Life's Notes

This past weekend the ladies I met when I started to scrap still get together for a monthly crop.  It's held at Cutaway Lodge.  I absolutely quiet atmosphere, watching movies and seeing what all my friends are working on.  Good friends, good food and scrapping....heaven for me!

I love the bi-weekly MMC (Monday Morning Crops) hosted by art_teacher at the message board at A Cherry On Top.  We have such a grand time.  Four challenges presented for the first crop this summer.  For this layout I chose MMC 6-3 Challenge #1.  The challenge had a sketch and required a music theme.

At the crop Saturday I picked out three papers from my May Paper Bakery May Scrapbooking Kit:  Crate Paper Maggie Holmes Dreamy & Moments along with Studio Calico Sundrifter Vellum.  I completely cut up the Dreamy paper to mat photos and fussy cut nine cameras.  Took my CM Hexagon punches and used three different size hexagons.

Here's the sketch:

And here's My Creation: 

I took myself down memory lane of where I was when my mother took these photos in late spring 1984.  Of course Mom has never been able to take a good photo to save her life.  I was working for Royal Palm Arabians at the time in Lake Worth, FL.  And missing my home state something terrible.  I also went back and remembered my four years in high school with Koki my constant companion in the afternoons after school.  Weekends I was at a play day or Competitive Trail Ride.  Most would not think a barrel racing horse and Competitive Trail Horse would be one and the same.  But Koki was both.  She always took me 1st or 2nd in every single ride I rode in Youth or Adult Competition.  All of the conditioning for trail made her a better barrel horse.  We dropped two seconds off her time.  She had something to look at other then the rails of an arena day in and day out.

I also smiled as I looked back at another post back in 2009 what it was like to grow up in the Clear Lake area with Koki and my FFA friends.  Thank you for the challenge art_teacher!

Until next time!

Winners Announced for May Challenges!

I've been so bad lately on just getting posts done for my blog!  I do want to thank all who participated in my challenges this in May over at A Cherry On Top Message Board!  The winners as always are chosen by random number generator and receive a $5 GC from me.  I hope you'll join in the fun this month at A Cherry   On Top Message Board!  Join me in both challenges this month:  Heritage Challenge & 4x4 Challenge.

Winner of the May Heritage Challenge is JillinIN!  She did a beautiful digi layout of photos of her father in an Harmonica Band in 1936!

Winner of the May 4x4 Challenge was the amazing Deanna13 who always makes me drool over her creations!

Also wanted to share Message Board Member art_teacher is hosting MMC again this summer and we have a grand time on Mondays!  MMC also known as Monday Mini Crops!  Come join in on the fun!

May Day Inspiration!!!

Happy May Day everyone!!!  For those of you in the upper Midwest and northern Great Plains you have snow this morning!  Really????  Did someone forget to tell the weatherman there is suppose to be no SNOW in May!  That really dampens the fun of delivering baskets today!

I always love the first day of the month!  Challenges for the month are going up everywhere and it's so much fun to see the creativity.  No exceptions here as my two challenges went up this morning on ACOT.

The Heritage Challenge this month is to scrap a heritage layout about the arts and you can find it here.  And my example is an incredible photo to have the opportunity to scrap!  A photo of my maternal great-grandmother in a stage production at Howard Seminary School in West Bridgewater, MA dated 1885.  I wish I knew what the production was.  She is far left standing looking at camera.

I love once again pairing Bo Bunny Gabrielle up with Graphic 45.  This is the second time I've done this.  I find jut the thought of using these two companies together an odd pairing as they are so opposite of each other in design.  I spent some time fussy cutting some of the elements for the layout using the paper from G45  Once Upon a Springtime Fairy Folk.  I have to admit I just love love the Martha Stewart new Circle Edge Punch System!  So much fun!  I loved using it for this layout and it's comes as a kit with the base!  What is even more fun is I get two punches Circle Edge Punches every quarter from HSN to my ever ongoing expanding Martha Stewart punch collection!  I love HSN's auto ship!!!

