The Treasure Called Family

It is just so wonderful having our son and daughter in law with us. I hate to see them go tomorrow. They were such sweeties by helping with a huge project that my sweet husband couldn't do alone. I love them so much! I wasn't raised in a very affectionate family nor was my husband. We knew we wanted to make sure that our child would know the love of a mom and dad the best we could do. I think we've achieved that goal. He is solid in his knowledge of how much we love him. It's funny how we take things from our childhood and modify them to better meet the needs of our little family.

I have a couple of LOs to share with you. I did these as part of my design team projects at Four Scrappy Sisters. This is the April Petite Kit. The pattern paper is just amazing! It sparkles! It's nice and heavy! It is simply gorgeous! I hope you like what I've created! Leave a comment if you wish! I love when comments are left!



He Rawks!

This layout was fun because of the triangular area I decided to use. I wanted to keep it boyish. I painted the backs of the ghost shaped stars, added some matching photo corners and a bit of bling! Love this!



My Two Boys

For this LO, I decided to use staggered blocks for the alphas which make the title. Can you see the shine n the black and green strips? It looks so rich. There is even a hint of a sparkle showing in the turquoise strip next to the black. These PPs are on a white CS background. You have to look at the mouths on my two boys. They both look like a turtle! LOL The square buttons in the kit prompted me to make the title in squares. It was a nice repetition.

The last creation is a card I thought would be fun to make. It's simple, but looks so rich with that PP!



Cheers Card

I hope you are having a wonderful weekend. They always seem to fly by!

Thank you for stopping by. I hope you will come back again! I so enjoy having sweet visitors such as yourself!

Have a good one,

Chris

Happiness is....

Having your son and daughter-in-law fly in for an extended weekend! Oh, how I have missed them! We haven't seen our son since November. It is a mother's joy! It is so hard seeing your child grow up and move away! He will always be my baby regardless of how old he is. I really love the children's book, "I'll Love You Forever" by Robert Munsch. Whenever I would read it to my students, I always had to fight back the tears! I think it is one of the sweetest books ever. If you haven't read it, please do!

I'd like to invite you to Happy Scrappin' Scrapbooking's card of the month and layout of the month contests! The prizes are gift certificates to the store! I think the amounts are pretty good, too! Stop by the forum and read about the card and layout of the month contests! I know some of you are expert card makers as well as gorgeous LO creators! Think of the new goodies you could buy w/ the gift certificate! Come on over and play!

Spring is in full bloom as are our allergies! Yuk! The good side is that it is truly a beautiful time of the year. I dread the heat that is looming just around the corner!

Do you ever wonder if things that happen do so by coincidence or if your paths were meant to cross? I've recently had several experiences that just amaze me. These were situations where a perfect stranger was giving, caring, and willing to help! Those of you who did this, know who you are. I am so grateful for your kindness. Thank you so much for your sweet help! It's been like that for the past couple of weeks! I am so humbled!

I've been scrapping lately - having fun! I have part of my DT work done for one site and am waiting for materials from my other DT site. Of course, I can't post their LOs as much as I would like to! LOL However, I have some to share with you. The photos aren't that hot, but you'll get the idea! Here is the first:



Talks With Dad

In this layout, I felt that the trees were pretty bare. I used Hambly rub ons to add some birds to the branches. I also added a large brown bird transparency, some copper colored rub ons on the ribbon to make the title. The LO was quite a change from my usual heavily embellished LOs.

The next LO is hard to see. White just doesn't photograph well for me. The background CS is textured like a dotted swiss fabric. All of the little dots are raised. I used blue dotted PP inside the large circle to carry the dot theme another step. I like the colors. Just before the plastic letters are four little tags. Each has a word to complete the full title.



What is it Like to Be You?

The last LO I have to share is another one that is very simple. The brown cardstock is a very pale taupe. It looks so brown in the photo. It is a true pinky tan, LOL. I had forgotten just how much I love taupe and black or navy together. I used to have a couple of outfits in those colors when I was teaching. We fell in love with this steam clock. I thought the photo could have been better, but still like the composition. Because it was night, it was hard to capture all of the textures.



Vancouver Steam clock

Thanks for stopping by! I am just delighted to share my work with you. I hope I have inspired you in one way or another. Please feel free to leave a comment! I just might send a RAK your way!

Have a good one,

Chris

Easter Aftermath

I hope your Easter was wonderful - with delightfully happy children, a lovely dinner rich with the bounty of Spring, and the love of family! We were alone this Easter. It sure is difficult getting used to celebrating holidays without our DS.

