We have Practice?!?

First things first. I HAVE A JOB! Ok. We may now go back to our regularly scheduled attitudes. I got called about it and went in. Immediately, my mind went, yes please say yes. So, I start this coming week. One last piece of paperwork and we are all good. Can you tell I'm still so happy to have work again?
I finally got the layout I've been waiting to do finished. The reason why I was waiting so long was because I am running low on white cardstock and needed it for this background. I did not like the look of the photo collage (all four games put together) on any of my patterned paper, especially with how I wanted to do the side. And I am so glad with how it turned out. I actually got the final layout to look like my brain pictured it.

So, I wrote the majority of the story to this layout on there. But, one of the kids texted a confused We have Practice to everyone else when the three of them were at the alley, which had them cracking up. They then discussed how many times that week it had already been brought up. Luckily, it was voluntary to be there. The first game, all three started out with the same first frame. The second, their first frame was one different from person to person. The youngest was only upset that there was one working can vending machine and pretty much all the flavors were sold out. The bar area was closed, so we couldn't get her a soda from there.

The layout was pretty simple. I pulled a free clip art of the bowling lane, pins, and ball. Each of them I cut out, popping a couple pins and the ball with my foam. The semi circle I made in draw and then wrote in the event info. I used puffy stickers from the dollar tree and one from dollar general. The rest of the items were all fussy cut from different papers, calendar, and Biggby coffee flyer in the mail. The longest part in this was figuring out where to have each pin fly. The one at the bottom showed up there because that cluster just felt incomplete.

Sketches in Thyme 403

This is the last of the sketches in thyme I am submitting to this month. It actually was the first one they put out for the month! I've been sitting on it the entire time. After that practice, I knew that this would be the one to do it. And since the kids provided the perfect title.... No, I didn't see the name of the kid who sent it. 

I will be keeping up with all of this with work, but I may actually do a couple less just because I'm not sure of the availability I will give myself during the week. I still have to provide time to get my weekly journal done along with everything else. That is the priority right now only because it is part of my mental health. 

Art with Teen

I just now am realising that I am actually starting what I had considered when I first thought of doing the weekly journal. My plan was if I had enough to make a "story or layout" I would do one picture for the week and then make a separate book with the more intensive date pictures. Of course, I don't expect too many, but this one certainly pertains. Only my youngest would decide to figure alternatives when she can't find something she needs immediately. She got picked on after by the oldest because "did everyone forget the semester I was an art major?" and didn't check if he had what she needed. That was his only semester where he was not a computer major. He does want to keep doing it as a hobby once he has room. Currently, his room is taken over by computer and tech stuff. My room doubles as her and my craft room. It is also the SMALLEST room in the house. I am including the bathroom. Oh joys of single wide mobile home.
But, it took a while for us to get him to take us to the store to get the pizza stuff. By then, she was done with her painting for the weekend. Instead of just washing the acrylics off of her hand, she decides that this is the perfect time to make her hand look frostbitten AND burnt. It came out pretty good. She got some looks at the store but she was proud of it until she got the paint to crack too much at her knuckles.

Here is the layout I made of the day. On the left, her hand is the final look. On the right, her hand was being the palette. There is a small photo in the middle of her doing the painting. I also got her to make the "doilies" behind the photos. I chose blue and red in the background because of her hand. I was trying to get contrast with the blue in the photo, not noticing that the red then blended into the scrapbook album. I remembered to date the layout surprisingly! I did writing both by hand and over the computer. You can't tell, but there are white triangles along the top and left bottom of the red rectangle. I added them while I was cutting the red and blue chevrons. Made those by cutting the outer border of the arrows on the dollar tree sticker sheet. So, I had leftover triangles and decided to use them instead of scrap them.

Sketches in Thyme 405

So, I'm submitting this to Sketches in Thyme. I saw it and thought of her hand. I started with one idea with the pictures, but trying to fit as many pictures on one sheet of paper changed it. Especially when I said it would be one size and the final print was larger. So, I ended up this way. Upside, I figured how to glue over the gold! Use a napkin doily. Mwahahaha. But, I also used a bit of paper from a 2019 calendar by Amy Brown I have. I didn't do as much of the embellishing because it felt so busy already with the arrows and chevrons. Add in the pattern of the one side and my mind was saying this is enough. The title is just as playful using Dollar General stickers. I have most of the book left, yet don't really find much to use them in. 

