Texas Proud

Now, that's not a surprising title for me, is it? lol

Here's the other digital scrapbook page I've made so far using Jean Daugherty's "Lone Star" kit. It's honoring my great-great grandfather on my dad's dad's side. He was a Texas Ranger (law enforcement, not the baseball team) for only a few months in the late 1800s, but in the 1920s he started the "Ex-Texas Rangers Association" for, obviously, ex-Texas Rangers, and it was quite a popular group. Sadly, the association eventually died out, and I think they have something else in its place today. But it went strong at least up until "Major" Green's death in the early 1930s. His title of Major was honorary, given him for forming the ETRA.


The journaling is actually the historical marker, which is next to his grave in Colorado City, TX. It puts things waaaaaay more succinctly than I ever could! lol (I see you nodding your head!) You can see the image larger if you click on it.

Everything is from Jean's "Lone Star" kit, except the frame and the photo mat, which are from Kate McLellan's "Civil War" kit, both of which can be found at Heritage Scrap. Jean's kit can also be found at DigiZines Studio. Her "papers" are so lovely I don't want to cover them up!

Hopefully today I'll get my latest paper scrapbook page scanned so I can show you. I really like the way it turned out. I've been using page templates on some of my digi-scrap pages (like sketches, only you can actually "clip" your photos, papers, etc. to shapes and they'll become that shape -- far less "trimming" and trying to deal with fitting things together), and it's helped me sort-of step outside the usual box I often stick to. I'm still not real cool on this white-space thing, but if the papers are as detailed and gorgeous as Jean's, it's good to have it. Anyway, so this latest paper page is a little out-of-the-box for me, and I think it turned out well! I'll try to have that ready next time.

Medical update: I can't tell yet whether the new narcolepsy med is working. Of course, it's the "beginner's" dose, and I will be titre-ing up over the course of the next week or so. Tonight I start a slightly higher dose. It's also been hard to tell what's going on because I have another sinus infection, and those make me feel rotten. But I'm on an antibiotic, and this morning feel MUCH better than I did yesterday morning, when I was ready to chuck it all. So, we'll just have to wait and see. I either have narcolepsy or I don't, so the med will either work or it won't. Life is full of having to be patient, which I am SO not good at! (My brain does seem to be a little more clear than usual -- which is awesome!)

Whatever is going on with me, God is good, He is in control, and I'm just counting on Him to be doing what's best. It's not really a change from the last post, but I'm able to feel that more now. Yesterday was kind-of a rough day, and when I was getting ready to shut things down for the night, I ran across the card my mother had given me for my spiritual birthday on the 8th. The front says, "Sunshiny day, grace-filled, joy-filled, love-filled day -- 'Jesus right beside you' kind of day." Well, it wasn't exactly all those first things, but I realized it had definitely been a "Jesus right beside you" kind of day. He pulled me through it, as only He can do. Boy do I love Him for that!

Hope you have a "Jesus right beside you" kind of day, too! Every day!

Gone to Texas

So ... I've actually been scrapping lately. A lot. But I can't show the stuff I'm doing because it may end up being Christmas presents, and just in case anyone who would be a recipient reads my blog, that wouldn't be good, KWIM?

I will, however, show you one of my two (so far) Texas history layouts. Jean Daugherty of Heritage Scrap (and DigiZines Studios, now, too) made me a Texas history kit when I put in a request in the HS forums. I may have told you already, but I'm going to tell you again because I don't remember what I said. Anyway, it is a GORGEOUS kit, and I only hope I can do it justice!

This is the first one I did. It's about my 5-greats grandfather who was one of the original settlers in Texas with Stephen F. Austin. (Those folks are now called the "Old Three Hundred.") There is so much to tell about Alexander Hodge, hard to just get it down on one scrapbook page, but I think I managed to condense it fairly well. Of course, there are no photos of him, and I don't even know if there were ever any paintings/drawings. We certainly don't have them if they exist. So it was a bit tough to figure out how to do a page that was all about the journaling without it just being boring. Here's what I came up with:



Gorgeous stuff (Jean's, not so much mine). I think pretty much everything is from her kit, which I purchased from Heritage Scrap, but it's on the DigiZines site, too. I'll show you the other layout next time.

Now I just need a kit about the U.S. Navy so I can scrap my dad's Navy years ...

Anyone want to hear about the medical front in my life? Well, if not, you're probably done with the post now. If so ...

