Project Life 2012: May part 2 Chloe turns 15

I will be linking up with The Mom Creative for Project Life Tuesday, as always. If you've hopped here from there, a big welcome; and if you haven't visited yet, drop by for inspiration and lots of fun stuff.

After a break last week, I'm back! Rather than a regular PL page, I have a spread all about one very special occasion - the celebration of my amazing daughter Chloe turning 15! I'm finding it quite hard to believe she is actually 15 now, as it really does seem like just yesterday that she was a toddler and following me around everywhere! However, she is turning into one fabulous young lady, and I'm privileged to be her mother.

Chloe's birthday fell on Sunday but it was a whole weekend of celebration - friends came to stay - one on Friday and two on Saturday, we went out to eat on Saturday evening at our local Chiquito's and the girls chilled on Sunday after Chloe had opened her cards and gifts. It was all about the fun, food, moustaches, bubbles, giggles and more fun! Oh and Adam, there was a lot of Adam, especially when he tweeted her happy birthday. She hasn't stopped talking about that.

Rather than my usual talk around the photos, I'm pretty much going to let the photographs speak for themselves this week. I used a mix of digital templates (wonderful Cathy Z tiny templates are much in evidence here, Simple Stories Happy Day range, Echo Park This & That and Charming range, as well as lots and lots of photos.

The double page spread:

The left side:

The right side:

Left side close ups:

Right side close ups:

Looking back, it was a busy old weekend. That would explain why I am feeling a little sleepy right now!

Till next time.

It's not all cupcakes and sparkles

I don't know why, but people do associate me with being optimistic and generally cheerful (with the exception of a not infrequent bout of sarcastic banter).

It could be the name - you don't really imagine a Julie or Jules being sad or overly pensive, do you? It's kind of an upbeat name!

It could be because I'm a big girl, and we all know that 'big girls don't cry'; they're a jolly sort.

It could be that, yes, I do try to see the positive in most events and people. If I were a betting girl, I'd always bet things will turn out ok rather than predict an inevitable disaster. [Sidebar here: note that,  while I don't bet on disaster, I'm so organised that if there were one, everything we'd need would be in my bag.] I'm a great believer in you get what you give, and that if you expect and work towards things to turn out well, they generally do.

Like everyone else, life has thrown me some curveballs and challenges in the shape of cancer and other health issues, work issues, family issues. At times when I was dealing with a health challenge, people have asked me how I remained so happy with it all. I'd tell them that while I couldn't control what was happening to me, I could control how I handled it, and that I'd made the choice to be as happy as I could.

That isn't a one-time deal. That's still a choice I have to make. Being happy doesn't come automatically to most people I know. Every day we wake up and we make that choice.

For the most part, I do make the choice to be happy, even through the challenges. There are times, when I just don't have the strength to do that. Some days I just can't quite get past ok into good. Heck, some days I don't even make it to ok. Life isn't all cupcakes and sparkles. Some events you can't just get over straight away. Some times you need a small window to grieve something not turning out how you'd hoped, or to deal with unexpected bad news. So I take those times to be sad, to acknowledge the loss, to work through it in my mind.

Those days are inevitably when someone asks me what's up, why I am so miserable, it's so unlike me, I'm normally so bubbly. Yes, I do KNOW that but I smile anyway. Then they tell me to cheer up, that it's not the end of the world.

I want to tell them that no, I am not fine, but I will be. I want to tell them that you need to be sad sometimes to really appreciate being happy. That it's ok to be sad, as long as it's for a purpose, that it's part of the journey to being happy again. I'm grounded right now, but I will fly and soar again.

So, blog readers and friends, remember that - it's ok to be sad sometimes; just don't forget your wings.

Image credit: unknown, someone sent me this image in an email. Apologies.

Project Life 2012: May part 1

I will be linking up with The Mom Creative for Project Life Tuesday, as always. If you've hopped here from there, a big welcome; and if you haven't visited yet, drop by for inspiration and lots of fun stuff.

So as usual, here's the page overview:

The title card is quick and easy - a Clementine title card with the addition of some text using PSE and then a 'This is Fabulous' element cut from the fabulous DCWV Snapshot Stack (thanks to April for highlighting this amazing stack on her blog!) and pasted onto the card.

Next up is a photo of Chloe in my Mum's garden, playing with Poppy, my mother's West Highland Terrier. She and Chloe dote on each other, and it's so sweet to see them having fun together. Thanks to inspiration from the ever wonderful Cathy Zielske, I journalled quick captions straight onto some of the photos using two different fonts - and I like the way it looks (especially on the desk photo coming up soon).

Chloe, in her way too quick journey to becoming grown up, had her first visit to a beauty salon to get her eyebrows waxed. I captured a before and after, and also journaled it a little:

As well as PL and scrapbooking, I also love making cards. I do however, sometimes, lack inspiration when it comes to cards for teens. I made this card for my brother's girlfriend's daughter - I hope she likes it.

I was playing round with the settings on my camera, and took lots of photos of my desk, just to compare how the different effects worked. I absolutely loved how this negative effect photo turned out (look how my pink laptop and phone went all cute blue!), so decided to use it to describe my life at my desk! I am so happy with how the text on this photo turned out - I think it kinda looks like the text on a magazine picture.

I also put together a quick page on a special event this week - my friend and I went to see Dancing on Ice tour, where Torville and Dean had coached some celebrities to skate - it was fabulous. I haven't got around to photographing the page yet, but here are some of the shots from the event:

Another fab week. And I'll be able to remember it in detail - thanks to Project Life!

Have a wonderful week ahead, all!

Why is he so sad?

Aw, little doggy, why so sad? It's Friday AND it's a bank holiday weekend!

Project Life 2012: April part 4

As always, linking up to The Mom Creative's weekly PL link party . If you're visiting my blog from there - thanks, it's lovely to see you; and if you haven't been there yet, do take the opportunity to hop on over.

Before I start, I'll preface by apologising for the less than stellar photos of my layout. It's been pretty miserable, dark and wet weather here in Scotland, which doesn't make for great photo-taking!

As usual, here is the overview of the page.

Last week, I was feeling a little run-down and not at my most glam. My rosacea was flaring up and my grey roots were more than peeking through. A trip to the hairdressers soon sorted that out. Not only did my grey magically disappear, but the joy of being pampering, head massage and all, certainly made me feel a whole lot better.

Chloe recently installed the Instagram app on her ipod, and has been having fun testing it out. I particularly love this shot she took of herself and posted on facebook. Honestly, without facebook, I'd hardly ever get any of the pics she takes! Big thanks to MZ from this mum!

I also had the joy of attending parents evening last week - I blogged about it here, and it definitely was worth inclusion into this PL page:

To add to the post-hair salon bliss, I then entered a competition on twitter - and won a signed copy of Lucy Dillon's 'The Secret of Happy Ever After'.  I'm a total bibliophile, so this news made my day. I did a mini screen shot, added some journaling and popped in a photo of the book cover:

It wasn't all good news though - I had a near disaster when the shower broke mid-wash during the week. Argh! Luckily it's all fixed now, and I can laugh about it.

The bottom row is about our trip to Glasgow on Saturday - including a photo of Chloe's latest acquistion of a new ring (she is an accessory-aholic), a card from the Chinese Buffet where we ate as it's Miss C's fave place, some journaling, and a photo of my latest stationery haul. Sigh.

April part 4 - done!