Especially on this father's day I wish I could still feel my dad's arms around me.

The fourth sketch challenge has been posted at the new SCRAP & MUSIC challenge blog! Head over to the site to grab the sketch (which I’m very proud to have designed) and play along.

The challenges on this blog involve following the sketch and using a title on your layout with a line from the provided music. This fourth sketch came with the song “I’m yours” by Jason Mraz. Below I’ve included the video as well as the lyrics:

“I’m yours” by Jason Mraz
Well you done done me and you bet I felt it
I tried to beat you but you’re so hot that I melted
I fell right through the cracks, now I’m trying to get back
Before the cool done run out, I’ll be giving it my bestest
And Nothings going to stop me but divine intervention
I reckon it’s again my turn to win some or learn some
But I won’t hesitate no more, no more
It cannot wait, I’m yours
Well open up your mind and see like me
Open up your plans and damn you’re free
Look into your heart and you’ll find love, love, love
Listen to the music of the moment people dance and sing
We’re just one big family, and
It’s our god-forsaken right to be loved, love, loved, love, loved
So I won’t hesitate no more, no more
It cannot wait I’m sure
There’s no need to complicate, our time is short
This is our fate, I’m yours
D-d-do you, but you, d-d-do
But do you want to come on
Scooch on over closer dear
And I will nibble your ear
I’ve been spending way too long checking my tongue in the mirror
And bending over backwards just to try to see it clearer
But my breath fogged up the glass
And so I drew a new face and laughed
I guess what I’m saying is there ain’t no better reason
To rid yourself of vanities and just go with the seasons
It’s what we aim to do, our name is our virtue
But I won’t hesitate no more, no more
It cannot wait I’m yours
Come on and open up your mind and see like me
Open up your plans and damn you’re free
Look into your heart and you’ll find that the sky is yours
So please don’t, please don’t, please don’t
There’s no need to complicate
Cause our time is short
This is, this is, this is our fate, I’m yours!

I love the song we used this time: it’s airy and bouncy and sounds like love should feel. When I was looking through photos to find the “right” one for this song/sketch combination, I came upon this lovely shot of my family in September 1968. My parents were holding us, standing in front of the family car in our driveway. Perhaps we were dressed the way we were because we had just returned from church. I suspect they recruited our neighbor whose house was in the background to take the photo for them. When I look at this photo I feel that same light, airy, loved feeling that I do when I listen to “I’m yours.” Seeing my parents looking young, happy and healthy and Phil and me looking chubby and cherished makes my heart full. Photos like this remind me of how fortunate I was to grow up right when, where and with whom I did.

Happy father’s day to dads of every kind everywhere. I know my own excellent father is watching over me daily and feels my love for him always but most especially today.

Product/technique notes:

The main background patterned paper I used is “Haven Blue Damask” by Anna Griffin. I also designed and cut the majority of the title on my Silhouette Cameo (October Afternoon letter stickers worked for the balance of the title).

Memorial Day 2013 was a pretty day that we spent in the perfect way...for us. We did some creative writing while sitting outside at a coffee shop overlooking Lake Austin.

The third sketch challenge has been posted at the new SCRAP & MUSIC challenge blog! Head over to the site to grab the sketch and play along.

The challenges on this blog involve following the sketch and using a title on your layout with a line from the provided music. This third sketch came with the song “Feel so close” by Calvin Harris. Below I’ve included the lyrics:

I feel so close to you right now
It’s a force field
I wear my heart upon my sleeve, like a big deal
Your love pours down on me, surrounds me like
A waterfall
And there’s no stopping us right now
I feel so close to you right now

And there’s no stopping us right now
And there’s no stopping us right now
And there’s no stopping us right now
I feel so close to you right now…

Matt and I spent a nice leisurely day together this Memorial Day, sitting outside on the deck of a coffee shop that overlooks Lake Austin and writing. It was really beautiful weather and great for people watching! We took this shot of ourselves at some point during the day, and I thought of it right away to go with this song.

Product/technique notes:

I used patterned papers from the My Minds’ Eye “Kate & Co. Oxford Lane” collection and designed and cut the title on my Silhouette Cameo.

My about-to-become parents look so cute together on their day at the zoo!

This sweet little photo is of my parents in September 1966. Daddy is about to turn 33, Mom is 26, and they are about to become parents for the first time. Mom is seven months pregnant with me, and they are spending a sunny day together at the Philadelphia Zoo.

