Wow....how many days has it been?

A couple of weeks anyway. I'm sorry if you've been stopping by, hoping to catch up on what's been going on with me. I've been busy with odds and ends, here and there.

I've signed up for a Heritage Blog Train due to pull out of the station on June 1st. The heritage style and colors really appeal to me so have been tinkering around a little already on what to include in my "box car". I also found Facebook is a nice place to catch up with my family and friends! I've never been on there before this and WOW! I've been runnning around, looking at everyone's pictures, getting updates on their "status". My favorite scrapbooking sites have "groups" and a ton of fellow scrappers are now "my friends" on there, too! Even my favorite authors have pages and groups. It's been a lot of fun!

I DO have some new layouts of my own to show off. I used to do ALL the challenges I could get done in a month. I like learning new techniques and styles and of course, the posting bonuses for doing their challenges are always worth it, too! Plus, it's nice to read the comments from everyone on a layout I've done. Here's some of my latest layouts.

I just LOVE how this came out. I used a kit by Lily's Designs called Dark Angel. And to be truthful, the background IS the paper. But I extracted my niece in her wedding gown from a picture I took at her wedding and adjusted the photo a bit (worked with the contrast and highlights, etc.) I had to take the photo on some stairs so we could get a good shot of the train but the photo itself really left something to be desired. But once I got it onto this background, it just became magical! I got some swirlies from Flerg's kit "Color Theory". I faded the edges of the 2nd photo and made it sepia to match the background.

Jazz's new wordart was the perfect addition to the layout! It just came out in the store at Digital Scrap Obsession and is at 25% off for this week. It's called "I Thee Wed" and has everything you could ever want for a wedding layout or album. Here's the preview.

This is page two of my niece's wedding layouts. Used the same Dark Angel kit and once again, Jazz's wordart was the perfect touch. I faded the edges and took the opacity down to fade her photo into the background a bit, then just a few more touches and it was done! This layout was nominated as Layout of the Week at My Scrap Shop. Keep your fingers crossed for me. I won't know if it won until next Sunday.

This next one is a layout I did for my cousin. It has my Aunt Jean and Aunt Kitty and Kitty's daugther, Paula. Mirror images of each other to my mind. I used Skrapper Digital's A Treasured Past, JulieO's Vintage Dream, Jean Daugherty's A Stitch in Time and a freebie from Ambowife called Bearly Remember.

After I did this one, I decided the photo of Paula was too blurry. And even though I loved how well their smiles and expressions were exact matches, I decided to try to get a better copy from Paula. She sent me a larger file but again, the photo was just too grainy, the eyes too blurry. But when she sent me the 2nd photo, she included a couple more of her and one of her mother, too. The expressions are not exact matches but I loved how they still resemble each other though each woman is looking a different direction. This is the one I decided to keep (with some additional changes) and added it to our family tree.

For the AD challenge at Stone Accents Studio (their posting bonuses this month are a collab kit called Fairy Garden) we had to use an old soap ad for inspiration. I got to finally scrap this photo of my grandson. Used Jofia Devoe's Sweet Melody and Lily's Design's A Secret Garden.

Well, hope you liked what I've been working on. I'm not sure if I'll get a kit done for Kimb's Challenge this month. If I get a sudden inspiration, I might tackle it but right now I'm drawing a blank. But there are TONS of freebies already in there. Go See!!!