We made it

We made it!

Well, Ryan made it through his camp and so did we- without going down to visit him at camp, though we were terribly tempted to when he did not call for three days!! We found that he actually tried to call, but at nearly midnight and we had gone to bed!! It is unbelievable that the camp made them stay up that late!!

When dh went to pick him up for home, he walked right past Ryan because he had become so dark and 'burnt'. Dh asked how was camp, and Ryan answered"on a scale of ten, two", and when asked why, said "the instructors sprouted vulgarities".... dear me! It is adventure camp, and meant to toughen them up, but still, no need for vulgarities! Still, he had fun, and we are sooooo proud that he survived it - all cool, and such. :)

I've been reading this awesome book and want to HIGHLY recommend it to you all:

Art Journals & Creative Healing by Sharon Soneff. Sharon and many other artists have made fastastically beautiful journals that are wonders of journaling and healing. I was totally blessed and inspired and at times in tears reading it. You must get your hands on a copy if you can! If I may quote Sharon from the book: " ... journals. Sometimes incredibly artful and detailed, other times modestly simple and scrawled, these journals have brought me revelation, calm, solace, and circumspection. A work-in-progress journal is the perfect complement to my work-in-progress life, bringing me continuous, work-in-progress restorative health." Wow. May you be blessed too.

I keep my personal thoughts and feelings in a private journal, but I feel comfortable and happy sharing our family photo journals on the blog. Here's # 2 of our first day in Washington. (Boy have I got a long way to go with scrapping this trip!)

Credits: paper by Jessica Bolton, white journaling spot by sclingerman, hearts by Christina Renee, frame by Lori Barnhurst, ribbon by Sun & Jan, brown journaling spot by Toni Berman

Just in case you were wondering, I had always been making the layouts first, based on what photos I selected and their sizes, then I simply punched out the photos and saved them as templates. I find it a lot easier and more creative this way :)

Carena left me a great suggestion to include a jpeg preview in the zip file, which I did, and I remembered to include a terms of use too. Thanks Carena! However, I'm not sure about the suggestion to set up an email subscriber box on the blog yet, just feels a bit intrusive sending my blog posts into your emails! I'm just happy if you like to come over and visit a while.

Oh, and here's the link to the template, thanks to so many of you who left me love all the time! This is now available as a set in the store here

Ryan's Birthday Prayer

Ryan's Birthday Prayer
I just completed it! I really liked how it turned out too! A layout for Ryan's 11th birthday. He's growing up so quickly we are feeling in awe and almost in shock. Tomorrow in fact he leaves for adventure camp, kayaking, abseiling, and all that including camping outdoors in tents. I'm rather nervous as it is his first time away from home by himself. But he is totally cool and excited. We gave him one of our old phones and I said you have to call home once a day and if you don't I'm coming right down to pay you a visit, and then he totally freaked out. hehe! I'm sure he'd call! :)

The journaling reads:
On your 11th birthday we are amazed and in awe at how far God has brought you! We thank Him for your sweet obedient nature, your intelligence, the discipline and hardwork you put into your schoolwork. We also thank God for the other side of your personality that we see blossoming, the funny you, your wacky sense of humour, the newly opinion-ated you, full of comments and pre-teen takes on everything! We think we need prayer too, ‘cos we are not prepared for how quickly you are growing up! We ask the Lord to bless you with great friendships, and a great year in school. We pray that you will get many opportunities to try out all kinds of things,and grow your independence and confidence!
Most of all we pray that you will grow in your faith and knowledge of your God and Saviour, that you will walk with Him as you enter this next new phase in your life, begin your adventure with your hand in His. Amen
Credits: Paper, messy stitch, denim crown from Lori Barnhurst's Kid Couture, star by sclingerman, tabs by Christina ReneeThis is now available as a set in the store here
Let me know what you think, i love hearing from you all!

