Layout - Pig Pickin'

This layout was a ton of fun to do! I don't know if it's my mood (ready for vaca!) or that I love this event (always super fun) or that I was excited to use pink or what...but it was fun.

Supplies:

Chipboard accents - Cloud 9

Rubons - American Crafts

Metal Pieces - Heidi Grace

Stamps: Hero Arts

Ink: Staz On

Chipboard letters - not sure

Paint: deco art

black eyelets

letter stickers - Miss Elizabeth

heart clip

Layout - Build a Bear

This was from our beach vacation two years ago - Spencer and his cousin after Build a Bear. Super simple.

Build a Bear paper is by Creative Imaginations.

Layout - Kickoff...

The Kick-Off to Spurrier's Reighn!

These are photos from us watching the first Gamecock game of the season in 2005, when Spurrier came to USC. We made a big deal out of it with Spencer...decorations and all. This will go in my gamecock album, of course.

Questions...

I found these question's on Elsie's blog...thought they might be fun to answer.

1. What is your favorite word? serendipity

2. What is your least favorite word? I've never thought of this. I think "GD" (well what it stands for) is probably the worst for me.

3. What turns you on creatively, spiritually or emotionally?

Creatively - seeing awesome work by others; listening to music I love; sometimes shopping

Spiritually - seeing actions of someone that is doing the work of God

Emotionally - watching a girly movie - ha ha!!!

4. What turns you off?

Lies. I can't stand liars.

5. What is your favorite curse word?

You shouldn't have a favorite.

6. What sound or noise do you love?

Music that I love

7. What sound or noise do you hate?

Any loud, ongoing noice - like a lawn mower or vacuum cleaner

8. What profession other than your own would you like to attempt?

Professional Organizer, Photographer, something artistic.

9. What profession would you not like to do?

Gosh, I'm sure there are tons...anything on Dirty Jobs!

10. If Heaven exists, what would you like to hear God say when you arrive at the Pearly Gates?

I'm proud of you.

Movies

Here are some movies on which I've wasted valuable life hours...this is how I can tell it's summer...nothing to watch on TV so I watch bad movies instead. Just kidding - they aren't all bad.

Deja Vu starring Denzel Washington
Matt actually rented this one for me. I had never heard of it, which is surprising with Denzel and all. Anyway, it was good. It had a creative story line and a surprise ending. Denzel's an FBI agent - so it's all right up my alley of stuff I like.

Liberty Stands Still starring Wesley Snipes
This was just something I saw on and decided to DVR. It's a little slow at times, but it was a good "veg in front of the TV" movie. The basic idea is that this woman is on her cell phone with a guy that wants to kill her and she can't hang up or a bomb will go off.

Superman Returns
I can't believe it took me this long to see it. Matt had rented it a while ago but watched it without me. It came on HBO or something, so Matt, Spencer and I watched it together the other night. It was very good, of course. I don't think Spencer enjoyed it as much as he thought he would because he didn't know a lot of the background stuff on Superman and was a little confused. We probably should've made him watch the original first!

Fever Pitch starring Drew Barrymore
This was cute. I love romantic comedies and Drew Barrymore is good in them. I even saved this on our DVR for Spencer to watch because he's such a Red Sox fan.

That's all I can think of right now...

Books

Here are some of the books I've had in my life recently:

Step on a Crack - James Patterson
I listened to this on CD. This is one of his most recent releases. It is not part of the Alex Cross series, but does revolve around an NYPD detective. It has a good, very unique crime story. But also a good, unique personal story. Definitely would recommend.

5th Horseman - James Patterson
This is the 5th book in the Women's Murder Club series. Since this is a smaller series, I've actually been able to read these in order, which is nice. This was another good one...two main crimes in the storyline.

Cradle & All - James Patterson
This book was not what I was expecting at all. It is nothing like any of his other books. It is a religion-based story (Catholocism), but almost has a supernatural feel to it. I did read the entire thing and there was a neat story overall. But, it was just a bit weird and I probably wouldn't have bothered reading it if it wasn't by JP.

Gone - Jonathan Kellerman
A co-worker lent me this book that she picked up at an airport. I have never read any of his books but she and I have similar taste in authors, so I gave it a whirl. It was actually pretty good.
From the author's website, I learned that it's a recent book in a series about the character Alex Delaware. It appears most of his books are written in this series - he has about 6 that are not. They are crime based, as is most of what I like. But the main character is a psychologist. I guess if I ever get caught up on James Patterson, there are plenty of Kellerman books to attempt!

