Good Grief: Favorite Foods

It's that time again at Good Grief! This challenge was to "list her favorite foods". I chose to take a different twist on this challenge, and focus on a couple of favorite food-related memories.

Most Favorite Cake Ever

Journaling: This was a birthday I will never forget. For the first time in days, Kath was able to leave the house. We went to Dad & Peg’s for a tiny celebration. She wanted to get me a cake with bugs – and that’s what I had! She endured pain to join the party – I felt the love. Having her was my greatest gift.

Family Tradition

Journaling: Several years ago, Grandma started making her soup on Christmas Eve. We never needed an entire, huge meal … and all the grandkids were too excited to eat (since presents were after.) Split pea soup became our tradition. Grandma kept notes of just how much we needed, year after year, so we always had just enough. Grandma’s Split Pea Soup – a favorite family tradition.

As a reminder, a closer look at my layouts, along with the stories behind them, will be posted in a couple of days over at Good Grief.

Send Love Today

This morning I saw a post on Write.Click.Scrapbook that immediately caught my eye.


Send Love Today is "an organization whose goal is to create hope and happiness for people suffering with any type of brain cancer and their families. Volunteers sign up to do one of two things: 1) send out a certain number of cards per week to an assigned patient (aka: friend) or 2) make cards at their leisure which they send to Send Love Today who distributes them to friends as needed."

This is a charity I can certainly support! A couple years ago, I posted a request on scrapbooking message board Two Peas in a Bucket to send cards to Katherine to brighten her days. I was overwhelmed with many cards; here are just a few:


And the response was just what I was hoping for:


In 2009, one of my resolutions was to send more cards, especially one "just because." {You may have been a lucky recipient! :)} I thought this charity is perfect - I can spread joy AND send more cards!! I just signed up and I'm looking forward to sending cards to someone in need of some cheer.

As a side note, over the past two years, I have tried to volunteer with a different organization each month. (2009 was a bit more sporadic, hoping I get back in 2010!) If you know of any charities looking for help, please let me know. I'm always interested in helping a new organization, and learning about different charities.

So many challenges...

Yesterday I didn't have anything major planned, so ended up participating in a few online scrap challenges. I had a blast - it's good to push outside my comfort zone every now and then!

We had an online crop over at Good Grief yesterday. I posted three challenges: an advice challenge, a cardstock & story challenge, and a re-challenge challenge. The last two are layout challenges, so I'll pick random winners next Sunday (which will hopefully give me time to complete the challenges myself!) I was able to do 2 layouts for other challenges though.

This challenge was to document a trip taken with a lost loved one - I scrapped a picture of Kath & I from the cruise I went on with my family in February:

Journaling reads: I want to remember this moment forever. The cruise was so perfect: laughing, smiling, making memories and trying to forget about cancer. The timing couldn't have been better - we celebrated life before we would lose Katherine a mere 4 months later. I cherish these memories.

This challenge was to use only chipboard & cardstock ... it was HARD! That's what challenges are for, right? I was inspired by Tania Willis with the tone-on-tone cardstock.

Journaling: This is my family... with marriage, divorce, non-blood relations, untraditional relationships ... but lots of love.

I also completed 3 layouts for another group of challenges - this was just a group of scrappers emailing each other different challenges.

The first challenge was to only use scraps and products within reach. This is Andrea and me at a local scrap retreat.

Journaling reads: So much fun hanging with this girl. She inspires me, makes me laugh, _and_ knows the importance of self-portraits!

Next was to use a fun color combo ... I'm loving gray & orange right now! Earlier this year I went to a trivia fundraiser with a few friends in Seattle - this picture was from that night.


The last one I did was to use white as a background ... another tough one! When I was in CA last year, Christina and I went to Sprinkles ... YUM!


Thanks for looking ... hoping I get the chance to do some more challenges this week!

Good Grief: Document a Game

It's time for a new challenge at Good Grief! This challenge was a bit light-hearted, a nice change from the tear-invoking layouts! We were to document a game we had played.

First up, my layout for Katherine:

She Likes...

Journaling: (on envelope) She likes: puppies but not dogs, books but not magazines, giggles but not smiles, jogging but not walking, butterflies but not ladybugs, Halloween but not Christmas...

(on tag, in envelope) Kath introduced us to this fun game without telling us how to play. We just had to listen & guess what was next. If we were correct, we played along until everyone ‘got it.’ The game would start randomly, as someone else thought of more things that ‘she liked’...

Can you figure out the game??

And my layout for my Grandma:

Wheel of Fortune
Journaling: A favorite memory I have is watching Wheel of Fortune with Grandma. We’d try to guess the puzzles, as Grandpa sat in his chair, reading with his pipe. Not quite sure why this memory sticks out, but it’s one I’ll cherish from my childhood, especially now that she’s gone.

I apologize for the lack of picture quality - I recently got a new laptop, and my Photoshop Elements isn't cooperating. I had to be creative for photo editing (I used Picnik) but it looks like I sized the layouts too small!

Please link me to your layouts if you play along - I love to see how everyone interprets the different challenges!