Perfect layout

This layout was done last weekend on Sunday. It was an exciting weekend in which my sister surprised me by coming up with my cousin to help me celebrate my birthday. So they arrived in Seattle late Thursday and drove up on Friday. I met them at Montana's for a later lunch, not knowing who was going to be there. It was such a treat to discover them in the booth waiting for me. We enjoyed lunch, I even had the embarrassing moose antler's birthday singing and dessert. We stopped by Precious Memories scrap booking store as they had both come with a scrap booking agenda. They both came ready work on their wedding albums.

We then came straight back to my place where they declared my place the best scrap booking store ever. I disagree, but humoured them anyway. We got little done on Friday night, but spent all Saturday scrapping away. It was great. Sunday we went to a late lunch and then to Starbuck's and then came back to scrap the night away. Early Monday they drove back down to Seattle to the airport. It was a great weekend. My sister got her album complete, and my cousin got over half of hers done. We also got 3 Jane Austen movies watched: Sense and Sensibility, Pride & Prejudice, and Persuasion. My sister and I love P&P. It is our all time favourite, and my cousin agreed that it was great. I personally love Persuasion almost as much as P&P. My sister and cousin couldn't quite get into it. I think they just need to watch it again and again and again, then they will love it too! :)

It took me a while to get my project going. My sister gave me two stamps sets for my birthday, Stampin Up's Happy Harmony and Polka Dots & Paisley!!! So exciting!! I have been drooling over the Polka Dots & Paisley set and I was so excited to get it!! She also brought up the two new SU punches: Round Tab Punch and Spiral Punch. I punched my little heart out. I even joked with her about what would happen if I broke those punches by punching too much!! By the end of the weekend she actually left the punches with me! Whoo hoo!

My sister who's a Stampin Up Demo also brought the new SU Spring Mini Designers paper: Notations and Au Chocolat. She left portions of each package with me! She is too generous!!

Needless to say it took me forever to come up with a project. Too many ideas and too hard to narrow it down. Plus it was strange because both my sister and my cousin brought their ideas already planned out. Too much pressure for me to be creative. Finally we got out the April issue of Creating Keepsakes magazine and my sister and we decided to follow their article "Easy Patterns". My layout isn't exactly like the article, but it got me going into a direction. Which is what I needed.