Monday Update!

Okay so maybe I should have considered how busy I'd be with my Mom's visit when I was making my schedule. I guess I should of just had planned to start it on an even day, like August 1st instead of... June 25th? Guess I was just anxious.

I got a few of my things done here and there. But mostly I was just so happy to be with my mom and the blog kind of went to the back of my mind.

But I had an amazing weekend.

We got some great food, went thrifting, shopping, flea markets, watched the Olympics, and just bonded and talked. I actually cried saying goodbye to Bernadette at the airport. And usually it's me yelling at her to stop crying and she's sobbing. Yesterday was the opposite. I guess that I've just grown up so much in the past couple of months that I just missed having my mom take care of me. Now instead of me telling her about stupid girl dramas, I'm talking about the bills and grocery shopping and cleaning and my work schedule and this and that. Instead of arguing about stupid things, we both fought over washing the dishes.

I didn't even take pictures! The weather wasn't the greatest so I wasn't too motivated to do that. But, like I said, I was just so into the moment and hanging with my mom.

I showed her the scrapbook I was making for her. She couldn't stop looking at the three pages I made and told her that made her night and she couldn't wait for me to finish it. She's going to mail up some baby pictures she loves, too. She wants a little of everything in her scrapbook and I think that's an awesome idea.

My mom was also so impressed and interested in my little craft life! She was asking me questions and really into it when I showed her some of my favorite blogs. She actually asked me to email her the links!! It was so great to have her behind me with all of this. Usually she's like "oh you won't do that" and now she's like "oh can you make me something like that?!" and I love it! I even showed her Project Life and she thought the idea was really cool. She doesn't think I'll be able to keep up week to week but also agrees it's pretty simple to document each week so she has some faith in me. I can't wait till the new products are available to buy! Ah!

My boss is so good to me. He let me have Monday off so I could spend the day with my mom. He even made sure I got a pay for it :) So thankful how lucky I've been. Except now my week is a day behind. My Tuesday feels like Monday. But that's okay, I can't complain :)

SO! For the UpDaTe!
Today, before I go home from work, I plan to....

• Rearrange the Calendar
• Create 2 goals for the month
• PostalPix order
• Finalize Financial Aid things for the Fall 2012 semester
• Insta update
• Work on some formatting of the blog

 For after work I plan to...

• Catch up on some at home projects 
• Work out "What I Wore" for the first post on Friday
• Clean
• BE PRODUCTIVE!

I can do this!
I know I've been slacking and not doing everything I've wanted, but it's not like I'm sitting around doing nothing. I've just been so busy with things I just need to take care of first. That's life. I know when classes start I'll have way more free time to do all the things I want.

As for home life, there's good news!!! Alex is moving in! So I'm so glad I sacrificed one of my days last week to spend the day with him and Ben and talk to him about moving in. I love Jack but I'm over living with him... I'm excited that the house is about to change up a little bit. Yay!

Scrapbooking Adventure 1

Last night I scrapbooked!!!

I started the scrapbook I'm making for my Mom. I ended up making 5 pages last night! And I actually used up all the photos I ordered from PostalPix that were for my Mom's scrapbook. So, I couldn't even continue if I wanted :)

I have pictures on my phone, but they don't do justice. I'll leave them up for now, and I'll replace them with better quality photos later this weekend.

Page 1 : Family
I really like how this page came out! I used PostalPix's 4x4 prints for these. I cut the tops off of my Mom's photo (left), the sides on my Sister's (right), and two corners off of my photo (bottom) I used some scrap fabric I had to help decorate. It's a pink floral :) I have our names written by our photos Bernadette is Mom, Samantha is sister, and I'm Victoria. I also have the date and occasion of the photo (Bernadette just learned how to use the gas pump in Massachusetts, her and my sister were moving me out of school and we're from Jersey and Jersey girls don't pump gas!! and the two other photo's are from Sam's 18th Birthday dinner at Outback) The stickers are also significant, too. We all have swallow tattoos because of their traditional loyalty and love meaning, so there are two swallows next to family. Sam and I also have matching rose tattoos, so I have the rose in the corner, and my mom loves stars and has a few little tattoos of those so I have stars on the page as well.

Page 2 and 3 : Gigi
So, as I'm sure many of you can relate, our dog was our best friend. Gigi was my Mom's companion. After Sam and I left for college, my mom was all by herself and Gigi was really her best friend. It was heartbreaking when my mom had to put her down, Sam and I couldn't even be with her, and I told my mom I was gonna make her a scrapbook, and she made me promise I'd put a Gigi page in. In the corner, it says "and we can't forget.. the baby jesus!" (this has NO religious affiliation, whatsoever. One time my mom was going to call Gigi, Baby Gigi, but she somehow said Jesus instead. I guess the whole juh sound threw her off. She just said "Oh my... I can't believe I just called our dog Baby Jesus." It was one of the funniest things ever. Either way, it's always been an inside joke and somehow became one of the many nicknames we had for Gigi) Then on the opposite page, it has her date of birth and date of rest. These are some of the best pictures I had on of her on my iPhone. She was a cockapoo and was 12 years old. Love you, Gigi! Miss you always <3

Page 4 and 5 : Ortley Beach Vacation Summer 2011
Us three LOVE the beach... and growing up in Jersey, we were spoiled with the Jersey Shore. Say what you will, but it's beautiful. Go anywhere but Seaside Heights and I promise you won't be let down. Every summer we'd rent a house for the week and just hang out and be beach bums. Friends would always drive down and stay for a night or just meet at the boardwalk and walk down the beach at night. There's nothing better. I really like how this page came out, too. I wish I had more photos of us dts (down the shore!) but this is what had to do. The writing on the top left page says, "Gordon Vacation. Ortley Beach 2011" The stickers on the left page say, (top left of page) "BEACH", then (middle of page) "Live Well, Laugh Often, Love Much" and then (bottom of page) "Simplify". The stickers on the right page say, (top right) "Life is Good at the Beach" and then (bottom left of page) "R E L A X" each letter a different font. This is the first year we didn't take this vacation. I wish I had the time to give up a week and sit on the beach. I sure took that for granted!

