ames designs

Wow... it's been awhile since posting. A lot has happened in those 6 weeks or so, the majors being:

• A colonoscopy/endoscopy procedure, the results of which I still haven't got because...
• We had to rush to the US after receiving the news that Mike's brother, Pete was tragically killed
• Spent two weeks in the US with family
  
• Came down with the flu on the way home and spent 4 days in house quarantine waiting to be cleared for swine flu... which we were yesterday (thank God)
  
• Our budgie, Piper, passed away suddenly yesterday morning.
  

Needless to say, we are looking forward to life returning to "normal". Despite the awful circumstances, it was great to see Mike's family and friends, and meet some I hadn't yet met.

Grief is still raw for everyone. I know I'll be exploring it further in some layouts in the near future. I have realised that I have very few layouts of Mike's family, and I need to change that, as I want to be telling both our stories.

I didn't get to complete all my design team duties this month, but had finished a few finished before we went away, and got a few more projects finished in the early hours of Monday morning (yaay for waking up at 3 to 4am the last 4 days!). Go check out everyone's fantastic work in the gallery.

In other scrapping news, I did a little cleaning/rearranging of my scrap area yesterday, particularly my stamp collection. As I sorted through all my clear stamps, I realized there were one or two (okay, 4) sets that I hadn't even opened, let alone used. So I'm challenging myself to 1) stamp something (no matter how big or small) on every creation I make for the month of June, and 2) use those stamps I haven't yet used!

I had the day off today... yaay! It's amazing how good it feels to wake up and know the rest of the world is off to work, and I have the whole day ahead of me to do what I want.

And what did I want? A new do. It had been waaayyyy to long since I had a trim, and I wanted a change and decided today would be the day. My DH obligingly took some before and after pics - he's learnt what it means to be married to a scrapper.

So here are the before pics:

Yeah... I really needed a tidy up. Way too many split ends.



But before I show you the after shots (oh the suspense!), here's a layout I did on the weekend:



Recording this conversation was the perfect way to use those radish stickers.
From the stash: Kraft cardstock; SEI papers; AC thickers; BG offbeat chipstickers; ribbon; zig pen; Fiskars circle punches.



Ok... so here are the after shots:


Just a bit of a change... :-). I am loving it, but adjusting to it. For one, it's way lighter; I haven't had hair this short since highschool and I haven't had a fringe of any kind for years before that. And I may just have found a hairdresser I like and will stick with (after 3 years in the Ville, I still haven't found a regular hairdresser).