I made this page for Kevin's album using the November Personal Scrapper kit with We R Memory Keepers paper. The photo was taken in October on Blake's birthday. This layout was inspired by a sketch by Inspired Blueprints, sketch #5.
Wildflower150/Deanna, a member at Personal Scrapper, had posted a gingerbread house layout using the November kit earlier in the month. I knew knew then that the papers would also work with our gingerbread house pictures from 2006. Unfortunately, our house collapsed into a pile!
As I sorted through my (many!) Christmas pictures to use with the new December kit, I came across several family/group photos that I'd had enlarged. I decided to pair them up with some DCWV papers that came in a mini kit I received at a crop at Archiver's in November. I loved using my new American Crafts foil Thickers.
If it weren't for an online crop at Personal Scrapper mid-month, I think my total count for December would have been kept to 3 layouts! The crop was from Friday until Wednesday and I don't think I even started scrapping until Monday morning!I did use the December kit for this layout for Blake's album. The challenge was to do a layout based on an interview. I thought Blake's wishlist for Christmas counted. I'm glad I have this documented for him now. I was inspired by a sketch, but didn't write it down on the LO - it might have been a PageMaps.
There was a challenge to use a b/w photo. I had just copied this photo of my paternal grandparents and paired it up with this Jenni Bowlin paper I'd had for almost a year. I used my Stampin' Up colored pencils to color in the pattern of the paper.
For the "girly girl" challenge to use flowers & ribbon, I made another layout of my grandparents. I had these photos in 8x10, but had also made copies so I could scrap them "someday." Again, I used Jenni Bowlin papers. The button in the center of the flowers is a vintage button from my other grandmother's sewing stash.
For the "off the page" challenge by Carrie Postma, I ran my photos off the page. This page just cracks me up because I remember how funny it was to look up and see my two boys and my nephew all dancing on Thanksgiving. They'd all gotten hot and removed their shirts - it was funny that they all had on white tees underneath. I used the leftovers in a "kit bag" that I had sitting around. I added naked Junkitz and MM chipboard letters.
Another Design Team member, Carmen, posted a LO that we were supposed to lift. Here is my take on it. Kevin was so proud of his building. It was taller than he was! I love how he was dressed in his baseball pants!
There was also a challenge to mix alphas in your title. I hope my sister, Molly, doesn't kill me for posting this layout of her and her boyfriend! I didn't realize they'd snagged my camera for some self portraits until later. I used the November PS kit for this page.
I had a couple pictures I'd taken of the food at Mom & Dad's on Thanksgiving, and they worked perfect with the "holiday tradition" challenge. I used the December PS kit for this layout.
A page about Kevin's tree in his room this year worked well with the red/green challenge. I was inspired by a Valerie Salmon sketch for this page, but I did make a few changes.
I loved these pictures of Kevin learning how to make Mom's chicken & dumplings. I worked them into the seasonal challenge for winter since that's when we usually have dumplings. However, the pics were taken on his early November birthday. This is probably my favorite page from the crop. It's based on a Jana Wilson sketch.
I lifted a DT member for another challenge. I really liked a layout by Carmen. I just realized that the layout loaded sideways (oops!). By the way...this is the "bad" Santa I mentioned in my last post!
I had a three other layouts from the crop, but they are loading sideways, also. I also made some cute ornaments out of the Scrapworks little 2x3 postage stamp shaped acrylic albums. I had gotten the idea at Archiver's last month. I made one for all the kids in the family, one for my sister, and a set of our boys to keep for myself. Finally, I also altered a couple star shaped boxes to hold ornaments I'd sewn for Kevin's teacher's aides.
There was a challenge to use a b/w photo. I had just copied this photo of my paternal grandparents and paired it up with this Jenni Bowlin paper I'd had for almost a year. I used my Stampin' Up colored pencils to color in the pattern of the paper. 
For the "girly girl" challenge to use flowers & ribbon, I made another layout of my grandparents. I had these photos in 8x10, but had also made copies so I could scrap them "someday." Again, I used Jenni Bowlin papers. The button in the center of the flowers is a vintage button from my other grandmother's sewing stash.
For the "off the page" challenge by Carrie Postma, I ran my photos off the page. This page just cracks me up because I remember how funny it was to look up and see my two boys and my nephew all dancing on Thanksgiving. They'd all gotten hot and removed their shirts - it was funny that they all had on white tees underneath. I used the leftovers in a "kit bag" that I had sitting around. I added naked Junkitz and MM chipboard letters.
Another Design Team member, Carmen, posted a LO that we were supposed to lift. Here is my take on it. Kevin was so proud of his building. It was taller than he was! I love how he was dressed in his baseball pants!
There was also a challenge to mix alphas in your title. I hope my sister, Molly, doesn't kill me for posting this layout of her and her boyfriend! I didn't realize they'd snagged my camera for some self portraits until later. I used the November PS kit for this page.
