New Year's Eve

Just want to wish everyone a happy New Year! Seems like I just started getting used to writing 2007! It's amazing and scary how quickly time goes by.

A Page in my Visual Journal

Kylie loves playing with my computer and doing her letters. I printed her manuscript out and glued it on as the background for this page then used a creamy wash over it.

She hates Santa, as you can see!

Two books I bought at Borders in Keene when we went down to our son's for Thanksgiving: Salem Falls by Jodi Picoult (excellent!) and Double Cross by James Patterson (I'm hooked on Alex Cross!).

Secret Santa

Secret Santa at school was fun. When I went to the Yokohama Restaurant, where we had our party, I had mine narrowed down to 14 people! Most people already had theirs figured out. Luckily, I was not first to guess, so through a process of elimination, I was able to correctly identify my Secret Santa. Ironically, I was sitting right next to her.

Christmas 2007

Kylie had no idea what Christmas was all about...at the beginning. Once we started opening gifts, she got the hang of it and loved guessing what was inside the packages. She delivered the presents from Gwampa to the lucky recipient and helped that person open the gift. "What is it?" she kept asking.


She was thrilled with her Radio Flyer tricycle and her LLBean rocking moose.

As you can see, our Charlie Brown tree was small but filled with memories. I used my mom's 60-year old ornaments. We got the tree from my husband's logging job. He had cut a bunch of fir trees but couldn't limb them until the temperature got colder. So, we went up there on Saturday morning and he sawed a top off before running over the trees with his skidder to delimb them in the freezing temperatures.


I like this tree as opposed to the ones you can buy that come from a tree farm because those are just too perfect. The trimmed branches don't hold the ornaments like the old-fashioned ones do.


All in all, a great Christmas!

Poetry in the Mail

I guess I should have cropped this picture to get rid of my purple fleece!

I'm going through craft withdrawal! My work area is in the dining room and I had to put everything away because of Christmas. It'll come back out on Wednesday, that's for sure!

Adoption

I bought a white Deco Color opaque paint marker and it worked pretty well except for that one blob. I'd been looking for something white to use on dark backgrounds.

A Couple Poems and a Snow Day

I go for a walk just about every night so was tickled when the prompt at Sunday Scribblings was "Walk." I was pretty happy with the metaphor I used in this poem. I also posted it on the Creative Writing yahoo group I'm in and the moderator, Sharon, wrote a response poem. So I figured I'd include them both in my journal on this unexpected snow day.

I tried doing a bit of collage under the poems but I'm still not very good at it. I'll keep trying, though.

Owl says, "Whoooo"!

Back to Visual Journal Pages

Did this page for Thanksgiving week. We were away for part of it then had Kylie for the weekend so working on this took forever.

The Final Three

I wasn't sure what I was going to do with this page. There really wasn't a theme to it so I just started matching colors to the pictures and before I knew it, somehting was happening. I've always enjoyed Erin's visits, but this day was nuts with everything that was going on.












I was so happy to get back to babysitting Kylie when Erin went back to work at the mountain.
On this day we did my favorite thing: visited a bookstore.















This is the last page in the album. As it turned out I babysat Kylie on her first birthday. We had celebrated it before this day because both Erin and Shaun had to work. They get days off during the week but have to work on the weekends. Such is the ski business.

I really need to start an album for her second year which is coming to a close next Sunday!

Summer 2006

I was happy to get a picture of Kylie and her dad, Shaun. She looks so much like him.

I used burlap for the background and tried to keep it from getting to girly.














Here are the three of them. They do make a beautiful family!













Kylie and I had so much fun this day by ourselves while the others went tuna fishing.

We are in the middle of a snow storm today so school was cancelled.


I had a hard time with this layout because there were so many different colors in the photos. As you can see, I ended up changing them into black and white and going with red, silver and black. Kind of different for a baby's album but I was getting sick of pink!









This one is my first time using a transparency. I added the yellow under the stars and strip on the left. It was an easy way of getting a page done quickly. It almost felt like cheating!













We finally got a decent picture of four generations of women in our family. My mom hates this picture of her because she's looking in the wrong direction. I think she looks beautiful. I, on the other hand, am a mess! This was taken at my sister Nancy's birthday party and it was cool and windy and my hair went crazy. (It does that often! I got my dad's curls!)

Three More

Nathan hadn't seen Kylie since Christmas so he was amazed at how much she'd grown. I really didn't want to use pink on this page but I didn't have much choice because of Kylie's outfit. So, I mixed brown with it and really liked the results: not too feminine and not too masculine.













Once Erin was done working at the ski area for the spring, she didn't need me to babysit anymore and, boy, did we miss seeing her every Sunday. Funny how these little ones burrow into our hearts and settle in!













These pictures were taken on Easter. Kylie is wearing the cute jumper that my friend sent her from Florida.

The stamp is one I had made but can't remember the web site just now. The stamps really work!

Great Gloria is what my husband's mother decided she wanted Kylie to call her. When she saw her last week, Kylie was actually able to say it, sort of: "Gweat Gloalia."

