Always remembering.

I cannot believe that it has been 9 years. I remember the day clearly, more then any other day, I was 21 and about 8 hours from home. Its just one of those things that just burns a vivid image into your mind for ever.

I was upstate with friends and watched it all on TV, minute by minute wondering what in the world is going on, in disbelief that it was real.

Our drive back to Long Island only 2 short days later was like driving through a war zone, stunned faces and smoke every where, big dark billows of it still. People stopping on the Throgs neck bridge to look at the city skyline, and just stand still, shocked. It was quite that day, almost surreal, NYC and its boroughs are never quite, always moving with cars, people. It was unbelievable and still is, to think that there are people out there who can commit such horrendous acts of terrorism against innocent people, people who had no clue when they left their house that morning what would happen to them just a few short hours, minutes later. Wow, it is mind blowing, what drives someone to kill themselves and thousands of others? What force? And what did they prove?

You don't have to be a New Yorker to feel connected to it all, it happened to all of us, we were one nation being attacked, scared, heart broken. For the rest of our lives on this day we will always remember the tragedy that impacted our country and thousands upon millions of people, no matter their race or religion. The New York skyline will never look the same, and families of loved ones lost will never be the same but life goes on and we just always remember. I will always remember.

Catch up time.

Its catch up time! We had a very long, fun Labor day weekend(me and Will and some friends) It was a great trip out to Shelter Island, and we celebrated the end of the summer all weekend long, leaving little time to post new blog updates and yada yada.


*a dock on Shelter Island*

I feel like I have so much to post, and I really should try to stay on schedule and post more often, but the time really slips on by. How do you grasp some time to do these things? Help! I really need to start focusing on making time for all the little things I want to do, any tips, ideas?

So Labor Day weekend which was suppose to bring a big ole tropical storm went great. No storm, just pretty days and nice breezes, a birthday BBQ, visits to the local bar and lots of friend catching up and a few good laughs. Oh and lots of pictures, I love to take them but I despise dumping them on my computer and fixing them all up for viewing, blah.


*Will and one of his many new friends*


*my friend Sara decorating Tara's front walkway*



*morning coffee with the girls*



*some island music*



*my friend Tara relaxing on the grass at her grandma's bday party*



*moi*



*Will on the ferry ride back to the main land*


It was Will's first time over to the island and he really had a great time and was loved by all. Its just his personality, so outgoing and kind, how could you not love him?

I was sad to leave, but it was more of a bitter sweet sadness. Summer is coming to an end, and I am sort of happy about that. If you follow my tweets, you can see that I am all for Fall, everything about it makes me smile. But it was sad to say good bye to my friends for now and all the days of summer filled with swimming in the bay and tons of adventures. Till next year!!

I am very proud to say that I am keeping up with the Shimelle "Learn something new everyday" class. Well I am keeping up with it in my own way. I have been carrying around a notebook and jotting down each day something I have seemed to learn. I also have been packing a few supplies and working on my book at work during my down time. It makes me smile to know that I have scrap supplies with me in my tote bag when I am off to work, I just do not know what it is:)

I did take a few pictures of what the book currently looks like. I have not written in any of my journaling and have just done some basic decorating of the sorts. Eventually it will all come together. This book has got me thinking about Ali Edwards and her December daily. If I can get through making this current book, then I am going to take on the December Daily! eeek.










And there you have it, pages 1-7. I am just getting ready to work on some more of it while I become a couch potato:) hehe.

Before I go I do want to do a Thrifted file. It has been awhile and I surely do not want to neglect my little shop and my love for thrifting. It has been hectic and I am holding on tight to Pattycake's Vintage through a new job transition. I will pull through.

Right now I am featured over on Paper N Stitch and if you make a purchase using the code: PaperNstitch during checkout, you will receive a 10% discount. Hey that's pretty good :0)

Ok, Thrifted Find #5!
Well its not Christmas time, yet, but man I just could not resist this little St. Nick. He is just a charmer with his little rosy nose and cute little eyes. Maybe he is so cheery because he has a nice cup of spiked egg nog, haha. Who knows! He is in the shop right now, ready for a new home. Well that is if I decide not to keep him myself, hehe.




Theee End:) well till next time...

The layout that almost broke the needle.

So I have this pile of layouts that are pretty much done but that I want to sew on. Now the pile keeps getting bigger, so I decided to try a few today. Well I only got far as one, because the layout below is the one that jammed it all up. I am beyond frustrated with that machine. At first it was easy going, I was so happy to just sew with ease on all of my layouts. Now the sewing machine is pissed off and wants nothing to do with sewing on paper anymore, it wants to know where the fabric is. I am sorry to tell it that there will be no sewing of fabric for me anytime soon, no curtains or quilts to be sewn, just paper. Its rebelling against me I tell you. This layout only had one line sewed on it and then a very small one which was the part that it jammed up on me. That was when I threw in the towel and said done, no more, its as good as its going to get.

I Love the fall, yes I do and that is what this layout is entitled. I don't think it can get here any quicker then I wish it would. It is so very hot out today, and get this, come Friday we may be in for a very scary hurricane, eeek.

Fall please get here soon!

P.S New stuff was added to my shop today! Yay.

Checking in!

First of all I want to say thank you to all the lovely Freckled Nest followers who stopped on over and left a comment. Good luck to everyone, so many great items in this month's giveaway! You do have until Monday, the 30Th to still enter to win. So hurry up and get to it.

