Life is Good

IN OUR TIME OF REMEMBERANCE LET US ALSO REALIZE

My heart goes out to all those who on this day lost a loved one, my prayer is that within these last ten years your hearts have been mended and your wounds have become faded scars; but only scars that remind us of what truly is precious in our life and of the joy that those who've gone on before us would want us to bask in, take part in, and put our whole heart into.....for JOY is LIFE & Life is good!

The effects of 9/11 are very different depending on of course who you are but also where you lived @ the time.  I am deeply aware of the fact that I can not even begin to imagine the devastation that occurred in New York ten years ago, and it disturbs me but because of that... I am also much more aware of what exactly it is that I hold dear.  "These are the days to remember", (sang by Natalie Merchant of 10,000 Maniacs here) and for that very reason.... I scrapbook and I document, and I collect bits & pieces of our lives, because if I don't....who will?  Is it important?  Hell ya!...to some....to others not so much, but if I were to go today or tomorrow God forbid, at the very least there would be something of me for my girls to know or something left for them to pass on to their children, so that they too would know, and that is important.  Family & Friends need to know that you love them....period.....that's all there is in the end.  How you get about 'saying' it or in this case 'showing' it is completely up to you, just DO IT!!!

I thought that I'd share with you a mini book I did for our beloved 'mini nanny', Miss Colleen.  I chose to dub her that because she did way more than 'babysitting'; she'd bust out the Dyson, or mop the kitchen, or throw in a load of wet clothes to dry....those kinds of things that don't take long by themselves but all together add up to whole lot and man I'll tell ya - now that I don't have those extra pair of hands, I feel it & realize just how much she even means to me in more ways than I could ever count.  Unfortunately with our move earlier this year we had to let Miss Colleen go and so to 'show' her (because we do live in the 'Show Me' State) how much we love her and are going to miss her, I made her this little gem.

The book pages and pockets were all done with 7 Gypsies Lille collection and then all the extra stuff is random tidbits that I threw in.  All in all it's a hodgepodge album to throw random memories in and it's freakin' cool, just like Miss Colleen!  Even more so because now someday down the road, she'll have something from her young adult 'single' life, that she can share with her husband & kids - probably to prove she 'use to have a life' right?-but still....how cool is that?  : )

As for the book... it is full of pockets that even have mini books in them.  I think in all I made 3 minis to go in my mini and I'm not really sure how, why, or what possessed me to put that many in, but it worked.  Now I will admit it is a FAT little mini..... but it all fit.......so what the hell....

In fact here is one of the mini books that I slid into one of pocket pages.  This is made from Tim Holtz's mini baroque die here and then I just folded it in half and tied the 3 pages together to make 6 little mini pages.

This is a pocket page, the two little butterfly's that you see on the left hand side actually pull out a tag that is highly embellished, 

and a little teeny tiny note to Miss Colleen is also hiding in there.

Had to add the red butterfly stick pin to the bottom of the page to help make it a pocket and to add just another piece, I like lots of 'things' on my mini books.

Here is another pull out tag page

And here's the tag

The other side of the same tag

Here is the 2nd mini book that I somehow fit in here

This is what the cover looks like

And here is what the inside looks like

This is the next page after that mini book

And yes this is another tag pocket page

Here's the tag front

and the tag back

This is just another tag pocket page

And then here is the 3rd and final mini book that I hid in here

and this is what this mini looks like

and the inside of the mini

another tag pocket page

what the...... here's another mini that I forgot about - holy smokes

I made this mini using Tim Holtz's mini cabinet die here and then I used my crop-a-dile here to attach the eyelet here in the center of the half circle to bind the mini, all 3 pages have photos mats and they just fan out

This tag is also hiding somewhere in the book, I just don't know where exactly but I do love all the pieces I was able to stick down in there.  I think it really makes a book come alive when there are lots of things to make it interactive, I try to achieve this standard in all of my mini books, that's why they are so fun.

So anyways here you have it, my mini creation for our wonderful mini nanny, whom I I mean whom we no longer have (boo hoo)  but hopefully now that she has seen this.... she knows that she is loved.

Thanks everyone for stoppin' in and takin' a peek, hope you like what you have seen today.  Feel free as always to leave me a comment anytime, and until next time......thanks again

just B......joyous!!!