Hope everyone is doing well. I still have a couple layouts to finish for challenges and to post the another with no challenges that I made. I enjoy getting these up and done.

Spring Fling

Another week with a Monday off for the girls. The weekend had the youngest continually bringing up the Schlieffen plan question from school. Finally got my boyfriend to discuss it with her and all was good. Plus, the oldest and youngest had a Minecraft day. The joys of snowy weekends and nobody enjoying snow. Sleeping late and staying up because of it can be quite interesting. Especially with us playing card games at night and getting noisy. But it makes for good pictures for general layouts and weekly journal entry. Have I mentioned that we have dark senses of humour at times?
Another thing about this weekend was me doing layouts for pictures and such. So, I currently have three layouts with no pictures on them. Plus, I found a paper pad that I seriously regret buying. I got it at the beginning on clearance and thought it would work. It was for planners really, but I figured wrong that it would be easy for me to use. So, I'm trying very hard to figure any way to use it. I've done coloring on one page, cut quite a few hectagons and shapes, and broken down pages to individual elements. I still have so many pages left though. I don't seem to complain about the other pads, but this one will be a challenge. Lesson learned though. Clearance is not always worth the cost.

So, remember last post where I mentioned having more layouts finished? Well, here is another that is for a challenge. It's another from the photo album. This is a general set of seniors, including me, of the band's last concert. This concert actually had set times of the entire music program, from fifth grade band and choir all the way to high school. It was given a theme (Cinemagic that year) and either you bought the tee to wear or you were to wear a similar shade one. It was the only concert where we all were allowed to wear jeans. Each senior got a trophy and certificate, along with a corsage to wear for the concert. We performed it in the high school gym (dances were not allowed in the high school gym but concerts were) which is now the community center. My kids knew of it as either the middle school or elementary school gym, depending on child. In a couple pictures, you can see the sports announcer booth and the painting of the old mascot. I told them about them. The youngest only remembered being told not to climb on it because it was old and falling apart so they could get hurt. She always referred to it as the elementary gym. They also were surprised to learn some of the schools we were in the same conference with in sports that they never played against. Of course, the conference is different and have different schools.

So, this is the right page. This actually had five photos. The middle photo is the one cut and placed vertically. I did remove a bit to make it as smooth of flow as possible. I also tried to include as few of the non seniors as possible in there. I used blue glitter stickers for the title that I got from Walmart. The music stickers also came from Walmart. The border paper was out of my Brewtiful Days pad. I used the blue and purple watercolors for splatter on the pages. The journaling I did on Draw and used a very light grey for the print. The purple background was because the school colors then were purple and white. By the time the kids went to school there, they changed it to purple, black, and grey. Please note, we all had regular waisted jeans back then, not low ones at all. I miss jeans having a comfortable waist area, even though I always had the back gap when sitting. Stupid hips requiring larger size than waist.

On the left side, we have more of the photos, but I did trim all of these. You can probably tell from how crooked I cut. I used the banners from two of the photos under the one image. Can we greatly appreciate that the image of me got the glare for those here to see? I scattered more of the music stickers on this page. I made sure to put the bass clefs by the guys who actually played instruments using the clef (trombonist and tuba) and I played clarinet. The other two were the percussionists. I added more of the watercolor splatter around these images. I wish there had been some flat signs, but the sharps worked fine.

Stick It Down double layout

I'm once again submitting to Stick It Down. I am glad I was able to use this sketch to get so many of the photos from this event on one layout. I do still have a couple left, but they all work for a story to tell within the event. It was even fun getting me to change the photos to fit the setup for the layout. I should add that there was a lot of dead space in those photos and everything was landscape, due to the camera used. I'm sure my family had no interest in turning the camera to take portrait style.
I'm getting pretty far along in going through this book. I have a couple pictures that it is so hard to see people in, so I may have to make notes on those just so that future family members will know who they are. Maybe I will even put an appendix(?) page listing each person in layouts. Advice is greatly appreciated on this. Especially since I JUST THIS WEEK figured out who the person on the roof was. Not me, but a certain exchange student. We don't need to be questioning that again in the future.

