...BUMP, SET, SPIKE...

If you asked me what my favorite sport is, I'd ask you to define the question a little further. My favorite sport to play differs from my favorite sport to watch. Favorite sport to watch? Baseball. Favorite sport to play? Volleyball.

I played volleyball for the first time somewhere around the age of 12 and discovered it was something I was actually pretty good at, which kind of surprised me. I wanted to try out for the school's teams but lacked the courage and confidence to do so, so I settled for playing with my church group.

Flash forward many years and I'm now working with the youth in the church and I just happen to have 3 kids involved in the program. One of the activities the youth choose to do is play volleyball. You better believe I was all for it. It was fun to see my kids all participating in the same activity all at once and we leaders even got to rotate in here and there.

Eventually, most of the kids decided they were done, so a few of the adults played. Things got serious and I quickly took a ball to the nose. It resulted in a headache that lasted for a day or two, but it was so much fun that I would have done it again, in a heartbeat.

When I saw ScrapChat Designs most recent collection for this week's Fresh Baked (New Release) at Gingerscraps, I knew I needed to work with it and combine it with these photos. It really was such a fun night, and a memory I will keep with me forever.

SUPPLY LIST

TEMPLATE: Lots of Memories 14 by Tinci Designs

COLLECTION: My Favorite Season: Volleyball by ScrapChat Designs

FONTS: 7 Days (Date) and Joynoted (Journaling)

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...ONE PERFECTLY DREAMY DAY...

All it took for me to get drawn into this new collection from CarolW. was the image of a girl with her doll. I immediately thought back to a picture from 2004 of Shaylyn taking a nap with her dolly. Ailey never really had a doll stage, but Shaylyn definitely did.

The theme of Carol's kit isn't geared towards the little girl/dolly thing, it's actually a Fallish-themed kit called: My September. So yup, I went a little off-topic with this layout, but I actually kind of like it when I'm able to do so. It makes me feel a little more creative or something, I suppose.

SUPPLY LIST

TEMPLATE: My September by CarolW. Designs
COLLECTION: My September by CarolW. Designs
FONT: Dream (Title and Date)

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...15 YEARS...

 It's Gingerscraps 15th birthday!!!

There's lots of fun going on over on the Gingerscrap site to celebrate this momentous occasion. There are a lot of challenges going on in the forum and I decided to participate in a Then & Now challenge. One of the idea prompts that was given for this challenge was to scrap a page about "your child/children (grandchildren, nieces/nephews)."

Well, it just so happens that we've recently celebrated a 15th birthday in our home as well. I knew that for this challenge I was going to scrap a page for this child. I'm so happy with how it all came together and it kind of makes me sad that this little, tiny baby has somehow grown so much taller than me in only 15 years.

SUPPLY LIST

TEMPLATE: Boys to Men (Retired) by Connie Prince
COLLECTION: About A Boy by Connie Prince
FONTS: Impact Label Reversed (Dates) and Big Boy (Journaling)

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...FOR THE LOVE OF THE GAME...

My husband grew up in baseball. It was a big thing in his household. My father-in-law would take his boys to games quite often in their youth (and as they got older), and my husband actually played baseball for a good number of years. He tried out for the high school team, but after getting his fingers injured during the first try-out, he couldn't really play his best for the following tryouts and that's where his career sadly ended.

The love for the game has never left his body, however. Nor has it left the bodies of his 2 older brothers. So while my husband's oldest brother was in town for Shaylyn's wedding, the middle brother got tickets to a game for our state's minor league team. Eric's brother had enough tickets that I could have gone to the game, but after finding out that the oldest brother's wife wasn't going, I decided my husband should take one of our boys. Lex has always been the biggest fan of baseball, so Eric took him. And Eric's oldest brother took his son who is just a few years older than Lex. I think it was a great night for all.

I always love to see baseball-themed kits, so when Batter Up! by Aimee Harrison was released, I knew I had to play with it! The hard part was deciding which photos to use.

