Happy New Year! Make one last donation to help others this year!

I know most of you probably read my post about my husband Dave's best friend, Brent.  Brent passed away 6 years ago from Non-Hodgkins Lymphoma.  He was passionate about raising money to help others with the disease and so we participated & fundraise for the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society's Light the Night Walk.  Our local walk is held here in Portland each October.  I typically fundraise for a few months before the walk and then put it out of my mind for another year.  This year, however, I have a special reason for sending out one last fundraising reminder.  An anonymous donor has stepped up and offered to match all donations received by LLS by December 31st, up to $100,000!  I'm very excited about the prospect of such a wonderful organization receiving such a generous gift!  So if there is any way you can donate, in any amount, no matter how large or small, your gift will be doubled this year!

Please take a look at my fundraising page for a bit of Brent's story and to see the last photo of he & Dave.  And click HERE to read the flyer about the anonymous donor's offer.

Thanks so much for taking a few minutes to learn about our friend and the organization he was so passionate about!  Enjoy your family and friends, and take a moment to remember those close you who are no longer with you, this New Year!

Layout of the Week - 'Tis the Season!

I'm so sorry I missed posting this layout as my Layout of the Week for last week!  Forgive me!  I was 'a bit' crazy trying to send out packages, cards & deal with Delaney's class party.  Oh, gee, I can hear so many of you who know me saying, "Shocking, Julie took on too many things at once!"  OK, I admit it, YES I DID!  But it's all over now & I'm on to taking on too many baking projects in one week!  But boy those cookies sure taste good!  Apparently my problem with not knowing how to say NO extends to cookies too!

Well, this layout is one of my favorite recent projects.  It's a photo taken last Christmas of Jake in his Christmas jammies just after he opened his Toy Story phone.  He was SO excited!  Who knew he would later eat off the number sign & I would have it handed to me by the nice lady who works in the nursery at our church.  She just laughed, having a little guy just a month older than Jake.  Then she told me what Delaney had said when she found the rubber key in his mouth, "You know, I told Mommy that the phone says it's for ages 3 and up!"  Out of the mouths of babes....  But still, his expression and those two teeth are priceless.

As far as the layout goes, the wood background is from LUXE (which sadly has closed up shop) and the other papers are new this year from Creative Imaginations.  I used three colors & two sizes of the Mark Richards mosaic tiles on this one, along with two different sets of THICKERS.  I'm always trying to create just one more title out of a set of these and darn if I don't use each set on 3 or 4 layouts!  Just mix & match if you don't have enough to write out your whole title.  And if you're, just a bit psycho, about color like I am, don't be afraid to paint them or just add a coat of glitter glue to them.  On the " 'tis," I used red paint & red glitter.  On the "season," I left them brown & added a coat of red glitter.  The "the" is created from Mrs. Grossman's stickers, an old set I have used many times.  The cute little letters at the bottom are some of my current faves from My Little Shoebox.

And do take a look again at Mr. Jake's darling smile, my next post will be yesterday's visit to Santa and he certainly isn't the one smiling!

Tips

Again, I'm mentioning Costco, but they really do make great large prints, like this 8 x 8 one.  Give them a try for your next printing job.

Don't be afraid to mix your font styles in your titles.  Just stay with one or two bold ones and try to stay with the same color or coat of glitter.

When mixing patterns, try a few large rectangle blocks on your page and round the corners for a unique look.

Supplies

Background paper - LUXE Designs - :( not around anymore

Patterned papers - Creative Imaginations

Tiles - Mark Richards

Titles - THICKERS - American Crafts

            Mrs. Grossman's

            My Little Shoebox

Layout of the Week - Christmas Past

Sorry I've been away so long! In the middle of my holiday prep and school holiday party prep that I haven't posted a Layout of the Week yet. I have a couple Christmas projects all ready to go, just haven't written anything about them. Time sure flies by this time of year. And maybe I forgot because my fingers have been too cold to type! It finally "warmed up" this morning...my car said it was 15, for the last few days it's said 12 on the way to school.  I know that many of  you are laughing at me right now, you know who you are...you're from the Midwest, Canada or maybe Antarctica!  But really, I'm in Portland and it doesn't get cold like this here for this long!  OK, we did have snow on the ground for 3 weeks last year, but that was a fluke...or climate change.  Of course just as many of you just ran to get your coats when you read 12, you're from SoCal, Australia or maybe the Sahara!  But I'm tired of pasting my daughter with Burt's Bees Lip Balm & that smelly, but wonderful hemp cream from The Body Shop.  And who wants to wear long johns under their clothes to school everyday?  I'm sure some of your kids do, but they probably also get to play in the snow at recess, we have no snow, just cold and a pond that's frozen over in our backyard.

Well, that's enough of me complaining, it certainly isn't that I'd like rain better, no way!  I just want summer back whenever it's convenient for me!

I think it's time to share one of my recent creations!  I created this layout with Graphic 45's Christmas past collection.  My mom recently gave me an envelope full of photos of me that she saved from photos she had sent my grandma over the years.  Grandma Muriel passed away a few years back and she had saved photos of all her grandchildren from the time when we were born.  I found these photos in my envelope.  They were taken when I was about 2 1/2, a few months before my brother was born and I didn't get all the attention any more! :)  I love how these old photos are square with white borders and the dates stamped on them.  I thought that they went perfectly with Graphic 45's style.  To me their retro papers go perfectly with sepia tone photos and the slight natural yellowing of these photos looks great with them.  I didn't want to crop the photos at all, so I let their shape dictate my layout and how I cut the yellowed catalog page to back them.  It's so fun to see my clothes and little pig tails, but my favorite part is seeing how my dad dressed in 1972!  I guess style really does come around again...check out those sideburns!  I can also see a few ornaments on this tree that I still hang on my tree!

I wanted to keep this layout from being very sparkly...I've been using tons of sparkle lately.  So I used a pack of Little Yellow Bicycle's felt die cuts along with felt ribbon from Creative Cafe and a few red pearls from Kaisercraft.  The next time you're scrapping photos from your childhood, or someone else's, check out Graphic 45's wonderful retro papers.  I've got a great project using their Transatlantique papers to show you soon! (probably after Christmas)

Don't forget to stop by Ann's Virtual Girls' Night Out, to get a few more comments for your blog, meet some new bloggy friends and maybe learn something new!

Tips

If you've got some older, maybe slightly yellowed, photos you want to scrap, check out the beautiful retro papers from Graphic 45.  Sepia tone photos look great with their papers too!

Remember not to crop all the background out of your photos!  Choose a few photos where you will leave in some of the background, especially if it's your home or shows a little slice of how life was at the time.  It's fun to look back & remember what life was like for you as a child or for your kids to see how life was for their grandparents.

Supplies

Graphic 45 Christmas Past paper collection (Graphic 45 Blog)
Creative Cafe red felt ribbon (Creative Cafe's Blog)
Little Yellow Bicycle self adhesive felt die cuts
Kaisercraft red pearls (Kaisercraft's Blog)