Greetings from....

Dusting off my keyboard

Wow, I forget about this place sometimes. I was just looking back at some old posts and it reminds me of how little I write these days. I write descriptions for my Youtube videos, emails to friends. captions for my Instagram photos and posts to my co-workers about style and program tips. I guess it adds up as writing, right?

I'm turning 40 in a few months. I started this blog in my 20s! It is so crazy to think how time has flown, of all the places I've been, people I've met, ways I've changed. Hitting a milestone always makes me sentimental and ponderous. I want to make lists of things to do, fix things around my house and in my life, learn and read and travel, and yet, because things haven't changed that much, I'm still an expert in procrastinating.

It happens to be my niece Taylor's 13th birthday today. 2003 was the year we lost my grandmother, the year I ended a terrible relationship that still haunts me, the year my money problems got out of control. But it was also the year I became an aunt and we brought Rocky into our family, too. Like I said, I'm feeling sentimental. Even just thinking about being an aunt melts me into a big pile of goo. I haven't blogged in so long that there's an entirely new person in our lives, my newest little niece who is turning one in a few weeks. Best job ever.

I gotta go! Maybe I'll write more soon or maybe I won't.

Summer scraps!

If I ever catch up on on my scrapping that will mean my life will have gotten very boring! It's Labor Day Weekend and summer has once again gone by too quickly. I just had my August vacation and even that seems to have slipped by. But there were lots of cool adventures - trips to BronyCon in Baltimore, Coney Island and Turtle Back Zoo. I never did get around to any of my projects like cleaning out the hallway or getting a cabinet for my scrapbook stuff. Well, I guess they are fall projects now!

I did go to a crop last weekend and have been scrapping here and there over the last few weeks. Some new pics and oldies in the mix!

Hanging out with Amanda at Disney! One of the best things about my California trip!

The big kiddos on Halloween last year.

My friend Carrie always has beautiful photos of her daughter in her Christmas cards - I finally got around to scrapping these.

We took Maddie to the zoo for her first birthday and she had to tell all the animals that

Maddie loved this bouncing saucer.

Portraits from Christmas.

Learning to crawl!

Look at those teeth! She's so cute.

Fun in the pool and sandbox.

My cousin is a rock star! She's so cool.

A scary day when Penny got off the leash.

Penny and her weird hiding spots.

Good times with the Bad Parts and my awesome friends.

And here's a page about my awesome birthday this year.

Labels: scrapbooking

Fun with newspapers

It's been awhile since I've shared what I've been up to at work so here's another Fun With Newspapers post.

We often get centerpieces with no art or art that doesn't really work well so we need to come up with concepts. I'm pretty terrible at that part, but I found a graphic with all these circles and math and science icons that inspired this centerpiece for Burlington. I think it turned out pretty cool!

IBM is in the news a lot for Poughkeepsie and it's a challenge to come up with new ideas for this story. Since this story talks about a possible closing of a chip manufacturing center, I made the IBM logo a bit more techy looking.

Each week, Poughkeepsie has a photo page with awesome photographs that we like to promote in the skybox. The centerpiece story is about the inventor of a new type of baseball bat grip - and I used some circles and arrows to make it more interesting.

The Daily Journal of Vineland is a pretty small paper - but they like to do really bold stuff when they can - and they let me have a lot of fun with these Atlantic City stories.

This is a story about the rise of homicides in the area in this past year - and we let the numbers tell the story.

And sometimes we just get great photos - and we can let them take focus!

Labels: design, fun with newspapers, news design, Newspapers

10 favorite things about my trip to California!

So I recently went to Anaheim, California, with my friends from the Mommy & Gracie show for VidCon! It was such a crazy week. VidCon is a celebration of all things YouTube with stuff for professionals as well as fans and it also happens to be organized by two of my favorite YouTubers, Hank & John Green.

If you want to watch some of our adventures, here are some videos from Mommy & Gracie. I am going to try to put one together too (Here it is. I finished the vid before I finished writing this!). Some of you might remember I used to have another blog called 10 Things because I loved lists and I think I need to start those up again! These are my 10 favorite things about the trip.

1. I got to see Hank Green and some other awesome YouTubers, like Hannah Hart and Rhett & Link.

2. Met some really cool people, like the adorable and super smart Presley from ActOutGames and people like Syndey and her mom Kristina who are big fans of M&G! This is always my favorite part of any convention - not the big stars, but people who are more like me!

3. Getting to see my friends Haley and Amanda! They were my own personal tour guides at Disneyland! It's been about five years since I've seen them.

4. It's a Small World - I love this ride, but this version at Disneyland was extra awesome with characters from Disney movies! I didn't see those in Orlando!

5. I had so much fun hanging out with Gracie. We spent a lot of time hanging around the expo floor, playing over sized games and dancing in the silent disco. Back at the hotel, we watched YouTube videos and made up crazy ideas for Monster High lines. We laughed so hard!!!

6. In & Out Burger. We made two trips. Those animal fries are so good!

7. Mad T Party at Disneyland! So much fun. They are a really great band!

8. Toy Hunting. Because I was with the Doll Hunters we had to go toy hunting! We found some awesome Funko Pops right at the LootCrate booth and we visited a bunch of Targets and Toys R Us stores. Founds lots of cool stuff from Monster High, Littlest Pet Shoppe, Mash 'Ems, Ever After High.
We also had plenty of toys with us, too! Lil Penny came with me and so did a bunch of my Funko dudes.

9. These awesome Legos at Downtown Disney!

10. Disneyland. While it might be smaller than Walt Disney World, I think it was cool how California Adventure and Disneyland were so close together! There were come cool features that Florida doesn't have - the Indiana Jones ride, the story book ride. the Mad T Party, all that Cars stuff! The lines weren't bad and the weather was just so nice. It was all pretty magical!

Labels: California, disneyland, Funko, toy hunting, vidcon, YouTube

So many scraps!

I feel like such a slacker when it comes to my scrapping because my list never seems to get shorter, but when I organize my pages to post here, I impress myself! I still manage to get some memories scrapped.

My scrapbooking anniversary is coming up soon! I started playing around with Photoshop and lurking in forums in 2004 and posted my first layout at Scrapbook-Bytes in October. And my life is so much better because of it!