Soaking Up The Sun

Yep, that's exactly what I've been doing, soaking up the sun. First on Sunday, watching the Okeanos, Mid City and Thoth parades, then on Tuesday, Mardi Gras Day itself. We spent most of the day out on St. Charles Avenue, people watching, picture taking, and bead catching. And of course snacking! Our weather has been SO delightful, with temps in the 70's and more sun than clouds. These unseasonably warm days could go on forever as far as I'm concerned. I'm ready for summer!

And speaking of summer, here is yet another layout from the great paper collection 100 Days of Summer from Simple Stories. I love all the cards (post cards, bingo cards, title cards) and the various decorative sticker elements (tickets, border strips, flags, and more) that make it easy to pull together an attractive page in the layered style that I love. Let's see...how many more days until it's summer again? I can't wait!


Supplies: Patterned paper, stickers, cards-Simple Stories 100 Days of Summer collection. Die-cut doilie-BasicGrey. Pigment ink-Tsukineko. Other-twine.

PawPaw Was A Soldier

The WWII Museum in New Orleans is a place I could spend all day perusing. There are hands-on activities for kids and the exhibits are so comprehensive and intensely moving. It's made even more personal when we go outside and find the brick honoring my Dad's service.

When pulling together products to make this layout, I thought immediately of the papers from Crate Paper's Toy Box collection, with its great camouflage paper and Hero journaling card. Wanting to get three pictures on this page (four if you include the photo of the brick), I made a collage of the elements, overlapping pictures and papers, even including a bit of memorabilia, a special V-Day pin given out on this particular day at the museum. The ration stamps are actually from a very old piece of patterned paper!



Supplies: Patterned paper-Crate Paper, Sassafras, Collage Press. Stickers-Crate Paper. Pigment ink-Brilliance from Tsukineko. Other: corrugated cardstock, star tag from Converse, V-Day pin, and chipboard scrabble letters.

Bon Voyage

Here we go again. I take a picture of Tommy. He takes a picture of me. And I end up with two pictures that are not always easy to scrapbook. In this case, overlapping the photos helps hide duplicate scenery and gives me more space to play. Works for me.

Funny thing...the page was complete, everything glued down, and I still didn't have a title. I went through every single letter sticker I owned but nothing seemed to work. Then I pulled out this pack of Scrapworks cardstock letters that have been in my stash forever (the back of the package says 2003-yikes!). Perfect! Makes it hard to purge the stash when things like this happen. LOL!


Supplies: Patterned paper-Heidi Swapp, The Girl's Paperie, Echo Park, Making Memories, October Afternoon. Letter sticker-October Afternoon. Decorative brad-Karen Foster. Cardstock letters-Scrapworks. Pigment ink-Brilliance by Tsukineko. Other-bottlecap.

Halls of Congress

Last year I had the opportunity to spend four days in Washington, D. C., at a leadership conference filled with speakers, training and workshops by leading advocates and experts on international development. The weekend provided me with resources and knowledge about extreme poverty and global health issues and how to support the many efforts being undertaken to help the poorest and most vulnerable people. The conference culminated with a day on Capitol Hill, where I was able to meet with our members of Congress and/or their staff to advocate for the less than 1 % of the federal budget that goes towards humanitarian assistance for those living in extreme poverty. I walked through those hallowed halls hoping to make a difference.


Supplies: Patterned paper-October Afternoon Farmhouse Collection. Flowers-Prima Marketing. Pigment ink-Brilliance by Tsukineko. Other: mini file folder, tag, baker's twine, mini-brad, and wooden disc.

Zap the Evil Zurg!

One of our family's favorite games/rides at Walt Disney World has to be Buzz Lightyear Space Ranger Spin. We love the competition, spinning and zapping away to see who can amass the most points. Three of our sharp shooters pose in the queue, ready to zap all those Z's, to defeat the evil Emperor Zurg.

I dressed up this layout with a paper piecing of another Toy Story character, an alien guy from the Claw machine at Pizza Planet. Isn't he cute?! If you look closely at the photo, one of the screens shows a squadron of these little aliens. I guess they must have some significance in the game, but seriously, I don't remember. We were too busy swinging our ray guns back and forth, trying to outdo each other in the mad race for points! It's such crazy fun.


Supplies: Patterned paper-Crate Paper. Stickers-October Afternoon. Letter stickers-Doodlebug Design. Pigment ink-Brilliance by Tsukineko.

Yours Truly Blog Hop!

Who knew I could have so much fun with a Valentine's theme paper pack?! I generally don't take cutesy kid pictures since most of my "kids" are grown and the youngest three are boys at that! However, with the truly versatile papers in this collection, created by the talented Cassandra Cooper, I was able to put together a football page and a travel page, as well as the typical Valentines themed layout. Fun stuff!

Black and white houndstooth...oh my! This particular pattern caught my eye immediately, and drove me to create a more non-traditional layout with these papers...a football page!

The houndstooth tradition at the University of Alabama began with legendary Bama football coach "Bear" Bryant and his houndstooth patterned hats. Today you can find fans with houndstooth coats, gloves, scarves, purses, ties, and all other manner of clothing and accessories!

I had baked football-shaped cookies for our houseguests, my son's fraternity friends, who were camping out in our family room before the big game. After Alabama's convincing win over LSU, I took a picture of the cookies, knowing that I'd need to scrap such a momentous occasion even if I didn't have a single picture of the game or the tailgating that the boys had experienced.

The kraft color was a perfect backdrop for the red, black and white (Crimson Tide colors BTW!) My page is based on Sketch #65 from Susan Stringfellow's Sketch Savvy Blog. I love those oversized ribbonlike strips! A pieced football was created using kraft paper that was then embossed and inked for more of a pigskin look. I also had the opportunity to use my newly acquired die cutting machine, giving me a perfect Alabama "A"!


My second page with Yours Truly has more of a pink, grey, black and white scheme with a tiny bit of red thrown in. A favorite part of this line is the collection of die cut stickers...and they are precisely cut! Thank you, thank you, thank you! (It's a big pet peeve of mine when they are cut in the wrong place!)


The title Love Beyond Measure was borrowed from one of the die cut stickers as I thought the saying paired well with the ruler border strip! I punched some squares and covered some old chipboard letters with various patterns to create this fun and easy page.


Thanks to all who stopped by my blog today. Be sure to check out all the other great projects (layouts, tags, cards, and more!) as you continue through the Echo Park Yours Truly Blog Hop:

Susan Stringfellow

Lara Gustafson

Heidi Smith

Nancy Burke-Coming soon!

Denise Thorton-Coming soon!

I'll add more links as they go live!

The Two of Us

We don't have a lot of pictures of the two of us, because one of us is usually behind the camera. We might swap it out a bit and take a picture of each other, but generally there aren't many times when we're in the shot together. That's why I like this picture. We were in Bermuda, dressed in our tropical wear, on the way to a company party on the lawn of the hotel. Someone must have offered to take the photo, and I gladly handed off the camera. Say cheese!



Patterned papers-BasicGrey Piccadilly. Flashcard-October Afternoon. Flowers-Making Memories and other. Bling-it-on rub on-BasicGrey. Additional embellishments-brads, jeweled nailhead, key charm, and ribbon.