An advocate for not making things more complicated than they need to be and embracing imperfection, Ali Edwards shares cool concepts, design, and project ideas in her idea books: A Designer’s Eye for Scrapbooking, A Designer’s Eye for Scrapbooking with Patterned Paper, Life Artist, and Sharing Your Story: Recording Life’s Details with Mini Books (available August 2008).





You can also find Ali’s monthly column in Creating Keepsakes magazine: Studio A.

“I started scrapbooking in 2002 as a way to organize all the stuff I collected after the birth of my son. It has become so much more than an organizational process for me - it has let me find my own personal passion and voice. It has become all about the process of capturing life and creating art.”

Well known for her signature style of everyday-life scrapbooking, Ali is a highly sought-after workshop instructor. She travels the US and internationally conducting classes and inspiring students to tell their stories fearlessly.

Ali lives in Eugene, Oregon. She enjoys travel, reading, politics, and spending time with her husband and son.

I hope you had a great weekend with the important men (fathers!) in your life.  We had a really fun weekend with friends of ours from Seattle.  Dave is one of Scott’ s best friends from college and his wife, Nany, is so wonderful.

(No clue why Jack is sucking his toe…)

It had been much too long since we last saw Dave and Nany.  We all just enjoyed a chance to hang out, catch up and enjoy all the kiddos!  Jack had a blast playing with Andy and Alice spent the whole weekend “helping” with Sophia their 1 year old.  But I think the highlight of the weekend for the kids was heading to the fountain downtown — especially as it was finally almost warm enough for something like that!

And Alice got a chance to show off her teeny weeny yellow polkadot bikini (didn’t even THINK about that when I bought it!).

And at 3 you don’t have to worry about the effects of eating a cookie while in a bikini might do to your figure…

Next time we get together with them there will be 5 little ones in the photo…and no, it’s NOT me!

I’ve been a total stress case lately — a little too much on the plate — but hey, I definitely prefer it that way!  So last night as I’m lying awake at 1am my insomnia actually became advantageous.   My racing mind finally hooked onto a useful thought.   I had taken pity on our parched garden and turned on the sprinkler at 3 o’clock in the afternoon.  However, I forgot to put on a timer and thus the sprinkler was still going.   I don’t even want to see that water bill!  I prefer to think that it could have been worse.  At least I didn’t realize it when I got up in the morning.

I’m trying to squeeze a bit of exercise back into my life in a small attempt at balance.  I love yoga and the kids decided that they need a little balance in their lives as well so we now do our yoga together.  So fun!

My other angle for cutting down on stress has been to add another employee.  Krista and her family just moved out here from Mass.  And funnily enough, she was a subscriber!  Previously she was in a project manager in Quality Assurance with Mass Life.  Definitely a perfect fit for us!

The other day she showed up carrying this purse.

And all I could think was “Wouldn’t that be a fun kit!”  You just might be looking at a very early sneak peek…

To kick off the first month of the digi kit Marissa and Brooke thought it would be fun to have a challenge.  They will give the winner a $10 gift certificate to Dreaming With Pixels.com and we’ll giveaway a $20 gift certificate to Cocoa Daisy.  Let’s see what you can create!  Also, look for a digi/hybrid tutorial from Marissa coming in this month’s newsletter.

And Marissa has just created another digi kit that works perfectly with the 8×8 Making Memories Noteworthy Album in the “English Garden” add-on.  We’ll have that loaded in the store tonight and it will be just $3.00.

Here’s a peek!

Ok, off to the post office and possibly the gym…

Maybe this picture will help solve the riddle!

(Yesterday’s pickup)

Things continue to be moving at a very rapid pace here.  I can’t believe we are already in the middle of June (not that the weather here would ever indicate that!!!).

I just want to give you an update on the Ali kit for July.  We’ve been hearing from quite a few people, wondering if they can pre-order the kit.  We’ve decided to make that possible.  Starting tonight at 12am CDT, 6 month subscriptions beginning with July, can be ordered here.  Three month subscriptions and single purchase kits will become available on July 1st at 12am CDT.  Please let me know if you have questions about anything.

Oh, and the sale ends at midnight tonight!!

I’ve got lots to talk about so I hope to be on again tomorrow with a longer post!

Oh, but before I go — I couldn’t resist sharing this one.  Alice started ballet last week and I don’t think there is anything cuter than 13 3 yr olds running around in tutus!  Or maybe just one in particular…  Hee Hee

Thank you so much for all the thoughtful and empathetic emails and comments.  I can’t tell you how much I appreciate you all reaching out.  I’m still trying to accept that she’s really gone.  On a throw rug near my desk there’s still one little paw print indentation  and I can’t bring myself to shake out that rug.   It’s as if it’s the last solid reminder that she was a living, breathing creature just a few days ago.

Over the years we’ve remained close with our breeder and she sent the most perfectly worded email yesterday.  Here’s a section of it:

You’ll never get over her, but she won’t be so, “in the moment” as she is right now and I know it doesn’t seem that way for now. I still can remember with tears each one of my dogs passing. Remembering the eyes, so full of love and admiration for you and with full confidence in you doing the right thing for them, no human deserves such devotion and yet the special dogs in our lives readily give it without reservation. That’s a heavy responsibility and one we end up accepting time and again because of the specialness of that kind of relationship.

