Pics of the Month-November

It is so challenging for me to go through the hundreds of pictures Charles and I are taking each month and pick only a few to share with you all.  The month went by with a blink of an eye.  November was filled mostly with just living life with a bit of excessive eating at the end of the month.  We had a fabulous Thanksgiving dinner made by yours truly, Lisa and Shanthi.

Lisa made her world famous pepper spiral ham and I made a turkey.  We also had Mom Roberts' homemade stuffing and sweet potatoes, smashed potatoes and gravy, green bean casserole, cranberries, dinner roles and of course, pumpkin pie.  :-)  

My two handsome sons.  Tristen loves his little brother!

Tristen has a new obsession with wife beater tank tops.  I bought him a pack 

and now he wears one every day under is cloths.

This might be my most favorite picture ever.

Megan is such a wonderful helper and loves to help take

care of Draven.

Current obsession.  

Nonfat Chai Tea Latte with sugar free vanilla and hazelnut.  

Yummo.

So gosh darn cute, just melts my heart. 

All ready for Santa.  He's real, you know.

 <3 love.  

Pics of the Month

I'm going to make an attempt at keeping an online photo journal to share with family and friends who live too far away.  "Pics of the Month" will be a monthly documentation of things we did, places we went, and everyday home life featuring my beautiful family and friends.  Thanks for sharing this beautiful journey with us.  Even if it is only via the world wide web.  

 Kind of hard to see but he's sporting a lil' mohawk 

and of course the cutest little smile ever.  

Draven and Daddy sleeping.  We catch the z's whenever we can in this house,

whether it's laying down or sitting up.  

Quick trip to Minneapolis on Saturday, October 30th.

Charles had a free night at HGI for winning the National Employee of the Year.

Way to go, honey!  So proud of your accomplishment!

View from our room. 

Late night tour of the property.

Hilton Garden Inn Downtown Minneapolis is fabulous.

 Beautiful pool area.

Gorgeous view of downtown.

I love the lights in this photo.  

Me lookin' not so hot and the lil' peanut.

I do love this pic, though.    

The photographer, Charles

 A tender moment of Tristen admiring Draven.

Tristen and Megan hanging in the pool.

 Beautiful day downtown Minneapolis.

Hard Rock Cafe Minneapolis.  We had

a tasty lunch before heading to the 

Mall of America.  

Trick or Treating @ the Mall of America.

There were way too many people

and not enough candy. 

We now have a drum set in the studio.

Our neighbors love us.  

 I scored an iPod at work for makin' a couple of big sales.  SUH-weeeet! 

 My future Rock Star just kickin' it.

 His Daddy Rocks.

Blowin' bubbles.  

 Charles and I had our first date night in 3 months with no kids on
November 11, 2010.

Thank you to Lisa and Shanthi for babysitting!

We went to see Filter play a show at The Hub here in Fargo.

They played an awesome show and were in top form.

Our awesome friend Frank scored us all access passes.

(Thanks, Frank!)

 We hung out with the guys in the dressing room before the show 

and watched the show from just feet away.

Unfortunately, I was sick, so went home right after the show 

instead of hanging out with the guys.  

The guys played old favorites like Jurassitol, Take a Picture and 

Hey Man Nice Shot.  Charles got to catch up with Rich

 and visit with the other guys he hadn't met before

and test out how the new camera lens' worked in a concert setting.  

Not too shabby.  

I Need a New Blog Name

Following other crafters on twitter, I've recently discovered that there is ANOTHER blogger who calls his blog A Load of Scrap as well.  As far as I can tell, I've had my name longer, BUT, this dude is seriously more serious than I am.  It's really a fantastic blog and he has some awesome tips and ideas.  He's really good at documenting them, too.  So now I find myself brain storming for a new blog name.  Darn.  I love this blog name, but don't want the same name as another, so...this blog shall be renamed.  Any suggestions??  I'm thinking of mixing it up a bit, where I'm not ONLY blogging about scrapping.  While I love sharing my work with you all, there are ALOT of blogs out there that you can gain a lot more information from.  I will blog about every day life, funny things that happen, photos that I snap, music that I love, etc.  I was thinking of Paper Scissors Rock and Roll.  Anybody have anything for me?

In the meantime, you can find the OTHER Load of Scrap here.

I'm just getting into the grove of creating and finding time for myself after having Draven on August 27th.

I forget just how consuming having an infant in the house is.

Christine

Mini Album-Featuring My Belly

Charles and I hung up a sheet and set up the Nikon D90 for some belly shots.  It was a challenge for me because I haven't felt very attractive since the onslaught of my ever growing belly.  I've never been a "glowing" pregnant lady.  Anyways-the pictures did turn out well-I really love them.  I made a mini album documenting my hugeness.  

