I wanted to blog about this on Saturday, but didn't stop to take any photos until this morning. One of my favorite things about being a designer in the digital scrapbooking world is that I have the opportunity to meet so many wonderful, really kind people.

When Scott brought the mail in on Saturday, I had a package waiting for me from Candy, who is on the PGD creative team. About a month ago I started working on a collection of kits inspired by the girls on the CT, based on color palettes that they chose and using themes and elements that they love to scrap with. Candy's kit was my first, and through the process I learned that she loves fairies. I'm a fairy lover too and am starting to amass a very respectable collection of prints, figurines and fairy art books, all of which (with the exception of my art books) are surrounding me at my desk when I work.

I talked with Candy about making a fairy themed kit and she was really excited about the idea. I dug right into making it and I think it was the single most fun creative journey I've been on yet involving digital scrapbooking. And miss Candy, total sweetheart that she is, sent me the most adorable little pewter fairy figure for my collection along with a note thanking me for the kit! I wanted to share with you a few photos of my newest little winged friend, who immediately joined the others on my desk....to help inspire me with a little bit of fairy magic each and every day. :)

Thank you so much Candy, for this little beauty! I love her!

 

See the little orange jewel she's cradling in her hands? :D

 

Side view...she has a detailed wing design...someone really enjoyed sculpting her.

 

And with the beautiful card that accompanied my new fairy friend....this will be framed and set on my desk as well! :D

Just a quick post before I head off to bed, since it should be way past my bedtime, but alas is about my normal bedtime because I can't seem to get myself in bed much earlier than this!

We had a fun day today. We took the kids to see Kung Fu Panda. Movie outings that involve all four of us have been, up to this point, a real rarity since it's hard to predict how much is too much for Nicholas and a place where quiet is expected is not usually a place to take a kid who gets loud when he goes into sensory overload. We usually stick to activities that, if Nicholas gets a little loud, don't draw murderous glances from other people. I'll admit it, I'm extremely intimidated by the thought of taking Nicholas places where his autistic behaviors/traits draw attention to us. I know I shouldn't be like that, but I am. Most likely because I've encountered times in the past where people made not-so-quiet remarks about his behavior. I've had people say, intentionally loud enough for me to hear, that I should invest in some duct tape for my kid's mouth. :(  I've also had worse encounters that I don't even want to recount. I'm easily irritated by the fact that it seems I need to pin a sign to my son's chest that says "I have autism" in order to not bear the brunt of others' misplaced judgement. In fact, I get pretty pissed off that I have to explain myself, or him at all. And believe me, the meltdowns themselves can be hard enough to handle without stares, disapproving looks, or unkind words. These types of reactions just make it worse and make me want to run for home into our little cocoon where it doesn't matter if a particular noise makes Nicholas scream for 15 minutes.

But, that all aside, Nicholas did really well. We had a couple of minutes that had me on edge, thinking I might have to take him out of the theater but he pulled it together nicely and enjoyed the experience as a whole.

Madison is a dream to take to the movies. She has no problem sitting for an hour and a half without chattering or needing to use the bathroom or even laughing too loud. Her first movie theater experience was Finding Nemo when she was about 2 years old and she was just as good then, on her first trip, as she is now. This means that she's often invited to see movies with Grandpa who is an avid movie-goer that expects fellow patrons to observe polite movie behavior. I'm quite proud of that. :D  When Grandpa says that she's a great movie companion I know we've taught her good movie theater manners. :)

The movie itself was very good. Fun for kids and entertaining for adults. I foresee it making it's way into our dvd collection when it's released.

Well, that's about it for me. No scrapping news today because I didn't scrap. ;)  I was too busy having family fun!

Remember...live, laugh, love and scrap, people!

We have an Alaskan Malamute named Ajax who just turned 2. Something that a lot of people don't realize about Mals and other arctic dogs is that if they live in a climate with definitive warm and cold seasons, they'll go through a coat "blow" twice a year where they shed (at the very least) a good portion of their undercoat. Some dogs will blow their guard coat too, leaving only a baby fine coating of hair on their body until their new coat grows back in. Needless to say this happens usually in the late spring/early summer and again in the late fall/early winter. Arctic dogs that live in climates that are warm pretty much year round (like the southern US) don't actually have periods where they blow their coat, they just shed a greater amount on a more constant basis.

I started noticing earlier in the week that it looked like Ajax was starting his summer season blow. You can tell because he'll start to have these little errant tufts of fur sticking up from beneath his guard coat, or just stuck to his guard coat.

It's quite warm out today, so he is completely into the idea of lazing around inside in the AC, and I wanted to brush off some of the loose fur so that it didn't end up all over the house. I spent at least 30 minutes brushing him and this is what I ended up getting:

 

I don't know if you can tell or not from the second picture, but that shopping bag is about 3/4 full. And as you can see from the picture below, our boy is no where close to being nekkid.

