Saturday, November 24, 2012

Other Miscellany from the last couple of months

Here's an assortment of other things I've done over the last couple of months-

These first two are from the Featured Designer Challenge at theStudio. They choose a designer (or two!) every two weeks and they give us an add on to one of their kits. It's along the lings of the Use It Or Lose It challenge at Stuff to Scrap:
 Kit: Hay Day Add on by Snickerdoodle Designs
Fonts: CK Staccato and DaunPehn

 Template: Inspire Me BTB by Pardon the Mess
Kit: Serendipity Add on by Two Moose Designs
Font: Book Antiqua

This one actually was from the September UIOLI challenge at Stuff to Scrap:
 Kit: And Furthermore Sampler by Jensen Motley Crew Designs
Font: Impact
One of my favorite designers, DeDe Smith took part in the Next Designer Challenge at theStudio. She took one of the kits and did a FB challenge. I have been looking for a place to use this photo of Brian for a long time now and this was perfect!
 Kit: Moon on the Range by De De Smith
Font: Stencil

These next two are from my July pictures, but NOT part of our vacation. I've got those in a separate place and will be posting a link to them when they are done. They are a scrapbook unto themselves!
 Kit:Shine On Addon by DeDe Smith
Fonts: Goudy Stout, Gill Sans MT

 Kit:Shine On Addon by DeDe Smith
Fonts: Curlz MT, Finehand

And lastly, we skip October entirely and go right into November with our first attempt to deep fry a turkey!

Kit:Autumn Moonlight by Nana's Digi Scraps
Font: MV Boli

Now, while I seem to have the energy, I"m off to scrap some more! :)

Thanks for looking! 

Progressive Scraps and Chapter Headers

Alrighty, here, as promised, are the PS pages October and November, and the Chapter Headers for September and October-


October Mega Kit-Harvest Moon
Day1-The Urban Fairy, LouCee Creations
Day 2- The Urban Fairy
Day 3- Just Me Digital, LouCee Creations
Day 4- Aimee Harrison, Willow Grace
Day 5- Aimee Harrison, ADB Designs, Nibbles Skribbles
Day 6- Sweet Made, Willow Grace
Day 7- Snickerdoodle Designs, Feli Designs, and The Urban Fairy


November Mega Kit- Merry Christmas
Day One- Aimee Harrison Designs, Carin Grobe  Designs, Booland  Designs
Day Two- Designs by Brigit
Day Three- ADB Designs and Laitha's Designs
Day Four- Aimee Harrison Designs & Snickerdoodle Designs
Day Five- Booland Designs & Janet B Designs
Day Six- Nibbles Skribbles, Let Me Scrapbook, and Carin Grobe Designs
Day Seven- Scappy Cocoa, Piggy Scraps, and Let Me Scrapbook
Font: Warwick
Pictures: Public domain holy cards

Papers by me
Fonts: LD Keri, Monotype Corsiva

Papers: Halloweenies by Eyeinspire
Fonts: Berylium, Segoe Print
Header photo by me

You may have noticed, that I stopped scrapping in the 12x12 format for the PS with October. I decided that when I get serious about being on a Creative Team, or learning to design, I'll go back to the 'standard' format, but until then, I'm just going to use the size that I prefer to scrap!

Oh, and November's PS was especially cool, we could do either a card or a page, and while I started out planning to do a page I couldn't find any photos I liked. So, I pulled from my collection of public domain holy cards and found a few that worked nicely!

What have I been up to?

Well, let's see, two days after my last post my parents were in a car accident. I thank the Lord for seat belts and airbags, as the vast majority of their injuries were from these safety features, and not from something worse! I was able to get out to help them for a couple of weeks in October and celebrated my birthday with them. They are on the mend, and continuing to take it slowly as they heal.

Seems like I've been playing catchup for weeks since then, and I still think I'm not caught up on my sleep yet!

But I do have a smattering of pages to post, and several more theological posts stewing around my brain. When they reach the point that I can't NOT write them, I'll share them here. In the meantime, here's some cute pics of Rooter!



All of these pages use the April Mega Kit- Smile from theStudio
Fonts used: Scrap Rhapsody, Filodex Girls, Caflisch Pro, and Kristen ITC 

This last one I even learned how to create a QR code so that I could link to the YouTube video I posted of Rooter. The link is also on the page, but if you are interested, you can just click here.

