First I want to say thank you for those that have followed me long my journey. Your support and comments meant a lot to me and I am grateful.  This is The Last One.  I made it.  It was a lot of fun and I did not in any way put stress on myself to do this.  There was a day or so when I did not feel like scrapping, so I didn't.  I was able to complete more than 29 LO's this month and for that, I am very proud of myself.  Today's LOAD prompt is: Once in a Blue Moon.  What were things that didn't happen very often.  Well, in my house that would have meant a box of sugar cereal appeared on the shelf, but it isn't really possible to scrap that today.

After the 'Cow' craze in Chicago, Naperville decided to do it's own version.  There were Giraffes, Fairies, Pigs, and this year, it was Dragons.  Fitting for a little boy who loved the show Dragon Tales.   I have these photos of a day I spent with my son wandering around Naperville looking at and taking pictures of all the Dragons. Because, it isn't very often that Dragons are wandering around your town...

I used yet another unfinished class LO.  I said I had about 50 and I meant it.  They definitely came in handy this month, especially on days when I wasn't feeling creative and/or pressed for time. I had printed both 4x6 and a collage of the photos. My plan was to use a combination of them and this page was great for that.  I added Thickers for the title, some green Stickles, and inked the edge of the journaling block.

I think tomorrow, after I have decompressed (and cleaned my scrap room!!!) I will write down some thoughts about LOAD.  If you are interested at all, you should check out www.layoutaday.com or www.scraphappy.org

LOAD #28-Toothless

I can't believe I only have one more day!  I think I did pretty well. I got behind twice, but got all caught up. I went off topic today. LOAD prompt #28 is: screen time. It could be anything about my first time at the movies, first computer etc.  I don't have any photos of that kind of stuff so I did something different.  My friend has a sketch challenge on her blog this month lovejoypaper.com and I really wanted to participate.  Frosted Designs Friday Challenge to use a geometric shape 3+ times was also on my radar.  I have these silly pictures of my son after he pulled his tooth out that I wanted to use and it all fell into place.

The photo isn't great. I had to take it at night.

and here is her sketch

I kept everything pretty similar, but I moved the title to the top in place of more shaped embellies.

LOAD #26 & 27

Nearing the finish line! I sat on the couch all afternoon watching Oscar stuff so I didn't post yesterday's page.  LOAD #26-Girl Crush was so much fun for me to do!  Because, well, Donny Osmond was my guy.  ok. I liked Marie too.  I watched the show every Friday, had all their albums and pictures on my wall.  My Dad worked for Mattel Toys when I was little. He brought me to the photo shoot for the Donny & Marie dolls so I got to meet them.
I dug in my ever handy box of unfinished class LO's only to discover this black and white number that worked really well with my photo.  We had made the crepe paper flower in class.  I added some purple ink, brads, Thickers and that was it.

Today's LOAD #27 prompt is pets. I had the best cat growing up.  He just really was.  I got him for my 9th birthday. Kind of.  I did get a kitten for my birthday, but he was sick and died 6 days after I got him. My friend's cat had just had kittens, and I was able to have one of hers.   We all loved Charlie Brown. No other cat will ever be like him.  Both cats are on the LO.  

Another unfinished class LO for this one.  These pages have been great for all the girly LO's I've been doing.  (My pile is actually beginning to thin out).

Lots of LOADs- #21-#25

Got a little off track this week but I am all caught up now.  Darn that real life!  Some of the LOAD prompts I did not follow.  I am only using photos that I have already printed, so if I don't have one that fits the prompt, I have to do something else.

