Hello, poor neglected blog.  I may have slightly under estimated the wear and tear of working two jobs.  Ahem, I've had one day off (today) in the last eleven and some days have been twelve hours of being on my feet.  Eat, sleep, work, repeat.   I'll revisit cutting hours after the first of the year.  But for the time being... I'll just plan on being tired, v.e.r.y., v.e.r.y. tired.   

Then, I hope everyone is having a Happy Thanksgiving!  We're having a bit of a mixed up Thanksgiving.  A breakfast feast at my daughter's, then home tonight to have a turkey breast, dressing, mashed potatoes and gravy and such.  They are going to dinner at the in-laws tonight.  All good, as long as there were the grandbabes to play with today! 

I did finish up a page or two, but haven't gotten them photographed. I am halfway done with Christmas cards, and because that is non brain taxing, (since it's production mode and not design mode), I'll probably work on finishing those up tonight.

The following layout has been "done" for awhile.  I think.  I say that, because I keep looking at it and thinking I will add a couple of horizontal strips.  Then I look at it again and think, nah, it looks done.  This may go on until it is actually in the album. 

Photos were from the state wrestling competition.  The real story though was one of personal courage, which I am not sure Jacob would want me to share publicly, so I won't.  Suffice to say, this boy made me the proudest Nana there could ever be.  I shared my thoughts on this on an index card which tucks behind the photos on the second page. 

Papers are from Authentique, the Loyal collection which I got in pad form at Hobby Lobby several months ago and have made great use of!  Stars are punched and edges inked.  Stamped the mesh look images in opposite corners and drew in a border line.  The stickers are from an old 7 Gypsies sticker sheet (still a lot of stickers on those sheets to use up!).  I stapled across the paper strips and tucked in a ticket stub from a Tim Holtz pack.    

Alphabet stickers are Thickers, Tiny Type from Cosmo Cricket and Little Yellow Bicycle. 

So there it is; the "maybe" done layout!  Happy turkey day! 

OK, Monday is here again.  It was kind of a gray and rainy weekend here.  Saturday was a good day to spend making Louisiana Red Beans and Rice since it takes almost all day to cook.  And to make chocolate chip cookies.    I have to say, I still miss my old stove.  Still guessing on baking times with this new one.  Well it's new as of last year Christmas when the oven went in the middle of making a batch of cookies.  I set it at 7 minutes and the cookies were underdone---stuck them back in for 1 minute more--perfect!  Next batch, set it at 8 minutes and they were not burnt--but well overdone.  argh#!  It's a process I guess.  I had the old stove for 20 years, so I suppose a learning curve is to be expected.  After 20 years, I just knew what to expect and what to set the thing at with the old one. 

Learning curves... they are everywhere.  Tried and true things may need to be shaken up a bit in order to make things work sometimes.  I think that can hold true for scrapbooking too.  

I tend to scrapbook from a color standpoint, matching and coordinating colors with those that are worn by the primary subject matter in the photo.  And I learned something, sometimes that just doesn't work.  And this was kind of a surprise to me.  I had the perfect colors for this layout on its first go round, the paper picked up both the pink that my little Izzie was wearing, the coral that her mommy had on and brown... and it just didn't work.  It was too busy, it was way too much pattern (and that's saying something for me, cuz I like pattern).  So a tore it all apart and went with softer, more pastel colors and my tried and true border stripping.  Much better. 

Papers and alpha are Prima.  I cut the scallopped piece to peek out from under the polka dot piece and then added the strip of smaller print on top of that.  Another scallopped piece and another floral strip went across the top to act as kind of a header. 

I did save the floral stickers and the flourish sticker from the original layout and used them again on this one.  Those are from Echo Park (I think it was from A Good Day--was that the name? ee-uh I don't know--got it in a collection pack from Hobby Lobby quite a while ago). 

Anyway, I used the backside of the Prima papers and roughed up the edges under the lead photo.  Then added a piece of lace as a little extra horizantal grounding.  I also wanted to use the alphas as kind of both journaling and title.  She has changed so much since these photos were taken, but she is still seldom quiet and a little bossy! 

Well, that's about it---I have some paperwork to wade through, phone calls to make, and the ever present dishes to do before I can get up to my little room to play with paper. 

