Ooh, how SWEET it is!

For my first design duties in a long time, I was given the awesome assignment of working with Basic Grey's new line "Sweet Threads".  I haven't been this excited about a BG line since Lemonade!  I had printed some older pictures of Erin and had been saving them for over a month just waiting for the shipment to come to my LSS.  And then, when it finally came...I had to do a gift baby album first.  Bah!  So, I got myself through doing the baby album with the promise that when I finished it I could finally play.  And today, I did play!!!!

First up, "The Little Things"...

I adore these pictures of Erin taken three years ago this month.  The frames stickers worked perfectly for bringing a little bit of motion between the photos.  I wanted to add some embellishments, but the layout told me it was done.  So, I let it be.

Then, I played with the greener side of the line.  This picture is Paige on Easter this year.

I had a grand time with my sewing machine adding edges around the papers.  The design is a lift from one of my friends on scrapbook.com.  The flower is another one made with my heart punch.  I think I finally figured out how it's supposed to look on this layout!  :)  My journaling is hidden on the tag underneath Paige's picture.  She's growing up so fast!!

I have thoughts in mind for at least one more layout with this line, but that will have to wait for another day.  Now it's time to gear up for the week ahead.  I hope you have a great week!  :)  Wendy

Sassafras Lass, Basic Grey and Echo Park projects

Over the past two weekends, I've managed to complete three more projects.  The first is for a sketch challenge over at the Sassafras Lass blog.  The sketch given is a design from Marcy Penner, and it looks a little something like this:

Normally when I'm going off a sketch, I tend to stay fairly true to the exact components and placement of the elements.  This time I challenged myself to mix it up a little!  I kept the three stars, but I masked and misted them and scattered them about.  I also liked the boxes, but I moved them about as well.  And so the finished result was...

This is a little more free-flowing than my usual style, but I have to admit, I'm pretty happy with it!  :)

I also had some time to paw through my stash and pull out an oldie but goodie, Basic Grey's Sugar Rush.  When it first released, I got the whole paper pack and sticker elements and chipboards.  Then...it sat and sat.  I donated some of the wilder papers I knew I'd never be able to work with.  The rest continued to sit and sit.  Then, beautiful inspiration struck!  I used some pictures from Paige last August waiting for the fireworks at the Pro Football Hall of Fame, and voila!

I'm particularly proud of the die cuts, chips and border embellishment cluster here. 

Embellishment clusters and I don't always get along so well.  :)



Last, but not least, I took some pictures of Paige recently in an outfit of her own creation.  She *really* loves to have girly clothes, and I'm just a throw-on-what-I-can-find-to-wear kind of girl, so her fascination with "style" is a little foreign to me. But fun too!

Looking at the colors in her outfit, Echo Park's "For the Record" collection spoke to me.  Off to my local scrapbook dealer (thank you, Vanessa!) I went, and away I came with the beautiful reds, yellows and greens of this collection.

The design is a scraplift of a layout I clipped from one of my scrapbooking magazines several years ago.  I don't even know who to give credit to, but I knew I really wanted to use the three pictures on a double page layout so I could give them some space to breathe and be seen properly.  I got a little punchy on here too, as you can see.  That adorable little flower came from a heart punch tutorial on October Afternoon's blog

http://octoberafternoon.typepad.com/october_afternoon/2011/05/tutorial-3d-florals.html

Yes, I actually went out and bought one heart punch (okay, okay, it was two)

so I could make this flower.  I loved the results!!

Happy Mother's Day to all of you women who make such a difference in children's lives--

whether or not you are their physical mom!

Happy Easter!

Like I mentioned in my last post, I still had pictures from LAST Easter I hadn't scrapped yet, so last night while "watching" the original Tron movie and the new Tron movie with my husband, I pawed through my stash and came up with a little something like this:

One for Erin, talking about the changes I've seen in her over the past year...

A mirrored layout for Paige doing the same thing...

And if you want to, you can even enjoy them together!

Happy Resurrection Day!

My Security

Hello everyone!
I'm constantly posting layouts I've done of my daughters, and today I wanted to show you their Daddy.  My husband, Jon, and I have been married for over 12 years now, and when I think about all of the great things about Jon, the number one thing that comes to my mind is how trustworthy he is.  I can trust him with my heart, and I always know that he has my back.  He's my security.

I have the hardest time getting my photos of my layouts to be straight, but I promise you, the layout is straight and balanced!  For this project, I used primarily Basic Grey papers--an old one from "Offbeat" for the background, and a couple of new papers from "Life of the Party."  I used one of my O alphabet stamps to circle the numbers on the ruler paper to show how many years we've been married.  The heart is from Kaisercraft, and the envelope is Maya Rd.  On the reverse of the ruler paper in the envelope is my journaling...a little love note to my hubby about how much he means to me. 

