I have two little brothers and neither of them is smaller than me anymore…haven’t been for a loooong time.  So now we say they are my bigger younger brothers.  This guy, down below, he’s so awesome. After high school he joined the US Marine Corp. He did amazing and truly hard things. We are so blessed that when it was done, he came home in one piece and he came home a very, very good man. He continued on with the Reserves for a number of years and now he is finishing his degree.  I’m so proud of him I could just burst.

Both of my brothers are amazing and fun guys and I know I am so very lucky to have them.  As we’ve gotten older, our chances for 1 on 1 time have dwindled.  So when plans changed and a trip I made home ended up being during a time when the only person ‘home’ was Ed, we took advantage of some quality brother/sister time!!

We went out to dinner in the cute ‘downtown’ by my parents’ house and then walked around the lake.  We stopped and got Gelato and he taught me about Snapchat. I sent my first Snapchat to our other brother – thank goodness for younger siblings who are willing to teach their old sister about the new cool stuff!

For this layout, I used Fancy Pants’ line Everyday Circus. There are elements of this line that are just so perfect for Ed. Like that cute tiger. When he was little, Eddie loved tigers.  His wish was to have a tiger that he could ride like a horse, lol.  Also, I love the “Special Attractions” arrow…we’re pretty special 🙂  The sticker on the bottom of the page reads, “If you are always trying to be normal, you will never know how amazing you can be.” Maya Angelou.

We are pretty good at love and support in my family, so I’m pretty sure Ed already knows we think he’s amazing.  Just in case, though, it never hurts to remind the people you love how wonderful you think they are <3

xxoo, Rosie

December 2010 – I waited and waited AND waited for snow.

I really wanted to get a simple family photo (Izzy, Colin and myself) with snow to send out in Christmas cards that were to double as our wedding Save-the-Date.  But the weather gods said “No! No snow for you.”

On with Plan B!

camera with timer
tripod
husband-to-be
one adorable labradoodle
new plaid Christmas shirt
backyard
…that was Plan B.

Getting Izzy to look at the camera at the same time Colin and I were looking at the camera proved to be more difficult than I imagined. We got this one good shot in the end though!

I would also just like to point out that Colin and I did NOT coordinate our outfits on purpose – that was a very happy coincidence (me more happy than Colin, I don’t think he really cared). Burgundy red and jeans for the win!

Do you coordinate your loved ones’ clothing for special events?  (or do you get coordinated by a loved one??) I feel like I don’t very often.  If he asks me ‘what should I wear’ I’ll give him my ideas and he often goes along with that…or he doesn’t and comes up with his own plan. I’m pretty type A, but to me, being type A gets exhausting sometimes and I don’t actually WANT to do all the planning and coordinating.  (Does that make me type AB+ or something? I don’t know.) So I like it when Colin takes it upon himself to plan his own style and such.  Plus, then I get some happy surprises, like how perfectly he matched me that day!

I made this layout last year (2014) with some kits I got from the Hip Kit Club.  The kits didn’t actually include much of this deep red, but there were a couple of pieces so I immediately thought of this photo and how perfectly they coordinated.  It was fun to do a December Flashback layout.  I love to reminisce, especially about Christmas. Do other people take photos from years back and scrap them?  I’m new to this scrappy world, so I have lots of old stories I’d like to document.

To this point in time (Dec 2015), I haven’t done many ‘current events’ layouts because I’m so excited to tell about the past…I wonder if others might think that’s a strange way to go about it – do tell! What’s your strategy? Do you have a scrapbooking or memory keeping manifesto of sorts? Or do you just scrap whatever strikes you at the time?

I don’t remember which companies and lines all of these elements are from, but I think there is some Elle’s Studio: paper (Christmas trees) and wood veneers & green no peeking tag? Don’t quote me on that though…The red mini letter stickers are Webster’s Pages I believe. I drew the ‘Celebrate’ on there myself and I punched out some of those green red and silver snowflakes from some foil card stock I’ve had for a long time.

The grey tag at the top is actually from a pack of tags I got at Paper Source.  It can be pulled out from behind the photo to reveal my journaling, which is similar to the story I told in this post 🙂

This is truly one of the first 12×12 layouts I ever made
and I don’t hate it…
Do I see lots of things I’d like to change?
You betcha.
I do like to look at this one and see how far I’ve come, though.  The fact that I can look at this and pick out areas I could do better and also know how I could make them better, that’s a big deal!
I’m growing – finally! ha!

xxoo, rosie

Remember this.

My friends are beautiful.  Inside and out.

When I was younger, just a child really, I never for a moment thought my life would be so FULL of amazing, kind, intelligent people.  I often felt like the oddball as a kid.  I didn’t think there were people in the world who would want to be around me. As I got older, though, those people found me somehow.  I’m quite sure now that God had a plan for me. They love me just as I am and because of who I am.

My bachelorette party stands out in my mind as a perfect reminder of how lucky and blessed I am to have such lovely girlfriends. (My sister was there too, but she’s my friend as well my sister, so she definitely counts as one of my lovely girlfriends! Can you pick her out in the photo below??)

