Sparkle & Shine

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It's time to par-tay like it's 2012! Here are my top picks for this time when it's OK to to sparkle and shine as much as you want. I have been having a big time love affair with sequins, and I'd drape myself in them if it were socially acceptable. Ha! 

Best part? They're all affordable!!

Remember to enter the $100.00 giveaway. You could be the lucky winner!!

To enter:

-  Like Beso on Facebook.

- Leave a comment on any of my Beso.com collection posts here on NSV, with your Beso.com user name.

Good luck!

Babies. Kids and babies all over the place!

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Lately, my family's been overrun by the arrival of all sorts of new babies. I could not be happier. I am baby obsessed. Love them. Love everything about them. 

So, of course I have been looking at all the cuteness I'll be able to gift them this Christmas. These are just some of my faves.

Enter for your chance to win the $100.00 giveaway. You could be the lucky winner!!

To enter:

- Like Beso on Facebook.

- Leave a comment on any of my Beso.com collection posts, with your Beso.com user name.

That's it!  Good luck, y'all.

The winner of the giveaway is...

Beth Schirmer!!

E-mail me at: anilumagloire@yahoo.com to claim your price!

Thanks for participating and come back to find out what the next giveaway will be.

Want. Need. Must Have!

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I am finally getting settled into my new home in NC and I have been finding all these things I "need" and of course I had to share some of them.

Because I love y'all and it's Christmas time and all, my pals at Beso.com are offering my readers a $100 giveaway! I Put together this collection of “My Favorite Things” on Beso. Click here to start making your own collection, and make sure you include at least six items on your wishlist!

To enter the giveaway, simply:

1.     Like Beso on Facebook.

2.     Drop a link to your collection in the comments section.

I'll post the winner on Sunday, December 9th so check back to see if you're the lucky winner.

Have fun, good luck and show me your goodies!

Color Love: Plum.

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Color Love: Green.

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I Just Found Jewelry Junkie Heaven.

I have always loved jewelry. My Grandma had an amazing collection of fine jewelry that she would sometimes take out so I could look at it and try it on. I swooned, lemme tell ya.

Over the years I have gathered a few great pieces to start my own collection and when I found Gemvara, I died and went to jewelry heaven. Why, you ask? Well, not only are the designs impeccable and modern, you get to chose your metals and gemstones. That is a-ma-zing to me!  How many times have you found something you like but you wish it were silver or gold or had a different gem?  Well, now you get to make your own!

I have chosen my all time fave pieces from Gemvara, customized by moi.

Gorgeousness, no?

I'll have a couple of posts soon about the Gemvara pieces I own and LOVE.

Happy Friday, lovelies.

A newfound love.

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These Will Be Mine.

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Enabler Alert: Nineties Child

A few weeks ago I found the coolest little online shop that carries nothing but the cutest bracelets and handbags you've ever seen.

I got a bag and a "few" (ahem) bracelets and my wallet was oh, so happy with me.

Needless to say the huge enabler in me needs to share this goodness with y'all. Here are just some of my faves from Nineties Child.

Jenny, the owner, is a complete doll and she has a very cool fashion blog also. Once you check it out you'll know why her store is so crazy cool.

You can thank me later. Ha!

Toodles, loves.

The Big 4-0!

Yes, people, I turn 40 glorious years old today. I could not be more excited and ready for it. This is going to be the year it all happens for me.

I have been blessed beyond measure, put through the ringer quite a few times and come out of it stronger for it.

I'd change nothing of these past 39 years, they have made who I am today and I treasure each and every one of them.

So, here's to a pretty damn great decade coming my way!

Thank you all for being around for some part of it. I'm off to celebrate my day in a big way.

Toodles, lovelies.

Anilu Magloire: Curator. Ha!

I am over the moon happy these days. Finally. One of those wonderful things making me giddy is the launch of my collection at Gemvara!!

Come take a look and fall in love like I have.

Blue Vanilla Love

You gotta love Pinterest. The amazing things one finds browsing... Ahhhh!  One of those A-mah-zing finds was the coolest costume jewelry store: Blue Vanilla.

The gals that run it are awesome and pick the coolest goodies for you to own. Some of my all time fave bracelets, I bought at Blue Vanilla.

Just cause I love y'all, and you know I am a HUGE enabler, here are my fave pieces at the moment...

Enjoy!

I'm sure you're gonna love them as much as I do.

Have a great day my lovelies!

I can see clearly now, the rain is gone...

I have been baaaad at posting and updating the blog, but man, have I been busy. Suddenly everything is falling into it's rightful place and amazing things are happening to me. God loves me, I tell ya.

