I am dedicated

Thank you for your votes! Alas, I did not win, but I loved the design that did, and I ended up with a nice page, so it was still a win.

Last weekend I attended the funeral for the husband of a friend. It was a beautiful ceremony, made more powerful by the eulogy of her son. Her son, in the eulogy, said, "My father is not defined by facts, but by the actions he takes every day." That made me think about all the ways I show I am dedicated to my family and others by the ordinary things I do. The following page came from those words:

I used the color inspiration (and very loosely the sketch) from The Color Room. I can't tell you enough how good it felt to think about the things I do every day, why I do them, and how they show my love for the people around me. I strongly encourage everyone to take the time to think about that, record it if possible, and thank other people for their actions too.

Vote for me!

Small post tonight--I submitted the following layout last week for guest designer at Sketchy Thursdays:

I am in the running! If you like my layout, please go to the site and vote for me (the poll is in the side bar to the left). Voting closes Tuesday sometime (I'm bad about times--I think it's the evening?).

Regardless, the sketch and challenge left me with a nice layout for my son's birthday.

Week in the Life

When I read last week that both Ali E and Cathy Z were doing A Week in the Life, I decided to give it a try. Though I was not able to take hundreds of photos a day or even journal each day, I discovered a lot about myself and my life, some of which I can't wait to scrap:

1. Objects and things are not important to me. I was impressed by the really cool shots Cathy took of everyday items. I just couldn't do it. With the possible exception of anything from October Afternoon and my coffee cup, I am not that attached to things. I make do with what I have.
2. Concurrent to that point, I feel like I am defined by the people I am with and the things I do. Those were the vast majority of my photos.Take the shot at the top of this post: I was on my way to the school carnival with the family when I noticed Dominic and Derick walking side by side in opposing jerseys. I took a few pictures, already envisioning a page called "Divided loyalties."
3. I did not take pictures of the most arresting images from this past week. Why not? I was too busy experiencing them. Here's a few of them: the boys spontaneously hopscotching their way into school; a pile of calculators, iPhones, iPods, car keys, and other valuables students traded me for the textbook they forgot to bring; the tick that stopped my first hour class (I'm kind of glad I don't have a picture of that one actually); the smell of the cherry and crabapple trees that surrounded my home this week; Dominic going down the big waterslide at the community center today; both boys' faces when I called them Dowan and Rominic accidentally; my first stamp club meeting on Monday; singing in choir this Sunday to the congregation's applause. This list alone will turn into a scrapbook page.
4. I don't want to scrap a ton of these photos. I think I may pick a few from each day that grab me as I'm going through PSE editing them.
5. I may not journal them either. Maybe I'll just write about the day a little. I guess that is journaling. Never mind.

Here are some of the photos I took, among my favorites:

This is as close to a picture of the big story of the week as I can get. That would be an Icelandic volcano. Wow. (And you can see abit of where I scrap--I store my most used stuff in our living room,a nd I scrap on a lap desk in the easy chair.)

The past couple days were full of rain and antsy boys. They decided to develop a rock collection and went outside, putting rocks in boxes, and lugging the boxes back to the house, where they used the rocks to create interesting play areas for their Star Wars action figures. Brilliant.

I actually took a few photos of myself. This one I still have an eye infection (ergo the glasses), and we're actually in the downstairs bathroom during the statewide tornado drill on Thursday. Forgive his demented smile; Dominic thinks it's hysterical.

This one I took after I shot the photo of Derick and Dominic at the carnival. Even though I appear to have something in my teeth, and Rowan is giving me his standard cheesy grin, I love this photo.

This might be the best photo I took all week, of my bleeding hearts right after the rain.


This shot is poor quality, but magical in that it's such a close up of a rabbit--though I get a little Elmer Fudd on the X%&#! rabbits. I do garden, you know. (BTW, that "Community Pit" sign at the bottom is directly over the space where I store my scrap supplies, LOL!)


Maybe the funniest picture of the week, Derick playing Dominic's quarter sized violin.

It's easier to get a good shot of Dominic and Rowan than it is to get a good shot of my cat. Here she is, looking adorable and in her favorite spot: in the chair where I sit so she can drape herself over me. (This is the easy chair I scrap in.)

I have now run out of the pictures I printed last week, a bad thing since I start LOAD next week. If memory serves, I won't have time to edit when I do that, so I'll have to work hard this week to send in a photo order, most likely of the photos I took in December. So as odd as it may seem, I plan on spending the month of May scrapping the winter holidays. Go figure.

Big stories, little stories

Since I'm an English teacher, I love to write. Journaling is always important to my layouts, though I don't think I need to write a lot to make the journaling important.

Here's a layout where the story inspired the layout (and the design was inspired by Studio Calico's April kit and Sketchy Thursdays' sketch):

When my friend told me what Dominic had said about the cartoon, it made me chat with him about what he could and could not watch on TV. His lengthy response immediately made me think "We don't need a v-chip, we've got him" and the story came together into this layout.

If you struggle with journaling, I suggest a basic pattern to make it easier (and more meaningful):

1. Detail the story--the who, what, when, where, why, how. You don't need to detail all, just what is important to you.
2. Explain why you want to remember the story. What does it make you think of? Why is it important? What do those details show about you and yours right now?

