Merry Christmas to ALL!

...from our house to yours!



It's my Christmas tradition to wait until Christmas morning to make 2007 Christmas ornament for the families. I use photos that I take on Christmas Eve. Each year they're different. Here's this year's ornaments.

Scrapping the Music - Baby it's Cold Outside

We got our dog from the pound. She's a mutt, but must be some type of warm weather mix.

She hates the cold. If it gets below 50F, you can find her bundled under her blanket.

I add the snowflake and title to the photo. Then printed the photo out, and added pretty patterned paper from Sassafras Lass, bling, and subtitle. The clear snowflake is a QK diecut with the edges painted with a pink paint marker.

Look at my new stamps!

I had clear stamps made of some of my son's cartoons and just got my stamps today. I'm so excited! They came out great! The clear rubber is not as durable as the the store bought stamps. I pulled on a piece of scrap rubber to see if I could break it and I could given a little effort. However, the images stamp clear. I tried using both cat's eye chalk ink and Stazon... both work great.

Here is the original image that I sent in:

Here are the stamps:

 

Hmmm... maybe I should have taken a photo when they were nice an clean, LOL!

If you are looking for a unique gift, I highly recommend http://www.villageimpressions.com/index.htm . The lady that there is named Anna-Mae and she is very very nice. I placed my order on a Monday, and they were in my mailbox the following Monday. How's that for service?!

Mary's Sunday Blog Challenge

Our challenge this week is to pick a layout from our gallery and highlight it on our blogs. Here is my pick by BethJ. Beth takes the most beautiful photos of her children. I like how she did the title and that the large photo is the center of her layout.



Here is another one I found in the gallery. It's not a layout, but it cracks me up everytime I see it. Mary you need to get around to scrapping this picture.

Scrapping the Music - Little Wonders

Here's my layout for the Scrapping the Music challenge, Little Wonder's by Rob Thomas.

This photo just breaks my heart...
My daughter played Varisty soccer last year as a Junior. This year because of repeated ankle injuries, she didn't perform well at tryouts and was cut from the Varsity team (they have a new coach this year).



I used the lyrics from Little Wonders instead of the title. Journaling reads:

All of my regret will wash away somehow...
But, I cannot forget the way I feel right now.

PP is from Basic Grey and We R Memory Keepers. The flower is Prima Essentials collection. These flowers are gorgeous! The doodle is made using a Crafter's Workshop template.

Scrapping the Music - Best Days

This week's song at ScrappingTheMusic was Best Days by Matt White. I've been real busy this week, but I still wanted in on this challenge. This is a hybrid layout... The photo, frame, title and journaling are all one piece printed off the computer. I just added background paper and chipboard.

This is my hubby and me. We used to do a lot of camping in our younger days. The background paper is from the Basic Grey Obsure line I got from the 2ScrappyChixDesigns store.

Double Page Layouts

I see all these great works of art single stand-alone layouts, but I am double page obsessed. Even when I show only one page, I usually have a companion page to go with it. For instance this layout that won the Scrapping the Music contest last month has a second page that I didn't show:



Here are some more two page layouts! I love showing off my photos... and I do have a whole lot of them!

Smoke and Fire

SCHOOL'S OUT!
The entire school district has closed today. They are using the high school gyms as evacuation centers. Some of my daughter's high school friends were packed last night, just waiting for the signal to evacuate their neighborhoods. The smoke is very thick today with the Santiago fire on one side of us and now the Camp Pendleton fire on the other side.

Scrapping the Music - You'll be Here in my Heart

Here is my latest layout for the Scrapping the Music challenge. This week the song is "You'll be in my Heart" by Phil Collins:



This is my daughter, I scanned a few old photos to add to the layout too. I used PP from the new BG Obscure collection, primas and quickutz die-cuts.

Get BG Obsure from 2SCD:
http://2scrappychixdesigns.com/zencart/index.php?main_page=advanced_search_result&search_in_description=1&keyword=obscure

Wind and Smoke

Welcome to Fall in Southern California. One weather pattern that heralds the coming of Fall is the Santa Ana Winds. That is when a ridge of high pressure causes the hot, dry winds to blow in from the desert. It's typically in the 90's with winds gusting up to 40-50mph! My brother's family had a large tree in their front yard blow over... thank goodness it missed the house.



Along with the first winds of the season come the brush fires. Usually they don't reach the houses, but this year lots of houses were burned in Malibu and are threatened here in North Irvine/Tustin Heights. The above is a photo of the smoke from the parking lot where I work in Tustin.

Here are a couple of photos that I took on my way home.

Please keep all the fire victims in your prayers.

Scrapping the Music - My Wish

Here is my layout, of my son's 8th grade graduation. The words of this song are beautiful and perfect for this layout.



I used the song lyrics in the journaling...
My wish, for you, is that this life becomes all that you want it to, your dreams stay big, your worries stay small, You never need to carry more than you can hold, and while you're out there getting where you're getting to, I hope you know somebody loves you, and wants the same things too, Yeah, this, is my wish.

The patterned paper by 7Gypsies. The star stamp is one of my favorites by Paula Best. It reads, "Wish on Every Star" ... and I'm still practicing my doodling!