Cub Scouts & Coming Home

I went really basic with this week's Sketchy Thursday's sketch.  I left it up to LOTS of interpretation.

This week my son earned his first few Cub Scout belt loops and his Bobcat Badge.  

The Bobcat Badge is a big deal.  It signifies the scout has learned the Cub Scout Promise and the Honesty Connection, The Law of the Pack, the meaning of Weblos, the Cub Scout Sign, handshake, motto & salute, and "A Bobcat Requirement". 

All the boys who earned this patch were called up onto the stage during our Pack-wide meeting with one parent.  We painted different colors on specific parts of our Scout's face which recognizes their accomplishment. 

• The blue is from the sky. The blue paw print of the Bobcat on your forehead is the spirit of the bobcat, and to remind you to do your best on the Cub Scout Trail.
• The yellow is from the sun. The yellow marks under your eyes will help you see the light of the Cub Scout Trail, and symbolize the bright spirit of Cub Scouting.
• The white on your nose is for purity and to help you know right from wrong as you go along the Cub Scout Trail.
• The red mark on your chin is for courage to always speak the truth.
• Finally, the green mark on each cheek symbolizes the spirit of nature to guide the Cub Scout in living in harmony with the great outdoors.

I am so proud of my little dude!  (Other than that uber cheesey grin he has on his face for the picture, LOL.)
 
This week's Pink Ninjas prompt is "pretty in pink".  Well, of course I had to make a page about my little girlie. 
 

 
This is her going-home-from-the-hospital outfit.  She's one-day-old here.  I call this her "Driving Miss Daisy" look so I went with some old-fashioned looking colors and pattens. 
 
Thanks for stopping by today!

Precocious Paper

I'm so excited!!!!

I made the Precocious Paper DT!!!! 

I just LOVE Tessa's gorgeous flowers.  The girl has skillz!!!!!   Check out the Precocious Paper Etsy Store!! 

And although the DT term doesn't officially start until October, I used a Precocious Paper mini Satin Bridal Bloom on a fall tag I created for a special series running in the Scrapbook News and Review newsletter right now.  It's a series of 10 or so fall-themed tags created by both SNR staffers and a few readers and each will have step-by-step instructions for how to make them.  Mine is in today's newsletter!  Go sign up for the newsletter to see it!!!   Here's a tiny sneaky peek:

Speaking of SNR, the new issue comes out on Sunday.  Have you subscribed?  Every month they pack the issue full of over 400 projects including layouts, cards, ATC, inchies, and other special projects.  That's a steal for under $5 and you're being green and saving room by not having a paper magazine!

Plus, have you seen the newest Sketchy Thursdays sketch?  LOVE it!  I had a whole slew of Disneyland pictures all lined up ready to scrap this sketch but life interfered and I didn't get it done this time around.  I definitely still plan to use this one because it's perfect for the D-land pictures and I'll be sure to share it when I do.

Hope you have some awesome weekend plans.  Tonight my son will be having his first sleepover ever.  I'm nervous.  I'm just glad his first sleepover is at our house.  And tomorrow is his birthday party at a place called Makutu's Island.  This is the first time I've held a birthday party outside of our house and I'm soooo excited!!!!  No clean up!  Woohoo!!!!!

Heidi

Happy Birthday Little Man!

I can't believe my little man is SEVEN today!  He's so grown up!!!!

Look how BIG he is!!!!

Showing off the ~ahem~ fart whistle and other goodies the birthday fairy brought him overnight.

See that piece of paper he's holding?  It's hard to read in these pics because I had to stand so goshdarn far back to get his whole huge self in the pictures, but every year I take a picture of him holding a piece of paper that announces his age.  Due to having to be in class at 8:10, this is the first year since he was born that I haven't been able to take his picture at EXACTLY the time of day he was born, 8:22 am.  Guess I could've technically followed him to school and taken his picture in class but I'm guessing neither him nor his teacher would've looked too kindly upon that, lol.

6-years-old

5-years-old

4-years-old

3-years-old

2-years-old

1-year-old

Happy Birthday Little Man!

And just because I couldn't resist it, a pic of him the other day in his Cub Scouts uniform...

First Day of School and Playlists

Wow!  Somehow Scrap That Poetry's and The Pink Ninjas's prompts have fallen on the same day again! 

Let's start with STP.  The new poem is "First Day of School" by Eddie Garcia.  This poem really spoke to me.  I finally had inspiration for scrapping the very traumatic before-school scene of my son's first day of Kindergarten. 

