Juicy Hollywood Gossip!!!

All those who love celebrity dirt and gossip raise your hand!!!

Now go and read You'll Never Nanny in This Town Again by Suzanne Hansen. That is if you know your celebs from the late 80s to the early 90s.

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Over halfway through this book, a tale of being a Hollywood Nanny, I had to do some fact checking. Not know at the time this book is indeed a true story. I thought perhaps they put the subtitle on this book to make it more appealing, but no apparently this book is true. It details Suzy's "nightmare" of being a Nanny to Michael and Judy Ovitz young children and drops random facts about multiple big name celebs. Having read over half the book and not realizing that yes it is a true story I was stunned! How on earth could someone get away with this?

Simple - her employers never made her sign any sort of Non-Disclosure Agreenment! She drops some big names too - Robin Williams, Tom Cruise, Rhea Pearlman & Danny Devito, Debra Winger & Timothy Hutton, and during the time period this was about Michael Ovitz was on top of the world! This book is for all you celebrity gossip lovers! I even wanted to go back through and re-read so I could actually indulge in the gossip without thinking it was false.

This book, because it's true, gets an A+. If it hadn't been true....well I'm not really sure how I would have felt. I was intrigued but because I thought it was all fictional I wasn't totally absorbed. The minute I fact checked (in case you are curious - I fact checked about Robin Williams marrying one of his children's Nannys = TRUE!) I got hooked on it. I wanted more and more and more! Sadly all good juicy gossip must come to an end at some point.

Now I'm switching gears and will be reading John Grisham "the Confession"....I think.... :-)

The Holidays Are Coming! The Holidays Are Coming!

My goodness has life gotten in the way of my blogging, but I promise I haven't gone anywhere! I've just been unmotivated to be on the computer when I'm not at work! Between a few bad weeks at work and our insanely busy schedule I haven't spent much time being crafty or becoming the next Julia Child but I did promise you some more holiday cards so here they are :-)

These two cards were actually super easy to make. I had some beautiful patterned paper that had squares of Christmas images so I simply cut out the squares and smacked those babies on a card :-)

For this one I wanted to add some embellishment so I dug into my ribbon stash and grabbed two that matched the color scheme. Pretty awesome match right? Just layered one on top of the other and glued it in place. Then added my beautiful reindeer over some simply background paper. This may come as a shock but I used ZERO glitter on this card! Yes a decision I'm rethinking as we speak, couldn't those snowflakes use some sparkles?

This card is one of my faves and it was really easy and fun to make. I just grabbed a couple different holiday patterned papers, another one of those squares I mentioned above, this one obviously being a tree instead of a Reindeer, and my red stickle. Super easy and fun to make!

I still have one or two more Christmas cards coming your way (hoping to craft more and have a bunch more coming your way) but I also have a couple ADORABLE Halloween cards I was able to work on.

As much as I don't make cards and feel that I'm horrible at making cards I've really enjoyed these ones I've made. In fact I hope tonight I can get into my scrapbook room and get my card making on.

Does anyone ever feel like everyone else makes these beautiful cards and yours seem to lack that pizzaz??

Peace on Earth

Did I promise a holiday card? Yes I did and now I am delivering. I actually have a few of these that I finished but lets keep you in suspense and show them to you one at a time :-)

This is one of my favorite cards I made, thus why it's first! It's pretty and simple. I used the Joys of the Season Cricut Cartridge to cut out the candle and the word "Peace". Then just added some glitter and as a final touch added the beautiful embellishment on the candle!

It may seem early to almost anyone that I'm working on Holiday cards but it's just not. I need the time to make them and even though we already bought the generic ones I just felt like I wanted to make some cards! Since I love holidays what better type of cards to make? :-)

Anyone else starting their holiday card making?

Cookie Monsters!!!

I was so excited to scrapbook my great friend Alycia and I's baking day from last year - 1. Because it was Christmas themed and 2. I had super cute paper to use :-)

We had a blast making cookies that day and I think these pages show my love for baking!!

Okay so I went a little sticker crazy.....not a bad thing right?

See that cookie in the top right corner?? Yeah while those look amazingly delish they were DISGUSTING!! But because the picture is so pretty I had to put it in there :-)

Get ready to see some holiday cards in my upcoming posts as I've been in the Christmas Spirit ("when are you not?" you may ask, yes it's true I am ALWAYS in the Christmas Spirit!) and I've been busying crafting up some cutesy cards!!

Musical Magic

Remember back when we spent A Night in Berlin in the 1920s? Chuck and I spent a wonderful evening enjoying very fun music from Max Raab and the Palast Orchestra!

Well Storytellers just happened to release a beautiful layout that could not have been more perfect!! Here it is ladies and gents:

The title seems to get lost when looking at it here but it is titled: For the Love of Music.

