Time off for unwanted reasons

Hello every one. I am just popping up a little post to let you all know what is going on in my life. This was pre-typed before I left and scheduled to be posted today. Right now I am in a little farm town in Missouri visiting with my family. Unfortunately this was not a vacation. I have headed back home to spend two weeks with my Grandparents and possibly the last few days of my Grandfather's life. He has not been well now for many many years and though he is a trooper and is stubborn enough to survive this long his emphysema had got the better of him. He is a strong, generous and kind soul and someone who was a major influence in my life. I will have a major part of my life missing when he is gone. I just have to remind myself he is in a better place and had a full and wonderful life. I am thanking you all in advance for your thoughts and prayers.

I should be returning home late on April 20th and I hope I will be up to getting back into the swing of things and start playing catch up within a day or so. I will be taking a bit of my scrapbooking stuff with me and I hope to get a few things done when I have some down time or ...lol.. when I just can't sleep. I am unsure of the schedule I will have once I arrive there and how much time I will have. I plan on taking beautiful nature walks with my mom and of course taking lots of photos. It will be time away from my babies for the most part... a first for me. Time to think and reflect. A time to be away from the city, daily routines and from the computer. A time to thank God for his gifts and his blessings to us and a time to mourn.

I will post when I return and update you all on my trip and what I learned, felt, experienced, saw, photographed and most of all ... pay tribute to a man who has influenced many, has served his country and has devoted his life to his family. May God bless you all in these next two weeks. May he bring peace to all of us who need it.

Sincerely,

The more I practice

Welcome to the Scrappiest Mondays. Liz and the gals over at The Scrappiest Blog have some great layouts for you from her sketch. I urge you to go check out that blog we have had on opening for a DT position so get over there and see what is about! We have a blast with her sketches every week! Deadline is April 13th.
I love the circle pages but I just have a hard time grasping my mind around them... as in... yes no square background paper... hmm... I just could not do it. So I added the background paper. These are some of my favorite pics of my son this last year during his T-Ball. Though I have hundreds...hehe. Yes I am a shutter bug. So at long last I broke out my sports goodies I have been hording and batted away at this layout for the last few days. I have been pretty busy and honestly down right uninspired. However, I got this done and I am happy with it. On to the Details.

Journaling Reads:
"Tristan Chase 2008, This is Tristan's second year! The Underdogs was the name of his team this year. He had so much fun."

Everything on this page is Cosmo Cricket accept the shrink plastic flowers and the letters that spell T-Ball.

Background:
The pin stripe yellow red and green paper is a double sided cardstock. The opposite side is the red with cream circles. So here is what I die. I cut a circle 11 1/2" around leaving 1/4" at the thinnest point on every side. I scalloped edged that circle with my decorative fiskars scissors. I then cut one more circle out of that one at 10" wide. Out of the 10" Circle I cut another one at 8 1/2". Once all of them were cut out I extremely distressed all the remaining edges inside and out of all t he circles accept the one I scalloped. So just to reiterate. The square 12x12 background paper, the red scalloped circle, the striped distressed circle and the interior red scalloped circle are all one piece of paper. I also cut a 12" circle out of a dark blue cardstock. I scalloped the edge of that also. I layered them up as you see and took the stripe and red circles and off centered them and anchored them to the bottom right.
Embellishments:
Both the glove and the ball were cut out of some of the provided embellishments from Cosmo Cricket. The star burst flower was made from a strip of CC paper folded in 1/4" accordion style and then the tips were trimmed to get the points. The plastic flowers were made from shrink plastic from Stampin' Up. I cut these with the cricut and used my stitch rub on (thanks Liz) around the edge. I then stamped the glove and mitt on each petal with a Stampin' Up stamp and stazon ink. I baked the flowers till they were shrunk and done then once they were cooled I added the center ribbon (Cosmo Cricket) and colored the balls in from the back with my white pain pen. The same ribbon I used with a sticker for the vertical lines that anchor the embellishments and the page from left to right. I added two little circular baseball related rub-ons and that is it.
Title:
The letters for the word T-Ball also are the shrink plastic. These were cut out of the white and then colored blue with a sharpie. The rest of it was a strip of the Cosmo Cricket paper pack, I cut in half and underlined the words "more" and "luckier" with the ball sticker strips from the same pack. Quick and easy. Sometimes the best way to work through a creative block is to work with a kit. I think this did the trick for me.

I would love to hear what you are working on this week. Please leave me a note and let me know. What is on your table??