100 Layouts #19 - Grandma & Grandpa J's Backyard 12/99 (completed 1/16/06)
Topic: Family

Pretty basic, but it gets the job done. These are pictures my older son took of his grandparents' backyard when he was 10. I scrapped them for his album because one day these will be a very important memory for him. I dearly wish I had pictures of my grandparents' homes and yards to go with the happy memories of the times I spent visiting them. I'm aware of a bare handful that exist, but none that show the kind of details my son captured in these photos.

Patterned paper, tag, and rub-on letters: Chatterbox. 

100 Layouts #18 - Snow Kidding! 1/2/00 (completed 1/15/06)
Topic: Scenery/Nature

A pretty simple layout, made for Jesse's album with pictures I took for him on his camera. Snow where we live is a pretty rare occurance, but not unknown - most years we'll have at least one day with a little bit of snowfall, even if most of it doesn't stick. I got to use up a whole sheet, plus some, of some Provo Craft snow paper that came in a Christmas slab. Other supplies: Letter stickers, Creative Imaginations; rub-ons, Chatterbox; stamp-edge scissors, Fiskars; "Winter" eyelet charm, unknown, probably Making Memories.

100 Layouts #17 (completed 1/11/06)
The entry with this layout is locked, viewable by family only. For permission to view, please contact me.

100 Layouts #16 - Christmas Magic 12/25/05 (completed 1/9/06)
Topic: Christmas

Christmas Magic 12/25/05

Journaling:

Christmas 2005 - Left, Aaron in the traditional photo with the stocking on Christmas Eve. I think maybe he's getting too old for this part to be all that exciting any more. Although he isn't too old to wake up before 4 o'clock on Christmas morning.

As usual, Santa was very generous. As, of course, were the parents :) Highlights: Aaron got the gigantic Starscream Transformer and a three-in-one Bionicle set from Santa. At the top of Jesse's wish list was a 300 Gb external hard drive, which Santa also came through with, along with Pokemon Colosseum and Lego Star Wars GameCube games.

From the families: Aaron got the Harry Potter Lego Durmstrang Ship set from Dad, Xiaolin Showdown TCG Starter Set from Mom, a Bionicle from Jesse, Harry Potter Goblet of Fire GameCube game from Grandma and Grandpa, and a book and $40 from Nanny and Grandad.

Jesse got a Yu Yu Hakusho DVD set from Dad, a hard-to-find Pokemon Gold GameBoy game from Mom (found it on eBay), a Harry Potter Goblet of Fire Soundtrack CD from Aaron, StarWars I, II, and III DVDx from Grandma and Grandpa, and a set of Winston Churchill's English history books from Nanny and Grandad.

The piece de resistance, as far as I'm concerned, was the complete set of original series Pokemon videos Nathan and I gave the boys. It took some doing, but I managed to assemble the complete set (26 volumes) from Bookman's, Planet Neo, and eBay. Yay for eBay!

After the gifts were opened, it was a nice relaxing day, with too many goodies, a too-huge turkey dinner, music, football, assembling Legos, and just enjoying the day.

Of course, Jesse and Aaron deserved gifts; the main question was, what about the kitties? Were they naughty or nice? Aaron and I agreed that Shiro was nice, but Tora, hmm... Of course, he's just a kitten and doesn't know any better. Evidently Santa agreed, because he brought the kitties a set of Bobble Bop toys and a canister of cat treats.

Supplies: Patterned paper and die-cuts, KI Memories; phrase stickers, Pebbles Inc.; charms, unknown; computer font, CK Typist.

Aaron gave me two full sheets of those Christmas phrase stickers for Christmas one year (could have been 2005). It's going to be a real challenge using them all up. 

100 Layouts #15 - Christmas Tree 2005 (completed 1/5/06)
Topic: Christmas

Another really simple page, based on an old Becky Higgins sketch. I use a lot of sketches, because I'm pretty much incapable of coming up with an interesting, well-balanced design on my own. I have a hard time visualizing what things are going to look like.

Just a strip of patterned paper (Daisy D's, I believe), some gold ribbon, and a Making Memories metal eyelet-charm. The quote says, "Never worry about the size of your Christmas tree. In the eyes of children, they are all 30 feet tall." (Larry Wilde, The Merry Book of Christmas) I had seen this quote before, attributed to Oscar Wilde, which just didn't seem quite right. LOL

This was the year after Nathan and Aaron came home with a, well, really little Christmas tree that looked lost in the living room so I had them put it in the family room for the first time. I realized then that I liked having the tree in the family room because, seeing how I spend about 90% of my time in the kitchen during the holidays, it was nice to be able to see the tree right on the other side of the kitchen counter instead of having it hidden away in a room that I hardly ever went into. So after that we started scaling down the Christmas tree size (a little) and putting it in the family room every year. 