It was a beautiful day and Gary had his motorcycle out and couldn't resist putting his doorag on her head. Such a cute little biker chick!

Three Kylie Pages

Figured I'd add several pages this time so I can get this done and return to my visual journal.


The first image was taken on my birthday and I couldn't think of anything I'd rather do than baby sit her. "Gwampa" went down with me, too, and she slept on his shoulder for quite a while. It was a nice day so we took her for a walk in her stroller.




The following Saturday Erin brought her up to our house and she stayed overnight and graced us with her first smiles. It was so great to see her reacting to us. Gary even held her for about an hour. He'd stick his tongue out at her and she'd stick hers out right back at him. We knew then that she'd be a pip. I think that's the moment he really fell in love with her.



I didn't take any pictures of Kylie the following Sunday because on my way down to babysit, I hit some black ice and rolled my 4-Runner over and totaled it. Luckily, I had my seat belt on so didn't get hurt at all but I was shaken up and just couldn't do anything after that except hold her.



I was so lucky to be able to baby sit her every Sunday and watch her change.

And On We Go

Kylie always loved her mobile and would watch it for as long as possible.

I guess I should have taken the page out of the plastic to photograph it! Duh!

Rock-a-by-baby...

These pictures were taken on January 22 which is my mom's birthday. Kylie was 5 weeks old and it was my first time baby sitting her. All she did was sleep!

First Visit to Shannon Door

This is the fifth page in Kylie's scrapbook. I did post the 4th page earlier but realized that I had the first and last name of our friends so decided to delete it.

Kylie was alomost a month old here. I didn't want to make it too frilly because Gary was in it so picked up the teal color of his sweater and the brown of his hair and beard.

Since the Last One wasn't Too Bad...

Here's the third page. Here she is 12 days old. I went down to see Erin and we went to lunch and Kylie was so good. Erin had a sling for her and she just snoozed there the whole time. After that we went over to visit my niece, Alissa, and her two boys, James (1) and River(3). They were so cute tootling around on their new bikes. and Kylie girl was an angel!

Okay, I'll Try One More

And if it isn't any clearer, it's the last one I'll post. What I'd like to have is a printer that is 12x12 then I could scan the pages and they'd come out much better. My photography skills leave much to be desired, that's for sure!

I can't believe that this was taken almost 2 years ago! Here's a cinquain I wrote about that day. A cinquain has five lines with 2 syllables in the first line, 4 in the second, 6 in the third, 8 in the fourth, and 2 in the fifth.

Others

open presents.

I sit with the weight of

my first granddaughter in my lap,

smiling.

First Page of Kylie's Scrapbook

I spent a couple hours yesterday taking pictures of a scrapbook I made about Kylie's first year. This is her favorite book and she studies it whenever she comes to visit. Of course, she doesn't recognize herself and says, "Baby seeping."

Some of Kylie's Comments

I knew if I didn't write all these down, I'd forget them. I so wish I had been doing something like this when my kids were young. I recall a few of their comments but most have been lost.

This little Kylie is so funny! Her mother was a shy and quiet girl; Kylie is totally idfferent. What a treat she is!

A Not-much-happening Day

I kind of like it when my day is just normal and I can just use snippets from my day to complete a page.

This is actually indicative of most of my life: little things that add up to me.

A Visit from Kylie

Took this video today when my granddaughter, Kylie, was visiting. I love the way she calls me "Gammy." She kept me on my toes all day. Tonight I'm happy but pooped!

Darn, I just previewed it and it's so dark! It wasn't that way in the file I saved it in. Well, I tried!

Jeans for Staff Day

It's nice to see the Key Club at our school getting everyone involved. Each day this week they held a different fund raiser.

I tried to make the background look like denim and was somewhat successful, I think.

The butterfly and the Yoda stamp are from the front of an envelope from my friend in Florida. The other stamp is from my mother-in-law who uses our house in Punta Gorda in the winter until we are ready to retire. Four more years! Can't wait!

That ticket I bought doesn't look like anything Christain but was sold to me by a girl in one of my classes who is very involved in her church's youth program. Sometimes, it's so hard to say no when these kids are selling things. I also had to buy some cookie dough for the senior fundraiser, too. Teaching can be expensive!

No Letter? What's up with That?

Because my friend and I write letters to each other almost every day, I look forward to the mailman's delivery. It's very rare that I don't get a letter on a Monday. Sometimes I even get 2 or 3! This was that rare day.

A Collage Attempt

Sorry about the quality of the picture in the last post. I so need a course in photography!

This isn't one of my favoirte pages because the colors just don't make it for me. Plus the two pages don't seem to go together. I did however enjoy finding the collage elements and putting them together. Collage is new to me. I think I need more pictures and less phrases.

I designed this bulletin board to look more like a scrapbook page. The kids are always looking at it. I keep adding and subtracting items as they become available or old.

