Scrapbook Journey + Freebie

Digital scrapbooking is one of my creative outlets that has wove it's way in and around my online world for nearly two decades.  I had to sit back and really think that through before I typed it out.  Two decades?  those years flew by in the blink of an eye.  I originally started this journey when my oldest children were maybe three and just born.  I remember wanting to put together a screen saver for my parents that would have photos of the kids so they would feel connected to us since we lived about 4 hours away.  I searched online for free background images just to make it a bit more polished and fell down the rabbit hole of designers offering freebies on their blogs.  Digital kits to create scrapbook pages to print.  

It didn't take long and I was hooked.  I always wanted to get into paper scrapbooking but several things held me back.  First of all, supplies were expensive and we just didn't have the disposal income to fund another crafting hobby.  Second, pulling everything out and putting it back up in a hurry seemed like a lot of work.  I have this thing about needing/wanting everything to have a specific place and with paper scrapping there's a lot of supplies to store and we had limited room.  I'm also not one that can leave unfinished projects laying out and with creative time at a premium, the time spent taking out supplies and cleaning up seemed like a waste of precious time.  With digital scrapbooking all that wasn't an issue!  Winner!

So there's the backstory of how I got into digital scrapbooking.  I know I have some of those early pages filed away on an EHD somewhere and I'm sure they are cringe worthy but we all have to start somewhere and the memories those pages hold are dear. I'm sure that some of you have similar stories of how you got into scrapbooking.  Now onto current events.  What have I scrapped recently?

The first one was made with #2025 May by Connie Prince and Banner Play Vol 1 by Connie Prince template.

The second one was made with Memories {Bundle} by Connie Prince as part of a challenge at Ginger Scraps.

The last one was made with #2025 June by Connie Prince.

Participating in the challenges at Ginger Scraps helps me have a focus and prompt for my creative journey which I need at the moment.  My mind is still very cluttered with teaching/job tasks and I need something to guide me into the creative side of my brain.  Otherwise I find myself just staring at the screen.  I have also found that I absolutely can not open Facebook/social media during my creative time.  Once I do that, I get sucked into watching videos.  Yes, I'm discovering new things but at the same time, I'm not being productive.

Here's a couple of blasts from the past. The middle layout above is of our youngest daughter.  She's about to graduate from High School (a full year ahead of schedule).  She's currently taking her final class as a Summer Credit Advancement course through our school district.  By July 17th she will be completely done.  She has always been a trailblazer, one to find her own path and follow through with her decisions.  

I wish she could see herself through my eyes.  Every time I look back at the layouts from the past 17 years I see a fearless, imaginative, inquisitive, creative, and joyful child.  I pray that she never loses that spirit as she enters this next chapter of her life.  

Those moments captured in those three layouts are why I scrapbook.  As I pulled them up I was transported back to the moment those photos were taken, the moment I scrapped about and how I felt.  The nostalgia brings all the emotions back to the surface and makes me appreciate what I have in life.  Three pretty awesome kids who are finding their own way in this world, finding ways to make their own marks on the world around them.  A loving husband who has made sure I know that I'm loved, that I'm enough, that I am valued.  We just celebrated out 30th Anniversary this past week.  We have a good life and together we are finding joy in the small things.

I have another 4X6 card front printable for you today as a "thanks for stopping by" freebie.  You can get the download by clicking on the image below.  Thank you for taking time to visit today!

~Susan~

Propagations - begonias and coleus

Part of this plant journey that I find fascinating is propagation.  What's that?  Taking a cutting of a plant and growing a new plant from that cutting (or at least growing a new vine to go back into the original pot to make the plant look fuller).  For the past year, I've done easy propagations like golden pothos, cebu blue pothos, marble queen pothos, and heartleaf philodendron.  I also propagated an adasnonii monstera from a vine my mother-in-law gave me that I've managed to keep alive.  Oh....that may be what those NOID small leaves are that I just potted up from my node propbox.  I guess we'll know in a few months. 

