Scrap Yourself: Childhood Memories

Our challenge this week at Scrap Yourself is to scrap childhood memories, and this challenge is right up my alley because I love to scrap about my childhood. I'm so fortunate that my Gram was a shutterbug when we were little, and she has this big box of photos, so I've been able to scan them for my scrapbook pages.

This is one of my all-time favorite pictures of me as a kid. My mom made that I Dream of Jeannie costume. I lost the photo and searched for it for a year. I was giving up hope that I would ever find it when I suddenly did. And I almost threw it away. It was the pocket of a pocket folder, and as I was about to throw the folder away, something told me to check inside the pockets, and there was my photograph!

I love BasicGrey's Sultry collection, and I hoard it like mad, but this was the perfect opportuity to use it! I desaturated the colors in the the background of the photo because my gram's drapes were yellow, and I didn't want the picture to clash with the papers.

Go check out what the rest of the team did with this challenge--they might just spark some childhood memories for you!

Oh! The Places I've Gone!

This week at Scrap Yourself, our challenge was to use the prompt "Oh, the places you'll go." I've been to so many places, and I had a hard time choosing what to scrap, so I decided I'd scrap it all! I sat down at my computer and started listing all the places I've lived and visited on vacations and I came up with A LOT of places. I searched through my photos for the perfect picture and came up with this one of me in Paris that I thought embodies the idea of travel.

I knew I wanted to use that cool balloon paper by Webster's Pages and I paired it with stuff from an old Studio Calico kit that I had been hoarding. I lifted the balloons with pop dots and added shiny brads to them.

I'm sure I've forgotten some of the places I've been over the course of my life, but just in case you're interested in knowing where I've been, here's the list that I included on the back of my layout:

Maryland (Ocean City, Baltimore, Frederick, Annapolis, Rock Hall, Cambridge, St. Michael's, Ocean City, Assateague, Chestertwon, Westminster, Ellicot City- day and weekend trips and lived here most of my life


Washington, DC - lots of times for day trips

West Virginia - lots of times to visit Dawn and day trips

Virginia (Mount Vernon, Richmond, Virginia Beach, Williamsburg, Arlington, Alexandria, Dale City, Leesburg, Fredericksburg) - day and weekend trips and lived for a couple of years

Texas - lived briefly

New York (New York City and others) - lots of times on vacation, weekend trips

Maine (Bar Harbor, Portland, Bangor, Wiscasset, Kennebunkport) - three times on vacation

Massachusetts (Boston, Salem, Cambridge, Martha's Vineyard, Plymouth, and others) - vacation

Vermont - drove through on vacation

New Hampshire - drove through on vacation

Rhode Island (Newport)- vacation

Connecticut (Mystic, Bridgeport) - vacation

Delaware (Rehoboth, Lewis) - vacation

New Jersey (Cape May, Atlantic City) - several times on vacation

North Carolina - on my way to Florida

South Carolina (Charleston) - vacation

Georgia - on my way to Florida

Florida (Port Orange, Orlando, Miami, Clearwater, St. Augustine)- many times to visit Gram and vacations

California (Los Angeles, San Francisco, San Diego) - vacations

Nevada (Las Vegas) - vacation

Arizona (Grand Canyon) - vacation

Tennessee (Nashville, Knoxville, Memphis, Gatlingburg) - vacation

Pennsylvania (Philadelphia, Lancaster, Bradford, Gettysburg, Punxsutawney, Johnstown, and others) - vacations and weekend trips

Illinois (Chicago) - twice for weekend trips when Farzad got an award)

Bolivia (Cochabamba, La Paz)- 3 times to live

Peru - in the airport on way to Bolivia

Mexico - traveled on way to Bolivia

Guatemala - traveled on way to Bolivia

El Salvador - traveled on way to Bolivia

Honduras - traveled on way to Bolivia

Nicaragua - traveled on way to Bolivia

Costa Rica - traveled on way to Bolivia

Panama - traveled on way to Bolivia

Canada (Niagara Falls, Quebec, Montreal) - a few times on vacations

Australia (Sydney, Melbourne) - vacation

New Zealand (Auckland, Christchurch, Queenstown, Milford Sound) - vacation

France (Paris, Normandy, Chartres, Rouen) - 3 times on vacation

Bahamas (Atlantis) - vacation

If I Could Turn Back Time...

That's our prompt this week at Scrap Yourself. Oh, if only I could turn back time. There are so many moments to which I would rewind the clock. The moment I chose for this challenge is recorded on the back of my layout.

I loved those crazy pink pants. They were my favorites, and I think I might even still have them hiding in one of my closets. I haven't looked for them in a long time, but I think I did keep them in hopes that I would one day fit into them again. So funny because they're way out of style, but when I reach my goal weight again, I swear I'm going to put them on and parade around town in them!

Layout inspired by sketch 58 at Creative Scrappers

My journaling reads: If I could turn back time, I would re-set the clock to the 1980's when this picture was taken. It was shortly after I first reached lifetime status at Weight Watchers. I was at my goal weight and knew the exhilaration of accomplishing a hard-earned goal. I wish I would have stuck with the program and not gained all that weight back because over the years more and more crept on. I wouldn't have spent the last two-plus decades overweight and unhappy with the image I saw in the mirror. I wouldn't have shied away from the camera so much. I would've had more energy and enjoyed my youth more. I wouldn't have spent most of my twenties and all of my my thirties and more than half of my forties fat and feeling old and tired. And I'm finding that now it's so much harder to lose the weight. If I could turn back time, I would set that clock back and maintain the habits I had learned when I'd only had 35 pounds to lose and not over one hundred. {Journaled May 2010...lost 56.2 pounds}

Scrap Yourself - My First Layout Revealed

As I shared in my last post, I've joined the team at Scrap Yourself, a challenge blog dedicated to, well, scrapping yourself.

For my first challenge, Kristine asked the team to scrap about three everyday essentials. I had to ponder a bit about what I was going to document because there are so many essential things I use in my various routines every day. I thought about scrapping some things related to my beauty ritual or things that help me do my job well. I considered documenting some of the essential foods I have every day to make a layout for my weight-loss album.

In the end, I decided to record three things I must have everyday during my "alone" time. Here's my layout:


My partially hidden journaling reads: I relish my alone time. I look forward to Farzad coming home each night, but those few solitary hours before he walks through the door are precious to me. These are three things I need each day when I'm by myself: A cup of coffee wakes me up in the morning, but it's tea that soothes my soul in the Afternoon. My playlists keep me company, whether I'm blaring Black Eyed Peas in my car or rocking out to Aerosmith while I'm checking e-mail. And no day is complete without the company of a good book.

I love being on challenge blog teams because it's so neat to see how all the different people interpreted the challenge. I hope you'll go take a peek at Scrap Yourself to see what everyone else made and that you'll take a stab at this fun challenge!

Some happy news!

Anyone who knows me knows I love a challenge, and I recently applied to be on the design team for a new challenge blog called Scrap Yourself. I'm happy to report that I was chosen to be on the team! I think it's going to be a perfect fit for me since I love to tell stories on my pages.

Scrap Yourself will post challenges every week that invite you to scrap about yourself. We have lots of interesting prompts and ideas in store. We have two teams, so I will be contributing layouts every other week. The first challenge will be posted on May 5. I'm on Team B, so my reveal will be posted on May 12. I hope my friends will play along!

Here's the whole team. I'm thrilled to be in such talented company: