Whole lot of stuff

This month I knew was going to be a hard one, just didn't know how hard.  I managed quite well for LOAD and decided to help me continue to be creative for me, I would take a couple of classes.  I am taking another Shimelle class this one is on journaling telling your True Stories.  I am looking forward to getting a little more help in this area for my scrapbooking.  I am also taking Nic Howard's class at Big Picture Classes called Colour! Or is it Color?  I am enjoying it and had a great time making my preclass tags.  If you are looking for class to take do check out BPC.  Registration for the Color class is open until Nov. 3 and it isn't to late to join us.  You can also head over to Two Peas In a Bucket and take a look at Jennifer McQuire's free Holiday class that matches her Thinking Inking class she did.  You can beat it because you can download the information and do it when you want to plus her class is free! 

Day 28, A seemed like yesterday layout with some journaling

Day 29, A Today layout, same young lady but we are both so different now

                                 

Day 30, The day you were born layout for my youngest

Day 31, The day you were born for one of my older girls.

Preclass Tags for Color class, we were given techniques to use with each of these tags.  I have to say this is the most fun I have had stamping in a long time.  Looking forward to sharing more with you soon.  

A good day

Even if it is raining today, it is a good day.  Fall is in the air, my children left dressed up for school in their costumes that they put together themselves(LOVE no cost costumes!) and today I will be getting the house ready for the shampooing of the carpets.  We usually do this twice a year but we skipped right over it this spring so the carpets look terrible.

Finishing up LOAD is on my mind, it has been a rough month for me but I'm glad I have gotten more pages done for me children.  As always it brings me great joy now to look back on the lives of my children.  I remember when I first started scrapbooking how afraid I was of actually seeing them grow up before my eyes.  It probably had more to do with as I saw them getting older that meant I was to getting older, even if they make me feel so young.  I have made a choice to not finish some journaling spots right now.  I do fill them in I just have to look at the finished layout for a little while to be inspired.  That is how it works for me.

Day 23,  Made a companion layout to go with Day 22.  I think it is funny that in this series of photos of my children that I have not one of my son by himself.  What a busy almost 3 year old he was.

Day 24, My youngest daughter with her first piggy tales and this was also the first time she climbed up on the folding stool on her own.

Day 25, Someone is rolling over

Day 26, What a special day this was.  Our Grandpa, the kids Great Grandpa came to visit just to see the newest addition to the family.

 

Day 27, What you are doing to go with Day 25.

 

 Materials: Papers from Close to my Heart and Making Memories, Flowers from Prima, Tim Holtz's Tattered Florals Die cut(LOVE IT!), mini tag stamp(retired CTMH), Glossy accents on some butterflies and flowers. 

Getting stuff done

I am enjoying getting more pages done for my children scrapbooks.  Stories that I have been wanting to tell for a long time before I forget.  The one thing I hate though, is when I want to scrapbook something and I know I have the pictures printed.  I had quite a few prints made up before we moved to Spokane 2 years ago, some got filed in the correct places while others did not.  This will be my project this winter to really do a bit more organizing where that is concerned.

Day 18,  My youngest in her Big Girl Bed.  She was so tiny or so it seemed to me. 

Day 19,  My youngest first Christmas.

Day 20,  My son when he was learning to take clothes off.

Day 21,  I've always loved these photos of my youngest and finally found the right layout for them.  It was a lot of fun picking out buttons and brads. 

Day 22, My beautiful children the first Easter we had all 4. 

A bit of everything

Happy Birthday to this beautiful girl!!  You have brought so much into my life and I am so grateful to God for giving you to me.  Hope your day is all you want it to be!!(photo Homecoming 2010)

This year the above daughter decided she didn't want anything for her birthday because she has all she ever has wanted.  However the giver in me decided to make her one of these.  I LOVE LOVE LOVE how it turned out and decided to make 3 more for her girlfriends who have birthdays in the next few days.  The BEST thing.......I used quite a few flowers from my stash, 50 for each lei!  I did have to purchase some bigger ones, in large tins from prima but it is all good.  It is silly but it was actually quite mentally painful to use so many!  I have to laugh at myself and remember that they are only paper.  Grand total on flowers used 125 for each.

Day 13, I have loved these photos for years.  I couldn't bring myself to scrapbook just one!  Each one shows so much of her personality.  

Day 14, My oldest daughter when she was 7 with her first set of glasses.

Day 15,  Youngest daughter on her first trip to a local pumpkin patch.  Most of her first year album is pastel colors. 

Day 16,  Second page to go along with above.

Day 17,  One of my oldest daughter's.  She learned to walk for M&M's! 

Feeling Good

I am feeling good about the pages I am getting done this month.  They are making me so happy and I can feel myself getting lighter.  One more thing done, one more story told.  It is interesting how when I get one memory down on a scrapbook page that another one comes to mind.

Day 8, One page no photos.  I love how this page turned out!  A set of stickers I have had for a long time to go into my daughter's baby book.  All the things that were going in the year she was born.

Day 9, Put everything you have learned onto a page.  Simple story today.

Day 10, Bare bones layout-photos and journaling only.  I had to put some kind of embellishment, just couldn't leave it.

Day 11, Choose a story to tell then think about the elements for your page.  I love this memory.

Day 12, Choose product you love.  Happy photos with paper that I LOVE!  Little miss personality.

Love and Hate

I always forget how busy this time of year is for us as a family.  I definitely have a love, hate relationship with Marching Band Season.  I LOVE watching what the kids have worked so hard for the last few months.  I HATE that we have very little time as a family, one or more of us get sick, we are all cranky and the house is messier than usual.  Only a couple of more weeks and then we can get back into a routine!  Looking forward to that.

In the midst of this I'm trying to stay relaxed and not so uptight.  So the Layout a Day Challenge has been perfect for me, even if I am getting to bed at 11pm on some nights.  I know I should be working on my layout durning the day but sometimes I just get side tracked, which is easy to do.  Here is four more days, enjoy!

Day 4, Close crop.  I didn't want to crop to close but it was a good reminder of how much unwanted stuff you can take out of photos.  

Day 5, Print photos in Black/White and color, then decide which one conveys emotion of the story you want to tell.   I'm trying to use what prints I have already made up these days so a combination of B/W and color seemed just perfect.

Day 6, Use a film strip.  I found a free film strip online somewhere, printed it out and there you go.  I will fill the story in later on.

Day 7, Tell a story with no people in your photos.  Mt. Rainer National Park....no problem not using people here or to many words. 

 

materials: various Making Memories papers, various CTMH papers, Stamps; Dragonfly and Friends(retired) and Wishing Star, Other extras from my stash.

Stories to tell

LOAD 10/10 is underway and we are all enjoying ourselves and scrapbooking our stories.  This month I am hoping to do my best to post every few days.  Life with Marching Band this month is crazy and I'm just trying to help keep my kids focused without becoming the bad mom.

Day 1, Once upon a time - one Mom making her teenage daughter feel special when the focus is on others around her.

Day 2, was to be about perspective on our lives but I made a choice to finish the second page that goes with yesterday.  The perspective page deserves its own page with a little more thought.  Now that I look at this layout again, it is about the perspective I see when I look at my youngest daughter.

Day 3, A photo without words.  The start of this layout happened years ago when I thought I could make 6x6 layouts for my youngest daughter.....ya, doesn't work so well when you are a photoholic ;o)  So it gets paired with other photos from the collection, making it into a larger layout.

Materials: Various papers from CTMH stash, Stamps; Dragonfly and Friends(retired), Various flower punches, EK continous circle punch(one of my favorites!), chipboard letters, Letter stickers from my stash, buttons, and ribbon