So cute!

I am on a roll using Tangie Baxter's new stuff!! Here's another LO I did using her new Fundamentals papers and tabbed frames. And of course I had to add some of the gorgeous foliage from her Spring Forest Floor kit and her fabulous glitter Natural Influence paper.

I always call my son Gage "Mo" -- I don't know why. I just started when he was a baby and it has stuck. So when I saw how cute he looked in this photo with our ferret Zoey I knew I had to scrap it! At 15, most of the photos I take of him have his hand, or more likely, his hair, in front of his face!

Pushing 50...

So today I turned 47.
I have officially lived longer than my mother.

This fact somehow saddens me at the same time that if makes me feel relieved.
My mom died of complications related to kidney disease at just 46 years of age (in fact, she was buried on my 26th birthday.) Of course I am relieved because having had cancer 15 years ago, I have always had that unsttling feeling that I, too, would die young. The age of my mother's death sort of loomed over me, that scary number.
Mom was sooo young, and missed out on sooo much -- my sister growing up, my brother's wedding, her younger sister's losing battle with AIDS, her parents last years, never seeing 10 of her 13 grandchildren, not seeing the wonderful adults her children have become.
So of course I am relieved to know that I have not left my children behind as she did. My sister was about the same age ( just 14) as my youngest daughter is now. I can't imagine being motherless at such a vulnerable, tender, emotional age... a time when it is so important to both bond with and seperate from the person most important and influential woman in your life. The woman you most want to be like --- and the woman you swear you won't ever be like!! I have lived long enough to see my oldest daughter married, spend none womderful years with my dear granddaughter, see my two older sons graduate high school, things I was always afraid I would miss. And am I done??? No way!!!!!!
So although this was a tough birthday, I am so thankful to know that now I am also officially pushing 50!!! Happy birthday to me!


Here is a LO I did a few days ago using an adorable new kit from Tangie Baxter called Aunt Tangie's Toy Box. This is a photo of our niece Madison blowing out candles on her 5th birthday cake, wishing, of course, for TOYS! I love that it looks like there is no background on this LO.




And FLERGS over at Scraphead was offering an oh-so-pretty mini kit as a CT challenge kit so I just HAD to make a LO using it! I did add just a few other elements from other kits of hers that I had. I loved these photos of my daughter Pam when she was about 7 years old. They really show her personality. She hated these photos because she was wearing a bright orange shirt -- but when I softened the color of the photos using Lightroom her shirt became a tolerable shade of pink! Wasn't she cute??

She still is!!

Want to see a few more Los???

I love this photo of Tayler taken at Pam & Mike's wedding... so of course I had to scrap it!
Journaling says: "Tayler -- I love this photo of you in your new Daddy's arms. You look so content, so secure. So serene.

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Shane getting his tattoo. When our son Shane told us he wanted a tattoo as a graduation present, I was not too happy. Yes, all his friends had them, but this is my baby we're talking about!!! And a tattoo is forever!!!
A few years earlier I had admired tattoo work on two different people and both had them done by the same tattoo artist, so I told him that if he got one, I had to choose who did it and suggested that guy, Larry Davis. Shane agreed and spent months looking for just the right lion. Finally he found this photo of a young male lion and knew that it was "the one". After calling about eight tattoo parlors, I finally found Larry. We met with him and looked at his portfolio and knew he was the perfect artist for the job. His tattoos looked like pencil sketches and he specialized in portraits. Larry told Shane that he had to wait until he was 18, so Shane got it two weeks after graduation, on his 18th birthday. Four hours -- and $300 -- later, I did have to admit that it was beautiful work..

Grandma Morrisey with my Dad, Phil, and his baby brother ,Robert.
I had borrowed my Grandmother's photo albums last year to make some copies for a Digital Scrapbook I was making for her 90th birthday. I totally fell in love with the pictures of my Dad as a child. He died when he was only 25 years old, so for my Grandmother, most of her memories of him were as child. And since I was only 5 when he died, and I was the oldest of his four children (the youngest still not born yet), I really have only small snippets of memories of him. This photo really appealed to me because of the beautiful light coming in the window.

