Scraplifted

I saw a layout on Pinterest that I liked and rather scrap-lifted it for this page today. I really liked how the photos were arranged. It's nice having a layout you like (which should be all the time, haha) when your pictures aren't what you had hoped for. I think it helps make the pictures look better too. I opted for black and white photos because of all the crazy colors going on. I'm thankful for having that option!

Now it's time for some exercise while the broccoli cheese soup cooks. Then I think it'll be time for a little trim painting. It can be rather therapeutic.

What? Did I just say that?

November 2009

Somehow I was able to pretty much skip over October 2009. There weren't a whole ton of pictures taken. The bulk of them was for "A Week in the Life" and I scrapped those the week the pictures were taken (if I'm remembering correctly). So I moved right along to November.

A year or two ago, I freed myself from scrapping chronologically, however that's how I've been scrapping lately so that I know where I've left off and also so that I can print off my pages. I save my pages by quarters (for example, Oct-Dec 2009) and only want to print the pages from those quarters if the whole quarter has been scrapped. So right now, printing is on hold until that is done.

It was nice to scrap today although I always seem torn in what to do during nap time. Lately it's been between scrapping, looking for decorating ideas on Pinterest, or painting. Some days more than one of those gets done. I'm working on finishing up some over due trim painting. Once that is done, I'm painting all of the living area (living room, dining room, halls). I'm super excited! It's all going to be a light gray and the living room will have a mustard-ish yellow wall. When we painted the house back in 2009, I never liked the brown color. It seemed stale to me - as weird as that might sound. The laundry room is the same as the living areas, but I'm thinking of painting that a color other than gray - like a vintage blue/green.

We first painted Leah's room turquoise. It was a pretty color, but the room didn't have the "feel" that I was going for (soft, girly, Pottery Barn-ish). So a while later I painted it a light yellow. It's pretty and I do like it, but her favorite color is pink. She said she liked pink when I painted it yellow and I've felt bad since then that I painted it what I wanted. So she and I were just talking the other day about painting it pink. It would be a light pink. When I chose the yellow color, Home Depot matched the color from a Pottery Barn magazine (I wasn't going to pay $60+ for a gallon of Benjamin Moore). I'll probably do the same with the light pink. The nice thing about paint is that it's relatively inexpensive yet makes a huge difference. I'm really excited to see how it will all look once completed!

Now back to that trim...

Special Note

Titus made this note for me yesterday. The actual note was about a 3x3 piece of paper, but scanning it and working in Photoshop allows me to enlarge it to see everything better. The ink he used was reddish but I changed that to black. Oh technology!

I have a folder of papers the kids have drawn on, things they've said, ect so that they can be scrapbooked. Not always do they get turned into a page so quickly.

I love my son!

Back to Scrap

Wow, it's been since October that I posted on this blog! Once the holidays hit, I was enjoying that time and did scrap by making the parent's yearly calendars. Since then, I've been getting back in the groove and getting some scrapping done.

These three pages are from September 2009. I've finally finished September 2009 and am now moving on to October. Like I've said before, I've scrapped a lot between then and now (not in order), so it's not like I'm that far behind, but I'm still behind where I'd like to be. Ideally, I don't want to be more than six months behind. I hope I can catch up! I'll just keep plugging away and enjoying it in the mean time!

I don't want this to sound vain or prideful: I really am thankful that I scrapbook. I'm thankful that I have a way of preserving our family memories - big and small. Even the small ones aren't small to me. They are all big and precious. I love looking back over the years and seeing what we've done, how we've grown, and all that we have to be thankful for. I love my family!

Old + New

I was going back - way back (insert tears and sad violins) - and decided to scrap these funny pictures of Leah during the beginning stages of potty training. I think it's funny to have captured crying pictures throughout their life. I think it's needed. They look back and realize the crying and whining really isn't that cool.

It happened recently at a soccer game. I was video taping Titus' game and Leah kept whining and asking for a snack. Later at home we played the video and she was shyly laughing at how ridiculous she sounded. I was told to do that by a couple people: record the kids happy and sad and have them see what they look like. I did this unintentionally, but it worked just as well. Now I can say, "Remember what you sounded like on that video? That's what you're sounding like right now. Do you really want to sound like that?"

Apart from learning lessons, crying is part of life and the journey we're all on. In it's own way, it has it's cuteness.

These photos were taken last week and I knew I wanted to scrap them today. At first I was going to have the photos in color, but there was way too much color clashing, so black and white came to the rescue again. I think it looks real nice with the pictures in B+W and that allowed me to use a busy, pretty paper.

I'm feeling my love of scrapping coming back! I've always loved it but haven't had a whole ton of time to scrap lately. Now I'm wanting to keep on scrapping!

Leah

I created this page a couple weeks ago. So much for the last post about wanting to get back into scrapping!

We've been rather busy lately. I've had some photo shoots so some nap times are spent editing photos rather than scrapping. Sometimes I wonder where the time has gone.