Watercolor insanity

So, I finally got a hand on the watercolors. I thought the girls just had the simple ones that one gets in a row. Nope, they had the tubes and pencils. So, I finished up some layouts. I have so much more respect for people who do this all the time. It was very time consuming and then dealing with the color drying out were learning experiences. The majority were just splatters, but one wasn't. So, the next few layouts will have that element added. On the other hand, I see myself doing more with this stuff with layouts. More options as I explore. I may have to see if I can pick up an inexpensive set of watercolor tubes and pencils for myself.

The youngest had asked before about painting with acrylic on the bunk bed which I use as loft storage. She is working on the whole thing now. Apparently, this is a piece for me to keep permanently. I have a feeling she will change her mind. But, the first pole is done in a galaxy theme. It is pretty. I took pictures as she was doing it and am planning on scrapbooking it. She is planning a sunrise with butterflies along the top. I'm wondering what else she has planned for the other sections. My other concern is when she does the rest and keeping the wall clean. For all the oldest plans on being here a long time now, there still is the issue of pain on the walls. Of course, if we could paint the walls and then go back to the original color before they left, I would do that. I would love to have either a soft blue or light olive green. Oooh, stripes of both would be really nice.

 So, this layout is the first in a personal scrapbook that I am planning on making of my partner and me. This is the promised of our first trip together. I think I mentioned it in another entry. But, this was our overnight to Fort Knox, Kentucky to get his medical records. I didn't take many pictures and regret one set. They had gorgeous snowflake lights on the lightpoles on base. I just felt so guilty over being there and I can't explain why. It IS a beautiful place though.
For the layout, I started with plain white cardstock as the background. I used papers from all my paper pads (the Michaels ones in Brewtiful Day, Gilded Berry, North Pole News, and Floral Romance). The two word items came from my Celestial Seasonings tea box. I did stitching with DMC thread (I also have Coates, which I use in a future layout), which is annoying to me, but I seem to be doing much more of coming up. I used Dollar Tree stickers for the title. Pastels have reappeared for the rainbow on opposite corners. I once again did the paper to paper coloring. I'm sure there is a technical name, but I don't know it. The watercolor splatters were in Yellow Ochre, Vermilion, and Veridian. I added a snowflake gem for both the fact that it snowed, which made us leave early, and the lights on base.

#FF0050

This is getting submitted to Festive Friday for the above challenge. For this challenge, I used watercolor and stitching. I learned that doing running stitch is much easier than backstitch for paper. My corners have the pastel rainbows. Wait, there is a reason for the rainbows. We saw one both driving down and coming back up. I didn't feel like retyping above to add that in. I also had the inspirational sentiment with the quote. It makes me think of our relationship together and how we feel like we have everything because we both work to make this work.

Sketches in Thyme

I am also submitting this to Sketches in Thyme. It was fun doing this and learning to make tags. I know that I went off from it, but this was the inspiration. The splatters on there were the big reason why I went to the watercolors. It was fun doing this. I had the girls help me on it more as a second and third opinion on options. 

So, comments are appreciated. Remember, not all layouts I put are with challenges. Go check out more if you are curious. Who knows where I will experiment next. If you have suggestions, let me know.  

Waiting for the weekend

I have a couple layouts waiting for one item (the pics will be added to one after) to be added before I will call them complete. I am going to be using the girls' watercolors for last few touches on the layouts. I actually have done sewing on my layouts again and by not doing backstitching but simply running stitches, it feels much easier. I like the look they gave the layouts. One layout is for a challenge, but the other is a random current one that is all me. The random one was made solely from scraps. The one scrap in particular I was not sure I could ever figure a way to use it. Plus, I have been using the foam to add dimension. Go Dollar General craft area.
So, the job search continues. I thought there was an opportunity, but ended up not being the case. It isn't good to have happen. In fact, with the week I've now had, it is a little harder to do much. We also had stomach bugs go through here and out there. I just will hold my breath and keep going though. It's the best I can do.
I went through my perfume samples once again. This time, I pulled all of my multiples to make use of first. I separated some because they are from one company and others because they are decants of limited edition bottles from when I was buying them. The rest were individual samples. The multiples I am going to use to make epsom salt soaks. I have five jars so far with five scents now. That means five baths. For times where I want a bath and not add epsom salts, like that will happen, I can still throw some other ones in. I'm trying to work on using them up. They were free samples and have been sitting there for a few years now. My bottles by themselves I assume will last me a long time to use them all up.

