Morning Routine

Here's where I get real with you...  I am not a morning person...my boys get up before me...my boys make their own breakfast...yep, I'm that mom!

Our LOAD challenge was to document a favorite routine and I love the way I start my morning!

Design Inspiration: This time the design was all me.  I made a strong block in the center of the page with one supporting line, except that it's across the top.  :)

Color Inspiration: This was another snack bag layout.  When I saw the flowers and buttons I knew exactly what colors to use.

White letters just seemed like the way to go.  But they didn't stand out enough so just like I did here, I outlined them with Sharpie.

For the journaling I made a simple list of my morning routine.  Super fast and easy page!  Love that!

























What does your morning routine look like?  Leave me a comment, I'd love to hear all about it!

When it Rains

So I'm still rocking the Mother LOAD.  I can't believe I've kept up with a layout a day for all of September so far.  Every day Lain gives us a challenge that we can choose to use or not.  One of the challenges was to use a less than your best photo.  My cell phone has not been "smart" and I only recently figured out how to get photos off it without internet access on the phone.  (although those of you following me on facebook know I'm now totally in love with my new iPhone and instagram)  I knew these photos accompanied a story that needed to be told.

This page focuses on a day that was full of struggles but finishes with how friends and family bring sunlight into your gray rainy days.

Notice the photo collage on the bottom 4x6?  Wanna know how I did it?  Check out the tutorial here!

Design Inspiration: I always get so many ideas from the Write.Click.Scrapbook monthly galleries.  I pinned this layout awhile ago and while scrolling through my Pinterest board I knew that this design would leave plenty of room for the LONG story I wanted to tell.


Color Inspiration:  My story set the tones for my page.  Gray background for the gray skies and yellow for the sunshine.

I cut these little clouds out of a piece of pattern paper.  Just to make them stand out a bit I inked the edges with blue and popped up one with pop dots.

I debated making my own sunshine but in the end decided to use this FREE digi one by Crystal Wilkerson.  To top it off I added a little yellow brad.  And added a little cloud.  Love this part of the page!

I gotta say, this is quite a story.  Hope you can read it, cause it's much too long to retype.  :)  Just to add some interest in the long text I altered the color of certain lines to make them stand out.

I am so glad this crazy story is documented!  And I truly love how the page turned out.





























How do you use your iPhone pics?  Have you ever scrapped about a gray skies kinda day in your life?  Or do you have a story about a day that just seemed like a comedy of errors?  Leave me a comment, I'd love to hear all about it!

Made Me Laugh

It has begun!  It's time for the Mother LOAD.  It started on Sept 1st, and I am attempting to make a layout a day for 26 days.  Hopefully that will mean lots of scrappy pages to share with you!

The challenge that inspired this layout was to scrap the last time you LOL.  I knew immediately which story I had to tell.  But I didn't have any pictures.  Luckily my son wants to play this game every day so it wasn't hard to grab my camera and re-create the moment.

Design Inspiration: I have lots of layouts pinned to my Pinterest board so I scrolled through looking for a design that caught my eye.  This one by Donna Jannuzzi seemed perfect.  I loved the two 4x6 photos stacked on top of one another.

Color Inspiration:  Because of the story I wanted the layout to have a party feel.  Which means bright colors.  I built the color palette around the small strip of pattern paper with colorful triangles.  It reminded me of banners.

This little swirly tag seemed like the perfect place to add some red at the top of the page along with a title.

 I saw Lain Ehmann use twine with buttons and thought it would work perfectly here!  The little bit of yellow keeps things from looking to Christmasy!

And here's the story.  Just read...you'll being LOL-ing too!


























Ever had to recreate a scene to get a photo to scrap?  Got any awesome stories about something your little one said?  Leave me a comment!  I'd love to hear all about it!

Why do you Scrap?

The assignment during the first week of The Mother Load was to create a layout about why we scrap.  That same day I saw a poster for Big Picture Classes upcoming Big Idea Festival (which is FREE by the way) and inspiration struck.

Ok, this is a big deal for me people.
A.  There is no traditional photo
B.  It is only one page
C.  Did I say IT IS ONLY ONE PAGE?!?!

I managed to create and be happy with a one page layout.  I so don't do that!  Now the true test will be if I can be happy with a one page layout next to another layout that doesn't match.  Deep breaths...I can do this!  :)

This image is from the top part of the Big Idea Festival poster.  Originally it only said Big Picture classes.  I decided to add text to the other speech bubbles outlining the places that I find inspiration.  I just opened the poster PDF in Photoshop Elements and added a text box in each of the speech bubbles.  I love how it turned out.

The layout was a little heavy on the right side so I added this little element to the left edge.  I simply punched 3 circles and  a strip of journal paper.  On the edge of the journal paper I used a border punch.  Then I slipped the circles into the edges of the border and taped it all down.

For some reason the poster reminded me of a commercial from my youth any one else remember, "this is your brain...this is your brain on drugs."  So I adapted it to fit more appropriately with my topic.  :)

Continuing with the brain idea I focused the journaling on how my personality pulls from both sides of my brain.  And that scrapping feeds the need I have to be creative.  And I'm creative when I'm inspired.









Why do you scrap?  Leave me a comment.  I'd love to hear your reasons!

A Daddy Mini Book

Periodically my husband has to go overseas for work.  These trips happen about once a year and last for a few months.  Both of my boys struggle whenever their Daddy is gone (even on short trips...as he is this week).  So I decided to throw together a mini-book for them.

I bought this adorable little photo book at Michaels and just threw on some chipboard stickers for the title.  Because of Finding Photo Freedom it was so easy to put this together.  I scrolled through my organized photos and grabbed recent pics of my husband.  After that it was so easy to write the story.