Oh my goodness, it's Friday all ready!  Allergies have kept me kind of on the down low this week.  The bleary-teary eyes make working at scrapping and stuff a bit, um challenging, I guess would be the word.  And then come the gi-huge-y sneezes.  Now that's attractive, sneezing all across papers and photos.  Eeee-yuk.  So, not a lot accomplished the last couple of days. 

Just a little on the sidelights of life here...  I do have a job interview this morning, so I'll try to be brief.  You are reading notes from  58 year old here and no one it seems wants to hire anyone my age anymore in an administrative field.  No pity party, just fact--- you fill out on-line app after on-line app and no they can't ask your age in the app.  Companies get around that these days by having you fill out background check info when you do the app.  And there it is---your birthdate.  Now, I've gotten over the rather depressing thought that in the age group I and husband are in, and given the hit that 401K's took, that we will always have to work.  There will be no retirement or golden years for us.  And given that most places now want to hire part time as opposed to full time, I have to get a second part time job.  Them's the facts.  Now on the one hand, I am happy to even get the call-back for this job after more than a year of looking.  But on the other hand, it is a longer drive for just a part time job and not an easy ride in the dead of winter.  So I've also been a bit sidetracked the past couple of days with my own thoughts and concerns and what-ifs.  

Now to turn this back to scrapping----I am thinking that these topics are going to appear in scrapbook pages in the future.  Jobs, gas prices, living economically.  It's what life is today, so I am going to scrap it, as well as the other monumentous and historical events of my (our) lifetime. 

But on to a layout that I have in hand!  I had finished this first page last year, then turned up another photo of my grandson on the beach.  I knew there was going to be another page, so I had set aside the scraps from the first page. 

My journaling was about how happy I am that he has had the opportunity to explore the beach and see the Pacific Ocean.  I love the ocean, the sound of the waves, the smell of the air, just love it.  And I am so glad he was able to have this experience. 

I used a beachy-summery themed paper line from Fancy Pants.  It was from two summers ago, I think.  I used very little of the A side of the papers, I loved the organic feel of the distressed brown for a base.  And I cut the waves out of another sheet to use as accent pieces.  Didn't want a lot of foof on these pages, so I added only some penwork in white and just a little piece or two of a natural colored lace scrap.  A couple of punched borders using two different size scallops and a couple of skinny strips at the bottom of the pages added a horizantal base line for the photos, but that was it. 

So, today, maybe think about scrapping today, your real-time life.  There is much to be said for the birthdays, the milestones, the smiles; there is also much in our lives that I think future generations will want to hear about.  Where were you on 9/11?  What has the great recession changed in your life?  Are there local events in your community that are important to you?

That's all... I'm getting off my little soapbox now!  

 

Switching things up a little bit and hopping back to a summer themed layout of Jacob and his cousins again.  These kids truly could make a party out of doing the most mundane little things.  They were a delight to be around and made every day we spent together so much fun.  Now that they are all next to grown up, I hope they remember these days as I do, with much love and a big ol' grin on my face. 

I reverted to one of my go to formats when I have multiple photos, which is to put a focal point photo on the lead page and stretch the others straight across the second page.  I know that even though I use this format again and again---none of the pages will be one right after the other, nor maybe even in the same album. 

Because the placement of the photos is one that I use a lot, I wanted to distribute the papers a little differently.  Chopped those puppies  up into three different sizes of little squares and tucked them all in across the top rather than layering strips of patterned paper across the bottom (which is more the norm for me).  This left more white space open at the bottom of the layout.  To balance the title on the first page of the layout, I layered some paper, a tag, journaling block  and stickers on the right side. 

Most of the papers and the stickers are from Basic Grey, the Picadilly collection.  The exceptions would be the red polka dot paper (Basic Grey, June Bug line), the green rectangles at the top of the page (scraps from an older My Mind's Eye paper), and the yellow border sticker (Crate Paper).   Alphabets are from Webster's Pages and Cosmo Cricket.  Other than drawing in some stitch lines and my journaling, that's about it! 

I said I jumped around a lot when I'm scrapping.  Today's layout is about Jacob tree hunting and the reindeer at the tree farm.   He really isn't sobbing in that last photo--but running and yelling "Boppa, I found the perfect tree."  He found l-o-t-s of "perfect trees." 

