We came, we saw, we left tired and happy...

When summer draws to an end, and school is about to begin, we celebrate with a family fun day.The past several years, it has been a trip to Lake Compounce, a local amusement park.


This year, we decided to try something different.
The kids had never been to New York City, so we decided to go for a day trip.


We figured they were old enough for us to finally attempt it.


It was their first train trip. We left for the day from:

We went to mass here:

St. Patrick's is one of the most beautiful churches with the most amazing architecture. You could spend all day there taking in all the details.

Then walked down 5Th Avenue and saw things like this:

Then we went into FAO Schwarz and played a bit:

We snacked on these as we walked. Honey roasted mixed nuts. Yummmm.....Colin thought they should make an air freshener with that scent, LOL.

I used to love to look at all the flowers in these corner markets when I lived in NYC.

Then we walked through Central Park:



to get here:

The kids had a blast looking for things from the movie, Night at the Museum:

and Brenna even brought some gum-gum to give to a dumb-dumb:

Then we hopped in a couple of cabs (note the plural here - 7 people can't fit in one NYC taxi)
to go to dinner here:

I had THE best dinner of Bolognese meatballs over the creamiest of polentas:

And there were delicious ice cream sandwiches made with amazing homemade cookies or brownies for dessert.

After dinner, it was back to the train station for a long ride home.

The kids had a blast and can't wait to do it again.

Me too.

Somebody pinch me!

Seriously.
I was so excited this morning to see my name on the list of new Design Team members at Best Creation, Inc. !
I actually let out a shriek of delight. My kids came running, thinking I had seen a giant bug. LOL.

I am looking forward with the entire team, but wanted to give a special shout out to Tracey Taylor, Julie Walton, and Jona Saavedra, who I have known via the online scrapping community for years.

I can't wait to get started!

Summer's winding down...

...and fall is approaching quickly here.
Some trees are changing colors already.
Some leaves are falling down in my yard.
Acorns are dropping on my deck.
We've begun back to school shopping.
Colin & Ryan started football practices.
It's crazy how fast time flies anymore.

I managed to get a ton of scrapping done this past week.
We had our employee crop at NESC last weekend.
Then I learned about the Best Creations DT Call on Thursday morning.
ACK! The call ended Saturday. It meant a tight deadline for me, but I think I rocked out some decent projects. If you haven't tried working with their patterned papers, then you're missing out! They are a nice weight, with patterns on both sides of most of them. One side always has the most gorgeous sparkly designs. Luckily, NESC carries a great selection so I chose my stuff and got busy!

First up is the layout I made for my Best Creations submission, using the Surf's Up line:



I especially loved the wave paper and wanted to feature it, so I cut out portions of the waves and popped them up in places to add some movement.


I was inspired by Duff of Cake Boss fame to make a paper wedding cake. The papers of the Mr. & Mrs. line are so elegant!! I fashioned my design after a picture a scrappy friend showed me of her daughter's wedding cake. I crafted the majority of the flowers in the cascade. If I had more time, I would've added more flowers to the top of the cake, but alas, I ran out of the yellow paper...





The last requirement was card. Cards are harder for me, but I think this one turned out to be pretty:


I hope they like they see. Keeping my fingers crossed...

Creative Overload (part 2)

More projects to share, as promised.

A few weeks back, my LSS, New England Scrapbook Company, asked me to create a few samples with their VIP pack from Reminisce. I was given the Bubby collection. So many possibilities for these products. Beach, pool, aquarium...I chose to go the bath route.

I decided to spare my kids the embarrassment of having bath pictures hanging in the store, so I just used mats. I'll add the tubby pictures when I get the pages back.

For the boy page, I painted embossed Bazzill cardstock with blue Glimmer Mist. Then I realized that the fish were blending into the background, so I added some black outlining.




For the girl page... I created an underwater scene. I fell in love with this cute little octopus. I embellished her suction cups with buttons.




Aren't they cute? :0)

Here is a picture of a circle journal layout I made recently. The theme was motherhood:



And finally, a layout I made for a challenge at How Much is Too Much? I used lots of Generation Z line from Little Yellow Bicycle. Perfect for these skateboarding pics.