Photo collages - final

Years ago, we were all back in Indiana at my aunt's bed & breakfast. It was Sunday morning and Aunt Eleanor sat down to play the piano. Soon, everyone was singing church hymns...everyone except mom. She had her camera and was snapping photos of everyone singing. She went home and started painting. I think she painted every single person that was there....over 20 of us!

She painted my son laughing and singing.....and then took a photo of the painting and sent it to me. I have loved this photo. He was with family. He was singing. He was laughing. He was about 15 years old at the time....and I have held true to the fact that no matter where his journey in life will take him, I know the fun loving, laughing, happy little boy is inside of him....looking for a way out! And so I wrote:

You are the light of my life
You give joy to my day
You're the song in my soul
You're in my heart to stay.

From the day you were born
No matter what's been done
I'll love you forever
Jason, my firstborn son.



Nothing more than a photo, mounted, with my poem. A simple photo collage for sure.

And then there's this photo of Jeff, taken when he was about 2 1/2. I remember that it was a "window" for us. He had so many seizures and would fall down and get bruises or cuts....always on his head and face as well as the rest of his body. I remember waking up, looking at him and saying, "We have to go get photos done today!!!" It was a rare moment when he didn't have any visible signs of his seizures showing.

But more than that, I remember the fear of losing him. The hours that he was unconscious after a seizure, how I daily held him in my arms and prayed for his safety. I just remember my heart aching with love for him and fear for his life. Thinking back to the time of this photo, I wrote:

I used to sing a song to you
Every single night
I'd hold you in my arms
and hug you really tight

Sometimes I'd sing an hour or two
And hold you in my heart
I find I still hum the tune
Though we're miles apart.

And it's so true! I find that out of nowhere....I just start singing the little song that I made up and sang to him all those years ago. I wonder if it's my daily prayer. Although I still worry about both of my boys, I have turned them over to Jehovah. I know that HE alone will keep them safe. But I will always love them.



So, now I have all the photos mounted on the glass doors on the shelves....it's time to add the final touches.  A rub on sentiment....did you know rub ons work on glass?

A Star of David and snowflake and lots of swarovsky crystals in the center top panel

And rather than use my white pen, I made my dots with heat set crystals on top of the glass....oh!  does this "bling" when you walk by!!!

Well, it took me a couple of days.....but I actually "altered" the bookcase.  And I'm so happy with it...because you can't see the MESS that's inside!  LOL!!!  

Don't worry.  It will all come off with undu if I decide to move the library back to another room!


Footnote: For those of you who read my blog via emails....I have added a link list on the right on the web where you can click and easily get back to each of my video tutorials.

Shadowbox Memories, Part 2 of 2

So have you decided to pull the kids baby things out of storage and put them on display? You don't have to do vintage like I did - there are so many wonderful scrapbook papers and embellishments available today - I'm almost tempted to re-do these!



First thing I noticed - I never finished this one! Jeff's senior photo is missing! Well, one of these days....



I tried to keep them different because the boys have very different personalities. Jason loves classical music and Jeff loves county western. But I wanted the same elements in each box. They both got teddy bears because when they were little, I made and sold bears.



Jeff's dedication certificate, cigar, flowers. The baby blanket was made by my sis, Elaine.



His baby outfit, photo, and more chipboard dolls:



So many things to keep - so many memories.



Another vintage pop-up with greenery behind her. Angels watcing over my kids, every day.



Cute little hanky pockets stitched and shaped to hold flowers



His spoon - stitched to the ribbon to hide the thread.



Jeff loved trains and when I found this printer's block, I just had to add it!




Each of their boxes has a Mexican peso given to them by a family friend, and a silver dollar from the year of their birth.



The possibilities for shadowboxes have no limits. You could do one for each year of school, for ancestors, for marriage....well for any life event. It's just a great way to display momentos that are too lumpy for scrapbooks! 2' x 3' is just the perfect size to keep baby blankets, christening outfits and more! And with glass front doors - you never have to dust! These are 12 years old and look as good s the day I put them together!

