Random Memories

Pet scrapbook page - "Riley"

2012-02-16T18:07:00.000-06:00

Today, I'd like to share one of my favorite layouts with you. This, is our adopted greyhound, Riley. He's fitting into our family so nicely!! It's nice to have this loving face to greet us each day. =)

It's unusual for me to do single page layouts, but I enjoyed using this sketch from Practical Scrappers. I used a 5x7 and 3 wallets, which were trimmed down into square pictures.

Here's the supplies list:

Cardstock: Coredinations

Patterned Paper: Paper Studio, Making Memories "Great Escape", Kaisercraft "Timeless"

Chipboard banner: Close to My Heart

Die Cut: Cricut - Art Philosophy cartridge (patterned paper for banner, star, heart, title font

Buttons: StampinUp!

Spray Ink: Smooch Spritz - Bronze

Miscellaneous: Hemp, Glossy Accents, Creative Memories pen, Adtech tape runner adhesive

Thanks for stopping by my blog today!!

Valentines Wreath - Rosette Heart

2012-02-10T19:18:00.002-06:00

Wow! It's been a really long time and for that...I apologize. I've had some long days at work lately and haven't had any desire to even turn on the computer when I got home.

I made this rosette heart wreath a few weeks back. Today I decided it needed a little something else. I got out some of my supplies, cut a banner out of silver glitter paper with Art Philosophy cartridge, and stamped LOVE... Now it feels done. =)

I strung the banner with black floss and stapled it on to the rosettes.

Now if I can just keep the wreath on the front door.....BONUS! I tend to fly out the door in the morning and the wreath has landed on the ground twice now. =(

Anybody still planning to make Valentine's cards? I'm still hoping to get a few done. Still wondering how to work that into my schedule. We'll see how it goes.

Blessings!! Thanks for stopping by today!

Double layout - "Legacy"

2012-01-29T18:26:00.000-06:00

Have you ever scrapbooked a funeral layout? Me niether, until now. If scrapping is truly about keeping our memories alive for future generations, than why not scrap the sad memories as well?

My husband's father passed away this summer and we miss him so much! He left quite a legacy of faith in God, treasuring family, and a love of music. I hope this layout does justice to this great man of God!

Mark's Dad was a veteran so the star embellishments seemed perfect for the layout in addition to the blue ribbon placed vertically between two brads. There is no patterned paper on this layout. That is rare for me, but sometimes it just feels right without it.

All of Mark's siblings sang in the wedding, and the grandkids were all involved musically as well. My sons, Jacob and Joel, sang and played guitar, and his other two grandsons played trumpet, piano, sang, and played drums. The family is very gifted musically and the love of music was definitely passed down from Mark's Dad.

Hope this post will remind you to scrap the sad times as well as the great moments in your life. He will be missed here on earth, but we can't wait to se him again in heaven!!

Frosty Winter Cards

2012-01-23T18:24:00.001-06:00

Hello and happy Monday to you!

Today I'd like to share some cards that I made for my dear sisters-in-law. They have December birthdays which we usually celebrate when we're together at Christmas. I know...I wouldn't like that, but we can't get together for every occasion.

I made this one with the Art Philsophy cartridge. In fact, this is the featured project in the book that comes with it. It was really easy!! I used the same specifications as in the book. I believe it's a 3" card.

The sentiment is StampinUp. The gorgeous blooms are also cut with the Art Philsophy cartridge. I rolled them up myself! This was a first for me, but it ws pretty simple and I like the way they turned out. To get the frosty effect, I used Glossy Accents on the edges and on the teal swirl accent, then dipped the edges right into my holographic embossing powder, shaking off the excess. The glue gun helped it to dry all frosty looking.

This one is also from the Art Philsophy cartridge. I cut the layer for the white, and then again slightly smaller for the patterned paper on the top, slicing off one edge to make room for the sentiment. I used the same birthday sentiment from SU.

It may be hard to see here, but the patterned paper is painted with Tim Holtz clear crackle finish. I used white glitter paper for the poinsetta look flower, inked the edges with TH distress ink (Pumice). I also painted the flower with the crackle finish. The brad is attached through a hole punched in the center of each flower layer. Each of the petals is curved up in the middle of the petal and popped with a dimensional to give it a 3D look.

Thanks for stopping by today!!

"Party Animal" double birthday scrapbook layout

2012-01-19T23:09:00.000-06:00

Today I have a birthday layout to share of my son, Jacob's, most recent birthday. Can't believe my baby's 19 years old!!

We had another backyard movie night. I think more kids come every year!! So much fun to host and feed them all. We usually make it easy and get pizza. That's my hubby lighting the candles.

Supplies List:

Sketch is from Valerie Salmon, Got Sketch blog (shared with permission)

Paper: Little Yellow Bicycle "Zach's Life Collection", Doodlebug Designs (peace symbols)

Diecuts: Cricut Birthday Cakes (Party Animal)

Punch: SU (oval and scalloped oval)

Thanks for stopping by!!

Owl birthday card

2012-01-16T19:07:00.000-06:00

Hope everybody is starting off their New Year in a positive way! All I can say about mine right now is that I'm really busy at my day job. No complaints, though. I'm so happy to have a job that I love at least 9 days out of 10. =)

Today I have a cutie owl birthday card to share with you.

I made this for my Dad's birthday in December. The stamp is from Tattered Angels. I'm not a huge fan of coloring stamps, but I like the way this one turned out. The edges are all distressed and inked with Tim Holtz pumice stone ink. I cut the sentiment banner freehand. The sentiment stamp is from StampinUp! The patterned paper scraps are My Minds Eye "Bohemian". I used Kraft for the base.

Thanks for stopping by today!

Practical Scrappers Layout contest

2012-01-15T14:34:00.000-06:00

Are any of you participating in the Practical Scrappers layout contest? I submitted a layout and they have it posted today for voting. I would be honored if you would go to this link and vote for my layout and any others that you like. Mine is at the bottom of Group 2 of the layouts. Thanks!! Voting is done at 11:59 tonight! I appreciate it!

http://www.practicalscrappers.com/2012/01/layout-contest-group-2.html

My BSU layout is actually a two pager, but they're only posting this side.

Thanks for your help!!

Organize and Weed Out Your Paper Scraps!!

2012-01-12T18:51:00.002-06:00

Are you frugal when it comes to saving your paper scraps? I am too! It's so nice to be able to pull out a pretty scrap when you're making a card, or just the right size of cardstock for a diecut. However, it can be a nightmare finding a quick and easy way to organize the scraps so you can find them again.

I found this clear plastic accordion folder recently at Meijer in the office supplies section.

I was sold when I saw it had a section for both small and large scraps. I brought it home and did nothing with it for about 6 months. Well, I finally pulled it out and sorted through my scraps one night in front of the TV.

Here's what my scrap folder used to look like.

The biggest gripe I had with my old folder is that the pockets were black plastic. You can't see through them at all. Not to mention, it was so stinkin' packed with pretties that I could no longer put the elastic around it without it exploding. =]

I took everything out and sorted it by color categories....all blues together, all shades of reds and pink together, etc. The more pockets, the more specific you can get with your colors. Seeing all those stacks made me realize I don't need to keep absolutely every piece of paper!! If the scrap was too big for the smaller front section of the folder, I'd move it into the back section with other like colors. This way, if I need a small piece of black cardstock to cut a bird, I look in the front black section. However, if I need to cut a title, I go straight to the back section of black scraps.

I have not yet titled the tabs for each pocket. Everything seems so easy to find, that it just doesn't seem necessary for me, but it would certainly make sense to do that if it helps you.

Scrap Tips:

If it's not a strip wide enough (or lovely enough) to add to a card later, toss it. It's okay!
Cardstock pieces should be at least 3 x 3 to use for diecutting, which is how I use most of my scrap cardstock pieces.
File patterned paper scraps with the most predominant color.
Slide patterned paper strips in the front part of the corresponding pockets (in front of the cardstock) so you can easily see it through the plastic.
Before adding anything to your scrap folder, take a minute and trim it into a rectangle or square so it will lay neatly in the envelope (no messy edges to catch on)
Don't forget to ask yourself if it's really big enough (and pretty enough) to use later.

Here's my nicely organized and paired-down scrap envelope!! Aren't you proud of me?

It's so much more inviting to open it up and easily find what I'm looking for. Hope this helps you as you fight the battle of the bulge with your scrap envelope.

Have a great evening!

Christmas - double layout

2012-01-02T19:52:00.003-06:00

I hope you have enjoyed special moments and memories with family and friends during this season of celebration! Our time has been full of so many good things. As usual, we've been blessed to overflowing. There were some tough moments as we remembered those special people who we lost this year...a very close family friend, my husband's Dad, and other special relatives. Although, we're missing them here with us, we know that they are celebrating their first Christmas with Jesus. Again, a reason to celebrate!!

Here's a fun layout from our Christmas 2010 with our extended family at my sister-in-law's home in Michigan. Mark's Dad was still with us (center right photo). =)

The patterned paper is from Echo Park and BoBunny. I won a whole stack of great winter-themed paper last year!! It was so much fun using it. I added ribbon around the left side of the layout and added some baker's twine for the center of the bow.

The grid of photos continues on the right side. I added some additional strips of patterned paper on the upper right to highlight the journalling block, then tilted the journalling. The cup of cocoa is a sticker from the same pack of paper. A BoBunny brad tops off the center of the snowflake. The scalloped border on the right was created with Accent Essentials (Cricut).

Thanks for stopping by my blog today!! Happy New Year blessings to you and your family! I promise the blog candy for 10,000+ views will be coming soon!

Double Christmas scrapbook layout - Chillin

2011-12-27T16:01:00.000-06:00

Hope all of you had a very Merry Christmas!!

I saved a few Christmas layouts from last year to share with you today. As I was looking at the pictures, I suddenly realized I hadn't titled one of them. How could I forget a title? I'll have to get back to you later this week with that one.

There were not a lot of spectacular pictures to scrap from the small get together with my parents last year. We were kind of partied out at the time.

Here are closeups of both sides. The snowflakes were cut with my Cricut and stickled with a glittery silver. I believe the patterned paper is BoBunny.

Here's a closeup of the right side.

Thanks for stopping by my blog today. Keep checking back...I'll be posting about blog candy to celebrate reaching 10,000 pageviews once I figure out what I'm going to give away. I appreciate all of you!!! There are many SB blogs out there and I'm so happy that you choose to follow mine!

Gift wrap idea

2011-12-22T10:47:00.000-06:00

Hello! We are counting down the days until Christmas. I'm off work until next Tuesday, and loving it!! This will give me some time to bake and prepare for the special meals we're planning this weekend....All in celebration of the season of our Savior's birth!!

The presents are all wrapped, and we had so much fun doing it. My husband and I both enjoy wrapping. We made a great team! He wrapped them with paper (perfectly, I might add), and I followed up with all of the ribbon, bows, tags, and embellishments.

I especially love the way this one turned out. This particular wrapping paper is two-sided! I used the opposite side to make an attractive ribbon and bow. If you don't happen to have two-sided paper, any coordinating paper will do. I didn't use any scrapbook paper, but you could.

I folded a long leftover strip of wrapping paper with the polka dot side showing and wrapped it tightly around the package like a ribbon and taped it in the back. Then I cut 3 consecutive circles. I didn't have my scrappy tools out, so I simply traced around 3 different sized ribbon spools, and cut them out. I gently folded each circle into quarters and fringed the edges all the way around, then gently wadded up each fringed circle, straightened them back out again, and attached them all largest to smallest (smallest on top). I found a cute large button to match and placed it in the center, and rescrunched the fringed bow up and around it a little.

I didn't make the tag, but it's super cute and sparkly. I can't wait to give this gift to my BSBFF!!! You know who you are....We need to "do lunch"!!

Christmas Cards

2011-12-19T16:15:00.000-06:00

Merry Christmas week to everybody! Are you ready to celebrate?? I'm getting a little bit more done every day. I can't wait!!
I was not able to make all of my Christmas cards this year, but I did crank out some multiples of a couple of designs. They are so much fun to make, but always more time consuming than it seems like they should be. =)

This card was inspired by a design for an invitation that I saw recently.

Most of the patterned paper is My Minds Eye, Laundry Line. It's all glittery and shiny! Perfect for standout trees. The sentiment is from Technique Tuesday. I splurged on theTPC Studios metal accents with glitter. =) Love the way they added some additional bling to my card.

The second card was inspired by Scrapbooks, Etc. I used a couple of different kinds of scrap paper. These are both from Echo Park.

I added a dry embossed background and used glitter paper for my snowflakes, along with the remaining TPC Studio metal snowflakes used on the previously shown card. The sentiment is one I got on clearance last year from Michaels.
And last, but not least is my own design. I was inspired by a tee-shirt! Do you ever get weird inspirations like that? It happens to me regularly, but I don't always have time to follow through on the idea.

Obviously, a very non-traditional color scheme, but I think it worked nicely with the retro look I was going for. I used glitter paper for the dove, which was cut from Sweethearts cartridge (Cricut). The peace symbol stamps are Inkadinkadoo and heat embossed with holographic embossing powder. The retro "peace" sentiment is Close to My Heart. I sponged some pink and green ink around the embossed peace symbols.

Thanks so much for stopping by today! I just noticed on my blog stats page that I have surpassed 10,000 page views on my blog!!! Wow! Thanks for all of the views. I believe this deserves a nice giveaway after the holidays!!! =) Hmmmm.... What shall I give away?

Double layout - "Prom"

2011-12-08T17:30:00.001-06:00

Time sure flies...more than a week since I've posted? How is that possible?

I recently found this layout which I'd forgotten to share previously. I've posted other prom layouts, but somehow, overlooked this one. There were a bunch of extra pictures after putting together the layout for my son's scrapbook, so I decided to make one for the family book too!

Sometimes I use sketches to get me started on a layout. This one is from PageMaps.

Just about everything you see here is Cloud 9 Design, Cocoa Mint. It's hard to see it here but some of the flowers on the patterned cardstock are embossed and shiny. I used a thin marker to create faux stitching for the flower stems and leaves.

The white scallop border is from Cricut's Accent Essentials. I also added a border of punched scalloped circles cut in half.

