Oregon Trip Highlights, Part 1

July 2011

~Leaving Nashville~

This is what a weather delay after boarding the plane allowed us to do! Totally worth the minor 30 minute delay:)

The Willamette River in Eugene, Oregon

Time with Grandpa. I don't know what it is about this photo but I LOVE it!

At the Eugene Emeralds baseball game

He's waving at the mascot, Sluggo, who he fell in love with instantly

The Oregon Coast

Here I am trying to manipulate the results of the kids' race down the dunes...

And they finish in age order anyway;)

 Bliss

 Sea Lion Caves

 The girls were FREEZING since they left their hoodies at grandma's house

 Hood up and long sleeves on the beach. Being from SoCal, this still amazes me

 Can you title the layout for this one???

 Yaquina Lighthouse in the morning. Here I found out I have developed a sudden and INTENSE fear of heights.

 Same lighthouse, that afternoon. Still freezing but much prettier:)

Low tide on the cobblestone beach...some of the best tidepooling ever!

More to follow,

"What's for LUNCH" Challenge

With the school year upon me, lunch is going to change quite a bit this week. I must go from enjoying a cooked "just for me by my sweet 14 year old son" lunch to making 5 sack lunches and sending off all my dear kiddos. I am more than a little sad to see summer slip away, it seemed shorter than ever this year. 

So, when my turn came up to post a challenge for the KITCHEN, I knew this would be the perfect time to focus on lunch. We'd love to have you come on over and join us!  Here is the sample layout that I created for the challenge:

I used lots of the Savor line from Little Yellow Bicycle but the background is from October Afternoon. My favorite lunch lately is the panini, and let me just say, my son has perfected the art of creating them! I kept the layout clean and simple but couldn't resist adding just a bit of dimension:

The star is Maya Road chipboard that I inked a bit and then backed with some LYB paper. I punched the paper into a star shape with my old Creative Memories punch and then just had to trim it ever so slightly and glue it into place. The dimensional heart embellishment is made with more LYB papers and some Nestabilities dies.

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I am STILL working on sorting through my hundreds of photos from our Oregon trip but I am getting close! Here is a preview of the kids at the coast:

 Look for the rest of them in just a few days...I hope;) 

~Three layouts in Scrapbooking Magazine~

 

So now my kids have gotten into a "submit one with me" contest. I have been working on so many layouts of the younger two that most of my published layouts include them but FOR the RECORD, everyone has been in at least one of my paper published layouts. This month's Hobby Lobby Idea Magazine, Stamping, Stationary and Scrapbooking includes three of my layouts and yes, all three are of the two younger kids. 

 HOWever, my first three kiddos have many more completed albums and tons more layouts in those albums. That is because their albums were done back when my focus was more on the photos (and on scrapping chronologically) and less on the artistic process. My goal is to find a nice blend of the two:) Suggestions welcome!

We are gearing up for school, I canNOT believe my "baby" is starting high school next week! I was looking back through his scrapbooks this week and I am so thankful for them. Time really does fly by so quickly and it becomes hard to remember all the little details. Scrapbooks keep them safe and handy...and pretty!

Happy Scrapping,

Scrap-a-Little Guest Designer

  Helen Croft, papercrafter extraordinaire, was kind enough to ask me to guest design for her!!!
She sent me her latest, greatest sketch to work with:

And here is what I came up with:

I used a stack of adorable We R Memory Keepers for this layout plus a bunch of punches! The big ticket and star pin are Maya Road and the memo pin is Tim Holtz. I used an old piece of blue ribbon to tie onto the pin but it was too bright so I just hit it with some distress ink and voila! I can see myself using this sketch a gazillion times...sideways, this way & reversed, thanks Helen!

I just don't know how Helen comes up with great sketches month after month, she truly amazes me. If you haven't had the chance to check our her gallery of sketches click here.

I did a little bonus layout for her based on sketch 49:

 I used some great old Sassafras from my stash for this one. Lots of fun layers and stickers and stitching. I am on a use what I have kick and that is actually making scrapping pretty fun, a bit of a challenge and I do miss the shopping and the NEW stuff but quite honestly, my scraproom is FULL!

