My Mom

My Mom started me scrapbooking when I was just in Highschool. She has been there for me year after year. Mom's are like that ya know. Anyway, due to being married to a Military man I have found myself living far from her company. I created this layout because she has been on my mind so much lately. This one's for you Mom. I love you and hope I can be there for you anytime you need me.



It is simple as one to three to make your titles sparkle. P K glitz makes it that way.

Step 1) Cut your letters out of Sticky Paper, you can do this by hand or with a machine.

Step 2) Peel backing off and sprinkle with some P K Glitter Glitz.

Step 3) Adhere to your layout or card.

Simple isn't it?



To make the layout or card complete throw some glitter on an object or two some where else on the layout. On this one I glitzed up a die-cut butterfly.


Don't forget to leave a comment on my 100 followers Celebration post... click HERE you just might win a CRICUT cartridge!

Happy Scrapping!
~ Grace ~

The P K Glitz Can Challenge...

Check out the P K Glitz Can Challenge here.


This gift can was created for my son's teacher. Every year we try to give something back to the teachers he has and this is year we decided to give her some gift cards. We needed a container. It matches the card I made for her, highlighted in P K Glitz's June 5th blog post.



The details of the glittering on the flowers and the patterned paper designs were done by painting the glue onto the flowers or patterned design with a small detail brush. I chose to use Crafter's Pick Decoupage as the adhesive for this. It is one of the liquid adhesives I have that takes longer to dry. I painted a few petals then glittered them then painted a few more to avoid the decoupage gel from drying before glittering again. Same with the patterned paper detail. I would paint a small section then glitter it... then paint another. I chose not to paint the entire design on the patterned paper in glue to have it glittered. I left some of the design showing through and used a fine tip navy marker to shadow areas of the design after I used the glitter. This made it stand out more from the other patterns on the blue patterned paper.


This close up shows the brush strokes on the petals and the detail of the glitter and marker in the pattern on the paper.

This can was first opened by a pampered chef can opener. However I know there are many companies that make these style of openers, the kind that cuts around the top of the can on its side. You should open this can from the bottom, with the can opener, leaving the pull tab at the top alone. This is key to create a gift can that has the pull tab top in tact. Empty and wash the inside of the can and bottom. You may re-stuff the can with the gift and tissue paper first, but I prefer to decorate it before I stuff and reassemble the can. Having one end of the can open gives me more control over holding it when doing the detailing of the designs. Once it is decorated stuff and reseal the bottom with a thin strip of tacky tape or a liquid adhesive that works well with metal.



Thank you so much for reading about my projects. I hope you enjoy them.

"Oh Say Can You See" 4th of July Blog Hop

Heeeelllllllloooooo everyone! Happy 4th of July! I am Grace Lauer, Scrapbook News and Review's Marketing Director, which means I am a SNR STAFFER and I have part of the secret code further down within this post. I want to welcome you to yet another blog on the Scrapbook News and Review Card Universe's "Oh Say Can You See" 4th of July Blog Hop. It's a big one isn't it? The more to inspire you with!

Want to know when where it begins... click here. If you came from Helen Dooley's blog: http://tomorrowstreasure.blogspot.com/ you are on the right track! This is one large blog hop and I hope you are enjoying yourself. Lots of wonderful projects to make and learn from. What a wonderful way to get inspired on our countries birthday. I have a freebie for you and the piece of the code for the contest to win the 1 year subscription for Scrapbook News and Review!

I have a 4th of July fireworks card for you. This was a crazy card I created that was a little outside my box. Yet this was so fun to create and I had a blast mimicking a firework explosion. Here is a little explanation and instruction for you if you would like to create this card.

