If I'm not scrapbooking I'm thinking about scrapbooking!
Mom and Dad married in Beaver Falls, Pennsylvania, on June 19, 1965. Then they drove to the Pocono Mountains for their honeymoon. Dad snapped this photo of his bathing beauty at the lodge pool.
I used patterns and stickers from the Echo Park Paradise Beach collection, and I cut the title on my Silhouette. I based my layout on this older Creative Scrappers sketch:
You may have noticed that I spent the month of May participating in the Creative Scrappers birthday bash sketch contest. I’ve always been inspired by the CS sketches, and I decided to use as many of them in May as I could. In fact, I submitted layouts for 6 of the 10 sketches—not bad! And I hope it’s not too proud of me to say that I’m very happy with the pages that I created with the sketches. It was a good month of scrapping!
Then it became a great month of scrapping when I won the contest!
Yesterday the site named a few of their favorites from the 128 layouts, and my page “Sweet mother love” was in that list. Cool! But when I scrolled to the bottom of the post is when I received my big surprise—my “Bobcat mom squared” layout had been chosen as the sketch contest winner. What a thrill!
And now I have $50 to spend on scrap supplies to the store of my choice. Woot! Thanks for the inspiration and the shopping spree, Creative Scrappers!
Sometimes what you need is just a night out with the girls.
I’ve met a really fun group of women just by shopping at my local Archiver’s scrapbook store. Every person in this photo, except me, works or has worked at Archiver’s. We met because of a shared hobby, but when we get together, talking about scrapbooking is not on the agenda!
We all gathered on January 4th to celebrate the new year and to see our friend, Sri, who is pursuing her Master’s at the University of Pennsylvania and was home for the holidays. It was a happy few hours…lots of gabbing and laughing.
Front row: Jacquie, Sri, Jennifer, Deborah
Back row: Heather, Ashley, Virginia, me
Not pictured: Susan
Product/technique notes:
I created this layout to participate in the “Use your stash” challenge at Write. Click. Scrapbook. We have to use at least three older products on a project, and on this layout everything is older. Here’s my list: the background paper is from the English Moss collection by ColorBok; the rest of the patterned paper is from the BasicGrey Hello Luscious 6×6 pad; the paper crimper I used on the larger horizontal strip is ooooold; and the McGill mini file tab punch is also from way back in the day.
I also used this sketch from Creative Scrappers:
Mrs. Daquila (Mom) poses with her kindergarten class of 1972-73 in our Willoughby basement.
I can’t decide who was more fortunate that year—the teacher or the students. In the fall of 1972 Mom’s friends, who had children the same age as Phil and me, devised a brilliant plan: Instead of sending their children to various kindergarten programs around town, they proposed sending them all to our house! Mom was a certified teacher, and her friends knew that she would be wonderful for their children. I don’t know how much cajoling it took to get Mom (and Dad’s) agreement to this plan, but convince them they did!
I have some pretty great memories of little moments from that year, like saying the Pledge of Allegiance and singing “Begin the day with happiness” together each morning. Or getting to sing a solo of “Away in a manger” for our Christmas program (yes, the parents came to our basement for the show). I also remember the day I spilled my drink during snack time and having to skip my snack the next day (I certainly give Mom a ribbing about that rule!).
But can you even imagine what a joy that year was for my mom? First, there’s the honor of being asked by your friends to teach their beloved children. And what mother who’s also a teacher wouldn’t want the chance to keep her own children home for one more school year, while at the same time providing them with a good curriculum surrounded by their friends? If we talked about teaching like the movies talk about gangsters, Mom would have pulled off the biggest heist in history!
Product/technique notes:
I am so happy to have had the chance to try the chalkboard look for the title treatment on this layout, and I’ll do a separate post to describe the technique I used. All the patterned papers came from BasicGrey’s Clippings collection. I used the sketch below from Creative Scrappers and am entering it in their challenge.
My ensemble is from the Bob Evans fashion house, and Phil is head-to-toe Burger King.
Polyester restaurant uniforms do nothing for the wearer’s self esteem, I can tell you from personal experience. Will you take a look at this 1987 photo that my mom snapped of Phil and me just as we were both about to head to our respective summer jobs? Wow.
I got to wear a deep rust double-knit with little flowers and a matching apron for my waitress gig at Bob Evans. And mine was the good uniform of the two! Poor Phil had to wear this ghastly bright rust ensemble, with a faux vest attached to the shirt—and a matching ball cap—to work at Burger King.
There are certain things that teenagers don’t traditionally like to do. Being forced to wear something they dislike is one of them. But because we wanted to save money for college, Phil and I donned these polyester monstrosities several times a week to earn our pay. Teenagers also don’t much like having their photograph taken when they’re in said ugly clothes, but Mom insisted on getting this shot. Now I’m really happy that she did because I love having photographic evidence of our days of slinging hash to stack cheese.
Product/technique notes
I used Simple Stories Harvest Lane products to make this page (the colors were just perfect) and sketch #189 from Creative Scrappers.