Scrapbooking Eagle Ridge Lodge September 2014 – Part 2

Here are a few more layouts from my weekend of scrapping.  The best part is on Thursday I leave with my sister, Lynette, to meet up with my other sister, Sue, and her daughter to scrapbook at our annual retreat at Maplelag.  Because of this past scrapbooking retreat, I am all ready to go and have a lot of ideas to complete.

This is an 8×8 of Big M and JV back in 2008.  I do not remember what they were laughing about, but I love this photo. I wish there was more laughing in our house.  Some days I have so much to do, I forget to laugh, but I am working on that.

We have lived in Idaho and now in North Dakota.  Both states are proud of their connection with Sacajawe or as it is said in North Dakota, “Sakakawea”.   There is a statue of this brave lady on the Capitol grounds by the Heritage Center.  I had a photo of the boys standing by her, so I decided to do a layout about her name. If you are ever passing through Bismarck, make sure you plan a trip to the Heritage Center.  It is free, newly expanded, and filled with great historical information and exhibits.

Since my brother, Jon, lives in Dallas, Texas, I do not get to see him often, so he and his family do not show up in my scrapbooks often.  I found these photos from 2008, so I did a quick layout.

 

Back in December I did a post on a scrapbooking retreat my sister, Lynette, and I went on at the Badlands Ministries.  The photos are so beautiful of the hill, I had to get them scrapped.

I also made a few cards.  Sometimes when I am stuck or have leftover scraps.  Making cards helps me get my creativity flowing again.  I think I will use most of these as graduation cards next spring.

So there you have it.  A fun and productive weekend retreat.  I will try to post some layouts from this upcoming weekend.  Have you done any scrapbooking lately?

Scrapbooking Eagle Ridge Lodge September 2014

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

My sister, Lynette, and I were able to do a spur-of-the-moment scrapbook retreat at Eagle Ridge Lodge 10 days ago.  What a beautiful place to scrap.  This bed and breakfast is located near Medora, North Dakota in the Badlands.  It is on a ridge. With its floor to ceiling windows we could sit and look at this gorgeous view from sunrise to sunset.   However I did get some pages done.

 

This is a 6×6 layout with a small photo of my son, JV last fall. I love this photo and just wanted to make sure it was in scrapbook.

Here is an 8×8 layout from 2011.  His uncle is always willing to play cards with him when we visit.  That activity deserved a spot in my scrapbook.

I did a 12×12 of Joshua reading in 2010 when Lamb still read with him.

I also did a 12×12 layout of the boys cooking breakfast in 2011.  I realize they have been making most of their own breakfast and lunch meals for a while now.  I don’t think I appreciated it until I saw these photos.

 

I found a few different photos of Z looking over his glasses.  He did that so much we wondered why he even needed glasses.  It was fun to capture this memory.  He doesn’t do that nearly as much any more.

I didn’t do all layouts of my boys.  I will show you a few more tomorrow.

 

 

Weekend Scrapping at Badlands Ministries

This past weekend my sister, Lynette, and I went to the Badlands Ministries for a crafting weekend.  Of course we scrapped, but we also climbed the foothills at least 4 times.  Once on an extremely windy day, I thought my sister was going to be blown off the side of the hill.  40+ mph winds can do that. Fun times.  We got exercise, did a ton of chatting and got some layouts made.

This 8×8 layout was a quick one for documenting the day my son got his permit.  He is anxiously awaiting his driver’s license late this summer.  It will be so strange not to have to shuttle him around.  This morning was open gym and weight lifting from 6 a.m. till 7:30 a.m.  Yes it is off-season, but conditioning never seems to stop.

I also wanted to do a quick layout on Z’s car accident last fall. Strange, but only took one photo, so I did an 8×8.  This way we will never forget.

As I was searching for a photo I ran across this one of my boys before bed when they were much younger.  It is a little dark so probably can’t see their faces, but oh my, this captures their personalities so well.  Since I only had this one photos, an 8×8 was perfect for it.

This photo of Big M and I from Christmas is a fun favorite.  I love having layouts of just us together in our albums.  I wanted to use these embellishments, so it turned into a 12 x 12 for it to work.  When my boys go through the albums someday, they will never doubt that I love their Dad.

Two other older photos I found were of our boys when we moved into our house in 2007.  We planted trees with the though of taking a photo each year to show their growth and the growth of the trees.  Well the trees died that winter so that never happened, but I love see how small they were back then. Since I did a 12 x 12 I had plenty of room to journal.

