Looking for a new recipe to take to a BBQ this weekend?  If you like avocados, Ina Garten’s Guacamole Salad is great!  I initially discovered this recipe when an old friend posted a picture of it on Facebook years ago.  She said it was really good and then another person I know commented that she loved it too.  So, I looked up the recipe and gave it a try.  It was so good that I’ve made it many more times over the years.  I think it was probably the first Ina Garten recipe I tried and I’ve since become a fan of hers!

Last weekend we were invited to a BBQ at a friend’s place so I decided to take this salad.  I followed Ina’s recipe and it came out perfect!  Everyone loved it and there were no leftovers.  Always a good sign in my book!  I even took a photo so I could share it with you here on the blog:

This recipe has avocados, tomatoes, yellow peppers, red onion, black beans and a light, fresh dressing that’s super tasty.  You can eat this salad on it’s own, as a side dish or with tortilla chips.  I love chips so that’s my favorite method!  It’s really yummy and healthy so if you’re interested in trying it out, here’s a link to the recipe:

Ina Garten’s Guacamole Salad

Hope you have a great long weekend!  🙂

It was a sad day in the scrapbooking industry last week when Two Peas in a Bucket announced the closing of their site.  I’ll be honest when I say that I was completely shocked.  I guess I thought TwoPeas would be around forever.  After all, they were a pioneer in the industry.  They created a huge community and connected many like-minded crafters throughout the world.  I can’t remember exactly how I initially found TwoPeas but the minute I did, it opened my eyes to a whole world I never knew existed.

Growing up, I always loved to take pictures, save them in albums, collect bits and pieces from my travels and adventures and sometimes even put them in a book.  I remember putting together my first real scrapbook after my Sweet 16 (photos stuck on white pages of a beautiful book with little captions written underneath).  When I moved to Florida after getting married at the end of 2005, I wanted to create a scrapbook of the new life I was creating with my husband but wasn’t sure where to start.  I was also looking for ways to meet new people and noticed a local scrapbook shop in my area so I decided to take a class and the rest is history.  I eventually discovered other local scrapbook stores, the huge scrapbooking community that exists online and was introduced to so many talented people and amazing techniques.  I’ve taken many online classes and made several new friends.  I found not just a hobby but a passion.  I love it, it keeps me busy and I’m rarely ever bored.

I say all this to get to the real point of this post which is that it’s really sad to see an icon in the industry cease to exist.  Last week, I pulled a screenshot of my TwoPeas profile page to keep as a memento.  It’s a little piece of my history and I wanted to save it here:

I also took a little trip down memory lane and found the first layout I posted in my TwoPeas gallery which is also the first layout I ever made:

So many great memories!  Thank you, TwoPeas, for the many years of fun products, inspiration, education and community!  And thank you for opening my eyes to the amazing world of scrapbooking!  🙂

I’m back with another Project Life “catch-up” post today.  Here are Weeks 5 – 8.  I love this project so much and am so happy to have all of these ordinary daily memories documented.  I think it’ll be really cool to look back on these albums years from now and that makes all the effort worth it.  Hope you have a fantastic weekend and I’ll be back next week!  🙂

I’m back today with another layout in my series of “40 Pages”.  As I’ve mentioned before, I love scraplifting and am continuing my #scrapliftingmarathon this year.  The page below is a lift of the talented Allison Waken using the Studio Calico Bluegrass Farm kit.  I love how Allison used a “summery” kit for her winter layout and immediately thought of a photo I wanted to scrap that would be perfect for her design.  I love how she used several layers behind her photo and I tried to mimic the same.  Layering doesn’t come naturally to me but I love the effect when it’s done.

The photo I used of me, my husband and my Dad was taken last December at a holiday party hosted by one of my favorite stores, Nordstrom.  I thought it was so much fun that they had a little “photo opp” area set up with props and all!  It’s like they knew a scrapbooker was going to attend and had everything all ready for me!  We had my Dad sit in the chair with Santa’s beard and then stood behind him as his little elf and reindeer.  Love how the photo turned out and so happy to have it documented here.

Thank you, Allison, for the awesome inspiration and for creating such a fun layout!  🙂

Welcome to the first of my 2014 Project Life “catch-up” posts!  Over the next couple of weeks, I’ll be posting all of my 2014 weekly spreads that I have completed to date.  Now that I have a blog, I thought it would be nice to house them here so that I’ll be able to look back on them in the future.  Since we’re half way through the year, I have a lot of catching up to do so I’ll be sharing multiple weeks at at time until I’m current.  Here are Weeks 1 through 4:

I pretty much use the same format each week:  Design A page protector, Ali Edwards digital brushes with the week number and then a whole bunch of cards that go with my photos for the week.  I embellish a little bit here and there, print my journaling and then call it done.  Some weeks I’m more ambitious than others and include a lot of digital brushes on my photos.  When I’m in a hurry or just trying to catch up, I just print the photos after a little editing and move forward with my process.

If you have any questions about my process or any of the products I use, please leave a comment and I’ll get back to you.  Thanks so much and hope you’ll continue to join me on my Project Life journey!  🙂

A couple of weeks ago I shared a bit about our recent trip to Rome.  In addition to the tours we signed up for in Rome, we also signed up for a small group day trip from Rome to the Amalfi Coast and Pompeii.  It was a really long day since we were picked up at our hotel at 7am, returned after 9pm and spent over 6 hours in a minivan but it was totally worth it!  We saw some picturesque, quaint little towns and were amazed by the ruins of Pompeii that still stand today.  Below are some of my favorite photos from the day.

