Lunch Adventure

While sorting through my favorite photos from the past few months I came across this photo of my daughter enjoying a bowl of soup with the afternoon sunlight streaming through the window. It's a simple snapshot of our daily life. The photo reminded me of a quote from one of my favorite authors. I decided to use the quote as my jumping off point.

In Photoshop, I layered the text of the quote over the photo in a light brown. To create the background I scattered a few pieces of punched heart confetti on the cardstock, then sprayed pink mist. After the mist was dry I removed the hearts. The cheery color pallet of "Brightside" complimented the sunshine in the photo. I placed the pink and yellow elements on the layout in visual triangles to guide the eye through the project. A variety of circle and heart punches highlighted some of the fun new patterned papers, and a few Glitz stickers finished it off nicely.

"Lunch Adventure" layout supplies:

Glitz Design "Felicity" papers: Honeycomb, Bits & Pieces

Glitz Design "Brightside" 6x6 paper pad

Glitz Design "Felicity" Alphas & Accents sticker sheet

Glitz Design "Brightside" Alphas & Accents sticker sheet

Glitz Design "All Dolled Up" washi tape - cherries

Glitz Design "Hello December" washi tape - plus

other: cardstock, plastic flower, mist, heart and circle punches

Messages from Heaven

Nearly every change of season brings us a fresh batch of color combination trends to try. This fall the Glitz team is taking the Green/Pink/Neutral combo for a spin. I had a hard time choosing between white and warm gray for my neutral, so in the end I went with both. The white I kept as a canvas and the warm gray as the accent. 

The photo was extra special to me because it was a little memento I found of my dad's one day when cleaning my house. When he was sick his pockets were always supplied with cough drops that had little messages on the wrappers. This was one of the wrappers I found not long after he passed away. It was like a little message from heaven. 

"Nothing You Can't Handle" Supplies:
Glitz Design "Finnley" paper: Drip
Glitz Design "Wild & Free" 6x6 Paper Pad
Glitz Design "Finnley" 6x6 Paper Pad
Glitz Design "Dapper Dan" Rubber Stamps
Glitz Design "Finnley" Titles & Accents Sticker Sheet
Glitz Design "Finnley" Alphabets & Words Sticker Sheet
Glitz Design "Hello Friend" Washi Tape
other: typewriter, VersaMark ink, Stickles glitter glue, star sequins (Studio Calico), lace punch (Martha Stewart Crafts), circle punch, embossing powder and ink (Stampin Up)

Feel the Love

It's 11:31pm. 29 minutes until it's officially Valentine's Day. The signs are everywhere... handmade Valentine cards scattered on the kitchen table, a shoebox turned Valentine holding robot on the counter, conversation hearts ready to send little messages of love in a jar in the kitchen. It's time to celebrate all things related to love. I had grand plans in this post to list a few of the many things i love about those I love in my house... Darn that I'm getting a little sleepy, and my brain isn't nearly so clever as it was an hour ago. That being said, I couldn't in good conscience leave this day of love without saying this:

I am quite possibly the most blessed girl on earth. I am loved by God, my husband and my children {usually}. Is there any better place to be than right here?

“Since love grows within you, so beauty grows. For love is the beauty of the soul.”
-Saint Augustine

“Lord, grant that I might not so much seek to be loved as to love.”
-St. Francis of Assisi

“Since love grows within you, so beauty grows. For love is the beauty of the soul.”
-Saint Augustine

“Love is not affectionate feeling,
but a steady wish for the loved person's ultimate good as far as it can be obtained”
-C.S. Lewis

“I need no dictionary of quotations to remind me that the eyes are the windows of the soul”
-Max Beerbohm

Count Your Blessings

I spent the day with Torrey who was home sick from school. We snuggled, watched an old movie and just rested. She's 10 now, and these snuggly moments seem to be a little fewer and farther between than they used to be. She's just a few inches shorter than me, but the two of us can still curl up in one chair, barely. She still gets cozy under the quilt my mom made for her when she was born, and she still needs the special comfort you can only get from your mom when you're feeling crummy. She has sharp green eyes, and a sly smirk. She's changing and growing, yet remains much the same as ever. It's these little moments that make up my million tiny blessings. They're just little bits of everyday life, but they are gifts from God every one of them. In a world so wrought with pain and injustice, it helps me to look at life through the lens of daily blessings, to see the beauty in tiny moments. Hopefully taking one step, then another, in the right direction.

