Laura Vegas

i bet after all this time, you thought i gave up scrapping. lol! i can’t remember the last layout i shared. partly because i havn’t done anything in almost 3 weeks. this is actually a layout i did 3 weeks ago … just added the journaling last night.

all those buttons and flowers are from the making memories new buttons & blossoms boxes … they are so cute with the felt flowers and paper flowers. and some older MM products … the tags and the papers and clips.

that’s all i have right now. still organizing albums … i have a few more coming today in the mail and then my family ones will be all set. finishing up an assignment today. finished a huge photo order last night. other than that … just busy with work, family, and apparently more kids than i know what to do with (somehow i think that’s related to family and work. lol!). will be back to share more of what we’ve been up too later!

one of my favorite photographer and scrapbooker friends, maggie holmes, has just announced that she is selling her photography actions. yay!!! you can check out the details on HER BLOG. so excited for her!

i have always admired maggie’s phography skills … i just love the look and style of her photos. i think i have tried to gear my editing to look somewhat like hers … i love the way her colors just POP! and now she’s offering actions that can help achieve her look … with the simple press of the "play" button. she asked a few people to try them out for her and give our feedback … and i was completely honored to be one of those that she asked.

here’s a quick sample of a couple of the photos i played with. click on them to see a larger version.

i love the color action set … such rich colors. there is also a lighten action included … for those that need a little exposure help.   

and the vintage action set is so gorgeous. i have never really tried to get a vintage look on my photos … so an action is perfect to do it for me! all of her actions are so easy to use … and run very fast and smooth. i have played with a ton of photos using them … and have had consistent results with all of them.

so go check them out and read more about them on her blog. i know you’ll enjoy them! and while i’m enableing you all … did you remember to go order the LB april KOTM today? has lots of fun stuff … and i’ve loved seeing all the ideas from some of my favorite designers!

because the next time you go to target … make sure to check out the scrapbook aisle.

they have redone the scrapbook aisle just recently … tons and tons of new products. and you’ll find so much new making memories stuff … a lot of it exclusive to target stores. and a few of those things are some fun new page kits. keep your eye out for this one here … the 5th avenue collection.

and when you find this one … flip it over and check this out!

can you tell they’re excited?!??! lol! here’s a little bit of a closer look.

yes, those are my layouts. with my photos. of my girls. on packaging. making memories packaging. in target stores. how cool is that! and the other layout has one of my closest friend’s, deneen’s girls … using some photos i took of them last year. so they’re equally excited about it! in fact, when i heard from a friend here (thanks marissa!) that our target store finally had them in last week … by the time i sent my mom over to get some … they were all gone. turns out deneen’s oldest daughter had bought one of them … and put all the rest on hold to pick up later. lol! so i had to go that night and snag one from her. and i thought it was so funny when her husband said "i never thought those were REAL people on there"! lol! and i did manage to find one at another store … but i’m sure our store will get more in.

i’ve been waiting and waiting to share this … did this way back in august last year i think. i also did the layouts for the baby girl page kit that is out too … using the new animal crackers collection which is so adorable! but i was sent specific photos for that one … so i have no idea who the cute baby girl is. so you wouldn’t recognize the baby … but those layouts are mine!

so thanks for letting me share this. i was tempted to stop the lady that happened to be on the scrapbook aisle at target and share my excitement with her … but i figured you all would "get it" more! lol!

as i was going through easter pics last week … i found these two gems. and it made me wonder … should i be concerned with the fact that my girls are able to ham it up for the camera on such quick demand?

there they were in the middle of an easter egg hunt. and i, of course … was following them around with the camera. and for whatever reason … i asked alyssa to act surprised. then i snapped a picture. then i turned right around to sarah and asked her to act surprised. and i snapped one more picture. and that was it. a brief, 5 second interruption in their easter egg hunt … and they were totally back to business!

it comes so naturally to them … after years of having a camera in their face. they just do what i ask … without questioning why. i’m thinking that somewhere down the road … there may be lots of therapy involved because of this! lol!