My son was so sad but he tried to keep up a brave face. It killed me to watch him from afar try to be brave standing in line with all his new and unfamiliar classmates until his teacher led him off to his new classroom. He finally ended up crying a little bit and tried to hide his face in his shirt. I didn't want to make it worse by running over to him so I just stood back and took pictures. Since that day, over a year ago, I have had a hard time even looking at the pictures, they make me feel so sad. The first few lines of the poem went perfectly with these pics.

Remembering my first day of school,

Scared adn feeling I'd become a fool...

Afraid of being left alone,

Away from Mom & Dad

My comfort zone...

I remember being taken away by a lady saying

We were going to have fun today...

...

I was feeling very lonely and sad...

 
I feel such a sense of relief having finally scrapped this moment.  This part of his school story deserved to be told and claim a place in his Kindergarten album.  (Truth be told, I'm happy these pictures are finally off my desk!  I'm so done with that guilt trip!)
 
I must qualify this story and tell you that when he came out after school he was beaming.  He'd made his first bff and most of the rest of the year was awesome.  Whew!



On to happier subjects...
 
So, what's in YOUR playlist?
 
That's what The Pink Ninjas want to know!
 
 

October/November 2010 issue

 
Mine is all over the place.  I have over 1000 songs on my iPod and I have lots of different playlists catering to my different moods:  All Time Faves, Teenage Dirt Bag, Love Rollercoaster, and Pop Crap to name a few. 
 
So, what's in YOUR playlist?  The Pink Ninjas want to know!
 
Have a great day!
 
Heidi

the standoff

This is by far one of my favorite pictures ever.  It's just so stinkin funny!  Girls vs. Boy.   Haves vs. Have Not. 

It's Thursday!  The layout:

April 2011 issue

The Sketchy Thursdays sketch:

I went pretty literal this time around.  What can I say?  A great sketch by Diana!!!  And just how much am I loving the new Jillibean Pasta Fagioli line??!!!

You may remember a few weeks ago our call for Etsy sponsors? 

Beginning this week we're having  four fabulous Etsy sponsors with us.  This week's lucky random winner

will get ALL FOUR Etsy shop prizes!!! 

Hop on over to the Sketchy Thursdays blog for all the yummy prize descriptions (and while you're there, be sure to hit all the Etsy sponsor sites to check out their awesome shops!).  

Be sure to check out all the awesome inspiration our fabulous DT made for you!

And play along with us!!!  Post a direct link to your layout on Mr. Linky in the ST sidebar.  You know our weekly prizes are awarded by random.org, right?  You can't win if you don't play!

I have a wonderful day of organizing and cleaning planned.  Woohoo.  ;oD

- Heidi

p.s.  There are only a couple more days to send in your Sketchy Thursdays Design Team app.  You know you wanna!  What are you waiting for??!! 

Welcome SNR Readers!!!!

Hi there! 

Thanks for stopping by!!  Welcome to all who arrived here by way of Scrapbook News and Review! 

For those of you who may be new here, I'm Heidi.  I'm a papercraftaholic.  I don't purport to be particularly good at it, but I love it and try my hand at anything I can!!!!  I'm mainly a scrapper but an occassional card sneaks in there and lately I'm really getting into art journaling.  

So, today, I thought I'd share one of my newest technique obsessions: gesso/paint transfers.  What's that, you say?  It's the process of transferring a picture - usually a photocopy - into gesso or paint. 

You need to use a photocopy, or if you are lucky enough to have one, a laser printed copy of the picture you want to use.  This technique doesn't work very well with ink jet printers because it's the powder from the toner used in copy machines and laser printers that transfers into your gesso. 

Closely crop your photo so as little of the white paper will show as possible.  If you have a clearly defined edge on your picture go ahead and cut it out.  If not, as is the case with my camera pictures, I like to tear the picture out which gives any white paper surrounding your picture more of a feathered edge.  (Note: Your picture will be reversed when doing the transfer so if you have any text in your picture, print it reversed.)

Next, paint your base with gesso (or paint) and immediately lay your picture onto the gesso.  Make sure you have complete contact between your picture and the gesso, smoothing out any air bubbles with your fingers.  Allow your gesso to completely dry, at least a few hours but it's best if you can leave it alone overnight. 

After the gesso has dried, saturate the photocopy with water.  I have a little spray bottle I use for this.  Once saturated, use your finger to rub off the paper.  Keep rubbing and re-saturating with water until most of the paper has rubbed off.  I say most because if you rub too hard you run the risk of rubbing your image off. 

And voila, your image has been transferred into your gesso.

I made this for a set of mini canvasses I'm making of various vintage camera images. 

You can then paint and embellish as desired.

This is still a work in process - I'll share when I have them all finished!