I still have pictures left from last year's Easter that I haven't scrapped yet, so I'm off to do that now.  :)

Happy, blessed, joyous Easter! 

Will Christmas Ever End?

Apparently not, because I keep working on a backlog of Christmas pictures from this Christmas AND last!  Here's the story of how Erin Grace wound up with a giant stuffed frog for this Christmas.  She had neglected to mention to Santa that she wanted one until we went to see Jolly Old St. Nick on the Santa train in our hometown.  It was there, just a short time before Christmas, that she shared with him her dearest wish for a stuffed frog.  Luckily, that Santa, he's a smart guy and he managed to still get her one on such short notice!  I included the news story that ran in our local paper with the girls' pictures and their wishes.  They were on the front page!  Santa ~had~ to come through!

Okay, this next layout isn't Christmas, but it FINALLY happened the day after Christmas.  We had planned on letting Paige get her ears pierced on her sixth birthday as she had been asking for them to be done.  So, we drove to our friendly local Walmart, and took her in.  I'll spare you the gory details, so I'll just say it was a NO GO at that time.  Fast forward nearly two years later, and at only one month shy of eight years old, Paige finally felt ready for this life changing event.  It really did change my life--I still have the scars from holding her while they did the piercing.  (kidding!).

Not to be outdone, Valentine's Day wants its share of the holiday glory.  I used a line I bought last year, and some close-ups I'd saved of the girls to make these two layouts.  The Little Yellow Bicycle 10 Things I Love About You pockets were fun to use!

Craving just a little bit of sunshine and summer on this April 17th day when it snowed (yes, I am not kidding this time!) and accumulated on the ground, I have a picture of the girls from last summer.  I used Echo Park's "A Walk in the Park" line and my trusty sewing machine.  (Oh, how I love you sewing machine!)

For you Echo Park purists, yes, the color is a little off here.  Like I said.  Snow.  Clouds. 

No good natural light to take the picture.

My poor friend who was visiting me this from Ohio said, "There's snow on the ground." 

 (Imagine that spoken in a horror-filled voice)

"That's not snow," I told her.

"What is it then?" she asked.

"Dandruff." was my reply. 

 I think it works.  They're both yucky--especially at this time of year!

:)  Thanks for stopping!!  ~Wendy

My Mind's Eye: April Showers!

At My Mind's Eye blog, they are running another sketch challenge.  The theme is April showers...
Here is the sketch, created by Anam Stubbington:

Here is my take on it:  "The Dance of the Spring Shower"!  I took my pictures of Paige playing in a sudden downpour in our backyard. It was a remarkably warm spring day, so we let the girls put on their swimsuits and enjoy splashing, belly flopping, and swimming through the puddles!
Paige was hilarious with those puddles, and it is one of the best memories I have of that spring.  It was a moment I was proud of myself as a Mom because I let go a little, and let them swamp around even though it wasn't summer yet. 

Creating this layout gave me my first opportunity to play with the Stella and Rose line, and it made me wish I lived closer to the store where I bought these papers so I could go get more. :) If I win the challenge, my dream might come true!  The prize is three complete collections of My Mind's Eye!!

Thanks for dropping by!  Don't forget to play in the puddles this spring!!  :)

A Sassafras Lass Challenge!

I'm a big fan of Sassafras Lass products with my two little imps for my inspiration.  Their papers and embellishments often have a whimsical, playful feel.  For the month of April, the good people of Sassafras Lass are running a sketch challenge.  Here was the sketch created by Valerie Salmon, owner of the "Got Sketch" blog for the inspiration:

This was my take on it using some photos of Erin from when she was two years old.  We had a sudden downpour on an uncommonly warm day in May, and we let the girls put on their swimsuits and party!  Our backyard (with clay soil) turned into a swimming pool.  They had a blast!



And just for the fun of it, here are a few more primarily Sassafras Lass layouts I've made in the past. 

SO. MUCH. FUN!

We had a beautiful spring day here in Michigan.  I hope life is treating you well where you are!!

:)  Wendy



Way Too Soon!

I've loved this picture of Erin since the day I took it.  She was on top of the bathroom counter, staring at her own reflection, and just grinning at herself.  As soon as I saw KaiserCraft's Bubblegum Hill collection, I knew I wanted to use the 6.5x6.5 pad to make a quilted heart, and I knew this picture was the one to use with it.  Plus, I got to play with my favorite new scrapbooking toy--my sewing machine!  (Which then ate my paper when the bobbin threw a temper tantrum, but I covered it up with a triangle of leftover paper, and it looks like I meant to do that, right??!  Right.)

