Simple Stories LOVE!

OK so I know Valentines Day has passed, BUT, I didn't get my Valentines goodies from the original seller I ordered some from (they are shipping to me today) I know right? My friend Brandy Baucom Came to my rescue the week before Valentines day, and let me purchase some of her Simple Stories Valentine Card Kit, Paper Pack and Chipboard embellishments.THANK GOD! Without that I would not have had anything for John and Bella or anyone. I had no valentines stuff! SO I got it the day before Valentines day! Yeah! I was creating like a crazy woman. But here's the thing. The love card kit (shown below) was so easy and you just punch every thing out of the preforated lines. Everything you need is there. except adhesive of course. It was so easy. I made all of them in no time.

They were so easy to make really fast, AND they are SO ADORABLE! SO, I got them from Brandy Baucom she has a Facebook group called CREATIVE FOR LESS She is working on getting the website up so we all can purchase stuff again (long story)discount prices, (Good stuff, less money we all love that right?) so,if you click on the CREATIVE FOR LESS and join the Facebook group, You will be immediately notified as soon as the site is up and running.(which will be soon.) She will have scrapbooking supplies, pre orders, all kinds of fun things for your crafting needs at discounted prices. I want to thank her for letting me purchase these Simple Stories sets. She really came to my rescue! I am enjoying it. I got the card kit from her and I spent Saturday night whipping them up having so much fun. I added my own Pearl bling to the flower centers. That was not included with the kit. Also of course the adhesive was not included. Here are some pictures of my favorites.

So Those were really fun to make. I highly recommend them. If you see them, Buy them for next year. Actually you can use them anytime. They don't say Valentine on them. You can do them your self or do them with your kids to pass out to friends or family members. They are not hard to do at all. They make quickly. Ok Next:

I also got this Simple Stories Sweet Talk paper pack and I got the chip board stickers to go with it.

I made 2 layouts for the daily challenges at Scrapbooking The Day Away. Here is the First one I did. OH let me tell you. Scrapbooking The Day away in the daily Challenges They are keeping up with points and whoever gets the most points by the end of the month gets a scrappy prize, Everyone is having so much fun with it. SO give it a try. The points were stressing me out and messing with my scrapbooking. It completely turned me off and I couldnt get motivated to scrap. I was confused and had no mojo. so I am doing the challenges like before for enjoyment and the actual challenge of it, not for the points. It was driving me crazy trying to keep up with all that. So here is my first page I did this past week. The challenge was use Red pink and white and use embellishments on a page.

The title *that was part of the challenge too we had to have a title) is "You're Still The One" The journaling is some of the song lyrics to the Shania Twain song " Still The One" As you can see I layered several sheets of the paper on this layout. so I could get my pink, red and white on here. I used lots of embellishments from the chip board embellishments, The sticker sheet that is in the paper pack and some left over from the card kit. (yeah don't throw those away!!) I added pink and white bakers twine to the tag (right hand side, middle towards the top) and tied it in a bow, I also added (its hard to see in this picture, but in real life you can see it good) Wink of Stella, glittery goldy colored, glitter to the hearts in the title. Here is my next page I did for another challenge:

I just loved this photo. It is a little blurry and I couldnt blow it up to 5 x 7 so I just matted it double and used it anyway because I just love it so much. It shows LaLa kissing Charley (and he is being kinda grumpy as usual to her) They are like an old husband and wife. Odd couple. They are so funny! But they are so sweet! OK The challenge. THe challenge was to make a Heart background I think it was supposed to be all over your page, and you had other choices like one great big huge heart. and then maybe 3 hearts? a title and journaling maybe. Im looking for it. I can't find it. Oh well its making alot of hearts for a background. this is my interpretation of it. I did a grid style heart back ground with two borders top and bottom with the title lining the bottom. I didn't use a lot of embellishments I thought the hearts were statement enough that it didn't need anything. Oh and by the way, if you look closely the punched out hearts are from hearts paper. SO there is lots of hearts. I added the layered piece of paper on the side to kinda back up to the mat of the photo some and then I double matted the photo. The Journaling tells about their relationship with our household, all of us! They are very much loved! I have VERY MUCH enjoyed using Simple Stories Love Cards and the Paper Pack and chipboard. I still have plenty left over of the paper pack to make cards or some more layouts.. OR save till next year and make valentines. Hopefully next year I will not get my supplies so late Special Thank yous to Brandy for coming to my rescue and getting me some Valentines day stuff! Hope you have a wonderful Day and you get to do something crafty! Nancy

Good Things I have found lately

Ive been looking all over the interweb and locally for inspiration and people with multiple talents. I think I found her. My Friend Becky waters Thackston. She is the owner of "Art from The HEart LLC." she makes all kinds of cute things. here are just a few.