Now, the problem I had with these photos was that many Christmas papers are SO Christmas-y that the colors didn't go with the browns and greys of the reindeer and Jacob's blue jacket looked just obnoxious.  I did find these Basic Grey papers (from their Wassail line)  that color wise seemed to work, but I was still trying to be careful not to overpower the photos with too, too many prints.  I had to use at least a few---duh...

For some reason, I had a bunch of this paper--enough that I must have had at one time, a project in mind.  Haven't a clue anymore, just what said project was... H-m-m-m  That's happened more times than I care to admit.   Anyway,  I cut the trees from one sheet and turned them upside down, added a teeny punched snowflake or so and the baker's twine to make the banners. 

While all the papers are Basic Grey, the decorative fabric brads are from an older K&Co. line, the chipboard alphas are old Heidi Swapp, and the border sticker at the bottom is from just a stray sticker from my stash. I also used my favorite EK border punches the small scallop and the dotted embossed scallop.

Gotta get me some coffee now and get ready for work.  Later all! 

More "catch up" pages for Jacob!  Took these photos at the Lake Hodges dam museum in California.  My dad used to take us up to the over site area when we visited to show us the progress in the building of the dam.  Jacob, at four, was thrilled with these massive tires for the monstrously big trucks used in the building of the project. 

I don't know why they never got scrapped before now.  I've had them printed for ages and had the paper for years.  Just never put them together.  But when I pulled out this old line from Basic Grey (the old Vagabond collection), the grungy blues, greys and tans were perfect. 

I layered up two of the distressed "solid" blue papers along with the dotted pieces, the check, the stripe and added a punched border strip and a strip of tickets from Prima I think. 

Alphas are Thickers and Webster's Pages. The large banner sticker is from Glitz; the alphas on that are from Cosmo Cricket.  Journaling is on a pull out piece at the far right side and I stuck a small clip on this.  I cut a few banners and stapled those on, and added a black flower.  Debated on the flower after it was on--thought maybe a gear shape or two would be better, but I've decided to leave it. I think it's a tiny bit of whimsy and softness.  Anyway, it's staying.

Now I have a big pile of empty page planners and I think I will take some time today to go through photos and papers and fill them up again. 

Happy Monday!    

Time for a bit of little girl goodness.  And a change up in scrapping styles.  While I am enjoying (a lot lately) this kind of free form scrapping; the tucking in of small scraps of paper with tags and stickers and bits and pieces of journing tags sticking out, these pages wound up being much simpler. 

And that's ok with me.  I tried loosely placing strips of paper behind the lead photo and try as I might they just kept getting straightened out and lined up.  They just looked better to me straight and then I tucked in the piece of brown and thought oh yeah--it needed a border.  So there you have it...  sometimes you just have to let the paper do what it wants to. 

It's a quick post today...  I guess the overriding message is that it's ok to change up the style of your scrapping.  Otherwise every page would look so similar, it wouldn't be as interesting to peruse those albums.  And just like the selection of color, or paper---maybe the style needs to be dictated by the photos (or, er, um... the papers, if you let them...). 

I used papers and flowers from Prima, cardstock from  Bazzill and pulled out my Cricut to cut the title and the swirls.  It's called "Get Happy" cuz when I look at our little Miss Izzie in these photos, that old song, "Come on, Get Happy" started playing in my head....  (y-e-a-h, I can see what you're thinking, she has issues---she let the paper go where she thinks it wants to and the photos sing to her--ok, maybe a little less caffeine is in order...) 

Have a scrappy good day everyone (and it's really ok if your photos sing to you)! 
 

I am at that point in scrapping Jacob's photos where I have to make a decision.  Do I go back and rework photos and pages from 16 years ago?  I truly have already made the decision to do this.  My decision to redo these pages is not just based on my skill at scrapping having improved (which hopefully it has), but it's based more on the fact that I started scrapping when Jacob was a baby and photos were not digital.  Some I need to make copies of before putting to paper again.  But what it's really about is that I started scrapping with no real ryhme or reason as to who the albums were going to.  They were based more on event than anything else.

Now there is no problem with scrapping this way.  No reason not to.  But it's not how I scrap now and it is not why I scrapbook.  I want people to know how I feel about them.  I want it documented how I felt about things going on in this time and place (more on that another day). 

