The Story Matters - August kit

Here are a few pages I've done so far with The Story Matters August kit! If you are looking for a monthly kit to work with, I highly recommend The Story Matters! It's so fun!

The Twinkle Toes page above was fun to make. When I was painting my toes, my son wanted his toes painted too. To spare my mother-in-law's sensibilities, I painted his toes in blue glitter. ;) 

Kevin went to a little birthday party for Araceli, and all the kids got these goofy glasses/nose things. I tried to catch pictures of them being goofy with them, as both Kevin and Fred were cuttin' it up. Unfortuneately these were the best I got.

I caught this picture of Daddy being silly and trying to scare Kevin and knew I had to scrap it. After this picture, Kevin gave daddy quite the withering look! LOL  The kit had some felt in it, and I had fun coming up with different ways to  use the felt. It also had the coolest buttons from Charlene's Button Box, which are made exclusively for The Story Matters.  Check out Charlene's stuff though, you can get some of her other buttons at her etsy site, or if you are local, you can get them at Scrapaganza!

I can EASILY make another 3 pages from this kit, I just need to find the time to sit down and do them! LOL

SOUS and TSM - Drive

Sometimes lyrics from a song tell the story more than anything I could write myself.

The day I'd made the decision that I wanted to quit my full time job to be home with my son more and to take a part time job at the scrapbook store, the song "Drive" by Incubus played on the radio. I already had liked that song very much but listening to the song lyrics that day really struck a chord (yep, a pun!) with me and I decided I wanted to incorporate it somehow into the page I wanted to make. I did not use all the lyrics straight from the song. Here's what my journaling says:

Fear kept me in a job I hated
I wanted to be home with my son

(lifted lyrics)
Sometimes I feel the fear of uncertainty stinging clear
and I can't help but ask myself how much I let the fear
take the wheel and steer
It's driven me before
and it seems to be the way that everyone gets around
but lately I'm beginning to find that I
should be the one behind the wheel
So if I decide to waiver my chance to be one of the hive
will I choose water over wine
and hold my own and drive?

Whatever tomorrow brings, I'll be there
with open arms and open eyes

Hold the wheel and DRIVE

This layout was made using the sketch at Stuck On You Sketches and papers from The Story Matters July kit:

I used George to cut a square frame but set aside the square frame and used the negative as a mask for glimmermisting with Red Velvet glimmermist. Also used George to cut the circle frame from the red dot paper, and the circle mat from ledger paper. Used Bazzill circle stitching template so I could stitch a circle in there, and fussy cut some flowers from red flocked paper from MME Lush line.  The title is cut from double sided sheet of adhesive paper by Terrifically Tacky Tape from Provo Craft, using Ashlyn's Alphabet I think... Then glittered with Martha Stewart glitter.  I almost always write my own journaling but this time it seemed right to type it out, but I used a neat font that I downloaded called Old Stamper. I love that font!

Thank you for looking!

More TSM

Two more pages with The Story Matters kits from March and April combined. :)  May Day 2007 uses some G45 papers from the kit, plus some other scraps I had that I made into flowers. I used Sandy's tutorial on SOUS to make my own flower stem, plus layered a bunch of other flowers on as well.

Here's a closer look at the stem and the added flowers. The stem has the peachy colored mini roses that I made on it. The added flowers are red and turquoise.

This one is also from the TSM kits. I used flowers from the Pagoda cartridge, a cut from A Child's Year. I have forgotten where I found the heart shaped lock though. 

Kevin in Wonderland

Hello all! So glad that hump day is over, just two more days till the weekend!

Here's a new layout. I did this with The Story Matters March kit. I used a Martha border punch for the accordian flower and another border on the pear paper. the background shape is from an accu-cut die at the LSS. Martha branch punch as well. The rabbit is from a cricut cartridge but darned if I can't remember which one! sorry! And Storybook for the title! I love the handmade buttons by Charlene.

Kevin was feeling poorly that day, we were at a family safety fair and we'd taken him since there's always kids stuff there, but he was coming down with something (which has been the case for the last 6 months) but he insisted on getting a picture with the Alice in Wonderland characters.

Thanks for looking! I have more TSM kit layouts to post soon!

May Day - The Story Matters Kit & SOUS!

Happy Friday all!
One of my favorite challenge blogs turned into a Kit Club in February. The Story Matters is now the name of Scrapaganza's mail order subscription kit club. They are gearing up for their official Grand Opening launch of their website in May, but since February they have been selling subscriptions to their introductory kits. I missed out on the first kit, they sold out in 10 days!  So I am signed up now, and got my first kit last week. Finally I was able to dig into it for my first layout. The only thing in this layout not from the kit is my journaling paper, the burlap flower, and the scrap I used to cut my title.  Here's the peek of the kit!

The nice thing about these kits (and I haven't tried other kits yet so I don't know if this is standard), is that they break up packs of things so I don't have to buy whole packs which never get completely used up, and then sit in my stash forever, getting old and staying unused... Here I get to sample a bunch of things and I will use up the whole kit and not be stuck with a big pack of ephemera cards I won't use up... Also, Scrapaganza has Charlene the Button Diva making exclusive buttons just for these kits. I adore Charlene's buttons, I used the red flower one on this layout. They also have a few people shopping for vintage ephemera and other vintage items to make these kits unique. I love vintage stuff on my layouts. I can't wait to use the milk bottle cap that came with this kit.

I used the sketch at Stuck On You Sketches to get my inspiration. SOUS is also one of my top fav challenge blogs, mainly because I LOVE LOVE LOVE the work those ladies do over there. Go check them out!

Here's a close up of the burlap flower.

I was at the store, looking through the accucut dies and found a flower die. I know cricuts can cut fabric but I am lazy, I didn't feel like figuring out if it can cut burlap. So I ran some burlap through the accucut. :) I spritzed the bottom flower layer with glimmermist in a color that went well with the flower button.

The leaves were cut on my cricut using Lyrical Letters. The rest of my cuts were from Songbird: the title (welded on my gypsy) and the two top layers of patterned paper. The scalloped yellow cardstock was part of the kit.

I can hardly wait to use up the rest of the kit!

And hey, if you subscribe, there are prizes to be had (if they aren't sold out of March already!). Mention that Michele sent you and I might get a prize too!  It's only $25 to subscribe for the monthly kit, and you can opt out of a kit if you don't like the sneak peek!

The Story Matters - Remember

This is my first layout as a new member of the design team over at The Story Matters. The TSM blog challenge is meant to get us journaling more, because many of us started scrapbooking to record the memories, not just stick photos on pretty paper. I am one of those trying to record memories before they are lost... I became a mom a little older than most and many of my family members have already passed on... leaving only a few memories of the stories they told.

I want my son to not only know those stories, but also to know our own family stories, and to know what his mama and daddy thought, loved, did and were like before he came along. The Story Matters was the perfect blog challenge for me to jump into and I've loved doing it since I started!

Maybe some of you lovely readers would be interested! Give it a try.

For this layout, I used the sketch that is currently at my LSS Scrapaganza blog challenge. I also was inspired by a few challenges at ScrapbookDreamer which lead me to use the metal charms, and other elements of the layout. And, as always, my cricut played a major role!  I used evergreen branches from the Christmas Solutions cartridge for the tree branches. I hand cut the trunk, and embossed it with a cuttlebug folder. The papers are Kaiser Craft.

Thanks for looking!