Heritage Scrapping

I just felt like doing some heritage scrapping yesterday. I got this picture of Marty's grandma a couple of years ago and really love it. So I scanned it and then digitally colored it. Then I used a bunch of my friend Christine's goodies (along with some Weeds & Wildflowers designs) and just went for it. (See full list of credits here.)

And here are a couple other heritage pages I have done sort of recently that I know never made it on this blog. Have I mentioned how much I miss scrapping (especially heritage pages)? Just feels good to create stuff!

That's all for now. We had a fun weekend. Went to a party at a neighbor's house last night and stayed up way too late. Then I ran this morning, Marty and I went on a bike ride this afternoon then I took the kids to Hawaiian Falls this evening.

Just random music for today. This was the first song that came on my iPod while I was running and I played it several times cause I like it. This is the Flys: Got You (Where I Want You).

Starting to scrap again...

My best online buddy Christine (aka Fiddlette) has not given up on me even though I have been on a scrapping hiatus for well over a year. But she recently asked me ... again ... to be on her creative team. And I said yes! I love her design style so much. It almost makes me want to start designing again. (I said almost!!) But for now, I've been using her awesome creations and have scrapped a few pages. I have a few more in the works but I need to fire up my scanner again. Hope it still works. Gonna have to blow off the dust!

I make a page for my birthday every year. Well ... I missed last year because, like I said, I was on a BREAK! (Did anyone catch the Friends reference there?) But here is the page I made this year. I celebrated #39 on July 27th. Almost everything here is from Christine's Love of Jane collaboration kit with Sherrie JD.

And in case you want to see what I made for the last few birthdays ... here are my layouts from 2005, 2006 and 2007. It's fun to see how my scrapping style has changed over the years.

And here's just a fun layout I did for my kiddos. I can't believe how grown up they are getting and I wanted to express my feelings that I want them to be able to be whatever they want to be ... "Caged birds can't fly." Again almost everything here was designed by Fiddlette. The majority is from her Clarabelle's Collage World kit.

And that's it for now. I mentioned that my kids are really growing up and I can't believe I never posted this video I took a few months ago. I love it. Shows how silly they are.

And now for some music. Just gonna play what I've been hearing for the last hour or so. Lauren has this BLARING upstairs. This is Miley Cyrus: Party In The USA. Yeah I know ... but at least she's not playing The Climb anymore. This one is at least danceable!

They Call Me Mellow Yellow!

I just posted the Heritage Challenge at Scrap Artist. It's a fun one. I am calling the challenge "They call it mellow yellow." It's simple ... all you have to do is use yellow in a heritage layout. I hope you will all participate this week. Here is my sample layout. This is my mother-in-law (on the left) and a friend in about 1951 (credits here). Aren't they cute?!

And for your listening pleasure, push the play button!

The Pink Invasion!

I am not normally a pink person. In fact, I really have never liked pink at all. Then about 6 years ago, this strange creature invaded my life (my daughter, Lauren) and she has this strange obsession with PINK ... and purple! Perhaps it is rubbing off on me. I recently created a kit called Pink, Purple, Lime and it has colors in it I would never dream of wearing. Here is my little girly-girl getting her ears pierced for the second time.

The journaling reads: You got your ears pierced when you were four years old and then decided a few weeks later that you didn’t like it. But a few weeks ago, you asked me again and I said that you could get them pierced but only if you used your own money. So you were pretty excited when you got a $20 bill from your great- grandpa! I was so proud of you. You didn’t even flinch.

Everything here is from my Pink, Purple, Lime kit except the white paper which is from a combo kit with my friend Fiddlette called Festivus. I scanned in the sticker. Font is Gigi. Created in Photoshop CS2.

I think the pink really might be rubbing off on me because I found that the layout I created right after the one with Lauren also featured pink! I made this layout for my Heritage Challenge at Scrap Artist. The challenge this week is called "Heritage 123" and the challenge is to use only 1 background paper, 2 elements and 3 photos in your heritage layout. Easier said than done for me since I use so much stuff on most of my pages.

