Another crafty project complete!

Well 2 actually. The first one is a wedding gift. A couple that has gone on my families float/fishing trip the last couple of years is getting married while we are there this year so I decided to make them a gift. By "my family", my parents, both my brothers and their families, my sister and her family, plus most of us take a "guest" family. This year it is somewhat smaller since several groups that usually attend had too many other things going on this summer but the core group will still be there. We will have 30+ people involved so it is always entertaining and unpredictable. Anyway, here is what I came up with.....

I found the frame at Hobby Lobby and used my Old West and Camping cartridges on my Cricut to cut everything out. Hubby really wondered if I had lost it when I ask him to help me cut the nailheads off some paneling nails to use on it but he adjusted quickly....he usually does. He has learned not to ask too many questions!

The other project I finished up last night while watching all the taped episodes of "America's Got Talent" was sorting Zane and Mariska's pictures. I have fallen sadly behind on their scrapbooks. I'm going to try and remedy that over the rest of the summer though. Sharon printed pictures from May until December a couple of weeks ago and I managed to sort them all out last night by child and then put them in order. I have about 30 layouts/events for each kid to do. Okay, so it will probably take me a little longer than the rest of the summer to catch them up but....it doesn't help when I start taking pictures also :sigh: Guess I'm going to have to share these with Sharon huh?








Don't you love the 'ornery look on Mariska's face and the look of sheer joy on Zane's? The other sweetheart is my great niece Jacee. Her and Zane were having a ball playing in the water sprinkler one evening when it was steamy hot!!

It's been almost a week

since I've posted....I thought I was doing better than that LOL. It's amazing how much I can find to do at home when I'm actually there. One of the things I accomplished over the weekend was finishing up my "micro-organizing" of all my chipboard letters. I have everything stored by letter in these...



I spent Sunday afternoon finishing up a project I started a couple of weeks ago. I made dividers in each drawer and sorted each letter so when I need to see if I have everything to spell out my title it is easier to find the exact match...if that is what I want. Now each drawer looks like this....

alpha drawer inside 1
by J3Mel
Scrapbook.com

I also have one drawer of all the punctuation and one drawer of numbers. Now to just figure out how to rein in the mess in my regular chipboard drawers.....lots of stuff in there and no real idea what all it is....I haven't decided if that is my next project or tackling all my rubber stamps that I would like to take off the wood blocks and use on my acrylics. I'm also thinking about making a rolodex of all my stamp images to use as a reference......what to do what to do?

Some fun family pictures

Joni and Jake at Battle for a Cure


Battle for a Cure - Team Granny
Jake, his girlfriend Tabitha, Joni, my niece Samantha, and her "then" boyfriend Brandon made up a team that competed in the Battle for a Cure. It was a cancer research fundraiser hosted by the local FFA Chapter. The kids called themselves Team Granny and competed in honor of my Mom who is a breast cancer survivor....and they won the whole shebang!! They even pulled Granny Bonnie out of the crowd to take a picture for the paper. Don't you like their "team uniform".....Joni wasn't fond of wearing the boots...she went sock feet most of the evening.


my 2 year old niece Mariska Kristine


My goofy 3 1/2 year old nephew Zane!


Joni and Riska Roo at my 40th birthday party.......we LOVE this picture.

Cross Your Fingers

for me. I would love to sit down and work on Addie's album a little bit tonight. I know it won't be finished before her party on Saturday but it will be close enough to give to her anyway. We've had so many crazy things going on every night this week that I haven't had a chance to do to much but go to ballgames of some sort. The good side to that is Jake cranked a 3 run homer out at his baseball game on Tuesday night. He was sooo excited and happy. We even decided that even though his game wasn't over until 9:30 and Dairy Queen in the neighboring town closed at 10....we quickly made the trek and bought him supper and a Blizzard!!! Okay, so we all celebrated with him and had a blizzard......who really needs an excuse for ice cream. Here's hoping I get some scrap time over the weekend. I'm going into withdrawal.

Taking Suggestions

for scrapshow ideas. I'm taping another one on July 29th. I want to do a spot on power scrapping and possibly on different styles of layouts but I haven't decided for sure.....what do you guys think?

What a crazy crazy weekend!!

