Crazy!

You know those periods in your life that just seem crazy busy? All of the sudden that is my life...non stop craziness. I just got back from a surprise trip coordinated by my husband to celebrate my 40th birthday which was last week and our 20th wedding anniversary which was a couple of months ago but went by mostly unrecognized because I was only a couple of days post surgery. He was awesome enough to plan a beach getaway, something I have been wanting to do for awhile now. He and I haven't been away on a trip together for years. We stayed at a friend's place in Del Mar, California and it was amazing. Less than a block from the beach, ocean views from the fabulous front deck. We relaxed, did a little exploring, mostly spent time sitting at the beach and just had some fabulous, uninterrupted catch up time together. There was a piece of me that would have stayed forever but alas we are back to reality and schedules and commitments. Yesterday alone I made 6 trips to the school and back...6! Ridiculous.

That isn't all that's taken my time. The weekend before we left on our trip I was surprised when my doorbell rang and my best friend was standing there, suitcase in hand and plans to spend the weekend hanging out with me. We had the best weekend! We met up with a couple of my super, amazing friends on Saturday for a fun birthday lunch, sat and talked and talked and talked, and this will make our husbands proud...even watched the Huskers game on t.v.! We made it to Archiver's to scrap on Sunday afternoon which was absolutely fabulous and so very normal for us. It made me miss her closeness even more. Thanks, Stacey for taking time to come and see me and for the surprise you were so good to keep! I know it was hard for you :)

I am behind in posting a couple of projects that went live while I was on my little trip. Forgive me for being late! First up is our first September drill at S.W.A.T. The challenge is to incorporate 3 S's into your project: stamping, stitching and spraying. I decided to create a two page layout of Grandpa's visit by train when the boys were younger.

I sprayed on the gray striped paper with a gray mist to give a little bit of the mist look without it standing out. The arrows are stamped and I faux stitched at the top of the page and stamped stitches over the arrows. I wanted the photos to take a little more center stage since they weren't super close ups. I liked the pop of orange against all the gray to give some fun interest to the page.

The second layout I have today is for the On Trend Monday at Practical Scrappers. We were to use gesso on the layout. I am pretty new to this stuff and did something pretty basic since I am just starting to experiment with it. You will definitely have to check out the other designers projects as there are some pretty amazing things they have done! For my project I used the gesso and painted a white frame for my photo. I took an embossing folder and pressed it into the wet gesso to add a little texture. When dried it didn't stand out quite the way I thought it would. I would go thicker for the next time and maybe add some color to help the pattern stand out. That's the fun of experimenting. It gives you better ideas for the next time.

That's it for me today. Heading out to run some errands and catch up some more from my time away. Have a super week.
Lisa