Trick or Treat

Here's another layout from this week:

The products here are mostly Recollections Midnight Magic Papers, with a little of this and that. The title I cut with my Silhouette, and then stitched down using my Sew Easy.The photos are the boys heading out to Trick or Treat with friends -- Muppet Boy is a Cyberman and the Little Guy was the Doctor. I am really happy with the sewing here, and the Cute papers!

Pumpkin Patch

For this layout, I first cut the title and pumpkin with my Silhouette. Then grabbed my papers and placed the strips in the center... and then I stared at it and concluded that my layout was pretty boring looking...

It needed some things to make it more modern and interesting. And somehow the search for something more modern started with one of my oldest tools -- a Creative Memories mini Hexagon "Shape Maker" punch. (This and a few other Creative Memories tools - the circle Shape Makers, Shape Cutting System, corner rounder... they're tools I've used since I started scrapping a decade ago!) I decided a little mist and some stitching would go a long way.

And I am really happy with the finished product!

Goat Cheese for Santa

 Yes, more Christmas. I know you're probably not in the Christmas Spirit in the middle of September but we are in the home stretch - 98 days til Christmas! These photos are from 2011, the papers are old White Out Papers and the sketch is from Sketch Savvy #85.

One of my things in this layout is that bottom center pic -- the boys left Santa a cookie, A Mexican Coke (because Santa loves Coke, obviously!), and... Goat Cheese. Why Goat Cheese you wonder?

There's a great book called "The Autobiography of Santa Claus" by Jeff Guinn. I adore this book. And last year I shared it with my younger kids, who loved the idea of a little boy named Nicholas, who grew up in Turkey eating goat cheese. That little boy grew to be Bishop Nicholas of Myrna, and miraculously in a centuries-long story became the man we know as Santa Claus and influenced the way we've celebrated the birth of Christ through those centuries!  Santa has never forgotten how much he loves the Goat cheese of his childhood, and would likes it almost as much as the traditional milk and cookies.

One more quick Christmas layout - this one is my younger boys, and my cousin's boys making a Gingerbread village in 2011. The page features some old 3 Bugs in A Rug Papers, and a sketch from Sketch Savvy #62. I was super glad I had already bought this gingerbread village kit instead of our usual gingerbread house  when the little cousins ended up snowed in at our house for an extra night!

Stamp Club Fun

I used to try to do the Stamp Club kit as designed by my CTMH rep.. and then I didn't use them - not that they weren't cute - they just didn't suit my needs... So I started taking the kit and doing my own thing. And here's a couple of those.

This 2 pager uses the Believe line from Close to My Heart, it's such a joyful line with great colors. My CTMH constultant had precut these Ho Ho Ho letters with her Cricut, and I reorganized all the papers and colored this cute old Santa stamp... I added the twine and the brads for a little texture. These photos are from Christmas morning 2011.

 I think I got a little Stamp-Happy on the background of this one. I have no idea when we made it or what this line was called -- it's from CTMH though :)  It's been waiting for photos a while. I grabbed it and realized it would be great for these photos from the Gunnison Pioneer Museum (which by the way was an awesome museum!) That was quick! 

14th birthday

Yes, Oldest is about to be 17... but he had just turned 14 in these photos!

H is loving this super-trendy grey and yellow combo! A little peek of aqua in there. These SmashBook journal cards are starting to really come in handy.

It's beginning to look a lot like...

More Christmas layouts!

I have tons of Christmas product, and tons of Christmas photos... and I cranked up a little Christmas music on Pandora and...

This is what I came up with:

 For this one, I've got Susan's Sketch #87 in play. These photos from the Zoo Lights in 2009 are some of my favorite from that Christmas! SEI's Alpine Frost Papers (Which although older, are still available as a digital!). The line is a little older, but I love all the sparkly fun and it seemed well suited to this layout. The doilies were made with a Stampin' Up! Triple Layer Doily punch, and the felt snowflakes (Which I LOVE!) are from Creative Impressions.

For this page, I used Sketch Savvy #98 and American Crafts Merry and Bright papers. I love the golds and silvers in this line. It's so bright. These photos are also from 2009 -- of Muppet Boy starring in a play called "The Case of the Counterfeit Santa" in which he played the title character "Counter Claus" and was so Cute! His big dramatic evil laugh totally landed him that part! Hard to believe that was three years ago!

