Tears For Cecil

Politics aside, the whole Cecil story really touched me. Maybe because I'm a Leo, maybe because I love animals, I don't know, but I shed tears for this beautiful lion and felt I needed to make something to remind me of this senseless death. So, I started by pounding the hell out of a A&W10 can to start as my base and came up with this little tribute to Cecil.

I remembered I had made these lion heads out of polymer clay for my mom and I one year and mine had been a necklace that eventually broke apart, so I used that as my Cecil head with a big orange silk flower behind it for the mane. Added some black Distress Ink and Stickles to the tips. I used the parts from an old necklace for the foot claws and beads.

I even found a little crown in my stash to add for his "King of the Jungle" persona, as well as a pair of old earrings for epaulets. I've been making lots of paper beads this year too and used those for his arms, legs and tail.

His belly is a little steam punky. I used an old mint tin with a sliding top. Planning on putting an article describing his story rolled up inside. I made some little tears on a chain that hangs down from the gears and arrow.

It's hard to see his tail from the front, but here it is peeking out from the side. I have him hanging at the entrance to my studio so I see him when I walk in. Rest in Peace Cecil, you were one of a kind.

Happy Father's Day!

A very Happy Father's Day to all the dad's and granddads in my life! 

First, to my dad, Jeff, whom I lost 3 years ago. Still miss him and his wonderful sense of humor. 

And to my hubby, Roger, who helped me raise two of the best young men in the world. 

My father-in-law, Grant.

My grandpa, Fred (dad's father) who passed in 1981

My grandpa Orville (mom's dad) who passed in 1985

To those we miss and those with us still, a great big hug to all!

Family Faces

Getting lots of pictures from both new babies families over the last few months, so I've been busy digi scrapping.

This one is in a quick drop from the Aurora Borealis CS collection. It's Betsy (grandma) holding little Finnley's hand. Just precious.

Here we have a gorgeous family picture of Morgan, Tarn and Finnley in a Nice to See You (CS) quick drop layout.

And here's one of Tarn and Morgan's wedding photos in a Just Dandy (CS) quick drop. 

This is Vanleigh and her auntie Ashleigh. Super cute photo in a Peacock (CS) quick drop layout. 

And finally, we have grandma Laura Leigh (I still can't get used to saying that) and little Vanleigh in an adorable photo together, also in a quick drop from the My Funny Valentine collection from CS. Vanleigh wins the chubby cheeks award this month!

Fancy Schmancy Stitch Markers

I've recently gotten back into crocheting and knitting. Maybe because I'm teaching a friend who lives in my neighborhood how to crochet and I've been surfing the net for patterns a lot lately. Anyhow, I've been using this gigantic stitch holder used for knitting to mark my rounds for crochet.

Quite silly isn't it?

I have knitting stitch markers that just slide over the needle, but they don't really work when you're crocheting. 

I saw a picture of some crochet work with what looked like a lobster claw clasp and some beads used as a stitch marker and it clicked. Hey, I have a bunch of those lobster claws in my jewelry findings. Out came the beads, findings and jewelry pliers and voila!

I made 2 different sizes in black and copper. They are really quite simple to make, just a lobster claw clasp, a head pin and some beads.

And here we are, a much better way to mark crochet rounds. 

Happy Mother's Day!

Happy Mother's Day to my beautiful, wonderful Mom! This picture is one of my favorites of her taken in the late 90's. Just love that red hat and the beautiful daffodils next to her.

Digital scrapbook page created with Club Scrap's Bold Blooms, Sprinkles and The Blues kits.

Plarn?????

What's Plarn, you say? 

Plarn is Plastic Yarn made from recycled grocery bags. Really simple to make and you get quite a good length of "plarn" from 1 bag.

When I started my project I was going to use all different colors of bags, but as I got going I liked the beige colored bags with a little black in them so I decided to stick with those for the whole project. 

And here we have it, a "plarn" sun hat with a "plarn" flower to adorn it. It took about 25-30 grocery bags to complete the hat. It has a velvet ribbon threaded through it. It was fun and I would definitely do it again. It looks like a straw hat till you get up close. 

Vintage Disneyland

I've been scanning old slides lately and came across some great vintage 1960's pictures of my husband and his sister at Disneyland.

I love that Disneyland is timeless. 

All digital elements are from Club Scrap's Pure & Simple collection. One of my favorite color combos ever. 

Generations Project

A few weeks ago, my friend Diana and I worked on a vintage Club Scrap project together via Skype. The project is a small scrapbook using the Generations kit from April 2008.