Not everyone could make it, of course.  My friends are spread around the country.

No one understands how difficult and expensive your mid to late 20s are when you factor in the modern day wedding more than myself.  I have been very, very honored to be asked to stand up in 7 weddings.  That’s a lot of bridesmaid dresses, hairdos, mani-pedis, Showers, engagement parties, bachelorette parties, air plane tickets, hotels…you get the picture. And that doesn’t take into account all the other weddings my husband has been in and the ones we’ve simply attended as guests.

My point is that it didn’t bother me an ounce that some girls couldn’t make it.  There were babies being born and other weddings taking place.  Also, it was a destination party for most of my friends and that can be difficult.

Of course I’d have loved to have them there, but not at the expense of the other important things going on in their lives.  I was amazed how many ladies did come, though!  Abbey was lovely enough to host the party at her home in Chicago.  She invited everyone to stay the night (even though she didn’t know them all!) We had margaritas and tacos for dinner at her place.  We went on the Architecture Canal Tour, which is one of my very favorite things to do in the city. We went to the top of Willis Tower (formerly the Sears Tower) to check out the view and newly installed glass floor inserts – crazy & awesome! We played silly, lovely party games.  There was a karaoke bar!!  We handed out goofy stickers to gay men in Boy’s Town (they loved it.)  It was just fun!!

I had this great picture from our trip to the top of Willis Tower.  It’s just one those green screens behind us and they place different images on the screen.  For a hefty sum, you can purchase the images.  Well, it was absolutely worth it.  I especially love that because I was wearing a green shirt, the image was transposed onto my shirt as well…kind of like urban camouflage! This is the only picture I have of all of us together and it’s perfect.

I don’t remember who makes all these papers – they are all different brands.  I really wanted the “Remember This” to be the title, though, and I’m so glad I could make that work.  I outlined it with turquoise gel pen and put the quotation mark stickers around it.  I’m still struggling with embellishment clusters…I’m not completely happy with that aspect of this page, but that’s okay.  I love how all the papers came together and the colors as well.

Paper coming together, colors coming together, good friends coming together…fantastic.

xxoo, rosie

 

In October, Colin and I celebrated our 3rd wedding anniversary – go us!

Truly, when I think about these last few years, sometimes it feels like our wedding was just yesterday…other times, it feels like there’s no way it has only been three years, like we’ve always been together; like we’ve always been a team, doing things with and for each other.

Regardless, the last three years have been the happiest of my life and I wouldn’t trade them for anything.

Our anniversary was on a Wednesday this year, so we decided (kinda last minute) to both take the day off and just hang out together with the dogs.  It was lovely to have a day together in the middle of the week.  We didn’t do any projects around the house, we didn’t run any errands.  Lovely.

In the evening, we dressed up a bit and headed to Boulder for dinner.  We went to our favorite Sushi place – great food, awesome atmosphere. Colin lived in Japan for a few years as a child and has lots of memories of the food he ate while there.  One of his favorite dishes is Yakitori.  It’s hard to find here in the Denver area, but this place has it and they do it really well.  It’s kind of a pricy restaurant, so we only go on special occasions – perfect reason!

 

After a delicious dinner and some saki, we walked around Pearl Street.  It was pretty quiet compared to the weekends – so nice.  Colin had the idea to go to this bar that’s below the Boulderado Hotel.  It’s called License No. 1 now, it used to be called The Catacombs.  Apparently it was given the first liquor license in Boulder back in the day, so they changed the name and gave the bar a facelift.  Colin wanted to go there because they had an air hockey table.

When we got there we were sad to discover that the air hockey was gone.  We settled for pool for instead.

It was an intense game – I was winning for most of it.  I was working on the 8 ball while Colin still had 4 of his left on the table. Then, suddenly, he got hot and knocked them all in, ended up winning – I couldn’t believe it!!  He refused me a rematch (because usually I do win…he wanted to savor it…I don’t blame him.)

As we were heading out, I noticed that there was a photo booth – exciting!  We didn’t have any photos from our evening, so this was a great chance to capture us together.  We got a little goofy and did some kissy ones – what can I say, we’re in love, can’t help it!

I used the photo booth photos for this layout – really fun to use something different and unique.  The circles cutout on Kraft paper is from the Silhouette store and it’s on top of some light green card stock.  Most of the patterned papers are from a couple 6×6 pads – Fancy Pants Burlap & Bouquets and Dear Lizzy Lucky Charm.  I think the phrase stickers are also Burlap and Bouquets.

I loved that I had that yellow tag with the number 3 on it and with a circle, so fitting!  I added some Heidi Swapp rub-ons to the tag and around the photos for some finishing touches.

I haven’t done many layouts, I think I have about 10 or 12 to my name.  This one is definitely my favorite, though.  I love how the colors and patterns and circles all came together.  I love the story I was able to tell and the memories we will keep.

xxoo Rosie