Chat with Janelle Smith from 7 Gypsies!

Happy Cinco de Mayo!

I wanted to let you know the talented Janelle Smith, designer for 7 Gypsies, will be joining us at Bad Girls Kits for a special designer chat this afternoon at 2pm EST/11am PST.

Come by and see what awesome things she has to tell us!  We look forward to seeing you there!

Project 52

Happy Monday!  I hope you all had a great National Scrapbooking Day on Saturday.  We had a lot of fun over at Bad Girls Kits with challenges and classes.  Some amazing projects were posted that day.  I didn't get to scrapbook much this weekend because I was slammed with other things but that's okay, right?

I wanted to give you all a heads up to check out the Bad Girls Project 52 blog.  I did the project this week and not to toot my own horn, I think it turned out pretty dang incredible.  I don't want to spoil what I did, because I don't want to take away from where the excitement needs to be.  The picture above is just a small glimpse of what I created.  Hope you all have a great day!

Bad Girls May Reveal..

Last night I was up way too late partying over at Bad Girls Kits.  The last day of every month we have our big reveal party and it's so fun except for the fact it's scheduled for west coasters which means late nights for me on the east.

This month's kit is so beautiful.  Lots of 7 Gypsies yummies, Prima, and Hambly.  Can it get much better than that?

Here are the layouts I made using these products.  Thanks for looking! -- Suzanne

A sweet layout of my two girls the day we came home from the hospital with Perry.  Big sister meeting little sister.  It was a great moment.

I laugh whenever I see these pictures.  A few weeks ago I had Deb and Denise over for lunch and scrapbooking.  Well, we were obviously having too much fun because I wasn't paying attention to Perry.  We turned around to find her standing on a step stool with both hands submerged in the bowl of ganache on the kitchen counter!  We all ran for our cameras to get pictures.  Just.. too.. funny.

I used a Hambly overlay and put a piece of 7 Gypsies paper behind the center.  Prima chipboard alphas, and I have a strange love for this gaffer tape (also 7 Gypsies).  I wanted it to look almost banner like so I made it wavy.

I usually don't go so crazy on the layering, but I couldn't help myself with this one.  

I think this is my favorite of the bunch.  Every month, Wendy -- the owner of Bad Girls Kits, gives us a challenge and we have to create a layout based on her specifications.  This month, we were asked to create a layout using at *least* 3 photos, no bigger than 2" in either height or width (whichever is greater).  I love using small photos because you can get a lot of pictures in without overwhelming the page.  

Here, I used pictures of little Perry playing and eating ice.  We had a heatwave come through New York last weekend and earlier this week.  It was all I could do to keep her cool because we don't have air conditioning in the house and it was hot hot HOT!

I love the way the colors pop on the black background.  A pop of blue in the pom pom fringe that was in April's kit, and a lovely red velvet leaf from Prima.  7 Gypsies paper and ephemera.

It's REVEAL NIGHT!

Have you heard?  Only 1 1/2 days left until National Scrapbook Day!  (pay no attention to the messed up countdown timer to the left.. something's wrong with it)

If you haven't made plans, but know you'd like to spend the day scrapbooking away, be sure to come by Bad Girls Kits for 12 amazing hours of classes and challenges hosted by us, the Design Team!  There's absolutely no cost and no requirement to be a subscriber.  So come by!  The projects and classes will knock your socks off.

Also, tonight is REVEAL night of the May kit over at Bad Girls.  We have a lot of fun hyping everyone up by showing special sneak peeks of what the design team girls have done with it.  We'd love to have you stop by.  We'll be meeting in the VIP Lounge on the message board so say hello!

Numbered Nomads... ... Bad Girls Teaser!

We're experiencing a heat wave in New York right now and it really bites because we don't have air conditioning in this house... and there are no freaking screens on the windows! Don't you worry.. I've already put a call into the builder to get right on that!

I absolutely love my scrapbook room because it has this huge window that lets in so much natural light. The only downside is you can't open it. So my scrap area is about 1,000 degrees at the moment. So imagine me hauling all of my stuff downstairs to get my May assignment done for Bad Girls. It's done. I am totally loving the papers and embellies that came in the kit. I know you'll love them too!!!!!!

If you can't tell by the title of this entry... the May kit has the absolutely GORGEOUS papers from 7 Gypsies. They were so fun to work with and I still have quite a bit left for my P52 Project that I'm scheduled to have up on the blog the end of May. So be sure to check that out... it's going to blow your mind. (I'm hoping it will blow your mind. lol)

If you haven't been able to get your hands on this paper line, be sure to check out Bad Girls Kits and order some before they run out! It's going to go fast!

The countdown

Did you notice the countdown clock to the left?  Only 9 days until National Scrapbooking Day!  Do you have plans??  If you don't, let me tell you about the day we have planned over at Bad Girls Kits!  Beginning at 9:00 a.m. PST (that's noon for us east coasters) and running every hour until 9:00 p.m. PST, there will be challenges and classes given by us, the Design Team.  Lots of giveaways and surprises so be sure to stop by and join in the fun!  I'm in charge of the 2:00pm challenge so if you want to come by and say hello, I'd love to see you!