so, this was what i spent all last weekend staring at. this is what was on my laptop for 45 hours straight. my blog book was all done and ready … i just had to upload the book onto the blurb site … and from there you place your order.

you see that lovely phrase "your book is in the works"? it was in the works for 45 hours straight … before i finally pulled the plug on it and cancelled it out. it was a hard decision to hit that cancel button … i felt like so much time had been invested that i hated to quit and have to start over. but then i came across someone that had the same 7×7 blog book printed through blurb … the same amount of pages … and she said it only took her about 3 hours to upload the book. so i knew something wasn’t right.

i decided to just wait a few days … i was kind of sick of the book to be honest. but today i wanted to try it again. in the end i realized that i have just about zilch amount of memory on my computer … which is probably one of the reasons everything i do is sooooooooooo slow. i took my laptop to my parents house. and i kid you not, it took me about 10 minutes just to open up the program on my computer just to get to the book. i finally got the book exported to an external harddrive, had my dad download the program on his computer, and imported the book onto his computer … then i was ready to upload.

the book was totally uploaded in just over 1 hour!!!

this is the cover of the book. i did this last … and by then i had no idea what to put on the cover … which is really a book jacket with the flaps on the inside with a headshot photo and text. and i actually did a different font on the cover … but when i switched it to my dad’s computer, he didn’t have that font … so it changed. and then in the switch, a few pages came up with errors … some text was going off the page or something. but you know what … i didn’t care at that point. lol! i told the thing to ignore the "errors" … and to just send it the way it was!

i’m so glad to be done with this! and i’d hate for anyone to think badly of blurb after what i’ve been telling you on mine. lol! it actually is a great idea … and a great program. when my dad downloaded the program, he pulled up some of his blog posts to see how it worked. and i was amazed at how quickly everything was working for him. really fast. nothing compared to how slowly my book was going … every step i took was slow. so i really do think it’s just my computer. all my programs do it … they’re just slow.

so, my book is ordered and in the process of being printed … and should be here in about a week or so. i can’t wait to see it. and i definately plan on doing my other years of blogging … i think it’s cool that i’ll have them in print after all the time i spend blogging. but i most definately WILL NOT start any more books … until i have MORE memory!!!

first up, let’s pick a winner! this time i thought i’d use the random number generator to choose 2 numbers. and yes, you heard right … 2 numbers. there were so many nice comments that i can’t do just one! so here’s what it came up with:

see these 5 albums all stacked up? those contain all the layouts i’ve done about the daycare kids and some other kids we know … from the past 6 years or so. i also have 2 9×9 albums … but these are my 12×12 albums. that’s a ton of layouts. and i started going through them … and realized that i just had too many. it’d be different i guess if they were my own kids … i wouldn’t just toss those. lol! but the reality is … i don’t need all these. there are lots of layouts in there too from years ago … that were just plain layouts … no journaling, no special meaning, no special stories.

so i purged the albums. several times to be honest. i went through and picked out some layouts to give back to the parents. i think they’ll enjoy them …  after all, it’s their kids. then i had to re-do the albums … darn post bound albums get me every time. lol! take them apart, adjust the pages, re-arrange the page protectors, condense the albums, put the albums back together. i got it down to 4 albums. then a few days later … i went back through them. and tore them all apart … completely apart … every single page out of the protectors and everything. i decided to arrange them by child. each child that i’ve watched has their own section … or if i had siblings, then they’re together. i really narrowed these down … so most of the kids have 3-5 layouts about them. of course, the kids that are still here and still big parts of our lives do have more layouts. but that way, if we want to see layouts about our good friends alison and michaela … we just flip to their section and can view layouts from over the past 6 years and not have to go through all the other pages. i plan on making simple divider pages that show their names … and probably some tabs on the sides of the albums.

