Christmas in July

This weeks challenge at lasting memories is Christmas in July.  I just did a Christmas layout not too long ago so I'm stretching the challenge and doing some spring snow photos.  If you've been playing along with all the other blog challenges for Christmas and are out of photos why not try doing a layout with traditional christmas colors pared with something other then Christmas.

  Or do snow photos with a wintery theme like me.

The photos of my layout aren't so great.  I'm at a crop and blogging via my smart phone.  So I should get back to work.

Birds and the Bees

This weeks challenge at lasting memories is all about the "Birds and the Bee's"

I know we haven't had that talk yet in this household, but I probably should seeing as I have 3 girls in the house.  Thankfully the oldest (soon to be 14) has no interest in boys what so ever. 

But this challenge isn't to document the talk, unless you want it to.  What we're asking for is for you to create a layout showcasing Bird or Bee or even both.

They can be the focal photo, theme or even embellishments.

I've done a bit of everything regarding bees and have two 2page layouts to share with you

First up is going buggy

My oldest girls did a school music performance where she dressed as a bee and sang

"Buzz, Buzz"- super cute song by the way.

So here's both pages

I used a photo of the stage for the title. 

All the  bees on the page are oval cut photos with circles for wings and hand cut antenna

Second page with journaling

close up of my little queen bee

For my second bee layout

I journaled the night hike turned bee disaster

the 2 pages together

Photos of us setting out on the hike.  I don't have photos of the aftermath as several of the girls had to strip down to their underwear to get all the bees off.

The little bee in the middle of the page is a Girl Scout patch from the bee a reader campaign. 

 I gave each of the girls one as a badge of honor for surviving the bee attack.

the second page is all journaling and the cute bee embellishment.

I worked the whole layout around the border, which I got it a while back from my CM consultant.

love this little cutie from create a critter cartridge

To bad the real bees weren't so cute.

Hope you get busy like a bee and join us for the "birds and the bees" challenge

Country charm at lasting memories

This weeks challenge at lasting memories is country charm.  All you have to do is create a layout using a charm and country colors.

  Here's what I did with mid week sketch#27-13 from scrappy sketches.
 

 

 Rotated the sketch to suit my photos

 

I went with rusty oranges to play off the color of the covered bridge.  The rest of the color combo is inspired by the paper itself. I really love the big floral print that I fussy cut.  Kind of looks like it could be wallpaper from a country kitchen.  

To add even more country flair to my layout I  used some lace and rick- rack too.

As for the charm I came up a little short.  All I had to fit the bill was the copper tag.

  So that's what I went with in place of the charm.

Close up of fussy cutting and copper tag.

  The sign photo was also fussy cut in the shape of Oregon

 

Hope you'll have some country fun with us at lasting memories

 

precious family moments

This weeks challenge at lasting memories is all about your families precious moments. 

The sweet moments that take your breath away.  It's hard to pick just one sometime, so the one I'm sharing now just happens to be from January 2012 as that's where I am at the moment in the order of my photo box.  I'm mostly a chronological scrapper.  So here we go

 

For my birthday we took a trip to the coast.

Along the way the girls happened upon a rather unique bike rack and all took turns pretending to ride. Super cute photos on an unseasonably warm afternoon

I'm having fun combining two CM stack packs Happy Birthday and Sunshine Getaway.

Throw in some solid colored teal paper to pull it all together and break up some of the patterned paper.  The Journal box, flower embellishment and diagonal stripe are from the sunshine getaway stack pack. The rest are from the Happy birthday pack.

Hope you'll share your precious moments with us at lasting memories

 

 

Special celebrations at lasting memories

We're celebrating all of life's special occasions over at lasting memories.

I did a companion page to go with my things with wings page of my daughter's  birthday breakfast.

So the paper and colors should look familiar.  Trying hard to us up this stack of paper

 

This time instead of double mating everything I inked the edges.