4th of July card Instructions:

1. 8 1/2" x 5 1/2" piece of white cardstock, fold in half with bone folder
2. 3 3/4" x 5" piece of red cardstock
3. Draw along the edge of red cardstock with gold ink pen
4. Stamp 13 - 15 small 4th of July images with red pigment ink on extra white cardstock
5. Heat emboss with red glitter embossing powder
6. Color in with blue, red and gold markers
7. Cut around images leaving 1/16" of white around embossed image
8. Adhere all cut out images onto blue cardstock
9. Cut around all images leaving 1/16" of blue around the white
10. Cut 7-9 1" strips of white fibers
11. Adhere red cardstock in the center of the folded card base
12. Choose the main embossed image and adhere it to the center front of the red cardstock with two layers of pop dots
13. Choose five embossed images and adhere them around the center image with one pop dot
14. Adhere remaining embossed images with mono adhesive around the embossed images from the previous step
15. Roll the 1" strip of fibers into a ball, try to keep the fibers out of the adhesive, and adhere under the popped up layers of embossed images.
16. Spread extending fibers into place before adhesive drys.

I hope you enjoy creating a card similar to this. I can this design in several ways. How about creating a Birthday card or New Years card? I hope you have been inspired a bit not only here at my attic but during your journey through the largest blog hop SNR has ever had almost 100 blogs! Big kudos to Anne House for putting this all together with the support from the Scrapbook News and Review staff. Don't forget all the wonderful bloggers who have signed up and participated for this holiday event.

We are having a summer full of paper crafting goodness and just for this event I am going to give you a sneak peek of the class I will be teaching one week from today for Scrapbook News and Review's Spring into Summer Event. My class is

Now, I promised you some freebies! As you read before I am SNR's Marketing Director so I will ask nothing more of you then to spread the word of our up coming event. If you leave a comment here on my blog telling me that you have posted on your blog or Facebook or twitter... about Scrapbook News and Review's up coming Spring into Summer Event and leave me a link to where you posted it, you will be entered into a drawing for a ONE MONTH FREE subscription to Scrapbook News and Review! You will need to post this by 10PM CST on Monday July 6th. How easy is that? Just spread the word about this amazing event! There is a graphic below for you to share!
Next, for you I have your code... yes here it is... are you ready? ................ "NOT WHAT" got it? Do you know what it is yet? Continue to play our code game by hopping through our Scrapbook News and Review Card Universe's “Oh Say Can You See 4th of July Blog Hop”. Your next blog is...

Lorie Ames' blog: http://www.live-love-laugh-create.blogspot.com/

Go check her out!

I would like to say thank you to all the heroes around the world. Here is a little something honoring my personal Hero and please take a moment to honor those who have been lost and who have fallen.

Thanks for viewing my blog I hope you have a wonderful Fourth of July!!!

Four Year Old Princess

Happy Monday Everyone! I am so excited to show this layout to you. Like all of the layout I show you on Mondays this was inspired by a sketch from Liz over at The Scrappiest Blog. This weeks sketch was so much fun to create from. Though as I have said before I usually am not inspired by geometric shapes. I found this block style paper and got completely inspired. I was influenced by challenge from an online cyber crop over at Scrapparie.com. This challenge was to make your own patterned paper.
This is a photo of my sweet daughter licking the bottom of her candle from her birthday cake. Though the lighting in this photo is a bit off I love the photo itself. My daughter has been asking me to make her a pink page so I decided to do it monochromatic style with some influence from an Scrapbook News and Review publication call for May.

Journaling: (done in a pink Stampin' Up! marker)

Trinity is four years old. You call everything and everyone "Poppy" and you always have a "NooN" idea. You love to dance to Hawaiian music and practice rhythmic gymnastics. When in trouble you always give big hugs and kisses to get out of it. You are very expressive and have an explosive personality. You love to sing your own little made up songs. You zoom everywhere, my little social butterfly.

Ok so lets get rock'n on this description... it is going to be a long one!

Background: I started off with a white piece of 11 1/2" x 11 1/2" cardstock. Now I know it might be hard to believe but I did not have a light piece of pink patterned paper for this. So I created one. I know I said this was a monochromatic pink layout but ... hang in there here is what I did to create a pink bubble texture on this white cardstock. Note: Protect your counter and table by placing down a craft sheet or a protective table cloth.

1. I took a medium sized flat kitchen container about 9"x 7" and about 2" deep.
2. I added one cup of warm water
3. I added 1/2 a cup of liquid dish soap.

Yes yes I know ... you are thinking I am crazy on this one... stick with me here. I got this idea from a Crop Suey video. So you now have a dish with water so soapy you can wash dishes for a week. I then added several drops of red food dye.

