So here is mine… it is a picture of my brother-in-law asleep with my youngest and the cat, Fred, decided he had to join in on the action.  After all the baby can’t be the only one getting attention right?

This kit has so much more to it than I was able to show in this layout. Often I try to show more, but this layout I think is just beautiful in it’s simplicity.

There is the kit, glittered papers, and a set of clusters that have been created for you to just download and use!

You can buy all of the pieces this kit as a bundle at In The Small Thing’s store at either Polka Dot Plum or Stuff to Scrap.  I’ve linked you to the bundle packs, because why wouldn’t you want all of it?   But if you can only get a piece or two then the kit, papers, and clusters are also available separately at each store.

Now if I can just figure out how to make my pretty picture frame into something that I can give away as a freebie…  We will see check back soon and you might just have a surprise that you can download!

With Blessings, Rebecca

So I played with the opacity’s as usual with my layout to get just the look I wanted.

As usual. 

I also used a photo mask from Sweet Tomato Designs Spooks kit as I needed something to soften the photo some and it helped give that “spooky” Halloween feel.

Hope you enjoy it.  And yes I took the time to at least get the pictures uploaded for family to see before I made this blog post.  Had to

You can get this at Polka Dot Plum and Stuff to Scrap starting today! For once I’m actually on top of my postings and using that whole scheduled post feature.

I know someone who had this down to a science.  My first daughter was born with a birth defect called Holoprosencephaly.  She was  not perfect by human standards.  She did not have all of her brain and she would never do the things that most kids would do.  But she was happy.  She was happy with whatever the day brought and when she learned a new skill or was finally able to communicate it to us, we all rejoiced.  I tried do create something not so “personal” with this kit, Free to Be… but if you’ve seen my blog at all you know this is why I scrapbook.

Here is the letter that I wrote…

“Dearest Angela Faith, Memories surround me lately. I see you in each of your wonderful sisters. Your stubbornness, your playfulness, your loving nature. I know you are flying now and you are happy, but I hope you don’t mind if I still miss you a bit. Help me to help your sisters understand just how special you really are even though you couldn’t do all the expected things. I love you…”

I can see where I will be pulling this kit out to create some more of Angela’s layouts, the colors complement her and my outdated furniture so well. 

You can purchase it here from Polka Dot Plum or Stuff to Scrap.  Enjoy.

With Blessings, Rebecca

Dearest Angela Faith,

     Memories surround me lately.  I see you in each of your wonderful sisters.  Your stubbornness, your playfulness, your loving nature. 

    I know you are flying now and you are happy, but I hope you don’t mind if I still miss you a bit. 

    Help me to help your sisters understand just how special you really are even though you couldn’t do all the expected things. 

                I love you… 

As soon as I saw the position open with In the Small Things, I knew I had to download the Morning Glory kit and make a layout with my story of my mug. 

I absolutely love the colors, the coffee mugs, the scattering of beans, the coffee mug stamp and it will get in on another layout…  it just didn’t fit on this one

So I created my layout, with the story behind, “my mug”.  One of two I reach for the in cupboard each morning.  In fact I’ll clean it actually by hand (yes be shocked) if I didn’t get it through the dishwasher and my husband’s big Maine mug is not available.  I just like how it feels and fits in my hand.

You have one of those right?  (I think everyone does…)

I am still working on my photography skills but I took the picture where my mug is usually sitting, right here by my computer so there is a little glare there that I tried to cover up, I think it worked.

The one thing I learned while creating this layout??  Free form journaling is great… except when you do not type it into Word first so there as spelling errors.  After you have uploaded the picture to a few places…  Oh well. 

So to pick up your copy of In the Small Things Morning Glory you can either go to Polka Dot Plum or Stuff to Scrap.  Enjoy!

Check back soon, there might just be a freebie from my layout for you to enjoy!

Blessings, Rebecca

This is a post I’m very sad to write.  Sweet Tomato Designs is retiring.  I can understand for her desire to spend more time with her family and to finish some things that have sat on the back burner for a while.  But still I am sad to see her go.  I have loved working with her designs, and I’ll be back later today to show you some of the stuff I have done that I never got to post here in the past month when things have been crazy!

So please, please go visit before it is too late and get your hands on any (or all) of her kits before they are gone.  You can get her kits exclusively at Funky Playground Design.

In fact for her newest kit at Funky Playground Designs you can get Clean Slate, a great kit for some of those back to school pictures.  In fact much to my husband’s amusement I did a page of him going back to school or rather beginning work again as this year began and he began his new position as a Visiting Professor for Physics.  Love the fact he has work but hate the fact he is driving 1 1/2 hours each way to get there.  But without further adeiu, here is my layout for Clean Slate, oh and I also used the Seedlings Template 4 for the basic design!

So I’ll be back later today with a few more layouts that I think you’ll really like.  So go over to Funky Playground and start getting those kits!

btw, anyone looking for a CT I’m soon going to be out of a job. 

Sweet Tomato’s portion is called:  l’artiste

This was so much fun to play with and as soon as I saw it I knew exactly which pictures I was going to scrap.  Hope you enjoy, make sure to go get the Collab kit as I think it’s only available for the month of May!

