Halloween Countdown pages

It’s been a bit busy here, but I have been working away on the pages of the Countdown book.  Yesterday I spent a big part of the day doing laundry for our weekend trip and making embellishments with my Cricut, lots of Stickles and whatever else I needed.  Once again, the nasty cutting mat! 

The cuts are all from Paper Doll Dress Up except for the candy corn which I made by gluing an orange and yellow strip of paper to a inch strip of white paper and then cutting the angles and rounding the corners. Easy Peasy!  This cart has so cuts I’ve used, and I don’t often use the paper dolls.  It’s a great all purpose graphics cart. 

So here is a bunch of pictures from the album. They are pretty simple because the book will be handled a lot by children and too many fussy details would be destroyed unintentionally by little hands. 

 

Hopefully I’ll be able to post more pages this evening.  Right now I’ve got a couple of errands to run! 

DCWV has a great give away

If you haven’t heard, DCWV has a great give away over on it’s blog.  There’s also some fantastic Halloween and fall projects to look at.  So head on over and check it out.  You won’t regret it! 

While you wait

I am a little slow posting my progress on the Halloween Countdown book this morning. I’m not feeling the best and I really had to do some housework. Drat the awful housework! I have to admit though that I do love the feeling of a clean room when I’m though, and my bathroom is sparkling this morning. It feels so good!

Anyway while you wait I thought I’d post the list of all the activities we’ve put together for the tags in the Countdown book. I say we because my darling daughter Stacey helped with the list. You are the best Stace! So are you Amy.

But first a quick peek at what I’ve been doing so far.

Here’s the list. If anyone has additional ideas please leave me a comment.

1. Go to the library and get some fall books.
2. Go to the library and get a scary movie.
3. Make brownies with a powdered sugar leaf outline on top.
4. Make a brown, orange, burgundy, yellow and purple paper chain for your bedroom.
5. Make caramel corn to share with your friends.
6. Learn a silly tongue twister. (If two witches were watching two watches, which witch would watch which watch?)
7. Make some paper napkin rings for your Halloween supper. http://crafts.kaboose.com/indian-corn-napkin-rings.html
8. Make a scarecrow with some old clothes for the front porch.
9. Have a fall scavenger hunt.
10. Draw the scariest spider you can! Cut it out and put it on the fridge!
11. Make a scary menu for dinner. examples bloody breaded people fingers( chicken fingers with catsup) pickled eye balls(green grapes) intestines and blood (spaghetti)
12. Go toss the football
13. watch "its a great pumpkin" and pop popcorn
14. make an obstacle course and run it
15. build a scary monster out of legos
16. Make a cup of homemade cocoa
17. Go collect fallen leaves and make a leaf rubbing.
18. make caramel apples
19. carve a pumpkin
20. roast pumpkin seeds
21. rake leaves and jump in them
22. go on a walk to see the changing leaves
23. write a poem or story about your favorite fall activity
24. bake a loaf of bread
25. drink a cup of cider on your porch
26. roast hotdogs on a bon fire
27. roast marshmallows over the fire
28. Ask your parents about their favorite Halloween memory and then tell yours.
29. Decorate a paper bag to carry your treats in.
30. Collect at least 10 different fall leaves.
31. Go trick or treating with your parents and give them all your chocolate. Mawhaha!

My progress so far

Brrrrr! It’s chilly here this morning. Fall is here and I love fall. The colors, the air, and all the perks that come with fall make me in love it all the more. When I let my dog out this morning, I was surprised by the crisp, chilled air that me shiver, and yet I walked out on the deck and took a deep breath of it. It was one of those rare moments when the beauty of God’s creations and the privilege of being it overwhelmed me. Love it!

I know you are not here to hear of how I feel about fall! You are here to check out what has happened with the Halloween Countdown Book, and so I won’t make you wait. This is where I am at.

I cut 31 pieces of card stock at 3 3/8 x 2 7/8.

Next I cut these numbers using the square frame option from Designer’s Calendar with my Gypsy set at 2.34 x2.25.