so now i have it back up to 5 albums. lol! but they’re not full … so i can add to them. i have 1 album for random daycare layouts. where there are several kids together … or the daycare kids with my girls … group shots. then i have 1 album for random friends (although i need a better name for it … random doesn’t sound right!) … this would be layouts about school friends, family friends, etc. then i have 3 albums that are for the individual daycare kids … each child that has been here having their own section … and pretty much put in order that they’ve been here. and for the kids that are still here … or still in our lives … i left a few empty page protectors so that it’d be easier to add in some new layouts here and there.  i pretty much know which kids might possible show up on a new layout … so i knew where to put the extra pages.

like the metal rimmed tags added on with the binder clips? genious idea that i got from stacey julian’s new book, photo freedom. i loved that idea as soon as i saw it. i just quickly wrote the album contents on the tag .. someday i’ll write it a little prettier. and i want to tie a little ribbon on them too … will get to that later. but for now … i love knowing what’s in the album … without having to take the album out! that always bugged me … having this huge row of albums that all looked the same and not knowing what was in what album.

these are the albums that i’ve completly gone through. the ones on the left side are more themed albums. i have school/sports (black), birthdays (yellow), spring holidays (pink), fall holidays (linen), and christmas (red). i have summer albums too … but i have to go through those still. these albums are seperated by year … and i have added in divider pages that i’ll add the year too … easier to seperate them since they all start to look the same when together in one album. i’ve moved these albums to my ikea shelves … and i love them there. i like how the cubes sort of divide them up.

these are the albums that have been spread out on my island all week. i started over the weekend …. when my computer was locked up. lol! the green ones are the summer albums … swimming, vacations, things like that. then the brown ones are family albums. i have 2 albums for alyssa, 2 albums for sarah … so any layout about just them goes in there. and then 2 albums that are for family … any layouts of us all together, or the girls together. i’m debating these … making a few changes. and i have actually gone through and thrown layouts away. shocked? you shouldn’t be. i realized how many layouts i had in there with the same photos over and over. some of them were class layouts that i did when i taught at the lss … i would just toss some favorite photos on when i taught it. some were samples for different design team work … or display samples for the lss. and many of them had no journaling … nothing special about them. so i threw them out … tore off the photos on some … took off the good embellishments that i could still use.

one thing i’m debating is switching some of my albums to the american crafts albums … the 3 ring binder type. i’m not a chronological scrapper … but i like to have my layouts in chronological order. and the post bound albums don’t make that easy. lol! i have a few AC albums already laying around … and i tried them out and love them. but i’m still thinking about it … i like to have everything match, so i want a system that flows.

but i thought i’d toss this idea out there to you, my cyber friends … just in case someone was looking for albums and was interested. i have a ton of THESE 12×12 albums from MM … in brown with the label holder on the front … and tons of page protectors for them. i have about 12 albums total. some of them are still packaged … and some are being used, but are in great condition. i don’t necessarily have to get rid of them … but if anyone is actually interested in any, please email me and i’m sure we can make a good deal. if not … they’ll get used, trust me!

here’s some easter pictures like i promised. nothing crazy good … just normal pictures. and it’s just my girls. no other kids at our egg hunts … no cousins to share with or fight over who found too many. 

and it’s just my girls. no other kids at our egg hunts … no cousins to share with. and this year i got some glow-in-the-dark eggs … thinking that would be a different challenge for them. but we didn’t want to wait until it was dark … joe had to go to work. i’m sure they’ll try them out in the house. 

every time someone would say "i see one from here" … they would run over and stand by that person to check out their view. here they are looking at papa and jenny’s view.

with dad and uncle scott … they’re trying to figure out where they hid the last few. we’ve learned to always count how many eggs there are … never fails that we have a few hard ones that we just can’t find.

can you see the bathing suits peeking out from under their clothes? yes, they were ready. and i have no idea why sarah is wearing black for easter?!?! lol! i didn’t even notice to be honest. as soon as the last egg was found … they tore off their clothes and were ready to swim.

i didn’t get a good shot of them both making the first jump of the year together … i had my 85mm lens on and couldn’t zoom out … and i was at the other end of the pool.

