Recent Layouts for Jimmy's Sr Scrapbook

It has been awhile since I have posted any artwork other than my Inspired Stamps Design Team work.  So I thought I would post several of the layouts I got done for Jimmy's Sr. scrapbook at our November Crop.  He graduates in 6 very short months and I am so far behind on his layouts I doubt I will get them all done in time. I only have 17 years of his life to get done in a very short period of time. Here is the start of his album.

PS - You will notice I am not a chronological scrapbooker.  Instead I scrap whatever pictures I am in the mood for, so you will see Jimmy at various stages in life.

This was the Warren Township Community Center
Scrapbooking class layout for November

This first layout is from last Christmas, we were making cookies when Robbie and Jimmy took over and kicked me out of the kitchen.  So being the great mom I am I grabbed my camera and took pictures of them making the cookies.  The blank red area above the big tree is where I plan on eventually putting my journaling.  (I hate journaling so it is usually the last thing I do on a layout)

Left Side - Roughly based on Title Topper-Heading from the Reflections How to Program
the circles and Christmas Trees were cut using the
CTMH exclusive Art Philosophy Cricut Cartridge



Right Side - My own design
Materials used: all CTMH unless otherwise noted
Believe Paper Pack, White Daisy, Sweet Leaf, Holiday Red cardstock
Holiday Red & Sweet Leaf Inks
Token Alpha & Holiday Wishes Stamp Sets
CTMH Art Philosophy Cricut Cartridge

This layout is of Jimmy in 2009, showing his 4-H market hog in showmanship.  He placed first in his showmanship class, giving him the honor of being the Top Showman for his age group.  The layout design is Role Play from the Imagine How To Program.



Left Side



Right Side
Materials used all CTMH unless otherwise specified

Colonial White, White Daisy, Desert Sand, Cocoa & Bamboo Cardstock
Desert Sand & Pacifica Ink
CTMH Art Philosophy Cricut Cartridge

This layout is one of my favorites because it is totally Jimmy. We were out taking his Sr. Pictures, he had climbed a tree so I could get several pictures of him in the tree. He is taking Natural Resources at the local Career Center and part of his class work deals with trees. Not to mention he has always been a climber and a clown. After our photo shoot, Jimmy was goofing off and decided to stage a "I'm falling" look to scare his mom. He didn't scare me but I did manage to capture the whole scene on film and thought a story layout was perfect.  This layout isn't quite finished as I plan on adding one of the Art Philosophy Trees to the Below page and of course I plan on eventually adding some journaling. 

Left Side - Very loosely based on
Front & Center-Basic from the Reflections How To Program

Right Side - Very loosely based on
Front & Center-Basic from the Reflections How To Program

Materials used all CTMH
Colonial White, and Desert Sand Cardstock
Back Country B&T
Art Philosophy Cricut Cartridge

This layout should probably have been the first one I posted, as it is his first pictures.  I chose not to include his official hospital photo as he looks stoned in it.  This is the only layout I have completely finished as I have even done the journaling.   You can't tell it from the photo but the stars are totally coated in Glitter Glue, and the Marque with his name has glitter glue dots completely around the outside.  Of course this one also has items cut with the Art Philosophy Cricut Cartridge.  The Stars, Ticket, and Marque are all from the AP cartridge, the alphabet is from the Doodletype cartridge.  This layout is from the CTMH how to programs

Left side - Front & Center - Accent Band From Reflections
all these pictures are the originals, as Jimmy's hospital pictures
were the only ones not in the house when it burnt down
so I didn't have to scan them in.

Right Side - Based on Sidebar-Main Frame from the Reflections
Materials Used all CTMH unless otherwise stated
Caboodle B&T, White Daisy, Heavenly Blue, Crystal Blue, Key Lime,
Buttercup and Sunkiss Yellow cardstock
( the 2 yellows are because I accidently grabbed the wrong one for a couple of the mats.)
Glitz Glitter Gel Stardust
Art Philosophy & Doodletype Cricut Cartridges

This layout was a hard one to come up with as the underwater pictures are very blue, and I had a hard time finding paper to go with it.  I had to call in my upline for her opinion as I couldn't find anything I liked.  We ended up going with the "You Rock" papers as the Orange & green added to the playfulness of the layout.  I also used the Ducks from the "Makin Waves" Stamp Set.  It might have been the hardest layout to come up with but it was the funnest to complete.  I have fallen in love with the fun little ducks and have added this stamp set to my ever growing wish list.  This layout also happened to be my only one of the day that didn't have any cuts from the Art Philosophy Cricut Cartridge.

