Altered book--for me this time!

Dollar Tree find that started out like this.....

Here is my finished product. I love this. This one I made for ME!

Tree Garland

Wooden stars, wooden beads, chipboard tags and jute. Add some paper, a little paint, sandpaper and mod podge and voila! Idea from the November 06 issue of PaperCrafts magazine. Cute huh!?

So Blessed

Photo of my photo display in the hallway of my home. All the grandbabies lined up in a row. The quote reads:

Becoming a parent is such a wonderful blessing, but you don't truly realize just how blessed you really are until you become a grandparent.

Experience.......THE PIE

Thanksgiving mid-70s my sister had been on her own only a short while. I always bake for the holidays but I was married then and wasn’t going to be home for Thanksgiving that year so Kathy decided she would make the pumpkin pie. When the pie was served, it was so bad that nobody could eat it. Even Kath said it was horrible. So, the dog was treated to pumpkin pie. But the story doesn’t end there…Not only could nobody else eat it, the pie was so bad even the dog PUKED IT BACK UP!!!!!!! Turns out, she had forgotten to add the sugar. To this day the story of the dog puking up Kathy’s pumpkin pie lives on. 

Giving Thanks

I love this page. Upper left is my traditional Thanksgiving Day menu which I wrote out and photographed. The two lower pictures on the right are also mine; the remaining pictures I found online.

This was last week's challenge -- scrap your Thanksgiving traditions.

So Bewitching

Olivia at 3 in her favorite Halloween costume. These pics are 2004. She wore the same costume this year but added green makeup and black lipstick. She starts in the summer deciding what costume she wants to wear but always comes back to the witch by the end of October. She does make a cute little witch though, don't you think.

UPDATE:
Thanks to the DT at LittleScrapbox for voting this layout the winner for the ad challenge!

The Coconut

The kids wanted a coconut so bad, so Cyndi finally picked one up for them. They just had to taste real coconut and were sure they'd like it, even though Cyndi had told them it wouldn't be like the sweet stuff in the baking aisle at the grocery store. These pics of their faces crack me up. Especially Jeffery! LOL!!

Kalaloch

Kalaloch is an Indian word meaning "paradise". Cyndi took these pictures of Grace on one of their camping trips to the Washington coastline on the beach at Kalaloch, pronounced "ka-lay-lock"

Brotherly Love

The shaker is a MM tag rim with transparency window. I didn't squish the rim, just adhered it to the page with Dimensional Magic.

Chipboard buttons are an idea from a magazine. Aren't they cute?

Journaling:
Jeffery is an awesome big brother. From the moment Grace was born, he told her he would be her “protector”. Mind you, he was just 7 then. But he has taken on his role as big brother in all seriousness and they really do adore each other. Most of the time!

Grace decided she was going to “sell” her pictures that she drew and paced back and forth up the walk calling, “colorings for free. Beautiful colorings.” With each passing car her disappointment grew. When I told Jeffery what she was doing, he took it upon himself to walk around the block, came up the street to where she was and bought one of her beautiful colorings for a dime.

Jeffery is the coolest big brother any little girl can have.

Cherish

Courtney 2, and baby Logan at 7 days old.

More altered books

These are a blast to make and, depending how much time you want to spend, quick and easy too. These will be Christmas gifts.



















Introduction page and dividers


























Aren't these teeny utensils the cutest??



















You may remember this one I posted a while ago. I modified it to add the rings for the binding and added the dividers to make it a recipe book.



I used two of each flower with foam tape between to make them stand up. The tiny green enamel flower charm on the safety pin is a goody I found at WalMart. The colors here are a much closer match IRL.

The Things You Do

Mila once again. She's a real kick, that kid. The journaling gives you a little insight into her personality. Quite the crack-up!

Character

Character is doing the right thing when nobody's looking - J.C. Watts

That quote is part of this week's challenge. The other two elements to incorporate were, 1) red, black and white color scheme, and 2) newsprint type paper.

Photos are of grandkids Jeffery and cousin Mila last summer. With five cousins all between the ages of 1 and 5, Jeffery, being the oldest, is usually called upon to help out with the little ones at family gatherings and activities. He always says, "If I have to have one of the babies I'll take Mila." He adores Mila and she adores him too, as you can see in these pictures.

If I Were a Color....

Another challenge page. The challenge was to do a page using "If I were a color I would be.... " for the title.