The journaling reads: I have always loved these pictures. I know exactly who is in them and where they were taken but I never knew the occasion. The pictures were taken in front of Great Grandpa and Great Grandma Eastman’s house in Saginaw. In the top two pictures from left to right, the people are: Mom, me, Great Grandpa Eastman, Paul, Great Grandma Eastman, Grandpa Eastman, Grandma Eastman and Great Grandma Archangeli. Dad must have been the photographer in the first two pictures and in the last one, he stepped in and Mom and I stepped out. When I asked Mom and Dad about these pictures, they said that we were living in Texas at the time and were visiting Michigan. It happened to be my 2nd birthday so we were celebrating with Dad’s family. We had a similar celebration at Grandpa and Grandma Kent’s house a few days later. I was lucky to have known so many of my grandparents. It’s sad that they are all gone. I miss them.

This was created with Nancie Rowe-Janitz's Celebrate Winter kit. The Distressed Stamped alpha is by Michelle Coleman. Font is Vintage Typewriter. Created in Photoshop CS2.

All That Glitters!

We are just about to wrap up the Scrap Artist Apprentice Round 3. I believe that those moving on to the next round will be announced sometime today. I'm pretty excited to find out if I will make it. The Round 3 assignment was to create realistic elements. It was the toughest round so far. We had to create something with glitter, something metal, stitching and something original. I had no idea how to create glitter digitally so I went on a tutorial mission and have come up with a good system and have been glitterizing everything. In fact, my Heritage Challenge this week at Scrap Artist is to create a heritage layout with glitter. My example is on the left. This is my mother-in-law ready for a dance in 1955. The glitter alpha I used was part of my Round 3 entry. Other credits: Papers are from Michelle Coleman's new Think Pink kit from Scrap Artist (all 100% of profits go to support the fight against breast cancer). The clear, stapled heart is also Michelle's from her Tutti Frutti kit. The tea stain overlay is by Nancie Rowe-Janitz. I created the glitter around the photo. The glitter kiss was a freebie on Michelle Coleman's blog. Font is Fabulous 50s. Created in Photoshop CS2.

We've been having Internet issues for the last week or so and that is why my blog has been so neglected. It seems that I am fixing it more than surfing on it. Me and Charter Cable tech support are tight! LOL! It's been a real pain!

Austin, my middle son, is home from school today. He had a late baseball game last night and it was windy and cold out. He woke up crying and said that his head hurt and that he was tired. And he had a bit of a fever so I just took him to work with me and let him sleep and watch TV in my office then we went to lunch. He seems better now. We probably shouldn't have let him go to the game because it was a bad night.

Well, wish me luck in the contest. I think it's down to only 20 ladies now as a few have left for personal reasons. I have no idea how the Scrap Artist ladies are going to decide on only 2 winners because the talent is just amazing! I wouldn't want to have to decide, that's for sure!

I will never forget...

I created this layout so my kids would know our story of what happened on this world-changing day. (Click on the image if you would like to see it a little larger.)

Our September Story

6 people. 2 countries. 1 world forever changed.

9/2001

We knew that September, 2001 would be a life-changing month for our family. But we never dreamed it would be a month that would change the world!

After 8 months on the market, our house finally sold. We had been living in Nova Scotia, Canada for 6 years and were ready to move back to the United States. We had purchased a franchise called The Little Gym. Our territory was Little Rock, Arkansas. As soon as we got to Arkansas, we were going to start making this new dream a reality. In August, Marty had gone down to Arkansas to find a home and a job and try to get things ready for when the kids and I came down. At the time, Nicholas was 4, Austin had just turned 3 on September 1st and Lauren and Mackenzie were only 15 months old. It had been a difficult month for me being alone with the kids and packing up the house all by myself.

Marty returned to Nova Scotia on September 5th. The plans were to close on the house on September 10th, stay in a hotel for 2 nights, fly to Dallas and stay with my mom for a few days and then drive up to our new home in Maumelle, Arkansas.

Things were going smoothly and we moved out of our house and sold our van in Nova Scotia on September 10th. Because we are U.S. citizens, our lawyer advised us to stay in Canada an extra day just to make sure everything went through with the sale of our house before we left the country. We feel very fortunate that he gave us this advice. If he had not, we would have flown out the morning of September 11th and to make matters worse, our plane would have gone through the Newark, New Jersey Airport (where one of the hijacked planes had taken off from). Who knows where we would have been re-routed.

