The Graduate

This is a page Morgan made for Peter's Grad photo - she used embellishments we'd found on the clearance isle at M's. Now Dad just needs to print the picture/pictures to go on it.

Good Job Moo!

Summer Time - Clearwater FL

Joey's page. He picked everything and the layout himself. Sweet!

The photo was in '99 at Clearwater Florida. Amazing beaches. That green water behind me is not a photoshop thing. That's what it really looked like!

Not sure about sharing this - but nobody else knows and if something happened to me, Joey would never know the other significance of this photo. A copy of it went into my Mother's casket. She never got to see Joey on the beach in the bathing suit she bought for him.

Morgan Goes to New York

Morgan, AKA Moon Fairy, is starting a mini album of her own. I helped her with this cover page but the rest is going to be her own work. The doll is cut on the Cricut using the Paper Doll Dress Up cartridge. I hand cut and colored the hair for her and she colored in everything but the vest. It should be a fun album when she's finished with it.

The paper and tag are some that I've had for 10 years. The font I've had since I learned to write. *wink* She's still not happy with her writing when it comes to something like this. I told her to just stop and draw the letters... she just looked at me. heh

Time Square

We have a ton of pics from our day trip to New York, but these are the only two Bob has printed for me so far. Not sure why I did the pink doodles, but what the heck right? LOL



Morgan and Joey were fascinated by the living statue guy. I have to admit that he was pretty cool and even better than the one on Monk! heh

Don't Ever Grow Up

Morgan had a Survivor themed birthday party in 2008.  We had about 15 kids and I think everyone had a good time.  Activities included painting a totum pole, obstacle course race (look out for the aligators), scavenger hunt to set up the camp, King of the hill and some other stuff.  I've blurred her friends faces in any of the pics online to protect their identities. (dont' have parental permission and all that jazz)

Scraps.  We all have 'em.  Sometimes I throw 'em out and sometimes I don't.  This layout is all scrap paper.  Embellishments chosen by the Moon Fairy herself... again.  She really likes to help when she's in the picture.  heh 

Joey's Camping Adventure

I don't usually buy school pictures. I know, I know.. kids growing up and all that, but the packages don't have enough of what you want and too much of what you don't. So we skip it and do our own. However... I got sucked in. Last year Joey's school sent home proofs of this pic. Now, I know I can do all this in photoshop, but dang it was cute.

So we bought it. And now I have a LOT of these pics sitting around. Two fridge magnets, a billion odd sized little things and I just can't bring myself to throw 'em out. I've mailed some to everyone I thought would want 'em.. and still... they are there. Mocking me.

So I grabbed a 5x7 and headed to the dining room. AKA Disaster zone, craft space, Mom's area, Don't TOUCH that - she knows where everything is-room.

Again with the lack of Alpha stamps loomed it's head: I go to the computer. This time I printed directly on the yellow card stock. I like this font.. it looks like stamps, right? *hopeful look*

Anyway... it was at this point that I decided I didn't like my scrapbook with different facing pages. So I made another to go on the other side. Still need to add the photo.

That same year Joey went camping with the Boyscouts. (that's a four letter word in our house - so other than his uniform in the picture there will be NO reference to them in my book!) I'll post the pic of him with his giant backpack on later.

Let's see... the trees were die cut with a machine back when I was in Arizona. The clouds too. There was a store by our house that would let you use their system and dies anytime you liked. The clouds are vellum and were put on with vellum adhesive, but it's showing though. Grrr. The title is printed on Stampin Up Vellum Cardstock and it's much thicker and nicer. I like it a lot better. Also.. no adhesive showing through. Wooohooo.

My Girl

My girl is the sweetest daughter anyone could ask for. She made me breakfast this morning!

The first picture was taken at Disney the day after Christmas. Joey was the camera man this time because Robert was in Nebraska.

The second pic was taken while we were scouting locations for her Survivor Birthday Party the following weekend. Can you just see her really thinking hard about whether or not the site would work?