This is part of the amount that I was sorting. Like I said, quite a few. I'm considering a layout showing what I am working with. Could be something interesting to do. I figure I could also use the tags as embellishments then. More fun for me.

Spring Weekend

So, I'm currently in a lull. Ha ha ha. I know I'm funny. But, upside is I'm waiting about an interview. Plus, I'm also putting in for other jobs just in case they either say no or that would pay even higher. It's hard to just be patient and relaxed over it. But, that is the plan.
We have had some very interesting things happen this past week. The older girl actually ate something I made! Yes, it was boxed, but it had ingredients that she previously would have refused the entire meal over. I started off with making her laugh that if her cat had been here, she would have been crying and trying to get into the pan just to eat it. But, she did eat it and decided that it was worth eating if I made it again. Baby steps people.

This is a layout I did very early on. I thought I had one more picture to add, but think it fits best like this. It is about the girls overnight in Toledo when I was trying to get them to move there. They got to take the bus, had drinks and food, and saw a minor league baseball game. I added the story about the art store we went to. But, it was something that we all kind of laugh over now. There was no challenge involved. I will have a few soon that won't be involved either.
I have a couple more layouts lined up for challenges, but may also keep a few that don't. I am now realising that I need a couple new books for the layouts as the one is a general and the other is family stories. My grandmother's will take a book buly itself currently. I'm taking my time finishing it, mainly for challenges. I discovered a second reason to do it. My kids didn't get much info about the old school and so I figured that I should write that stuff either here or on the page itself. I will later print up the entry and tape it to the back of the layout. More info for the future.

18 birthday cake

My brain is waiting for coffee to begin. It seems I have days where I can journal on end and then days where I seem to shut it off. All week, I've had entries floating around wanting to be told and today they are quiet. I'm waiting to hear from someone about a job. Well, two possible jobs. I shouldn't get too excited about it though. But, to have the ability to bring steady money in sounds so nice. Though being the recepient of a bottle of McCafe Cinnamon Cookie syrup (marked use by date was passed a few days ago so they had to waste the bottle) was a pleasant surprise. I hope they use it again next year as a flavor. I can see myself asking for it in a regular coffee when I go. Actually, I wish they would keep it all year, seeing as the peppermint mocha hasn't come back. 

Ok, a sip of coffee starts the brain. Neurons are firing and gearing to go. A good note ahead. I got more medicine when I mentioned that I was out and needed to reschedule my med appointment. They literally got me in after my counselor that day. Last minute cancellation. I told about the nightmares and they gave me a new medicine to add for bedtime. I'm still having them, but at least now I'm sleeping straight through the past two nights. The first night I woke up but was able to get back to sleep. I'm lucky in that my antidepressant works quickly in the way I need it to: stop the bad thoughts. The rest I can fight myself. In a way, scrapbooking is an art therapy for me. Doing the journal is making me look for good moments in the day and causing me to build on that. Doing my grandmother's album is letting me go over the memories and accept it happened and that I survived that year. It does bring up many bad memories, but I can see someone who was fighting and wasn't ready to give up.

I'm still figuring out lighting with doing the layouts. One of these days I should show a picture of the part of the room I am taking them in. The first of the two pictures is a better shot at the pastels I used for the background. The latter is a better overall shot. I am playing more with designing backgrounds and not just using patterned paper. Oh, I like the papers I have and have a few more layouts using them, but to have this in my options is quite enjoyable.

So, about the background of this layout and the issues I had doing this. I used three pastels for the background. I used a medium yellow, red, and dark green. The lines I drew are under the photo to get a halo effect. I also used those colors on the title, along with a blue, brown, orange, and black. Originally the title was white, which seemed too bright against that gold. This softened it and made it closer to the background image on the title card. With the background, I tried to blend the colors as they hit each other in the corners. I wanted to make sure that the predominant colors were on the background. All of this was done with a wad of toilet paper. Budget designing at its finest.