Since we weren't scheduled to leave until the 12th, we rented a van on the morning of the 11th just to have a way to get around for the day. After we rented the van, we drove to the motor vehicle department to return our license plates for the van we had sold. It was there that we saw the horrible news of the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center in New York and realized our move would not go on as planned.

After we turned in our license plates, we went to the bank. Marty watched the kids and I stood in line. The bank had a television set up so everyone could watch the unbelievable news that was still transpiring. As I stood in line, I watched as the first tower of the World Trade Center fell. This was at 10:59am Atlantic Time. It is a moment that will stay with me as long as I live. There I was in the Royal Bank of Canada surrounded by Canadians, watching attacks on the United States. I couldn't have felt more alone. Tears welled up in my eyes and I felt an overwhelming need to get back to the United States. I couldn't believe the patriotism I was feeling. To this day (5 years later), I still tear up when I think of that moment.

When we got back to the hotel, we immediately booked the room for a few more nights because we had heard that all planes were being diverted to Canadian airports. (In total, Halifax ended up hosting 8 to 10,000 passengers of diverted planes.) After that, we called the airlines to see what to do about our flight that was supposed to leave the following day. He told us all flights were cancelled and booked us on the next available flight ... September 16th! So what should have been a 2-night stay in a tiny hotel room with 6 people ended up being a 6-night stay. But we made the most of it. Nick and Austin slept on the pull-out couch, and Lauren and Mackenzie slept in playpens next to our bed.

We called every day just to make sure that our flight on the 16th was still on and every day we were told not to worry. So on the night of the 15th as we were packing for our flight the next day, I called to make sure it would be leaving on time and was told it was cancelled and the next available flight would be on the 20th. Many, many phone calls were made that night to try to get out of Halifax. But no luck with the airlines. Marty and I decided to find another way out since we were going broke (and a little stir crazy) staying in the hotel with all of the kids.

We called the airlines again to see if we could fly out of another city and after much argument and a few choice words, we were told we could fly out of Montreal on the 17th. But, of course, we would have to find our own way to Montreal, at our own expense. Believe it or not, one of the ladies we talked to was actually going to charge us $200 per person because we were changing the city we were leaving from!

So there we were ... 2 adults, 4 kids, and 14 bags of luggage in Halifax needing to get to Montreal. Driving was not an option so we decided to take a train. It was a 20-hour train ride but we thought the kids would enjoy it. We left Halifax on the 16th at about noon. The train ride was kind of neat and the boys loved running from car to car. Sleeping was fun. We had 2 sleeping cars. Marty stayed in one with the big boys. He had a bed, and Nick stayed in the top bunk and Austin was in the lower one. I had a sleeping car with the babies. This was interesting because the car was too small for playpens and Lauren and Mackenzie were too small to sleep in bunk beds. So we just put pillows all over the floor and had a slumber party. The rocking of the train actually made them sleep pretty well. No so for Mommy and Daddy! We woke up at about 5:00am. There was a shower on the train so at least we were able to get clean.

I think we arrived in Montreal at about 8:00am. Then we had to load all of our luggage on to a bus to the airport which was about 30 minutes away. We dragged our stuff through the airport and waited in line for a little over an hour. We wanted to go through customs as soon as possible so we wouldn't have to deal with the bags. We got through customs at around 10:00am but our flight wasn't until 5:00pm so we just hung around the airport for many, many hours. Finally our flight took off as scheduled. The flight from Montreal was supposed to go through Cleveland where we would change planes for our flight to Dallas. When we got to Cleveland and looked at the board to see what gate to go to for our next flight ... wouldn't you know it ... CANCELLED! Now what?! Well, it just happens that my Dad lives in Cleveland and knew before us that our flight had been cancelled. He had gone to the airport and tracked us down at the ticket counter. So we decided to stay at his house for the night instead of trying to find another route to Dallas that evening. It was a very short but nice visit with my Dad and family who had never seen the twins.

We got up very early the next morning and went to the airport, found our luggage that we had conveniently 'forgotten' to pick up the night before and were off to Dallas. My mom picked us up at the airport. We had planned on staying with her for a few days but with all of the delays, we only had time to eat lunch and then drive up to Little Rock. We stayed at Marty's sister's house that night and then closed on our new house the following day. The movers arrived on the 25th with all of our stuff so we finally had actual beds to sleep on.

