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Stephanie Howell

reading, organizing, shopping, momming too close to the sun. Home is wherever the Army sends us.

Lead Scrapbook Layout

Lead

using studio calico soda fountain kit and add-ons
paper- cosmo cricket
chipboard- cosmo cricket
butterfly punch- martha stewart
butterfly patterned paper- october afternoon
bird punches- mcgill
pearls- basicgrey
brown butterfly rubons- pink paislee
alpha- american crafts
phrase rubons- chatterbox
border punch- fiskars apron lace
 
I finally got to do another project with Soda Fountain.
I loved these pictures so much I had to scrap them today.
Alot of you have asked how I stay so current with my pages.
Well, I’ve been scrapbooking since I was pregnant with Harper,
so I don’t have anything to “catch up on”.
Sadly, I’ve actually run out of photos before.
That’s why I sometimes do one photo layouts.
I prefer multiphoto, but I just don’t have an abundance of photos.
That’s also why I don’t do many 2 pagers.

 

It’s beautiful here today and poor Sadie is not having a good day.
Guess two good days in a row was too much to ask for . =)
She woke up about every hour last night. I think the molar pain and snot is just too much for her. So we’ll see. Poor little thing.

 

I hope you are all having a beautiful Thursday.
sidenote: it just took me a good five minutes of blankly staring at the screen before i could remember what day it was. 😉
xo

A Layout to Share

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all patterned paper, rubons, and die cut brackets- lily bee design
3 in 1 butterfly punch- martha stewart 
 
I love using the 12×12 lily bee rubons to make my title. Super simple graphic look.
A sweet scattering of butterflies and some die cut brackets are all the embellishment I really needed to showcase these photos.

 

Can you spot a random butterfly somewhere on Sadie?? 😉

 

I really like combining unrelated photos for a common theme. For example, I could have done a layout about Harper dressed up for her Daddy-date, or a layout about Sadie in her strawberry romper. But looking at them both, I was taken aback by how different their “go to” smiles are, and how much I love them both. 

 

Another example of combining random photos for a united theme:
sadies baby photo shoot and harper playing on the couch.

 

These sweet toes
die cut border- pink paislee
flourish transparency- fancy pants glittercuts
title- american crafts thickers, making memories tiny alphas
buttons- autumn leaves
butterfly- heidi swapp
patterned paper- making memories
 
This is an older layout I’ve shared previously. 
I combined two photos from 2 different occasions to form one theme..toes. 

 

Just a random post I wanted to share.
Happy Monday!! xo

Stop the Insanity

***ETA: Texas girls, I’ll be teaching make and takes from 1-3  on Saturday, June 13 at Crop Paper Scissors in Waco. I will be using Jenni Bowlin Studio, October Afternoon, and Lily Bee products. I’d love to see you there!! ***

being trapped in a teensy house with two sick, coughing, tired, grumpy babies is NO fun. i think i’m slowly going crazy.

for example, harper and i made this this morning.
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she calls it her “pet parade”. the only way i could get h and s to stop fighting for 5 seconds was to get them to get all their animals out. i lined them up as slooooowwwly as i could. this kept their attention for precisely 5.5 minutes and then the screaming started again.

 

moving on. last week i got a comment by a reader on one of my posts.
they wanted to know if i could share my very first layout and also my favorite layout.
so i went and got harper’s baby album out of her room. 
i looked through it and couldn’t remember what the very first layout i made was.
technically, i made J several scrapbooks when we were dating. but i am NOT sharing those. teehee.

 

here are a couple of the first things i made once i really got into scrapbooking.

 

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i remember being SO proud of these. so proud.
they took me so long to make!!

 

and as for my favorite layout that is such a hard question.
they all mean so much to me. my favorite changes with regularity.
but if i had to pick just ONE, i guess i’d say this one.

 

Before you go copy

 

there was so much going through my head when i made this.
so much fear and uncertainty.
so much i wanted to tell him and i just didn’t know how.
i remember him picking up this layout and reading it and saying thank you and just hugging me. and i was so glad that he found it and read it, b/c these were things that i just couldn’t get my mouth to say out loud.

 

i’m so grateful for this question, it gave me the idea for an entire blog post!
if you have anything you’d like to see me blog about, please ask!!  i’m always looking for new topics and creative things to share.

