living artfully

happy birthday to my love...

Okay so if you are reading this you've probably figured out that Sharyn isn't the real author here, but her husband is making a guest appearance while she is sound asleep and waiting to welcome in her golden birthday.

I wanted to post here and say Happy Birthday because whether you all know it or not you have become such a large part of our lives that I thought it was only appropriate to wish her a happy birthday, excuse me, a Happy Golden Birthday in front of all of you! I know that Sharyn will do amazing, creative and originals things as a 29 year-old because she has continually amazed me ever since she entered my life as a 23 yr old!

Happy 29th Birthday and I hope you enjoy the short list of 29 reasons of why you are my favorite person in the world. 

I love...

1) How you say that word Mountain :)

2) How you hold your big coffee cup in your little hands

3) The way you are always drawn to the color brown

4) The amount of love you have and show for Rocco

5) The way you always drive sitting straight up and attentive

6) The way you make me feel loved and appreciated

7) How we discover new recipes together

8) How you look right when you wake up

9) The amount of time you spend in the scraproom and the smiles it always puts on your face

10) How dedicated you are to your work.

11) How much pride you take in our lives and being happy

12) That you help me be a better blogger

13) How I never need to use MapQuest when we are in the car together

14) The look on your face when baking or scrapping - so happy, yet do focused

15) The way you always think of others and how to make them happy

16) The fact you try to better our lives on a daily basis

17) How you smile from ear to ear when holding Rocco.

18) Working in the garden with you and making healthy choices for us to enjoy

19) Enjoying Sunday mornings with you

20) How we make memories everywhere we go

21) Being spontaneous with you

22) How where ever I am with it feels thats right where I should be

23) Making you breakfast every morning knowing im helping you start every day off right

24) Working out and getting healthy together

25) How after a long day nothing else matters when I'm watching you park in front of the house to come home to me.

26) How the everyday actions and words you say still me smile

27) That I am apart of your life on this special day

28) You for being mine

29) You for being you!

Happy Birthday my love! I know you will have a great day and 29 will be an amazing age for you! 

Love,

Stephen (Your Husband)

thirty before thirty

I love making lists and dreaming up plans for the future. And since I'm turning 29 today, I'd love to share my "thirty before thirty" list.

These are thirty things that I hope and plan to do in the year ahead. Some big, some small. A few challenges and a few things just for me. It's a list that I hope brings me joy and growth. So here we go...


1. finish reading the booker prize winners from 2000-2010
2. collect and scan my grandma's photos
3. take a cake decorating class
4. find two new musicians to love
5. see a play
6. run a ten-minute mile
7. buy a diana or holga and experiment with lomography
8. visit the modern wing of the art institute of chicago
9. go to church
10. create a high school scrapbook
11. make a pie
12. watch the top ten of afi's top 100 movies
13. refinish a piece of furniture
14. organize the basement
15. visit the apostle islands
16. learn more about my parents' childhoods and love story
17. find a new perfume
18. search for an affordable vintage typewriter
19. take my grandma on a date, just us
20. lose twenty pounds
21. take a digital scrapbooking class
22. raise money for breast cancer research
23. try indian food
24. attend the milwaukee film festival
25. eat veggies grown in our backyard
26. go to jazz in the park
27. organize our recipe collection
28. plan a trip with my bestie (and maybe hubbies, too)
29. sew something that's not paper
30. renew my passport

I'm hoping for a wonderful last year in my twenties before I enjoy everything being a thirty-something has to offer :)

 

ella inspiration

Lately I've been talking about books and thinking about my summer reading list. I'd love to keep the book talk going... but I have a whole different kind of book to share with you today!


 
I recently purchased my first e-book for scrapbooking and I am super inspired! I was skeptical at first, trust me. As much as I visit blogs and galleries for inspiration, I've never really thought much about e-books. And when it comes to paid inspiration, I've always preferred a copy I can touch. So although I had heard of Ella and was curious about the concept of e-books, I never really looked into it.

