Spring!

Time to change the blog again. Spring is here! I'll work on the blog this weekend.....maybe. Doing some genealogy again, for a change. I've only got just so much time, people! LOL! My love of genealogy gets in the way of my love for digi-scrapping and my love of living a comfortable life gets in the way of both!

Yeah, I have to work a full time job, sometimes 2 jobs, to be able to take care of myself and my family. Just like a lot of you. So my "spare" time has to be divided up between my favorite pasttimes. Genealogy won this week. But I love the research involved and I sometimes jump up and do the "Happy Dance" when people I'm looking for pop up and say "Here I am!" Then I'm on the phone saying, "Mom! Guess what I found!" She's the one who got me started in genealogy and she's the only one who still gets as excited as I do.

Well, almost as excited as I. LOL! I think she's a little jealous. When she was researching our family tree, she had to do it all in her own handwriting, make umpteen trips to the local libraries as well as the archives in Washington, D.C. She had to write letters then wait weeks for them to be answered or visit all the relatives and interview them. (Thanks, Mom for passing that all along to me!) Now, in the "modern" age of computers, I can find a ton of things out from my comfy chair, sitting in my comfy room with a couple of grandbabies on my lap. (Thank you, Bill Gates and Ancestry.com)

Researching my family tree has given me a better understanding of time and of family. In genealogy, the American Civil War wasn't that long ago. My grandfather was born in 1881, just 16 years after General Lee surrendered to General Grant and Abraham Lincoln was assassinated. Granted, my grandfather was in his 40's when my dad was born and my dad was nearly as old as I was when I became a grandmother when he had me. But still, it doesn't seem like it's that long ago when you think of who in your family was actually alive then. By researching each and every one of them, they become alive in my mind and I can see them as well as I can see my grandparents. I know what they did for a living, where they lived, who their neighbors were. Sometimes, you even know which ones were rascals, which ones were lazy and which ones worked themselves to the bone to provide for their families.

You know that someday in the future, someone's going to want to know who their ancestors are. What will YOUR descendants find out about YOU?

Ok, I felt guilty......

.....for not being here more often and then not having anything to give you when I DID get back here so made you a small freebie. It's just a couple of Wordart masks you can use when scrapping the little ones. You can clip your photos to it or clip a paper scrap and make it a mat. And have you seen the kits where designers make "tape" to put on your layouts? I was just thinking, a piece of tape would look cool over the best friends picture. I haven't worked on making tape yet but you can get them a lot of places. Try it! I was picturing the best friends necklace we shared when I made this but I know my best friend could always patch my broken heart. Here's a preview:


And HERE is where you click to get the download. Awwwww.....it feels good to give!

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!!!