Memories unknown

I recently started collecting vintage cameras, because 1. I want to use them to decorate my scrapbook room and 2. I dig old vintage stuff!   So far I've purchased 3 old Kodak cameras that date back to the 1920's through the 1940's. What is really awesome to me about the cameras, is imagining what pictures they might have taken over almost the last century. Did they capture the beauty of the American national parks or travel abroad and once photograph the Eiffel Tower? Were some of the black and white pictures ones that would rival those of Ansel Adams? Imagine the fabulous fashions and interesting characters they might have seen in those decades gone by! Did a family once own this and have to sell it, to afford to live during the depression? Did it capture the joyous return of a soldier to his sweetheart after WWII? Or maybe their subject was a glamorous pin-up girl. The possibilities are endless, but whatever the reality is, I think it's nice to have a piece of history....whoever that history belonged to.

Below are some pics of my cameras, a 1926 Kodak No. 2 Model B, a 1946 Kodak Brownie Target Six-20, and a 1949 Kodak Brownie Hawkeye.

Spring-ing forward with the new scrapbook room!

  Anyone who knows me, knows I love decorating and I love scrapbooking, so when I can combine these 2 passions...look out world!  Since my stepdaughter is almost 18 and never comes over to spend the night anymore, I decided to turn her room into my new scrapbook room. Don't worry, it will still have a daybed incase she decides she wants to spend some time with us, and for our guests. I had a little scrapbook nook in the laundry room, but laundry baskets kept getting in my way of being able to actually use that space. And with the crazy winter we have had, I decided that space was better suited for a desperately-needed mud room.

   I knew that I wanted to paint it lime green, a color with energy to inspire creativity. Have you ever tried to find a lime green paint that you can live with? Not easy, but I finally decided on a color called "green apple". To break it up and tone it down a bit, I'm going to paint 2 fairly large vertical rectangles on the wall, about 3' x 4' and paint them a chocolate brown. I'm going to have the husband cut some wood trim to frame out the rectangles, so they are more like art spaces, and paint the trim as well.   Inside the art spaces, I have little mirrored butterfly wall decals to randomly space and am also going to use my Cricut to cut some wall decal words out of vinyl. I'm thinking "Create" and "Beauty" will aptly sum it up.

   As I said, I'm going with a daybed and have found the perfect fabrics for some great throw pillows which I'm going to dress up with some funky pom-pom trims and rick-rack. I got all 5 pieces of fabric at Wal Mart for $14- what a steal! I'm trying to recycle and reuse as much as I can, so I'm just cutting down the bedspread that is already in there and is only a year old anyway. I can also use some of the wall art that it currently in the room and the dressmaker's model with the girly tulle tutu, which I love.  So here's a sneak peek at the fabrics and paint color that are my color-inspiration, can't wait to finish the room and show you the rest!

How to turn $1 into something priceless!

For the past 2 years, ever since we got the boys, I have been scribbling on little pieces of paper- the cute things they say, milestones they've hit, details about their birthday parties, vacations and camping trips, and that sort of thing. I wanted to tie them all together into a memory journal that they could someday look back on. Ok, I know most guys aren't so sentimental, but maybe someday their wives will appreciate me for it.  (I'm hoping I have the technical know-how to download a picture to this, so you can see how cute these are!) I bought these cute lime green and aqua blue journals with appliqued monkeys on them at one of my favorite places, the $1 section at Target! Attached little tags with their names on them and tied them on with 2 kinds of ribbon. I found the ribbon cheap at Michael's, another of my favorite places, and how lucky was I to find blue and green camo ribbon and lime green ribbon with monkeys on it?! I tied the ribbon onto the elastic that holds the book shut, so there isn't the problem of having to untie the ribbons every time I want to write in them. I think they turned out cute and definitely look like they cost more than $1! Now if I can just find the time to keep up with writing in them :)

High School and Beyond...