I am just loving pockets haha!! I almost alwasy keep ticket stubs, it's rare for me not to. Luckily I kept the ones from that night to have as a souveniar forever, just like the program as well.

This layout was really fun to work on, suprisingly I thought I wouldn't get so into it because of the dark colors but I had a blast!! Super fun night and I think my layout is very well fitted for the event!!

English Love Story - Grab Your Tea & Crumpets!

Another good old British book read, another British book loved!

This month our book club read "Major Pettigrew's Last Stand" by Helen Simonson!

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This is a good read! It was cute, it was charming, it had characters you loved and you hated (yes Roger I'm talking about you) and it had L-O-V-E! Who doesn't love a book with a cute little love story? Being someone who is totally into the British and their dry humor I was looking forward to this book from the minute I read the summary. It just so happened the book club was also interested!

If you like British books and you love a good read make sure to check out this book. It is a love story with a lot of family issues as well. It's not an AMAZING book but I can tell we have great things coming from Ms. Simonson. This being her first novel I cannot wait to see what she comes up with next. I won't even try and describe the details of this book as the storyline is simple - love! Love between two people and love within families! And just a tip if you picture Major Pettigrew as the old man from the movie UP! I promise you will be entertained!

Vacation Magic!

Remember awhile back I posted about our vacation? Yes of course you do, well my impatient got the best of me and I have now already scrapbooked the entire vacation! And it was so much fun doing these pages! This post is very picture heavy but it is all worth it I promise!!

I did use some Storyteller's stuff but I also incorporated a lot of extra misc embellishments since you can never have to many. Lets just jump right in shall we?

Layout #1

Of course I kept our little car hanging sign! I love being able to incorporate actual items from our trip rather than just pictures and stickers.

I had to do a layout of our "home away from home"!

The map is the actual one they gave us and then I even kept the little tag from the complimentary wine they give you! Yup I make sure to save everything!

Working on these pages made me excited for our next camping trip wherever that may be!

Day 1 of Relaxation!!

Dog Park!!!

Fun Games and Good Food!!

Our last full day and our drive home along the beautiful HWY 1 coastline!

Of course I had to include Roxy while she's sunbathing!!

Sad to be leaving, but Happy to go home!!

Can you see why I was impatient and wanted to scrap them right away? Those pictures were just too damn cute!!!

Reading Removal

Well folks it turns out that some of my interests in books has changed and I have chosen to remove four books from my 2011 Reading List :-(. Sad I know but I just refuse to force myself to read books I no longer have an interest in. Who knows, I may end up adding them back for my 2012 list but for now I will be removing:

1. Moneyball - I couldn't get into it the first time around so I might as well ditch it. Plus my Seester's Fiancee is struggling with it as well.
2. Last Dog on the Hill - my Mom loves books about dogs and I think her excitement rubbed off on me too quickly. Unfortunately I do not enjoy books about animals as much as she does so I've decided to take this one off. I even asked her which one of the three I had left to read I should keep and she said this one was not it.
3. Oogy - same story as above, and my Mom didn't even really enjoy this one that much anyways.
4. Shutter Island - I've been debating heavily about this one. As much as I'd love to read it after seeing the movie I am not sure I'll even like the book. The movie's ending is such a shocker (or it was to me) that I'm not sure I'd enjoy this book while the whole time I'd already know how it ends!

So I am slightly saddened to be removing books off my list, I hate to do it, but I have been contemplating for a few weeks on removing them. I am happy with my decision and am still looking forward to my remaining 2011 books to be read :-)

And on another side note. Originally I had put the book Always the Bridesmaid on my list. Well guess what? There are two books titled that and I bought the "wrong" one so instead of reading Always the Bridesmaid by Whitney Lyles, I'll be reading "Always the Bridesmaid" by Sarah Webb!!

As for now I am knee deep in Major Pettigrew and lovin it! Then after that I'll probably finish up my designated "Summer Reads" like Savannah Breeze or Dear John!! Happy Reading Everyone!!

Birthday Bash-Tastic!!

Another layout done for the 2008 Album! The closer I am getting the more exciting it is! I can't believe I will have finished an entire years album! It's C-R-A-Z-Y!!!!

This layout is for Chuck and Jenny's birthday bash at one of our local downtown Mexican restaurants (Sadly no longer open). Since their birthdays are only a few days apart we decided to do a joint celebration and we had a blast!

I've been holding on to this paper ever since I got it from my Mom to do something that was fun and sort of "boyish". It is just some fun swirlies in "manly" colors LOL!

Of course we did pre-party pictures before we headed out to meet everyone! These pictures were actually taken at our old apartment, which is crazy to think we haven't lived there in three years!!

