Back from a great trip......

Hi, everyone! Sorry that I have been M.I.A., lately! I took a trip to Port Clinton, Ohio to watch my son shoot in the JROTC National Air Rifle Championships this past week! we had a great time, even though the weather was a freezing 22 degrees with whipping winds off the lake! :0) The sun was shining, and the team did well.
For those not familiar, the championships consist of the the top 12% of all JROTC shooters in the nation. The fact that the Howe Team made it is fantastic! They did well, ranking 19 out of 39 teams that weekend.
They competition ran as two half matches - 20 shots in each shooting position: prone, standing and kneeling, on Friday, and then again on Saturday. They were given 40 minutes for prone and standing positions, and 30 minutes for the kneeling position.
Kyle did well (they all did), but not his best shooting ever. He shot a combined score of 992, and had 10 bullseye shots. He ranks #120 in the US. (There were 198 shooters in the Sporter class). His team is ranked in the top 6% in the country at #19. There were 38 teams that shot Sporter class this weekend.
They are all happy. This was the first time any of them had made it to the Nationals! :0) Yay, team!
Here's a few shots I took. The lighting at the range is certainly not optimal - ;ight is focused at the targets, always behind the subject, and we were not allowed to use our flash.

Prone Position

Standing Position

Kneeling Position

They are supposed to be making a "thumbs up" sign here, but it didn't work out so well! hahaha! The back and fronts of their hoodies were embroidered - awesome work! We had several other team coaches compliment them. A generous alum of the school donated the money for these, and for the cost of the trip!

This is at the awards banquet on Saturday night. We have five shooters on the team, and then we brought an alternate and an observer. Kyle is the far left, in the front row.

Ring Ceremony Layout

Using the photo I edited in my previous post, along with some others, I made this layout for my son's book. This past weekend was when he received his class ring during a ring ceremony that is a school tradition. He is officially a senior now, and I wanted these memories to be captured on paper! :)

Material List

CTMH Emporium Paper Pack

CTMH Cranberry Brads

EK Success Tiny Flower Punch & 1" Circle Punch

Paper Piercing Tool

SVGCuts.com Scalloped Shapes Digicart

Battalion Picture

Battalion Staff as a Junior! I'm so PROUD!
This is the annual Battalion Staff picture for HMS. Kyle, as a junior, was appointed the Command Sgt Major (unheard of for a junior to hold a Battalion Staff position!). He looks so handsome! (All of them do!). I couldn't be more proud!

(He is the one on the far right of the photo).

I love numbers!

I love numbers! There's never a question as to how to pronounce them! In the english language, we have several phonetics for several letters..............but not numbers! A 9 is a 9, as a 5 is a 5, and so on and so forth.
So, when my son called me to say, "Guess what, mom?! I shot first in the State of Indiana!" (referring to his JROTC Air Rifle 2010 Postal), it made no sense for me to respond, "What??", did it?! lol!!
I am so proud of him. He has truely stepped up as far as his efforts are concerned. This is a child that, four years ago, I was concerned was doomed to a fate of menial minimum wage work. Seriously.............
A child that could not make eye contact, nor speak clearly to the gas station clerk in the checkout line is now winning air rifle titles! He has bumped his grades from a 1.6 gpa in the eighth grade to a 3.2 gpa as a junior. He has evolved from the boy that did whatever the neighbor kid said was "cool" to the young man that earned a Battalion Staff position (a senior position) as a junior in his JROTC program at school.
I am amazed, and extremely proud! :)
Keep up the good work, son!

The second page of the Iron Guard

Today I wrapped up the second page of my sons Iron Guard Layout for his book. I used most of the same papers as on the first page, with the exception of the papers for banner layers that are checked and the diamond paper on the large banner. (I had to sand this one down to make it distressed to match it closer to the shields paper).

Again, in PSE, I used a gradient map layer on my photo.  The banners on this page were all made on my SCAL program, using basic shapes and banners a lot of welding.

The ribbons on the banners are from JoAnn - it's actually a Christmas ribbon, but it matched! :) The silver thread is embroidery floss.  The brads on this are from Stampin' Up's retired Vintage Brads.  The Font is called Black Castle, and can be found on many free font websites. The Cricut cut this one nicely, I think!

Thanks for checking out my page!

Iron Guard Layout

Now that he is a junior, my son is on the Iron Guard at school. This is typically comprised of the junior cadets that hold positions within the corps. The ceremony they perform is a traditional ceremony on Founders Day Weekend, and again on Mothers Day Weekend.
During one of the practices this past fall, the school Commandant approached Kyle and appointed him as the Iron Guard Commander. He was the cadet calling the commands during each ceremony, and he did a fantastic job! This was the first year, since we've been present anyhow, that the commander could be heard clearly across the hall. :) Way to go, Kyle! Your parents are very proud of you. :)
For this layout, I did some more work on my PSE program: I created a gradient map layer to remove the busy background color to focus on Kyle in the photo. In addition to this, I worked in my SCAL program to create the shield photo frame by using the Trace Image option and a jpg of a shield and some leafy decoration clipart that I found for free on the web. I also created the swords on this page by using the shapes file in the SCAL program. Basically, I used an oval and stretched it out to create the blades. I layered a brushed silver cardstock and a shiny mirror cardstock to make the blade look like it has a sharp edge.  The grips are wrapped with embroidery floss.  The paper I used here is by Karen Foster. On the creamy paper, I added some paper glaze over the little dots to give it some dimension.