My son Gage's 2007 JV Football team.

The lovely Bridesmaids at my older daughter Pam's September 2006 wedding.
My youngest, Lynnea, Pam, Nikki and Kiya.
I loved how the flowers in this LO perfectly matched the pink roses in the girls' bouquets.
I had gone a bit crazy getting the perfect color roses for the wedding! I went into NYC twice for sample roses, then the day before the wedding I went into the city to pick them up from a wholesale florist and delivered them to the florist who was making the bouquets -- even though the price for the bouquets included the flowers! The florist couldn't get that particular rose, but I could.

My son Shane at his Graduation in June 2005. I loved the shot I took of the mortarboards flying in the air so I put them around the title. I was dying to use Birgit's frames. And isn't that tassel from Lemonaid Lucy really fun -- the 2005 charm hanging froom it is from Kim Higueria's Graduation keychains -- both were freebies.

My latest LOs:

This LO about Rhonda Jessica, and Heather (my brother Kenny's wife and two daughters) was made with Mikkel Paige's new Love Me Tender kit and her Sweet Princess collab kit with Lauren Grier of Sweet Shoppe designs.
These photos were taken at the graduation Party in June for Heather, my son KC, and their cousin Christopher.

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And after a recent snow I looked out in the yard and this was my view -- I also recently got Adobe Lightroom and had lots of fun trying all different lighting effects on this photo.

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Oh, and you have to visit Tangie Baxter's blog for a new alpha freebie!!!

New Mikkel Paige products!!!

Mikkel Paige has some adorable products in her store at OScraps!

I made these LOs using her new Ribbon PopTops , her oh-so-3D Felty Hearts and Jellies and her very versatile Doodled Frames along with ribbons from her Winter Chill Kit, Banded Wraps rubberbands, her Painted Glitter Hearts, Eight Nights Kit, Glitter Sheets papers Cracked Tile Alpha, and Flower Patch Sketches .

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New Tangie Baxter Products

Tangie Baxter has created soooo many new products that I don't know where to start!!!
Well first I'll show you some recent LOs I did with her products:

I did this LO of my daughter pam at her wedding using The SPRING edition of the "Forest Floor" series:

This Christmas LO was made with Tangie's partner (her sister) Molly DeCrow's Holly Jolly Kit.
It was perfect for this LO!! My kids always complain that our Christmas tree is decorated in shades of pink instead of "Christmas colors" -- what can I tell ya -- I'm a pink kinda girl!

This LO of my Dad at about 4 years old was made with Molly's Antique Frames, Distressed Frames and Vintage Journal Spots. Perfect for hertage LOs.
And I also used Tangie's Natural Influence Glitter backdrops (Tangie makes the BEST glittered papers!!), Autumn Forest Floor cardboard, Read All About It folded newspaper and alpha (recolored), a Kingdoms Past Crown and her Cafe paper Alpha for the initilas.

And she has added a ton of new products to her store Tangie Baxter Designs.

Also, because her Ct asked, she has added a BUNCH of new alphas too -- these are just a sampling of them -- there are many more!

Recent Layouts

I've been able to make a few layouts since the holidays. Yay!!
I also have been honored by being accepted as a CT member for one of my absolute favorite designers JenU!! She sells her designs at KBandFriends.com When I first started digital scrapping in June, her products immediately attracted me! they were the first ones I PAID for, I loved them so much!!
So here are a couple of LOs using jenU products:

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These LOs were made using these kits:

I love January!