I thought that a little pair of love birds in the upper right corner would be a cute way to incorporate animals into my zoo layout as well as to symbolize my parents. As an extra detail I furnished the left bird with brown eyes, like my father and the right bird with green eyes, like my mother.

Product/technique notes:

I used patterned papers from the American Crafts “Dear Lizzy Neapolitan” collection and the following sketch from Paper Bakery. The birds-on-a-branch die cut is from the Silhouette store, and I created the title treatment in the Silhouette software and cut it on my Cameo as well.

Wearing a tiara and waving from the back of a parade truck was certainly nothing I expected to be doing when I entered the American Legion's essay contest!

When I won a scholarship for college from the local American Legion post through an essay contest they held, it included acting as Miss American Legion in the Memorial Day parade! I went and met with the men of the post, who were all such gracious and fun hosts, and then rode in the back of their “official” parade truck. It was a bit surreal to wear a tiara and sash and wave to people along the parade route, but it was an honor and really quite a lot of fun.

Winning that scholarship was part of how I put myself through college, so I will always be grateful to the veterans of AL post 214.

And especially on this Memorial Day I am thankful for all our veterans who have fought and died for us throughout the history of our country.

Product/technique notes:

I followed the PageMaps sketch below and used patterned papers from the Echo Park “Sweet Day” collection. I also designed and cut the title on my Cameo.

The second sketch challenge has been posted at the new SCRAP & MUSIC challenge blog! Head over to the site to grab the sketch and play along.

The challenges on this blog involve following the sketch and using a title on your layout with a line from the provided music. This second sketch came with the song “La Vie En Rose” by Edith Piaf. Below I’ve included the lyrics in their original French as well as an English version (not a direct translation but one that was stylized for the rhyme and meter of English). I’ve highlighted the line in the English version that I used as my title:

The reason I chose this line of the song is that I decided to use a photo of my brother, Phil, in my layout—a shot of him on a trip to Brussels, Belgium, and Paris, France. Phil works at the Center for European Studies at UNC-Chapel Hill, and as an employee at the university he has the option of taking a class each semester. He decided that he really wanted to learn French, so he has now taken four semesters of it and will take his fifth in the fall. The more he studies it, the more he loves it. So I thought the line from the song, “Everyday words seem to turn into love songs” would work perfectly to elicit the feeling Phil has for the words, poeticism and even rules of the language he’s studying.

My baby bro, Phil, enjoying a brew in Brussels in October 2012

Here is the journaling from my layout because it’s quite small and hard to read:
After three years of high school French, all but forgotten, Phil is now heading into his fifth semester of it at UNC. He has always loved words, the sound of spoken French makes him happy and he enjoys the way studying it is like solving a puzzle. “I’m drawn to all things French: movies, music, arts, culture. And the lyricism of the language, the turns of phrase, tickle me. Je l’adore!”

Sisters and nurses: Frances P. Daquila Duffy and Mary Lou Daquila Schollaert

This week the American Nurses Association celebrates National Nurses Week. In honor of the several nurses in my family I created this page about my father’s sisters, who both dedicated themselves to caring for the sick.

Each of my aunts went to Mercy Hospital School of Nursing in Pittsburgh right after high school. They were eight years apart in age (my dad was the middle child, Aunt Bubbles (Frances) on the left was three years older and Aunt Doo Doo (Mary Lou) on the right is five years younger), so they did not attend nursing school together. However, they did both stay and work out their nursing careers in the Pittsburgh area.

These photos were the ones taken upon their graduation from nursing school, and I just love them! I am grateful to their families for sending me these portraits so that I could create this tribute page about my two aunts.

It’s also important to mention that their careers in nursing have led to daughters and granddaughters of theirs following suit!

There is a nursing tribute I found online for nurses who have passed away. It’s called “The Nightingale Tribute,” and I’m quoting it here because these words led to my page’s title:
“Nursing is a calling, a way of life. Nursing is a service profession that cannot be lived in isolation. Nurses rely on each other for the synergistic effect of teamwork in our efforts of care giving. It is appropriate that we honor our colleagues not only during their career, but also at the end of life’s journey.”

Product/technique notes:
I created this page using papers from My Mind’s Eye “Stella & Rose” collection, decorative brads from Echo Park and a title I created and cut with my Silhouette Cameo.