Thanks for stopping by today.

Two Cartagena layouts - "Ancient Doors" & "San Pedro Claver"

2011-12-01T18:17:00.001-06:00

Does everybody have their home decorated for Christmas? If so, I'm impressed. We are just getting started. We have a lot of Christmas decorations, so it's quite a chore...but, it will be so great when the house is shimmering and cozy. I'll have to post a picture when we get it finished.

Today, I have two more layouts of pictures from Cartagena, Columbia to share with you. I believe these are the last layouts for this port on our 25th anniversary cruise. In fact, these were taken right on the BIG day! It will be 26 years on December 7. We won't be cruising again this year...We'll probably have a nice dinner and stay home and watch a movie. LOL!

On to the layout. Here's the left side. The patterned paper background is My Minds Eye. There were so many beautiful old doors in "old town", I just had to do a layout because the pictures were too great not to scrap. My kids thought it was more than a little ironic that I had the word "ancient" right above my husband. LOL!

They were all so different and amazing in their own way! I used brads to echo the look of the iron work on the doors.

I used some masking tape with a postage stamp design as an accent, layering in with the journalling.

Here are the two pages together. I had some travel stickers in my stash. I rarely use stickers anymore, but I liked the way these looked on here. I really need to go through my stickers and do some purging!

Now...on to San Pedo Claver. Here's the left side. This church was also part of our Cartagena city tour. So much history and beauty in the old architecture. I found some great chipboard that looked kind of architectural when layered up with some metallic brads.

The map paper was torn horizontally and rolled back. I also used some Tim Holtz masking tape alogn the edge of the pictures.

Here are both pages side-by-side.

Thanks for looking today! Have a great week. I still can't belive it's Thursday already. Where oh where has the week gone?

Double layout - "Inside the Walls of Cartagena"

2011-11-26T18:02:00.001-06:00

What a blessed Thanksgiving holiday it has been. Two separate Thanksgiving meals with loved ones! I am full to the brim with blessings!

Today has been a relaxed day of cleaning and catching up on all things domestic. It's been nice to have the day to myself as my Hubby and boys went to the UofM vs. Ohio game! They had a blast, and I enjoyed the peace and quiet...just me and the dog. Here's a picture of the newest addition to our family. We got him in August and he's settling in nicely. He's a retired racing greyhound from a track in Alabama. He is pretty laid back, except when he decides to race around and around our backyard. He's my buddy. =)

On to the scrappy side of life! I'm getting excited to try some Christmas ideas that I have, but I'll need to wait until my son heads back to college, so I can borrow his room and put up my craft table. In the mean time, I really enjoy him being home. He's such a good kid and he lights up our home.

I do have a layout to share with you today. I'm still working on our 25th anniversary cruise pictures from last December. Yes, I know, it's almost our 26th anniversary and it would be so great if these pics were all scrapped and in the album. It will happen...

These are some random shots on our city tour of Cartagena, Columbia. It's a beautiful place to visit.
I love the lined blue paper with the decorative borders, with matching journalling card.

I used solid blue on the right and mimicked some of the borders with my own stamps and ink.

Here are both pages together.

Thanks so much for stopping by my blog today. Happy scrapping!

Double birthday layout - "More Candles"

2011-11-22T07:22:00.001-06:00

Does anybody in your family share birthdays? We have the unusual pleasure of our two boys sharing their big days on August 22. I told Joel that his best birthday gift ever came when he was 2 years old and his little brother, Jacob, was born. He didn't always agree! They've always had fun together... as little boys playing together, and even now at 21 and 19 years. However, I know that having to share a big day like a birthday got old for them sometimes.

Here's a layout of their most recent "big day". Typical for my oldest to be goofing off in the pictures. That never seems to get old for him =). The guy on the right holding the cell phone is my nephew, Ryan, who always adds to the crazyness. Here's the left side of my layout.

Here's the right side. I was very pleased with my husband for actually capturing the moment of them blowing out the candles. Yay!

Here's some of the details:

Thanks for stopping by today!

Have a wonderful Thanksgiving!!! Here's layout of last year's fall decor. Thought I'd pull it out and share it again. Enjoy our families and all of the blessings that our Lord pours over us each and every day. Take a step back from the hustle and bustle of the day and just soak it all in!

Double layout - "Fast Rides"

2011-11-15T20:23:00.001-06:00

Hello! I finished this layout recently of pictures that my husband took at the Detroit Auto Show earlier this year. My husband took Jacob and met part of his family there and they all had a great time checking out all of the fast rides...

The title was cut with Nate's Alphabet (Cricut) font for the caps, and Lyrical Letters for the remainder. I had a bunch of pictures, but I didn't want to do more than one two-pager on the event. I printed most of the pictures in wallets.

I used a few SU stamps in the corners. I wish they had come out a little darker.

I took this closeup so I could point out my favorite car....I wasn't there, but as I looked through the photos, I asked myself which of these rides I might pick...This is the one! They would all be a VAST improvement on what we're driving now. Honestly, though, I'm happy if they're dependable and I don't care too much about the rust...lol!

I laid this out on two perpindicular lines. This method really helped get them all on here in a pleasing way. The few larger pictures became the focal points. Inserting the journalling spot into the mix helps break it up a little and give it character.

Thanks for stopping by!

Fun Fall Cards

2011-11-09T16:15:00.000-06:00

Happy Wednesday! I recently had some fun at my craft table making some special cards for dear friends of mine. Since I'm not quite in the Christmas mood yet (that doesn't happen for me until after Thanksgiving), it seemed like a great time to share these ideas with you.

The first card is a simple sentiment and three really fun-to-make flowers. Here are step-by-step pictures and instructions to make these flowers. I've seen these types of flowers before, and I kind of figured out on my own how to make them.

I used a scalloped punch for my flower base and pieces. A circle punch would be just as cute. You will need 5 punched circle for each flowers. One of them is the base, and the other 4 form the petals. Set the 1 circle aside for the base. Cut each of the other 4 circles in half once. Now you have 8 halves. Then fold each piece in half, then fold it in half again. If you paper is two sided, make sure you keep the right side out.

Poke a hole in the center of your base piece to make it easier to add the brad after the flower is assembled. Run adhesive over the entire base of the flower. Then attach one petal at a time, with the point at the center hole, and the widest part of your petal lined up with the outside edge of the circle. Then place the folded side of the 2nd petal right up next to the folded side of the 1st petal and keep working your way around, so that the folded sides of the petals are always next to each other and the open sides are next to each other.

Once all 8 petals are attached it should look like this.

Then use a good sized decorative brad through the center hole that you made. This keeps all of the points down nicely. Make two more and you're done! See finished card above (1st picture).

The second card I made is for a dear friend's birthday. She lives in northern Michigan and I haven't seen her in a long time. I had to try out my new Tattered Angels stamp set. I loved this owl with the curly feathers. I used bronze embossing powder over VersaMark ink for the image. I like the way it turned out. The pictures aren't quite doing it justice. =)

I dry embossed the top portion of this 5x7 card with one of my Tim Holtz embossing folders. Then I ran a little bit of ink over the raised part to make it pop a little more. The sentiment is SU.

I added some matching paper in a couple of strips on the inside to finish it off. Then I wrote her a nice long letter to go with it. =) We need to do a better job of keeping in touch!

Have a great week!

Another Rosette Pumpkin

2011-11-05T19:34:00.002-05:00

Hello friends! What a beautiful day we've had here in Indiana. The leaves are falling down and the air is fresh and crisp...and I haven't spent any time outside today. LOL! I've been enjoying looking outside while cleaning the house, doing the laundry, paying the bills, and spending time in my crafty space. It's been a great day. My husband has been away all day helping a dear friend with some things around the house, so I've had the day to myself and I've made very good use of it. =) I will admit that doesn't always happen.

The second time around with this pumpkin project from Archivers went soooo much faster. This one is for me and it's sitting on my dining room table right now. I hope I can find the perfect box to store it in so it will be as good as new next fall.

I used striped paper for from We R Memory Keepers, Grandma's Kitchen collection, called "Simple Stripes". I think the best time saver for me was to score all six of the 12 x 12 striped sheets at the 1/2" lines all the way across BEFORE cutting the strips for the rosettes. I was reading some comments on the Archivers site and somebody mentioned scoring it first! Oh my word!!! Why didn't I think of that the first time around. Scoring each strip was quite tedious.

The pumpkin consists of layers of rosettes all stacked up and glued together.

To make the leaves, I stamped the shape of the leaf with VersaMark on olive cardstock. I used bronze embossing powder and heat embossed the leaves, then cut them out and attached them with hot glue.

The curls are made by cutting a 1/8" strip of olive paper and winding it around a pencil. I placed these in a way that they wrapped around the stem. The pumpkin stem is made from three 2 1/2" strips of brown. I fringed one side with Martha Stewart fringe scissors. (If you don't have these yet...they are too fun!) Just keep rolling the strips on top of each other with a dot of hot glue now and then to keep it all together. Attach the stem with hot glue.

I decided to spray it with bronzie Smooch spray just for fun!

Thanks for stopping by my blog today!!! Have a fun and crafty weekend.

Family Weekend at BSU - 2 page scrapbook layout

2011-11-03T06:14:00.000-05:00

Hello! It's Thursday, already! I've been so busy at my day job lately there just hasn't been much time for blogging. I've missed it...Thought I'd post one of my favorite recent layouts today. My youngest son, Jacob, is in his first year at Ball State University this year. It's been hard having him away!!! It's only an hour from here to there, but we don't just jump in the car and drive down there on a whim. He is really enjoying his college experience and making us very proud.

In September, we attended family weekend at BSU! We had a lot of fun! We spent the night at a nearby hotel and just spent time together. This page features pictures from the football game. I love the color scheme!!

Here's the left side.

That's our oldest son and daughter-in-law pictured with my husband. She is newly pregnant, so we'll be first time grandparents next May or June!!! Exciting!! It was so great they could join us for the weekend. Our kids are pretty close, so I don't think he would have missed this time to be with his brother for anything.

Here's the right side featuring the college man himself sporting his red hat and scruffy beard! LOL!

I hid some of the journalling here in a flap behind one of the pictures. As you can see, the clips turn allowing the flap to be lifted. I will definitely do this again because it was so stinkin easy.

Here's a closeup of the triple layered title which I popped up. I love the way the tiny red sticker letters coordinate with the colors and graph paper.

Thanks for stopping by my blog! Have a great crafty week!

Vintage Wedding Album - FINISHED!

2011-10-27T18:05:00.000-05:00

I had such a great time scrapping this past weekend. Always great to getaway and enjoy some friends, and get some layouts done!!! I can't wait to share them. One of the things I finished up was the album of my parents wedding photos. If you haven't seen the past layouts, you can see all of them here.

Here's the remainder of the double layouts. Hope you enjoy checking out these old photos! You can click on any of these pictures and it will enlarge for you, then just hit your back button to come back. I tried to keep them fairly simple so the project wouldn't overwhelm me, and so that the photos would be the center of attention.

I really enjoyed this project and felt honored to do this for my parents. They are such great people. They are still together after all these years....unfortunately, they are both dealing with some health issues, but I'm praying to have them around to see lots of great grandchildren!

More Simple Cards

2011-10-17T16:25:00.005-05:00

Hello friends! It's definitely been a Monday for me. We had a busy, but fun, weekend with our son, who is home on fall break from college! It's so nice to know he's sleeping safe and sound in his bed...where he's been for the last 19 years! We've got one more day with him before he heads back. Thankfully, he's only an hour and 15 minutes away.

I have a few more cards to share with you today. Again, these are pretty simple...but nice to have on hand when you need a spur of the moment card to send.

The first one is a thank you card made from scraps. I inked the edges of both pieces of paper, added ribbon and some flowers from my stash. I threaded the button with floss before adhering it and then tied it in a bow...easy peasy!

I always enjoy finding two scraps that are big enough and actually match, even though they are not even from the same manufacturer....Right now there are lots of beautiful scraps lurking in my scrap binder. In fact, I really need to clean it out. I bought a new one since the old one is exploding, but I haven't made the transfer yet. I'll have to post pics when I get to that. I'm hoping to weed out some of the smaller pieces. Anyway....for this one I used a sentiment from SU, and a scalloped circle punch. The brown layer in the back is the same punch, just offset to give it a little definition. The red is cut with Accent Essentials cartridge (Cricut). I threaded the ribbon through holes punched in top and buttom of sentiment. You can see the pre-embossed shine on one of the flowers (Cloud 9). I really like these colors together.

As you can see, this one is the same patterned paper scraps using a triple matt effect. I will add the sentiment later when I know the occasion that I'll be using it for. I love the gold ribbon!

Thanks for stopping by my blog. I always appreciate your thoughts and comments. I'm thrilled to be going scrapping this Friday through Sunday!!! It's going to be fun and I can't wait to get some long-awaited scrappy time in. I should have some fun stuff to post next week....finally!

Rosette Pumpkin and Fall card

2011-10-03T20:45:00.001-05:00

Hello! I am loving the crisp fall air! It's my absolute favorite time of year. The colors are just starting to show and there are no leaves to rake yet. =)

I went to Archivers the other day with my best scrappin buddy and picked up their free project sheet for this cutie patootie pumpkin! I bought the paper that day because I just had to try it. I haven't had much opportunity to scrap or craft and I've been loooonnnnging, to get my goodies out and make something fun.

So here is my finished pumpkin! I love the way it turned out so much that I'm making a couple of more. I'm not sure yet whether I'll vary the size and shape or stick with the instruction sheet. This cutie pumpkin is for my sweet Mom. She had her 78th birthday last weekend. I hope she enjoys looking at it as much as I enjoyed making it!

Each layer is a rosette created using strips of paper and my Martha Stewart scoreboard. Wow! I had never used it before and it was so incredibly helpful for this project. I think I will use it a lot more now! Each strip is scored, edges are inked and the strips are all attached into a circle with little staples. I just happened to have orange ones. Perfect! I used a cirlce punch to cut centers to secure the rosette on the top and bottom. Once all the sizes of rosettes are made, you just hot glue them all together.