It started out pretty good. Jake had to ballgames on Friday night. He got to start both games in center field which made him very happy and he had a couple of really good hits. I love it when my kids come home from an event in a good mood. Saturday started.....not so great. Apparently, sitting under those big pretty shade trees on Friday night kicked the already agitated allergies into overdrive and upon waking up on Saturday morning....I was miserable!!! We were supposed to go trail riding with friends Saturday afternoon which I was really looking forward to since I hadn't been on my horse Little Bit since last fall when I started her!! I decided an afternoon in the "wilderness" would not do my allergies any good whatsoever so I opted to stay home and attend the BBQ afterwards. Joni was going down so I could ride with her. The roller coaster of life took a MAJOR downswing a few hours after Larry loaded up his horse on my brother's trailer and left. Keep in mind, Larry is going an hour away from home, sketchy cell service, without a vehicle or transportation of his own (okay he had his horse but think about it!). So.....a storm brews up...sigh....the lights go out....nope not gonna panic, not at all. Call the neighbor, nope, no electricity there either. I start through the house unplugging everything so nothing blows up from a surge when it comes back on. I should note here that unplugging the computer, internet, and Xbox all mean going downstairs where the surge protector is plugged in (don't ask....I couldn't get anybody to put a plug in where I wanted it so I made do myself!). Start down the basement steps with a flashlight and ummmm.....that looks like water where water is NOT supposed to be. Yup, I'm correct....the drain is plugged and the water from the last load of laundry is bubbling up in the basement. Thank goodness our basement is not finished although the water is headed towards the pool table....easy fix, I'll move it out of the way. HHMMMMM that water looks to be advancing......I pick up all Jake's stuff off the bare floor in his "teenage cave" and strategically place a toothpick on the floor to check the rising water level. I should mention I have tried to contact Larry at this point but no answer....no surprise...he's in the boonies somewhere!! Tried my brother, got his voice mail, left a message to have Larry call me. Checked the toothpick...okay, it is raising a little faster than comfortable so I need to do something. The rain and wind has stopped but we still don't have electricity back soooo........phone rings...it's Larry....should he come home?? Okay, I want to say HELL YES but my "polite" replay is....let me see what I can do. If I can't get it I'll call you back.............

To the barn I go....get the 50 foot sewer tape and head to the horse lot where our drain empties. Start the sewer tape up the drain......I'm standing in "mud" if you get my drift and sinking......YUCK YUCK YUCK YUCK GAG YUCK YUCK YUCK!! I have 6 feet of tape left (remember now, it's a 50 foot tape) and I hit something solid. I ram the tape about 3 times and voila!! we have a gush of water......ping pong balls, wiffle golf balls, a hacky sack ball, AND the remnants of melted gladware lids. That's where they have all gone.........my dishwasher melts them. They start solidifying halfway down the drain and then the cats toys get caught on the pieces of plastic and VOILA...I have a flooded basement.

To top off the afternoon (remember here that I felt like CRAP so I didn't go riding!) I'm throwing the sewer tape over the fence back into the yard because it is hard to roll back up and I figure Larry can do that when he gets home and it starts to brew up another storm. This sewer tape, mind you, is METAL, and I can see lightening about 3 miles away.........the sewer tape is still laying right where I dropped it!!

I get to the house...still no electricity and Joni is planning on picking me up in less than an hour. I think you can probably imagine what I looked like. Ever tried to take a shower in the dark?? It's not as easy as it sounds. I did manage to get all the "mud" off, used half a bottle of body wash mind you - but shaving of the legs did NOT happen! Good thing it was just my brother's family and some friends at the cookout....they understood the stubble issue after hearing my story!!

Now I'm not the type of wife that expects hubby to do EVERYTHING....most of the time it is easier to just do it myself. BUT, I'm telling ya......listening to him laugh as I was describing my day while he was on an afternoon trailride...yeah, not so much gonna get you on my good side dear!! The good news is, the basement is once again dry, Larry is responsible for replacing the drain cover that is broken which allowed all the balls to go down the drain, and Father's Day yesterday or not - he owes me BIG for this one!!

Yup, that is the wonder of my weekend....I think I'll leave everything plugged in the next time so I don't have to feel the need to take care of the situation before he gets home :sigh:

finished one up last night

and this one turned into one of my favorites as much because of the pictures as because of the finished layout itself. I wish the coloring was a little better on the picture I took. The right side is not quite right color wise. There is a lot of detail work with stickles on this that doesn't show up very well but none-the-less, I totally love how this one turned out.

