Art

My daughter got this art set for Christmas and was totally blown away by everything in it! I had to capture her exagerated expression!
I had fun creating this scrapbook page and used lots of goodies! The papers and ribbon are all by Mo Jackson as well as all of the art supply doodads. The alpha and circle tag are both from Ronna Penner at Scrapbook-Elements and the paint stroke brushes are from Michelle Coleman at Scrap Artist.

Journaling reads:
Anna, you received this art set from Grams and Gramps for Christmas, but you didn’t open it until several weeks later. You were amazed at all that was in it and couldn’t wait to create some art!

my Purpose

I just realized I had forgotten to post this layout I did a couple of days ago.
This was our Christmas card photo this year. Nothing formal. I got the bug to get this done, sat them all on the hearth and snapped off a bunch. Then I tweaked and colored it in Photoshop so all their clothes matched ;-)

Doris Castle's Original Diva kit is PERFECT for the colors of the photo. Had to use it for a page! Everything here is from that kit except the background which is from her Naturally Sweet Kit (love that one too!) and the paper behind the title which is from her Vintage Love kit.

I titled this "my Purpose" because that is what popped into my head when I was contemplating this picture. These children - these blessings are my main purpose during this season of my life. My purpose is to raise them and grow them by the grace of God.

Another Scraplift

I did this LO to stretch myself a little bit.
I was inspired by a page featured on the scraplift blog. I used Doris Castle's You Complete Me kit and played with the layer blending modes.

Homemade Pretzels

As promised, here is the recipe for the homemade pretzels that I mentioned the other day.

1 1/2 cups warm water
1 pkg. yeast (or 2 1/4 tsp.)
1 tbsp. sugar
4 cups flour
1 tsp. salt, plus enough for tops
1 egg, beaten

Preheat oven to 425F. In a large bowl, dissolve yeast in warm water. Add sugar, flour, and salt. Mix well, then knead dough until it is smooth and soft. Roll and twist dough into desired shapes - letters, numbers, twists, etc. Lay the pretzel dough shapes onto two greased cookie sheets. Brush with beaten egg and sprinkle lightly with salt. Bake for 12 - 15 minutes or until golden. Makes 1 - 2 dozen, depending on size.
From "Simple Pleasures of Home" by Susannah Seton.

I remembered to get the camera out while the kids were doing the pretzels. They certainly had fun! If you look closely at the pictures on this scrapbook page, you will notice that my oldest daughter is MIA. She was there, but is going through this funny phase of not wanting her picture taken. If I am lucky enough to snap one, it either has her hand up in front of the lense or she is scowling. Since I knew she would hate all of the pictures I got, I didn't use any of them except the big one on the right of her hands. I didn't want her seeing me use a bad picture for fear that she would become even MORE camera shy.

I am happy to say that I immediately had an ideas of how this page should be put together and it wasn't even scraplifted :-) (see posts below). I used FotoFusion to put it together because it is ideal for laying out grid type layouts. Saved me bunches of time in cropping and spacing and trying to get everything even. All of the elements (technically doodads!) are from Mo Jackson (www.mojackson.com). The alpha is from her Annie's Scrapbox kit and everything else is from Dorothy's Kitchen 1 & 2.

If you are interested, the journaling reads:

January 6, 2006:
The children and I spent a fun afternoon in the kitchen today. Last night, I was reading a library book and stumbled upon recipes for both homemade crackers and soft pretzels. They sounded fun AND easy so I bookmarked them. I got the bug to try them out today and got the kids involved. The little ones were the most enthusiastic. Anything that hands on that has the possibility of being messy is definitely their thing! The pretzels were certainly the favorite and gave us the opportunity to discuss yeast as a living organism and letter shapes. Patrick, of course, wanted to make a "P." He also made some creative eyewear, as well. Abi loved making snakes and some unconventional pretzel shapes while the girls made their initials and traditional looking pretzels. They were incredibly yummy to eat fresh out of the oven! The best part is that everyone joined in the clean-up, so the whole experience was fun for Mommy, too!

Thanks for looking!

Scraplifting

Those of you in the digital scrapbooking community probably read this title and instantly knew that this layout was inspired by someone else's work. Friends, family and anyone else who stumbles upon this blog are probably thinking, "huh?" According to this article at Scrapjazz, scraplifting can be defined as:

Scraplifting (skrap-lift-ing) – The act of copying ideas and designs from another person's scrapbook page to use in your own pages. Designs or ideas can be copied in whole or in part and is largely subjective.