Then I cut these tags from Tags, Bags, Boxes and More at 2.69 x3.74 and its shadow cut. This paper is from a Provocraft 24” pad, and no paper cuts better than this paper. Why doesn’t Provocraft produce some 12” paper of the same quality?

From this point honestly it was just a lot of faux stitching and inking which took way too long. I inked the black shadow tag with white. I liked the it turned out.

I finished it up watching Dancing with the Stars! Love that show. It’s because I can’t dance and even after years of music instruction I still have no natural sense of the beat! I dream of gliding across a dance floor!

Next I pulled out my Cuttlebug and started embossing the tags and the mats for the numbers. I used the D’Vine Swirls embossing folder and the Spots and Dots on the mats for the numbers. I’ve got to go back and label those Cuttlebug folders so that I know which one I’ve used, so I don’t have to look it up.

Next I start assembling the envelope pockets and tags. I hand wrote the activities for each day and am still doing that. This where I ended the process when I went to bed last night. I plan on using several different ribbons for the tags.

Darn! I wish I had better handwriting!

Today I hope to start assembling the pages, so that I can share that with you tomorrow.

Please make a comment especially if you have ideas for activities for the tags. I am still collecting ideas for the tags. I would love to hear from you.

Countdown to Halloween

That’s the project for this week.

Last Friday over at My Pink Stamper, Karlee gave out a challenge to make a project using envelopes. You can see her project over on her blog: Karlee Krafts. I wanted to participate, but the ole idea machine was not functioning. So after walking on the treadmill, which did nothing for the brain but lots for my very out of shape body, I headed to the shower. Now some of my most brilliant ideas come to me while in the shower. Don’t think about that too much.

I’ve wanted to make an advent calendar for the grandkids, but I couldn’t really come up with solutions to that desire. So while I was showering, I thought why not make a mini album that would be a countdown to whatever. I know Oct is just a bare 4 days away, but then it was 1 whole week and I thought I could just manage it. Now . . . have I told you that I am a very slow paper crafter and scrapbooker. Snail slow! Anyway that’s what I am doing for you this week. I’m going to take you through the process of putting the whole thing together. From beginning to end, I’ll show you my stumbling and fits and starts.

Here’s a picture of the outside which will help you see where I am going with this project.

One of my goals lately has been to use what I have. I have a lot! So the first place I went when I started this project was to my fat folder of Halloween and Fall papers. Some of it was from my very first purchases of scrapbooking paper. Those of you who have been scrapping for a long while may remember those Leisure Arts books of paper. I think it was Leisure Arts. I had a bunch of that paper and I had many times almost tossed it. However, I didn’t and I am NOT a paper hoarder!!!!!! Well, maybe I am, but not a bad one. ;o) Along with that bunch of paper I also had some Hobby Lobby brand Halloween paper. Then there was a DCWV stack of fall papers, maybe two, and last year’s Debbie Mumm’s Holiday stack. Any way I had plenty of paper although some of it was a little corny! Get it corn—fall—scarecrow--Halloween. . .

I cut all the paper at 6x6 and then glued all the pages back to back with Fabri Tac which is great for this type of project because it adds strength to the pages and yet does not curl or make the paper wrinkle. I used a cut up Cheez Its box for the chipboard in the cover.

Cheez Its are the bomb. I love them. Don’t make fun of me. Processed cheese, white flour and fat plus some processing chemicals! Can’t get better. Now you know why the treadmill is so important.

Then I inked and faux stitched all the pages. Oh and don’t look at my really yucky cutting mat!

Between the previous picture and the next one, not only did I faux stitch and ink the pages, but I sanded the edges so that all the edges that didn’t quite match up disappeared.

And here’s where the envelopes came into the project.

I sealed them all before I did anything else to them. Notice the stain on them. Coffee, ‘nuff said! They were still fine for this project since they wouldn’t really be seen and there aren’t any photo sensitive issues in this project. They are just standard mailing envelopes.

Then I cut paper to cover them-- 3 3/4x6 1/2. Again with the yucky cutting mat. Sorry. I do mend my ways later.