If you're looking for a little extra dose of sunshine and inspiration, I found a new source of inspiration through The Shine Project blog.

“When we lose one blessing, another is often most unexpectedly given in its place”
-C.S. Lewis

“The love of heaven makes one heavenly.”
-William Shakespeare

 "That's a negative, Ghost Rider, the pattern is full."
-Top Gun

My super cool husband called to tell us he was going to do a fly-by on the house the other night. The sun was setting, the sky was beautiful... he dipped the wing to wave to us and flashed the landing lights as the girls jumped and waved to their daddy in the plane. Yah, we're pretty darn blessed. 

Dreams, Risks, Spelling & Miracles

I watched Torrey in her third trip to the school spelling bee. She worked so hard, and I sat there with my stomach tied in knots watching her. I knew how nervous she was, and how hard she had worked. She did well, but didn't win. We talked about winning and about losing... about working hard and enjoying the journey. Life is like that, isn't it? Life is full of gains, loses and recoveries. A beautiful mess, and I love it.

“Aristotle said that the essence of drama is fear and pity.
Where do you feel more fear and pity than when you look at a kid in a spelling bee?”
-Rachel Sheinkin

“I have found the paradox, that if you love until it hurts, there can be no more hurt, only more love.”
-Mother Teresa

“The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting. It has been found difficult and left untried.”
-G. K. Chesterton

“Photography has the capacity to provide images of man and
his environment that are both works of art and moments in history.”
-Cornell Capa

“Miracles are a retelling in small letters of the very same story

which is written across the whole world in letters too large for some of us to see.”
-C.S. Lewis

Truth, Travel & Tradition

I am happy to report that my week of pain ended with the bloody nose, and no black or permanently damaged eyes. I am truly counting my blessings, not to mention getting a good laugh over my shortcomings.

With nary a black eye in sight I took tattered self down to LA for the weekend for 2011 CHA Winter. It's always so inspiring to browse the new goodies that will hit the shelves soon. How lucky I am to be a small piece of an industry that focuses so much on the beauty of family and friends, and celebrates the blessings of everyday moments. Aside from the super cool new products, it's always wonderful to see my friends that are ordinarily scattered across the country (and to add a few new ones to the stack)!
Thanks for the laughs Collin & Liz, for your friendship James & Liz, for the best gift I've received this year Susan, and a shout out for my roomies Teri & Ashley.

Keep an eye out on Tuesday for some new Glitz Designs layouts... and the winner of the sketch contest I posted a couple of weeks ago! But for now, back to my regularly scheduled 365 pictures & quotes. A hodgepodge of quotes, travel shots and a more traditional noel-type 365 shot of Emma.

"When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains,
however improbable, must be the truth."
-Sherlock Holms via Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

The City of Angels at sunrise
“Angels can fly because they take themselves lightly; devils fall because of their gravity.”
-G. K. Chesterton

And Mary said, "Behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord; let it be to me according to your word."
Luke 1:38

Since love grows within you, so beauty grows. For love is the beauty of the soul.”
-Saint Augustine

“Grown-ups never understand anything by themselves,
and it is tiresome for children to be always and forever explaining things to them.”
-Antoine de Saint-Exupery

Free Advice: You get what you pay for

Are you looking for a few tidbits of advice this Thursday night? Probably not, but I'm going to share two from this week's life lessons anyway. Someday you may thank me.

