Camp Paradise Week 3

We're into week 3 at Camp Paradise... I wish I had gotten a bit more done last night but I had to give over the downstairs to my resident podcaster since he was recording... So, I've got three pages done.

This first page (of my DH's birthday this year) was for a challenge that called for 2,4,6... 2 patterned papers, 4 photos and 6 embellishments(2 rub ons, 1 ribbon, 2 staples, 1 journal card)... I really liked the way this came out - more old Sass paper out of my stash and a fun ribbon scrap from an old RAK.

The challenge for this one was to make a patchwork of paper on the page, and to stitch or faux stitch on that... so here's what I came up with. The Stampin' Up! Christmas papers I first pulled out to make the cards I'll post next -

that challenge was to make a page using the colors of your favorite beverage container - so that Diet Coke Red and Silver came straight to mind. I had it sitting out and I have a backlog of Christmas photos to get onto pages before Christmas Journal time comes again.

 For this final page, the challenge was to scrap a photo of yourself, and make a page about yourself and to make homemade embellies to go with it. I was stuck on this and decided to go with a childhood pic and page. The subject is my two favorite sets of books when I was little - the Ramona books and the Little House books.

So, that's what I've got so far this week... hopefully I will get a little more done before Weds!

Week 2 Part 3 and... Summer coming to an end

It may still be sunny and hot outside. We still have days of outdoor fun ahead of us but Summer break is coming to a close, this time next week all three of my kids will be in school. My baby will be off to Kindergarten! Oldest will be a Sophomore and the Middle Child will be in Fourth grade. It's all speeding by -- Summer has drifted rapidly away!

But for today, the boys are still gone, I've got a standing Thursday morning date with my DH, for crepes, fresh-made root beer, a little of this and that at the Farmer's Market, and ... I've got a little more scrapping to share!

For week two of Camp Paradise - I wrapped up with 10 Layouts and 1 altered notebook. Not too bad!

This Scout page was part of a color challenge -- the color scheme immediately got me thinking of Scout pics! I've always got some Scout pics on hand and I really need to get caught up on those, as Oldest is working on his Eagle project now! I'm going to need those finished books for his Eagle Court! I really love the new line of Boy Scout papers.

Since I liked these papers and colors so much, I whipped out a second page for this challenge.

This challenge included using animal photos and a hand cut element. Hand cut? No problem! (In this case the frame around the page -- have I mentioned how I LOVE the Eco stack lately? I have? Well... I still do!) but animals were a challenge. We don't have any pets except fish. I did a page about the fish we had before last week and I don't have any pics of the current fish that I want to scrap... so I had to go afield. I came across these pics from the zoo and thought they'd be fun! The journaling reads "When they say CM Zoo is a mountain zoo, I think of the altitude and the steep paths... not of a buck bounding out of the brush, meandering across the path and hopping into the hippo enclosure for a snack! Talk about "Rocky Mountain Wild"".

 This last page is the Little Guy chomping at the bit to leave for his first day of preschool last year! I cannot believe preschool is behind us! 

This little pocket journal was for a challenge that called for altering something - with butterflies. I don't do a lot of altering... I've done a few Christmas ornaments and frames but really that's about it. I'm not super into it. And Why is it Pink? I know those of you who know me are wondering - WHY IS IT PINK??? The answer is... I had a pink butterfly LOL The papers are older Close to My Heart Papers... The other side of the pink is that neutral tan that there's a strip of across the page, which is why I bought them -- the set had blues, browns and pinks in it... Anyway I made this cute little book... for something.


So the week 3 Challenges are posted and I'm getting ready to tackle them!

Camp Paradise Week 2 (Part 2)

Still plugging away at the Camp Paradise challenges for this week 6 of the 9 challenges completed.

This first one was for the Music Challenge -- based on the old song "Mr. Golden Sun" - it called for a rainbow and a sun on the page. With three boys I don't have a lot of call for rainbows on my pages LOL But I thought this Sass paper was perfect for a fun Easter page. I used a sketch from the 4x6 Photo Blog on this one and Sassafras Lass Sunshine and Lollipops papers. I only had a little 6x6 pad of these papers.