Each spread has a 4x6 pic and a 4x6 card with text (made in Photoshop Elements).  Can you guess who's digi papers I used behind the text?  Crystal Wilkerson.  I know, you're shocked right?!?


If you saw my iScrap album you know that I am drawn to combining my voice with my art. This story seemed like the perfect opportunity to make another little video.  Plus that means I can load the movie onto my iPod Touch and have it on hand for the boys no matter where we go.

So allow me to read you my Mini Book titled Daddy...

10 Years of Wedded Bliss

Today is the 10 year anniversary of my wedding day!  As I hinted in an earlier post my husband and I celebrated by taking a trip for two to New York City!  Next week I'll show you the travel album I created especially for that trip.  But for today I wanted to share a layout I made in remembrance of our special day.

This layout started as just the left page.  I made it for LOAD and tried really hard to leave it as a single page layout.  But I couldn't do it.  :)  So the next day I added page two.

I used some simple elements with tone on tone colors.  I thought the neutral colors played off of the colors in the sunset.  I truly love the simplicity of this page.

For the right page I paired some of my favorite pics from our special day with the stories I wanted to remember.  Honestly I had a hard time fitting it all on one page!  :)  I covered the proposal, the wedding, and I added in our vows.  I'm so glad I have this layout to document the pieces of the day that I always want to remember.

Have you gone back and documented an important event years later?  Share your experience or your page with us by linking up in the comments!

Forgive me for a moment of mushiness...

To my amazing husband, I am still so grateful to be married to you.  You are a wonderful father and a loving husband.  Every year our life just gets better and better.  Thank you for the last 10 years and I look forward to many many more!

Comfort Food

As I've worked on my All About Me album I started reflecting on what I wanted to say about my Grandmother.  I mentioned a bit about her here on my Educated Women page.  And I know I have more of her story to tell.  But it occurred to me that all of my favorite foods tie back to her.  So I decided to create a page honoring that connection.

I wanted the layout to exude comfort so I used warm colors.  Forgive the missing picture!  :)  I knew what I wanted to go there but hadn't taken the pic yet.  I have taken it now, but not printed it or added it to the page.  I'll show it to you later.

My inspiration came from Ann Costen over at Write.Click.Scrapbook.  I just love their monthly galleries! So much inspiration over there!!!

So I made myself a little sketch turning Ann's 12x12 page into two 8.5x11 pages.

I thought it would be fun to include some hearts in the photos of this food I love.  So in both the egg salad and the popcorn pics I created hearts.  I wanted to show the love for my grandma and the food that has a special place in my heart.

I just love the combo of popcorn and cheese.  Mmmmmm...

On the left page I used one of the photo blocks for the title.  And by using some lined paper I was able to create a space for my journaling.  I also got to use some floral papers on this page.  Love making pages about me so that I can use some girly products!  :)

I wanted the title to use two types of letter stickers...check.  And I wanted the word Comfort to stand out...check.  I also wanted the title to form a block and have the edges line up...che...oh well, you can't win them all.  :)

To continue with the warm feel I chose a red Sharpie for my journaling. More handwriting...what is my world coming too?

Have you ever made a page about some of your favorite foods?  Link us up so we can see!

Fun on the Farm

This spring both of my boys went on field trips to the farm.  Seemed like the perfect opportunity to throw a layout together with a photo collage!

This was one of those super fast, super simple layouts.  I got the idea from a fellow LOADster.  You can see her version here.

I made an 8.5x22 canvas in Photoshop Elements and filled it with images and digi papers.  I used the process I posted about here and here.  Then when I printed I cropped down to 8.5x11 on the left side, printed, went back up to edit/undo crop and then followed the same process on the right side.

I placed all the pics of my younger son on the left page and all the pics of my older son on the right.  Even though the trip is to the same place they were not on the same day.  I like separating them trips while still keeping them on the same layout.

For a bit of farmy fun I added this adorable pig from the Cuddly Animals Set over at SVGCuts.com.  Do you like the mud smudges I added on him.  :)  That's my favorite part.

So here's the deal with the title...I ran out of t and e in my sticker set.  So I had to improvise.  But "Down on da Farm" totally works for me!  :)

The digi paper fill spots were from a 4th of July set.  But all the denim seemed a perfect fit for a farm page, don't ya think?

Here's my pigs best bud the cow.  Also from the Cuddly Animals set!  And then while digging around in my brown color bin I found this bit of rope.  Loved the touch it gave to the page!

Hand written journaling was a must for this quick and simple page.  I had fun playing with comparing the two trips.  For every comparison I started with my youngest and followed it with a comment about my oldest.  Just like how the page has my youngest first (on the left) and moves to my oldest.

The journaling reads, "Two farm field trips full of fun!  One was wet and cold.  One was sunny and warm.  One with Mama.  One with Daddy.  One never made it past the playground.  One saw all the animals.  One with a small class.  One with many friends.  One with silly smiles.  One in a cowboy hat.  One afraid to feed the animals.  One ready to try.  Two boys having tons of fun on a field trip to Deanna Rose Farm."

We actually went back to the farm this last week (did I mention it's free!!!).  Here are a couple of my favorite shots from our recent trip.

Have you had two children go on the same field trip?  Try making a comparison page and link us up so we can see!

35 things I love at 35

Sometimes when you are attempting to do a layout a day you've gotta take things easy.  This layout was made on one of those days for me.

 One of the LOAD challenges was to create an all black and white layout.  And I did it!   Well, almost.  :)

I was looking for a white paper to use as a mat when I came across this lovely paper.  It has a subtle green pattern.  Which is where my "almost" comes in.  :)

My journaling consists of a simple list of 35 things I love at 35.  Hence the catchy title.  ;)

Have you ever made a page listing things you love?  Leave a link in the comments so we can all see!