Bazzill flowers and really big brad, Basic Grey Motifica papers, Karen Foster papers, Basic Grey Wholy Cow rubons, Heidi Swapp chipboard letters, computer generated transparencies, Folk Art acrylic paints.

The picture is me at about 5-6 months old. My family called me Sherry until I was in high school, but my grama called me Sherry until the day she died last year.

Sweetheart

This is Mila Isabel, grandbaby number 8, when she stayed with us last month. Her mom insists she doesn't have enough hair for pigtails, so grandma had to prove her wrong. LOL. ;)

All flowers and the heart cut with the Wishblade. Some of the flowers, and the heart are clear embossed, though you can't tell in the scan. I used rubons on the chipboard letters and the photo.

Cle Elum, WA

This week's challenge - 1) orange and brown color scheme, 2) stripes, 3) polka dot ribbon. Layout design is a scraplift from the pages of Scrapbooks, Etc. magazine.

I took this photo in 1989. It is one of a series of photos I took along the Teanaway River in Cle Elum, Washington. I scrapped the other pictures over 3 years ago (see below) but since they are all water pictures, this one didn't seem to "belong" so I didn't use it on the old layout.

Olivia

Challenge #13. The three products for this challenge were 1) use at least 2 photos, 2) gingham ribbon, and 3) incorporated an accordion fold somewhere on the page.




(second image shows open accordion book with two more photos.)

Challenge #12

This week's challenge is to use 1) hot pink and black color scheme, 2) stitching, and 3) 12 of one item.

My very first digital scrapbook page!! Woohoo. I love learning new stuff. Anyway, with my new printer came Scrapbook Factory software so I thought I'd play around a little. Did this page in less than an hour after installing the program. Very easy to use and oh so fun! I'm sorry for the poor quality image though. Guess I need to learn a little more about how that works.

Another altered memo book gift

Papers are Life's Journey, rubons are MME Distressed Effects and BG Wholly Cow, machine stitching, lace, twill, and cheapie Dollar Tree memo book.

Just one today

Hoped to get a couple more of these done today but got stuck on the second idea. So here is today's altered Dollar Tree memo book. I think this is my favorite so far.

Scraps of Chatterbox papers, purple twill, and the purple flower charm.... believe it or not, from one of Gracie's summer sandals!!! LOL Cute, huh?

Altered Dollar Tree memo books

These started out as ugly Dollar Tree memo books. The purple book with yellow flowers and that gawd-awful silver cord is the before if you couldn't tell by looking. LOL These were so fun, quick and easy to do. I think I'll pick up a few more tomorrow and stick them away for Christmas gifts.

Challenge page, Week #11

3 products for this challenge are 1) brown & burgandy colors, 2) lace and 3) multi-mediums for title

Old Farm in Odessa, Washington. Pictures taken 1998

3 product Challenge, Week #10

Products for this challenge were: 1) citrus colors, 2) foliage of some type (flower, leaf, stamp, sticker, whatever) and 3) transparency or vellum ("homemade is the best" is the transparency on this page).

The main part of the sketch for this one is a scraplift from the pages of CK mag. Love the arrow and the dots around the pics. Then I decided to get funky with the title, which is totally different from my usual style. I really like how this came out. It was a fun one! The spoon charm is from www.acharmingplace.com , and ribbons & button are from WalMart.

Week #9 Challenge Page

We had no intention of getting an 'older' dog when we answered the ad in the paper for registered yellow lab pups. When she told me she had already sold all the puppies I knew Randy would be disappointed, but then she said she had an older dog she was caring for temporarily until she could find her a home, if we were interested. We still had Jet, our black lab, who was getting up in years and wouldn't be able to hunt much longer and had hoped to get a pup Randy could train before Jet retired, but we decided to go take a look at the other dog just to see. She was so sweet, and she and Jet hit it off immediately. After about half an hour of play, they both hopped in the back of the truck and Joey was ours. And instead of spending $200 for a puppy, we spent nothing but the gas it took to pick up a year old dog. She is a wonderful companion and hunting partner, and a totally spoiled princess!!

Joemma Beach

Journaling:
Longbranch, Washington. Where I grew up, where I call home, and where mom and dad live still in the same house. Joemma Beach is about half a mile down the road. I would walk the gravel road almost every day in the summer. This dock wasn’t there then. In fact, nothing was there but beach in those days. Now there are camping spaces, picnic tables, restroom facilities, the dock and a locking gate entrance. The road into the park itself is paved and has speed bumps.