If you click on my LO, I hope you can read the story and see how I applied those two rules.

Sometimes the stories aren't big, but they are still stories. One day, for example, I was trying to get the boys organized enough to leave and go to taekwondo. Readying the boys was a chore, so I told my husband, "Raising boys is like conducting an orchestra." He laughed and said, "Where no one is looking at you." I knew then that I wanted to record the story, but I didn't think I needed the whole story. Our combined conversation was enough, so it turned into this layout, again using SC's April kit:

I picked a random goofy photo of the boys to go with. Perfectly, they're wearing musical instrument glasses. I call that serendipity.

And sometimes, the story is the photos, so I don't really need journaling at all. Case in point:

I used Studio Calico's Sunday sketch from their blog for this. Not my usual design. I used the multiple photo spots to cut circles from landscape photos from our vacation at Olympic National Park last summer. I usually do a landscape/detail layout with leftover vacation photos. This one worked perfectly with Basic Grey's Origins collection. I think the photos tell a story of what our vacation was like last year, so I did no more than label the photos--with this awesome new punch from EK Success. I almost got my money's worth on that punch just with this layout.

If you have dreaded journaling, try the two steps I gave--give the details and explain why you want to remember them. I think you'll find it's much easier to write, and easier to write well.

My guy

Sadly, I scrap few photos of my husband. I don't have an album all to himself, though I did create a scrapbook of all the photos from his family heritage to college that his mother sent me while we were dating. (Amazingly, I was not scared off by the 70's photos.) Still, I scrap his interests, his activities, and my love.

Here's a page I did about my love for him:

I took the inspiration from the color challenge at The Color Room. It was male in nature, even called "His Room"--blue, tan, white, and dark grey. I dug fully into stash for this layout, used my handy Bazzill flourish stitch template, and even added flowers. I almost went and got more Thickers when I realized I was out of O's. However, God made buttons to fill in for missing O's, so I fulfilled God's will and made do with stash.

Love you, Derick, and thanks for killing spiders and climbing on the roof to retrieve balls thrown up there by the boys.

Source of inspiration

The weather has been outstanding here, which would make gardening all the sweeter if I didn't have this eye infection which makes wearing my contacts (and my sunglasses) impossible. The infection doesn't seem serious, but it sure isn't fun to be outside. I get headaches. So to the computer (and the scrap space) I go.

Yesterday was Dominic's violin recital. He played the folk tune "Lightly Row" rather well, though a little sharp at the end. The cutest moment came when he forgot to bow and went back to do so.

I spent time finishing up some layouts I started this week, and this got me started thinking about where I start my layouts. Mostly I would say they start with pictures paired with a story, but if I'm to be honest, I say my layouts start with a purpose. Sometimes it is a photo. Sometimes it's a story. And sometimes my inspiration comes from elsewhere.

This layout was inspired a little by story--the annual Larson family egg hunt--but truth be told, I designed the entire page around that shaped paper. I had used the left side on another layout, so I wanted to use up what I had left. Since it's spring themed paper, I'm limited in its use, so on the egg hunt LO it went. I also wanted to use up more of my March Studio Calico kit, so I pulled most of the rest of the products from there. For being designed around product, I think it turned out nice.

This next one was built around a Sketchy Thursdays challenge this week. I wanted to scrap a birthday party for my son, but I wanted to narrow the photo options. This challenge let me do so. I altered the sketch by turning the one photo into four. To do that, I made a mini-template with PSE for 4 2x2 inch photos on a 5x7 inch file, then cut the photos out.

The challenge asked to use green and mark a celebration; coincidentally, my son got a frog Pillow Pet for his birthday, so the challenge fit perfectly. All stuff came from stash, some old. REALLY old. See the frog? Old Fancy Pants rubon, perfect for the LO.

Another Sketchy Thursdays challenge inspiration here, this time with a more unusual design for me. It made me dig into something I don't normally: banners from my April Studio Calico kit. It was fun figuring out how to make them work on a page. I mixed up my challenges a bit and took inspiration from the words "Right now," so I reflected on how my son is shifting away from being an extreme cuddler and how I feel about that. I had desaturated the photos, which worked better with the bright colors.

In this case I used a sketch from Creating Keepsakes. I couldn't get it together enough to meet the submission deadline, but I loved how the sketch forced me to limit my photo choices in the family page about the Renaissance Fair. I had been about to make a mini album with my photos, I had so many photos. Using the sketch helped me exercise restraint. Nice.

So for inspiration, I definitely consider myself in the camp of "inspired by photos and stories," but I enjoy the creative stretch that sketches, challenges, and products give me too.

Scrap Mania pages

I attended Scrap Mania Saturday night. I spent the last couple days finishing up some pages I got a little start n that night, though some are still finishing up (i.e. last two layouts in my vacation album). Here's what I've got:

Some faux hawk photos. Eventually I'll stop scrapping these, but they're still funny. I used LYB Generation Z. And I misspelled mohawk, thank you very much. Still trying to decide if I should cover it up.

