Holy Rockstar!

I got my new Rockstar Workshop on the Go (WOTG) from Close to my Heart yesterday. Today I decided to take an afternoon for myself and scrapbook. Man, I was on a roll and did 5 layouts! All of them are from the Rockstar paper pack AND I still have 3 full sheets of paper and a whole bunch of embellishments leftover. Here's a picture of all the layouts together and the leftover paper, just so you can see what your dollar (or $40) buys

This layout was the reason I wanted the WOTG. My crazy husband participated in the Bataan Memorial Death March last Sunday and marched 21 miles through the sand. Unfortunately, he wasn't able to finish the whole march (it was 26 miles). His bad leg just couldn't take anymore torture so he did the smart thing and didn't finish. I don't have all the pictures yet, he went with his friends who had cameras and they ACTUALLY took pictures. (like my cute pooch???

The reason I "needed" the Rockstar pack and EVERYTHING that you can add on was for these pictures. Leo's friend came over to play recently and they had an imaginary rock band going. It was soooooo funny! Leo was channeling my all time favorite musical performer, Henry Rollins. Most people who know me wouldn't think anything of it EXCEPT Leo's never seen Henry perform. I may love him, but my 4 year old shouldn't be listening to him. :) I digress, during this rockin performance, Leo was belting out rather "head bangerish" Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star. It was one time when I desperately wished for a video camera.

The next reason I wanted this paper pack was because I thought the colors would go nicely with these pictures. The first day we moved in, I met our neighbor Dawn. Martel and her husband, Randy, had never met. The first weekend we were there, Dawn and I were at the fence chatting when Randy comes out with his favorite German beer. Dawn proceeds to "teach" Martel how to pour it. (there is a special way to do it and if you don't, it doesn't taste as good, in fact it's quite yucky straight from the bottle).

This is one of the layouts I did, just to do. I had no pictures for it. The layout is an example on the back of one of the sheets of Stickease. Then I saw these pictures of Leo and his best friend here at WSMR, Leah. Yes, we have a Leah. She thinks its so funny that she and I have the same name. I keep telling her that she spells her name wrong though. ;)

Again, I thought these pictures would go well with the colors of the paper pack and just used up a few of the scraps.

We have poppies, just like at home in California. And just like at home in California, Leo thinks that he can pick a "puppy" flower as he calls them, and then plant them were HE thinks they should be. So far he has not successfully transplanted a puppy flower.

Almost everything I used today was from CTMH and the Rockstar line except a few buttons and Thickers for some titles.

If anyone is interested in purchasing this fantastic kit, drop me a line.

you 2

Even though these pictures were taken at the Albuquerque Plaza, they're not going in the New Mexico album. I just loved these pictures so much that I had to make a page to go in my "Mom's favorites" album.

This is my take on the Inspired Blueprints sketch #32

Oh, did you guess Pittsburgh as the most misspelled city? People forget about the "h" at the end.

Petrified Forest

While Leo may be a great car traveller (see yesterday's post) Aaron is not. With him, we have to stop every few hours and let him run around. We stopped at the Petrified Forest National Park, on the way from Las Cruces to Flagstaff. I had never been there before and got another National Park crossed off my list.

This is my take on Inspired Blueprint sketch, #33.

Exciting times!

I'm finally getting around to scrapping the last few things from my girl's weekend at CKC Pasadena. Since 3 of us (Mary didn't have a camera at the time) were taking all weekend, we decided that we should burn CDs with all the pictures. Of course, blank CDs aren't something any of us packed so that meant a trip to Target. Yeah, what an exciting Saturday night in Pasadena, a trip to Target.

This is based on an Inspired Blueprints layout, #34

More Lime Rickey layouts

Instead of making one post for each layout, I decided to group them all together based on the paper pack. How's that for lazy? :)
The boys go to Summer Camp and every week there is a new theme. This week here was Retro Week and on 70s day, they tye-died shirts. They had so much fun and the shirts turned out great.

