Favorites @ Twelve Scrapbook Layout & Summer Card

This is just a quick post to show you a layout and card I made during the past week....

First up is the card I made to send to whoever won the scrapbooking prize package I was giving away on the forum where I'm participating in the layout-a-week challenge this year. Most of us volunteered to do a giveaway at least once during this 50 week challenge and this was my week. I tried doing a summer-related one for the most part and a lady in Michigan won. I made this summery card for her....

I used the clouds embossing folder from Darice, Fiskars boundary waters border punch, 3" circle punch, tiny alpha stamps from Studio G, and Tim Holtz Sizzix die for the word "summer". I think it turned out pretty cute. I'm not a big cardmaker, but it is fun to make a card every now and then.

And here is the layout I made on Saturday after a graduation party for the neighbor....

I used the Colorbok Confetti paper pad that I recently got on clearance at WalMart. I found the @ sign on the Graphically Speaking Cricut cartridge. I used a PL card from the Honey kit. Tiny alpha stamps by Studio G, the same butterfly/flower stickers that I have in this week's giveaway, my Bo Bunny curvy ruler, and I did some stitching. Various little stamps are from a couple different Heidi Swapp/Pink Paislee sets. I had B. write her favorites on the card after I did the stamping. And I used an old PageMaps sketch from July 2009 but changed a few things on it.

'til next time....

Happy Father's Day!

Tony's funeral was this past Tuesday. There was a very nice service and his nephew, Donny, who he was close to, did the eugoly which was absolutely beautiful. My brother, BJ, who's a musician, and his wife, Kerri, and their friend, Erik, who's some type of minister did the music. Tony was honored by the military at the cemetery. It was all very nicely done. We all miss him so much. :(

Tony's sister, Pat, also made a memory board including older, vintage photos, and newspaper articles that Tony was featured in back when he was in the Air Force. He was a recruiter for the Air Force for a number of years and he was featured in Airmen magazine one time for being a "tell it like it really is" recruiter. He was always honest and never lied to the young men that he recruited. He had gotten quite a few thank you letters from lots of those young men for being honest and upfront with them. He was so proud to have been featured in that magazine. It meant a lot to him. And it was one of the things he was buried with. 

I have been helping my mom as much as I can. She's a little out of touch with reality when it comes to certain things. And she's been very irritable. She's snapped at me a couple times this past week. It's so unlike her. It's like once Tony passed away, a switch went off.  Once she gets her mind set on something, that's it. She's probably one of the most stubborn, bull-headed people I know. She's always been hard to talk to and without saying too much here, I just don't understand her way of thinking sometimes. I never have. *sigh*  Hopefully, as time goes on, things will get better. We shall see....

I have also been seeking employment. It is depressing that there is nothing around here. I had one interview two weeks ago tomorrow and never heard back from them. :(   I had another job I spent the better part of the morning filling out an application for online, printing it out, getting my resume together, and getting my hopes up. I walked in and the first thing I was told was "oh that position has already been filled."  all the while the job opening was still being advertised on their big flashing billboard outside of the store (furniture store). I was quite upset that day to say the least.  It is all so discouraging. Then there was the job that I had to have the application notarized for. Never heard back from that one either. I need a job. I want to work. But there is nothing here. Seventy (70) other people applied for the same job that I had the interview for. It's crazy. And whoever it was that said that job hunting can wreck havoc on your self-esteem was right. I am really trying to not let it depress me, but it's hard.

Anyway.... on to happier things.....

Today has been a gorgeous, beautiful, sunny day. It's 80 degrees out now. B. went swimming for about an hour earlier this afternoon and I have a roast in the oven for dinner. We've been doing a lot of grilling lately, so today we're having something different. I haven't made a roast in a while and my husband took it out of the freezer the other day to thaw.  Our tomatoes that we planted back on June 1st have grown taller and the Mr. Stripey one has even started growing some buds this past week. Mr. Stripey tomatoes are supposed to be large yellow and red striped tomatoes. I wanted to try growing something different this year and so that was one of the varieties that I got. The Stella Dora daylilies are blooming, and I noticed yesterday that the delphiniums that I planted a couple of summers ago are starting to bloom....

and these yellow daisy-like ones too....