The darling stem is also made of strips of paper. I used a wider strip than their instructions called for. I like long stemmed pumpkins! My strips were about 2 1/2 " wide and I used Martha Stewart fringe scissors along the side of each strip. You just roll them up on each other until the strips form a stem in the width that you like. I tied a small piece of twine around the base of the stem. The leaves were stamped with StampinUp French Foliage stamp. I then stamped over the green with Versa Mark ink, sprinkled with clear embossing powder and then used the heat gun. I cut out the three leaves and attached with hot glue. The green strips are 1/8" and curled with a pencil.

Thought I'd make a card for my Mom while I had all of my supplies out. I had already sent her flowers and a card for her birthday, so I decided to make this more of a "happy fall" card. I stamped the leaves in different colors, then went back over the green leaf with clear embossing powder, and the two oak leaves with broze embossing powder.

Thanks so much for looking! Have a great week!

Simple Card Designs

2011-09-20T21:11:00.000-05:00

Hello! I'm back home after our travels last week. I even got all of the laundry done (and folded) already! Now I just need to get my house cleaned.

We've been away from home so much I still haven't had any time to get scrappy! I miss it so much. So, today I'm going to share a few more cards that I made recently.

In case you are new to my blog, I use a lot of paper scraps for my cards. It's always fun when I find two unrelated scraps that look great together. I'm not sure of the paper line...That's the downside to using scraps, I guess.

The design is easy, dividing the card into four equal pieces with a thin space around and between each piece, rounding all of the corners. The sentiment is StampinUp! I used the SU scalloped punch around the sentiment and again to matt it in dark brown, offsetting it from the stamped layer. Then, I cut a larger scalloped circle with Cricut Accent Essentials.

Again, nothing fancy here. These are simple cards, with no embossing or special techniques. I like fancy techniques, but no time for that lately. I used the same paper, and the same sentiment. I punched a small hole in top and bottom of the sentiment and threaded the ribbon through it....easy!

Thanks for looking! Hope to be back with some fun scrappy layouts sometime soon!

Two double Scrapbook layouts - Vintage Wedding

2011-09-13T09:30:00.000-05:00

Hello! Hope you are all doing well today. I'm in upstate New York getting some continuing education credits for my daytime paying job. It sure is beautiful here! We're in Lake Placid in the Adirondacks. Perfect weather. I'm so glad my hubby can be here with me enjoying some time away from the grind.

Today, I have a few more vintage wedding layouts to share with you. I took it upon myself to redo my parents' original wedding album because it was fallling apart. They have now been married 56 years. Quite an accomplishment in this day and age!! They have stuck it out through thick and thin and especially through long term health issues. I love them dearly and am proud of the heritage they have given to me and my family.

So I will admit I missed the mark on this page. =( All the way through on this album, I've been using black for the title, and I didn't do it here....Not sure what I was thinking, but after seeing it here, I will be redoing it in black. It just doesn't pop off th epage the way that it should.

The hearts were cut with my Cricut and the Sweethearts cartridge. The color is just enough darker that it shows up fine. I used the photo matt to journal some details.

Here are the two pages together. I'm definitely going to fix the title on the left. I guess sometimes you can't see an error until you photograph and post it. LOL! Also, I think some of the pictures I found were not the best shot. of the two of them. I used some of the better ones previously in their 50th anniversary album. But, I love these shots anyway and they were too good to just let deteriorate and turn yellow.

Here's another layout of them walking back down the aisle after they became man and wife. Aren't they cute? I used the Stampin Up triple flower punch for all of the flowers on this page. I layered them up and topped each one with a pale blue pearl gemstone. Again, I went back to the black title (yay me!) and cut it with Quarter Note cartridge. I used my Fiskars border punch on some tone on tone patterned blue paper to edge the photograph.

Here they are with their first bite of cake.

I scattered the flowers from top left diagonally down to the bottom right on this one. I like how it seems to draw the eye across the layout.

Thanks for stopping by today. Enjoy your week! Be sure and leave me a comment. I love to hear from you!

Simple cards to share

2011-09-06T20:29:00.000-05:00

I cropped this weekend and believe it or not, forgot to take my pictures. Not to worry, though. I spent the whole day making cards and getting back into the crafty groove. Thought I'd share a few with you today.

These are all made from scraps. I bought a pack of white cards and envelopes on sale recently. It's so nice to have these on hand for making a quick card. Then I just pull out my scrap file and see what's in there. =)

For the first card, I used a SU sentiment, oval punch, and two scalloped punches to matt the sentiment. The black and white paper is CM.

I used the same papers here with another SU sentiment stamp and frame. I used the scalloped punch to punch it out and then another of the same size scallop punched in black, then offset it to give it some definition. The pink matt was cut with Cricut Accent Essentials at 1/4" larger than the scallop punch. I layed 3 strips of ribbon/twine under the paper on the right side before sticking it down, then tied each in a bow after sliding on the sentiment tag.

Basically the same idea here on the third card, but used three different patterned papers and attached the sentiment in the corner with foam dimensionals.

Thanks for stopping by my blog today. Enjoy your week!

Double double vintage wedding layout - "Family" and "The Bridal Party"

2011-08-29T18:14:00.000-05:00

Hello! Happy Monday, if there is such a thing. =) My heart goes out to you east coast followers who may have experienced storm damage and/or power outages. Wow! The U.S. has definitely had their share of natural disasters this year! My thoughts are with you.

With my father-in-law's death and my son off to college, my husband and I are still trying to find our new normal. I've had zero time to scrapbook lately. What a whirlwind of emotions and activity!

I want to take a few minutes, though, to post another vintage wedding layout. Still working on my parents' wedding photos. I really hope to be able to work on it again soon!

Left side pictures my Mom's parents. I like the way the flowers match the matting and really help the picture pop.

Right side pics are my Dad's parents. The blue base of the flowers is punched with a SU punch and the store bought flowers are layered on the top with a pearlized blue gem for the center of the flower. The leaves are hand cut and inked around the edges.

I like the way it turned out. It's difficult to deal with all black and whites, but throwing in bursts of color seems to help. The title again is cut with the Cricut Quarter Note cartridge.

The second layout is the bridesmaids. The newspaper article that my Mom saved described the wedding in great detail. It's been really helpful picturing the colors in my mind. I journaled arouond the yellow matting, describing the colors the bridesmaids wore. The bridesmaids on the left are my Mom's sisters, and her maid of honor is actually her then future sister-in-law. I thought that was interesting, but most likely she chose my Dad's sister so she didn't have to choose between her own 3 sisters for a maid of honor.

Her colors were all pastel. I used some small polka-dot ribbon with the same pastels and gathered it up a little on one end. The flowers are punched with the SU three flower punch and topped with a tiny gemstone.

The title which is split between the pages is also from Cricut's Quarter Note.

Thanks for stopping by. Blessings to each of you!

In Memory - Flashback "Treasure"

2011-08-26T17:08:00.000-05:00

Hello friends! I am sorry for the long time since posting last. It's been a whirlwind.

We took a mini getaway to western MI for a weekend and had a great time with together. We got home a week ago last Monday. Tuesday, we packed my youngest son up for college. Wednesday we took him to Ball State University and helped him get settled in his dorm room. That night, we got home late, went to bed, and were awakened by a phone call. My husband's father passed away in the middle of the night on August 18. He was 88 years old and the pillar of his family in every way. He had been in and out of the hospital with congestive heart failure. He was so ready to go to his heavenly home! He took off all of his monitors and his oxygen and left this world very peacefully. We miss him so much already, but we rejoice and know that he is finally home!

We've been with Mark's siblings in Michigan since then. We enjoyed our time together, even though it was really hard. We laughed, and we cried together.

Mark's Dad was so proud of his family, I wanted to re-post this recent layout of Mother's Day 2011 in his honor titled "Treasure".

We love and miss you! Thanks for setting such a wonderful example of faith and family!

Vintage Wedding Double Scrapbook Layout

2011-08-16T15:07:00.000-05:00

We are home from work today helping my son pack up for the big day tomorrow. He'll be heading off for his Freshman year at Ball State University. He is pretty excited and nervous. We feel the same way...torn between excitement for him, and beginning to feel lost without him. However, we are very proud of him and will soon settle into this next phase of life...empty nest!

Now that I'm feeling all sentimental, it is the perfect time to share the first few pages of a new project. When we cleaned out my parents' condo, I found their wedding album and it pretty much fell apart in my hands. So, I brought all of their 8 x 10 original wedding photographs home with me. The goal is to preserve them, and I feel the best way to do that is to get them into a photo safe album that will hopefully last even longer than the first one. In order to have the pictures available for reprint, I first scanned each one and saved them in a separate folder (and backed them up). Then, came the fun part where I could get a little creative.

Here is the first page of the album. The flowers are from a tube that I purchased quite awhile back. I like their vintage look. I used some paper punched flowers to add to the centers and pick up the pastels of their wedding colors. The swirls are cut from with the Sweethearts Cricut cartridge. I like the soft tone-on-tones paper together with the newsprint.

The base paper for all of my layouts is from StampinUp. The entire pack is full of 4 different variations of newsprints. I thought it was perfect because of the faded, yellow look in the pictures. Neither black nor white seemed to work for me. I like the look of the newsprint, and I think that my parents will too. They have a pretty laid back, eclectic, casual and simple style. All of the photos are black and white or should I say cream and gray now that they've faded quite a bit. I found a newspaper article that described the pastel colors of the bridesmades dresses and the flowers, so my color scheme will match.

I love how thre black titling really pops. I will use this throughout the album to help tie it all together. The font is from Quarter Note cricut cartridge. The flowers are handmade using layers of scalloped scircles. After punching them out I wadded each one up individually and then layered 3 together to give it depth. The other smaller flowers are created with a SU punch that cuts 3 different types of small flowers at the same time. I used these as centers of the larger flowers and added a gemstone for the very center. There won't be much journalling in the album, but I did add a description here of my Mother's wedding gown. All of this information came from the same article in the newspaper. I'm so glad that she saved that article because it really made these old photographs come alive for me. I typed out the description and printed it on cardstock using my commputer printer. I then matted it to match the photos on the page.

Here are the two pages together.

Thanks for stopping by....You'll be seeing more of these layouts really soon. It's been such a fun project so far. I've finished about 3/4 of the project already! Can't wait to finish it up. Scrappin time has been minimal lately....sad face.

Double cruise layout - "San Pedro Claver"

2011-08-09T20:51:00.000-05:00

We are having such beautiful weather this evening. I have all the doors and windows open. What a nice cool summer breeze!
Today I have one more double cruise layout of our time in Columbia on our 25th wedding anniversary. This layout features the pictures we took at the San Pedro Claver church. Another example of the beautiful old architecture in Cartagena, Columbia. This was one of the last stops on our city tour.

I forgot to write down the supplies used here. I believe the paper is Tim Holtz, along with the masking tape.

The title font is Plantin School book. You can see that I ripped the top layer of paper to give it an old look and curled it up on the right edge.

I used these chipboard accents (from Me & My Big Ideas) because they reminded me of the shapes in the architecture of the church.

I have a few more Columbia layouts that I need to finish up. This weekend I scrapped and put those aside to work on a new project...I'm re-doing my parent's wedding portraits. My parents are now living in a full time care residence. We've sold their condo and finished going through the remainder of their things weekend before last. We even tackled the pictures. I brought home many photo treasures of my boys, my grandparents before they were married, and my parents wedding album which fell apart in my hands when I started leafing through it....So, I have a new project and I'm pretty excited about it. I'll share some of these layouts later this week.

Thanks for stopping by! Anybody working on a vintage wedding album?? I'd love to hear about it. Just leave a comment. It's always nice to hear from you!

Views of Cartagena - Cruise scrapbook layout

2011-08-02T19:14:00.000-05:00

Hello friends. What a busy weekend! Finally getting around to some blogging and sharing another cruise layout with you.

These pictures were taken on top of the San Felipe Fortress. The views were just amazing from the top. In addition to both the old and new architecture, you can see the beautiful ocean. It was a clear, beatiful, and HOT day! Not surprising for South America.

Left side:

I should have bought more of this paper. I absolutely love the faint image of the world atlas with the pennants draped across. The flags were begging to be popped up with dimensionals. I used my utility knife to cut the edges, then attached a piece of scrap paper to the back and used dimensional squares under the flap of each flag point. Hopefully you can see the dimension in the photograph. I can, but I know it's there. =) The journalling block lines were stamped so I could make the most of the journalling space that I had.

Right side:

Supplies: Glitz Design (Afternoon Muse) paper; StampinUp! stamp (Notes & Details); Bobbin Ribbon; Cricut cartridges Quarter Note and Lyrical Letters for the title.

I felt the pictures were so beautiful that it really didn't need a lot of additonal embellishments.

Both sides:

Have a scrappy week. I am soooooooooo looking forward to scrapping this Friday and Saturday. It seems like it has been forever and I've really missed it.

Blog candy up for grabs at Brenscraps!

2011-08-02T18:33:00.000-05:00

Just read about this yummy blog candy up for grabs at Brenscraps. She's celerating her birthday by giving one lucky follower a gift! Check it out here! This is what you can win.

Anniversary Cruise - Double layout of San Felipe Fortress

2011-07-28T17:19:00.000-05:00

Happy Thursday everybody. Hope you are all enjoying your day. It has been so long since I have scrapbooked...insert sad face here. I can't wait until next weekend. I'm hoping to get a lot done and enjoy some time with my scrapping buddies. I still have a few layouts that I haven't shared with you yet, so it's not quite time for me to panic.

Today, I have another double layout of pictures from Cartagena, Columbia. This was our first port on our 25th anniversary cruise. We took a ton of pictures here and I'm reliving it all again while I work on the album. It's probably just as hot here today as it was when we were there, so that helps me relive it quite nicely.

I used a grid style layout again so that I can make the most of the space in my album.

The paper is Bazzill, Coredinations, and the strip is My Minds Eye. I used my Cuttlebug to dry emboss the Coredinations with the Tim Holtz "brick" folder. A little bit of inking around the edges of the dry embossing helps to bring out depth and emphasize the brick. I love everything Tim Holtz and have several of his embossing folders. I use them a lot for cards and am trying to use them more and more on layouts. The texture made a nice backdrop for my title cut with Cricut "Lyrical Letters", Jack Sprat font.