I have been super busy as of lately. I am in the process of switching to a new family(I am a nanny, nanny Patty, haha) and I have been juggling my original family with the new one as well as a neighbor. So I have been working for three families on almost every day, today was my first day off, phewwwwww. On top of all the child care jobs, I have had to struggle with crappy train service. Our main train transportation out here on Long Island had some huge issues last week and totally made things super hard to get in and out of the city, and on time. Lots of delays, lots of traveling. As you can see with so much craziness going on, I get home and just want to go to bed!

Today was my day off as I have said above and I took advantage of sleeping late, being some what lazy and then getting some things done.

I recently signed up for Shimelle's "Learn Something new" class which will start in September. I figure its time that I finally try and finish some sort of mini book( I always admire other's), and this class is something I think will help push me along. I have always wanted to make an altered book, I have been hoarding a few vintage hard cover novels to do so with, and well this past Saturday I took the bull by the horns and started it.



Now I just did what I thought I should do, and I used some gesso on the pages and what have you. Well the gesso made a horrible mess, some pages started to rip and stick to each other, and it was all just so gross. At around 3pm today I was opening one of my few mini books that are still in the package and was ready to just start from the beginning with a pre-made book. Then the light went off and by 7pm I had finished the outside. I am darn proud that I stuck through and I just love the way it came out:) Now I just have to start filling in some of the pages so when the class starts, I will be ready to add my "something new a day".




Starting tomorrow my shop will be featured for a whole month over on Paper N Stitch. Be sure to check out their site, they have everything from craft supplies to vintage items, all sold by indie businesses. Who better to support then the little guys?

Right now my shop is being neglected and I hope that when things slow down with work I will be able to add some new things and just spiff it up a bit. Here is to hoping that it will happen soon.

Well that's my update for now, off to relax before bed time and then a hopefully non aggravating train ride tomorrow. I will have to stop back in and share some pictures from the Museum of Natural History as well as something I am going to challenge myself to this upcoming month.

Have a great Monday.

A vintage challenge, right up my alley!

Its Sunday, yet an end to another good weekend. I am currently sitting in my parents living room, hanging out with my dad and Molly(their chubby white lab) Dad just finished cooking up some homemade rice pudding and we will have some yummy salmon tonight before I start my very long work week.

Yesterday me and my mom did a little thrifting, I happened to find some really great things this time around and will be updating my shop most likely on Friday. I also saw Eat Pray Love with my sister and I highly enjoyed it! It really made me want to get up and go travel, now if only I had the money for that. I also happen to be a Julia Roberts fan, me and her go back to Pretty Women, Mystic Pizza, Steel Magnolias and My Best Friend's wedding just to name a few. She is a chick flick idol in my opinion:)

And I am happy to say that I have gotten my scrap mojo back, FINALLY. So lots of scrap inspired posts coming soon.

Ok, now for what this post was intended for! Challenge number 2 is up at Simply ArTistiC site, and this time it is "Vintage Alice" I had fun creating this ATC, I had a few mess ups a long the way but was able to make it work and I do love the way it turned out. Be sure to head on over and play a long, and remember the cards are up for trading.

Ok off to enjoy the rest of this cool, breezy Sunday!

If only we lived closer.

If only we lived closer we would thrift together, have yummy meals with great conversation more often, overdose on alcohol soaked fruit at the bottom of Sangria, scrap together and be inspired by one another and act like a bunch of 6Th graders when it was lights out! If only. But we do not, we live in so many states, spread out across the country but meet up every year and name our get together silly names i.e " Sis 3, Get mad" hahaha. Next year its Vegas baby, and what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas(right Danielle)

I was so happy to see Danielle, Mandi, Vanessa, Jen and Stephanie again!!!! Scissor sisters reunite. And I also got to meet V!

The thrifting was amazing, items which I will share at a later post because I am on my way out to work.
I scrapped for the first time in months and was so inspired that I made like 6 layouts in 2 hours or so. Yikes, high standards now that I am back at home:)

Here is at least one of the layouts I made using a picture from our last meetup in Chicago!

Ok, I am off for now!!!

The never ending vacation.

Vacation has been going pretty well.

This past weekend we attended our friend's Christmas in July party. Me and Will took our holiday photo by the Christmas tree which held all of the dollar store grab bag gifts(lots of fun) under it.

Me and Will's holiday photo!

We made gingerbread houses, listened to Christmas music, sat around the Yule log fire(on the TV that had paper brick around it) and played tip cup and my favorite Beer pong. It was very festive for this time of year.

My friend Mel working on the house.

The tree with all its dollar store glory under it.

My friends and their cozy holiday photo.

Gift opening

Girl Time up next!!!

Well I updated the shop again and I have another Thrifted file for you! This will be Thrifted File #4! I have to say that I have come to love my shop and all that goes along with it. I will never get tired of pretty much treasure hunting and I have come to the conclusion that thrift stores are my favorite place to find things. The more packed and dusty the thrift store, the better:)

This sweet little salt and pepper shaker set was found in Bird in Hand Pennsylvania in a little antique shop while I was on vacation there last weekend. I am starting to see a pattern in my thrifting, lots of salt and pepper shakers and lots of vintage souvenir items. This set goes into both categories. This orange salt and pepper shaker set is also a Florida souvenir. Their faces were what really bought me, and I will gladly love to keep these as well if they remain in the shop to long! I have to stop saying that, I cannot keep everything, although I would love to. One day when I have that place of my own!

This post is coming to an end, but before it does.........................Simply ArTistiC is finally up and running. The first ATC challenge is up, so be sure to head on over and join in!!!!! I am loving what the first group has created, so inspiring:)