Such a great time of year.  BBQS.  Outdoor Activities.  Water Sports. Lots of time soaking up the sun. 

So how are you organizing all those memories?  If you are like me you click, click away and have tons of pictures at the end of summer.  This year I decided to do a summer mini album.  This album is a quick & easy way for me to organize tons of pictures, plus it also gives me a chance to play & use up some scraps.





I used some chipboard, chipboard letters, gesso, & heavy molding paste to create the cover.  I outlined my title so it would stand out a bit more.  I love the texture & feel of this album.






The interior pages are baseball (sports) card holders.  They are the perfect ATC size (2.5 x 3.5). I cut down the pages to create just six pockets on a page instead of the usual 9 pockets.  This just the start of my album & I am looking forward to filling the pages.  I am also excited about playing around with some techniques on these little cards.  I will be sure to share those cards in the coming weeks here.

Hope you are having a good summer so far!

Love,Always
Ronda  

Father's Day is right around the corner. I'm sure many of you will be creating cards this week. And you will be taking lots of photos over the weekend. So, I thought I'd share some of my favorite Father's Day quotes. You can use these on cards or on layouts!

He didn't tell me how to live; he lived, and let me watch him do it.  ~Clarence Budington Kelland

 

A truly rich man is one whose children run into his arms when his hands are empty.  ~Author Unknown

 

Blessed indeed is the man who hears many gentle voices call him father!  ~Lydia M. Child, Philothea: A Romance, 1836

 

Sometimes the poorest man leaves his children the richest inheritance.  ~Ruth E. Renkel

 

A father carries pictures where his money used to be.  ~Author Unknown

 

Any man can be a father.  It takes someone special to be a dad.  ~Author Unknown

 

The greatest gift I ever had
Came from God; I call him Dad!
~Author Unknown

 

I love my father as the stars - he's a bright shining example and a happy twinkling in my heart.  ~Adabella Radici

 

Dad, your guiding hand on my shoulder will remain with me forever.  ~Author Unknown

 

Fatherhood is pretending the present you love most is soap-on-a-rope.  ~Bill Cosby

 

When I was a boy of fourteen, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old man around.  But when I got to be twenty-one, I was astonished at how much he had learned in seven years.  ~Mark Twain, "Old Times on the Mississippi" Atlantic Monthly, 1874

Hopefully, these will spark your creativity! Have fun creating. ;) ~Anabelle

 

 

I am looking forward to summer and being able to spend more time outdoors soaking up the sun and playing with my boys. Summer also means the chance to capture pictures of all those great outdoor activities. This layout is about one of our favorite things to do in the summer - play down at the swing set!

Make sure to take your camera with you when you go out to play this summer!!

Have a great week everyone, Christine

Father's Day is coming up!
Sunday, June 21st

It is not too late to make cards for all the fathers in your life!

Supplies: Cardstock (Prism), Patterned paper (Fancy Pants), Brads (Basic Grey), Die cut star (Sizzix), twill
All supplies from May Scripts kit.

Have a great day!
:)
gretchen

Hi!
I want to share my layout from the Masterpieces article in the July/August issues.
The theme we were given was "Life Changes".
I was on a college retreat in Gatlinburg my sophomore year when I met my husband.
That was a huge life change for me and that is what my layout is all about!

Supply list: Patterned paper (KI Memories, Fancy Pants), Brads (KI Memories), Chipboard accents (KI Memories), Lace cardstock (KI Memories), Alphabets (American Crafts, Making Memories, Basic Grey)

Journaling reads:

So this is how it all went down:
It was Campus Outreach Christmas Conference in Gatlinburg, TN over the Christmas break of 1997-98.
I went with a bunch of Chi Os-Brooke, Melissa Rosenbaum, Renee Dabbs, Shanna Steele, Summer Sisk, etc. We praised & worshipped, played flag football in the snow, ate pancakes, stayed up late, got tricked into thinking Third Day was playing in town, had a snowball fight, etc. 
I was hanging out with Michelle Petty on the last night of the conference & for some reason we ended up in a room with a bunch of guys including this Lee guy.
We were up late talking & goofing off.
Then this Lee character busts out with these card tricks.
And I was mesmerized.
After awhile I end up walking downstairs with Lee to get drinks for everybody.
He pointed out how the ice on the coke machine looks like a woman lying on the can. Oh what a sucker I was!The next day the conference ended & everybody went their separate ways until school started again in a few weeks.
I was going to Shanna’s house to celebrate the New Year & I remember hoping so much that Lee would end up coming.
But he did not and it was going to be a long few weeks until I might see him again at school.
And he did not have my phone number. I really thought whatever we had started might never get past whatever it was.
Little did I know that Lee ended up going back home & telling Adam that he was about to start dating a girl named Gretchen.
It was not long after we got back to school that Lee called me. 
All because I was a sucker for some silly card tricks and the ice lady on the coke machine.
How is that for happily ever after?!!

And if you read all that, I am impressed!
Thanks for looking!
Have a great week!
gretchen

Sometimes when I am feeling "creatively challenged" I like to do some reorganizing. This usually gives me the creative boost I need. So while doing some blog hopping the other day I was inspired to try sorting my papers by color. I have toyed with the idea of sorting all my paper by color before, but to be honest the idea really scared me - I mean what about all the multi-colored papers?? I thought I would take the baby steps approach and sort all my buttons by color first.

Here is a picture of my buttons about half way through the sorting process.

And here they are all lined up, aren't they pretty!

I was feeling pretty good about it all after the buttons, it just really seemed to make sense, so I decided to dive into my papers. As I started sorting I realized that when you look at most papers you really do see a predominate color and the whole process of sorting them went rather smoothly. I ended up with not to big pile of multi colored papers (which was mostly stripes).

Here is what my basement floor looked like for a day and a half as I waded through my stash of patterned paper

They are now all filed in my closet in nice stacks by color! The whole process has really gotten my creative mojo going and I can't wait to start scrapping tomorrow! So the next time you need a little creative boost switch things up, try a new way of doing things, it just may give you a whole new perspective.

Have a great rest of the week, Christine

I have been all about making cards and doing challenges lately!
If you are interested, American Crafts has a fun, easy challenge up on their blog this week.
The challenge is to make a birthday card using some Thickers.
Easy!
You can check it out here.
Here is the card I made:

And a little close up peek:

All supplies (paper, brads, chipboard Thicker, rub-ons, butterflies) are American Crafts.

Thanks for looking!
gretchen

The theme for the Masters pieces in the latest issue of Memory Makers was "life challenges". I didn't feel comfortable creating a layout about challenges that I went through that involved other members of my family, i.e. my father's cancer. So I created a layout that was more about a hard time in my life, a time of discovery I guess, growing as a person, finding my own way.

Have a great week everyone! Christine

I got my copy yesterday!
{I am sooooo sad that this is the next to last issue}
I thought I would share one my layouts from this issue.
This layout is in Staci Etheridge's article "7 Trends to Try" & the trend featured here is using animals on your scrapbook projects.
How fun!
I got to play with some great products from My Little Yellow Bicycle's Baby Safari line to make this layout.
Also check out Sassafras Lass's line called Bungle Jungle and Imaginisce's Wild Things line for more fun animal products!

Supplies: Cardstock (kraft-DMC, Inc), Patterned paper (My Little Yellow Bicycle), Die cuts (circles & title-Quickutz), Chipboard embellishments (My Little Yellow Bicycle, KI Memories)

Thanks for looking!
Have a great holiday weekend!
gretchen

I love rub-ons.  They add the perfect little accents to almost any page.  But sometimes they need a little umpf. 



You will need some paint, some chipboard, & some rub-ons.



Paint the chipboard with a color of your choice.  Here I am using cream.  Let it dry completely.



Rub-on the designs onto the painted chipboard. 



Cut them out and now you have these cute little accents.



and here is the final page with a couple more rub-on accents. 

Supplies: All Fancy Pants Designs except Delta Cermacoat Paint

Love always
Ronda