not great shots … but you get the idea, right! and look at the look on sarah’s face … she is such the fish and has definately missed her water!

yeah, not as warm as they make you believe. the weather was gorgeous. but the water … a little on the chilly side at 62 degrees!

and they both used some old swimsuits that were laying around grammy and papa’s house. this year i am determined to get some fun, colorful swimsuits for them … since i see them in them so much. something to match some fun scrapbook stuff, right? lol!

and joe … the keeper of the towels for when they decided they were freezing and couldn’t take it any longer.

that’s about it. i know i said i would draw a name tonight for the making memories goodies. but i’m going to wait until the  morning to do it … along with some updates on my albums re-organization. and a heads up to anyone looking for some 12×12 albums … i have some that i’m considering changing out. so check back tomorrow for the winner!

do you remember THIS CUTIE from a few months ago? this was her today … so close to her first birthday.

what was that??? you want to see a close-up of those eyes? no problem! and you might be thinking i glossed up her lips … but they were just that cute all on their own!

she did so awesome today! it’s not like she knows us that well. she’s only seen me a few times … and even then i was shoving a camera in her face. lol! i think she just knows somehow … knows that i took good care of her brother for a few years … so she can trust me, right! she never even cried today … just was happy and content as can be. didn’t even phase her with all our craziness going on. nikolas being a little fussy today with his runny nose and cough. haley a little whiney and clingy today. alyssa and sarah just being theirselves … which is always good for some craziness. the girls just loved her too … they love all the babies that come here and fawn all over them. and i’m so grateful they were off school … because 3 babies at one time is a little hectic! lol!

and i’m loving these photos. because they were actually taken without a flash … very unusual for me. i’m terrible at indoor photography … i admit that. but i must have gotten the right spot in the house, by the right window, with the right natural light. pure luck … because i doubt i can do it again. lol!

and just to go down memory lane for a moment … this is her big brother sam. she has 2 big brothers … but sam was the one i got to watch for a few years. this photo was from about two and a half years ago … right before he left me for bigger and better things. lol! such a cute, sweet boy!

i have tons more photos to go through. i finished up all of vanessa’s photos today. but i have soooooooo many photos to still work on so that i can share them. i think i’ll do easter next. i can’t complain though … it’s been a long time since i’ve had my camera out this much. and i’m getting so many "everyday moments" shots … love it!

thought i’d share a few sneek peeks from a little photo shoot i did this past weekend. can you guess who’s sister this is?

this is vanessa … big sister to nikolas. don’t they look so much alike! they have 2 more brothers … and they’re all adorable! vanessa came by on saturday evening to take some photos for something they’re working on. i had fun having a fresh face around. lol! and i love that they asked me to do this for them … love being able to give friends of mine some great shots of their kids! i took 260 photos that night … so i’m still making my way through them all and narrowing them down. but here’s a few that caught my eye! (click on any of them to see them a big bigger)

that’s as far as i got. my photoshop keeps locking up on me tonight. lol! i’m beginning to think that my computer is trying to tell me something … really testing my patience and making life hard on me. lol! and you know i love having the white borders on my photos when i post them here on the blog … i feel like they look more professional that way. but there’s a reason that i’m leaving them off from now on … one being that i’m actually not a professional. lol! but really, it has to do with that darn blog book that i’ve been doing. long story …  but without borders will work better in the long run.

stay tuned for lots more photos this week … i have taken over 400 in the last 4 days. so i have fun daycare kids, easter, swimming, and more. also some stuff on what i’ve been doing with my albums. stay tuned!

i havn't shown you any new layouts in a while … but i think this should make up for it. go check out the MM BLOG for a fun spring layout i did using the new garden party collection. here's a peek.

so please go the the MM BLOG to see the whole layout and some more detail shots. and i think it's about time for a giveaway too, right? so leave me a comment and i'll enter your name in a drawing on thursday night. and i'll send the winner some of the new MM products from the garden party and the 5th avenue collections!