I think those are some type of mini sunflower. I can't remember. You can see how big the hydrangea is getting back there in the corner of the photo. We cut it back every fall. 

Cute little squirrel in our backyard yesterday that my husband took a picture of...

With everything else that's been going on lately, I never posted a couple of the scrapbook layouts that I made last month and so I figure now is a good a time as any....

I did end up using at least one of the sketches from the Big Picture Classes sketch class by Donna Jannuzzi I've been taking for this layout I did on May 27th.....

I glimmer-misted this layout with Tattered Angels sugar plum fairy (purple). I also used a wee bit of garden fairy (green) but it's not as noticeable. I usually only use my glimmer mists for coloring flowers and lace. So this was a little out of my comfort zone.

Patterned paper in the background and the purple paper lace strip down the middle is from a MAMBI paper pad, Fiskars and Martha Stewart punches, Avery Elle chevron bits die, brushed corduroy distress ink, blue and yellow butterflies were punched out with DCWV pp.

And a couple close-ups:

I also made this one....

The journaling talks about how Hoover became a part of our family...

"Hoover used to be one of Matt's friends' dog. Aunt MiMi and Uncle R. agreed to take Hoover in "temporarily". After a while, the friend stopped showing any kind of interest in Hoover at all which upset Aunt MiMi a lot. And after quite some time she finally decided that Hoover was their dog now and he's been a part of the family ever since. He truly is a wonderful dog and you love going up to Aunt MiMi's to play with Hoover and say that he's your favorite dog in the whole family (besides our dogs of course) "because he actually plays with me and doesn't just lay there on the floor." lol!"

I used an old Stemma collection pack of papers I got from Office Max awhile ago. I think the brads were Stemma too. The photo mat paper comes from a MAMBI paper pad. The big heart was done with a Sizzix die, pawprints are a punch and then punched again with a circle punch. Heart garland was done with a MS heart punch and the hearts were punched out of a MME 6x6 paper pad.  This was my first dog layout ever. I need to do more of these and get our family pets in the scrapbooks.....

Well I hope you all have a pleasant week ahead....

My Stepdad, Tony, Passed Away :( :(

It has been a very difficult time for my family this past week. A week ago, tomorrow (Tuesday - June 3rd), Tony went in the hospital to have open heart surgery. If you follow my blog, I mentioned about a month ago that Tony's heart was working at only 20% capacity due to calcium-buildup in his aorta. He had some problems two years ago and ended up in the hospital and had to have a pace maker put in. Then in February of this year, he was having problems with breathing.  He had had a heart cathe done about a month ago and the doctors had put him on some medicine that was supposed to help him. They were going to wait six months to see if he was doing any better but after only three weeks and no improvement, (which would have been two weeks ago), the doctor said that they couldn't wait any longer and he needed to have open heart surgery to have his aorta replaced and a bypass. They had him scheduled for surgery a.s.a.p. for the following week. It was that serious and they said that if the calcium deposits came loose, it could cause him to have a stroke.  He had the same surgeon who had just done his sister's open heart surgery about a month ago (she had the same calcium build-up problem). No other doctor in our area would do such a surgery. Tony had already had a triple bypass 20 years ago and they say it becomes more difficult if there have been previous surgeries. Plus he had cancer years ago and the radiation he had to have damaged half of one of his lungs and the bottom part of his heart.

We all prayed for Tony. The morning of his surgery he was up at 3 a.m. because he couldn't sleep. They had to be at the hospital at 5 a.m. to start the prep for the surgery. The surgery seemed to be going well.... they replaced his aorta first and then did the bypass. Then a few hours later we found out that Tony's heart was very weak and that he was unable to breathe on his own. :(  He was still laying on the operating table and they still had him hooked up to the machines. We were all so worried and started praying harder for him. They said they were going to leave him like that until the NEXT morning around 10:00 or 11:00 a.m. to give his heart a chance to gain strength.