Starting with today's LOAD #25 prompt: I feel like I am...not going there today.  I will do that another time.  I know i could keep it really light and finish it with something like 'lucky', but nope, just not doing this one today.  So, again, i went to my handy little pile and chose some fun photos of DH and YDS.  I have had these photos marked for a LO I wanted to do for Scrapbookers Anonymous letter 'G' challenge. I used Green Doodlebug background paper, Green and Brown Glimmer Mist on some of the Jenni Bowlin chipboard banner pieces, Green twine, Glitter, by Stickles outlines the banner, Green Colorbox ink around the PP and to color some of the chipboard banner pieces, and finally 5 'G' words (goofy, grinning, giggling, glasses wearing guys)  using Green CC tiny type letters and more Green ink on the stamps.  A little MME die cut PP cut in half and journal tag, done.  The sketch is adapted from SBE 10/10 pg46

LOAD #21:My Hometown. I didn't have anything I wanted to use for this...right now anyway.  I can think if some places I used to frequent, but I'll save that idea for another time.  I interpreted it with a bunch of menus I kept from our favorites restarts in Chicago.  I made a pocket with a MME die cut paper, used adhesive and a few extra stitches, added a Scenic Route die cut, some CC tiny type letters my own "recipe card" and I am finished.  I will tuck in the menus when I put the page in a protector.

LOAD #22: Holidays. This was a fun one and it really is also for Club CK Issue Challenge #9.  Hanukkah was always a huge daily celebration.  There was one day when the whole family wold gather at either our house or at Nani and Momo's.  the gift pile was out of control.  Momo handed out the gifts one at a time.  Somehow, but then end of the pile, Momo was wearing some sort of ribbon "hat" on his head.  I had to keep this simple because I used 10 old discolored photos. I rotated the design from the left page to the right and balanced it by added 2 paper strips; one for the title, the other for the journaling.  I added below to brighten it up.  

LOAD #23: Road Trip.  I don't have any photos of trips from when I was a kid, and I didn't feel like doing just one page from a more recent trip, so I just went along with a pile of photos I've been working on.  Just taking advantage of a rare warm spring day in May in 2006.  I was able to use yet another unfinished class LO from CKC.  This is all from the BG Picadilly Collection.

And finally, LOAD #24-Numbers. I loosely interpreted this one.  I've had these items for almost 3 years thatI bought at a Scrapbook Expo in Chicago.  I have already finished the boys' baby albums, so they've just been sitting around wishing to be used.  I didn't add his birthday for privacy reasons.  It will go under the big glittery letter 'E'.

Phew, only 4 days left.  Good thing too.  My scrap room is a MESS!

LOAD #20-Fashionistas?

Ok, I had to laugh when I saw the LOAD day 20 prompt: Fashion Plate!  Growing up in the 70's and then high school and college in the 80's, there are some fashion trends that I whole heartedly participated in.  Looking back, most of them don't seem so fashionable....I went digging in my box of high school and college photos, the first ones I came across were my high school friends and I in our Vuarnet sunglasses , but then I found a bunch of pictures from college. I was struck by the HAIR, and the SHOULDER PADS first.  Then I took a closer look at the clothes themselves.  Seriously BAD fashion.  But we thought we were cool.

At the same time we were moving, my LSS was closing.  I found some very bright PP by Rusty Pickle.  It reminded me of Dr. Seuss books.  I had no idea how I would use it, but I had to have it.  I found a use for it here.  I also found a use for the pink/black tiger stripe Thickers!  I used my Fiskars wave punch.  It made me think of New Wave music. I used some of the yellow PP behind the wave. Glitter and bling were necessary here too.  A very fun LO to do. And to think I made fun of the clothes my parents used to wear....

LOAD #14-Love Lasts

Ahhhh, Finally!  I've actually had this one finished for a few days, but I knew I might need it to help someone out over at Club CK.  So this was LOAD day 14 prompt: Love Lasts.  I got the idea for this LO from a Starbucks card.  It struck me as something I could turn into a LO.  I have a few photos of DH and I from when we were dating that I could have used, but this one was more current.  I added a few extra details, especially when I saw the ScrapFit Challenge #62, use 'XO' on your LO.  It just naturally fit right in. I painted a variety of different sized chipboard hearts. I added glitter, Stickles, flock and Glossy Accents to a few of them to vary the look and give them different texture.

Here is a closeup of the Tiny Type letter stickers I added to the heart on the border strip.  I also wrote 'xoxo' in the journailing

Here is the card that the inspiration came from

A totally easy and fun LO.