September 2001 is definitely a month we will always remember. This is the story of how our family was impacted by the events of September 11th. We were out of pocket a few thousand dollars and had lost several days of getting adjusted to Arkansas. But we were lucky. Over 3,000 lives were lost that terrible day. We learned how precious life is and we learned just how much we can get through as a family. Our lives will never be the same. Our world will never be the same.

Read all about it!

I am pretty excited because I have two books that will arrive at my house any day. One is a Photoshop book and the other is a Dover clip art book and CD. I'm not really much of a novel reader. I prefer flipping through books that I can learn something from or use to help create scrapbook pages. I created this layout several months ago for the Simply You Challenge at Scrap Artist. I feel a little guilty because I got up to week 13 in the challenge and then I stopped. I should go back and get caught up. I really had fun with the 13 I did.

I like this layout. Marty took a picture of me in some really poor lighting and the picture was all blurry. Virtual Photographer came to the rescue as did some Photoshop filters and blend modes. I like the resulting effect. Kind of arty.

I made this layout with two Scrap Artist kits: Art Inspiration (one of my favorite kits) and Free Spirit by Michelle Coleman. I re-colored a few things.

Journaling reads: I love to flip through books and magazines. It’s very rare that I actually sit down and read a book though. The last book I read, cover to cover, was “As Nature Made Him.” This book was about David Reimer, an identical twin who had a botched circumcision. The doctors decided to “make” him into a girl. Classic nature versus nurture as he was raised a girl and his twin brother a boy. This was fascinating reading and nature won out. Sadly, David Reimer took his own life.As a child, I read a lot. When Marty and I first got married, I went through reading phases (while he watched football games mostly!). But lately, if I have a book in my hand, it is probably a magazine or a book that will help me with my computer skills. My current book of choice is “Artists’ Journals and Sketchbooks” by Lynne Perrella. This book is really cool!The Anne Tyler “Ladder of Years” book has been next to my bed for almost a year. I am currently on page 8! Mom gave it to me and said it was good. Maybe someday I’ll finish it.

100 Years To Live

I had the pleasure of knowing my great grandmother, Margaret Sophia (Archamboult) Archangeli for 25 years! There are not too many people who get to know their great grandparents that well and I feel so fortunate. Although we lived in different states, we would write each other often all the way up until after I got married. She was such a neat lady and I miss her very much.

I created this layout last year for a contest and it is a favorite of mine. It was inspired by the Five For Fighting song called 100 Years To Live. The journaling reads:

This picture was taken when Margaret was only 2 years old. She lived to be 102. It's amazing to think that when this picture was taken, Margaret still had 100 years to live. This beautiful little girl would grow up and see many joys as well as many sorrows. She wed Fred Archangeli in 1915 and they remained married for 42 years until his death in 1957. She never remarried and was a widow for 38 years. Margaret and Fred had 4 children; 2 daughters and 2 sons. Helen, their oldest daughter, passed away at age 15 of Leukemia. Margaret also outlived Lois who died at age 70 of Alzheimer's Disease and Bob, who passed away at age 80. She had 11 grandchildren, 38 great-grandchildren and one great-great grandson. What an amazing life she led! I wonder if she would have changed a thing if she knew that she had ... 100 years to live ...

Credits: Gina Cabrera, Sarah Carling, Kristie David and Holly McCaig.

Made in Canada [with U.S. parts]

Apparently I am greatly influenced by the t-shirts my students wear to class! In my last post I mentioned it and the layout I am posting today was totally inspired by a t-shirt I saw on a student. This page is a fun way to document that our kids were all born in Canada, but that Marty and I are American. We lived in Nova Scotia from 1995 to 2001. All four of our kids were born there so they have dual citizenship. It seems like so long ago that we were in Canada but I have such great memories. We made lots of friends and I am so thankful for the experience of having lived there. When the kids are a little older, we are going to take them to the Maritimes (Eastern Canada) to visit their birthplace. It's a lot different than Texas!