I've been thinking about doing Project 365 this coming year. I need to look more into it, but I think it's pretty much documenting the whole year through weeks, in photos. Does that make sense? During certain times of the year, it seems not too many photos are taken and that bugs me. I want to document more of the everyday. My kids do hilarious things and they just plain grow up way too fast.

I won a summer photo contest through Postcrossing! There were three winners. The photo(s) I entered were of jellyfish from the Shedd Aquarium. The winners got a coupon to Moo (an amazing postcard printing site) worth 20 postcards and free shipping. I was so excited and really surprised my photo was chosen since I can't remember winning anything. And it was a first for entering any of my photos in anything. I'm excited to get my order in the mail. I chose five different photos to be printed which means I'll get four copies of each (equalling 20 postcards).

Well, I'm off to make some tea and work on a scrap page. Then it's on to more Legos with the kids when they wake up. Enjoy the simple things! They tend to matter most.

Whistle

I created this page a couple days ago. I really need to get back into scrapping so I don't get further behind!

Postcrossing Update + Two Layouts

We were out of town for the weekend so today has been what Mondays normally are, but a little more. Cleaning, laundry, putting things back where they go - pretty much a never ending job.

In an earlier post, I talked about Postcrossing. It's been so fun!! So far I've received 14 post cards (which also means I've sent that many). I currently have five "travelling", which means they are out there somewhere in the world and will arrive at their destination soon. Once they are received, I'll be getting 5 more postcards from random people somewhere in the world.

A really cool thing about Postcrossing and that they send you an email at month's end showing a pie chart of where you sent cards to and where you've received them from along with your rankings in your country. It's not a competition, just really fun stats! I plan to scrapbook about it someday (hopefully soon).

I've received cards from China, Singapore, Thailand, Australia, Canada, the USA, Romania, Netherlands, Latvia, and Argentina! I've sent postcards to Brazil, Germany, Finland, Russia, the USA, China, Netherlands, and Ukraine.

Below are a couple pages I put together. I'm loving scrapping summer pictures. The colors are so fun and cheerful!



CREDITS for "Hello Sun"

CREDITS for "For 500 Years?"

Caseville

Here is page one of our trip to Caseville for Memorial Day.

{Credits}

Home Owners

I know I haven't scrapped in a while! Today I finally sat down to work on a page. This one came together really quick. I love when that happens!

[Credits]

Postcrossing

While I was on Facebook today, I saw someone post a link to a site called Postcrossing. I went to the site and was hooked.

Postcrossing: the postcard crossing project, by their own definition, is where you “send a postcard and receive a postcard back from a random person somewhere in the world!” I thought that it would be so fun to try. I think the world God created is amazing and the idea of being able to reach out to people anywhere in the world in such a fun and simple way is so thrilling to me!

It's free to join. The only thing you have to pay for are your postcards and postage. A total of 203 countries participate. You can send up to five postcards at a time (each to a different person). Once they receive your postcard, they register it online (more info on the site) and then your name is brought to the top of the list as the next person to be selected to receive a post card. It's not like a chain letter where you have people who break the chain and then you don't hear from anyone. This is pretty much a guaranteed set up.

It's cool to read about others who have been doing this for years. They have saved all of their post cards and put them in photo albums. I think it's so neat!!!

You can select to send postcards anywhere from 1-5 people. I decided to go to the max - five. It was so exciting to see where my recipients would be from! Do you want to know? *Drum roll please*....Brazil, the Netherlands, Russia, the United Kingdom, and the REAL kicker....SHELBY TOWNSHIP, MI! That one made me laugh! There was an option to whether or not you'd want to get/send post cards from people in your own country and I thought, why not! Our own country is amazing and so are the people who live here!

Now I'll be on the quest to find some fun post cards from our area. I've never looked before so I'm hoping there will be some fun ones!

Won't you join too?! It's a cool project for kids too - with their parents help. It's such a fun way to learn about other cultures and the people who live there.

Happy Postcrossing!!

Summer 09

It feels good to be plugging away at 2009 photos! I'm halfway through August yet I've done a lot of pages between then and now. So it's nice coming across pictures and reminding myself, "Yep, I already scrapped those!"

Pogo Sticks

This page came together quite easy - it helps when I keep it simple. That's kind of my scrapbooking theme - simple with focus on the pictures and journals. Although that sounds like what all scrappers would do, it's not. If you like it, keep at it. :)

{Credits}

A Month?

I'm finding it hard to believe that it's almost been a month since I've posted! Blogger has been a real bugger, so that is the main reason. Here are some pages that were created in the meantime.


{Credits}


{Credits}

{Credits}

I've heard the above song (Just the Way You Are) before and when I was at a conference this past weekend, a dance was done to it and I thought of this picture. Here's the end result!