LOAD #18 and 19

Well, like I said, I am caught up!  Not the most creative efforts, these 2, but again, they are complete and in the books!  LOAD 18: You say it's your birthday.  I have so many birthday photos of mine as a child, and also of my children.  The creativity was definitely not flowing yesterday, so I went with a few photos of YDS on his 4th birthday on a partially finished CKC class LO.  My original intention, was to make this a 2pager because I have some of this PP, like I said, no good mojo.

LOAD 19: Make new friends but keep the old.  Hard subject for me.  I may do a few more about this subject another time.  I miss my friends in IL terribly.  I didn't feel like writing about my childhood friends.  I just did a LO about my son's friends.   She and I participated in the AvonWalk for Breast Cancer.  That entire experience was incredible, what I got out of it most was a really good friend.

I have a mini book about the whole weekend, but had never made a LO about it.   I had this really old class LO from a class I took eons ago with Melissa Frances.  I finally put it to good use.

I'm looking forward to some scrap time later.  Hopefully the mojo will join me.

LOAD #17-When I Grow Up...

Oh I loved this one and...I'm caught up!  I finished this last night, but didn't have time to post!  So LOAD day 17 prompt: When I grow up...I went literal with this one.  I had a contact sheet of proofs that my Dad had taken of me when I was about 11 years old.  I used the ScrapHappy Feb quick page sketch and lots and lots of girly stuff for this one.  It was fun to use pink, purple and flowers!

Lots and lots of supplies for this one: PP-BoBunny, Crate Paper and Making Memories. Punch-EkSuccess, stickers-Crate paper, chipboard embellies, BoBunny, flowers-Prima, brads-Making Memories, Buttons-random, Journal tag-Simple Stories, rub-on numbers-Doodlebug, letter stickers-Cosmo Cricket, Piggy Tales and Thickers

LOAD #15-The One for Us

Whoo Hoo!  Almost caught up!  Today's LOAD #15 prompt was : Songs of days gone by.  I chose not to do the soundtrack of my life. It would have been totally fun to find album covers of my favorite one hit wonders from the 80's, but I'll save that for another time.  I did something a bit more current, but it still has a tremendous amount of meaning behind it.  My husband and I had a rare moment with a Super Rock Star, who happens to be the lead singer of our favorite band....

U2 has a lot of meaning to us.  ONE is the song we danced to at our wedding.  We've seen all of their concerts together since 1991.  My husband has seen all of them prior to that as well.  It was all because of his work that this photo opportunity occurred.  OMG we were soooo excited!!!!!!!   It was a rare and special moment that we will always remember.

I was soooooo torn between really glamming this up and keeping it clean and simple.  I stayed with simple.  I very slightly tilted the photo.  I pulled the ONE logo from the backdrop behind the photo and yes, I had to use bling and silver embellies. 

CS is Bazzill, PP is Best Creations and DCWV, chipboard and bling is DCWV, letter stickers are Momenta, pens are American Crafts.

LOAD #16-The Gang's All Here

Well, I'm still 2 behind, but at least I got to do something today, and it is for LOAD and ScrapFit WWU Challenge #24 "using clusters"  LOAD day 16, a wonderful prompt: These are the people in my neighborhood.  I sooooo wanted to do something Sesame Street, but didn't have photos printed, so I did this instead.  These are my son and his friends, the children in our old neighborhood, on the day we left to move to Seattle.  He's known them since the day we moved in when he was 1 year old.  One of the boys wasn't even born yet.

I used hidden journaling behind the photo.  The navy polka dot tab pulls out.  I blocked out the other children's names.

I just wanted to do something clean and simple. I added the word cluster on the right edge.   These words were perfect to describe all the children.  

I got the idea for the LO from the SBE April 2012 mag page 106.  

My supplies are CS:Bazzill, PP-Fancy Pants, pen-American Crafts, cardstcok stickers-Basic Grey and Fancy Pants, word stickers-Tiny Type by Cosmo Cricket, Letter stickers-Tiny Type by Cosmo Cricket, Sassafrass and Thickers, brads-Heidi Swapp, jewels and button-SEI, bakers twine-Doodlebug.