Then I cut them in half. The measurement is 3 1/4.

I bound the album at this point because point I’ve had trouble getting the pages in my bind it all once I get the pages all embellished. However, you can wait if you don’t use a bind it all and are using some other method of binding.

I also inked and faux stitched all the envelopes. See, no yucky cutting mat!

This leads me to where I am right now. I’ve started on the next steps and will share those with you tomorrow.

Until then, may each of you get time to scrapbook today. Use up those supplies!

What’s up for Next Week????

That’s been the question I’ve been turning over in my brain since last Monday.  Then yesterday I was hit by inspiration via another blog challenge and I had it! 

I’ll give credit for the challenge when I post the first installment on Monday, but until then I’ll just say this—Envelopes!!!!!!

Until Monday dear friends, live well this weekend! 

Domino John

It’s Friday! (I’m posting this a little early because I don’t think I’ll be able to Friday.) How many of you are doing the happy dance? I know I am.

The weekend, the weekend! I’m dancing; I’m dancing; I’m dancing!

Ahemmm. Sorry. I got a little crazy OK. On with the post.

When sorting through all those old photos last Friday, I came across this one.

It surprised me and made me smile. That little girl is me and she is very happy.

My mother’s father died suddenly when she 17 and left her mother with 5 of the 18 children still at home. My grandmother had already lost her first husband when she was only 15. She was a strong woman. I never knew my real grandfather, but when I was about 4, my grandmother remarried and John came into my life. He was the only grandfather I really ever knew. My father’s father was distant and uninterested in any of his female grandchildren and I don’t have one memory of connecting with him. But Grandpa John was a joy to me. I loved him. I think this picture shows how much. I am about 5 in this picture and on this visit he taught me to play dominos. We sat for hours and played with those little black tiles. He bet me a nickel a game and I always won. Either I was a genius or he was a very loving man. I think it’s the later. We were pals and when he was around I felt very loved. Sadly he died when I was 10 and was gone from my life forever. However, the memory of him and my relationship with him is kept forever in this photo.

You know I had to scrap it!

The paper is from My Minds Eye Laundry Line and Daisy D’s. The cuts are from Ashleigh’s Alphabet for the flower and leaves, the bird from Happily Ever After, and the title is from Alphalicious.

The dominos I cut by hand and used my white Signo gel pen for the line and my hole punch for the dots.

The flowers are a mish mash of Flora Doodles, Prima, and The Paper Studio.

I pop dotted so much on this layout. How about some close ups:

I only pop dotted every other domino so it would give a more realistic look. And I know they’re out of line and not straight, but whoever played a game of dominos when every domino was in perfect alignment?

This is my last heritage LO, but I can guarantee it won’t be the last of my old photos that finds it’s way into my scrapbook. I hope you enjoyed the series.

Let me know what you want to see. More paper crafting or scrapping, mini albums? Leave me a comment and even make suggestions. I read every comment.

A sporting Dad

First of all I want to thank everyone who has come by my blog to see all the work I’ve been doing.  For those of you who have become followers, I give you a hearty Thank You!

My Dad loved to play sports.  It didn’t matter what sport; he loved them all.  Take him to any sporting event and he was happy.  He spent many Sunday afternoons trying to turn me into a decent baseball player.  He failed; although, he never stopped trying. 

When in Manzanola, Colorado High School, there wasn’t a sport my dad didn’t try his hand at, and he excelled at them all.  I have a basketball photo I am going to scrap later. 

When he left the ministry because of his health, he went to work for a university and became their biggest fan.  He almost single handedly welded all the bleachers on the football field and if you were to go to the gym where the team played basketball and climbed to the top of the bleachers, you might find a coat hook and a brass plate next to it that said this is where the #1 fan sat for every home game until he passed away.

When I came across this photo, I knew I had to use it to remember his love of sports.  What a handsome guy!  And could there be a better pose for a football player? 

