Ukranian Gospel, Shopping, and a Birthday

Well this was a really busy extended weekend. First and foremost my Dad sang in a reunion concert with all his friends that have been singing Ukrainian Gospel music for about 40 years.  It was really neat to finally meet all these people and to get to know their kids who are not kids at all, they're my age. The concert was beautiful and everyone sounded great. This is a picture of my dad in the orange shirt practicing

Here are some of the singers and their families:

Overall, it was an amazing experience to get in touch with my culture and make a ton of great friends.

Now, being from a Slavic background, it is entirely likely that we'll stay latched onto a bottle for a majority of our natural lives. And I'm not talking baby formula here. My younger sister, who is much more introverted than I am, turned 21 yesterday and we have yet to see if this is going to be the beginning of a downward spiral but so far so good. Per her request, we chowed down on Italian (our Mom's heritage). And after much prodding she agreed to order a token 21st birthday cocktail which she ended up splitting with the whole table. Not a very promising drunk. I got her a bunch of gorgeous Stila and MAC makeup, shoes, a dress, a jacket, and jewelry. She deserves it. She also made out with some Juicy Couture perfume from her boyfriend. And it wouldn't have been a family dinner if the evening didn't involve us causing a scene with our loud blabber, lame jokes with the server (who ordered the check? hardy har!), and failed attempts at constructive criticism all around. Happy Birthday Jenny!

AND I received a challenge: A zip-a-dee-do-da (splash mountain) banner for my Mom's Disney themed desk at work. In the meantime I am continuing my work on my Venice Album:

I used the new elegant cakes cartridge to highlight this photo of me in front of the Rialto bridge in Venice. I attacked the cut pieces with platinum stickles and glimmer misted the layout with some Tattered Angels Coffee Shop glimmer mist. Unfortunately I forgot to block the photo when I sprayed it so I have a speckled face now. I used my ATG gun to adhere the ribbon which I found in the dollar bin at Michael's. I folded the ribbon over and adhered the underside in order to create the pleated effect. The photo matt is from DCWV Happily Ever After matt stack. I feel like I was able to achieve my usual fussy look without all the fussy materials (prima flowers, bling, layers of distressed paper, etc.). Probably due to the intricacy of the Elegant Cakes cartridge shape. Hope to feature more projects on that soon!

Brontë Sisters Power Dolls

This made me laugh so hard and went perfectly with my enjoyment of Gone With the Wind that I described in my last post so I had to share. Enjoy!

Mother's Day in Disneyland!

Well I just got back from a family trip to Disneyland for Mother's Day. Because there's no place my mother would rather be than Disneyland. As a family we make the 7 hour drive about 2-4 times a year to the happiest place on earth and never get sick of the place. This time was no exception. From lounging by a pirate ship pool, to the food and wine festival, shopping and eating; it's far more than kiddie rides to us. The main purpose of our trip was to experience the Disney Mother's Day buffet. As far as buffets go, it's pretty decadent. Piles of crab, shrimp, berries, cheesecake, crepes, cheeses, cured meats, mimosas, piano players, chandeliers ands 15ft floral arrangements at every turn:

We got fairly sick from eating too much and I managed to escape the penance of my gluttony by taking a 3 hour nap.  We were due to travel home the next day, so after we managed to recover a bit we headed out for our last night in the parks.

All in all, it was a wonderful Disney trip. I even managed to learn that Disney has it's own breed of rose.  We saw them in the park and they were absolutely Gorgeous! Take a peek for yourself:

So in honor of my Mother and her love for Disney, we used the Disney rose as inspiration for the present we bought her from the parks:

Isn't it just perfect?! And she loved it!

So my book for the trip has been Gone With the Wind. I am enraptured with Scarlett O'Hara. She absolutely fascinates me. I can't help but love her brand of common sense at the pointlessness of tradition and how she is going to knock the world on its rear with her own success and independence. It will definitely go on my top ten book list, which I will definitely be sharing. One particular snippet from the book just made me laugh outright. It takes place after Scarlett married the mild and pliable Frank Kennedy during the reconstruction period of Atlanta post-Civil war. Scarlett isn't entirely honest with Frank about her ambitions to become financially independent after the Civil war. She plays into his expectation for a sweet, docile, air-headed wife until he puts a ring on it. Then Scarlett immediately begins to take hold of Frank's business interests. Frank is reluctant to think that Scarlett has any sort of mental or physical capability to deal with his business. But Margaret Mitchell writes "Now he saw that she understood entirely too well and he felt the usual indignation at the duplicity of women. Added to it was the usual masculine disillusionment at discovering that a woman has a brain." Classic! What a pesky thing is a woman's brain to a man.

National Scrapbook Day Challenges!!!

Okay, so some of you may not know this but today is National Scrapbook Day! That means that today people all over the country are having parties, contests and excuses to create. I decided to participate is a couple of challenges this year and will be posting up pictures of what I create throughout the day.

First up is the scrapbook.com general challenge which was to create a page on why you scrapbook. Here is the link to the challenge: Scrapbook.com NSD 2010 Challenge
And here is my entry: