Happy Birthday ScrapMatters!!!

ScrapMatters is celebrating their 1st birthday this weekend with a huge sale. Almost everything in the store is 30% off. Britt released a Grab Bag full of awesome goodies for just $3. Here are the layouts I created with it along with some other Britt-ish Design products:

Salem Witch Museum - My sister and I at the Salem Witch Museum in Salem, MA.



Forest Friends - Photos from our breakfast on my birthday at Storyteller's Cafe at Disneyland Hotel.







Britt also released another awesome pack of templates called "Creative Block Templates 2". I used one for this layout for this week's DISboard challenge. It also uses a few things from the Grab bag.

Decades of Fun



One of the items that I picked up during the sale at ScrapMatters was Erica Zane's new kit "Falliing Dusk." It is gorgeous!!! I used it for this week's Template challenge.

Love Forever - The photo is of my maternal Grandparents. My mom is pretty sure they were standing on a railing of a bridge in Ohio, probably before they were married since they had on heavier coats.



And tonight I did one using the ScrapMatters collab kit, "You Say its Your Birthday." Photo is from my birthday last year that I celebrated in Gettysburg. Photo was taken in our hotel room.

Happy Birthday



A lot of the designers at ScrapMatters talked about some of their birthday traditions and wanted to share one of mine. Growing up my Mom always made our birthday cakes. She claims she isn't a cake decorator, but our cakes were always so cute. I love the homemade frosting she makes. Its the basic Wilton recipe, but it always tastes better when she makes it. My favorite flavor of cake was and still is Cherry Chip. I have no idea why, but is so good. It always annoyed my siblings because they never really liked it, but it was my birthday and my choice.

My First Birthday Cake - Raggedy Ann



3rd Birthday Cake - This one was Strawberry Shortcake



4th Birthday - This one was Care Bears theme.



I love going different places for my birthday, but I miss having a homemade birthday cake by my Mom.

That's all for tonight. Didn't get any paper scrapping done. Melinda and I watched the repeats of Season 12 of the Amazing Race on the Travel Channel before the new episode on CBS. That was one of the best top 3 ever. I really liked all of the top 3 teams, but was really hoping that Ron and Christina would win since it would have been the first time a parent-child team won, but they came in 2nd. Though my favorite racers of all time are still the Hippies, BJ and Tyler, from season 9. That was an awesome finish as well. The premiere of the Amazing Race 13 was OK, but most of the teams seemed a bit annoying. Don't really have a favorite yet. The best part was that it was on time! It seemed that last year most of the episodes were delayed by football, so it was nice for it to be on time.

Later!
Melissa

A New Look!

I decided it was time to dress up the blog a bit and to update the header. Enjoy!

Melissa

A Birthday celebration!!!

ScrapMatters is turning 1!!! YAY!!! And to celebrate there is going to be a sale with almost everything at least 30% off!!! The fun starts tomorrow!!!! YAY!! And Britt has something super cool coming out tomorrow. So check back tomorrow for that.

So glad that tomorrow is Friday. The 250 photos I ordered from Shutterfly are supposed to be here tomorrow. YAY!!! Melinda is supposed to be off on Sunday so hopefully we can get some paper scrapping done.

Though the best part of the weekend is going to be the premiere of a new season of "The Amazing Race!!!" I cannot wait!!! And it won another Emmy for best reality competiton show.

A couple of layouts to post:

A Hanful of Pixie Dust - This was for a telephone game at ScrapMatters. We crushed the record for fastest "call." Photo is from Walt Disney World in 2007.



Mark Twain Riverboat - For the DISboards challenge this past week. The challenge was to use a template designed by the host. The photo is from Disneyland in 2008.



A Pirates Life for Me - This one was from Tuesday night's Speed Scrap at ScrapMatters. Only two of the photos are mine, I borrowed the other from someone on the DISboards. They are from Walt Disney World in January 2007.



That's all for today. I'll have a few new layouts to post tomorrow.

Later!
Melissa

Productive Weekend

I had a pretty productive weekend. I had to run some errands on Saturday, but those didn't take too long. I finished the layout I had been working on for the Words for Wednesday challenge at ScrapMatters to scrap a page without photos. I redid it probably 5 times before I came up with something I liked. Here is the end result:

We're off . . . maybe - Its the story of the flight from Detroit to Manchester last year. I really wanted to include this in my scrapbook, so this was a perfect challenge for that.



I also finished another one from the Holocaust Museum in Washington, DC.

Last Witnesses



The last one I finished today is for the Tuesday Template challenge at ScrapMatters. I decided to scrap when we saw Wicked in Chicago back in 2006. The show was A-MAY-ZING!!!

