October Afternoon Giveaway Winner

The winner of the October Afternoon Travel Girl blog hop giveaway is...

Congratulations, Danielle! I'll forward your info to OA. 

Have fun with your Travel Girl buttons! I'm looking forward to seeing what you create! 

Treasure

No shiny baubles

no spa day 

and no sale at Anthro

(even with free shipping)

can delight me 

the way that these can. 

Music to a scrapbooker's ears
does not sound like
"bling" or "ch-ching,"
but rather,
"click."

Click. A striking young man: a soldier, handsome, brave, and true. He is my grandfather.
Click. A toddler, playing in the yard, grows up to become my mother.
Click. The family gathers at the shore, splashing in the waves. In this moment, they are young forever.

I will spend my summer scanning and documenting each photo. I don't have most of the stories behind these, but I'll do my best to find out as much as I can. Even if I can't find the words, I know that I have found treasure. I know that I have been reminded that every click from my own camera just may be golden. What seems ordinary to us now may become extraordinary someday.

Giveaway Winners!

Firstly, I would like to give a huge shout-out to every person who commented here. It's good to know that my stash will never lack for a happy home!

Secondly, I promise that this won't be the last of my giveaways. Even after making room in my stash, there is still barely enough space for everything, so I'll need to undertake another scrappy "cleanse" soon.

I'd like to congratulate the three winners of the giveaway:

Anandi, Nirupama, and Katie, I'll be in touch!

Thanks again, all!  There's still time to enter the OA giveaway (a few posts down), and I'll have another giveaway to offer during the Garden Girl blog hop on the 22nd.

Summer De-Stashing Giveaway (Closed)

I don't have a scrap room. I have a scrap corner.

Granted, my husband would argue that I do indeed have a room, since my scrappy sprawl has claimed half of our living room. So, in honor of Father's Day, and out of respect for the poor man's sanity, I have undertaken a de-stashing project this week, and have filled several boxes to the brim with accents, alphabets, papers, and mini-albums. 

Here's where you come in -- please adopt my stash!  It needs a good home!  In fact, there's so much to go around that my stash needs several good homes.  

Just leave a comment below by Sunday at 6:00 p.m. Hawaii time, assuring me that you would be able to provide a happy home for these goodies, loving and caring for them as if they were your own.  Be sure to include your email address or a link to a blog/site where I can find your email address. Alternatively, you may leave your pea name if you're a Two Peas in a Bucket member, and I can contact you via pea mail.   THE GIVEAWAY IS NOW CLOSED. 

I will then pick THREE lucky winners, divvy up the items,  and head to the post office early next week.  Since shipping can be expensive, however, I can only cover the shipping of those who live in the U.S.  If you live outside of the U.S. and would like to cover your own shipping, then let me know in your comment.  

Good luck! 

Summer Reading

I'm still working my way through Inferno at the moment, but there are at least three books that I'll be adding to this stack shortly!  I'm looking forward to Curtis Sittenfeld's Sisterland, J. Courtney Sullivan's The Engagements, and Lauren Weisberger's Revenge Wears Prada. I'm also curious about Daniel O'Malley's The Rook.

How about you?  What are you reading?

October Afternoon Travel Girl Blog Hop (Giveaway Closed)

Welcome to the October Afternoon blog hop, featuring the new Travel Girl line!

This collection is perfect for summertime scrapping, travel-themed pages, and more!

I pulled together Travel Girl miscellany, buttons, stickers, and papers here to create this layout about my  sense of wanderlust and how I have yet to visit all the places I long to see.

I began by stitching ribbon from the Travel Girl miscellany pack in a zig zag down the left side of the page, and then I tucked my photo in it and added buttons, a tin pin, stickers, and other accents. The "Stand By" sticker seemed to serve as a fitting title for the page, given the journaling.

I printed the journaling on vellum, placing it atop a collection of papers and cards from the miscellany pack and stitching over the gathering.

Don't you just love these Travel Girl buttons? How about a giveaway?

To be entered to win these little beauties, leave a comment on this post by 6:00 p.m. on Tuesday, June 18. Please include your email address in your comment (or a link to a site where your email address may be found). A winner will be announced on Wednesday, June 19.   (The giveaway is now closed.)

Thanks for hopping by today!  The next stop on the Travel Girl blog hop is Mandy Koeppen. You can also start at the beginning of the hop on the October Afternoon blog.  

My Big Adventure

I loved being pregnant, I thought wistfully a few days ago, remembering my full belly, the excitement of preparing the baby's room, the amusing way that people reacted when I entered a room, the fluttering within.

Then I remembered the fear, the constant, gnawing fear that something could -- would -- go wrong, that I would do something wrong or eat something wrong or I would do nothing and something would still go wrong. I remembered thinking, every day, that the only remedy for that crippling fear would be to have my child safe in my arms, finally. 

And then she was born, and the fear actually intensified with the realization that parenthood bestows only the power of influence, not control, and that the world, the wonderful, wide world, is also a terrible and dangerous world, and at some point, I would need to let my child find her own way through the wonder and the danger. 

For all of my fear and worry, however, motherhood has cultivated in me a strength and a sense of bravery that I did not know I possessed. Motherhood has been my greatest adventure. 

(Originally posted on the October Afternoon blog,  featuring the Travel Girl collection.)

My daughter is two years away from graduating from high school. Whenever I acknowledge this, I feel a momentary sense of paralysis, but when I push past that, I find strength and courage dwelling with surety beyond that brittle crust. 

I did not and do not have control -- control is just an illusion -- but I did and do possess the power of influence, and I continue to do my best to influence my daughter in ways that matter, so that someday -- sooner than I would like -- I will, despite my fears, stand behind her as she walks into the wonderful, dangerous world. My instincts may tell me to shelter her from it, but my mother's heart will know that this child will be a gift to that world.