"Wildlife"

The Story:

Dale and Nancy's boys spent last week with us. You may wonder what our house was like with six boys running around. . . Noisy? -- At times. Wild? -- In the pool. Chaotic? -- Nope, because we ran it like school. There was a strictly followed schedule and rules for the good of the group. Everyone behaved well. They didn't even argue. . .much. Vacation Bible School kept us busy in the mornings which helped. On crazy hair day I glued everyone's hair straight up and added green gel to match their shirts. They looked like wildlife just let out of the zoo. I am just glad they didn't act like it!

The Layout:

At Anna's encouragement, I joined Book Club at Simply Scrapbooks. I have been to two meetings and have discovered that it is a wonderful gathering of extremely talented scrapbookers who have a great time sharing their work. I am humbled to be sitting with women who have such diverse knowledge and ideas. I received my first kit this month and found it to be very challenging. I wasn't feeling the paper, it just wasn't speaking to me until I shot the photo then everything fell into place.

The paper was cardstock and an embossed dotted sheet. We were also given a Die Cuts With a View sheet of safari paper which I chose not to use.

The gal (I wish I knew her name so I could give her credit!) who put the kits together cut out all sorts of words out of cardstock on her Cricut for us and I chose Wildlife. I inked the edges so that it would stand out. I layered Die Cuts With a View Chipboard letters over the Cricut title These letters were from the same line as the safari paper I didn't use.

The journaling is done on a 7 Gypsies journaling card that I cut and inked heavily to match the layout. The clear embellishment on the top is an old, old border from My Mind's Eye Bohemian line. I found the little wooden tag at JoAnn's in the notions section. I needed a Tim Holtz brad to fasten it to the paper because he has the extra long brads.

The little lion and monkey chipboard pieces are from the Die Cuts With a View safari line.

The boys names are attached to the paper with the new Making Memories Vintage line pins. I stitched them to the page to hold them in place.

I wasn't too sure about the kit when I got it, but I really did enjoy the challenge. It pushed me outside my comfortable little bubble in which I select only paper that draws my eye and speaks to my style. I used something that I would not have given a second glance and made it my own!