LOAD #11-Countdown to Independence

Not only am I out of order, I'm off now by 2 days as well.  Good thing I will have some time the next few days to play catch up.  I finally finished LOAD 11: School Days.  I loosely interpreted this prompt.  I wanted to use this CK Sketch, and also submit this for the ScrapFit "blank canvas" challenge.  I really wanted to use these photos.  I am ready to tell this story.

I wanted to create some movement like the wheels of the bus, so I used round shaped punches, in yellow and blue to both highlight the color of the bus and add some contrast to my son's blue jacket.   I wrote a quote on the yellow scallops to help keep the eye moving to the right.  To add texture, I added the monochromatic brads at the peaks of the scallops,  added buttons to the wheels of the bus sticker, and used pop dots on all the stickers.  Lastly, I highlighted in red ink the 5 descriptions closely matching the numbers on the photos.  The journaling is the email I sent to my family and friends on this day and reads:

Today was quite the day for Joshua.  SInce Dec 2007, Joshua has been riding to school on the bus, but in his wheelchair. 

5.Today, he walked to the bus 

4.He walked onto the bus with my help. 

3.He sat down in a seat, just like his friends.  2.He rode to school.  

1.His aide Kelly, helped him walk off the bus and she and I walked with him into class.  He knew I was there, but never turned to say goodbye once he was in his classroom.  His teacher told me this was the highlight of her professional career.

John, Evan and I are so proud of Joshua. I can’t believe how very emotional we are today.  This is a HUGE milestone for Joshua. What we've seen most from Joshua lately, is his desire for independence.  I know this is only the beginning of new territory for Joshua, It will only help and encourage him. He just wants to be like everyone else.  He took a step in that direction today.  I can’t wait to see what comes next!

LOAD #13-Play ball!

Oh, Mr. Mojo, where are you???? I got nothing. Mojo is nowhere to be found.

I love today's LOAD prompt: your hobbies.  It could be now, it could be then, it could be how they've changed, it could be my family's hobbies.  I basically have 3 hobbies.  Scrapping, reading and baseball.  I thought about taking a picture of my Nancy Drew books and another of a shelf of books I have yet to read, but I have so many photos that I have printed, I decided to see if I could find a photo that fit the prompt. Any ideas where this is going....

Yes, I played Little League.  I loved baseball then and I still love baseball now.  It isn't the prettiest or best designed LO, but it is another one in the book.  

I was happy that I had this baseball circle by Colorbok.  I laid that on Basic Grey navy CS and added some old Karen Foster and Autumn Leaves stickers, some bling and I am done. 

LOAD #12-Let the Music Play

Oh, I'm out of order now.  I still haven't had a chance to do LOAD #11.  I know what I want to do, it's all laid out, I just need the time to do it.  I just don't get as much scrappy time on the weekends.  Anyway, on to LOAD #12 and today's prompt is: History repeats itself.

Again, there are any number of things I could have done, but I knew 3 things already...I wanted to use these photos of my son's band concert for the Club CK ThanksLiving Challenge #2, and also the Club CK CHA trend Challenge,  I was tremendously inspired by the Frosted Designs 2/7 Sketch.  So I decided that history has repeated itself by my son being in the school band, just like I was, but also, that I am just thankful we still have music in our schools.

So, for this LO, I used the Frosted Designs sketch, but I flipped it so the photos go left to right instead of right to left.  This was a great sketch for these photos for a lot of reasons. I had one central photo and 2 small ones to focus on. It allowed me to use some embellishments to highlight not only the photos, but the theme of the LO as well.  I just knew right away, this was going to work for these photos!

Orange is a hard color to use. Really? NEON orange band shirts that had to be photographed indoors in bad florescent lighting.  Yeesh.  So, I chose to use more orange PP to complement the photos rather than try to contrast them and just set it on black CS.  I was concerned it might look like Halloween, but I don't think it does at all.  I took a close up photo of the medal my son received, and printed multiples, cut them out and make them the banner to reinforce the music theme.  I added metal brads and the metal round clips to play off the brass trumpet.  I also had this chipboard piece with the word music on it that I wanted to stand out, so I used smaller letter stickers.  I am really happy with how this turned out.

