Helping Hand

I haven't blogged much lately -- been busy. But I've also been scrapbooking. Here's one of my new faves -- a picture of Ben (my YDS) and his grandfather. These old photos of the generations mean so much to me. With only one grandparent left (my husband's mother), I'm grateful for the time my boys had with the others. Ben never knew my dad, but Scott did. And both of them knew the other grandparents -- my mom and David's mom and dad.

Bob was kind of gruff sometimes. And he was a working man -- he could fix anything. But I was surprised at what a great grandpa he was. He was gentle and patient with the little ones. The other grandkids were older by the time I married into the family or we just weren't around them much -- so I hadn't seen this side of Bob until my own boys were born.

And the Winner is...

bfran55! Congrats and thanks for joining my blog! If you'll send me your address (either here or at ClubCK) I'll send a little something your way!

Hope you all enjoyed the Blog Hop -- there will be another one in the Fall with a leafy theme.

August Blog Hop

I'm SO excited. This is the first time I've been able to participate in a Blog Hop, since my blog is still pretty new. Here is the list of participants in the Blog Hop:

1. Amanda http://www.lovejoypaper.com
   
2. Ashley http://ashleyspaperdoll.blogspot.com/
3. Jennifer D http://scrapdrawer.blogspot.com/
4. Kathy K2S http://clubcreatingkeepsakes.com/blogs/goheels/default.aspx
5. Amanda Johnson http://asjmade.blogspot.com/ ******
6. *****Deletion here - please skip to next blog******
7. Laura (moongirl) http://happinessequalscreation.blogspot.com/
   
8. MBscrapping Cassie http://allsmilesandsunshine.blogspot.com/
9. Andrea Joy http://andrea-preciousmemories.blogspot.com/
10. Steffanie http://steffanies.blogspot.com/
11. Toree http://clubcreatingkeepsakes.com/blogs/nightsmile/default.aspx
12. Adele http://dleebug.wordpress.com/
13. Shanon http://scrappingandtraveling.blogspot.com/
14. Heather http://craftyscrapbooker.blogspot.com/
15. Mandi http://mjskraze.blogspot.com/
16. Kelly http://scrappin-sisters.blogspot.com/
17. Eternoly Yours Linda http://www.eterno-lyyours.blogspot.com
18. Devra http://mycreativeview.blogspot.com/
19. Lady of the Lake Andrea http://ladyofthelakeslog.blogspot.com/
20. Laurie (Tulip scrapper) http://tulip-scrapper.blogspot.com/
21. Veronica http://missonigur.blogspot.com/
22. Traci http://stitchstampandstir.blogspot.com/
23. Jackie http://www.scrapbangwallop.blogspot.com/
24. Laurie http://lalmack63.blogspot.com

If you did not arrive here from Devra's blog, please go back to Amanda's blog and start at the

beginning! Once you're finished here, you can head on over to Laurie's blog (Tulip Scrapper from Club CK). And be sure you check out Amanda's blog and sign up for a chance to win the overall blog prize. And if you become a follower of my blog and leave me a message, you'll be entered to

win an RAK of some random scrappy goodies from me.

So -- here is the sketch we were given by Amanda:

I have to tell you, I wasn't all that excited about it when I got it. I don't often do the narrow all around border edge and it just didn't excite me. Life was busy and I almost dropped out of the Blog Hop, but then decided I'd go through with it. I'm SO glad I did.

I pulled some pictures to work with and some papers (from my newest K & Co. stack, "Sea Glass" -- I'm so LOVING this stack!). I followed the sketch pretty faithfully -- and I LOVE the result! The photos are from a trip to Marina del Rey that we took on my husband's birthday. We'd walked and wandered around and found this koi pond behind a restaurant. It was like a hidden island hideaway LOL. So I had the kids take our picture (we don't get many of just the

two of us). It was so touristy but so fun. I think the photos worked great with these papers and are perfect for this sketch. I love the way the layout turned out!

Of course, after taking our pic, the kids had to take their own. Sigh. Here's the page that features THEIR self-portraits. Why do they have to do that?

Here's the full layout:

If you're a scrapper but haven't found Club Creating Keepsakes, let me tell you about it. I love this online, virtual community of scrappers. It is provided by the magazine, Creating Keepsakes, and is free to join. There you will find content from CK, message boards, weekly challenges, questions and answers, new techniques, ideas, product reviews, and friends. Check it out! I'll be hosting the weekly challenge the week of August 28 and I'll be using these layouts as a starting point -- come join us!

Don't forget to leave me a message and become a follower for a chance to win. And sign up on Amanda's blog! Now, if you're ready to leave me, you can continue hopping through the blog's with Laurie's blog. Have a scrappy weekend!

Bloom

This layout is a bit of a departure for me. I don't usually do so much pink and don't often use bling. But these photos came out beautiful -- the iris were so incredible. We went down to Northridge over Spring Break to check out the school, places to live, etc. When we came home, the flowers were in full bloom -- absolutely gorgeous. One thing I will miss from up there.

The sketch is from Sketchy Thursdays -- it was a one pager that I turned into a 2 page spread.

Here's my layout:

When I showed it to my YDS, his response was "It's kinda girly, isn't it?"

Sigh...

Pietsch Family Photo

This is the last photo, I believe, of the Pietsch family in NY before they came west to California. My grandmother is the second on the left.

I used the sketch from Frosted Designs:

Foggy Foggy Days

These are some photos from last winter. My commute to school in Robbins, across the levy and rice fields, where I was subbing last fall semester was greatly lengthened each morning by the fog. I do love it though -- as my journaling shows. I included some quotes about fog that I liked.

Sounds of the Season

So I'm finally getting around to scrapping Christmas '10. Here's one of Scott and I -- don't remember who was taking the pics. But he is so hard to get to smile and I'm not often caught laughing that hard -- so I love these. The sketch is from Sassy Lil Sketches.