A Wicked Good Time



So it was a pretty uneventful weekend. Now its back to the daily grind of the work week.

Later!
Melissa

Get your motor running!!!

Britt released a super cool kit today, "Motor Mania" that is perfect for layouts of racing, Pixar Cars themed layouts, road trips, and so much more! And if you purchase from now until next Thursday you get a bonus alpha! Click the image below.



Here is what I created with this kit:

The Long Journey Home



Page 1



Page 2



A Wild Ride - Mr. Toad's Wild Ride at Disneyland. My sister and I were so afraid of this ride back when we were kids, so when we went to Disneyland we had to see what we were afraid of as kids. It actually was a pretty fun ride.



United - Today I worked on another layout for my "Places I've Been" book. In July 2004 my sister and I went to the National Museum of Civil War medicine in Frederick, MD. It was a pretty interesting place, though a bit graphic. The photos are scans of postcards we bought because they don't allow photography.



That's all for tonight. No exciting plans for this weekend. Might just stay home and scrapbook. :) I ordered 250 more photos from Shutterfly for my Disneyland book. I still have 145 more to order! OY! :)

Later!
Melissa

New layouts

Not a very original title I know, but I'm not feeling very clever right now. Wednesday was the 146th Anniversary of the Battle of Antietam. I watched two documentaries about Antietam. The first was one by the National Park service that I bought at the battlefield. The other was called "Lincoln and Lee at Antietam: The Cost of Freedom." Its an excellent documentary. The end always gets to me.

To honor the anniversary of the battle I used one of my photos from June 2006 for the daytime speed scrap at Scrap Matters.

Witness



I finally got a chance to scrap the photos of Cassie dressed as a little devil! :)

Little Devil



Page 1



Page 2



While looking for something else the other night, I found one of the postcards I got from the Holocaust Museum in Washington, DC.

Never Forget



Journaling reads: Burning brightly in the center of the hexagonal Hall of Remembrance at the end of the permanent exhibit is an eternal flame. It sits on a block of black marble which contains dirt from 38 of the concentration camps in Europe and a cemetery where American soldiers were buried to honor the liberators of the camps. The six sides of the room represent the 6 million people who were killed during the Holocaust. The names of 6 of the major concentration camps in Germany and Poland can be found engraved on black marble panels on the walls. There are no windows in the room, but natural light trickles in through the 6 sided skylight high above and from narrow openings in the side walls. Visitors may light candles found on the outer walls as a sign of remembrance. It is a place of quiet reflection and often tears. The inscription above the the eternal flame offers one last reminder that we must never forget all that we saw in the exhibition. We need to remember all those who perished and those that survived to share their stories with us. We must never forget.

And the last new layout for tonight is from tonight's speed scrap. I love this photo of my sister.

Just One Bite



That's all for tonight. I'll have a couple of new layouts to post tomorrow. :)

Later!
Melissa

Another rainy night

It was another wet day here. Melinda and I did take some cute photos of the cats in the costume we bought yesterday, but I haven't had time to put them on the computer yet. I really didn't do much today other than finish a layout for the Tuesday template challenge at ScrapMatters. Its the intro page for Chicago for the "Places I've Been book." I've gotten most of the main intro pages done.

Chicago



Melinda's home now, so we're watching more Quantum Leap. I love the episode on now, "Piano Man." The song "Somewhere in the night" from this episode is one of my favorites from the show.

I guess that's all for now. Later!
Melissa

Weekend Update

I've gotten quite a few layouts done in the past few days. I finally got a chance to work on my entry for the DISboards challenge. Last night was the summer finale of Monk and Psych. Monk was OK, though better than the 100th episode. Psych was great! After that Melinda and watched a few Quantum Leap episodes. She had to work today so I spent the morning working on my layout for this week's Saturday Special. I forgot to save it the first time and accidently closed it and lost everything. So I started again and when to close a different file, but again closed out my layout. I remembered what I had done so it wasn't too bad to recreate it. The third time I saved it first then started working to recreate it. I was happy with how it all turned out though.

After that Melinda got home and we got ready to go out to dinner. She has been wanting to go to the Red Lobster for the endless shrimp so I agreed, though I HATE seafood. She got the endless shrimp and was beyond thrilled, and I got the Cajun Chicken Linguini Alfredo. It was good, but way too much food. We then shared a Warm Chocolate Chip Lava Cookie. This was really good. It was a good dinner. I did like the cheddar biscuits.