For this one the challenge was themed on "Friendship Bracelets" and called for "All the colors of the rainbow", DMC Floss, and the word 'friend' in the title... So back to the Sassafras Papers I turned... I felt like between the rainbow paper and the Middle Child's favorite tie dyed shirt - we had to colors covered. I did a little stitching with DMC floss. And the title "Farewell Friends" - the pics are from the Last Day of school party in 2009. Used the same sketch as the last page since I had photos in the same configuration.

For this final page -- the challenge was different for each person. For mine I was challenged to use:
- A Cardstock base  (The black)
- 2 different colors of cardstock and
- Use your stamps to create background to each of the 2 cs (The Sassafras Lass "I Heart Robots" stamps on the Yellow and Blue)
- Choose 2 of the following: ribbon, buttons, flowers, felt, acrylic, chipboard (felt photo corners and ribbon)

 The pics are from the St. Louis Science Center, where the older boys got to participate in a Lego Mindstorms Robotics competition. 

Kicking off Week 2

The second week of Croppin' Paradise's Camp Paradise has arrived and I started it off with three new layouts last night.

This page was for the "Mess Hall" Challenge and called for making a page about a food you're known for making. I make a MEAN apple crisp and it's a real mark of the change of seasons for our family. In late August, I go apple picking. I bring home giant bags of apples and spend a day or two coring and chopping them, making apple butter and freezer bags for pies and crisps. And this is one of my apple crisps from last year. As is often the case, I started this one with one of Susan's sketches.

This one was for a "Sports and Rec" challenge to document a favorite game. Rock Band is definitely a favorite game in our house! Especially Beatles Rock Band but we've played a lot of versions. I used another of Susan's sketches on this one -- I replaced her totally cute die cut stars with a border- punched strip. The papers for this are Core'dinations stock and DCWV Generation Tech.

The challenge for this one was the "Campfire" challenge and had a "S'mores" theme -- use Chocolate brown, White Space (For the big fluffy marshmallow), and A fire color. For this one, I used the DCWV Eco Stack. The outer edge and flowers are a paper that I fussy cut the center out of and mounted it on another sheet. I was really happy with how this one came out!

So Week 2 is off to a GREAT start!

Camp Paradise Week 1

I did a total of 13 Layouts for week 1 of Croppin Paradise's Camp Paradise.The challenges were fun, and I had a great time with them. Scrappers - you're welcome to pop on over and join us for week 2! The challenges are up and there's some fun ones in there!

So here's a few more of my pages from the week.

Helen Hunt Falls is a local destination with lots to see - the visitors center has large open windows where hummingbirds flit inside the building. The falls themselves are beautiful. The hike above them is BRUTAL uphill craziness! On this particular day, it was cool and rainy but we still had a fab time. The Basic Grey Origins line seemed like a perfect match for the mood of the pics and the outdoorsy fun.

Still working with these Origins products, I pulled out these pics of Oldest all dressed up for the homecoming dance. I liked the fun formality of this. That big fussy cut flower bit in the middle was lots of fun.

For this one, we've got some older Sassafras Lass Papers  -- I thought the colors were great for Easter (I am a sucker for Oranges and Yellows lately). Easter is not a Spring holiday here, that's still winter. The grass has not begun to green up, buds have barely begun to break out on the trees, and as often as not we end up hunting Easter Eggs indoors due to snow. So these colors seemed the perfect fit. The Little Guy was on his own for Easter this year but the bunny came through with goodies, just the same.

For this Christmas page, I turned to a Sketch #17 from Sketch Savvy, and tweaked it a bit to suit my needs - ditching the large circle in favor of another photo. I love these fun We R Memory Keepers Christmas papers!

School Supply Time

I've continued to take it pretty easy in my kid-free glory.

Today, I faced down my nemesis "School Supply Shopping" -- oh how I dread it every year. Yes, I know, you are about to regale me with tales of your love for freshly sharpened pencils, picking the perfect Hello Kitty Trapper Keeper, and the delight of new Composition Notebooks. It's not that I don't share in these delights. There is nothing like a fresh new blank notebook and a brand new stack of pencils, don't I know it.