The first sketch challenge has been posted at the new SCRAP & MUSIC challenge blog! Head over to the site to grab the sketch and play along for fame and prizes.

The challenges on this blog will involve following the sketch and using a title on your layout with a line from the provided music. This first sketch came with the song “Here, there and everywhere” by the Beatles. To remind you, here are the lyrics:

To lead a better life,
I need my love to be here.
Here, making each day of the year
Changing my life with a wave of her hand
Nobody can deny that there’s something there.
There, running my hands through her hair
Both of us thinking how good it can be
Someone is speaking but she doesn’t know he’s there.
I want her everywhere
and if she’s beside me I know I need never care.
But to love her is to need her
Everywhere, knowing that love is to share
each one believing that love never dies
watching her eyes and hoping I’m always there.
I want her everywhere
and if she’s beside me I know I need never care.
But to love her is to need her.
Everywhere, knowing that love is to share
each one believing that love never dies
watching her eyes and hoping I’m always there.
I will be there, and everywhere.
Here, there and everywhere.

I chose to focus on the very first line of the lyrics, “To lead a better life,” because it made me think of how Matt and I really do believe that we can and must make our own lives better. So, each December we spend a good deal of time talking about and setting our goals and plans for the coming new year.

In the past two years my brother, Phil, has come to visit us during the week after Christmas and into the new year, and he now looks forward to working on his goals with us! The photos on my layout are of the three of us working on our lists together this past December.

Phil, Matt and I had just finished lunch at a local Indian restaurant that we love and then pulled out our goals notebook to start working on our lists again. You can see that I was acting as scribe for the group!

Product/technique notes:
Of course, I used sketch #1 provided at the Sketch & Music blog to create my page. The patterned papers from the K&Company “Americana” theme seemed to work well with both the colors of our clothes and the theme (stars and freedom). And that cool cut-and-folded border strip in the middle there was made using a cut file from the Silhouette store. Isn’t it cool how it shows off both sides of the patterned paper? I then created the title treatment in the Silhouette software and cut it with my Cameo as well. The “he said” and “she said” stamps are by Studio Calico, and the “Good things take time” sticker is from BasicGrey’s “Clippings” line.

I cooked this crazy-good Moroccan chickpea, kale and couscous recipe when Phil was in town last December.

I really love the process of reading through recipes, imagining the ingredients coming together to make flavors and textures and then choosing and making one. It’s quite gratifying for me to finish cooking something new. And I love hearing feedback from those I serve it to (usually just Matt, but on the day represented in these photos my baby bro was in town, too).

In fact, I like this process so much that I hardly ever follow a recipe twice. Sure, we have our standby meals that we make over and over. But the ones I try from a recipe book are usually one-timers, even if we love them, because there are just so many out there to try!

Product/technique notes:
I created this layout using this cool sketch from the Paper Bakery blog, and I’m entering in their sketch contest. The patterned papers are from We R Memory Keepers.

Nana, Papa, Grandma, Grandpa, Phil and me in our backyard on Labor Day in 1974

On this layout is a photo of a very rare occurrence: both sets of my grandparents are visiting us at the same time. We lived in Ohio; Nana and Papa, Dad’s parents (on the left), lived in Pennsylvania; and Grandma and Grandpa, Mom’s parents (on the right) lived in California. So there were not a lot of opportunities to be together.

I’m assuming that Grandma and Grandpa were in town for a few weeks to visit, and then Nana and Papa drove in the two hours from PA to visit for Labor Day. Very cool. I love this photo.

Do I even have to point out the 1974 fashions Phil and I are sporting?

Product/technique notes:
I created this layout with patterned papers from Little Yellow Bicycle’s beautiful “Elizabeth Park” collection. I did a good bit of fussy cutting around the perimeter of my center area so that I could pop up the profusion of flowers over it around the edges. And in the bottom right quadrant I debossed the cardstock to add texture without adding a patterned paper that would compete with the flowers from the background paper.

My mom is an excellent teacher, and you can see in this photo how the children are responding to her reading them a story. I'm so happy to have photos like this of her in action.