So today I got brave and took some cuttings of the beautiful coleus plants that my husband has growing in our shade garden.   Crossing my fingers that these root in a couple of weeks.  The first photo shows some coleus cuttings I got from my friend Jane a few days ago.  She has a small plant shop and I love getting plants from her!

Here are our cuttings from today.

There's one peeking in from the left that I need to go back and take a better photo of.  It's one of my favorites! 

This next one isn't a coleus but I think it's in the same family.  It's called a purple shield.  I'm hoping it roots like the coleus.  I guess we'll see in a few weeks.

I didn't take any cuttings of the outdoor begonias.  Their leaves are huge and I haven't figured out what I'm going to do to propagate those yet.  I know I really want to try because they are so unique and I need to get going on that soon so the cuttings have a chance to get established before I need to acclimate them to indoors.  The purpose for these cuttings besides me learning something new, is that we're hoping to overwinter these indoors and either transplant them outside next Spring or have a big enough plant that we can propagate cuttings from that into small plants to have a full shade garden next year.

On to the indoor begonia propagations.  I have photos of the ones that I started leaf cuttings of a couple months ago.  I'm pretty sure these were started mid to late April but I'm not 100% certain.  We had purchased a few begonias (I shared a couple photos of those the other day) from Lowes as little plants.  You know, those small starter plants that are only $5 - 8?  One of them may have been a rescue because it was not looking so hot and I just had to downsize it into a tiny cup the other day hoping to get it to size back up.  It's looking healthier but it's got a long ways to go.  I took one leaf from each plant as an experiment to see if I could propagate from a single leaf.  I think all but 2 have survived and are starting to put out new growth!  Look at the root growth on this first one!

This is the baby leaf (smallest of the bunch) from the plant that I'm desperately trying to save.  I guess this is my insurance plan in case the other plant doesn't make it.  As soon as the original plant puts on a significant amount of new leaves, I'm going to take a couple more and get them started.  Until then, enjoy this cutie!

I have a couple of begonias that look very similar to each other but one has a dark center what the other one is missing that trait.  The outer edge is slightly different as well. 

This last one is so iridescent!  The silver and light purple are stunning!

What are those cups?  They are snack cups with lids that you can get at Wal-Mart.  I have some coco coir in them and the lid keeps the environment humid/moist.  These sit on a shelf under a grow light with a couple other propagations and right now my philodendron micans (you can see part of the micans vine in that last picture).  

I hope this inspires you to try propagating some of your plants.  I have a couple cane begonias that I want to chop back a bit and propagate but they both had new leaves emerging up top today so I put it off again to let those come on out. That's going to be a new adventure!

Thanks for stopping by again and checking out more of our plant journey.

~Susan~

Our Jurassic Jungle + a card freebie

Today was one of those days where I woke up early but couldn't seem to focus for very long at a time.  I did go out and take some photos of some of our plants that my husband has planted.  I absolutely love the variety!  Here's a few of my favorites out of the coleus, begonias, hosta, and caladiums.  There may be a few other plants in here as well.  Matter of fact, the deep black and green plant in this first picture is a potato plant.  I've never seen this variety before and it's so cool!  My husband picked out the caladium in the photo and it is one of my new favorites as well.

I told my husband that I think we are trying to grow a prehistoric jungle. I'm praying that my son and mom remember to water these lovelies while we are gone in a few weeks for about 5 days.  Otherwise we may return to utter devastation from the Texas heat.

Oh!  Look at this caladium!  This leaf is huge, about double the size of my hand.

I have a free 4X6 card front for you today. I may play around with making a mini-kit to go along with this idea over the next week and make up some different card fronts to share.  It's been a while since I made something to share like that.  I won't be able to host this freebie indefinitely so if you like it, snag it by the end of June 2025.