Blessings, Rebecca

This post and layout came out of my recent trip for our American Baptist Women’s Convention.  I almost didn’t go.  Frustration with the continued uncertainty of the future… exhaustion of being at home with three kids all week on my own… Not being sure of what my role is supposed to be.  And as I was there I was reminded as the speaker spoke of how we are like a pot of clay to be molded by the potter’s hands… God knows.  God knows how tired I am.  God knows what is coming.  God knows and I need to let go and be molded and filled.

I could have done this just as easily with pictures of me.  But like any mom, those are not as readily available.  And with Pink and Green being the old two’s favorite colors this seemed very appropriate.

I used Sweet Tomato Designs new kit called Raspberry-Lime.  You can purchase at one of her stores…  Polka Dot Plum, Scrappity-Doo-Dah, and Funky Playground Designs

I need to print this out.  Put it in the girls room.  So they see it, and so I see it.

Night all.  With Blessings, Rebecca

Some of my pictures I feel are Front Page news.  Other times they are more of a section B,C, or D.  Or perhaps the backpage even.  But the pictures I take have stories behind them.  They are important to me.  And because they are important to me, they are important to my family.

We have lived away from family our whole marriage.  Now granted I know anything that is less than 5 hours probably have some of you thinking yeah you don’ t have it bad, I do.  We have been lucky that even in bad weather that is probably as long as we have to be on the road for.  But I’m getting tired of it.  And with the continued uncertainity of the future we can’t help but hope we will find a job closer.

But until we do, right now we have to travel.  Which means that we do not see family all the time, they do not get to share in our joys, in our pictures, and in our daily lives every day or even every week.  That is part of the reason why I started scrapbooking.  To capture the stories and the miracles that I see every day.  So they can be shared either with family now, or family later.

I find I’ve gotten away from that some.  It’s almost too easy as a CT member or as a busy mom of three, to simply say “Ok, I’ll throw together a quick page and put it out, then it’s done.  I’ve got too much to do.”

But I don’t want to do that.

I want the time that I spend scrapping to tell a story of what is going on, what miracle I’ve seen in my children or through their eyes.

And yes, I’m writing this as much for me as I might be for those of you reading this.

The latest kit that has been put out by Sweet Tomato Designs has made this easy though.  I have to be honest, I took my basic page from another layout that I can no longer link to the kit for because not all of the designers are designing anymore.  But in recreating this page from a new kit, that I can link to it reminded me of my epiphany up above of why I scrap.

And I needed that reminder right now.

Sometimes we need to take a step that is unexpected.  And mine came honestly as I began writing this post.  It was not what I expected to come out, but is obviously something that God is trying to get me to listen to.  Otherwise it would not have flowed so effortlessly from my fingers into my keyboard.

Anyways…  The latest kit is called, as you probably guessed, Front Page and you can buy it at Funky Playground Designs, here.

And here as I’m sure you’ve been waiting for, is my layout that I recreated with it.

In this picture my first daughter was having a PT (physical therapy) session.  My camera was always close at hand for her.  I still try to now with her sisters but it’s harders since I have now three very capable little ones that can grab the camera where with Angela that was not as likely.

We were talking as she was hanging out.  And then she did it.  She lifted her head, on her own!

Here is the journaling if you can’t quite read it all….

“You didn’t think we were looking.
Right to left… and left to right…
three times…
It was all I could do to not say something
and to just continue talking to your PT like nothing extraordinary was going on.
Click goes the camera.
Capturing those moments…
that you were never supposed to do,
that we were never supposed to dream about.”

The kit has a lot of other great elements that didn’t fit this picture but I’m sure I’ll be pulling it out again to highlight how the camera is ever present in my hands, capturing those moments that I need to remember the stories that I want to tell and want my children to remember.

With Blessings,  Rebecca

But as much as I sometimes hate winter, I love how my children’s jackets pop against the snow as I watch them enjoy playing.  It makes me wish I had warm enough gear to go out and play with them too!  But little Fiona is too small yet to go out so I hang out with her and enjoy their antics from inside the house.

It’s kits like Sweet Tomato Designs newest, Wintervention, that just scream to be downloaded and used for those winter photos.  Just like the kids jackets pop on that snow, all of your pictures of the kiddos in their snow gear surrounded by all that white will pop against these beautiful colors.

You can get Wintervention at either Polka Dot Plum or Scrappity-Doo-Dah.

Now I did have to play a little with this kit   And in the end created a custom background paper by combining two of them in order to make my frame cluster stand out a bit more, yet give me that background interest that I really wanted.  That is the beautiful thing about digital scrapbooking!

Here is my layout…

This winter has been hard for me to get the girls out to play as it is a production usually taking up to 30 minutes to get them ready and Miss Joy is not always wanting to be patient that long.  But they still get out, still try to roll a snowman.  And although daddy is glad he doesn’t have to shovel each weekend when he gets home (yeah, we bit the bullet and got a plowing contract for the rest of the season) I know he misses the opprotunity to be out there playing with them when I’ve sent him pictures.

We know this seperation is only temporary.  God is working everything out.  We just have to be patient and smile. 

With Blessings, Becky