Rough week

To say I've had a rough week would be an understatement. I'm working nights this week at the Asbury Park Press, getting little sleep and have been overloaded with stress. All sorts of things suffer in the process. I make bad food choices. I don't exercise. I neglect my blog. I wallow, complain and cry. Thankfully it can't and won't last forever. And I do have one outlet that makes me feel better, allows me to escape and brings me a ton of satisfaction ... scrapbooking. With all the chaos in my life I have made scrapbooking a priority. No matter where I am in the world, I scrap. I scrap late at night if I have to or early in the morning. I scrap on airplanes. I scrap in my hotel room. It's one of the consistent things in my life and it brings me so much peace. This week I've really appreciated the joy scrapbooking and belonging to the scapbooking communinty has brought to me. Today is National Scrapbooking Day ... so happy National Scrapbooking day to all of you. I hope, even if you're not a scrapper, you can fin some joy from some of the scrapping I do.  

Here's a look at the layouts I've made this week:

My sister-in-law took this photo of Cooper while he was playing at Grandma's house Easter weekend and I love, love this photo. It captures Cooper perfectly.

Journaling reads:
I seriously have the happiest kid in the world. He’s always smiling. He’s always laughing. He sings to himself. He pops out of bed with a grin on his face and is ready to play. I am in awe of him. I’m not sure where he got this personality  trait, because I’m nothing like this! But it’s really the best thing ever. No one will ever rain on his parade, because he’s much too happy to notice the rain! 

This page I created for I used one of the templates from Debbie Hodge's Building Pages workshop (template No. 5) as a starting off point. I rotated the template to accommodate my photo and I go rid most of the photo/paper boxes.

Journaling reads:

I am 36 years old, nearly 36 and a half. I don’t mind telling people my age. I’ve never really understood why that bothered some women. But lately I’ve become obsessed with aging. I can’t walk past a mirror without noticing my wrinkles, though I don’t REALLY have all that many. . I have become so obsessed about it I’ve been researching Botox and am seriously considering getting it.  . Just a little … for my forehead … and I’d love to get some sort of filler in the spots between my mouth and cheeks that are a little sunken in. I’ve read that treatments like Botox and Restylane work much better if you start earlier, long before you have major wrinkles and sagging. The theory is if you start younger you’ll stave off the aging process, at least a wee bit longer. I have friends and family either my age or younger who have been getting Botox for year and swear by it. I know … this sounds so superficial. I feel bad even saying it out loud. But I honestly feel like it would make me feel better. And is there anything wrong with wanting to feel better about yourself? So … to Botox or not Botox, that is the question. 

These photos are some of my favorite recent photos. I love to see my kids playing with their cousins. It just warms my heart. I seem to be gravitating to really bright, happy colors right now.
Credits:
* Photo, my sister-in-law, Jenny DeMucha
* Alphas: April Digi Files “Here Comes the Sun” by Libby Pritchett
* Papers, red scallop and blue flower stickers: May Digi Files “Celebrate” by Gina Miller
* CK Ali Hand Font
* Tekton Pro Font
* TheTeenageDream Font
* Sanded overlay, House of 3

On the day I created this layout I was short on time and creativity, but wanted to get my LOAD assignment done ... so I decided to catch up on my Project 365 layouts I used a template from the May Digi Files. I added three extra photo spots to accommodate all seven photos for week 14. Everything on this page is from the May Digi Files or the latest bonus from The Digi Files (My Life).

This is my second LOAD and I'm coming to a realization ... I'm not a multiple photo scrapper. I really prefer just using a single photo per layout. Whenever I try to do more than that, I'm incredibly unhappy with my layout. I'm glad I've figured this out and I'm going to try to focus on what I like rather than doing what I think I should. However, for this layout I wanted to scrap some of the photos from Shelby and Coop coloring eggs .. .and I just couldn't pick a single photo to use. So I used four. I have mixed feelings about this layout. It's not my "real" style, but it's fine enough.

Journaling reads:

On his first birthday, Cooper didn’t get to color eggs. He was in the hospital and missed Easter AND his birthday. But this year ... he not only had a chance to color eggs, but he got to do it with his cousins. As a kid I spent a lot of time with my cousins and have the best memories of the times we all spent together (especially Easter at my Grandma Estes’ house). It makes me a little sad since we don’t live close to any of my siblings, so Shelby and Coop don’t get to play with their cousins all the time. But when they do, they make up for lost time. (Photos taken: April 23, 2011)

Credits: Bunny Hop Kit from PxlCafe

This was a layout I created for my creative team duties at PxlCafe. Our assignment was to create a Mother's Day layout. I used the Sweet Quiche kit and a Color Swatch template, all of which are available at the PxlCafe.

Journaling reads:

On some blog, somewhere, sometime ago … I read about a woman who had a picture of her and her mother. She didn’t have a lot of pictures of the two of them together, so she had someone snap a shot of the two of them. A few weeks after the photo was taken, her mother unexpectedly passed away. She was so grateful for that rare photo of the two of them together, which she took because she is a dedicated memory keeper and that’s what we memory keepers do. We take pictures. We tell stories. And we save them for all to see.

I was with my own mom a few weeks ago and with this story fresh on my mind, I made a point of having a picture of the two of us taken. It’s a grainy iPhone photo, but no matter what happens, I have the moment captured forever and little piece of my mom. My mom was in a very serious car accident last year, which marked her second hospital stay in just a few short months. If anything was to happen to her, I would hate to think I didn’t have a recent photo of us. I want to remember. And I want my children to remember.