December was such a hectic month for me! I'm so glad it's over...
At work (I am a waiter in a small upscale well-known four-star restaurant in New Jersey) my schedule was crazy! Five 14 to 16 hour days each week for the month of December! Ad if we were lucky we got a half hour break from 4:30 to 5 to eat! I usually work four double shifts each week, but with a two hour break between lunch and dinner, but not in December! I spent the entire month exhausted! I'm too old for this !!!
And I usually work in the upstairs loft of the restaurant and going up and down the stairs at least 50 times a day was downright painful by the end of the week! I would come home wobbling and sore, and my kids would ask, "Did you bring anything to eat?" No pity...
And of course in between, I had to do all of the Christmas decorating, shopping, cleaning and cooking!

We had Christmas Dinner at our house. My daughter Pam and her husband Mike came over with my spunky granddaughter Tayler. I was sooo happy to see them! They only live about an hour and a half away but I had only seen them once since April!!! We have such opposite schedules that it is really hard to get together.
My MIL also came over. She was here visiting from Florida. We are always so glad when she comes to visit. We usually only get to see her once or twice a year now that she live so far away. She can't handle being in our loud, boisterous home for more than a few hours though!
And my two brothers came over with their families too! The kids are all tenagers now, so they all had a lot of fun playing Rock Star! My brother Chris was the lead singer and the kids took turns on the guitar and drums. Although the repeated songs and rat-a-tat-tat- of the drums drives me nuts, at least the kids are interactig, laughing, and not playing a game with bad words or blood!!! Lots of good clean fun!
And finally, the Wrestling Club asked me to make a Program Book for them like I do for the Football & Cheerleading Club, and they wanted it done by the end of December -- haha!! I didn't even have time to sleep in December! I got to finish it the second week of January. I'm soo glad it's done! I don't even have a kid on the wrestling team.
So, now iot's a new year, and I can relax, work my regular shifts, spend some time with my kids, clean my house, and get some sleep!!
I love January!!

Slideshow problems AGAIN!!!

We had our annual Awards Dinner scheduled for December. Then the day of the dinner was freezing rain and we had to postpone it until Jan. 6.
Each year I have made a slide show of the season to show at the dinner. I do this for the kids -- my slideshow isn't about the football stars, it is about ALL the participants, about the entire season's memories.
During the year, the football starters get all the media attention -- so I carefully go thru all my photos to make sure every Varsity football player and cheerleader is in it. This year I had to go thru over 6000 photos to make a 20 minute slide show. Let me tell you, that is no easy feat!!! There were so many wonderful moments to share! And this year I got a bunch of video from YouTube that I broke into short clips and inserted in between the photos.
Now, for the past few years, every time I had to show the slideshow, something would happen -- the year before last, it ran about a third of the way thru and then the projector shut off!! We tried again, and it did the same thing!!!
Last year there was a glitch too (long story)!
So this year I figured all the kinks had been worked out .
Wrong!! First, Tom forgot to bring his laptop to run the disk! I had to go around the room asking if anyone had one -- how embarrassing! One of the cheer coaches lived nearby and her dear husband dropped one off for me! Yay!
Then, we had to figure out a way to project the sound -- well, the only way was for me to hold a microphone against the speaker at the bottom of the laptop! OK, no problem.
So then, I hit the PLAY button to start the show, and so does one of the football assistants -- and he hits it like 4 times -- so now the darn computer gets too busy trying to start it 5 times and it takes forever to start! Tom, the president of the football club, comes over and starts yelling at us about the delay!! I'm getting mad now, so I told him I'm not doing a slide show next year.
Finally, it starts, and everyone really seems to be enjoying it! Tom comes back to where I'm holding the microphone in this awkward position, to tell me how good it is, and he kicks the projector plug out socket! Right in the middle of the slide show!!! When he plugs it back in, the darn thing wouldn't start again because the machine was hot! I was sooo upset!!!! He went out with the micorphone and told everyone that we would continue the show after we gave out some awards -- but didn't even tell them that HE was the reason it stopped! I was fuming mad, because it looked like I had done something wrong -- I was so upset and embarrassed !!! If it wasn't done for the kids, I would have just walked out without showing it!!
Anyway, the kids seemed to enjoy it. Now I just have to make some copies of it for the seniors.