I also recently used this technique on a layout I made for my friend and Pink Ninja Master Ally's birthday. 

Does this woman not have the most beautiful eyes or what?  (Or eye in this case, lol.) 

I transferred the image of her eye directly into the paint on the paper.

As you can see, I rubbed just a tad too much in one spot but I think it lends to the overall effect. 

I also used the gesso transfer on the junque journal I recently shared.

I hope you enjoyed my quick mini tutorial on gesso transfers.  I feel so lucky to be a staffer for Scrapbook News and Review because you can find lots of these types of tutorials and projects in the pages of the magazine every month.  And there's always lots of discussion on the forum about techniques and ideas, too.

Thanks for stopping by!  I hope to see you again!

- Heidi

Even Space Rangers Need Love Too

The current prompt on The Pink Ninjas is "____________ need love too". 

Every time I see this pic of my daughter meeting Buzz Lightyear at Disneyland I chuckle. 

I love Buzz's stance.  Doesn't he look so uncomfortable?  LOL!!!

Since the layout is for my daughter's Disneyland book, she helped me out with it.  The mirrors with the flower charms were her idea.  She placed them down and I adhered them!  I think she did an amazing job!  A future scrapbooker!!!

Yep, there's me & my camera in the mirrors, lol.

I thought the upper left corner needed something...it looked off balance.

This is the very cool EK Success star border punch.

Pop on over to The Pink Ninjas blog and give them some love.  And then show us ~who~ need love too!

- Heidi

Supplies Patterned Paper: Sassafras Lass; Stickers: Doodlebug, Making Memories; Mirrors: Darice; Paint: Making Memories; Punch: EK Success; Template: The Crafter's Workshop; Other: metal charms, staples.

Sketchy Alchemy

Or Gauche Thursdays? 

This month, Sketchy Thursdays' October Guest Design Team Challenge is being sponsored by Gauche Alchemy!   And we were all so excited to team up that we also wanted to play together so both the DT from GA and our ST DT all made projects using the GDT sketch!!! 

My layout may look a little familiar...I made it (and shared it) back in October of last year.  But I just loved the composition of it so I turned it into this sketch!  See?  Sketches can be inspired by or from layouts!

I think I most like the strip of eyelets on the page.  We all have a truckload of them from back when they were all the rage, right?  I still love using them.  They give such an edgy or industrial feel.  Gotta use that Crop-a-dile for more than hole punching, right?

Come check out the Gauche Alchemy and Sketchy Thursdays inspiration for this sketch.  Everyone really brought their A game!  And then let's see what you can do with the sketch!!  Not only will the winner get to be Sketchy Thursdays' October Guest Design Team member but they'll also win GA's newest kit "Nature Calls"!

Full content description on the ST post.  There's A LOT!

You have until Saturday, September 18 at 11:59pm EST to post a direct link to your layout on THIS POST (click here) to enter!

Hope you have an inspired and creative weekend!

- Heidi

My Sun Light

Happy September! To me, September is the official start of the holidays. The Boy's birthday starts the ball rolling later this month and then it's nothing but one holiday or event after another until the new year.  

Well, it's Thursday so of course I have a new Sketchy Thursdays sketch for you. 

 

I'm really liking this one right now.  It's nice and simple.   A little oasis of calm in my otherwise hurricane life.

OK, now how's this for freaky?  I created this sketch like a month or so ago.  I have not looked back at it again until today so I could make my layout for the reveal.  (Yes, I'm a last minute gal through and through!)   As soon as I took a look at the sketch I knew I had already made the perfect layout for it!   I made this layout a week ago for a completely different challenge but I decided it didn't work for that challenge so I put it aside.  I thought I created the layout completely from scratch.  But apparently my brain was channeling this sketch!  Weird! 

Supplies Cardstock & Glossy Paper: Stampin' Up!; Patterned Paper: Colorbok; Stickers: My Little Shoebox; Journaling Card: Jenni Bowlin; Trim: Michaels; Stamp: Prima Marketing; Ink & Alcohol Ink: Ranger Industries; Glitter Spray: Tattered Angels; Template: Crafter's Workshop; Punch: EK Success; Other: brads.

Check out what the rest of the DT made for your inspiration this week over on Sketchy Thursdays.  I'm telling you, our girls, their talent has no bounds! 

And, please, come play along with us.  This week we have a beautiful boxed card set up for grabs from Paper Fashions Boutique. 

Hope you have a great three-day weekend planned!

- Heidi

p.s.  Don't forget to check out my Tip of the Day over on the Scrapbook News and Review forum today and through Sunday!!!