Come on baby finish what ya started.

I have a terrible habit of starting a project, taking it so far, and then putting it down for an extended period of time, sometimes never to be finished. This past month, I've forced myself to complete a few projects so that I can move on to new things with a clear conscience.

Take this little door hanger. It's based on a pattern in Sew Pretty Homestyle, a book that was given to me as a gift last Christmas. I started on it shortly thereafter as a Valentine's Day gift for Lauren. Even though it was quite a few months late, Lauren loved it just the same when I gave it to her in June. The "L" is in the Apple Chancery font, which makes really nice monograms. The flowers are based off of a Sublime Stitching pattern.



I bought this printer's tray sometime before Lauren's first birthday. It wasn't until almost a year ago that I actually started doing something with it. I decided that the theme would be things that begin with the letter "R." While I got off to a really good start, my enthusiasm for this project soon faded as I discovered that not only was it hard to come up with that many objects that began with "R," but it was especially hard to find objects beginning with "R" that fit in all those little spaces!

I was so relieved when I finished it this afternoon. Mark is hanging it in our den as I am typing this.

So can you guess what all these objects represent? Some of them can be a little tricky! To help, here's a close-up of the left side:



And the right side:



And now, the granddaddy of projects that I have procrastinated on, my bridal shower scrapbook:



This one is seven years in the making (My bridal shower was held on August 4, 2002). Because I loved the photos so much, it was the first project that I took on when I started scrapbooking in early 2005. After Lauren was born, I began to focus on scrapbooking her exploits, so my bridal shower album was put aside. I decided to revisit it in January of 2008, giving it a complete overall to a style that was more to my liking. Once again, I made great progress at first, but then grew tired of it and put it aside. Fast forward to June 2009 and voila, it's finally finished! Here's the inside:



Despite the fact that it took me forever to finish, I have to say that I love making 8 x 8 theme albums. I also made one for Lauren's first Christmas (which only took me about a year to complete). I'm definitely going to scrapbook more in this format in the future. Here are a few more sample pages:







And speaking of weddings, today is this lovely couple's 40th anniversary:



Happy anniversary Mom and Dad Ross!