I went to a sleep doc last week who thinks I may have narcolepsy, never mind that I don't suddenly and "accidentally" fall asleep during the day, and I don't have the cataplexy that a lot of narcoleptics have (something about sudden emotional stuff making you go weak, like laughter or anger). Trust me, I laugh enough to know I don't have that aspect. But he said that I have a LOT of the other symptoms, like a "fractured sleep architecture" and messed-up REM cycles. My utter, total exhaustion during the day is a pretty good sign, too, although there are heaps of disorders and illnesses that can cause that.

Anyway, because of that, rather than make me go back to the sleep lab to do the daytime test, he's just going to go ahead and try me out on some medicine. You take it at night, and it's supposed to help you have deeper, more restful sleep. Downside is you have to wake up three hours after the first dose to take the second. Also, it makes you SO sleepy that it can be disorienting if you have to get up in the middle of the night for anything. And it can make you very woozy if you have to get up. No driving for six hours after the last dose. It's very high in salt, so I'll have to really watch my blood pressure. For the first couple of weeks it can cause headaches and nausea. And if I don't have narcolepsy, it won't do anything other than just make me feel weird (i.e., it won't make me feel more rested in the mornings). Also, it's a "regulated" medicine. Which totally freaks me out. I have to keep it hidden away, if anyone steals it from my home I have to let the police know, etc. Did I mention I'm freaking out?

I have my first try with it tonight. I'm afraid I'll stop breathing or something. Or I'll get really sick. Or I'll have one of the "rare" nasty side effects. Or, worst of all, that it won't work.

Something has to work. If this doesn't, or if I can't take it, I really don't know what I'll do. I am DESPERATE to feel better, to stop having so many stupid illnesses, to be able to function like other people. Right now there is no way I could hold down a job. Fortunately I'm able to take care of my family, but mainly because they aren't here during the day, so I can rest (which is why digi-scrapping is such a good thing -- I haven't felt up to paper scrapping). I've had so many tests, all of which come out negative (which is a good thing, but leaves me with no answers). My doc figured I had sleep apnea, which is why I did the sleep test, but I don't.

Another thing is, I am so SICK of the weird, complicated, exhausting dreams I have all night! This is part of the messed up REM thing. Normally people go into non-REM when they first fall asleep and don't hit the first REM stage until about 1-1/2 hours later. Not me. I go straight into REM sleep and spend more than my fair share of the night there. A couple of nights ago I had this really stressful one involving tornadoes. Last night I dreamed about Phil Joel, skateboards and the girl Aidan likes. Among a lot of other things. I used to like dreaming, but not any more. If I never remembered another dream I would be ecstatic. I always feel like when I lay down I just close my eyes and go into an alternate universe, where I do all kinds of stuff all night long, and come back to my normal universe when the alarm goes off in the morning. Really. Really. Exhausting.

So, there, my long tale of woe. I hope I still have any readers and/or friends left after that. Sometimes it's just hard to hold back the need to talk about it. I spend so much time trying to mask it, paint over it, push through it, minimize it that I feel really uncomfortable when I let it all spill out. My mom doesn't mind me complaining, but everyone else in my family does.

Now, life is not all bad. I realize I have a ton of things to be thankful for, and I truly am grateful for them! And I have God to help me get through each day. But I'm ready for a positive change now, and really, really afraid there will never be one. I'm only 46. I shouldn't feel like I'm 86.

So, enough of my whining. I promise next time not to spill all over you. Unless the medicine proves a problem ... ;-)

Huntin' Punkins

Okay, I've been lax in posting, but I have been scrapping a lot lately. Digi-scrapping, that is. I have a paper layout almost finished, but need to find some kind of alpha things to finish it up. In the meantime, I've been continuing to celebrate my heritage in the digi-scrap world.

BUT ... I took a break from heritage stuff a couple of days ago to scrap my super-adorable nephew. His mama had taken him out to a pumpkin patch and posted the pics to facebook, and they were SO cute that I snagged 'em and did a layout with some of them. Unfortunately, Facebook's resolution for photos isn't the greatest, but it was all I had to work with. I need his mama to e-mail me the "originals".