Lots of supplies for this one.  CS-Bazzill, PP-SEI, Scenic Route, Echo Park, DCWV, Basic Grey, Journal tag, letter stickers and date sticker-Echo Park, 'Music' Chipboard-DCWV, Ink-ColorBox, brads-Making Memories, metal clips-unknown, bakers twine

Now all I need to do is find time to play catch up.  Maybe tomorrow....

The Liebster Blog Award

I need to give a big thank you to my friend Cassie.  She nominated my blog for the Liebster Blog award. I was really surprised and very flattered!  I have seen this little badge on some other blogs that I visit, but didn't know anything about it.   

How about a little info about the Liebster Blog award:
"Liebster" is German for dearest, beloved or favorite. The award is given from one blogger to another and is intended to showcase up-and-coming blogs typically with less than 200 followers. It's a chance to get more traffic to their blogs and to share the love and creativity that is out there. There is no evaluation committee or formal process for this award. It is simply peer recognition for your hard work---which is pretty terrific, right?Obligations of receiving this recognition are minimal. Show thanks to the blogger(s) who nominated you by linking back to their blog. Share the Liebster Blog award with other up and coming blogs with fewer than 200 followers. Post the award on your own blog!


So again, thank you Cassie, and please visit her beautiful blog www.allsmilesandsunshine.blogspot.com, and follow her if you don't already! 


Drumroll please, I am nominating 2 of my friends for the Liebster Award. Both of these women have inspired me tremendously, and when you see their creative works, you'll understand why.
Moongirl-www.happinessequalscreation.blogspot.com   You impress me everytime I see your 2 page speeds.  They are just beautiful
Emeraldvalkyrie-www.myscrapbookevolution.blogspot.com  You are constantly trying new artistic and design ideas and encourage me to do the same.


So go check out their blogs, and follow them (and me!) too.

LOAD #10-Ice Cream Sundays

Yes, another fun one, but yes, I cried while I typed.  LOAD Prompt for today: A Favorite Memory.  The first thing that came to mind was ice cream with Grandpa. We used to give Grandpa a coupon book for his birthday. The coupons were for him to take us out for ice cream every month.  Oh how we looked forward to that!  I know that if I asked my sister for a favorite memory, she'd say the same thing.  It was our special thing to do with Grandpa.  I only wish I had a more appropriate picture.  I only have pictures of Grandpa and I when I was a baby, and none of my sister and I with him.  Have to "borrow" some from my Dad I guess....

I was thinking frosty pastelly colors, of which I don't own a lot.  I remembered I still had some unfinished pages from a SEI class I took at CKC in November.  I changed up the embellies and moved the journaling and title to other areas on the page.  Pretty much what I had in mind. All supplies are SEI, except the title letters are Sassafrass.

Oddly enough, I recently did this same prompt for a CK Challenge and it was about my other Grandpa.

LOAD #9-Home

Ok, another light hearted project completed.  Today's LOAD prompt is: Home Sweet Home.
In this pile of photos I was given, there were a few of our house when we were adding the second story to it.  The day the contractor came over to start the demolition, he handed my sister and I a rock and told us to throw it through the window from the inside, out.  My friend Rachel had just arrived to pick me up for our walk to school. He handed her a rock as well, and the 3 of us did and we were told.  It was the weirdest feeling to be doing that to my house.  Finally though, later that year, I was going to have my own room.  I loved that house and living in it.  When my parents sold it, my sister and I said that someday we would like to buy it back....

I feel like brown goes with pictures of houses, kraft actually. I've been using so much kraft, I needed to choose something else.  So I used brown Bazzill CS for the background and used some scraps and some chipboard embellies and twine from the MME Kraft FunDay.  Thickers, CC Tiny Type, Pebbles Kraft alpha letters round it out.  I fussy cut the chevron pattern on all the PP.  The sketch is from the SLS eBook.

