Coming Soon To A Website Near You

June 1st to be exact.

:)



And hopefully my life will calm down
enough to properly post on Monday.
Just wanted to thank all of you
who commented on my last post,
you were all so sweet.
I'm glad to say we encounter
many more nice people on a daily basis
than the sucky ones I wrote about.
Have a great weekend!
-Jody

Has The Milk Of Human Kindness Gone Dry?

Today, I am just posting a layout I did late last night.
I don't have a theme today, because thankfully
I don't have another page that makes me relate to this one.
I still think about the events that precipitated
the journaling on this page and now almost an entire day later,
I am still angry and sad.
We have been telling our daughter Ryan how beautiful she is,
without her wig and that she should start
going out in public with her short hair.
She has fought us every step of the way.
Telling us how people will stare and think she is a boy.
No amount of us telling her how beautiful she is
(and we tell her constantly) has made her believe that.
So after we had a rather loud discussion a.k.a. fighting and tears,
she agreed to go shopping with me without her wig.
I couldn't believe the gall of some people
who did stare and were just plain rude
(click on the LO to read journaling below)
I know that there are many more people who are caring and kind,
but yesterday was not the day to experience
the drought in the milk of human kindness.
The wig has won.
-Jody



*Cardstock, Patterned Paper, Thickers & Sticker = American Crafts*

Twisted Titles

Happy Friday!
Let's get right to todays theme...

When I think of a title for my pages,
I like to incorporate something from the photo
into something in the title.
The page I just made was with older photos of Megan
from almost 2 years ago that I have been hoarding.
She was swinging on our swingset one summer night.:



When I come up with an idea for the title,
it literally "clicks" in my head
almost like a lightbulb turning on.
The 1st photo I had ever taken
back when my D-SLR was new, was this one.
I then found that great quote,
and while printing out the title on the computer,
I thought to extend the "d" to look like the stem of the dandelion.
I love the way it came out:



And for the final LO today,
just last Halloween, I took a sparkly MM foam tree
and used it for the "Y" in spooky.:



That is probably why my simple pages take me so long,
because I am always trying to find that different twist
on the sometimes boring title. :)
Thanks for visiting and have a great weekend!
-Jody

Strip Search

Happy Humpday!
I was very excited yesterday when the mailman came
and instead of his usual pile of bills,
he had a package from Mellypea at 2Peas
with a bunch of Jillibean Soup products
that I had won in a National Scrapbooking Day
contest at the site.
And you all know how delicious soup is,
so were these goodies!

Todays theme has to do with journaling strips.
I hate my handwriting.
So it is rare that I will use it on a page.
One of the ways to disguise the fact
is to use journaling strips instead.
Just type them out,
and cut them to size and glue them on.
Done and now your LO isn't a sight for sore eyes
because your
handwriting never progressed
past the 3rd grade level.
Todays page:



Another time I used journaling strips
was a long ago page of Erin.
Look how young she is! :::sigh:::
I paired it with a lovely poem
and a rub-on title
and it was good to go!



Nowadays, I think a lot of women
feel it isn't "personal" enough
if not written in your own hand.
I think its a matter of preference.
I'll stick with my computer typed journaling
and have major hand-writing scrap envy of people
like Stephanie H. and Emily P.,
who's writing I would pay good money for as a font!

Have a great day!
-Jody

Get Red-dy

Happy day after Mother's Day!
Back to the humdrum of everyday life including:
cleaning, cooking, grocery shopping, ironing,
and shaving-a-tiny-circle-in-my-youngest-daughter's-head
-to-remove-an-imbedded-tick-because-the-usual-method
-of-tweezer-pulling-ensued-in-hysterical-fits-because
-it-was-pulling-out-her-hair.
And since it was Mother's Day, Andy did the last chore :)

I hope you spent the day with the ones you love.
I did and it was a double celebration
as it was also my sister's 50th birthday.
She was the recipient of the first card I had ever made.
But I made it in such a rush,
that not only didn't I get a photo of it...
hold on, it gets worse...
I spelled her name wrong :::gulp:::
But I think she exacted her revenge when I
almost choked on a mint after dinner
and if that wasn't scary enough,
her usually sweet cat became beserk
and used my face as a rock wall
and scaled it to get away from me.
Hey Karin with an "I", and not an "E", Happy Birthday!
I love you no matter how you spell your name ;)

Todays post has to do with pages focusing on the color red.
I love red, almost to the point of annoyance.
My kitchen is red, my dining room is red
and my younger girl's bedroom has red accents,
so it's only natural that many of my pages are red too.
I made this page for my Mom for Mother's Day
and showed it to her yesterday:



This red page was done this past Christmas.
After the year Ryan had just been through,
we weren't sure whether she would be home for Christmas.
So when she was, that was the best present ever!:



And finally, you can tell this one is a page of mine,
white cardstock, song lyric, brads, and a single photo.
It's an oldie but red goodie:



That's all for today.
Only 364 more days until I can use
the ever whiny "But it's Mother's Day" excuse
for getting my way for for another 24 hours.
Have a great day!
-Jody

Word To Your Mother

It's Friday again...
Nothing new to share today,
just 2 older pages celebrating "Mothers"
It was 1 year ago today that my oldest dd Ryan
was diagnosed with cancer.
When we found out last year,
we were on our way to a school concert of hers.
Last night we were at the same concert and realized...
we were in the same exact seats too.
To say it was emotional is an understatement.
When her choir sang "Fields Of Gold" by Sting...I just lost it.
We tried for two long years to get pregnant
and two weeks before I found out I was pregnant with her,
(I believe the night she was conceived),
I had a dream we had a blonde haired,
little girl named Ryan and she was running through a field.
So when I found out I was pregnant, that was her name.
I had never heard of it before as a girl's name.
She was never blonde and I never saw her running through a field,
but she was Ryan.
And because of her I became a mother.:



And to celebrate my own mother,
I give you the very first scrap page I ever made.
I love how the photos span through the decades. :



And how funny that it still incorporates
all my favorites on one page,
chipboard heart, brads, rounded corners and white cardstock.
I don't know where I would be today without
her love and guidance.
She is my friend and my inspiration.
I love you, Mom!

