Author: Raptor Mama

I made this page as part of a challenge to scraplift myself.  I’m pretty lazy at design so I do this all the time.  It would be more of a challenge *not* to scraplift myself.  lol.  At any rate, here was the inspiration.

I’m pretty happy with how it turned out.

I used the Martha Stewart punch to make the hearts and I liked it more than I expected.  I might have to invest in a few more punches.  Perhaps a butterfly?

I also cut out these tickets from the patterned paper.  It took a while, but I think it turned out cute.

I tried to “smoosh” my title together and I think it turned out looking pretty good.  Overall, happy with this layout.

 

 

 

 

Here we go!

Now I need to get cracking on week 6.  🙂

 

Oh man y’all.  It’s been a rough couple of weeks around here.  Largely because I had to take some medication for a few weeks that makes me feel like a psychopath zombie crazy person.  I’m finally finished with it and I’m starting to feel a return to normal.  I haven’t put anything up on the blog because I haven’t been creating anything, which puts me in a crap mood, which makes me even less likely to go create something.  It’s a vicious cycle!  Well no more.  I’m busting out of this cycle.

I’m finally working on digital project life again.  Hopefully I’ll have this spread (week 5) finished in time to post it on Friday.  I also just got in a big new batch of pictures and I’m scrapping with some friends on Saturday.  Kate and I also have plans for some DIY stuff for her birthday party.  It’s going to have a space them and she and I are really excited about it.

Letter of the Week has kind of taken a back seat for a while as Kate’s just not that into it.  Well, she’s thrilled to do each tray once, but then she’s bored with them.  I think because most Letter of the Week activities are geared toward younger kids?  For example, Kate already knows how to quantify numbers.  She taught herself addition and subtraction for pete’s sake so why am I giving her trays where she puts the numbers in order and then lays out counters?  No wonder she doesn’t want to do them.  I need to ponder this further and find a way to make it work for us.  I’m thinking that we’ll still have a theme (E is for Elephant) but then plan trays/ activities more around the theme than the letter.  Kate’s really interested in crafts/ story telling/ pretend play at the moment so I think I’m going to put the more academic trays on the back burner for a while and focus on more craft ones.  I think she’s just about ready to teach herself to read and I’ve decided to just get out of her way and let it happen as she wants it to.

And now a reward for reading all of my ramblings.  Here’s my crazy monkey on the monkey bars at the park.  She actually did this 5 or 6 times for me while I was trying to get a picture.  She’s such a good sport.  Also, a huge ham.  🙂

I love these pictures.  I’m kind of obsessed with taking pictures of Kate underwater and this was my favorite one from last year.  I’ve been saving it for some special paper.  🙂

Enter The Pier by Crate Paper.  I’m obsessed.  It has things like these chipboard slides.  ::drool::

Also these fun letters.  I stitched them in place.

 

 

 

 

We met some friends last week at the Zilker Botanical Gardens.  Wow!  This place is super cool.  I cant believe that I’ve never been before.They had a temporary exhibit going on which is tiny fairy houses nestled amongst the flowers.

Check out that tiny bridge!  These houses were amazing.

The girls thought they were pretty cool, but their favorite things?

Laying in the grass and terrorizing catching doodle bugs.  🙂

 

 

 

 

Oh Mister Huey’s.  Where have you been all my life?!?  I love the look of spray mists, but have been unable to make them look right until now.  I think I’m in love.  🙂

 

In fact, I’m considering buying some white cardstock.  ::gasp::  I made this layout using the filler paper from a page protector and, while it worked, it’s not as sturdy as I like.

I made some embellishment clusters with 2 strips of washi tape as the anchor.

I added a punched heart, a ticket cut out from a sheet of patterned paper, a brad, and a chipboard star.

For the biggest cluster I added more of the same.  This layout was a big change for me stylistically, but I *love* it.  I wish I had nestled the title together a bit more, putting the “walk” between the uprights of the “h” and “b” for example, but I think it was an excellent step into the world of misting.  🙂

 

 

 

I’m a bit behind this week, but I finished!  Here’s week 4.

Don’t you love it when you find *exactly* what you’re looking for, but even better?  Me too.  I’m not one to recreate the wheel so when I found an awesome *free* dinosaur unit I snapped it up.  Seriously, check out this blog.  My only problem was narrowing down what to print.  🙂  I had intended to just use these as worksheets since that’s what Kate’s been begging for, but when I went to pick them up they were all in color.  Now I’m not one to waste color prints so I laminated most of them.  🙂

First up is sorting.

Then some simple puzzles.

A more complicated puzzle that has numbers across the bottom to make it easier.

Sequencing by size.

And one of my favorites, shadow matching.

I also bought a tube of cheap plastic dinosaurs.  I’m planning on freezing them into a block of ice so we can “excavate” them, maybe with some salt and warm water.  I predict this will be a pretty big hit.

 

 

 

 

 

I actually did pretty well with my April goals, especially considering that they were pretty ambitious.  I have a few more layouts to finish for April and a bit for photo editing for last year’s Project Life, but aside from that I finished all of them!  This month, I’m setting a different kind of goal.  A challenge as it were.  I’m participating in a Faux LOAD (LayOut A Day) which means, you guessed it, a finished scrapbook layout every day!  I’m hoping to actually do this to where I finish a layout every single day, but for the purposes of this blog, I’m considering 31 layouts in the month of May to be a success.  Is it possible?  Honestly, I’m not sure, but I’m typing this on the 1st and I just finished a layout!

I had an unusually hard time putting this layout together, but I’m happy with the end results.  I must have taken it apart 12 times though.  lol.

Supplies are October Afternoon (of course) from the Witch Hazel collection.

I included way more writing than usual and I think I like it.  Might be the start of a new trend.  I really need to get some more pictures ordered soon or I’m going to run out of stuff to scrap!

I feel like I should have at least a few more goals for the month…  Hmm…  How about

2.  Dinosaur, Elephant, and Frog Letter a Week units prepped and blogged

3.  Photos ordered

4.  4 new Digital Project Life layouts

5.  Make a Summer Bucket list with the girls

 

 

 

A fun layout with some simple layers.  I’ve wanted to love misting for a while now, but I could never get my glimmer mists to behave like I wanted.  Finally I decided to check out some Mister Hueys.  ::swoon::  Y’all, I’m in love.  Why have I waited so long?!?  I was pretty conservative with the mists, I just flicked a bit on with the wand and covered most of it up, but I plan to carve out some time to play with these this week.  You know, when I’m at home and not trying to avoid spraying mists all over the carpet of the local scrapbook store.

Then I layered up some more scraps like I did here and added some new washi tape.  What?  Of course I bought more.  I have a problem.  🙂  I have my eye on this one, but it keeps being sold out.

I was all ready to put this one away and then girls decided that it *had* to have googly eyes.  I quite agree.

I repeated the eyes in a few spots which I think turned out super cute.  Oh and these thickers?  I may have bought 2 more packages.  I’m a bit concerned it won’t be enough.