I put the last finishing touches on this LO tonight as the girls were eating cereal for dinner (yes, it's one of THOSE nights), and I overheard them talking about the nutritional values of their cereals.  Erin exclaimed, "Mine has fat!"  And then I heard her saying more quietly, "I am getting fat."  Oh, the heartbreak!!  People, she is FIVE years old.  She is beautiful.  But someone important in her life recently told her she was getting chunky.  (Yes, I wanted to wring his neck!), and the last time we were at the pediatrician's, her doctor mentioned she had gone up on percentiles, and we needed to be concerned about that.

Soon spring will come, the snow will melt, and it will be easier to get out and about for more exercise.  We are encouraging her to stop eating when she is full--I am NOT a proponent of the clean plate club.  And certainly, I need to set a better example with my own eating habits. 

But she is perfect and beautiful, and I'm not going to let her start feeling like anything else at age five.

Digging Out From Under the Snowdrifts?

Well, you'd think that with the date of March 22nd, winter would have been OVER.  You'd be wrong if you live in Michigan.  Darn you, Puxatawny Phil...you lied!  So, our spring break was SUPPOSED to start tomorrow, Friday, March 25th...but....we've had the past two days of school off because of snow and ice.  Can you believe it??

In honor of winter's neverending grip upon my state, here are a bunch of Crate Paper "Snow Day" line layouts!  Two of these are from our last major snowstorm and THREE snow days off in a row--on Groundhog's Day.  I should have known then!!  :)

So with this year's snow days and a couple of Christmas layouts taken care of, I was ready to turn my attention to Christmas cookie decorating from LAST year...

Hungry yet?  Maybe it's time for a tea party with Grandpa all dressed up too--wearing a flower on his hat, and his fancy WORK gloves!

Maybe we should work off some of those calories with a little exercise...we can go for a run...

OR, we could do a little cheerleading!

Now maybe we should go to school for a little book learnin'...

And just for your viewing pleasure, check out this face!!

Gotta LOVE it!

Hope you're warmer than we are, and happy SPRING break!  :)

Wendy

Plowing Through the Backlog of Pictures!

Today, I took a little R and R and sat down at my scrapping table starting at 8:45 am.  Yep, I downed my bowl of Lucky Charms (since I have young children, I can raid their cereal supply), and I dove into some crafting.  With the whole family having been sick over the course of the past two weeks, we were pretty down and out and just into survival mode.  Now that we have recovered, I could PLAY a little!

I started with some new supplies I picked up at my LSS, The Scrapbook Nook, yesterday.  I've had this picture of Erin since last May, but only today did I finally have the right paper for it.  Fittingly, it's a paper from Fancy Pants "Lilac House" line.  I was going for a very soft, romantic feeling with this picture, and these colors worked for me.  I also used my new punch I got yesterday, and the journaling card too!  It's funny how just a few purchases can jump start some creativity.

This LO includes some Basic Grey Kioshi as well which I picked up a year ago, and I haven't used at all.  I love how the soft colors and spring theme worked for this picture of my Erin.  I also used my favorite technique taught to me many moons ago by Vanessa, the owner of the Scrapbook Nook.  I put adhesive foam on the back of the butterflies and bird stickers and then powdered the rest of the sticky back away.  Instant dimension!

While digging in my scrap drawers for some goodies to use, I found this LO I'd been working on a few weeks ago and got frustrated with at the time.  So, I shoved it out of sight and walked away.  It still wound up being very simple, but I was able to finish it up today.  These pictures are from Christmas TWO years ago!  My best friend, Anita, bought my girls complete muffin/cupcake baking sets, and then they had some quality time together in the kitchen.

After doing two LO's of Erin, I knew I'd better turn my attention to Paige or I'd be in deep Mommy doo-doo.  This Christmas, Paige had her gift dream come true--Santa got her a DS like her friends have.  She really wasn't expecting to get one (I LOVE that about her), so when she opened it, she was honestly surprised.  I used some Reminisce Unwritten papers, flowers, journaling cards, borders and stickers I still had in my stash from summer 2009.  Feels good to dig out some of my stash and make it useful again!  Plus, the colors were perfect for the color of Paige's new DS!  Matchy, matchy!  :)

For my final bit of fun on the day, I did both of my girls' first days of school LO's using all October Afternoon papers and stickers.  I love that company!  I pulled out all of the journaling die cut cards from one of their lines, and used the leftover sheet to create a frame for my LO.  In this way, I was able to fit in several pictures from both of their first days on one 12x12, and it was seriously a LOT of fun!  In fact, I did Paige's first, and loved it so much that I dug back into my stash so I could do a mirror one for Erin too!

Tomorrow is an eventful day in our lives here.  My Paige will be turning EIGHT years old.  I can hardly believe it was that long ago that I cuddled my baby girl in my arms for the first time.  We are having a bowling party, so I'm expecting to get some fun photos!  :)

Thanks for stopping by, and Happy End of January!!  ~Wendy