Food 4 Your Deers

Here is my first layout from Christmas 2009! This year, when he met Santa, Jacka told him, "We make some food for yo' deers." It was so funny. I had to scrap it in some way. It ended up being the perfect title for the pictures of us sprinkling the reindeer food on the lawn. This year Jacka took that job very seriously!

The title is a mix of a child's year, all mixed up, and gypsy font. The journaling block is gypsy wanderings and george.

I did a bit of recycling with this layout. I needed velum to back my pictures, but I did not have any. I did however have a velum bag from Archivers. I cut it to fit the spot I needed and it worked perfectly!

The Great Hamster Hunt

Well Christmas is over and the presents have all been opened. Santa was good to Jacka...maybe too good. Jacka wanted one present that I did not trust Santa with. The man in red is great and all, but he is a man...can a man be trusted with the hottest toy of the year?! That is debatable. I ran near and far looking for the Zhu Zhu Pets. It became a bit of a quest. It all started in August and finally ended just 3 short days before Christmas! Naturally I had to scrap it.

The title is zooballo and Mickey font. The hamster heads are animal kingdom. The papers, which I think are too cute, are from the open stock at Michael's. I went through their paper recently and was pleasantly surprised with all the options they had.

I think this is going to be a fun page to look back on when Jacka is an adult...and yes, that is me in my pajamas at Toysrus.

Merry Christmas!

I want to wish a Very Merry Christmas to all! I have been very busy the last few days crafting the last few holiday gifts and making 10 pans of homemade cinnamon rolls...whew! I am tired. I will post pictures of my creations after they have been opened. Until then...

Jump In Bed And Cover Your Head, Cause Santa Claus Comes Tonight!

Heartwarming Christmas Tale

I have the most heartwarming story to tell about Jacka. This morning we went to church as usual; ours is a very large church so there are many people we do not know. Afterward we were standing in the gathering lobby chatting with family when Jack spotted an older gentleman several feet away. This man had a long white beard and wavy white hair. He was wearing a red sweater vest and had a rather "Santa-like" figure.

I saw Jack looking at him so I stooped down to talk to him. Here is our conversation:

Me: Jacka who are you looking at?

Jacka: That man

M: He looks like Santa, doesn't he?

J: (With giant eyes) Yep, probably is!

M: Why is he here?

J: Probably make sure I be good

I then encouraged him to go tell the man Merry Christmas. He did so very bravely. He was very polite and the gentleman just beamed at him.

I wish I would have had my camera, it was truly a magical experience. The look in Jacka's eyes was just priceless. It has made my week and made me so excited to see Christmas Day arrive.

Toes in the water, Toes in the sand

Here is my latest creation featuring Jacka's first trip to the beach. He was fascinated with the waves and loved the sand. The title and the waves were both made with Life's A Beach. I was worried that the title would look too cluttered, but I am very pleased with the results!

I hope you have the oppotunity to put your toes in the water or the sand sometime soon!

Lactose Intolerance...What Lactose Intolerance

The title of this page was inspired by the great 5x7 photo of Jacka on this layout. He just has a look of mischief in his eyes! During our 2007 trip to HHI one of our first stops was to The Frozen Moo for ice cream. Jacka is lactose intolerant, but I could not eat the good stuff in front of him. He got just a few bites...and he loved every single one! Lucky for us, he did not get sick.

This LO is Cricut heavy. I used a total of 5 carts here:

Zooballoo for the title

AMU for the subtitle

SYI for the ice cream

George for the arrow

Mickey font for the "Yum"

The edges of the card stock are inked with basic white ink and I used two Martha Stewart punches, drippy goo and rings, to accent the photos.

I hope you enjoyed this layout...and even though it is cold...have some ice cream today!

Not a Creature was stirring...

Here is my latest layout, created for the challenge on the DIS. (Love ya girls!) This photo is from Jacka's first Christmas. He slept through the entire night on Christmas Eve...he must have known Santa was on his way!

I used storybook for the title. The journaling circle is also storybook; I used a hole punch to add the holes in each of the scallops. The snowflakes are from A Child's Year. It might be hard to see in the photo below, but each of the snowflakes are accented with tiny seed beads. They added the perfect touch of bling that the snowflakes needed.

First Snow

We had had our first couple of snows already! They have just been dustings, but I am loving it. While I totally agree with Kenny that all I want for Christmas is a tan, I love my snow too. (Kind of a contradiction huh?!)

Anyway here is Jacka enjoying the first snow of the season. They were huge fat flakes that were great for photographing! He was in such a rush to get outside that he put rain boots on instead of snow boots!

For this page, the title is Mickey font. The snowflake is from CM, that I borrowed from a friend. I love how that turned out with the glitter mat stack! I normally do not get may CM products, but I might have to buy that one. Finally, the silver journaling added just the right icy touch.

Thanks for looking...and happy first snows!

Turkey 2009

Here is the finished product with Jacka's turkey project. I love how it turned out! The title was actually a mistake. I cut the shadow, but when I cut the top layer I must have had my dimensions wrong because they came out really small. I decided to layer them anyway and I am very pleased with the effect.

My first HHI page

Here is the first page from my 2007 Hilton Head Island scrapbook. It definitely warms my heart a little to look at these pictures. DS was so little, yet he still has many of the same facial expressions and mannerisms.