I mentioned in yesterday's post that I was at a scrapbooking crop this weekend with my friend, Deb.  Good times.  I'm not normally a cropper because I feel like I have to take my ENTIRE scrapbooking room.  I hate when I get somewhere and realize I don't have what I need.  But this time, I actually did pretty good!  I even took my sewing machine and set it up next to my work area.  It took some people by surprise that you would actually sew on a layout.  Is it sad that I stitch on a lot of my pages? lol

I wanted to share my most favorite page from that crop.

Last week, I took my oldest daughter, Paige down the road to get some pictures.  There's an old farm church that I knew would make an awesome backdrop for a photo shoot but I had to wait until it was nice enough to get over there without freezing out patooties off.  I still need to get Perry over there for some pictures.  She was napping with daddy when we went and I was too impatient to wait for her.  Anyway.. here are some of the pictures I got of Paige.  Hard to believe she's only 7 years old!

*Here's the layout I made using these photos*

I love how this page turned out.  The background paper is by Making Memories.  I used a die cut from Lily Bee in the center, some SEI lacy die cut paper, ribbons by May Arts, buttons by KI, Heidi Swapp butterflies covered with brown polka dot paper from EK Success Overton House, and  Basic Grey chipboard alphas and rub-ons.  The viney type ribbon was so white I was afraid it would disappear against the light papers, so I lightly rubbed them with some brown colorbok chalk ink.

Thanks so much for stopping by this fine day!  It's rainy here so I think I'll make this a "finish-the-laundry" and scrapbook day.  Fun stuff!  I'll see you later. :)

The mother of all updates...

SPRING BREAK IS OVER!!!!!!!!!!!!

Can I say I'm a little relieved?  I can finally get back to some kind of normal schedule!

Oh.. hello there.  I'm Suzanne.. and you are?

Oh that's right.  You know me already.  I've been gone though.

Have you missed me?

(just a little bit?)

So.. what have I been up to since I last updated?  Well... first, I want to put the sad news past me.  If you've been following my DSI:  Divine Scrapbooking Investigation series, I'm going to stop doing it for now.  It's not going bye-bye for forever, but I think at this time there are just too many blogs out there doing challenges.  DSI didn't take off like I thought it would, but I'm okay with that!  Hopefully before the year is up, we will return to the DSI series and it will be hot hot HOT. :)

Okay... so.. now that I've got that off my chest, let's get on to the good stuff.

Spring Break.  It was crazy busy for me.  In the past 2 weeks I have:

1. Had my gal pals, Deb and Denise, over for scrapbooking and lunch.  I made lettuce wraps, crab rangoon, and for dessert..... strawberry wontons.  They were amazing.  The recipes can be found on my food blog.
   
2. I had a couple meetings.. blah blah boring stuff.
   
3. I've taken the girls to the park.
   
4. I took the girls to the Mid-Hudson Children's Museum (had a BLAST!)
5. Went to the movies to see Monsters vs. Aliens (I spent half the time in the hallway with Perry because all she wanted to do was fuss and cry).
6. Made a yummy lunch, packed it all up, and stole Jim away from work for a picnic.  I made roasted veggie pasta salad, a warm potato salad w/ a bacon shallot vinaigrette, fresh strawberries, baguette, and peanut butter cup brownies with ganache.
7. Got the oil changed, vacuumed the car, and washed the car.
8. Went to Six Flags, had a hotel, spent lots of cash, ate greasy, fatty amusement park food, rode lots of rides, got sunburned, had FUN!!!!!!
9. Went to an all day crop (This was my fun.  The girls stayed home with Jim).

I swear there was more that we did.  Ah well.. I forget.  So what did you do on your Spring Break?  Anything exciting?

These pictures were taken at Six Flags.  Paige was so shy about going up to the characters but she did it because she wanted to show off the cape she won.

She was thrilled to get these pictures... 

This page is missing something but it's of our picnic with Jim last week.  It was a gorgeous (but cool) day.  We sat and looked out on the water while we enjoyed our food.  It was so delicious!

I love this layout!  So many fun snapshots of our day at the Children's Museum.  The girls had a blast and didn't want to leave.

Poor Perry couldn't go on very many rides because she is still a little too small.  I got this picture of her looking through the fence while Paige rode the Teacups.  She can't wait to be big enough for the rides.

This was a layout I started when Deb and Denise were at my house to scrapbook.  I didn't finish it until Saturday at the crop.  Love the colors in this.  Papers by EK Success Overton House (it's been in my stash for awhile), October Afternoon, and the gorgeous floral/birdie paper is by Autumn Leaves.  Photo is of Perry almost a year ago wearing pig tails for the first time.  Cracks me up!

Thanks so much for looking!  I have a lot more layouts to share so be sure to stop back in this week for a peek! :)

--Suzanne