2nd Annual Ditch the Kids Crop

One of my favorites of the night, and it was also the last one I did. BG #1

I intended to right in the jounraling with a brown pen when I got home, only to discover that, thanks to Jacob, I don't currently have a brown pen. BG #2

Yay, I used the Stomp dino themed paper for something other than dinos. Allison Davis inspired.

Realized that I had the wrong date on the tag. I'll have to decide how to fix that.I need something red up in the right hand corner to balance it out, just not sure what yet.

The purple paper was leftover from a page I did in 2005. Never expected to actually use it up. Cursive 101 cartridge. BG #4

George cartridge (for heart). BG #5

Picture by Brandon, who told me I HAD to scrapbook it. BG #6

One of my all time favorite photos of Brandon. BG #7

Don't know why I feel compelled to take pics of butterflies and moths, just do. Finally used an embossing folder. :)

Still need something orange down on the border strip.

When I got the photos from this weekend trip in 2006 printed, I said I would probably never scrapbook it since it's such a bad photo, but here it is.

First layout of the night.

Trying to use up some of my Daisy D paper. Sniff.

More Daisy D. Storybook cartridge.

Rick was very good and took his time to read and look at every single time. He even pointed out my typo on here. Nice.

Just a cute, simple one, waiting for journaling. The bugs were part of a present from Brandon. Cursive 101 and Doodletype cartridges.

My favorite photo of me and the boys. BG #8

Finally making my way through all the Thomas stuff. It might be confusing, though. When I showed it to Rick, he thought some of the letters had fallen off and that it was supposed to spell out "loves".

My Community cartridge for the pencil.

OTC paper pack finally getting put to good use.

One of my newest cartridges (Country Life) and some of my oldest Die Cuts (Cockadoodle)

on a roll

Well...look at that big ol' typo. Oops. Luckily I had another one of those journal spots to redo it.

Two cards from the leftover MME glitter paper. Trying to use up a lot of my preprinted die cuts.

Used the leftover craft paper from my scrap used for the flower card to make a bunch of little 2" square cards. Started with the pink butterfly in the back and then went, hey I have butterfly punch. These are what made me realize I needed a little thank you stamp.

Paired some old Daisy D pattern paper with a Bobunny sticker for an easy layout.

Used up the rest of the paper for these. I think my lemon looks a little wonky.

Love this airplane paper.

The green is the backside of the airplane paper and the black is leftover from framing the pic.

This was the layout that I was orignially going to use different alpha stamps on, but they were sticky. I like this better, anyway. The stripy strip is the backside of the cream notebook paper that is the background.

Two quick projects using the leftovers. Still have half a sheet of these sunflower stickers left. I'm going to use the tag on a layout.

No leftovers on this one. Pages are 6x6 squares directly out of the MME pad from M's last year.

Hey, look what I did!

Used an Alison Davis sketch from her blog and some of my MME Stomp paper. The title actually says "Dino Spike" but it's really hard to see the smaller letters. It's been a while since I really used stamps on a page, but I'm having fun with it. No misc. small products with the leftovers, since the leftovers are still pretty large pieces that can be used on other pages.

BG paper. Blue swirl is the front, brown/blue polka dot is the back. K&Co. glitter snowflakes.

Used some of the leftover strips of paper for a card and a tag. The card is ok. Like the color combination. Not sure what I'll use the tag for. Discovering that pigment inks really don't work well for my acrylic stamps and have been sticking to dyebased inks.

K & Co. paper, LYB title, and MM felt "25" and holly leaf. Glitter borders are from HL. Adapted a Becky Higgins sketch.

I really kind of stink at cards. The polka dot pattern is the backside of the present paper. Bracket labels are from the Anna Griffin Valentine journal pad. Stamp is one of the little $1 stamps from M's. Flower was part of a huge MM set from Target that I got on clearance a few years ago. Almost through them all.

The 6" squares of paper are from a sheet of WRMK paper. Just set the other two aside to use on a different layout, so no leftovers.

MME paper, LYB die cut journal box, old AC rubons and Wubbzy cut from a DVD sleeve last year and set aside. I think I may have to ditch the rubons; at this size they look fine, but IRL you can see how they cracked during application. I think time and too many temp changes are taking a toll on them.

I really liked the green paper for how versatile it was. I think it was part of a more vintagy/hertiage stack, but it looked good with just about everything. I traced a tag onto some script paper and tried to go for a slightly shabby feel. I was thinking of adding a pic to use as an accent on a future page. Next was a little brown bag tag hidden journaling thing. Had them forever. Out of 10 in the package, I think I've used about 4 now. Added a MM felt poinsettia and some gingham ribbon. Going to use it for journaling on a page in the Christmas album from 2008. The two easy cards. The first one is a MME card from the big Peachy Cheap order paired with some Prima flowers, and the second is a just a BoBunny stickers. Easy, but I like them.

Closing Out July

After I spent the morning cleaning and then cutting my foot, Rick wanted me to not walk on it, so I snuck some scrapbooking in. Quick little layout about Jacob's love for the stuffed snake he bought on vacation last year. July challenge item: cricut (Animal Kingdom cartridge)

I'll have to figure out how to make the letter stand out better. It says "The secret to a happy marriage". July challenge item: October Afternoon paper, cricut (Base Camp cartridge)

Really quick layout, mostly because Jacob kept trying to steal the pictures from me. July challenge items: Cosmo Cricket paper, metal (staples).

I don't normally scrap in landscape mode, so I was suprised to do two in one sitting. July challenge items: Cosmo Cricket paper, metal (brad, staples).

Ah, my cutie. July challenge items: stamps, ink, metal (brad).

July challenge total: not even worth counting.

"Birthday Dinosaur!"

I had planned to try my hand at a 3-d, sitting triceratops, but while at Hobby Lobby for something else, Jacob grabbed this Wilton pan and marched down the aisle, saying "Birthday Dinosaur!" and that was that. I'm sure it was actually much easier, especially since I cheated and used the tubes of the Wilton premade icing for almost the entire thing. The downside? The cake is really, really sweet. But that's probably good, because it means little pieces.
Rick is not a fan of chocolate cake, but the boys always pick out chocolate cake mixes, so I thought I would be sneaky and purchase a 6 pack of white cupcakes at the store, pull the character rings off of the bright frosting and stick a dinosaur in them. But....I had taken Rick's car to the store, which has absolutely no trunk space (thanks to some enormous speakers that make him very happy), so I had to pile the groceries in the front seat so Jacob wouldn't eat them on the way home. Somewhere between Kroger and home, they slid sideways and all the frosting went everywhere. In my desperation to salvage them, I scraped off all the remaining frosting, and piped on some matching green frosting for grass and stuck the little dinos in them anyway. They're all gone, so apparently I did ok.

Title page for Tiger cubs. Practically just used the paper as embellishment since I hated to cover up the tiger. Will make a similar one for each level.

First camping trip. Used Wild West for the title, and cut the alligator with Animal Kingdom. Got points for using WW for the first time, and more patterned paper.

I actually like this one a lot. Used Stand and Salute for all the cuts, and some PP that I've had laying around forever. Plus, I really like the journalling in the frame from Stand and Salute. Thought that turned out good. Also, I had the LO finished and thought it needed to be backed, but didn't have 2 big sheets of the same blue, so totally cheated and cut 6 - 1/4" strips of blue paper and just glued them to the edges. It looks like I matted it with blue, but used a lot less paper.