Christmas Card Photo Page For Two Years Together

Hi! This page is for an 8&1/2x11 album that is hosting all of our photo Christmas cards from 2013 & 2014.  Most of 2013 will come first, then 2014 will follow.  In between, I will include a couple pages of photos from both years.  These photographs came from a friend/ prior co-worker who includes a photograph of her son every year in a traditional Christmas card.

We love receiving photos and look back over the years since I started saving them in albums in 2001.

I have done various things over the years in smaller albums.  This year, there is no common theme from page to page.  I figured that this works well since the pages are bigger.  I used a sketch from Let's Capture Our Memories.

Longwood Gardens: My Happy Place

For Mother's Day, I get to chose a family outing.  I, almost always, chose Longwood Gardens.  The weather is usually perfect for walking around outside and the scenery is beautiful.

I wanted to use a few more items from my January Counterfeit Kit for another layout. Those items are the soft blue paper in the doily die cut and large banner, the light minty blue chipboard "happy place", zigzag, asterisk and arrow points, the small rub-on near bottom left and the "love this" die cut.  I colored the die cut with the same mixes that I used for my bookpage flower from the "rest" layout.

The patterned papers with circles and dots are from My Mind's Eye Abbey Road. The decorative border, the heart paper and the flower and leaf chipboards are from Sassafras Lass.

I used another great sketch from Let's Get Sketchy:

Thanks for taking a look! Hope that you have a terrific day!!

Stretch a Sketch!

LOL! I stretched this sketch from ScrapMuch?! to suit my portrait photograph:

I used Simple Stories DIY Christmas.  

Thanks for looking!

Beautiful Family

I used Little Yellow Bicycle Winterings, and Carta Bella So This Is Christmas for this page based on a sketch from Sketches in Thyme.

Thanks for coming by! Be blessed!!

Extreme Sports

Another sketch from Sketch N Scrap using Little Yellow Bicycle from a a TSR Doubleshot, January 2013. 

 I did manage to use some twine from My January Counterfeit Kit.  It's supporting the hanging icicles and a prop to mimic smoke coming from the house. Pretty cool photos, I think.

Thanks for peeking in.

Wishing you the Best,

Starting 2015's Christmas Cards

For this one I used Match the Sketch 055 and my Doubleshot from December 2014

Thanks for taking a look! Blessings,

6 Times Blessed

As the mother of two boys, I can only slightly imagine the vigor of life inside this friend's household.

Their Christmas card works best by fitting it on two 8&1/2 pages in my Christmas photo album. Thereby, I converted a sketch by My Scraps and More Sketches to a two page format for the layout. I used the cards sentiments in lieu of photos and shifted the items on the right to be more of a mirror image of the left.

The papers are from Carta Bella, So This Is Christmas.

Thanks for the visit!  Have a magnificent day!!

Another Christmas Photo Card

Another page for my Christmas photo-card album using a sketch from Let's Get Sketchy:

Most of the pages contents came from this fantastic kit from The Scrap Room I added the green twine and a sheet from WRMK Silver & Gold (Tree Skirt)

Thanks for looking!  Have a fabulous day!!

Baby Brant

Here I go using pink with boys again.  You might think that it is taboo; but, I just love using pink on my layouts.  Although the title implies the page is about the baby boy, Brant, the journaling is mostly about his mom.  In fact, this is the last picture that I have of her.  I could journal a book on this page. Most of my journaling goes on the back of my pages.  

I met Donna in 10th grade.  I transferred to a new school as we had moved.  The first time I saw her, I knew that we had to become friends.  I can even remember looking behind my right shoulder and where she sat in my class and what she wore that first day.  We became instant best friends and remained so, her whole life.  Two years ago, I was notified that she took her life.  (I'll be right back as I still get rivers of tears).  

She was the type of friend who you might not talk to for months but the second you start up, it's like you never were missing a day.  The last time we spoke, she called me.  

Here is the tough part.  I didn't hear her cry for help the last time that she called. I had no idea of her deepest feelings of despair. Had I only tried to be sensitive to what was really going on... 

I was pious and abominable.  Donna had made some decisions that I did not approve of and I judged her.  I didn't tell  her so.  But, she would have known by my responses or lack thereof.