 Layout Design: Title Topper - Photos from Reflections How to Program

Materials Used: all CTMH unless otherwise stated

You Rock B&T's, White Daisy Cardstock

Giggle Lowercase & Uppercase alphas, and  Makin Waves Stamp Sets

Sky, Pacifica and Black inks

Colored pencils 

I have entered this page in  the Art Philosophy Linky Party, to show how you can use this cartridge to spice up your scrapbook layouts.  Since I have gotten this cartridge it has not been removed from my Cricut.  It is my goto cartridge for everything, and I totally love everything about it.  Please feel free to explore the rest of my blog as just about every post from October on has something that was created using the Art Philosophy Cricut Cartridge.





Feel free to explore the rest of the blogs in this linky blog hop.

September and our Vacation (long Post with lots of pictures)

Boy did September Fly By.  If you have ever been around our household you will know that September is a very chaotic month for us.  It starts out with the start of school, football games, and the winding down of summer, then it runs into what the boys & I call the best seven days of September, the Tuscarawas County Fair.  The boys and I are very active with our Local 4-H and so the first 2 weeks of September are spent getting ready for the Fair, and the last week is spent recovering from it.  The boys once again raised Market Hogs to show and sell at in the Jr. fair livestock competitions, and this year for the first time Robbie & Tony took Market Goats.  I had the 4-H booth to design, and  create, a vendor booth for Close To My Heart (with 2 other consultants) so I needed  items ready to sell, and on top of it all I decided to enter several items into the Fine Arts competition for stamping and photography  (what was I thinking :-)  Of course I had to get all this done around work and chasing kids. 

Dillon is #75

Tony #82

Tony & Dillon are both playing football which means at least 3 games a week, and practice every other day.  Of course with Tony being in a Freshman and Dillon only in 7th grade they both play on 2 different teams so of course their games are at different times and I have to coordinate schedules. 





Jimmy is working at Wendy's and has his own car so I don't have to worry about getting him from A to B anymore, and I am loving the fact that I can use him for pick up and delivery of his brothers when he isn't working. 

Because the boys have animals at the fair and I had the CTMH booth, we all took the week off work/school and had a camper set up at the fair, and we enjoyed a weeks vacation of action packed events.  It wall started off with decorating the hog barns Friday night (I skipped the varsity football game, to do this), then on Saturday we had Hog Weigh-In's, the camper was set up, my Fine Arts Entries were turned in and I started decorating the 4-H booth.  This year we lucked out and all 4 hogs were in the prime weigh classes, with Dillon's hog Two-Face weighing 260 lbs, Tony's hog Baby weighing 268 lbs, Jimmy's hog Ida Kno weighing 270 lbs, and finally Robbie's hog Lola weighing 275 lbs.  Surprisingly with all 4 hogs weights being so close none of the boys were in the same weight class. 




Dillon at weigh-ins with his an Jimmy's hogs.




Sunday started bright and early with the boys getting their pictures with their hogs for the buyers signs, then Robbie and Tony went and got the goats, Jimmy and Dillon moved into the camper, while I worked on getting the 4-H booth finished set up.  The goats both made weight with Robbie's Bubba weighing in at 80lbs and Tony's Leroy weighing 85lbs.  Then finally at 6pm after the 4-H booth was done Karen, Betty and I set up our Close To My Heart booth, and we were all ready for the week to begin. 



this years 4-H booth



Monday was the Opening day of the fair and the boys school actually didn't have classes this day so they hung out with their friends while I ran the CTMH booth. 

