A Mini for Reese...

When I printed my Easter photos, I ordered copies to give my sister photos of Reese. Once they arrived, I decided to hold on to the photos to make a mini album for Reese. When the May kit from Polka Dot Whimsy arrived, I thought it was perfect for my mini.

Everything in the album came from my kit. I simply pulled a Prima album cover from my stash. Using Modge Podge, I covered both the inside and outside covers with patterned paper. I layered Pink Paislee border strips (adhering the top layer with pop dots for dimension) to make my title border.

For my inside pages, I selected my favorite patterned paper and placed them so coordinating pages would open together. I then staggered the page edges. Some edges are simply punched while others are finished with border stickers. The inside cover has an envelope with a tag. I wrote a special note to Reese on the tag. (Love that girl!)

Reese was too cute coming up a "hill" in the yard while hunting for eggs!

I get more comments on those two little lady bugs on this page than on anything else in the album. Michelle always included the coolest little "doo dahs" in every PDW kit. This shot of my sister and her husband with Reese was their only family shot from the day. I'm so glad I captured it. This fall they will become a family of four.

Here's another priceless photo of Reese with my mom's dog. Too cute!

At the back of the album, I included a couple sheets of note paper included with the kit. This will allow my sister to journal some of her memories from Easter for Reese.

Although my heart belongs to 12x12 layouts for my boys, it sure was fun to make this little mini for my niece!

School's out for summer!

Today marks the end of our school year. Finally! With all the snow days we had, it felt like the end would never come!

Kevin wrapped up 3rd grade on a high note. I attended his class awards program on Tuesday. He received a long list of well deserved awards. We were most proud of his Citizenship Award. Only one boy and one girl in each class get this award. He won it last year, too!

We're really going to miss Ms. Ritter. She was also Blake's 3rd grade teacher. She worked really hard with Kevin to help him improve his test scores. Testing has never been one of his strengths. That's changing though!

I have one last photo to share with you.

This is Kevin with his teacher and two friends. The friends are twins, Ethan and Emily. Their mother is my dear friend Shelly. We shared the same maiden name although we weren't related. I've been friends with her for so long, I don't remember ever not knowing her! We were pregnant at the same time. Kevin was due on Halloween and her twins were due on Christmas. Although Kevin was four days late...Shelly's twins arrived six days before he did - nearly two months premature!

Every time I see these two, I have to laugh...you'd never think they were once preemies! And, I'd like to add that Kevin isn't a short child. ;)

To celebrate the end of the school year we will go to the ballpark tonight for back to back baseball games. Go Braves and Tigers!

It's Outta Here...

As you all know, I LOVE baseball. LOVE, LOVE, LOVE it - especially when my boys are playing. It's hard to believe that Blake is playing his final year of Little League.

I remember when he started teeball and how excited he was to be on a team. Even though they didn't have full uniforms that year like most of the other teams (they just had t-shirts and "trucker" hats), Blake wore his with pride. His only problem really was that he wanted a home run with every hit and would often keep running to get a home run when his coach was yelling for him to stop.

His second year of teeball he did hit a few "home runs" but they didn't leave the park. The ball was just thrown around a lot.

When he moved up to Rookie league, he had two great years playing against the pitching machine. He was a great 2nd baseman. He made all-stars both years. His second year of Rookie, he even hit the ball out of the park on field one. I was so excited about getting my hands on the ball, that I jumped up and ran off to grab it while Blake was running the bases. I do remember him extending his arms out to the side like he was flying as he rounded first base.

Minor league brought some challenges as he moved up to kid-pitch. He struggled with pitching his first year, but became an excellent catcher. His second year, he eased in to pitching a little more. He still needed to work on his patience. As a 10 year old, he made the all-star team.

Last year, Blake moved up to Major League. He continued to catch some and play 2nd base. He pitched a few games and did much better than the previous year. Last fall, he really worked on pitching and we could tell he had matured a lot as a baseball player.

This year Blake has become a true team leader. He is one of our two main catchers and also pitches and has played 1st base and short stop for our team. During our opening weekend tournament, he hit the ball so far, he had an in-the-park homerun. Go Blake!

Then on May 19, while playing on the largest field in our league, Blake hit the ball right over the fence in centerfield. HOMERUN WHEELER!!! (Yes, I have the ball to prove it!) It was all I could do to keep from crying. I was so proud of Blake!

In our very next game four days later, Blake hit the ball out of the park on Field 2!

I feel like he hit the trifecta! I don't think there are many kids who can say they've hit the baseball out of the park on all the fields in their league.

I'm so proud of this kid that I just had to brag. Love him!

Speaking of proud...I'm proud of the whole team for winning their game tonight. It was a close one. I'm also proud of our high school baseball team for winning the region tournament tonight. We get to advance to the State Tournament now. Luckily we were able to catch the last two innings tonight. I hope that some day my boys will get to experience that same success.

:)

Campy Trails to you...

Scrappin' {Sports} Stuff has the new American Crafts Campy Trails line in stock. Yay!!! With my two boys in Scouts (with regular camp outs), you probably aren't surprised to hear that I used my design team credit to purchase almost the entire line.


The line has the cutest little "bits" tags. I used them on my "Happy Camper" as-is for the perfect little punches of color (and patterns). The photo shows my boys ready to leave for Kevin's first ever overnight Cub Scout camp out. I thought the single photo deserved a page of its own.

Next, I did a 2-pager of the actual camp out (or of the pictures Dad did manage to take from the camp out...).
The camp out doubled as the Pack's Klondike Derby. I loved how Kevin was the only kid looking in his book to see what they were supposed to do.For one of Blake's merit badges, we needed to do a family activity. Blake wanted to plant a tree in memory of Pappa.I loved the woodgrain paper for the background - thought it was appropriate. I even have some hidden journaling on this page. It's on the tag peeking out from behind the photos.(Not sure why the photo is upside down...)
I used some of the Bits tags and fabric covered brads as a corner accent.

