MAY CHALLENGE #6 - Gardening

My Grandmother always had flowers and so did my Mom. When visiting each other, we always "walked the Pondarosa" - walked all around the yard and enjoyed the flowers that were there. It is something I still love to do even though my Grandmother and Mother are now gone. Sadly, I have no girls to pass this on to and the boys don't seem much interested. Yet I'm still trying to show them the beauty around them.

Credits:
Template: Template26 by http://timounette.canalblog.com

Papers: Spring08 Kit by http://sarylunadesigns.blogspot.com

Fonts: Comic Sans Serif and 2Peas Hot Chocolate

MAY CHALLENGE #5 - Smiles

My Boys.... I love their smiles and everything else!

Credits:
Template: Template1 by http://pouyou.over-blog.fr/

Papers: Just Dirt Kit by http://simplysweetdesignskits.blogspot.com

Font: Andy with outer glow/simple

MAY CHALLENGE #4 - Puppies

It took us so much time and effort to finally have children that these babies were our babies for a long time. Bear, Dusty and Precious were the main ones. Angel came later - after the first child. We only have angel left and really miss our other "children" very much.

Credits:
Papers, tags, and template: doggie template and doggie2 kit by http://scrapintimenfun.blogspot.com

Fonts:
Journaling: Andy
Titles: Boulder/Bulge at 50%

MAY CHALLENGE #3 - Childbirth

In 1988, after two years of marriage, Dwayne and I decided to begin a family. Little did we know that it would be 8 years before that would happen. We finally had Jarrett in 1996 after a very long and sad struggle. Along the way, we lost two babies due to tubal pregnancies. But Jarrett was worth the wait. And we were so thrilled when he finally arrived. God provided a miracle to give us a child.

Six years later, we decided to try again. But this time was different and we were not desperate for a child. We had Jarrett and were completely satisfied, but thought it would be nice for him to have a little brother or sister. I began praying in October of 2001 that if God wanted to give us a child, we would go to the infertility doctors for one year to give it a try. After that time, we would just stop trying and go on enjoying Jarrett. I placed it all in God's will instead of trying to force my will upon God as I had when trying to get pregnant before. It was easier because I wasn't desperate -- I already had Jarrett.

So at the new year of 2002 (January) we went to the infertility doctor. She said I might be too old and needed tests. So I did the tests and they came back --- I WAS ALREADY PREGNANT!!! We couldn't believe it. She said we needed to name this one miracle because I don't ovulate and had only one tube. I truly believe that God wanted to show us what he could really do if we would just place our hearts in His hands. He gave us a baby without having to go through infertility treatments. We did it on our own - a virtual impossibility.

That is why I love childbirth. I waited so long for it. I loved every single minute of it. But the best part of all was getting to hold those tiny miracles in my arms.....


Credits:
Papers and elements from the Miss Mouse kit by http://wyvernsscrapden.blogspot.com.

Template from Erica's Template #10 by http://templatesbyerica.blogspot.com.

Flower by me using Miss Mouse kit.

Fonts: Windsor BT for journaling. Bauhaus for titles.

MAY CHALLENGE #2 - Cats

These are the cats that I have had from childhood until now. I think of them all I love Splenda best. She is the cat we have now and the only full-time inside cat we have ever had. She is lots of fun and fetches better than most dogs.

Credits:
Papers, tags, and template from doggie template and doggie2 kit by
http://scrapintimenfun.blogspot.com

MAY CHALLENGE #1 - Family

This layout shows our family. The Campbells and the Dawsons. And those we no longer have with us. It isn't the same without them, but we are still family.

Credits:
Background and Ribbon from SAS Mega Freebie
by http://stoneaccents.blogspot.com

MAY CHALLENGE COVER PAGE - What I Love...

This month, we are to make pages for an album. The theme is things that we love. The cover is suppose to be pictures of ourselves. So here is mine. The baby picture is of me sitting on an ironing board. My Mom's hands were under the blanket to support me. All other pages are based on a theme word - like cats. There must be journaling to explain why we love that theme.