A brief history on the Canadian National Anthem:

"O Canada" was proclaimed Canada's national anthem on July 1, 1980, 100 years after it was first sung on June 24, 1880. The music was composed by Calixa Lavallée, a well-known composer; French lyrics to accompany the music were written by Sir Adolphe-Basile Routhier. The song gained steadily in popularity. Many English versions have appeared over the years. The version on which the official English lyrics are based was written in 1908 by Mr. Justice Robert Stanley Weir. The official English version includes changes recommended in 1968 by a Special Joint Committee of the Senate and House of Commons. The French lyrics remain unaltered.

O Canada!
Our home and native land!
True patriot love in all thy sons command.

With glowing hearts we see thee rise,
The True North strong and free!

From far and wide,
O Canada, we stand on guard for thee.

God keep our land glorious and free!
O Canada, we stand on guard for thee.
O Canada, we stand on guard for thee.

I have fun extracting photos this way. I call it "primitive extraction" because it is meant to simulate cutting with real scissors even though it is all done digitally. I actually wrote a tutorial on this technique. Click here if you care to read about it. I created this page with Maya's "Made in Canada" kit from Scrapbook Graphics. But I don't think it's available anymore.

My favorite layout!

Thank you to everyone who came to my blog "unveiling" yesterday! What a party for me!! While I still have a few readers, I thought I would share with you what I consider to be my best layout. I had so much fun making it but it did take me a very LOOOOONG time to create. It is all digital. I used my pen tool in Photoshop to cut out all of the people! I originally created this layout for my Heritage Challenge at Scrap Artist. The theme that week was "Montage of Memories."

A montage is a composition of many pictures or designs, put together in a way that conveys a particular mood, such as joy, sadness, enchantment, magic, fear, romance etc. Another web site defines it as: A single pictorial composition made by juxtaposing or overlapping many pictures or designs. Two of my favorite scrappers are Denise Docherty and Anna Aspnes. Both are masters of montage. Click on their names to see their galleries.

All of these people on this page are my direct ancestors. These are my parents, grand parents, great grandparents, great-great grandparents, great-great-great grandparents and even one great-great-great-great grandpa! I learned an interesting fact while doing this layout. I have exactly 50 pictures of my direct ancestors. Pretty cool! Hopefully someday I will have more!

I am the baby in the title and the two color pictures are my parents. Point to any other person on the page and I can tell you (without cheating) who they are! That's how much I have stared at these pictures over the years! LOL!

The journaling reads: What are the ODDS of me? Have you ever really thought of everything that had to happen to even be born? For generations, everything had to happen exactly as it did for you to be alive. Your great-great-great grandparents had to decide to emigrate from Germany, your great grandpa had to decide to work at that mill so that he could meet your great grandmother. Every detail of the past had to happen exactly as it did or you would not be alive. The odds of anyone ever being born are really astronomical. I have truly won the lottery a million times over by even being born. If every person on this page had not made the exact decisions they made, I would not be here. I owe everything I am to these people ... my ancestors. ~Robyn Marlyn England February 14, 2006

I hope this layout inspires some of you to try my heritage challenge and if not at least to try scrapping outside of your comfort zone a little.

England Math: 1+1=4

In a frenzy of scrapping the other day, this idea just came to me. Marty and I are always saying to each other, "We made ALL of them!" It's a pretty awesome thought! We were married almost 11 years ago and somehow, we have brought 4 little people into the world. This layout tells the story of why we have so many kids. The journaling reads: The plan was 2 kids. Then when they were both boys, we went for #3 which turned out to be #3 and #4. Although having all 4 of you was not the original plan, we’re sure glad it turned out that way!

We joke that Mackenzie is our "bonus boy" because we were trying for Lauren and he came along for the ride! But he's our little sweetie and we are so blessed to have all 4 of those little monkeys. They drive us crazy on a daily basis but we are so thankful for all of them.

I used Nancie Rowe-Janitz and Michelle Coleman's All-American kit to scrap this. The stamped alpha is also Nancie's (Shmootzy Alpha Stamps). All of this is available at Scrap Artist.

Collage Crazed!

