Love Those Toes...

Christian really is the most adorable little boy and I just can't stop doing layouts of him. This one focuses on those tiny, little toes of his.



I used paint splatters and just a few notions to bring out an effect I am drawn to while perusing the SB.com gallery. Love this look - but I don't do it often.

So I have been trying to expand my horizons a little bit and watching videos and reading tutorials. Right now I'm into the Shimmerz Vlog - even though I don't have any of their product yet. I know the girls at Swirlydoos are quite fond of it and that's pretty much reason enough for me, lol.

And now off to (hopefully) create some homemade painted masking tape. I love this idea!

Pink

I don't know what's going on with all the pinks, but I am so into them lately. This layout was created with an old Swirlydoos spotlight kit. I just love the papers and those Prima flowers are so darn girly, aren't they?

Anyway, this is my daughter and her boyfriend when she was just in the beginning of her pregnancy.

7 in 1 week!

It's been years since I have scrapped so many layouts in a week! These two were created using the June Birds of a Feather kit. I have to be honest and say I probably would have never bought these papers, but I really enjoyed working with them.

Anyway, the first one is a layout of my son and my niece, Hope, at Kevin's Purple Heart Ceremony. The photo was taken by Rebecca Droke of the Pittsburgh Post Gazette - it's one of my favs!

And it's another very simple layout - focusing more on the photo:



This next one is a picture of myself and all my great friends back in East Brady. I sure miss those girls! And the title says it all - those were such happy days!

Unbelievable!

I can't believe it, but I did two more layouts last night. I am on a roll - woohoo!!!!

So anyway, these two are also based on the challenges over at Birds of a Feather. The first challenge was a journaling prompt and my question was "What would you do if money were no object?". I love that question! Here is my layout:



My response was that I have always dreamed of traveling extensively throughout the countries of Europe. I would love to take at least a year or two and see as much as I could.

Obviously that's never going to happen now, but it's all about dreaming, right?

So my next one is just a very simple layout and the challenge was to use a mask or stencils from our stash and create background paper. Most of my stuff is still in boxes so I used a piece of chipboard as my mask. I used a coral smooch color and one of the moonshadow mists and I really like the subtlety of the image.

The photo is of my and my nephew, Michael's, toes while at the beach last year.

Yipee!!!

I did three layouts this weekend! I found a website that inspired me to take part in some of their challenges. The website is Birds of a Feather.

Anyway, the first layout I did was not one of the challenges, but it's of a photo I took of Christian the other day while we were playing outside in the yard. I just LOVE this photo! I used Bo Bunny's Timepiece collection - which I just adore. So manly like, yet it can also be feminine.



I just recently watched a movie titled "Remember Me" and the main character quoted Gandhi - "Whatever you do in life will be insignificant, but it's important that you do it." I knew I just had to use that quote on a layout and what better than one of our baby who has his whole life ahead of him.

The next layout I did was a sketch challenge. Here is the Prima sketch:



And here is my layout:



This is a photo of myself taken about a year ago. I plan to journal privately about how strong I've had to be to maneuver throughout the Dept of Defense and VA hospitals. We have been in one hospital or another the bulk of the last three years. Kevin has had 43 surgeries (truthfully more, but I only count a surgery as him being put to sleep - more often that not he had multiple surgeries each time) and we are nowhere near done yet. I can definitely say that I am not the same person I was three years ago.

And the last layout is from an ad challenge. Here is the advertisement:




I have wanted to use these photos of Kevin for a while now and thought the lines of this ad might work for it. The papers are quite old BasicGrey, but I liked the colors.

The journaling is about how Kevin always loved being in front of a camera and I'm so glad that that didn't change even after being burned and disfigured in Afghanistan.



I am hoping to get some more scrapping in tomorrow. We'll see...

Tub Time

Here's my cutie Christian playing in the bathtub a couple of months ago. It's weird for me to use childlike paper - I have never been able to do that before and truthfully, I don't have any in my stash.