YOu can find these and SO MUCH MORE!! At her facebook page:https://www.facebook.com/BeckysArtfromtheHeart She has so much that is just beautiful and cute and funny and some serious I love it all!!Valentines, St Patricks Day, Easter and etc. GO check her out tell Becky, Nancy Jones sent you from her blog! ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Another GOOD THING I have discovered lately is The Nifty Scrapbooker's (Jonathon Paul) You tube subscription. OH he does so much with ink and stamps and cards. He has a lot of tips that help you with your card making and scrapbooking too! he is an ENABLER too! you tube videos show me these great products that make it easier and I just have to have them!! Here is his latest youtube videos He does a great job. Here is my favorite on Stenciling. It really taught me alot. look at his other videos and tutorials subscribe and like them please. You won't regret it he has great tips and ideas. Im learning a lot! ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Here is something my friend Robin Nester Calhoun told me about. Creative Memories "Refer a Friend" Share your love of Creative Memories today and start earning FREE SHIPPING for you and your friends and family who are new to Creative Memories! ~~ Know someone who would love our premium scrapbooking products as much as you? Make sure you spread the word with their new Refer A Friend program and in a few easy steps you’ll both get rewarded.Creative Memories has acid free and lignen free products. if you have any questions or comments you can contact Robin Nester Calhoun She is a Creative memories consultant. I know lots of those! ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Here is another friend of mine that has an AWESOME you tube channel. She has so many tutorials and demonstrations of things (she is an enabler too) so much fun and so many fun products. YOU HAVE to watch. Her name is Leslie Prinkki. Check out her you tube channel She has a lot featured on there. YES and new stuff coming up all the time. GO SEE HER you wont be sorry. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ My last good thing I have found this time is my Friend Ricky who has the You Tube channel Bromero Cards. Beautiful cards to see and lots of talent. love the videos. good stuff there. you need to go see them for yourself. such a great job. talk about enabling. ugh so good. entertaining as well. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ So there you have it. The GOOD things I have found recently around the web. IF you have a good thing or know someone who has something good. (small buisness doesnt have to be scrapbooking but I prefer art but doesnt have to be, Email me at Nancywithajones@Gmail.com to tell me to check it out. I love highlighting new businesses and scrapbook stores or related businesses. so keep your eyes out. Ill mention your name if you send it. Thank you!

National honor society induction

Hey Yall! This last Thursday night , Bella got inducted into the National Honor society! We are so happy and proud for and of her. I was so excited that I got to go. with strict instructions of course. I had to wear my M95 mask at all times, sit in the back away from every one, not linger afterwards, shower after I got home. so we followed the guidelines and i was happy, tired last night and today wore me out! but so thrilled to get to be there for my Bella here are some photos from the night

This is the whole group of inductees for this year.

This is Brayden, Bella and Dustin.. They all started school together at Jackson Creek Christian in 4k and when that school dissolved they all three moved to cottage hill and continued thier education all the way to seniors.

we couldnt get a good picture of Bella getting pinned during the ceremony. people were everywhere and it was just a messs. So we got Brayden to reenact it afterwards and pin Bella so we could get a picture. (his mom wanted a picture of him pinning also) We are so proud of Bella and all the kids. There are some really smart kids at this school. (cottage Hill Christian) They work hard to achieve all these honors.

My Latest Scrapbook Pages for January

I have really been scrapbooking up a storm this month. I have done 28 pages for various challenges online. I haven't posted all of them online, but I have posted several of them on here, Here are a few more of them I have done these past few weeks. I don't have my cards I've done photographed. Some I have already sent. I will try to remember to photograph some of them next time. I am usually in a hurry to mail them. I have been enjoying doing the challenges on the Podcasts for Scrapgals to find out about the challenges every month. You must subscribe to their podcasts. I LOVEEE their PODCASTS They are so fun and funny and informative. Ive been listening to them while scrapbooking and even going back and listening to older ones they have done and just laughing so hard. THey are great together. I have done 2 challenges for January for them. since the month has gone I figured I could post my pages here that I did for the challenges One of them we posts in the Community OH YEAH IF you join the podcast TODAY. they have a free crop in the features for this Friday night (WHEWHEW GONNA BE SO MUCH FUN!!!) follow my links I have put in this post to join and see the community. Here are my pages.

