Even in dark weeks, there are fabulous moments!

Meet puppy...

No, she's not our puppy, but for a brief time she captured our hearts. DH had a fantastic idea to walk a puppy from the pet store to give me an opportunity to practice my photography skills and learn more about my camera (something I've been longing to do all the time lately). So, last Sunday afternoon we stood in line outside the pet store and "checked out" this little sweetheart. She is a Maltese-Chihuahua mix and had just the best personality. Yes, I know, pet stores are bad as most get their dogs from puppy farms, etc. but that's no reason to treat the puppies badly, is it? We saw her in the window and took her around the mall for almost an hour. She was so scared at first, but quickly warmed up to us, especially DH. I took 299 photos and this is one of the best. I'm seriously contemplating doing some family/pet photography as a side job, so I'm saving the absolutely best photos for what I hope will someday be my portfolio.

Life overall has been a bit nutty lately. I think it's a combination of too much not-fun work stuff and not enough of good stuff. Nothing bad has really happened, but well, I think I need another vacation and I just was on vacation less than 5 months ago! Most of last week was spent getting ready for one big work event (including two days where I wasn't at my desk at all) and this week is all about playing catch up for the big conference we are hosting (well, let's be honest, I AM HOSTING) this weekend. Yikes! Hopefully all will end well, but it means almost an entire weekend away from my honey and that makes me sad! I also think I am catching a cold he caught at work which is really going to suck because I absolutely cannot take time off this week or weekend! Siiiiiiigggh!

In an effort to try and briefly get my mind off of all things yucky and work-related, I'll post some more pictures now.

Here's another layout I did for the woman with cancer. It's based on a Blue Media sketch. I really liked the number of good-sized photos you could get on the two pages, so I went for it. I even found the "Walt Disney" font (I can't remember the name right now) and I think that makes it even cooler! The paper is EK Success and Bazzill and the flowers are Making Memories. The ribbon is May Arts and I think the brads are also Making Memories, but I can't remember right now.

This is a 2-page layout I did of pictures from my grandma's birthday in 2004. I liked a lot of the images I got that night, so I wanted to include as many as possible. I also included the two pictures in the top center of the pages of a bunch of us seeing how many people would fit on the couch. My family does silly things like this fairly often (we once tried to see how many people we could fit in my grandma's shower on Christmas day one year) and it always makes the party more fun. I also have a single page layout that goes with this one of my grandma blowing out the candles on her cake, but I couldn't find the picture I took of it, so I'll have to find the page and take another picture. The papers are Bazzill and old Basic Grey, the ric-rak is May Arts, the buttons are unknown... I bought them by-the-button at Ever After, the stamped flowers are Autumn Leaves and the sticker letters are American Crafts.

Here's a 2004 Christmas Eve layout. I go to my dad's house on Christmas Eve most years, so these pics are mostly of my brothers and their friends. Unfortunately I got no package opening presents, so well, that's OK, right? I have no idea who makes this patterned paper or the trim I used (I bought it at Ever After), but the sticker letters and eyelets are Making Memories and the cardstock is Bazzill.

This is a totally simple layout technique-wise, but it is one of my current favorites. This is a picture of my mom when she was 15. My uncle and his family recently took on the monumental task of scanning into digital format ALL of my grandfather's old slides and this was one of the images. My grandpa was an awesome photographer and I can only hope that someday I'll be that good. The patterned papers are Scenic Route and the cardstock is Bazzill. The fonts are Hannibal Lechter and Traveling Typewriter. The journaling reads: "I've always thought you were beautiful Mom, but this picture is just confirmation that you've been gorgeous for all of your life. 1963 photo taken by Grandpa." I've been slowly syphoning off images from the CDs my uncle gave out of the slides to find old pictures to scrapbook. It's been a slow, but fun process. I have so many photos to scrap, you wouldn't think I'd look for more, but I can't help it!

So, this is just a sampling of what I've worked on recently. There's more where this came from, including pics from Valentine's Day that I couldn't find -- I saved them is some weird folder -- so I'm working on editing those and some others to post. I'll likely not have time to post again before the weekend, so pray for my sanity and that this conference will go smoothly (and that the cold I seem to be catching isn't too horrible). I hope everyone is having a good March. Can you believe it's March already? Yikes!

Have a great week everyone!