On a Roll

I was able to knock out three pages in one day! I don't know the last time I did that! These are all pictures from 2009. When I was looking through my folders yesterday, I had to do a double take at the dates of the folders. 2009? Really? I haven't finished 2009 pictures yet? Then I remembered the cold, hard truth. *sigh* Sometimes I feel so far behind. It can be hard not to get discouraged about it. On the bright side, at least my kids aren't 20 and I'm just now scrap booking. There have been a lot of pages done between 2009 and 2011 pictures, but just the idea of still having pictures from 2009 to scrap almost makes me tired. But I'm still working at it!

[Credits for Adventure-ous You]

I scraplifted and flipped a layout by Ali Edwards for this page. I know a lot of people are able to scrap pages with just one picture, but I'm so used to piling pictures on pages and when it came down to one picture, I almost didn't know what to do. So I got out a few old CK magazines and came across a layout that I thought would work great for this picture.

[Credits for Rub a Dub Dub]

Layout Featured

Good Afternoon! I was uploading some layouts to DigiShopTalk and noticed I had quite a few comments on one of my layouts. I do not remember getting email notifications about the comments, so I was really surprised. What surprised me the most was one comment saying that my layout was featured on the Gallery Standouts blog on February 16! I didn't even know of such a blog! It's very humbling to have my page selected for such a thing. The site is flooded with layouts and I'm shocked that mine was even looked it. If you'd like to take a peek (including great comments towards the element's designer), click here!!!

History + Rockford Vaca

Yesterday I went to the township to "protest" (don't worry, I was kind) the raising of our taxes. When the man pulled our file, I saw this picture stapled to the front. I said, "That is NOT my house" but I knew it was our property. I also knew that a trailer used to be here before our current house was. Inside the folder was a picture of our current house and garage. The man said I could have the picture of the old one so I jumped at the chance to have it! I love the history of things so this was a little treasure.

For those that don't know, our driveway used to be part of the Grand Truck Railway (I found out the official name of the railway yesterday while going through paperwork). When the previous owners bought this piece of land, they did not own the railway. The bought it from our neighbors years ago. Before that, the driveway was on the east side of the house. For those that have been here, you'll notice that the two trees that are on the east side of our property hadn't been planted yet. In 1994/95, the previous owners removed the above trailer and pole barn and had our current house put here and then built the garage in 2004.

I'm so happy to have this picture as it's a piece of history of the land we live on.

For the last week or more, I've been working on the pictures and pages of our trip to Rockford last year. I wanted to post them altogether so that is why I waited. It's kind of crazy to think that I made 6 pages of our trip, but I couldn't help it. I so enjoy including as many pictures as possible. I feel like I'm leaving part of the story out if I leave certain pictures "behind".

Last 3 Rockford Pages

Summertime Kit

Love Hearts Kit + Talk Bubbles Kit

Go!Go!Go! Kit + Flags and Ribbons No.1

Snow Fun...but it was (get it?)

Ok, bad joke. Moving on. I love it when I take pictures and scrap them the same day. That's what happened today! Fresh off the press pictures! I know there isn't much color going on, but I kinda like that sometimes. I like the stitched heart on the picture of the two of them. I ended up making all of the pictures B+W because of the colors on their coats, etc. It opens up options in the color world.

It's such a pretty day! I'm going to exercise before I need to start making dinner. I'm still undecided as to what to make tonight. Goulash, pancakes, or .... It's pretty much between those two right now and they are on completely different playing fields! Enjoy your evening!

I'll close with a song whose couple lines have been going through my head today.

'Tis so sweet to trust in Jesus
and to take Him at His word;
just to rest upon his promise,
and to know, "Thus saith the Lord."

Jesus, Jesus, how I trust Him!
How I've proved Him o'er and o'er!
Jesus, Jesus, precious Jesus!
O for grace to trust Him more!

O how sweet to trust in Jesus,
just to trust His cleansing blood;
and in simple faith to plunge me
neath the healing, cleansing flood!

Yes, 'tis sweet to trust in Jesus,
just from sin and self to cease;
just from Jesus simply taking
life and rest, and joy and peace.

I'm so glad I learned to trust Thee,
precious Jesus, Savior, friend;
and I know that Thou art with me,
wilt be with me to the end.
- Louisa M. R. Stead

Jesus is amazing!

Yes, Sir!

I sat down to scrap these pictures a couple of days ago. I was excited to scrap something different - Army guys! But a layout just wasn't coming together. I thought it was going to be the same today, but this actually came together really fast and I'm pleased with the results.

[Credits]

V-Day 2010

I'm so loving all of the Valentine kits coming out right now! {LOVE.THEM.} Christina Smith came out with a Love Stitched Kit and then I saw Katie Pertiet's Watery Hearts (found at www.designerdigitals.com) and had to have them! I don't know how she got the itty bitty hearts into the paint splotches, but I just love them! Crystal Wilkerson just came out with The Vintage Cupcake paper kits and elements kit - all Valentines. Her new kits are 50% off right now! Prime time to buy!

[Credits]