Look at those little SuperHeros!  (Those little boys are now 20 and 16! But they are still keeping the streets of Manton safe!)  1999 and it seems like just yesterday the thrill of dressing up and taking on a new personality!  If only it really were that simple, just changing your clothes and adding a mask!

My challenge this week was on What's New Wednesday at Cookin' Up Creations.  This is also the month that we are "using up our stash", so at first I had a hard time coming up with something.  Then I thought about taking what we have and making a new embellishment out of it.  So I challenged the girls to take a tag and add some goodies and use it as an embellishment on their layouts.  I'm seeing lots of inspiration from the challenge. 


Sandy challenged us on Technique Thursday to use circles folded and then inked to add a little pop to our pages!  I was able to slide the circles right on to this layout to add a little something to it!  This is another layout from several years ago (again dressing up!) that has Angel and Brandon in the Church Christmas Play.  Angel is 19 now and doesn't wear fake ears!

All of the layouts that I'm showing you today are from a sketch class at Inspired To Scrap and the sketches are done by Stacey Lokovic!  I've really been enjoying the class, it's running for the entire month of January.

Remember the snow pictures that I showed you last week?  Stacey came up with a sketch that I thought was perfect to use them in.  I went with all cardstock so as not to distract at all from the pictures.  Keeping with Cookin' Up Creations theme this month this layout as well as the other two all are done using some older papers and embellies.

If you would like to see a recap of what the other four challenges were for last week you can visit Cookin Up Creations Blog and you can also learn about the Crop Chef Crop that is coming up in Februay!  It's open to anyone who wants to particpate!  I'd love to see you there!


Thanks for looking again this week, and if you want to see any of the pictures close up, all you have to do is click on them....

New Year and New Layouts!

2012 came in like a lamb here in Northern MI.  We had very little snow and the temps were very mild.  This past Thursday we got dumped on leaving us with a large amount of fluffy snow.  Saturday morning dawned bright and sunny so Allan and I gathered up our camera (and change for Java!) and drove around taking snow pictures!  We took 54 but I'll just share two of my favorites with you:

If we sent out Christmas cards next year, I think this will be on the front:

So now back to scrapbooking!  I have been doing the every other day sketch challenges created by Stacey Lokovic at Inspired To Scrap.  I really enjoy creating from them but also seeing what Stacey's design team has come up with for each sketch.  Since this is a challenge participants are uploading their finished layouts so I also get to see others creations as well.  It's always amazing how many different layout takes can come from the same sketch.  That being said all of what I'm sharing with you today are from Stacey's Lakovic.

At Cookin' Up Creations it's Scrap Your Stash month and I'm really trying to reach deep into my stash to come up with my goodies to use.  The first two layouts are for a button challenge that BarbP aka Supermama gave to us.  The first one is my Brandon and his favorite Christmas ornament, and the buttons came from my MIL's button box.

The wooden buttons for the Good Morning 2012 I "jazzed" up a bit by inking them with Cats Eye Ink and dotting them with Blue Jean stickles.

Jeannie challenged us to take embellies and make them to by changing them up a bit, so I stickled up the popped up volleyball embellies with some stickles!  (I do love me some stickles!)

Brandon's layout used pictures from 2002 and I also used Jeannie's challenge on this layout, sprucing up the prima flowers with vinyl stickers. 

Bev challenged us to use up our stash and go with a theme so I created this layout using the theme water sports!  We live in Northern MI so tubing is about as close as we are ever going to get to surf boards!

So this week I'll be busy creating more layouts from my stash, you know I gotta make room for more!  Thanks for stopping by!

Guess What!?

I'm so happy to let you know that I've been chosen to be on Cookin' Up Creations Master Chef Challenge Team!  I love displaying my little blinkie on the top right hand side of this blog!  I will be cooking up challenges over there till July with several other great ladies!

After I was notified by Tammy that I had been chosen, I set off creating a layout to be revealed at the same time the team was revealed.  I thought and I thought on this one, because I'm not one for making resolutions and then I hit on it!  After I created several stacks of my cookbooks (which most are really Taste of Home magazines), and I carefully handed over my camera to my youngest son Brandon, I had a picture that I knew would fit the layout perfectly!  (BTW, thank you very much Brandon, you're always such a good sport and you do come in quite handy at times!)

My journaling reads:  I used to think that I loved to cook, then I began to think about it and realized that what I really loved was making people happy with my cooking.  I have so many wonderful recipes both in the cookbooks and magazines that I have stored in my mom's old hutch along with the recipes that are at my finger tips on line that I always say I want to try and continue to make the same things over and over again.  So for 2012 my goal is to try a new recipe at least every two weeks and see if I can find some new family and friend favorites and make people happy with what I cook and bake!

One of my duties as a Cookin' Up Creations team member is to bring challenges to the board on certain days of the month.  My very first challenge was for Focus On Friday.  I chose to focus on journaling.  (Many of my layouts have "stories" on them but some of them I do think the picture tells it all.)  This year when I was opening up "this" gift I made sure I handed the camera off (again carefully but this time to Angel, who did great job!) to make sure I had pictures to go with this story that I knew I wanted handed down to my kids and grandkids.

So grab a hankie if you are at all sentimental because here is the journaling to this layout:

When my mom was alive she got me a box of chocolate covered cherries every year. I never told her that I didn't really like them, I just always ate them tho! I was 42 when she passed away and I had been getting them from her every year since I was in high school.
That first Christmas without her was really hard and I had a hard time making it Christmas for my kids, but I did. They were little enough that I don't think they realized how sad I was.
When we open our gifts we all open one up at the same time and that first year I hadn't really noticed the one to me unmarked as to who it was from. When I opened it, I just started crying. It was a box of chocolate covered cherries. My husband knew the story behind them and got them for me. As I sat there with tears streaming down my face, I knew that he knew how important they were to me!
I'm sitting here crying as I'm typing this....My mom has been gone now for 15 Christmas' including this one coming up. Every year, my husband remembers those darn cherries and every year I cry when I open them.....

Whew!  I think I'll show you one just for fun!  This is of Angel on her 19th birthday!  How's that for fun!  (we need some fun after that last bit of journaling!)

The theme this month at Cookin Up Creations is to use up our stash (so we of course can buy new!) and on all three of these layouts, I reached waaaay back and grabbed stuff to use!