Spring Has Sprung or Seeing the Sun Again Reminds of Last Summer

Oh, yes, spring is really here. The snow is really gone (even that stubborn icy patch that lives on the south side of my house where the sun rarely touches) and the green buds are peeking out. I am so excited to see the lilies of the valley that my in-laws gifted me with last summer are shooting out strong and healthy. With the fresh air of spring, I am less likely to hang out in my basement at the scrapping table. Just doesn't seem right to hunker in the corner surrounded by adhesive when I could be enjoying my backyard before the inevitable mosquito invasion. The spring and summer fun ahead turns my thoughts to spring and summer past.

Cruising through my books, I am pretty excited about how I chronicled last summer. Lots of good stuff there, much of it created in our January visit to Carla's Creative Cottage. As always Kit worried there wouldn't be enough of us to fill the cottage, but never fear - the draw of the luxury of the cottage (both space and time) ensures that there are plenty of chairs at the table. Sadly, Johnny was not able to join us (it was hockey season, duh!), but I did complete a few back in black pages in her honor. I am still working on my technique of reverse printing to get white text on black.


[1-2-3 Walleye, 2009]

It was a mostly cool summer, but, of course, the one day in June we decided to go to a local carnival, we were plenty warm.


[Carnival, June 2009]

The highlight of the summer was our annual Fourth of July family gathering at the lake. With all the cool weather, we were thrilled with the "finally warm enough to swim" days for our event. I had some shopping challenges prepping for these pages. It seems like the trend this year was for muted colors for Fourth of July. I really just needed some bright, true reds and blues. Much harder to find than I ever imagined. I worked on these next couple of pages on the New Year's Crop at Archivers. I realized that six years ago when I started scrapbooking a place like Archivers had more die cuts and letters than anyone could ever need. Now I know I need my laptop and Cricut to make sure that I have the endless collection of fonts and cutouts that physical store just can't offer me.


[Spirit of the Flotilla, 2009]


[Fourth of July, 2009]

I like the way this one turned out with the block format, it really helped me out when I realized I had the ugliest patterned paper in the universe to work with. The narrow strips minimized the paper and drew out only the parts I like. The woman sharing my table that day was horrified that I was tossing out the rest of the sheet. She honestly wanted it. One woman's trash is another woman's scrap.

This fireworks paper, on the other hand was fantastic! It is actually Disney brand paper (you know the "happiest place on earth" folks who make their own paper and over price it for everyone) with embossing and glitter. That's screams, "I gotta have it!" It's a good thing the papers on this one were great, because the pictures were poor - blurry and dark.


[Fireworks, 2009]


[Sparklers, July 2009]




The summer officially ended with a great Labor Day weekend. It was warm enough to get in that last swim of the season, and we actually had a warm day for our visit to Itasca Park. A lot of double page layouts this time around - I guess I was feeling the need to use lots of pictures and wanted to spread out a little.


[Flying Solo, 2010] This one was nothing to write home about, but overall did the job and told the story. Also only used stuff in my stash.


[Itasca, 2009] Loved the colors in this one and how striped paper fits with Olivia's shirt. Really digging the Cricut and Sure Cuts a Lot with the title.


[Lemme See Your Frog, 2009]