Today my last layout as guest designer for Artful Delight is live. I’ve really enjoyed using their April kit. Because I’ve never subscribed to a kit club before, I’m not accustomed to using the same set of products more than once in quick succession. But being AD’s guest designer for the month forced me to do that, and I liked the challenge that posed for me. I came out of it with three layouts that I’m quite happy with, and I had to dig a little deeper into my creative brain to find ways to make them with only the elements that came in the kit. It was a good exercise for me!

Thank you to Artful Delight for having me as their guest!

The journaling on this page: Mom opened her own pre-school program in March 1987 and called it Play and Learn (PAL). She taught four-year olds for two hours twice per week in a classroom in Browning School. The only reason she finally closed the program in June 1994 was because she and Daddy had decided to move to North Carolina. Mom says, “The PAL Program was really special to me. I loved the children, had wonderful rapport with the parents and loved every minute of what I was doing.”

Product/technique notes:
Obviously, I used the products from the Artful Delight April kit for this page, but I also used an older sketch of theirs from April 2012:

I’m exited to announce that I will be a sketch designer for the brand-new Scrap & Music challenge blog, which just launched today! The site will offer two sketch + music/lyric challenges per month and promises to be loads of fun. I hope you’ll go check out this new blog and participate in the first challenge, which will go live on May 5th. The winner will receive a prize as well as be asked to guest design in the following month.

These school portraits were from our last year in Catholic school.

This layout features school portraits taken in the fall of 1980, when Phil and I were in our last year of parochial grade school. Can you believe those windshield eyeglasses were ever the fashion?

Product/technique notes:
I created this layout using a great sketch by Juliana Michaels for Paper Bakery and supplies from the Pink Paislee “Prairie Hill” collection.

Spenser was the only dog I've ever had, and we loved each other dearly.

This is my second week as guest designer for Artful Delight, and this time I used their April kit to create a layout with a photo from 1991. Because both of my parents worked, we didn’t have pets while we were growing up because Mom and Dad didn’t think it was fair to have a pet and then leave it home alone every day. So my parents didn’t decide to get a dog until my brother and I were done with college and young adults.

At the time of this photo I was 24 and back at home living with my parents while working a full-time job. Enter Spenser. What an amazing little life. From the moment we picked him up at the breeder and brought him home, I was his. And even though Mom and Dad adopted him, he was mine. We fell in love immediately.

In this photo, I had just come home from a day at work, changed out of my work clothes and thrown myself onto the family room floor to cuddle with Spensie. He was only 4 months old here. In fact, you can just barely see his crate in the upper left corner of the photo. Dad was still training him, so he slept in the crate at night. He was little and feisty and his paws smelled like Fritos (have you ever noticed that about dogs?). Spense eventually grew to be a medium-husky miniature Schnauzer (a little bigger than they normally get), so pictures like this of him when he was a little baby are extra precious.

Ours was not that intense-but-shallow puppy love that we all associate with the adolescent years; no, it was deep and real and lasting. I love and miss you, sweet boy, every day.

Product/technique notes:
The patterned papers I used on this layout are all from the Dear Lizzy “Lucky Charm” collection, except for the wood grain, which came from Glitz’s “Color Me Happy” collection. I created the sunburst effect with my Cameo. I cut it out of the top half of the yellow cardstock and then backed that with half a sheet of the patterned paper to peek through. That way I could just build the rest of the page on top of the yellow sheet. It was so much easier than cutting each sun ray and gluing it down individually. [Thanks to Susan, who left a comment asking how I did the sunburst, for inspiring me to come back and add this to my post!]

I created this page using part of the April Artful Delight kit.

Today I am honored to be guest designing for Artful Delight! Using their April kit and sketch, I’ve created the layout above. It’s a photo of my parents on their honeymoon in the Pocono Mountains in June 1965. Aren’t they darling together?

I wanted to create a look reminiscent of 1960s decor, so I designed a simple linked-circles background that I cut out of wood grain paper (using my trusty Silhouette Cameo) and then tucked everything in and around it. I also sprinkled those tiny hearts—the ones left over from punching the top border strip—across the page diagonally, which put a sunny finishing touch on this fun page about part of my parents’ love story.

Thank you to Artful Delight for asking me to be their April guest designer. I look forward to sharing a few more projects throughout the month using their beautiful April kit.

Notice that the Easter Bunny is very wise, as he realized what a 17-year-old girl would want in her basket!

