living artfully

happy memorial day

Today, I just wanted to offer my heartfelt thanks to all of the veterans who have served our country, as well as to today's armed services members who sacrifice and risk their lives to protect us.

Thank you to our veterans, including my most favorite veteran of all... 

 

My husband, who served 4 years in the United States Air Force :)

Happy Memorial Day!

 

iron cupcake milwaukee - candy

Since we love cupcakes, we again jumped at the chance to attend Milwaukee's monthly baking competition - Iron Cupcake Milwaukee. This month's theme ingredient was candy and I was very curious to see if the bakers would choose more obvious ingredients (like chocolate candy bars) or if they would try to use really unique candies. We were blown away by the creativity! Here are some of the most interesting designs from the candy cupcake challenge...

Jolly Ranchers
 

White Chocolate Buttons
 

(L) Smores - (R) Maple Nut Goodies and Boston Baked Beans
 

Popcorn and Root Beer Jelly Beans
  

A huge variety, including Swedish Fish
  

Cinnamon Red Hots
  

Mr. Lemonheads
 

 

We loaded up on samples and learned a few things about how we like candy in cupcakes. Topped with Nerds? Not a personal favorite. Topped with Pop Rocks? Or a caramelized Jelly Belly? Delicious!

I'm overwhelmed by all the ideas! Have you ever made a cupcake inspired by or using candy?

 

studio calico - documentary

Have you seen Studio Calico's amazing new line, Documentary? Just like previous SC collections, the Documentary line blends vintage with current and theme with versatility. I've seen sneaks popping up all over the web the last few weeks and have fallen in love with this travel-inspired collection.




 

Love love love it! And the exciting news? It looks like Documentary is now in stores: Two Peas in a Bucket is now selling the line and Stop and Scrap has it on pre-order.

Looks like I need to do a little shopping. What do you think? Will you be buying some Documentary?

 

8 by 8 photo challenge

What is the 8th photo in your 8th folder of pictures on your computer? Not sure? I couldn't even guess what it is. So when I saw this fun challenge on Mel's blog, I had to go right to my pictures folder to find out what photo it is!

 

As it turns out, my 8th picture folder is all my scanned images. This is my childhood home, the photo taken in the early 80's when my dad was painting the trim on the house. When I see pictures of our old house, tons of happy memories come rushing back to me. What a lovely surprise to see this as my 8th photo.

You should play along, too! What is your 8th picture in your 8th folder?

project life - april

Better late than never, right? This weekend I finished up our April pages for our Project Life album. The funny thing is all the pictures were printed and the journaling cards were done, too. I just needed to add the patterned paper and couldn't quite decide what paper to go with.

Finally, I decided on papers from Elizabeth Kartchner's Dear Lizzy line for American Crafts. They seemed to pull in the many colors from my photos and have a fun feeling of celebration. Perfect for a month that contained my husband's birthday and other get-togethers.

Here are a few of our April pages...

 

 

 

Every time I complete another month of pages for this album, I am re-energized by how it's coming together and reflecting a whole year in our lives. Hope you are feeling the same!

milwaukee ballet - peter pan

I don't often do things on a total whim. I usually have a plan, a schedule. So two days ago, I think I shocked my husband when I told him there was nothing more that I wanted than to see the Milwaukee Ballet perform Peter Pan... and that, oh by the way, it's sold out and only playing this weekend.

Somehow, he came through, and we were able to see the opening night performance last night. Ah-ma-zing! It was so very magical and beautiful. I feel incredibly grateful to be able to do things like this on a whim.

Photography wasn't allowed, but in case you want a little sneak, here is some rehearsal footage where you can watch Peter Pan do some of the flying that he and the Darlings do throughout the show.

My lesson learned? Sometimes magical things happen when you decide to be spontaneous! What was the last thing you did on a whim?

 

mother's day

I hope that everyone had a lovely Mother's Day! We had two beautiful get-togethers. Last weekend, we went with Steve's family to a cute cafe for brunch and celebrated with his mother. And this past weekend, we had my mom and grandma over for a homemade brunch. Unfortunately, my dad had to work but we still had a nice little celebration.

 

 

I was in desperate need of new place mats, so we ran out this weekend and picked out a new set. After decorating the table for brunch, I think it's official... I have a new favorite color!

 

 

 
  
I am dreaming of pops of yellow all throughout the house. I am so loving yellow right now :)

april photo calendar

Wow, how are we almost a week into May?! I am finally finished editing and loading my Project 365 images for April. Between Shimelle's Something from Almost Nothing class and Ali's Week in the Life project in April, I really derailed on editing and uploading the pictures I was taking each day. A word to the wise, don't wait an entire month to upload your pics!

 
Calendar and full size images can be viewed at Shuttercal

April marked a fun milestone: the 100th day of the year on April 10th. My 100th picture for Project 365 is our sweet and silly nephew celebrating his 2nd birthday.

Oh and did you notice my super cute new slippers? Love them! They are from Target and come in all sorts of colors if you don't like the teal/green pair I picked up. Comfy + cute!

Wishing you continued success with your photo projects! I'll be back soon with images from our April Project Life book.

 

week in the life - monday

I am really happy with how the pages turned out for the first day of our Week in the Life album. With one full day documented, I am now set on how the album will take shape and what will fill each page. Each day will be documented with three 2-page spreads and I will be repeating the scheme throughout the album.

 
page one
The left side is the opening page, which will feature one photo and our journaling. For more details on the products used, visit this post. And the right side is the front of the baseball card protector page, which will hold a few photos and the papers we collected.

 
page two
The left side is the back of the baseball card protector page. And the right side is the front of a 4x6 divided page protector. The top slot will feature a different website each day that represents our online lives, like our blogs and Facebook. And the bottom slot is the top news of the day from CNN.

 
page three
The left side is the back of the 4x6 divided page protector. And the right side is the closing page, which will feature a photo collage and a recap of our day in schedule format.

 

 

  

Now I need to carve out some time to work on selecting and resizing photos from the rest of the week. We took over 1,000 images, so I have some serious purging and narrowing down to do! But it will so be worth the effort to create this snapshot of life right now.

Did you play along with Week in the Life? How are you doing on your albums?

Edited to Add: For anyone who would like a copy of the scheduling template, I would be happy to share! Just leave me a message in the comments section making sure to include your email address and I will send it your way!

 

house party blog hop

Welcome to the House Party Blog Hop! There is nothing like a house party with good friends, especially if those friends are crafty! I'm so thrilled you stopped by my house in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

With the help of Rinda at Gallo Organico, a few of us have put together altered houses and would love to take you on a tour. I put together a little house using some of my favorite scrapbooking supplies.

 

If you're new to altered art, trust me -- you can do this! I've never tried altering an item before, but had so much fun decorating this little house with scraps from my stash. Now that I've given altered art a try, I'd like to branch out even more next time and try adding in inks or paints. I hope you enjoyed this visit to Milwaukee and my house!

Up next, the party is moving to Julie's house at JuJu's Folly. Have a great time at Julie's and I hope you'll visit again soon!