Wedding Momento Frame - Memory Monday #11

By Vicky Nardone

My dad and got married to his long time partner Louie on the Fifth of July in Chicago.  Instead of gifts, they asked people to donate to a couple of their favorite charities but I still wanted to make them something to remember their special day.  I settled on the idea of a wedding momento frame.  I knew that I would never find an overlay with holes cut out in the exact sizes I wanted to I used a piece of cardstock and measured all my items and painstakingly cut holes in the cardstock where I wanted to place the items.  It took a while!  Once I had measured out the sizes of my items, I actually used Illustrator to make paper patterns which I then cut out and laid on the frame and then used an exacto knife to cut around the patterns.

Fourth of July Page - Memory Monday #10

By Vicky Nardone

Happy Fourth of July week!  I'm in full summer mode now.  How about you?  This year my dad is getting married in Chicago the day after the Fourth of July so Matt and I are flying into Chicago on the Fourth for the wedding.  We will be watching the fireworks on Navy Pier after the rehearsal dinner on Friday.  This will be the first Fourth of July since Matt and I met that we won't be watching the fireworks at the local park in Tonawanda NY where we used to live.  Matt's been going to that park for fireworks since he bought his house in Tonawanda back in 2007.  

The Girls Get Ready - Memory Monday #9

By Vicky Nardone

Matt and I had our wedding in Lake George, NY which is about 4.5 hours away from where we live in Buffalo.  Luckily we had a gorgeous house that my parents rented for us to stay in for the week and it had a gorgeous upstairs loft bedroom that the girls and I used to get ready with a private bathroom.  The lady that we rented the house from was a hairstylist and she agreed to come to the house on the morning of the wedding and do all the girls hair.  My sister-in-law Andrea is a whiz with makeup so she did the makeup of any of the girls who wanted it done, including me.

On The Town - Memory Mondays #8

By Vicky Nardone

When Matt and I first started dating, he was very excited for me to meet his sister Andrea.  She still lived at home back in South Glens Falls with his parents but she was thinking of going to college near us at Fredonia.  So one weekend, shortly after I had moved into Matt's house, Andrea came to visit us for the weekend.  While she was here, she wanted to experience a little bit of the Buffalo nightlife.  Matt and I are not big into the club scene - in fact I think this might be the one and only night we have ever been to a club together.  But Matt's friend Andy knows all the best places to go out in Buffalo.

Maggie The Dog Page - Memory Mondays #7

By Vicky Nardone

Today's Memory Monday page is dedicated to my dog Maggie.  Matt and I got Maggie a few months after moving into our house.  Matt had grown up having dogs and I really hadn't (we had a dog when I was really young but I don't really have many memories of him).  We had talked about getting a dog pretty early on in our relationship but Matt wanted to wait until we had a nice backyard for the dog to run around in.  Our backyard at our house is completely fenced in so it gives Maggie lots of exercise.

Wedding Ceremony Page - Memory Mondays #6

By Vicky Nardone

This scrapbook layout was inspired by this layout I found on Pinterest.  I decided to go with a blue, purple and green color scheme for this page.  I found a gorgeous lilac paper with all the right colors in it.

All About Family - Memory Mondays #5

By Vicky Nardone

Happy Memorial Day everyone!  I hope it's nice weather where you are and that you're getting to spend some time barbequing or maybe having a picnic.  Memorial day to me is all about spending time with your family.  That's why I decided to share my family layout that I recently completed for today's Memory Monday.

The Sticky on Adhesives: Memory Mondays #4

By Vicky Nardone

Today's post is all about adhesives.  When I first got started scrapbooking, I didn't really think much about what to use to stick my photos and other decorations to the page.  Glue is glue, right?  Wrong.

These were my early tools for scrapbook adhesives - Elmers glue and glue sticks.  And that's why I got results like the ones on the page in the right.  I went through a phase where I printed all my pics out on regular letter paper because I didn't want to spend the money to buy photo paper.  So between using letter paper and using elmers glue, the color from my background paper bled through and turned some of my photos green.  Also, I don't know if you can tell but my photos are a bit of a wrinkled mess because I had a difficult time getting things I used the Elmers glue on to lay flat.

Color Popping - Memory Monday #3

By Vicky Nardone

For this week's page I have a small tutorial. When I was in college for Digital Media Arts we learned about the history brush in photo shop.  The history brush allows you to take a copy of an image, do whatever you want to it, and then paint back to the copy.  One of my favorite techniques to do with the history brush is to make a photo black and white and then paint back some of the color as I did with the above page.