Isn’t it just awesome that the Easter Bunny, who continued to use the basket I received from him on my very first Easter, still knew what I would like to receive as a teenager? If you look closely at the contents of my basket, you’ll see eye shadow and banana chips, among other harder-to-distinguish gifts. Pretty cool how he keeps up with tastes and trends, isn’t it?

Product/technique notes:
I created this layout using products from the Echo Park For the Record 2 line. And the sketch is from Club CK. I created the title and cut it with my Cameo.

Building my whole layout around tags was new for me, and I'm really happy with the look.

This layout was fun to pull together! I gathered four photos of Matt and me just out doing our thing in Austin last December. The north photo is of us waiting for our friends’ wedding to start; the east photo is when we were waiting outside the Alamo Drafthouse before seeing Les Miserables; the south photo is us waiting for our lunch to arrive at Cheddars; and the west photo is when we scored the fireplace table at La Madeleine.

My friend, Laurie, published this cool sketch on her blog and is running a contest with it for her birthday. Isn’t that a great idea? I decided to use the tags as my main focus but configure them a little differently by arranging them in a circle. I’ll tell you, using the Studio Calico cloud background paper with the grid really helped make aligning everything easier. I cut the eight tags out of another piece from the same SC “Here & There” collection and then embellished each. To bring it all together I created a circular title treatment on my Silhouette. I really like my final result, and I would’t have come up with this idea without Laurie’s sketch for inspiration.

Happy birthday, my friend!

Don't you love the floppy ears and carrots?

In 1973 when Phil and I were in Mom’s kindergarten class that she held in our basement (described in this post), we always made a big deal of the holidays. For Easter we all made our own bunny ears to wear, and then Mom captured our cuteness in this photo.

Here’s what I love most about this adorable moment that Mom captured:

• How some of the paper ears are flopping over.
• That Mom handed us each a real carrot as a prop. I wonder, did we eat them after the photo was taken or put them back in the bag?
• My outrageously cool go-go boots. Can you get over how stylish I look in those, paired with that little aqua dotted-swiss dress that Mom sewed for me? I doubt I’ve ever been that cool again.

Product/technique notes:
I created this page following the sketch below from PageMaps, and I’m entering it in their Imaginisce sketch contest. The products are from WeRMemory Keepers and My Mind’s Eye. I had a great time tucking those little peeps die cuts in here and there, and that title makes me hoppy!

Just chillin' with Daddy in front of the television, March 1967.

This is one of those photos that I can just sit and stare into. It’s quite imperfect, as far as photos go—with the bad lighting, crooked angles and muddy colors. But it’s a beautiful photo to me.

It allows me a glimpse into Mom and Dad’s apartment before they bought the house I grew up in. In fact, some of that decor (the round table, tan chair, lamp, pocket watch under a dome and afghan) stayed with us for a very long time.

In it I get to see my dad as a 33-year-old new father, obviously pretty comfortable with the whole new baby thing. “Ain’t no big deal.”

And I really love that Daddy is acting as a human recliner for me as we watch TV together. Just look how well I fit in the circle formed by his legs and how he has me tipped back at the perfect angle for maximum viewing enjoyment. Speaking of that, what could we be watching, I wonder? I mean, it looks equally riveting to both a four-month old and a grown man. It must be something on PBS!

Product/technique notes:
I created this page following the sketch below from Artful Delight and products from American Crafts, BasicGrey, K&Company, My Mind’s Eye and October Afternoon.

My mom likes to have photos of people, places and events, but she doesn’t really like to take photos. She has just never learned much over the years about any of the cameras she and Dad owned, so she isn’t comfortable with one in her hand.

And once her film camera started acting up a few years ago, she insisted that she would not replace it with a digital camera. No way. She wouldn’t even consider it. “But Mom, digital cameras are great, and that’s just about all you can find these days.” It didn’t matter what Phil and I said, Mom wasn’t budging.

Until 2011, when she had a trip all planned to Germany, and her old-timey film camera shuddered…and shuttered no more. Then she asked for help in picking out a new camera, and guess what she came home with. You guessed right, I’m sure. She had stepped into the digital age.

Phil and I took a great deal of time to teach her how to use it and take her on outings for practice so that she would be assured of getting some nice shots on her European adventure. And we coached her about taking lots of photos because she and Dad had always taken just a few shots of most occasions because of the price of film and developing. She was nervous about all of it, but she packed up her Canon in its spiffy new case (making sure to take lots of extra batteries) and headed to Deutschland.