The other challenge I host at ACOT is the 4x4 Challenge.  A super fun challenge for me!  I remember the first one I did and it was almost to the point of excruciating to get it done with so little.  Now it's fun to see how detailed I can get with so little.  This month is the first time I used more then one photo for the challenge and used Nuts About Sketches #263 to do the layout.

Most of the product I used for this layout was Basic Grey Out of Print with some Little Yellow Bicycle, October Afternoon, Tattered Angels Pink Lady Glimmer Glaze thrown in.  Alphas came from Quickutz Zoe Unicase Alphabet and Martha Stewart's String Lace straight edge punch.  The photo is of spring calves in late March or Early April '09.  I still have another layout of 5 or 6 photos from 2009 of spring calves to scrap, too!  To my many northern cattle friends, I know this year your spring calving has been wrought with worry over the arrival of calves due to winter just not letting go.  I've only had to deal with that type of inclement weather with newborns a couple of times  Yet again, you wonder how we make it through our summers.....it's called the right type of cow as in Brahma in the pedigrees and Texas Longhorns do well in that type of  hot, too!  We are fortunate to have our Lowline Angus herd adapt to our summer weather but it is so much harder on them then with our Brahma influenced beef herd.

I hope you will stop by two of my favorite sites on the web, Nuts About Sketches and ACOT!  If your an avid scrapper and love online crops then come join in the fun in ACOT's community for the NSD Crop on Saturday, May 4th.  Unfortunately I will not attend until the evening if I'm not totally worn out as we are hosting a Field Day at the ranch this Saturday with about 200 people expected!

Bloom & Grow

It's just after 11:00 pm and although I finished my layout at 4:00pm I found my camera dead.  I also had to get to Home Depot because I didn't have a single pot at the house small enough to plant my Money Tree which arrived from QVC today.  It wasn't suppose to arrive until May 1st.  Found not a drop of potting soil either.  I guess all of my plant pots over the last four and a half years made it to the ranch or Lynn asked for them along the way.  LOL....and never as a scrapper let your camera battery go dead!

Well all is solved, the roots currently soaking on the Money Tree.  Beautiful pot Larry picked out and correct soil purchased along with rocks so I can plant it in a mounded and not loose the soil when watered.  Camera battery charged and the layout to an amazing Challenge is uploaded.  Once the post is done I still have to plant my tree, pack some scrapping goodness to scrap this weekend at the ranch. and pack my bag.

And I was relieved to find I still have a little over two hours to post my layout to Imaginisce Blog's amazing challenge this month!  This layout was so much fun and with one of the requirements of using Twine I was all in!  Photos were taken in 2009 at the ranch along the county road we live on.  The bluebonnets are always amazing and they are still in bloom.  With the cold temps the wildflowers were late arriving by two weeks so we will enjoy them well into May this year.  The cold weather just doesn't want to break.  I'm hoping for cool weather right up into June.  Means we get more rain at the ranch and maybe a cooler summer this year.

Thank you Imaginisce for a great sketch this month!  I loved working on this layout!

Products used from Imaginisce Berrylicious, Hippty Hop, Love You More and Soul Sisters.  Included some Ink from Tim Holtz to ink the sides of the photo, Twine from The Twinery and Kaiser Kraft Pearls to make my flowers and leaves, Gesso to to tone down the base paper.  My favorite part of the layout is a little bunny is peeking out of the left photo!  We have some cottontails who have been living in the yard for about eight months now.  We see one or two of them early in the evening just before sunset.  I have yet to have my camera with me.  Need my telephoto to catch most of the shots I would have had if I had had my camera.  We have an abundance of both cottontails and the biggest jack rabbits I have ever seen anyway at the ranch.  The jack rabbits will push 8-10 lbs. and stand as tall as a Checkered Giant Rabbit.

See you again in the morning!

February Winners

How many times have I written about the community of scrappers at A Cherry on Top?  Way to many times to count.  Such a great community!  I hope you'll decide to become a regular participant in the awesome challenges on the site!

