Remembering: Sending snow to Guam

Today I am sharing an oldie, but goodie … this post is from 5 years ago, but I thought it would be fun to share again!My son, a corpsman in the U.S. Navy, is currently stationed in Guam. This will be our first Christmas apart.

He called last week and asked for me to send him his ornaments and I included a special gift from Mom.

It is a tradition I started when my children’s father and I were divorced. Each Christmas I give them a personalized, usually handmade, gift from me.  They open their special gifts on Christmas Eve and then I make them listen as I read “The Night Before Christmas.”

This year, since we will be apart, I thought I would send some of our traditions to him in the form of a mini wooden book.

It started with a mini album from KaiserCraft. I love their Beyond the Page line. You simply cut, sand lightly and cover with paper.

I wanted a winter theme, since he is living in the tropics, so I chose the new winter paper line from Bo Bunny.

I made a shaker box (super easy with Shake It from Impression Obsession)  for the cover and filled it with “snow,” in the form of Art Glitter and a Grungeboard Snowflake.

Inside, I shared some photos of him, along with the gifts of Christmas. I think he’ll enjoy showing his friends how cute he was when he was little!

In addition to snow, I sent him my love …Our tree (with Misty hiding underneath … she loves Christopher almost as much as I do!)And Santa … along with a photo that I know will make him laugh.On the last page, I made a stocking and filled it with a copy of “The Night Before Christmas.” I know as my kids got older, they only endured the reading to humor me (and because my husband told them that Santa wouldn’t fill their stockings if they didn’t make their mother happy), but traditions become important as you grow up, so I thought I would send it anyway.

Assuming he doesn’t read my blog, which I doubt he does, he should be surprised by his little book in another week or so … it takes a long time for mail to get to Guam!

Picture Perfect

I admit it.

I am not one of those people who are current in their scrapbooks. I have photos I took a few days ago that are done and ones I took 10 years ago that are not. I have found, through trial and error, that it is best if I create what I feel like and what I am inspired by. To force myself to work in chronological order just leads to frustration and less-than-acceptable pages.

So, despite the warm temperatures, flowers and sunlight, I just finished a page about winter.

These papers are new from Bo Bunny — Doubledot Vintage. They come in many different colors and are perfect for times when you don’t want to work on plain cardstock, but do not want a busy pattern to compete with your photos, either. For that reason, I kept this page really simple. I used chipboard letters by Maya Road and Grungeboard letters for the title and painted them with the Pearl Metallic Paint Dabber. Although you can’t see it in the photo, it leaves a bumpy texture that goes perfectly.

So you see, I couldn’t have completed this page last November when I took the photos … Bo Bunny just released the perfect paper! It really is best to wait for inspiration.

Flat Bunny, please visit

I sent this invitation to Flat Bunny at BoBunny today.

I’m inviting her to come and scrap with us at Scrap Tales. If she chooses my invitation, she will come with BoBunny products for 10 of us to crop with.

The challenge was simple — make an invitation with BoBunny products.

I used papers, gems and flowers from the Jazmyne and Sophie collections, along with green BoBunny brads.

S.T. Mouse (the Scrap Tales Mouse) is cut out of BoBunny paper using the Accu-Cut system at the store. I used foam tape and three cut outs and layered him. He is accented with Distress Ink and Copic markers and a pearl from Queen & Company.

Keep your fingers crossed and maybe it will be selected and we can crop the night away!