sometimes life throws lemons at your face!

It has been a crazy whirlwind of a few weeks! For those hat follow my blog, you may know that Hubby is a military man, leaving us on the move every few years. We recently had a large move from California to Northern New York. Hubby's job description changed and was given orders to become a recruiter for a bit. This resulted in a 6 week course starting early July. Hubby drove an hour away, staying away from the family Sunday-Friday nights for 6 weeks straight. Everyone in the course are asked for locations within the U.S.A that they wish to work from, yet we did not find out where we would be moving until just 2 weeks before the physical move! Crazy stressfull to find a home, get the girls registered in school, pack up the home and clean it up, all in just tow weeks!

Now fast forward to the 27th, the day we planned the move out. we were up ALL night packing and cleaning, just to come to the end of the truck, which was level 10 Tetris type packed, only to find that we could not fit everything. We had to purge so much, baby things, daycare things, and most disappointingly, our couch. Now this couch had been through two different rounds of home daycare, lots of young marines, three kids, and two separate dogs, so by any means, I was not too sad of it needing to stay. However I am typing this in our new livingroom from our temporary couch( our outdoor wicker loveseat). We hope to go get a new one in the next week or so!
We departed from California on August 28th, staying with family two hours north for the night, and beginning the LONG drive the next morning! It took us a total of 6 days to complete the drive, I with two girls at a time, and hubby in the moving truck, alternating Little L and Little A, and ALWAYS with the dog. There was no room for his anxiety induced gas in the car with me, I let him stink up the moving truck with hubby, making it a dude space!

We arrived to our temporary home(rental) for our time in the area. on the first day of school. Our goal was to just get to destination for the girls to miss as little of school as possible. They started the following Tuesday, making mission accomplished! We are blessed to have been told by Hubby's new office that they wanted him to take personal leave before starting his job. It will be LONG nights, working weekends, little face time with him once he begins his time recruiting. Until then, he is off for a whole month. It has been a slow adjustment, and we were thrown right into chilly weather after being in Southern Cali for so long! We had a LONG wait for our internet(nearly a week), keeping me away from the bloggy world even longer. I got all my scrappy stuff unpacked early this week and am anxious for some heavy creating. Until then I will share two layouts completed for UmWowStudio during the past 4 weeks.

                I created this layout (check here to see it up on the UWS blog), before the move!I had the vision of all the colorful raindrops, and had just the photos from a random frolick through the lawn sprinklers! I was inspired also to use the UWS August sketch! It was an amazing sketch leaving all that white space below the photo for so many personal interpretations!

How fun! I love how fun the colors bring out the happiness in the photo!

I also created this sentimental layout, showcasing one of my favorite flair buttons EVER!!I added personal journaling to a handmade pocket that also showcased the super fun UWS Potty People. I used one in each size to represent the girls varying ages! You can view this layout on the UWS blog HERE!

How lovely are these golds and rose pink papers together!
Well, thanks for checking in and reading my catch up! I will be back tomorrow with a new layout for LCOM!!!
                                                                Brianna

Do you wanna build a snowman?

It doesn't have to be a snowman! I chose to create mine out of paper! So often we document our lives, our children, our relationships , and memories; and most often that comes in the form of scrapping photos with our children in them; but sometimes, its fun to just scrap without our children's shining faces. I chose to document the big hit in our home lately, as I am greatly sure it is in your home as well! My radio, blu-ray player, coloring pages... they are all over run by this amazing movie.

This weeks sketch reveal over at Let's Capture Our Memories was the perfect fit for this subject.

The three photos down the middle are perfect for a replicated photo of the movie cover! I also got to use my UWS snowflake confetti for the most perfect embellishment for this layout.

I can honestly say that the girls have never been sooo excited over a scrapbook layout in their lives.
If you feel greatly inspired by this super fun sketch, don't hesitate to play along with us. Don't forget to link up your layout HERE for a chance at an awesome prize from LCOM.
There is no time limit - you can always play any week at any time, but the linking form will close on the last day of the month at 11:55pm (Atlantic Standard Time) to allow us to find a prize winner.
Thanks for peeking, and I hope you all now have this song stuck in your head ;).
                                                                     Brianna

over the hill

I'm up today on the UmWowStudio blog, sharing a page celebrating my 30th birthday. I was lucky to be born on a major holiday; the 4th of July. We don't normally celebrate my birthday, as the days are full of independence day activities, but this year, with the impending move and the decade birthday, I felt we should atleast squeeze in a cake!
I was super happy how festive this layout felt. Just right for a birthday photo!

Can you see that balloon chipboard. The UWS celebrate confetti is the most amazing product for birthday projects. It also includes these fun starbursts I added, along with cupcakes, streamer confetti, and birthday hats! I also framed out my photo in this super fun UWS speech bubble frame!