 

hope you are having a beautiful Sunday and that you are not trapped in a teeninsy house with two snotty sneezy babies. b/c it’s about as fun as it sounds!!
on to do something else faaaascinating, like making another pet parade.
good times.
xoxo

 

here’s a super simple layout i did last night. 
it was for a challenge at 2peas to scrap a page with a one word title.
it didn’t photograph well, sorry about that. the b/w photo is not dark like this on my page. i need to become a “flat scrapper” so that i can scan my layouts!!

 

Home
journaling label and tag behind title- my minds eye andreavictoria line
chipboard flowers- basicgrey
paper flowers (layered on top of chipboard)- sassafras blossoms
alphabet- american crafts thickers
cardstock- bazzill swiss dot
pen- american crafts precision pen (.01)

And Another Week Rolls By

I’ve thought about this a lot over the past year.

How is it that I pray for time to pass quickly until J comes home, 
but in the same breath I pray to savor each and every moment with the girls. To treasure them and love them and for this time, while they are babies, to pass slowly.
That doesn’t even make sense!!!

 

On one hand I am THRILLED that J will be home in a matter of weeks.
Thrilled doesn’t even begin to cover it.
But then I look at my girls and can’t believe how quickly time is passing with them, and it makes me sad. Well, not sad. I’m just not one of those mommies that cries on birthdays saying “I’m so sad they are growing up!”. That’s not how I feel. I feel joy that they are seeing another year, that they are here and that I am here to watch them grow. 
So i don’t feel “sad”…I just can’t believe it.

 

For example, yesterday Sadie was wearing one of Harper’s old dresses:

 

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so I went and found this:

 

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they were almost exactly the same age. i remember sitting in that front yard at our old house, watching harper mow the lawn. And it seems like it was yesterday.

 

But yet Jimmy leaving for Afghanistan seems like YEARS ago.
See what I mean? It doesn’t make sense!!

 

Or that right after he left, Harper threw this fit:

 

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and that this was her today in that same chair, throwing a fit b/c i wouldn’t let her go to school (pesky fever)!!

 

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LOOK at her!! Is that really the same sweet girl??

 

Okay, enough cheesy reminiscing, heee!!

 

I did another Studio Calico Soda Fountain layout yesterday.
I just loved the color combination, die cut circles, and chipboard accents on my “Doll Baby” layout (see post below),  so I decided to lift myself and do a similar layout. Nothing wrong with that if you ask me!!

 

Twinsies

So that’s about it in my neck of the woods. How are you? Any big plans for you this weekend? None here, of course! Well, except for playing outside and trying to get Harper over her nasty cold. Bless her little heart.

 

Also, I think I’ve answered most of your questions in the comments section and through email. If you have a question ask in the comments section and I’ll answer it there!

 

Happy Friday!!
xo
s

I’ll Always Remember

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i’ll always remember this as the year that Memorial Day took on a whole new meaning for me.
the year that it hit home what this day really means.
 
the year that marks the divide.
last year i was not the same person i am now.
i won’t ever look at Memorial Day the same way.
you see, i used to look at this day as just a holiday.
maybe a day to go to the lake. or have a picnic. or a day to do nothing.
i dare say that years ago i may have looked at this day just like any other day.

 

then i met jimmy and i started to look at it differently.
but it still was only on the surface.
i said things like “support the troops” or “hug a soldier”
but they were just things i SAID. not that i didn’t mean them, but it was still just another holiday. i wasn’t living the life i am now.

 

this year, this is what Memorial Day means to me.

SSG David Paquet – Aug 20, 2008
SPC Marques Knight – Sep 06, 2008
PFC Michael Dinterman – Sep 06, 2008
SSG Nathan Cox – Sep 20, 2008
PFC Joseph Gonzales – Sep 20, 2008
SGT John Penich – Oct 16, 2008
SPC Ezra Dawson – Jan 17, 2009
PFC Richard Dewater – Apr 15, 2009
 
these are the names of the men my husband and his company lost this past year. the men our country lost. they leave behind moms and dads,
wives, siblings, and in nathan’s case, a little girl.


these are the men, the boys
that will not be getting of that airplane in a few weeks.
they will not be coming home.
they made the ultimate sacrifice for US.


i will always remember these men.
and i will never look at Memorial Day as “just a picnic”.
i will always be reflective, and grateful, and heartbroken for their families.
and in awe of the men and women that CHOOSE to do this on a daily basis.



i hope you all have a beautiful Memorial Day.
s