 I am having issues no matter what when it comes to gluing anything onto metallic paper. This time, I tried glue stick, double sided tape, and liquid glue. None held well. I may just have to admit that it can not be under another layer, just a top one. So limiting if so. Any advice?

For the rest of the layout, I used triangle scraps from other pieces that I made flags out of or were the edges that I cut from other layouts. The flowers were fussy cut by me while the girl had fussy cut the butterflies from a sheet from my Michael's paper pad. She needs to finish that sheet because I am running low on those and want to add them to another page. I also added a couple drops of black glitter paint among the triangles. The butterflies were propped up with foam from Dollar General. It held the photo to the paper that way. The donut paper was from Dollar Tree, while the other two were from paper pads from Michael's. I ended up running my old gold ink pad around the edges of the cardstock to give it a finished look. Sometimes, layouts look nice without, but this just seemed to need it.

Let's Get Sketchy

Once again, I'm submitting to the Let's Get Sketchy challenge. It's funny because this time I really was hesitant on doing it because I'm not confident in the finished design itself. If you notice, I didn't even tell why that picture was taken. Like I mentioned above, doing scrapbooking on these old photos are a bit like personal therapy. Maybe that is the real reason behind my unease on this one. The funny part is that I also have a bit of pride with this one that I hadn't in others. So, submitting it anyway. Sjoot away with whatever you will.

Weekly Journal

Rule one for manga in this house: Read the last page first! Just kidding. But, as you will see below, I added the list of topics for a reading challenge. I have a reading partner for this. My youngest discovered it and saw it as a reason to finish more books. She handed me her one manga for the series prompt. Approximately one book a week should be manageable.

So, I thought when I first was looking at forms of scrapbooking that the whole Project Life format looked interesting. But, that rabbit hole started to panic me when I saw how people were going about how much work it was and how quickly they were falling behind on it. That made me decide not to go that route. But, I really liked the idea of documenting overviews of every week with scrapbooking. So, I wasn't sure how to go about it. In the end, I realised that I am really liking making different layouts and can use them to do the documenting. So, with a basic binder and sheet protectors, I'm off. Now, I get to make layouts in two different sizes! At least this one is completely for my use. I will use it at times for challenges, but more just to get the good things from each day in the specific week.

In the layout, I used part of a patterned paper from one of the pads from Michael's. I lined the bottom with part of a planner banner sticker from Dollar General. The week was printed out on my computer with a free font I picked up. Yes, I love finding fonts to use that are not the basic ones from the respective programs/OS. The main paper was the remainder of the watercolor paper I used to make the background on the previous layout. I liked how it looked and fit with the snowflakes. The white on the gray background for the images is actually from when I cut out a page of hexagons. I still have a couple more sections of it I have plans to use on larger layouts. The art in the background of the bottom picture was done by my oldest. All three are artistic.

Atlantic Hearts Sketch

I'm submitting the layout to the Atlantic Hearts Sketch Challenge because it gave me the inspiration to start. It was funny my mind was arguing about how to start as in should I just go Day 1-7 or add in the end of the previous year. Honestly, I wanted to have this as just this year. Seeing the sketch, my mind immediately said this would make it work. Three rows for pictures means a full week wouldn't work. But, I could do it for a partial week to document. If not for them, I don't think I would have started. So, thank you ladies.

I thought I'd show the entire week. This is the sketch layout with a companion page just having some extra documentation of things about the week. I put a picture of the book I'm working on first along with the list. I also put the goals I have that I see are achievable. I tied the pages together by using a scrap of the snowflake paper in the corner and the rest of the banner strip on top. Just for why I used that paper. We had snow New Year's Day and no way would I take a picture of that. So, what type of journaling do you do, if any?

Is there such a thing as too much at once?