Black Belt Club

For the last two years, Muppet Boy has been studying Shotokan Karate. It went well but other interests and time constraints have resulted in taking a step away for now... but I still have pics to Scrap!

For this layout, I went Authentique's Free Bird 6x6 paper pad featuring the Endless and Fair Weather lines. I am frequently drawn to oranges and blues for Muppet Boy pages -- he's bright and funky like that! I love using 6x6 pads for 12x12 layouts.

A couple more layouts

And here are a few more layouts from the other day!

 I actually made this layout a while back at a Stamp Club meeting... while everyone else made a 2-page layout, I shrunk it all down to a single page that I liked.... when I pulled these bowling photos out I thought of this right. The papers are from Close To My Heart's Superhero line.

And these photos of pumpkin carving date back to 2010. In the photos you see my three usual boys plus one... he has been Oldest's best friend since 2nd grade! (They are seniors this year!) and we discovered that this was the first time he'd ever carved pumpkins! These papers are Fancy Pants and they're OLD.

Some more scrapping...

 This one is a Scout layout. These crappy pictures are all I have from Space Derby 2010 -- there are no pics of my scout! But there's his rocket (Torpedo actually) and there it is racing. A while back I won this To the Moon set from Fancy Pants. They're bright, fun products but I wasn't sure what to do with them. With a little help from Sketch Savvy #93 I found a way to make it work.

With Sketch Savvy 95 in my sights, I tackled these photos from a snowday in early 2011, when it was too cold for playing in the snow! These Close to My Heart papers worked perfectly - and a little Martha Stewart tape brought it all together!

The Spirit of Christmas Past

Today I decided to tackle some serious scrapping. I'm in a "GET IT DONE!" phase of scrapping right now -- looking at all the photo prints piling up all over the place -- from 2010 and 2011! I really need to get some good work done. I've been busy with special projects and gifts for quite a while....

As of today there are 109 days til Christmas!

When I get stuck, it's easy to fall back on Thematic scrapping with matching lines -- I grabbed a couple of Christmas lines and some misc. photos and had at it!

 This first page is from our 2010 visit to the Pikes Peak Santa Train! We've got a lot of photos here and not so much else! But I journalled about this trip a bit in my JYC that year. So I decided just to grab these old WRMK papers and get something down!

This one is technically a New Year's Layout but the Christmas papers were out on the table and seemed festive and appropriate, these from Echo Park. For this one I used Sketch Savvy # 88.

And these photos are from 2009!! ACK! They've been sitting a while! These are from our Christmas evening at Rock Ledge Ranch that year. And these papers are leftover Basic Grey Eskimo Kisses. Another Sketch Savvy sketch, # 92, gave me inspiration but I didn't follow it so closely...

Mesa Verde!

The later part of August really got away from me! As things got back in the full swing of work and school and activities. My church choir is gearing up for the full Messiah! I've got a choir retreat this week! Can't Wait!

Meanwhile, our Labor Day weekend was spent in Southwestern Colorado.

Near the halfway point of our drive to Mancos State Park we stopped for a visit to Great Sand Dunes National Park -- it was brief but fun!

 We brought along sleds for playing on the dunes... that didn't work out quite as expected but despite sand in every sock, shoe, pocket and crevice, we enjoyed it!

We spent most of the weekend exploring the ruins and cliff dwellings at Mesa Verde National Park.

 We took a tour at the Cliff Palace Ruins. DH and the boys visited the Spruce House Ruins. There were many ladders and steep rock stairs, I admit, I was a little overwhelmed in places by the heights, steepness, etc...

 Drove the loops and checked out side paths and overlooks. The Little Guy earned his Junior Ranger badge and we all learned a lot.

 We rode the tram and took a tour at the Long House (which was SUPER COOL!!!) Where we got to explore much more up close than the others!

 Muppet Boy met a Horned Toad. That boy never met a reptile he didn't like!

 And in general just had a really good time! The weather was perfect! The kids were good. All Went well.

We also enjoyed our time at our campground -- with fishing and football, stargazing and games... and s'mores!

It was a fantastic Labor Day weekend! Cell phone coverage was terrible --which meant everyone ended up unplugged whether they wanted to be (Me) or Not (Oldest)...