So tonight I start to dismantle those pages I started with 16 years ago, not because of the style of the pages or my skills at the time, but because they do not tell the story I want to tell. 

Now, in the midst of all my rambling, I do have a layout to share.   It is almost "punkin" pickin'  time after all! 

The papers I used were really all partial pieces, well other than the kraft cardstock base.  They were from the old Rustly Pickle, Basic Grey, Paper Loft, and Imaginations (I think---that orange and cream harlequin is a really old paper).  Some of the pieces needed a little definition, I thought, so I drew in some sketchy lines and again around the edges of the pages.   

Alphabet letters are Thickers and Cosmo Cricket Tiny Type. 

I placed several small clusters on the pages made up of paper strips, washi tape, border punched pieces, tabs cut from a Pink Paislee journaling pad, and journaling or title stickers (sometimes just a piece or two snipped from a sticker) on each of the pages, and added my journaling.  

Have a happy day, where ever you are. 





  

When I look at the layout I'm posting today, it occurred to me that so many of my favorite photos are not the birthday party photos, or Christmas or event type pictures, but my favorites seem to be those that are the everyday little moments.  These seem to be the things that touch my heart the most.

These little snippets of time are what I want my grandchildren to remember.  And I hope they can see themselves through my eyes and know how much they are loved.  While I enjoy making pretty pages, this is really my driving force I think. 

OK, the particulars.  I had one sheet of a craft die cut paper from Fancy Pants that I picked up oh, a couple of y-e-a-r-s ago at a stamp and scrap show.  It matched (wonder of wonders) some pieces of Fancy Pants that I had in my stash.  Sorry, haven't a clue as to the actual name of the collections this time.

I split the die cut paper and placed the two pieces at opposite sides on two pieces of kraft cardstock, then tucked in the blue and striped pieces. 

Oooops, I just realized that I didn't take a picture of the two pages together!  

Anyway, the alphabet is from Little Yellow Bicycle.  It was a great color of navy blue and navy seems to be a hard color to find in alpha stickers, so I've used this one a bunch. I added some strips from a K&Co. border pack, and punched one border piece using the Fiskars bracketed border punch.   The tickets and tags are a combination of things from Prima, Tim Holtz, and Echo Park.  I scattered a few brads and a couple of buttons and a couple of the tiny word stickers from a Cosmo Cricket Tiny Alpha set and stapled on a couple of snips of ribbon.   Printed my journaling, cut it into strips, inked and outlined the edges and stuck on a couple of tiny paper clips before I glued 'em down. 

Thanks for stopping by! 

And we are back to boy photos and filling in those gaps in Jacob's album(s). 

I've wanted to scrap these couple of photos of the Jacob-man devouring watermelon for quite some time and once again had tried them out on several different papers.  And I'd had these papers for quite a long time too, but it never occurred to me to put them together.  I was bent on using greens and reds because of the watermelon, I guess.  I tried picnic-y looking papers, I tried summer-themed papers with reds, greens and a bit of blue--that was closer-- I even started a layout with those.  But it just wasn't "right." 

I'm not even sure what prompted me to grap these papers (from Basic Grey--ummmm I think they are from Lime Rickey).  But I did and what a difference it made.  The dark blue, sunny yellow, the pink-y red and bright greens just help pop the photo. 

The stickers are a real mish mash from Crate, Lily Bee, and Echo Park.  I made the little flags from Lily Bee's banner stickers and a couple of toothpicks. 

I had lightly inked just the very edges of the main papers to eliminate that tiny white edge from showing and to mimic the outlined irregular boxes of color, so then I loosely outlined the edges of the two pages, added my journaling down the right side along the curvy edge, popped on some buttons and called it done. 

I was soooo much happier with this selection, than any of the more themed papers that I had originally selected.  Even the title, (I cheated and just used the Sweet, Sweet Summer sticker) as the title just seemed to fit with our guy chompin' away at that sweet slab of watermelon. 

Anyway, happy day all! 

Just a little something girly---well, cuz there's a boatload more boy pages coming up. 

Anyway, we all have those days when our hair just will not lie down and do what we wish, right?  However most of us do not get to look this cute when it happens! 

I only took one photo of the two pages together... mostly because as you can see, the sun was kind of coming through the trees and while it's pretty-- it doesn't make for good photos for blogging. 