On the right side I saved room for a litle bit of striped paper (My Minds Eye) punched with the Fiskar's postage stamp border punch. The crochet look red ribbon is from Making Memories and really helped bring out the red in the pictures. There was not a lot of room for journalling so I used the my Dymo label maker (clear tape).

We had such a great time in Cartagena, Columbia. If you ever get a chance to visit, go for it. The architecture is so varied and the views are just beautiful from the top of the fortress. I'll share some of those pictures with you on my next post. Until then, have a happy scrappy week.

Flashback - "L" is for Leonhardt

2011-07-25T19:09:00.000-05:00

Here's a little flashback post. This letter was so fun to make! It was a bridal shower gift for my then future daughter-in-law. She still displays it proudly in her living room. In fact, we made two more similar projects together since then. It was a lot of fun crafting with her.

At the time, I didn't think to take pictures of each step as I was making it. You can check out the instructions on this post.

Thanks for stopping by today!

Treasure

2011-07-21T19:01:00.006-05:00

I'm havng a ton of fun with Blogspot issues this week. I had saved a post, but now can't get back into it. A tiny bit frustrating, so I will now start over.

Here is one last layout of Mother's Day with most of my husband's immediate family, and our new grand nephew, Ethan.

The patterned paper is all from Cloud 9 Design. I just love the rich colors! I found some great antique doilies at my parents home recently for future use on a scrapbook page. I thought this was the perfect page to use them. Here, I cut one in half and tucked both pieces under the edge of the pictures.

I cut these cute layered flowers with my Cricut, but now I'm not sure which cartridge I used =). Maybe my SB buddy will reply here and let me know which cartridge I borrowed from her. The title "Treasure" is Graphically Speaking. The antique looking brads are from StampinUp. I just love the closeup of my sister-in-law, Sue, snuggling with her Grandbaby! The bottom right picture is my father-in-law laughin' it up with Ethan. How cute are they???

Thanks for stopping by my blog today. Hopefully this will post properly. Is anybody else having any problems with Blogger?

"Bubbles" and "Smitten"

2011-07-16T08:48:00.001-05:00

When I look through scrapbooking magazines and blogs, I am usually drawn to those featuring photographs of sweet babies sleepng cutely or toddlers with messy faces...Since my boys are 6'4" men now, it's tough to to have pictures that make you say "awwwww". I know, some day we'll have grandchildren that I can go crazy scrapping, and i'm not necessarily in any hurry for that. =)

However, last fall our nephew and his wife had their first baby in Texas, making us Great Aunt and Uncle. Because of the distance, we weren't able to meet the little guy in person until Mother's Day. It was a long wait, but boy is he a cutie pie! Of course, the cameras were flashing all weekend! I just have to share a couple of these with you today.

First up, is the layout titled "Bubbles". Ethan loves "making raspberries" and blowing bubbles. Yep, those are my boys laying on the floor with him under the jungle gym joining in the fun!

I cut the title with my Cricut, of course, (Nate's ABC's) and anchored the corners of the first letter with butttons. The little Kraft tags expand on the title (Ethan makes bubbles). I threaded some of the buttons and wrapped Baker's twine around the "e" and through the larger button. I used a layer of laser cut paper with some of the circles punched out randomly. Lots of the buttons, circles, and even the rounded letters help enforce the bubbles theme.

On the right side I added a another strip of the laser cut paper. I left many of the punched circles in tact to provide a place for journalling. The cardstock used here is Coredinations and the patterned paper is DejaView. The caterpillar is also from Nate's ABC's. The mini puff ball ribbon added a lot of texture and outlined the half circle. I added a little journalling around the bottom edge of the circle and a few more buttons. I don't think it's possible to use too many buttons. =)

The second layout is "Smitten". The pictures are of me and my son, Jacob, holding Ethan. He was getting tired, and it was so enjoyable holding him while he dozed off.

Bazzill cardstock, Little Yellow Bicycle "Blue Lion", and K.I. Memories "It's a Boy Zoo" came together nicely to set off these precious pictures.The close up of Ethan is double matted and wrapped with some ribbon that I had in my stash. The Fiskar's border punch is a nice addition for a baby page. I used it along the strip of animal paper. This paper had a bit of a shine too it...much prettier in person than in the photograph of the layout.

The half circle of patterned paper made a nice layer under the edge of the title cut with the Sweetheart Cricut cartridge. I used a small peach brad in the center of the heart to dot the "i". The lion cub is from Nate's ABC's cartridge. Isn't the bottom right picture just adorable? Awwwww.....

Thanks again for stopping by today. Enjoy your weekend!

"Hello Dolly" #2 scrapbook layout

2011-07-12T16:08:00.001-05:00

Hello scrappy friends! Hope you are all enjoying some sunshine wherever you are today.

Today, I'm sharing another layout from the musical Hello Dolly. I previously shared a layout that I made for his album. I had so many great pictures left, that I made a layout for the family album.

The title is from the Winter Woodlands cartridge. It's one of my favorite "fancy" fonts. The top layer is cream and the bottom layer is red. I made a rosette by folding strips of paper accordion style and attaching it to a punched circle. I inked the edges and added some musical notes cut with the Quarter Note cartridge.

The masking tape is Tim Holtz. I added another strip of wallets for the pictures of the waiter routine! These guys were amazing! The journalling spots were simple rectangles. I punched one side with the Fiskar's postage stamp border punch just to give it some detail. The patterned paper strips which are really hard to see are Cloud 9 Design. I added a couple of plain white flowers and inked the edges and added an antique-looking brad

Have a wonderful day! Thanks for stopping by. =)

"Boy oh Boy"

2011-07-09T09:36:00.001-05:00

Yay for the weekend! Today, I want to share a layout of my sons' senior trip to Chicago and some goofy pictures taken while working on his senior project. I was under the gun to get these into his graduation album. They went together pretty quickly because I used mainly products from the Teen Angst line from We R Memory Keepers.

The photos were taken at different events on different days, but they look great together and filled a double layout nicely.

The title is actually a big sticker that came with the paper stack. The photos on the left are of the guys making a pyramid together...perfect! The bright green color also tied in nicely with the colors in the photos on the right side. I used some arrow stickers (same line) to point out Jacob in the "dog pile".

I loved working with these pictures. These kids are so stinkin' goofy! They were obviously having a little fun with the computer camera and photo editing software. The photo strip at the top was originally a 4 x 6 picture with the pictures set up 2 x 2. The strip fit the layout better. I mounted it on a wider strip of green, to leave some room for journalling.

Thanks for checking out my blog today!! Have a scrappy weekend!

"Discover Cartagena" and "City Tour"

2011-07-03T17:12:00.001-05:00

Time definitely got away from me this week. It's been a good week, but I haven't had much time for blogging. Today, I thought I'd share a couple layouts with you of ther second port on our cruise. These are from Day 5, Cartagena, Columbia. We were there December 7, 2010 the exact day of our 25th wedding anniversary. I can't think of a better way to spend our big day...in a new land with many sights to discover.

This was the view from our balcony room as we pulled into port that morning. We took a ton of photos as we ate our breakfast, watching as we sailed into this new world. It was quite a mix of architecure from the high rise buildings to the stone fortress and the old city.

I used Graphically Speaking Cricut cartridge to cut the first word "discover" and a font cartridge in two layers for "Cartagena". "Discover" was placed overlapping the top edge of the picture to blend the photo into the horizon. The Fiskars postage stamp border punch is one I'm using a lot in this travel album. I really love the red and blue togehter which were pulled from the ship and freight in the photos. The paper is DCWV, Creative Memories, and Kraft.

On the right side I stamped a medallion (StampinUp!) in dark red as a backdrop for the compass cut with the Going Places Cricut cartridge. I layered it onto Kraft, and then colored in the letters for more definition. I used the compass to journal the day and date of the cruise. The medallion stamp seemed to really help the compass pop. I inked the edges of the compass to grunge it up a little and placed an antique brad in the center. All of the journalling is done on strips of Kraft.

My second layout of Cartagena is pictures we took while on the bus going into Cartagena. You may want to double click on these and check out the culture and the locals selling items in the street. They do have a beautiful beach, but we didn't stop there.

Our tour guide's name was Harold. We had to wear tape on our shoulder with his name, so we didn't forget to get back into the correct bus. He had very good English and was so happy and proud to show us around his country. Much of the area we drove through was very poor and dirty.

The cardstock is Deja Views. I used a little map patterned masking tape across the page under the title.

On the right side I cut a large highway sign (Going Places cartridge) using K & C Co. patterned paper. I journalled along the solid green paper edge. The bus is also from Going Places cartridge. I inked the edges to grunge it up a little. I had to be so selective with my pictures. I could have probably made 3 double layouts just of the bus ride itself, but I thought these gave a pretty good overview of the sights.

I still can't believe we were that far from home. I never dreamed we'd be in South America, even for just one day! What a wonderful cruise with such memorable ports. If you ever get a chance to stop in Cartagena, Columbia, you better go and check it out. There will be several more layouts to share soon from this beautiful destination.

Have a fun 4th of July holiday!! We'll be grilling up some shishkabobs and eating some type of strawberry dessert. So many yummy summer foods to choose from. We are very blessed to live in a country where we have many freedoms, but lets remember that these freedoms were bought with such a price! Enjoy your Independence Day!

"Senior Chapel" layout

2011-06-27T20:46:00.000-05:00

Hello everybody! I just got back from the grocery store and I'm squeaking in a quick post of a recent layout. This is another one for my son's album.

Jacob really enjoys music, especially singing. He was helping lead the chapel hosted by the senior class at his school. Of course, we went to show our support and snapped a few pictures for the album. =)

The patterned papers and border strips are Graphic 45 and Stampin Up! I went totally crazy with my Quarter Note cartridge (Cricut). I have used this cartridge so often.

I cut the keyboard out of Kraft and black paper...then layered on the flowers. The journalling tag is stamped with Notes and Details set. There are a couple of different twines, a button and a purchased flowe woven in here too.

The treble clef is also from Quarter Note. I tried my hand at a couple of rosettes. I love the look, but they really take up space in the scrapbook. I smooshed mine down a little bit. =)

Here aresome closeups so ou can see a little bit more of the details.

The microphone is another cut from Quarter Note along with all of the musical notes scattered across the page.

Blessings!! Have a scrappy week!

"Enjoy Life" summer layout

2011-06-24T19:11:00.000-05:00

Ah....the weekend, finally! Hello Friday!

Today, I want to share a fresh summer layout of our vacation last year. I added it to my son's album just last week before his party. I've scrapped some of these pictures for our family album, but Jacob wanted last summer represented in his album too. I love that he cares!

I love the bright green cardstock and the way it makes the pictures pop. I also matted each photo on white for even more definition. The patterned paper is from the Teen Angst collection. It has a little shiny stripe in it. I've had this orange felt "laugh" sticker in my stash for probably close to a year! So fun to finally use it! The circular stamps were purchased on the clearance rack at Michaels. This was the first I'd used them, but so perfect for the layout. Also cool that my scrappy friend had a circle punch the perfect size to punch them out! I love it when that happens!

I used the Notebook punch to put a little detail on the edge of the strip going across the middle. I cut the sun with my Cricut and layered it on another patterned paper cirlce behind the title (Graphically Speaking). Again, I used some smaller wallet pictures in order to pack them in (11 pics) and still have the space to get a little creative.

Here's a closeup of the journallng and layering. I mounted the "Be You" stamped cirlce onto a larger patterned paper cirlce and fringed the edge all the way around. It turned out kind of cool!

Thanks for looking! Have a wonderful weekend!

"New Life"

2011-06-21T19:30:00.001-05:00

Hello! We all survived my son's graduation open house..Whew! It was a great party, even though we had torrential rain for about 20 minutes. I am so thankful we rented the tent and borrowed a couple of canopies. We are still eating meatballs and pasta salad. =) It was so fun to have my son's albums DONE in time for the party! Everybody enjoyed looking through them.

Today, I want to share a special layout of my son's baptism earlier this year. He had just gotten his hair cut and shaved off his beard for the musical he was going to be in. What a baby face!

Here's the left side of my layout. I love the scalloped circle banner. It was stinkin' easy using my punch and folding them over the twine. I cut the bracket mat out of a 12 x 12 sheet of SU paper from the Sweet Pea collection and journalled around the inside edge. The heart that dots the "i" is cut from a sheer piece of red ribbon.

Here's the right side. I used the other half of the bracket mat on striped paper from the same collection. I matted everything with the bright yellow to perk it up a litlte bit. I included a series of pictures of Jacob coming back up out of the water. My son is so tall, the youth pastor had a bit of a challenge pulling him up. =) I also included some hidden journalling on a tag inside a little envelope wrapped with twine (Tags & Bags Cricut cartridge) and tucked it under the strip of pictures.

Thanks for stopping by my blog today! Have a wonderful week!

"School Days" scrapbook layout

2011-06-18T16:12:00.008-05:00

Hope you're all enjoying a wonderful weekend. Today is my son's graduation open house. I'm probably running around like a crazy person right now, so thankfully I scheduled this post in advance!

Today, I'm sharing a recent layout that I completed showing my son from Kindergarten through his Senior year. The intentions were to include only pictures taken on his first day of school. We actually did take their picture every first day of school. However, we had a killer computer virus last fall and lost several years of pictures, so I had to make due. The moral of the story is ALWAYS back up your digital photos!

Here's a closer view of the left page. It's so funny to look at these. Jacob (the blonde) typically has a smile on his 1st day of school photos. However, Joel, usually looks much less than excited. There wasn't a whole lot of room for embellishments, so I simply cut out a bunch of apples with my Cricut, inked them up on the edges and used a number sticker to identify the year. You can see a little bit of the background stamping I did with white ink to give it a more distressed look. The penmanship stamp is from Glitz Design and the texture stamp is StampinUp!

I cut a tree and used my scallop punch to create bunches of leaves in the tree top. The tree bark look was created with VersaMark on Kraft paper and the same StampinUp! texture stamp. Oh....make sure you take a close look at grade 10! Don't you love the super long hair? I didn't actually mind it at the time, but I much prefer the short clean cut look they have now.

