a few scrapbook pages

Thank you so much for the thoughts, prayers, notes and emails about my brother.  He is doing well and beginning to make progress in rehab.  It's going to be a long road.  My motto for this period in our lives has been this:

Don't look ahead at what might be, don't look back to what could've been.  Take care of this moment, right here and right now.

*****

Creating has taken a back burner this summer.  There were times I wondered if I would ever feel like scrapbooking again.  I didn't sit at my desk for weeks.  The mess from the last days of June and the first of July was still sitting there in late July.  Just looking at my space made my stomach turn.  The only thing I could do was Pin.  It was a good distraction, a reminder that beauty existed and a hope that all the inspiration on my Pin boards would lead me back to creating.

One afternoon in late July, after a fantastic visit with my brother, I sat down to create.  I had to force it at first, and I struggled.  But then a page began to take shape, ideas started to flow, and I got lost in the process.  This first page using the July Elite Kit was the result:

I played with stamps that had been sitting dusty, did some misting, and a bit of doodling.  And it felt so good to be creating again.  Here's what else I made with this kit:

Using Vero's sketch:

More stamping with paint:

Using a die cut paper as title and journaling holder:

This week I tore into the August Petite kit to create a layout about my amazing dad:

And a simple one of nuggets of advice for Maddox.  I love this word paper from Christy Tomlinson's "She Art" collection.

This kit comes with a 6 x 12 clipboard.  At first I thought I would cut the board in half to make covers for a mini album, but then I lost my courage to use hubby's circular saw.  So I opted for a holder for Fat Mum Slim's photo-a-day challenge prompts.

There's that cool word paper again.  

Thanks so much for looking, and I hope that I will have more to share with you soon.