4. Gently mix this in together.
5. I took a straw and blew into the water throughout the dish till they are about to over flow.

This created massive amounts of bubbles. Word of caution. Please ware eye protection...the bubbles pop and can get in your eyes. Once you have an almost overflowing dish of bubbles...

6. Take a paper towel and wipe it over the bubbles without touching the water at the bottom of the dish. This is to test the color of your water.
7. Let it dry. It will not take long and this will show you the true color of the water. Do not pop the bubbles on the paper towel either. Let them sit and pop on their own.
8. Add more color if you need too. Or water to lighten it. If you need to do this step test it again.

Once satisfied with the color then you will want to repeat steps 5 and 6 over and over (with the cardstock not the paper towel) till the paper is covered with the bubble texture. Try to add another color if you want to. Play around with this I loved it. I felt like my Mother was about to scold me not to blow bubbles in my soda, like when I was a kid. I even let my children play with this when I was done.

Taking a dark pink polka dot paper from Cosmo Cricket's Girl Friday line. I cut it into 4 - 1 1/2 " strips and punched one of the long sides with a Martha Stewart scalloped edge punch. I then adhered them to the back of my white bubble splattered cardstock. Making my finished edge 12" x 12". This also left me over 1/2 a sheet of the polka dot paper to use else where on the layout.

The next three layers were two DCWV (Die Cuts With a View) papers and one more of the bubble sheet. The back square layer (a medium pink) was cut at 9 1/2". The bubble square was cut at 9" both were then punched with a Martha Stewart edge punch. The block print patterned paper was cut at 7 3/4" and then gently inked with a pink. Center each layer on top of the other an place it off center and closer to the bottom of the large bubble background.

The Photo: This was printed as a 5"x7" and I cut it down to be a 5" square. I backed it with a square of the dark pink polka dot paper. Here is a tip. Knowing I wanted a punched edge only on one side I cut the height of the paper first. I had a piece 5 1/2" high by 12". I punched one of the 5 1/2" sides with my edge punch I used around the background paper. Then I measured and cut it square so I was left with a 5 1/2" square with one side punched. I did it this way because the edge punches cut off about 1/4" - 3/8". Punching first let me cut the width of this piece exactly the way I wanted it.

I embellished this photo with some glitter rub-ons on the corner. For one reason. My wonderful daughter had already stained her shirt and you could see it... so a rub on here and a rub on there. Tada! no more stain.

Embellishments: I used some glitter and bling pink flowers to be the main embellishment focus. I backed them with excess papers and cut them out. Then I also used a couple of Prima flowers to do back them also. I added some Prima bling and a some glitter rub-ons. As I was layering them up in the corner I decided to save a few of the small glitter flowers and one of the large ones to embellish the title.

The Title: The "FouR" was created with Colorbok chipboard covered with DCWV paper. I then glitter glued the different shades of pink in the patterned paper with pink and iridescent glitter glues by Studio G. I sanded the edges and colored it with a pink Stampin' Up! marker.
I stamped the "Year Old" in black on the excess bubble paper and colored it in with a Stampin' Up! marker and added iridescent glitter glue. I popped these up with pop dots.
I added the rub-ons thorough out the page and doodled on the flowers with my black fine point marker to tie in the black in the rub-ons and title a bit better.

I am all about making my own stuff I love how unique it makes my pages... either when I am making paper or creating my own embellishments.

Well thanks for hanging in there with me... phew! That was a long one. I hope you have the time to play with this extremely fun bubble technique! Let me know how it turns out!

I would love to know, in the spirit of creating my patterned paper it made me wonder if any of you have you ever created your own and if so how?

not forgotten...

Good Monday everyone! I was just going to post this for you all to see. I have created another sketch for Liz over at The Scrappiest Blog. This was our 12th sketch so far. 

I can not believe that we have been doing this for almost three months! This weeks sketch was pretty simple and I love that about her sketches. It leave room for creative interpretation. You should all go check out the wonderful layouts created by her design team. I love to see how we all came up with such different layouts. 