On Tuesday it was Show day for the Hogs and I took the day off from watching the CTMH booth. The boys & their hogs did fairly well this year Robbie, Jimmy, and Tony all got 5th place in their weight classes and Dillon got 9th, not bad and we all got done in time for Tony to make football practice and Dillon to make his football game.







Robbie & Lola,
Lola got 5th place in her weight class




Jimmy & Ida Kno
Ida got 5th place in her weight class




Tony & Baby
Baby got 5th place in her weight class



Dillon & Two-Face
Two-Face got 9th in her weight class


Then on Wednesday (It wasn't a good day) I watched the CTMH booth in the morning, then the boys had How showmanship at 4pm.  While I was on my way to the hog arena my Aunt and Granny stopped me, wanting to find my Dad cause my Mom had fallen and was being taken to the hospital by ambulance.  (Panic time) Luckily it didn't take long for us to find him, and while my Aunt, Granny, Dad, and Brother's family went to the hospital to be with Mom I got to watch the boys do showmanship.  It was not a good year for the boys in showmanship, Dillon did a good job showing but didn't make the final cut, Tony was complemented by the judge and you could tell he really wanted Tony in the final cut but Baby had other ideas and would not cooperate.  Jimmy did make the final cut and ended up with 5th place, Robbie automatically got first place as he was the only 18 year old showing.  Wednesday night finished with us in the ER again as Jhett, a good friend of Jimmy's,  was hurt on a ride and taken by ambulance to the hospital, so it made for a long night.

Thursday came and made up for the events of Wednesday.  Our day started bright and early as we had made arrangements the night before to help get Jhett's goat ready for the show, as we weren't sure he would be out of the ER in time to show.  (He made it with 10 minutes to spare).  This was our first year of taking goats so we were a little unsure what the judge would be looking for, though Dani did a wonderful job teaching Robbie how to show a goat cause Robbie got 2nd place in the 1st year showmanship class.  Once we got to the individual weight classes where they judged the goat and not the 4-H we hit jackpot.  Robbie got first place in his weight class!!!  Then Tony got last in his weight class, bummer but he has a couple of years left to show, for Robbie it was his last harrah. 


Robbie and Bubba getting first place in Weight Class 2




Tony walking Leroy in Weight Class 3


the best part of Thursday was when they brought in all the first and second place goats from the 4 weight classes and the judge picked out Bubba as the 2011 Tuscarawas County Fair Grand Champion Market Goat.  I don't know who had the bigger smile, Robbie or Dani. 





Robbie and Dani with the Grand Champion banner
and Bubba in front of the Ag-Land booth
where Dani works and the buyers of Bubba


After the goat show on Thursday, the rest of the week went pretty quickly.  the boys sold their hogs Thursday night and got the best overall price per pound we have gotten since they started taking hogs.  Jimmy got $3.25 a pound, Robbie & Tony got $2.75 a pound and Dillon got $2.50 a pound, we were very please with the results.  Friday was pretty much a wind down day as Tony & Dillon had the varsity football game that night, and the rest of us just hung out at the fair.  Saturday the boys sold the goats with Robbie getting $750 for Bubba and Tony getting $225 for Leroy.   Sunday came and we were in clean up mode, we cleaned out the camper, the animal pens,  tore down our booths, and said goodbye to all our fair friends for another year.  In all the 2011 Tuscarwas County Fair was a good one, and we were all sad/happy to see it come to an end.




This is the make shift sign that this display
made after my Mom fell when she missed the
step.  I of course had to snap a picture of
it for her scrapbook.



It's over, and we are all still kickin'

Well Fair week is finally over!!!  I love the fair and am always ready for it to arrive and ready for it to be over.  It is a great time, and a fun filled, action packed week.  But after about 3 days of little sleep and lots of action, I start wishing it would end.  The 2010 fair was another good year for our household.  Here is a run down of the week in review.

Monday was the official opening of the fair.  Robbie and Jimmy were very busy with working on the Jr. Fairboard.  Tony, Dillon and I worked in the Clover Cafe' with the rest of the 4-H club.  Then we washed all 4 pigs in preparation for the show the next morning.  Our 4-H booth once again got an "Outstanding Booth" award, Our theme was "Built 4-H Tough", I reviewed the score sheet and I think we got the best score we have ever had 99 out of 100 possible points, we got perfect scores on everything but creativity.  Not Bad.  I have to check but I do believe this is like the 12th year in a row that we have had an Outstanding booth.