The last one to share is of two photos taken 2 days apart in 2011 in our back yard.  The top one is after it snowed.  The bottom one is two days later after the typical strong winds we have in North Dakota. (I am writing this as I listen to the winds blowing about 25 to 30 mph with gusts in the high 30s.).  The wind completely changed the landscape, and I wanted to document that change.

I doubt I will scrap again until next September, but it was exactly what I needed at the end of a school year. Relaxation and getting away.  Now to tackle my huge spring to-do list.

 

Scrapbooking One Last Time

The weekend before Thanksgiving my sister, Lynette, and I went to Badlands Ministries to scrapbook.  We won’t be scrapping until next, April so we really enjoyed and relaxed.  Out the window we saw these hills.  In the evening the hills just glowed.  It was absolutely stunning.

I didn’t finish many regular layouts, I mostly worked on finalizing my Project Life album.  I have been doing 7 on the 7th for 4 years.  I was missing some pages and journaling.  I wanted to finalize it.  I plan to continue keeping the 7 on the 7th.  Love the history of our family that it shows.

The first layout is a mini layout.  I came across an old photo of the boys toes.  I love to do little 6×6 pages to write about a memory, or I this case, something about me…I hate anything between my toes.  When I am gone, will anyone care or remember?  Probably not, but I would love to know little things like this about my Grandmother.

This one is a 12×12 of the boys 10 years ago, 5 years ago and this past fall.  I love seeing the progression of their growth on one page.  This type of layout are truly my favorite types of layouts.

A 12 x 12 layout of something that was a regular occurrence in our house for years, the boys playing laser tag or something similar.  They no longer do it, so I wanted to capture that memory now.

Finally a layout of the boys this summer with friends of theirs they have known since birth.  They were goofing off when I captured the one with all the boys in a line.  Finally after several shots, I asked if they could be serious.  Not sure if you can see their faces or not, but they are being serious.  I guess I got what I asked for.  Love these photos so I just had to make a layout of them.

So that will probably be all my scrapping for the next 3-4 months.  Z is in high school swimming and JV is on the 9th grade basketball team.  It is going to keep us busy as bees.

Do you scrapbook throughout the year or do you go in spurts like I do?

30 Days of Thankful – Week 4

Week 4 of November has come and gone.  I have been so busy, I hadn’t had a chance to show a few of my last entries of gratitude.

Just a side note.  I wrote this one on Saturday when I was feeling grateful to the sports my boys participate in.  This week has been tough with two-a-day practices, extremely cold weather and snow storms, along with some big school deadlines.  Not feeling so grateful for the crazy schedule of the sports right now.  But can’t wait till the games and meets begin next week.

I can’t believe the month is over.  I just realized I missed one day.  I plan to finish that day.  It should be easy.  I haven’t decided what I am going to do to finish it so I can view it easily.  I could just print them out and put them in a little box to be able to flip through. I would do a digital album, or I might put them in a 4×6 one-up album to easily flip through.

Cathy Zielske has her post up regarding how she finished her album.  I love that she did a final page.  I think I might have to do that too.

Did you do a 30 Days of Gratitude album?  I would love to see a link of how you finished it.

Week 3, Week 2, and Week 1

30 Days of Thankful – Week 3

Week 3 already of November is over.  I am really enjoying finding one small, or large thing to be thankful for every day.

I have to point out that there is dust on the DVR.  I was going to clean it before I took the photo, but then I thought, “Dust, hmm, I should clean it, but this is real life.”  So I didn’t clean it.  I do not like to dust, so if you come over you will see dust on things on my house.  This is real life.

I crossed off the address and company #.  Just didn’t seem like a good thing to leave on there for the blog land to see.

Only a week left of this wonderful month of gratitude.  I am trying to decide if I should keep doing this on a random basis…whenever I think of something to be grateful for, I create a new page.  Not sure I will do it, but it would be fun.  Since I am only doing a 4×6 layout, it is so simple to snap a photo and write a couple of lines.

Do you keep a gratitude journal?

Week 2 and Week 1

Linking to Cathy Zielske’s 30 Days of Thankful

30 Days of Thankful

It is halfway through November, and I am still working on my 30 Days of Thankful album.  If you want to know more check out my first post on my 30 Days album.

I am up-to-date with my pages, so I thought I would should you a couple of them, as well as link up to Cathy Zielske’s post today.  It is fun to see what others are doing, and what they are thankful for.

Looks like I have been focusing more on things than people these last few pages. I usually go with whatever crosses my mind when I sit down to do my layout for the day.  Guess I need to get some photos of people to include for the remainder of the month.

Stop and take a moment to think about what you are grateful for today.

 

Scrapbooking 3rd Time in 6 Weeks

This weekend my sister and I were hunting widows, so she came and spent two days with me.  We chatted, eat left-overs, listened to music, went to Mass and scrapbooked.  It was a last-minute get-together, but it was so much fun and so relaxing.