 (The Little Guy's Supplies)

But THAT is not what school supply shopping is about. School supply shopping is about 'The List'. The List is a tricksy critter. Around our house, the list remains in hiding. I seek it. I regularly check the elementary school website where I am foiled with a decoy - LAST year's list! I haul into the local Office Supply store where they offer to supply me with The List, then tease me with the Lists of other schools.... but they don't have ours. So eventually, with school starting less than two weeks away, I have to give up and go to the neighborhood school, buzz myself in and collect the list for myself.

Then the shopping. The creators of The List despise me. In years past, it has been impossible to fulfill the requirements of the list by a visit to The Walmart (seriously what kind of shopping list can you not get all the stuff for at WALMART? It's even a SUPER Walmart!). No, in the past I have always been forced to trek myself to store after store looking for elusive 'point-tipped Fiskars' or 'metal protractors' or some other fiendish temptation that lands me in store after store seeking it.The List is very specific -- it doesn't say 'bring some pencils, or even bring 10 pencils, it says 4 packages of 10, Yellow #2 pencils.... sometimes it insists on a specific brand or quantity of something.

(Supplies for The Oldest)

A few years ago I decided to FLOUT THE LIST!!! Yes, I am a FLOUTER. The list calls for Large Glue Sticks. I refuse to buy large glue sticks. Large Glue Sticks are RIDICULOUS, I tell you! They never go on sale and they cost more than $1.50 each. Whereas I can buy SMALL glue sticks in a package of 2 for $0.25. I am sorry, dear teacher. I cannot spend $10 on glue, when I can provide a lovely, equivalent quantity of the SAME glue for $2.

I have three children, each equipped with their very own List. And they each call for different things (this one wants folders with pockets and clasps, that one calls for NO CLASPS). So no, you will not be getting large glue sticks from me. And that goes for Crayons, too. The 24-packs of Crayons are on sale in every store in the land for $0.25 a package at this time of year -- but ONLY the 24-packs. So, why do you insist on asking for the 8-packs ($0.94) or the 16-packs ($1.14).

 (Middle Child's Supplies)

You're out of luck, I shall send you EXTRA CRAYONS. So there.

Kid Free and Scrapping

 For the next two weeks, this mama of three is completely kid free! They're all off doing their thing!

This morning I took the great liberty of sleeping in late, followed by long reading in bed.(...ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhh, so quiet!) In a few days I'm sure the quiet of the empty house will get on my nerves, I'm not used to it! But for today, it still feels like a treat.

So, I'm at home, doing my thing! Scrapbooking, that is!

This week marks the beginning of Camp Paradise over at Croppin' Paradise, and I've started off with tackling some of the challenges.

Remember when DH went away for a weekend back in April? Well here's two layouts from that weekend:

This first one is just pics we took while we were out hiking. That water was FREEZING! I mean FREE-ZING! How DH talked me into going into it while he took a pic, I'll never know! The challenge for this one involved representing certain elements of "Camp" -- Cabins (I used brown alphas for that), Water (Check that blue background!), Nature (See the pretty dandelion fluff papers?) and Rules (I went for the Rule of Three - with my three brads!). I had intended on a title of "we two" but I was out of "e" in the alphas I wanted to you, so I made do.

This second one embraced a challenge to use scraps from over at For the Luv of Art, and the "Wildlife" challenge at Camp Paradise -- which called for pics without people in them. I love this photo and I'm really happy with this layout - except that Little Prima Butterfly really wants to fly off the page, must change up the adhesive on that!

For this one, we have photos of Middle Child with his fish, named Poseidon -- name stemming from his adoration of the Percy Jackson books, which got him hooked on Mythology. Poor Poseidon did not live very long but Middle Child was VERY proud of him. For this layout, I started with sketch #72 from the Scrappiest and combined it with the Camp Paradise "Sports and Rec" challenge which required that specific elements driven by the letters in the word FRISBEE be used -- I used (F) Felt alphas, (R) Ric Rac at the top, (I) Inking on edges, and (S) Stars.

There are a few more layouts to come soon... plus whatever I do today!

