Mosaic Monday: The Octagon Die

When my son came home from Hawaii (and the U.S. Navy), he brought a fiance with him.

Her name is Ola. She was born in Tonga, a Polynesian Island in the South Pacific. Her family moved to Hawaii when she was small and she became a United States citizen. She has embraced many U.S. customs, but has held on to many of her Tongan customs, as well.

I’d say Ola is the perfect blend of cultures and she is absolutely ideal for my son. She complements his personality by accenting his strengths and compensating for his weaknesses. She gets his sense of humor, isn’t at all bothered by his lack of neatness and is a genuinely nice person! She seems to make him very happy, and given that they have been through some stressful situations — including living in a hotel, living with his family, and living through a few blizzards — I think they will be together for a long, long time.

I didn’t get to spend much time with them … they only stayed in Michigan for a year before heading to NYC to pursue their dreams — him as a vegan chef and her in the fashion industry. So now I am missing them and decided to finally scrapbook the engagement photos I took of them last fall.

I used a soft gray Mosaic Moments Grid Paper, with black cardstock accents and some really old fall paper I had in my stash. To accent the page, I used the Octagon Die from Mosaic Moments. It comes with tiny photo corners and fits perfectly on the grid paper. I’d have to say this is one of my favorite layouts ever … the colors just work so well and subjects are just adorable!

I made a short video to show you how to cut and use the Octagon Die. You can watch it by clicking here.

I hope you enjoy the video and the page … and if you’re in NYC and see my kids, tell them their mommy loves them!

Falling Leaves

This month’s designer challenge for Kreaxions is to create something with a fall theme.

I started with an opal paper … it has a shimmer to it and the ink went on a bit lighter.

I used an embossing folder and then Distress Inks and water to create the background, then trimmed it up to fit my card. I added a bit of brown cardstock behind to emphasize it a bit.

I had a metal acorn in my stash and thought it would be cute to emphasize it on a circle. I used the Kreaxions Circle Cutter to cut out the circles. Because you can adjust it to any size, it is easy to make mats for the circles.

Gobble, gobble

This is the second year my husband and I have raised turkeys.

Turkeys, I think, are the cutest poultry babies there are and I love watching them grow.

Of course, I also love to eat them.

People wonder how I can possibly eat my babies, but it is not as hard as you might think.

First of all, I just take the turkeys for a ride and drop them off at the processor. I go back later that day and pick up turkeys sealed and labeled just like you buy at the store. So, I have no idea which cooking turkey was once part of my farm and I do not see any of the butchering process.

Secondly, turkeys get rather unattractive as they mature. They are not loving like a dog or hen. They have horrendous table manners and if you do not keep their coop clean, the smell is awful. So, by the time they are ready to butcher, the novelty of raising them has totally warn off.

Finally, these turkeys are bread to become food. They grow quickly, cannot reproduce and will die of a heart attack if not butchered in the fall.

So, you see, it isn’t really hard at all. I get to enjoy the experience and then taste the fruits of my labor!

To see how I put this page together and for close up views, visit http://www.journella.com/storyboard/fullview/id/10925

Be sure to cheer me on … if I get more cheers than any other members of the design team, I’ll send one lucky supporter a wonderful gift basket of goodies!