I'm not good at using any of the file sharing sites, yet, so my SCUT2 files for htis are on the repository at www.svgcuts.com if you're interested in using them. I ask that you please make note of origin on anything you publish using my files, please. :)

Material List

SCAL

Embroidery Floss

Paper Glaze

Stampin' Up Not quite Navy Cardstock

Karen Foster Designer Paper

School Layout

Todays efforts at scrapping haven't left me with the most pride, but they'll do! :)
I had a little glue mishap with my title on this one. It was difficult to get the paper to cut this font, and I'm pretty sure I won't be using it again!

The SVGCuts collection I used on this was Back to School. I made a bank of lockers using the locker file, and I added a tiny lock from the same file. This is the base for my "HMS" title. (Font used here is "Collegiate Varsity", a freebie from www.fontspace,com). The yellow graphic paper is by K & Company (Danny'O collection). The strip with circled letters I had picked up at my scrap store locally a few years ago (sorry - no idea the designer on this one).
Thanks for checking it out! Have a great weekend!

Our Family

My furnace has not been kicking on: I noticed a chill in the house this morning when I woke up. I didn't really think much of it - figured it was cold outside last night, so maybe it had just dropped a degree or two in the house. I went up to my craft room to work for  a while, and when one of my dogs came upstairs to see me, I noticed his fur was rather chilly, like he had just come in form being outside. I went downstairs to actually let him go out, and noticed it felt even colder than before! We keep the house at 67  or 68, and when I looked the thermostat had dropped to 61. Brrrrrrrr..........(My craft room has it's own heat source and is not hooked into the central system, so I had stayed nice and toasty while the rest of the house was growing colder and colder.
Well, I'm still waiting for the heating guy to come over (it will be a little while - they're pretty busy today), so I finished my page. :)
I used Stampin' Up Ruby Red for the background paper. Chocolate Chip, Whisper White and Night of Navy make up the other solid color papers that I've used for various mats and frames. The clocks, gears and title papers are Sahara Sand. The ribbon on the page is Stampin' Up Night of Navy. The printed paper is from Stampin' Up Autumn Traditions paper pack from the 2008/2009 catty.
For the clock and gears I used a CTMH stamp set called "Make It Count" (this is a retired set).
The colors I used for stamping are Sahara Sand, Old Olive, Elegant Eggplant and Chocolate Chip - all are from Stampin' Up.

For my chocolate chip leaf background page, I used SVGCuts Salimah's Square Cards Collection. I also used SVGCuts Christmas Cookie Party Collection and their My Mom's Attic Collection. I thought the 2008 Founders Day layout I did was my favorite, but this one has taken it's place. I like it, and I hope you do too, and that I've inspired you to create something you like just as much of your own! Thanks for looking at what I create!

Digital Scrapping

Deanna, a fellow online scrapper and info-sharer, was kind enough to send me a template that I saw on a post she had done on SVGCuts.com forum. I'm pretty "green" when it comes to all the digital programs, so it was a great way for me to learn a few things (working on new stuff that was free is the BEST way to learn!). Here is my digital version of the layout, using the wonderful template she had sent me. :)
I did end up adding additional photos and a title, to make it a hybrid scrapbook layout, which I will add to this post once I am done taking the photo.
I actually have this as a dbl layout; one page is done as a traditional scrapbook page (no digital work), and this is the second page. I wanted to match the background paper that I used on my traditional page, so I scanned a blank sheet of the paper into my computer, saved it as a .jpg and then pulled it into the template, sized accordingly......and presto! A matched color for the background! :)

Urban Kiwi Scrap Kit - Guarding the Guidon Page

Here's a digi layout I threw together tonight. All my papers are still in the basement, in the "old" craft room. I have not finished moving everything to the upstairs bonus room - my bright new room that I love! (Thank you, DH!!!), so the digi scrapping has taken precedence the last few days. :)

When we went to visit Kyle for Founders Weekend, we had to meet him at the soccer fields: it was bitter cold, and windy that day, too! He was guarding his company guidon at the bleachers, so I snapped a few quick photos. :) He's just so darned handsome, even in that goofy cap they wear! lol!

This page was made using the Urban Kiwi Digital Scrap Kit by Shabby Princess. The colors in this turned out perfect for this cold, fall day! Don't you think so, too?

Another digi layout I made!

This is another digital layout I made with the Happy Go Lucky file I downloaded from http://www.shabbyprincess.com/!
Still playing with my Adobe PE, and learning something new every time! I am loving this!!! I can not wait to move entirely into my new scrap room, hook up my monster printer (it's an Hp B8850 - the thing is awesome, but a beast!).

Thanks for taking a peek at my new page!