But wait -- there's more

More Christmas photos and more sketch challenges -- I tweaked this sketch from SassyLilSketches into one 2 page layout and one side of another layout:

The second page of this layout comes from a PageMap sketch from Paper Secrets:

Finally -- Christmas scrapping

Well, we're moved and I'm finally scrapping again. I've gotten 7 pages done in the last few days and it feels GOOD. I'm scrapping some Christmas pics from 2010, along with some other things -- so here's a two page layout based on a Sketchy Thursdays sketch that I tweaked and turned into a 2 pager:

the sketch

my layout.

First Best Friend

For this layout (probably the last until we move! Less than a week now!), I borrowed this sketch from a Scrap-a-Little Sketches:

and used some old photos of my boys

and the theme of Friendship from Friday's Challenge at Frosted Designs:

But -- I was too late to add it there. :-( Can't get used to noon Central Time LOL.

Studio Tour

This is another Frosted Designs sketch. And I used the colors for Erika's Issue Challenge over at Club Creating Keepsakes. The colors for this week's challenge were navy, yellow and lime green. And here's the sketch from Frosted Designs:

I used this for the right hand page then tweaked it a bit for the companion page -- here's my full layout:

Here are the individual pages:

I used DCWV's Designer Jeans stack for the base paper. I think it's Bazzil yellow, but I'm not positive. And the green pp is from a K & Company stack. And the buttons are from my button jar. I may end up adding one more strip of journaling to the top left (a date) and one button or small circle to the bottom left. Still thinking on that...

These are from our Spring Break trip to Los Angeles. We went on the NBC Tour. It's not all that exciting. Although we did get to see Fritz Coleman (weather man) getting out of his car. We had a fun time down there and I've enjoyed scrapping the photos.

First a Little Toot!

My layout, Turtle Time, that I submitted to Frosted Designs for last week's sketch challenge was one of their Top Three! So I'm tooting my own horn :-) I've sent an email requesting the coveted blinkie :-) They announced it last Thursday, but I didn't see it until this morning! We've been a little busy....

And After the Rain....

The next day, this is what the sky looked like -- out my back slider, just like the shots of the hail on the neighbor's roof and almost tornado

Crazy weather

We've been having insane weather here! Yesterday we had a crack of thunder that sent the cat racing back in. Then it started to rain, then pour. Pretty soon we were getting hail. There were tornadoes too! We saw a funnel cloud starting to form, but it didn't have enough speed going.

Christmas in ToonTown

Another oldie pictures layout. The photos aren't the best, but they bring back lots of memories. Having Disney passes and taking the kids so often was so much fun.

This was based on a layout from Sassy Sketches.

Some old photos...

I found some old pics of my babies while we were going through the garage. I'm so loving seeing them again...my sweet babies. Missing those days too.

Here's a couple layouts I've snuch in while packing and garage saling:

The title "Watch Out World!" will appear on the rolodex card once I have a chance -- and there's journaling inside the pouch it makes.

Yep, he wouldn't give up the old bottle even though it was empty -- but wanted the new, full one, too.

Well...time to go pack another box....

Turtle Time

My sweet babies -- from 1997. They're 14 and 20 now...sigh. I miss the Turtle Times.

Found these photos as we were going through stuff getting ready for a garage sale. This is at our old condo in Orange. The yard was tiny, but they had fun with the turtle sandbox.

Chinese Whispers - Shhhh

One of the games we play on the Club CK message board is Chinese Whispers. The first person in the group receives a sketch from the hostess (I was first this time!) She creates a layout based on the sketch, then sends her layout to the hostess and the second person on the list. The second person makes a layout based on the first layout (without seeing the sketch) and then sends to the hostess and the third person. When everyone on the list has had a chance, the hostess posts a "reveal" -- the original sketch and all the following layouts. It's always fun to see how things change around with each person's interpretation.

But it's a big secret until the reveal -- but here's a little tidbit. I scrapped my aunt's wedding pictures! I was pretty happy with how the layout ended up. But that's about all I can say for now :-)

Grad Gift Mini Album

I got a chance to go to a crop at Michaels -- 12 hours worth! I worked on this gift for a great-niece who graduated high school this year.

The mini-album was a free svg file that I cut on my Cricut. Here are some inside pages:

CSUN

Also from our trip to LA -- the whole point was to go to CSUN and talk to all the depts. While we were there, they had a special awareness week going on-- Armenian Genocide. The way the posters were worded, however, it sounded like they were participating (for a week) in the genocide. They could have used an English Teacher's editing help. Ah well.

Here's the layout -- based on a sketch from DCWV's blog:

And here's my layout -- the left is pretty straight forward sketch, the right side I turned and tweaked to make a companion page for it:

I used papers from DCWV's Designer Blue Jean's stack. The white border punch is the only thing that doesn't come from the stack -- it's from a border swap on Club CK.

Here's closer pics:

More from LA

This will be the last page of our Spring Break, LA Trip. The journaling around the edges talks about how David had driven us from home to ARC to Old Town Sac to LA (in one day/night), then all over LA while we were down there, then back again. All in a whirlwind trip. And when we got home, he was pooped.

This was our last stop before home. I still need to journal on the green. We were not enthralled with this visit. David said the pea soup wasn't even as good as the canned. Service was barely decent. No dark bread in the basket. Food was mediocre and more expensive than it should have been.

Frosted Designs

Well, I started this blog more so I can show off my scrapbooking and link back here than anything else. So, here we go. Frosted Designs offered this sketch for layouts:

Here is what I did with it: (and yes, I turned it into a two page layout)

I'm not liking this posting photos thing -- when I resize them, they come out funny. Maybe I'll get better :-)