Here's a little closer view.

Have a great weekend and thanks again for stopping by my blog today!

"National Honor Society" scrapbook layout

2011-06-14T16:05:00.000-05:00

Hello. I'm up to my ears in graduation open house plans! Lots of work, but also lots of fun. I have a few more scrapbook pages to do for my son's album. Hoping to get to those tomorrow.

Today, I'd like to share a layout of my son's induction into the National Honors Society. We included some pictures from the ceremony itself, as well as some candids of him hamming it up with his friends after the ceremony.

So far, no objections from him on the flowers that I added to the banner. I think they are masculine flowers, if there is such a thing...lol! The pennants were cut with the Birthday Bash Cricut cartridge. I added some matching brads to the flower centers, used brown baker's twine to string it together, and attached it with staples.

Here's the right side. The patterned papers are Cloud 9 Design. I used the Fiskars bracket edge punch on one of the strips of patterned paper, and added a ltitle journalling on the matt around the picture.

Once again, I packed in the pictures (12!!) by ordering some of the pictures in wallet size. Thanks for stopping by my blog today. Have a wonderful week!

"Music Lover" layout

2011-06-10T18:27:00.000-05:00

Are you ready for your weekend? I most definitely am!

Today I'd like to share a layout that I created for my son's album. I've mentioned previously that he had to go to a new school this year, as a senior. It's actually worked out quite well for him. He and his friends from his old school planned a chapel service for his new school. It was a great opportunity for some fun shots of him with his old friends. The've performed together qiute often, so it was almost like old times!

Here's the left side. The paper was all from my stash of scraps, except the base which is Basic Grey charts and graph stack. The title was cut as one piece with "Quarter Note" Cricut cartridge, along with the flourish.

I used Fiskars notebook border punch along the sheet music paper at the bottom. Both layers of the heart were cut freehand, as well as the little tiny heart, then I tucked them behind the title. I pumped it up a little with foam adhesive.

Here's the right side of my layout showing the kids hamming it up for the camera afterward. FYI...both my boys participated. My oldest married son, Joel, is in the bottom right corner of the group, and my youngest son, Jacob, who is the senior this year, is in the upper left corner of the group shots.

Here's a close-up of the guitar and the little musical notes, also from "Quarter Note" cartridge. Love!!

The interesting thing about this layout is that I thought it was done prior to putting on all of the little musical notes. It just seemed like it was missing something until I added them several days later.

Thanks for stopping by my blog today! Have a lovely weekend and enjoy your family!

"Stepping Out" prom layout

2011-06-07T16:27:00.001-05:00

Hello! It's time to share some of my most recent layouts for my son's graduation album. His party is next Saturday. Wow! That sounds entirely too soon...LOL! I still have lots to do to prepare for the big event which will be at our home. This is our 2nd time through the process, so I'm not quite as freaked out about the whole thing. I guess that is good.

So, today, I'm sharing the layout of Jacob's prom pictures. These kids are all such good friends. They had fun posing for their scrapbook obsessive Moms. If you are new to my blog, Jacob is the tall one with the lighter hair (upper left). The other boy belongs to my best scrapping buddy.

You'll have to look closely to see the title "Stepping Out". I blinged it up with some little pearls so it would show up a bit more.

Here's the right side of the layout. I use a lot of wallet size pictures. It really helps me fit more on the page. I tried something different with the flowers. I cut a length of white scrappers floss and wound it loosely around the floweer petals after attaching them to the page...The white really seemed to make the navy flowers pop. It was pretty simple, but I liked the way it makes the flowers just look a little more whispy. Is that a word? You'll have to check out the middle picture on this page where the guys have their hands up. Every time the boys put their hands down on their dates' shoulders, the girls would warn them not to mess up their hair. So this is the "don't touch the hair" picture. Too funny! I love the Diva expressions on the girls faces too.

Here's a closeup of the flowers and the journalling. Can you see the dry embossing on the bottom layer of the journalling spot? I inked the edges too for a vintage look. The flower centers are SU antique brads. I tried to keep the bling to a minimum since it will go in a boy's album....He can live with a few flowers, though, right?

Thanks for looking! Hope you are able to enjoy the sunshine today! It's in the 90's here today. I was hoping for a little more spring before the dog days of summer. It's much better than rain, though, so I will try to keep the whining to a minimum. =)

Father's day cards to share

2011-06-05T10:37:00.001-05:00

While I was making my graduation cards, I decided to go ahead and make Father's Day cards while I had my mess scattered around. Here's what I made.

The stamps are all brand new from Stampin Up! I had the paper in my stash. I cut the letters and the penants with my Cricut cartridge "Birthday Bash" and bakers twine to string it all up. If you look closely you will see the embossing on the sides created with VersaMark ink and clear embossing powder...an easy subtle effect.

I made a black style and a brown since we are blessed enough to still have both of our Dads!

Hope you're having a wonderful weekend. I'm personally not ready for Monday yet, but am very thankful for a good job that I love that helps to pay the bills and support my obsession...=)

More Graduation cards

2011-06-03T10:34:00.000-05:00

Happy Friday! My dear friend and I are on our way to a weekend scrap retreat. We've had it on the calendar for months and it is finally here!! Before I leave, I wanted to get a quick post out to share some more graduation cards with you.

First, a few for the girl graduates. Loved the black butterflies!! These first three cards were inspired by cards I saw Splitcoaststampers. The sentiment is StampinUp! and patterned paper is some mysterious paper that I found in my stash...I love it when that happens...LOL. I used the postage stamp border punch on the edge for a little special detail. The butterfly is from the Indie cartridge (Cricut). I made four and I wish I had made more because I'd kind of like to keep one for myself. =)

This is so simple, but I love the way it turned out. The picture doesn't really do it justice. I used Coredinations cardstock in a very light pink, but it looks kind of gray here. Cut some black script paper with Plaintin Schoolbook cartridge as well as the adorable little flowers, and topped the flowers with tiny gemstones. Easy...so I made four of them for the speical young ladies that we know who are graduating this year.

I love the colors in this boys card! I used a lot of Kraft, black, and red. The map paper is Great Escapes from an 8x8 stack I found some time ago. I just sliced both of them in half and made four of this style of card. The sentiments are Tim Holtz. The cute little car is Graphically Speaking cartridge. I added "Class of 2011" by hand for some additional detail in the left corner. This was the first time I made an inside cut with my trimmer. It was pretty easily actually so I may keep this in mind and make more frames for my cards and layouts.

These are sample thank you cards for my son to send after his party. I get inspired by logos and advertisements that I see and especially those combining fonts and numbers into an eye-catching design. I sat down and did this in WordArt in about 15 minutes. I don't pretend to be a designer, but I knew what I wanted and like the way it turned out. I was jumping up and down when I realized that my Creative Memories small square punch just happened to fit perfectly around the logo. I was able to easily frame it using the larger square punch and blue paper...very helpful when you're making multiples! The embossing folder is, of course, Tim Holtz! I have most of his new distress embossing folders and am a huge fan!

Same idea here, but simpler. Only one layer and used a different (my favorite) Tim Holtz distress embossing folder right on the base of the card. Quicker and Jacob liked it the best...Lucky me!

Come back Sunday for the Father's Day cards that I made! Have a wonderful weekend. Thanks for checking out my blog today!!!

Graduation Cards and my messy scrappy space

2011-05-30T12:24:00.001-05:00

What have you been doing with your 3 day weekend? This picture pretty much sums mine up.

What a mess! We live in a 2 bedroom house so my craft space is in our formal dining room. Apparently, there will be no formal dining going on today, right? I've probably made over 30 cards this weekend! That is a record for me. I haven't worried too much about leaving my stuff out, although it totally sresses me out having a mess like that in open view of the front door! Some day, I will have a craft room...preferably with a door! =)

My son has been going to so many graudation open houses. There are about 56 kids in his graduating class and they all know each other. He doesn't want to miss anybody! I decided he shouldn't show up empty handed. These first cards were inspired by one I found in Splitcoast Stampers gallery. I made it my own with the sentiment and star stamps used. These go together really quickly. Yes, I realize many kids will just toss their cards, especially if there is no money in them, but that's okay. These kids have really reached out to my son during his first year at the school. It's tough to change schools as a senior, but for the most part, these kids have been so welcoming. Jacob has had a great year, and I'm happy to make these cards as a gesture of gratitude.

I bought a package of glitter stars and had no idea that some of the stars on the bottom were humongous. I was able to use them, though, by cutting them in half and finding different placements for them.

I had a bunch of little gold gemstones in my stash which worked well with the star theme.

My son loved the idea of being able to take a card with him to the open houses, but he said I would need to make a LOT more! So, I did. I changed the dimension on these so that they would fit into some extra envelopes that I already had on hand. I also got smart and cut my own stars with my Cricut using glitter paper. Smart! But, why didn't I think of that earlier before I bought the package of glitter stars? The star is Accent Essentials using the "roly poly" function key. The other change I made was the background distress stamp. It shows up dark in the picture here, but it looks better in person. The other change I made to get them done more quickly is I dotted stickles on some of the stars rather than gemstones. That was much faster and cheaper. Again, hard to see in the photo. I made 10 of these!

This little number was a lot of fun, but quite time consuming. I thought he could give these to some of his closer friends at school. I used my brand new StampinUp! owl punch. I had seen several with the adorable little wings and finally figured out I could use my scallop circle punch by cutting it ino pieces (like a pie). I think it made a great little owl wing! Then, for the grad hat... I tried cutting a square, but I thought it looked strange, so I cut my squares into diamond shapes, and used a circle punch cut in half for the part that goes on the owls head. Then I used a tiny matching brad, and some floss for the tassle. Cute! It is a little time consuming to glue it all together, but I love the way it turned out, so I made 4 more!

I will have more card posts in a day or two. Have a great Memorial Day. Enjoy your family and take time to think about the freedom that we enjoy thanks to our military and their huge sacrifice. We are so blessed here in the USA!

"Celebrate Easter" layout

2011-05-28T15:45:00.012-05:00

Here is a layout of Easter 2011! How's that for scrapping the current? The left side is inspired by a sketch from the Practical Scrappers site. I loved the inspiration for the long stemmed flowers. I actually stitched these stems by hand. I first pierced the cardstock with the Sew Easy tool (zig zag wheel). That was the easy part! LOL! Actually the sewing was easy, it just took awhile. I used my scallop circle punch and cut each punch in half to use as a vertical border along my pictures. I cut the title with my Cricut, using a phrase from one cart and the font from another for a unique look.

You may be wondering about these handmade flowers. I call them my Easter trash to treasure flowers! Here's the tutorial from a previous post here on my blog showing you how to make the flowers from Easter candy wrappers! The leaves in the bottom right corner were created the same way (cutting them freehand) and running them through a crimper.

Easter layouts are so fun because I can use bright fun colors, that I might not normally use on a layout. I hope this will inspire you to try making some handmade trash to treasure flowers, or at least experimentng with some bright fun colors!

"Take a Bow" - Hello Dolly scrapbook layout

2011-05-25T19:44:00.000-05:00

As promised, I'm back with some layouts for my son's book. Jacob is a very talented young man... from athletics to the arts. He gives me a lot to scrap about!

He landed one of the lesser leads in the spring musical at his school, Hello Dolly. He played the part of Ambrose. Apparently, he landed that part because he is one of the best male dancers at his school. LOL! His character enters a dance contest in the play. It was so hard to choose the photos to include. I could easily have done three layouts. Unfortunately, his book is almost full and it needs to be complete for his graduation open house next month.

Okay, so my favorite part of this layout is the black tone-on-tone mustache paper! It has a little bit of a sheen to it. I was able to make a larger mustache embellishment with my Paisley Cricut cartridge. This was the very first time, I've used this cartridge, but it was perfect for making a mustache. I cut one paisley shape, and then used the "flip" button for the second. I should have taken a close up! I overlapped them in a way that made them look connected. To shadow it, I simply cut the next largest size up. The background patterned paper is Glitz Design. the border embellishments are Graphic 45. These embellishments were just perfect for a theater layout like this. I used the rest of them on another layout that I'll share later. The title is cut with Quarter Note Cricut cartridge. I LOVE this cart and used it so many times on these layouts for Jacob's album. He's a musical guy! Can you see the little picture on the top left? I used the StampinUp! postage stamp punch to cut it out. It's a picture of Jacob and his dance partner which was taken for advertisements prior to the play. Can you see his beard!!! Oh my word, I'm so glad that is gone!

The right side highlights the excellent waiter crew that stole the show with their well-rehearsed routines. I used StampinUp! antique brads on each side of the date tag. and StampinUp! bracket mat punch for a little bit of journalling. It sounds like I sell SU, but I don't. But, I do LOVE their punches and stamps!

Here they are together. There are 15 pictures on this page, but Jacob loves it that way!! He wants to remember everybody in the show with him. I hope he will enjoy his album for years to come. I've had a blast putting it together. I may even make a similar Hello Dolly layout for the family album. It was a great show and a great memory for all of us.

"Voyage" - Goodbye Labadee, Haiti

2011-05-22T17:49:00.001-05:00

Hope you have had a wonderful weekend. Our weather is perfect! I will enjoy the sun while it's here. I've been buzzing around the house trying to catch up on laundry, and working on graduation invitations....Time for a pleasant disctraction, so I'm take time for a quick post.

I'm sharing another layout of our 25th anniversary cruise. These pictures were taken of the Labadee shoreline as we pulled out of the port heading for Columbia. We sat on the top deck eating onion rings, watching the beautiful shoreline fade into the distance.

The paper is from a small cruise pack that I picked up at Hobby Lobby. It was the perfect title, so why not use it.

The right side shows the gorgeous sunset. Not a lot of beautiful colors to this sunset, but the cloud formations were pretty cool! I layered on several different chipboard accents that came with the cruise pack and used a tag in my stash for journalling.

Thanks or looking. If anybody is interested in the products, just leave me a comment on this post. I'm going to run outside and photograph my most recent layouts. I have several that I need to get into my son's album for his upcoming graduation open house. Be sure to stop back to see them later on!

