Project Life Update

Hi there...start of a new week!  I received my Project Life kit on Friday, so that made for a happy Friday night.  I had a few little helpers for assembly!  Marcel and Collin were happily sorting.

Look how nice and neat Collin's piles are!

He then had to move over to Marcel's piles...as Marcel wasn't quite getting the sorting idea! One intense sorter!  It's like playing the memory game..."Which pile had that match...hmmm....?"

Needless to say, I can't wait to get started.  Collin was so excited to work on this too.  He exclaimed, "Mommy, we must be rich!  Look at all the paper we have!"  He was ready to dig in and start scrapping a page!  He then proceeded with, "Mommy, we're going to have to craft tomorrow!"  Makes me smile.  He loves to pop in and out as I'm crafting.

Of course, I have a card to share too.  The first one is for Lucy's Sketch Challenge #3.  Ryan is sending this to his friend who is undergoing treatment for cancer.  I free handed the circle stitching (yes...I know kind of obvious!)  I intentionally tried to make this card a little more masculine.  Hope you like it!

Ingredients:  PTI Kraft Paper, Little Yellow Bicycle Paper and Embellishments; Verve Stamps; Hero Arts Gems

Clean & Simple Scrapbooking

Happy Friday!  A few of you have asked about scrapbooking so I thought I'd share a few layouts that I did while I was away last weekend.  My scrapbooking style has changed a lot over the years and it continues to get simpler and simpler.  I used to use a lot of embellishments, but now they are fewer and far between. I love the natural colored Creative Memories pages and I don't use a lot of patterned paper either.  I have a hard time not feeling overwhelmed by it in large quantities.  So here are a few layouts showing my CAS scrapbooking style.

My niece Olivia...love these pictures of her. I took these in the spring when I was taking Maggie Holmes photography class.

 Easter morning before church...the boys...all lined up.  If I were to retake this picture now, you'd see how much Ryan has grown in the last six months!

 My little kissy boy, Collin.  Oh...he gives the sweetest kisses (and yes...my dot on my i is missing!).

 My book ends, Ryan and Marcel.  I love this picture of the two of them.  I took this on a weekend when Pat was out of town camping with Collin and Jonathon.

 My mum's 70th birthday in June.  Surrounded by all of her grandchildren!

 And my two little sweet peas.  Fresh out of the bath tub...crashed after a good day of playing outside.

I find that I don't do a ton of journaling, but am thrilled to have my blog.  I am capturing so many more things that happen in our everyday lives here that I ever have in my scrapbooks.  Capture our memories makes me happy!

Back to Reality...

...back from an absolutely fantastic weekend of scrapbooking. The boys and our family scrapbook are caught up through September.  Now it's on to Halloween pictures and birthday party pictures for Marcel and Jonathon.  Love getting away with my three sister-in-laws that scrapbook and my dear friends.  We laughed A LOT!!

Here's a couple of photos from our weekend.  Taken on the way out the door as no one wanted to have their pictures taken on Saturday when only half the group had showered!

 Our retake...Rhonda was in the bathroom when we took our first picture and Kara & Kim had left...we certainly couldn't leave out Rhonda!

I also made a few cards yesterday morning.  Chrissy accidentally bought two of the PTI tag sets....so of course I had to buy one from her and immediately ink it up for this card.  Inspired by the CASE Study card layout!

Ingredients:  Stampin Up Pretty in Pink Paper/Ink; Cherry Cobbler Ink/Paper; Regal Rose Ink/Ribbon; PTI 2010 Christmas Tags and Circle Die; Kaiser Kraft Gems

Baseball Bash

For Ryan's 13th birthday, Pat took Ryan and five of us his friends out to the Reds' game.  They had a ball and nothing like having crazy Mr. Mangan/Coach Mangan as many of the boys call Pat to drive them to the game, take them Wendy's drive through after the game and encourage lots of boy jokes through the night.  I'm sure there were lots of big smiles like this throughout the night!

For this layout, I'm playing all with the Paper Poppy Kit sketch challenge.  Love the inspiration from this sketch!

Ingredients:  American Crafts Junior Boom! Paper; SU Real Red, Night of Navy, Summer Sun and Kraft Paper; Me & My Big Ideas Baseball Sentiment;

When I Blink...

...My little guy, Marcel, is growing up before my eyes.  It is no different than my three older boys, except that I know he is my last little boy.  I watch the little things around my house...his tiny little shoes laying on the floor...the books he loves to read (Brown Bear, Brown Bear; Anything Lighting McQueen/Cars)...the shows he likes to watch on Nick Jr...all knowing that soon he will be on to big boys things.  I'm cherishing these little moments when he crawls onto my lap or puts his head on my shoulder...as I know soon I will blink...and he'll be my teenage boy, Ryan...making me smile about a whole different set of stories.

I love all my sweet boys...so very much.  Thanks to My Little Sketch Blook for the layout inspiration!

Ingredients:  Cosmo Cricket Boyfriend Set; Thickers Letters; SU Chocolate Chip Marker, Real Red and Only Orange Papers