Hurray for Fall...

Don't you just love that feel of Fall in the air?  Even here in Texas, the temps have finally dropped and there has been a crisp coolness in the morning air.  October is a fun month in our house complete with a Kindergarten fieldtrip to zoo, a visit to the pumpkin patch, my son's birthday, and Halloween.  Throw in treats with each of these activities and whats not to like!  For the SEI link party this month I created this two-page layout of a trip to the Pumpkin patch a few years ago.  I have been wanting to scrap these photos for awhile, but haven't been inspired.  Luckily, the "Fresh Cut" collection spoke to me.  These are some of my absolute favorite colors and they worked perfectly with these photos.  I used an amazing Lets Scrap sketch which I am a huge fan of and will definitely use again.  Thanks Cheri!

Don't you just love the colors in this collection?  SEI is one of my go to companies because they package all the perfect elements together and make it so easy to put together pages.  There are some amazing prints in this collection that have a bit of a retro feel that I love, but for this layout so heavy on colorful photos, I stuck to the smaller patterns to keep it from looking too busy.  Here are a couple of close-ups.

I love how the pumpkins turned out.  I cut them out with my trusty Silhouette and pieced them together.  Isn't the linen pattern on the papers so amazing!  Love them.  The SEI link party is going on all month this month so you have time to create a great project and get it linked up.  And while you are at it go check out the wonderful team at Lets Scrap and the amazing weekly sketches.  I am still working on Julie's sketch for the month and hope to get it finished in the next couple of days so I can link it up too.

September's SEI Sketch Challenge...

It has been a few months since I participated in a sketch contest and I have missed it.  Last month I had a completed layout and then forgot to Link it to the SEI blog. : (  As of October, SEI is going to leave the link up all month so I definitely won't have any excuse for not playing along.  I always love Julie's sketches and I really enjoy working with them.  She makes them so simple and easy to customize.  This month's sketch is another beauty.

My take on the sketch features...ME!  Let me expound.  My mother recently gave me my baby album which was literally falling apart and including those lovely sticky pages.  I am now in the process of taking bits and pieces of her work and organizing them in a different format.  I have digitized many of the photos and the goal is to reconstruct the album in an updated and more interactive album that will survive for many years.  It has been so much fun going through old photos of my family.  I will also admit, although it isn't easy, that I have enjoyed using a little pink.  As the mother of a son and a self professed Tomboy, I don't often create girly layouts.  Using a little baby girl pink has been fun.  I doubt that I will make a habit of it though. :)

So this is a one year old me.  Can you believe that hair?!  I haven't added journaling here because this will be the left hand side of a two page layout and the right side is heavy on the journaling.  I used the "In the Treetops" and " A Fair Day" collections from SEI.

And since I missed last months linky party I thought I would throw that layout up here too!  Loved that sketch too.

The link party ends Oct. 2nd so you still have a little time to play along.  And don't forget to link it to the SEI blog like I did!

Catching up...

Ok, not sure why this post never made it to the blog... 
I drafted this post almost a month ago, I guess the summer heat melted my brain!  We are going on day 40 something of high temps over 100 degrees F! 


Isn't summertime great!  Love the warm days, kids running through the sprinklers,time with family, ice cream, cold watermelon, and hot corn on the cob.  The only problem with summer is that there is no schedule and as a result, less time for scrapping.  I am about a week behind on blogging, so you get two Lets Scrap sketches today since I missed last week.
The sketch for this week was perfect for all those summer events.  There is room for several photos and plenty of journaling.

 

I decided to use the pictures of my son playing soccer last year.  He is not a very aggressive boy and HATES being the center of attention, so we had pretty low expectations for soccer.  We really just hoped he would get out on the field and run around and maybe, just maybe kick the ball a few times.  In the end, he did get on the field, but there was very little running, and he never purposely touched the ball. :)  Needless to say, he doesn't think soccer is the sport for him.  Maybe T-ball...

I just love the photo of him standing in the field yawning!  Pretty much sums up his whole experience.  : )

Ok, so last week's sketch was a quick and easy one.



I had a hard time finding 7 photos, so I decided to use just the left hand side of the sketch.