I bought the background paper when my grandsons started playing JFL.  You can’t see it, but it has football plays written on it.  This layout actually is made up from some scraps I pulled out my scrap drawer..  Those football borders are leftovers from some notebooks I made for my grandsons last fall.  I’d saved them because it was a pain to pick all the tiny bits out of those footballs and I just knew I’d used them.  Yea! All the football cuts are from Sports Mania and the font is from Cuttin Up with the serifs.   

I think the card stock is DCWV and it was a scrap.  The mats are various scraps I had.  I punched the brown mat with a Martha Stewart punch that sort of echoes the dots on the background paper.  Brads added a masculine edge.  The title pops off the page because of it’s nice bright greens.  There’s lots of faux stitching.  I added a football button  and star to the title for a little extra something, something. 

Close ups:

Remembering an Aunt and Uncle

As you’ve seen in my previous posts, I have a very large extended family.  But you’ve only seen my maternal side.  Today I am scrapping about my father’s side of the family.  My aunt died last Friday morning and her death is really what brought on this week of Heritage scrapping.  When I got home from work that afternoon, I pulled out a couple of boxes of old photos because I knew I had the photo I used for today’s blog and I wanted to look at it again.

I never knew my aunt and uncle as they are in this photo. In this photo they are newly wed, very young and you can see how happy they are.  By the time I came along they already had three boys and were knee deep in their farming and feeding their cattle. 

I can remember going out to my aunt and uncle’s farm, the smell of manure thick in my nose while I tried to keep up with my cousins who never wanted to play Barbies or house!  No, it was soldiers with their little green army men or cowboys and indians.  If we were outside, we tramped over haystacks and around the the cattle pens which always stirred the cows up and often caused my uncle to check out what we were up to. 

I remember standing on a stool while I watched her make dumplings for the chicken and dumplings we were having for supper.  I remember her telling me that “once you put those dumplings in the pot, you put the lid on and don’t ever take the lid off and NEVER,NEVER stir it.”  Her tacos were incredible!

She had an infectious belly laugh that was a delight to hear.  

My uncle lost his arm to a corn harvester about 45 years before he passed away.  He was lucky to have survived.  When I decided to get married, there was no question that my dad would perform the ceremony.  So with my dad doing the ceremony, I asked my uncle to give me away.  I proudly walked down the aisle on his hook arm.  He was pretty proud too. 

With my aunt gone, its seems to have marked the end of my Dad’s family for me even though there is a younger brother who still is still living.  Her death made me miss my Dad and grieve all the years we’ve lost. 

If you’ve read all the way to here, bless you.  Now for the LO

This is only a 1 page LO.  I don’t do 1 page LOs very often, but with old photos, sometimes you may only have one photo. 

I left the picture uncropped after I scanned it and printed it off.  The background is part of the story..  We came from southeastern Colorado and it is dry and often there’s not much green to see unless it’s yucca plants, cactus, or tumble weeds.  You can see this in the picture. 

The paper is once again from my stash and is old, old, old.  The flower border is from Gypsy Wandering and is cut at 11” long.  I cut two of them.  I cut extra flowers and I curled the petals of the extra flowers to give more dimension and attached them on top of the original flowers in the border.  I put three dashes down the middle of each petal because I thought it looked good. The jewels are from Paper Studio.  Oh, and the font is Gypsy Font. 

I love the way this turned out. 

What I am learning about scrapping old photos is that the most important part of the work that I do putting these photos in a scrapbook is the journaling.  Make plenty of room for it. 

Here are some close ups:

Thanks for stopping by!  Please leave a comment.  I love to read them. 

Baby Love

It’s sort of hard to write about this layout. 

Real hard! 

My mother recently passed away after a very long battle with Alzheimer’s.  12 years she languished with this horrible disease eating away her memories and her personality until last December 30 when her body simply forgot how to function.  It’s been a hard process to grieve for her even though she’s been gone far longer. 

My Dad passed away 14 years ago. He’d been told by the Dr that he could go any time.  His heart was barely functioning and he lived in so much pain the last years of his life.  A transplant wasn’t a possibility because of other health issues and the insurance refused to pay for any more surgical procedures that would help him live longer and with less pain.  The last time I saw him, he hugged me and said to me, “I’ll see you again over there.” He knew we wouldn’t see each other again on this earth. I didn’t take him seriously. I miss them both.

