Hi...Remember Me?

Before I get into the above layout, I just wanted to thank those of you who have been praying for my mom. Its with a heavy heart that I tell you that my mommy, my best friend, a huge part of my heart....went home to be with her God on October 13. It was sudden and unexpected and I didn't get to say goodbye. I talked to her the day before and she was feeling good. The next day I got a call from the hospital to get there right away. She was in an induced coma and on a ventilator while they tried to stabilize her heart but they were not able to do it. After two days we made the difficult decision to let her go. The last two years she has fought so valiantly against obstacle after obstacle. She was tired. I knew that. She had little quality of life. I knew that too. But still, I always thought she'd be ok. She always was. This time was different. She didn't suffer....but we are. I miss her more than words can say and I am having a very hard time getting through each day. They say time will make it easier and I know that its true, but my heart aches, the pain is relentless and the tears have no end. I feel suddenly alone and half the person I used to be. Thank God for my family....if it weren't for my kids and John, and so many friends....I don't know where I'd be right now. As you can imagine, the last thing I was interested in was scrapping.

The last few weeks I have found myself being non-productive in all areas of my life...except that I get up and go to work everyday. So this weekend is an online crop at A Cherry On Top and I decided that this was my opportunity to get my act together and get back to my hobby that love so much. I know that's what my mom would have wanted. She loved to see my layouts and hear all about the new goodies I got or what I was working on. So that's what I'm doing. The above is the first layout I've created in quite some time as I have taken a leave from my DT positions until I am sure I can fully commit. This is for Challenge #1 of the crop - Use Sassafrass Lass paper. I used papers from the Count Me In collection, chip letters from Colorbox, flower by Prima and orange gem flowers by Creative Charms. I will post more as I complete them but I have to admit...my creative juices aren't flowing quite as freely these days so they may not be my best work, but its serving a purpose....to bring me back to a new normal. Thanks again for all of your prayers. I am sure that God heard them and is taking wonderful care of my mom.

Flowers for Mommy

The first sketch in Fia's Sketch Crazy group at Sketches For You was posted on June 30! I've been looking at the sketch, but haven't actually thought much about using it until today. A few weeks ago I had pulled some older photos out of albums so I would scrap them too instead of JUST the newer photos. This one of Susie holding some buttercups she picked for me kept creeping to the top and it was there again this afternoon when I started thinking about scrapping. Then I remembered the sketch and got to work! I had a hard time coming up with a base for the layout. White was too stark, and other papers from the Lily Bee line that I used for the flowers and photo mat didn't work either. I tried Kraft and didn't like that. I pulled out one of my paper holders that has a mish-mash of older papers in it that I still liked but didn't really go with anything else and found this lonesome sheet of dainty floral paper by DaisyD's that is probably 5-6 year old. I had to back it onto white cardstock because the paper is very thin. 

I made the flowers by tracing an image of a Primrose flower into my Sure Cuts A Lot program then cutting three different sizes out of Lily Bee Lovely papers on my Cricut and layering, curling and fluffing each layer. I added a clear cabachon to the center of each flower. Te flourish was also cut on my Cricut using an SVG file from My Cricut Scrapbooking. I thought the sketch left a little too much white space for my taste so I added another flower at the top right. The title letters are Thickers and Echo Park and I added my last delicate butterfly from Creative Charms that I sprayed with some Wild Cherry Glimmer Mist to help it stand out more than just the white did. Thanks for looking!!!

I'm Going To Disney!

OK not really!  I WISH I was though!  And I was right back there tonight as I was looking through pictures from our 2006 trip.  Even John was enjoying looking at the pictures.  The kids look SOOO young and it was not even a full 4 years ago!  Amazing, actually!  So in my mind I'm in Disney, having the time of my life!  Its my favorite place in the world and John is just not into it at all so my next hope to go is when I have grandchildren....at least that's what he says!!  Hey Wendy, maybe we should plan a trip together!  LOL!!  Me, you, Mickey and scrapping in Disney!  Anywhooo, this layout accomplished several things on my to-do list (which I left at work today so was sorta lost when I sat down to scrap...I NEED my notes!!).   I mentioned that I am taking the Camp Scrap class at Big Picture a few posts ago.  One of the challenges was to use a color you are not comfortable with.  For me, that color is yellow.  I don't know why, but I find myself avoiding it as much as possible in my layouts.  But these pictures demanded yellow!  The photos are of Susie and Matt sitting in the big chairs inside Minnie Mouse's house in Toontown.  You can't see it in this picture but Susie even has a yellow skirt on!!  I used yellow Minnie Mouse print paper and red/white polka dot paper by Sandylion, dot ribbon from $1 spot at Target, the yellow braided flower is a new favorite that I just got in a fun order from Creative Charms, the Mickey and Minnie stickers are by Disney, the title letters are from Michael's and the bubble ones I have no idea!  The layout is based on the sketch over at Sketch Inspirations this week so I got that combined with the Camp Scrap challenge! 

This layout is also from the same 2006 Disney trip.  It is ALSO today's "recipe" from Camp Scrap.  1 piece of cardstock, 2 sheets of patterned paper and embellishments.  And while I am not a huge fan of double layouts, this worked out perfect as it called for 7 landscape 4x6's and it just so happened I had exactly 7 shots of the kids (John's son is also in the picture....we don't see him often so you don't see him appear in too many of my layouts) getting their faces painted at MGM Studios.  Again, Sandylion patterned paper, Disney stickers, the chipboard bookplate is SEI, the Mickey Balloon brads are from The Eyelet Outlet and the the white letters are American Crafts Thickers.  The Mickey Head I cut from the Mickey and Friends Cricut Cartridge.  Took me abuot 20 minutes to do this layout and I got an entire event scrapped!!

That's it for me tonight!  I'm actually thrilled that I got these two done and I didn't even come into my scraproom until 9pm!  Tomorrow is Crew again with Susie so I probably won't be getting anymore scrappy time until Wednesday night and boy do I have a lot of layout ideas and challenges to complete in my notebook!

Sassy Little Sketches & Frosted Designs

I didn't clean up after my last layout ("Already Twelve"...see post below) so after returning home from grocery shopping, watching the end of the Nascar race and getting the lasagna for tonight's dinner prepared and in the oven, I sat back down. While watching the race I was also blog hopping and came across this sketch at Sassy Lil' Sketches:

I had already printed this photo of Susie and our cat, Cloudy as I was going to use this one for the layout I did earlier but changed my mind. I grabbed the photo, looked around at the mess on my desk and thought "I can do something with this". Everything on this layout is leftovers from the earlier layout with the exception of the title letters (you can't tell but they are glitter) which I picked up on Friday at Target on the 99c rack! The only other items I had to dig out were the buttons and the doily. All the papers are scraps from My Minds Eye. I got an assortment pack about a month ago at a great deal from CraftySteals and boy have I gotten a lot of use out of it. The patterns are so nice and work well with so many themes. The butterfly brads as well as the center of the two larger flowers are from CreativeCharms Deal of the Month from May. I have also gotten a ton of layouts out of that assortment pack! The felt butterfly is leftover Heidi Swapp that I coated with crystal glitter (gotta get that glitter in for Frosted Designs. The tiny flower is glitter Petaloo Dazzlers. The doily is by Wilton and the pearls under the flower on the doily that you can barely see in the picture are by Wrights.

Now I really must clean up my desk a little. I'm about tired of pink and greenish-blue!