If you knew a smidgen of my life story, you would know that I had absolutely no place judging anyone.  I'm still making peace with myself over my transgressions with Donna.  I've pretty much made peace with all the other stuff.

The good news is that I am learning from the experience.  We are all on various journeys in our lives. We all make mistakes, (as this grievous one of mine).  Hopefully, we attain some wisdom over time and transform to the likeness of the only person who ever lived who didn't make mistakes, Jesus.

I continue to heal and become much more intentional in my listening and kindness to others.   As for Donna, she will not have the opportunity for so many life experiences that I assumed we would go through together. 

I hope that sharing my experience helps you know me a little personally.  I hope it motivates my readers to be sensitive against judging others; and, I hope you know that you can have a friend in me who will fight my human instincts against thinking I've got things more together than you,...I assure, I don't.

My layout was created with this terrific sketch at Sketch-N-Scrap:

as per the challenge, the main kit, (papers chipboard and sequin butterfly) is new, the pictures are over 13 years old and the brads and flowers are well over two years old.

and this fantastic kit from The Scraproom:

...oh, and I used a brad from my January Counterfeit Kit.  :)

Blessings,

And Now For Something Different

...at least for me, that is.

I used to create mini albums in my Creative Memories 6x6's with my Christmas photo cards.  2009 was my last year to create a 6x6 album; but, I have been saving the photo cards since.

This year I purchased a different 8&1/2 x 11 type with sleeves. I think that it is We R Memory Keepers.  It's so much better that most of the cards can fit in one piece on a bigger page now.

I used a sketch by Sketches in Thyme and The Scraproom's Doubleshot January Kit, (which uses Carta Bella Warm & Cozy).

The sketch is so cute and adds just a little something without overwhelming the card.  The papers are a fabulous mix of warmth and festive.

Thanks for looking!  Have a great day!!

Gaming: Old School

I remember when my boys preferred games where you were in the actual presence of your opponents.  :) 

Another sketch by Laura Whitaker this time on her website, Stuck?! Sketches:

Not much left of my January Counterfeit Kit now. I added the letters, the borders, the blue felt, the mist, the pink thread and the zigzag paper to some of my few remaining items from the kit to complete this page.

Hope you have a marvelous day!! Be blessed!

1st of Friends

I rotated a sketch from ScrapMuch? and moved the photos back to horizontal and shifted the vertical strips then, to the left.  It worked better this way for the flow that I wanted with these pictures.  Here's the sketch:

Everything on my page comes from my January Counterfeit Kit.  I haven't any full sheets of paper left now. 

The girls in the pictures with my boys were among my favorite scrappin friends little ones.  Unfortunately, both families moved away.   :(  But, at least we can save the memories!!

Have a terrific day!

Happiness is:

My adorable Kurt set up classroom with some of his favorite friends, (a few years ago).  I took the opportunity to use the photographs from the event and make this page work for Challenge #1 - Scrapping With Lists at the Counterfeit  Kit Challenge blog.   All the items except for the royal blue cardstock and globe sticker came from my January Counterfeit Kit, Funshine.

I used my homemade pen from one of my add-ons to pen the title onto a journal card from one of my Main Kit sheets and glossed it over with Glossy Accents.  The fine-tip side of the pen was used for my Happiness list.

I have had little success with some of my embellishments and add-ons with my January Counterfeit Kit.  The Foil/Glitter/Flock rub-ons in my Main Kit didn't work because the glue decorative rub-ons were so dry that I could not even rub them onto the paper.  I, then, rubbed the acetate sheets from the glue designs with my finger and there was no moisture to it.  I considered wetting the sheets to see it it would make a difference but it really didn't feel worth the effort.  The Foil/Glitter/Flock sheets may get used as fancy paper sheets to layer onto a card or page or made into die cuts.  I will hold onto them for now and see if I can work them in some project.  I tried rubbing the glitter sheet onto the acetate hearts that I ran through my sticker maker but very little of the glitter transferred.  I, then, decided to pull out some glitter to dress up the hearts and they are all going to be completed for another page.

