Blast from the Past 2004

I think this was where I really realized that I could adapt sketches any way I wanted to, not just shrink them down in size. I'm a little slow sometimes. Becky Higgins sketch
Becky Higgins sketch

Ugh. Poetry dog tags. Had to have them back in 2002. I think I've used maybe 5 of them and still have about 200 left.
One of my favorite layouts, ever. It took such a long time to get Jacob to interact with dad that once he did start I couldn't stop taking pictures. Becky Higgins sketch
Ooh, Cathy B. stickers. I think I ended up using that giant sheet of fish stickers on like 6 different layouts over the years before finally sticking the last 2 or 3 stickers in the giveaway pile this last time. Becky Higgins sketch


Becky Higgins sketch
Sometimes I do really journaling intensive layouts like this one, documenting Christmas break. I think I was pretty close to losing my mind for real that year.

Blast from the Past 2003

One of my few attempts at color blocking
Jacob used to bring home so many art projects that I finally started tacking them up on a blank bulletin board and photographing them before tossing most of them. For both boys I have a photo album filled with pics of their art projects.
Documenting one really busy summer.

Becky Higgins sketch
For his Christmas present that year, I bought Jacob and I floor seats to go and see Barney. I was worried about pics since my digital camera didn't do all that great in low light, so I broke down and bought a regular film camera. I was amazed at the quality of pics that I got.


This page still cracks me up.

Blast from the past 2002

Around 2002 is when I really started using the computer for my journaling and titles.

It's also when I really started using the Becky Higgins sketches. And this sweet Apple Dumplin' kid. I thought the stickers were so cute and bought all the sheets of boys (about 4 or 5 sets, I think) and this is literally the only one I used.
These are still my favorite studio pics :)
Overalls--I had tons of these things, too. Obviously I had no problem cutting them apart, either.
Rick gave me a weird look when I told him I needed his hand, but he humored me. I love having our hand sizes recorded like this. I really wish I had done this every year.


Jacob's teacher had sent home this full page printout of a pic they had taken of him in class. One of the best things I did was send disposable cameras to school with him, since me coming to his class was too much of a disruption. I've always been thankful they were willing to take pictures for me.
LOL. When I got these pictures back from Walmart Rick was horrified I had Brandon's pictures taken with flowers. This was some sort of paper piecing pattern, Rebecca Sower maybe. I know I still have some of my pattern sets. Wonder if this is one of them. And the title? My first set of Quickutz dies. Lord, I cannot believe I paid $350 for the upper and lower case letters and the squeeze. Still have them, still use them. I still remember when each new alpha set was $225 each.

Another scraplift. Still such a cutie.

Blast from the Past 2001

Remember MaMBI stickers? Loved those things. I saw this idea in a magazine and copied it almost exactly.
And these pictures mark the beginning of the digital age. These were some of my first digital pictures, taken with my brand spankin' new HP618. I loved that camera; it was my constant companion for 2.5 years, until Jacob climbed up and got it down from the top of a 6 foot bookcase. This was also my first set of letter die cuts.
More Rebecca Sower cut outs. I still have some I can't bear to part with. At this point, I was printing pics out at home on my Lexmark 3 in one printer.
10 years later, I still remember making this page. Ink and chalk vellum pink, punch it out and shade the edges with blue ink for the bubbles, and carefully cutting around the edges of the negative space left from an empty sheet of letter stickers before mounting them on vellum for the letters. I love the look of it, but I rarely put that much time into a layout.

Blast from the Past 1998-2000

Jacob was pulling out albums tonight and making me look through them and it occurred to me that there were some early ones that I don't like, but there are also some every year that I just love. So I pulled out my camera to capture those, since my mom has never really seen a lot of my layouts. So...

1998 - A nice easy one with just some patterned paper. I always felt incredibly lucky that I was able to get these great shots of Brandon with a point and shoot film camera, because my photo skills left a little to be desired in those early years.
1999- I love KMA paper! I think I bought 4 or 5 packs of the patterned paper when they had them at Hobby Lobby. I used to use a lot of punches, too. I think at one point I had well over 100 shape punches.
1999- Rick says this is still one of his favorites. Early on, I like setting "scenes" for outdoor pictures.
1999- Rebecca Sower cut-outs-another product I loved and had all of. This was my first attempt at crumpling paper; I remember how much of a pain it was and how hard it was to get back flat enough to adhere it to the background paper.
2000- Paperkins! I loved me some Paperkins! I had almost all of them. I finally gave away the remaining 20 or so I had and the templates last year.
2000-paper tearing, still one of my favorite techniques.
2000-I saw an ad for a paper piecing kit and figured I could just as easily do it on my own. I still like it.
2000-vellum and one of my lettering templates. I don't really use vellum anymore, but I can't make myself get rid of my remaining stash, either.

2000-Becky Higgins creative lettering. I used to love that column in CK.

a couple of easy ones

You know, I shouldn't sit down to write journaling, because this looked relatively straight when I did it :) Echo Park Times and Seasons paper with an old MM journal block and a small strip of Bella Blvd. paper down on the right side.

One of the things I don't like about scrapping 8.5x11 is that I have to cut down a lot of paper that would be really cute backgrounds, like this WRMK Santa's List paper. It worked out, though. Since I had three full size pics, I only had to piece it together one direction to make it work. Martha Stewart snowflake paper, ribbon from Michaels, old MM letter stickers, Doodlebug twine, Karen Foster brads and I had the boys write their own names.

365 Layouts total: 95 layouts and 3 mini albums. I'm a little behind (I should be at 98. I have a couple planned out and 2 mini albums that I worked on last week that just need a few last things. Hopefully I'll finish them and a few layouts this week.)

project life, week 5

The full spread:
The left side:

The title block is the backside of last weeks title block with a file folder label with the dates, BG letter stickers, and a strip of Smash Book washi tape. I have a strip of Pocketbooth photos of the boys I may add, but haven't decided yet. A boring photo of my crockpot (I challenged myself to try a new crockpot recipe every day this week); BH grid journaling block with an AE stamp at the bottom; white cardstock with some new Martha Stewart labels on them; a free journaling block (on my pinterest board) listing the crockpot meals we tried this week; a BH journaling block with the buisness card of where Brandon had his pre-braces x-rays this week; photos of Jacob taken on my phone with the free roidizer app (I have a droid), printed in Photosheet and stamped with the Smash Book stamp and mounted on Jillibean Soup paper; BH title card and October Afternoon label sticker on B and my's Payday game pic taken with my phone.

Right side: pic of Brandon's Anne Frank diorama mounted on a scrap of PC paper with an Avery label; pic of the rose cupcakes I made this week for the boys on MME paper with a Martha Stewart label; 2 of the free journaling cards on my Pinterest board--first one has a small pic of The Help, which the 3 of us watched this week and the other talks about where Jacob is on the Texana list for services; K&Co mat stack card cut down with October Afternoon letter stickers and a small pic of Rick and me and a business card from where we got our take-out (I don't cook for the SuperBowl. At all.) I want to put a football sticker or something in between the words but oddly enough I don't have a single football sticker or even any paper to cut one from; pic of Rick and the boys after the rainstorm on Saturday with a smaller pic of Rick during the rain in the corner; collage of Google SuperBowl images printed as a collage in Photosheet.

365Layouts total: 94 layouts and 3 minibooks.