I went to the library today and stocked up. I was pleasantly surprised to find James Patterson's brand new book, The 6th Target, on CD and available! This is the 6th book in the Women's Murder Club series. It'll be nice to read (listen to) this one so soon after finishing the 5th.

In my defense, I'd like to say that I do read more than just James Patterson books. I have several authors that I follow. Most of them I've read all of their books. James Patterson I still have more to read. I did get a Nicholas Sparks book at the library today, too.

Layout - Mother's Day

Mother's Day from last year - using Kaleidoscope papers. I highly recommend the rub-ons by American Traditional Designs. They are SO easy to use...definitely a favorite of all the rub-ons I've tried so far.

Layout -Playing Army

Just a quick layout - definitely not very exciting. It actually has a dark brown border around it that makes it look a little more finished, but it didn't show up in the scan. Old pictures from '05; old paper; old stickers. At least I'm using up my stash, right?

Layout - Utah

This layout is for the sketch challenge at Scrappin' Fun (I've included the sketch as well). As usual, I deviated, but the sketch was quite helpful in getting my tired little brain a-moving.

I actually like this layout and it was relatively quick to pull together.

Supplies:

Patterned Paper - Scrapworks (background); Wubie Prints (burlap); KI Memories (polka dots, leaf & fall strips)

Chipboard letters - I don't remember!!

Ink pad - Ink it Up

Pen - Pigma

Journaling:

"Salt Lake City - surrounded by mountains - oddly numbered streets - lots of Lowe's stores, of course - gorgeous fall foliage - scrapbooking stores on every corner instead of coffee shops!"

Layout - Never Stop Being Creative

This layout serves two purposes.

1) One Little Word blog - current word is 'stop'.

2) Scrappin' Fun technique challenge.

We had to use the CK Challenge generator for three aspects of our layout. Mine were:

1 - cardstock background

2 - use stars

3 - lift the layout seen below...

Supplies:

Camo PP - unknown

Letter Stickers - Lil Davis Designs, Making Memories, Creative Memories, and Memories Complete

Ink pads - Ink it Up

Font: 2Peas Gimme Coffee

Yard

We've made some progress on the yard this year. Matt did an awesome job adding river rock around all the beds and we got black mulch to replace the pine straw. Last weekend I finally planted a few things - but we obviously still have work to do. I was glad to finally get these urns to go on each side of the door. I have been wanting to do something like this for a while. Oh, and the red pillows are new as well.

May Calendar Page

Here is May's calendar page with photos (this is the calendar my sister made for me). I was only going to do one photo per month, but I couldn't narrow it down! The journaling prompt for this month was "List the ideas, projects, or jobs that are in your thoughts at the present time."

Project - Koozie

I made this koozie to take on vacation with me for the 4th. Really simple but I thought it was cute. The plain koozie and ribbon are from the Dollar Spot at Target.

Luau

Spencer's class had a Luau at the end of the school year. They had done tie-dyed shirts in art ahead of time and could order leis and hula skirts. Pretty cute!

Layout - Go be true to you (Word #1)

I' m going to try and keep up with the one little word blog challenges. There are two main reasons that I'm jumping on this bandwagon. The first is that I really love Ali Edward's concept of having a "word" that is yours for the year...however, I've never really been able to come up with one. So, this is a way for me to kind of go with that in a different way. Plus, I really like words. Secondly, these word interpretations will force me to take a different approach to my layouts. My scrapping is always very "event oriented" and this will help me get away from that. There's nothing wrong with it, but it'd be nice to get a little deeper every now and then, ya know?

So, the first word on the blog was "GO". This layout is the perfect example of changing my approach to pages. I had some cute pictures from last year where Spencer was playing with a remote control car out in the street. However, the best photo was this one - where he was doing what's become his famous hula dance. So, now instead of capturing a pretty uneventful moment of playing, I've captured a cute aspect of his personality. I probably won't even scrap the other pictures from the day w/ the car. He played with that car once or twice. But he's been doing this hula dance for awhile now (and it's hilarious!).

Supplies:

Patterned paper - Junkitz (Cousin Orange); Creative Imaginations (Sk8er Stripe)

Transparency - Staples

Rub on - Deja Views

Acrylic Paint - white, Plaid

Navy Zig Writer

Note: Photo was printed on white textured cardstock. "Go" was painted on the back of a transparency, as was the corner design.