This page was from a sketch and I really didn't follow the directions (Im sure this doesn't surprise any of you) very well. I didn't do the page like the sketch, I left off the bottom and the journaling and I added stuff. Oh well It is MY interpretation of the sketch.. (said tossing my scarf across my shoulder) HA! oh well It kinda works. I love this picture of Bella and John with their Home knitted stockings that Aunt Anita made for them (I HAVE ONE TOOO!!!!) THese stockings mean so much to us and they stretch to get lots of stuff in them. Stockings are an important part of Christmas and we pay alot of attention to the details of what goes in the stockings. We open the stockings and go through them one thing at the time on Christmas Morning. HEY weve gotten some really cool stuff in the stockings! Next another page for a scrapgals challenge. This one is a life story. They talked about this on their podcast and posted on the site to put up your pages on the topics. This is the one I chose it was most memorable to me.

I hope you can see my journaling. If not I will type it out. It makes the page. They rest are daily challenges from Scrapbooking The day away. I try to keep up with the daily challenges for page of the day challenge. Sometimes I get a couple days behind and have to catch up on the weekend or maybe its just one my mo jo wasnt flowing on. I try hard to do them all though. It has gotten me to scrapbooking more. here are a few of my recent pages from the challenges

This one she had us do torn paper, doodling and a title I think thatwas all. I tore my patterned paper its hard to see my photo is over most of it. And I doodled with dots all the way around the outside of the page and on the the photo mat with dots also.

This challenge if I remember correctly was to use patterned paper and cardstock. Easy for me I use that every time.

This challenge was to follow a sketch. I sorta did (I know youre not surprised) I didnt follow it exactly but I did do the small banner in the top right hand corner its small can you see it? I let the patterned paper flowers serve as my embellishments and i cut my journaling into strips to put under the photo.

This challenge we had to do squares on our page. I kinda did the sketch that I did for Scrapgals again. I changed it up a little with my patterned paper this time and putting a border at the top and bottom and a embellishment in a different place. also a big square behind the photo. that wasnt done in my scrapgals one. I think this one is my favorite. look at John and me we were so young then. This was on one of our dates together before we got married. we were just falling in love and being happy. had the whole world before us. good memories. we are still happy 22 years later and still have the world before us. we have been through alot we took that sickness and in health thing and ran with it. Ya know a lot of my ms friends when they got diagnosed and started going through their time of disability and needing care, their husbands or wives left them. They couldn't handle their spouse needing to be cared for and not being like they used to be. nugh ugh not mine. John stepped up and became my care giver. He takes great care of me and makes sure I have all my meds. makes sure I eat and makes sure I get up in the mornings and im ok to walk. he is amazing and Im so grateful to him for taking care of me. I love him very much and I know he loves me. he has sacrificed so much for me and for Bella. he is a really good man. I love him. Ok well that is my up to today pages I have made. Hopefully you will see something you like or you will get some inspiration or find one of the sites I posted to be a place you like to go. I encourage you to try the scrapgals podcast out. It is so fun and you get additional stuff with it. they give you a link every month that only the podcast subscribers get and it has challenges, a sketch, a run down of what they talked about on the podcast with main topics, downloads of art little pictures to use for your scrapbooking or day planning or whatever. I cant remember what you call that but like you cut it out with a cricut or silhouette or die cut machine. and much more. I am so enjoying it. They are so down to earth and I feel like Im talking to and listening to my good friends having a conversation.

Good Things I have found recently

Hey Y'all! I have to tell Y'all about this new group Im excited about. It's a Die cut group owned by Robin Nester Calhoun, that she sends die cuts out monthly. You make a page with them send her a copy of your page. she has a group of judges that look at all the pages and picks one and the winner gets the next months kit free!! It's so much fun and so exciting. It's a Facebook group called Croppin Robin scrapbook group if you just click on those words it will take you straight to the site (if I did it correctly haha you may have to sign into facebook) Ill show you my page I did for . IT is so cute!