Back when we only had three children I began a tradition of celebrating half birthdays. It seemed like a GREAT idea at the time...two kids had January birthdays and my energy for celebrating is a little lacking at that time of year...so the half birthday idea was born. I keep it pretty simple really, just half a cake and one present. Well, it was pretty simple until our family grew and grew and grew and now we have a half birthday, a real birthday, and/or a holiday constantly it seems. Sigh. I do LOVE to scrap the half birthdays though!!!

 I used my Papertrey Ink banner dies for these but they were too long and just looked funny to me so I altered them with a pair of scissors and got just the look I was going for. I strung a bit of Karen Foster floss through them and that made it so much easier to place on the page. I had always placed each individual letter first but that made it difficult to get that "hanging" look. Definitely worth the time to pierce holes and string floss first!

Happy Scrapping,

Surpise!!!

Surprise!!!

~Arriving this Fall~

~I want to extend a heartfelt thanks to those of you who have sent me sweet inquiries as to where in the world I disappeared to for the last couple three months. I really appreciate you all checking on me...the morning sickness was super awful this time and I am just now getting back to some bit of normalcy, as normal as one can get at home for the summer with 5 kiddos~

 I have even gotten back to a bit of scrapping...just a wee bit. We are heading out to Oregon shortly to visit lots and lots of relatives. My in-laws are VERY kindly putting us up at their house and with 7 1/2 of us, that's quite a sacrifice! So I am taking along a little token of my appreciation:

I used the Earth Love line by Cosmo Cricket for this ATC tray. My in-laws live in Eugene, Oregon so what other line works better than this?!?! I have a few bits and bobs from other lines and manufacturers (Maya Road, Prima, Tim Holtz, Cookbookin') scattered throughout as well. This was such a fun project to put together, I hope they like it!

Here is a progress shot just before my oldest son vetoed his photo...I thought it was perfect: teenager in mall, texting away (middle row, first slot) but he said he wanted a soccer shot and that is, really, much more appropriate. I adore that he likes to look at my work and helps with great suggestions and ideas. When I put these trays together they spend hours flat while I move all the pieces around. Then I take the plunge by adhering the backgrounds. Then there is another round of moving the pieces all over the place. Once I get the photos or main memorabilia adhered I move on to embellishing, my very favorite part of the entire process. I can embellish these for weeks! Eventually I call them "finished." 

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  I also managed to eeek out this recipe layout for the Kitchen:

This soup recipe is so yummy and so not for summer but it took quite a while for the heat to hit this year in the south. As a matter of fact, our friendly little cicadas were a few weeks late themselves. More on them later!

It's good to be back, wishing you all Happy Scrapping!

Kitchen Crop Coming Soon~

Kitchen Keepsake is cookbooking at its finest! Come and find your creative culinary muse!

The designers have cooked up some fun challenges, games, and there are of course lots of prizes!

All challenges will be posted on Friday, April 29th and will be due on May 4th.
 
We hope you'll join us in the kitchen and get those creative juices flowing!

www.kitchenkeepsake.com 


See you there,

Green Milk!

No, no, not THAT kind of green milk. Milk NEVER has a chance to turn green in our fridge. The only time we have green milk around is when the Leprechaun's pay us a visit each March;).

I used some Little Yellow Bicycle papers that I have been hoarding for this layout. I just KNEW they would eventually come in handy. My layout is based on this week's sketch up at Let's Scrap:

I know! I kinda went a bit my own way. My layout really did start with the left side of the sketch! Ah well, there are those times that I follow sketches quite closely and there are these times when I start with a sketch but by the time I finish creating my layout the sketch is hardly recognizable. When I added my layout to the design team gallery, I thought they might just reject it but they didn't. It is up there on the main page at Let's Scrap;).

I broke out of my white thread mold on this one and used some black thread to stitch my rick rack on and to stitch together my large hearts. Then I used mini-staples {Tim Holtz} to attach my journaling strips and my small hearts. That big scrappy flower...that is just what it is, a bunch of scraps that I trimmed from my mats and they all fell in a pile and voila, an embellishment!

I added the Maya Road pins to my scrappy flower just because I thought they looked good with this Making Memories metal frame that I used around his tiny hands clutching his little glass of green milk.

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Let's Scrap is having a Design Team Call! Here is the sketch to use if you'd like to apply. Details on the call can be found here. We'd LOVE to have YOU apply. Good luck!