Father's Day

Here are my sweethearts!  We went looking for a hat for Mark for Father's Day, and found one with a bonus, it came with a shirt!  Our "#1 Dad" wore both to have his picture taken with the kids. 

For my own father, I made a journaling jar and a journal:

I used a most recent Let's Scrap card sketch for the journal design.  I got most of the idea from an article titled "How to make a Journal Jar" here.  Basically it is a jar filled with little strips of paper.  On each strip of paper there is a question.  The instructions are to remove one each day and write your response in the journal.  It is a way of stimulating memories and getting a person's life story down on paper.  My dad wrote a bit of a history a few years back, but it really just gave me more questions.  Now that I am actively working on my Book About Me (BAM), I find myself really interested in the history of my parents, grandparents, etc.  Sorry I don't have a pic of Dad and me to post, he is 84 now, and in great shape, hope he doesn't mind working on this.  "Inquiring minds want to know!"

What's in a Name?

This layout is for the first Book about Me (BAM) challenge at Let's Scrap.  The challenge was to do a layout about your name.  I used the left side of sketch ls128. 

Journaling reads: "In preparing to tell the story of the origins of my name, I called my mother to ask her why they had named me Beth.  "I don't know we just liked it" was her response.  I then went on to tell her that I thought they had considered naming me "Bess" after one of Dad's Campus School teacher friends, Bess Stinson, whom he had been particularly fond of, but decided against it because they were afraid that I would be nicknamed "Messy Bessie".  She asked my dad and he said no they hadn't considered Bess.  They wanted short, fairly common names that didn't have nicknames.  Hence the reason I am named Beth and not Elizabeth.  (This could also explain where the "Messy Bessie" came from).  She went on to tell me that her father's mother (my great-grandmother) had been named Elizabeth and that his sister, Aunt Adaline's middle name had been Elizabeth.  This, however, had nothing to do with their choice of Beth either.  Not much of a story.  I thought my version was much more colorful, which is why I decided to include it here anyway.  Journaling June 17, 2011 by Beth Ann Koenig, age 47."  photo circa 1965
patterned papers- Basic Grey; flower spray-Prima; stamps/ink-CTMH; border punch-Martha Stewart Crafts; label die-Spellbinders Nestabilities labels 4; stencil-The Crafter's Workshop "orchid".

Page Maps-My Little Shoebox Contest

I did this layout from a Page Maps sketch for their My Little Shoebox contest.

I loved the sketch, and the prize is 3 collections!  I am not usually a fan of using such small photos.  Since the pics I had from Megan's shower were not the greatest photos, and I didn't have very many, I decided this would be a good sketch to use for them.  Almost all the presents were purple (from Bed, Bath and Beyond) and we were all 3 wearing purple and green that day, so the colors were an obvious choice.  Patterned papers from: Kaisercraft (Lilac Ave), and Scrap within Reach (Full Bloom); Bazzill dotted swiss background; flowers-Prima; bling-Recollections; alphas-American Crafts Thickers (daiquiri); stamps/ink-CTMH.  I used all things from my stash! 

Thanks for looking, and wish me luck!