Ok, and we're off. First, getting some Heidi Swapp ribbon for a dollar is a good deal, right? It looks like a little got used, buy not much. I see it as more supplies. I was hoping to find watercolor paper, but nope. Going to cut down some other paper to get the right size and also be able to do decorating on the paper itself. I'm doing a weekly photo journal to see the things that are good or make me happy. I'm also putting writing in it with lists. At least I have a cute binder for it. I've never been good with journals before, but hoping if I spend the week taking the pictures and setting the page in general together that I will keep it up.
I am currently doing well on the photo book. I realised something though. You know how scrapbooks come with so many protectors in them? Well, the way I am going, I will be filling a whole one of those with layouts. Where there is a story from the pictures, I am writing it out. But, I realise that there are some pictures I have no recollection of or else who everyone is. Thinking of an upcoming layout and asking for information now. Is it common to find scrapbook papers for St Patrick's Day with just four leaf clovers? If not, I may have to look for paper on a certain organization site and hope for the best. At least I'm not asking for FFA papers. Laughs nervously.
I have discovered the girls' chalk pastels. Hmmm, what can I do with them? Why did I discover them? Caution Will Robinson! The background of this layout is what happens when I go looking for one thing (watercolor paints that have disappeared) and open a drawer that has been closed a while. No, I did not find the watercolor paints. I'm still looking for them. But, finding these got me to looking online on using them. I have discovered something I like the look of for backgrounds. Still want to try watercolor backgrounds, but still.

So, I just told about the top part of the background. I used scraps from making the layout to go under the main image and to border the journaling. For some reason, I wanted to put the striped paper in as many variations as possible. The bottom half of the background came from a Halloween stamp set I got at Michael's at the end of the season for $1.00! All my patterned papers came from different paper pads from Michael's. The striped was from a Halloween 8×8 pack no less. Of course, all of my stickers came from the dollar store. And I only half fussy cut one sticker so the black stripe wouldn'tbe hidden. But, guess what I remembered? I used some of my Tim Holtz rub ons. 

Stick It Down

Once again, this was made for the sketch challenge for Stick It Down. I wasn't sure if I was going to do it or not, but I just thought it was cute. So, off I went. I really was inspired to use the striped paper due to sketch. I had a hard time though trying to figure out paper because I just was not impressed with what I had and the picture. Building the framing of the pictures was easy and fun though. I even popped the one quadrilateral and the other half of the other photo with foam. I'm learning to play because of these. I just want to say thanks for these.
Like always, constructive criticism is so welcome. One last question. Do people like having conversations in the comments? I just don't know if someone would respond if I was to. This is me trying to be social.

Third Grandma layout

I hope everyone's New Year's went well. Mine was quiet. Just a few texts at midnight. I made the oldest do one of the things we did last year, play "How Bad Can We Confuse Alexa?" to our amusement. Pretty close to a normal night. Not sure how next New Year's will play out. 

So, I am plugging away at the photos from the book. This one actually was of the two exchange students we had for a bit and me. The one in the middle would leave less than a week after the picture was taken and the other decided to change families by the end of the year. Those two were quite similar and I was definitely the misfit. But, it was a little interesting. Confirmed early the max I could live with a stranger was one month. Luckily, my boyfriend isn't a stranger and we've been together long enough when we move in together, we know our quirks. Yes, I know his living quirks since I've known him so long. Kinda hard not to when a couple years had us poking in and out of each other's places. 

So, this layout actually has no challenges to it. Prettygood then to just let me look and decide what I think it needs and not more. So, I put the date in purple pen, but our names and countries of origin in white. I used a strip of navy blue cardstock cut in half to frame the lavender paper. I added a few stars on there, which came from Dollar Tree, along with the other stickers. The border for the picture came from the same paper pad as the lavender and was the scraps I had saved on a still needing to be finished layout page. I also cut a from a strip sheet to make the title for the page. This was a quick page to throw together and made me content to do.

Advice? Oh, and there may be food pics coming up for two reasons. I'm still fighting depression and so have bad eating days. I am in a slight lift that has me cooking a little and packing as much away into meal servings as possible. Therefore on bad days, I can simply grab one and microwave it and not feel like crap or not eat because I don't have the energy to try to cook. The other reason is also a bit depression fighting. But, I am going to have at least one pic of a meal in the week in review. I'm doing those pages as 8.5×11 since I have a cheap binder and a bunch of page protectors I could use.