Now, being fair to her, she did bring home a number of nice photos from that trip. It really was an all-around good first effort for a new digital photographer. But I think you’ll understand why it’s this shot that is my absolute favorite.

Product/technique notes:
I was inspired by this great PageMaps sketch and used patterned paper from the My Mind’s Eye “My Favorite Things” 6×6 pad. The camera die cut is from American Crafts/Amy Tangerine.

A simple birthday lunch is a bigger deal when family is in town.

Matt’s dad, Tom, and his girlfriend, Wanda, visited us from Arkansas in early December 2010. We had a few really fun days together, taking in the sights of Austin. Before they left town we celebrated Matt’s 44th birthday a day or two early by having lunch at the Olive Garden. Just a nice family visit.

Product/technique notes:
Just about everything I used on this page is from BasicGrey’s “Fact & Fiction” collection.

We spent the whole day talking about and mediating on the theme of love.

Where I grew up in Ohio, we lived right down a little hill from our church. In fact, it was an eight-block walk to church, which I know because Phil and I attended our church school for eight years and walked that hill every day (except when Dad would drive us on harsh winter mornings).

I loved Immaculate Conception Church and the IC School; they felt like home. And I think that one really important reason they felt so familiar and comfortable to me was that my parents were involved at church, so we were there a lot and knew many of the other families. That feeling of not just going to church but belonging there left a strong impression on me and is something that I have searched for ever since moving away from my hometown.

Matt and I have tried to get involved at each of the few churches we’ve attended over the years. But signing up to help with various ministries just wasn’t leading to those feelings of belonging that we sought. I can remember being mystified one day at our last church when, after attending several meetings and having personal conversations with a woman who led a ministry I was in, I then walked into another meeting and she acted as though she was just meeting me! I was crestfallen.

And it made me rethink things.

So I decided to take a harder look at why this had worked for my parents but wasn’t producing the same effect for us. Beside one obvious difference—which is that my parents had children enrolled at the school, allowing them to meet the other parents and bond over that commonality—I realized there was something else. My parents didn’t just sign up to assist with a ministry, they became leaders. And they didn’t just help with events, they took advantage of spiritual enrichment opportunities like bible studies and retreat weekends, too.

In other words, they were all in. They made themselves both physically available and emotionally vulnerable to the other people of that church. And isn’t that what any good relationship requires? You have to put yourself out there to get to the good stuff.

I’ve wished for a long time that I had a place like “Cheers,” where everybody knew my name. But I had to face the fact that the other characters didn’t call out Norm’s name when he arrived just because he showed up to drink beer. He had to invest…by sitting on that same bar stool day after day, by telling his stories and listening to theirs and by being there for them.

So, that’s the long version of why I went to the women’s retreat at our church earlier this month. Honestly, I almost didn’t go because I wasn’t sure I wanted to give up a whole Saturday for it. But then I remembered my plan to follow my parents’ example and go all in. I met several really wonderful women from my church. And it was truly a lovely day. Literally. We spent the time talking and meditating on this breathtaking bit of scripture about love:

Brothers and sisters:
Strive eagerly for the greatest spiritual gifts.
But I shall show you a still more excellent way.

If I speak in human and angelic tongues but do not have love, I am a resounding gong or a clashing cymbal.
And if I have the gift of prophecy and comprehend all mysteries and all knowledge; if I have all faith so as to move mountains but do not have love, I am nothing.
If I give away everything I own, and if I hand my body over so that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing.

Love is patient, love is kind. It is not jealous, it is not pompous, it is not inflated,
it is not rude, it does not seek its own interests, it is not quick-tempered, it does not brood over injury,
it does not rejoice over wrongdoing but rejoices with the truth.
It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
Love never fails. If there are prophecies, they will be brought to nothing; if tongues, they will cease; if knowledge, it will be brought to nothing.
For we know partially and we prophesy partially,
but when the perfect comes, the partial will pass away.
When I was a child, I used to talk as a child, think as a child, reason as a child; when I became a man, I put aside childish things.
At present we see indistinctly, as in a mirror, but then face to face. At present I know partially; then I shall know fully, as I am fully known.
So faith, hope, love remain, these three; but the greatest of these is love.

1 Cor 12:31-13:13

And yes, I have taken on the lead role in one of our ministries as well. But that’s a story I’ll save for another day…perhaps over a frosty mug.