I promise to get better about posting. I have sooo many cool things to share with you, and you know I'm the biggest enabler there is. Ha!

OK, Just wanted to share this with y'all.

Have a great day, my lovelies.

Font Love Thursday is back!

I have always wanted to make one of these super cool type posters. I totally lifted this from the a-ma-zing peeps at Fine & Dandy Paperie on Etsy. They have the coolest invites and printables evah. Pay them a visit.

Fonts used:
Deming
Helvetica neue
Labtop 3D
Bebas
English
Ecuyer Dax

I'm off to play with type some more. Whoo!

It's been 5 years!

I cannot believe this blog has been live for five years already. I have loved keeping it and I really love being able to look back.

To celebrate, this had to be a post about one of the coolest things that's ever happened to me.

On March 14, my dear friend Diana posts on my Facebook wall that I'm in The Huffington Post. Um, come again?. Yes, I was featured on a very cool article about The 27 Most Gorgeous Boards On Pinterest. I was over the moon happy and insanely surprised.

It was an amazing surprise and it has brought lots of cool things and opportunities to me. 

Here's to many, many more years of blogging and to the many wonderful people I have met thanks to it. I love you all and you are one of the BIG reasons I keep this up.

Have a wonderful day, my lovelies.

Gotta share the goodness...

Cause I love y'all... I found these beauties through oBaz, a great new shopping deals site. I'll tell you all about it soon.

They're these crazy cool, big and bold bracelets made by two super sweet gals, who created Bfrend. As soon as I saw them I fell in love and knew I had to have one... Or two.

I got them in white and turquoise, but they come in lots more amazing colors and I plan on getting them all, asap.

You can also find them on Facebook, here.

Enjoy and have a great week, lovelies.

The Camera Loves My Baby.

And she looooves it. How lucky am I to be a scrapbooking mom with a girlie who cannot get enough of posing for her mommy?

She was feeling particularly stylin' in her new heart polka dotted sunglasses, so I had to snap one or two, or 10 pics. Maybe I should take a look into some accredited online photography classes to learn some advanced techniques in taking pictures.

I am so loving making pages with Karla's page protectors. All digital elements are Baers Garten.

I'm feeling like making some new blog themes, so I'm off to fire up Photoshop.

Good day, lovelies.

This Makes Me So Happy.

I am no professional, and all I know is self taught, but nothing gives me a bigger rush than coming up with a design I love. Even more so when the person asking for that design loves it too.

The super sweet Virginia Ashley of V.A. Photography recently asked me to design a logo for her photography business and this is what I came up with, with her direction...

It was lots of fun working with her and you should definitely check out her beautiful photographs. 

Here's to a great week. Later, lovelies.

Just Cause I Love Y'all...

No Shrinking Violet and Stop and Scrap have partnered to bring you a sweet discount you can use whenever you want on all your purchases at Stop and Scrap.

All you have to do is enter code VIOLET at checkout and you'll get 12% off your purchases.

How crazy cool is that with all the new CHA goodies making their appearance? 

Hope you enjoy this amazing perk from my fave store, Stop And Scrap.

Oh, how I love...

Page protectors of all kinds, shapes and sizes. I ache to have my real ones back, but in the meantime, I have found these jewels from Karla Dudley. How genius are they? Lots.

They make it so easy to create pages with multiple pics and papers and I do not have to sweat the design part too much.

I have made my own arrangements with the various protector kits she has available and it's made scraping so much fun! She always does that for me. Thanks, K. Dud :-)

Here's my page using Nati's Show and Tell day pics. Can you tell we both LOVE that little striped dress? Ha!

All elements are One Little Bird. Page protectors are Karla Dudley.

Hope you like. Later, gators.

New Karla goodies!

Ah, nothing makes me wanna scrap more than a shiny new digi kit and feast your eyes on this...

I think I'm gonna give this weekly documenting thing a try with this kit and Karla's page protectors. Does not get easier than that.

Here's my first attempt...

All digital elements are Karla Dudley Designs.

Happy Tuesday, lovely people!

Another page. Color Me Surprised.

Again, using that template I made based on Jennifer McGuire's page, which you can see here. Thanks to her for giving me the inspiration. And, that same Paislee Press kit, which I'm obsessed with.

Just a few random shots of Nati at school. I lifted myself, as you can see. Ha!

I can't believe it, but I think I'm off to scrap some more. Yay!

Where I've been...