Can't wait for tomorrow's prompt.  You can check out LOAD at www.layoutaday.com

LOAD #8-I Miss the 80's

I had to get out of the Darkside and move on to something light and silly today!  Today's LOAD prompt : I miss...I actually dreamt about this last night. (I have the benefit of being on the west coast.  The prompts are sent anytime after 12am EST).  I woke up thinking about the beach and how much I miss it.  I have no idea how I came up with this.  Wait, yes I do.  I saw the new Jan/Feb Issue Challenge #7 at club CK: use a calendar on your LO.  I used the free download from CK as a journal tag.  All the chipboard shapes are from the DCWV Rock Star collection that has been sitting in my drawer for ummm...years?  If I had been scrapping in the 80's, I could have said since then.  I was saving them for a project I have yet to begin, and at this point, probably won't ever begin.

These pictures are from our last high school reunion.  We had tooooo much fun in the 80's; the music, the dances, the clothes and oh, can't forget the hair.  I miss seeing my friends daily.  I'm lucky if we get to see each other once a year now.

I hated this LO so I red-did it.  I mean completely started over.  I have never done that before.  Here is the new one:

Supplies: CS-Bazzill, chipboard-DCWV, journal tag-CK, punch, EK success, Stickers-American Crafts, CC Tiny Type, brads-Making Memories

Lovely Grins

I love when one LO conquers 2 challenges.  I did this lovely page today for the Club CK 2/8 One Hour Challenge, use pink and make a Valentine project and Scrapbookers Anonymous Feb Challenge, use at least 3 hearts and stitching.  Feeling pretty smart in tying these together.  They were similar in theme.  The pink doesn't look half bad for this either! Thanks for the fun ideas.

LOAD #7-I never, I always

Well, today was a doozy.  I could have taken this in so many directions.  But then I saw this picture and I knew what I needed to do.  Today's LOAD prompt is : I always thought....  It could have been about song lyrics, what I thought about when I was a child, any number of things.  I always thought I'd be a doctor.  I always thought I'd get married young like my parents. I always thought I'd go to the same college as my parents.  I could have done a LO about those things.  But I didn't.  Today, I decided to go deep and write about how I always thought my family would be like everyone else's and we aren't.

Here is my page.

Supplies: PP-MME, punch-EK Success, Letter stickers-DCWV, CC Tiny Type, Pinking shears

Check out www.layoutaday.com for more info about LOAD

LOAD #6-Dream Big

Almost a week in the bag!  What started out as an organized day, suddenly just got wacky.  Too much time wasted on the phone trying to take care of simple business.  Really zapped my calm mood and sent Mr. Mojo packing.  Bummer for me.  Nothing like trying to be creative when you are frazzled.  I did manage to sneak in a bit of time to get today's project done.  I kind of got lost in it and it didn't turn out the way I saw it in my head.  I used the February sketch from ScrapHappy for today's LOAD prompt: Little Girl Dreams.

These are more like Big Girl Dreams.  This was the day I left on my cross country drive for my move to Chicago in Feb of 1991. I had stopped at my grandparents house for brunch and one last goodbye. Some of my friends came over, gave me the hat and the bear, (whose name was Sebastian and I have no idea why).  I was scared, nervous and excited. I definitely was not sure I was doing the right thing.  New city, home, roommate, job, climate.  It was all going to be new.  The bottom line was, if it didn't work out, I could always go home.  But, the only thing I did know was that I was finally going to see Wrigley Field. :-)

Here is my LO.

This is also my entry for Club CK Jan/Feb '12 Issue Challenge #6, go hybrid.  I think that's where I lost my way.  I was trying to do too much with this page, and it wasn't coming together the way I had envisioned.  The skyline photo and tag at the bottom I printed from internet images.  

Supplies used: PP, Echo Park, Fancy Pants, Recollections. CS, Bazzill, Thickers, CC Tiny Type, Jolee's, twine.

LOAD #4 and #5

Phew, what a weekend. It was not what I had expected it to be!  I spent the entire weekend with my son at his swim meet which left me absolutely no creative time. Don't get me wrong.  I loved every minute of my time with him. It just made keeping up with LOAD a tad difficult.   I was determined to do something.  I had been thinking about the prompt: The more things change and what photos I wanted to use all day. But, it was 9:45 pm when I finally got to my desk last night.  I drastically simplified my LO by using a half-finished class page and adding a title and some journaling. It became a 15 minute page, but it was finished and uploaded.  I may still do the other idea I had another time. I better write it down though. I am looking forward to Monday. I need a rest!

