Saturday, January 31, 2009

A Tribute to Our Daughter-in-Law

We never had a girl. Lord knows we tried to have more children, and a girl would have been so nice. She would truly have been Daddy's little girl. I always felt that the reason why God gave mothers two hands was one for each child. Our son has been our joy and source of much pride. Our daughter-in-law has been a blessing.

Let me tell you about her. She is brilliant. She has her Masters in English. Can you imagine reading all those boring books? Yet, she did and found life and love in each of them let alone meaning I could never find. Our precious daughter-in-law is beautiful! She has the most gorgeous smile, perfect teeth, and eyes. When she applies her make up, she could stop traffic! She is humble. She doesn't know how gorgeous she is! The thing is, she's lovely inside and out. She is a tender heart. She has much love and sweetness. She is such a good sport, tolerates our darling son, and loves to do adventurous things with him. Our daughter-in- law is tall - enviable tall. How would it be to be able to reach things higher than the first shelf in our kitchen cabinets, LOL?

We are so proud to have this wonderful woman as part of our family. Our family is better because of her. She is a jewel and we love her dearly. XOXO

I want to share two layouts I did of her and for her. Here they are:

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Absolutely Fabulous


Thank you, Kerry, for sending me this beautiful paper! When it came in the mail, I had no idea what photo I would use. Then, yesterday, while going through my e-mails sent by DS (darling son), I found this beautiful photo our our DDIL (Darling Daughter-in-Law). Thank you for sending the paper to me. I love it!

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Beautiful You


This photo was lovely in color, but I chose to print it in sepia so that it would blend better with the layout.

Darling daughter-in-law, thank you for joining our wacky family. Know that you are loved by all of us - including our two furry friends!

Love,

Chris

Wednesday, January 28, 2009

With Love to Our Son and Daughter-In-Law

Dearest Ones,

We are so proud of the huge leap the two of you have taken. You are approaching a new level of responsibility. Scary, isn't it? Despite all the hassles the two of you have had regarding your huge purchase, YOU DID IT! Your dad and I are so happy for you! May your home be a place of love, respite, and happiness.

Because you finally sent photos, I had something to scrap! Here are some layouts I did for your albums. I hope you like them!

I can't wait to see your new home after you've worked on it a bit. I see white shutters, flower boxes under windows, awnings, a beautiful garden by the edge of your porch filled with flowers of every color and height. Your home has so much potential. A white picket fence would look so cute, but who would want to keep painting it after the northwest storms take their toll? LOL

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Welcome to your First Home


This layout captures all the characteristics of the Pacific Northwest and your home. I chose lots of trees because there are forests! There are birds, a rabbit, and an owl because of the wildlife found there. Your old skeleton key represents the age of your home. The clouds represent your cloudy skies.There is a little snail because I bet you'll have them in your flower beds! I blurred your street name for privacy, but the stickers I used are replicas of old typewriter keys.

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Home Tweet Home


I love the fact that the two of you take short trips - it's so good to get away and enjoy camping. Dearest DIL, you are such a good sport! Thank you! Here, I've scrapped a photo you took at Trees of Mystery in Klamath, CA. Great photo! There are some glittery elements that you cannot see in the photo,but they are there. I've added some bling to the semicircle scalloped edge. Keep the photos coming!

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Cherish These Moments


I so fell in love with the photo you sent on this LO! I loved the blues and greys. Of course, I immediately knew what papers to use! You made my choice so easy! The scroll at the top is made of wood. The color matches the inner angle of the photo corner. The circle in the lower left is a pewter "eyelet" that has a raised surface. There is journaling on the strips so you can remember this day. I love both of you!

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Together


This layout is of your dad on his 60th birthday! Isn't he handsome? He doesn't look 60! I wish both of you the years of happiness your dad and I have had.

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True Love


This is another LO of your dad and I on his birthday. We had such a good time but missed you both dearly! You know dad and I. By the time dessert came, we had everyone in the room singing along with the wait staff. It became a party! One of the diners took this photo for us! I had gotten this mask a while ago and just didn't know what to do with it until we were on our way home. Dad stopped at a sporting goods store and I stayed in the car. While there, one of Dad's favorite songs came on the radio.He loves the lyrics to the song. I'm thinking that it was Ann Murray who did the rendition I was listening to. I knew right then and there the title of the LO and how to use the musical mask!

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Grow Old Along With Me


This last layout is of the snowstorm that happened just before your Christmas arrival. It was snowing when Dad took this photo of the house. It was so beautiful outside with the Christmas lights on the roof of the house blinking in the snow. I have some rusted brown metal snowflakes which I used on this LO. You can see them if you look closely. They are larger than those printed on the brown snowflake paper.

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A Blanket of White


Thank you, everyone for stopping by and reading along as I give my loved ones a huge cyber hug! I hope you will come back soon! Your visits mean the world to me!

XOXO,
Chris

Tuesday, January 20, 2009

Hail to the Chief

Well, there has been a political change today. Needless to say, it is a ripple that has circled the globe! What an historic event! I don't think there was this much enthusiasm in Presidential transfers since John F. Kennedy - and even that wasn't as monumental as this! I do remember that feeling of elation, though. Even as a teenager, I embraced Kennedy as the new leader of my country. I also have those same feelings today. I have to tell you, I also had a feeling of relief as President Obama took the Oath of Office. I pray that there will be blessings of wise decisions, intuitiveness, and support bestowed on this young President. Only time will tell. His speech radiated the importance of self responsibility. I believe that if you take ownership of something, you commit to work towards whatever that goal is. Today is a new day under new leadership.