That is, until I heard that Studio Calico had put together an e-book for Ella. The book is called 8 is Enough and the concept is to create using any eight supplies and tools you have on hand. Less is sometimes more! All I had to see was this little sneak peek of the supplies Stephanie Howell used for her layouts in the book and I was sold!


  
There is a ton of great inspiration in this Ella e-book. Since the designers had to make four layouts from their set of eight supplies, they had to get creative with how to use and split up their items. Each layout comes along with design information and tips for stretching your supplies; some layouts have bonus tips, too.

If you're a Studio Calico subscriber, you'll love seeing new ways to use and combine their kits, too. And if you're not a subscriber, I think you'll still get a lot out of this book, but you may not have as many of the items on hand if you want to make an exact replica of any of the layouts. 

I decided to take the "8 is Enough" challenge and make one layout with just eight items. Using one of Stephanie Howell's layouts for inspiration, I made this layout about my birthday barbeque last weekend with Rocco.

 

In case you're keeping count, my eight supplies are:   
 
1. Die-cut Cardstock Accent Pack (K&Company)
2. Yellow Damask Patterned Paper, double sided (October Afternoon)
3. Brown Numbered Patterned Paper (Sassafras)
4. Blue Striped Patterned Paper (October Afternoon)
5. Paper "Lace" Doily (Wilton)
6. Chipboard Woodgrain Alphabet (K&Company)
7. Scallop Border Punch (Fiskars)
8. Pink Mist (Glimmer Mist by Tattered Angels)

If you are looking for inspiration and have never purchased an e-book before, it's definitely worth a visit to Ella.  This book is just one of many interesting titles I noticed on their website. I will definitely be going back to check out more in the future, especially considering they are comparable to the price of a magazine.

What are your thoughts on e-books? Do you have any Ella e-books in your collection?

   

summer reading

Summertime is great for adding to your book list. With the longer days and the possibility of outdoor reading and reading on vacations, it's a chance to pick up a few books on your favorite topics and to explore new authors. For me, I always have two goals when it comes to my summer reading list: to read off the Booker Prize winners list and to try at least one new author.

My love affair with Booker Prize-winning novels started when I read The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy. It is breathtakingly painful and beautiful; I have read it numerous times now and consider it a favorite. Whenever I'm feeling at a loss for what book to pick up next, I visit the winners list to see what else I could enjoy.
 
This year, my Booker winner for summer reading is Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel. Wolf Hall is the 2009 winner and has been on my shelf since Christmas, waiting for uninterrupted time for me to tackle its 560 pages. Mixing fiction and fact, Mantel tells the story of 16th-century Europe as King Henry VIII challenges the church to divorce his queen and marry Ann Boleyn. But, in a twist, this novel tells the story from the perspective of one of Henry's closest advisers, Thomas Cromwell. I have read very little, if any, historical fiction set earlier than the 19th century so I am excited to see if this is a book I enjoy.

As for selecting a new author to try, this is something I always find both challenging and fun. This summer, the author I have in mind to explore is Aimee Bender. I came across this author while on Amazon reading about another book I loved: The Help. At the time, one of Bender's novels was displayed with The Help as an option to buy both and save. After doing a little research, I'm fascinated by her unlikely plots and have read she blends stories that are both funny and sad... and a little warped. I'm interested!

 

Have you read anything by Aimee Bender before? I'd love to hear your thoughts on this author and your recommendation on which of her books to start with!

And of course, another great way to find out about new authors is to ask your friends. If you can count Oprah, she's published her 2010 Summer Reading List with some interesting recommendations. Great for ideas, but I still love an honest recommendation from an honest friend.

So please do share! Who is your favorite author? Or what is your favorite book? I can't wait to grow my list of must-reads! 

