Saturday, September 6, 2014

14 years ago - A defining moment

We all have defining moments in our life that we will never forget where we were or what we were doing when we heard the news.  One of mine was 14 years ago in the middle of the night the phone in my dorm room rang. The 2nd day of classes my sophomore year at University of WI-La Crosse had finished and my roommate and I had just gone to bed having talked about room "rules" earlier in the night.  One of them was no phone calls after 11pm unless it was an emergency. I answered the phone and it was my dad telling me that my grandpa had passed away.  My dad and brother drove up to La Crosse the next morning to bring me home.

To say I was devastated would be an understatement.  Grandpa and I were always very close. I was the oldest grandchild and my cousin Jenny and I always fought for his attention when we ever kids. We couldn't stand each other then! (Luckily we grew out of it and love each other now!)  Jenny stood by my side after she played the violin at Grandpa's funeral while I gave the eulogy and when I couldn't read my words from the tears in my eyes she read them to me.

I have so many memories of Grandpa (and Grandma too of course!)- picking out my bikes, trips to Ft Sheridan, a Lake Geneva cruise on the Lady of the Lake, helicopter rides, going to the Wild West Town, just spending a weekend at grandma and grandpa's, painting the laundry room of the house I grew up in (we painted our names on the wall first before we actually got to work!), interviewing Grandpa for a family history project and WWII project and having Grandpa come to my 5th grade class to talk about being a Geronimo 509er in WWII. That was when grandpa gave me a set of his paratrooper wings; one of my most cherished possessions.

Since Grandpa's death happened so early in the semester, I quickly fell behind in my classes.  When I got back to school after a few days from the wake and funeral I had a tough time adjusting back into things. My friends were so supportive and helped me through it though

Friday, September 5, 2014

A big project!

I've been in the middle of a big project the past month or so and I'm finally almost done! Here are a few sneak peeks of the project! Once it's completed I will share more details of it! I will say it's been a challenge but a lot of fun to work on.






Friday, August 8, 2014

Some of my latest projects!

As a lot of my scrapping friends know, I am a subscriber to the Scraptastic kit club. Last weekend they celebrated their 4th birthday and put on some great challenges.

Here's a couple of the layouts I completed for the challenges on their boards to celebrate!

I completed the Bingo challenge by Mercy tiara for this layout. I used the Scraptastic Everybody Talks kit from September 2013 for most of my supplies here.  I used lyrics from Christina Aguilara's Reflection as my title. I think they really represent this picture of me at an extremely awkward 9 year old.



I also completed the challenge to use a song title from the Top 100 of 2010 as a layout title. I chose The House That Built Me by Miranda Lambert for this layout about my childhood home.  This layout used the Daylight kit from May 2014 by Scraptastic.





Finally, I completed the color challenge which was to use shades of mint, pink, and gold.  This layout also used the Everybody Talks kit from September 2013 and a picture from a recent (awesome) wedding we went to.







Tuesday, July 29, 2014

A new venture

I've been encouraged by so many friends from the online scrapping community to pursue new things in the scrapping world.

So...here it goes for one step! set up a blog! I already post most of my layouts to Facebook groups - NicoleJones911 group and the Scraptastic Subscriber group as well as a small message board I am active in.

So why not have them on a blog also!

Scrapbooking has become such a huge part of my life over the past few years and the scrapping community is wonderful. I have made amazing friends from all over the world and I am so grateful to be part of such a great community!

Here's a layout to share as part of my 1st blog post! I used the Scraptastic Home kit from November to complete this layout of my favorite subjects...Ginger and Roscoe!