I would like to congratulate the Winner of February Heritage Challenge created by sdwhru:

For the 4x4 Challenge the winner is blbabe1234!

Each winner received a $5 ACOT Gift Certificate from me!

All of us from our community to you wish you would join us in the friendliest scrapping community on the web along with many other great challenges sponsored by the community!

This month I have put the 4x4 Challenge on hold just so I can catch up on my design team requirements for the month.  The 4x4 challenge will be back next month!

Cloud Gazing

Whoop two posts in one day!!!  This one is for this month's Imaginisce Blog's Monthly Challenge!  I am so excited about this one!  No red!  Tough to do in the month of love, but hey when your following the rules it's easy!

1. Create a layout/card, etc using the sketch above as your inspiration.

2. Use THREE different patterned papers.

3.  NO RED is allowed on your project.

4.  Theme: LOVE

5.  Remember you must use at least 75% Imaginisce product on your creations.

Here's the sketch!

With a 5x7 photo to scrap I dropped it down so I could build my own thunderstorm going on in the upper right hand corner!  I used papers from the Love You More Collection and Hippity Hop Collections!  I get to see so many things happen around me at the ranch and it reminds me why I love being a rancher.  One week after I graduated with my Masters (Summer 1982) I went through my first hurricane, Alicia.  I've been asked over and over from my urban friends what I would be if I wasn't ranching.  If I had to choose as I think back it would have been meteorology, the study of weather.  Yet when I analyize it the catalyst that sent me down the path to my love of  BAD weather was Hurricane Alicia.  They say you forget the true sound of the wind after seven years.  Yes, at around seven years I stopped waking up in the middle of the night when the wind picked up, but the sound I have not forgotten.  The images out our windows I do not forget.  Feeling the slab of the house vibrating I have not forgotten.  In the late 90's I remember seeing my first tornado up towards Sugarland and I was living in Rosharon at the time at the Darrington Unit.  I had been trained as a storm spotter while I worked at TDCJ.  My second tornado was a storm I chased down the road from the ranch two days before the killer tornado that hit Joplin in 2011.  The next day I had to leave our ranch because of a super cell that produced F1 tornadoes that touched down on TSTC's campus in Waco and the other in downtown Groesbeck.  When I left the ranch I stopped in Groesbeck to pick up a Doctor Pepper and headed south to Thornton where I came out from underneath the cloud deck to see one of the most amazing super cell thunderstorms I had ever seen.  I was memorized and wishing the mesocyclone on the south side of the storm would have dropped a tornado, but it didn't.  And yes our ranch was ok upon my return.

Last week a line of storms developed to the east of us and I sat on the porch after dark watching the light show occurring some 50 miles away.  I got to see my very first positive lightning bolt.  That was so cool!

This is not a picture of the storm that day.  I was so stunned by the shear power of the storm I forgot completely to pull out my camera.  This storm is to the NNW of our ranch about 30 miles in the summer of 2010.  It was popping lightning like crazy and so pretty at sunset.  To even get this photo I had to turn on the flash or the cloud was drowned out.  I added the chipboard key painted with Tattered Angels Pink Lady Glaze to get the exact effect I wanted and to portray that a farmer or rancher is very in tune to weather because we rely on rain to grow your food.  Then the bunny added is to remind me of all the great wildlife I get to see on the ranch including the cottontails and jack rabbits. 

Our ranch just off the peak of the highest hill in the county allows me to truly enjoy my passion for bad weather.  At the same time I am overly mindful of just how dangerous bad weather can be because I have had that hair raising feeling just before a lightning strike.  I head for indoors or the car quickly, but I spend the entire time running from one window to the next to watch the clouds.  Living in Cental Texas allows me to enjoy my passion for severe storms.  And some day I want to do a tornado chase vacation...bucket list!

Thank you for taking the time to look at my layout!

Pure Excitement!

