Laissez Le Bon Temp Rouler

I can not believe it but I won a layout contest!!! This layout pictures my Grandfather playing his accordion. The smaller picture was taken at Festival Acadiens when he was honored as a pioneer of French Cajun Music. He began playing the accordion and fiddle when he was a young boy. He told me his father taught him to play the fiddle and one of the local legends, Joe Falcon, taught him to play the accordion. His father was the fiddle player in Joe Falcon's band and they would let my grandfather play the music while the band took their break. Another legend, Mark Savoy, once told me that Paw played versions of these great old french songs that no one else did. Mr. Savoy also told me what a wonderful accordion player Paw was. After my grandmother passed away, while cleaning out their house, we found a notebook filled with the classic french music my grandfather played. All of the music was written by him in french. One of those old songs, Let the Good Times Roll, was the perfect addition to the layout. Anyway, last weekend the scrappers voted this layout as their favorite. What an honor!!!

Inspiration

Where does inspiration come from? For me, it comes from looking at common objects and daily activities of living. I can find inspiration for my scrapbook pages just by looking at bath salt bottles, chipped enamel coffee pots, vintage buttons, vintage lace, vintage jewelry, postcards and clothing. When working in the garden, I get the flashes of the perfect scrapbook page or title, the layouts just fall into place. The major problem I have when I get these moments of inspiration is that I don't stop what I'm doing and write the fleeting thoughts down. Then much later, when I'm seated at my desk, I try to think back on those moments only to find that they are lost. Lost in the shuffle of chaos that envelopes my daily life. So, my goal for this summer is to try and write down these spurts of inspiration as they flutter through my thoughts.

The project below was born of such a moment. I was in a flea market in North Carolina when I ran across a bag of odd earrings. There was not a matching set in the bunch. The pieces that were in that bag were fabulous, and several just screamed to be used on a page about my grandmother.

The flower center is an old clip-on earring that just reminded me of my grandmother. The hat pin is another reminder. After my Grandmother passed away and my grandfather went to live with my father, my father and his siblings had the daunting task of cleaning out their home. One of my sons, who was helping with the clean up, found my grandmother's hats. Attached to several of the hats were hat pins. After finding the hat pins, I started searching flea markets for these little jewels. The one I used on this layout is a reproduction that was given to me by a friend. Our local scrapbook Store, Treasured Memories, has a wide assortment of pins and will even make them to match your layouts.

The other two layouts also use vintage jewelry pieces.

The beautiful "buckle" on the ribbon is actually a pin that I picked up at a flea market for a dollar, the small metal disc at the top of the right hand page is actually another earring.

This layout has a clock face in the cluster of buttons and gears at the top of the right hand page, which was salvaged from a broken watch I purchased in another grab bag of old jewelry, and what a better way to reinforce the topic of "Les Le Bon Temp Rouler".

Inspiration, where does yours come from?

A couple of new projects

I have finally found some much needed down time in the studio. It has been so very hectic with Mardi Gras and our trip to Disney. School is winding down, the days are getting longer and I am getting back into the swing of scrapping. I have several 4 day crops planned in the next couple of months. I have been jotting down ideas for layouts and trying to get everything together into page kits. We will see how it works, but knowing me, I'm a fly by the seat of my pants kinda scrapper so planning page kits is beyond my comfort zone.

On to my latest projects.

I have been wanting to do this layout for months. I saw a button tree on the internet and loved it so I adapted the design by adding a few pictures of my ancestors and came up with a family tree. The pictures are of my Parents and Grandparents. I'm about 4 and Mom says the photo was taken on Easter Sunday.

This is the third time I have created layout using this photo of my grandparents. I did a two page layout last summer for myself, and a shadow box similar to the one above for my dad for Father's Day. Well over the Christmas holidays, my aunt saw it and fell in love with it, so I told her I would make one for her. It will be shipping out this weekend.

This was created for a co-worker who snort whenever she laughs, which in turn makes me laugh. Anyway, I saw this saying in a magazine and decided it was perfect for her. I cut the letter out using my circut.

This is my example of the tape transfer process. I am a bit disappointed that my lady didn't show up better, but hey not bad for my first time.

I have some other photos I need to post, but for now I'm signing off and heading to dreamland.