Bridal Shower Scrapbook Page #2

By Vicky Nardone

So I'm not entirely happy with how this page came out.  It's bugging me that the invitation color scheme doesn't really fit in with the rest of the page.  My aunt picked out the invitations and I really love them but unfortunately everything else from that day was kind of blue, yellow and brown so that's what I went with for the page colors.

This is the second of a three page layout.  You can see page one in my post here.

What I am digging about this page though is the cool cutout from my "Paper Dolls Teen Scene" cricut cartridge.  I cut out the "rain" girl at five inches.  She's got about 6 or seven layers of different papers but this cartridge is so detailed and awesome.  I had been wanting it forever and they had such a great deal on it on Black Friday that I ordered it.

Also new from this week is the paper punch that made the shell-like design that you see on the light yellow paper at the top.  I've been curious about these paper punches and this paper punch was like 60% off at Michaels over the weekend so I decided to buy it and see what the fuss was all about.  I don't know that I'm using it right because it seems like the piece of paper has to be the exact right size to cut out the shape in it.

Marlie

By Vicky Nardone

It finally happened!  I think we found a playmate for our dog Maggie!  I'd been communicating with one of the local rescue groups for the last week or so about a dog that Matt and I saw on their website called Marlie.  Marlie had a couple of other people looking at her but she wasn't a good fit for any of the families interested so her foster mom scheduled a meet an greet with me today to introduce her to Maggie!  I apologize for the blurriness of the photos but the two of them wouldn't sit still for more than 5 seconds.

Mod Podge Photo Box

By Vicky Nardone

I was very productive this morning.  I had to be up for a work thing at 7am.  I took my car into get it's six month maintenance by 9am.  I tried to go to Petsmart because they told us the Akron Angels dog adoption group was going to be there starting at 11 when we dropped in last night.  I waited over an hour for them and they didn't show up!  I was disappointed because they had a cute dog that looked kind of like Maggie when Matt and I checked out their website last night.  We're still waiting to see whether the dog I e-mailed about earlier in the week is going to be adopted this weekend.  The woman I've been talking to said that she had a couple meet and greets scheduled for her but if they didn't work out she'd schedule something with us.

Mod Podge Wedding Photo Plaque

By Vicky Nardone

So I think I mentioned in one of my last posts that I am absolutely in love with mod podge!!!  My friend that I sent my first mod podge creation to shoul hopefully be getting it today so I can post what I sent her tomorrow without ruining the surprise.

In the meantime though, I had some more fun with mod podge last night and created this awesome photo plaque.  I think I'm going to take it to work.  Because I don't really have any wedding photos on my desk right now.  Just an engagement photo that our friend Mel took.

Do The Harlem Shake

By Vicky Nardone

Yep - we went there.  Here's the video link.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TI1EOecJC1o&feature=youtu.be

Can't say I'm proud, but it happened.

Go Wild!

By Vicky Nardone

I love mod podge!  I recently heard about it from some friends and decided it sounded like something I must try.  It's this sort of glue/sealer that you can put over pictures or magazine pages or whatever to adhere them to some kind of surface and the end result is really cool looking.  I cannot wait to post the project I made with it over the weekend because it came out soooo good, but I am going to wait a couple days because it's a present I'm sending to one of our friends in the mail and I don't want the surprise to be ruined if she reads my blog.

Tropical Smoothie (with Mango)

By Vicky Nardone

Today's post is about my all-time favorite drink: smoothies.  The recipe I made today is with my favorite fruit - the mango.

We picked out a few at the store last weekend and they were perfectly ripe when we went to use them today.  You know a mango is ripe when it's slightly soft when you squeeze it.  We used our juicer to get the juice from the mangoes.  Matt had really wanted a juicer and my mother-in-law got us one as a bridal shower gift.  We love making pineapple orange juice with it too!

Homemade Taco Shells - Secret Family Recipe

By Vicky Nardone

Let me start off by saying that today was not a good day.  Without going into specifics work was just really hard.  The one thing that I do want to spend a few minutes on was that I found out that one of my co-workers, Mike, unexpectedly passed away this past Friday evening.  Mike was right around the same age as my parents.  When I first started my job 5 years ago, I got the cubicle right next to Mike.  It was my first job out of college and Mike really showed me the ropes even though we had two completely separate knowledge bases.  He was super Irish and he often spent his weekends at the Irish Center in Buffalo listening to Irish Bands and drinking beer.  I learned a lot about his life over the time I knew him and I have to say he really made me feel welcome and more at ease in my first job.  Even after I moved cubes to be closer to my team, I would still run into Mike usually heading out to lunch.  He'd always ask me if I was staying out of trouble, and I'd respond yes, and then he'd ask, "Why?" with a big grin.  He wasn't sick, at least that I knew of, so getting an e-mail today that he'd suddenly passed away this morning was a big shock.  It made me realize two things.  The first thing is that you don't realize what an impact people have on your life.  Mike and I weren't super close but he really made my work day better when I used to sit next to him.  I can't recall the exact last time I ran into him, but so many times today it crossed my mind how sad I was that the last time I ran into him was truly the last time I ran into him.  I hope that I have made that kind of difference in somebody's life.  Secondly (and people always say this) but it makes me appreciate that I still have time with my family and friends.  I know Mike had a wife and daughter who had two adopted kids and I can't even imagine how much they miss him.  I made Matt come into the kitchen and hang out with me while I was making dinner tonight because I was feeling a little sentimental and wanted to spend time with him.  Mike - just know what a difference you made in peoples lives and that you will be missed.

