a visit from grandparents (giggles included)

my parents came into town a couple of weeks ago, and i'm finally getting to blogging about the visit. they were a bit early. annie and i were in boulder for a girls' night out--dinner at pei wei, then i introduced her to anthropologie. we were in the midst of trying on dresses when my mom called to say they were in thornton! slight panic, boulder's about 40 minutes away, and annie was trying on this dress:


mom said not to hurry, they'd go get some dinner and relax. phew. so annie finished trying on the 5 other dresses she'd picked out and decided that she like this one the best. at $138, i knew i'd have to crush her hopes, but she did it for me. "mom, i wouldn't LET you buy me a dress that cost that much, it's just crazy! but maybe we could make it!" i used to be quite the seamstress, honestly, but i didn't think i could replicate this particular dress w/o a bit of difficulty. my mom, on the other hand, i knew she could in a heart beat. sure enough, when we got home and annie showed her the picture, my mom stepped up to the plate and started drawing plans. i love my mom. now i just need to get that fabric in the mail to her...

we didn't do anything terribly exciting on saturday or sunday, but monday we went to the benson sculpture gardens in loveland, colorado. this is one of our family's favorite places, my kids could spend every weekend here. it's a place i've wanted to bring my parents since we found it two years ago. we finally got the chance, and i do believe they loved it as much as i'd hoped. we had lovely weather-- not too hot and a nice breeze. it was the perfect way to spend the day.




this is a sculpture by an LDS artist named gary price. one of the kids has a CTR ring on :) i love that my dad gets into the spirit of the art!

my dad's been a thespian his whole life, it was fun to see him enjoy this particular sculpture. this was taken just after he'd checked to see if the mirror was real. it is.
new friends.
hiding under charlie.


this is my favorite sculpture in the entire park because it makes me giggle. it's called nocturne. i proudly admit that i got my sense of humor from my mom, she calls it the "williams in her." it's where you laugh at very inappropriate things, like passing gas and well, funny sculptures of plump naked women. so when we got to the gardensm i prepped my mom that there would be one sculpture that would make her giggle. as soon as she saw this one, she started giggling. i love my mom.

so there you have it, our trip to the sculpture gardens. it was a precious time. my mom's health isn't the best anymore, she has something called post polio syndrome--the result of contracting polio when she was 7. so to have her here for a short visit was delightful. and with my dad being a bishop, well it's just as much a treat to get his undivided attention.

on tuesday we went to paulino gardens and bought some rose bushes and perennials. my dad loves a project when he's here, and the only one that i had on my docket was to move rocks and plant another section of my back yard with perennials. back story: when we moved in to this house, the back yard consisted of grass, 2 junipers, 2 lilac bushes, and two columbine plants. rock surrounded the grass and held the other plants. rock is nice, but it's really hard to garden in. it was drab to say the least. every year i've moved rock to the side of the house and planted things. one year i convinced my sweetie to build me a raised garden bed (our soil is not really soil, it's more like clay, not good for growing things in.). anyway, back to the visit... i didn't think he'd want to do it, but by tuesday, the rocks were moved and he got most of the plants in the ground. we moved one of the lilac bushes because it was too symetrical and i figured why not? it's not doing too well, but hopefully will pull out of the transplant. i'll post pictures, i need to get a couple of daylilies and another few grasses to balance it out, but all in all, it's going to be lovely.

they left wednesday morning. i miss them.

tomorrow i will have been married to this fabulous guy for 17 years. now that's something to smile about :) he's pretty cute, huh? he's been home all week and it's been wonderful.
and tomorrow is my sister's birthday. isn't she lovely? happy birthday juie :) it was my bright idea to get married on her birthday. i still feel bad about stealing the day from her, but she insists that it's OK. she's a good egg.

commentary on the documentary :)

studio calico's july kit, documentary, is online folks!


when i was looking at the kit previews that april posts for the DT, i saw the hambly animal rubons and this little book came to mind, it wouldn't go away. so i got the add on director's cut and this is the first thing i put together. my kids are a little too old for it, so it's going to be a gift. i laminated it. warning** laminating and heat embossing don't mix too well.** oh well, you live and you learn. but all in all, i was happy with how it turned out, the skunk page is my favorite.














my next endeavor was the 2 pager we were supposed to do for the 2nd anniversary celebration. this was HARD. i knew what i wanted to do, but when i had all the pictures, and all the journaling, and all the embellishments, i had WAY too much going on, it felt claustrophobic. having taken pictures of a day in our lives (a challenge posted by my friend little ducky a while back), i knew i needed to comment on nearly every picture. with that much journaling, i really had to work the design to stay balanced. once i started taking stuff off, it started to work and i could breathe again. i don't think i've stressed over a layout that much in a while. ok, maybe a few months :) i ended up being really happy with how it turned out, not so much because it was a genius design, but because it really captured our lives right now and that is the goal of every scrapbooker.




