Sweet girl scrappin

I was out and about most of the day but just had to sneak into my scrap room tonight to do a scrap page. I think that since all my pictures are still out on my table, I am able to hear them calling to me better. I think the closet really muffled their voices. I better get them back in there quick!
I decided to do a 'quick' page tonight. (LOL) I pulled out this sweet picture of my Niece Gwen that I had taken last fall. She is the cutest thing! I saw her only once before, at her birth, and it amazed me how quick she had grown into a little energizer bunny! I started my page with a piece of patterned paper from My Mind's Eye - Bohemian. I LOVE this paper! The colors are great and the feel is rustic, yet,...well, Bohemian! I put my picture in the center of the paper and traced around it with my white gel pen. Normally I would use a pencil, but I knew I was going to use some white paint as a border, so gel pen would blend in. I used my Stampin' Up! Hobby blade to cut out the parts of the flowers that overlapped my picture. The white paint is memory paint that dries suuuper quick. Because I tend to leave my foam brushes on my desk til they solidify and then end up throwing them away, I decided to try and 'paint' with some cosmetic sponges I found in my paint drawer. It worked great and I didn't feel bad throwing it away when I was done. I swiped the paint on for my faux frame and added a bit in the bottom right hand corner for fun. I tore off the upper left hand corner of the paper and sponged the edges with my Bloody Mary chalk option pad. I liked the look of that so I took the pad to all the edges of the patterned paper. I stamped the linen background stamp from SU on some chocolate chip cardstock with white ink and mounted that behind my tear. The words are from the CK kit of the month from a few months back. It is a foam stamp set so I used black memory paint to stamp with. Ink just doesn't work very well with these stamps. I cut a free hand oval from some celery cardstock and put some red brads in it for the flower center and used some chipboard circles from Prima for centers on the other flowers. I thought I would 'quickly' add some stitches with the blue hemp to my tear....yeah, this wasn't quick. It took as long as the whole page! Oh well, I like the look of it so much I added another stitch to dot my I in girl. The page ended up taking longer than I wanted it to, but the good thing is I didn't have to hunt around for stuff. The paper was already done so that cut out some effort on my part. You gotta love the ease of patterned paper some times!
In other news, this week was awards week at out elementary school. I was a dork and forgot my camera for two sessions, but managed to remember it today. My kids brought home quite a haul between them all. AB honor roll for Sarah and some character awards as well. Here is Ethan getting his Citizenship award. Such a cutie!