Leo went to work with me and it was pretty slow so I have him some markers and paper and told him to write his name. This is what he did. I told him that he wrote it backwards and he just looked at me like I was a big moron and said....."Mom, it's in a window!" Where in the world does a 3 1/2 year old come up with this stuff? (note, it's taken me awhile to scrap this one, it's from March)

These pictures are 3 years old now. I wasn't inspired to scrap them, but saw sketch #18 at Inspired Blueprints and (he he he) inspiration hit! This is the only time Leo got to wear these shoes because Bailey chewed one up that night. Pretty expensive 3 steps if you ask me!

Water Boy

This one in another Inspired Blueprints layout, sketch #27. My friend took this picture of Aaron at our Family Swim Night a few weeks ago.

YUM

Here is another Inspired Blueprint (#20) layout. I love sketches because it gives you a starting point and then you can go from there. These are some old pictures of Leo, yes LEO, the first time he had spaghetti noodles. This is the CTMH Animal Cookies paper pack and is so much fun for little kids.

First Love

Leo has this little friend from preschool, Chloe. The two of them were inseparable and were always holding hands. Apparently, Leo took her under his wing since she was just 3 and he was almost 4. Sadly, Chloe moved this summer so won't be coming back to school. His teacher, Ms Andrea, or Ms "Andra" as he says, took "buddy" pictures of the kids and of course, Leo had to have his taken with Chloe.

This is an bonus Inspired Blueprints sketch

Cool Job

My husband has a pretty cool job. He's an engineer for NASA at Dryden Flight Research Center. One of the best things about his job is that he's the lead on the Shuttle Recovery Team. What that means is every time the Space Shuttle lands in California, he's there on the runway waiting. I'm sure I'll mess this up because most of the stuff he tells me is so far over my head that even if I jump I can't get it. Basically, he and the team go find the stuff that comes off the shuttle as it lands. They also find the touchdown skid marks and take all sorts of measurements and pretty much do a report of the landing. Here he is with the drogue chute. I guess it was a bit windy because as he picked it up, it now looks like he's flying a kite. I left the journal box empty so he'd do some journaling about what's going on and I have a scary feeling it's going to be very technical. This is the man who, while waiting for pizza last night, did the math to figure out the cost per square inch of the "daily special" and the regular pizza that he wanted. I know, I know, I married him. :)
Oh, this is an Inspired Blueprints sketch #22 and uses the Bo Bunny "Gear Up" line

There are 2 kinds of boys......

This one is pretty simple. Leo+dirt=fun. (that's a good title for a later layout!). He really doesn't care what he's doing, as long as he can get dirty.

Poppy Hunt

Leo and I went on a poppy hunt in the backyard. It was the beginning of the season so there weren't very many. He's even signing flower in the top right picture. This is another Inspired Blueprint (#12) layout.

you & me (Inspired Blueprint #13)

This is me and my friend Mary. Mary is one of my best girlfriends and the godmother of my boys. She was also Maid of Honor at my wedding. She came up for the weekend recently and we were just hanging out on the couch, no makeup, hair not done, just having a great time visiting. I snapped this picture and thought it was a pretty good one. I'm hoping she's not going to be reading my blog for a while because it's a gift for her.

A closeup of the bling. Mary is all about the bling.

It never stops!

This is another Inspired Blueprints sketch, #10. My boys being only 21 months apart are all over each other. They're either laughing and playing or wrestling and beating on each other. Either way it's like a WWF match in my house at all times.

But, they keep each other entertained!

Dancin King

Here's another Inspired Blueprint sketch, #8. Aaron likes to "dance." It's pretty funny, he dances by spinning in circles and stomping his feet (a la Flashdance) and screams.

Supplies Used: CTMH Stardust, Giggle Alpha Stamp, Rust Pickle Chipboard Stars, Tag punch: SU.

