Holiday Happiness Continues

Hello friends!  I thought I would be posting a New Year's project for the New Year Linky Party at Bitten by the Bug 2.  But after lots of company, a tummy thing, and even more company, I did not get my New Year project completed.  I did, however, have a wonderful surprise visit from my older son last night!!! 

The big news at our home this Christmas season, is John and Bethany became engaged!  He took her to Asheville, NC to the Biltmore Estate on Friday, December 27th and proposed.  We knew this was coming, but I could not help but admire what a wonderfully romantic setting John chose for his proposal.  As you might guess, my life has transitioned into wedding planning as they plan to marry this summer!

Since I have no project to share with you, I thought I would share a few Christmas morning photos (in which half of us are still in our PJs - including me!).  Above - Doug models his Dr. Who hat and scarf.  Below - John is thrilled that Crissie restocked his classroom supplies!

Ian LOVED his new bass and did not want to put it down to open his other gifts.  I told him that he acted the same way over the Little Tykes car when he was two. Every other gift was opened from inside the car we named "The Flintstone-mobile".

Bethany likes sloths.... Aaron and I each got her the same sloth for Christmas.  She was thrilled with her twin sloths!

Santa, that awesome fellow, brought me cutting mats and a great die and stamp set.  I was very happy!!

Not to leave Duncan out, he too received two gifts.  He is so sweet and so happy when he opens a new toy!

Aaron and Crissie were funny.  He got a KitchenAid, and she got a tent!  Role reversal much?

And here they all are: Ian, Bethany, John, Crissie, and Aaron.... and Duncan the wonder dog, Edgar the pug and Magnus the puggle.  What a crew!

Please DO go by the BBTB2 blog and join the New Year's Linky Party.  I think it is going to be fun!!

Merry Christmas!!

Pretty Woman on a Pretty Layout

Hello everyone.  I hope you feel like another layout featuring my lovely daughter, Bethany.  There is a story behind these two pages.  Bethany came home one afternoon after teaching all day and I thought she looked fabulous - especially for a woman who had just spent 8 hours with 20 second graders!  I decided to snap a couple of photos of her.  But of course, Duncan the wonder dog felt like he needed to be in the photos with her.  After some good petting, he gave her such a loving look, then he and Bethany both looked at me and smiled!  The photos were so cute that I had to scrap them!

I actually made most of these two pages last summer at Scrap Convention in a  layout class.  And even though cutting the individual pieces, stamping the individual cuts, adding ink, glitter, etc is time consuming, I always think the end result is so worth while!

My matting color choice may seem unusual, but it actually matches the subtle blue in the background print paper.  Also it matches Bethany's skirt.

I used a lot of glue and fine glitter on this layout.  The flower centers are glitter covered glue.  Also i used fine tip on the glue and outlined the word LOVE and applied glitter to the word.

Family Time and Girlfriend Time....

Hello everyone.  I know it is Monday and that normally means it is time for my weekly Bitten By The Bug 2 post.  However this week I did not get my project finished.  It was all designed, but not cut when I left for a weekend at Lake Murray at my friend Sally's lake house.  And while I accomplished a lot this weekend, I did not get my BBTB2 project finished!  Sad, I know!  I did have a lovely time at the lake and I want to thank Sally and Beth for hosting us again.

I will be sharing some of the projects that I made this weekend later in the week.  I still need to photograph the projects and tonight I am just too tired to do that.  I actually fell asleep sitting up on the sofa checking my email.  My sweet hubby sent me off to bed for a nap, while he made dinner for us!  What a good, good man.

Remember last Monday when I told you that Ian had come home for the weekend?  I so enjoyed his visit that I set up a 20 minute photo shoot with Ian, Bethany & John, Doug & I in the back yard.  I need new photos of Ian and Bethany for our annual calendars I made each fall.  I decided that John will be added to the family calendar beginning in January so I needed photos of him as well.

I thought for a 20 minute photo shoot that we did okay.  I love the photos of Ian and many of those of Bethany & John together.  And of course these two cut solo photos of Bethany - above and John - below.

I managed to get two good photographs of Ian and Bethany together.  In this photo I think they look a great deal alike.

And as we were wrapping up, Bethany snapped a couple of photos of Doug and I together.  I especially liked the photo below.

Please do go over to the Bitten By the Bug 2 blog and check out the Design Team's cats and dogs projects, and to congratulate our new Design Team members!!

Defense Prompt Leads to Fun Layout

Hello everyone.  Today's layout is, of course, one of my LOAD 513 layouts.  The daily LOAD prompt (again they are all from the board  game Clue, or deal with mysteries) was a motive for a crime.  Last Saturday the motive was self-defense.  

I was at a loss for what to do with the self-defense prompt, but I saw several great ideas in the LOAD project gallery.  One of my favorites - someone took a photo of her facial care products and called that her self-defense against aging.  I wasn't as creative.  

I went digging through my photo stash and found this funny photo that Aaron photo-shopped of himself.  I am guess this was based on an X-man movie character. 