Next up, catching up on the PS pages and the Monthly chapter headers!

Sunday, September 23, 2012

Other Random Scrapping

For all that I haven't kept up the blog here, I have been working like crazy on pages! I'm still working my way through the vacation pictures from this summer, and I have an assortment of other pages I've put together in the meantime-

First up, my August 'chapter' header for my Project 12 at Digital Scrapper-
Kit: The Stars Above by Sherwood Studios
Fonts: MV Boli, Postino Std, Vijaya, Times New Roman

Then there's this page where I reminisced about Mother's Day corsages-
 
Kit: Glorious Morning by Booland Designs
Fonts: Kunstler Script and Monotype Corsiva

Then some 'heritage' pages from 1957, my parent's wedding-
 Kit: Grandma's Quilt BTB part from: Ruby Lane Designs, Angel Hartline, Aimee Harrison Designs, 
Blue Heart Scraps, Diamond Ink Designs, and A-liya Designs

Kit: Grandma's Quilt BTB part from: Ruby Lane Designs, Angel Hartline, Aimee Harrison Designs,
 Blue Heart Scraps, Diamond Ink Designs, and A-liya Designs

and their first Christmas-
Kit: Vintage Christmas collab- Let Me Scrapbook, Skrapper Digitals, Lynn Grffin,
Font: Warwick
Kit: Vintage Christmas collab- Let Me Scrapbook, Skrapper Digitals, Lynn Grffin,
 Julie C Designs, Heidi Weisphenning
Font:Vijaya
Lastly, and assortment of things from my childhood, like Kindergarten-
Kit: Inspire Me BTB Sept 2012 Parts from: Jen C Designs, Aimee Harrison Designs, 
Millstream Cottage,Snips-n-snails, Mandy King, Jusmedigital, and Let ME Scrapbook.
Alpha: An English Garden by Jenny Binder at Scrapper's Guide
 
 A trip to Lake Shelbyville IL-
 Kit: August 2012 Mega Kit Tropical Beach by theStudio Designers
Font: Tekton Pro
Kit: August 2012 Mega Kit Tropical Beach by theStudio Designers
Font: Tekton Pro
 and pictures from my 12th Birthday-
 Kit: Rose Crescent by Booland Designs
Font: Segoe Script
Kit: Rose Crescent by Booland Designs
Font: Segoe Script
There! Now, I think I'm all caught up again! :)

Off to scrap some more!

Back to School

In the business that is August/September for me (work is insane at the beginning of the school year!), I forgot to post these layouts from a challenge I did on the blog at theStudio-

Steph from Scrappy Cocoa had 4 challenges over the course of a week, all 'back to school' related. Here's mine!

First up- “Do you remember your first day of school? What happened, what were you feeling?”
I scrapped this:
 Kit: August 2011 Blog Train Blog, parts by-
Willowgrace, Mommyish, Paper Caper Designs, and Kimeric Kreations
Fonts: Cambria, Impact, Postino STD, and Segoe Print 

The next one was- "Who was your favorite teacher? Why? What did they do that made such an impression on you?"
That was an easy one-
Blue paper- Shelly Marie Scraps (May Mega Kit from theStudio)
Frame- Aimee Harrison Designs (May Mega Kit from theStudio)
White paper, stitching and ribbon- Designs by Kristine (All About Me kit)
Fonts- Cambria, Fine hand, and Broadway

The third one was- "Did you have a best Friend in school? Why Were they your best friend? What was your favorite thing to do together? Are you still close?"
Another fun one, and when I posted it to FB, I even made her cry! :)
Kit: Monkeying Around BTB with parts by- 3 lil Monsters, Word Art World, Amanda & Millie Designs, 
Brenda Mascari, AW Design, Adorible Digital Designs, Behaven Designs, and Colleen Lynch
Fonts: Scrap Rhapsody and Tekton Pro

Lastly,  the question was- "What is your fondest memory of school?"
I lucked out that one of my friends from High School had already scanned the picture from our yearbook, and it made building this page a breeze!
Kit: Diva Princess, parts by- DeDe Smith, Designs by Shelle, and Meridith Cardall
Fonts: Filodex Girls and Comic Sans

I was having fun with the challenges, and feeling a little sad that up and until the last day I was the only one participating. I felt a little better when someone else submitted an entry, but I was extra excited when I found I WON the Smash book set!!