Home decor

I'm trying to downsize, but there are just some things that will stay with me even into the nursing home! LOL! So today, I worked on hanging them on a spare wall in the guest bedroom. In the center was today's project.


It didn't photo too well with the flash on, but that was a brown/black metal key from Hobby Lobby - on the 66% off aisle. I needed something to hang the 48" long christening gown on. And the 2 vintage doll dresses. A layer of Krylon primer and 2 layers of Krylon white glossy paint - and I have a white key!




Everything in my life has some kind of meaning. The christening gown is one that was given to me when I had an antique shop in San Diego. It was totally brown with loads of bug stains and big holes in it. I used Biz to clean it and then Japanese paste to mend the tears. If you looked at it today, you would not be able to see any damage at all. I need to find another piece of old vintage clothing and then I can do step shots as I go through the process of repairing it. The other antique dealer who gave it to me could not believe the restoration job I did on it!

The little doll dresses - well, they are the kind I always wanted for my dolls when I was a little girl - all pretty and covered in lace. I've decided it's never to late to awaken that childhood spirit that lives deep inside of each of us! So here they hang - reminding me every day that it's ok to be a kid, to have some fun, and to play a bit!



On the left is a 2' x 3' shadowbox filled with Jason's baby things. Tomorrow I will blog more on that and share some techniques for preserving your kids things.



On the right is Jeff's shadowbox. We'll be talking about that on Saturday.



I know so many people put their kid's baby things in boxes and store them away. I wanted to display them, look at them, share them with others, and just enjoy the memories of their childhood on a daily basis. I know also that I don't have room to display all the momentos I've accumulated in my life, but these 2 shadowboxes bring great joy and lots of smiles to me. The boys can certainly wait another 30 or 40 years to have them!!!

Rocks, frogs and poems

If you know me, you know I'm not afraid to put much of anything on a scrapbook page. I think if you look closely, you can see the actual physical rocks on this page. The photos of Jason are just so cute...he was throwing rocks into the river and just laughing...then turning around to make sure we were watching him. Memory Makers magazine had a call for lumpy pages...I do think I gave them lumpy...and they published this! It is really the heaviest layout I've ever done.

Note the little green paper punched frogs crawling around in the rocks? And some of the rocks have been painted. Some of the rocks are flat paper. Truly a fun project!



This is probably my favorite photo of Jason. I have always loved the look on his face...like he was just not quite sure what to do and just a little scared. This is a 12 x 12 layout...and rather than buy one of those transparancies with the designs to go over it, I simply put this in the wide format printer and printed right over the paper and the photo. Designed the overlay in photoshop and just hit the print button. The little pocket has a note to him about this day.



I cannot help but laugh every time I look at this one. What kind of mom an I that I would not only let him eat the grass....I had to get the camera and take pictures! LOL! And I wrote the poem:

Eating stick and grass
That's what I like to do
I think it's pretty cute
But it makes me go poo....

Anything I touch
goes right into my mouth
And then my mom will say
"you better spit that out!!!"



And this is one of my earliest layouts....but I still just love it. The series of photos just match the poem I wrote for this one:

My bubba is hard to hold
And he likes to look at me
It seems he sleeps all the time
Except when he has to pee
He sure makes funny faces
He's just as cute as can be
I really like my bubbe
And I know that he likes me!



I have found that often a simple little poem can say so much more than any journaling. I have thousands of photos yet to scrap. A never ending project!

Rocks, frogs and poems. So appropriate for scrapbooking my memories of these 2 little boys!

Crop for the Walk

UPDATE!!! We will be having a second Crop for the Walk in my studio on March 29. Same details as the one below....except a whole new set of prizes to give away. My vendor pals and my art pals have just gone over the top with insanely generous donations for this crop...you will not be disappointed at all!