The paint dabber was completely dried up.  I discarded it. The mica and powdered flakes clogged in my mister.  The mister was washed and retained. The mica and powder will be donated to the art teacher at Kurt's school, with oodles of other stuff.  I put the Clover Alcohol Ink in the Adirondack refillable pen and used it in this layout.  But that was only after botching up neutral letters that I was originally going to use for the title on this layout.  It wasted my alphabets and stained my stamp, (bad idea in the first place).  I'm not in love with my penned title, but it's okay

Sorry for my rant. I, usually like to keep things upbeat but I wanted to explain why you might not see so many items used from my kits.

To stay with my glass half full mentality, I have purpose in the whole process.  I learned some things that will help with future projects; and, I found reason to move items from my stash that were sitting unused.

Hope that you are having more success with some of your older items.  :)  I, also, hope that you have a terrific day!  Be blessed!!

Journaling

Journaling almost always goes on the back of my layouts.  Most of the time, I write on regular lined paper in whatever ink is closest.

I do my journaling on the back for a number of reasons.  First, I am, generally, a reserved person that opens up completely only to my closest friends.  Keeping my journaling inside my page protectors leaves it an option to people viewing my albums to dig deeper about who I am by making a concerted effort to look inside.  It takes a more intimate intention on their part.

Secondly, it provides a lot more space to write.

Thirdly, I don't have to be concerned about the neatness of my writing.  I have discarded whole pages, (after I took the pictures off), when I sat back and determined that my poor penmanship made the whole layout look bad.

But, one of the biggest reasons is that I write on sheets that go inside the sleeves is that I can do all of my writing when I'm in the mood.  My thoughts and feelings become so much more purposeful when I can write at my leisure.  Otherwise, I would quickly jot the most pertinent facts, and hurry it all up to move onto my next page while I was in the papercrafting mood.

Most of the time, I try to let my page tell the story, (albeit on a very surface level).  However, I feel like this one leaves you hanging.  Dream?

I wanted to give an explanation because the page feels so unfinished without the story.  The story for this page is long.  It starts with my love of horses in childhood where I read every horse series that I could find, (Black Stallion, Misty, etc) and climbed onto the back of a horse from the side of a fence at a local farm that I walked to all by myself, (at a preschool age).  My grandmother arrived fearful for my life as she finally found where I had taken off to.

It will describe my brief jaunt working at at a stable until I realized that I had to muck a lot of stalls before given the privileged to ride for free. It will include multiple horseback riding stories and conclude with the story where my boys took horseback riding lessons to prepare for our mule ride down to the bottom of the Grand Canyon.

So there, I opened up to y'all and if your still reading, you cared to find out a little bit more.  I appreciate your interest. :)

I created this page with a sketch from Creative Scrappers:

All of the pages contents came from my January Counterfeit Kit.  

Want to see more? Here's another page with me and a horse.  Love my red knee socks with green and orange clothes, lol. 

Have an awesome day!!

The Nurturer

Did you read The Giver? I am certain that Kurt's assignment would be a Nurturer if he lived within the fictitious setting of the story. He instinctively cradled this precious kitten like a little baby. I, so, love these photos.  I'm, also, loving grey on my layouts.

My colors were inspired by this photograph:

Thanks Kelly for the color combo challenge at Creating with Paper and More. Kelly collaborates with Brenda and Rochelle in the Scrappy Friends Challenges:

I did all three for the second month in a row.  Brenda made the terrific sketch and her portion of the challenge can be found at Grand Divas Creative Corner: 

Rochelle is challenging you to a game of Tic Tac Toe at Through the eyes of...Rochelle Spears:

I won two rounds by completing the top row across and the far right column down.  ;)

Top Row: Sequin-6 of them, 2 photos, star die cut

Right Column: Star die cut, 3+ patterned papers, The color Gold-the sequins and the ink

Hope you join the fun.  They have incredible prizes too.

Most of what I used came from my January Counterfeit Kit. I am grateful to the Counterfeit Kit Challenge site for all the mojo! I was, especially, excited about using the grey vellum sheet.  It had been in my stash forever! If you look closely, you may see the weave pattern in the paper.  It is precisely the reason that I hoarded it,...I kept waiting for the perfect purpose.  Now, that I've used it, I'm sure the most perfect purpose will come -- too late as usual. :)

Have a great day! Be blessed!!