The papers are from Basic Grey, the Luscious collection.  And again, this was an exercise in stretching paper.  I had one full sheet of the green small print (used in the background) and one full sheet of the distressed solid green (also in the background), the rest of the papers were only partial sheets.  I used the white filler paper from a couple of page refills as a base to glue all the pieces on, then split the green papers across them.  After that it was a matter of piecing the remaining papers in, punching a border and adding embellishments, title and journaling.

The title was a bit much all in hot pink, but using the green wouldn't work against the green background, so I took a another cue from Miss Izzie's clothes and used a soft gray alpha set to break up all that pink a little.   Journaling is down the left side, flowers are from Prima, the accordion folded pieces are layered stickers from Basic Grey.  I think the border stickers are off a Crate Paper sticker sheet. 

OK, stretch those papers and make them work for you.  Oh, yeah and enjoy your next "bad hair day"! 

If it seems that I am playing favorites, scrapping so many more pages of Jacob than my other two cutie-patooties, well I kind of am.   Scrapping more of him right now that is.  Grandson #1 is 16 this year-- that means I need to have his albums complete for graduation in two years.  Now I know two years seems like more than enough time to put together  a scrapbook album or two (or three, maybe four in this case).  But it will go by in the blink of an eye.  Just the way the last 16 years seem to have gone by!  And I have had a lot of catching up to do, plus repairs and secondary pages to be made.  blah, blah, blah, yadda, yadda, yadda.... 

My goal has been to focus on the partially done layouts, the repairs, and rework done on older pages and then move on.  There are plenty of Izzie and Jackson photos and layouts to come.  Although I will probably sneak in a couple of Miss izzy and Mr. Jackson here and there. 

Soooooo, this layout is still Jacob!  The photo was one of my favorites and I had tried it out on various backgrounds and just kept setting it aside as I wasn't happy with the combinations or the colors.  When they first got their dog, they signed up for puppy classes.  It seemed like a good thing to do.  Sit, stay, ok.  However, when it came time to introduce puppy to the agility course---well he was having none of it.  So Jacob thought he would show puppy what to do....  what can I say?  That's my Jacob! 

This time, I used (yep, you guessed it) more of Echo Park's Little Boy and It's a Boy's Life collections, plus one strip (the navy blue patterned pieces) of Basic Grey (I think from their June Bug line).  For a paper collection that I originally bought just for the red, white and blue pattern papers, I've gotten some real mileage out of these lines!  And that makes Nana's wallet happy, as well as my eyes! 

Even the stickers, borders and the title alphabet are from the Echo Park lines.  I especially like the sticker that says I do all my own stunts! 

The original photo on the first page, I had printed at 8x10.  And it was cute... but too big.  Rather than reprint, I just trimmed it down.   It's bigger than 5x7, I don't know by how much, didn't measure it--just kept laying it down on the page till it looked right. 

Added my journaling (h-a-n-d-w-r-i-t-t-e-n) and drew a couple of arrows, ba-dum-bump.  Another one done!   

Well I did say I had gone back and made secondary pages for a bunch of layouts that were store samples and this is one of them.  I also had a bit of repair work to do on the original page as it had gotten a bit woe-be-gone what with being handled so much.  Some of the paper had curled up and quite a few of the gemstones on the flourish  had gone AWOL.    Between the two pages there are 102 of those little buggers now.  Yeah, I am that weird that I had to sit here and count them.  

I dug and dug, but I did not have all the exact papers I had used on the first page, so I had to improvise a bit.  The papers are from Basic Grey's Ambrosia collection and fortunately I did have more of the flourish print.  But I used a distressed gray piece from another of their collections for the background and pieced a couple of the lace strips at the very top and right under the row of photos.  I'm so glad I had the flourish paper, because that really carried the design across the two pages, that and adding the thin little strip of orange at the top of the second page.

The orange, gray and black colors were perfect for a young Mr. Harley, receiving his "leather" riding vest and gloves at his 8th birthday party.  (Note: unwrapping gifts with riding gloves on IS cool, duh.)

Not a lot of other embellishments on these pages beside the cut work involved on the flourishes, the black gemstones, and a bit of a rub-on applied to the photo mat.   The title letters -- those are older Heidi Swapp alphas again -- they were the perfect orange for this.   Zig zag borders were cut from a Sizzix die; this had to be pieced too because the die doesn't cut a 12-inch piece. 