Credits:
Summer Flight Kit by http://beckygtx.blogspot.com

May Challenges

This month, I'm going to try to do all the challenges -- one per day. I'm already behind, but plan to catch up. There just are not enough hours in the day.....

April 2008 Challenges

In my yahoo group, we do challenges to encourage us to learn new things and to get some layouts done. I only did two in April because I was just getting started, but here they are.

The first is of me and the kids at Tate Farm in October of 2007. We were on the hayride. The background paper is a picture I took of a mound of pumpkins.

Template from: http://www.wersoto.com

In this challenge, I used pics of Dwayne and myself. It was just a quick one using a quickpage.

Template from: http://www.wersoto.com

Gone Fishin'

This is a layout I did of Jarrett, Jeremy & John Campbell going fishing in October 2008. They had a blast, but didn't catch anything. It was a beautiful day though and the scenery was spectacular. In the film strips are pictures I took of the lake. They are smaller and harder to see, but the pictures turned out great. I made the filmstrip myself based on one I saw in another layout. The background paper is just smudged using Photoshop.

Now We're Serious.....

I joined these digital scrapping groups at yahoo. I learned a lot. I also joined a few font groups and started getting all kinds of ideas and information. I started out slowly and have just begun to digiscrap in earnest. Here are some of my creations. As you can see, I haven't been doing it for long.

I did two layouts of camellia flowers from my mothers camellia bush. The bush use to be in her yard. When she passed away, I transplanted it to my yard. The flowers are beautiful and about the size of your palm. The bush was loaded with them -- most of them against the house where you couldn't see them. I figure it was warmer up against the bricks.

April 2008
This camellia layout was done just using colors from the flowers and textures and shading from Photoshop Elements. It was really simple. I used a template to do it, but no papers.

Fonts: Times New Roman




This is the same layout, but this time I used kits and elements created by others. I learned how to paste the papers onto the different layers of the layouts.

Edits: Used flower as circle background after making redder and darker using Enhance/Variations... Also used on eyelets.

Template from Butterfly Kisses by http://digiscraptemplates.blogspot.com

Frame Paper and eyelets from love spring kit by http://unpetitcoindescrap.blogspot.com

Green Background and Circle Flower from tempusfugit_SummerRhapsody kit by http://tempusfug.blogspot.com

Fonts: Cotillion

In The Beginning.....

First of all, I use Photoshop Elements for my layouts. My first digital scrapbooking was in making Christmas cards to send out. I didn't even think of it as digital scrapping. Here are my first "layouts" based on a tutorial I found on digital scrapbooking.

Christmas Card 2005:


Christmas Card 2006:Then, I decided to make a few layouts just for fun. I thought they came out pretty cute. The first came from pictures taken at Tate Farm where we go most Octobers for hayrides and pumpkin pickin. It is a very fun place. Jarrett and Jeremy usually have a blast.



With this layout, I used a template and just found some pictures to put in it to see how templates work. Templates are wonderful things. I love them.


We went to a hockey tournament where there was a professional photographer. He had magazine covers made from his pictures. They cost a fortune. I thought --- I can do that and I could. These are of Jarrett with his Peewee House Team - the Lightning with his coaches. He played up in age to play peewee house and was the leader in points (both goals and assists) as a center and winger. Jarrett has been playing hockey for 8 years.



This is of Jarrett right after they won the Country and Western Tournament in Nashville with his Squirt Travel Team - the Chargers. He played defense for the first time. It was really fun doing the magazines. I did them for some of his team mates too. They really turned out.

My First Blog --- WOW!!!

Today I'm beginning a new adventure. I have been delving into digital scrapbooking and creating all these neat layouts. The problem is that I had no where to put them and I'd like to share them with my friends. Plus have a place to put information about what is going on with us too. Anyway, here is my first entry and I hope you all will come and see my layouts from time to time.

Gena