The Amalfi Coast (Amalfi and Positano):

While we made several photo stops along the Amalfi Coast, our first real stop was in the cute town of Amalfi.  The little limoncello shop was my favorite and I loved all the lemons we saw everywhere.  Later in the day we stopped in Positano for lunch and it was even more beautiful than I expected.  Isn’t it amazing how they built this colorful town into the side of a mountain?

Pompeii:

Pompeii is an ancient city that was buried under volcanic ash for hundreds of years after the eruption of Mount Vesuvius.  It’s amazing how they discovered this city and how much is still in tact.  As soon as we arrived, it started pouring rain so the pictures are a little gray but we were fortunate that it stopped raining just as our guide was ready to begin our walking tour.

I still can’t believe that all of the above was covered under ash for so many years!  It was fun to learn the history and hear stories about what took place throughout the city.

Overall, it was an awesome day trip and I’m so happy we got to see such a beautiful part of the world!

Thanks for stopping by today.  I’ll be back tomorrow with the first 4 weeks of my 2014 Project Life album if you’d like to check them out!  🙂

Hi there!  I’m still here.  The past couple of weeks have been hectic.  We went on a little road trip (which I’ll share later) and last week I had gall bladder surgery so I’m slowly recovering.  I haven’t been able to post as often as I’d like but I’m getting a little better each day and hope to post more regularly.

In addition to my 4 series of 40, I’m also going to share my Project Life album here on the blog.  Over the next couple of weeks, I’ll be doing several “catch-up” posts so I can house all of my weekly spreads here.  Up until now, I’ve been posting them on Instagram but now that I have this  blog, I’d like to have them here so I can look back at them in the future.  Once I get the first part of the year posted, I’ll continue to share future pages as I complete them.

Today I’m sharing the title page of my 2014 album.  It’s very simple but I love how it turned out.  The photos were taken at the end of last year during a trip to Asheville, NC and the filler cards are from Caylee Grey, Studio Calico, and the Midnight Edition of Project Life.  Thanks for stopping by!  🙂

Last week I shared how I store my embellishments in my Alex drawers from Ikea.  Today, I thought I’d share how I store my punches.  I love seeing little bits of people’s scrapbook spaces in “Workspace Wednesday” posts around the internet so I thought I’d participate too!

My punches are also stored in my Alex drawers.  Two drawers are dedicated to punches and I love that they’re easily accessible and I can grab one whenever I need one for a project.

I’ll admit that I haven’t been using my punches as much lately since I often use my Silhouette Cameo electronic die cutting machine but I still love these punches and think they are really versatile and can be used on many projects!  So there you have it – my punch storage!  How do you store yours?

I love to see other people’s scrapbook rooms and how they organize their supplies.  I actually love seeing anything organized and dream of my entire house being perfectly organized.  I’m not sure if that will ever happen but I try to work on organizing little bits of my home whenever inspiration strikes.  I love getting ideas online via blogs and Pinterest and finding new ways to organize my scrapbook supplies.  After seeing the Alex drawers in a few crafty spaces online, I knew they would be perfect in my scrapbook room.  These drawers hold a ton of stuff and they also serve as the perfect stand for my printer.

Today, I thought I’d share a peek inside two of the drawers as the first post in my series of 40 PEEKS.  Over time, I’ll share the rest but here are the top two that hold many of my scrapbook embellishments:

As you can see, these hold mostly die-cuts, flair and other random embellishments organized in clear trays I found at Target.  I love that I can see everything and have them all easily accessible.  I’ve found that if I leave these types of embellishments in their original packaging in a drawer or in a basket, I don’t  remember what I have and don’t end up using them.  Since moving these items into these drawers, I find that I reach for them more often and love this method of storage.  It’s pretty, neat, clean and functional!

(If you’re interested, the trays in the drawers above can be found in the closet organizing section at Target.  They are 3 compartment trays and I have 5 trays in each of the drawers above.)

How do you store your embellishments?  I’m always looking for new ideas and would love to hear yours!  🙂

I love to scraplift!  I love finding scrapbooking inspiration online and then recreating the same or similar layout for myself.  It’s a great way to use my supplies and I almost always end up with a layout I love.  As many of you know, last year I started a #scrapliftingmarathon as a way to get more layouts done and use my ever growing stash.  I’m excited to continue it this year and share my finished pages here.

Today I’m sharing the first layout in my series of 40 PAGES.  To go along with the “Rome” theme this week, I used a photo that was taken in one of Rome’s Metro stations.  I absolutely LOVED this tile wall as soon as I saw it and, of course, it was the perfect photo op.  It’s so much fun to visit new cities and find surprises like this one in the most random places.

This layout is one I scraplifted from the super talented Kelly Purkey.  It was the first layout she shared in her most recent Sketchbook class over at Studio Calico and I knew I wanted to lift it as soon as I saw it.  Her class was awesome and there are tons of sketches I want to use so I’m sure you’ll see more layouts based on her class here on the blog.  Thanks so much for the inspiration, Kelly!  🙂