Yesterday, I discovered a fun little scrapbooking blog called Digital Scrap Lifting Fun. Each day she surfs the online galleries and picks a scrapbook page she likes and posts it for inspiration. Since I have been feeling scrapbook challenged (see post below) I decided a good scraplift was just what I needed and this layout is based off of the beautiful layout posted yesterday called Dreamy Eyes by Chris Millar. It is a paper scrapped 12 x 12" page, but it easy to copy it and convert it to an 8 1/2 x 11" format. My hubby took this photo of my daughter the day after Christmas when they were both laying on my in-laws basement floor. I thought it was sweet and would be perfect for this. The papers are all from Doris Castle's Naturally Sweet kit (www.scrapbook-elements.com). I thought the colors were great with the photos and the pattern were not that different from the inspiration piece. I used a PhotoShop action from www.atomiccupcake.com to quickly "ink" the edges of the papers.
Other elements used are:
Ribbon with heart - Doris Castle's Earthen Floral kit
Flowers and little tag - Doris' Memories kit
Photo edge - Blair's Borders
Stitches - Mo Jackson's Stitches 1

This page come together amazingly fast because I merely copied with my own photo and digital elements. Much more painless than my previous layout! I guess I need to be in scraplift mode for a while. :-)

Sweet Sisters

This is a recent two page scrapbook layout.
My younger two daughters (My second oldest and my baby) got matching outfits for Christmas from their grandparents. The older one is in charge of dressing the younger in the morning and couldn't wait to put them on both of them. She actually jumped the gun and put them on for a bumming around the house day. Since I didn't want them to get abused on their first wearing I made them change, but had to snap these photos first because they looked so cute!

Journaling reads:
Anna & Abi received their first set of matching outfits for Christmas and couldn't wait to wear them! They both looked so sweet and I was reminded of when it was Elizabeth and Anna who liked to match. Gone are those days, but I am enjoying seeing both of you as loving and Sweet Sisters.

I hit some sort of scrapbooking wall when I was working on this. I had fun tweaking the photos. They aren't really great shots because I didn't bother to move the girls away from the changing table so it sits in the background. Oh well, I was in a hurry snapping them. I think by colorizing the photo and tinting it just a bit, the eye is distracted from that. I had no trouble finding some beautiful papers that looked like they were made for the colors of these photos. I used Doris Castle's Garden Walk kit (www.scrapbook-elements.com). A lot of the kit has greens which are lovely but didn't match as well, but their were several with the sepia tones and pinks alone. They are BEAUTIFUL! So there I sat with photos, papers and I could not arrange them in a pleasing way to save my life. I would even walk away from it hoping that when I came back I would see it with fresh eyes and have better luck. This went on for several days. I finally brought in the negative strip frame that I had created a while back using a tutorial from the PhotoShop CS Down & Dirty book. I ended up coming up with this and I think I am happy with it. Shoot, I am not even sure anymore, but it is time to put it to rest!

So, if you like it, let me know, but if you don't.....just don't say anything. Otherwise I will have the overwhelming impulse to do it all over again and spend massive amounts of time in total frustration over my inability to create a simple scrapbook page. ;-)

Homemade is Good

I got this book from the library titled, "Simple Pleasures of the Home" by Susannah Seton. The book is organized by rooms and in each section she has little things to do in or to a room to make it special. The first section is the Kitchen. There are many simple pleasures and memories about kitchens as well as quite a few recipes. I was intrigues by a simple recipes for both homemade crackers and soft pretzels. I don't know what got into me on Friday but after lunch I brought up making these things to my kids. My oldest had gone off to do something, but Anna was instantly enthused. And the wee ones? Well, they are into anything they can get their hands into and be messy so this was right up their alley!

We began with crackers. Here is the recipe we followed:

Homemade Crackers

2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
pinch of salt
4 tablespoons butter
3/4 cup water, approx.

