...BASEBALL MAGIC...

One year, my husband and I celebrated our 20th anniversary a few months early. We were married in late November and traveling isn't always the best idea during that time frame, but we really wanted to go to Seattle, Washington to celebrate. If you don't know, my husband proposed to me atop the Space Needle, so it's kind of our place now.

Anyway, we decided we'd go in August AND we'd hit the day when he first proposed by doing so. It was a good back-up day, if we couldn't travel ON the acutal anniversary. While we were in Washington, my husband's brother and sister-in-law treated us to a Mariners MLB game that included a chance to hang out in the press room after the game and sit on the lawn for a fireworks show. It was pretty awesome.

Baseball is kind of big in this family and of course, this moment needed to be recorded on a scrapbook page. So when this template came along, I played with it and mixed up a few different kits to get the finished product. It was a fun page to make.

SUPPLY LIST

TEMPLATE: February 2024 Challenge Template by J. Conlon & Sons

COLLECTIONS: Homerun by Aprilisa Designs
Batter Up by Aimee Harrison
Fresh Love (Retired) by JB Studio
FONT: Times New Yorker

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...SAILOR...

I have a love/hate relationship with the dress-up spirit days that elementary schools like to do. It's fine when you actually have an idea and have said items to carry out the idea, but if those conditions don't exist, it can be problematic.

Thankfully, one such dress-up day found us completely prepared. The theme of the day was to dress for the job you wanted to have as an adult. Nate (at this time) had no real idea what he wanted to be when he grew up, but he loved a little sailor's cap hat my mom had given to the kids a few months prior, so he decided he'd go as a sailor so he could wear this cap to school. I thought it was a brilliant plan and the outfit was easy enough to put together. And honestly, I love these photos of this kid.

These photos have just sat on a computer harddrive and in a cloud for years. But then, Triple J. Designs released My Sailor and finally these cute pictures had a collection to be scrapped with.

And while there's a couple things I want to pick apart about this layout, overall, I actually really like it.

SUPPLY LIST

TEMPLATE: Spring Blossoms 2 by Tinci Designs

COLLECTION: My Sailor (Currently Unavailable) by Triple J. Designs

FONT: Sailorman

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...SISTERS I GOT TO CHOOSE...

Friendship. Friendship is what brings us together today.

We moved an hour away from the place my husband and I both grew up in about 18 years ago. My husband had friends in the area, which was partly why we moved, but I didn't know a soul. For the most part that was okay. The kids kept me busy and I got along okay with the wives of my husband's friends.

A year or so after we moved in, another family moved into the neighborhood and Shaylyn and their son became fast friends. When us mom's got around to talking, we discovered we had a lot of common interests, and our kids were all about the same age. We also quickly discovered that our husbands had a lot of common ground. And just like that, we all became friends and did A LOT together.

A few more years down the line, friend #2 moved in with her family and once again - kids the same age, common interests and the husbands also had interests that brought them together. 

These ladies have been in my life for so long, it's hard to remember life before them and to imagine any sort of life without them in it.

So with the theme of Gingerscraps February 2024 Challenge Reward being about friendship and 'besties', I knew I had to scrap a quick page about our long friendship. Thankfully I had a fairly recent picture to work with. 

SUPPLY LIST

TEMPLATE: Besties by Gingerbread Ladies (Miss Fish)

COLLECTION: Besties by Gingerbread Ladies

FONT: Soul Sister (Title) and Sisterhood (Subtitle)

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...DREAM COME TRUE...

My love of the color purple means that I've (un)intentionally done family pictures a few times with purple as the main color. It may be overused, but it gives me plenty to play with when a kit comes along with some beautiful purples in it. 

Hopes & Dreams (the February 2024 Free with Purchase collection from Gingerscraps) is a beautiful kit filled with so many possibilities. I really loved everything about this kit and I was so excited that I was able to use so many of the wonderful elements in this kit on this page.

I was also able to do some heart-felt journaling with this layout and thanks to the age we live in, I can print off one of each of my kids to always have. Have I done it yet, though? No. 

SUPPLY LIST

TEMPLATE: Pizza is Life by Gingerbread Ladies (Tinci Designs)
COLLECTION: Hopes & Dreams by Gingerbread Ladies
FONTS: Impact Label Reversed (Title) and Diary (Journaling)

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...SEASON OF LOVE...

The Gingerscraps Monthly Mix for February of 2024 is out! There is so much in this collection and so many ways you can use it in your scrapping.

While I really, really loved the purples in this kit (big surprise, I know), I couldn't think of any photos where the purple could really come through. Instead, I chose to focus on some pictures of Eric and I and a Valentine's trip we took to Vegas a few years ago. We really had a good time and took plenty of selfies. But for this page, I tried to find ones that I kinda knew I wouldn't use for other pages. One was taken while waiting for a show, the other was taken in the wax museum. Neither photo really followed a theme, so I decided to combine them for this layout.

The lighting is a bit off in each photo, but it doesn't bother me too much. I did what I could with them and I'm pretty happy with the end result.

SUPPLY LIST

TEMPLATE: My September by Carol W. Designs

COLLECTION: Lotta Luv by Gingerbread Ladies

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...SWEET HEART...

As I previously stated, when I first saw this kit I wasn't entirely sure of where I was going to go with it. But as soon as the creativity FINALLY struck, I then had two ideas. This is the second layout of two that I created using the kit: Berry Sweet. 

After creating Spraying the Strawberries, I remembered a picture of Shaylyn in an outfit that fit the colors/theme of the kit. I originally thought the outfit had strawberries on it, but was a little sad when I discovered it was actually flowers. However, the colors worked with the kit, as well as some of the patterns and so I went to work. 

I kind of wish it had been an outfit with strawberries, as all these years later, strawberries are Shaylyn's favorite food. Seriously. If you ask her, "What's your favorite food?" she will respond with strawberries. Not something like a real meal. It's a little bit funny to me.

SUPPLY LIST

TEMPLATE: Standing Alone Volume 8 by Trixie Scraps
COLLECTION: Berry Sweet by Lindsay Jane Designs
FONT: Susanne Nouveau (Date Tag)

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...SPRAYING THE STRAWBERRIES...

There are plenty of times along this scrapbooking journey where a kit will come up and I won't know how to use it. My creative juices fail me and I'm left scrambling to come up with something. This was the case for this layout and this one, as well. (Yes, in the end I had two ideas come to me - but it took a bit.)

The theme was strawberries, and kind of heavy on the canning and eating part of strawberries. I had nothing that came to mind following that theme. But, as I thought about this kit I remembered that my mother-in-law had taken some pictures of her father working in his garden on his strawberries and I went to work with these photos.

I've always been thankful for my husband's grandpa. I lost my maternal grandpa when I was 12 and when I met my husbands maternal grandpa I was amazed. His grandpa reminded me so much of my own grandpa and aside from sharing parts of their names, they both enjoyed gardening and had very much the same kind of spirit about them.

It was kind of nice to switch to scrapping photos of family that I don't usually do a lot of scrapping about.

SUPPLY LIST

TEMPLATE: Just Be Inspired 10 by Tinci Designs
COLLECTION: Berry Sweet by Lindsay Jane Designs
FONT: Strawberry (Title and Journaling)

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