 

review: sarah's key

The most recent selection that our book club has read is Sarah's Key by Tatiana de Rosnay. The novel is one that I found myself quickly and wholly drawn into; I read the entire book in just a few days. Part historical fiction, part modern day mystery and love story, this novel was enjoyed by our book club but not without certain objections.

Sarah's Key is a story told in two time periods. First is the heartbreaking and painful story of the Vel d'Hiv roundups, a 1942 act in Paris in which over 13,000 French Jews were arrested and deported to concentration camps. We meet a young girl, whose family is arrested, but not before the young girl locks her brother into a secret cabinet for safe hiding. Told in nearly alternating chapters is the story from the second time period. It is 2002 and an American journalist, who has spent the greater part of her life in Paris and is married to a Frenchman, is researching the Vel d'Hiv. As the novel unfolds, you learn more about each woman and how their stories are connected in unexpected ways.

I found myself wrapped into the story quickly, especially the chapters telling the intense and painful story of the roundup. With the chapters alternating between time periods, I found it hard to put down Sarah's Key because I wanted to find out what was going to happen and the author often left you hanging at each switch of the time periods. Some of our book club members didn't like this strategy, but personally it is something that kept me drawn into the book.

Although the subject was far heavier, I did prefer to read about the young girl involved in the Vel d'Hiv more so than the present-day journalist. The journalist already had the difficult task of researching the Vel d'Hiv. And on top of that, the author threw on maybe a few too many additional challenges related to her personal life. I think part of my frustration with the present-day story line stemmed from the author's attempt to portray the "American-ness" of the woman and the "French-ness" of her husband and her large band of sometimes unnecessary in-laws.

Despite these minor critiques, Sarah's Key is a novel that our book club group enjoyed, myself included. Though it should not be given credit as a text book, it provided me many learning moments and taught me about an event in history that I was not previously aware of. This is a book that I am glad I read.

Do you do more reading in the summertime than the rest of the year? I love reading outdoors when the weather is nice and always manage to add a few more books to my list this time of year. I'll be back tomorrow with some thoughts on summer reading!

 

happy birthday rocco

I can't believe how much love and joy Rocco has brought into our lives this past year. And I can't believe how times flies...

Our little guy turns one today!

 

When we brought him home last summer, he was so pudgy and cuddly. He still loves to sit on laps and snuggle, but now he's looking more like a grown dog and less like a puppy.

This weekend we had a backyard barbeque to celebrate his birthday (and mine too, which is later this month). He loved all the attention and laps to sit on. But the highlight was definitely letting him devour the doggy-safe birthday cake I baked for him.

We are so lucky to have him as part of our little family. Happy First Birthday, Rocco!!

 

where has sharyn been?

 

 
  
 

Missing my crafting and blogging time ever so much! But now our garden is completely overhauled, veggies are in the ground, and there are barely any weeds in sight.

And, after three weeks, we've turned our new eating and exercise plan into a habit. Hitting the gym every day and making all our (healthy) meals at home takes far more planning and time than I ever realized. Eating tons of fresh produce daily and fresh fish nearly every day = lots of grocery store runs. But we are feeling amazing and are starting to figure out how to work these changes into our routine so that our hobbies don't continue to suffer. Because I don't know about you, but I need my scrapping and blogging for my mental health!

I'll be back again very soon!

may photo calendar

So happy to have another month completed of our Project 365! While I work on finishing the May pages for our Project Life album, here is our photo calendar.

 
Calendar and full size images can be viewed at Shuttercal

Looking back at May, it was really a great month with a number of highlights. The Travel Channel came to town to tape a burger challenge episode of Food Wars and Steve got to be interviewed. And we saw the Peter Pan ballet, got invited to a wine tasting event, took a food tour down a popular Milwaukee street, and had our first picnic along Lake Michigan with our pug. And we attended the world's largest brat festival and the largest pug festival in the US. Whew! Life is busy but life is very very good!

I hope your photo projects are going well! I will be back later to share images from our Project Life album!