All in all, I am happy with the result, and even happier that the "holes" in Jacob's albums are getting filled in. 

While I was cleaning out stuff in my scrap room and organzing little stacks of photos that were just piled about, I came across these photos from football.  And since I just went to our first football game of this season, thought I would put together a football layout. 

These boys go out and play every week, knowing they are going to more than likely get their butts kicked.  It's a small school, so not a lot of players to pick from--- and every week we go and and honestly wish we could fire their coach.  It's just a bad situation, no time spent on basics, like, oh say tackling!  But, we go and cheer for evey measly hard fought first down they get. 

And it really says something about the character of these boys (this boy in particular, not that I am a proud Nana or anything) to go out there week after week.  He wasn't going to play this year, but ended up doing it because of the rest of the guys.  I love this kid. 

I used papers from Authentique, gosh I cannot remember the name of the collection.  But I got them in a big pad at Hobby Lobby.  One of the few times I've bought paper in  pad.  I usually opt for single sheets, cuz typically I would only use some of the pad and would end up with lots that I never used.  But this pad I thought would be perfect for sports pages, the colors go with his school colors and have a nice bit of grunge to the edges and the quality is good too.  Nice heavyweight cardstock, double sided. 

I also used some of Tim Holtz's glassine paper, crinkled them up and stapled it on (using Tim's tiny attacher of course!).  Also grunged up the edges of the photos using Tim's craft scratcher. 

I stacked up some ticket stubs from a huge roll I got years ago from Walmart, cut some tickets like those printed in the corner out of another sheet (you get 4 of each design in the pad), and stuck in a file tab or two, all along one side of the photo on the lead page. 

Journaling is on the tag tucked behind the photos on the second page (and is about the boys playing even though they know they will probably lose the game and the heart that it takes to do this.).  Used a little bit of navy and white baker's twine on the tag, did a little pen work and added a couple of word stickers (old ones from 7 Gypsies).   Letters are from two different sets of Thickers. 

Purging, donating, throwing out, cleaning out.  Yep, on another mission I am!  I've decided that things must be simplified here at the old homefront. 

Four boxes of books (cleaned off the bookshelves in the living room) going to Goodwill.  This will make the shelves easier and quicker to dust--that's right, that's what I am after--easier, quicker...  The corner in the dining room that had been occupied with a bunch of stamping and scrapping stuff went to a rummage sale, what was left went to Goodwill.  Next will be the pantry closet.  Not to purge so much as to clean it out to make room for stocking up.  Easier, quicker to grab something out of the pantry than to make another pitstop at the store...  easier, quicker equals time.  Time for me to scrap... or sleep, whatever.

Believe it or not what actually started the cleaning and purging was my going through all the layouts that had been samples.  Feels good to have completed layouts and more importantly, completed layouts that I really like again. 

Now you wanna talk o-l-d?  The first page of this layout was done several years ago for Stampington Inspirations magazine (um, yeah--I said y-e-a-r-s ago).

The plaid paper is from Making Memories, but everything else is stamped and heat embossed in white.  Title, stars, everything was embossed and cut out to add to the page(s), even the edges of the red cardstock were heat embossed in white. 

And as old as the layout is--I still really like it. 

The 4th of July parade here in town is usually spectacular.  Jacob loved it then and now I can't wait till the grandbabies are old enough to love it too!   

P.S.  I took pictures of the boxes of books---there may be a layout there--about how cleaning out and purging can acutally happen BECAUSE of scrapping.  It's a sick, twisted world, isn't it? 

Wow, two posts in one day... Guess I am not done rambling on about summer days!  Or scrapping out of chronological order! 

The main photo in the layout was originally on a sample page----that I never really liked.  It suited the purpose of a sample page, but it did not speak to me.  This was one of those pages that I took apart and tossed the papers from, LOL!  Went back and found the other two photos and then went to work. 

I had bits and pieces of the Marjolaine collection from Basic Grey, but not a lot of anything.  The colors were good though, so I cut what I had into 2 x 7 and 2 x 5 strips and then pieced them back together, centering them across the two pages.  Inked the outside edges, drew in "stitches," added a washi tape border for my main photo to sit on, and arranged a cluster of embellishments on the lower left edge. 