Wednesday morning came and they tried taking him off the machines. His heart was still too weak to work on it's own and he couldn't breathe either without the machines. The doctor had done a lot of heart surgeries in the past and he said he hadn't seen a case as bad as this in 15 years. Not very encouraging. :(   It was getting to the point where my mom and Tony's sister knew that they might have to make a decision. :(  The doctor said he would give Tony's heart another day to gain strength and that they would try again the following morning around 6:00 - 6:30 a.m.  When he went in for his surgery, they said he had something like a 94% chance of making it. At this point it was only 50/50.  We were all so worried and upset. And praying so very hard for him and my husband, B. and I drove up to the hospital that afternoon since my husband was able to leave work early that day late in the morning after he told his boss about Tony. We were surprised that they were letting family in to see Tony considering the condition he was in. The doctor told my mom that he would be there when they took Tony off the machines in the morning even though it was his day off and he wouldn't be getting paid. He said he wanted to be there because Tony was his patient.

Thursday morning, June 6th, I was up at 5:30 a.m. since I was driving up there by myself with B. and my mom lives over an hour away. I didn't sleep very well that night. I called my Mom at 6:37 a.m. and she said they were getting ready to start working on Tony. My brother and his wife and their friend were already at the hospital with her. I left the house a little after 8 a.m. and started heading up. I had B. text my brother for me to let them all know I was on my way and he texted me back and didn't say anything out of the ordinary other than to drive safe...

My brother met me in the hallway at the hospital and told me that Tony had just passed away right as I was leaving my house.  :(   He didn't want to tell me because he knew I was driving. They had worked on Tony for at least an hour. Needless to say, we were all crying. My mom stayed in the room with Tony for four hours that morning. Watching her lose the love of her life has been so heart wrenching. B. and I stayed with her for a couple of days and then my brothers have been staying with her too. I helped write his obituary and plan his memorial service which will be tomorrow morning. He will have a Catholic funeral and will be laid to rest with military honors. We think he would have liked that. He was in the Air Force for 23 years and was proud to serve his country. Tony treated my mom like gold. They were the love of each other's lives. They were together almost 20 years. Happily married for 12 of those years. He gave her the world and she was very blessed to have him as her husband. He was a good man and we are all going to miss him so very much. :(

I wanted to do something special for his funeral and make a memorial picture board. I worked on this for two whole days.... scanning pictures at WalMart.... searching for pictures..... downloading and going through my mom's SD card.... photo-sheeting and uploading to Walgreens..... texting family and getting more pictures. I finally finished it at 1:00 a.m. this morning and this is the result....

This was a true labor of love and I will let my mom have it after the service tomorrow.  I used one of those huge 48" wide by 36" high tri-fold foam core boards by Elmer's. There are a total of 88 photos.

I used all copies of photos. Nothing original. I had thought about using repositionable adhesive, but I don't have any (or not enough for a huge project such as this). And I didn't want to waste time going shopping for it. I had already half-promised B. that I would take her to see "The Fault In Our Stars" over a month and a half ago or so when she bought the book that the movie is based on with her own money. The movie came out the day after Tony passed away and we were up at my Mom's since I had gone up to stay with her for a couple of days. There was no wi-fi up there, so when we came home, B. had gotten texts from her friends saying they had gone to see the movie and she started begging me to please take her. I really didn't have time with everything else going on, and reminded her that Pappap had just passed away. But I ended up taking her anyway because I am a woman of my word. *sigh*. I wasn't really up for it since I knew it was a sad movie and had already done enough crying in the days before. The movie was a little over two hours long and was pretty good. It was almost sold out the day it came out here and when I took B. in the late afternoon on Saturday (I bought the tickets before I went to WalMart to scan pictures), it was pretty packed in there. That's the most people I've ever seen in the movie theater that I can remember.

Anyway... working on Tony's memory board was very therapeutic for me.

Tony's sister (who is such a sweet lady) is working on a memory board of her own that will have photos from his younger years from their family. Tomorrow will be a rough day for all of us. :(

It's not good-bye... but rather until we meet again......