Hope

This LO was done for the Get Messy challenge at Crop Suey, Helen's Floral Masculine challenge at Scrapbook Challenges, The Bird is the Word Challenge that said to use "Hope" on a LO, and the Punky Scraps challenge that said to use tissue paper.

Love is Thicker than Blood

I chose this title because my son loves to remind me that his sister is only his half-sister, so he says he doesn't love her as much as he would if she were his blood. I beg to differ. I never thought I could love someone so much who wasn't blood, but I love my daughter as if I had carried her myself, and this page is a testament to that. I put a lot of love into it, and my daughter loves it too! I enclosed a personal message to her and tucked it into the envelope in the bottom left corner.

I did this LO for the Pick of the Week scraplift challenge on Scrapbook Challenges, and the July challenge at Berry71Bleu that required a pink and orange color pallette and hidden journalling.

Here's a little peek at the message I wrote for Maddy:

And here's a detail shot:

Wine Tour

I love it when Dad visits. We always do such interesting things. One of the things we did this year was a wine tour. I live in one of the best wine-producing regions in the world, yet I've never done this. I don't drink wine, but I developed a real appreciation for it on the tour, and I look forward to trying some new wines now that I understand them better.

I based this layout on a Let's Scrap sketch. Here's the sketch:

And here's my LO. I cut out pics from the brochures to use as embellishments:

Here are some close-up pictures:

ConGRADulations

Scrapbook Challenges is posting a Sketch-a-Day for July. Here's one of this week's sketches. I wanted to use slightly larger pictures, so I made it a two-pager.

Here's the sketch:

And here's my LO:

And then some close-ups:

Gifts from the Heart

It was my birthday in May. This year I wanted a low-key affair with just my family at home, so they went out of their way to make it special. My husband gave me my favorite flowers - red roses, and spending money for scrapbook supplies (perfect!), my daughter made me a beautiful card with a very touching sentiment inside, and my son made a chocolate orange cheesecake -- our first homemade cake ever for either of us! Also, Kayli and Nathan came over and my Dad was in visiting from Alberta, so it really was a perfect birthday.
I did this LO for a Let's Scrap sketch challenge. Here's the sketch:

And here's my LO. I only did the left side of the sketch:

Beautiful Girl and Sharp Dressed Man

I'm back!!! I took a bit of a scrapbooking hiatus for May and June to focus on some other priorities, but I've missed scrapping SO much! I'm excited to be back, and with so much great stuff that's happened throughout May and June, I have lots of great new pictures to scrapbook -- and, of course, a few years of pictures still to catch up on.
The most recent event that's happened is that my babies have graduated from Grade 8! Where has the time gone? Here they are all dressed up for graduation.

This first page was done for the Sketchy Thursdays challenge. Here's the sketch:

And here's my LO. I chose only to do the left side of the sketch:

I did a page to complement the left side, that's very loosely based on the above sketch, of my handsome boy: