Merry Christmas

To everyone a very Merry Christmas! Blessings to you all and hope for a wonderful New Year.

A Heart of Hurt

It has been a horrible week to say the least. I along with the nation mourn the death of the children (and adults) of Sandy Hook elementary. I have grandchildren of that age and it angers me that someone can have so little regard for the most precious among us and seek to do them harm. I am angered to the point of eating my emotions and then not being able to stomach anything because I have ulcer like symptoms. I don't know the answer but do know that we can't only talk about gun control without touching on mental health and other topics of culture and our acceptance of violence. Then to top it all off, Monday we received that family friends had been found dead, the result of murder/suicide. The husband killed his wife and a precious 13 year  old boy, the best friend of my granddaughter. When told of this horrific news, most people that knew them were not surprised with the manner of death, he had been depressed for years. What does this say about us, what if anything can we do if anything? It is for this reason that I haven't been able to blog much but I will go on in tribute to my grandchildren and post their beautiful faces on here. 

It was Aidens 8th birthday on the 13th and we celebrated at Chuckee Cheese on Saturday. The kids had a blast and it was fun for all of us. 

The birthday boy having a great time!!!

I have been an absentee blogger

This month is flying by and I have been remiss in posting anything at all. I need to correct this and post more regularly. We have 2 birthdays this month. Amelia was  8 on the 6th  and today is Aidens 8th birthday! We are going to celebrate this Saturday at ChuckeCheese. I feel sorry for the servers there, they must be deaf by now. I have the shopping done and I need to wrap before Miss Mia spends the night this Saturday. I don't want her peeking. I have been going over pictures from Christmases past and making a Christmas album so that they can be in one place. I am a little slow at the process but that is okay, I have a feeling that this will carry over into the New Year.  I am setting here looking out on the yard and can't believe that we have no snow again this year. What is up with the weather patterns? I don't want a blizzard but a light dusting every now and then would be okay. We need the moisture so bad and face a drought again. Have a great week!

Journal Your Christmas

I have just begun the Journal Your Christmas project at Shimelle.com. I love the format she uses and will adapt it to fit what I want to record. This should be fun and I love taking classes there and chatting with the global scrapping community. Here is the beginning of the album I will be creating.

Winner, Winner, Chicken Dinner.....and a big ugly correction!

I was checking comments on here today and noticed I had a couple on yesterdays post. Imagine my surprise to find out that I was a winner from creativelysavvy.blogspot.com and I won a collection of my choice from Echo Park. I love that company and only have had the opportunity to scrap with Everyday Eclectic and the 6x6 pad of For the Record. I chose the full size collection of For the Record 2, Documented. I love the colors and the patterns of the paper. They are one of my new loves now that Scenic Route is no longer.

I also rose to the challenge to add to or redo a layout that just wasn't complete, or working for me, or in my case just plain butt ugly. This was a layout I did in class at my LSS several years back. I am a class junkie and signed up and paid for this class before seeing the layout. I couldn't stray from the layout (instructor was not having it) because of the precise placement of the eyelets. The hammering that went on in that store was enough to drive one to drink. This was before the tool from We Are Memory Keepers, the Crop-A-Dile. The amount of fiber on this layout would have knit a sweater for someone I am sure and I never liked it. I was from the "school" of once completed the layout went in the album never to be touched again. That is until  my Remix class. Shimelle gives us permission to tear it apart if need be, or to just add a small touch or two to an otherwise lovely layout. Mine was UGLY!!! So tear it up I did. Here are pictures of both versions.

I did this layout with scraps and the background paper is from Pink Paislees Portfolio and the cream and grey dot is from Heidi Swapp. I love how this turned out and we could finally see the Prom pictures that got lost in all that fiber and metal washers. I stuck with colors that gave a nod to the school colors of black and gold. The kids in the pictures represent exactly half of the graduating class of '01. Ridgeway is a small school north of here near the Iowa border. I am happy with the layout!

Fat and Sassy!

I am stuffed from the 2 Thanksgiving dinners we have had since Thursday. We cooked one here for our family of 3 because I like having leftovers. Then we had our family Thanksgiving at Jennifer and Jamies house. As usual, it was amazing and I am very Thankful to my daughter for doing all the work for this (with Jamie doing the grocery run). It was lovely to have my brother, Duane, and his wife Michelle and the kids, Dallas, Bret, and Anna Rose along with my mom Juanita to round out the group. I always say the more the merrier and so we had Susie, Jaret, Aiden and Logan; Samantha, Richard, Amelia, Johnnie and his girlfriend Brittany. Oh and not to forget we had Brets girlfriend Savannah. It was a noisy household sharing love, good company and great food!

It is Digi-Sunday again and I wanted to get a few of the layouts posted. I have some from my Remix class to post and I am looking forward to taking Journal Your Christmas on Shimelle.com.

This page is about the Christmas there were two Barbie Cars in my Living Room from Santa, one for Amelia and one for Hope. It was a crazy Christmas with Santa doing a great job as always.

I love this one of the kids and thought this would make a wonderful page. I like doing digital but I still have the first love of paper and glue.

These pictures are of my visits to Santa and my reactions to what was under the tree. I love these photos and the memories they bring back. I was lucky to live during a time of amazing animated window displays, Santa wonderlands, Christmas trains to ride through a magical place to see the fairy princess at Klines and the beautiful lighted crowns that hung above the streets of downtown Kansas City.

Missing in Action

Well it has been almost a week since posting and I have no excuse except life happened. I was busy scrapping for my Remix class and couldn't take pictures. My camera went hunting with my husband and son. I still don't understand how you can hunt and take a picture at the same time but it didn't happen. Apparently the deer heard through the grapevine that they were coming and they took off to parts unknown. The only action they saw was cramping in their bodies everytime they moved in their sleeping bags on the GROUND. Now my hubby is no spring chicken so what thought process did he go through thinking that he would remotely get away with sleeping on the cold ground. Needless with the winds blowing between 40 - 50 miles an hour they gave up and came home early. So now I have the camera back and I can commence taking pictures of my layouts again. Here are the two I did this past weekend. The "love this girl" layout is a scraplift of Lisa Dickinson. Love her layout!

Have a great day!

Exercising my Civic Duty and Scrap

Thank goodness the election is over for another 4 years and we can get back to political free zones. I voted and am grateful that I live in a country that lets me exercise that freedom. Now on to the fun stuff!  Since I got to stay home today I spent my time scrapping again. It helps keep me out of the kitchen and the food. In fact it is becoming one of my weight loss tools. I can't scrap with messy hands that is for sure and I don't want to start something, quit to eat, and then come back to finish. I like striking while the mojo is hot! This will be a weekend to myself so I will be trying to do a little organizing but face it.....I will be scrapping!

Here is one of Lily and a picture that I love.

Shimelle.com for scrapbooking classes, videos and a wonderful good time

Sunday digi-Scrap 2

Todays post includes an explanation for the name for my blog. It is the story of the Hollow tree. The images were freebies from a blog I used to read and the designer's name is Angelique. Love her work.

This page is about my Grandma and Grandpa Buchanan. This is the only evidence that they were close. It wasn't done to show affection so this was a rare shot. It is also the story of their meeting for the first time in an insane asylum. She was a nurse and he was a cook at the Osawatomie State Hospital.  Thus it is  titled Crazy in Love.



This is a part of the class taken for JessicaSprague.com for her digi-in-deep class. I love her layouts and it is so easy to understand finally the concept of digital scrapping. I can't wait to do more but it will have to wait a bit as I finish up the classes I have going on. That is the beauty of digi scrapping, you can do a little or a lot, get partially finished with a project and it doesn't get ruined waiting for your return, on your desk with the possibility of bent corners or something marring the surface. It is just waiting for you on your hard drive (backed up on an external harddrive for good measure).

Have a great week!

Moody layouts and other Saturday fun

First of all Happy Birthday to my oldest, Jennifer, who is celebrating her 40th birthday! Today I spent some time with her and Lily while my son-in-law was busy passing his boom truck certification...way to go Jamie!

I scrapped a rather moody layout for my remix class and was amazed that even though the pictures are bright, the mood of the layout is rather somber from the colors to the subdued layout. It reflects a time of our lives when we lived in Las Vegas and it kicked our collective butts! We made it out alive thanks to the tenacity of our family.

 The other layout is a challenge on 2peas for the Glitter Girl challenge to use ribbons on our layouts. This is so far out of my comfort zone but I love how it turned out, no distressing, inking or vintage in sight.

Well on to scrap some more and tomorrows digi-Sunday layouts!

Online Scrapbook Classes and how I see it.

I LOVE to take scrapbook classes and would take them at my LSS as often as I could sometimes doing 5 or 6 a month. I loved the camaraderie and what I would learn. I miss having them and jumped into the online classes with both feet. I have experienced really wonderful classes and some not so good. I am going to review the wonderful.

Shimelle.com is a wonderful resource for paper and glue scrapping. Shimelle presents classes in a logical and cohesive manner with a lot of fun and encouragement. She explains her concepts, shows examples and STRESSES not to stress over the hobby and to let go and have fun. I have used so much of my "stash" watching her videos and have managed to create more layouts in a week than in 3 years of hiatus and before.  In fact it was her cohort Glitter Girl that got me scrapping again.....just too much fun for me to miss out on. 

What makes her classes impactful are the PDF's accompanied by videos of her own and inspiration from outside sources that she willingly shares.Her classes are priced so well that I can afford to take them often.  She truly loves this craft and would do it happily even if she weren't such a great instructor and that kind of authenticity can't be beat.

JessicaSprague.com is the first online course I have ever done and it was because she offered a free class that was advertised on 2peas. It peaked my interest and I signed up. This is the most professional of video websites out there and Jessica makes it easy to understand the world of digital scrapping. I had Adobe Elements loaded on my computer and opened the program only to stare at it in fear and trepidation. It was only in taking these courses that I was able to understand how to preserve my memories digitally. Class kits and pdf's along with video lessons for each step accompany some of the most reasonably priced classes in the market. She offers both digital and non digital scrapping classes as well as photo editing, photography, and silhouette instruction. They are definitely value packed.

ReneePearson.com is another digital online course that is one of the industry leaders for this genre. I love the classes there given by Renee Pearson, Tiffany Tillman, and one I took from Anna Aspnes. The content was well thought out with PDF's accompanying video plus a couple of chats per class. The kits offered were beautiful and the information given was some I had not gotten anywhere else, coming at this from a different angle. I look forward to taking another class in the middle of this month with Tiffany. Once again it is value for the money. 

OnlineCardClasses.com was a class that I won from AliEdwards.com website. I am not much of a card maker but once again we have value packed classes given by Jennifer Mcguire and Kristine Werner. PDFs along with videos made for wonderful classes. They would give their own spin on a topic and then they invited along experts in the field to do a video to accompany their own. It was cool getting several ideas on one subject. I would like to do another class there soon. 

All of these websites offer value for the price charged per class. They have an active community there to answer any questions and are sites that are not offering classes in conjunction with selling product. That I think truly make them education websites. That's not to say that  you can't purchase product on some of these websites or in the case of others links are offered, but the primary purpose that I can see is the desire to share their expertise in this craft we love. 

Thanks to all of them for enriching my life.

Light and the Lack Thereof...

Our house and gardens sit in 95 % shade. The only light consistently all day is where our shed sits, so to get a good picture is a feat in itself. I have one spot in my "sunroom" that has light coming in at various time of the day dependent on the calender and the weather and the luck of the Irish. I can get a good shot once a day if I am lucky. Going downstairs to make my way to the "sunroom" I spotted a shaft of daylight coming in the front door, and the heavens and the angels sang. So with the layout on the ceramic tile floor I finally got a good shot that doesn't require editing.

This being Halloween I will be going to Subway to get dinner.....cause don't ya know I have already been in the candy with a threesome of snack size twix. So I must be good and eat correctly tonight and close the house up, go dark, and hide because I didn't buy any of the aforementioned candy to tempt me.  Have a great Halloween everyone!

Sunday is now Digi-day

Several years ago I started doing digital scrapbooking at JessicaSprague.com. I really loved it but it went by the wayside just as paper and glue scrapping had done. I felt burned out and had no time. I was going through all the images I had on my external harddrive and found this file of web ready pages from several years ago. So on Sundays I will be posting digi-pages from my files. These today are pictures I took from around town. I love how we have a town square and the merchants always have such lovely flowers planted to enhance their storefronts. 

Every fall there is a festival on the square complete with a farmers market, parade and a re-enactment of Jesse James and his gang robbing the bank on the corner. Quite cool! Have a great Sunday!

Forgetting to eat....WHAT!

This morning I picked up where I left off last night scrapping a new layout. I was so engrossed with the process I didn't feel hunger until 2:40 pm..........whats up with that!  I should do that more for my weight loss program, in fact I may insist that Weight Watchers add this to the program...hobby weight loss help. I don't know if I used up any points in using scissors, inking, or cutting images from my silhouette but at least I didn't consume any!

This page is interactive. The viewer must pull the arrow above the 1st picture to read journaling and then they must lift up the other 2 pictures to see what is under them. I love this line of papers from Echo Park called Everyday Eclectic. I am loving more and more aqua, turquoise, teal colors and want to find a way to incorporate it in more layouts, home decor and in my clothing.

Now it is time to go clean and re-arrange the living room so that when my hubby and son get home they won't know where they are. Oh yeah, they are used to that now.

Running behind....time slips by

It has been a busy week so far and I love when it gets that way. What I don't like is when I oversleep because the alarm doesn't work. I was late getting to my daughters so I could watch my grandson. Luckily she made it to work only one minute late. There is something about getting off on the wrong foot that sets the tone for the day. I just felt as if time was slipping through my fingers faster than I wanted.

I have another layout to share from my class. I love that I could incorporate a Silhouette cut from Kerri Bradford. It looks much like a patchwork quilt.  Lily was 5 in this picture and forgive me Lily but this paper I used is some older paper from the Scenic Route ( they are no longer in business ) Sonoma line that I love but have never used. It had lots of pink in it but I think it is pretty.

Well off to babysit and luckily I am running on time.

Having fun scrapping again!

I have joined an online class, Remix, at Shimelle.com. This class has really inspired me to start scrapping again in a big way. The first layout is of Aiden when he was 2 around Easter time. I used a trio of main colors for a bright and fun layout. I love how this came together. The second layout is totally different and was scraplifted from MichelleS. She has a layout on the class gallery that I totally stole from. I have never done this kind of scrapping before and I am hooked! I can see how this will really be my go to style for those one photo opportunities.

Have a great day and I will be back with more to show you!

Stuck in Limbo

So here I am, back at blogger, stuck in limbo, and trying to figure it all out. I tried to work with wordpress but it was much to difficult and the blogging class I am taking is really geared to blogger. So I am back but with a problem.....I can't import because of a server error! Really! So I may be starting over and trying to recover at a later date. On a positive note I should be blogging on a more regular basis. I will be following along in my class and hopefully will be gaining some insight on how to do this better. I am going to try to leave at least one picture with a post because just text can be boring. So here is a picture of my granddaughter Mia, from a layout done in a Jessica Sprague class.Please excuse the lighting....we don't have any direct sunlight in our home we have dense shade.