My mom sent me a cute shot she had taken of Hannah and Jack last month when she was visiting…

And funnily enough, right after she took those pictures here in Oregon, she saw my sister’s family in North Carolina and took this photo of my nephew Tom with his dog Annabelle.  You’ve got to love a boy and his dog…

Onto happier thoughts….

So the cat is out of the bag now about the Ali kit!  I meet with her on Thursday to finalize everything with the kit.  She’s got some really fun things planned but you are going to have to wait a bit longer to find out.  I love a secret!

So what did you think of this month’s CK?  It was so fun to see so many familiar faces in the magazine.  Of course there was Ali’s column — great as always!  Mou had some beautiful layouts and Emilie Ahern, our guest designer for May, had a really cute layout across from one of Mou’s.   And… I loved seeing that Little Monkeys made it as one of the latest and greatest products!  Way to go Susan!!  My copy of Ashley Calder’s Scraptastic arrived in the mail today and I can’t wait to find a little free time to delve into it.  Along with my copies of Simple Scrapbooks and Scrapbooks Etc arriving as well, it’s been akin to scrapbook reading heaven around here for me!

Yesterday was my birthday.  I am thankful that Hannah didn’t die on my birthday but having just lost her two days earlier, I really wasn’t in a celebratory mode.  Also, I don’t think 39 makes you want to jump up and shout “hurray!” anyway….  We just stayed home and Scott picked up some Thai takeout and a deliciously decadent, dense chocolate cake.  The kids were very excited about singing happy birthday and most importantly, eating cake and licking candles!

Generally for Christmas, birthdays and other such gift giving occassions I receive incredibly romantic gifts from Scott like office chairs, bread knives, cutting boards, tool kits, and even a fanny pack once!  Occassionally he does manage to throw me a curve ball when he comes up with that just right gift.   This was one of those years…  He gave me this:

And this:

Now that I no longer need to listen to music on the boombox my parents gave me my senior year of college, I feel like I’ve finally entered the 21st century!  Thanks Scott!!!!

We were just working on getting together the May kits for the design team and I couldn’t resist taking a photo to share!  These are some of the papers in the May kit.  I love the subtle hues of these papers.  Although maybe I should let customers get their April kits in hand before I start talking about May!  I can’t wait to share the rest of the kit…

Hannah is now going downhill at a rapid pace now.  On Saturday we did our usual 2 mile + route that is extremely hilly.  She was dragging a bit for the last 5 minutes but otherwise was fine.  Today I tried to walk her around the next cul-de-sac and by the time we got back to the house her hind legs were shaking.  Last night she was unable to even attempt the stairs to go up to our room where she always sleeps.  That’s when it really sunk in that she is going to be gone and it is going to be soon.  That realization turned me into a sobbing mess.  She had a bad night and I was up with her for most of it.  I was afraid when I got up that today was going to be the day we needed to call the vet.  Fortunately, in the morning she was a bit better.  As I was getting ready for the day I was trying to think how I could appreciate her and make her happy in the time she had left.  I decided that today would be “Make Hannah Happy” Day.  Alice was finally well again so Jack and I dropped her off at school (Jack is still under the weather although this morning he was much better, just not back to school better) and then launched into our adventure.

First I had to tell him about Hannah.  It was awful to see him sobbing so hard.  He then said to me a bit later, ”Mommy, Hannah is never going to have babies!”  It was such a sad, cute statement!

Our first stop was a local coffee drive thru.  Hannah immediately perked up once she saw where we were and knew that a whipped cream covered biscuit was headed her way!  Next we visited our old neighbors at their salon and she received lots of pats.  Next was the animal supply store where she got to do a wee bit of cat staring, get some treats and pick out a rawhide bone (something she’s never had before).  After that it was over to Wendy’s house where Wendy decided her cat Shelby had to take one for the team. She let Hannah sniff at Shelby and then let Hannah chase her for a bit.  Shelby ran up a tree and Hannah stood there panting and shaking for about 20 minutes in utter bliss.  Next it was off to see Scott at work — she loves to pay him a visit (from the car that is!).  We headed back home, had our little walk, a couple of customers stopped by (got her excited for a couple of minutes each time), and then her standard poodle boyfriend stopped by for a visit.

Up until that point she thought the rawhide was just for carrying around.  Once she realized that you could actually EAT it she was obsessed and refused to put it down and didn’t care who was there to see her.  Later this evening we went and visited our neighbors that she loves and thus concluded “Make Hannah Happy” day.  I think we succeeded in our mission.

Unfortunately all the commotion was a bit too much for Jack and by the time we got home he was feverish again and shaking up a store.  Hard to balance the needs of all your babies…

Perhaps Hannah didn’t always receive all the attention she should have had (real life and small children all too often intruded instead).  Despite that, I do feel better knowing that we are doing all that we can to make her last days as happy as possible.

Sorry for the downer of an email; it’s just where I’m at right now.  If you have a dog give it a big hug and a treat!