Yesterday I became so excited when I took a peek at the Imaginisce Blog!  I'm surprised I didn't wake James up with all the noise I was making.  My entry, Friend, was chosen as the winner of the Imaginisce Blog Monthly Challenge.  I truly was outside my box, loved every minute of scrapping my layout and now am a committed Imaginisce Gal!  

I'm so excited to receive the Love You More Collection Pack!  

Thank you so much to Imaginisce and the Design Team for their continuing inspiration!

The Stockings Were Hung By The Chimney

Yay!  We are home!  What a terrific show hosted by American Lowline Registry at the National Western!  New National Champions have been CROWNED! This is a day of much needed rest.  I'll get my pictures in the computer and share some of them later this week!

I thought I'd get this posted before we get to far away from Christmas.  And keeping with the theme from last Friday's post about challenges this seemed the perfect layout to post.  There are so many challenges all over the web we can choose from and each and every one provides inspiration to so many!  As I mentioned last Friday I host two Challenges on A Cherry on Top's Message Board.  The second one is the Heritage Challenge!  I just love this challenge as it keeps me focused on getting close to 1000 photos 15+ years and older scanned in the computer and scrapped.  All of these photos are near and dear to my heart.  I just wish I had the time to focus on genealogy.

This was my example when I hosted the Dec. 2012 Heritage Challenge.

I believe this photo was taken in 1937 or 1938 when my mother was either 3 or 4 years of age.  When Carta Bella released their first line (Beautiful Moments) last year I became an immediate fan of the company!!!  Christmas Day was no exception and the entire line arrived in my home.  It was this page when I first saw it I knew immediately this photo belonged to this page!  I stitched the circle frame with outline stitch.  I loved the idea of a doily because my grandmother loved doilies.  I found the wooden candlestick ornament at Micheal's because of the candlesticks on the mantel.  A little stickles and glossy accents and the ornament became perfect.  My favorite tool I used for this layout was the Harlequin 6x6 Template from from The Crafters Workshop.  I used Tattered Angels Bronze Glimmer Mist and you can see the result just right of the photo.  This was my first time to use glimmer mist on Carta Bella paper and oh my was I happy at how the paper accepts the mist without warping it!!!!  Pure Awesomeness!!! A few other items and my layout was done!  Perfect in my eyes and so elegant!  As I studied the photo I chuckled when I noticed one of the candles on the mantel wasn't straight in it's holder.  Aghhh, even my grandfather who took the photo didn't pay attention to details.  Now I don't feel so bad when I take my photos, LOL!

I hope you'll come check out the challenges at A Cherry on Top Message Board!  We truly have a great time on this message board!

And just a little note about Carta Bella's releases at CHA, I'm blown away by Well Traveled!!!  My favorite of the new releases!

I so can see using this line for our trip to Denver!

Have a wonderful day!

Over the river....

This layout is a way back when layout!  The American Rambler Station Wagon definitely dates the photo.  Interesting that I learn the same month, November, I created this layout that Presidential Candidate Mitt Romney's father owned American Motors.  I wonder too, if this was one of those 'light bulb' moments in loading a car for the trip home from my grandmother's during Thanksgiving Weekend 1969.  Dad is definitely having problems with my brother Doug and the writing is all over Mom and my face.  Next time the kids will wait in the house type of moment, LOL.

As far as the layout, ugh.....it just didn't turn out like I wish it could have.  One of those "light bulb" moments of rethinking the colors I used.  LOL....."light bulb" moments all around.

I host two challenges a month on A Cherry On Top's Message Board.  I love hosting both.  They are my two favorite challenges I have ever done!  This is for the 4x4 Challenge I host.  The challenge is really simple.  You must use only two double sided papers (no more) and four embellishments (no more and no less).  Simple......well not really if you've never tried it!  I am amazed at the creativity that the ladies on the board come up with.  For this month  they all outshown me!  Be sure to check it out!  And don't forget the other wonderful challenges which are hosted by board members!  The message board is the friendliest and most supportive board I have ever been a part of!  

 

Friend

I haven't written a post in like forever!  Two things I have decided I have to do this year!  Blog more often and call my friends more often!