"Coastal Tour" - another layout of Labadee, Haiti port

2011-05-18T17:12:00.001-05:00

It's Wednesday and I'll be so thrilled when the weekend is finally, finally here! The week seems to be dragging and with more stress than normal to my workweek. Hope you are all enjoying every moment of your week!!

I wanted to post another layout of pictures taken on our 25th anniversary cruise. Labadee was so beautiful, and we took lots and lots of pictures. I narrowed it down to one layout for our shoreline tour. This is a super simple layout, again, so I could squeeze in a bunch of pictures. =) The title and arrow were cut with my cricut. You probably can't see it very well unless you double click the photo, but I distressed the patterned paper on the edge and used some glitter glue to make it stand out.

All of the supplies used were straight from my stash! It's nice to have everything you need for a page. I used a flower on the bottom right picture to draw attention to it...It's my favorite picture from Haiti! I used a little ink and glitter glue on the flowers too and topped them with brads.

Here is the whole layout so you can get an idea of how both sides work together. Thanks for following!

"Paradise Found" - Port Labadee, Haiti

2011-05-16T17:11:00.000-05:00

My day has been a wild one...in a good way, though. I'm hoping for a night to chill and put my feet up. It will be a busy work week for me.

I've been looking forward to blogging a little and sharing my second cruise layout of Port Labadee, Haiti! We had so many pictures, it was really hard to narrow them down for scrappy purposes. There is only so much space in one album, right?

Oh man...I look at these and just want to go back! The title font is from Lyrical Letters Cricut cartridge. I used the SU bracket frame punch to journal some of the pertinent details. The detail in the center is ribbon wrapped with twine. The ribbon was stapled on first, then the twine is wrapped and knotted on each end of the ribbon.

Loved this palm tree from the Dudes Lite Cricut cartridge. It was a little tricky to figure out all of the layers involved, but I love the detail! Wallet pics made it easy to show the sequence of the zip line. We didn't ride it, but we had a great time watching everybody and got some great shots from the starting point high on the hill (top pic), all the way down to bottom when they splash through the water. The journalling block was stamped in brown (StampinUp!). The lines really help me keep my journalling straight!!

Here are the two pages togehter. I hope the warm, sunnyness encouarages and inspires you in some way today! Have a great evening!

"Port Labadee" cruise layout

2011-05-11T16:42:00.000-05:00

Hello friends! I've started working on the pictures from our 25th anniversary cruise! We cruised in December and it was absolutely wonderful!

Labadee is a port in Haiti which is owned by Royal Caribbean. It's picture perfect and the beach is wonderful! This is the only part of Haiti that we saw, except some additional shoreline on our boat tour. It was sad to think that much of the rest of Haiti is really struggling.

The left side shows my sweet hubby and some great shots of the Jewel of the Seas. The tickets were cut with my Cricut and Graphically Speaking cartridge. I used the Fiskars postage stamp border punch. The title font is from the Boys Will be Boys cartridge. The arrow font is pretty cool for travel layouts!

We shot some closeups of ourselves when we got back on the ship. It was a warm day, hence the sweat and lack of makeup...lol...You can tell we're on vacation! I journaled on a sticker that I found in my travel stash. I matted it so it would pop off the page a little bit and added twine. The brackets are chipboard that I painted to match the title.

We had such a great adventure together!!! This was our first cruise, but hopefully not our last!!

I'm typically a two page scrapper, so I struggle a bit with that first page of my albums. I decided to keep it as simple as possible and use the postcards I'd collected of the ship, and all of our ports. I had to trim them down slightly and overlap them here and there in order to save room for my title. I cut circles from the sides of two of the postcards and embellished with a punched circle, sun, and gemstone. I labeled each postcard with the day number of the cruise using my label maker loaded with the clear tape.

There will be many, many more cruise layouts to share soon. Thanks for stopping by my blog today! I always appreciate your comments.

More cards!

2011-05-08T13:05:00.001-05:00

Happy Mother's Day to all of you lovely ladies whose favorite name is "Mom". Actually my guys call me "Mama" even though they are all grown up now.

I've been on a bit of a card streak lately. For those of you who know me, I'm more of a scrapper than I am a card maker. I really enjoyed making all 3 of these and they didn't take me too long.

The first one is the card I made for my Mom for Mother's Day. I hope that she will enjoy all the bling. The butterfly was cut with the Indie cartridge (Cricut). The paper is KC Company.

This one was going to be a bridal shower card, but I believe it will end up being a wedding card....Long story...LOL. All I need to do is change the inside. I used the leftover pieces of paper from the card above. The bracket mat is cut with Sweethearts cart (Cricut). I sliced it (off center) then flipped the cut edges to the outside of the card so the bracket edges point towards each other. Make sense? From there, I just added flowers and other fun stuff. The stamps are StampinUp! "Bliss".

This last card is a birthday card for my husband's brother who rocks at guitar. This card came together so fast!!! The guitar and flourish is cut with Quarter Note cart (Cricut). I just happened to have a small piece left from a sheet of wood I've used on scrapbook layouts. It was the perfect size for this guitar!!! Actually everything came from my scrap box...love that! I also LOVE how the wood looks with the Ranger glossy accents painted on it. I let it dry over night. The sentiment stamp, is also StampinUp!

Thanks for stopping by! See you next week. Enjoy your day!

The Beginning and the End

2011-05-05T18:18:00.000-05:00

Hello everybody.

Yesterday, in the wee hours of the night, the phone rang. Doesn't everybody dread those calls in the middle of the night? It was one of our close friends, very upset. She proceeded to explain that her husband had died suddenly a few hours earlier. They believe it was a massive heart attack...Just like that.... he was gone. I'm sharing so that you will be reminded of just how unpredictable life can be. I know that God has a plan in all of this and that our dear friend is rejoicing in heaven right now. He was a strong man of God and I can't wait to see him again some day. It's really hard right now, though, for those of us who are left with a big hole in our hearts . Love your family and friends well!! We just don't know how long we'll have them here with us.

This layout seemed fitting to share today. We're planning a trip to MI to see our families for Mother's Day. We'll be meeting our new grand nephew too!!! While I'm so excited for all of this, I'm sad for our friends who are missing their husband, and loving Dad. Such a mix of emotions. The title of this layout stood out to me and the fact that it is loaded with pics of our family made it "the one" to share today.

These are some remaining random pictues from Mark's 50th in January. The left side is our immediate family during Mark's birthday meal, which is how we began his birthday celebration. That night we went home to a house full of friends for his surprise party!!! Most of the paper is Basic Grey Curio. We managed to get nice pictures of our kids, but not so for Mark and I...Um...Probably shouldn't even have scrapped them, but it was his birthday, so he had to be on the layout. Not sure why I included mine, but oh well.

On the right side is Mark's Dad, sister, and brother-in-law who came for the party. These pics are from the dinner that we shared with them at the end of Mark's fun birthday weekend....Hence the title "the beginning and the end".

Here is the full layout. Thanks for looking today. Happy Mom's day to all of your special ladies!! Enjoy your families.

Birthday cards to share today

2011-05-02T16:20:00.000-05:00

Thanks for stopping by my blog today. A few weeks ago I was able to get inspired to make a few birthday cards for friends and family. I thought I would share those with you today on this rainy Monday in Fort Wayne.

The dry embossing folder is Tim Holtz. I inked over the pale aqua paper with a couple different shades of ink to really bring out the texture of the dry embossing. The heart stamp is SU. I spritzed it to give it a frosty shine which is a little hard to see here. Then, added a couple of tiny pearls here and there.

This card is the same Tim Holtz embossing distress folder with the same inking method. However, I added a little bit of VersaMark here and there and sprinkled on some bronze embossing powder so it would cling and used the heat gun. The bird (SU) is also heat embossed with the bronze powder. I trimmed around it and popped it up. Using the same ribbon and papers, helped me speed up the process a little. I can sometimes get slowed down in the process of choosing the paper. When I find something that works together well, I try to at least use the remainder of the paper and make up another card while I've got it out.

This last one is my favorite. My nephew had a birthday, and I thought it would be nice to come up with a "guy" card for him. The emobssing folder is from Tim Holtz. I've been dying to use this folder for a few monthsand hadn't come up with anything until now. I was pretty excited with the way it turned out. The sunburst look is pretty trendy right now. I've noticed it in a lot of advertisements and brochures. I tend to see a scrapbook page or card in almost everything I see...Guess that's where I draw my inspiration. The patterned paper is theTeen Angst collection. Just a little corner of it to grunge it up a little. The silver metallic dots helped finish it off nicely. Hope he liked it!

Thanks for stopping by! Have a lovely evening!!

"Spare Me" - Birthday bowling

2011-04-28T16:53:00.000-05:00

Happy Wednesday! I pray that all of you are safe after the voilent storms moving through the southern states. It's been raining most of the week here, with a few shots of sunshine to soak up and be thankful for.

Wanted to hop on and share a bowling layout with you today. I used to be on a bowling league in my early 20's. That was quite awhile ago. Back in the day, I used to be an okay bowler, but I certainly didn't stick with it. When Mark's family came in to town for his surprise birthday party in January, we all went bowling together the next day. What a hoot! None of us were very good at it, but it didn't matter. We just wanted to have fun together. I secretly pre-arranged for Mark and I to get the day off from work. Our oldest son Joel did the same. What a great way to play hookie, right?

The diecuts are from Cricut's Nifty Fifties cartridge which gave me the idea to give the whole layout a retro feel. Lots of really fun stuff on that cart. I think you'll like it even if you're not as O.L.D. as I am. Inking the edges of the bowling pin really made it stand out. The title is also from the same cartridge. Isn't it fun? I used the shadow feature to help it pop off the page.

All the circles help repeat the bowling ball theme....smiley face and peace sign patterned papers, circular journalling spots, the border between the pictures, and don't forget the buttons!! I used a lot of wallet size pictures in order to get a shot of everybody throwing it down the alley.

I hope this inspires you to try a retro layout or maybe go bowling some time just for fun with the family. Be sure to take your camera. Everybody loves to see pictures of their backsides, right? LOL!

Thanks for stopping by my blog! Have a great evening.

"Partners in Crime" surprise birthday layout

2011-04-25T17:25:00.000-05:00

If you celebrate Easter, I hope that all of you had a blessed holiday! We spent the first part of the weekend helping to clean out my parent's condo so that we can get it sold quickly! We'll see how that works, but it seems to have improved the overall "feel" of the space without spending much money or time. It was a LOT of work and my body quckly reminded me of that today when I got out of bed...LOL. No fun getting old. My parents have been such a blessing in our lives! In spite of the work, I was very happy to help in this way. After a 3 hour drive home, we flopped into bed Saturday night (actually early Sunday morning) and got up early for Easter services. We had a fabulous day with our kids! We are so blessed!

Today, I'm sharing another 50th birthday layout from my husband's surprise party. These are just casual snapshots of the crowd of wonderful friends and family who came to join in the surprise celebration.

I borrowed the sketch from Cheri O'Neil of Let's Scrap. I added my own second page, mirroring the left side. Basically it's an informal collage anchored with a horizontal strip of paper and photo corners. The candle paper is super colorful. I found it on sale at Hobby Lobby. The honeycomb patterned paper is Basic Grey. The cardstock is The Paper Company "Buttercup". I hand stitched a little zig zag in the uper left with black embroidery floss. The title was cut with Nate's ABC Cricut cartridge. The photo corners are stickers made by Sassafras. I inked the edges with red, so they'd stand out a little more.

The paper strip draws the eye over to the second page. I set part of the title on it's side just for fun and the word CRIME was cut with Font 1 of Nate's ABC's. The simple collage layout is perfect for our informal and fun evening.

I soooooooo wish I had my own crafty space! It was so sad to pack up all of my goodies and clear the dining room for family's Easter celebration. =( I don't think I can play with them again until Saturday!! I'm going to a crop day for NSB at a friend's house. I plan to get caught up on my son, Jacob's, photo album since he's graduating from high school next month! I think I have 5 or 6 more two-page layouts for him and it'll be ready for the open house. Thankfully, I've kept up with it over the past few years.

Thanks for stopping by my blog today. Enjoy your evening!

"Celebrate 50" Birthday layout

2011-04-20T16:50:00.000-05:00

Happy Thursday to all of you. Is anybody seeing signs of warm weather in the midwest? I would just love to see the sun for awhile. I know it's coming soon, but I'm getting impatient.

Here's a layout of pictures taken on New Year's Day. Get this.... we were celebrating Christmas with Mark's family, it was New Years Day, and if that wasn't enough, we threw in a 50th birthday celebration for Mark. Little did he know at this time, that we were also planning a surprise party for him at our house for the actual day of his birthday on January 13!!! I love planning surprises.

This is such a great sketch from Scrapbooks, Etc. I love the circles! I love the bright, crazy colors together on white. The circles seem to float off the page. It' especially funny that you can see the Christmas tree in the background. I had a little bit of a struggle cropping my pictures just the right way to fit in the circle perfectly, but it was worth the effort. You might be able to see the journalling around the big purple circle and around some of the smaller circles.

The right side shows our silly nephew and one of his crazy faces and more journalling around the circles. For the bottom right circle, I held a circle in place and journalled around it, then removed the cirlce for a different effect. I stitched on a few buttons just for fun.

Hope this insprires you to try out a layout of circles sometime. It was tricky, but I love the way it turned out. It would be easy enough to add more circular pictures in place of the patterned paper circles.

Thanks for looking! Have a blessed week!

"Senior Smiles" layout #2

2011-04-16T16:38:00.023-05:00

Happy weekend!! I hope the sun is shining in your part of the world today!

Today, I want to share another senior picture layout with you. This layout will go in the ever-growing family album. I used to only work on albums for each of the boys and occasional travel albums. Lately, I've been starting to work my way back in time and scrap all the important stuff for a family album. You know....it will replace all of those plastic pocket-type albums that I used back in the day when I just didn't have the time to scrap very creatively.

Again, lots of pictures on here and I placed them around the outside of the paper in order to frame the title. I just kept moving the pictures around for the most pleasing effect. The paper is BoBunny Mama Razi collection.

Left side:

I didn't take as much time with this layout as compared to the layout shown earlier in the week. I simply cut the SR with my diecutting machine, ran the letters through my crimper, inked the edges, and wrapped it with the knit yarn which echoes Jacob's hat.