The flowers are from my stash of embellishments. I don't know who make 'em or where I got them... but the Moon Fairy liked 'em.

Snow Trip

Flagstaff was a three hour drive from our house. Not too far to go have a snowball fight! Joey bundled up in his coat and a couple pairs of socks over his hands. (gloves were hard to find in Phoenix). He had a blast getting cold and wet. We didn't get to stay more than half an hour though. Tim called, he was sick and needed a ride home from work.

This page started with the "Joey" embellishment. I know it's backwards, but I was playing with a stencil that I found in my stuff. I used sponged daubers to put the letters on and then doodled around 'em. I liked it so I used the ticket corner punch and matted it then added the brads and wire. A little more doodling with the Sigmo gel pen and I couldn't stop. So I use the same papers again and made the page. Finally, I looked through Joey's photos to find a couple that worked with the page.

Before you ask... "Why on earth would you drive three hours to let the kids play for 30 minutes?" Let me explain.

Phoenix is hot. Everybody knows this, but if you have never experienced 114° (or higher on some days) in a desert then let me try to help you imagine it. "It's a Dry heat." everyone says. Which is supposed to mean that it's not so bad. Yeah, don't fall for it. It's true, to a point of about 105°. After that it just doesn't matter anymore. Every breath is hot air going in and it feels like you are in an oven, or a blast furnace as Robert puts it. Sweat is sucked away as soon as it emits from your pores. I saw it raining one summer. The clouds were there, the dark haze underneath it proved the rain was falling. It never reached the ground though. Not a drop of it fell on my head.

In Winter it cools down to about 70°. Some days it got down to around 50° to 60°, but it would warm up again by noon. You could tell the newbies who had not adjusted yet. They swam in the winter or went without coats. That was us when we arrived there in December 1999. We were swimming that very night and every day that winter. No jackets needed. It was awesome. The heat of summer blasted that from us though. By the winter of 2002 we needed something to wash away the heat of two blasting summers.

To answer that question of who would drive three hours to play in the snow... Phoenicians would.. even if it was cut short they'd tell you the trip was worth it. I know Joey would!

Till next time,

Jazz At the Beach

Jacksonville Beach Sea Walk Pavillion is home to the Summer Jazz Concert Series.  The music is awesome.  Our good firend is the stage manager and he does a wonderful job of it!

This layout repeats shapes.  The scalloped circles on the paper, the punched one behind the two step stamped motiff and the metal embellishment follow the rule of three.  

The title block was a bookmark prototype that I'd made a while ago.  I repeated it's matting on the photo and used the ribbon from a bow that was on a gift - because it used colors from the title block and some from the photo.  This tied the two together better.  The ribbon was wired, so I pulled out the sweetest little copper wire and used it to wrap both the title and the embellishment; bringing the color from the photo subtly into the rest of the page.

Till next time,

Sisters

This is my sister, Dianna, and I at our sister Jackie's house.  We were all sharing pictures and swapping stories for hours on end.  We'd not been together like that since my Mom's funeral.  It was a wonderful weekend to be in New Orleans.

I had something else scheduled to go up today... but I was so excited about my doodles on this page that it's all been rearranged to let this one go first.  A while back I said I was going to start turning my doodles into stamps.  I have only done a few of them and none seemed to fit the feeling on this page.  So I got out my Chocolate Chip Stampin Write marker and just started playing.  Doodles start as one shape and then just keep growing.  I colored these in with other Stampin Write markers and then used the Sigmo pen for white outlines and accents.

If you have not tried these markers, you owe it to yourself to do so.  They are juicy and rich in color --- and can be REFILLED!  I'll just say this... Morgan now has a huge set of Marvey markers to play with.

Till next time,

Be Happy

This is Tim. Tim has a way of making you smile, even when you really don't want to. He's just funny in a random kind of way. He's my oldest. Mine by marriage and by heart. For me, the last is all that matters.

