jbs mercantile may: sunburst stencil love

i have been somewhat remiss in blogging for the last six weeks.  i'm set to get back on track with june though.  i am way behind on posting my may layouts and i was actually quite productive with the scrappies in may!  and the june gallery goes live tonight at midnight!  eeeps!  must get busy!  here are three more layouts from may.  these are all using a sunburst stencil that i got in a kit back in 2009.  it's one i love and keep coming back to.  i used it three times this month!  this first one is a sunny one with me and my cousin sporting our matching bikinis.  it uses mostly the mini-album kit (that sold out quickly).

this one is more subtle with the stencil.  i'm one of the little flower girls in the top left photo.  how could i resist making a flower girls page with all the goodies in the antiquarian kit (there is still one of these left).

and this one (that i already shared) is a mix of all the kits.  such a colorful month!  you can see the stencil peeking out the side.  after i'd misted for the first layout i laid the wet stencil on a piece of white cardstock to get the reverse and trimmed it out for this layout.

and here's a close up of itty bitty towhead me.  i must have been about 4 in this photo.  it's one of my favorites.  :)

washi vellum pocket: a mini tutorial

well.  obviously i have been in a bit of a blogging funk.  hmmm.  shake it off doris.  but now my ocd self is left with lots of loose ends.  should i play catch up?  or just start over like the funk never happened.  cut back to just scrappy shares.  hmmm.  still pondering.  but i do know i need to catch up on my may jbs mercantile kit as my june one has been begging me to play.

i loved this one.  it came together with the look i love.  i can't really describe the look, but i know it when i see it.  the doilies i cut (yes i finally used my pti dies myself!) with the big shot.  the little birdies gluestickgirl sent me.  she cut them with her sillhouette (this is my normal mode of operation. having others make cuts for me).  so many sweet enablers in this world.  :)

i love that the vellum pocket gave me lots of room for journaling.  i covered the tag front and back.  i also had fun playing with the tag before i wrote on it.  i drizzled chicken feed reinker.  used the blending tool to rub on some chewing gum ink, and stamped with this month's exclusive stamp in speckled egg ink.  the little vellum flower was also rubbed with chicken feed re-inker.

that's me and g in the bamboo there.  our silhouette's at least.  do you see us? 

and now for the micro mini-tutorial.  these little vellum pockets are so cute, easy, and super functional.  simply cut a piece of vellum to 3 x 8.5.  fold the vellum not quite in half so one end is longer than the other by about a quarter inch.  tape up the sides with washi tape.  and on this one i punched  a half circle with a 3/4 inch circle punch.  a regular sized manilla office supply tag fits perfectly inside.

get your grid on!

we've got a fun new game posted at jbs mercantile!  join in the discussion HERE!  it's super easy to enter this month!  all you have to do is . . .

(1) Create a layout based on a grid design.
(2) Incorporate at least one JBS Mercantile stamp.
(3) If you choose to enter more than once, the grid size must vary.
(thanks for the concise wordage jill!)

we've also got a thread to share your most recent and/or favorite grid layouts.  here are some of mine . . .

 we seem to be a wonky line loving group, so here's my wonkiest . . .

 this is my most recent.  a layout for jbs mercantile may gallery updates . . .

and this is one of my all time favorites.  a 2x3 with the two bottom right squares fused together.

come play with us!  see you in the "grid" as louise says!  :)

menu plan 18: week in the life day seven

i threw away a decomposing head of lettuce this week.  may it rest in peace.  i am am a menu planning healthy eating fail.  must get back on the wagon next week.  at least i'm about to get the fridge cleaned out so i can start fresh.

this week's menu plan:
saturday - chinese take-out
sunday - logan's
monday - redfish
tuesday - spaghetti
wednesday - poppyseed chicken
thursday - leftovers
friday - open

this was week in the life day seven.  logans for lunch.  we were going to go to red lobster to finally use the birthday gift cards, but there wasn't one in the part of town we were in.  guess we have something to look forward to next sunday!