Preheat oven to 325 F. Sift together flour, baking powder and salt. With two knives, cut the butter into the flour until the mixture is fine. Add just enough water to make a firm dough. On a lightly floured surface, with a floured rolling pin, thinly roll out dough. Using a round cookie cutter, stamp out crackers; prick them all over with a fork, and sprinkle with salt and sesame seeds if desired. Bake on a lightly greased cookie sheet for 20 minutes of until crisp. Cool on a rack and store in an airtight container. Makes 2 dozen.

These were pretty good. I think the key is rolling them out THIN. They are fairly dense and ours were a bit thick and took a bit longer to bake, but they are yummy. We just used salt on them, but I think the sesame seeds would be tasty. You could get creative and add herbs, garlic or onion powder and I think they would be wonderful, too.

We made homemade pretzels, too, but I am out of time and have to get the family up for church this morning so that will have have to be another post!

Christmas Competition

These photos really needed to have their story told in a scrapbook page.

I think the journaling really tells the story here.
Journaling reads:
I am not sure how it began. Every Christmas or so, one of these brothers would get the bug to do some creative, hard to get into wrapping usually involving copious amounts of tape and numerous boxes. I even recall the sewing machine being used at one time. This year Anjie asked me if Barry had done any “special” wrapping for Mark, because Mark had done some creative wrapping of his own and perhaps there should be a race to see who could unwrap their package first.Barry, fearing that he had stopped short in his efforts, was hesitant, but we persuaded him to take the challenge..Barry discovered his lovely looking gift covered in packing tape - even the bow. This however was not as much of a problem as the wood box that was screwed together with hex screws that had their heads stripped. As he sat contemplating how to break into such a gift, Mark was encountering some challenges of his own which included many layers of boxes and aluminum foil COMPLETELY covered in clear packing tape (which Barry claimed that the thought looked “pretty.”)
Mark was diligent in his efforts to break though the many layers. Meanwhile Barry, at a loss for how to proceed with his package, decided in his frustration to use brute strength to pull apart the box. This was successful and he was able to extract his gift just as Mark broke through his final layer.
In the end, we declared that the contest was a tie. Mark got to his cellphone car charger just as Barry pulled out his Stewie (Family Guy) DVD.I heard rumor that both boys were concocting plans for next year already. So, I expect this challenge will be revived next Christmas. Boys will be boys!!!

I used Doris Castle's Very Merry paper stack here. The frames around the photos are the flakey papers. I placed them over the photos and used a layer mask and a grungey brush to allow the photo to show through the middle (hope that makes sense). The alpha is from Doris' A Beautiful Day kit. The little runner clip is from Dover.

Thanks for looking and letting me share!

I'm Dreaming

of a DRY Christmas....

I decided to take some time to myself on this lazy Sunday afternoon to scrapbook a little more and got this double page done. It's a funny little page that I am sure daughter will hate me for in about 10 years or so. ;-) We are thinking about potty training soon and my daughter got a potty seat and a wetting doll for Christmas. She thought it was GREAT!

I used Doris Castle's Very Merry Paper Stack for the papers and the word DRY uses her Hand Cut letters.

If you are interested, journaling reads:
"I'm dreaming of a DRY Christmas...just like the ones I used to know...where there are no more diapers but little wipers who run into the bath to go...

This is why when asked what Abi would want for Christmas I announced that I thought she would REALLY like a new potty chair and a wetting doll. Grandma and Grandpa came through and Abi was thrilled with her new big girl seat and her new doll named Tinkles. She couldn't wait to try it out for herself and teach Tinkles to use it, too. She has been practicing pulling her pants up and down while Mommy reads Toilet Train Your Child in a Day. Hopefully our DREAM for DRYNESS will become a reality soon!"

The little notes read:
"Celebrating Christmas at Grandma and Grandpa's house 12-26-05"

"Abi: demonstrating how it’s done"

"When training your doll,it is always important to make eye contact!"

Thanks for looking,Trish

Scrappin?

I almost forgot how to do it! Scrappin' that is! Between being busy and having computer problems, I haven't scrapped a page in a couple of months. I am feeling bad about this and hope to start catching back up!

These are photos from Christmas day at our home of each of the children with their unopened presents. I especially love the big one of my daughter's big grin over her pile.

This was put together using one of Doris Castle's Holiday quickpages from www.scrapbook-elements.com . I added a couple of photos to it as well as the tag which is from her Old Time Christmas set. Thanks for letting me share!