There is a great little toy store in Sea Pines called Habortown Toys. Jacka really enjoyed their rocking boat. So, of course I had to scrap it! When I first laid this page out I had a different blue for the background since this shade does not exactly match. However when I laid this one beside the picture, it made DS's eyes pop. It just grew out his beautiful blue eyes.

(Yikes! Sorry for the icky picture quality...)

For the page I used:

Mickey Font and A Child's Year for the title (Boy was it a challenge to cut those white letters so small!)

Life's A Beach for the boat tag

All Boy mat stacks

I am so excited to get started on this album. It is refreshing to work on these beachy photos when there is snow on the ground outside!

Pocket Page!

I know that it is not everyone's style, but I love to include found objects into my scrapbooks. I save everything...ticket stubs, key cards, even the wrapper (that was totally clean) from my Mickey Bar. So naturally I had to include the maps from the WDW parks.

I created this pocket page so that the maps could be taken out and then returned with ease; and it was so easy to do! I cut the patterned page from corner to corner and glued it into place. Mickey Font was perfect for the title. I accented the page with some ribbon and created a bow for the middle. Enjoy!

It's The Chicken Man!

I shop early, I like to get bargains and get exactly what I want. Because of this, Jacka picked a Halloween costume about 2 months in advance. He decided that he was going to be a paleontologist riding a dinosaur. I found a great costume and all was well. Then 3 days before the big day Jacka decided that a chicken was more his style. Yikes! I was in a bit of a panic, until I remembered that we had a great chicken costume in our dress-up stash. Because I am scientifically minded I wanted to add my own spin on it, so I used my gypsy and Mickey font to create a sash that said "Pox"...and there you have it, Jacka was Chicken Pox for Halloween. His costume went over very well and he even won a contest at our local library.

Above is my simple layout of him in costume. The title is Mickey Font and Gypsy Font. The chickens are from Animal Kingdom. I brought the chickens to life by layering them in color and adding wiggle eyes. The feathers make Jacka's costume pop and the photo border is the Martha Stewart Punch Around the Page in Rings (http://www.marthastewartcrafts.com/index.php?v=msc_prod_tool_punches). These punches can be a little tricky at first, but Martha offers her tips and tricks here... http://www.marthastewart.com/article/tips-for-our-punch-around-the-page-products

Here is an up close view of the chickens...I love how they came out!

Instructions for the explosion card

I pulled these instructions from the video at the link posted in the previous post. They are very rough, but if you use them in conjunction with the video they will make more sense.

Supplies:

1~4x12 plain card stock

3~3 5/8x3 5/8 designer paper

1~2 5/8x2 5/8 designer paper

Embellishments

1. Cut 1 of the 3 5/8 pieces into 8 equal sized triangles. This works best if you line them up point to point on your cutting board.

2. Cut a second 3 5/8 piece into half and then half again. You should end with 2 equal sized triangles.

3. Cut the final 3 5/8 piece at 1 3/4 on your cutting board and then again at 1 3/4 so that you have 2 rectangles.

4. Working with the large card stock piece, score it at 6in and then at 2in on each end.

5. Next take the upper corner and fold it over to where the 6in score is. (Use a bone folder to run along this fold so that it is more crisp.)

6. Repeat previous instruction on other side.

7. Turn the page upside down (so that what was your top is now your bottom) and repeat step 5 to each side of the card stock.

8. Open the folds and flip the paper over. Squish the triangles you just made to make a peak fold.

9. The center triangle should now be over the peaks. Fold the paper forward at the 2 in scores, so that the rectangles are visible.

10. Attach the designer paper pieces and the embellishments. Enjoy!

First Time Posting A Card

My nephew's birthday was yesterday (I cannot believe he is 5 already!) so I decided to make him a Cars card to match his Cars themed gift. I am new to card making I only have 3 under my belt, so I wanted something simple that still had the wow factor. I found these great instructions for making an explosion card by Dawn...http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z1dr17_xWas. I followed her instructions but made the card my own.

Opened View

Closed View

I used plain red card stock, two pieces of patterned paper from a Boys to Men stack, and a piece of grey card stock that I put tire tracks on by painting the wheels of one of Jacka's cars and running it over the paper. Mickey font from Cricut made the perfect lettering and I finished it off with a couple of stickers from a Cars sticker pack. I hope he enjoys it!

Kid's Crafts on Cardstock...why didn't I think of this earlier?!

I love to document Jacka's growth with hand print or footprint crafts. We have a million of them...butterflies, spiders, apples, Santas, angels, ghosts, and turkeys! They all spend some time on the fridge and then end up in my keepsake tub. I have taken pictures of projects and cut some projects down to be mounted into Jacka's scrapbook, but I always struggle with the best way to do this.

Fast forward to last Tuesday...it was hand print/ footprint turkey day at our house. I decided to try creating the prints on 12x12 card stock. I do not know why I did not think of this sooner! Not only was the extra thickness nice to soak up the extra paint, but the larger size (versus regular 8.5x11 paper) made accommodating Jacka's large hands and feet much easier. The best part...the final product could easily be slipped into a scrapbook with not additional cropping! I am going to do this will all of the art projects I know I will want to keep from now on.

Check back in a few days to see the finished turkey page with accents, a title, and photo!

Happy Belated Turkey Day!

Happy Thanksgiving to one and all! Hosting Thanksgiving at my house and having a busy preschooler meant no blog updates. However, now that the turkey is almost gone, the crumbs are swept up, and the Black Friday shopping is done I am back.

I wish you all a festive and fun holiday season!