A Lost Butterfly

I still haven't figured out how to use Adobe Photoshop Elements very effectively. I tried to cover the addresses with a black brushstroke but, as you can see, it came out yellow! I've really got to spend some time experimenting.

The pumpkin field picture is one of at least a dozen designed for me by my friend in Florida. It's the front page of an accordion-folded letter. She's so clever.

Day and Night

It was one of those days at school when the kids were at their peskiest and coolest. Gotta love 'em!

Then my walk with the full moon made up for everything!

A Purple Day

Do you have days when it seems like you are one color? That happened to me a little while ago. All day I gravitated to purple things and I didn't even realize it until I picked a color for my background and then noticed that I'd been the personification of purple all day.

A Busy Day

The background for this is gold acrylic paint that I got at Walmart. I was afraid that it would be too shiny to write on but, my Pilot pen worked fine.

There was so much going on that day at school and at home so I had plenty of material.

What a Difference a Week Makes!

So much for summer-like weather. Last Saturday I was wearing shorts and yesterday I had a fleece on in the house! It rained almost all day and I wasn't feeling very creative.

And to make matters worse, I didn't even get a letter!

Oh, well, we have to have these days to help us appreciate the better ones, I guess.

Don't You Just Love Saturday Mornings?

I took the pictures of the trees last Saturday morning from my porch when the neighborhood was just drenched with gold. It was a perfect Indian Summer day.

The dotted ribbon on the right was added because I tore the page in half! I couldn't figure out how to repair it at first without it showing. Then I remembered the adhesive ribbon I bought a couple years ago from the Home Shopping Network when I was first getting into scrapbooking.

The corrugated background for the leaves was the front of a pretty notecard handmade by my friend in Florida. I added a watered-down gesso wash.

I added some gold paint to the brown; that's why it's so shiny.

Can't tell you how much I'm enjoying doing these pages. Usually, when I get home from school I paint the page and let it dry for a couple hours until I head upstairs and then I fiddle with it. It's a great thing to do while watching TV. I can't just sit there; I have to have something going on, too.

Gosh, I take terrible pictures! It took three takes for this one which is barely acceptable!

We live in Northern NH and have maple leaves covering our back yard. These fabric ones came all the way from Florida!

As far as my own room...I'm still dreaming! But I love the craft area I've created for myself. It's a start!

That Signatures book is beautiful and I got so many ideas from it. Now, if I could only find the time to try some of the techniques. It's a few years old but so worth reading.

I Love postage Stamps

Part of the thrill of getting a letter almost every day is seeing what stamp my friend has used and how she has decorated the envelope to coordinate.

I got a kick out of the leaf sticker that the Post Office cancelled instead of the stamp! Somehow the letter got turned upside down and the leaf sticker was then in the stamp position.

It took forever to paste these stamps on the page. I started by using a glue stick but they weren't adhering very well, so I switched to a Duck Tape adhesive runner but that ran out quickly. Finally, I tried my Xyron 150 and 250 and they worked really well. I always forget about those machines.

A Great Day

My son and his girlfriend, Amie, visited us one weekend at the end of September along with their two dogs, Bailey and Kaylie. The men went fishing so Amie and I had a great time biking to breakfast then walking around MacWorth Island, which is just north of Portland.

I'm sitting in bed watching the Red Sox lose to Cleveland tonight but when my girlfriend sent me this picture, they had just beaten the Angels and the Yankees had been defeated.

The writing along the top tells of a T-shirt a kid had on in school. It was totally inappropriate. Ironically, we had an assembly that day about the dress code!

I really cheated on this page because the background is a notecard I received from my friend in Florida. On top of that is the back of the beautiful envelope it was in. How nice to see it in the mailbox when I got home from school.

She and I started writing letters to each other every day about 15 years ago and we've saved almost all of them! You should see the bags of letters in my cellar! Someday maybe we'll sit down and go through our lives because that's what we have stored away. I'd really love to organize them into some sort of binder or something because each one is a work of art in itself with all the stickers, etc. that we used to decorate them.

I wonder if there is a category in the Guinnes Book of World Records for the most letters written to the same person!

In our school, all teachers have lunch duty one day a week. My day this year is Thursday. It's an annoying duty and I hate it.

One day during journal writing the prompt was, "Out of the corner of my eye" and I just wrote a list of the things I see on a regualr basis in the cafeteria.

The background was fun because I just sat in bed watching the Red Sox and tore pictures of food and people eating out of magazines.

I found some decoupage papers that I had bought one time and never used so tore them up and glued them to the bottom of this spread. The lighthouse was a stamp. I've never done much with stamps but own a few so figured I might as well experiment with them.

This page is because we are doing Shakespeare right now. I always start the year with it because it's the hardest thing and if the kids can survive this, it's all downhill after that.

I didn't even realize that I put the wrong women's names next to the wrong guys! Makes me so mad when I do something stupid like that!

The playing cards are ones I bought when I took a trip to Stratford-on-Avon a couple years ago. They are all instances where Shakespeare talks about flowers.