I didn't finish LOAD but I did get quite a few pages done so I am okay with what is ready for albums.  I took  time this past month to figure out what works for me in albums, my likes and dislikes.  Over the years I put to much money into post bound albums to just up and not use them.  I needed a solution for storage for pages finished so they would be kept safe until they are put into my children/grand children's albums.  I finally found something I am sooo happy with and excited to use.......We R Memory Keepers Leather 12x12 Binder albums.  I do want to have some type of order to my scrapbooks when I put them together for my children.  This will help me to be able to keep layouts together without them being damaged.  Plus all the colors they come in make me happy too!!  Hey, a girl has got to get color in somehow!

I do have to say that even if I didn't finish LOAD it did for me what I was hoping for, it helped get me to scrapbook again.  I have been able to finish layout that have been in the works for years...yes, years.  You know the ones....you take time to gather paper, embellishments and you might even cut all the paper for placement.  Yep, those are the ones I've worked on!  I don't have a lot of layouts that I do that are the same for my children's in less it involves family vacations or holiday's.

 This is one of my favorite set of layouts I did, my daughter's first year as Drum Major.  Can't wait to work on more of Marching Band!

Day 2 and 3 of Layout A Day

I'm in love with how these pages turned out.  I am a keeper of every little piece of paper that I might be able to use on a scrapbook page.  Here I have used my son's permit photos, his test and a card he received after he got his permit.  The photos of him driving where taken last summer when he got his driver's license.

Stuff with life takes a hold of you sometimes and you forget to live in the moment.  Over the last few months the one way I have been able to live in the moment is by doing things that make me happy.  One of the most fun things for me is to go junking, as it seems to be called these days.  I do my best to come home with things that I can repurpose so I am just not buying more 'stuff'.  I have places I always go but not all the time.  It is interesting when I feel the urge to go somewhere that is when I find the most loveliest things.
 

 These are my favorite book finds that will be used at backgrounds in my art journals or in my mixed media canvas.  Total cost under $5 for all of it!      

I finished my first layout for May in record time.  I am so happy with it!

I still have to do the journaling but I am just not quite ready for that yet.  The history behind the photo;  I have wanted this photo of me for quite sometime but my Mom would never part with it.  This past December when I traveled to NE to help my Dad go through her things I came home with a large suitcase of photos.  This was just one of them, me at about 4 to 6 weeks old being held by my Mom. 

This is one of my fun pages from my sketch book. My little family of owls, colored with Neocolor II watercolor crayons.  The wings are are layered and glued so they stick up a little bit.

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 

More bits of fall

Last day of September?  Our last couple of days here in Spokane have been in the upper 70's and upper 40's at night, it hasn't felt like fall at all.  I have been sick with a sore throat and no voice so I've been laying low and staying quiet.  It is HARD to not talk on the phone when your children call especially when it is a big part of your day.  I did step outside for a little bit to enjoy a bit of sun, the colors are so beautiful this time of year.

Then I came in and baked Pumpkin Chocolate Chip muffins and Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Bread, the only thing I changed in the recipe on the breat was from a 1 1/2 cups oil to 1 1/4 cups it didn't seem to make much of a differance.  Both you say?  Yes, one is easy for the kids to grab and go, to the bus when they are running late.  The other is good sliced thick and toasted.  As of this morning one loaf is already gone with the second already cut into.  It is like a potato chip, once you start eating it you can't seem to stop!

Tomorrow October LOAD is on my list of things to do.  There is still time for you to sign up so come join us, we do have a lot of fun and learn things about ourselves along the way! 

Scraps

A little more sewing to add to the list of things done.  I've wanted to finish these for a long time, they make me so happy.  I LOVE these potholders!  I made a few for my girls years ago and now finally have my own.  They are nice and thick and you only have one seam all the way around, which it makes really easy for anyone to create.  Darn it, I didn't put my coffee one in the picture.  Table runners have to be the best things for scraps of fabric and using scraps makes me feel good instead of throwing them all away.

