Boys Will Be Boys

Brett with some of his cousins on Kyle's side of the family. They look like they had been playing hard!

A Boy And His Dog

Our grandnephew, Brett, with his dog, Choxie. She is a devoted nanny dog and has been wonderful with him. I did this digital scrapbook page to honor the relationship that Brett has with his dog, Choxie!

Brett Swings Low

Our precious Brett on the swings the week before Easter. I did this digital layout of Brett on the swings.

Brett On The Slide

Our Grandnephew, Brett, enjoyed sliding on the slides at the playground. This was back early last Spring, just before Easter, and we went to visit Jenny & Kyle at their home on the base in Charleston, SC. I'm just now getting to scrapping those playground pictures. I did these digital scrapbook page layouts of Brett on the slides.

Brett Crawling Through The Doggy Door

Our little grandnephew, Brett, was caught crawling through the doggy door. He was raised around dogs and has his own Chocolate Labrador Retriever, Choxie. So it's not surprising. I did this digital scrapbook page of Brett and the doggy door.

Brett and Joseph

Our grandnephew, Brett, with one of his cousins on Kyle's side of the family, Joseph!

Hannah is 6 Months Pregnant

Elaine

I did this scrapbook page of my sister, Elaine.

Brett's Sweeping Moment

Little Brett gets his Granddaddy's dust mop and starts sweeping. He's just like his Pickles!

Melinda And Maxwell

Our Granddaddy had a black cat named Maxwell. Granddaddy loved to tease and play with Maxwell. Here are some photos where he was telling Melinda about how a cat can jump. She was a little too fascinated and I know Granddaddy was chuckling. This digital scrapbook page about her playing with a black cat goes along with this time of the year.

Elaine Riding In The Early Years

My sisters, Elaine and Melinda, both started training in English riding and jumping as girls at the old Russ 'n Nola Farm in Cedar Springs. It's no longer there. But the girls took several years of lessons and developed their lifelong love of horses and riding there. Eventually they went to western, then walking and Melinda dabbled in padded walking for awhile. They taught me to ride when I was 30 and I got to ride with them on trail rides and such for a few years. But we all three developed Fibromyalgia and have pretty much given up all horseback riding. Melinda still lives on a farm and has a couple of horses but she doesn't ride more than once or twice a year.

Our Uncle James took these early photos of Elaine jumping. I had an inspiration from the October Creating Keepsakes magazine (Vol 15, Issue 7), pg 43 for the layout. Taking inspiration from someone else's work and then making it your own is called "scrap lifting".


I made my own horse clip art using Adobe Photoshop shapes.

Fantasy Digital Scrapbooking

My sister got a photo of her grandson, my grand nephew, Brett looking out the glass door. It turned into a silhouette. Some might have thought that was a lost photo but I loved it. Anyway, I was reading about fantasy digital scrapbooking where you make your scrapbooking page into something like a fairy story or anything else in your imagination. I remembered that silhouette photo and decided to try to use it. I digitally extracted his silhouette and made this digital layout. My goal was to make it look like something in his imagination.

Mom's Family Supper

Luke wanted to come out to the Farm so Mom invited us for spaghetti supper on their deck. Uncle Glenn and Aunt Janis came too. It was a very nice evening!

Welcome Home Luke!

Our nephew, Luke Harris, has spent the last 4 months in Iraq as a member of the Air Force. We really missed him! But he came home the weekend before Labor Day weekend and we celebrated with family cookouts for a week.





Luke had been planning for the last few months on upgrading his Ford truck. He had purchased some stuff online and had it shipped to his parents home. So he couldn't wait to get to work on it. Here he is taking off his old bumper to add a new bumper.











Lee



Hannah is 5 months along now



Mom


Melinda



Dad



Elaine

Moving Away

Jenny (our niece), Kyle and Brett moved away. I did this scrapbook page about their moving away. They moved 16 hours away, close to his parents but too far away from us. Boo Hoo! I used the cloud and rain to indicate our sadness to see them go.

Hershey Kisses

Melinda made Brett a chocolate teddy bear to take with him when they moved to Illinois. Her handmade teddy bear was a hit! I wanted to scrapbook the moment she gave him his teddy bear. She named the teddy bear Hershey. So I used Hershey Kisses as my theme. I chose a chocolate colored paper and silver metallic matting or frames. I added a teddy bear element and some stitching and silver brads as embellishments. I used a label and a funny font for a caption. But I used a Photoshop brush to add some lines for Melinda to do her own journaling about the bear. I cut one photo of Brett and his bear into a heart and matted it with the silver metallic and gave it a shadow to make it look raised. I thought it symbolized the love she showed him in making him his special bear.

Luke In Operation Iraqi Freedom

Our nephew, Luke Harris, is in the Air Force and is serving in Iraq. He's been there 3 months so far and hates it. It's averaging 115-117 degrees Fahrenheit, the dust is so irritating and he misses home and family. He finally sent some photos home and I wanted to scrapbook his Iraq experience. I added a few additional photos from the Internet. Military scrapbooks are probably their most popular right now since the War has been going on for awhile. More and more men and women have military experiences. Whether Navy, Army, Air Force or Marine, it helps the serviceman and his family to work out their service and document their experiences with scrapbooks. There are the usual portrait photos but there are so many other things you can scrap about. I used Luke's photos about those horrible camel spiders, the sandstorm and the pitiful little office where they can spend time on the telephone. Then there are photos of their buddies and co-workers. I would love to have photos of the silly things they do to stave off boredom. For instance, Luke inherited a bicycle with no brakes and he has told us about his cycling back and forth in the compound and their attempts at small stunts. I have gone almost completely to digital scrapbooking and I was looking forward to making some digital layouts based on his photos from Iraq. I usually like to base my colors on what's in photos. Soldiers fatigues and the colors of the desert were what I was looking at and I didn't want to change his original photos by changing the colors so I would stick with the original photo colors. So here are my digital scrapbook pages of our soldier, or Airman.

Luke wrote a very heartfelt, moving letter about his feelings on being in Iraq and his feelings about his fellow servicemen. I wanted to include that on this page.






I used this swirling black paper and the oranges to pick up the theme of a sandstorm.

Elaine and Ronnie 1976

This digital scrapbook page uses a photo of Elaine and Ronnie taken (I think) the Fall of 1976. I wanted to incorporate paper that reminded you of the 1970s. The 1970's came out in the plaid and colors. It was Fall so I chose colors that would pick that up. Ronnie is holding up her pony tail like she's a prize fish. So I used some fish brushes and string to look like a string of fish. Because they were teenagers and he was being funny, I wanted to add some quirkiness with the frame and title elements. I used a torn notepad paper for journaling with cursive writing to bring in the high school element.

Scrapbook Page of Melinda's Art Photos

Hannah is 4 Months Pregnant!