I sat this weekend remembering Easters of years gone by. I remember while growing up, going to church all decked out in our new Easter clothes. That was always so much fun after the long, cold, gray winters of Pennsylvania. One year, as a teen, I was dressed in off white from head to toe. The Jackie Kennedy white pill box hat, the off white heels, and the empire waist off white coat was my Easter outfit. Somehow, I just didn't look like Jackie Kennedy in spite of my new outfit! LOL I think my favorite outfit was the one that was bright orange! I had a gorgeous tangerine colored light wool coat with a very open weave. Oh, how I loved that coat. I added a color matched orange picture hat with a massive brim, orange cobra skin shoes and matching purse. Inconspicuous? Not on your life! Would I do that now? Not on your life! But, I was young and everyone looks good when they are 16 or 17! LOL

So, after reflection of my early Easters, I decided to go through our photos and create a LO in honor of our wayward son. He really isn't wayward. He's happily living and working in the Pacific Northwest. I was given this wonderful brown paper and knew I had to use it for this layout.

It's hard to see in the photo, but DS's cheeks are stuffed to the hilt with candy! He looks like a starving hamster that just found a stash of sunflower seeds! This is primarily why, as a child, DS's baskets always had books, tapes, puppets, and other little items. Candy was there, but only a little bit.

The LO features Scenic Route PP, a walnut stained tag, Thickers alphas, a cute Easter basket charm on the tag, a cellophane wrapped tiny Easter basket in the lower left, and lots of layering. I hope you like it. Here's the LO:



Chocolate for Breakfast

Thanks for stopping by! I love to have visitors! Please leave a comment. I'd love to know your thoughts. Thank you for previously leaving comments, too! I love them and love you, too!

Chris

Things are Blooming!

Well, the signs of Spring are all around. The trees in our front yard show hints of green with the little leaf buds coming out from their winter sleep. The Forsythia in our back yard is blooming its yellow flowers. Oh, how I love Forsythia and Bridlewreath! Our little fruitless plum is blooming pretty white flowers. The birds are chirping and chasing one another *ahem!* I've been on the lookout for hummingbirds so I can fill our feeders for them.

The cybercrop at FOUR SCRAPPY SISTERS is at its half way point. You should drop by! There are some fun challenges and even if you missed the time deadline, the challenges are worth doing. They are sure motivating! I was very pleased with the gals who did my adhesiveless layout challenge. Their work was wonderful. The best part was that they didn't know they could do it and felt good about the final product.

For my color challenge, I asked the girls to create a layout using black, lime green, and turquoise. They could had a touch of white here and there. This was the example I provided:


Our Nudie Cutie

Wasn't he just the cutest? By posting a photo of his naked tushie on the internet, I'll find out if he really checks my blog! I'm sure he'll say something...if he sees what I've done! *tee hee*

If you would like to give this color scheme a try, please do and leave a comment for me - with the web address of you layout. I'd love to see what you come up with!

Well, I've got to get back to my next layout. Thanks for stopping by!

Chris

It's March Already!

Can you believe it is March? Time is just flying by!

Spring is in the air here. The trees are beginning to bud. The temps are in a mid 50 - low 70 range. The birds are back and so is the owl I hear in the early morning before dawn.

I've been so busy preparing for my monthly card making class. I had it last night and the gals made some really cute cards. I'm going to do it every other month now because it really takes a lot of time to prepare packets for each gal.

Are you in the mood for a cybercrop? If so, stop by FOUR SCRAPPY SISTERS and join in. Here's the link: http://4scrappysisters.com/messageboard/ It starts tomorrow, Saturday, March 8 and runs for a week! Maybe there are a couple of challenges you'd like to do. I know that cybercrops sure get me scrapping.

I've done a couple of LOs that were fun. These were done as part of my design team projects for HAPPY SCRAPPIN' SCRAPBOOKING. The PPs can be found in the storefront at HAPPY SCRAPPIN' . Here they are:

For this LO, I used the skull and crossbones from a gift bag that I had for two or three years! I had some pirate paper scraps left from another layout and the only photo of our son that was pirate related. Thank goodness, Long John Silver's! LOL



You Are Our Treasure

I just had so much fun with this LO. I used alphas from Scrap in the Box. Here is their link: http://www.scrapinthebox.com.au/home.php The owner of the site, Kerry, is amazing and sends everything out right away. It took only five days to get these alphas! The PPs are from Happy Scrappin' Scrapbooking's cyberstore. Love the reds!