Here's the right side of the layout. I matted some pics to allow them to jump off the page, and just let the others blend into the pictures next to them or into the background. It's a pretty simple collage style layout, but I like the way it turned out. No journalling, no embellies, just my handsome kiddo. =)

Any ideas out there on great embellishment ideas for pages like this featuring strapping young men? I'd love to hear your ideas for future layouts where I actually have the space for embellies. =)

I mentioned it in the first layout, but will mention it again here. Jacob's senior photos were taken by Erin Photography out of Decatur, IN. She did an awesome job. We were all thrilled with the way she captured the many "faces" of Jacob. He's such a great kid. We're truly blessed.

Have a great weekend. Thanks for stopping by my blog. My goal is to make some cards this weekend. There are several birthdays coming up within my family and circle of friends. I'd also like to make some Easter cards for the family. It's good to have goals, right? We'll see what happens!

"Senior Smiles" layout #1

2011-04-13T16:10:00.000-05:00

I'll take a little break from the birthday layouts and share some special layouts of my son, Jacob. Erin Hoffman of Erin's Photography in Decatur, Indiana, shot the pictures and I want to give her all the credit for the totally awesome photographs you see here! Jacob was pretty excited to get his senior pictures done and he had a lot of great locations picked out here in Fort Wayne.

This first layout is for his photo album. I used a Creative Keepsakes sketch. I love that it allowed for so many pictures, because I had such a hard time deciding which ones to use!

Here's a close up of the corrugated alpha. I wrapped some knit fiber around it because it reminded me of the knit hat that he was wearing. I inked around the edges of the letter for definition. The BoBunny background paper was already distressed and perfect for Jacob's personality. Not that he is distressed or anything, LOL but he loves the grungy look. =)

Right side:

Check out the distressing I did on the title consisting of dry embossing, inking, and heat embossing on Kraft paper, cut with my Cricut. The idea for this technique belongs to Angie Leach. You can check out the examples and directions here on her Too Cool Stamping blog.

Here's another angle. It's a little hard to capture with my camera.

Here's the whole layout. You can double click any of these pictures if you want to enlarge them.

I finished another layout of his senior pics for the family album which I will post at a later date.

Have a wonderfully scrappy week. Hope that you are able to enjoy the sunshine that Fort Wayne is enjoying today. Spring may be here...at least for today.

Winner!!

2011-04-08T20:43:00.000-05:00

I'm so tickled that it's Friday! It's been a long week. Lots of fun stuff going on around here and it's keeping me on my toes. But NOW..... it's time to post my winner for the yummy Glitz Design distressing stamp set!

According to Random.org, my lucky winner is #30:

Michelle of http://www.peanutbutterandjellydesigns.blogspot.com/

Congrats, Michelle! Thanks for following, commenting and posting about my giveaway on your blog! You're going to love this stamp set. Please contact me at: jaleon40@frontier.com with your snail mail address so I can send it off to you. Thanks everybody for following and leaving your "love" in the comments.

Have a lovely weekend. It's cold and rainy (low 50's) here but they are predicting 85 degrees by Sunday. What? Only in Indiana!!! I think I'd like a little Spring, please, before summer arrives.

Blessings!!!

More birthday inspiration - "50 & Framed" and "It's a Surprise"

2011-04-07T16:21:00.000-05:00

I know I've been sharing a LOT of birthday layouts, but I'm not done yet. LOL!

These two layouts are pictures from my sweet husband's 50th birthday celebration. "Framed" makes me smile because there are tons of pictures of our favorite friends and family who came to celebrate with us. A few of our closest friends came early (while we were still at dinner) to let everybody in. They got the excellent idea of snapping everybody's pictures holding up a white picture frame! I love how these turned out! What a great memory of all who came to share in the surprise celebration!!

Left side:

Right side:

Full layout:

The pictures in this layout are from the actual party ...you know, blowing out the candles, sillyness, opening gifts, etc.

Left side:

Right:

Both sides together:

Close up of the dry embossed and stamped circles:

Journalling close up:

Thanks so much for following my blog! I always enjoy hearing from other crafty people like you. It's still not to late to enter the drawing for my blog candy. Make sure you comment on the blog candy post and not this one if you want to win the GlitzDesign stamp set! I will post the winner some time tomorrow evening.

"Colorful Side Shows" layout and Giveaway!!

2011-04-03T19:47:00.000-05:00

Happy Sunday! After church, we spent quite a bit of time and gas running around town for stuff. Gas is up to $3.85 here!!! I got home just in time to photograph the projects I made on Friday. I especiallly wanted to share this layout featuring the GlitzDesign distressing stamp set that I'm giving away here on my blog.

These pictures are from our 10 day 25th anniversary cruise we took this past December. It was our first cruise ever and we LOVED it! Anyway, back to the layout. Here is the left side:

You may have to double click the layout to see how I used the stamp in the upper section on the turquoise paper. I used the bottom of the five stamps which is a map and VersaMark ink pad. I love the dimension and detail it added to my layout.

Here is the right side of the layout. You can see a the stamped map on the top a little more clearly.

The paper I used on the bottom is K & C company travel log. I enjoyed being able to journal right on the travel log which is printed on the paper. Easy! Fell in love with the antique brads from StampinUp.

I used two different titling fonts, both cut with my Cricut machine and Lyrical Letters cartridge. The tabs were punched with the decorative labels punch from StampinUp. I cut each label in half lengthwise and inked the edges for definition.

Here are the two pages side-by-side:

You will love this stamp set for both scrapbooking and card making. I have a brand new, unopened set looking for a good home. LOL! If you haven't yet done so, go back to this post about the blog candy and get yourself in the running to win it!

Blog Candy - Giveaway!!

2011-03-30T07:50:00.001-05:00

Random Memories is 1 1/2 years old today! I thought it might be time to celebrate with a giveaway. I spotted this stamp set from Glitz Designs and want to give it to you! It would be great for both scrapbook pages and cards. This is a set of 5 clear distressing stamps great for background texture and design. It is brand new and still in the wrapper, laying on my dining room table. It wants to be yours!!!

Five stamps from top to bottom: postcard, ledger, history journalling block, penmanship practice, and a map.

I can't wait to use mine!

Here's how to win it!

1) Must leave a comment on this post AND be a follower of this blog for 1 chance to win.

2) Post this giveaway on your blog (in addition to steps #1 above) for 2 additional chances to win.

My winner will be drawn randomly (US residents only) on April 8. Check back to see if you've won!

Thanks for following!

"Party On" birthday layout and future blog candy!!

2011-03-28T16:46:00.000-05:00

I really have done a lot of birthday layouts lately, and believe it or not, there are still SEVERAL that I haven't posted yet. This layout features pictures from my birthday last September. I'm learning to scrap about my events too, and learning that it's all part of documenting life in general.

Left side:

Close up of the title at the bottom. I cut this with my Cricut cartridge and used Glossy Accents (Ranger) on it to make it shiny and puffy looking. Pretty easy, but gives it a pretty cool look. The candles were also cut with my Cricut. If you need to know which cart, I will check it out and let you know if you leave me a comment.

Here's another angle on the title that shows the dimension.

Here's the right side of my layout.

A closeup of the journalling I typed out. My son said he could actually read my journalling this time. =)

Here's a close up of my "birthday girl" banner using my Cricut, letter stickers, and Baker's twine.

Here's the whole layout side by side. I managed to squeeze 10 good size pictures on here and it still has some style and design.

Don't forget about the blog candy that I'll be offering on Wednesday. It's a stamp set from Glitz Design. I will reveal the blog candy on Wednesday and tell you how you can win!!! I thought it was worth one more teaser. =) Be sure to check back on Wednesday.

Christmas layouts - "The Hunt" and "Joyous"

2011-03-23T16:40:00.000-05:00

I'm sitting here at my desk and my hands are ice cold, it's raining outside, and very gloomy. We have the possibility of some flurries AGAIN later in the week. Since I still have several recent Christmas layouts to share, I figured today was as good a time as any.

I recently was blessed enough to win some glorious blog candy. All of what you seee here was made with this great set of winter paper. It was so much fun to work with it and have all of the cute embellishments to match. The majority of the paper was from Echo Park "Wintertime". These pictures were taken when we were searching for the perfect Christmas tree. It's a tradition that I love more and more each year. This year we had to find our Christmas tree earlier than normal since my husband and I were getting ready to head out on an anniversary (25th) cruise the first week in December.

The decorations on the tree were punched out of snowflake patterned paper. All of the accessoreis were included with this great kit of goodies.

We ended up picking our tree from the fresh-cut trees in the barn. We warmed up with hot cider and then went to dinner together at BWW's. I'm so thankful that our kids will still participate in and enjoy these traditions with us even though they're all grown up. I loved the 12 " border stickers on the bottom of this side. Stinkin' cute and easy!

Here they are side by side. I wish I could remember the name of the blog where I won this paper set so I could post it here. Maybe she'll see this post and remind me. I sent her a thank you card, because I was just so excited to get it and her gift was so generous!

The pictures in this second layout were taken on Christmas Eve when our immediate family got together at our house to celebrate with a meal and presents. I love making a special meal and decorating the table for Christmas. Always a litlte stressful to get everything done on time, but always worth the extra effort! I'm pretty sure I burned something a little bit this year, but now that it's March, I can't remember. I guess it's good to have a short memory sometimes. =)

Again, this is all from the Echo Park "Wintertime" set of paper, except the gold ribbon and the metal "Family" trinket which I had in my stash.

I almost always end up with some kind of grid of pictures on my page. It's just the easiest way that I've found to fit in a lot of pictures. I managed to squeeze in 11 pictures on this double layout. Another little trick I use is to order the "true digital" size rather than 4x6. They are just slightly shorter in length and it gives you room for a little bit of paper to peek out behind. These are actually cropped down even a little smaller in length to create room for my title. The only thing cropped out is the distracting backgrounds in each shot. The glitter chipboard letters were also in my stash and I used a mix of the colors to spell out the title.

Not sure if you can read the journalling, but it's all about the blessings of family and how much we are enjoying our daughter-in-law. She is a treasure and it's fun watching their relationship grow.

Have a great week...Oh, and keep checking back because there will be some yummy blog candy in the very near future. I need to get a picture of it and figure out the best way to give it away. =) It's so cool, that I bought 2....one for me and one to give away to my fellow bloggers. =) More details soon....

Callie (our grand-puppy)

2011-03-17T16:39:00.000-05:00

Happy Thursday! I thought it would be appropriate to post a layout that I did recently of our new grandpuppy. She's not this tiny anymore...just like babies, they grow up fast. Callie is having some minor surgery today and I've been thinking about her. She's an Australian Cattle dog and is still super cute and spunky.

The pennant flag was cut with Cricut's Celebrations cartridge. The little red clothespins were just the ticket. (supply list at the bottom of this post).

I loved the dog bone paper and the doggie words. This is the first scrapbook page that I've done featuring a dog and I was pretty excited to see all the cool doggy paper out there! I don't think I ever featured our own beloved dog on a page. I wasn't scrapbooking as much at that time. I may have to go back and dig up some old pictures of Chase (an adopted greyhound) so that I can honor his memory with a scrapbook page.

Callie has been such a hoot to be around. It's fun watching her get bigger every time my son and daughter-in-law bring her over. Hope that you are inspired to scrapbook about your pet (or grand-puppy...LOL!).

Supplies:
Sketch: Cheri O-Neil “Let’s Scrap (tag 11-10-10)

Paper: Pebbles Cats and Dogs “Biscuits”, Reminesce Animal House “Good Dog”
Punch: SU scallop punch, Fiskars bracket punch
DieCuts: Every Day Paper Dolls (dog accessories)
Celebrations – Pennant flag
Details: Scrappers spool (white twine), Creative Impressions clothes pins

Teen girl - mini album

2011-03-14T21:33:00.000-05:00

What a crazy week it's been! Whew! It was a really busy week at work that happens every March when we honor our top agencies. Lots of fun, and crazyness. So glad to be able to take some time to blog again. I have missed it!!

Today, I'd like to share a mini album that I made to give away as a door prize for a purity conference for the girls at our church. The age group of girls will be middle school through 10th grade. I hope whoever wins it will LOVE it! I got it done in about 8 hours one Saturday.

I cut the cover freehand from chipboard and cut the acrylic cover to match the shape. The inside pages are two sheets of cardstock taped together with double-sided tape. I made every page a little different, but used K C & Co paper throughout the book. I added tags for journalling in all of the pockets that were created.

I strategically placed the matching rub-ons over the center of the flowers on the cardstock. It's hard to see it until you turn the acrylic cover to the left.

Herre is the back cover with the acrylic cover.

Another shot of the front cover.

Thanks for looking!! Enjoy your week.

"Red Robin...Yum" published in Scrapstreet Magazine!!!

2011-03-05T15:00:00.002-06:00

I was pretty darn excited to have my layout chosen for Scrapstreet Magazine's Birthday Bash article. Scrapstreet is an online publication. Make sure you check it out! Lots of great layouts to be inspired by. I feel very honored to be included with the other amazing layouts.

This link will take you to the Birthday Bash article...just scroll down a little and you'll see my layout! Thanks for checking it out!

Three birthday layouts to share - "Flicks", "Happy Birthday Boys", "Make a Wish"

2011-03-01T19:07:00.000-06:00

Please explain how March has come so quickly? While I'm ready for spring to come, it seems the months are flying by. Happy March 1st!

Since it's been a week since I've posted, I want to share three birthday layouts with you!! It seems all I've worked on lately is birthday pics, so there will be more birthday stuff later. Our boys share the same big day...August 22 (1990 and 1992). So, August is a big month for us, and then my birthday follows in September. My husband celebrated his 50th in January. Needless to say, I put my new "Birthday Bash" cricut cartridge to work lately. =)

Here we go. First up is "Happy Birthday Boys". The pictures were taken during our family celebration in our back yard. The weather was perfect. A pretty simple layout...I had fun with the banner!

Next up is my layout "Make a Wish". These pictures are from the following weekend when they had their friends over to celebrate their birthday with them. It's so nice that they have many of the same friends. That's what happens when you're close in age and go to the same small school... Everybody is friends with everybody. Kind of nice!