I couldn't find Halloween paper that I liked for these photos, so I decided to make my own PP by using these Making Memories stickers.

Another great sketch at Lets Scrap...

Cheri's given us another fun sketch to work with this week.  It has a very youthful, fun feel.  Perfect for those summer photos we are all going to be taking.



I has in my mind what I wanted to do with this one and then really struggled to get it right.  After fiddling around with it all afternoon, I decided to make like Tim Gunn and "make it work".  Here's the finished product...

I like the end result, but wonder if it is a bit elegant for a layout about my son being cheeky.  I think everything I used here is from American Crafts except the cardstock and a couple of the brads.  I have to say, that I love working with AC products, they are great quality and all work so well together.  I'll be back soon with a Cosmo Cricket layout. 

A new card sketch at Lets Scrap...

This week's Lets Scrap sketch is a card sketch from Debby.  I don't consider my self a card maker really, but I do make the occasional card for birthdays and thanks.  With these great sketches from Debby I should be set with my monthly card allotment!

I don't have many opportunities to use flowery cards unfortunately, so I went with dinosaurs. : )

I used Imaginisce Dino Roar line and fussy cut the dinos.  The sentiment was printed from my Silhouette and then I added brown glitter glue to the border for some texture.  I think my nephew the dino lover will like this one, my 5yr son thinks it's great so I must be on the right track.

Scrapping about ME...

As I have mentioned before on here, I made a New Year's resolution to start scrapping my own personal history.  It is so easy to scrap photos of my son, but a bit harder to write my own story.  In the last few years though I have lost both of my Grandmothers (one passed away and the other has dementia and no memory) and I really regret not having more information about their lives.  Neither one of them really liked talking about themselves and neither kept a journal or wrote anything about their lives.  So now what we are left with is photos and a few letters.  These are great, but now I will have to piece together the stories of their lives from second and third hand sources.  So, the moral of the story is that I don't want that to happen to my descendants.  I have always felt a little guilty about the fact that I don't keep a journal, but now that I am scrapping I have found a way to write my story in a way that is so much more enjoyable for me and more interactive for others.  Early on in the year, I came across a great idea about how to get started in this process.  Jennfer Mohler was inspired to scrap 100 life changing moments from her life.  I LOVE this idea and have modified it a little, I sat down and in about 30 minutes came up with 50 moments or stories from my life that I thought were important to tell.  So, I have finally started scrapping about myself, I am not working chronologically or in any order of importance.  Here's the first one...

As you can see, I decided to keep these very simple and I wanted to try an 8.5 X 11 format.  This one came together so easily because I found a journal entry (I think I have about a half dozen of them total) from the actual day this story happened.  I just typed it up, added a photo and slapped on a title and there you have it.  I recognize that this layout won't win any awards and no one is clamoring to publish it, but I am thrilled at what it represents. 

And one more...

Again, simple and all about the story.  I found that as I created these pages, I became more and more excited about creating others.  I plan to continue working on my list of stories and supplement with pages about my life now.  I love this approach because it breaks it down into manageable bites that I can continue work on.  Now my goal is to get my parents and my husband to start their own lists!

I'll be back tomorrow with a new card sketch for Lets Scrap.

It's that time again...

Just realized I saved this post the other day, but didn't actually post it.  Not sure why, but here it is a little late. :)

I can't believe how quickly this week has gone by.  No school means no me time and scrapping is so much more difficult with the little guy in the room with me.  I was working on my layout for this weeks Lets Scrap sketch and he wanted to help.  He loves to "scrap" with me so I gave him some extra photos and let him create a page of his own.  This worked pretty well, we had to take turns with the paper trimmer, but other than that, I say it was a pretty successful time.  He even came up with the title that we both ended up using.  So here is Cheri's sketch...

I decided to use the photos from my son's preschool at the Minnesota Zoo for this one.  He really enjoyed spending time at the zoo each week and getting to meet the animals up close.  Just going through these photos was fun because he had forgotten some of the details and enjoyed a little stroll down memory lane. 



And a close-up of the title the little guy came up with...

The PPs here are DCWV's Safari Kids stack and the alphas are AC thickers and Cosmo Cricket.