I don't know what is going on lately but all I want to do is collage. Since it was my turn this week for the Altered/Collage Challenge at Scrap Artist ... and it's always my turn for the Heritage Challenge ... I decided to combine the challenges and have a "This 'n' That" collage challenge. It's virtually the same challenge except to qualify for the heritage part, participants must use a photo from the 1970's or before. These are both of my sample layouts. I really had fun with the "I am invincible!" one. If you can't read the journaling, it says, "I may not always win but I have never been defeated." I don't know where that came from but it was the first thing that came to me! And that's what an art journal is all about, right?!

The second layout is my Great-Great-Great Grandmother, Selma Hoetzel. The journaling there reads, "Born in Germany. Died about 1891 in Michigan. Wife of Carl Hoetzel. Mother of Marie Jenny Hoetzel. Maiden name unknown." If you want to know more about Selma, click here.

My scrap style is constantly evolving but it seems that I am really drawn to the Somerset or Legacy style. It's just so interesting to me. I still turn out a simple page sometimes, but I am not as proud of them. Sounds strange, I know. But when I finish a layout, either I feel really good about it or know that it is just ok.

Dirty Boy!

I decided to take the Scraplift Challenge at Scrap Artist. The challenge was to lift Jenn Olson. Her whole gallery is awesome so it was a tough choice. I settled on lifting her layout called Dimples.

This little guy is Mackenzie, my youngest son, and he sure can get dirty! The journaling reads: It is impossible to keep you clean when we go to the baseball field to watch Nick and Austin’s games. You and Lauren go to the playground and get dirty! However, on this day, you were dirtier than usual. It looked like you had rubbed dirt all over your face! I thought it would make a cute picture. But every time I tried to get a good shot, you made this silly face. May 2006

I used Lori Barnhurst's new Little Orphan Boy kit for everything except the background paper. For that, I recolored some of Michelle Coleman's Simply Spring kit paper and put 2 overlays from the Rough and Tumble kit on top of it. Everything from Scrap Artist. Font is Times New Roman. Created in Photoshop CS2.

Positively Puzzling!

We posted a new Studio Start this morning on the Scrapbookgraphics Blog. The very talented Christine (Fiddlette) had the awesome idea to use crossword puzzles as inspiration.

I used an online crossword puzzle generator to create the puzzle and then I used that as a template to create the grid and then slipped my picture behind it. Just some fancy Photoshop stuff! LOL! I love a good challenge and this one really pushed me. I hope you will join us in the challenge. We are giving away a posting prize if you participate this week.

The paper and hand are from Maya's Free Spirit kit at Scrapbook Graphics (one of my favorites).

It's Hip To Be Square!

This week in my Heritage Challenge at Scrap Artist ... we are using squares (at least 10!) to scrap heritage pictures. This is a 2-page layout I paper-scrapped a couple of years ago. Then last year, I re-created it digitally but was never happy with the paper selection. But I found Iron Orchid Designs Sweet 'n' Trashy papers and I thought they were perfect and I am finally happy with the layout. This is my grandma. I miss her a lot! In case you're interested in what some of the journaling reads ... it is a sort of poem-type journaling about everything I remember about Grandma.

I remember Grandma … It's funny how you remember people that you knew as a child. Many of the things I remember most about Grandma Kent have to do with food! I remember eating ice cream cones with all of my cousins in Grandma's back yard. It would always be vanilla and you never knew what color the cone would be. It might be red or yellow or even green. I remember big Thanksgiving dinners and how Grandma never seemed to mind when I only wanted the whipped cream and not the pumpkin pie she had made for dessert. I remember eating blueberries in milk with a little sugar on top. I remember her cabinet in the kitchen with an endless supply of breakfast cereal. Most cereals were the non-sugar coated kind, but Grandma supplied plenty of sugar to add by the spoonful. I remember drinking lots of red pop. And I remember that Grandma never ate with us. She was always wandering around during meals to make sure that everyone had what they needed. Besides all of the times that revolved around food, I also remember lots of other great times spent with Grandma. I remember that Grandma had very thin hair and wore a wig. At night she would take it off and put it on one of her wig heads in her bedroom. I found this very interesting. Sometimes I would see Grandma putting on her makeup and I remember watching her use her eyebrow pen and thinking that was pretty neat. I remember that even though Grandma was a large woman, she could still bend over with her legs straight and put her palms all the way down on the floor. I remember going to the Saginaw Zoo and Grandma taking my picture in the big whale's mouth. I remember that Grandma was diabetic and always had lots of pills to take. She kept them in a pill box labeled with the days of the week. One of the favorite things that I remember is a trip in 1981. Grandma and Grandpa drove me and Paul from our house in Texas all the way up to Dad's house in Ohio. It was raining really hard as we got close to Dad's house and I remember Grandma kept telling Grandpa, "Don't fall off the road, Dad!" It was really funny. The last thing that I remember about Grandma is seeing her just a few months before she died. She had lost a lot of weight and her spirit was fading but I remember that she still loved me. Grandma was such a wonderful lady. I was lucky to know her until I was almost 23 years old. I remember that Grandma was very patient and loved all of us unconditionally. I remember that Grandma was loved by me … I remember Grandma.