Valentine Cupcake Box

By Vicky Nardone

Tonight we are going out to Salvatores with my mom to celebrate Valentines day with my mom.  I'm bringing her some of the cupcakes (which are dwindling in number) that I made yesterday.  I thought I'd take advantage of the box feature that some of my cricut cartridges have and make a cute little box to carry them in.

Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Cupcakes

By Vicky Nardone

Today has been a pretty good day!  We started the day by going to the SPCA to look at a beagle terrier mix.  Matt and I had a deal that if I got the new job I applied for that we could get a second dog and I just officially found out that I got the job on Thursday!!!  The dog we went to look at was a one year old female and she was gorgeous!  Light brown and white.  Unfortunately we found out once we got there and went to take her out to play that she had to go to a home that didn't have other dogs because she didn't get along well with other dogs.  It's really too bad because she seemed like the perfect dog too.  So the search continues.  If anyone knows of any female terrier/beagle mixes in the Buffalo area up for adoption that are between one and three years old, let me know.

Kitty Valentine

By Vicky Nardone

I have to start off this post with the gift I just got in the mail from my dad.  He had ordered a knitting book I wanted off my Amazon wish list for Christmas and it somehow never got here.  I ended up ordering it after Christmas before I found out that he had tried to send me a copy.  Just today in the mail I got this replacement gift that he picked out for me:

We love Downton Abbey and when my dad was here visiting in November we watched an episode of Downton Abbey because he and his partner Louie like it too.  Sybil was the nickname he gave me when I was a baby so this truly was the perfect gift.  It's definitely going to get a lot of wear.  I won't spoil any of this season for you if you haven't gotten to watch it yet but it's really good so far.

Valentine's Day Puppy

By Vicky Nardone

Valentine's Day is less than two weeks away and Matt is filming a music video tonight so I thought it would be the perfect opportunity to make his Valentine's day card.

I wanted to make him a puppy shaped card but I didn't have anything on any of my cricut cartridges for a puppy card so I had to improvise a little bit.  I scoured my cartridges until I found a shape that I thought could work.  The base of the card is actually a pumpkin card from the Mini Monsters Cartridge.  I think it worked out fairly nicely although the puppy does have a weird sort of mohawk type thing going on on top of his head.  Oh well - we've noticed that our dog Maggie gets a mohawk on her back and neck when she starts barking at something she sees outdoors.  It's so funny - her hair stands up on end.

Duct Tape Purse

By Vicky Nardone

I definitely did not come up with this idea myself, but I saw it and thought it was really cool and it actually only took about half an hour to put together.  I think I'm going to use mine to carry my knitting and crocheting supplies back and forth to the weekly meetup I sometimes attend.  Anyway, to give credit where credit is due, I first saw this project on the Second Chances blog and they actually got it from the All Things Thrifty blog which has the instructions for how to make them.  I really like how the ones on Second Chances turned out.  The one thing I don't like about mine is that you can see the lines between the pieces of green tape.  Otherwise I'm happy with how it came out.  I really like the polka dot tape pattern.

Superbowl Snacks

By Vicky Nardone

Today is Superbowl Sunday - an anticipated event for many football fans in the US.  Funny enough, we've got it on right now, and for the first time that I can remember, the game has been delayed due to a power outage in half of the stadium.  Very strange. 

Anyway, I thought I'd share with you two of the snacks that Matt and I had for the game.  Neither of us are big football fans.  I'm watching mostly for the commercials and the halftime show and Matt is watching because I have it on.  Here are the snacks and my recipes for them.  Both of them are a little bit of an inexact science.

Photo Wheel

By Vicky Nardone

I've been working on today's page since last Monday but it took me a while to get it all together with the chaos in my house this week due to the film shoot.  I got this idea back from a big scrapbooking book I bought when I was in college and I've only used it once before.  It's kind of a neat concept that allows you to have even more photos on a single page and adds an element of interactiveness for the user.  The idea is to add photos to a photo wheel that then sits behind your page and the photos are viewed one at a time through a view finder.  The patterns for the shapes needed are at the end of the post.  Right click to save them to your desktop for printing.

The first step is to print and cut out the 8 inch wheel template.  Trace it onto a piece of paper.  I recommend using cardstock for the wheel because you want it to be durable so it turns easily.  Cut out the traced wheel.

Homemade Pasta

By Vicky Nardone

Very glad this week is over.  Matt decided that our house would make the perfect location for this film he's shooting and so I had 30+ people traipsing around pretty much every room in my house besides our bedroom and the attic.  The house is still not back to normal - I have no idea where my tv clicker is so every time we want to change the channel we have to get up and change it on the tv itself.  Very retro.  On top of that, mother nature dumped about a foot of snow on Buffalo last night.  Here's what the view outside my living room window looked like this morning:

Matt had looked at the Doppler when we got back from Duffs for dinner last night and saw only this little band that looked like it was way south of us, so we had decided to leave the car out instead of putting it in the garage.  Apparently that was not a good idea though since it had about a foot of snow on it this morning when I woke up and the snow was still going.  I was out in my pajamas at 7:30 am trying to clear out enough of Matt's film equipment from my parking spot in the garage so I could get my car in.  Luckily the snow was the light fluffy kind and not the heavy wet stuff.  I made Matt snow blow the whole driveway by himself when he woke up later though.  What a bad wife!