I'm not entirely happy with the outcome of this layout and I may play with it again sometime in the future, but for now, it's a nice page for a great night at the ballpark.

SUPPLY LIST

TEMPLATE: Play All Day (Retired) by Connie Prince
COLLECTION: Batter Up! by Aimee Harrison
FONT: Hey Brothers

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...SWEET DREAMS...

Though I'm not in any hurry for summer to end, I've also got Halloween on my brain. It happens every year around this time. Back to school, then bam! Halloween. I might have a problem.

This is how a collection meant to celebrate pajama parties ended up becoming a Halloween-themed layout for me. I didn't think I had any other pictures that worked for this collection, but as I'm typing this post I'm realizing there is a photo I could've used, but I don't know that I'll ever let that photo see the light of the internet...Anyway, I actually thought about the matching jammies I bought last Halloween for the youngest three kiddos and myself. I had bought matching pajamas a bit before Halloween and the boys absolutely loved that, so I decided it'd be fun to do matching Halloween pajamas.

So, after Trick-or-Treating, we all got changed into our pajamas and I had another person take the photos. I had to wait for my daughter to get home from her adventures as she stayed out a lot later than the little guys.

I had high hopes for this layout, but it didn't quite hit the version I had in my head, but the important thing is that we have this memory and it's now preserved for the rest of all time or something like that.

FYI: This collection is free with a purchase of $20, but is only available for a limited time. The last day to grab it is September 14th.

SUPPLY LIST

TEMPLATE: Pajama Party by Gingerbread Ladies (Tinci Designs)
COLLECTION: Pajama Party by Gingerbread Ladies
FONT: Halloween Sweet (Journaling)

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...PUMPKIN PATCH 22...

Ah, it's that time of year again. The time for digital scrapbook designers to start releasing their Fall kits. Such a wonderful time of year for me. The Gingerbread Ladies started out September right with this month's Challenge Reward: This is Autumn.

I had plenty of pictures to choose from, but I tend to gravitate towards 'recent' photos if I don't have a clear vision from the get-go, so I went with the group photo from last year's pumpkin patch visit. I was a little sad when I scrapped this photo. I realized that two of my kiddos were missing. The two that had moved out and moved on. It just feels incomplete without them, but I guess I should get used to the fact that life will keep on bringing changes as these next few years go by. 

SUPPLY LIST

TEMPLATE: Simply Spring by Gingerbread Ladies (Tinci Designs)

COLLECTION: This is Autumn by Gingerbread Ladies

FONT: Pumpkin Jack

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...HIS & HERS...

I really enjoyed the color palette for Gingerscraps September 2023 Monthly Mix, which is odd because it has a lot of browns and I'm not usually a fan of that color. I wasn't immediately sure what I wanted to do with this collection, however. I had to give it some thought, but after seeing a few of the included wordbits and that there was some green in the collection, I had an idea.

The chosen wordbits (which I obviously used on my layout) were: sweater weather and stay cozy. These wordbits and the green of the collection made me think of pictures Eric and I had from our most recent Disney trip. We hadn't planned our clothing very well, so we soon found ourselves in need of sweaters/hoodies. While searching stores for hoodies, we ran across some from The Nightmare Before Christmas. I was all set to buy the one that represented Sally, but then Eric decided we needed to have the matching set. This was kind of a weird thing for me as Eric usually shies away from the whole matchy-matchy thing and it's almost like pulling teeth to get him to even slightly coordinate for family pictures.

Anyway, we wore the matching hoodies the morning after we bought them and we took advantage of our photo pass and got some pictures and honestly, I kind of love them all. I really like how this page all came together.

SUPPLY LIST

TEMPLATE: Change is Good by Gingerbread Ladies (Tinci Designs)
COLLECTION: Change is Good by Gingerbread Ladies
FONT: Merry Couple (Title) and Merry Couple Script (Journaling)

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