I had started this one before Mania. I mostly used April's Studio Calico kit. Some random thoughts I'd had this past week. I added some textures to my photo before printing it out.


This one used the paper I liked best from October Afternoon's Thrift Shop line. I had desaturated this photo, so it went well with the colors I picked.

Packing up for Mania, I found this 8x12 photo from vacation. I love how Dominic is holding Derick's hand and looking up at him. Nothing huge to say, but I wanted to scrap this moment.



The color inspiration on this Eggs 2010 layout comes from a new site called The Color Room. Not a combo I normally pick, but lovely for Easter. The design is a very loose interpretation of this week's Studio Calico sketch. I did this one yesterday.


I don't do a ton of pages about Derick (bad me), but this Lent was memorable for all he did around the church and people's words to me about his activity. And talent.


Every Easter we take a family photo at our church. I used leftover bits from March's Studio Calico kit for this; the page is my 7th for the month. I added the letters from Jillibean Soup and some brads.

We now return to our regularly scheduled programming...

The first week back from spring break is always a shocker. For me, it was filled with grading (and editing photos to prepare for next month's LOAD). I'm almost done grading student resumes, which will give me a break for a couple weeks.

I did finish my March page for Project 12:

I did use the Becky Fleck sketch.

I found it easier to use this month's sketch.

Oddly, the only new products I used were the green paper, which is from an adorable line from The Girl's Paperie. I actually had some perfect Prima flowers for the LO, which matched the old SEI paper perfectly.

I especially liked the small amounts of stitching I did with the LO.

Tomorrow night I have a date with Archiver's Scrap Mania, and I just got new photos as well as my April Studio Calico kit in the mail. I feel like I've going to party, LOL!

Autism Awareness

I had some trouble posting earlier--lost the whole post--so hopefully this will work now.

My son was diagnosed with autism at 3 1/2. Specifically, he is identified as PDD-NOS (pervasive developmental disorder, not otherwise specified). Since then he has been receiving services to help him learn to interact appropriately with others. He's come far in the time since his diagnosis, and I'm grateful to all the help we've received. Here's a layout I made a year or so ago expressing gratitude to those who have helped him progress.


I have occasionally scrapped his autism. That is not the only thing I scrap about him, nor have I done a whole album regarding his autism. It's a part of him, but autism is not the whole of him. I scrap everything that makes him who he is.


This might be the first page I made about his diagnosis. It's a funny story, and those are my favorite pages to scrap about him.


This layout reflects on one of the initial signs of his autism--his incisive visual acuity. He loved this yellow car die cut from Archiver's--he carried it around for a long time. I was glad to put it on the page.


I'm sorry this journaling isn't easily read. It was the story of a time he asked me to make his napkin into a circle, a request that I was for a long time clueless to fulfill. I finally got what he meant. Dominic's verbal skills are pretty good, but still not as good as neurotypical kids, and since he's smart, he can fake knowing more words than he actually does. I need to remember that.


This was the latest LO I made, just finished today. I was inspired by my...let's call it "distaste"...for the word "tolerance." I don't think that should be the goal. I expressed how I felt in the journaling, which for some reason I can't post. I hope you can read it.

Memory lane

This morning, while watching the Today show, I got a little nostalgic during their call for videos of viewers' good dogs. I went to one of my first scrapbooks to find the first page I did of Roswell (RIP), and as I looked, I had a ball, not just reliving adorable photos of her, but also seeing my style evolve. Journey with me...

Here's the first page I ever did:

I took the Basic Scrapbooking class at Archiver's to do this page. I like the continuity between the two pages, but check out the deckle edged scissors I used on the journaling blocks. I still have them, I think, but I can't remember when I last used them. Also note how I flocked the title to mimic snow. I started out pretty techniquey.

This next page demonstrates a couple things I did for a while quite regularly: stamp on my layouts, and use Becky Higgins sketches. I also like how I handwrote the title--creative lettering, anyone?

I really like this next one. I can tell my photography skills are getting better. I think it's still a Becky Sketch, and I love the mix of patterns on this monochromatic layout. I'm also proud of that memorabilia pocket I made.

This one was an online challenge, I think. I really find those inspiring. Again with the stamping and the mix of PP. I can tell I had fun with this layout. And check out Roswell and the light saber--isn't that cute!

Right here is where I started to find myself as a designer. I remember doing this page. I had printed a TON of egg dyeing pictures, and I finally narrowed it to three, I like my grid, I like the colorful accents that are not themed. (I was a Theme Queen for several scrapbooks--if I did a page about baseball, I got baseball paper, about bicycles, I got bicycle paper, etc. I find that I get a lot more use out of my stash when I use non-themed products.)

Here I'm more me. I used spring papers on this snowy LO. It's a linear page that also has a triangle in it--I tend to love asymmetry on my pages, oddly enough. I like how I used that die cut as the main accent, and I like how I used other products like brads and a journaling spot to create some visual interest.

I just pulled some pages that struck me from my past albums. Loads of fun to see what has stayed the same and what has evolved. I like clustering accents much more now, but I think that comes from now having a stash-if you've got it, use it!