Color Room #14 and "Growing"

Another page inspired the Color Room -- used the palette but not the sketch for this one:

And here's my page:

That's a pic of my Oldest, dating from 2004! Wasn't he a cute little thing? Hard to believe it was so recently and also that it was so long ago. The days slip by way too fast!

And on that theme of the days speeding by.

A while back I requested a sketch from Amy at the 4x6 Photo Sketch blog for a 2 pager with 3 upright and 2 landscape photos -- for these photos, which of course, I cannot bring myself to crop AT ALL. You see, each  year on my youngest son's birthday I have taken his photo in our rocking chair (which was a gift from my Grandfather when the Oldest was born).

Amy provided this very helpful sketch

And this is what I did with it:

 I love each of these photos... He's not "All Grown Up" but that embellie was in the package of stuff I was using (Crate Paper Lemongrass) so I decided it was a good fit for the page.

Summer Days...

We've spent most of the last few days at home -- took the Little Guy for a haircut. He's bound for Florida next week and I thought a shorter cut would be cooler, plus easier for his Nana to spray sunscreen into, keep clean. He looks so BIG with such a big boy buzz, though!

The pleasures of the hose and kiddie pool kept us busy at home (We're SUPPOSED to be cleaning the house before company arrives but ... who can resist the kiddie pool??)

Hope you're having a sunny summery day! I know we are!

A couple of Disney pages...

Here's a couple more Disneyworld pages.

This first one is on Transportation. The pics are from the parking lot trams and the ferry to the Magic Kingdom.
I started with the Color Palette #12 and sketch from the Color Room -- the palette includes orange but when I was looking at papers I decided that this coppery color worked better for me.

My challenge with color palette challenges is always that I print them and then the colors look different than on my screen... Oh well... it added up to a cute page anyway! The paper is DCWV The Natural Stack.

For this one I used a totally cute sketch by Wendi which was the 7/5 Challenge at Croppin' Paradise. I am not a huge fan of the banner trend. They're cute but they don't seem a good fit for a lot of my Layouts. For this one, it totally worked, though! On the other hand I'm LOVING that YELLOW is the HOT color in scrapping right now! Yellow is way too much fun!

The pic is me and my friend Chele, in Tomorrowland, at the Mickey's Not So Scary Halloween party! The papers are 8x8 papers that came with some cute Mickey albums I bought for my kids. The stickers and alphas have been in my stash forever! I really liked this page overall.

A little Christmas in July!

Last night with some help from my pal SnowQueenie over at DTunesLive.com I found myself in a bit of Christmas spirit, so I pulled out some Christmas photos, turned up the Disney Christmas tunes  and got to scrapping! 

For this page, I started with a mix of Sketch Savvy # 35 and a little photo placement guidance from Donna Downey's Photos First Approach to Scrapbooking (I love this book and it's always within reach at my scrap table!)

Plus a challenge at Croppin Paradise that called for using something Old, something New and something Yellow... and this is what I got:

The background is yellow, those brads at the top are OLD and the WRMK Merry & Bright paper was a brand new purchase! I love these pics from our annual Gingerbread house construction!

For this one I used another Sketch Savvy Sketch (2 Page Sketch #7) but I ditched the banners... I know they're hot but they're just not my favorite - I've used them a few times.

For this one I pulled out some of my stash of Scenic Route. I love these rich colors. The photos are from our 2008 trip on the Santa Train. We go each year and it's fantastic!

This coming one is pretty basic! I wanted to use all these oh-so fun family photos -- I trimmed them a bit to get a good fit but there's not a lot going on here. And yet, I really like this page!

These are also from the 2008 Santa Train, including a ticket stub. More Merry & Bright going on here.

This last page, I used another Sketch Savvy Sketch- #30 -- but I stretched it into a two pager.

This WRMK White-Out Christmas line was my 2009 Go-To Christmas line! Go back and look at my Christmas journal from this year and you'll see a TON of these papers! I love them! These pics are from the 2009 Santa Train. You'll notice that all my boys are wearing ear-flapped hats that we call "Bunny Foo-Foo" hats. (because the one my oldest was obsessed with this year was fuzzy).

So, hope you're feeling a little bit Merrier!

