Manny Being Manny!

 

Manny Ramirez is one of the greatest hitters ever to hit a baseball and has the prettiest swing I've ever seen. Love this guy! Congrats Manny on hitting your 500th homerun tonight!! Yeah, baby!! He hit a bomb to right center, first pitch, off of the submariner, Chad Bradford of the Orioles. Sox won 6-3.

Stay tuned for the mayhem that will be the Celtics VS Lakers rematch!!

I know there are only one or two of you that read this blog for sports news. Bear with me! WoooooHooooo!

I got the PINK Slip!

I was asked to be the Guest Designer for Pink Paislee for the month of June! I got my box of goodies yesterday and immediately started creating!

Check it out here:

Live Pink

Baby Layouts!

As promised, here are just a few layouts I finished this weekend of the twins. There are lots more to come!

 

 

 

We had a great long weekend! Hope you did too! Can't wait for school to be out!

:0)

pretty things...

 

 

 

 

i love...
strawberry season
bright red geraniums
arranging flowers
and making circle yummies (cupcakes)!!

So blessed!!

How lucky am I?? I got to love on these babies all day yesterday and again today. They are the sweetest babies! When Joe and Nick got home from school they were totally fighting over Miles! They love him! When I told them they would be here again today Joe yelled, I call Miles! Too funny. Joe nicknamed Clara, "Eclaira" because she has these chubby rolls and looks like she's had to many eclairs, LOL!

 

 

 

 

Such little blessings! There are going to be some major baby scrapbook layouts being cranked out this weekend! Get better fast Stacey, they miss their auntie! xoxox

Welcome Home Jason!!

 

Yeah, Jason made it home safe and sound on Tuesday! So glad you're home with your family and so glad your wife survived four months without you! :0) xoxoxo

I'll sleep...

when I'm dead! One of my favorites sayings! Here's some stuff I've been creating while I should be sleeping. Thank goodness for coffee!

There's one for Stacey, one for Shirryn, one for Denise, oh, and even one for me! Which one is your favorite? Everytime I finish a layout I think it's my favorite.
:0)

 

 

 

 

My little guy is sick so I'll be hanging out with him, giving him some TLC today. I am so excited that there is only 2 more weeks left of school! I love summer vacation. What fabulous plans do you all have for the summer?

Thanks for stopping by and have a great Tuesday!

Hugs,
L

A No Hitter!!

Last year I did a blog post about Jon Lester, a Red Sox pitcher who beat cancer and came back to pitch for the Sox. Tonight he pitched a No Hitter at Fenway Park. It was amazing. I had tears in my eyes and I am so proud of him! Man, I love baseball. I can't believe this game can make me so happy. I know there are only a few of you gals that read this that can relate (Becky, Wendy!!) but I consider myself lucky that I have such a passion for this sport. Good thing is, it's only May and there is still five months left in the season!

 

Happy Birthday...

to my sweet niece, Ayla! She is 18 years old today! I can't believe it. Here is a picture of her from her senior prom. Isn't she stunning? She graduates this weekend and will be going on to college to study marine biology and to fufill her life long dream of working with dolphins and whales. I am so very proud of her!

 

give it away...

give it away, give it away. you can't take it with you where you're going anyway. These are lyrics from a song from my all time favorite band Train. The song is called For Me, It's You. One of my faves. I love to give stuff away, especially stuff that I create. But, only to people who fall at my feet and worship my talents, Just kidding! (Or those who support my favorite charities) Back in April it was Autism Awareness Month and I said that I would pick a person at random of all who donated on my badge for Autism Speaks and create a custom photo pillow for them. Well, I only had one person donate so I got to make a pillow for one of my dearest friends, Stacey, my sister from another mister (and her daddy, Mike is so cool!). Don't tell Stacey but I was going to make this for her anyway!! It is a beautiful picture of her and her two lovely sisters. I hope she will cherish it.

I also made one for one of my other little sisters (I have lots!) Denise. She helped me raise a boatload of money for Autism Speaks for our walk last November. I am so proud of her!

Here are the pillows I made for them:

 

 

I have been getting lots of orders lately for these custom pillows. Thankfully right now I am all caught up so I'm going to do some scrappy stuff this weekend.

Speaking of scrappy stuff...

I am going to send a nice box of scrappy stuff to Kathy and Ester for taking part in my scraplift challenge! Send me your addresses ladies (lorirenn@msn.com) and I will get your goodies in the mail. Thank you for your kind words.

Okay, now I'm off to get all of these crazy ideas out of my head and on to some paper!

xoxox,
L

Sweet Rewards!

 

 

 

 

We are finally working on potty training with Nate. While his therapist, Cristina, does most of the work, it is still difficult, challenging and requires constant attention and lots of patience. We have had great success this week. I rewarded him today with a giant sucker and he grabbed that thing and started chomping it like a cookie!! His dentist is going to love me!

Sometimes baby steps, sometimes HUGE progress! It's all good and it's all SWEET!

Wedding bells...

were ringing on Maui for my beautiful friend Shirryn and her new husband Brian on May 1st! Congratulations to the happy couple. I made this canvas and this layout for them as a little wedding gift.