Anyway, here it is:


I used a page template (like a scrap map, only layered for digi use) by SammyD/Scrappin' Digi Kreations as the guide.
Here are the rest of the ingredients:
Background paper: Moani designs "Colours of Fall" (blog)
Other papers: Farrah's Creations "Fall Freebie" (which, oddly enough wasn't free, I had to pay $1 for it, so I guess it had once been free)
Alpha and buttons are from Farrah's Creations "Shabby" kit (blog)
Overlay (the red edge on the background paper): unknown (another designer who doesn't put their initials/name on their files)
Autumn cluster: Diana Burton (I think it's her "Autumn Equinox" kit) (Designer Digitals)
Olive rick rack: Diana Burton "Members Only" (her newsletter)
Cream floral ribbon: Lynn Griffin "Southern Porch" (Heritage Scrap)
Green stitching: Kathryn Balint (K and Friends)
White stitching: I honestly have no idea -- there are so many "straight white stitching" elements in so many kits and they all look alike

I think that's everything. I find it odd that, when I post my digi layouts on digi sites, the people who comment are always amazed at "how well [I] combined kits," as if combining kits is somehow a wild and crazy idea, somewhat unorthodox idea. I mean, I'd love to be able to stay within one kit, but no one kit is the be-all and end-all and often the idea I have in my head requires something that kit doesn't provide. Maybe it's the mentality of a paper scrapper -- you just buy stuff you like and then combine stuff to make your layout.

Anyway, no real biggie, I just thought it was weird.

I have several heritage layouts to show off, but I will save those for another day. Hope you enjoyed this one. And Happy Holidays! (Can you believe we are now into the "holiday season"? AAAAAAAAA!

Scrapping sick

No, that's not "sick of scrapping" or even "scrapping about being sick." I've been sick this week, and yet have managed to get several layouts done because I've done them digitally, which I can do from the "sick couch." I did run by Archivers on Friday and get some things to finish up a paper layout, but then felt too bad the next day (and following) to feel like going up and giving it a try. For some reason this paper layout has me STUMPED!! It was a concept I thought would be so easy, but has turned out to be ridiculously stumpifying. Well, if I ever get around to finishing it, I'll let you know more about what was so hard.

But, as I said, in the meantime I've been cranking out heritage layouts like crazy! Of course, it's super easy when the basic framework is all the same and you just have to plug in photos, names and dates. (And connecting bars.) I did have a very hard time dealing with a family who had THIRTEEN children, but finally managed to find a way to tackle it and am happy with how I did it.

Today I also finished up a layout I'd started several days ago about the little country church some of my ancestors built out in West Texas. Originally I was just kinda playing around with clipping masks and blending templates, but I really liked what came out, so tonight I just added the title and journaling, and voila! The layout was done! Here's what it looks like:


Ingredients for this one are simple:
Dark teal blue paper: Lynn Griffin, "Aurora" (Heritage Scrap)
Blending template: Brandy Murry, "Scrap Simple Background Blenders" (ScrapGirls)
Paper template: Durin Eberhart "Rubber Stamps" (ScrapGirls)
Fonts: Edwardian Script; shoot! I can't remember the other one (Foxboro?)
And of course the photo, which I took this summer

I had a dove on it at first, over the "a" in "Chapel," but Bjorn said it looked too much like a wedding brochure that way! lol -- It still kinda looks like a wedding brochure, but I don't care, I like it!

Well, that's about all I have tonight.

Hope you all have a great rest-of-the-week!

Cowboy up!

(Before I start ... I lost a subscriber over the weekend. I don't know the reason, but that always worries me -- y'know, wondering what the reason was, if it was that they didn't find my blog "relevant" anymore, whatever. I know that sometimes people get overwhelmed with the number of blogs they've subscribed to -- I've even had to unsubscribe from blogs before for that very reason. But I worried that maybe it was because I'm doing so much digital scrapping and blogging about that instead of paper. So, please, keep in mind that, if you're inspired by anything I do, you can ALWAYS transfer that inspiration to paper! Just remember to please not copy my design EXACTLY; make it your own!)

Now to our not-so-regularly scheduled blogging:

In my treasure trove of family history photos, there are two of the most adorable pictures of my daddy when he was 3 years old on a pony. Clearly, it was one of those "get your picture taken looking like a real cowboy!" things -- he did not have a pony of his own, nor did he own a stetson, as far as he can remember. (He's clear on the pony part.) But the photos are so deliciously cute they absolutely HAD to go in my heritage album!

So here he is, this man who is a distinguished 78 years old now, when he was a very huggable 3 years old:


This is another one of those "God had to give me inspiration to finish it!" layouts, I will confess. I had an idea in my head what I wanted to do, and in the end it morphed considerably from the original idea. But that's okay, because I love the way it turned out!