this little card was made for a friend who was just blessed with a sweet little girlie. i have been playing with a technique of using water to scrunch your paper up and make it look crinkly. i thought it might work to make a ruffle. i wet a strip of the jenni bowlin paper and ripped the bottom edge off then started gathering the ruffle. i used the basic grey magnetic board to hold the ruffle in place as i would add to it. i let it dry overnight and this is how it turned out. very cool.



i do not like phrases like this. they seem too in your face, and whatever [roll your eyes here]. i just don't like them. but this is the phrase on the back of my son's swim team shirt and when i saw this picture, i just knew it was exactly what i needed to title the layout. so i went a little crazy with the hand cutting and the machine stitching, but i do like the effect. my son has never loved to do any kind of sport, so when i told him i was going to sign him up for swim team, i expected a miserable summer. i was so wrong. i'm glad.


loved the camera paper in the main kit. so much fun! i was showing my parents our family pictures from the past year and noticed a lot of pictures of my friends taking pictures like this. i thought it would be fun thing to document. bonus points if you can name all the photographers in these pictures. and i found one more picture, so i think i'll add it at a later date, or make a mini :)



at this point, i was sick of seeing kraft and brown. i over used it in this kit. i felt drained of creative energy. i hate to admit that. i love kraft. but apparently, you can use it too much :) so i put this one together, the MM metal numbers totally reminded me of address numbers, i think i'll do more layouts of all the houses i've lived in using this idea. i'm going to add more to this on the back, all the memories i can think of...



so there you have it. thanks for reading my blog :)

want more?

sitting this one out

you know those times where you're just not top of your game? you're doing OK, but you aren't hitting the homeruns? well that's me this month. i think i went a little overboard with the kraft--i know, i didn't think it could ever happen, but i am saying that. i like all my layouts/projects, but i just couldn't get my game up this month. the kit is beautiful, the add ons are wonderful, my mojo was missing.







no need to console either, i'll be ok :) i know it's temporary.

good news

Studio Calico subscribers will now get an advanced opportunity to purchase new add-on kits each month. Beginning with July's kit, subscribers will be able to purchase their add-ons and shop items 12 hours in advance of reveal (12:00 noon on the 27th). Some add-ons will also be held in reserve and posted for sale at 12:00am for the traditional reveal.

Not a subscriber? Email waitinglist@studiocalico.com now to preorder your subscription!

saying yes to OLW

having the kids home has been a lot of fun, we've kept very busy. i've loved it this summer. that being said, i haven't had much time to scrap. but i did want to get this one challenge done. it's for one little word, the challenge from karla was the word "yes." the first thing that came to mind was getting married. i had most of it finished last week, but then put it aside to work on the july studio calico kit (so much fun to work with!). i realized this morning that the deadline was today, so i grabbed the old sewing machine and attached everything. loading the photo onto the internet w/o my beloved photoshop and imac forced me to use my noggin, and even though it's not edited, and it's grey and dreary here, so it's not quite the right color, i think it turned out mighty nice, despite my handicaps! i'll load a better picture once i get my computer back :)

this is one of the engagement pictures kelly and i had taken, for our announcements. i know we look like we were 12. we weren't, i promise. so much fun to go through old photos, brought back a lot of memories. i stamped all the letters and hand cut them, and after looking for the appropriate size and style of the title and finding nothing, i decided to hand cut the word. love the final results :)
(edited version, much better image, may camera overexposes things so they are a bit darker, i have to edit...)

credits: stamps, studio calico; papers, studio calico, sassafras lass, chatterbox, collage press, GCD studios, my mind's eye; cardstock: prism, sheer: KI memories, chipboard heart: heidi swapp, tiny letter stickers: making memories

thanks for the challenge karla!

mac, poor mac

tonight will be first night it's been away from me in the 1.5 years i've had it. it was having kernel panics, and something about corrupt processor showed up. levi, the mac genius, said that wasn't a good sign, but he'd be sure to take good care of my sweet mac while it was away. a few things to be replaced and then hopefully it will be as good as new. i just want to thank my friend a for insisting i purchase apple care when i bought mac. i can sleep easy tonight.

mac being gone means no pictures for a while. i did "a day in the life" photo project today, kind of an interesting way to look at the day. and i got all the way to this point, remembering to take a picture every hour or two. i'll share when i get mac back.

can you tell i miss it? i've become a snob. a PC just doesn't have the same allure. poor me. poor mac.

in other news:
i bought my ticket to orlando today :) i love going to CHA!