The pic was taken in the court house in New Haven CT. We were exploring the campus and the green and ducked in there to check it out. That's Joey and Bumble Bee peeking out on the left and yours truly peeking out on the right. Tim looks oh so happy doesn't he? LOL He didn't know what we were doing behind him but he knew we were up to something cause we couldn't' stop giggling. So you see... that's his "you guys are doing something to make me look weird in this photo" face!

This layout makes use of punches. Gotta love punches! There's a tag, scalloped circle and two sizes of circles. OH oh and the ticket corner punch. Love this one. The ribbon just seemed to work for me. It's 8x8 like all that I've posted on the blog so far.

Honor Roll

This layout is so fun. It's got a lot going on for an 8 x 8 page. Did I mention that before? I was gifted with an 8 x 8 album and I really like the size.

The picture is from a couple of years ago, but Morgan just loved the hat and wanted to use this picture. We played with it in photoshop and both agreed that with so many elements and colors on the page, the picture should be black and white. She's not competing with everything else... she stands out this way.

Then we scanned and shrunk Morgan's report card and included the ribbon given at the Honors Assembly. (I have a LOT of these ribbons in my Mementos box!) The embellishments are cute little things that I've had for ages.

Did you notice the wood grain on the left. That was made by scoring the card stock then sweeping the stamp pads over to roughly transfer color. I used More Mustard, Close to Cocoa and Really Rust Classic ink. It's a super fast technique and you can get a lot of different looks with different colored card stock for a base and different inks. Give it a try!

It happened in 1950

What happened you ask? Why - Bob did of course! LOL A couple years ago he found this sticker sheet with all the things that happened in the year of his birth. He didn't know what to do with it though, which means it became mine to scrapbook.

OHHH this is my first attempt at fonts with an artist tip on a fountain pen. What do you think?

The picture was snapped while we were out letterboxing and I'm just glad to still have it. He hates to be in front of a camera. So he told me that he'd sorted out all the pictures with him in it and deleted them. ***GASP***

I was prepared to not talk to him for days. Then he comes out with this one printed out for me. That stinker!

On this second page is more of the stickers and space for something else. I just don't know what to put there yet. More pics of the elusive camera man? Embellishments? Pics of him as a kid if I can get his Mom to send me some??? Maybe Pam (his sister) would have a few! *rubbing hands together*

Sheba Layout

My puppy. Isn't she just the cutest? Bob snapped this photo on our first hike with her. She's a natural letterboxer! Noxers came down the trail and she alerted us before we could hear them - much less be seen by them. What a good girl! She's a Border Collie - Newfie mix, if you are wondering, that we got from the Springfield Animal Rescue.

This too is sort of a hybrid project. The title was printed onto plastic and put onto the page like a rub-on. Can you say--- "Tee really needs alphabet stamps?" Very good! I knew you could!

The transfer was a little washed out, so I went around it with my white Sigmo gel pen. Then I stamped the little bones from a set of dollar bin stamps. I had to stamp off with the stamps to get them the same color as the transfer. Pretty close huh? They too got the gel pen treatment to make 'em stand out.

Color came in with the funky ribbon that was in my stash. OH.. that ribbon was a penny. I kid you not. It was in the clearance isle for 50 cents but rang up as a penny. The cashier said I was getting a bargain! LOL No kidding.

Joey's Quest for Better Hair

I have been scrapbooking a LOT lately. Probably because Bob keeps printing pics for me! heh. Joey was growing his hair out.. and had been since he came back from Texas last summer. We've trimmed it a couple of times, but he didn't want it cut "off" at all. He saw this picture of himself in April and decided it was time for the hair to go!

This is a hybrid project - The really cool text is Bleeding Cowboys. You can get it by clicking the picture above. I want THAT in a stamp set. Hmmm I did promise SHH that I'd try text again. Maybe one letter at a time would be easier.