.  And of course I added some Zva Creative bling in there as well!  LOL

 

That's it for me today.  I hope to be back soon with some more projects to share.  CHA was such a good boost for the mojo - I've been in a creating frenzy ever since I got home and started playing with all the new goodies I picked up at the show.  Let's just hope I don't wear myself out!  LOL