 

September Scrapping

I've been scrapping like made this month, theStudio is having their Birthday Bash and Next Designer Challenge all month long.

Starting off, I have my Progressive Scrap for this month, another heritage page-
Kit: Old School September Mega Kit from theStudio
Day 1: Janet B, Amber Shaw, Mad Genius, Linda Cumberland, and The Urban Fairy
Day 2: ADB Designs and Aimee Harrison Designs
Day 3: Janet B and Amber Shaw Designs
Day 4: Piggyscraps, Linda Cumberland Designs
Day 5: Nibbles Skribbles and Mad Genius Designs
Day 6: Sweet MaDe, Scrappy Cocoa, and The Urban Fairy
Day 7: ADB Designs and Aimee Harrison Designs

After working through much of the Help for Heritage Photos at Digital Scrapper, I had this photo of Nana and Papaw pretty much ready to scrap. I thought the Mega Kit for this month, Old School would work beautifully for this photo.

I also participated in the Layout Artist competition. I didn't make it past the first round, but I did take part in the 2nd chance challenges for the rest of the month. One of the things I love about theStudio is how they encourage participation even in elimination contests!

So, here's my week 1 entry, we were given a coupon to get the Black Holes kit by Nibbles Skribbles, and had to use it for a layout to showcase the kit. When I saw the kit I immediately remembered our 'trip to Mars' (details here)-
Kit: Black Holes by Nibbles Skribbles
Font: Graphite Std

For the first week of the 2nd chance competition, we were given a choice of templates to use, and had to use one of the Week 1 or 2 Next Designer Competition entries. I used the beautiful Celestial Moonlight kit by Jilbert with the Templation: Hodge Podge template by Scrappy Cocoa (details here) to highlight this photo of my folks when they went on their Alaskan Cruise a few years ago-
Kit: Celestial Moonlight by Jilbert
Template: Templation: Hodge Podge by Scrappy Cocoa
Fonts: Kunstler Script and Caflisch Script Pro

The next week, we were given a gorgeous sampler to build a page (details here). I paired it with a photo from the charades costume party from my 16th birthday and loved how it came out!
Kit: Festival of Colour Sampler by LouCee Creations
Font: Monotype Corsiva

Lastly, we had to create two pages,  one with a sampler (details here), and one using parts from at least 5 designers in the 2nd Chances Blog Hop.

For the first one, I chose a wide range of smiles from my kiddo-
 Kit: My First Day Sampler by Flower Scraps 
 Fonts: Graphite Std and HP PSG

and for the second one (details here), these photos of Rooter in the tub were perfect!
Kit: Second Chances Blog Hop from Digital Scrapbooking Studio 
 Parts include:
Background paper: Digiliscious Designs
Pink bubble paper & White corner buttons (middle frame): Lara's Digi World
Blue Scatter: Piggyscraps
Orange Scatter: theStudio Design Team
Blue Swirls: Booland Designs
Orange Swirl: Janet B Designs
Grey Frame: Studio4 Designworks
Blue Grey Buttons: Just Me Digital
Orange Flower Button: LouCee Designs
Diamond Border (top frame): Julie C Designs
Alpha: ADB Designs

All in all, a great month of scrapping and LOTS of great freebies in the NDC 2012! :)



Saturday, August 25, 2012

Great Catholic Resources!

I found these two resources through Facebook recently, and wanted to share:

Pillars of Catholicism is part of the John Paul the Great University program and will be a 12 part study on Catholicism. Part one is available now, and hopefully shortly they will have their registration snafu situated and the whole program will be available over the course of 12 weeks. What I've seen so far looks wonderful!

The St. Paul Center for Biblical Theology is Dr. Scott Hahn's online home. There are a number of free studies there, including some audio ones. I know Dr. Hahn's work, it was his book, "Rome Sweet Home" that really brought home the fact that I could be Catholic.

Okay, and while I'm posting about great Catholic resources, I should really give the site for the Catholic Home Study Service. This site has been around for, well, longer than I've been looking into Catholicism...so more than 13 years! They offer free books and workbooks, and you can submit your answers for each chapter and get a certificate of completion at the end. I've done two of the books, and while the workbooks are a little dry, the books themselves are wonderful. This would make for a good small group study, and in fact our MCCW chapter at Ft. Bragg used the book on Happiness one year and we invited Fr. Lukefahr to visit. That was fun!

I'd love to hear about other good Catholic sites, especially ones with free study aides!