Prince of Our Heart

For this LO, I chose the colors black, lime green, and turquoise. The photo was blurry after being blown up, so I printed it in black and white. This is a wonderful trick to use when photos are blurry. Just print in black and white! It diffuses the blur a bit. I love his smile! DS was such a beautiful baby! This was done as part of my DT projects at Happy Scrappin' Scrapbooking.



I Can See the Light Around You

I hope you will stop by Four Scrappy Sisters and join in the cybercrop!

Thanks for stopping by!

Two Days in a Row!

How fun, I have more to add to the blog! LOL

I woke up this morning hearing that there was a significant earthquake in northern Nevada. Fortunately, the area has about 1300 residents and all are safe and sound. There was some structural damage to deal with, though. It had a magnitude of 6.0 which does cause damage.

Below are layouts I did using the Petite Kit at 4Scrappy Sisters. I fell in love with this paper and just had fun doing these layouts! I loved the colors in the kit as well as the patterns in the paper. I hope you like them, too!

This photo always melts my heart. DS was always a thinker. He would spend so much time just observing and studying the world around him. I think that interest was instrumental in his being such a geography whiz! He was just over a year old when we would ask him, while viewing the Weather Channel, where states were located. He'd toddle over to the TV and point them out! He's always had that awareness.


Dream

Here, we see DS as a really little guy on his first camping trip to Cedar Mountain. Yes, he IS EATING THE FLOWERS! Look at that face! You can tell he knew he was being a stinker! You may not be able to see the dimension on the flowers. They are nicely elevated with many, many pop dots of different widths.


Flower Eater!

The next photo is of DS and DDIL while on a trip to Silver Falls, Oregon. Silver Falls is a wonderful place to visit! I just love the PPs and had to cut the flowers out. They are elevated using varying heights of pop dots.


L "heart" N

I thought I'd throw in this card. I used tiny scraps of paper for the left side. Can you tell I loved the papers? LOL



Thanks so much for stopping by! I hope I've left you with just one inspiring thing! Have a good one!

I'm Not Being a Slacker, Honest!

Today is 2/20. I haven't blogged in ten days! YIKES! It isn't that I haven't been busy. I have been! For a while there, I wasn't sure if I was coming or going! Now, I have three major projects done! Phew!

The month started off with my feeling behind before I got started. I did my first card making class. I'll post the cards in a couple of days. It went well. I really worked hard preparing all of the supplies to minimize their work and maximize the time in class. Each gal left with a nice selection of cards.

It's raining here tonight. Earlier, we had thunder and an outflow that was really strong. The wind and rain was really strong. I thought hail was hitting the roof. Our house is extremely quiet. I could hear whatever was falling! It's so nice to have rain in the desert.

Here are some LOs I thought I'd share. These were done in January. I had to wait to post until February. I hope you like them. I got the papers through a site, Happy Scrappin' Scrapbooking , which is in Delta, Utah. If you are into Cuttlebugs and Cricuts, this site has a very nice collection of related supplies. I am really into embossing at the current time. Go Provo Craft!

The first one is a shot of Pine Valley Mountain. We can see this from our home, although not from as close as the photo. The snowflakes are rusted metal. I love those! It was perfect with the paper I chose to use. I used chalk to color the bird and did some machine stitching. It's hard to see, but there are crystal snowflakes on the circle as well as the smaller rusted flakes.


Pine Valley Mountain

The next LO features my DDIL. She and DS visited Sequoia National Park. This is a tunnel carved into the base of a tree. Sequoias are so tall. DDIL is 6' tall, and she's just about as high as the opening! I really, really like the diversity of Basic Grey's Figgy Pudding PP. Although it came out for Christmas, the colors are perfect for other situations as well.


Sequoia

The next LO is of my DDIL & DS. They are such cuties. They were flying from Portland to Las Vegas when this shot was taken. I really appreciate their sharing their photos with me. I absolutely Love this PP! For some reason, I was into brown this month, I guess. The flowers are elevated and have lots of dimension. Across the top is pale blue loopy ribbon. I love cutting flowers out. I find it very calming. I also used gold Glimmer Mist on the brown Bazzill cardstock. You can see it sparkling a bit. It sure added a nice dimension to the LO.


L & N

Finally, my last little project was this two inch square laminated pocket calendar. I won't take up space with photos of each month. I did embellish each page as well as machine stitched them. Think SMALL! I heat embossed the aluminum numerals using copper to match the PPs . I also used matching ribbons to hide the metal loop. It's so tiny and handy w/out taking up space.


2008 Two Inch Pocket Calendar

I'll have some more things going up later this week. I'm a bit under the weather and resting is a priority. I think I wore myself down.

Have a good one!
XO