Along with all the crazy/awful/exhausting, there has been some respite for me. I was able to go to Charlotte, NC again, in November and in February.

I am convinced I'd have gone insane already if it weren't for those blissful days I got to spend over there. The only thing they were missing to be perfect, were my Nati with me.

Lots of rest, peace, love, great food, drives in the city... Ah! Such a wonderful time. It definitely is one of my fave places in the world after my beloved Miami.

I based my LO on a super cool page by Jennifer McGuire I saw here. Hers was paper (sigh...) so I made myself a digital template in Photoshop, cause I loved the layout so much.

All papers and elements are Paislee Press.

For once after almost three years I got to shop! So, I will be back very soon to show you my goodies and tell you all about my renewed love for makeup.

Have a great one, beautiful peeps.

I'm coming back...

Hi, y'all! I've missed you and I've missed posting on my poor abandoned blog that I love so much.

Things around here have been crazy, to say the least, but it's all slowly but surely falling back into it's rightful place.

I just now got the urge to fire up Photoshop and play, and it felt wonderful to be doing something creative and even better to not be frustrated by a humongous lack of mojo.

I have lots of fun posts planned and I hope I can go back to daily posting. I love looking back here and having a record of what life was like at a certain point in time.

Here's a little page I made yesterday evening with Karla Dudley's über cool digital page protectors...

My perfect little girl got the part of Juliet in her school play and I had to use those pics. No one loves striking a pose more than my Nati. Can you tell?

I'll be back tomorrow with more of what's been happening in this time that I've been away.

Toodles, lovelies.

My New Favorite Show. Evah.

A few weeks ago I discovered this gem of a TV show called Downton Abbey. If you're about my age, you should remember Upstairs, Downstairs, another amazing English show. I used to watch it religiously with my godmother, and I loved it.

So, to fill the space left by Upstairs, Downstairs, I found Downton Abbey. The story is just wonderful, the photography, writing and costumes are to die for and it has something for everyone.

I got seriously hooked and watched both seasons and the crazy good Christmas special in about a week. Of course now I'm jonesing for season 3, which starts in September.

Listen to your friendly neighborhood blogger and watch this show asap. You can thank me later by sending me praising e-mails, flowers and chocolate. Ha!

Have a lovely day, my peeps.

In love.

Just a little post to share this amazing find with my fellow hand cream addicts. I wash my hands a million times a day which makes my poor hands super dry. I cannot stand that feeling so I'm a hand cream aficionado. Always looking for the next great one.

This Christmas I found this gem in my sister's bedroom. She had gotten it as a present and I had to go and get mine asap.

It's Crabtree & Evelyn's India Hicks Hand Therapy. Lawd, it's good! It not only moisturizes my skin but it smells absolutely delicious. It comes in a nice, big vintagey metal tube and I'm a sucker for cool packaging.

To make it even better I got mine in a HUGE sale. Score! God, I'm a dork...

If you love hand cream like moi, give this one try. You will adore it.

Toodles, loves.

Tired. So, so tired.

I wanted to start the year better than I did the last, but the stars do not seem to want to align in my favor no matter how hard I try.

As those of you who read this blog regularly know, my emotional state is a big part of my creativeness. I hope it wasn't, cause life has been kicking me in the ass for a long time and I take advantage of what little periods of peace I have here and there to let my creative self come out.

(not the guy, just a little protection form the rain....)

It hasn't happened in a while now, and so, my scrapping, my blog, my work suffers. No matter how hard I try to push everything else aside and lose myself in Photoshop or find cool things to blog about, I just can't do it to save my life.

It's really very frustrating. Frustrating as hell.

I try hard to see some good in things, to roll with the punches but it's been too long and I think I'm losing my ability to deal. I'm just little ole me and it's been too much already.

I really love blogging, and doing so about things that whomever reads my blog will like and find interesting, but it just ain't happenin'.  Alas...

But, I don't really have a choice in the matter, so I'll keep trying to dig myself out of this hole I find myself in at the moment, so maybe soon, I can go back to feeling like myself, to feeling happy, to having peace.

Guess this post is a bit like Seinfeld... About nothing in particular.

Wish me luck?

2012... Bring. It. On!

This is going to be a tough year, but I know that at the end of the tunnel there will be more light than there has ever been in mine and Nati's lives.

So, 2012, I say to you, bring it on, baby... I'm ready for ya.

Since I'm all bold and stuff, I thought I should start this year with a bold new design for NSV. I hope y'all like it as much as I do.

Here's hoping you all have a great year. I know I'm gonna try my best to make it a super duper one.

Toodles, loves.