August Progressive Scrap

Well, when I get going, I really get going! :)

Here's the August Progressive Scrap from theStudio-
This one was a lot of fun, I look forward to these every month! This one uses the August Mega Kit- Tropical Beach from theStudio, with the free Sand Alpha from Carin Grobe Designs.

Assorted July goodness!

Okay, here's a mass payout post of pages from July. None from my vacation, that'll all be later.

First up, my July chapter page, it was a busy month! :)

 Just because!
 Great pic of Kristin and me!
 Rooter!
And more Rooter! Expect LOTS of pics of this little pig, he's just tooooo cute!

Stand by, more pics on the way soon!

Scrap-a-Thon!

Back in July I took part in a Scrap-a-thon speed scrap over at theStudio as part of their Christmas in July celebration.  Here are the pages I made that day!













Credits for these pages can be found here. It was tremendous fun, and I'm looking forward to the next one!

Sunday, August 12, 2012

Reflections on Mass Today

So much of today's readings at Mass fit something I've been thinking about or struggling with.

The first reading was from 1 Kings 19:4-8

Elijah went a day's journey into the desert,
until he came to a broom tree and sat beneath it.
He prayed for death saying:
"This is enough, O LORD!
Take my life, for I am no better than my fathers."
He lay down and fell asleep under the broom tree,
but then an angel touched him and ordered him to get up and eat.
Elijah looked and there at his head was a hearth cake
and a jug of water.
After he ate and drank, he lay down again,
but the angel of the LORD came back a second time,
touched him, and ordered,
"Get up and eat, else the journey will be too long for you!"
He got up, ate, and drank;
then strengthened by that food,
he walked forty days and forty nights to the mountain of God, Horeb.

Elijah was tired, he had been called by God to be a prophet and do do God's will, but the people wouldn't listen. He was ready to give up, call it quits, just be done. But God gave him food and drink. Even that though, wasn't enough. God gave him more food and drink, and made him eat, "else the journey will be too long for you". Strengthened, he continued on his journey to the mountain of God.

If Elijah, who KNEW his purpose in life, KNEW he was doing God's will needed to be fed by God, then how much more do we, poor sons and daughters need to be fed as we struggle to find our place in this world, struggle to find God's will in our lives?

It's a good reminder too, that even knowing we are doing God's will doesn't mean it will be easy. In fact, it's all the more likely that it will be extremely difficult.

All the more reason to make sure that we being strengthened by the food and drink that God gives us in the Eucharist. That is the only food that will sustain us in our journey to see God.

This is the important thing. Don't let anything separate me from the food that I KNOW will sustain me. It's too easy sometimes, especially in times of stress or depression, to let Satan get in my head and convince me that I'm not worthy of the Eucharist. That this sin, or that sin is enough to separate me from His Communion. There are sins that DO separate me from God, missing Mass for no reason being high among them, but even when that happens, I know that I can come to Christ in the Sacrament of Reconciliation and get made whole again. The little things though, I have to work at accepting that while they may in fact be things I need to deal with, they do not separate me from God. No matter how much Satan tried to convince me otherwise. All I have to do is come to the table. Not exclude myself from His Communion. That is my struggle.

Saturday, August 11, 2012

Prayer

This. It strikes at the heart of so much I have been thinking about lately, so I wanted to share~

MY LORD GOD, I have no idea where I am going. I do not see the road ahead of me. I cannot know for certain where it will end. Nor do I really know myself, and the fact that I think I am following your will does not mean that I am actually doing so. But I believe that the desire to please you does in fact please you. And I hope I have that desire in all that I am doing. I hope that I will never do anything apart from that desire. And I know that if I do this you will lead me by the right road, though I may know nothing about it. Therefore I will trust you always though I may seem to be lost and in the shadow of death. I will not fear, for you are ever with me, and you will never leave me to face my perils alone.

- Thomas Merton, "Thoughts in Solitude"
© Abbey of Gethsemani

Sunday, August 5, 2012

July's Progressive Scrap

Hey! I almost forgot, here's the PS from TheStudio for July~
As always, you can download my QP here!

Saturday, August 4, 2012

June Pics

June was a slow month for pictures, but I do have a few!

Here's my Monthly page, and one of when Melissa and Angel finally became friends-


The latter happened on our Girl's Day, when Kristin was out again!


Now it's on to July and vacation photos! I'm so excited! :)