LOAD #4

So yes, moving was a a big change.  This is our change of address card we sent.  I blotted out our address.  

Paper is Bazill and Basic Grey. Title sticker is 7 Gypsies

I really didn't see this coming.  LOAD, Day 5: The more things stay the same.  I thought about taking pictures of the laundry, messy bedrooms, the dog leash. Instead, in my attempt to stick with my OLW, and Progress, I found a picture of my husband and boys together.  Again, super short on time today. I had 15 minutes before it was time to leave for the pool.  I was saved once again by an unfinished class LO.  I added "it never changes" under LOVE and called it a day.  I might move or remove the flower.  I don't love it there.

LOAD #5

Love Never Changes

Paper and flower is MME, letter stickers are CC Tiny Type

If you want more information about LOAD, check out www.layoutaday.com

LOAD-Day 3: Who am I?

Day 3 and I am feeling good!  The sun is out, it's Friday and I've got a 2 pager finished, and in the book. Bette yet, I get to add this to the Frosted Designs Friday Challenge-use ribbon and/or twine. Awesome!

Because the theme of LOAD is "Past Perfect", I have a stack of old photos ready to go.  Although many of the memories that go with these old photos belong to my parents, it's been fun to have them out and around me.  My son gets a kick out of them as well.

Today's LOAD prompt is "Who Am I Now"?  Good question.  There were a group of photos of me, about the same size, all black and white, of different expressions, but of varying ages.  I know one of them is a favorite of my Dad's. I tried to imagine what those expressions meant then, knowing that I still make some of the same faces and expressions now.  I'm sure some mean the same, and some are very different.

I used a LO I started in a CKC class.  I changed the entire LO design and embellies. the only thing that is the same is the PP selection and placement.  Supplies are Basic Grey, Bazzill, Glubers, Glue Dots, twine, ribbon, ink,Thickers, Tiny Type.  I love using twine on Glubers. So fun!

I came up with the answer, "I am me", with some adjectives describing me know and possibly then.  Original don't you think?

LOAD-Day 2: Favorites

Moving right along to day 2. Today's prompt is a favorite photo, why is it a favorite, what is the emotion behind it. I immediately thought of this picture.

I love this picture. It is so rare that the 6 of us are together in one place at the same time.  But this picture is deceptive. It is an oxymoron.  Everything about this picture is wrong. This was the day of Momo's (our Grandfather) funeral. The worst day of my life to date. None of us wore black because Momo wouldn't have liked that.  The sun was shining and the palm trees were swaying because Nani and Momo live on the beach. We were smiling and laughing because it took about 20 takes to get a decent picture.  We wanted to give this picture to Nani at a later date, hoping to make her smile because we knew she was sad.

So everything about this layout in a way is wrong too.  The title is a play on words.  Yes, the picture is a favorite, but we, each one of us, were Momo's favorites.  It's bright, cheery and happy, which is anything BUT the way we all felt.  I will always love this picture, but I hate the reason we have it.

LOAD #1-Cheerios

So, this is the cool thing about LOAD: I give myself (about) an hour to do my LO.  Sometimes, it does just take longer, but when I have a time limit, I have to make faster choices and stick with them.  My pages may not be as elaborate as some of my others. They will definitely have fewer details. They may not all become favorites. But, they will be finished and can go in an album.  Today's prompt: You've got good taste, something inspired about food.

I got the old Cheerios jingle in my head as soon as I came across this photo, which is the title. I bought the garland with the other Kraft MME papers.  I think they mimic the look of Cheerios well, and I still have some scraps of the Cheerios PP I bought eons ago.  know I have at least 2 other Cheerios pages in our books, and I will probably have a few more, but he knows what he wants and he knows what he likes, so I keep taking pictures. LOAD, day 1, is in the books.