I did scrap today's event. While others on my primary message board felt that it wasn't a priority to scrap, I did feel that it was. I wanted to document today. This election taught us that elections matter and votes do count. We saw that even in a dark time, we, the people, seek leadership. And, for the first time in the history of this country, the color of a man's skin was not a barrier. So, through the photo of this man, a copy of his speech, and my journaling, I have documented this moment in my history. I am proud that I have done that for someone, at some time years and years from now, who was not here to see this moment occur. Here is my LO. President Obama's speech is attached to the back of the page (treated with Archival Mist).

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A Witness to History


I've done three layouts for Happy Scrappin'. I was really into Doodlebug products this month! I'd pick up paper that I liked, planned the LO, turned over the paper to list the product and found that I repeatedly picked out Doodlebug all three times! Here they are:

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A Father's Love


This has to be one of my favorite photos of DH and DS! I just love it! I wanted to do something different so I rounded the corners on the PP. Now, for those of you who are not spatially challenged as I am, this was a real pill! I needed to make sure the curvature on each corner was as closely the same as possible. The trouble came in when I cut the PP into smaller sizes and still needed to maintain the curve. DH often asks, "You had trouble in Geometry, didn't you?" I just smile. Some of you probably have a better way of doing stuff like this. I tend to do things the hard way. *sigh*

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Have I Told You Lately That I Love You?


This LO started out to be black and white. I quickly realized that I needed some color and red is always great with black and white. I made the flowers on the right using matching papers from the Doodlebug line found in the heart and the red on the mat. The word "Love" was silver metal. I used Staz-On to color it black. The "leaves" on the stems are 3 metal Making Memories words (love, adore, sweetheart). The chipboard hearts are all glittery and the key in the lower left is made from black and clear crystals to add some sparkle. I had fun. The title words come from a song done in 1945! It works for Valentine's Day, right? LOL

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Sweets for My Sweet


Doodlebug again! I wanted to do a monochromatic LO and the brown paper was so much fun to use. I got to use up a ton of flowers, too! To add some sparkle, I placed some tiny crystal stars that are in shades of brown here and there on the LO.

Thank you for stopping by. I really love that you took the time to visit and hope that you will come back again! Your visits are important to me.

XO,

Chris

Sunday, January 11, 2009

I've Been a Bad Blogger!

I cannot believe that it is almost mid January and I haven't blogged in weeks! I've been busy with projects and the holidays. I hope your holidays were wonderful! Ours were!

I spent one week making an album. I seriously spent a whole week on it! I never said I was a speedy scrapper! I've made it to sell, so if you are interested, let me know. Make me an offer! It did turn out really well. When I first planned the album, I thought it would work for us. However, as I got into the album, I realized that it needed children, grandchildren, family. We have no grandchildren and our son is a man. Our family is just the three of us plus our daughter in law. It just needs kid photos. Sometimes, scrapping is hard because I don't have little ones to photograph. Let me tell you a little bit about the album.

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This is a chipboard album that has been covered with PPs and embellished. There are lots of spaces for journaling, too!

For the cover "B," I covered it in green PP and then made another "B" that was slightly smaller and glued it leaving the green border. There is a sparkly pointsettia in the center and lots of ribbons on the rings. I also used three metal giant "eyelets" on each page to reinforce the album. The backside of whatever side has the eyelets has donut shaped matching reinforcements to give it a finished look.

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Because these two pages are small, I chose to make the left side for journaling. The border of the journaling tag is rimmed in red metallic paint which adds just the right amount of sparkle. The page on the right has a small photo mat with some rhinestone centered Primas.

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Both pages have mats which were cut with my Nestie dies. The page on the right shows text from a Christmas poem. The flowers match the colors perfectly.

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The page on the left has punched borders on the mat. There is a little notation sticker in the lower left corner that has metallic red and green printed on it. A photo will slip behind the Merry Christmas twill that has been accentuated with prima flowers.

The right page is relatively smple. There is a journaling tag beneath the photo mat. The brads are a cream color and the ribbon, as well as the brads, match the PP.

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The left page has been rimmed in loopy ribbon in a cream color. I added suede-like brads, a Bazzill velvet flower with prima flower, button, and ribbon. The tag is on pop dots. The cream colored paper has been cut and mounted to accentuate the scalloped border.

The right side has a journaling tag beneath the mat. The top mat also flips up to reveal two more photo mats beneath. The jingle bells in the corners have silver cord. The mats beneath are also embellished.

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The left page has glittered stockings and Christmas trees to add just that touch of sparkle! On the right, there is a tag for journaling beneath the photo mat (which I forgot to tuck in), chipboard and matching Prima flowers. The photo corners are red metallic. I lined up the PP on the right page so that the lines are all aligned perfectly.

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For these pages, I used rhinestone accents and square, red metallic brads. The Santa is fabric, and there is a journaling tag behind the photo mat on the right. The label on the left page is rimmed with metallic red and green.

I am so glad that you stopped by! It means so much that you took the time to see what I've been up to! Please come back as my front door is always open to you and there is always a cup of hot chocolate waiting for you!

XO,

Chris