Photo Shoot For My Daughter

Hello everyone!  I do have projects to share with you, but today instead of paper crafting, I am sharing my daughter, Bethany.  Bethany and I had a photo shoot in our yard yesterday afternoon in an attempt to get photos for personalized graduation announcements.  

Bethany will be graduating from the University of South Carolina, Aiken with a BA in Early Childhood Education on December 12.  Last month she shared the traditional Josten's college graduation announcements with her dad and I.  She hated them.  Bethany wanted something much more creative, fun, personal.  She wanted for the announcements to reflect her personality.

She has a friend who is a professional photographer, but in another state.  Bethany was having difficulty finding a weekend to visit the friend.... She is a bit busy now that she is student teaching!!  So she decided to settle for a mom photo shoot!

She wore two different outfits for our photo shoot, but in all of our favorite photographs she is in her casual outfit.  I think I just like these colors on her better!

I went to various on-line announcement sites yesterday afternoon/evening researching graduation announcements.  I ended up taking a few photos of Bethany's favorite works of art in her bedroom and mixed those photos with selected shots from our photo shoot and created fun, creative, personalized graduation announcements and thank you cards!! 

Thanks for stopping by today and reading my graduation announcement post!  I will be back with real paper crafting tomorrow and Friday!!!

Wedding Hurricane

Hello everyone.  I have been a bit busy this week and have been ignoring the blog world.  I am currently in Spartanburg, SC at Scrapbook Creations for a Breast Cancer weekend crop. I am joining my friends Jan, Susan, Bonnie, and Peggy for a weekend of de-stressing, girlfriend time, and cropping for a worthy cause.

Last night, while packing scrapping supplies and clothing, I took time to create this hurricane.  My older son, Aaron, is attending the wedding of one of his college roommates, Michael, and needed a nice gift.  Aaron and  Crissie will be spending the night at my house en route to the wedding.  I left the finished hurricane, it's box, a gift bag with lots of tissue AND a wedding card waiting for he and Crissie to take to the wedding with them.  I hope they like the hurricane as much as Doug and I.

I used my Silhouette Cameo to cut the vinyl for this project.  I used a split letter alphabet, the letter M, and a basic font from my computer. 

In addition to Michael and Christie's names, I added "est. 2012" as they will be married on 9/22/12. 

Here is one final peek at the front of the hurricane.  The hurricane is 8 inches tall so the "M" was cut at four inches tall.  When I added the gap in the middle for Michael and Christie's names, the design filled most of the hurricane side.

I am hoping to have a restorative weekend here in Spartanburg but also to complete a lot of projects to share with you over then next couple of weeks.

Thanks for stopping by today and viewing my wedding gift project!

Downton Abby Layout with the Cameo

Hello everyone.  Remember back in March when I shared the photos of my Downton Abbey Birthday Get-together with the girls?  My blog post was actually about the great moustaches and treat cones that I had made for our Downton marathon, which you can read here.  Well, fast forward to yesterday....

I finally made time to sit down and scrap my Downton B-day photos!!!  I used my Silhouette to cut the embellishments and letters used on the layout.   Have I mentioned that I ADORE my Silhouette Cameo?  I honestly cannot believe I took so long to begin using it.  I am completely hooked and could only be happier if I discovered that I could use the Cameo and my Expression 2 at the same time (technically I should be able to do this, but I have not actually tried).

I found a great cut at the silhouette store - the "Nice stache" cut pictured above.  I also found the fun film strip during the same silhouette store shopping trip.  I had some of the moustache photos printed in wallet size and they *just* fit the frames in the strip!  How perfect were those cuts for this page?
 

On another trip to the silhouette store (I do like browsing there!) I found these three vintage women - Perfect for Downton Abbey.  Those who watch the show on PBS know that there are three adult daughters in the show.  I have named the women in the cut after the characters: the woman with her hand on her hip as Lady Mary, the defensive posed woman in the middle is Lady Edith, and Lady Sybil is on the right - looking to her future beyond Downton Abbey.  I "had" to add the three women to the page.

I used several flourish cuts to embellish the page, as well as a really pretty font to cut my title phrase:  Downton Abbey Night.

I hand trimmed a photo of the popcorn cones and added it to right-hand page.  After I took the photographs I went back and found one of our moustaches and added it to the right hand page, beside the 5 x 7 inch photo, over the swirls. 

My friends and I had decided that for scrapbookers, we needed to be better about documenting our time together.  Well ladies, I am making a start!!!

Thanks for stopping by today and viewing my Downton/Birthday layout.  I will be back tomorrow as I have more new projects to share with you....