DOWNLOAD HERE

~Susan~

Plant Corner #1, Begonias, and Hoya Australis Lisa

A few people have been asking me how I'm displaying my plants.  I have several different areas in my house where our plants live at the moment and I keep expanding on those areas and rearranging but one area that I love is one corner of our bedroom. This area I've combined my love of crochet with displaying some of our plants.

The hangers are up there with thumbtacks but all the plants are in nursery pots and are pretty light weight. There are a few more plants on the side table below these as well.  Here are a few close ups of some of my begonias in this area.

My begonia maculata aka "Dotty" is right below the ones on the wall but she's in need of a trim and I need to start some propagations from her.  I've been trying to talk myself into that for about three months now.  Maybe tomorrow will be the day where I'll get brave and go for it. 

In this area I have most of my begonias except for the propagations that I have going, some heartleaf philodendron and cebu blue pothos that I successfully propagated, and several hoya.  I'll get some photos of those tomorrow.  

I did take some photos of one of my favorite hoyas tonight though.  This one was one of my "wish list" plants that I got for my birthday in April, Hoya Australis "Lisa"!

I love the variegation on this plant and how the new leaves come in pink at the beginning.  This has been a easy and fast grower and I love it so much!  This stunning beauty can make me smile even on my tough days. 

Like many of the plants in my care, the Hoya Australis Lisa likes bright, indirect light.  It's in a airy, well draining soiless mix of coco coir, perlite, orchid bark, horticultural charcoal, and worm castings. I tend to err more on the underwatering side of things to prevent root rot so this dries to 50% - 75% dry before I give it a thorough watering.

~Susan~

An introduction... of sorts

I'm starting over with my blog.  I had good intentions when I started this blog to make this a place where I shared about things that interested me.  At the time, I was very active in the online scrapbooking community and in a couple of online crochet groups.  Then life took a detour as life tends to do.  Maybe it wasn't really a detour, just the path that my life was intended to go on and now I've found myself at the point in this life's journey where I want to reconnect or connect with others who may share in some of the same interests I have.

Hello, my name is Susan and I'm a scrapbooking, crocheting, music loving, avid book reader, and plant enthusiast who loves my family.  My roots are planted deep in my faith in God and I'm on the journey of finding joy in moment.  

So, hello old and new friends.  I hope to see you all around here from time to time!

My newest "hobby" started off in the Spring of 2024 when my husband and I stopped in an area garden center to look at some plants to do our annual "spruce up the planters in the front of the house" during Spring Break.  While he was deciding what plants he wanted to try, I wandered into the houseplant section.  Here we are a year later and we have three rooms that are considered our "indoor jungle."  Part of the reason it's three rooms is our classroom plants have migrated home for the summer.  They'll get a couple months at the plant spa (aka our house) and then they will go back to our classrooms.  Here are a few of my current favorites.

Epipremnum aureum 'Lemon Top' - sport mutation of lemon meringue pothos by Costa Farms.

The leaves start out as a bright golden yellow and darken into a rich dark green leaf with variegation.    I love the heart-shaped teacup leaves! These leaves are huge compared to my lemon meringue which is another one of my favorites that I need to get a photo of. 

Epipremnum aureum Manjula

This is another pothos that I absolutely love.  This is the one that has more cream leaves.  I plan on getting a photo of my other momma manjula plant that has more green/white variegation tomorrow.  

Right now my favorite types of plants growing in my collection are pothos and philodendrons.  I also love begonias but I'm still figuring those out.  

On the scrapping front, I actually had time to scrap a bit this week and used Connie Prince's #2025 May collection to make a layout.

Thanks for stopping by my blog! 

Life, crochet, and ramblings... FREEBIE word art and printable

Every time I think I'll get this blog up and going, life gets complicated and I let it sit there in the background, neglected.  Not on purpose, but yet, neglected.  Tonight I decided to try again.  I can't promise to engage and stay consistent but I'm going to try to do better.  

