New and Exciting things

I know I have totally slacked from this blog. BUT I have a good excuse. I have been working on some new and exciting things. I am starting a new buisness. I am finally going to take the plunge and get myself out there as a photographer. SO Nicole Mantooth Photography is now underway.
You can check me out HERE at photographybynm.com . I have a new website with a photo blog and a calendar and a gallery is in the process. It has been so exciting. I have so many ideas, that I am going to start writing them all down so I don't forget some of them.
My husband had to fly out early this morning to Texas for work and I am so sad. So my goal is to keep my mind off of him being gone and focus on getting some (ok I have tons) of my half started projects done. I need to finish painting the babies room, take pictures of my latest scrapbook layouts, finish painting some picture frames black, vacuum out the car, buy Marcus his baseball pants and socks and belt, clean the house, take in the recycling cans....just to name a few.
So my 2 main goals for today are to take in the recycling cans (I have coupon for almost 2.00 a pound) and work on the painting in the kids room. Ok I have 3 then because I am going to make myself take pictures of my latest scrapbook pages and post them. Now lets see how much I actaully get done today. I am already running on fumes... I couldnt sleep last night because of the time change and then I had to get up at 230 this morning, however I overslept and didn't get up until 330. Then we drove to the airport and home again. So now I am feeling really tired. Thinking I need a quick nap before I get going for the day.

Chloe is 1 month already

Time sure seems to REALLY fly lately. Just wanted to share miss Chloe's one month photo shoot from today.
Editing photos tonight from another photo shoot I did tonight for a friend.
Then tomorrow I am taking little Jacob's 5th birthday photos.
I will also share a picture of my "make shift" photo studio....

Happy Valentine's Day

Life has been very busy getting used to a new normal routine lately. I have a ton of things to share, so I will be
back as soon as I can.
In the meantime have a very Happy Valentine's Day.
We had a very nice day here. We had errands to run, including Costco. Today was sample day so it took us twice as long to get through the store. When we got home I made taquitos for dinner and a chocolate cake with chocolate icing and pink and brown sprinkles for dessert. Jacob got home from work and ran to the store and got me a pretty pink and lavendar boquet in a pretty pink vase and a beautiful card that sang (and made me cry).
What a nice day.
Here is a cute picture of Miss Chloe in her valentine's Day dress. I had so many people stop me at Costco to look at her today. :)

Natalie

This layout was a pretty quick one. I used some older Basic Grey paper that I had in my stash. I never used alot of "girly" papers so when I did get them I held on to them for a long time.
This is our niece and she was born in August and I had been dying to scrapbook thepictures I had from the first time we met her.

I cut flowers from the matching patterened paper and then the same flower in a little bit smaller size from vellum and layered them over the cardstock flowers. I love the way the flowers turned out. I just happened to have yellowish-orangish buttons that matched perfectly as well. I also just happened to come across this piece of a rhinestone swirl in my stash and thought it added just the right amount of bling to the girly layout. I didnt really have any journaling for the layout so I just added her birth information under the small picture on the left.
Now since we have a little girl I think I am going to need to stock up on girly papers and blingy things lol. :)
Off to feed the little one now.

Quick Cards

Ok first of all the coloring of these pictures is not the best. I had to take the picture at night in the kitchen and it just didn't turn out great.
I needed some thank you cards quick for some gifts we had gotten lately. I didn't have the brain power to sit and come up with a card idea, so I improvised. This is actually an easy way to customize a premade card.
I have had the card in my card box for some time now. Well it is a tri fold card with all white on the outside and green on the inside. I wanted something with some girly colors so I thought why not just add pink to the card somehow. So I grabbed some little buttons and added some twine though the button holes and tied them off. Then I wrapped some twine around the front flap of the card, glued on the buttons to the center of all the flowers and done. I think the entire thing took me longer to think up than to actually put together.
A quick way to add a personal touch to a premade card for sure. I am thinking I should grab some sets of premade cards (this one came from the dollar spot at Michaels early last year) and do this to a bunch of them so they are done and ready to go for when I need them.

Gift Box

Well a few weeks ago I was at the dollar store and found this set of body wash and body lotion. I thought the color was nice, but the original box was ugly. So I brought it home and already knew I wanted to do something different with it. I did like the size of the original box though. So I carefully took the box apart and traced it onto some acetate that I had here at home. It isn't as thin as a tranceparency and not so thick that you can't cut it with scissors either. So I put the box together...which was DIFFICULT. The only glue I had at the time was glossy accents, and for some reason it just wasn't doing the job. Finally I got it to stick together and stay. Then I just wrapped some ribbon around the sides, and added some flowers and some silver wired thin string.
I have no idea yet what I am going to do with this little package, but I guess it is good to have a few spare gifts around for when you need one quickly.

Happy Mom Day Layout

I used last years Valentines Day line from Basic Grey for this layout. I have been seeing one of my favorite bloggers use alot of vellum over some of her patterened paper to soften it up a bit. So I thought I would do the same thing so that it wasn't too much with the other patterned paper on top. I love the effect it came out with. I cut this funky frame from the silhouette. When I cut the hearts from the silhouette I accidentally put in the wrong size of paper since it was a scrap and the sides of the hearts got cut off. So I just made due and put them all to the side or under other paper to make it look like I wanted it that way. I really love when mistakes turn out to be a good thing.
I typed the journaling on white cardstock and added the letter stickers happy and day. The m's were cut from the silhouette and the o is another heart. The letter stickers had little hot pink hearts on the sheet as well so I added a few of those around and some buttons in colors that matched. I had to add twine since I love the stuff, and added that to some of the centers of the buttons as well.
At the last moment I pulled out some white pearls and just randomly scattered them around the layout for a finishing touch.

Suprise Party Layout

Back in May I threw my mom a suprise birthday party at our house. It was a very small party, but was alot of fun. I wanted something in bright colors and was going to go with orange and white and then decided to throw in some green in there, and totally didn't even hit me that those are also the colors of her bedroom. Funny how it worked out that way, and I let her take home some of the decorations to go with her decore.
I cut the big Birthday saying from my silhouette. Then I used American Crafts Remarks alphabet stickers to finish off the rest of the title. I used a few buttons around the layout and my favorite border punch to add some finishing touches to it. I printed out the journaling on some vellum and glued it right over the green paper on the right side of the layout. I added a few orange rhinestones to finish it off as well.
I also decided that instead of one larger focal photo, they all were a good representation of the party, so I printed them all the same size and just trimmed them to fit equally across the entire layout.
A very quick and simple layout, but I enjoy those kind of layouts the best. I am re-learning again that sometimes less is more in the end. :)

Birth Announcement Photo Shoot

I got a chance the other day to do Miss Chloe's Birth Announcement Photo Shoot. The natural lighting was perfect at that exact time as well. I LOVE how they came out. The last picture is the birth announecement photo. I love putting bows on her. :)
I look at my children everyday and I thank God for an amazing and wonderful husband and great kids.

This is my absolute favorite picture of her. We have it framed and on the mantle already.

Welcome Little One

Welcome Baby!

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Chloe Renee

01.19.2010

8:45am

7lbs. 12oz.

19 inches