Thank you Mary and Kristi

I had soooo many pictures that my "bird friends" helped me out during our annual Birds of a Feather crop this weekend. I still have a couple more at home to put some finishing touches on and take pictures of, I'll try to get those finished up and loaded this week sometime.

I have all of a week and a half to finish this book. I have about 4 or 5 more double layouts to do. I'll probably be spending some late nights trying to finish up. I also have to mark all the journaling spots for Addie's mom so she can do all the journaling about the trip. This has been a major project for me and I'll breathe a big sigh of relief when I give it to the family!!

Single page layouts

I don't do them often but I had to scraplift one of my friends layouts that was absolutely gorgeous and some of the pictures just called for individual layouts.

The star layout actually has another half page. I'll add a full shot of that after I get the page protector altered to hold the layout.

It's going to take more than one post

to upload the layouts I finished up this weekend. The Make a Wish album isn't finished but it is certainly getting closer. I even had some added help on a few so I'll post those as well.

So much to post

but I haven't taken any pictures yet. My friends Mary, Michelle, and Kristi came in on Friday for the weekend and we've been scrapping fools every since we got to the house from the airport. I have 8 double layouts done last night and today but I haven't taken any pictures yet. I'll be loading everything on Tuesday when I get back to work and get rested up. For now.....I need some sleep!!

Check Check Check

menu planned for crop...check! Grocery shopping done....check! Small scrappy gifts for my friends made.....check (but I can't post the pics until after they arrive ;-) House almost clean.....check! I'm getting there....I'm almost ready!! I can't wait for the girls to get here even though this has been and is going to be a crazy week.

Steak Festival Scholarship Pageant (aka queen contest) is tomorrow night. Joni said she isn't nervous about the interview at all but her speech is already making her queasy.....it's such a good speech, she really shouldn't be nervous. I think she is almost excited about the rest of it though. There are 8 girls participating so I'll let you know how it goes for her.

I don't know if I'll post tomorrow or not. I'm only working half a day then going home to finish getting ready for the birds of a feather to roost for the weekend! I shouldn't have too much to do but make some side dishes that we can eat on all weekend and get beds ready. Larry is hoping it quits raining long enough for him to do some more work outside but it is looking pretty gloomy right now.

Thank you to all the ladies that signed up as followers. I promise to get back to posting scrap goodies soon. I should have plenty to share after this weekend....I had better accomplish something over 3 days anyway!! I want to do some challenges as well if I can figure out everything on this blog.....it is a learning process and I'm slowing getting there.

The Countdown is on....

to my 3 bestest scrapping friends flying in for a 3 day weekend of scrapping, chatting, and general mayhem!! I can't wait for them to get here. I haven't been scrapping much the last few days because of VBS and getting my house ready for them. You know how it is...hubby finds out company is coming and decides to finish a few of the projects that have been half done for a couple of years now. Well everything but my woodwork in the living room.....he forgot he wanted to get that done but oh well!

This is also the Salisbury Steak Festival week here in town. Jake is a member of FFA and since he is a junior officer, he has to work setup, cleanup, and everyday in between. Add in basketball camp, baseball practice, the 3 on 3 basketball tournament, and heaven help us....a kickball team for the tournament and he has a full plate. I'm trying to keep up with running him around but I'm not letting go of the idea of just moving him in with my best friend who lives a block and a half from the school in one direction and a block and a half from the park where the steak festival is in the other direction. I'll just show up when he plays basketball LOL.

I've been at work for an hour now and have caught up on all my emails, my blog, the news, and even snuck in a quick peak at my facebook messages.....I guess it is actually time to get myself to work this morning.

Let the rat race begin....hopefully I'm the rat in front today and not lost in the pack!

One night down....2 to go

VBS went rather well last night. There were only 2 kids in the 2nd and 3rd grade group to make scrapbooks BUT the 4th/5th/6th grade group needs something else to do during craft time so we are rounding up the stuff for them to make scrapbooks also. Should be an interesting evening!!!

This weekend marks the 6th anniversary of Jeana's fall (Saturday night) and death (Sunday afternoon). We have lots of things going on to keep us busy but it never really leaves the back of your mind. Sunday is also the birthday of the young man that was killed in a car wreck last November here in Salisbury. Guess his family and mine will always share the 6th of June together. Although it marks the saddest day of our lives, I pray that Jamey's family can somehow remember the joy that the day brought to theirs. I know that will be difficult for them this year but hopefully they can reach a point of remembering the joy instead of the sorrow at some point.

