Farewell, my little friend

I couldn't even think of doing this post until today. It's been a week since I received the phone call from Sara letting me know that you had gotten out of the house and into the path of a utility truck. Your death was instanteous, so you did not suffer. You craved freedom, digging under the fence or waiting for that moment of inattention when the front door was open. It was really just a matter of time until this happened. But I'm so sad that it has.

Sara rescued you about 6 years ago when you were about 6 years old. You had been neglected and closed in a bathroom for hours at a time when your owners were gone. You had serious anxiety issues. Sara worked with you and loved on you until your anxiety lessened and you became a friendly, loving, bouncy furry friend.

When Eli was born two years ago, you became her guardian and patient pal. You never growled or became unpleasant when she pulled your hair or crawled in your bed with you, or gave you hugs. You learned early that you could discourage her by licking her hands and face. She loved to feed you and learned to give you gentle pats and hugs.

You usually spent a couple months with me each year when your family took vacations or were gone on business trips. You made yourself right at home with Freckles and me. Freckles seemed to enjoy your company and would run to find you when it was time to come in from the yard. You dug holes under my fences, too and got away a couple times. You would come prancing home after you had a chance to investigate the neighborhood (you could have been run over here just as easily as home). I loved your affectionate and bouncy personality. And will always remember how you walked with your tail in the air like a pom-pom or a flag. You loved to go on walks and were a perfect walking companion - just my speed with no pulling. And you never barked, but just made a growling sound deep in your throat.

So, farewell, my little friend. You are missed.

Quilt Guild

Today was the last regular meeting for this year of the guild that I have belonged to for 3 years. Since I'm somewhat quiet, it has taken me this long to really get to know some of the ladies. I love this group....they are so helpful and encouraging. The next meeting witl be a potluck in June to vote on the next year's officers. I won't be able to go as I'll be recuperating from my surgery, but my name is on the ballot for secretary. There are two of us, so it's not a sure thing. I would look forward to being an officer and getting more involved and becoming even more acquainted with members. We'll see.

And since no post is complete without a photo, here's my layout for LOAD for today. The prompt is to use emphasis. And the whole subject of LOAD is 'back to the basics'. So my layout seems rather plain, but it is basic and speaks to Eli's growing sense of independence.

Two things

First I want to give a shout out for Big Picture Classes and Stacy Julian. She's offering an new and revised version of her Library of Memories. And she's offering it FREE to alums of the previous LOM classes. That class revolutionized how I scrapbook, how I keep track of photos and how I organize my albums. So I'm a big fan and will be taking the new class which starts in June - just in time after my hip surgery.


Second, want to post this layout I did for a challenge at Cocoa Daisy, which is my favorite kit club. I've tried several over the years and it's the best around for me. The challenge was to do a layout of a visit to a theme park or a fair and use flags on the layout. Humm....I haven't been to either in many years, but I remembered these darling photos of Eliana from her first time skiing at Whistler. Found a sketch in my folder....sorry, but I didn't save the source. When I was sorting through patterned paper a month or so ago, I found this lovely snowflake pp and set it out for a snow layout. Perfect for these photos. The strip on the left is from my bits and pieces drawer and was the perfect blend of colors - I even punched the circle embellishment from that pp. Made the flags from some hatpins from a past CD kit and some leftover cardstock. None of the journaling cards I had would work, so I made my own by tracing around one from Making Memories. Really happy with how this turned out.

Want to encourage all you scrappers out there to make use of your scraps and older pp. It's a real money saver.

By the way, Eliana is only 22 months in the photos and LOVES the snow.

Design team

Poor neglected blog...sigh. Seems I have been too busy with other things, but a recent design team call for Cocoa Daisy - my favorite kit club - brought me back. I don't think I've ever applied for a design team and probably stand little chance of making it, but if I were ever on one, I would want it to be Cocoa Daisy. I love their kits and have since about 2007.



So, yesterday I got busy and made a layout of a recent telephone conversation with Eliana who is going to be 2 years old next month. She's fascinated with the phone and loves to talk. Her language skills are improving every day with new English and Spanish words. Yes, she's bilingual thanks to her mother who is a bilingual teacher in an elementary school. Eli's babysitter is also a Spanish speaker. I'm not, but I've learned quite a few words over the past year. But I digress.



I really wanted to document Eli's current pronounciations, especially of my name which has gone from Nana, to ammy, to gwammy now. She's the light of my life.



So here's the layout.

Smile

this layout was a response to a post on Write. Click. Scrapbook to go through an older stack of patterned paper and sort out what you wouldn't use. In the process I found this older pp by BoBunny that was perfect for the photo of Eli I took a couple weeks ago when Greg and I took her to the park up by them. The sketch is from another site, The Studio Challenges. The two tags I used to frame the photo are from K & Co and the sticker letters are from ADORN it. I have no idea where the other embellishments came from. So glad I found this pp and was able to scrap this sweet photo.

LOAD 211 Day 3

I'm loving this month's LOAD. There are wonderful layouts in the gallery to provide inspiration and the prompts are also interesting. Today's layout is a totally different type of design - not one I do very often. It has lots of embellishments - I had a kit from Basic Grey (Olivia) that had lots of fun chipboard and papers that I loved. So, here it is.

I love these photos of Greg, Sara and Eli that were taken when they traveled to Denver for a family gathering.

LOAD211

Started today. I love LOAD - love the prompts, the 'lessons', the work of the other participants, and the lovely comments that I sometimes get. I had a meeting this morning so didn't get started on this until after lunch. Very simple - two colors of cardstock, some buttons, and some letter stickers. I love this photo of one of the pelicans that wandered throughout Mykonos town. They were huge - at least 3 feet tall from feet to top of the head. This will be part of my Greece travel album.