Tuesday was the hog show the boys hogs were all lite weights so they were in the first 5 weight classes.  Tony's pig Star weighed 220lbs and was in the first weight class, she made it into the holding pen and got 5th place in her class.   Robbie's pig Layla weighed 229 and was in Weight Class 2, Layla also made it into the holding pen and we were all excited when she got first place.  Jimmy's pig Double Stuff weighed 230 and was in Weight class 3, Double Stuff got an honorable mention as the Judge sent the pigs back to the barn, she ended up with 8th place.  Dillon's pig Frappe' was the heaviest pig weighing in at 241lbs and she was in weight class 5, she too got an honorable mention on her long lean body before she was sent back to the barn with 9th place.  Robbie placing first made our day exceptionally long as we had to sit around and wait for the Grand Champion round even though we knew Layla had only a slight chance of making it.  Tuesday evening then I worked the Close To My HEart Booth, and had a good finish to a great day.

Tony showing Star

Robbie showing Layla

Jimmy getting ready to show Double Stuff

Dillon & Frappe'



Robbie and Layla in the Championship run



 Wednesday was showmanship.  The boys didn't do that great this year.  The judge wasn't looking for what we had been taught so the boys didn't make it into the holding pens, even though they did a great job showing their pigs. Only Robbie placed in his class he got 4th out of 5 participants.  Tony was majorly disappointed cause he had worked hard with his pig and this was the first time since he began showing that he hadn't placed in the top five of his age group, and he had missed his football game to show.

Dillon in Showmanship

Tony in Showmanship

Thursday night was the Livestock Auction.  After Robbie's hog sold we were beginning to think that it was going to be a bad year for us, as Robbie only got $1.75/lb for his hog with only 1 person bidding on his hog.  Korn's Electric bought it. Then Tony's hog sold for only $2.00/lb better than Robbie's but still not good enough to payoff the loans and still have some extra to save, again only 1 person bid on his hog and we were beginning to think our buyers had forgotten us.  We did have a new buyer purchase Tony's hog, Bolivar Pizza.  There were about 80 hogs between Tony and Jimmy with most of them going for arouond $2.50-2.75/lb.  When Jimmy's hog came up I was so preoccupied in praying that his sold well that I totaly missed getting a picture of Jimmy in the sale ring, and failed to realize that his hog had gone for $3.25,  I was thrilled, it was the most we have ever gotten for a hog and the buyer was Evan's Family Farms, the farm we had gotten our hogs from to begin with.  THANKS JEREMY & MICHELE.  Well this was good news as we take all the proceeds from the sale of the 4 hogs and add them all together and divide by 4 so each boy makes the same amount, this made Tony & Robbie feel a little better knowing that they would be coming out ahead.  Dillon's Hog was the last to sell, he also got $3.25/lb from Steve & Becky Mastin, Dover-New Phila Wendy's.  THANKS STEVE & BECKY. Of course this year I had once again completely forgot about getting the boys some sort of Thank You gift to give their buyers on Thursday night so when Michelle Evans bought Jimmy's Hog I gave her the washer necklace I had been wearing that day as a Thank You Gift, then once Wendy's bought Dillon's Hog I quickly ran down to my Close To My Heart booth and got 3 more necklaces for the other boys buyers.  I gave Becky her choice of necklaces.  We could not find the other 2 boys buyers so I guess we will have to send then their gifts later.   

Once we got done with Thursday, the boys were done showing and we were on the down hill side of the fair.  My neices and nephew showed their animals on Wednesday and Friday.  Sunny showed her rabbit on Wednesday and got first place in her class and 5th place in showmanship,  Congratulations Sunny.  The Stewarts showed their calves on both Wednesday in Open Class and Friday in the Jr. Fair Show.  Nadine got 3rd place on both days, Daniel got 5th place on Wednesday and 4th on Friday, Arizona got first place on Wednesday and second place on Friday.