Birthday Prayer

Birthday Prayer

We're too busily living our busy lives!! Last week the boys celebrated their 9th and 11th birthday respectively. Their birthdays are 4 days apart but we always celebrate together. We had a little party with our closest friends and the boys' grandparents. When I asked them what party games they wanted to play, Jared asked for Scrabble, and Ryan said Taboo and Pictionary. That's when I know they are definitely grown up, or at least not my little boys anymore!! Here are some photos:
And I want to record the birthday prayer dh and I pray for each of them, here's the one for Jared: Journaling reads:
on your 9th birthday, we thank God for giving you to our family, for your talents and creativity, for your sense of humour, your exhuberance, how you run into everything, never walk; how strongly you feel about things, never without opinions; how you are always interesting, never dull! We pray that the Lord will give us wisdom as your parents, and patience too! We pray that you will develop self-control and discipline, that will allow you to achieve your dreams, although these seem so unnecessaryto you now. We ask God to bless you with a good year in school, for good friends and teachers and an enjoyable time. Most of all we pray that you will grow in faith and personal relationship with your God, who made you and know you and has wonderful plans in store for you. Amen

Credits: Background paper by SandeKrieger from Memory Maker, Happy button from Scrapgirls, stitched heart by Sliva

Made it into a template - they are polaroid style this time because I wanted to give each of the photos a description, hope they come in useful for you!

This is now available as a set in the store here

Inspiration

Look at these Layouts!

Thank you to the wonderful ladies that kindly gave me permission to show their pages here, just look at these beautiful layouts!! I so love that we can all take a kit or a template, and always end up with something uniquely and wonderfully different! Most of all I get such a thrill each time I see one of the templates being used, it's so rewarding and also makes me feel like there's a connection between us :)

Here's a layout by JanMary in lovely fall colors and such fabulous photos!

And this calm and lovely composition is by Esther

And here's three by MirandaLea making monthly pages for her son, look at that fabulous smile!

And checkout this great page by Jools. I just love the red and how the photos went from far to near like he is scooting right up to you!

And I think this is my favorite, how much fun a lolli can be to a little girl! This page is by Heather!

And my own latest page - from the first day of our trip - even though it was already late Nov, we were treated to the last bit of Fall colors at Great Falls Park - again our first time seeing autumn colors - I can't begin to describe it, it must sound silly to you, but I was oohing and aahhing all day long , :) , couldn't help it, it was all so lovely.
Credits: Paper from Fall in Colors by Lili from Scrapartist, tag from Kawouette's ChocoNoisette, page curl by Flergs.This is now available as a set in the store here

Thank you I also want to thank everyone who left me such lovely feedback and encouragement, I'm honored and blessed that you're finding the templates useful and touched that some of you come back with a link to show your layouts to me! Actually I would love to post any of these layouts here, if you don't mind, let me know when you leave the link to your layouts. Sorry too as I think I

14th Anniversary

Into the New Year
It's the new year! For us here it is a hectic, back to school time. The boys started the new school year on 2 Jan, we are all adjusting to schedules again and it's surprisingly easy and even feels good.
In the last few days I was doing my "spring" cleaning and clearing space for new books and all, and found stuff and many ideas and much thoughts for scrapbooking! I hope I get to all of them, some of which involve:
- a pattern for one of my maternity dresses my friend made for me nine years ago
- the children's kindergarten art and works
- Jared's spelling book where he adds a little illustration for every word he spells!
- old passports - i'm thinking maybe scrapbook on the remaining empty pages?
- lots of magazine pages torn out for ideas for scrapbooking designs from when I was designing - it's making me feel like designing again - wow who knows?
- old letters from me to dh and vice versa - priceless!

When I read what I wrote in one of them it was what I needed for a layout for our 14th anniversaryCredits: Papers from Weeds & Wildflowers, word art by Designing on the edge, journaling strips, heart and flower by Christina Renee, frame by Mom to Niryza, snow flurry by Michelle Coleman.

And I completed a half completed layout from 2007. Haven't been able to start on the US holiday photos yet, it just seems like such a huge undertaking! Need to think about whether I will follow a theme, or color scheme, or what, oh, just been putting it off ! :) I'm sure I'll really enjoy scrapping them, just need to take it slowly!
Credits: Paper by Michelle Coleman, flower and swirls by Kim Christensen, tag by Dani Mogstad, and the alpha is by Krietz from Scraphead!This is now available as a set in the store here