In the late 60s the Dept. of Natural Resources began developing the area and renamed it Robert F Kennedy Recreation Area. The locals never did get used to the name and called it Joemma Beach anyway, after Joe & Emma Smith who settled the area in the early 1900s. When it was transferred to the parks department and the campground officially opened in 1995, the name was changed back. It is now called Joemma Beach State Park. I, for one, am very glad. Probably seems silly to anyone who wasn’t around back then, but for me it’s almost like meeting up with an old friend you haven’t seen in a long time, like going home. Lucky for me it IS home!

Most recent layouts

This is last night's page, Gracie's first hunting trip with Grampa. She was so excited to go and was ecstatic at the trophies they brought home.
This hunting page is one of my favorites for Randy's hunting album. I loved the sketch (sorry I have forgotten which publication I saw it in) and have wanted to use it for a while. Who says you can't use ribbon on man pages. What a crock. LOL Here I used FOURTEEN different ribbons, and it certainly doesn't look any less manly just for the use of ribbon. I used rubons on the twill for the "Hunter" title. Oh, and don't look at the WHITE whiskers on his chin. He didn't believe me till I showed him the pics how sharp digital images are and how much they pick up. LOL

Granddaughter Courtney last summer. First thing she did when they got here was climb into Grampa's shoes! This was a challenge page. Use 1) peach color scheme, 2) shaped clip and 3) incorporate a song into the page.

Recent layouts

Awww, Grace. What a girlie girl. She has LOVED weddings and everything about them since she was tiny! This particular "wedding" was a couple of years ago. She can make grampa Randy do anything (he is so wrapped around her finger it isn't even funny! LOL) and here she "made" him be her groom. LOL She bought this veil with her own money at the dollar store too. There are two more pics in the folder behind the main photo. In the pic below you can see how much fun Randy was having. LOL!

Journaling reads:
Grace loves all things girlie from clothes to shoes, purses to makeup, and shopping to weddings. She LOVES weddings and takes it personally if she isn't asked to be flower girl even if she doesn't know the people are are getting married. She loves to play wedding and bought this veil with her own money at the dollar store. Doesn't Randy look excited to be playing the happy new hubby? Grace can make him do anything. And I get to take pictures!!

The happy couple. ROFLMAO!
DIL, Beka with granddaughter Courtney a year ago March.

True Colors

I took this photo with my digital camera from my front porch. I really didn't expect it to turn out at all much less scrap worthy. The transparencies don't look near this obvious IRL but I'm still thinking I might replace them with rubons if I can find the right style and size letters.

Grace loves to play restaurant so I made her a name badge and got her a sales book to take orders. She gives us a new name every night depending what I fix for dinner and makes announcements to our customers. One night we were "Gravy's". She cracks me up.

I scrapped THREE layouts today

Wowza, I got on a roll and couldn't get off. LOL! Here are today's pages.

Some of the pictures from Olivia's visit with us last summer. Sketch was inspired by a layout in last year's Scrapbooks Etc. Made in Minutes.



















Olivia LOVES to paint. She calls herself an artist not a painter. Here she is creating some of her masterpieces last summer.



















Grace wearing grampa's fishing hat (it says Grandpa's Bait Shop) before one of their fishing trips last fall.

Oh My Gosh - I Caught One!

Gracie's first fish on her own purple fishing pole. She had a blast fishing till she actually landed one. When the fish flopped she flew outta there so fast I almost didn't get her in the picture!

I scrapped my Wishblade!

Ironicly, I didn't even use the Wishblade on this layout! LOL.

Dream Come True -

Journaling reads:
Never in a million years did I think I’d ever be the proud owner of one of these little gems when they first came on the market a couple of years ago for $500-600. No way was that big a purchase ever going to be within my scrapping budget. And it still isn’t.

When Shop at Home TV went out of business they had a liquidation sale on their website. As some items sold out they’d add more here and there over a period of several days. I checked the website periodically thinking I might get lucky and pick up a few punches or stamps and giving no thought at all to snagging a die cutting machine as I was not even in the market for one. I’m perfectly happy with my QuicKutz Black Squeeze and growing collection of alphabet die sets.

One day, however, someone posted on the message board that SAH had listed the Wishblade in their liquidation inventory. I hopped over there without a second thought, put one in my shopping cart, supplied my credit card info and clicked submit. I nearly broke out in a cold sweat when I realized I had just purchased a Wishblade….and for $240!! It was a dream come true.

Oh my gosh, I have a Wishblade!!!!