For my final page, I opted for a kraft background, but mixed some of my Studio Calico Mr. Huey mists to add to add a bit of "something."
Scout sure loves his Kevin. The fabric badge for the line came with an orange border, but I masked the badge and used mist to color the outside border red instead so it would match my photo better.
Finally, with my scraps I made a simple card. My sister is graduating college and moving to Wyoming this summer. I think the card is more than appropriate for the big events in her life.

Thanks for letting me share my projects.

Have a wonderful weekend.

A little more Polka Dot...

The Polka Dot Whimsy kits come FULL of amazing papers and embellishments. Recently I was able to complete three more layouts with the "leftovers" of my April main kit.

This first layout - Happy Feet - is a true "blackmail page." Over spring break, we stopped at a Zappos outlet on the way to Louisville one day. I was in awe of all the shoes and admit I wasn't paying close attention to the boys. I turned around to find Blake goofing off in high heels. I can't believe he allowed me to take his photo! One of these days it will come back to haunt him.I liked the designs of the Studio Calico tags in the kit so much that I used several as a background behind my photo and used them for my journaling and title placement, too.

I love how adding pop dots behind the Echo Park round alphas makes them look like real vintage typewriter keys.

The Studio Calico papers in the kit were my favorite. I loved the honeycomb-looking pattern and hand cut a section out.

I also cut a few of the centers out of the honeycomb paper and added them with pop dots. Originally, I wasn't going to use a journaling box, but I made a mistake on my journaling directly on the page and had to add the journaling box (cut from the Studio Calico tags packaging) to fix it.

I used excess of the honeycomb-patterned paper layered with a strip of pattern paper and some tickets to make a corner accent.

Buttons come in every PDW kit and I loved how perfectly the blue button fit inside the larger white one. It was a cute little extra touch.

Today is my day to post on the PDW blog for Inspiration Wednesday. My inspiration was Cracker Barrel - yes, the restaurant.

When I saw the 5 & Dime October Afternoon paper, I thought of the old country store at Cracker Barrel. Then I remembered I actually had photos of the boys in rocking chairs on the porch from a recent stop.

I layered fabric and trim on my page. LOVE that Jenni Bowlin ribbon!

The kit came with a couple stamped shipping tags, but the images didn't fit this page, so I folded the tag over the top of the layout and used it for journaling.

I'm hoping my May kit will arrive soon. I can't wait to work with it!

I Killed It...(Studio Calico May kit)

This weekend it worked out that after ballgames on Saturday, I had some time in the evening to scrap and then also again after our game on Sunday. Since Saturday was National Scrapbook Day (yes, there is a "holiday" for scrappers!), Studio Calico had posted some great challenges and sketches.


Armed with my new May Studio Calico kit - Lawn Party - and a fresh batch of printed photos, I went to work. I was quite productive in my short spurts of time.


My first layout, "MmMm...Chocolate" is based on one of the sketches.I love the simplicity of this page. I used mist (Pony) to change the color of the Thickers in the kit. I wasn't sure what to do with the Fancy Pants Filter Paper accents, so I used half of one peaking over my photos for an embellishment and to back part of my title.

"The Big Hunt" is also based on a sketch. I switched it up a bit though. The scalloped border on the sketch was altered and I used up the whole pack of Pebbles flags from the kit.

Again, I used the filter paper for my journaling. This time I backed it with a design hand cut from one of the Studio Calico papers. In January, I had a layout appear in Creating Keepsakes after I won their Reader's Pick Poll. Of course, I had to scrap that! This layout is based on another sketch. I switched the orientation from portrait to landscape though. The sketch I used for "Crazy" was 12x12, but I worked it into an 8-1/2x11 layout. I actually REALLY disliked the floral paper I used here, but once I put it up against the pictures, really liked the final layout. My sister had taken these shots of Reese making her crazy face. I love this kid!

Oh look...another Reese layout. In this photo, she seriously looks like I did as a toddler. This layout came together quickly thanks to another SC sketch.I decided to raise up my circles under the photo with pop dots. I also added the Pebbles flower brads to random circles. Photos of Reese hunting eggs worked perfectly with the kit, too. I didn't have to use a sketch for this one.

I think my sister might get aggravated with me for stretching Reese's curls out to give her BIG HAIR. But, she's just so cute... For this layout, I pretty much just pieced scraps together. I had used up almost all of the embellishments in the kit. The filter paper and Basic Grey alphas doubled for journaling/subtitle.

Finally, I did one more page. Again, I pieced scrap papers together and used the remaining embellishments.

These photos were from the photo shoot I had with the boys during spring break.

This is the first time I have used up a Studio Calico kit since subscribing in January. I feels great!

Happy scrappin'!

3 Days of Baseball - YAY!

I had the perfect Mother's Day (again) this year. I was at a ballpark watching one of my boys play ball. Does it get any better than that?

Well, it might have been better if Kevin's travel team won, but we were just happy to be playing together again. It was their first kid-pitch tournament since moving up. Going 0-3 in their first tournament was quite the change after going 23-0 as all-stars in Rookie League last year. But...they got some good experience. And, Kevin had fun.

After two days of ball in Indiana, it was good to have a league game at our home fields tonight with Blake. They broke their losing streak and won 5-1 in an extra inning.I'm so proud of both of my boys. Their love of the game of baseball is infectious.

I am so blessed to be their Mom. Kevin held my hand as we walked from the truck tonight to the ball field. Then Blake came by and kissed me before his game. I treasure my time with them.