During his college years, and shortly there after, Aaron took a series of photos where he is impersonating different characters... JFK, James Bond, a Battlestar Galactica bridge officer, etc.  I took three of those photos and added three of my favorite "Aaron" photos - Aaron teaching, Aaron and Crissie, and Aaron, Bethany, and Ian with Chip and Dale at Disney, and created a this fun, cartoon-ish layout.

I like that even though I used a digital program to scrap this layout, I could still personalize the voice balloons.   I enjoyed coming up with the caption, "Take that, Captain Slime Pants!"

This is a close up of the Aaron photos as well as the hings I added between two of the photographs.

Thanks for stopping by today and checking out my cartoon layout - Defender of the Plant Earth!  This is not my normal style of scrapping, but it was fun to create.

Defining a Generation Through Music

Hello everyone, TGIF!!  I did it again today... I put off the planned post in favor of my latest LOAD 513 layout.  This layout was so thought provoking and fun that I ended up actually turning it into a four page layout.  The first two pages are featured here today and I plan to only tell you about pages three and four.

Thursday's LOAD 513 was a weapon from the Clue game - the candlestick.  In an effort to come up with an idea, I was typing my stream of consciousness - Candlestick, menorah, burning the candle at both ends, burning out, jack jumped over the candlestick.... You get the idea.  When I reached "Jack jumped over the candlestick" I thought of Don's McLean's song, "American Pie" and the reference to JFK in "Jack jumped over the candlestick" lines.

American Pie took me to the thought of Billy Joel's "We Didn't Start the Fire" - a list of historical and cultural events in Joel's lifetime - all but 11 years, also my lifetime.  And then, because I couldn't just pick an idea and go with it, I started thinking of about music that defines different eras or events in my life time.  The sixties and seventies were full of anti-war and peace songs, one of my favorites being P.F. Sloan's "Eve of Destruction", released in 1965.  In May 1970 four student protester's were killed by National Guard at Kent State University in Ohio.  That fall Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young released Stephen Still's epic "Ohio" - better known by the name "Four Dead in Ohio".

In 1971 Don McLean released "American Pie", a musical poem that details music history of the 50's and 60's, with cultural and political references included.  McLean never really calls anyone by name, but the Music that died was Buddy Holly, The King was Elvis, the Marching Band that took the field was the Beatles, etc.  Jack Flash jumping over the candlestick - where this all started - was the assignation of President Kennedy.  When asked what the song meant, McLean once replied, "It means I will never have to work again!"  He was probably right!!

Billy Joel's "We Didn't Start the Fire" is a highly percussive song from 1989.  The song was written because a student told Joel that his generation was inheriting a world that was a mess.  Joel thought about it and realized that the world has always been a mess - We didn't start the fire - and that it would continue to be so.  Good point.

These four songs - and yes, there could be others, I feel define my generation socially and historically.  I grew up in the 60's and 70's, watching in wonder the Civil Rights movement, the anti war protests, the British Invasion, the cold war, soldiers coming home, the POW's coming home, the American Bicentennial, Watergate and the Nixon administration which robbed us of our innocent belief in government (though truthfully that trust has been sold out LONG before).  I sang along with John Lennon as he Imagined... and with Elton John as he Crocodile Rocked!  We as a Nation protested the Olympic Games hosted by Russia, and we protested Apartheid.  So yes, these four songs do come close to defining my generation....

I used Studio J to digitally scrap these pages.  This was necessary because of the photos I chose to use.  I found era specific photos as well as the candlestick and fire images.  After selecting specific phrases from each of the four songs, I began writing my journaling.  I must say it is very difficult to cover this topic in one journaling block!

I enlarged the journaling for you so that you can understand the difficulty of fitting this information onto the pages.

I truly enjoyed researching and scrapping these pages.  Page three and four feature the same "papers" and colors, but no photos.  Just a title, a couple of embellishments, and the lyrics to the four songs.  Do you know HOW LONG American Pie is?  Two full columns in very small font!

If you would like to see this entire layout larger, just click on the photo below and it will open in a new window.

One last note, one of the funny things about my LOAD 513 experience?  I am sort of missing the boat.  It is supposed to inspire quick layouts from the prompt.  Well, clearly this was not a quick layout... And even though I am doing LOAD my way, I am having a great time with this!

I hope some of you might consider joining me in the next LOAD adventure - because I WILL do this again!

Life Lessons I Learned From Scarlett O'Hara

Hey-o everyone!!  I had a completely different post planned for you today, but I decided to bore you with yet another LOAD 513 layout - because I had so much fun with this one.  Yesterday's prompt was the "Miss Scarlet" character card from Clue.  A lot of people used red on their pages or embarrassing moments, etc.  But I went for the original "Miss Scarlet", Scarlett O'Hara-Hamilton-Kennedy-Butler!   I am assuming that I do not have to add that Scarlett is the main character in the Gone With The Wind saga.... If you did not already know that, sign off of your computer right now and go to the nearest library!!