I found this album at my local scrapbooking store.  It's made by My Mind's Eye and features flocked covers and 10 blank pages.  It was only $7!!  To make it easy on myself, I stuck to only 3 colors.  

Am I Made of Glass?

One more post, I promise.  I screwed up on this one, but I'm posting it anyways because I worked really hard on it and it means a lot to me.  The title "am i made of glass?" is after the Trapt song "made of glass".  the follow up line is "'cause you see right through me".  This is a tribute to my love Charles, because it is oh so true.  He can see right though me.  I suppose it's because we endured a long distance relationship for over 2 years.  He lived in Dallas, TX while I lived in Fargo, ND.  We got to know each other sooo well because all we had was the telephone and skype.  We saw each other every 3 months.  One stretch was 5 months, and a couple of times there was a only a couple of week between visits.  It was a very challenging time in my life.  Because we talked ALL the time, he knew what was up with me just by the tone of my voice, and still does. 

Where do I even begin with this one?  I used so many different products and techniques.  I'll start with the background.  I used an 81/2 x 11 transparency and stamped on it using some of my favorite stamps.  After all the stamped images dried I used Tim Holtz alcohol inks to add various colors of greens/blues.  The smaller photo you see of Charles and I is altered using Tim Holtz Fragments (it's a piece of acrylic for those unfamiliar) and then used alcohol ink on it to give it an old warn look and then glued the photo to the fragment using glossy accents.  For the title, I cut it out with my quickutz hand cutting tool and then used Stickles (glitter glue) on top of it to give it some color and blingy dimension.  

Tools Used:

Various Stamps

Quickutz

Supplies Used:

Various Tim Holtz Alcohol Inks

Tim Holtz Gear parts

Tim Holtz Lock and Key

Tim Holtz Fragments

Tim Holtz Game Spinner

Ranger Glossy Accents

Ranger Archival Ink

Ranger Stickles Turquoise

Prima Flowers

Prima Leaf

Michaels brand butterfly

Twilight-A Mother/Daughter Obsession

This layout is a tribute to the love my daughter and I have for the Twilight Saga.  She's pretty young, so she hasn't read the books yet.  I've read the books (on my 2nd time through) and absolutely love them.  Next up is to read them with my daughter.  We took this photo the day Megan and I went to see New Moon on opening day.  This is now framed and in my daughter's "twilight" room.    

Close up of the title, etc.  The "Cullen" charms came from a bracelet of Megan's that broke.  Viola-perfect scrapbook accent!  I found the Twilight font online somewhere.  I found the book cover images on photobucket.com and printed them out.  

Tools Used:

Martha Stewart Border Punch

Supplies Used:

Flocked Patterned Paper by DCWV

Bazzill Card Stock

Black Ribbon

    

The Color Room-Palette #12

As I become fluffier by the day, it becomes more challenging for me to muster the creative energy to scrap.  And if I do find the energy to scrap, there is nothing left over for the drawn out process of posting this stuff on my blog or any other site.  This particular palette felt sophisticated and classy.  

This layout features my love, Charles.  I love this photo of him that he took of himself with his iPhone.

Charles really is a classy guy.  Aside from his rocker style he wears when he's going casual, when he dresses otherwise, he dresses to the 9's.  He's all up on his fashion and has great taste.  He is the one who decorated the inside of our home.  The outcome of that will be featured in another layout.  For now, here is my take on the palette.  

(click on picture for larger image)

Tools Used:

Cricut (the word "style" and corner black flourishes)

Cricut Gypsy (the word "style" and corner black flourishes)

Quickutz Revolution (the word "class"

Sheet music stamp by Tim Holtz & Stampers Anonymous

Tim Holtz paper distressor

Dymo Label Maker (the words "is what you have")

Supplies Used:

Bazzill Cardstock

Patterned Paper from My Minds Eye (orange flourish that I cut out from the paper)

Grunge board by Tim Holtz (big charcoal flourishes)

Tim Holtz Distress Ink in Black Soot (used on big grunge board flourish and to distress the the paper)

Tim Holtz Ideaology Metal Corner

Tattered Angels Glimmer Mist in Graphite and Pearl

Staz On Ink Pad

Transparency and chipboard from my stash

Notes about this layout:

I've been making a lot of my own transparencies lately (sheet music on this layout).  I have a whole lot of blank transparency sheets thanks to a friend.  What I do is stamp my image onto the transparency sheet with my favorite stamps and Staz On Ink, and then once it dries, cutting it out and applying it with clear glue.  I like Scotch's wrinkle free glue.  Very cost effective technique since you can get quite a few cuts from one transparency sheet!