My layout is about remembering those soldiers who are POWs and MIAs. This was a picture of the table most military events have set up in honor and remembrance of them. The journaling card reads:

"AS YOU ENTERED THE BANQUET HALL THIS EVENING, YOU MAY HAVE NOTICED A SMALL TABLE HERE, IN A PLACE OF HONOR, NEAR OUR HEAD TABLE. IT IS SET FOR ONE (OR FOUR). PLEASE LET ME EXPLAIN. THE MILITARY CASTE IS FILLED WITH SYMBOLISM. THIS TABLE IS OUR WAY OF SYMBOLIZING THE FACT THAT MEMBERS OF OUR PROFESSION OF ARMS ARE MISSING FROM OUR MIDST. THEY ARE COMMONLY CALLED POW/MIA. WE CALL THEM "BROTHERS." THEY ARE UNABLE TO BE WITH US THIS EVENING AND SO WE REMEMBER THEM BECAUSE OF THEIR INCARCERATION."

"THIS TABLE SET FOR ONE (OR FOUR) IS SMALL -- SYMBOLIZING THE FRAILTY OF ONE PRISONER ALONE AGAINST HIS OPPRESSORS."
"THE TABLECLOTH IS WHITE -- SYMBOLIZING THE PURITY OF THEIR INTENTIONS TO RESPOND TO THEIR COUNTRY'S CALL TO ARMS. REMEMBER."

"THE SINGLE YELLOW ROSE -- SYMBOLIZING REMEMBRANCE -- DISPLAYED IN A VASE, REMINDS US OF THE FAMILIES AND LOVED ONES OF OUR COMRADES-IN-ARMS WHO KEEP FAITH AWAITING HIS RETURN, LEST WE FORGET. REMEMBER."

"THE RED RIBBON TIED SO PROMINENTLY ON THE VASE IS REMINISCENT OF THE RED RIBBON WORN UPON THE LAPEL AND BREASTS OF THOUSANDS WHO BEAR WITNESS TO THEIR UNYIELDING DETERMINATION TO DEMAND PROPER ACCOUNTING OF OUR MISSING. REMEMBER."
"A SLICE OF LEMON IS ON THE BREAD PLATE TO REMIND US OF THEIR BITTER FATE. REMEMBER."

"THERE IS SALT UPON THE BREAD PLATE -- SYMBOLIC OF THE FAMILIES TEARS AS THEY WAIT. REMEMBER."

"THE GLASS IS INVERTED, THEY CANNOT TOAST WITH US THIS NIGHT. REMEMBER."

"THE CHAIR -- THE CHAIR IS EMPTY -- THEY ARE NOT HERE. REMEMBER."

"REMEMBER, ALL OF YOU WHO SERVED WITH THEM AND CALLED THEM COMRADES. WHO DEPENDED UPON THEIR MIGHT AND AID AND RELIED UPON THEM, FOR SURELY, THEY HAVE NOT FORSAKEN YOU. (Quietly) REMEMBER."

I also wanted to share with you the purse I created to put my Mother's Gift into for Mother's Day. I finished this on Sat and she loved every inch of the mini album. I hope you all had a good Mother's Day and a wonderful weekend.

Thanks for shearing with me my creative journey.

Enjoy the Little things - Mother's Day Gift

Happy Hump Day Everyone! I have an exciting project to share with you all today. I have been working on this all week. I hope you enjoy the little things with in this mini album. I created this for my Mother for Mother's Day ... good thing she never reads this blog... lol. It pays sometimes to have a mother who hates technology. I can only get her to learn one new thing online every few months or so. Anyhow, this was the perfect project for her. I just love how it turned out.
I created this mostly out of one of the beautiful April kits from Coordinates Collections. This is the Petals kit for April and OH ME OH MY I loved every inch of this paper and the embellishments in the kit were so fun and adorable. I don't have time to go into all the details of an entire album but if you see something and want to know how it was done please feel free to post a comment an ask. I am happy to answer.