Museums of Chicago

So now I've got some more Chicago pics wrapped up - some of these pages I did before I left, some I just did... We visited the Oriental Institute Museum at the University of Chicago, and the Field Museum (where we saw the Real Pirates and The Aztec World exhibitions.

I had some memoribilia from each museum to incorporate -- ticket stubs, post cards, brochures - the pirates page even has a shopping bag from the exhibition (you weren't allowed to take photos in there).

I used the DCWV Taj Mahal Stack on several of these layouts -- it has a richness to it that seemed to work really well with the photos. This one is titled "Ancient treasures" (you can't really read the word 'Ancient' it's stamped in tiny gold letters above the word Treasures.

There's not really a lot to these previous two layouts. Again I used the Taj Mahal stack -- I loved the gold glittery accents with the Aztec page especially. It really seemed just right. That gold and white striped crepe paper bit-- it's something I've had in my scrapping stash FOREVER, seriously, something like 7 years. So it was cool to get it into use! You can't really see the gold stamping on those blue circles but it reflects the pattern in the background paper pretty well.

There is NO pirate paper to compare with that perfect Rusty Pickle line. I was really glad I still had some of it in my stash for this page. This exhibit was AMAZING. We enjoyed it SO much -- we bought and read the companion book, we've even watched a couple of TV shows about the Whydah since seeing it -- if you get the opportunity to see this! CHECK IT OUT!

One of my closest friends from high school went to school, and later Grad school for Egyptology at the University of Chicago and she had a lot of experience at the Oriental Institute Museum. She told me a great deal about it. When I knew we were going to Chicago, I knew I wanted to visit it. It did not disappoint! So much to see!

And here's one from the concert our son was performing in - which led us to visit Chicago in the first place

Happy Independence Day!

In the past, we've usually hosted a big Fourth of July Barbecue with lots of friends, kids running wild, homemade ice cream and tons of sparkly stuff! Between our vacation and several of the usual suspects being unavailable to attend, we decided to skip it this year!

We decided to head to Rock Ledge Ranch for their Family Fourth event -- we saw Revolutionary War and Civil War re-enacters camps (Special thanks to Venture Crew 1861!) ... we visited with General Washington and General Palmer, rumor has it that President Lincoln was present earlier in the day but we missed him. We played old fashioned carnival games, watched the blacksmith at work, and went on a hay ride.

We've been members of Rock Ledge for a while now and visited many times, and attended a few of their other special events, but we'd never been to the Family Fourth before -- I vote it a SUCCESS!

We had a handful of fireworks to light and a bunch of sparklers for the little guy but Mother Nature had her own plans -- she put on quite a show! We were under tornado warnings, thunder and lightning crashed overhead and hail pounded wildly on our house and our poor yard! It was WILD and tempestuous!

I did manage to get some scrapbooking done this weekend, though! I was inspired by all my Disney fun to pull out some pics from our 2007 trip to WDW  -- these are all from the Boo to You Halloween Parade!

This two pager uses  Two-page sketch #4 from Susan Stringfellow's Sketch Savvy blog. (most of these use Savvy sketches). I had a ot of pics from this parade, some better than others.

This one used a sketch from Sassy Little Sketches blog.I loved these bright, funky Halloween papers that I got on clearance some time back and have been using all of each sheet! They're just so fun and perfect Pooh and the Hundred Acre Wood Gang!

There's a story for this one -- near the beginning of the parade, the Big Bad Wolf came dancing along (BAD WOLF!! Whovians freak out as appropriate - I said BAD WOLF) and STOLE my Oldest's Halloween Trick-or-Treat Bag! It was a riot! (He did bring it back! See that orange arrow? It's pointing to the bag in the Wolf's hand). In addition to Susan's Totally cute Sketch #30, I also took inspiration from this Vintage 3 Little Pigs poster!

 This last one is my FAVORITE!

I love how this page came out! A ton of Cast Members decked out as Haunted Mansion Haunts came waltzing down the parade line. They danced beautifully and the looked FANTASTIC! I was very happy that these pics came out... I used another Savvy Sketch - #22 for this one and it really got me going -- that plus the FAB Basic Grey papers! The title is a lyric from Grim Grinning Ghosts.

So, that's what I've been up to!