Where has life taken us?  Well, last year we were on a journey of survival with my husband and I both teaching in the year we all felt like we were scrambling every day with each new curve ball thrown our way.  I'm not going to spend any more time talking about it though because it's now behind us and this year is already looming on the horizon with the 21-22 school year starting for us in another week.  Actually I have three days of in-service training next week and then the following week, our son starts his Senior year with Summer Band Camp in full swing. 

Our oldest daughter, Hannah, is a Junior in college, Nate is a Senior in High School,  and Rachel is an 8th grader.  I'm starting my 25th year of teaching in the public school and for the 4th year in a row my job has another twist and bit of chaos involved with it.  I am getting to go back to teaching 5th grade music and 6th grade choir, but due to the wonderful pandemic wrecking havoc on the choral world, my choir is half the size it normally is and lucky me, the dance classes filled up so I'm now teaching dance to 6th graders.  That's right, dance - to 6th graders.  I'm totally out of my comfort zone and honestly this has consumed me all summer.  Stay tuned for the humorous stories that are going to come out of this experience.  

So, to settle my nerves I've turned to my self-care stress reliever of crocheting. If you get to looking for me, you'll find me in the corner crocheting up a storm.  I've made baby blankets galore, which turned out to be a blessing for my husband since 5 of the staff on his campus were expecting a new addition to their families by the end of last school term.  I've spent the summer replenishing our stash.  I just finished up a shawl for me that I need to take a photo of and started another baby blanket this week. I think this about sums up my feelings...

If you like the text in the middle of the card, you can pick it up HERE for free.  It's in png format so you can size it down (never try to re-size things larger because that distorts it when you go to print).  

The graphics I used on the card are from the 2021 June: Strength digital scrap kit by North Meets South Studio. I kept it simple because I wanted the text to stand out a little more but this kit has a lot of lovely elements in it.  The card is a printable 4X6 size and if you would like it to print for yourself, you can pick it up HERE.

Sometimes I'm inspired by random images I run across on Facebook.  This was shared in one of the crochet groups I'm a member of and I thought it was really cool! This is Malaga, Spain, where the women who lived there crocheted and put together this shadow-giving miracle. Below this is a pedestrian street with shops and cafés.

I hope you have a wonderful weekend. I'm going to crochet, work on some motivational prints for my two classroom spaces, and maybe go take some photos outdoors. That last one may not happen but the thought is there. I'd love to hear from any of you that stop by the blog! My plans for the blog as of now are to still share scrapbooking ideas, inspiration, freebies, recipes, crochet ideas/inspiration, faith based posts, and just life in general.

See ya later!

Choose Joy Free Mini-kit

Today was one of those days where I started on a project and it morphed into something totally unexpected.  I started off with the idea of making a Word Art with some watercolor splashes.  Something that would only take a little bit of time but I was going to use that to make the front of a card for some friends.  Off I went searching through the CU files I had on my laptop which led me down a rabbit trail (I never found the brushes I was looking for.).  I started playing around with different things I found and before I knew it, I had a mini-kit designed.

Now, it's been a while since I really put on my designer hat and after today, I'm sure I'm not going to pick it back up for a while longer other than these random moments like today.  I'm too much of a perfectionist and I get wrapped up into the design and neglect other things (like laundry that was already piled up).  That was one of the reasons I stopped designing in 2012, I couldn't balance my design focus with my family's needs.  However, from time to time I'll have something here on the blog to share with my digital scrapbooking friends.

Here's what started my foray into designing today.  Super simple but it was fun to play!

I may offer that card front sometime but instead of that, today I'm giving you a mini-kit. Now, I have to be upfront with you.  I didn't include some of what is on the card in the kit.  The kit went a different direction but I think some of you may enjoy the mini-kit more.

DOWNLOAD FREEBIE HERE

If you wind up using the mini-kit, I would love to see what you make!

I'm off to crochet for a little bit and then off to bed because I have an 8 am class tomorrow.

Have a great week!

Susan