A Little Bit of This and That

"I've seen a lot of sad people,
I've seen a lot of strange things,
I've seen a lot of bad people, yeah,
Do a lot of bad things.

You know I've done some climbing,
I've done a little bit of this and that,
You know I've done some running,
You know I always come back.

And I've relied upon you so,
I've decided on you,
Now I wonder
Do you think about me?"
-- Sister Hazel

Taba and I went to see Sister Hazel in concert this past weekend. I love them and I finally had the chance to introduce Taba to them properly (there's nothing like seeing Sister Hazel in concert to capture the essence of their music). We had a blast, and of course their music has been playing over and over in my head every since. These lyrics are from Think About Me - and now for a little bit of this and that from my latest creations. The products used in these layouts were provided to me in return for scrapping layouts as a member of E-Scape and Scrap's Creative Team.

This first layout is about my Grandma - I still miss her so much.

Kay Eflin's Sew Sew kit felt like the perfect kit to work with some of these precious pictures I have of Grandma. I linked together cutouts of her eyes from the 3 pictures to create a border that would highlight my journaling.


Next we have a layout about a summer spent at Grandma's when she lived on the farm - fun times!

My title was inspired by Sus Designs' Birdie Mini Kit. The fun little birds seemed like the perfect match to my memories of that summer.


And finally a layout with some more recent family shots - here are some of the many special girls that make us smile.

The soft design of Ingeborg's newest painted kit Feeling Blue Elements and Papers complimented these sweet pictures I had of our nieces at a party last year. I used the bubble in the kit to create overlays for each of the pictures and added a bevel effect to make it appear as if each girl (and her name) was in a bubble. I loved the various starbursts included and used them to mat my title letters.


Well, that's all for today, folks! Happy Scrapping.

"Well I know that it's been a long
Time since I've been gone,
It's easy to forget - help me remember.

It's funny but I've never been
Good at staying close
That don't mean that I never remember.

And it's been so long
You've been gone
But feels like we're one again,
So long.

And it's been so long,
You kept thinking maybe tomorrow,
Now I'm going to leave again, believe again,
So long!"
-- Lyrics from So Long by Sister Hazel

Simpler Times - Childhood Fun

This may be my favorite Creative Team Reveal yet! This week for E-Scape and Scrap we did a reveal on Child's Play, or Childhood Fun. The idea was to showcase children having fun the old fashioned way - running and playing outside, enjoying games or toys or each other's company (sans video games). I ended up with four layouts on the subject and I honestly could have kept going. I had a number of fun pictures I was ready to work with and there were so many kits to choose from in the ESS Boutique.

Launching Rockets

First up, the rockets! Nicole and Dana had this great idea to buy rockets (like these) that she could launch with the kids on her Spring Break visit to Florida. The kids loved it and so did we, even though we ended up losing 1 1/2 rockets to the wind. We were so glad we didn't take the time to paint them, lol. This layout shows Nicole, Libby and Trinity setting off one of the rockets. I paired these pictures with the kit All Mad by The Busy Elf Designs; it's based on the Alice in Wonderland motif. Of course I had to use the Chesire Cat's smile, in honor of Nicole.



Connecting with Creativity

Next we'll take a look at the K'nex Roller Coaster. This is another one of Nicole's genius ideas (and I'm not being sarcastic, this was awesome). She had me totally scared before the toy arrived at my house; she called to warn me how big it was. And it's true, it does take up some space, but at least I didn't have to remove any furniture. That would have been a deal-breaker, lol.

Trevor was instantly entranced with this build-it-yourself roller coaster. The first time he built it, he built it to spec. The next two times he rebuilt the coaster, he came up with his own design. The roller coaster car really rides around the track. The battery operated chain that takes it up the incline to start it off is so realistic. And there's a video camera built into the car that will take a 30 second video, showing us what we would see if we were riding in that tiny little roller coaster car. Adding a memory card allows it to take a longer video and then the video won't erase each time you turn the car off. Kay Eflin and Ruth Davis' collaboration kit Snips, Snails and Puppy Dog Tails was the perfect match for what I wanted to do here - I used the perspective and distort tools in Photoshop to bend this open door to just the right angle.



Bianca is on the Move

I wanted to create another layout with Kay Eflin and Ruth Davis' collaboration kit Snips, Snails and Puppy Dog Tails but I was ready to work with girl pictures. The kit worked surprisingly well with this picture of Bianca running furiously around her grandparents' apartment complex. I avoided using any of the elements and papers that said "boy" (literally). I thought this cute little snail, handmade by Ruth Davis, was the perfect compliment to my action shot. I created my word bubble out of a cloud.



Speed Stroller Walking

Last up is one of the older children interacting with baby Logan. Trinity and Trevor were both interested in pushing the stroller but Nicole had to keep reminding them that the stroller was not a race car. They weren't convinced. I'm sure Logan will be ready to have them running his stroller around in circles by the end of the year but it's true that right now they still need to be careful with this precious baby boy. Fittingly I used Ladybug Designs Child's Play kit for the last of these 4 reveal layouts.



Until next time, happy scrapping!

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.