The 2 snow people come disassembled and you glue them together. I jazzed them up some with washi tape and flowers and bling. I also took my title and put stickles on it to make it look like snow and my snowflakes I stickled also to make look like snow. I wasn't sure what to do with that cord. so i kinda wrapped it around to represent the wind. I had so much fun! There were several of us in the running for the free kit. And the girl who won did a beautiful 2 page layout with her kids making a snow man. It was a beautiful page. Im going to join so I get a kit next month too. The monthly kits are only 5.00 thats all yes 5.00 and theyre so much fun to put together. you can get the 6 month for 20.00 if you wont THATS a bargain. Just go to her page and tell her you wanna join that NANCY sent you from her Blog. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Don't forget about the fun card kit club Owned by Mandy Teifke I told you about in my last post also. She will be mailing out today I think. It's called BEE CREATIVE WITH MANDY.(just click on the link and it will take you to the facebook group, you may have to sign into face book) get a couple of cards and everything is already pre cut out for you to make them with. you get all the supplies. She also gives you the a picture of the design. so Check it out also That is another good thing I have found recently. Ill show you my cards I made after I get my kit. Join her page please. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ My good friend Jessica Woods Chaney has recently become a Close to my heart representative! YAYY! I didn't have one close to me and she lives close to me! Here is the link to join her group to find out all things Close to my heart. ( You dont have to be local she can mail it! They have online catalog. her group is fun! click on Here) The link to the Close to my heart catalog is here just click on close to my Heart. They have gotten a lot of things since I have last seen their products. I love their stamps. They have small sentiment (inexpensive) little stamps too that just say " Happy Birthday" "Thinking Of you" theyre like 3.96 and so cute! that is one of my favorite things. I love their white cardstock too It is a TRUE BRIGHT WHITE. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ So those are a few of The Good things I have run across recently. IF you have a good thing you want me to check out send me an email at Nancywithajones@gmail.com who knows I may feature it in my Good Things I have found recently and post with your name right here on my blog!

2 new CHallenge pages

I am trying to keep up with the daily scrap challenges at Scrapbooking The Day Away I am usually a day or maybe 2 behind, but I tend to catch up on the weekends. Well I did 2 pages today. I dunno if I am caught up or not. I did the challenges I saw. I can't ever find them that well to see them in order to know if Ive done them or post them with the original challenge. Thats the problem with facebook groups vs the message boards. I miss the old message boards and gallerys.No one seems to do that anymore. Well My first challenge I completed was to use a Black and White photo on a colorful background.I chose this picture of MY Daddy when he was a little boy. I did some earnest Journaling about how my dad grew up after being sick with polio when he was a baby, but how his determination followed him throughout adulthood. I love and miss my daddy so much!!

The next challenge was to use 2 photos and your paper scraps along with the color blue for this page.

This page is about her special gift she gets every year from her Uncle Windale and Aunt Karen. I used accents of BLue and a blue background on this I cut out embellishments from both sides of the paper. Its a little dark and hard to see. I also made several cards today. Birthday. Thinking of you. I keep my cards well stocked. Im about to start valentines. I joined a card club last nice (she sends you products to make cards) she is just getting started. All she has is a 5.00 group right now for a couple of cards a month. She is talking about making a bigger kit for people that make more cards. Its called BEE CREATIVE WITH MANDY Click on that and it should take you to it. Tell her I sent you!Its owned by Mandy Teifke. Thats the good thing i have found recently. I hope you have a good day Happy Scrapbooking!

New One Little Word layout and more

I did an additional page for my One Little Word. I'm not taking Ali Edwards class on One little word Im taking a Faith approach to doing mine. Im following my own props and some of my friends. My word of the year is ACCEPTANCE. This is a year of change. So I made that my word. So much I have to accept. I have a hard time with that and it is time I learn to deal with it. The other day a book mark from when I was around 10 years old fell to the side out of my bible. It had a quote that my Grandmama used to say and said to me often. She was trying to teach me to have faith and to pray about all I needed to God. She couldn't get it across to me so finally one day she just bluntly (as she ever so often did) said " Well, have you prayed about it as much as you're whining and carrying on about it?" and it finally made me understand I needed to pray more about it and not complain. God was obviously the only one that wanted to hear my distress. So I started praying about my wrongs and complaints to him. she noticed I wasn't complaining anymore and asked me about it. I told her I was telling God. She said GOOD! Thats what youre supposed to do. But you can tell me if its something I need to know. Which now I wondered what she needed to know. Grandmama died not long after that when I was 11 years old. This is one of my fond memories of her teaching me about prayer. We said our prayers before every meal and at night before bed every time I spent the night. she let me read aloud from the bible and she read one of her devotions in Open Windows. Here is my page for my One Little word.

