MY STARS

I have never been a chronological scrapper.....I like to scrap whatever inspires me at the time.  Sometimes it's paper, sometimes it's pictures, sometimes it's the time of the year....In this case, it was all three!  This week's RCS challenge revolved around the movie "Star Wars."  In other words, use stars somehow.  I loved the Pebbles Inc. & Doodlebug Fourth of July lines released this year & how each company utilized stars on their papers. I've already published one picture using the Doodlebug stars; I just felt this picture needed that particular paper to be used again along with the cute embellishments and other patriotic papers from Pebbles, Inc.  My dog plopped himself down in front of an American flag in my yard.  My oldest daughter, who loves her dog more than anything, plopped down next to him, and I took this gorgeous pic of the two of them.  They truly are the best of friends, and I thank my lucky stars that we adopted my dog from the shelter a few years back.  He has been the greatest friend ever to all of us!

GOLF RCS 3D CHALLENGE

This week's RCS challenge asked us to create a 3 dimensional layout to honor 3D movies.  I'm a scrapbooking girl; I love making layouts.  And two weeks ago, I went with a couple of my teacher friends to Michigan to celebrate the end of the school year.  And while I was relaxing on Lake Huron, I get pictures of my girls having a grand time without me.  Sigh....My husband took them putt putt golfing, laser tag playing, etc.  Evidently, they enjoy Mommy being gone.  When I got home, I found their putt putt score card (where my youngest daughter totally kicked my husband's butt) and decided it would be a great centerpiece for this 3D layout by making it removable.  I also used MAMBI 3D golf embellishments to make the layout even more dimensional.

PLAY TIME

With the release of the movie "Oz, the Great and Powerful" this week, RCS's challenge was "Yellow Brick Road."  Or make a layout using yellow as the primary color.  I have a soft spot in my heart for the color yellow.  It was the color of my girls' nurseries when they were babies.  I especially love pale yellows.  So when I found this Jillibean Soup paper that was softly printed yellow flowers, I had to buy it for this challenge.  I took this picture of my daughter on the first warm Spring day at our favorite park going down the slide.  I turned the picture into Sepia, and I thought the yellowish tint of the picture went well with this paper.

FOR TYLER

This RCS challenge was based on the movie "The Boy in the Striped Pajamas."  Definitely not a feel good movie but quite poignant.  In other words, we needed to use stripes in some way on our layout.  When I think of this movie, I think of the United States Holocaust Museum in Washington DC.  We go there every year on our annual 8th grade DC trip.  It's a place that reminds me of how valuable life is and how fortunate I am to be an American.  This year's trip to DC was extremely bittersweet.  My student Tyler died in January after a brief, devastating illness.  He was a history buff who was looking so forward to our trip to DC.  What he was excited to see most was the Lincoln Memorial.  While he was in the hospital, the staff gave him a patriotic teddy bear to try to rally him to recover.  His parents told us this after he passed away.  Tyler's Mother asked if we could take the bear with us to Washington DC in memory of him.  So my colleagues, students, and I took different pictures of Tyler's bear all over Washington DC.  This particular picture is my favorite.  It was so crowded the day we went to Lincoln Memorial, but somehow I got this shot of Tyler's bear "posing" with Abe. So, in honor of the "Stars and Stripes," I created this layout to honor my student.  I used Doodlebug's "Stars and Stripes" collection (fitting for the theme of this challenge) and a sketch design featured by "Sketches in Thyme" to pull this layout together.  And although this layout was designed for RCS, it's also for Tyler.  God speed to my precious student.  Mrs. Johnson misses you dearly.

LOVE THIS MOMENT

This week's Red Carpet Studio challenge was to make a layout based on the movie The Girl with the Pearl Earring.  Now, I've heard of "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo," but I never heard of this movie.....So I decided to be very literal with this layout; my little girl with her freshly pierced earrings.  Although they are not pearl, they were earrings nevertheless!  I embellished the layout using pearl swirly gems and a Prima flower with a pearl in the middle.She was only four when she decided that she wanted her ears pierced. I love her sweet face in this picture showing me her new treasures.  I thought this paper from Little Yellow Bicycle's "Fern and Forest" line was perfect to capture her innocence in this picture.

THE WALKING DEAD

Hello, my name is Stephanie, and I"m addicted to The Walking Dead.....As is my daughter.  (I know...what kind of Mother am I for letting my tween watch this, trust me, I've given myself enough grief about it...)  It's bonding for us.... She loves the show so much, that she started making Walking Dead charm bracelets (as pictured in this layout).  Several of the cast members of The Walking Dead came to Cincinnati a month ago, and my co-worker and her daughter (the biggest fans of the show that I know) got to meet several of the stars including Sarah Wayne Callies (Lori) and Norman Reedus (Daryl).  Jesse, the girl pictured, wore Caitlin's charm bracelet to the event, and they LOVED them!  They were quite impressed that a 6th grader crafted these little people.  Being her Mom, of course I think they are adorable and tell her that often, but seeing celebrities that she made figures of admiring her art about made us both bust with pride.  So, why this layout?  Red Carpet Studios challenge this week was "black tie" or use "black" somehow on the layout.  I found this very creepy paper from Carta Bella called "All Hallow's Eve," and I thought it perfectly reflected the mood and the opening credits of The Walking Dead show.  It's hard to see, but the paper the pictures are on list all sorts of body parts.  (An old fashion anatomy book paper).  I wanted it to look creepy yet antique like at the same time.  And of course, use black!  I ripped the paper to make it look like it's gone through a rough time (like a Zombie apocalypse) and some found objects from Tim Holtz to give it that extra old fashioned look.

TIME TO DISCOVER

For this RCS challenge, we had to make a layout to honor Brad Pitt.  In other words, in some way, we had to incorporate brads into the layout.  I guess this layout is a double shout out to Brad Pitt with the fishing pictures.  (A River Runs Through It....get it?) :0)  Anyway, I decided to use the brads to anchor baker's twine to frame my layout.  It's like pseudo stitching on my layout which I thought was a nice finishing touch.