In This Moment....

Can you believe that its almost the end of July already?! That means Alex and I have been married for three months already!! It's amazing how time flies. Can you also believe that it hasn't been a year of the above happening and I already this moment scrapbooked? That's truly a miracle in itself.

This amazing day will never cease from my memory. I chose to scrapbook this photo first because it is truly one of the best photos we took that day. Its amazing how hectic that day was even though we didn't even have a huge wedding. And now, planning our party, I realize how much goes into these things, and our wedding party is small.

This lovely layout is participating in two challenges: the Sassy Lil' Sketches July 7th challenge, and the Color Challenge - July (Toree) on the Club CK website. Thanks for looking!

Hugs,

Kelster Jean

Lately....

This has been a rather crappy week for me (even though it was my birthday!) so I decided to share a quick post with some of the highlights of my week and last weekend.

#1-3. Hubby and I went to a birthday party at the Morton Arboretum. While we were there, we took a quick tour of the park, where we got to see lots of beautiful trees. #2: There was an art display there where artists put their art on trees. This one was covered with yellow tape (of course its all safe for the environment).

#4-6. As I mentioned, it was my birthday on Monday, but because this was such a crappy week (I won't get into the details), I haven't been feeling it. I must say that this birthday was one of the suckiest I have had. My hubby was amazing and tried to make me feel tons better by taking me to dinner for burritos! {I got a chorizo and egg burrito (see center)}. The right photos is one of my better hair days this week.

#7-9. More photos from the birthday. I am so insanely lucky to have such an amazing husband who is always there for me and makes me feel wonderful and loved. The center photo is a super sweet card he gave me that I will cherish forever!.

#10-11. And finally, these are photos from the rest of our week. We found this adorable squirrel at the Morton Arboretum. He was enjoying being fed pretzels by us. The other photo is {of course} the corn. I look forward to the corn growing taller and taller every year. It is so tall its like being in your own little world. I'm always sad when fall arrives because I know that means soon the fields will be naked and lonely again.

Kelster Jean

Fishing Season

Summer is here, which means it's time for Fishing Season! And time for me to scrapbook about Fishing Season. Here is my layout that I created for the Sketchy Thursdays August GDT challenge.

Here is the sketch:

And here is my layout:

The journaling reads: I love how excited the guys get when it's fishing season! They spend every summer day fishing...and always catch something.

I realized after looking at some of the other layouts on the blog that I still may be waaaay out of my league with my scrapbook layouts. There were tons that were better than mine, but that's okay. I just enjoyed making the layout.

Challenge Here, Challenge There

I've been bitten by the scrapbooking challenge bug, and I love it! I realized several months ago that my dreams for crafting have changed. I originally wanted to possibly open my own Etsy store, share my pretty-made memories with people all over the world, and maybe enter a craft show. Now, though, I have realized that this is not what I want anymore...

These days, I am enjoying creating my own layouts and books for my own pretty-made memories. I spent so many months making things for other people that I took a break and decided to work on my own long To-Do list of memory keeping. So, I have found scrapbook challenges as a great way to get back in the game! And, after doing this for a while, my dream of entering one of my layouts to a magazine might come true....and after that, I will tackle my dream of being on a Design Team. It can only go upward from here!

So, here is my first challenge ever done. Most of my challenges are from the Club Creating Keepsakes blog, but I have also recently discovered Sketchy Thursdays blog, and Sassy Lil' Sketches (they also have a Sassy Lil' Sketches Cards too!)

This layout is a challenge from the Club Creating Keepsakes blog:

THE CHALLENGE: Use one of the following on your page:
-the colors red, white, and/or blue; -use ribbon, floss or twine; -handwritten journaling; -four of something; -stars or stripes; -a border punch.

AND I USED: all of the above!

And of course, once I started going, I couldn't be stopped, so here is my second challenge layout. THE CHALLENGE: Use memorabilia in your layout.

This is a layout of Warped Tour, to which I attended several years.

Hope you enjoyed and thanks for looking! Can't wait to see what's next!

Hugs,
Kelster Jean

Thursday Book Club: The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo

It has been such a long time since I have shared with you my Thursday Book Club read and it has been on my two do list to start posting these again. Since my last book club meeting was this past Thursday, I thought this would be the perfect time to post about my last book {before I forget}.

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Steig Larsson.

I must admit. I have been dying to read this book for such a very long time. After the movie was made, the book became very famous. Since I knew it was on our Book Read list, I decided to hold off and wait until we read it.

The book is a series of three {the other books being The Girl Who Played With Fire and The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest}. The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo is the first of the series, so if you plan on reading all three, start with this one.

And now onto the content itself. The book was a very good read. Originally translated from Swedish to English, the book is based in Sweden. The story is {essentially} about a financial journalist who, after getting into some trouble, is hired to write a book on the history of a famous corporate family. Also as part of his agreement, he is to find out what happened (if at all possible) in the disappearance of one Harriet Vanger. With the help of some unusual friends (the girl with the dragon tattoos), he goes along on the adventure of finding out what happened to her.

Without giving too much away, this book is amazing! I loved the way the author writes this book and (although there are a lot of characters to remember), he does a good job of reminding you who the characters are {and even includes a family tree to help}. The beginning of the book (about the first two chapters or so) can be a little bit confusing and drawn out, but hold out because once it picks up, it really picks up.

Another thing to note, and a complaint of some of the ladies in my book club, is the gruesomeness of the book. I will admit that the book does tend to get slightly gruesome throughout the book (think The Devil in the White City) {so don't read that part of the book at nighttime like I did!} but if you can withstand that for a short time, I think you will find the book amazing as well.

