Monthly Challenges

In addition to participating in the Project Scrap Girls challenge, I also try to participate in Scrap Girls' monthly challenges, where they pick a different theme to scrap about. Note--I did participate in January's challenge, but I will post that later. February's challenge was to scrap about family. I really liked this quote that I had found by Gail Lumet Buckley, "Family faces are magic mirrors. Looking at people who belong to us, we see the past, present, and future." I decided to use pictures of me and Jason from when we were younger, along with pictures of our parents from around that same time. Then I used a picture of me and Jason from when we were engaged. I used Brandy Murry's Background Blenders for the layout design. That's what made all of the photo masks. I altered it a little, since there are 9 photo masks, set up like The Brady Bunch. If I had a child, I would have done a solo picture of Jason, me, and our child, but I guess that can be a future layout. The background paper is actually a combination of 2 from Trish Yochum's Mosaic Retreat. All of the embellishments also are from that collection. 

March's challenge was to scrap about a smile. My nephew, Kyle, had just lost his front tooth, so I thought that it would make an adorable layout. The polaroid template is from Brandy Hackman's Write It Down. The background paper is from Brandy Murry's The Bees Knees collection. The journaling tag and cut papers are from Amanda Sok's Watercolor Whimsy (the Assemble Your Own Zoom Page) collection. The letters that spell out "smile" is from her Watercolor Whimsy collection. The handwritten "Your Smile" is from Brandy Murry's By Hand word art, and the buttons are from Amanda McGee's Applique Flowers emellishment template.

For April's challenge, they said to scrap about silly pictures or antics. Well, I had already planned to one day do a layout featuring the MANY pictures I have where Jason is being goofy, making a silly face, etc. I figured this template by Syndee Nuckles was perfect for a lot of pictures like that. It's from the Quick Collage collection. All of the papers are from Chere Edwards' Bliss collection. The circle tag and bow also are from this collection. The word art "a playful expression" is from Amanda Sok's Watercolor Whimsy (Assemble Your Own Zoom Page).

A Legacy of Love

I mentioned this layout in a couple of previous posts, but I wasn't able to post it until after Christmas, because it was a gift for my grandparents. This was the first layout that I was able to print, and I must say, that it looked great seeing it in real life and not just on the computer monitor! In August, my grandparents celebrated 60 years of marriage. We had a big party for them, and at the party we displayed a bunch of pictures from the last 60 years of our family on a ribbon board. The picture on this layout is a photo of that ribbon board. A few days before the party my grandmother said she wanted to display the center picture (of her and my grandfather just after they were married) and she had thought about displaying the other pictures of the family, but since she hadn't told anyone, she figured we wouldn't do it. But I thought it would be a great idea, and Jason thought of using the ribbon board, so we were set. It was great at the party, too.

I had started working on a layout that was just using the old picture of my grandparents, and I wanted to give that as a gift for the party. Of course, I didn't finish it, so when it came time to think about Christmas gifts, I thought I would just do it then. But then I thought that it would probably mean more to have this picture of all their children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren, and I decided to use this photo. Once I did, it started going a lot quicker than the other one had done, so I knew it was the right way to go. For the paper, I used a paper template, Appassionata, designed by Amanda Sok. The tags and strings were embellishment templates designed by Paula Wright, both available at ScrapGirls.com.

This was my favorite gift to give for Christmas, and I know my grandparents liked it. My grandmother already told me that my grandfather wanted to hang it near the front wall so everyone that comes to their house can see it. I definitely appreciate the example of love and commitment that they've been to our family, which was why I wanted to make it.