Slightly different look then the last page, but common colors, stripes of paper and embellishments

 

 

Hope you'll join us at lasting memories

 

 

Things with wings

Finally feeling creative again.  Thanks for the short break.  The ladies over at lasting memories are so amazing.  I had a rough start to summer and just starting to get back to my regular routine.  I'm so glad that I can still play along and post and hope that this is the last hiccup for the summer.

 

As you know if you follow lasting memories, this weeks challenge is to feature things with wings.

I have this cute dragon cake layout to share with you

My oldest daughter made this birthday cake for her sister after seeing a picture of it in a magazine.  The wings are made out of fruit roll ups wrapped onto bamboo sticks.

Birthday girl blowing out the candles

close up of the dragon before candles

 

Hope you'll join us at lasting memories

Tell me a story

This weeks challenge at lasting memories is tell me a story.  What does that mean?  Well it could be cute photos of your family reading books together like some of the DT has done, or it could be a visual story with lots of pictures, but most of all we want to see journaling. 

I to have a story to tell and it's rather sad

Paige Irvin died at the age of 23 this past Thursday, due to a heroin over dose.

I've been grappling with this sad fact through out this weekends summer staff training at the pool.

That's where we meet more then 14 yrs ago.

I can't remember if I taught her swim lessons, but I do know that I was her swim coach when she was 10.

I spent quit a bit of time working with her and her sister  Taylor and friend Marsha doing starts and turns.

We'd giggle and laugh at each belly flop off the starting blocks, but those were few and far between cause they were good little swimmers.  I watched her grow and struggle to become a young adult. 

She really struggled in high school and turned to Heroin to cope.

By the time she was a senior she'd been through rehab and seemed to be on the right track.

Got re-hired at the pool and was going to college.

another relapse

Got clean and came back much stronger then before.

unfortunately the lure of heroin was too much and we lost

the sweetest and kindest soul I've met.

So now that my story is shared I'm going to take a bit of a break to get my head straight

and dive into  the summer schedule and simple times with the kids

Don't worry I'll be back

Opposites attract at lasting memories

I'm well beyond late in posting this layout.

  I had all the pictures laid out before I left for camp this past weekend and had high hopes of getting it done on my return on Sunday.  Needless to say I just finished putting away camp gear and all the small random stuff that kept getting dumped on my scrap desk. 

So here it is

I used a couple of opposites on this page.

Starting with the tilte words little/big and the size of the words

 I also used complimentary colors

or colors on the opposite side of the color wheel red/green and black/white

Then there are the pictures.  The larger close up of my son

and the picture of the truck with my son in the wheel.

(look just above the letter C on Trucks)

Love the contrast in size.  Definately an opposite.

The attraction however is not an opposite, what boy doesn't love monster trucks?

There's still time to join us at lasting memories for opposites attract

leather and lace at lasting memories

This weeks challenge is leather and lace.

  I took it quit literally and used black patten leather and lace on my layout, but you could do a layout with a mix of feminine and masculine elements.
 How you interpret the challenge is up to you. 

 Here's what I did  with this sketch from Pamela's world of scrap's

I started by rotating the sketch to suit my photos

Then I add the  leather elements from a broken head band.

love being able to repurpose old items

 

All the papers are CTMH that have been in my stash for over 8 years old
the brads are probably that old too.  Trying to get back on track with using up my stash.

I just realized that my bottom picture on the layout is also a perfect example of the leather and lace feel because you have me in the black and Shannon in the gray sandwiching Kristy and April in the lighter feminine colors.  I guess that's another way to look at the challenge too

Hope you'll join us at lasting memories

I'm also entering this over at Use it Tuesday for anything goes

and

Pamela's world of scrap's sketch challenge

Stamp it with a song

The new challenge at lasting memories is to stamp it with a song.  So song title, lyrics and a stamped image as well.  I wish I could say I've got mine done, but I'm slacking and here's why.

For the last couple of weeks I've been living and breathing scouts.  

 We just had a big 220 camper service unit "ninja"  camp and are gearing up for an older girl "I'm crazy and not afraid to show it" camp.  So needless to say the only songs running through my little brain are scout songs.  I have two in mind ( by the light of the campfire and barges), but need to print the latest batch of camp photos

So it's coming

Hanging out

I finally got to do a layout just for fun

 and I'm super excited to be able to play along with the page maps boy-girl challenge.