then we went on some gman errands.  he wanted water lilly plants, but i convinced him we could not grow water lillies in the house and he didn't want to plant them in the pond becasue he said he couldn't watch them there.  he has definite ideas about things.  he decided he wanted a cactus then.  g likes to watch things grow, not take care of things that are already grown, so i knew a regular cactus would become a forgotten part of the scenery by the next day.  i grew cacti from parts as a kid, so i picked up a few succulent leaves that had fallen on the shelves and had him plant them when we got home.  i kinda like this project myself.

the skies have been so amazingly gorgeous here this week.  beautiful.  i keep hearing that song in my head, "blue skies smiling at me. nothing but blue skies do i see."

 our current stack of library books.

g's treat from michael's.  i think the booger is a little grosser than disgusting science needed to be really.

my treat from michael's.  i'm anxious to begin playing with them!  but i'm thinking that purple won't get used much, lol.

week in the life was such a fun adventure.  hoping to get the pics edited and printed so i can finish the mini-album this weekend.  more fun times ahead.  :)

week in the life: day six

i kept up with the picture taking on day six, but didn't get around to blogging them.  then sunday i lost my picture taking oomph midday and had to restage a few today.  yes.  i'm a restager.  i should put a disclaimer on my sidebar, lol.  anyhoo.  wanted to get them blogged so i'll have a memory of it here.  that's the best way for me to keep up with it until i get it in the mini-album.

so day six . . . the sleepover boys woke up at 6:30.  ouch!  they had watched "little shop of horror" clips on youtube all evening the night before, so they ended up reenacting that all morning until blake had to go to his ballgame.  i guess i'm not the only reenacter in the family, lol.

 "i said a FEED me seymour!"

i, of course, scrapped while the boys played.  thought i'd get this layout done, but i didn't.  i feel like it needs a few background splats and i tend to screw up when i try to splat.  i have splat induced stress.

shamefully, rarely a day passes without a trip to the golden arches for coke.

saturday was a playdate double-header.  after blake left, we threw our things together and went to jeremiah's house for the afternoon/evening.  g and jeremiah stayed with tammy's teenagers while she and i went on a pilgrimage to archiver's.  my first trip!  it was fun!  and i controlled myself way better than tammy did.  ha!

and, of course, the boys were doing more experiments.  here they're grabbing bark for some slime mold experiment g read about in one of his library books.  fun times.  :)

g's bookshelf: a series of unfortunate events - the reptile room

we've already reported on book the first, and this one is more of the same.  top notch literature that is depressingly entertaining.  i've decided to call these books murder mysteries for children.  ha.

here's what g had to say:

the thing that was really funny was that there was an horseradish factory and the smell was killing them.  there is a big snake called the incredibly deadly snake and the snake bites the baby's chin then the baby closes her eyes and then she opens her eyes and bites the snake's nose.  when they were walking out of the room the snake was slithering right beside the baby.  the baby and the snake were friends and the snake wasn't really deadly.  i liked this book.  it was even better than the first one.

jbs mercantile may gallery reveal!

i'm not gonna lie.  the friday trn purchases and redbox rentals and donkey kong shenanigans totally derailed my blogging this weekend.  ooops!  i'm going to have to enter ketchup mode this week!

the jbs mercantile may gallery is live!  check it out!  our guest this month is may flaum, fellow trn enthusiast and painty inky misty scrapper extraordinaire!  there are lots of pretties in the design team gallery.  it's a way versatile spring kit and i spied several easter layouts (including one of my own!).  check it out!

speaking of paints and inks and mists (oh my!), i got a bit messy on this one.  and i dipped into several of the kits to do it.  the background is a piece of sheet music from the antiquarian add-on.  the "brick wall" was stamped with cough syrup and the may exclusive stamp from the papercrafting kit.  the title was made from the pink paislee wood shop alphabet, also in the main kit.  i rubbed them in my speckled egg ink pad for this layout.  (i adored this alpha set. i've used them on five layouts already and plan on using them at least three more times!  and i loved them so much i bought another set - in a different font - on my little archiver's expedition saturday).  the pennants are heidi swapp's new alterable borders that were in the artisan add-on.  i misted those with chicken feed/lemon drops (mixing in a 1/3 chicken feed to 2/3 lemon drops ratio makes one of my favorite shades of yellow!) and speckled egg.  oh! and you can see i tried some louise nelson dabber splatting with weather vane.  so much fun!