Life Tip #1: First thing in the morning, when your eyes are dry and you haven't put your contacts in yet, DO NOT under any circumstance grab Ear Drops (rather than eye drops) and put them in your eye. It sort of feels like the entire surface of your eyeball is burning off.

Life Tip #2: When leaning over to give your sleeping husband a kiss, be sure he's not about to roll over and check his alarm and crack you in the nose with his arm. Your nose bleeds, your eyes water and your husband feels terrible.

I hope these deep words of wisdom will help you to avoid a painful experience in your future. :)

“Making the decision to have a child is momentous.
It is to decide forever to have your heart go walking around outside your body.”
-Elizabeth Stone

"Marriage is a duel to the death which no man of honor should decline."
-GK Chesterton

“Be yourself. Everyone else is already taken.”

{crazy hair day 2011}

Look for the Good

This past year has been a big faith journey for me, and my family. Stepping out in faith often comes with it's fair share of criticism, suffering and extreme blessing. The suffering almost always walks hand in hand with blessing. So we take the suffering, walk in hope and dwell in the blessings they bring.

More than that, we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not disappoint us, because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit which has been given to us. Romans 5:3-5

 

“What you see and hear
depends a good deal on where you are standing;
it also depends on what kind of a person you are”
-C.S. Lewis

“The big print giveth, and the fine print taketh away.”
-Bishop Fulton J. Sheen

“The Bible tells us to love our neighbors, 

and also to love our enemies; 

probably because generally they are the same people.”
-G. K. Chesterton

Quote - Unquote

Keeping on with my quotes and 365 shots... and using the mini messages as the picture subjects for the week,and giving the girls a break from their daily 365 modeling jobs. (At least for this week!) Happy Friday!

“To love means loving the unlovable.
To forgive means pardoning the unpardonable.
Faith means believing the unbelievable.
Hope means hoping when everything seems hopeless.”
-G. K. Chesterton

“Do not spoil what you have by desiring what you have not;
remember that what you now have was once among the things you only hoped for.”
-Epicurus

We may not be able to give much,
but we can always give the joy that springs in a
heart that is in love with God.
-Mother Teresa

love like crazy

Browsing around the internet today I came across this picture, which inspired me to take this picture. I turned the tea tag inside out, then reinserted the staple, and added the quote in Photoshop.

The way to love anything is to realize that it may be lost.
G.K. Chesterton

Can I quote you on that?

I decided, quite by accident, to add a quote to each of my 365 pictures this year. Maybe I'm a little hopeful that I'll be able to find 365 quotes that seem to fit my photo and mood of each day this year, but hey, it's still the middle of January and there is still much to hope for. So here's hoping I'll make it another year with pictures and quotes... Either way it surely is a life worth living!

The things that we love tell us what we are.
-St. Thomas Aquinas

Inspired by The Brave Girls Club
Everything Costs Something

"And, for this is the end of all the stories, and we can most truly say that they all lived happily ever after. But, for them, it was only the beginning of the real story. All their life in this world and all their adventures in Narnia had only been the cover, and the title page: now at last they were beginning Chapter One of the Great Story which no one on Earth has read: which goes on forever: in which every chapter is better than the one before."
-C.S. Lewis

"Our hearts are restless until they rest in Thee, O Lord"
-Saint Augustine

“Every time you smile at someone, it is an action of love, a gift to that person, a beautiful thing.”
-Mother Teresa of Calcutta

I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me; and the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.
Galatians 2:20

Mawage. Mawage is wot bwings us togeder tooday.
Mawage, that bwessed awangment, that dweam wifin a dweam...
And wuv, tru wuv, will fowow you foweva...
So tweasure your wuv.
-The Impressive Clergyman, The Princess Bride

“But the eyes are blind. One must look with the heart...”
-Antoine de Saint-Exupery

We can no longer live as rats. We know too much.
-The Secret of Nimh