Real Life Scrapping

Memories! They come tumbling back when you sit back & recall youth at it's dorkiest, purest days. Love the sketching & my prisma pencils, sweet sequins.

Love teenage years! A blessing & a curse. (Monk)

Two Friends & A Canvas in Progress

A canvas of self-portraits by friends & family in progress. We all have a good laugh! The idea came from an artist featured in the Mary Engelbright's "Home Companion" magazine a few years ago.
I have a canvas awaiting for self-portraits from friends & family, and it looks great! And here is Noah with his baseball friend Jared.

New Scrap Philosophy

My New Scrap Philosophy: Do not take it too seriously. It's a gift of time to renew & contemplate, and a wonderful playground. At times, I do feel guilty for not doing more, or for being unorganized or not being uniquely artistic, but I need to remind myself, my love for scrapbooking is a FREE ZONE & not a place for self incriminations. Enough said. I get it.

For some reason I want to put buttons on every layout! I cannot possibly use all the buttons I have collected & all of a sudden I can't get my hands on enough of them! I found this wonderful layout by Mou Sohou in which she used a stamp, I have a need to scrapjack her use of a stamp. I love stamps & I'm always looking for ways to incorporate them in layouts. Lately as I view favorite scrap sites, I am blown away by the creative work that is exploding everywhere--such inspired talent everywhere!

I love this photo. Misty light. I remember feeling so blessed to be spending time with loved ones again & finally being on Maui once again. I do not take these trips for granted, ever.
Teeny photos, great to work with! Just playing with all kinds of odds & ends. The clear epoxy rounds have been sitting in my drawer for about five years. . .

Living A Dream

Like putting together a puzzle! And, oh happy buttons!

Thoughts on blogging my scrap pages. Disclosure: If you think my life is rosy. Well, it is. But I live the prickly, stressful, endearing life of a stay-at-home Mom.

This layout makes me crack up.

*Grace

And Diane brought this to prayer group yesterday: The will of God will not take you where the grace of God will not protect you.

Anja Wade has begun to incorporate these outlined words on her layouts. The way she uses homemade everyday tools, ie. a pen!, appeals to my artist's soul. I decided I'd like to practice doodling.

I have intended to use hula girls in some manner for years. I came across during blogging a site named http://hulagirl.com/blog/ and it has inspired me to create loosely myself in capri pants/everyday wear with a hula skirt! It makes me laugh!
I keep up the doodling when I am viewing Angel's baseball or waiting in school pickup lines.
When I was a young girl I hung up my share of laundry on lines, and my mother had twins, we then totaled six kids. Can you imagine the sheer volume of clothes & diapers needing to be hung every single day? Nothing like the fresh breath of wind dried clothes on a laundry line!

Currently am: nursing summer colds, reading Jane Austen's Pride & Prejudice, rooting for the best team in the MLB--Go Angels, and a little doodling & scrapbooking. Being inspired by many favorite artist's work on their blogs & finding new artists! There was a time when I could never get enough of nonfiction autobiographical writings, and now with the Internet, everyone has a blog! I am also hanging out with my many girlfriends, & enjoying a short baseball break before winter league begins. Settling down to a new 2008-09 school year for Luke & Noah. Just minding my busyness!

*F L O A T. . .{banner change}

Confession: I am scrapjacking the best ideas! Noah reaching for the skies is all about being a ten year old!

I started these pages at Karen's house yesterday & played all morning long today (we all know chores remain an everyday staple by some freakish natural law of raising kids). Is my new banner a hoot? Floating. . .I asked Noah to take a photo of me floating! Methinks we should all do some kind of floating everyday!



I simply LOVE how A.W.'s work inspires me, if I am blog hopping, I am there.

All Star Memories

Noah: Corona American Little League All Stars, 9/10 Team

Luke: Corona American Little League, 11 Year Old All Star Team

Luke & Noah made Corona American Little League All Stars for 2007-2008. When each boy discovered they were selected, the accomplishment moment was bright joy. The season tends to go through an unending myriad of stages: start the season with freezing temps, end with desert heat. . .practices, games, new friends, wins & loses, surprises, (sniff*is that the light I see at the end of the tunnel?), more games. Just when you are ready to hang up the cap & bat, there is All Stars. And underneath it all, the journey was very good. I love dearly my fellow baseball parents. I see them every year, and when this part of the boy's life fades, I hope the memories remain.

Happy 2 Scrap on Back-2-School Monday

He has feelings too.
Apparently these are the things mothers & daughters do at Target.

Cool shadow posing on the day we were filling our pool!
Being over 50 truly has it's challenges, first there is shock & awe! Denial, who me?
Kind of my favorite because of the photo of Luke.

There's much to be said about this cliche "shop girls"!

Working that Hula Girl stamp & really having fun with it prepare to see it on every Maui page! Wanted for a long time to use this silly quip "Hula Bula" in a layout! Ha ha!

Yeah I'm Scrapping! Rusty but Present!

Heartbroken that Aloha Airlines dissolved their air services. This layout really doesn't capture all that I feel, though the experience was painful it was a scratch as to what the employees felt, unbeknownst to them that day. (I spy a hula girl stamp, she's so cute!)

The outstanding patterned paper available these days, scream to be used. I simply cannot slice the paper! I must just go with it as my base--for now. And for me, it works quite happily. I like busy-ness on layouts anyway for the most part.
Pulled out the embossing & stamps for a little banner play.

Ah, Maui. . . see how perfectly the lower case Basic Grey stickers fit in the banner! (I spy a new pineapple stamp! I have died and gone to heaven!)

Most self-portraits are of course non-spontaneous. This one I like because I look my age without looking as if I need a decade of sleep, LOL! The short poem was scraplifted from my morning blogging, it reads: Fear Less, Hope More. . .Whine Less, Breathe More. . .Talk Less, Say More. . .Hate Less, Love More. . .and All Good Things are yours NOW. Excellent food for thought because I own that whining bit.

Summer peaches from Kim's yard. Oh so sweet.
Zeus just hangs with Lorin in the hot sun while the patio path is being worked on. The path leading to the deck is almost done.
Jeanne sent me this "Beach" sign made of cat's eyes & broken cowries this year, it went right up on my wall in my scraproom. Feeling rusty at the desk, but happy to dust a bit and play. I've been sort of absent from the scrapworld, now that baseball is overwith & kids back in school I hope I can return to the creative world. There's a lot of creating to do, someone's got to do it!

Most Importantly

Lorin is working the brick laying, in the hot Corona sun. The work is grueling, but it makes Lorin proud to see his creative work (and me).
Luke is now going into Middle School next week! He had his graduation ceremony with all of his longtime friends. Sniff, my Lukey Luke.
Most importantly, here is Luke and Noah after their First Communion yesterday, Father Fuller did the Sunday mass & I can't say enough of the experience. To be able to have communion with all three boys as a family is precious. OH! No photo yet, both boys are on Corona American Little League All Star teams (Noah's team won 21-5 ag. Jurupa National, I don't like winning like that!)