I flipped the sketch on it's side and used three smaller photos instead of one,

but you can still see the the sketch in my layout

I replaced all the flower elements with butterflies and bling.

  I also replaced the date tag with half of a butterfly.

I hope to get in some more layouts just for fun now that I have a break between camps.

alphabet challenge at lasting memories

This weeks at lasting memories it is an alphabet challenge. 

So what is an alphabet challenge exactly? Well it's up to you.

  It could be that you choose a letter and scrap about something related to it

 like I did with my  B Layout on books

even got a little bonus "B" going with my brads

 Or it could be just using alphabet paper like I did for the background. 

 You could even include your letters in the LO like I did on this older layout.
 

See definitely open to what ever strikes you.

Hope you'll join us for the challenge

Inspired by a TV show

This weeks challenge at lasting memories is inspired by a TV show

I have to confess that I love Nathan Fillion, but I couldn't for the life of me figure out how to scrap either Castle or firefly so I went with the discovery channel.  Yes channel- because I never really watch it. We have been cable/ dish free for over a year so if it isn't on the local channel we don't get it.  I image that they probably have shows on petroglyphs. 

So here's my take

Not many place like this left.  Where the girls could walk up and almost touch the carvings and markings.  Don't worry  they were instructed not to because contact with the skin can break down the sandstone. The hiking patrol  was very fortunate to have a troop leader that was familiar with the trail and cave.  Mo told us about the history and use of the cave as well as what most of the carvings meant. 

 close up of journaling . 

Top left is the hunting party.  Can just make out the heads at the top of the T's

Top right is the bear family by the river

 Bottom left is the hunters, river and a few other symbols that I have forgotten

Bottom right looks like a bird with something written inside of it

Hope you will join us at lasting memories this week

few more girl scout pages to share

The middle photo isn't a creek, that's the trail. 

Like I said earlier "In Oregon if you wait for it to stop rainnning you'll never get out and hike"

and to think we're behind on the rain this winter

close up of the water trail photo

Girl scout open house

The Eugene service center is hosting an open house today.

I'll bee there with members of our service units hiking patrol to demonstrate making bracelets with para cord. Hopefully we'll sell a few to raise funds for the summer overnight hike. I also just

 finished scrapping the hiking patrols last hike so I have more a finished album to share with people that are curious about our group and what we've done.

here are a few more pages to share

Album cover that I picked up for $3 at big lots a while back

close up of front window

cover page

Soda Springs Falls

and of course one more of Juliette bear

I have a few more for this weekend and will share the rest next week as well. 

Got to get back to prepping for the open house

Single photo at lasting memories

This weeks challenge at Lasting memories is to create a layout using only one photo.

This should be easy, but I had to make it more complicated then necessary.  I've been trying to figure out how to document one of my latest geocaching finds as I'm rather excited to pick up this traveling bug.

It's not even a real photo, but a computer print of the info sheet that goes with the bear.

I do have photos of Juliette that are on the second page of the layout.

The journaling is from the travel log that goes along with this travel bug.  I decided to write it out so I could shorten some of the enteries to make it fit the space, however you still get the general idea of her travels from Idaho to Oregon. If you want to see more or follow her progress you can track her on

 Geocaching.com  TB40J1M

close up of printed info

Second page of the layout shows

 Juliette's trip to the Eugene Service center to pick up a few items for her journey.  The council patch has been tacked to the back of the vest and the t-shirt and dog tag layered on over the one she came with. 

 The other two photos are of our hike to Soda springs falls with the service unit hiking patrol

I used the favorites tag to do bullet point journaling for the photos

Hope you've been inspired to join us this week at lasing memories. 

We can't wait to see what you create this week. We have a giveaway too.  One lucky person will win this awesome prize, compliments of Charity.

One entry only please as we have a giveaway.

 You have till the Saturday  May 11th at 6pm EST to linkup with us.