Visual Palindromes

I am so excited to be one of the new Studio Matters Blog Girls at the Scrapbook Graphics blog. My good friend, Christine (Fiddlette), and I are both going to be leading the Studio Starts challenges each Friday. I decided to do the first challenge and have named it Visual Palindromes. A palindrome is a word, phrase, verse or sentence that reads the same backward or forward (‘racecar’ for example). Some of you already know that I am a linguistics dork. I majored in Modern Languages and minored in Linguistics at Texas A&M. I just love the study of language! So I tried to carry this over into art. We are interpreting palindromes by using papers and elements. I hope you will join us in the challenge! We are giving away a posting gift just for playing! For more information on palindromes, click here.

Oh me, oh Maya!

I got Maya's new Quirky Grab Bag Volume 1 last night and dreamed about it all night! I woke up this morning in the mood to collage! So that's just what I did. I had fun with this one. I know what all of the images mean to me but feel free to interpret as you please!

Most of the stuff here is by Maya at Scrapbook Graphics including the background paper (a blend of papers in her Weathered Treasures kit), the flower crown (Joyful Fairy), crown (Maya Doll), butterflies overlay (Believe kit), hand (Free Spirit kit) and all of the fun and quirky images (Quirky Grab Bag 1). The cut-out words, pointy hat with flowers and the wings are by Hope Wallace at Scrap Artist. Created in Photoshop CS2.

Photobooth fun!

I posted the new Heritage Challenge at Scrap Artist this morning. I got this photo when I was in Arkansas last weekend and I thought it would be fun to scrap photobooth or small photos.

I used 2 of Michelle Coleman's kits: The papers, stamp and elements are from her My Gypsie Rose kit and the giant letter 'J' is from her Chelsea's Dream kit. Staples and tape are from Iron Orchid Design's Element Essentials pack. I made the metal frame by cutting apart a frame by Dianne Rigdon in her All in the Family metal set. All available at Scrap Artist.

Never Forgotten

We went to Arkansas last weekend to visit Marty's family. I came home with a few boxes of heritage pictures from his side of the family. Unfortunately, most of the photos are not labelled and I may never know who some of those relatives are. So sad when people are lost to time. One photo really struck me hard. It is a photo of a baby in a casket. Of course it is a sad picture because it is a dead baby but the real tragedy for me is that sweet little baby, who was obviously loved, will be forgotten. I have no way of finding out the name or even if it is a boy or girl. I have decided to name this baby Alex in rememberance of the baby in my previous post. Coincidentally, I was creating this layout the very day Alex died. This is going to be my sample layout for the Altered/Collage Challenge at Scrap Artist this week. The theme is going to be "Honoring Death" and I hope I don't scare anyone away because of the topic. But I feel that so many pages are devoted to happy, fluffy stuff. But life has good times and hard times and each life ends in death. This challenge can be taken on as a journaling challenge or any way the participant wants to interpret it. I hope we get lots of participation because I think each piece of art will be something special.

4"x6" Mini-Pages

I love the ATC's (Artist Trading Cards) that I am seeing at some of the scrapbooking sites but I'm just not sure if I'm ready to go THAT small. They are only 2x3. But I found a couple of cool 4x6 photo albums the other night and had an idea ... scrap at that size ... it would be quick, cheap to print and I could use some of those fuzzy, small pictures that aren't suitable for 12x12 scrapping. Here are the first 3 that I have done. They are so much fun!