Just a bunch of different shots! We all had a blast!!

I'll be honest this page was super easy to scrapbook cause I wanted it to be simple and easy. I mean how many pages can I scrapbook of us going out right? Well you'd be suprised haha, we used to go out quite a bit but no longer so I gotta scrap all that I can!!

All About Chuck!

I've been slowly getting my 2008 album finished and I can now add one more page to the done list! I actually was able to finish up two 1-page layouts all about my honey Chuck!

This one is when his nephew Chris came up to spend the night. The boys played Guitar Hero all night long but it was one of those moments that I wanted Chuck to have pictures of cause Chris is growing like a weed!!

This is actually a 2009 layout but I had these adorable stickers and I wanted to make sure I had pictures to use. Chuck is our BBQ King (well until recently when I learned how to BBQ) but I just thought it'd be fun to scrapbook him!

I am finding that I'm having some difficulty scrapbooking guy pages cause I'm so used to all my girlie pretty papers and stickers. I'm hoping with time I get better but I will say that I do love the Guitar Hero page, it was actually a lot of fun to do!!

Movie Night!!!

Another item to be checked off my 2009 album!! This one was super fun and super easy to do, in fact I think it only took me 30 minutes to do this entire layout! Can you say AWESOME?

One saturday night back in October 2009 we decided to move our sunday night movie night to a saturday night and Chuck's sister Jenny joined us! We had dinner then settled in with a roaring fire (which Roxy loved) and the movie Coraline in 3-D. Needless to say the movie was terrible but we still had fun hanging out!

I've had stickers for so long for this page that I even bought more last time I was at Michaels with Mom. But I used all of those stickers on this layout cause really what else am I going to use them on?

Of course the 3-D glasses did not work that well with the fire going so we ended up watching in regular but I don't think the 3D would have made the movie any better!!

Anyone else scrapbook random nights like this? A little FF (Fun Fact) for two years in a row I'll have pictures to scrapbook from October 10th cause in 2010 we went to my friend Alycia's wedding. I am seriously considering taking pictures of us every October 10th and scrapbooking because it's such a random date to have two layouts two years in a row!

Well I think it's kind of weird and cool, I think other people think it's just strange haha!

Wedding Madness

I've knocked another book off my 2011 Reading List and this one was adorable!

I just finished reading I Do (But I Don't) by Cara Lockwood.

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This book was so cute! It follows wedding planner Lauren's bridal adventures when she runs into Hunky Fireman Nick! Yup it's that type of book, full of fluff, but missing all that steamy sex scene crap! Essentially Lauren thinks that Nick is the groom of the worst Bride ever, who happens to be a client of Lauren's. This book is filled with plenty of things going wrong, lots of typical "miscommunications" and just plain fluffy fun!

Turns out this book was also turned into a movie, that I'm sure I've seen on lifetime at some point. The movie stars Denise Richards as Lauren, so happy I didn't realize this book was also a movie until after I finished the book cause I definitley was not picturing Denise Richards. In fact I wouldn't pick her for the movie either but, that's why I'm no director, among other reasons!

Anywho - I give this book an A. I'm not sure if I was craving a fluff book or if this book was really so darn cute and not at all annoying that makes me want to give it an A. But I think it's a great book for anyone who is getting hitched or for those Wedding Planners out there! Super easy read, super cute, and you will love the characters!

Here We Come A Wassailing

This layout is of when all of us got together (Mandy Jo, Mom, Paps and I) to help my Sister decorate her apartment. Now my Sister isn't an Ebenezer Scrooge but she's not really proactive when it comes to decorating. She likes Christmas and participates in everything we do, including when we all wanted to help her decorate her place! She had already planned on doing it but we all wanted to do it too!!

It was such a fun day and her place looked awesome!  Never one to miss a photo opportunity I of course had my camera and I have to scrapbook these pictures cause it's cute!

I kept this layout pretty simple cause that's how my Sister likes things. I love glitter and tons of stickers when it comes to my Christmas layouts but since this is all about her :-) I decided to do it Mandy style!

Isn't she so cute posing with her tree?? I just loved how everything turned out at her house and I'm not going to lie, now that she's got her honey I'm sad that I won't be helping her decorate again! But trust me I've got plenty to decorate at home :-)

Red, White & Blue!

I have been a scrapping fool lately. Well I should say I spent 3 days being a scrapping fool!!

The past two months Mom and I went to two crops and then I spent a Sunday afternoon and evening in my scrapbooking room! It was joyous! The next few posts will be a BUNCH of scrapbooking layouts!

This one features our 2011 4th of July!

Since 4th of July landed on a Monday we didn't do much except hang out and of course BBQ!

This layout was pretty simple but fun! I didn't have too many pictures and I used all of them LOL!!