On another note, today marks two weeks left in our California home. We are planning to leave on the 25th and stay in a hotel with hubby until the 28th, when he completes his career course, and we depart for Northern New York. There is still much packing and sorting and purging to do, and I chose to keep my daycare kids through this week, adding to my time crunch, but how can you say no to loving on sweet little ones a bit longer!
I hope everyone has an amazing start to their week, and thanks for popping in!
Brianna

More summer blog hop fun!

Good morning friends! I hope you had a beautiful week. It has slowly been getting quite warmer here by the day, leaving us in high 80's expected for tomorrow. I wanted to share another super fun layout I created for the UmWowStudio and Susan K. Weckesser blog hop. After falling in love with the paint splatter paper for my previously posted layout, I had a strong urge to also create a layout using the circles from her fabulous Color burst paper.

Using the Live,Love,Create paper as my background, I chose to dull down the writing by giving it a light coat of good old fashioned white acrylic paint. Once that dried, I had a fun idea to punch some strips of white cardstock for a greatly textured photo mat paper strip.

Than I fussy cut my selected circles to place outside my mat in a fun manor. Adding to the fun and cheerful feel of this layout, I added a few scattered starbursts from my UWS Snowflake Confetti, and lastly I filled a fun arrow with a piece of confetti from my UWS Arrow Confetti pack!

I am quite happy with the fun feel these products brought to such happy photos. I truly hope you had fun viewing and hoping along with us this week, and more so I hope we inspired and delighted you in some way! Thanks for all your sweet comments, and do not forget to check back at the blogs for your chance at the fun prizes!

 

 

UWS products used:

Arrow Confetti

Snowflake Confetti

 

SKW Products used:

Color Burst Paper

Live,Love,Create Paper

 

Brianna

UmWowStudio and Susan K. Weckesser Inc. summer blog hop

Good morning friends,
I am sharing some great fun today. The girls over at the blog and I have been working on and sharing some super fun projects this week for our UmWowStudio and Susan K. Weckesser summer blog hop. We have had great inspiration so far from the amazing ladies on the team.

 I of course created a layout. We were given the super fun Susan K. Weckesser Live in color paper collection. I fell in love with the  Color Burst paper the second I saw it. The ink splattered look and all the tones are right up my alley. I wanted to create a layout also focusing on the UmWowStudio layered triangles. After backing them with black cardstock, I arranged them on top of my awesome gold vellum paper which I layed atop my misted background paper!

I used the Color Burst paper and Boquet paper to create my hearts. A bit of fussy cutting, confetti flecks, and vellum starbursts later, I added the just what I needed to finish the look I was going for. I used a miniature polaroid to add emphasis to my chosen quote, and chose a rub-on from my stash to create detail to the frame, and also to an arrow confetti piece. Lastly I added a hashtag banner backed with paper atop a fussy cut banner from the Live in color tags.

If you haven't had the chance to yet, we would love for you to hop over to the blog to see all our work and the remainder of the week for more inspiration and also the chance to win one of two awesome prizes!

Christmas in July

Yes, I did indeed create a Christmas layout in July, but it all came to me, and I needed to run with the vision! This layout was made off of this super fun sketch for sketch reveal over at LCOM today!
I was inspired to create a vellum pocket in place of two photos.

I hand cut the shapes, backing them with the patterned paper, gluing down the confetti, covering with vellum and than cutting the patterned paper to frame the shapes. I thought it gave such a magical feel to such lovely photos!

And seriously, how AWESOME is this woodgrain cardstock !

If you have the time, we would love for you to play along at your chance to win a fun prize!
How to Play Along:

1. Make a newly created project using the provided sketch and upload it to your blog or online gallery.
2. Then leave a link to your project using the Inlinkz widget at the bottom of  (THIS ) post. Please use a direct link to your LCOM Sketch post and not just your blog address.
3. If you upload to online galleries, please also use tag/keyword LCOM81. LCOM products are NOT required to participate, and you can enter as many times as you want. If you don't have a particular shape indicated in the sketch, feel free to substitute.
4. There is no time limit - you can always play any week at any time, but the linking form will close on the last day of the month at 11:55pm (Atlantic Standard Time) to allow us to find a prize winner.

 

                                                            Brianna

The name writer

I love watching my girls grow and learn new things, but I would be lying if I said it wasn't super frustrating to teach little A her letters. She is my strong willed child, and insisted on learning it her way. No guiding of the pencil, just personal practice. I loved to watch her never give up, and finally master her name! I created this layout by inspiration found on the scrapbook circle blog. Their mood board was so fun. I mimicked the arrangement of fruit in my background circles, and pulled the wood papers and confetti. Always great inspiration there!

Thanks for stopping by friends. I hope everyone has a beautiful end to their week, and I will be back tomorrow(before a long day at the dentist), to share my layout for this weeks sketch reveal over at LCOM!
                                                            Brianna