100 Layouts #21 - Bike 4/95 (completed 1/18/06)
Topic: Kids' Activities

Pictures Jesse took of his brand-new bike when he was 6.

You can just feel his pride of ownership in the closeup photos. Most of the pictures from when I was a kid were on slides, which are hard to look at. It's only since my dad's been scanning them and putting them on CDs that I've been able to easily view those pictures, so to me it's important that my kids will have albums to look at, with not only the pictures but the stories to go with them.

Supplies: Patterned paper: Chatterbox; bike clip art: Microsoft; metal stencil letters: unknown. 

100 Layouts #5 - Where They Fix the Bulldozers (completed 12/22/05)
Mood:  lazy
Topic: Kids' Activities

Journaling: "The Empire-CAT repair facility - a Cub Scout's dream field trip! The boys learned how the machines operate with hydraulics, and what it takes to become one of these skilled repairmen. Best of all was seeing the big machines up close!"

I also included the history of the word "bulldozer," from Wikipedia, to fill in a large empty area on the layout.

I had a bunch of Scrappy Cat paper and stickers that I bought because it looked SO COOL, then couldn't think of anything to use it for. (The usual story.) The backgrounds are kind of busy and don't give you a lot of flexibility in arranging the photos and page elements. But the colors were just right for these pictures of the Cub Scouts and bulldozers, so I found a layout sketch that worked with the background paper.

Materials: Patterned paper, stickers, colored letter stickers - Stamp Effects by Scrappy Cat; black letter stickers - Life's Journey, K&Company; bulldozer clip art - Microsoft; eyelets - Making Memories.

Used up: 2 whole sheets of Scrappy Cat paper!

100 Layouts #46 - Martial Arts (completed 4/27/06)
Mood:  a-ok
Topic: Kids' Activities
Okay, starting out in the middle of my list - here's the layout I did today, of Aaron's karate portrait this spring.

Aaron looks so serious here, it's adorable. They aren't allowed to smile for the karate pictures, because karate is a serious business, you know. I picked orange for the paper accents on this layout to go with his orange belt.

Quote:“To me, the extraordinary aspect of martial arts lies in its simplicity. The easy way is also the right way, and martial arts is nothing at all special; the closer to the true way of martial arts, the less wastage of expression there is.” Bruce Lee

The karate clip art is from Microsoft (tons of free downloadable clip art), the kanji dingbats are Jaycons font. Orange patterned paper is Karen Foster Design, I don't remember who made the Chinese coin; Aaron gave me a set of these for Christmas (actually only $1.99 from the scrapbook store). Computer font is CK Fortune. I found the Bruce Lee quote here.
Used up: 1 sheet white cardstock, 1 1/2 black scraps, 1/2 orange paper scrap. And a Chinese coin.