Another layout in the Make-A-Wish album

Yup, I did another layout for the make-a-wish album. This one was for the Magic Pillows that both girls got to "make" while staying at Give Kids the World. I did alternating colors and a lot of stitching on this. I included 2 journal boxes giving Mom Audrey lots of room to journal. I cut the bracket out of a flowered paper that I had that was too loud to use on it's own, then cut individual flowers out to use as embellishments....including pop dotting some back onto the bracket.

Another layout done..........I'm up to day 4 now but that's the HUGE day. The day they got to go to the Bippity Bop Boutique and were transformed into princesses for the day.........that day alone could fill an album.

I have the 2nd and 3rd grade crafts for vacation bible school this summer. The theme is Joseph, from prison to the palace so we are making flip flop scrapbooks.

I found the weaved looking flip flops at a rummage sale. I cut the thong part off and threaded jute through the holes so the kids can put wooden beads on it. The stamping is hirogliphics (I can't spell it sorry). We are using small stamps as "symbols" for the letters in Joseph. You can see where I messed one up on my example. I'm using stazon ink so the mess up is permanent! I'm going to have the kids cut out a piece to match the flip flop to cover the knots on the back and we will hot glue that down for them. They will have to cut out the pages and stamp a journaling spot on it so they can write in about what they "learned" at bible school. I'm going to have my daughter take pictures and we will quickly print them out so they can include pictures if they want. I have the backs already cut out of chipboard and they will cover that with some neutral patterned paper.....yes, I found a good way to get rid of ugly paper!!

The books will be tied together the last day with more jute. I will print them off a "bookplate" for the inside cover with the theme, name of the church and dates for them to adhere.

I'm getting everything gathered up this evening as VBS starts tomorrow night!! I hope the kids enjoy the scrapbooks cuz they have actually been kind of fun to put together!

Rainy days

Another rainy day in Missouri. We needed a shower and got a deluge!! Hopefully it didn't come so hard that it seals all the seed planted in the last week. Spring planting is late as it is, we really don't need to have to replant........again. Our farmer clients are starting to get a little grumpy........I say very lovingly!

I hope to load some more stuff tonight if I make it home from Jake's basketball shootout in time. His last game is at 3:30 so hopefully we won't be to late. I also have to work on the flip flop scrapbooks that we will be making at VBS starting tomorrow night.

I'm also looking for advice on starting a faithbooking group. A few of the ladies at church are interested and I need some tips on how to get it up and going. I guess it would help a lot if I actually had any followers on my blog LOL!

So many layouts so little time

I'll just load a few for now. I'm just checking out my internet connection at home to see how it is going to handle uploading pics to the blog.

Okay, ladies, bare with me here as I learn this whole blog thing. I have lots of layouts to load but since my internet is down at home, I have to sneak online on my lunch break at work to do this. Hopefully I'll get the internet back up and running at home soon.

I do have a few layouts on my computer here at work so I'll start sharing with those. I think you'll figure out pretty quickly, I'm all about pictures telling the story in my layouts.....and once in a while I do include some journaling...when forced to!! I love love love my Cricut Expression and Sure Cuts a Lot 2 program and have found the combination to be my bestest, most used scrapping friends/tools. I'm too cheap to buy anything but basic stuff.....I always think I can make it myself so much cheaper :faint:

Most of the current layouts I'm kicking out are for a Make-A-Wish trip album I'm doing for a very dear friend of mine. Her sweet daughter was granted a wish waaaayyyy back in 2008 and I'm determined to have it finished up for her birthday this year (in about a month) so that is where all my scrapping energy is going right now. You won't see much journaling on any of these because Audrey has to do it for Addison when I get finished up.

I'll try and get more layouts loaded over the next few days. I have lots from Addie's wish trip and my niece and nephew....you'll love those two cute little stinkers!! I even have a few of my own kids.......I think anyway....it has been so long since I've worked on my own albums I'm not sure what I have anymore!!

Anyway, I hope this gives some inspiration for scrapping lots of pictures on your layouts. I'll eventually even post some pics of my scrapspace and maybe give some organizational tips.

The start to something interesting - I hope!

Well let's hope this is the start of something interesting anyway.

Hi my name is Melanie and I'm a lots of picture type of scrapper. I'm always looking for inspiration for layouts that have more pictures than embellishments, more story than technique, and more love than money.

It is probably going to take me a few days to really get this thing started since my internet is down at home but here's hoping I can make this into something interesting, fun and inspirational.