I know my page letters are a little off kinda crooked. My hands are shaky from my tremors, it really is starting to show more in my scrapbooking, but Im still trying. I did another page this one I did today for my friend Jeanne. SHe has gone through so much last year and this year with her health and the death of her mother. I thought I would show her some love and do a page about her. she is such a dear friend of mine.

This picture was taken at DIsneyworld. We finally got to meet. we have tried to meet several times and something has happened each time where we couldnt. I was so happy to finally get to hug her. Next is a challenge page from Scrapbooking the day away page a day challenge this one was one of the first challenges. I looked hard for this paper. It was in my stash of patterned paper. I looked hard for it finally found it. I know it is tie dye but we are pretending it is rainbow, The picture doesnt pick up how fabulous it is. It is glittery and shiny and spectacular. It was perfect for a Disney world fireworks picture.

The last one is from Scrapbooking the Day away daily page challenge 123 challenge. 1 picture, 2 embellishments, 3 colors of paper. Well I sorta did the challenge. I kinda went crazy with it. I actually did more than 2 embellishments. and my colors are patterened paper so its kinda more colors. so I didnt follow directions well. so whats new. BUt, it was a good starting point for me. I enjoyed making this page and I did some good journaling for Bella.

I've been scrapbooking a lot with the daily challenges at Scrapbooking the Day away. I do most of them. I've enjoyed them. Im also loving listening to the scrapgals podcasts with Tracie and Tiffany. They changed their podcasts to a new format over to Podfan. It is so much better! Ive been listening to old podcasts through the week when their isnt a new one. Ive been laughing and enjoying hearing their ideas and the interviews with other scrapbookers. If you wanna join the podcasts its at THESCRAPGALS you get a bunch of bonus features along with the podcasts that are super informative and funny! Ive been listening for a while now I didn't like their old format and it was hard for me to listen to . it would cut me off in the middle of it and jump to the end when I started it back. so I just stopped listening.BUT, this new format is awesome and I have had no problems and it brings up the old ones easily. I love it!

Scrapbook pages!! My one little word page!

Hey Ya'll! Ive been scrappin' the last couple of nights and all day today. I got finished with most of the challenges at "Scrapbooking The Day Away" This morning I had an appointment with Tiffany from Scrapgals (she does the podcasts)to help me get my old podbean podcast deleted and unsubscribed and my phone changed over to the new (gosh I cant think of the name of it) anyway get switched over to the new one. Im so clue less. Well I made a 10:30 appt. with her.Thank the lord there was no body behind me. We couldnt find the diddly squat email from them. of course when we hung up it showed up in my promotions box. She got it working for me (Im sure I was making it harder than it should have been) and we cheered together over HER victory I say her because I didn't do a thing but what she said do. After she got it all fixed, I listened to the last few I had not listened to. I was laughing and having a good ol time scrapping. I did several pages ok i finished several pages today and made a few new ones. I put titles on all of them but one. I have a hard time with titles. I wanna show you I told you in the last message on here I was gonna do my ONE LITTLE WORD layout. Well I did it today. I think it came out pretty good. I used fall colors on it because those are my favorite and numbers paper because My daughter is counting down (UGH!) the days till she goes to college. IM trying to make her forget. oh well. THat leads to my page:

The title as you can see is Acceptance. (I didnt have 3 capital C's but I thought that was kinda appropriate to have a little c in there because Im beginning this journey of acceptance and I am not there yet) The Journaling reads: I have chosen ACCCEPTANCE as my "One little word" for 2021. This is a year of change and to be honest, I dont like it. I've never done well with change but I eventually come around. Bella is all grown up into a nice young lady. I on the other hand still see her as my baby. She will be going off to college in the fall and I'm trying to accept it.I'm doing much better than I was. Bless her heart, she is gonna have to deal with me calling her every night and pestering her for pictures. I told John we could get an RV and just go up there with her. He said NO! to that. I still think it could work!! Here is another page. This one is for Bella's Senior Year album. This is her Kindergardener buddy. I think I have explained this before but here is the quick version. The seniors get to have a kindergardener to be "buddies" with for the year. They buy them little gifts at holidays and play with them etc all year. Take lots of pictures. So Ill have several layouts of Bella and Rosie. OH this year they had a lot of seniors so there's 2 seniors to 1 buddy.

