Still My Baby

I can't believe I never got around to posting this layout I finished of this sweet photo taken of Jack and me during our trip to San Antonio in March. Those precious little moments are the stuff memories are made of, aren't they? I am so proud of the journaling on this one.

Journaling reads:

After a day of exploring and seeing and doing--Still.

After so many smiles, giggles, squeals of joy--Still.

After a valiant effort to resist rest--Still.

No matter where your adventures take you, no matter how much more of my lap you fill with each passing day--

You, sweet Jackson, are...

Still My Baby Boy.

Altered letter project

I wrapped this project up yesterday and thought I'd share. I had a lot of fun with this one! For the letter, I painted with acrylic paint around the outer edges and then covered the rest with patterned paper using Mod Podge. I made the beads, buttons and name plaques using craft clay, and I embellished them with what have become my favorite pens ever: the Souffle pens by Sakura. They are so versatile! (For another example of how I used them for doodling, see "Picture Perfect Thanksgiving" below.) I think Matt thought I was crazy when this project had me wielding the ever-handy cordless drill, but I found it to be a great tool to make holes to attach the craft wire I used for the hanger and to mount the name plaques. Overall, this was a really cheap project: well under $10. I can't wait to find a home for it in my kitchen!

Baptism invites

It's been a crazy few weeks around here. The children were baptized last weekend, and entertaining about 20 people at our house for the party as well as hosting our families from out of state was a lot of work! Everything turned out beautifully, though, so it was well worth it!

Here are the invites for the baptism. I made a little enclosure with cream card stock and the same grosgrain ribbon with the party information. I was so pleased with how these turned out. Of all of the invitations/announcements I've ever made, I actually think these are my favorites, which is ironic since they came together much more easily than any of the others! This was my first time to try heat embossing (for the cross), and I absolutely LOVED it. What a cool way to add impact to a project with relatively little effort. The heat tool was a bit of an investment, but I played my cards right and bought it with a coupon from Michael's. :)

More FS challenges

Here are a couple more pages I completed for various challenges over at Feeling Scrappy. I cannot say enough how much that site motivates me to get things done!

Finally working on some holiday photos!

As I've been scrapping up a storm lately, my poor, forelorn holiday pictures have somehow managed to take the back burner. I have decided there will be no Christmas in July here this year, and so I've dived headlong into that pile of pictures and determined myself to be done by the end of this month! We'll see how that turns out. ;)

I've been working on quite a few 2-page spreads lately, which is actually very unlike me. I have to say I've been really enjoying it! It's really fun to try to figure out how to utilize those 288 square inches to the utmost degree.

A few more

I finished up these pages for the challenges going on at Feeling Scrappy. Nothing is more motivating to me than challenges, and when you couple that motivation with some amazing fellow scrappers, it's a match made in heaven!

This wasn't for a challenge, but I am so glad I finally got around to scrapping these photos from Jack's first trip to the driving range. Who can believe that was over SIX MONTHS ago?! Wow.

Embellishment class wrap-up

Serving as guest CT for the Feeling Scrappy Embellish It! class was such a fun experience. I have never been more creative with my work, and the opportunity to learn alongside such an amazing creative team and some very talented students was something I am so tickled to have been able to do. I've already determined that the next time a CT call is posted, I will definitely be throwing my hat into the ring!


As promised, here are the layouts I completed for the class, now that things haved wrapped up. The next class at Feeling scrappy begins next month, and will focus on ways to use up our paper stashes in fresh ways. As an unabashed paper addict, I am already looking very forward to it!



I made the butterfly embellishments for this page and card using chipboard backing from paper packaging, vellum (for the wings), and other basic supplies.

Since the class was on using embellishments in creative ways, I put my staple stash to creative use in the following examples. In the card, I came up with the idea to use the reverse side of a staple to create mimic the look of stitching.

With all of the chipboard lettering I've been using lately, I found I had a lot of empty sheets lying around. What better way to make use of those than to let them serve as stencils for lettering? All it took was the empty sheets, some acrylic paint and an ever-versatile Q-tip to create the lettering for "Alamo." Kari had the idea to use eyelets and brads in a shape, and I made this page as an example to also go along with that technique.

Examples of using flowers to replace o's in a title.
Examples of creating laced eyelet frames for a page. (The second page was my submission for the guest CT call.)
Here, I used chipboard to create a stamped mirror image with acrylic paint.
This was an example for Jayne's technique of using puffy paint (yes, you read that right!) to make lettering/shapes. I used the technique for the word "delight" and the flower centers on the felt border.