My organized CHAOS...

Family pictures

Hope you enjoyed your Thanksgiving turkey.  I forced my family to take pictures after dinner.  I set my camera on a tripod and ran back and forth like a crazy person, trying to get the "perfect" shot.

Here's a pic of me with my husband and the boys, my sister and her fiance', and my parents

Finally, pics of  me, my husband, and my boys.  What's up with all the closed eyes?

First Alexander

Then Christopher

And finally, all smiles!

Here I am with my sis, mom, and dad

and another goofy photo.  I had such a wonderful childhood.  My family is so much fun and I miss hanging out with my sister.  We are truly "double-trouble"!

Thanks for "enduring" my family photo shoot with me.  My family is truly one of the things I am most thankful for!

I hope your evening was fantastic.  I'm going to try to work on my December daily journal.  Don't forget to stop by my friend Jessica's blog to check out her Christmas number tags.  Here's a snippet of info taken from her blog:

"They are completely alterable, if you have Adobe Illustrator! I will email you the tags in a format that will allow you to change several things: the color of the background and numbers, the font, and even rearrange the numbers. You will also be able to 'hide' the numbers so you just print a plain tag, or you can type a sentiment on the tag. The images can also be enlarged without losing quality. So you can achieve ANY size you want!"

  Don't forget to mention my name and get her holiday sentiments for FREE!

xo

Happy Thanksgiving...

to you and your little turkeys!

I hope you have a wonderful day and take a moment to remember what you're truly thankful for.


I'll be back later this evening, unless all that turkey "does me in" and I end up passing out on the couch.

But before I go...
I'm in the process of creating my December Daily Journal and I want to show you the cool tags I'm using
  
made by my friend Jessica @ can you pixel this.   You'll love her blog.  It's full of cool projects and yummy eye candy.  Swing by her blog to get more info on how you can purchase them from her.  I  think they'll be just perfect for my journal.  Oh, and if you tell her I sent you, she'll send you a BONUS GIFT....her HOLIDAY SENTIMENTS!  How cool is that for an early Christmas present!  I'll post a picture of the holiday sentiments later!

Well, I'm off to cook breakfast.  I'm going to attempt to make French toast for breakfast.  I truly suck at cooking.  I'm a much better eater.  If anyone has a simple, but yummy French toast recipe, please email it to me or post it in the comments.  There's no hope for me today....Today, I'm on my own with this whole "cooking thing." But no worries.  I have pancakes as my backup.  There's nothing like pan-fried dough, drenched in butter, syrup, and whipped cream.  Yummy.

have a great day!


xo

So I've been preparing

for my 2nd class tomorrow and busily assembling kits

and bagging letters and flowers

and painting dots for "i"s...

and hanging out with this thing

I have been accucutting my butt off and can now cut letters in my sleep!

Well, my class should be a lot of fun, but I totally have butterflies in my tummy...blah!  Okay guys, send positive energy my way again...I have to calm my nerves before 11 a.m. tomorrow.

Well, I was cleaning files off of my iPhone and thought I'd share these photos:

Miranda from Sex and the City was hanging out at our voting poll!  She looked so much better in person.  I caught her at a bad angle.  I looked totally rough that day so opted not to take a photo with her.  Here are her shoes
Are they cute?  I can't tell.  I'm not much of a shoe girl...I wear sandals/flip flops all year.

And one of my mommies from my preschool class gave me these
 
totally made my day!

And a picture of my husband and me standing outside in the dark after 7 1/2 hours waiting to vote!

that was the longest day ever!

and my son peeking out of the window in our family room

Well, enough of my iPhone photos...I know, what was I thinking?

hmmmm,

I got these in the mail today from Elle's Studio!  I can't wait to use them in my December Daily journal
  

Is anyone out there making one?

 Sorry this post is so random...but since I'm on the topic of randomness....  I was tagged by my sweet friends Sharon, Maryangella, and Heather.    If you have a chance, stop by their bloggy-blogs and say hello.  I've been challenged to list 7 random facts about me.

Well, here goes:

1.  My name is horribly long.  My full name is La Verne Mallari Francine Mercado Howard Boese.  I go by La Verne Boese, for short.

2.  I'm a mutt.  I was born in Angeles City, Philippines so yes, my mom is Filipina and my dad is black...yes, I used the "b-word".  So sorry, you won't find politically correct here.  Truth be told, my dad's color is actually closer to a Hershey's chocolate bar.  So lucky me, that makes me half Filipina and half Hershey's chocolate, teehee.  Eeks, I hope no one was offended by that.

3.  I was an Army National Guard Military Intelligence Officer...in my past life.

4.  I can basically touch my knees without bending my legs--sorta like a monkey.

5.  I love, love, love socks...especially funky toe socks.

6.  I eat rice with every meal.  I can eat up to 6 cups a day.

7.   This may gross you out, but my FAVORITE sandwich is scrambled eggs with ketchup on toast...yummy!

Well, I have to run.  I have to play mommy now.   I know this post was painful...thanks for making it to the end, teehee.  I can't wait to get started on some layouts.  Wish me luck...

xo

 

It was awesome!

We all had a great time tonight.  My first class went really well.  I'm too tired to blog right now, so I'm going to blog tomorrow with an update.  I took photos of everyone and can't wait to show you all!

Thanks for sending good energy my way...

 I'VE UPDATED WITH PHOTOS!!!

Meet the wonderful ladies that took my class:

Thanks again ladies!  Can't wait to do it all again on Saturday!