The journaling says:Bella's buddy Rosie at Christmas opening her presents. They had a good time seeing each other for Christmas and Bella enjoyed giving Rosie her gift. Bella played with her and got lots of laughs from her. She wanted to play with her present. IT was a really good day. 2020

My One Little Word for 2021

Im sure yall have heard of ONE LITTLE WORD by ALI EDWARDS Ive been doing it for many years. I've picked out my word for 2021. It took a lot of thought. It really describes what we will be going through this year. we will be going through a lot of change and I don't do change well. Im trying. so my word for 2021 is ACCEPTANCE. ac·cept·ance /əkˈseptəns/ Learn to pronounce; noun; @@@@@@@@@@ We have so much that we are learning to accept this year. My big one (and it's been hard for me) don't laugh seriously it's been very hard for me. Is that our only child is leaving the nest soon and going away to college. I have cried and cried and prayed and prayed. Bella did really good in school and got 4 different scholarships to 4 different colleges. She chose Montevella in central to North Alabama. I was hoping she would choose University of Mobile (she got a scholarship there that was a little better) but they don't have the program she is wanting to study. Im starting to get used to the idea. Im ACCEPTING it. So maybe by the time it gets here I won't be so bad. yeah I know Ill be a big crybaby thats my baby thats leaving. I have strict instructions that she has to text me or face time me every day because Charley and Lala (our dogs) are really gonna miss her. well, us too. so I need to get busy making a scrapbook page on my word. I keep forgetting so that is why I did a post on it. So I would remember to do it. I'll link back to this post when I get my layout made. I went to Jen's room last night online.shes with the site "Bash Your Stash" I made 3 pages but I have to put the titles on them. They were Christmas pages from this past year. or this just current christmas rather. I have a lot of pictures to scrap. plus Im making a lot of cards. I hope you have a grea. t day today. DO you have a word for the year? What is your word? How did you choose it? Are you scrapbooking a page about it? Check out the link (One little word) above for some ideas or you can take the class and follow along with Ali Edwards. I always do my own thing I incorporate it into my yearly album instead of making an entire album about my word. Good luck. I want to hear what your word is! C

I have been at a virtual (online) Crop (scrap book get together) today. all day. I made a bunch of pages. They are kinda simple pages but I did embellish some of them up a little. I followed along though with the challenges and tried to keep up until I got tired.

You can barely see lala in these pictures but trust me she laid under that Christmas tree from the time we put it up until present (we haven't taken it down yet)

Had to do a page on my precious little boy too!

Rosie is Bella's little buddy. The seniors get a kindergarden student to be their buddy for the year. THey do stuff with them. They had double the number of seniors than buddys seniors were 2 to a buddy.

This was for a sketch challenge. I told how we had to undecorate the tree and take the lights all off then John had to put the new lights all back on. Then while we were sleeping, he decorated the tree. so it was all lit and beautiful when we got up! wasn't that sweet!

There was a glare on the photo so i dunno what all that is on the left. But, this is a page to Bella about her senior year.

This page is about how this lady backed into the side of the car while Bella was parked at her friends house. ugh!

Again with the glare! I dunno what that is. anyway. This is a layout on the Christmas star. we didnt get a good view of it here but I got some good photos off the internet to scrapbook. you cant see the first photo because its a glare but its just a tiny picture of the star. Well these are the layouts I got done at the crop. I Had fun. They did a couple more than I did but I got my bingo card filled so I was happy. I am now tired. Im used to doing maybe 3 pages in a days time. but I also had kits with my paper and photos picked out ahead of time so that helped.

Distress Oxide water resist.

