Guest Blogger

I was thrilled to be the guest Blogger @ Inspired to Scrap's Blog last week!  I would really like it if you could check out what I had to share about this layout by clicking on their link!

Have you ever scrapped the same picture more than once?  I have done it a few times and when I ran across this picture, I KNEW I would be scrapping it more than once.  This layout features a photo of Rick and Brandon that I had previously used but couldn't resist using again:

Journaling:  I bet when you look at this picture you see two

little boys playing pretend.  As Rick and Brandon's

mom I see much much more...Besides the fact

that I see two brothers pretending  to be

rabbits in their closet I see:

Pokemon pillowcase and stuffed animal

The Big Tiger that Rusty won at Harvest Festival

The tape on the wall from when we painted.  (!)

Spiderman Slippers!

The brown Pup Pillowcase that had been Renee's

When I look at Brandon's eyes I see that he must

have had a cold.

I see two boys that I loved and continue to love

very very much.....

Love mom

Picture 2001

Scrapped 2012

 This past weekend Allan and I had the joy of traveling a few hours south to visit our new grandson!  Rob and Annie's sweet baby boy! (and of course Ruth, who just had us in stitches and you'll be seeing some of her in the weeks to come!)

The following layout was done for a "Clue" Challenge at Cookin' Up Creations.  Linda challenged us to scrap a life changing experience and I scrapped the 3K race that I competed in:

  Journaling: 

I can't think of a better word for how

I felt when when I was the first

of about 30 to cross that 5K finish line!

It was my first and I had just wanted to

do it in an hour.  I actually had just

planned on walking most of it, but when

I got going I couldn't help but slowly run.

I felt so good!  I finished just under 40

minutes.  It was a first of an annual

5K put on by Shannon Wellihan raising

money for Cleft Palate Babies in Oct. 2010.

It was just a year before this that I could

hardly walk half a mile without being

exhausted.  Elation baby!  Elation!

My husband Allan has always been pretty good about getting me pictures of what he is doing so I can scrap them along with the ones that I take.  Since he's gotten his Iphone it's become even easier to get the pictures:

The inspiration for the "Livin' The High Life" was a sketch from Nuts about Sketches #204.

The last layout I'll share this week was really a fun one!  At Christmas time I fell in love with this silly Red Bird Decoration.  My Granddaughter likes playing Angry Birds and so we called this one the Happy Bird.  I liked throwing sun flowers around it for the birds to land on the table to eat and I snapped a picture of them.  As soon as I saw the picture on the computer screen after I uploaded it, The Mothership came to mind:

  

Nuts About Sketches!

I'm finally able to share this layout with you!

This layout of 10 year old Rick (now 20!) was my first DT assignment with Nuts About Sketches!  I'm so happy to be on the team with the gals!  I took the sketch and did just the right side of it and tipped it on his side.  Shawn has so many great sketches on her blog, it is a go to spot!

Cookin Up Creations is hosting a Mystery Challenge this month based on the came Clue.  Remember that game?  Tuesday thru Sunday there are challenges based on the game and if you complete the challenge you will be pm'd a message possibly with a clue from Tammy.  Just like in the game!

Jan started us off with a challenge that required nine (!) different pp's because there were 9 different rooms in the game, circles because one room was a billard room and a tag for Mr. Boddy's two tag.  Another layout of a young Rick fillfulls all the requirements.

For Fridays Focus Jo had us focusing on using a score card, and the hand stitched "Boy" in the title qualified this layout Aimee's challenge at Burlap and Buttercups.  This layout features my husband and a much younger Brandon than he is now!

Tamara brought us Inspirational Sunday!  Yellow for Col. Mustard, twine for the rope, and flowers for the conservatory.  Once again, I was able to use a layout for two challenges!  Inspired to Scrap hosted a one hour scrap challenge and Stacey Locovic provided the sketch for the following layout, which is all about my granddaughter Ruth!

And oh gosh!  I almost forgot about the challenge that I gave out for Technique Tuesday!  Here is what my challenge said:  Mr. John Green, indicated by the green pawn, is a smooth talker. His family is made up of shysters. His dad is a low down thief and his mom tells fortunes wherever and whenever she can. Guess what: she's not a psychic. Mr. Green found a calling in spirituality. This means he sets up traveling tents and asks people to give him money, which is for the less fortunate people and that means the money is for him

At least that was the information that Wikipedia gave me on Mr. John Green. (wonder if his middle name is Deere? Yuk Yuk! Get it? John Deere Green....o.k. sorry....)

So now we know that Mr. John Green is a smooth talker. Hmmmmmm....Smooth makes me think of sanding something, even tho this roughens it up, right? So my challenge to you is to use sanding on your layout, or wrinkle something up and "smooth" it out, or both as I did! I sanded the black CS that matted the tag and the picture. The picture edge was also sanded a bit. The blue flags I misted them with water, crumpled them up and then smoothed them out again. I then inked the high spots. 

There's still lots of month left at Cookin' Up Creations and lots of time to get those clues for a great prize, so maybe I'll see you over there!

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.