In Loving Memory of Nita

Nita was my Hubby's Grandmother, grand indeed. She was loving, caring and selfless. She lived her life according to God's word and seemed to always know what to say and how to handle things. Every time I saw her she always had a beautiful smile and peaceful heart. I only had the pleasure of knowing her for about five years and I sadly did not have a lot of opportunities to spend with her. The time I did spend with her she always was a good example of how I would want to live my life. She will always be remembered for many things and will always live in the hearts of her family.
Nita passed away a couple of years ago this past March. Last Christmas I created this as a shadow box for my Mother-in-law. The picture is of Nita in front of her house holding my daughter Trinity when she was 5 months old. It is one of the most beautiful pictures I have of Nita and I love the reminder, within the content of this photo, that life goes on.
Though this was created in December of last year I have not blogged about it yet. It still is one of my favorite pages. It just recently was published in Scrapbook News and Review. This is the Layout that led to me becoming a staff member for that wonderful E-zine. Now for the Details... if I can remember them...lol.

Details:
Upper Left: I this shot you can see the many layers that I used to create this shadowbox. Every thing is pop dotted the piece is about 1" thick. The background is simply a sage tone on tone paper that I cut large 1" scallops around. I lightly distressed the edges with versa mark and chalk. Within each scallop I too and punched out of scraps little flowers and glued them down. The next layer is the light purple. On this layer I printed Nita's favorite Hymn. You can see this better in the over all pic.
The hardware I used in this layout is an antique brass. This door plate was filled with a cream cardstock with a stamped image that has been heat embossed with an antique gold embossing powder. This same technique is found in the hand drawn and cut flourishes you can see here and throughout this page. The fabric flowers are all prima and the paper ones were all hand made. I used a lot of pearls to accent this layout and the flower clusters are no acception for this. On top of the purple paper is the photo backed with a cream card sock slightly distressed. The photo has an overlay on it creating that scalloped edge around the photo. The buttons here are just glued on however I love details and every button on this page had gold thread laced though them to make them appear that they have been sewn on. The last thing in this upper left detail shot would be the woven ribbon that I have used. It is a simple cotton crocheted ribbon that has a brown grosgrain ribbon woven though it every couple of inches.
Bottom Left: There is not much new here accept that one of the flowers I used in this large flower stack is a distressed chipboard flower.
Bottom Right: Here is the title of the layout. I used these wonderful letters from Joann's in an antique brass. The letters are stuck on with tacky tape. All of this title is popped up about 1/2" from the backing. It is sported with several layers of card stock. The only new element here is the ear ring. This is a vintage clip on earring that I broke off the clip part. I love how this is a suspended element on this page. The ribbons are the same type that go up the left side of the layout, however they are not woven together.
Not shown in the detail pics: There is a circular elements. The lighter patterned paper has Nita's favorite scripture. The edges have been distressed on this piece and little flowers were added around the edge. The darker brown circle was cut with fiskars decorative scissors. Inked with a cream pigment ink and doodled on. Then pearls were added.

Thanks for taking the time to look through the details with me. I hope that you too can find ways to honor those in your life that mean the most to you. Treasure all the moments you have with each and every one of your loved ones and let them know how much you care. If the events of these past two years have thought me anything it is that we need to be careful of how we live our lives and how our lives touch others.
An Inspirational Poem
Live…laugh…and Love
By John McLeod

Live well dear friends
In all you do,
Tho' paths be old
Or paths be new,
But to yourself
Be ever true,

Live well!

Laugh often friends
Tho' passing years
Bring, sometimes, smiles
And, sometimes, tears,
For mirth forever
Warms and cheers

Laugh often!

Love much dear friends
For love will bring
The healing joy
And hope of Spring,
Where pain and fear may never dwell
Nor anguish touch….

And so Live well,
Laugh often too,
And more, dear friends,

Love much!

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??