We are off to the National Western Livestock Show in the great city of Denver on Wednesday!  We'll get to see all of our Lowline friends and some great cattle competing in the National Lowline Angus Show.  Our Australian friend Margo Hayes will be in attendance this year at the show and we are looking forward to meeting her for the first time in person.  I look forward to her insights into the Lowline as a beef breed.  As Texans not use to snow, we are delighted for the second time in as many years to have nice weather!  A great plus since we stall in the Pens.  None of our cattle are going this year as our entire show string is much younger then last year and we worry about their immune systems.  My new Nikon D3100 will be in tow and I hope to get a huge number of great photos.

The real object of this post though is a first for me.  The first time I've taken on a challenge from one of the many companies of the wonderful scrapping products we so love!  I have always loved Imaginisce products, but have been clueless how to work with them.  Bright, fun, cute has always been a block for me.  I always try to work outside my box.  I love deep rich earth colors, they are my comfort zone.  The solution was to go to the Imaginisce blog.  The design team has absolutely amazing projects!  A few dollars later and I was scrapping!  I began to realize I really could scrap with their products when I dived into the challenge!  The challenge each month supplies a sketch from one of the design team members plus a twist to the sketch.  Diana Fisher supplied the sketch and the twist was using blue somewhere in the layout and use one word to describe your outlook for the year!  I had so much fun with the sketch!  I flipped it due to the photo orientation and chose the word friend!  Goes hand in hand with calling my friends more often this year.

And this is the sketch!

  The photos were taken by my lovely daughter Lynn a couple of years ago.  I absolutely love the Sole Sisters line!  Thank you Imaginisce for the great inspiration!  I look forward to even more inspiration in the coming months!  I have become hooked on your products!  Especially the new Childhood Memories line!!!!  It's definitely coming to my home!

Perfect Scrapbook Line

I'm sure I'm not the only one who feels a particular line of scrapbook papers hits the market and you think it was made for a photo you have to scrap. This was true of October Afternoon's Modern Homemaker released last fall. As soon as it hit ACOT's store I snapped the entire line up. My grandmother was Equipment Editor for American Home Magazine in the late '40's and up until she married Papa Red in 1958 and moved from New York City to just north of Wilmington, NC. In this photo she was obviously out having fun away from work in Atlantic City and her friend signed the photo.

She was attending the American Gas Assoc. Convention in 1950. I don't know who her friend was but I suspect it was a co-worker. Their fun along the boardwalk must have been really special as there was a push pin hole in the top of the photo. I can imagine it was pinned on something near her desk at work. And as you can tell from the papers and embellishments, Modern Woman was absolutely perfect for this photo for fun and the time period. Thank you October Afternoon! I also used this layout to enter the March 2011 ACOT Scraplift the GCT Challenge! The Guest Creative Team member is aceason. Make sure you check out her reveal using Best Creation's Travel Forever line at ACOT, it is wonderful.

Aged

I needed to relax in the worse way and stay away from politics right now. It's driving me nuts!

So best way to relax when it is over 100 degrees outside is to scrap. I'm moving pretty slow for the most part. This was for ACOT's 52 Challenges...Week 7. We had to take a picture of what we considered to be art in our world. What is considered normal and maybe you might just walk by. I thought to myself what in the world on a ranch can be considered art. I don't have an old barn any more, it was falling down and not worth fixing. Then it dawned on me....the fences, the right picture taken and it becomes art. It's also something I check every week to make sure there are no holes. That is two hours of work.
This was also the LO for 52 Sketches...52 Weeks #31.


Then a LO I started six weeks ago and finished two weeks ago because I had mental block on the title. It's hard sometimes to think this is a 7x7 LO. I had so much fun with the LO using my revolution to do all the work except for the background paper. I took so many pictures of my Tahition Sunset that I just couldn't title it with the name of the rose. It was just such a fun LO to do! This layout was for 52 Sketches...52 Weeks Week #25 entry.

When you have a chance visit both sites!

So I'm back of to do some more scrapping....