I was nervous about all of the bright colors going together, but I LOVE the way it turned out. My two guys are on the right side page.

Last, but not least (actually my fave of the three) is "Flicks". After the food and cake, they watched a movie in our backyard!!! We hung a white sheet on the fence and borrowed some equipment from our church. It was pretty cool. Jacob loves to do this and I'm sure it will be an annual event as long as he's living with us...which better be a long time!=) I changed the pictures to black and white, and turned it into a vintage-look layout. The "Flicks" icon is from the Nifty Fifties cartridge. Love this!!! I used it alot for my hubbies birthday layouts. You'll see those in future posts.

Lovin all of the Tim Holtz papers and filmstrip here. I may change my film reel. It doesn't look quite right and I've since thought of a better way to make one. Anyway, I love the vintage look and I hope that it inspires you in some way. Check back later for even more birthday layouts!!

"O' Christmas Tree" layout

2011-02-22T17:33:00.001-06:00

Since the weather has turned snowy and cold again, I'm thinking of Christmas past....I finished this layout recently and thought I should share it before summer. =)

Left side:

This is my own sketch. I wish I could tell you the brand of paper, but I don't remember. I did purchase it at JoAnn's, though. The Christmas print ribbon tape is from Me and My Big Ideas. The branch die cut is Cricut's Jolly Holidays. Can you see the shiney snowflakes behind the branch? Here's a closer look at them.

I stamped the snowflake design with VersaMark (basically sticky ink) and sprinkled on clear embossing powder (Ranger). It turns clear when you heat it up with the heat gun. I thought it added a little somethin, somethin to look at behind the branch. The snowflake stamp is from The Paper Studio.

Here's the right side. The title is cut from Cricut's Winter Wonderland. One of my favorite fancy fonts!

Hope you enjoy the pictures of our tree this year. It seems each year we pick "the one"!! I think it won't be as good as the year before, but it's always even better. This was one of the fattest trees we've ever had in our living room. It was pretty enormous for our tiny house, but we made room. =)

It's never too late to scrap your Christmas pictures. I hope this inspires you to get 'em done. I still have a few more Christmas layouts to do. Hopefully I can tackle these at the next scrapping retreat. I will also have some 25th anniversary cruise pictures to do....It's so hard to decide what to work on sometimes. The order doesn't matter, I guess. I usually grab what I feel like working on the most at that particular moment...

Also, I'd love it if you take a minute to follow this link and vote for my card on Scrapbooks, etc.

I submitted a picture on their Craft it Forward page and have been selected to be voted on. If I get the most votes, I'm eligible to win a cash prize at the end of the month for me and for my favorite charity. Click here to vote. Thanks everyone!

2011-02-17T16:05:00.000-06:00

Hope you are all having a good day. We briefly hit 60 degrees here in Fort Wayne today....Pretty nice. It may not last long, but it's a taste of what's to come.

I'm sitting here at my desk after the long work day and I just couldn't wait to get into my blog and post something. Yes, I'm a little obsessed, but in a good crafty way.

Sonia of Archiving Angel was recently asking for fellow bloggers to make cards for the military. She is a military wife and wanted to bless the soldiers there along with her husband. So I made a few and sent them off to her. I hope these will express a little bit of encouragement and gratitude for their daily sacrifce for our freedom.

I'm off to a mini scrapping retreat tomorrow and I just can't wait. Have a great weekend and enjoy whatever you do.

Valentines Day tags

2011-02-13T21:31:00.000-06:00

Valentine's Day!!! Yay! It's such a wonderful day to shower your family and friends with love! I saw some great Valentines tags in Scrapbooks, Etc. magazine and I thought I'd try some. They took a little longer than I thought they would, but I LOVE the way they came out.

The first tag is a little more girley.

This tag is the more grungey look and fitting for the guys in the family.

Supplies:

Medium manilla tags: The Paper Company

Patterned Paper: The Paper Studio, and Archivers

Stamps: Bracketts - StampinUp!, Heart (guy card) -Close to My Heart, Journey - Tim Holtz, Flourishes - Scrappy Cat acrylics

Punches: Circle-Creative Memories, standard hole punch, Postage Stamp and Bracket border - Fiskars

Paint and Ink: Smooch Spray, and black pigment ink, and Martha Stewart (red)

Stickers: black letters - Creative Memories, red letters - Archivers

Miscellaneous: mini staples - Hobby Lobby, red and white Baker's twine - Michaels

Tools: Cuttlebug and embossing folders

"Tool Time" layout

2011-02-11T16:13:00.000-06:00

Happy Valentine's Day to all of my crafty blog friends! I'm so excited that the weekend is FINALLY here. It's been a really long week for me. Just really busy at my day job. I'm ready for a couple of days off, not at my desk.

Today, I'm sharing a layout that I finished recently which includes pictures from my son's tool party. My husband wanted to throw him a party before his wedding. They met at one of the pavilions a Pokagon State Park and had a great time enjoying each other's company. Joel received a bunch of really great tools to get him started.

My friend bought me this paper, specifically for these pictures and it really helped me jump start the design. If anybody is interested in the supply list, please leave me a comment and I'll post it later. It's at home written on the back of the layout. Does anybody else do that? I find it works well to keep track of the supplies used. Ideally, I take 10 minutes and type out all of the supplies in all of my layouts into a Word document for future reference and save it with the photos of my layouts. That's the part that doesn't always get done, but it is a great way to keep it all organized. I'd love to hear what the rest of you bloggers do to keep track of supplies used on a layout.

Here we go with the left side:

The title is cut with my Cricut from a sheet of real wood. Also braided hemp is tied around the title strip. Can you see the screw top brads on the journalling strip? These brads are great for guy pages...Both types of screw heads are included in the pack.

Right side:

I love the right side of this die cut paper with all of the cool shiny tools! I used more wood on this side to tie it in with the left side and added black sticker letters of variou sizes. I followed through with rounded corners in my collage to match the rounded corners on the diecut paper.

Here they are together. Remember you can double click it and it should enlarge so you can see some of the details.

Hope that you get some type of inspiration from this totally "guy" layout! Have a great weekend!

"Enjoy the Ride"

2011-02-07T17:24:00.000-06:00

We have a foot of snow on the ground! It's very pretty, and very cold outside. Anybody else ready for spring? I'm certainly getting there.

I've had some busy scrap time lately and it's time to share something new here. Have you ever scrapped, complete with journalling, only to find out later from your family that the story you journalled is all wrong? Well it's a little embarrassing, and I still haven't fixed it. I thought these pictures were all taken on the same day, but it turns out they were not. In fact, I journalled that these were sunset pictures, when, in fact....they were sunrise pictures captured on the way to work. How could I forget that? Oh well, not a big deal to scrap them together, but I definitely need to fix the journalling. Ugh! The rest of the pictures were taken when my son got his new (to him) vehicle and he took us for a ltitle joy ride. One of those memorable, spontaneous events.

I will probably have to fix the journalling by adding a strip of white paper over the top of the old. I may even type it out....Not sure yet. Since you all probably don't care so much about the journalling anyway, I will share the layout with you before fixing it.

Left:

Right:

Together:

The papers are all from Cloud 9 Design. This is a new pack I just picked up on sale. Aren't the colors yummy? The sketch is from Julie Bonner, although I deviated quite a bit so that I could use 8 pictures instead of four. Most of the dietcuts are from Cricut's "Graphically Speaking" cartridge. I love the faux stitching because sometimes you just need to get it done fast.

Have a wonderful day!

My Day - birthday layout

2011-01-31T19:41:00.002-06:00

Hope you all had a wonderful weekend! I got a chance to scrap a little and it's time to share. The snow is coming down like crazy right now in Fort Wayne, IN. Can't wait to see how much we get.

Most of the pictures I scrapped this weekend were birthday pictures. I don't think I've every scrapped my own birthday before, so it was definitely time. So here is what I came up with.

Left side:

The sketch came from Page Maps and I'm submitting it to the Scrapdango sketch contest. The sketch was just a single page. I ended up reversing it with pictures on the right instead of the left so they'd flow better into the right page. The patterned paper is all from Cloud 9 Design.

Right side:

These pictures were taken at a restaurant where we often go for family birthdays. It was wonderful for the kids to join in on the good grub and celebration!

Here are both sides together:

Hope you enjoy! The list of supplies is below:

Pattern Paper: Cloud 9 Design

Die Cut - Cricut "Sweethearts" Bracket map

Sew Easy piercing tool - Zig Zag head and SE floss "Quick Sand" (hand stitched)

Tag - The Paper Co.

Journaling stickers (top and bottom) - Creative Imaginations "Melange"

Masking tape ribbon - Tim Holtz

Brown Marker - Creative Memories

A few easy cards

2011-01-27T16:14:00.000-06:00

It's snowing again here in Fort Wayne, Indiana. The snow is very pretty and starting to accumulate and add to the few inches already on the ground. January is almost over already, so spring can't be too far away now. The older I get, the less I enjoy the cold, frozen tundra at this time of year.

A few weeks ago, I put a couple of cards together one evening. Since I haven't had much scrappy time lately, the cards are a nice little crafty "fix" for me. Thought I'd share these with you today.

First card is a Sympathy card. The image and sentiment stamps are both SU, and I used the Tim Holtz "Woodgrain" texture fade embossing folder. I am on a major TH embossing folder craze right now! He has some additional new folders coming out in a few months. I have almost every one of them and can't wait to buy the new ones! The designs are great and they make such a nice deep impression. I like the way the olive velvet ribbon ties it all together.

The second card is a baby card for some friends. The sentiment stamp is SU, and the image is from an acrylic set that has all kinds of images pertaining to babies. If somebody wants to know the brand, I can find it for you. I used an eyelet border punch on striped paper for another layer of color. The nifty striped canvas ribbon topped it off nicely attached with a staples.

I am super excited for tomorrow night! I'll be scrapping with some friends all Friday evening, and again all day on Saturday. Can't wait to share it all with you here later. ENJOY your weekend!

"Change" - Flash back comparison layout

2011-01-20T20:23:00.000-06:00

I found this layout the other day and realized I'd never posted it. The pictures compare my kids as babies and as teenagers, side-by-side. These photos are oldies...but goodies! Especially the tub picture!!! You can even see the water all stirred up around them. Trust me, there was never a dull moment.

Left side:

Right side:

Side by side:

If anybody wants to know the supplies, leave me a comment and I'll post the info later.

Let me be the first to wish you a happy, scrappy weekend!!!

A few cards to share

2011-01-16T21:03:00.000-06:00

I actually pulled off the big surprise party for my husband's 50th! He was pleasantly surprised by a house full of friends and family Thursday night after we came back from his birthday dinner. He's pretty observant about everything going on around him. To make matters worse, I talk about every detail going through my brain, but I didn't let anything slip!! We had a great weekend with his sister, brother-in-law, father, nephew, and our kids. There will be many great scrappy opportunities later on from these pics too. =)

It's time to post something...I do have a few cards that I've made in the last couple of months. Hope these inspire you in some way!

The first one is a birthday card for a friend of ours who also turned 50 recently.

This is a graduation card I made for my brother who recently graduated with a degree in health administration.

Random Memories

Pet scrapbook page - "Riley"

Valentines Wreath - Rosette Heart

Double layout - "Legacy"

Frosty Winter Cards

"Party Animal" double birthday scrapbook layout

Owl birthday card

Practical Scrappers Layout contest

Organize and Weed Out Your Paper Scraps!!

Top 10 Scrapbook Layouts posted in 2010

Christmas - double layout

Double Christmas scrapbook layout - Chillin

Gift wrap idea

Christmas Cards

Double layout - "Prom"

Two Cartagena layouts - "Ancient Doors" & "San Pedro Claver"

Double layout - "Inside the Walls of Cartagena"

Double birthday layout - "More Candles"

Double layout - "Fast Rides"

Fun Fall Cards

Another Rosette Pumpkin

Family Weekend at BSU - 2 page scrapbook layout

Vintage Wedding Album - FINISHED!

More Simple Cards

Rosette Pumpkin and Fall card

Simple Card Designs

Two double Scrapbook layouts - Vintage Wedding

Simple cards to share

Double double vintage wedding layout - "Family" and "The Bridal Party"

In Memory - Flashback "Treasure"

Vintage Wedding Double Scrapbook Layout

Double cruise layout - "San Pedro Claver"

Views of Cartagena - Cruise scrapbook layout

Blog candy up for grabs at Brenscraps!

Anniversary Cruise - Double layout of San Felipe Fortress

Flashback - "L" is for Leonhardt

Treasure

"Bubbles" and "Smitten"

"Hello Dolly" #2 scrapbook layout

"Boy oh Boy"

"Discover Cartagena" and "City Tour"

"Senior Chapel" layout

"Enjoy Life" summer layout

"New Life"

"School Days" scrapbook layout

"National Honor Society" scrapbook layout

"Music Lover" layout

"Stepping Out" prom layout

Father's day cards to share

More Graduation cards

Graduation Cards and my messy scrappy space

"Celebrate Easter" layout

"Take a Bow" - Hello Dolly scrapbook layout

"Voyage" - Goodbye Labadee, Haiti

"Coastal Tour" - another layout of Labadee, Haiti port

"Paradise Found" - Port Labadee, Haiti

"Port Labadee" cruise layout

More cards!

The Beginning and the End

Birthday cards to share today

"Spare Me" - Birthday bowling

"Partners in Crime" surprise birthday layout

"Celebrate 50" Birthday layout

"Senior Smiles" layout #2

"Senior Smiles" layout #1

Winner!!

More birthday inspiration - "50 & Framed" and "It's a Surprise"

"Colorful Side Shows" layout and Giveaway!!

Blog Candy - Giveaway!!

"Party On" birthday layout and future blog candy!!

Christmas layouts - "The Hunt" and "Joyous"

Callie (our grand-puppy)

Teen girl - mini album

"Red Robin...Yum" published in Scrapstreet Magazine!!!

Three birthday layouts to share - "Flicks", "Happy Birthday Boys", "Make a Wish"

"O' Christmas Tree" layout

Valentines Day tags

"Tool Time" layout

"Enjoy the Ride"

My Day - birthday layout