Even before my mother was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s, I think we had a bit of an idea that there was something else wrong. She was highly paranoid and quarrelsome.  I won’t go into particulars.  My dad was constantly depressed and frankly my parents were incapable of being good parents.  All of us, my 4 sisters and me, have some pretty deep scars.

Just after my mother slipped away from us completely a few years ago, my mother’s twin sister sent me these photos.  What a comfort they were to me.  I saw that despite of all the mental health issues, my parents loved me and wanted me.  Can’t you just see the baby love exuding from both of them! 

When scrapping pictures that are of you and you have no memories of, you obviously can’t say much about the circumstances unless you still have a parent to tell you about them.  I didn’t. The approach I took was to scrap them and tell how the pictures made me feel and how they impacted my impressions of my parents and our relationship.  It was therapeutic and I think that scrapping about old photos like this can be a good way to work through hard relationships! 

Another approach I took was to not crop them as much as I probably would have a contemporary photo.  These photos contain a little time capsule of how life was for my parents and me in 1954.  The wallpaper, the furnishings,  every thing is part of that moment in time.   They form part of the story and are important.

Here you go!

Once again, this paper is old.  I think I’ve had it since I first started scrapping and that’s 12 years!  Finally it’s being used!  Yea!  The yellow cardstock is Bazzill and the three shades of blue are Coredinations.  Love that Cordinations.  The silhouette is from a Child’s year, the title from Designer’s Calendar the script feature, and the frames, tag and hearts are from Sentimentals.  The ribbon is Hobby Lobby and the buttons are from my stash which is from many different sources.  The edge of the floral border in the middle was made using a Fiskars template. 

Some close ups for you:

 

I don’t know why that picture is on its side.  I didn’t do it and it won’t let me fix it!  Grrrr.

Again!

Tomorrow I’ll share a layout I’ve made which remembers my aunt who just passed away last week. 

A Big Family

As I promised I’ll be doing some Heritage scrapping this week and sharing my process of getting these photos in a scrapbook. 

When I received the photo of my mother’s large family, I was thrilled.  I’d never seen it before and was happy that I could recognize most of the people in it.  After I got the photo, I immediately wrote my aunt and asked her if she could put together a list of the people in the photo which leads me to one of the biggest reasons to scrap those old photos.  Let your children know who those people are and why the picture was important to you. Most of my journaling for this layout is just a head by head account of the people in the photo.  Now my children will be able to look at it and figure out who is who. 

This paper is Daisy D’s and it is certainly vintage.  I think the pink is a bit different for heritage photos but the paper has an aged appearance and the design is from the 40’s or 50’s.  I think it reflects the way I feel about my mother’s family. 

I used just a touch of brown Coredinations cardstock to mat the photos and as shadows for some of the embellishments. The darker pink is Bazzill and is raspberry. The light pink is just cardstock I had and is probably from Hobby Lobby.

When it came to the title of this page I chose one word. Family—there was no other word for it.  I have this huge heritage that I want to share with my children and their children.  I used Ashleigh’s Alphabet with the cursive feature and since there is no shadow feature for the cursive option, I played around with it on my Gypsy until I got it the way I wanted.  The F is cut at 3 1/2” and the rest of the word at 1".   I liked the way it looked when I was finished.  All the swirls are cut from Ashleigh’s Alphabet too.  I used my threading water punch on the mat for the big picture and then then faux stitched it.  The word Family was pop dotted to lift it away from the flourish behind it. 

The label holder is from my stash and I’ve long ago forgotten where I got it.  I attached it with brads and placed a piece of ephemera that I also bought a very long time ago.  You can also see the stickles that I added.  I have a hard time resisting the little bit of bling.  Love those Stickles.

The flowers are a mixture of Primas and Flora doodles with brads that have been sitting in my embellishment box for a long time.  It’s making me so happy that I am using up all my supplies. 

