We had a Christmas Home Tour a couple of weekends ago and these are a few shots of the house. The first one is our family room. Second one is the dining room. More pictures to follow....

Page Swap Layout

About every three months, several of us gals get together and do a page swap. There is usually a theme and we all bring "theme" food and make a day of it. Kathleen made this layout. What is so great is having pages in our albums that aren't necessarily our style but that we like just the same. Kathleen is very girly and I like what she does. This worked great with these pictures I had and I stamped the words "Cocoa Beach" myself.

Husband

This is David standing in front of our new Chevy Cruze Eco, which we love. It's also a picture of him with an 80 to 85 pound weight loss over the last 10 months. We both feel and look better!

Spring 2009

Daffodils are my favorite spring flower....I like my tulips and my hyacinths, but daffodils just do it for me. The daisies are actually ones bought at the grocery store and sitting on my kitchen island.

Flowers

These are my iris' and asylum from 2004. Just getting them scrapbooked! Again, Basic Grey papers and embellishments.

And still more 81st birthday party layouts....

Again, Uncle Ronnie's birthday party and Basic Grey.

More 81st Birthday layouts...

Just more layouts from Uncle Ronnie's birthday party. Layout is from Basic Grey class I took at Scrapadoodle in Peoria.

Shimelle's Sketch of the Week

This is my take on the Sketch of the Week at shimelle.com. It's pictures from my uncle Ronnie's 81st birthday party. There were a ton of people there with both family and friends. Even his daughter, Ronda, from out west flew in with her husband and surprised everyone. I hadn't seen her since she was in high school!

A movie day...

I'm keeping the car today and going to the movies. Looks like something I would like but David would hate sitting through, so I'll go it alone. Maybe some shopping after, but no canning of garden veggies today!

More graduation pictures...

This is the last of the graduation pictures....FINALLY! It's actually a page that was done in a class at Scrapadoodle. I sat it out on my sb table and grabbed a bunch of pictures from a packet I had and these just seemed to go. I managed to get every single graduation picture scrapbooked. I put all her other info inside the invitation, plus a thank-you card from Rachel for her gift.

More detail of the 2 pages...

Hot Pink Hoopla Challenge

Shimelle's challenge was to use something from the layout below and go with it. I used pink, but only hot pink in moderation because I wanted to use these particular papers. I followed her layout pretty much because I love her style so much. Glad to have another layout done.

This one is about the pink "Bug" we saw one day. It was parked around the corner from Chantel's house and when we saw it, David turned the car around for me so we could go back and get a picture. Posted it on Facebook for her so she could see. Definitely a car for Chantel and her love of pink!

Bingo Cards & Butterflies Challenge

The challenge from Shimelle was to take something from her layout below, (color, butterflies, bingo cards, painting, embossed paper....)whatever we wanted. I really liked the black and yellow she used, as I don't think I've ever used those together. I also liked the embossed paper she sanded, so I created my own. Took a big stamp and stamped & heat embossed all over the page. Knew I wanted to use these black frames, so I thought black & white pictures would be perfect for this. Used alphabets from different packets and had to paint this white butterfly I had. I stamped black dots. There was just so much about Shimelle's layout I liked that I took a ton of ideas from it. Also stamped the little side-journaling lines for my information. And I didn't have any yellow reinker, so I took some yellow food coloring and put in my little sprayer pen and sprayed lightly over my cardstock.



These 3 pictures are of my (in order) Grandpa Charlie (my mom's step-dad), my Uncle Joe, my Dad and my Grandpa Loyal (my dad's step-dad). These 4 men meant so much to me during my childhood. Grandpa Loyal passed away when I was about 6 or 7, but I still remember him vividly and loved him so much. The other 3 men continued to be a very important part of my life until each one of them passed. They all made positive impacts on my life.

The Signature Accent Challenge

What I reach for time and time again are my border punches. Some are REALLY old and like the new ones much better. I saw this tone on tone done in a layout sometime ago and wanted to try it.
This is the last layout in the weekend challenges, but I've managed to get 11 scrapbook pages and 1 anniversary card done. All in all a productive weekend!!!

The Half Page Challenge

I have had this paper forever and wanted to do something with it, but really didn't know what. I guess I used less than half a page, but finally got it out of my stash! Yipee!!!

3 is A Magic Number Challenge

Used the same papers for this as I used for the last challenge. Colors just worked for me. I just noticed that the dot on the "i" in graduation moved before I took this picture. I've since moved it back where it belongs....LOL. So glad to be getting the graduation pictures done!

"Let's Go Retro" Challenge

The challenge this time was to use a picture from before 2011, but preferably MUCH older. This was taken in 1952 or 1953. It is me and it looks like I'm around a year old. It wasn't dated, so I'm just guessing.

"I LOVE" in title challenge

We were supposed to use "I LOVE or I Heart" in our titles and make it about something we don't always scrap about in our albums. Yellow roses definitely are my favorite flower to get and David gave me these for our 21st anniversary.

Red, White & Aqua

I found out I LOVE this color combination and will definitely be using it again.

Grid It Up Challenge

This was an easy one for me. I knew right away what I was going to use. I have a few pieces of All My Memories "Time Savers" cardstock that is all grid patterns. It's old, but needed to be used.

Add Some Journaling

Thought this was going to be a snap. We were to go back to an old layout and add some journaling, where some had been omitted. Found the layout right away, but didn't just want to add some writing on the page. Had to make the pocket because I wanted the colors to match, then I had to decorate the pocket and finally do the writing. Pleased with how it turned out.

Another layout

This was a layout using a sheet of paper as the embellishments. Thought this travel paper was perfect for a graduation day for our granddaughter who is getting ready to go away to college.

Start Here Challenge

Like this design. My only problem was that my black paper with the words written on it wasn't as long as I wanted. I just cut it, extended it down the page and added brads to cover the blank spot.

Sticker Challenge

This was a great challenge because I very rarely use stickers anymore, but still have a lot of them. Used ones from Jolee, Daisy Hill, Debbie Mumm and Creative Imaginations. Thanks for this great challenge, Shimelle!

The printable challenge...

I decided instead of a scrapbook page, I'd make an anniversary card. In-laws anniversary is coming up and the colors seemed to lend themselves to this.

Proud Scrapbooker

Here's my first layout of the weekend. Glad for the inspiration.