You'll Have Too Forgive Me

I am calling in my cards as a bragging Mother. My daughter Desirae has entered a contest for a new line of make-up that Sephora has started with tattoo artist Kat VonD from the reality t.v. show LA Ink. Kat will be picking the winner in October. The prize is $500 worth of make up, and Sephora is an excellent line.

Not only did Desirae do all her own make up and hair, but she took the photo's all by herself as well. I still can't figure out how the heck she takes such beautiful photo's of herself on her own. I sure can't do that.

She is a fabulous make up artist, and anyone who has their face done by her would be very happy with the results. Everything from her eyebrows to her eyes, her lips, just gorgeous! Without a doubt the artist in her comes out in her make up. Like my husband when she picks up a pencil, it is amazing.

Here are the pictures she took. I hope she wins!

On a side note, my playlist is growing, I love music. There are some really great groups out there, some awesome singers. Then some are just fun. Like New Kids On The Block's Summertime, just fun, nothing else. Kings of Leon are fantastic, and I love Closer! So is Chris Cornell, and One Republic. Such talent out there, never ceases to amaze me. I tend to lean towards trendy and new. Probably because of all my children. It's kinda funny to hear Santino singing Use Somebody from Kings of Leon, or Cry Me A River from Justin Timberlake! Not a country person, also love classical. Just beautiful. Look through my playlist see if anything you like is on there. Let me know.

A New Series

I have started a new series of books, called the Night Huntress. She is part human part vamp, her mom was raped by a brand new vampire and she is the product. Her name is Cat and she is a great character. The lead male is Bones and boy is he just fantastic! He is 200 something and British. While alive he was a male whore. What a character he is. The banter between her mother Justina and Bones is just hysterical! Needless to say the mom hates vamps and Cat had a bit of a rough time growing up, which would be understandable under normal conception circumstances. There are 4 in the series so far and I have read the 1st 2. I like the fact that Bones loves Cat and there is no boloney about it. He makes it very clear to her, and all those around her. Of course there's the usual trials and tribulations, but none of that stupid miscommunication mumbo jumbo that one ? would clear up. They are together in the 1st book, are seperated temporarily and back together in #2. Now I have to get 3 and 4 to see what trouble lies ahead for them. They work as a team in tracking and killing rogue vamps. Kinda like Buffy the Vampire Slayer, with her guy by her side.

Here are the covers, and a youtube video of the recent book. Check them out you just might enjoy these!

Paranormal romance is quite addicting. It's like a drug, and boy I can't stop taking it right now. They are just great characters, the plots are fantastic, I guess the authors can really stretch with it since it's based in the paranormal realm and anything goes. Of course Twilight and True Blood are probably really feeding the need out there ten fold, but these books have some teeth to them as well.

And of course, it is Sunday, but alas, *sigh*, no True Blood. Not till June. Oh well. Looking forward to that. Alan Ball has said he is pulling from some of the later books and not just sticking with #3 so we are going to meet some really great characters sooner than thought! That'll be exciting. Debbie Pelt a meanie of a character is coming and I just hope he doesn't go into overload like he did with MaryAnn the Maened storyline! I don't even want to watch the reruns I hated the line so very much. The best part of the season took place in Dallas and involved Godric, Eric's maker. Those 3 episodes is how Mr. Ball should have ended the season. Well I'm just a fan. We shall see in June what he has in store for us. Hopefully lots of Eric ;)!

I leave you with an Eric vs Bill video from talented smvgrey -

Looky Here...

Another project finished!! I made my brown paper lunch bag mini-book. Boy is that a mouthful! It was sooooo easy, and fun to make. I loved decorating the pages and the inserts to put in the bag "pockets". The crayola factory made for the perfect candidate for this endeavor. If you have a succession of pics from the holidays or vacation, this mini-book is just perfect! It fits a ton of pics due to the pockets it holds as well as the visible pages.

We had so much fun that day. The factory is a great trip if you're in Eastern Pa, or the near by area. The children had a blast creating and touching. Upstairs they have the canal museum, which shows the history of the canal's and how products were transported back in the day.

Here is a picture of my finished product -

Here is my slide show of the steps making the mini-book, set to Jason Mraz's You And I Both. It's really such a pretty song. Turn down the playlist at the bottom if you want to hear the music. In case you haven't noticed, I'm really digging the slide show creations here ;) !

I am also including a pic of the card I made for my monthly card swap. Love the colors in this one. Next month is my turn, so instead of making a card, I'll be getting a bunch! I can't wait to see what the girls come up with. They are certainly very talented and I learn a lot from them. As a matter of fact, Elaine has been published in a magazine! She is wonderful, and her work is magnificent. Her blog is listed in my followings, DivitaKnies art, give it a click to see what she does.

Of course what would a late night Sunday post be with out a True Blood wrap up? Well, for those of you who watch, what did ya think? Sam sure stepped up to the plate with MaryAnn, who's storyline is FINALLY finished! It took a whole season to wrap that kaka up. Hhhmmm, who could have taken Bill, Lorena, Eric? Pooh, we only had a brief showing of Eric playing Yahtzee with the Queen, who likes to play till 5 million! What a hoot, and so was Jason. Poor Sookie what will she do? And what a nice rock Billy boy got her too. Now begins the wait till June. Luckily all the new season shows are starting again, like Biggest Loser, a fave of hubby and mine. At least True Blood keeps the summer fresh from repeats!

I hope you all enjoy my newest creations. My next post might actually be about cooking, I'll think on that a bit!

A Layout Is Born

Today I am going to blog about how a layout comes about for me. I wonder if it's similar for all of us scrappers? If it is, please let me know in your comments. I'd love to hear how other scrap fanciers come about their creative epiphanies. Ha, there ya go, your $10.00 word for the day ;).

I took pictures of my children on their first day of school, as always, as we all have done and do through the years. I decided to start with Sophia. Her photos came great and she looks just beautiful! I edited it a bit by placing translucent text onto the photo with my Adobe Photoshop program. You can control the opaqueness in percentages till you reach the desired affect. If you can, this program is a wonderful one to have in your scrapping arsenal.

While looking through my papers to choose, the typical back to school patterns just weren't doing it for me. I went for pink black and grey. With Sophia's outfit, it just works. Sophia looks like she belongs in a back to school ad!

I also went into bling overload!!! I used more flowers, brads, and stickles than in any other layout I've done, and I love it. This layout just called for blingtastic! I put the layout into a slide show for you to see all my steps start to finish. I picked the song Love Bug from Sophia's favorite band, The Jonas Brothers, and as she watched the slide show, she was smiling from ear to ear!

Before playing scroll to the bottom and stop the playlist from playing so you can hear the music in the slide show. Without further ado, The Birth of A Lay Out -

I am very happy with the end results! Sophia looks just gorgeous.