Wanted

Ok, ok, I have titled this post about two things but it worked so well together...lol. This is going to be a long one so take a moment and get a cup of tea or coffee and come settle in for some scrappy goodness, Eye Candy and giveaways.
First off I wan to share with you my new Scrappiest layout I did for Liz over at The Scrappiest Blog. Her sketch inspired me to create an interactive page. It has been a while since I have done one and I do love engineering them ... lol. If I can have the title of "Paper Engineer" I would put it on my ATCs. I love origami and if you all have not seen my Allspark Cube invitations for my son's last birthday party... oh my, you have not! They are 3D allspark cubes and so cool. Well I try to post them up this week. I am digressing now, sorry. Back to the subject. Here is Liz's sketch of the week and my take on it.
WANTED - Two cute kids watching the Fiesta day's Parade. These are my beautiful babies... just give me a moment to be a proud mommy... hehe. Every year we go to the Fiesta Days events here in our Loverly town of Vacaville CA. This is such a major event and we love to attend it... we kinda don't have any choice though. The parade grand stands are about two blocks from our house and people always block us in the driveway. No Worries, though we just walk on over with our drinks, snacks, sunscreen and chairs early to save our spots. This year my Debonair husband was away on deployment protecting our country. Our wonderful landlords took the kids and I under their wings and let us chill with them during the festivities. The adults had Mimosas in the morning and Margaritas in the afternoon over at their house. This day was full of fun colors and Bright Skys. After the parade we head over to the town park where we ride on the Carnaval Rides and enjoy the music and other booths. I could go on for a while about how much fun we have there every year, I will stop for your sake and this long post...lol. On to the Details!!!!
No detail shots today I want to talk about more of the look of this piece rather then the lack of detail... oh wait... you said you came here for details. Well I got plenty of very detailed work I did at the crop this weekend so stay tuned this week for more of those projects. This one is about texture and interaction.
Background: This started with a brown cardstock with a scratched up pattern to it under all the western goodness. I then took a taupe colored cardstock distressed the edges and crumpled it up a few times until it would not lay flat...hehe. I inked this up with my brown ink pad so that the high wrinkles picked up the ink. I then distressed along the top and bottom with my crop-a-dial in both sizes and another standard hole punch. I love the way that turned out.. looks like someone shot a shotgun through it. The red bandanna paper was cut to shape and inked around the edges and adhered with foam adhesive to pop it up away from the BG papers to let the photo pull out set behind it.
The "Wanted" title and poster was from a western patterned paper I had in my stash. I cut it out and inked the edges. I used Ranger's walnut distress stickles on the letters and cut around the horse's head to insert the bottom left corner of the picture.
Embellishments: The Sheriff's badge was from that western patterned paper as well I just cut it out and also used the distressed stickles on it. The flowers are prima, however I inked them with a water soluble brown ink and then placed them into a water mixture of brown ink and water. This aged and discolored them so they would coordinate better with this theme. I folded one in half behind the horse's head and cut the red bandanna flower out of one of my scraps. The other flowers are clustered and layered together in the corner with a cactus and a spur from, yup you guessed it the western patterned paper. I created out of a thin twine one of the flowers in this cluster.
The snaps I have had in my stash for quite some time they are old K & Company. I added a ribbon along the top of them so to help coordinate the ribbons used in the photo pullout.
Journaling: I typed this up on the computer. Printed it on a cream colored cardstock. Inked it directly with my versa mark ink pad and chalked it with two different browns and a rust. I Cut them out and inked the edges. I love the way this style of journaling looks.
Photos: The front photo has a cool effect I thought of late last night. I had these already printed and did not want to photo edit them. However I hated looking at the knees and legs of the people sitting behind my beautiful babies. I cut a piece of vellum the size of my photo and placed it over the top. I traced the outline of my kids lightly with a pencil and then removed the vellum from the picture. Placing it on my self healing cutting mat I used my exacto knife to cut along the line I traced. Placing this back on the photo it created a photo editing look and now my kids and my daughter's monkey are back in front at the center of attention. She is such a Animal Fanatic. I also stamped the design at the top and then cut the mat around the photo. Once the design was dry I took the Ranger walnut stickles and went over the brown cardstock. Leaving the cream ink to show through.
The Photo Pull Out: I saw this angled paper in the back of the sketch and new immediately this was going to be an interactive page. I took the other three photos I loved from the day and matted them with coordinating paper, inked the edges and punched a few corners.I used my crop-a-dial to punch and set the eyelets into the four holes in the top photo for my ribbon pulls and two holes in the bottom and top of the other photos also. Once the eyelets were set I just started adding ribbon. I used my tan stain ribbon to connect the photos together. I added a sentence of journaling on the top photo and folded it up and placed it back into the page.
I hope these how to dos help and inspire some creative thought for you. I love sharing these with you all and I cant wait to share the projects from my first cyber crop with you. I will add them once a day this week.