   I was having a conversation the other day (via facebook comments) with a couple of old classmates, one of whom had been somewhat tormented by other kids in school, all those many years ago. I remarked how great it is that now that we're all grown up, none of that matters. Who was Miss HHS, Most Likely to Succeed, or Class Favorite? Who gives a flying monkey's butt?! When it's all said and done, popularity and cliques don't matter in the adult world. It's what's inside a person's heart that makes them a valuable human being. Of course, we see this many years after the fact. It's really too bad that kids can't realize it sooner and stop the bullying.  
   I started thinking about where I fit in, in high school. I was certainly not "in" with the girl-jock crowd or the popular crowd. I had a few friends in each of those groups though. I had my own set of friends and we kept to ourselves most of the time. I went to a small school (68 in my graduating class I believe) and was Salutatorian of my class. Was I in the "nerd" group?! If so, I guess I never realized it back then. Though nowadays I'm quite proud to be called a science geek, if only because my 8 yr old thinks it's cool and my husband calls me it with loving pride!
   Recently I was talking to an old friend and told her that I loved to go camping. Her response, "Camping?! You?! I can't imagine you camping!"  Wow. Really? Have I changed that much since high school? I never asked her why, but I guess it sort of shook my perception about who people think I am. I was never a super-girly-girl, so why would she think that? Hmmmm...maybe it's my hair? I do have this naturally curly hair that I used to dry straight and set on hot rollers and "feather" (remember that style? how very 80's!)
   Isn't it funny how you can remember every negative comment ABOUT you that has ever been made TO you? I can't remember why I just walked into this room, but I can tell you every comment that has ever been made about my weight, a certain boy teasing me and calling me "curly-hair Christa" in grade school, and a mean girl in high school making fun of my make-up in home economics class. Your perception of you, is made up of all these little images that other people gave you. So try and be nice out there, and hug a dork today :)

Zumba for the Wii

   A while back some friends (and I can't remember who, blame my hormone depletion for my short term memory loss!) asked me to let them know what I thought of my newly-acquired Zumba game for the Wii. So I fiiiiinally, got to try it out this week, and though I mostly love it, there are some pros and cons. First, the pros: It is fun! It will have you doing the merengue, salsa, calypso, and really get your heart pumping. And you will look forward to doing it again and again. Sounds good right? Well, there are a few cons: To get points, you have to mimic the on-screen dancers moves. There is a belt that comes with the game that has a pocket for your Wii remote, which is essentially worthless, because if you put the remote in it, you can't use the buttons on the remote. Also, the screens that teach you the different steps are an issue. If you hold the remote in your hand or put it in the belt-pocket-thingy, it senses your movements and thinks you have the steps down before you actually do and moves on to the next one very rapidly. However, if you don't hold the remote and just lay it down, it will not progress in teaching you the steps at all. Maybe there is some trick to this that I haven't figured out yet. What I have done for now is pretty much just skip over the learning the steps part and move on to the Zumba Class menu. I chose the beginner level, since I am VERY out of shape. It will take me a while to be able to complete the whole routine, but I'm working on perfecting the first 2 songs before I move on. The biggest problem I've had is pain in my arches, but I have foot issues anyway which have required multiple cortisone injections. So either I need some new tennis shoes or arch supports, or maybe I need to try it barefoot. I do think it's a lot of fun though and hope to Zumba my way to a skinnier me!

Trying something new...

My very first blog post! I've wanted to do this for a while, but working full time as a clinical laboratory scientist and being a full time mommy to 2 precious and newly-adopted boys, makes my "me-time" sparse. I guess I should start with a little about me. Just became a first-time mom at 45...crazy right? I was a foster mom and God blessed my husband and I with these 2 cuties. We had been fostering them for a couple of years and were so fortunate to be able to adopt them. So I'm sure a lot of my posts will be about them.  I also want to blog about great music, movies, travel, scrapbooking, decorating, household products, recipes, and crafty stuff! There is so much that I'm interested in, I wish there were more hours in the day!
  I'm big-time into scrapbooking, not the digital kind, for me it's all about the layers and distressing stuff and collecting vintage ephemera. Hands on and hands dirty! I'm in the process of changing my current scrapbook nook into a mud room and changing my guest room into my new scrapbook room. I looooove decorating and have been buying old vintage cameras to decorate the new room. 
   I'm an outdoorsy girl and can already feel the urge to go camping with the first signs of spring coming on. When I say camping, I mean REAL camping, as in, in a tent. RVing is sooo not camping. There is nothing like the smell of a campfire, the taste of toasted marshmallows, and the sounds of crickets lulling you to sleep. I love nature and photographing it. My mom taught me things like watching fireflies and appreciating all of God's little creations.
  This first post will be relatively short, because my 2-yr old demands my attention, we gotta go "dance, momma, dance!" And I can't say "no" to that sweet little face and those big blue eyes. Why would I? Life is short, dance while you can!