For the Love of Stuffed Animals...

Trevor LOVES stuffed animals and always has.  He's almost 7 and I keep wondering if he'll outgrow them any time soon.  He still asks for a new stuffed animal for every gift occasion and always chooses a stuffed animal as his souvenir from a trip.  They're a big part of his life.  

I've scrapped about Trevor's stuffed animals exactly once before, in a layout about his daily routine of feeding breakfast to the animals before eating his own breakfast (you can see the layout here).  Yet I had dozens of unscrapped pictures of the animals and more stories to tell.  

One of the stories I wanted to tell was about Trevor packing stuffed animals any time we go on vacation.  He puts a huge amount of thought into what animals get to come along on a particular trip, carefully packs them, then arranges them neatly on his bed when we get to the destination.  This was on my mind as I watched him pack for an overnight with Daddy at Grandma & Grandpa's so that I could have the house to myself on National Scrapbook Day.  So early the next morning (around 4:00 am - I take NSD very seriously!), I made this layout with pictures from the trips we took when Trevor was 2-4 years old: 

 

(Inspired by Vanilaa, who used a Cathy Zielske template)

When Trevor was almost four, he and I lined up all of his stuffed animals and took pictures.  My intention was to make him some sort of mini book with the names of all the animals recorded, but his birthday was only a few days after I took these pictures and, of course, he received more animals.  I was not in the mood to set up the black backdrop and record the new animals, realized I could never be caught up with the book, and promptly gave up on the idea.  I decided I'd scrap the 119 animals as they were that day in June 2010.  Nearly three years later, I finally made the layout I'd been thinking about all that time:  

 

I'm so glad to get these pictures out of the photo organizer and onto the pages.  I know the time is going to come, and probably fairly soon, that Trevor is no longer into stuffed animals.  He's given away a bunch that he's outgrown, like the Sesame Street characters.  Eventually, these pictures and our memories will be all that's left of something that was once very important to him. And it makes me really happy that they're in the scrapbook.

Helping Hands

Today I'm sharing another of my National Scrapbook Day layouts. This was a recipe challenge at Scrapjazz.com. We had to mix together:

• 1 piece of patterned paper for the background
• 2 photos, any size
• 1 envelope, any size
• 2 different colors of washi tape

Once I clarified that it was ok to include extra pictures, I got right to work. For years, I've been wanting to tell the story of Trevor's volunteer work. Because I wanted the layout to be especially special, I've held off on making it. (Anyone else do that? Just me?) I'm glad I finally scrapped this. It turned out to be just as special as I'd hoped.

I started with four photos from some of Trevor's earliest experiences volunteering. I trimmed three of the photos to fit as a border along the bottom and edged them with two colors of washi tape. I matted the focal photo with a blue envelope. (First I checked that it was acid-free. It passed.) I secured that in place with more washi, then added the title.

Those handprints are actually Trevor's from when he was about 2 months old. I'd traced his hands onto green cardstock (no idea why I chose green), then carefully cut them out and set them aside. I knew I'd eventually want to make a project with his tiny handprints. For nearly 7 years, I've kept them stashed away for just the right purpose. I covered them with black ink and added them to the layout. I'm not usually nervous about journaling directly on the page, but this time I was. I loved the layout so much that I was really scared I'd botch the writing and ruin the layout. Fortunately, no problems.  

I love everything about this layout. I am so grateful that this challenge provided just the right mix of ingredients and inspiration to make this page so special to me.  

Playing Angry Birds

Like many kids, Trevor loves Angry Birds and asks to play it all the time. Unlike most kids, he isn't talking about the video game... at least, not since we made our own homemade Angry Birds game.

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Cardboard Tube Angry Birds Game

Materials: 

7 toilet paper tubes
scissors
paint
q-tip
Sharpie
fuzzy elastic hair bands  

Steps: 

We began by cutting one of the toilet paper rolls into three equal parts. We painted them green, inside and out. When they were dry, we added noses.

We used a q-tip to make white paint circles on either side of the nose.

When the paint dried, we added pupils, eyebrows and a mouth.

Next, we painted the remaining tubes brown, inside and out. When they were dry, we used a brown sharpie to draw wood grain onto them. Then we carefully flattened them first one direction, then the other, so that the tubes had four flat sides and could easily stack.  

To play, we set up a challenge for each other by arranging the pigs and logs on a chair. We try to make each "level" more difficult. The shooter sits about 3 feet away and uses soft, fuzzy hairbands (which don't hurt if you hit someone or if they snap back on you) to send the pigs crashing.  

Trevor absolutely LOVES this game and has spent hours playing it. He's planning to play it during his Angry Birds birthday party. I love that he is so entertained by a bunch of empty toilet paper tubes. Totally awesome.

Living Large

When Trevor was 20 months old, we went on a cruise to Mexico. Trevor LOVED it. He especially loved the sports deck and would spend hours playing ping pong, tennis, miniature golf, and chess with the pieces that were almost as big as him. But his favorite was shuffleboard. Every morning when he woke up, the first thing he wanted to do was play shuffleboard. When we got back from our cruise, I went through my pictures and fell in love with this one.

 

On a whim, I entered it in Princess Cruises' quarterly photo contest. Imagine my surprise when I opened their newsletter months later and saw my picture. I wasn't the winner (that person got a free cruise), but I was the runner-up. I got $25. Quite a disparity between first place and second place, but I was happy with my $25 and the knowledge that I had actually placed in a photo contest.

I scrapped the cruise shortly after returning home, before I'd learned that my photo had placed in the contest. (This is the ONLY layout I made about that cruise due to my unusual quirk.)

Fast forward almost 5 years. I've always thought that I should go back and record the story of the winning photo. I told myself that telling the story of entering a photo contest is not the same as making a second layout about a trip, so I printed an extra copy of the picture and waited for inspiration to strike.  

Inspiration took the form of a Fiskateer challenge on National Scrapbook Day. We were challenged to include an anchor on our page. I immediately knew what I wanted to do.

 

I love everything about this layout, especially the flags. Any idea why I chose the three that I did? They're the International Maritime Signal Flags for T, S and D... Trevor's initials! I was really pleased with myself for thinking of that. For the record, that series of flags can spell TSD (Tango Sierra Delta) but they can also signify "Keep clear of me; I am engaged in pair trawling" (T); "I am operating astern propulsion" (S); and "Keep clear of me; I am maneuvering with difficulty" (D). That amuses me, as I don't imagine a lot of cruise ships engage in pair trawling.

Tomorrow I'm sharing a kid's craft, then I'll return to NSD projects on Wednesday.

National Scrapbook Month

So, did everyone have a good National Scrapbook Day?  I sure did!  I worked for 18 hours and finished 11 layouts and 9 cards, plus I organized photos and cleaned my scraproom.  I spent time on 4 different sites and checked in with most of my scrapbook friends.

Here's the first layout I made.  It was for a sketch challenge at Scrapbook.com.

Here's a card I made for a Fiskateer ombre challenge.

I'll be sharing the rest of projects I made over the next few weeks.

In the meantime, I have some happy news for those of you who are disappointed that National Scrapbook Day is over...  May is National Scrapbook Month!  And Flamingo Scraps is celebrating by offering you some fantastic deals all month long.  Each of the designers has a special coupon code, good for all sorts of discounts.  I get to offer you 10% off your total purchase through the entire month of May!  Click the image below to take you to the store, load up your cart, then enter CINDY10OFF to get your discount.

Happy National Scrapbook Month!