My other big project that I have started on is making jean rag quilts for each of my children.  I have been saving my husband's jeans for years(with a few of the kids pairs thrown in) and it is time to start cutting them up.  I do believe that it is going to be time consuming!!  At least it is a start to getting one more box of stuff out of the garage ;o)  Now, if I can just learn to use my scraps of paper like my scraps of fabric, it will all be good!  Speaking of using scraps of paper it is almost time for the LOAD challenge!  You can find out more information here.  Hope you decide to join us, it is always alot of fun.

On it's way?

It is the last day of school, if you can really call it a day.  Seriously, do they really need to go to school for a total of three hours?  It has been over a week that I have had a hard time getting my children out of bed, there is NO motivation what so ever.  We are all excited about our plans for the summer, which I HOPE all work and no one is disappointed.  I am however really wondering if the summer weather will ever get here?  We are 10 to 15 degrees lower than we should be for this time of the year.  I know it is better than having 100 degree weather at least for me but I REALLY need the rain to stop doing it's thing everyday.

The last few months for me have been a jump start to getting things done, mainly scrapbooking projects.  I have discovered again through LOAD a few things.  I LOVE this hobby of mine and I believe I am over the guilt of every being caught up, it is pretty freeing.  I have learned about my style, what colors I use the most and what I love to do on my pages.  I have learned I am not a digital scrapbooker because I have this love affair with paper and pretty things.  I just LOVE it to much!  I know there are pretty things for the digital scrapbooker but reality is I am a hands on woman.  I have also been able to start to pin point the things I have purchased and just don't use.  Again pretty freeing to say it is okay to not use that and turn around, selling it to someone who will.  In my case it puts money in my pocket, so I can take a couple of online classes learning more about product that I own but haven't really used.  Like this class with Claudine Hellmuth and if you want to see a preview of what she has in store you can go to her blog.  With the help of LOAD in February and Shimelle's class I started on a road to spending less on scrapbooking supplies and actually using what I have.  Again freeing, especially walking into a store and looking around and saying........ya know, nothing really jumps out at me on a got to have list.

I shared my layouts in February here on my blog from LOAD but have decided to just post a link to my flickr gallery for the May LOAD.  I also completed my two oldest daughter's wedding albums, that you can see here and here, if you so desire.  For my own fun purpose I am keeping track of how many layouts I do this year and how many photos I will end being used.  Through the end of May, I have made 132 layouts and have used 512 photos.  When I started scrapbooking years ago it was with Creative Memories and I cut my photos into weird shapes.  I have also made a promise to myself that I will use those photos even if they are cut into weird shapes.  So if you see those weird shapes in some of my layouts you will know why.  Enjoy looking!!  Come back and let me know what you think.

All total

So I decided to total up layouts done and photos used, for the Layout a Day Challenge. I can really say that I am pretty darn proud of myself!

In 28 days I made 48 layouts and used 175 photos! Of course, I only posted 28 of the 48 done but that is okay. I am still working on finishing up my daughter Angela's wedding album, which I am hoping to have completed before the end of this month.

The next LOAD is coming up in May and I am already making plans to attend. We have so much fun!! So keep a look out on Lain's blog for more information, sign ups start in early April and space will be limited, so sign up early!

Lovely month

Despite some bad stuff that happened this month it was a really lovely month. I started both of my older daughter's wedding album and finished one, with the second well on it's way to being finished. The next LOAD will be in May and I will be focusing on layouts for each of my children. I'm so excited to be working on my children's lives and getting things done!! Thanks for coming by and visiting, it means a lot to me.

Day 24......Prompt - Dig into an old idea book for inspiration. I pulled out one magazine and didn't look at it until I sat down. It turned out to be an issue of Simple Scrapbooks, Nov/Dec 2005, page 97. O added a couple of journal spots at the top of the page.

Day 25....Prompt - Scrapbook a lesson learned, or scrapbook a new technique. I clear embossed these butterflies and then water colored them.

Day 26.......Prompt - Scrap a group, either the large photo of everyone together, or a bunch of individual photos. Getting everyone in one place for a large group photo was just not possible the day of the wedding so we have lots of shots of everyone. I just grouped them all together even using a 1 1/2" square punch for some photos.

Day 27......Prompt - create some of your own felty goodies. I made felt flowers for this layout from one of our family dinners leading up to the wedding day.

Day 28......Finish something you started. This layout goes with the one above. The flower and journaling spot do a nice job of breaking up the grid.