Register by emailing me, or signing up at meetup.com/1950. But most of all, be sure to give your $35 to Rachel! She's at 96% of her goal....just $144 more is needed!

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It was so much fun yesterday afternoon and evening to watch the thermometer on Rachel's site double!!! Thank you so much!!!

And I am sooooo excited!!!

I'm going to offer a 12 hour Crop for the Walk on March 8th. 11 am - 11 pm in my studio here in Lafayette CO.

A fundraiser for the National Epilepsy Foundation and Rachel.

Here's the deal. Just click on Rachel's photo at the top of this blog and donate at least $35.00. It's 100% tax deductible.

Then email me and let me know that you want to participate in the all day crop. It's free!

We'll have pizza for dinner....

And I'll offer you a one time discount of 40% off your entire order from my Product Performers catalog....

AND...Liz from Scrapbook Your Life! is going to donate goodie bags to everyone who attends. Trust me...I've been the recipient of her goodie bags....they are wonderful!!!

There will be hourly prizes and we will even have a few contests! I have contacted 21 of my favorite manufacturers and asked them to donate for the day. As the prizes come in...I will post more here! (Update...After Midnight Stamps is sending prizes!)

Scor-It just emailed that they want to donate a Scor-it Mini!!! And I didn't even ask! Gotta LOVE a company like that!!!

There will be at least 2 make and takes (I'm sure my local artist pals will step up and volunteer for this!)

Seating is going to be limited to 20.

If you want to fly in for the event, my guest bedroom is available....and I have 2 sofas and I'm sure we can find an air mattress somewhere! So lodging is free!

If we fill this one up, I'll have a second crop on March 29. But the one on the 8th has to fill up first!

So....a chance to play and create for a full 12 hours in my studio with access to all my diecut systems, dies, embossing plates, folders and more.....what fun!!!

And we will be calling Scrapbook Your Life! in San Diego to give a shout out to Rachel!!!

I am so excited...



Trust me, I have a repetoire of funny stories about Jeff and his seizures. Not so funny back then, but just hilarious now. We had a system set up...3x5 index cards in our house and at each neighbors. Back then, if you called 911, it locked your phone and we did not have cell phones (oh my, how on earth did we manage?). So when Jeff had a seizure, Jason (5 years older) ran next door to Linda's house and Linda would call my husband at work while I hit 911 from the home phone. Then Linda would call a block away to my kids godmother, Kay, and her daughter, Julie, would run over to babysit Jason while I rode in the ambulance with Jeff to the hospital.

All quite well organized.

Seizures are 100% unpredictable. They can happen at any time. Back in the mid 80s...I was into curly hair and gave myself home perms about every 3 months. So you can only imagine what I'm going to tell you next! Yes....I had started a perm. In fact...I was in that 20 minute waiting period before you put the neutralizer on. And Jeff had a grand mal seizure. Just about the second I needed to apply the neutralizer.

Towel over head, baby in arms, I reached for the phone to dial 911 as Jason ran out the door to go to Linda's house. All I could visualize was lime green hair broken off about 2" from my head. I just knew I was headed for a complete disaster!!!

The paramedics knew our situation and could arrive in less than 2 minutes. They rushed in with oxygen and grabbed Jeff from my arms as I collapsed onto the floor in tears. Linda had called Kay and she was at my house about the time the ambulance arrived. She picked me up and lead me back to the bathroom where she applied the neutralizer and in such a calming voice kept telling me that Jeff would be just fine.

He was. And my hair did not break off. Or turn green or any other odd color. But I have not had a permanent since that day!!! Sometimes, a mom has to give up her "beauty" for her kids! And yes, that's me in the photo above, about 3 months after Jeff was born in 1983. Now you see why I was worried about my hair??? LOL!!!

My prayer is that there will come a day when no one has to give up anything. So again, click on the photo above of Rachel and give to this most worthy cause. You never know who might be on the floor as I was all those years ago. Let's help those we can!

And then let me know that you want to join our Crop for the Walk on March 8th!!!