I made another card. It didn't exactly turn out the way I wanted it to. I think I used too much water on this stamp! I ordered this stamp without looking at the measurements and I was shocked when it came in and was so little. Lesson learned ALWAYS CHECK THE DETAILS WHEN YOUR BUYING SOMETHING. I knew it was too good of a deal. oh well. Also I didn't use my "wrmk version of the misti" I can't remember what they call it. So anyway my resist didn't turn out EXACTLY like I wanted it. But it ended up working with the card, FIRST I colored my card with " Salty ocean".At the top and "Broken China" at the bottom of the piece of watercolor cardstock. I just wiped the inks across the cardstock till it filled in. Then blended the two with the mini blender tool. ( This way I didn't have to switch out the pads on the blender tool. I am waiting for some to come in) I also wiped over it with a clean DRY cloth (no fuzzies) to get the access color off.

Next I got my stamp ready to stamp the ink.

I would be using the resist method (its not hard you simply spray the stamp with a LITTLE water and stamp it. DOnt use too much water as I think I did it will smear your image) looking back I should have used my WRMK tool thats like the MISTI I probably would have had a better stamped image. I will try again and use that.

See how the image is smeared. I think that is from the water running and not using the tool. But I'm gonna try to make it work any way. (it was supposed to be flowers.) I had a scrap piece of paper that was perfect to go down the middle. MY mom is in lockdown at her assisted living facility (yes someone got covid) and is struggling. So I like to send her encouragement. So I intend to send her this card so I used these encouraging stickers I had in my stash.

I also Inked a cardstock butterfly that my friend Anne Lambert sent me in a Swap.

I added some Jewels from BO BUNNY to my butterfly right down the middle 3 tiny ones. TO help it look even more pretty.

ANd Thats the finished card. Its ready to mail. OH BY the way I dried the inks between times with my heat gun. I also dried the glue with my heat gun.To speed things along. Im enjoying these distress Oxides and IM learning more and more techniques. Im gonna try this one again with my Wrmk tool and less water. I see Jennifer McGuire do it so perfect haha she makes everything look so easy. Have fun creating!!

Playing with Distress Oxides

I saw this neat trick the other day but I have some questions about it. If Anyone can help. Here is what I saw first

INK and VELCRO HMMMMmmmmm Turn ink over ok sounds easy enough'

You put the velcro on the back. USE THE ROUGH FEELING ONES not the soft ones. Take the blender pad from the blender (mini) tool that you have already used with a distress oxide (one per color)

BE SURE To USE THE OXIDE COLOR THAT IS THE SAME COLOR as the pad color you have. ok EXAMPLE: if you just used mowed lawn with the mini blender tool with the pad, get the mowed lawn Distress oxide and turn it over and put a piece of velcro on it the rough side one not the soft fuzzy side.

This is what it should look like. TA DA!! SO, My question is: How do you get them to stack after you do this? or are you not supposed to stack them anymore after you do this?

Here are a couple tags I made. I used the water method with these tags and then decorated them. Which was fun but, I like other techniques better. this feels so sloppy but it is really fun. You can't really control where the ink rolls and streams too and goes. I guess thats the fun part. First you press your ink pad down on your mat (I use the ranger 15x19 waterproof mat) I got for Christmas. You pat them down all very close by each other, as many colors as you wanna use. I usually use 3 to 4 different distress inks. Pat them good up in the corner of you a waterproof mat (I call it a splat mat because nothing sticks to it. I have the Ranger inks one but any one will do. pat your inks a couple few times and do them close together. Then you take a small spray bottle and spray over your inks in a fine mist a couple of times till they kinda bead up ink water. (but you don't want to saturate them just a little water is all it needs) Then you take your tag or card or whatever you are working on, and do it top side down (the part you wanna see and work with side down)then wipe it all the way across the inks. swirl it, zig zag it, do it back and forth. how ever you think it is fun. It will give you a great design of color. Experiment with different color combos. I decorated them with stickers I got from Hobby lobby they were their brand paper studio really cute. I cut the photo down to fit that tag on the right I just thought it would be cute. I added the buttons from my large stash of buttons. The hearts are washi tape. I have another card to show you. Part of it is done in Oxides.

The strip across the center held by brads is colored by distress oxides in concord grape and seedless preserves. The big butterfly is done in seedless preserves and cracked pistachio the little butterflies are done in seedless preserves and concord grape. I added all the rest for decoration. The paper is by Carta Bella. Thank you for looking at my distress inks creations. There will be more as I play with the tags and cards. Ill show you what I learn. I am having a large time learning and playing with them.