Sunny & her rabbit Sugar



Arizona & Jasmine

Daniel & Farrah

Nadine & Penny

Friday afternoon after the Dairy sale I got sick from the heat and spent the rest of the night in the camper. Then Saturday Ken, Dillon, and I didn't get into the fairgrounds till after 3 pm because Dillon had a football game, I once again spent the night in the camper cause I was feelin rough.  Though on SAturday I had company cause Robbie, and Jimmy were startin to get sick.  By the time Sunday rolled around I was starting to feel better and was more than ready to close up another year.  Overall it was a good week, my goal of comin out of the fair with more money than we came in with wasn't quite reached but I did make almost $90 in the Close To My Heart booth, plus I had made several contacts.

Today Robbie and Jimmy both stayed home with severe head cold, yeah we survived the fair but we did come out a little on the rough side.  Now it is time for me to get back to scrappin, cause even though I was on vacation for the last week, Robbie's graduation is creeping closer and closer, so now i have less than 7 months to get 17 years of Robbie's life scrapped and put into an album.  Time to get movin.

Let The Chaos Begin

Well after weeks of preparation the Fair is finally here!!!

It's only Monday and I already am in desparate need of a nap.  The pigs all made weight, Dillon decided to take his back-up Frappe and she ended up being the heaviest of our pigs weighing in at 241, Tony's is the lightest being 220, Robbie's is 229, and Jimmy's weighed 230. 

The 4-H Booth was completely set up by 5:00 pm on Sunday, A NEW RECORD for me. LOL  The Close to My Heart booth is up and running, I only managed to get about 75 cards done, but I also have flowers, washer necklaces, and my Snow /Fall decor. 

Now to settle in for the Chaos of the week.  The boys all stayed at the camper last night, while I slept in my own bed here at home.  It seemed to have worked out great, the camper was still in one peice when I arrived this mornin and the boys were all alive.  I will be posting pictures of the week as I get a chance, here are a few so far.

Final Count Down till Fair

We are on the final 7 days until Fair.  We need to get the 4-H booth decorations ready, sometime I have to go to Canton to pick up the rest of the plastic for the background of the booth.  Tuesday night I need to have everything ready for the club to work on cutting, and putting the stuff together.  Wednesday night Dillon has football practice and Robbie and Jimmy have a Jr. Fairboard meeting.  Thursday night Tony has a game and Dillon has Practice.  The pigs have to be hauled into the fairgrounds at 8 am Saturday mornin, so far only Dillon's still has to make weight.  Saturday is also when we start setting up the 4-H booth plus Dillon has a game at 1, then on Sunday we will finish setting up the 4-H booth and I will then help set up the Close To My Heart Booth. So far I don't have much ready to sell, so during my free time this week I will be working on cards like crazy. I have approxiamately 65 cards made to sell and I want to have atleast 300 ready to go, so I will be hitting the cards hard the next couple of days.

Here is a quick view of this week in pictures along with 2 cards I have made.

Robbie & his pig Layla

Jimmy & his hog Double Stuff

Tony & his pig Star

Dillon & his pig Onyx. 

She still needs to gain about 10lbs in the next week to make the minimum fair weight on 210.

Dillon #70 in action during this weeks 6-0 win over the Steelers

Tony #84 out for a pass during this weeks 18-14 loss to Indian Valley.

Both boys football teams are now 1-1.

This is a card I made for Tyler one of our 4-H members who was unable to complete his project this year due to being called to Marine Boot Camp before he could complete it.  He is truely our hero.

I used Blue Ribbon Paper Pack, Hero's Pride, Home of the Free and Tiny Typewriter Stamp Sets, Outdoor Denim, Cranberry and White Daisy cardstock, and Outdoor Denim ink. 

This is one of the many cards i have made to sell.  I used the You Rock Paper Pack, with Just Be You Stamp Set, and Dainty Thoughts Stamp Set, Indian Corn Blue and White Daisy Cardstock, Outdoor Denim, Indian Corn Blue and Goldrush ink, Navy Ribbon from Pat Catan's, and Stickles