Grandparents

I miss my grandparents, although I'm thankful I at least knew them and didn't lose them until I was an adult. I hope Tabatha, Trevor, Trinity and Logan realize how lucky they are to have all of theirs. Sometimes it's hard for me to remember my parents are Grandma and Grandpa - when I hear those words I think of Grandma Hession and Grandma and Grandpa Cumpton. I usually think of people in relationshop to myself - my sister, my niece, my nephew, etc. It drives Lisa crazy when I introduce her and the children to people - "This is my sister Lisa, my nieces Tabatha and Trinity, and my nephew Trevor." She always says, "You could tell people they are my children." Maybe... nah. More important that people know who they are to me, lol.

Here is Logan with his grandparents, these pictures really show the love my parents have for their grandson. If only I could get the other kids to stand still long enough to get some good shots like these.

Logan with Grandma Toni


About this layout:
Kit – Generations by CopperCurls Designs
Font – LaurenScript


Grandpa's Love


About this layout:
Template – April challenge template by Sweet Cherry Designs for ACOT
Kit – Generations by CopperCurls Designs
Fonts – Magneto, PC Brita

Journaling:
Grandparents are a special part of a child’s life. Logan is blessed to have all four of his grandparents and they all love him dearly. Dad spent time with him as a newborn. Here he is 4 months later, looking more confidant as Logan grows bigger & stronger. The love, though, that remains constant.

Look at Her Go!

6 days into April and I've already finished almost as many layouts as I completed in the whole month of March. March layout count - 17. April layout count as of now - 15. I choose to think of my April numbers as impressive, instead of dwelling on the low numbers of March. After all, Nicole and I were busy having fun, fun, fun! And that gave me plenty of new pictures to scrap this month. Not that I was running out, lol.

First let's take a look at my very favorite layout so far this month. I wrote the poem myself.

The Time Before They Went Away

The layout was inspired by Ruth Davis' Earth Angels papers and elements, and the empty chair inspired the poem.

I was excited to learn that my layout Let's Ride was chosen as a "Layout to Love" on the E-Scape and Scrap blog by Julie Mead.

Let's Ride was a fun layout - I think I may have scrapped that picture before but it was the one that jumped out of my stash at me when I decided I wanted to use that window frame on the page. I used Kay Eflin's Tuscan Steam Punk Papers and Elements to create this layout.

Last but not least are a few layouts from last month - several paper layouts I scrapped to finish up the month and to add to my Disney album. Which is out of pages, so technically these are to start my next Disney album.

The Little Mermaid


Ariel with Melissa


Ariel with Solange and Melissa

Catching Up

I have a number of layouts that haven't been posted anywhere - some because they are paper layouts and I haven't taken the time to photograph them, and some because they were for kits that have since come out but I haven't taken the time to upload them to galleries yet. So here are some exclusives (for the time being at least, until I can get them up elsewhere). These four layouts were done using Kay Eflin's new White Space Templates.

Target Exclusive


A Small Stage, A Big Production


Christmas for the Boys


Fashion Sense

A Whole Lotta Scrappin' Going On

For February I had a layout goal of 30 layouts. That's a lofty goal for the shortest month of the year, even more unrealistic when you factor in 5 birthday parties. Suffice it to say, I didn't quite make it. But I did respectable in any event - 25 layouts, 1 card and 1 gift bag. I'm happy with what I accomplished.

What helped (a lot) was the ACOT Crop held over the last weekend of February. It happened to be my least busy weekend of the month, so for a change perfect timing. The most exciting part of the crop was that I did a lot of paper scrapping, something I don't take as much time for these days since digi is faster and less messy. I missed my paper, and I had lots of fun playing with it. Here are a few of my favorite layouts from the weekend:

A Royal Reception (Libby)


Faces of Our Past


Work in Progress


A Means to an End (Bianca)


Even Mom got into the action, I was proud of her for finishing 2 layouts and a gift bag. Here's a really cool one she did where she made the book embellishment freestyle:


Definitely a creative weekend at our house, and a fun one too.

Project 365 No, Recaps Yes

Well at the beginning of 2010 I had the lofty dream that I would complete Project 365 this year. That's where you take one picture a day and you scrap all of them. It's not for lack of ideas on how to do that - Cheryl McCain at ESS provided these really cool rolodex cards for just that project. It's just that I can't remember to take a picture every day. I did however manage to finish all my recap pages for 2009. Here are May - December.

















That's an entire year of memories captured - journaling and pictures. I'm very proud of that accomplishment, and I know I'll be happy to have done that with the year still fresh in my mind. One thing that helped me to so easily finish those layouts was that I organize my pictures by date and event, with miscellaneous pictures in a general monthly folder. The nice thing about digital pictures is that the date and time of the picture is captured in the file and kept when the pictures are transferred to the computer. All of this makes it easier to go back and pull out the pictures that belong to each month. I helped my journaling along by looking at my planner pages from last year (and I keep those for every year, I have them going all the way back to 1993 when I was first introduced to the Priority Manager planner at work).

It's never too late, I'd like to go back and recap every year since I started taking digital pictures (2003). The journaling will take longer on the older pictures as I dig back into my memory banks for the details, but when I'm done I'll have a full picture of each of those years to look back on.

It Did Get Me Thinking

I'm not a big fan of constructive criticism. Personally, I would rather think I'm a superhero than to think I could have made a bad decision or taken a wrong step. But I'm guessing it happens sometimes. And I'm the first person to look at my scrapbook pages with a critical eye, but I guess it still hurts my feelings if I think someone else is looking at it that way too.

Recently I posted this layout at ACOT:

One of the comments I received on the layout said that the pictures and text were too small. Ironically, something I struggle with on digi layouts is to make them look equally good on the screen and on the printed page. I'm guessing for many of my layouts when I print them I'm going to be thinking "Why is that text so big?" Honestly, to make text look good on the screen it has to be 18 font or larger, and on the printed page 18 font is pretty dang big. If I had printed more of my digi layouts I would know for sure how the text sizes translate, but I just haven't gotten around to that yet. Which means I can't 100% defend my choice on this page of using 12 point font size and smaller pictures. Well, I can defend the picture choices because the point of this page is the scene and if those pictures were any larger the tree would look like it was about to topple over, lol. But I don't know about the text size.

I shouldn't be bothered by the comment - surely the person making the comment only meant to be helpful. But as I've said, I don't take criticism well, even the constructive sort. It's a weak area for me - I know I need to work on it. As soon as I get new ink for my printer, I'll need to print this layout out and see whether my font and picture size choices really were "too small." At least then I'll know for sure how font sizes are translating to the paper page.

Not that all of this should turn anyone off of providing constructive criticism when it's requested. Just be aware that even if we ask for it, that doesn't mean we'll like what we hear. ;-) Regardless of the outcome of this experiment, the comments from this well-meaning person have proven one thing - I'm right to be concerned that there might be a conflict in digi between what a page looks like online and what it looks like on paper.

I Am a Violet

A friend sent me a link to a fun gardening quiz, the purpose is to find out what kind of flower represents you. I only partially agree with my results. According to the quiz:

I am a Violet What Flower Are You?

"You have a shy personality. You tend to hesitate before trying new things or meeting new people. But once people get to know you, you open up and show the world what you are really all about."

The people part of this is true - I do take a long time to warm up to new people. But I like to think I'm willing to try new things.

So, what kind of flower are you?
Click Here to Take the Flower Quiz