Happy Fathers Day

I am lucky to have not one but three great fathers in my life, my biological father, the step father who has embraced my sister and myself as his own and my father-in law who graciously accepted me into my husbands family. To each I say thank you for your love and support, it has meant the world to me.

My husband is also a wonderful father to our daughter. I know I get on his case about working to much, not helping me enough around the home or with the baby, but truly when he is around Olivia he just comes to life. The love in his eyes just warms my heart. The attached layout shows one of these special father and daughter moments I have been able to catch on film.

Happy Fathers Day to each one of these special fathers, I love you.

Well I only have a few days before I have to go back to work. I really envy people that have been able to turn their passions into a livelihood. Oh well it is what it is and I only have 27 years until I can retire, right.

I am posting one of my earliest pages, of Olivia of course, when she was 3 months old. I recall the day this picture was taken, another attempt to get professional pics which ended in disaster. I ended up taking some pics of Olivia myself and this is one of them. She is such a chunk. I ran it through the vintage program on my computer to match the lovely Graphic 45 papers I had. I love the soft feel of this layout. Thanks for looking.

Quiet Time

Well I spent the afternoon trying to get some decent pics of my layouts and finally got up the courage to start posting some of my layouts on other websites, InspireMe (Websters Pages) and Two Peas in a Bucket which is a fabulous online store. So far the comments are positive so I am encouraged that I am going in the right direction. In looking at what I have done thus far and it is mostly with Basic Grey. I really love their stuff. I can't wait until their next lines come out.

This layout is another pic of Olivia looking pensive. Not sure why I love taking pictures of her doing something other than smiling but I seem to scrap alot of these.

Serious

Olivia is one of the happiest kids you will meet, always smiling until you take her in for professional portraits. Not sure if it is the wait, these places are always backed up 30 minutes at least, or the chaos of the people in the waiting room and the unfamiliar surroundings. I took her for her 2 year photos a few weeks ago and as usual it was disastrous. I ended up having to be in most of the pictures since she got so clingy, not something I like to do these days. I used the one I liked in this new layout entitled what else, " Serious". If this were sepia and a tin type it could be from the turn of the century. Hmm that gives another layout idea......

She shes the wonder in everything

Well I actually did it ! I conquered my purple phobia and made a layout using purple. Not sure I was going to be able to but the Websters Pages papers really make it easy. They are so beautiful that not much embellishment is needed though I had some wonderful purple things in my stash to include on the page. I definitely am going to have to get some papers from the other collections.

Fathers Day Book

Here is a mini book I made as a present for Father's Day. I hope my Dad likes it! I love this picture of my Grandfather and my Father, I think he around 18 months old. It is made from 2 5x7 canvases, kraft corrugated paper made to look like cardboard, paper loft paper and a whole bunch of cool vintage embellishments and Tim Holtz products. This is the first time I have used grunge board and I am hooked. One of the hollows in the backside of the canvas was lined as used as a shadow box for my nifty vintage finds.

Tiny Dancer

One thing others scrappers will understand is the ongoing quest for the perfect picture to scrap. One of my attempts to capture Olivia in the ballerina tutu I recently made for her. Purple is not normally a color I use so these pics (provided I can settle on one) will be a challenge.

Well, this is my first BLOG and not really sure how to go about so I will start with a little about me. I titled my page "Diary of a Mad Scrapper" as I tend to become obsessed once I get a project idea and can think of little else. In addition, my husband would say "mad" is often my mood but that is what comes of having too many things to do, too many expectations and too little time to do them, etc. I scrap because when I do, I can forget the laundry that needs to be done, the dryer that needs repair, the 10 pounds I needs to lose...

Right now my passion is mini-books. They come together so quickly and since the pages are small, I find myself being able to use colors I normally would shy away from on a larger page. I have a huge collection of beige, white, black and browns papers. But happily all of my books have been quite colorful.

I love anything vintage and distressed and found that embracing imperfection in my scrapping was quite liberating. Whereas it used to take me several weeks to finish a page, I can often whip one out in a day now. Ripping and distressing also is a good stress reliever.

Here is my last full sized page in progress, and while I have everything glued now I am not sure if it is yet finished. I think I will call it done for now and move on to an idea I have for a father's day book.