The GCD STUDIOS CALL part of my title... hehe - Ok, on to the last thing I wanted to chat about with you ... GCD Studios has opened their doors to us all and has decided to hold a Design Team Call. The call ended on Saturday and they are having events on their blog all week as they go though the selection process. I have to admit I was extremely excited when I saw the call the night Heidi posted it up. I put together my best work and a fun cute application and sent it in within the first few hours it was opened. I try not to set my hopes high since there are so many wonderful scrappers out there, (471) to be exact as Heidi posted this morning, that would love this opportunity just as much as I did. WOW, yes 471 it the amount of applicants that sent in for the call and since Heidi loves to shake things up and have fun, just like the papers and products they produce, she is having a give away today and tomorrow being the **dum da da dum** call day even more goodies will be handed out at the event as they call all the new design team members to congratulate them! As you have noticed throughout this post I have random words linked. Well if you go click on them it will take you to the fun and fabulous lines of the GCD Studios. So go check out their blog today and tomorrow and see how GCD is bringing the fun back into scrapbooking!

ALS Graduation

The Scrappiest did it again. Liz always has a way to challenge my creativity. As soon as I saw this wonderful sketch I knew I had just the pics for it... funny thing is I always have a hard time scrapping my Hubby's military moments. Maybe it is the importance of the event or the protocol of the military that keeps me from wanting to scrap these career milestones. These three have been in my "In Progress" file for almost a month now and every time I took them out I just could not do it.
I remember this night vividly. This was my first ever major military event and the beauty of the traditions were just amazing. The ceremony began with the presentation of the colors. The color guard airmen entered from the back of the room. You could hear a pin drop it was so quiet. The intensity of emotion in the room became overwhelming as everyone in attendance filled with pride for our country. The color guard presented the colors at the front of the room and the National Anthem was played. Fallowed by a moment of silence for the fallen heroes. Which they had a table set off to the side in the front of the room reserved for the memory of those who have given their life from every branch of the military. I am getting choked up right now just going through this memory.
We went to the graduation and had no idea he would have been acknowledged for any special award. As they began they did the graduation ceremony.They did the awards next and my hubby received the Distinguished Graduate award for scoring in the top 10% of his class of over 150 students. I was extremely proud. I was the happiest wife in the room. They finished up the awards with three specialty awards given and decided on by their instructors and nominated by their piers. He was only one of two graduates to receive multiple awards. You should have seen me ... beaming ear to ear... I was now the proudest wife on Travis Air Force Base at that moment.

Journaling:
I was able to convince my Hubby to write this journaling. I typed it up and love that he had input on this layout. I typed it up and played with the lettering of the title on Microsoft word. Printed it out and colored it in with coordinating markers.

Details:
Background:
This is a fairly simple LO for me. I started with a chocolate brown cardstock and added some chocolate brown in to it just to create a soft tone on tone texture. I added the stripe rectangle with lighter tones then the rest of the page. The was to create some contrast with out adding to much to the layout. I edged it in my Zig gold ink pen. I hand drew the bracket shape with a few measurements on the back of the navy and star paper. Once this was cut I used it as a template to create the same curves on the red and the white papers. I edged each layer with the gold Zig pen.
Top Left: The detail here is simply the finish on the grungeboard by Tim Holtz. I just took my thyme green colored ink pad and pressed the grungeboard lightly on top of it with no rubbing, just blotting. Then instead of putting brads inside these pre-punched holes I took my large gold paint marker and colored the inside edges of each hole. This created a nice rivet/eyelet look.

Top Right: The detail here is just the printed title and how I colored it in with all the coordinating markers for this layout. Notice the flag though. It is a laser cut die cut and I chalked the white and red pieces to soften them to a more muted color for this page. I have had that for years and never used it...hehe. It is a stash piece.

Bottom Right: This flourish is also a piece of the grungeboard set by Tim Holtz. I did the same finish with the thyme colored ink yet I only doodled the gold dots on it. I added the USA letters in the antique brass and I love the simplicity of it all.

Thanks for viewing this layout and I want to thank everyone who is reading this if you are a military family member, an active duty member or retired... Thank you for serving I am proud to stand next to you as a military spouse and be a part of the entire military family. Salute!