And there's my first couple pages of scrapbooking, ever! I'm pretty proud with myself! I really can't complain with the outcome. Though, I am going to order 4x6s instead of 5x7s next time. I love the 5x7, but they're a little hard to work with. I just don't want to end up cutting down most of the photo to fit somewhere when I could of cut way less of a 4x6, and pay less. I'll keep 5x7s for frames for now on. I guess that's my only little thing about this. Oh, and I need to invest in plain colored paper. And some more glue and fancy scissors. Other than that, I am content!! I can't wait to order more pictures and keep at this for my mom. Only 2 weeks until she flies in!

the past weekend and the week ahead...

So it's been a couple days since I've updated this, but it's only because I've been so busy! With work, home chores, AND sewing! So exciting!

Friday I got to leave work early and be with Benjamin for the weekend. Nothing better. Quality time with my man is always my favorite. A few friends came by to visit which is always nice. I also made a bunch of bows and practiced sewing and reorganized my room and work space.

Saturday I cleaned, cleaned, and cleaned some more. Living with two guys has it's benefits... as well as set backs. I do better with the male population so living with Jack and Ben is easy. No cat fights, no missing girl products, guys are also willing to take out the garbage... but cleaning is not on their benefit list. I always try to dedicate a day or a solid couple of hours to cleaning so I could do a decent job. Jack is also gone on vacation to his house in Maine so he's gone until the 13th, so that left room to clean and for the apartment to stay clean, at least for a little longer than usual. After my cleaning spree, I rewarded myself with some quality sewing time and made even more bows and my sister's wrap skirt!! Yayayay!! I have a how-to post all ready to go, I just need to fill in some final details when I get home. Ben and I also made pizza together for dinner :) I love when we make things together, my favorite!

I put some meatballs on my half :)

Sunday Ben and I spent some time with his parents and then finished out the weekend at home. I sewed and started a new lesson from the E-Course. I'm really loving my new hobby. Ben's mom also bought me more patterns! I'm nervous to try them out and make something like a pair of shorts, but she assured me it's not too difficult and if I mess up, I have a seem ripper. And she's right. So I'll be taking that on this week.

and....

MY PHOTOS CAME FROM POSTALPIX!!! Sooo so happy with this purchase! They came at some point over the weekend. I can't wait to get on my scrap booking game. Hopefully I could make two scrap books before the summer ends. Well, COMPLETE one, and have one in the works by the end of the summer. One being for my mother, and one for Benjamin and I. But then at the end of the summer I want to start Project Life. I debated on waiting until the new year or not, but so far, because of school, my years have begin in September and ended on August. When the new year comes around, it's just winter break for me. So since this is a week to week project about me and my life, I think it's appropriate for it to start at the end of August. It'll be the start of my Junior year and beginning of the better part of my life. I can't wait.

As for this week...

Only two days of work! Then time to celebrate the 4th of July. I'll be going to Ben's parents house. His sister is flying in from Chicago with her boyfriend for the long weekend and a party. I haven't met her boyfriend yet so I'm excited. I also can't wait to spend the weekend on the boat in the lake! Since I've been working full time, I barely feel like it's summer, so I'm itching to be in a bathing suit and soak up the sun. Hopefully I'll have lots of photos to share with you as well as enough to make a 4th of July scrap book page!! I just keep thinking about a year from now, five years from now, and even longer. I can't wait to look back at all this stuff. I'm constantly thinking of what can be a good page or concept and just love this new part of my brain opening up.

Check back for the wrap skirt post soon! Hope someone tries :)

OOOO!! and yesterday was the 1st, which means, my Umba Box should be coming soon! I really can't wait to open that up and get my goodies. I'll be sharing that too, of course!

What I want to do.

Here are a few projects I want to work on...

• Project Life
• Mini Paper Book Album
• Two Scrapbooks : One for my Mom, one for Ben's Dad
• My own summer clothes collection (one skirt down!)
• Hemp bracelets (first one came out ehhhh...)

Is that too ambitious??? I really don't think so. I already started scrap book #1 for Mama Gordon... but so far its proven difficult. It's hard to design a layout for a page in a scrap book with no physical photos.. but it's also hard to choose which photos I want from my phone on the page. I knew there had to be a way to get my pictures from my handy iPhone to actual prints. I found out this great App, PostalPix. You choose what type of print you want (4x4, 5x5, 8x8 squares or the regular 4x6, 5x7, and 8x10) I have 53 5x7s chosen to print as well as 7 other prints and my total is $49.92. Not too bad for 60 photos and almost all 5x7s! Just have to wait for my paycheck to clear then considered it ordered. This is perfect to print out my artsy Instagram photos.

My next purchase will probably be photos for Project Life. It's supposed to be week-by-week but I figure I could skip a couple if they're uneventful or just get the written parts and decorative part out of the way while I order photos for a couple weeks at a time. That way, when they come, I could just slip them in their appropriate spot.

Tomorrow I also plan on ordering a sewing machine and external hard drive. I'm most excited about taking on sewing, so I can't wait to buy and have it shipped to my house. I've also been putting off getting an external hard drive since high school. I've already had my hard drive crap out on me twice and I just had to get my MacBook Pro's hard drive fixed from my school's techies. I was so glad they were able to save it, I'm done chancing it and finally breaking down and buying one. I'll thank myself later. Sigh.