So here are the ingredients:

Background: Valerie Randall "Buried Treasure" (Scrapgirls)
Bandana: Beth Rimmer "Bootleg Alley" (Digitals)
Sunflowers: Diana Burton "Helianthus" (Digitals)
Dried flower: Kate McLellan "Civil War" (Heritage Scrap)
Wheat stalks: Kristin's Scrap Designs "Crisp Air Sampler" (Pickleberrypop)
Star circles: Aprilthescrapaholic "Chris' Freebies" (Scrap it Sassy blog)
"Wanted" poster: Kathryn Balint "Cowboy Sam" (KB and Friends)
Nails: "Frontier Days Add-on" (Raspberry Road Designs)
"Cowboy Danny" letters: Victorian Rose Designs "Autumn" alpha (Heritage Scrap)
Font: Country Store
Bend Action (photo): Jen Caputo "Jen's Bends" (Scrapbook Graphics)

I spent the weekend rounding up (pun intended) free digiscrapping stuff (and buying some for the above layout). I found one site that was fantastic -- a French designer named Cajoline. She has the most beautiful things, and all free! And then I discovered that everything is 72ppi instead of 300ppi (which is good print quality, and most commercial kits are in 300ppi). After I'd downloaded a ton of them. So, yes, I can resize them (in PSE you can do this without losing too much quality, depending on the difference in ppi), but they won't be as usable as if they had been 300ppi to start with. Bummer that. But, what do I expect for free?

I really, really need to get back into the loft and work on a layout I had started (sorta) up there a few weeks ago. Adorable pictures of my great-niece, so I need to get them scrapped!

Well -- gotta go wake up the kid. He's home today. He was home almost all last week with some mysterious ailment (our PA figured it was probably a virus). He's doing much better today, so he got up, got showered and dressed, I got up to fix breakfast, Bjorn was, astoundingly, already up doing work on the computer. In checking the weather forecast, I discovered that today is Columbus Day. In checking the school website, I discovered there IS NO SCHOOL today! Instead of being mad, we all laughed uproariously about it. Then Bjorn went to work, I went to the couch for a nap, and Aidan ... stayed on the computer. He is now napping away (at 11am), but I need to wake him up so he can do a practice PSAT test. The test is Wednesday, and being sick has really messed up his study time for it. PLEASE pray that he does the best he can possibly do on the test (and makes accurate guesses!) -- it would be so amazingly lovely if he could win a National Merit scholarship!

Catch ya later!

One nice thing about digital scrapping ...

... is that you can go back days, weeks, months later to fix something if you need/want to. As I was finishing up the fourth of my "Family Tree Branches" layouts last night, I realized that, on the second, third and fourth LOs I had put the child who was my direct ancestor in their birth order, just with a larger picture; as opposed to the first LO where I had my direct ancestor in the middle with a larger pic, even though he was out of order birth-wise. Originally I had planned to do all of them that way, but for some reason I had brain fog and did the rest of them without the ancestor being central.

SO ... I just went into the original of the first LO (the PSD file, since it still has all the layers) and rearranged the children until they were ALL in the right birth order, recopied it to .jpg and went merrily on with life! So simple (especially since I hadn't had it printed yet.) With paper I would have had to either rip the page apart and start over, or just lived with the inconsistency. (Don't worry, I still love paper scrapping!)

I will show you the Paternal side pages for my Tree Branches LOs. The reason I'm going to show you two instead of just one of them is to show you the rather striking difference in a page with only two children vs. one with about a million kids (okay, so it's not that many, but it was crowded and tough to deal with!)

Here is my dad's father's page:

No worries putting this one together! Actually, that's not true -- finding a good balance on the distance between the siblings required some effort. (Not to mention that, again, it took me four days to get an embellishment cluster I could live with!)

Now, here's my dad's mother's page:

Yeah. It took me a large chunk of a day to get this one arranged! (I don't remember when I actually started it -- sometime after lunch -- but it was late last night before I finished, and I didn't even have to do a new cluster!)

Okay, now for the ingredients/credits:
Background paper, all frames, bars and labels, "Paternal" tag and chain: Diana Burton "Heritage Helpers/Recollections" (Digitals)
Red velvet ribbon: Gunhild Storeide from her "Friday Freebies" (via DigiScrapDepot.com)
Lace: Lynn Griffin "Serenity" (Heritage Scrap)
trailing ribbons: Lynn Griffin "Vintage Charm" (Heritage Scrap) (I recolored a light orange-ish ribbon to get the dark red, then lightened that up to get the pinkish one)
flower: Jean Daugherty "The Storytellers" (Heritage Scrap) (recolored)
pocket watch: Michelle Coleman "Vintage Rag Tag" (ScrapGirls)
chain on watch: Miss Tina (individual element from Funky Playground Designs)
Fonts: Edwardian Script, Adobe Caslon Pro