Product/technique notes:
I dug deep in my stash and created this layout using older products from BasicGrey, K&Company, Making Memories and My Mind’s Eye. I also used Artful Delight’s February sketch and am entering this in their sketch challenge.

Sometimes what you need is just a night out with the girls.

I’ve met a really fun group of women just by shopping at my local Archiver’s scrapbook store. Every person in this photo, except me, works or has worked at Archiver’s. We met because of a shared hobby, but when we get together, talking about scrapbooking is not on the agenda!

We all gathered on January 4th to celebrate the new year and to see our friend, Sri, who is pursuing her Master’s at the University of Pennsylvania and was home for the holidays. It was a happy few hours…lots of gabbing and laughing.

Front row: Jacquie, Sri, Jennifer, Deborah
Back row: Heather, Ashley, Virginia, me
Not pictured: Susan

Product/technique notes:
I created this layout to participate in the “Use your stash” challenge at Write. Click. Scrapbook. We have to use at least three older products on a project, and on this layout everything is older. Here’s my list: the background paper is from the English Moss collection by ColorBok; the rest of the patterned paper is from the BasicGrey Hello Luscious 6×6 pad; the paper crimper I used on the larger horizontal strip is ooooold; and the McGill mini file tab punch is also from way back in the day.

I also used this sketch from Creative Scrappers:

I really enjoyed making this Valentine's card for my mommy!

When it came time to make a Valentine’s Day card for my mommy, I pulled out this big rose stamp and started coloring with my Copic markers. As a beginner with Copics, I found this image very fun and satisfying to color. The shading marks provided in the design of the stamp really helped me with making my color-shading decisions, something I continue to struggle with because I lack true art training. But I’m quite happy with how the shading came out on this one, and it was fun!

Now, cutting out this image was another story. Oi! Note to self: Next time you want to use this stamp, do yourself a favor and plan to leave the background intact.

I then created a matching background with Distress Inks and watercolor paper. A lace clear stamp by My Mind’s Eye completed the look.

I always hate to see my baby bro go back home after our holiday visits.

This photo of me and my baby bro just reminds me of how much fun we had when he came to visit us right after Christmas and into the new year. We were at the airport saying our goodbyes, and Matt snapped a few shots of us. I chose this one out of the bunch because I loved Phil’s laughing smile.

The title has a double meaning: how time figuratively flies when we’re hanging out together and because Phil was about to get on a plane and fly home.

Product/technique notes:
I cut that white background shape with my Cameo and backed the openings with My Mind’s Eye Lime Twist: Out of the Blue patterned papers. I also used MME’s January sketch and am entering this in their sketch challenge.

Hey, I have great news: I won the sketch contest at My Mind’s Eye! The winner gets a collection of his/her choice, so I picked Collectable » Unforgettable. Yay!

Mrs. Daquila (Mom) poses with her kindergarten class of 1972-73 in our Willoughby basement.

I can’t decide who was more fortunate that year—the teacher or the students. In the fall of 1972 Mom’s friends, who had children the same age as Phil and me, devised a brilliant plan: Instead of sending their children to various kindergarten programs around town, they proposed sending them all to our house! Mom was a certified teacher, and her friends knew that she would be wonderful for their children. I don’t know how much cajoling it took to get Mom (and Dad’s) agreement to this plan, but convince them they did!

I have some pretty great memories of little moments from that year, like saying the Pledge of Allegiance and singing “Begin the day with happiness” together each morning. Or getting to sing a solo of “Away in a manger” for our Christmas program (yes, the parents came to our basement for the show). I also remember the day I spilled my drink during snack time and having to skip my snack the next day (I certainly give Mom a ribbing about that rule!).

But can you even imagine what a joy that year was for my mom? First, there’s the honor of being asked by your friends to teach their beloved children. And what mother who’s also a teacher wouldn’t want the chance to keep her own children home for one more school year, while at the same time providing them with a good curriculum surrounded by their friends? If we talked about teaching like the movies talk about gangsters, Mom would have pulled off the biggest heist in history!

Product/technique notes:
I am so happy to have had the chance to try the chalkboard look for the title treatment on this layout, and I’ll do a separate post to describe the technique I used. All the patterned papers came from BasicGrey’s Clippings collection. I used the sketch below from Creative Scrappers and am entering it in their challenge.