 

 

Their pictures turned out so beautiful and I'm inspired to scrap every one of them if I can only find the time!

Hope all of my mom friends had a beautiful weekend.

Happy Monday!

Hugs to you,
L

Same picture..

two different takes on it. The fabulous photographer, Stacie Petrini did a photo shoot recently for my friend Denise and WoW! So much good stuff to inspire me. All of the photos turned out beautifully. I especially love this one of Sarah. So much so that I had a couple of different ideas on how I wanted to scrap it! Denise sent me a boatload of the new Noteworthy 2 collection from Making Memories so I used a bunch of those papers and embellishments on both of these. Now to decide which one I will send to Denise and which one I will keep for myself!! (Just kidding, Chica, I'll give you both!)

 

 

Thanks for looking! Leave me a little love and don't forget, if you scraplift any of my layouts, I want to see it!! I love to see your take on my designs. As a matter of fact, I'm going to lighten my load in my and send a box of stuff from my scrap room to someone who scraplifts one of my layouts! How does that sound? Check my CMK gallery or my slide show for ideas then leave me a comment with a link to your layout or email it to me at lorirenn@msn.com. I will pick one person at random on the 17th, next Saturday, to send a package of fabulous stuff to! I can't wait to see what you do!

Just for the record...

I got an email from Tracy today who is the person I was arranging my class with for ICE. She has always been super nice to me. She had no idea about the issues I had with the speaker or instructor I wrote about in yesterday's post. I by no means meant to bash the event at all. I was just venting about why I no longer wanted to teach or attend. I feel badly that because of the things I said, people have backed out. I just do not feel comfortable attending because of the personal issues. I apologized to Tracy and told her I hope that her event is a big success.

Off the ICE

I have been planning to attend and to teach at an upcoming event in Boise for several months now. Tonight I got an email newsletter from the event about their "Speaker" and it happens to be Melody Ross. Oh JoY! I don't usually use this blog as a channel to bitch and moan but I have a serious issue with people who lack integrity. Not too long ago, Melody disassembled an album I created for Chatterbox only to reassemble it for a video tutorial on their website, totally passing it off as her own design. Also, one of the instructors for this event, Candace from Paper Cottage, just taught this little mini album class that was a complete rip off of a class I used to teach at Cut N Paste. Hey, I'm flattered if anybody wants to copy any of my designs, really I am. Go for it. Just don't try to pass them off as your own, let alone try to profit from them! If I lacked the creativity to come up with my own ideas and had to steal others to make myself look "creative", I would call it a day and not do this! Come on now, I know there is no copyright on these designs but does anybody know the definition of integrity??

in·teg·ri·ty
Pronunciation: \in-ˈte-grə-tē\
Function: noun
Etymology: Middle English integrite, from Middle French & Latin; Middle French integrité, from Latin integritat-, integritas, from integr-, integer entire
Date: 14th century
1 : firm adherence to a code of especially moral or artistic values : incorruptibility
2 : an unimpaired condition : soundness
3 : the quality or state of being complete or undivided : completeness
synonyms see honesty

I walked into Paper Cottage one day and looked at the samples for this Baby Onesie Class. The only thing that was changed was the patterned paper. Everything else was done the same, everything. I emailed the owners of the store to let them know that I thought it was wrong and they said that this was this person's original idea and that they hoped they would not lose me as a customer. LMAO!

Here are pictures of my albums and then pictures of the rip offs. I'm not trying to be a total drama queen about this. I just think it needs to be said

 

 

Needless to say, I will not be teaching at or attending the ICE event.
Enough said. Well, also I'm pissed that the Red Sox lost tonight.
Enough said.
Good night.
Who got kicked off American Idol?
Didn't watch.
Please tell.
xoxo,
L

something to say...

Yeah, I know this is a total let down after the electric blue spandex I showed you this morning but I had to share some of the new T-Shirts I found at Wally-World for Nate. Perfect.

 

 

 

The Pampered Chef party tonight was fun. Michelle entertained all with her antics as usual. I am feeling pretty damn good after a couple of watermelon martinis. Totally foo foo but yummy!

I just watched American Idol that I had recorded. I had to watch the Red Sox Report first (they won, yeah!) There's something about Davids lately. Love that David Cook and I so love that David Ortiz (BIG PAPI). They are winners in my book.

Nite Y'all!
~L

For Stacey!

So, my friend Stacey and I were having a conversation recently about how I used to be a crazy mad mountain bike racer in my single days in So Cal. She looked at me like, "yeah, right. You got pictures?" LOL! Well, yes, my dear friend, I do!

 

 

 

Man, I had ABS back then!! I gotta get to the gym and soon!

I am having a Pampered Chef party tonight. I love all of the cute PINK products they have in May to raise money for Breast Cancer Awareness. The consultant is totally fun so I'm looking forward to it. If you want to order anything, email me. I used to sell Pampered Chef back, gosh, eight years ago. I was really good at it! It was fun and I got to meet lots of people but I quit so I could have more time for SCRAPBOOKING!

Happy Happy Tuesday!

Later,
L