So guess from what purveyor of digi goods I purchased some things today ... STAMPIN' UP!!! They have entered the world of digital scrapping and are now offering some of their designs in digital!! They actually have their own software for digiscrapping now, but since I have plenty of software for that, I just purchased the sets separately. Amazing -- I bought two stamp sets and the entire line of punches (all in digi form) for less than it would have cost me to buy ONE physical stamp set! Unfortunately right now they don't have that many sets I really want digitally (they're mostly -- or maybe all -- digi versions of actual physical stamp sets they sell). Since I'm mainly focusing on the heritage stuff, I need sets that coordinate nicely with the vintage look, and so many of the ones they're selling digitally are too hip or too modern or whatever. Or they're card sentiments, which doesn't work for me because at this stage of the game, I REFUSE to make cards digitally.

Anyway, I do think it's cool that SU is entering the 21st century, and I'm hoping that they'll release some more of the sets I would be interested in soon.

On the personal front (I didn't warn you this was a long post, did I? lol) I went to the pain management doc today and got "diagnostic" shots in my occipital nerves (the ones that go up the back of your head and over from the base of the head). The doc shot 'em with anesthesia to see if it helped with the pain (it did, and I knew it would because I've done this before), so since it did, I am scheduled to have a cryo-cauterization procedure done in about a month, to freeze the daylights out of the offending nerves and see if we can't put an end to what causes 95% of my headaches. I'm not looking forward to the procedure (even though it isn't a big deal), but I am looking forward to being mostly headache free! (Just for the records, yes, the shots did hurt, about like when you're having dentistry done and get anesthesia shots in your gums), but I lived through it!

Next thing we're going to work on is my lower back. But that's another story for another day!

I'm sure I have thousands of more things I could bore you with, but I'll let that do for now. I know you're so disappointed! lol

Have a good 'un, and happy crafting!

A paper layout!

Okay, so I confess I've gone a little "digi-batty" over the last few weeks, but I do have in my possession a recent layout that is PAPER!! (The crowd roars, lol) The other confession is that I've had it done for a couple of weeks, but just hadn't got around to scanning it until a couple of days ago. And then a million other things prevented me from posting it until today. But now, HERE IT IS!! (Ta-da!)


Are these boys not uber adorable!?! These are my twin nephews, Karl and Aksel, who were, obligingly, born on my birthday nearly 5 years ago! I can't believe they're growing up so fast, but then my own son has moved through life like a rocket, so I don't know why I would be surprised.

In all honesty, this is a bit of a "hybrid" layout (traditional with digital elements). The photo block is actually a collage done with a program I BOUGHT (I actually downloaded the free trial, but then as these things often go, I couldn't print out the collage unless I bought the darned thing, so I did, since it wasn't terribly expensive -- it's called Picture Collage Maker from Pearl Mountain Software, and I think it was about $20). This is actually what got me back into digi-scrapping, because the program can be used for digital scrapping and allows you to use digital "papers" as a background even in plain collages (the red in the collage block is a digital paper, and I have no idea of the source). I'm not using it to digi-scrap (using my old trusty Photoshop Elements 4.0 for that), but in looking for papers to use in a different collage that I haven't scrapped yet, I found myself online looking for the "perfect" one and toppled headlong over into the digi-scrapping world again. (Did ANY of that make any sense???)

I don't know the manufacturer of the red background paper with the circles on it. I do know I bought it at Archiver's a year or so ago. The rest of the ingredients are:
Other DP: Little Yellow Bicycle "Zach's Life" -- also the border strips
Arrow punches: Stampin' Up!
Chipboard "2": I think it's Basic Grey, but I could be wrong
"Boy Oh Boy" rubon: SEI "Beatnik Boy"
"x": Cricut cartridge (the name escapes me at the moment)
Brads: random stuff from my stash, probably Making Memories
Cardstock: SU "Very Vanilla"
Vellum quote: DCWV ((I think)

Don't you love how well I keep up with my supplies' manufacturers? lol -- the truth is, I'm just too lazy to go upstairs and verify. And some of them honestly don't have the names on them.

I have also finished another digi-scrapped heritage layout, but I'll wait until later to post that one.

Gotta run -- I need a nap before I head out to the pain management doc this afternoon. I am SO hoping they'll schedule me for an anesthesia nerve block treatment for the occipital nerves in my neck. They've been giving me some really nasty headaches lately!

Ta ta, and have a great [insert day of week on which you're reading this]!