I included the photo of my mother and her twin sister to help my children make a connection between their grandmother and this rather large family.  Since my mother was a twin and photos were an not as easily acquired in the 40’s, my mother rarely had her picture taken without her twin sister.  My mother is on the left. Isn’t she pretty!  I think this photo was taken about two years after the big family picture was taken.  They had gone away to boarding school and the picture was taken there. 

The scalloped edge on the mat of this picture was accomplished with an old Fiskars template.  I traced it and hand cut it so that it would have even corners.  It’s always good to pull out old tools and let them see the light of day again. 

The most important thing about Heritage scrapping is to leave a record behind that tells who, what when and where. I especially wanted to leave a list of whom the picture included.  Believe it or not but there are several sisters who are not in the picture and one brother who died in infancy.  There was a grand total of 18 children. My mother and her twin were born third from last.  She died at the age of 75 and her oldest sister died one month later.  Estella was 99 years old.  When my mother was born the oldest siblings were already married and had children of their own.  What a family!  I am proud to call them mine. 

A New Week of Remembering

This week I’ll return to my first love in paper crafting—scrapbooking.

Last week my aunt passed away. She is really the last member of my father’s family I had any contact with, and with both my parents gone, it is a grief that has been hard to bear.

I hadn’t quite decided what I would concentrate on this week, but as I sat thinking about my aunt, I remembered a photo that I had brought home after packing up my mother’s things when we had to put her in a nursing home. My mother passed away last December 30, and I’ve been going through these old pictures quite a bit since then.

Then my mother’s twin sister sent me a copy of a photo of almost the whole family when she and my mother were teenagers that I had never seen before. You have to understand that my mother’s family of origin was not your run of the mill large family. They were the Duggars before the Duggars became the Duggars. At one time they were the largest family in the state of Colorado and had their picture taken for the Rocky Mountain News. But that’s another photo and another story.

Any way, the photo of my aunt and uncle and this huge family photo of my mother’s family made me yearn to scrap them and put in words my feelings for my family.

So I’ll be sharing some heritage scrapping this week. Starting tomorrow I’ll be sharing some family photos and some ideas for scrapping old photos.

Butterfly Banner

Sorry for the delay.  Life sometimes gets in the way of what we have planned, and that certainly has been the case here.

My oldest granddaughter loves to dance and sing and since her birthday is next week, I thought I’d make the last banner of the week for her.

Here’s a wide shot of it and I’ll zoom in close to show you the details.  I really think she’s going to love it.  She such a dear little girl. Really she is, and I know you would think so if you met her.

  When Abigail was visiting last summer summer she told me she wanted to change the colors in her bedroom from the babyish pink she’s had since she was 2 to a more grown up teal blue with some pink, but not much pink. She’ll be 8 next week.  Isn’t it funny that just as Abby thinks she’s too grown up for pink, her grandmother is painting her scrap studio pink! 

Does that mean I’m regressing or that I’m just doing what makes me happy? 

Here come the close ups. 

The banner says Dance, Sing, Play.  She loves all three of those, and will do any of them at the drop of a hat if asked. 

The tag is from Winter Woodlands—again.  I really like this shape and I’m sort of stuck on it.  I cut it at about 3 1/2” with a shadow and the butterfly is from Designer’s Calendar and cut with shadow at 3” I used my white Signo pen for faux stitching.  I used a little pink Stickles on the butterfly wings wherever there were cuts.  The swirl came from Ashleigh’s Alphabet and I used Diamond Stickles on them.  I only adhered the body of the butterfly to the shadow so it would look like it was flying. The pattterned paper is from My Mind’s Eye and K & Company. I think the cardstock is Bazzill. 

The flowers are done using the 5 petal flower from George, but I had to do quite a bit of trimming on the long petals.  I cut for flowers for each finished flower. 

The bows are tied with 5 loops on each side which I secured with a clothes pin while I tied them with a separate ribbon.  I used three more of the paper roses in the middle. 

A week’s banners and I hope you enjoyed them.  Next week I’m planning on doing layouts for multiple photos on a page.  I’ve got to get busy this weekend and get them all planned and ready.