Here is the cover of my book. It is a fun exercise in masking and inking techniques and I really like how it turned out. I added some hardware and dimensional words to the cover as well. My book ended up having 36 pages and it lead me to some fantastic genealogy discoveries and stories that I will be adding to the book at a later date. For now I have a lot of generational pictures from both sides of my family and will really treasure having them all in one place.

The first 2 pages show my family trees on both my mother and father's sides of my family. When I started I had only a small amount on my dad's side and quite a bit on my mom's, but after I contacted some relatives and did an internet search on some information I had a whole new world opened up and I ended up tracing my mother's line all the way back to Robert the Bruce. Cool, huh?

I started with my grandmother (on my dad's side). I thought this was the only picture available with her dad, her and me. When I contacted my aunt, she sent me pictures of my grandma's mom and sisters as well.

I tried to do at least one page for each side that shows the generations so you'll see that I repeated the use of head shots to show that. I noticed when I did this one that I, my dad and my great grandma, all have the same eyes.

Next, we have the Farman side of my dad's family. My aunt Betsy and cousin Carrie provided some great vintage photos for me here. Particularly dear to my heart are the one's of my dad as a baby. He had such a great sense of humor and you see in this series of photos that he was such a happy child as well. I miss him every day.....

It was also great to have pictures of 2 generations of siblings. My dad and his siblings, both as children and adults and his dad and his siblings as children and adults. I have another page to add depicting the Farman Pickle Brothers, but I'm waiting for some images.

Next we have my grandfather's mother. This is as far back as I have information for her side of the family, but we have the Farman side back to before the Revolutionary War. There were even a couple of pictures from the mid 1800s and stories of minute men and the gold rush.

Now, we move on to my mom's side of the family, starting with her mother. I have such great memories of week ends spent at my grandparents house in Buckley, WA. I think the picture of my grandmother and some of her siblings in the lower left corner is the only picture I've seen of my grandma as a child. A wonderful photo to have.

Next is my mother's father's side, the Lochridges. We have some wonderful photos dating back to the early 1900s of this crowd. They were a logging family and during the winter months, my grandpa's parents ran a roller rink. Family legend has it that this may have also been a speakeasy, after all, it was the 1920s.

The top 2 pages show's my great-great grandfather and grandmother and their adult children. On the right is Elizabeth Bagby (the g-g-grandmother from that family), she lived to be 84 and helped with the running of the logging camp.

The bottom 2 pages show a handmade quilt made by my g-g-g-grandmother Damara Todd (married to John Lochridge). It's called Turkey Tracks and hangs in a museum in Auburn, WA. I also made copies of the family bible pages that has all the family records for her children, marriages and deaths.

This all lead me to do some research on the internet which lead me to the Campbells, the Stewarts and the Bruces. Yes, we have a direct connection through the Lochridges all the way back to Robert the Bruce, King of Scotland. How cool is that?

Here is a picture of both the back and front covers of the book. I'll put my signature in the frame on the back. 

Happy Birthday Will!

A very happy birthday to my son Will who turns 24 today. It's his year in the lunar calendar, so I made a layout for him depicting some of the personality traits of people born in the year of the goat.

An interesting note: Good career choices for goats are pediatrician, actor, daycare teacher, interior designer, florist, hair stylist, musician, editor, illustrator, and history teacher. Go Figure! he's a history teacher!

Heritage Photos

I've been working on some digital scrapbook pages of some vintage photos I received from my aunt and a second cousin. It's been such a wonderful jaunt down memory lane.

1st up, these 2 photos of my dad and his siblings were taken 30 years apart. I love how they were lined up the same way without even planning it that way and I found a cute Dr. Seuss quote to go with them.

I used Club Scrap's Gratitude kit for this page.

There was also a photo of my grandpa (dad's father) and 3 of his siblings from 1917, grandpa is 2 in the photo. I was fascinated by the resemblance of grandpa Fred to his son John and his sister Marie to his daughter Betsy.

London Calling was the kit used for this layout.

I thought it would be fun to do a layout showing the family tree with all the photos I've collected.

This one has Paul as the start and shows my

mom's side of the family.

And this one has Will as the start showing my dad's side of the family. 

These pages were made with the Random Doorways kit. 

Bright Ideas and Asian Mums UFOs

I've been trying to clear my cupboards of Unfinished Objects (UFOs) and came across this little night light project from Club Scrap.

I used retreat paper for the shade and added some rickrack over the edges. The leaf dangles came in the kit.

I also completed a quilt top from a kit I got at a quilt store in Lakewood that went out of business a couple of years ago.

It came with some very pretty shimmery fabrics for the squares and a beautiful panel with the mums on it. 

Here is a close up of the pieced mum block.