 

xo

T minus 8 hours and counting...

until my 1st class HERE tonight.  I know I haven't been blog stalking in awhile.  I owe many of you comments and emails.  I've been busily preparing for my class, so hopefully tonight after it's finished, I'll play catch-up. 

PLEASE SEND GOOD ENERGY/VIBES MY WAY SO I CAN ROCK MY CLASS TONIGHT!

Well  it's finally "Fall" here in Miami. 

See, my car's thermometer says so

I woke up STARVING!

and my poor refrigerator looks like this

So I put on these

(gotta love Christmas toe socks)

and went here

to buy this

and now my world is happy.

So I planted these

I just want to thank everyone for sending your prayers out to my friend Jenn.  I saw her on Saturday and she looked pretty good.  And I want to give a shoutout to Maryangella, Tammie, and Amanda. They were part of Jenn's posse this weekend.

Just a few reminders:

The second challenge is up at BASB.  I'm hoping to get started on that ASAP.  I still have to prepare for my second class, debuting this Saturday.

If you haven't already heard, PINK PAISLEE is having a Design Team Call. 

Monthly requirements:   2 projects per month - one blog project and one project for the Pink Projects download area.

To apply, send the following details:

• your name & address
• your blog address
• link to online gallery or project images
• details of other design teams
• a short bio

Email applications to rebecca@pinkpaislee.com. Call deadline is 20th Dec 2008. Team will be announced 1st Jan 2009. For further details visit this post on the Pink Paislee site.

Prima is also having a Design Team call!

Send the following:

• 2 or 3 examples of your current style in the form of cards,altered projects and/or layouts. Each photo must be less than 200k. There is no need to use Prima products on the projects. Projects may have been previously published and/or posted online.
• Your full name and state/country of residence, along with full contact information (phone number too!) This will be kept confidential and will only be used to contact you for joining the team.
• A link to an online gallery and/or resume. There is no need to have been published before. You may be on other design teams.

Email applications to sharon.laakkonen@primamarketinginc.com and also copy in tami@primamarketinginc.com

Call closes on 31st Dec 2008 and applications will be accepted immediately. For further details see this post on the Prima blog.

Oops, I almost forgot to mention...

I'm taking this class with Claudine Helmuth

and am in the process of starting this December daily journal with Ali Edwards

Is anyone else planning to do the Ali Edwards December journal?

What online classes/projects are you currently working on?

Post a link to any classes you're taking/projects you're working on, pretty please.  I'm always in the mood to be inspired.

That's all for today.

Hope your day is wonderful.

xo

5 minute cards

I'm not really a card person.  I'm teaching my first class on Tuesday, and while preparing, realized that I had enough scraps to pop out a couple of cards.  So here they are.  I used the scraps from Sassafras Lass's Happy Place:

 

Nothing spectacular, but they were super-EASY and QUICK!

And finally a card worthy of praise.  My amazingly talented friend, Dawn, made it for me...just because.  Doesn't she totally rock?!

 

Well, that's all I have for today.  What is it with 4th grade and projects?  My son has 2 to finish this weekend.  I barely survived the Bolivia report....grrrr. 



xo

My good friend Jiggy Jen

was diagnosed with cancer yesterday.

She is an amazing scrapbook artist and dedicated wife and mother.  Please keep her and her family in your thoughts and prayers.  Her blog link is here.  Her good friend, Maryangella, has blogged about her as well.  Stop by Jen's blog and please let her know you're praying for her.  I've already been devastated one time this year and I truly believe in the power of prayer...

xo

and finally a layout...

my first TRUE loves

It's the first challenge on the BASB website.  The challenge is to scrap about "a first"...so I chose to document a page on my "first true loves"..my boys.

I used paper from October Afternoon, letter stickers by Pink Paislee, and thickers from American Crafts.  The "date circle" diecut is from MME.  I cut it in half and used stamps to outline my boys' birthdays.

Here are a few details:

I put a sheet of Bazzill Kraft paper on top of a sheet of October Afternoon PP.  I then cut 4 rectangular windows with my Xacto...wow, that was a bit of a nightmare.  I totally give props to anyone that can handle a Xacto knife--that person is so not me.

  
Anyway, the windows allowed the PP to show through.  I then used October Afternoon's journaling cards to fill the windows and then fill the rest of the page. 
  
I cut out/distressed a few flowers.  I used a flower punch with some vintage paper taken from a Studio Calico kit.  I crumpled them, distressed them with my BG precision file,  added a few pop dots, and scattered them across the journaling card.

  
Here's a different angle so you can see how I used pop dots in a few places and how I "loosely" glued everything down

Here's the journaling:

I used a journaling card, cut the top and bottom off of it (separated them into 3 pieces)--then crumpled, distressed, cut, and glued a few diamond shapes from a matching sheet of PP and scattered them across the top and bottom strips.

I think I pretty much crumpled and distressed the whole layout!
 

Here's the strip on the bottom of the layout.  I layered 3 pieces of paper, folded them (kinda accordian-style), and added a few flowers I cut out and distressed.  I've been wanting to do that "accordian-fold" for awhile now.  I was stalking Vicki Boutin's blog and saw it.  A picture of her cool layout is at the very bottom of this post.

I added Pink Paislee letter stickers for my subtitle and placed them on a piece of Heidi Swapp's clear extras. 

The word "unconditional" was a little long, so the letters "un" and "l" are stuck directly on the PP, while the letters "conditiona" are on the piece of HS acrylic.

Vicki Boutin's layout

So I didn't do the accordian-fold exactly like she did, but I was still inspired by her beautiful layout...and I'm all about giving credit where credit is due. 

I hope you have a wonderful Monday!

xo