Put a smile on!

It seems fitting that I share in this post two layouts I recently created using Smiley Faces from Magistical Memories, and Paper Trunk – sponsor for this month’s design team at the Scrapbook Playground. Smiley faces… they remind me of the 70’s when my school folders and such were adorned with beaming yellow circles. The first is of our son a few days after his sister arrived – I don’t think I have ever seen him so happy and proud to be an older brother. The second is that baby sister, at age five. If you have a little girl you may already be fully aware of what masters they are in manipulation- and this layout is all about that. But her daddy has her number and knows the game…and can call her on it – making that pouty lip turn upside down into a smile.




What made you smile today? Or perhaps beyond that…what made you laugh?

The 10th anniversary sale finished up at the Scrapbook Superstore today – which means I made it through my first 10 days of employment, which began with one of the busiest times one could imagine! As I look back on the past ten days I cannot believe all that I learned about retail sales. I work with awesome staff who put a lot of effort into their work and have a passion for paper crafts. As three of us closed up the store late this afternoon I think the stress of the past week finally caused all of us to meltdown – into fits of laughter. It began with locking up, setting the alarm, and my newly issued key giving me grief. Have you noticed that just about every door and lock has a quirk? Some you have to nudge, others you have to lift up on the door knob, or with this one it seems you cannot push the key in too far or you can’t get it back out. That’s kind of what happened this evening (ok – late afternoon became early evening by the time we got out of there) – I could not get my key out, and of course you only have so many seconds to get out the door and get it locked. I went right, left, right, lifted the door handle (saw a gal do that last Sunday when locking up –figured it might be the “quirk”) – did just about everything and inadvertently unlocked the door. Well, you cannot do that…as it sets the alarm off and it calls security. So I hurried in to disarm it but instead of pushing “off” I pushed “stay” (hey, I confess ignorance to security alarm systems – guess we should cat sit for the neighbors more often when they are away). Well, we were not sure what that would do, but the system was not giving me the ready signal to reset the alarm. I pushed another sequence, and by now we were laughing so hard I couldn’t even straighten up. Finally I got the green light to reset the alarm, got out the door and somehow managed to get my key out this time without unlocking it. My goodness – who would think that locking a door could be so difficult?

The three of us are laughing so hard, and meanwhile my poor family (who had come to pick me up after work), sat in the car wondering what was taking so long to lock up a door. I realized in those moments of laughter how much I enjoy working with the gals I was with, and I am certain we are going to make a great team. All that laughter felt real good, and was a needed release for the stress of the previous two hours, as it was one of those nights when closing just did not go smoothly.



One more Paper Trunk layout to share…this one makes me laugh because I remember clearly taking my daughter’s photo that day. The one who never wants her picture taken got a hold of the magnifying glass and said, “hey mom – take a picture of me – I’ll give you a close up of my eagle eye so you can see it real good.” It was just too funny, and I was more than happy to take the photo of a rare willing subject.

So what made you smile or laugh today? Tell me about it!