This will go on for the next week to two weeks, until his body has decided it's gotten rid of enough fur. I'm not sure how much he'll loose this time around. He's yet to completely shed his guard coat, but last fall was his first real cycle through a coat blow. As a pup he didn't lose much at all in the summer. This is the joy of living with a Mal....lots and lots of hair. Hair tumbleweeds even, that hide beneath the toe kick ledges of the kitchen and bathrooms, in the corner of our tiled family room and along the baseboards of the carpeted rooms. And this is even with the fact that he spends a lot of time outside, hunting, digging and doing doggish things (in the winter, we can't even get him to come inside for any longer than about an hour. Any longer than that and he's just sitting at the door, looking through the window to the backyard and back at me again until I relent and open the door for him). 

A lint roller is a must in this house and we have several. I've had a lot of people tell me that they couldn't live with a dog with that much fur. I expect to go through several vacuums in Ajax's lifetime. I've read that they don't stand up too well to Mal fur. But the thing is, I don't really mind the dog hair. This face more than makes up for it! :)

Madison has been at her aunt's house since Friday, and when she left I packed up the laptop for her to play webkinz and club penguin if my SIL had any work she needed to get done while Madison was visiting. Last night she messages me to ask me where her dad is so she can ask him a question. So, I tell Scott that he needs to message Madison. Their exchange was quite funny. She was wanting to know how to turn off sticky keys on the laptop because they kick in when she starts playing a particular game. Scott proceeds to tell her how much he misses her and she says "ok Dad, but that's not what I asked." LOL My daughter is a teenager at the age of 7 1/2.

It's been really quiet around here without her. Nicholas doesn't seem to be minding much though. LOL Though they aren't very close because of his differences, they really do have their typical brother/sister moments where you can tell they're just driving one another up the wall.

Yesterday I was able to snap a few more pics of Nicholas. He's so hard to corner long enough to get a good shot. I think these ones turned out pretty good. I plan on dumping them to my computer later on and maybe scrapping one or two, along with some of the ones I took a couple of weeks ago. Over the weekend I made some layout templates that need to be given a test run, so this is the perfect opportunity to do that.

I'm trying really, really hard to scrap more often. I feel guilty that I'm so far behind with my photos. I may catch up some day. Maybe I'll have all of my photos scrapped by the time I die. I doubt it though.

Well, that's about it for me right now. Remember to live, laugh, love and scrap!

Ok, so I seriously need to baby step myself on this blogging thing. Honestly, in the morning I have a list full of things to get done before things around the house (yes, that would be the kiddos) gets crazy and by the time I have everything wrapped up for the night it's usually way past my bed time and I say "I'll blog tomorrow." Wash, rinse, repeat.

So maybe I should shoot for blogging twice a week. That would be better than every 10 days, and get me on a roll. I have to work up to organization and habit. It doesn't come naturally to me...at all.

On a non-I've-already-failed-at-being-a-good-blogger note, I did get some layouts done since I posted last. :D Today was an especially scrappy sort of day. After zipping up some products and getting them into the store and posting my ads, I just felt like scrapping.

Here's one I finished on Tuesday for an upcoming AAM challenge at PGD:

 

Then I worked on scrapping some old photos from 2001 on our honeymoon trip to Mackinac Island:

 

 

 

 

 

I think 5 layouts in a day must be  a record for me...but now I'm on a mission to get our wedding/honeymoon album finished. So within another 2 anniversaries that pass, I just might get that done! LOL

Well, I'm tuckered out. Live, laugh, love and scrap people!    

I decided it was high time I set up a blog of a more personal nature. My blogging over at the PGD blog is pretty much all related to the store and what's going on there, and I didn't really feel that it was appropriate to post 'everyday stuff' there. So here I am. LOL

It's been such a long time since I've blogged about me and life that I feel a little rusty. Today was not a very inspired design day. I started out trying to work on a paper pack that I have in the works, but ended up very, very stuck. I thought maybe switching modes would help, so I decided to try to work on a fairy painting. I finished the initial sketch and started to block in the color and realized that wasn't really working either (good to realize before getting to the detailed work, too). I resorted to doing some housework for a bit (uh...yuck. You know I was having issues because I did that voluntarily), then my mind settled on setting up this blog. It's taken me practically all day because, well, with kids there are no big blocks of time to work on something unless they're in school or asleep.

I scrapped a bit last night. I may fit in a little more tonight before bed....who knows. It all really depends on when the DH starts complaining about being tired. He doesn't like it when I stay up without him. Men are so funny!

 

Here's the layout from last night. It's the first for the AAM challenge series we're starting over at PGD. I'm so happy we're doing these cohesive challenges. I'm stoked that I'm going to have a full album when it's all said and done!

 

 

Well, that's all for today, see you on the flipside!