I {heart} This Face

I actually squeeked out some time for myself today to scrapbook. Brandi has a Simple Sunday challenge, basically to realize that you don't have to spend hours upon hours on a single layout. So with that philosophy in mind, and the help of some sketch blogs, I cranked out 4 pages in about 2 hours. I'll be posting one a day for the next few days. That way, I'll have some time to get more stuff done. I hope.

This is an Inspired Blueprints sketch, the first one actually. I never got around to doing it, but gave it a shot with this picture of Aaron. Rarely does he "smile" for the camera. He normally does this funky eye squint thing that he thinks is cute. (That page will be coming soon) I hope you enjoy these simple layouts.

Supplies used: Bazzil Bling Cardstock (some color brown), Bazzil curvy edged textured cardstock, CTMH Cocoa Cafe Papers, Giggle Alpha, and a misc chipboard heart.

Warm and Cozy

I bet you thought I wasn't going to make my goal of a post a day. Honestly, I didn't think I would either. The last 2 days, I've been uninspired to do anything. Typically my day begins around 4:15 am, when my husband gets up for work. I get up when he does and enjoy the blissful silence of children sleeping. They normally get up around 6:30 or 7:00, so those few hours are precious time that I take for myself. I try and do some scrapping or card making during that time. On the rare occasion when I have "real" work to do, I may do it then, but I never do housework!

Anyway, on to the layout. This is another Inspired Blueprint sketch (#6). I've had all the stuff I wanted to use for this layout in a bag for a month or so but hadn't gotten around to doing it yet. What I try and do is when I get my pictures printed, I make up little "kits" with the papers and embellishment, and inspiration if I have any. That way, I can just grab a bag and go when I'm in the mood. I don't have to waste my time trying to figure out what I need. I digress, back to the layout. Back in November 2008, we were hanging out in the living room and Bailey was content to lay on the floor next to the couch. For some crazy reason, Leo decided that she needed a pillow and blankets. And Bailey loves pillows and blankets so she was happy as a clam to lay there and let Leo get her all snugly warm and cozy. Unfortunately, I was having so much fun watching him "fuss" over her, I completely forgot to take pictures of that. Luckily, she was perfectly happy to lay there for most of the evening so I could at least get some pictures of her.
Supplies used: CTMH Perfect Day Level 2, Dimensional Alphabets, Prisma flowers and some sparkly thingies that I don't remember where I got them from.

Inspired Blueprint Sketch 7

You probably thought I wasn't going to post today, right? One of my "things" (I don't want to call them Resolutions because that's asking for trouble) is to create and post every day. It's day 7 and I'm doing pretty good. Anyway, onto the page. This is another Inspired Blueprint sketch. I like this one because you can get a lot of pictures on one page and since I take A LOT of pictures, I can't possibly put only 1 or 2 on a page. Well, some times I do but only special pictures.

Here's my layout. The beautiful thing about Inspired Blueprints is they don't care if your layout is exactly like the sketch, as long as it's inspired by it, you're good.

On Jan 1, we went to the San Diego Car Show. We even took the kids (and both grandma's for help). Those of you who know my kids are probably thinking I'm nuts for taking those wild men in public, but they are their father's boys. They LOVED it. As long as you let them crawl around and drive the cars, they were just fine. Me, I didn't get quite the thrill as the boys, until I got in the Audi TT Roadster. Anyone have 40k they can spare?????

Together!

I came across this sketch website, Inspired Blueprints ,on Marjorie Ann's blog. They post sketches twice a month (sometimes bonus sketches). This is Sketch #5. This is one of the rare pictures we have of the 4 of us together in the same picture. We had a Pumpkin Carving event at the Community Center and part of the day included a picture with Matilde, the scarecrow.

Here's the sketch

Here's my layout. Everything is Close to my Heart. The paper and stickease are from the soon to be retired Abundance paper pack.