Saturday, April 25, 2015

House of Delegates Page!

We were so proud of our son when he was accepted into the State House of Delegates Page program as a freshman in high school. This meant that for the 9 weeks of the General Assembly, he was to live in a hotel in downtown Richmond (chaperoned, of course!). Each day he'd report to the General Assembly Building to carry out a variety of tasks. He did some filing, copying, mail delivery and lunch orders. He got to know his way around the immediate area of the hotel in downtown Richmond and had a fabulous time. He learned about the legislative process and about self discipline. Since he was living in Richmond during the week, he had to homeschool himself at night. He managed to keep his grades up the whole time and had such a wonderful experience. I'd highly recommend it for any self motivate, intelligent 13-14 year old. It was an adventure he'll never forget!

He is now a senior in high school. We truly believe that this experience along with his volunteer work with the rescue squad helped tremendously in the college application process. He was accepted at all five school he applied to and three of them gave him generous scholarships.

Please share any impactful experiences your school aged chidren have had! I have one more coming up through the ranks. Thanks!


Friday, April 24, 2015

James Bond is my husband

We had such a great time on our recent trip to Chicago. My sweet hubby hadn't worn a tux since our wedding day and he looked quite dapper!



Product credits: Template from the Life is Amazing 2 pack by Fiddle Dee Dee Designs at Scrap Orchard; Papers, embellies and word art all from Little Black Dress Kit by WM {Squared} at Scrap Orchard; Journaling font: Avenir

Disney suitcase mini book

My parents are huge Disney fans. They go every year, and this year was no different. When I saw all the cute pictures my mother was posting on Facebook, I knew I had to do something with them. I have access to all of my Mom's phone photos based on a automated backup system I set up for her on her phone to Dropbox. Since this handful of photos were the ones that she posted, I knew they must be the favorites.

I started by downloading the photos from Facebook and saving them into their own folder. Then I measured this adorable little Disney suitcase gift card holder I had purchased days before "just in case".

Using the measurements, I created blank canvas in PSE and created photo boxes using the dimensions for the planned photos.  I printed a bunch onto each page. 


Using my handy dandy paper cutter, I cut each column to the correct size. Once all the pictures were ready, I placed them in the order I wanted for the book. 


Then I used this awesome sparkle, glitter tape to adhere each page back to back. When all pairs of photos were adhered together, then I ran a larger piece of the glitter tape down the side of the hole stack, like a book binding, and finished it off.


It took less than an hour and my parents absolutely loved it. My Mom loved that it is small enough to carry in her purse to peruse or share whenever she feels like it!



Monday, April 20, 2015

1940s party fun!

It was so much fun to dress up for the theme night party at my hubby's National Convention in Chicago this year. The ballroom was decked out as a 1940s supper club. Fortunately, I had convinced my husband to play along and get dressed up for the event. It turned out to be great. The icing on the cake was the fake puffing cigar and the inflatable machine gun. He had a lot of fun with both!


Product credits: 

Saturday, April 18, 2015

First Car & The Bean

After having a wonderful time with a house full of visitors following immediately by a wonderful trip to Chicago with my hubby, I'm happy I had a few minutes to document some of the fun.