I was able to get 14 layouts done and 5 cards.  The layout above, Hunting, is an 8×8 of JV this year when he got his first coyote.  There are too many of them in my Uncles pastures. It was important for JV to get one.

Harvard is an 8×8 of Z with his letter from Harvard.  We knew that with good ACT scores Z would get letters from all over the country, but just had to do a layout about the letter from Harvard.  No, he doesn’t plan to go there, but it was a fun layout to do to remember this time of Z’s life.

Then I went back into time.  I did a snow and sledding layout as a 12×12.

As well as a 12×12 to remember the year we moved into our new house.  One of the good things was that the boys were able to use tools to put furniture, shelves and other things together.  I like to think of it as male bonding time.

I came across these photos of a time I tried to take a nice photo of my boys in 2008,  These type of photos were typical facial expressions I had. But now, I appreciate them more. A quick 12×12 captured this memory.

Wanted to capture a 12×12 layout of a fun time we had when we were at Bear Country USA, South Dakota in 2006.  I keep reminding myself to enjoy the little things, so layouts like this are important for me to do.  Keeps my priorities in the forefront of my mind as life gets to crazy, busy.

Then I found an adorable photo of Z.  This was when we lived in Bothell, WA.  He loved to take all my plastic out of the cabinets and crawl in.  This gave him hours of entertainment.  Now there is no way he could fit, but I have a feeling, it would be somewhere for him to go, if he could, and we still lived there. This 8×8 layout captures this awesome memory.

The final share is this one of JV playing UNO when he was 2 years old.  Yes, our family loves to play cards, and it started when the boys were very little.  The other night we were all together for dinner, so afterward we had to play a game of partner pinnacle.  That will be something I will miss as my boys go off to college.  Glad that is a family activity of ours.

As you can see I don’t scrapbook chronologically.  I prefer to scrap whatever inspires me.  I hope to scrap photos of my boys when they are little long after they are gone.  Do you scrapbook in chronological order?

 

30 Days of Thankful

I decided to participate in 30 Days of Thankful that Cathy Zielske is leading on her blog. She has provided a video tutorial series to help us participate. She has templates that you can purchase and use.  She showed a couple of her finished pages. on Friday on her blog.

I thought I would share a couple of my pages.  I decided to use the 6×4 template.  It makes it so easy to upload a photo, and then write a snippet of what I am thankful for.  So far I have 9 pages done.  I am loving it.

I plan to have the 30 pages of thankfulness printed in a small book from an online printer.  Still haven’t found which site I will use. If you have ever printed a small 6×4 digital book, let me know what service you used.

Weekend Scrapping Layouts

My sister, Mom, and I drove to the Twin Cities area last Thursday for a long weekend to visit my sister.  My nephew had his last home football game.  I hadn’t seen him play for a few years, so I really wanted to see him play.  (He did awesome…he had a terrific interception as a DB.)

We shopped for wall hangings for my Mom as well as scrapbook supplies.  Archivers in Coon Rapids is closing at the end of October. They had 30% off everything in the store.  I definitely found some goodies to replace the items I cleaned out of my room last month.

We also took some scrapping supplies and found a few hours to scrap in the evening.  I was able to complete a few pages.  I scrapped current photos.  The above layout is of my son, JV, at sunrise on the youth deer hunting opening.  Love the sun over his shoulder.

Z has been into 3D puzzles right now, so wanted to capture that in a layout.  He doesn’t do regular jigsaw puzzles, but loves the 3D ones.  Me?  I can’t do 3D puzzles, but love to fix a regular puzzles.

I decided to also capture the fact that I am an auction addict in a layout.

In August Big M and I took a 4 wheeler ride around our neighborhood.  The sunflowers were beautiful.  We stopped in an alfalfa field, and I found several small insects in the flowers.

I didn’t want they photos to be large, but thought little 2×2 photo border of those photos would make a great base for the sunflower photos.  It was an amazing evening in North Dakota.

I did a quick 8×8 of a photo of Z with his new prescription sunglasses just for fun.

Finally I had to capture a layout of our family when we had to go get tested for TB.  We were exposed to a relative who had TB and didn’t know it for months. We needed to be tested.  No one had it, but it was an interesting experience.  We had to call the nurse when we were in the parking lot.  She came out with a mask on and gave us masks.  We needed to keep them one while in the office.  I actually appreciated that she was being careful not to expose her staff or other patients to TB.

It is unusual for me to scrapbook twice in two weeks.  Loved it.  Still motivated to find time to scrap a layout or two at home.