After dinner we went to Target to pick up a few things then went to Petsmart to purchase a new bed for Draco. Melinda wanted to get him a bigger bed as a belated birthday present. While there we found THE CUTEST costume for Cassie. :) We're going to take pictures of her wearing it tomorrow. Melinda wanted to stop by Barnes and Nobles to look for a book, so we headed there next. They didn't have the book she was looking for, but they did have an awesome new WICKED merchandise display. Melinda got a calendar, a journal, and a hat. I think I'm going to go back and get the tote bag. The calendar is awesome!!! Its HUGE!!! And it has pictures of some of the people we've seen. Melinda was slightly peeved because April has "Dancing Through Life" which is her favorite song from Wicked. We then stopped by the grocery store for a few groceries before coming back home. Overall a fun evening.

Now we're watching more Quantum Leap. Tomorrow Melinda has to work, so I'll probably work on titles for my paper layouts or some digital layouts. Its been raining all weekend and is supposed to rain tomorrow so I probably will just stay home. And definitly will have to take pictures of Cassie in her costume. :)

So here are the newest layouts I've finished:

What do you see? - For the Saturday special at ScrapMatters from last week of Cassie in my bedroom window. Its one of her favorite places in the house.



The Aladdin Musical Spectacular - My entry for the DISboards challenge using a great template by Bernie-Ann.



Love Always - My paternal Grandparents on their wedding day in 1934. I've tried to scrap this photo before, but was never happy with the results. Today it all come together. Its for this weeks Saturday Special at ScrapMatters.



That's all for now. Later!
Melissa

Help rid the world of an ugly couch!

Britt is releasing 4 awesomely amazing products today!!! Check out the promo ad for a special deal:



You can get all four products for $11!!! That is an awesome deal! And you get to help rid the world of an ugly couch! So purchasing the bundle helps the entire planet! LOL :) OK, maybe not the entire planet. ;)

Here are the layouts I did with these fabulous products:

Washington DC - The intro page for Washington DC for my "Places I've Been" book.



Always Remember - Was inspired by the 7th anniversary of the terrorist attacks. This was the flag that flew at the Pentagon for a month after the attacks. The photo is from the National Museum of American History.



Another new layout: Sharpsburg, MD - Another intro page.



That's all the new stuff I've got for you today. I have the one for Toronto almost done, just need to tweak a few things. Still haven't figured out how I'm going to do Chicago since we go there quite a bit.

I think Melinda is working all weekend so I don't think I'll get to paper scrapbook. I need to work on my journaling and titles for the ones I've done so it might be a blessing.

So go and help Britt get rid of an ugly couch! :-)

Later!
Melissa

Lots of traveling layouts!

I've been a bad blogger and haven't posted any recent layouts. ScrapMatters had not 1, but 2 Speed Scraps this week. One on Tuesday night and one today in the afternoon. I wasn't sure if I could do today's, but was able to squeeze it in.

First up, from Tuesday night's Speed Scrap: Happy - My sister and I on the teacups at Disneyland. I LOVE the teacups.



More intro pages for the "Places I've Been"

Concord, MA - I wanted to use natural colors since we spent most of the trip there exploring the battlegrounds.



Boston - For this one I used Red, white, and blue because a lot of our nation's history can be found in Boston.



And from today's Speed Scrap: Gettysburg, PA - We had to use 1 picture, but use it twice, so I blended it into the background. I was really happy how it turned out.



Tomorrow Britt has some AMAZING products being released, so check back for that.

Night!
Melissa

Some new layouts

Yesterday Melinda didn't have to work so we dedicated the day to scrapping. We started off the day with some fresh baked blueberry muffins. Yum! Then got to work. I got 20 layouts done, though still have to add titles and journaling, but got the basics done. So it was a productive day.

Here are a few digital layouts I did today. Both for my "Places I've Been" book.

Salem, MA



New England Pirate Museum

Full page layout:



Page 1:



Page 2:



And here is the one I did for the "Words for Wednesday" challenge at ScrapMatters about the origins of my name.



Tomorrow night is another Speed Scrap at ScrapMatters! YAY! They are so addictive!!! I can't way. Britt made an awesome alpha for the participation prize.

Thats all for tonight.

Later!
Melissa

An "Enchanting" new kit from Britt-ish Designs!

Britt released "Enchantment" today!!!



It is a GORGEOUS kit! I totally love it!!! And if you purchase it before midnight on Sept. 11 you get a bonus alpha FREE!!! The bonus alpha is awesome.

Here are some of the layouts I did. :)

Magical Kingdom



Universal Studios



Remember - My Great-Grandma Hazel. :)



And for the Tuesday Template challenge, which uses the bonus alpha: Forever Friends



So go pick up "Enchantment!!!"

Later!
Melissa