Little Memories Are Important

From time to time here on ICE we like to feature guest designers. A few weeks back Nancy's daughter Jessica shared her amazing Brazil album. Even Heather's cute daughter Abby shared her cute little Santa card. Today's guest designer is Tracy's youngest daughter Mikayla.

This summer Mikayla got to go on a trip with her grandparents. She's lucky because her grandma is also a scrapbooker! So, thankfully the entire journey was well documented in both megapixels and in very detailed journal entries.

When Mikayla returned, she got together with her Mom and Grandma and worked on creating a vacation album. What a great treat to get to create and share special memories all at the same time! Mikayla loves her cute little album that is still a work in progress. Here are some of her favorite pages:

This layout about her Grandpa is her very favorite. She did it all by herself without any help from Mom!

What special times are your kids documenting, or are you documenting for them? As I look at some of these amazing pictures of her grandpa playing the guitar for her, or getting a big hug from her grandma, I realize how lucky she is! Memories like these are precious, I'm sure when she's older she'll realize it even more. Then maybe someday her kids will get to scrapbook with their grandma too!

Recently, one of our ICE particpants (thanks Tara!) shared a great idea with a scrapbook group we belong to. She got from reading Ali Edwards' blog: http://aliedwards.typepad.com/_a_/. The idea is to document a week in your life. I love this idea! I'm taking the challenge to document every day things like routines, gas prices, grocery lists, photos of the kid's rooms, the dogs, the dirty dishes, all of it - our life. I'll share my completed layout with all of you in a few weeks. In the mean time, would anyone else want to give it a go? We'd love to see your completed layouts too!

Thanks for the Candy!!

I won my first blog candy!

Lara at http://youwantthecookie.blogspot.com/

sent me the greatest package filled with so many fun goodies!Just look and see how she spoiled me...

What's Blog candy from a fellow bellaholic without a darling Bella card?

And look at all these other darling cards she sent me...

WoW! Thanks a ton Lara! I can't wait to try out my dips, I think the carmel one will end up at next weeks Monday Night Football game!!

***HeatheR***

Bella Sweet Bella

I have recently become obsessed...Bella obsessed to be specific! What's a Bella you ask? A super darling line of stamps that are just too darn cute for non-stampers even like me to resist for long!! I have been having a blast coloring and creting these fun, whimisical, and stylish gals (and her fellas)

You can find Bella and all her friends here:

http://www.stampingbella.com/

" bikeabababella"

Theres tons of ways to color, decorate and embellish your Bella. One of the most popular (and most expensive) is a wonderful brand of artist markers called Copics. However recently a friend shared this wonderful tutorial on how to use BIC & Sharpie markers (read cheap) to obtain the same look.

http://afterhoursstamper.blogspot.com/2008/07/video-tutorial-how-to-get-copic-like.html

Well I was hooked! I ran out and bought myself a huge set of BIC markers (the sharpies are still on my wish list) and got started coloring. It is sooo addicting! I created this "at a glance" color sheet so I could see exactly what the color looks like (the caps are far from the real color!). And one small tip, invest in a couple Prismacolor markers from Michale's in the art section for skin tones (brick beige is perfect) becasue the BIC markers are WAY too dark for skin tones.

Here are a few of my recent bella creations...

" wish-I-looked-so-cute-on-a-bikeabella"

"cosmobella"

"daintybella"

Be on the look out, your sure to be seeing more Bellas here on the ICE blog from me in the future!
***HeatheR***

Tell the Story

Most of us remember that fateful day 7 years ago like it was yesterday. I know I do. I had always wanted to create a LO in my album with my thoughts and memories of that pivital day in history. But it was one of those things I put off for "someday". Eventualy I did sit down and create this page.

I've always been facinated by my grandparents accounts of the bombing of Pearl Harbor. Their stories make the history so much more personal and so much more real. I am glad to have spent the time to add my personal touch to the story that is now part of our Nations heritage .

Even though 7 years have passed its never too late to get your story down. It may not be a LO about 9-11, but any story that you've been putting off for "someday" I urge you to take the challenge and make "someday" this week.

As always we'd love to know if this challenge has inspired you to create. Share your projects with us by e-mail to info@iceescape.net or post a comment with a link to your blog!

***HeatheR***

It's Heather's Birthday!!!

ICE's very own Heather Hillman is celebrating her birthday today!

****Happy Birthday our wonderful friend!****

Tracy & Nancy wanted to send you some love and post your birthday cards.

