A Sn@p for Great Grandma Cook

The good news is that almost ready for Thanksgiving. The bad news is that Thanksgiving was last month.

Shortly after Thanksgiving, I stumbled across “Sn@p” – a Simple Stories pocket scrapbooking program that seemed to merge the best of Becky Higgins’ Project Life program and and EK Success’ Smash books. From there, I quantum leaped into the perfect Christmas gift for my mother-in-law, children and grandchildren. So, I ordered my Sn@p products and launched head-first into the project. Since my 98-year-old mother-in-law lives in Oregon, I started her project first. Since my husband visited her in September, I started her photo album with our daughter’s move into her new home at the end of September.  Then the unthinkable happened. On Friday, December 13, 2013 my mother-in-law fell down some steps and cracked her head. Our youngest son, Nathan, and my husband flew out to see her on Sunday, December 15^th.  I quickly finished the album so he could take it with him. While her body is healing, she is not. She’s grown weary of living.

I hope to have our Snap and Project Life inventory posted on our website (www.scrappigators.com) shopping cart by the end of the month/year.

David and Nathan returned home on Saturday, December 21^st. We’re getting daily updates from David’s sister about her status and are keeping her in prayer.

David was able to give her the album on Wednesday, the 18^th. This first page chronicles our daughter’s move into her first home. I have an arrow punch and had planned on writing notes on them. I created my “Instagram” style photos using my Microsoft Publisher program.

Leslie's new home story continues on the next two pages. Since I do not store my Project Life cards by collection, I cannot tell you which set these come from. I've gotten in the habit of creating several of these photo cards every time I transfer pictures into the file.

October turned out to be an interesting month. Our daughter-in-law met her sister in Chicago and took some incredibly interesting shots with her camera phone. I had to add these to the mix as well as our grandbaby girl napping on Daddy’s chest.

Since they live about 2 ½ hours away from us, we try to see our grandchildren at least once a month. I had lots of fun with these “Morgan” photos and enjoyed “smashing” them into the project as cut-outs.

Since Morgan likes to hang around Grandma more than Brayden, she tends to get more photos taken . . . or maybe it’s because she’s 2 . . . almost three. The background paper on these two pages is actually yellow cardstock that I stamped with journaling circles.

Brayden and Grandpa Cook managed to make their way into the next two pages. Brayden is “creating” with Play Dough.

We closed out the month with Parker’s first football game. He’s number 81 . . . This is junior high or middle school sports, so their season is a bit shorter than high school.  I used the Project Life “Football” themed cards on these pages. I also used them in Parker’s Sn@p book, my PL 2013 Scrapbook and I still have a few cards left.

My mother-in-law’s birthday was also in October, so I included pictures from her birthday celebration. It seemed fitting at the time.

Morgan was having way too much fun playing “tickle bug” with Grandpa. She would run between us, pause for her “get ready, get set, go” pose and then be off to battle the giant tickle bug.

David took these pictures with his cell phone camera. Do you see the rose? That’s actually an Elizabeth Craft outline sticker that I placed on the outside of the plastic page protector. I finish the effect, colored it with Copic markers. It works, don’t you think?

These last pages are also from David’s camera. As they came in, I put them in the “Instagram” format. As my husband texted me the photos, I processed them for my pocket protectors. This made the Sn@p projects go so much easier.

The left hand pages finish up David’s babysitting gig. The right represents moments from Thanksgiving dinner.  Below completes the holiday weekend at Nate & Cindy’s for dessert.

I hope that your Christmas was Merry and Bright.