Photo Shapes - Memory Mondays #2

By Vicky Nardone

This is another one of the pages from my wedding scrapbook.  It's slowly but surely coming together.  Ever since I saw this picture, I knew the layout for this page had to be pink.  Oftentimes to get inspiration for my layouts, I use pinterest and I found this great layout and I knew I wanted to create my own version of it.

Memory Monday's #1 - Paper Scraping

By Vicky Nardone

Hello everyone! I know I've been missing in action for a while but I'm trying to get back into the world of blogging.  I've been thinking of how I want to change things for the past couple of weeks so I could keep up with them and I tink I've finally made some decisions.  The format I've decided to follow is Memory Mondays - posting a scrapbooking layout, technique or tip, Whatever Wednesday - this may take me a couple weeks to get going on but it will be a miscellaneous recipe, craft or thought and Smoothie Saturdays - Matt and I have become obsessed with smoothies lately and I'm going to share our favorite recipes with you.

More Animal Cards

By Vicky Nardone

About a month or so ago I posted this giraffe birthday card that I made for my friend Bryan's birthday.  I got into the animal theme so I made two more animal birthday cards for my friends' Chris and Katie's birthdays.

Giraffe Birthday Card

By Vicky Nardone

Our friend Bryan had a birthday last month.  He had a party with a bunch of friends at one of our loal bars and I decided I needed to make him a card.  A giraffe card to be exact.  I had been eying this cute little guy on my Create A Critter cricut cartridge and I decided this would be the perfect time to use it.

Wedding Shower Scrapbook Page #3

By Vicky Nardone

This is the third and final page of my three page bridal shower scrapbook layout.  I drew my inspiration for this page from the invitation.  My aunts threw me my bridal shower and my Aunt Carole picked out these invitations, which I just love.  So pretty and colorful.

Wedding Shower Scrapbook Page - Finally Done!

By Vicky Nardone

A while ago, I had posted my wedding shower scrapbook pages here and here.  I was never very happy with the second page which looked like this, because I didn't think it matched the first page very well and I also didn't think the colors worked well within it.

Rehearsal Dinner Scrapbook Page

By Vicky Nardone

I can't believe our one year anniversary is only 9 days away!!!  Planning the wedding was so much a part of my life last year at this time.  The wedding was so wonderful that after it was over, talking about it with Matt and our friends and just reliving the memories of the day kept me from feeling sad that everything was over, but now I kind of want to plan another one.  Lol, I don't think my parents (who were very generous with paying for the wedding) are that eager to do it again though!

Bachelor/Bachelorette Party Scrapbooking

By Vicky Nardone

Ever since my mom and I attended the scrapbooking convention a couple weeks ago I have been inspired to start working on our wedding scrapbook again.  Our one year anniversary is coming up in two weeks!  I really hadn't liked the second page I did for the bridal shower - I didn't feel like it went well with the first page I designed for it which is I think what put me off scrapbooking for a while.

Scrapbooking Convention

By Vicky Nardone

Last weekend I got to attend my first every scrapbooking convention at the Buffalo Convention Center.  I didn't go to any of the classes offered this time around but my mom was nice enough to volunteer to go to the vendor faire with me and I bought a ton of stuff (probably way more than I should have).  Yes, I know, it barely fits on the table.  But they had some really unique stuff that I had never seen before at my normal craft stores and a lot of it was at really good prices.

Wedding Shower Card

By Victoria Nardone

My best friend from grammar school, Tricia is getting married this summer and today was her wedding shower.  I am about to head out for her bachelorette party in about twenty minutes but I thought I'd get a quick post in to show you the card I made to go with her present which I will be sharing sometime in the next couple days.

Tricia and I were both only children and I think half of our childhoods were spent over at each others houses.  We ended up going to different high schools and developing different groups of friends but we've still kept in touch and try to get together for dinner whenever we can fit it in.  I'm so excited for her and her fiancee, Dan and can't wait for their wedding this summer.  They're getting married on June 28th, 12 days after Matt and my one year anniversary.

Monkeying (and puppying) around

By Vicky Nardone

My little cousin CC's birthday party is tomorrow.  She's turning 6!  I remember going over to my cousin Caron's house when CC was first born and she was sooo tiny.  She's grown into quite the cute little girl from being quite the cute little baby.  She and my other cousin Jilly were the flower girls in my wedding over the summer.

CC is the one with the brown hair and Jilly has blond hair.  The wore little replicas of my dress.