(You'll get the real things soon).

we wish

Heather a very, very Happy Birthday!!!!

Vacation!

Well summer is over and everyone surely has vacation pictures they are working on. We had an attendee at ICE 08 (who just happens to be my daughter) that had just taken a trip to Brazil and had an awesome album she was and still is working on. We are highlighting her as our guest designer this week. Thank you for letting us show off your album Jessica!

Nancy
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When I wasn’t dancing to Ice, Ice Baby (still in my head by the way) I spent the majority of my time at ICE working on a small album of pictures I took while on a trip to Brazil. I literally have 650 pictures from the trip, so it was really hard to figure out what I wanted to do with all of them. I finally decided on making a small album of my absolute favorites, and then a 12X12 with the rest that I wanted to scrap.


The amazing gift bag we got at ICE had so many perfect things that I used! The felt and paper flowers were a staple for me all weekend. I used them in several different ways, but my favorite is on this page.

I first inked around the edges with different shades of brown, then layered a few types of flowers. I topped them off with buttons, brads, bling… anything I could find! They all turned out unique and fun. Here are a few pictures of the pages I have finished.






I wanted to do this book with a sort of theme. I used the paper and embellishment line, Urban Rhapsody from K and Company. This line along with all my goodies from ICE, just really gives the look I was going for!




I am working on a page now using the flower embellishment transparencies with the 3 colors. The album is a work in progress, I still have a long way to go. It’s one of those times when you really love your pictures and want every page to be perfect!

Jessica

The apple dosn't fall far from the tree

A group of my scrapbook friends are working on a "Cards for the Troops" project. Our goal is to send 500 Christmas cards for service memebers to write in and send back home. So my daughter wanted to help, I stamped the image for her and she had a blast coloring it.

Pretty cute eh? (OK so Mom helped cut and mat papers...) I think we have a future scrapbooker in the family!

Card handmade by Abby, 4 years old

Happy Birthday Dawn!!

Happy Birthday to our great friend Dawn!! I hope your day is filled with lots of love hugs and scrappy surprises!

Scrapping Our Other Family Members

I have a confession to make. I’m in love with another man. He’s so handsome and sweet. He loves to cuddle on the couch, lets me control the remote, and even does everything I tell him to. Okay, so his eating manners leave a lot to be desired, and he has this thing where he drools after getting a big drink of water. He doesn’t wipe his feet before he comes into the house (and trust me he should), but one look into his gorgeous brown eyes, my heart melts and all is forgiven. The best part of my new little love affair, my husband doesn’t mind. In fact, he was the one that introduced us and invited him to come live in our house.


Here’s a picture of my newest love, our Yellow Lab named Cash. Cash joined our family in March, and he has been a wonderful addition.

All of my life we’ve had animals. Always dogs, a few cats, some horses, and even a bunny, lizard, hermit crabs, and some fish in there somewhere. It’s amazing how these creatures become such a special part of your family. And with so many wonderful pet themed scrapbook supplies, it makes it easy to create great layouts to include in the family album.

In December we lost a very special member of our family, our Cisco dog. Cisco had been a member of our family for over eleven years, and losing him was very hard on all of us. A few months before his death I created this layout hoping to capture the “essence of Cisco” the sweet, gentle, and ever faithful wonderful dog that he was.

Cisco’s sister Meesha is still with us. She’s soon approaching her 13th birthday, so documenting memories with her now is very important. Meesha has such a fun personality. We call her “Princess” because that’s how she acts. She loves attention and loves to be spoiled. I created this layout to capture her princess personality.

My youngest daughter was even inspired to create her own scrapbook page about our “Princess”

Our family also has a Lizard name Leo that belongs to my oldest daughter. A layout documenting their story has yet to be created, it’s on my long list of “to-do” projects. I was pretty excited when I found some adorable lizard embellishments at a local scrapbook store in town, so I’m looking forward to creating something fun.

I also need to scrap the photos from my youngest daughter’s goldfish’s funeral where I have the sweetest picture of my oldest daughter consoling her younger sister.

Fellow ICE organizer Nancy, also has a little love affair going with a very cute short little guy. I’ve gotta admit, she has great taste in furry guys! The other great thing about Nancy, is that she has a huge supply of great pet themed scrapping goodies that she shares!

Here’s Nancy’s cute little guy

What about you? Share your pet stories, pet layouts, or even ideas you have for future pet layouts you plan to create.