I had a couple pictures I'd taken of the food at Mom & Dad's on Thanksgiving, and they worked perfect with the "holiday tradition" challenge. I used the December PS kit for this layout.
A page about Kevin's tree in his room this year worked well with the red/green challenge. I was inspired by a Valerie Salmon sketch for this page, but I did make a few changes.
I loved these pictures of Kevin learning how to make Mom's chicken & dumplings. I worked them into the seasonal challenge for winter since that's when we usually have dumplings. However, the pics were taken on his early November birthday. This is probably my favorite page from the crop. It's based on a Jana Wilson sketch.
I lifted a DT member for another challenge. I really liked a layout by Carmen. I just realized that the layout loaded sideways (oops!). By the way...this is the "bad" Santa I mentioned in my last post!
I had a three other layouts from the crop, but they are loading sideways, also. I also made some cute ornaments out of the Scrapworks little 2x3 postage stamp shaped acrylic albums. I had gotten the idea at Archiver's last month. I made one for all the kids in the family, one for my sister, and a set of our boys to keep for myself. Finally, I also altered a couple star shaped boxes to hold ornaments I'd sewn for Kevin's teacher's aides.Right now, I am in the process of going through my December photos so I can get them uploaded and ordered. I don't know when I'll get back to scrapping though. I'm having too much fun playing Yahtzee and Upwords with the boys.
I turned 34 and celebrated by going for a wonderful stone massage. Tom and the boys knew just what to give me! We also had dinner at my parents' house. Two days later we celebrated our 11
Our boys enjoyed their Cub Scouts Christmas bowling party. They were hilarious to watch. Thankfully the gutter guards were up! 
I thoroughly enjoyed having them home all last week. We had a lot of fun. They were big helpers all month in preparing for Christmas. Last week we made several ornaments for gifts and Christmas cookies, too. 
Christmas was wonderful. We visited with my Grandmother (above) before we attended Christmas Eve Mass with most of my family. On Christmas morning, we opened presents here and then went to my parents' house. My grandmother joined us for most of the day. Yesterday we had Tom's family over to celebrate Christmas with them.
Friday was Halloween and after talking about it for months, Kevin finally got to be his mad scientist...Dr. Frankenstein. Blake was his creation. The costumes were in my head for a long time and luckily I was able to pull them off in the hour between the boys coming home from school and Tom arriving home from work.
I almost forgot...I dressed up this year, too. It was a last minute idea to be a witch. I pulled it off without anyone knowing except for my aunt, Missy. When the boys got home from school, I was all dressed up and I scared them after they got off the bus.
Guess what Tom dressed up as this year???
I found this photo on my camera. Kevin tried to take a self portrait of himself the day after Halloween eating candy while wearing my witch nose and hat. (He had to explain it to me, too!)
Kevin's birthday is Tuesday the 4
The birthday boy was joined by Adriane, Blake, Kaitlin, Grandma Kim, and Molly. My mom had never been to a place like this before. It didn't take long for her to realize why Blake pushed his chair back from the grill when the chef came to our table. As always, Kevin's favorite part was the onion volcano.
Well...maybe his favorite part was the birthday cheesecake...with whipped cream...and cherries...
Sunday we went to church in Henderson to hear Terry sing at church. We didn't know he could sing! We all really enjoyed it. Afterwards, we went to Build-A-Bear for the boys to add to their collections. Kevin created Monk E. Mark (a monkey) to join Roar E. 
This one is for Kevin...
On the 11
On the 12
I stayed up late on Blake's birthday after everyone went to bed (I couldn't sleep!) and finished three layouts. They knocked out a couple of the October challenges from Leah at Personal Scrapper and all three used the new October kit, too.
"Backseat Entertainment" mainly used up some scraps with a couple pictures that matched. The boys love using the new DVD player on 
Leah had a challenge to scrap your fall favorites. I pulled together pics from our trip to a pumpkin farm and also one of our fall display in our yard. Used scraps from the kit (made my own 'tags') and an assortment of alphabet tickers. 
On the 14
I also got back to work on our Florida vacation album. These are some pics from our last day there while we played in the pool after the rain finally stopped. 
The final scraps of the kit sat on my desk for 4 days (I wasn't feeling well for a few days), but I used them up on this random shot of the boys in March '06. The title reflects their ages at the time. I added some naked chipboard. 
Since I finished off my October kit, I decided to pull out my barely touched October kit. I found these last day of school pics from '07 to work with it and Erica's "use 4 or more pics on a page" challenge for the day Monday. It's not my favorite layout, but it's done.
For a past "sports page" challenge, I finally scrapped these pics of Blake with his basketball trophy from March '06. His trophy collection has more than tripled since then!
Yesterday was all about me...I had a couple pics of souvenirs I brought home from our vacation this summer. Every day I sit at the computer with "my monkey" looking over the top of my monitor at me. I found the coconut bank at a roadside fruit/souvenir stand on the way home. I fell in love with it. I actually lifted a layout by 
