Gotta' Love a Good Mystery

The mystery challenges are going to begin on March 1st over at Cookin' Up Creations! I'm inviting all of you to come and join in the fun. There is a Bingo game that is up right now for you to choose words to play with, and the fun is about to begin! Complete at least 15 of the 27 to be posted challenges to be in the drawing for a great prize provided by the Scraproom! You won't want to miss this month!  Cookin' Up Creations!

 

I'm pretty wordy this week....

If you know me you know I like to talk alot and sometimes I do that on my layouts too.  Hey, when there is a story to be told, there is a story to be told!  I had two stories this week that needed to be told!

The first was a challenge from Jean at Inspired to Scrap.  It required us to scrap "the unpleasant side of life".  By fussy cutting the banner out this layout also qualified for the first February challenge at Scraptastic. I chose to scrap my son Rusty's hand accident in 1994.

Rusty was doing yard work at his college-Olivet College.  He didn't realize there were blades in the leaf blower and while cleaning it he caught his hand in it.  Rusty underwent several hours of surgery at Sparrow Hospital in Lansing.  He was home for a week before going back to college.  During that week a nurse came every day to change the bandages.  (Rick had to copy Rusty with his make believe bandage)  Thru all of this I don't remember Rusty complaining one time.  He showed a pretty strong character and I thought he was amazing.

Scraptastic not only has great kits but every Thursday they post a new challenge to win a great monthly prize.  This next layout qualifies for the last Thursday challenge of the month as it has mist on it.  (which is just something I've been doing more and more lately)

Last year when Allan's mom Aileene, passed away it was my job to clean out her apartment.  (You just can't imagine how much stuff she had packed away in that apartment.) Allan mentioned to me that it would be neat if I found the heart cake pan that his mom had used to always make him a cake in on his birthday.  In fact he mentioned that several times.  Aileene really didn't save many mementoes so I didn't hold out much hope of finding that cake pan from 40 plus years ago. On the day that we turned the keys into the office for the apartment, Allan mentioned that we never did find that cake pan.  This really bothered me and I was telling my friend Stephanie about it, and the next thing I knew she gave me a heart shaped cake pan. I didn't tell Allan about it and this year on his birthday I surprised with a heart shaped cake just like he used to get from his mom!  Allan came in from work, took one look at the cake and said lovely, "Do you know how many years it's been since I've seen one of those?"  So I think now we have a new old tradition at our house on Valentines also known as Allan's birthday!

This next one isn't too awful wordy, but I think it says alot!  I was challenged at Scraptastic to use a honeycomb background along with this sketch, Cookin' Up challenged me to do a layout about a couple and Burlap and Buttercups asked for a layer of three borders and this is what I came up with:

I'm not gonna lie to you, in the last 27 years we've had some pretty awful arguments, BUT our love has been strong enough to keep us together and for it to keep growing.  I love you Allan VanDyke, your wife Rebecca 2-25-2012

 (and just in case you were wondering, the borders are actually straight, they just don't look like it!  LOL!)

Thanks for looking!

Where does the time go?

This was my week to post the challenge for the Crop Chef Challenge at Cookin' Up Creations. I shared this "recipe" for the gals to create their own layout (or two cards from).  A large tag, a photo collage or 3 or more photos, something made out of wood, and the creation must have the color red and a painted border on it.

I used one of the kid's favorite book title for the title of the layout, and used Dr. Suess Font to print it out on the Large Tag.
There are three photo's.
I have used the color red in several places on the layout, matting the three pictures, misting and painting the tag, painting the border, and used a red pen to penstitch on one of the pp's. 
There is a wooden tooth pick as a "pole" on the banner with the word Go on it.

My sample layout was from a lift from Julia S at Inspired To Scrap and the title idea was from Julie's challenge at Scraptastic!  (papers were A Boy's Life)

These were pictures of my youngest three kiddo's taken in 2001 (as you can see on the banner behind the plane)  Where does the time go?

Good to see you again!

My scrapping week started off with posting the Sunday Inspiration Challenge for the Cookin' Up Creations forum.  February's challenges all revolve around cooking and the theme is "In The Kitchen".  I used frosting as my inspiration.  I do love frosting (really why must I eat that cupcake just to get that frosting?) and I do love stickles!  So I challenged the girls to create layouts (or 2 cards) using stickles or paint to "frost" their creations.

My example for them was a double layout that featured my son Rusty when he graduated in 1994.  I actually had forgotten that his class colors were purple till I ran across the tassel that graces the left hand side of the layout.  I found that and thought what a perfect accent color to go along with the black and orange colors that represent our school.  The stickles that I used were both purple and silver.

The first one is of graduation and then this one is class night:

The final two layouts were generated from recipes on Cookin' Up Creations Next Crop Chef Challenge.  This was presented by Sandy and the "recipe" called for a jewlery or other small tag, a heart, a border and a page from an old book.  (I used one from a dictionary with the divination of cake on it!)

Bev gave us the next "recipe" and it called for stickles or glitter, a clock or watch face, trims, handwritten journaling, postage stamp, embossing AND masking.  Here is what I came up with:

On any of the uploaded images you can double click on them to get a closer look or to read the journaling.  For the one of my mom and I, I want to share the journaling with you.  It reads: 

I am 57 in my picture and the best I can figure, mom must have been close to that age in her picture.  I don't think we look anything alike, but I know we were alike on the inside.  From mom I got my cooking and crafting skills.  Mom and I could talk for hours, never mentioning a name or a place, but yet we both understood.  I don't think I've ever missed her more than today and the same will be for tomorrow.  2-11-12

I do miss her, I would love to sit and have more of those chats with her.  I'm sure we would find so much to talk about, because we always did!  I love you mom.....

I'm nuts about sketches and I always have been!  I think it's so kewl how so many people can start with the same sketch and come up with so many different takes on it!  So now I not only am nuts about sketches I'm on the Nuts About Sketches design team!  How kewl is that!  I read about the call that Shawn had put out and I submitted this layout based on one of her sketches and she picked me along with 12 others!  (So I guess that makes it a Bakers Dozen of team members!)

This layout was of my youngest son Brandon on his 14th birthday!  He loves Pizza! (along with the xbox live that was his present that year)

These last three layouts were done with sketches provided in the sketch class at Inspired to Scrap and created by Stacey Lokovic.