Happy early Mother's Day to all of you
and to your Moms out there in blogland!
-Jody

You Blockhead!

Hello on this rainy Thursday!
Last weekend for National Scrapbooking Day on Saturday,
I actually made 4 pages.
That's the most I have ever made at one time.
I posted the others this week and today is the last layout I made.
It was a scraplift of the amazingly talented Moon Ko.
Her simple, bold style slays me everytime, gorgeous photos,
mixed with either heart-tugging or humorous journaling.
What I liked about the particular page of hers
was the color-blocking that was done.
Color-blocking is placing photos,
paper and embellishments in a geometric order.
Another song title/lyric was my inspiration, shocking, huh?
This is Ryan at approximately 6 years old...
God, I miss her at this age :*(



Here's two other color-blocking blasts from the past, Megan:



And Erin:



Color-blocking is an easy way to use papers and photos,
at one time I needed an intervention because I made like 5 pages in a row that way. lol
I'm hoping to scrap today...hope your day is a good one too!
-Jody

Not Sew Much

I am so ashamed.
I come from a long line of needle-pointers, crocheters and embroiderers.
My Mom and sister make the most beautiful quilts and crafts.
The gene to sew that should have been passed down to me was obviously
given to someone else.
But I have a secret.
Those scrap pages with all that beautiful stitching?
I covet them with every ounce of my being.
Oh, how I would love to embellish a layout with a back-stitch,
cross-stitch or zig-zag stitch.
(Are these real stitches? Because I think I am making them up as I type.)
So instead I fake it.
I take my pen/marker and draw faux stitches on my pages.
And trust, I know I am not faking anyone, just myself because I hold the page up as far away from my face and look at it with my eyes open just a teeny-tiny bit,
and it passes for stitching.
Exhibit A:



Exhibit B,
page about our yearly Christmas quest:



and Exhibit C,
fave page of Erin:



So the cat is out of the bag.
I want to be a sew-er (the word sewer looks like a big drain)
But it is hard when my motto in life up until now was...
"Why sew...when you can staple!"

Have a great day!
-Jody

The Braddy Bunch

Hola! Happy Cinco de Mayo!
Como esta usted?
Ok, that's as far as 9th grade Spanish takes me.

Today's theme has to do with those lovely little metal piercers some of us use to excess on a page.
Guilty here.
But they make me happy.
I think it's my 2nd most favorite embellishment on a layout (after the chipboard heart)
would have to be brads.

I made this layout for NSD, I have always wanted to use the lyric from the Phil Collin's song, "You'll Be In My Heart".
This photo was taken of Ryan and myself on Easter.
I was standing behind her...looking over her shoulder...and the lyric finally fit a photo.
Jackpot!:



Another brad extravaganza was on a page of Megan from last year when she just started playing softball.
I used the brads to highlight the text, kind of like bullet points, if you will..



So are you a Brad fan too?
I liked him better before he left Jennifer Aniston.
And I like brads too.
Hasta la vista!
-Jody

Full Tilt

Today's theme has to do with tilting of photos.
Being a linear scrapper, most of the time, my pages have straight lines.
But sometimes, I like to walk on the wild side and tilt the photos for a different look.
The amazing Lisa Dickinson has perfected this look and is someone who inspires me over and over again.

This new page was from when we went to Cape Cod in the summer of '07, the water was unseasonably cold that year, so whenever we talk about that vacation, we refer to it as "Cape Cold":



On this older page, I used a photo from our wedding day.:



And the journaling?
True story.
Have a great Monday!
-Jody

Mayday, Mayday, Mayday!

Don't the weeks just fly by lately?
I made some new pages but I won't be posting them until after the weekend.
Today I wanted to post my first/last 2 pubs I had in Creating Keepsakes and Simple Scrapbook magazines.

Late last year, I was contacted by Creating Keepsakes magazine asking for a layout that I had posted in their online gallery.
It had to do with different ways of journaling, I was so happy because it was one of my favorite photos of my 3 girls the year we vacationed in Aruba.
I am a quoteaholic and this was one of the first quotes I had collected for scrapping, "Count The Waves":



At the same time, I was contacted to create a page for an assignment for SS mag.
I was floored/honored that they wanted to give me an assignment without ever being in the magazine before (I assume that the Simple Gal invitation was already in the works, I just didn't know about it yet...)
So the assignment was to create a photo connection.
I made 2 different pages, so I would have a back-up layout, just in case.
Turned out they liked the first one I sent, "Tea Party" where the connection was a tea set my parents bought for my sister & myself when we were children.
When my daughter Ryan was 3 she used to play with the same tea set while at my Mom's house and lo and behold...a photo connection.:



As you know by now, this was SS's final magazine.
I am thrilled to have been able to be a part of the Simple legacy, albiet just a teeny-tiny part.
Goodbye Simple, we hardly knew ya...