I was hinted by my book club that the two main characters from the first book are in the second and third book. The Girl Who Played With Fire is the next book to read, and it's not on our book list, so I think I might have to ask for that for my birthday! I was also hinted that the second and third books are just as good as the first one, if not slightly better. {Oh, and I heard the movie is phenomenal even though you have to read English subtitles}. So check it all out!

Hugs,

Kelster Jean

UPDATE: You can watch the trailer for the movie The Girl With The Dragon Tattoos here.

The Best Ever....

Do you ever finish a craft project, and as you stare it afterwards, criticizing it {because we all do that}, you realize that you just made your best craft project ever?! {Then the light shines down on you and the orchestra in your head begins to play}...

Okay, maybe that's a little extreme. But needless to say, after I finished this scrapbook page of me and my sister, Jenny, I realized it was one of the best layouts I have ever made, and let's just say I was a proud little crafter indeed.

I created this page based on a scrapbook challenge in Elizabeth Kartcher's 52 More Scrapbook Challenges book. One of the challenges is: Let a song lyric inspire a layout.

My sister Jenny and I love this song called Hair by The Early November. {You can watch the video here}. We forever sing this song together in the car, on full blast. Therefore, this story just had to be told.

Sometimes, I'm very critical about my work, so it was such a change of pace that this page felt effortless and came out simply beautiful.

Hugs,

Kelster Jean

another day in the week....

Hubby has been working like crazy, so I've been helping by trying to keep up around the house, and working a little late myself. Sometimes, when life is so busy, it's nice to spend some relaxing time with our little family. I always remind myself how lucky I am to have such a great little family and hubby. He is so supportive and always let's me spend hours online looking through craft ideas. And the little bunnies? Well they run around our feet and snuggle up to us, reminding us of how much they love and appreciate us. Little family nights are so nice.....

Hugs,

Kelster Jean

PS: Speaking of families, we found a little family of toads living just outside our patio. One of them likes to sit under the air conditioner as it drips water on him.

Happy Independence Day!

For our Independence Day holiday, hubby and I will be spending time enjoying our freedom. Sometimes, it goes unappreciated just how good we do have it here in this country. I even complain about the government, etc, sometimes, but we do have the privileges of living a mostly free life and doing whatever we want. This holiday, Alex actually has off of work {his first holiday off in about a year} and we will be spending the time catching up on things, running around, completing our long wedding party to do list. (Unfortunately, no fireworks or sitting by the beach for us. There is so much to do! Maybe we will {at least} go for a swim today when spending time with my mom for her belated birthday). We shall see.

How are you spending your Independence Day holiday?

BTW, stopping at a local pet store {as if we need to spoil our bunnies any worse, let's buy them more stuff!} we found this little guy wandering around the store. He was soo friendly and cute and he's for sale! I hope he goes to a wonderful home.

We also saw this little guy too {below} that loved trying to bite off Alex's finger:

Look how evil he looks! He's a prairie dog. Although he was slightly bitey, when you rubbed his belly he fell asleep.

We love supporting local pet shops for the simple reasons of:

-we like supporting {and seeing} the small businesses make it.
-most of the animals from local pet shops come from local farms or around the neighborhood and are not bought in bulk.
-we have our own two furry babies that are adopted and are soooo thankful for them and therefore "try to give back" where we can.

What kind of mission/belief do you like supporting?

Happy Holiday!

Kelster Jean

Unlock Your Story: Elizabeth Kartchner workshop

Me and the hubby will be very busy the next couple days and weeks. We have finally put our wedding party back on and I will be sharing lots of cute fun things I plan to do. In the meantime, I will be scheduling quite a few posts to keep my little blog happy.

This is a mini album I never shared. I made it last winter, in a workshop taught by my favorite crafter, Elizabeth Kartchner. {Check out her amazing blog here. She is so talented and shares really cool craft projects, as well as blog posts about her everyday life with her cute family}.

Anyways, back on track. Last winter, I took her workshop for this mini album "Unlock Your Story." This is the first online workshop I have ever taken and it was sooo fun! You could go at your own pace and finish the album in as much time as you needed.

I made my mini album about that time in my life. Alex and I had just moved into our first apartment together and were loving spending lots of time with our furry baby (this is before we got our second bunny Maria). This was one of the happiest times in my life so far and I felt so blessed to have so much. So, without saying anything more, here's the album:

{This is the cover of the album. I learned really cool techniques, like painting, and using paint around the border of your chipboard album so the chipboard doesn't show.}

{The album included two vellum envelopes with 3 pages of journaling each! I loved how much journaling was in this album because usually mini albums are for quick thoughts and memories. Now I can forever remember how I felt in that moment.}

{This was the first time I also used spray ink, which is super fun and pretty if you get the chance to use it. Here we used a "mask" by using leaves to cover the canvas page and spray over it, which revealed underneath the leaf patterns. The flower is also sprayed pink as well}.

{This is an acrylic page. My favorite page of the album is the page above. It came out so precious (and the first time I used a rolled flower! Woo hoo.)}

{Another larger rolled flower for the 2nd vellum envelope....and tulle! I'm pretty convinced that this is where my love affair with tulle began. I use it on everything now!}

{A tag as a journaling page?! How genius is that?}

{This is where my heart lives! THE END!}

If you ever get the chance to take a workshop by Elizabeth, you should. She is amazing in her creativity and creates beautiful things. She recently launched a new online workshop website called Make Something Splendid. There are lots of amazing workshops on there, and, you have the option to either purchase the kit or make the project from your own stash. If you have the chance, definitely check her out!

Hugs,

Kelster Jean