100 Layouts #14 - Oh Brother (completed 1/4/06)
Now Playing: AFI
Topic: Cats

Another layout I wasn't sure I was going to post. I'm still grieving over losing Tora, but it's been almost two years and the other day I saw this layout again and it didn't hurt quite as much as before.

A comparison of Tora and Shiro, the two brother kittens we adopted. Photos from fall 2005.  I love love love this boy paper from Reminisce. I'm usually not very good at using papers that have a title or border printed on them, but this one worked out well. I cut the letters from the alphabet paper.

 

100 Layouts #13 - H-J-W-J (completed 1/3/06)
Now Playing: Angels and Airwaves
Topic: Portraits

I had a hard time deciding whether or not to post this, since it has my niece and nephews and their full names. But I hate to have too many locked posts (especially since no one's asking for permission to see them ). So I brushed out the names, just left the initials, and made the image small enough that their faces aren't identifiable.

H-J-W-J

Group shot of the cousins from the big family reunion in late December 2004.  Basic Grey, including some of the die-cut tags which I used for the monograms. I have a hard time figuring out how to use the tags and stuff that come with collections. Love them, have to have them, but have trouble using them. Brads are either Making Memories or JoAnn.

100 Layouts #12 - Wise Men (completed 1/2/06)
Topic: Christmas

Right, then. Yes, it's been a while. but I just moved my scrapbook albums from where they were invisibly lurking under the end tables in the living room to some proper bookshelves in the computer room, allowing for more visibility and easier scanning. And I'm launching a new scrap-my-stash challenge, which I also intend to blog over on my angelfire account, so I thought I'd get caught up on this one too. (Oh, and I'm tired of messing with the cuts, so the images will just pop up in the main view. I'll try to keep them small enough that they won't take forever to load.) 

Pretty simple layout, used up some gold metallic cardstock I had hanging around for years. This was the last year that Aaron participated in the Christmas pageant at Nathan's old church. He had a speaking line as Melchior, one of the three Wise Men. 

100 Layouts #11 - Cookie Artistes (completed 12/31/05)
Mood:  lazy
Topic: Christmas

Cookie Artistes

 Another one of those annual events that I get kind of tired of trying to find a layout idea for every year. It's easier with fun new supplies to play with - I used more of the KI Memories "Beautiful" kit that I used for my birthday layout. Journaling: "Aaron and Nathan; our annual cookie decorating night. 12 Dec. 2005"

 Supplies: Patterned paper, die cuts, epoxy words: KI Memories; letter stamps: Susan Branch, All Night Media; brown marker: Zig.

Yeah, I know I'm a little behind with the layouts :) I actually ended the challenge last December, but I won't say yet if I successfully completed it or not!

100 Layouts #10 - K - Be Yourself (completed 12/31/05)
Topic: Birthdays

Back to doing these in order, now that the Grand Canyon trip is done. I don't really like to do layouts about myself, but since we're encouraged to, I try to do one every year with my birthday pictures. I also don't like pictures of myself, but I was having a good hair day this day, so it's okay.

The Panorama stictching function on Photoshop Elements 5.0 (which Nathan gave me for Christmas this year) is AWESOME.

 

K - Be Yourself

Journaling: "My 43rd birthday. Aaron reading the wrapping paper - Nathan upholds the age-old tradition of wrapping gifts in the Sunday funnies. Nathan gave me the American Idiot CD by Green Day, and my parents gave me an ASU sweater (luckyfied , since the Devils beat UA this year) and a Michael's gift card. 11/21/05

"One of the great things about being in my 40's is that I feel less and less of a need to conform to other people's definitions of what I should be, leaving me free to live the process of becoming who I really am."

I know it sounds kind of new-agey self-help, but hey, it's better than going, Oh no, I'm over 40, my life is over.

All supplies: KI Memories

 (Oh, I remembered that when scanning, I have to tell my scanner not to "correct" the colors. But bulky items on the pages are going to make some shadowed areas anyway. So it's never going to come out looking exactly lifelike.)