My 50th Post!!!!!!!

This is my 50th post since I switched over to Blogger. Yippie! If I were a digital scrapbooking designer I would have some kind of awesome freebie to give away. But, I'm not....so I don't. Sorry :(

I have mentioned before how much I love Amanda Taylor of TaylorMadeDesigns. If you read the credits of my scrapbooking resources enough you will see I incorporate many elements from her kits into my pages. I was excited to see her newsletter in my email inbox yesterday and of course, had to open it and read it right then! I didn't get much past the 2nd paragraph though. She talked about how she was a guest for the month of June over at http://www.digidares.com/ and she said they have all these really cool challenges (dares, if you may) every week. I had to go on over and check out this upcoming week's challenge, which took me into creating a new layout. Do you see why I didn't get past the 2nd paragraph? That's okay because I have the newsletter tucked safely in my inbox for further reading. I love challenges because they really get (or so they should) the creative juices flowing. I was anticipating what this awesome challenge would be and when I read it I was like "SIGH, this will not be hard and yet it will be extremely hard all at the same time." We were challenged to scrap about a painful or heart-breaking time in our lives. An additional part of the challenge was to use blending techniques in your layout. Here is mine...

Journaling:

I was forever changed the morning of March 8, 2009. I was supposed to be in the sanctuary that morning but could not bring myself to get out of bed. To think I could have been one of the many who had to witness that unexplainable act of violence. You were ripped out of our lives with one fatal shot and we were left behind to forever wonder why. Why you? Why us? I can only come back to the truth that God is God and His ways are NOT my ways. For some reason God chose FBCM to be shaken to the core. I believe God has a plan for us still. But, I cannot help but think...it will never again be the same without you as my Pastor.

Credits:

Papers/Frame: Weather by Dawn Inskip

Photo Tearing: Torn Templates by Sweet Genevieve Designs

All Other Elements: TaylorMadeDesigns Signature kit.

Photo Blending used:

Steeple: 100% overlay & 45% Linear Light

Photo behind journaling: 100% overlay used twice

Here is a layout (a bit more cheerful) I did for a template challenge at http://www.faithsisters.com/

This is The Blakester when he was all of 1 year old. He was stinkin' cute even back then! I am working on an album for just him and this is the 2nd LO so far. The template was a freebie from the June 18th challenge over at www.faithsisters.com and the kit I used is a "soon to be released" kit from Designs by Angel called Nature's Garden. I am loving this kit to pieces!

Thanks for stopping by to check out the latest. I will have father's day stuff posted later as well as a post about our upcoming single's conference featuring former Cardinals baseball pitcher, Kent Bottenfield. I am HOPING I can upload the short video we did with him yesterday. Stay tuned.....