Connect The Dots

I was looking through photos from my childhood
and found a picture of my Mom and myself
on our backyard hammock.
It was an all too familiar sight,
my Mom singing and playing her guitar.
She has an amazing voice and her love for music
ultimately led to my love for music.
She is my guitar hero, if you will :)

I drew dots around 3/4 of the design
to make the page pop a little more:




Another time I drew dots was on this simple page of Megan with the little pumpkin we found in our backyard the year after Andy tossed the previous year's rotted pumpkins:





And on this last page, I went seriously dot crazy:




I revisited this layout again because of the shocking news
of Michael Jackson's passing last week.
Say what you will about the man,
he did leave an amazing legacy of music
for the world to enjoy.
The hours I spent in the early '80s,
waiting for MTV to show his latest music videos...
ahhhhhhhh, those were good times :)

-Jody

From Behind

Hi-
I hope you all celebrated Father's Day
with someone you love.
I went to my parent's home
and had a great time remininscing,
laughing, playing games and of course
eating with my Dad and family.
My Dad is so great, his gift to my husband
was for him to stay home and enjoy his day too,
so my girls and I spent the day with my Dad
and the night with their Daddy :)
I am so lucky to have a wonderful father and
a wonderful father for my girls too :*)

So, I have a little sickness when it comes to
taking photos of people from behind.
If I went into my 20+ photo albums,
there would be a ridiculous amount of photos taken this way.
It only would make sense that I have
scrapped some pages this way as well.

The first one (I told you more beach photos) is of Erin,
who is 9, and her daddy,
everytime she takes our hand I think,
"She won't want to do this much longer",
so I savor every moment I can still
holding her sweet little hand.




This was a heart-tugger for me,
made a little while after Ryan started her chemo treatments.
She was going into her school for something
and I snapped her walking away from me.
This won 1st place at CKC in Hartford,
I was so thrilled!



And I loved this photo SO much of Erin walking up our driveway
and I found a quote in the comics section
of the newspaper,
do you know those "Love Is" comics?
Anyhoo, thats where I found this sweet quote:



That's all for today, hope your day is a good one!
-Jody

Ode To...American Crafts

Hey there-
I am in love with American Craft products.
Most of my pages are on AC cardstock and/or patterned paper.
Of course 99% of my titles are made with AC Thickers.
And there is usually a sticker, ribbon or embellishment from AC as well.
But there are times when everything on the page is American Crafts,
and they tend to be favorite pages of mine.
This was made for this weeks AC enlarged photo challenge,
the photo is a 5x7 photo:



Another time I used only AC products was this sweet kiss between Andy and Erin:



But I can't forget this blast from the past:



Or this one:



And especially not this one:



Thanks for indulging me with my little love affair with American Crafts.
He likes me to call him A.C. for short ;)
Have a great one-
Jody

Just My Type

Todays page is another beach page,
I have a feeling you'll be seeing alot more of these,
I took so many photos from our little vacay.
The theme is letter stickers I have used, again and again.
I don't think American Crafts even makes this type anymore.
But when I like something,
I will buy it in every color imaginable.
This weeks 2Peas Garden Girl challenge
was to stack your title.
Easy enough, while using this "Roosevelt" typeface I love:



Another time I used the same type sticker,
just in a different color was another page of my girls
made right after we celebrated Thanksgiving.
Ryan was home from the hospital, yes, we were very "Thankful":



And this last page, I just colored the stickers black with a marker.
I made it as a gift for one of my closest friends.
It truly was a story of "Who Rescued Who?"
Love her and love the page :)



Thanks for stopping by my little piece of blogville.
Have a great day :)
-Jody

Life's A Beach

I love doing pages that have to do with the beach.
I just finished one with Erin
and one of the many nicknames I have for her:



This page was song lyrics I loved
from a gorgeous song called "Safe In My Arms" by Plumb,
this is Andy holding Megan from 9 years ago :::sigh:::



And finally, one of Megan at Cape Cod a couple of summers ago:



I know I spelled the poet Yeats wrong.
It bothers me everytime I look at the page.
I can spot a spelling error on everyone else's page
but not on my own until it is too late :(
I hope some of you will be lucky enough
to be at the beach this weekend!
-Jody

Think Pink

With 3 daughters, there is certainly no shortage of using the color pink.
For this latest page, American Crafts blog had a challenge to scrap a retro photograph.
Sadly, the 80's are retro now.
So I scrapped a photo from our wedding day.
I think one of the highlights from the day was when Andy went to remove my garter and instead of using his hands, used his teeth.
As you can see from the photo it took me completely by surprise.
But that photo represents us, Class with a capital "C"! ;)



Another pink layout was of Ryan, when she was born, we were constantly told she looked like a doll, huge blue eyes and porcelain skin.
I wanted to remember that here:



Here's a page of Megan, VERY simple, I just loved the pic and the patterned paper, I still wasn't into journaling back then.:



And lastly, this is just one of my favorite quotes mixed with a photo of Erin and some pink:



Thanks for visiting today!
-Jody

Arts and Kraft

I hope by now you have checked out the amazing,
Simple influenced site Write.Click.Scrapbook.,
all the contributors were asked to make a page about
why they scrapbook, or the "essence" of scrapbooking.
Mine was easy, I am who I am because
of the artistic mother that I was blessed with.
For this page, I wanted the journaling to stand out
so I printed 4 smaller photos and put it on kraft paper.
*click on page to read journaling



Ahhhhhhhhh, kraft.
This paper makes me so happy,
because it basically goes with anything.
You can pair it with the wildest of patterned papers:



or the softest of muted papers:



or maybe hand-cut some papers and add some rub-ons and jewels:



Give me my trifecta of cardstock, white, black and kraft,
and I am good to go!
Have a great weekend!
-Jody

Beaches, Birthdays And Blogs, Oh My!

I just had a crazybusy 10 days.
First we went to the Jersey shore for Memorial weekend,
one of Andy's sisters lent us her beautiful beach home.
We took our 3 daughters and Ryan took her 2 best friends.
We had a great time, I got a little sunburned
due to someone's husband who because he doesn't wear sunblock
obviously never learned how to apply sunblock properly
on his wife's pasty white back.
No names are neccessary, Andy.

Then I spent all of last week preparing for the upcoming birthdays
of my husband, my Mom, my 2 youngest girls and my nephew.
All the birthdays are in a span of 10 days of each other.
So the gift buying and wrapping, house-cleaning, grocery-shopping
and food preparing needed to get done while working part-time
and being a round-the-clock taxi to my girls.
Oh yes, that is called motherhood.

I was able to squeeze in 2 pages in the last 10 days,
one which is about my Megan and her love affair with her cellphone:



The other page you can find on the site I teased about in the last blog post.
Does that make me a blogteaser? ;)
It is a fabulous new place where many of your
favorite Simple scrappers have come together again,
I am thrilled to be a part of this new venture.
The inspiration/talent in this group is incredible, please take a look:
www.writeclickscrapbook.com
Lastly, all the sweet comments from the "Sometimes" page touched my heart
and of course my daughter Ryan, who read every single one.
Thank you so much :)
-Jody