As I contemplated Scarlett O'Hara (for several hours, btw), I realized that even though I do not like her as a person (or would not if she were a person), there is a wealth of knowledge to be gained from the way the character lived her life.  Both positive and negative influenced lessons.

I did a Google search on Scarlett O'Hara and found a lot of photos, character analysis, and funny comments.  The photos from the movie and having read the books, helped me compile my list of life lessons.  Without further ado:

I am not going to comment on every lesson listed above, but I am going to mention a couple.  As obsessed as Scarlet was with Tara, she was the sister who saved the plantation and the family, admittedly through scheming and hard work.  If we get rid of that scheming element, home and family are very, very important and are worth working to save - And that was a good lesson.

I confess, without the corset photo I would not have thought of the good underwear lesson. But hey, we do need quality underwear to hold all of parts where they are supposed to be instead of where gravity tries to place them!

Finally I would like to mention "Fiddle-dee-dee".  I always thought Scarlett was being dismissive when she said this.  My thoughts on that phrase have developed with age... I think she was saying "don't tell me it won't work, don't tell me I can't do this, don't try to hold me back...."  If nothing else, through most of the book/movie, Scarlett believes in herself and her ability to get what she wants.  As women, we can learn from that.  Believe in yourself!  Trust yourself!

I hope you enjoyed my Scarlett layout.  I add the photo able so that you could see the circle stitching... This is a great way to add texture to card stock/backgrounds.

To see this layout larger, click on the photo below.

Thanks for stopping by and checking out Miss. Scarlett today!

Struttin' It Like a Peacock

Hello everyone.  I have another LOAD 513 layout to share with you today.  The prompt for this day was Mrs. Peacock.  It was suggested that we could use literal Peacocks, use the color peacock, use feathers, etc.  I started thinking about Peacocks and I came up with the idea of a peacock strutting and showing off his feathers.... And that thought took me to our family peacock - Mr. Aaron!

All three of my children have very unique, fun personalities.  Aaron is very outgoing and charismatic, Bethany is a social butterfly, and Ian is more introverted, but very caring and funny.  When thinking in terms of Peacocks, Aaron's sense of "acting like himself" presents many opportunities to strut his feathers.

I looked through my photos and grabbed a few current photos of Aaron to use on this layout.  I could have gone back in time and found photos of his crazy actions that would have been vastly amusing and come closer to making my point of him being the Peacock, but those photos have already been scrapped.

Creating this Peacock layout made me realize that I need to do two more layouts - one each for Bethany and Ian, describing their personalities and uniqueness.   In fact, I should probably do more layouts about our family as individuals and less events.  Gives me something to think about.... One more good lesson learned though the LOAD class.

Thanks for stopping by today.  

Happy Mother's Day

(Susan and Mom)

Hello everyone.  Doug and I are visiting our moms so I am missing the BBTB2 post this week.  Please do go by BBTB2 and look at the great flower projects the design team has created.  In the meantime, I thought I would share a couple of photos of us with the moms!

My mom and I attended a Mother-Daughter banquet at her church on Saturday evening.  Two of my aunts and several cousins were there and it was nice to see them all.  

(Brent, Mom, Doug)

Today Doug and I made the 100 mile drive from my mom's house to his mom's house.  Doug's mom had spent the day with Doug's brother, Brent.  The four of us went out to Panera Bread for dinner - mostly so that I could use the Internet.  

I will be home again tomorrow so my scrapping life will get back to normal soon!

Get a Clue - The Beatles with the Revolver in the....

Hey-o everyone.  If you were here earlier and only found photos and no text, that is what happens when your blog owner loads her photos but forgets to go back and finish the post.  I confess that I awoke at 5:00 am and realized that I was going to have a picture only post, but I did not jump up and correct it.

Today's layout - The Beatles - is one that I made LOAD 513 (Layout a day - May, 2013).  The daily prompt was Revolver, as in the revolver card from the Clue game.  Being a huge Beatles fan, my mind went to the Revolver album, hence my title = The Beatles with the Revolver in the (fill in the room).

The Beatles are one band that every member of our family enjoys, probably because the parents have corrupted the children!!  I can honestly say that the Beatles were the first "band" that I was conscience of as a group.

This double page layout is long over due in my scrapping life.  I have not previously scrappedooks or movies or whatever.  LOAD 513 is making me look at that at bit differently.  Scrapping does not always have to be about an event or specific outin about things like bands, favorite foods, favorite bg.

The journaling in the upper right corner is a list of the original Beatle albums that were released between 1960 and 1970.  I somehow thought there had been more than 14.  But then I did not include the Red Album, the Blue Album, the LOVE album, the ONE album or any of the later releases.  What I find fascinating about the Beatles music library is that there are different versions of the same songs - my favorite Lady Madonna is a jazz version on one of the later albums - a version they decided not to put on the original album.  Their library includes so much music that if I were required to listen to only one band, I would choose the Beatles.  So much of what they recorded was never released, or is just being released.

Sorry for forgetting to add the text to this post last night... These things do happen. Have a great weekend and give the mom's in your life, whether your own mom or a mom you admire, some love this weekend!!