How little my Jacob-man looks against the expanse of green grass in my yard.  Once again, not scrapping chronologically cuz the grass sure didn't look like that in the drought of this summer (but that could be another topic for a different layout)!!!   Jacob is 16 now--this page did sit on display for a l-o-n-g time, but still.  I really love going back and scrapping old photos, it just brings so many warm and fuzzy memories and isn't that what this hobby is all about? 

Washi tape is from Bella Blvd., the alphas are from Urban Prairie (Basic Grey), Cosmo Cricket, and Thickers.  The embellishments are little bits and pieces; Prima and Webster's Pages journaling spots,  a chipboard sticker and papers fussy cut from Echo Park's This and That collection and stamped words (Hero Arts). 

Go back and look through old photos from summers past to rejuvinze that easy, sunny summer feeling.  I wanted to be reminded of  the cool, sun-dappled shade from my big old tree and how the grass must have tickled those little legs.   There is nothing wrong with reworking a page or a layout that doesn't make you feel anything.  I know I am happier with this!    

Here we are in the last days of summer.  There is a certain feel to the air, the coolness in the early mornings, leaves that are falling (extremely early here), and a different sort of light even in the brightness of the sun.  It makes me a little melancholy.  Summer is so short.  Now I am not a sun worshiper (those days have long since been gone), not a hiker or a biker, and I do love sweaters and warm, snuggly socks--so what's the problem? 

There's just something about being able to go outside and sit for awhile with no thought to donning a jacket, listen to the rustle of the leaves when a light breeze catches them, watch the fireflies in the evening when I take the dogs out.  And I know this is all coming to a dead stop in just a few short weeks.  Ah, seasons change.  There is something to be said for the crispness of a bright fall day and the crunch of the leaves underfoot, or the way the trees sparkle after a good snow, but there is nothing that can compare to the warmth and glow of summer days (and nights). 

This is our little Izzie (not this summer, but last--I don't scrap chronologically); nothing says summer like the good old red, white and blue--in this case red, white, black and blue as she had had an altercation with a dog and received this horrific looking bruise and bite.  She is indeed "sweet trouble."  Love this little girl. 

I posted this today since I was thinking about summer vanishing before my very eyes and because I was on a roll  using lots of Echo Park boy papers.  I had originally purchased the Little Boy collection because of the red, white and blue papers in it specifically for this little girl-4th of July layout! I tend to look at papers with my eye on color rather than theme and I have to say I've really gotten a lot of mileage out of this set and I have lots left yet!

I also used some buttons from Petaloo and the red twill pleated ribbon border is from Pink Paisley (wish they still did these, loved them). 

I also used my EK dotted scallops border punch and some star sparklers from Mark Richards (I think--don't have the packaging for them anymore so...)  The title is made up of old Heidi Swapp chipboard alphas, black and white from two different sets of Thickers, and the blue letters are from an old Little Yellow Bicycle set (I did catch the slightly lowered letter B  and fixed it -- just wasn't going to re-photograph because of the darn thing!). 

Enjoy these last days of summer.  I want to hold on to them for as long as I can. 

So I've been trying to take photos of the grandbabies whenever I am out there; however, if this Nana is babysitting, this Nana kind of has her hands too full of two-year old and  7-month old to be able to wrangle a camera in there too!  But I manage to snap a few here and there!  Then I go home and take a nap. 

This boy is such the opposite personality of his big sister; where she is this little whirlwind of activity, he is laid back.  While she is having a hissy fit over something; he is studying her with a look of confusion, like--- "what in the world are you doing and why are you spending so much energy doing it?"  Cracks me up.  They both do. 

He is such a happy boy.   

I mostly used Echo Park's Little Boy line on this layout.  I think the beige-y tone-on-tone background paper is from Echo Park's A Boy's Life collection though.  And no those stars are not stickers.  They are from one of the papers.   And, yes I did cut all 27 of them out.  Count 'em, 27. 

The stickers are from Echo Park, even the alphabet stickers.  The large orange brads are from Bazzill; I've had them for years, glad I remembered and dug them out.  I stuck a little bit of aqua and white diagonal stripe washi tape (from Bella Blvd.) across the bottom and a tiny bit up in the corner. Put a couple of the stars on pop dots and drew on the stitching.  That's it!