Tia Made

This 2-page layout won
2nd Place
 at the 2005 Great American Scrapbook Convention. It was 1 of 3 that won and 1 of 5 total that I entered.

"WILD about WATERMELON" sums up this set of pictures and Jaxsun's LOVE of this decadent summertime juicy nectar that seems to contain in each and every bite: warm summer breezes, long school-free days, cricket/cicada chirping afternoons/evenings, and carefree moments of sheer, guilt-free abandonment to spur-of-the-moment F-U-N !!! : )
The Journaling:
WILD about WATERMELON
This phrase perfectly describes this warm June day in 2003 when we let Jaxsun enjoy ALL the watermelon his 20-month-old body could hold! He became INSTANTANEOUSLYaddicted ! Now, at 3, if he spots it ANYWHERE: the refrigerator, grocery store, etc., he HAS to have it, pleading with those beautiful blue eyes & angelic face, " I need it , Momma or Daddy, please!?!"
JackJack is a newly-turned 5-year-old and is STILL wild about watermelon!!!
He loves watermelon-flavored lollipops, gum, Italian Ice, popscicles, etc.
As a high school teacher, I noticed that when we would do test reviews, using candy for rewards, that a few of our best behaved/strong academically/athletic students passed their candy rewards to other students...wondering how this amazing phenomenon occurred, I seized upon ANY opportunity to grill their parents on how they cultivated this aberrant behavior... it came down to this: from very early on, they kept candy out of their diets...ONLY allowing them for special occasions/shots @ doctors, etc...AND from this early time, the kids were told that they HATED chocolate!!! So, hoping to cultivate the same positive behaviors, Gregory and I did they same thing...and son of a gun if it WORKED!!! He gets only one desert a day, so he chooses VERY carefully what he's going to savor... and even THAT desert is no more than 1-3 cookies (depending on the size), A lollipop, A popscicle, etc. He KNOWS that he may have as much fruit, yogurt, veggies, etc. that he wants, when/if he's hungry... he also ONLY drinks water and Lactaid... he doesn't really like juice and NO sodas...
As a result of this careful adherence to carefully controlled access to processed sugar, his dentist says EVERY visit how rare it is to see a child of _______ (age) with such beautiful, ALWAYS cavity-free teeth...he said that unfortunately these days, about 20% of kids are cavity-free...most of the kids he sees have at the very least one cavity by their first visit between their 1st and 2nd birthdays...
So, back to Our Watermelon Wonder...

Methods Utilized:

* I blew up my focal picture and matted it on forest green corrugated paper first and then I matted it again on red handmade textured paper (I inked the edges with black ink)
* I took pictures of watermelon flesh and rind and proceeded to cut it into 1 3/4" squares and then inked the edges with black ink
* Before I "Glue-Dotted" them to the Provo Craft textured "Watermelon Rind" background paper, I did the following: I snipped little "bites" out of the corners/sides of each of the picture squares, as well as, the main photo's mats; I put black mini brads in 4 of the flesh squares and framed the 3 rind squares with black grosgrain ribbon with white stitching; I cut out 2 squares of dark green handmade textured paper and 1 square out of forest green corrugated paper and used them as "diamond" mats to 3 of the flesh squares
* the top left corner rind square I "Glue-Dotted" a cut out picture of Jackson along with a fancy silver spiral paperclip (as the "o" in "Our), a "u"-shaped brad and a "r"-shaped brad to complete the word "Our" for the TITLE: "Our Watermelon Wonder"
* I then took black grosgrain ribbon with white polka dots adhering it to the textured background paper with FABRIC TAC (Walmart or Michaels)... this adhesive is a MIRACLE worker and a sanity saver!!!! I placed the ribbon on the perimeter on 3 sides, NOT on the right side in order to maintain the fluid flow from the left page of the layout to the right page...
* I printed on our Ink jet Printer, my journaling onto a transparency...as the ink will NOT dry (I found this out the hard way before ANY of the magazines & TV shows came out with this solution... I was FORCED to find a quick and fairly easy solution... it was an act of sheer desperation, I assure you)
I sprinkled UTEE on the printed Ink jet ink and carefully heated the ink transparency with my heating gun, trying to keep the transparency from curling up/getting wavy... a little of this, for me, seems unavoidable...
(if any of the UTEE pops off, I use a fine tip Slick Writer (American Crafts) and some dimensional adhesive and I'm back in business...)
* the TITLE was the toughest aspect of this page, other than the measuring, sizing, and placement issues I ALWAYS seem to have...
--The 2 "W"'s, "M" , "N", and "R" I had to place these clear-backed stickers onto white cardstock and then cut them out, mounting them with foam dots (without the white cardstock, they would disappear...something that REALLY irks me when I see it on layouts...when clear-backed stickers are placed DIRECTLY onto darker paper, turning them nearly invisible, thus losing their beauty or impact)
-- I used other letters that I keep in PLASTIC FISHING TACKLE STORAGE BOXES that have the dividers...this way when I need a specific letter, I only have to pull out my LETTER BOXES, NOT having to go thru ALL of my various packages wasting valuable scrapping time...
-- The "O"'s are special...I try to work some of my collected memorabilia(Gregory calls it my heaps of unnecessary junk...can you imagine????) into each and every layout....I've LOVED buttons as long as I can remember I played with my Mother and Grandmothers' collections of buttons, ALL throughout my childhood... thus, I selected 2 black interestingly shaped buttons...by themselves, they had very little impact, so, I painted them (imagine that !!!) to look like a slice of melon AND they STILL didn't "Do it for me. "
So, I played around with them until at the very last, when I was about to throw in the creative towel, I came across my mini-marbles...combined with some dimensional adhesive, VOILA!!!!
(I put a bit of scotch tape on the bottom of the buttons when I was putting the marbles and the adhesive in the centers where the buttonholes were...this kept the mess to a bare minimum)
I have also uploaded "Our Watermelon Wonder PAGE 2"
Thanks for taking your valuable time to look at my layouts and for persevering through my obsessively compulsively, HIGHLY detailed directions...
Please take care and God bless...
tia : )

Jackson has LOVED watermelon since his first taste of it as an infant!!!
I took this set of pictures of him on our front porch, thoroughly enjoying a LARGE mixing bowl full of juicy, organic h2omelon...basically letting him "Have at it!" :) I had bought this "good thumpin' " watermelon, brought it home and thought I seize the gorgeous June afternoon on our front porch to cut it while keeping an ever vigilant eye on JackJack's "run amok" freedom in the front yard with our beloved neighbor's son (six years older than Jackson )& his treasured playmate, Jake. Knowing he would be safe under Jake's ever-watchful eye, for a quick moment, I bopped inside to grab some wet wipes, anticipating the "dirty deed of delving" into the now cut up melon... as an after thought, I grabbed my camera thinking it might be a wonderful opportunity to get the two of them enjoying some summertime decadence... just as I came out, Jake was "hollered home," making a quick getaway with apologies flying over his shoulder, saying he tried to stop him but...
My little man couldn't wait for my split second return, his belly demanded instant gratification... thus, these images were caught quite literally, "red-handed (face, outfit, shoes, concrete... oh well, you only live once...)" on film forever (God willing)... :)
Once he decided he had enjoyed every last morsel of the sweet, juice-laden morsel, he was saturated in h20melon juice and as happy as a clam in sand!!!
TECHNIQUES UTILIZED:
* I took a picture of a watermelon's flesh and rind & cut them into 1 3/4" squares, inking the edges with black ink
* Before I Glue-Dotted the melon squares to the background Provo Craft "Watermelon Rind" textured paper (I didn't realize that this was the ACTUAL name of this textured paper's color until I was compiling the supply list), I put 4 black mini brads on 4 of the rinds, framed 3 flesh squares w/ black grosgrain ribbon w/ white stitching, & finally, I used both the shimmering rose handmade textered paper & the red handmade textured paper as "diamond" mats to 3 of the rind squares
* I cut 3 more of the shimmering rose handmade texture paper, a square of dark green handmade textured paper & 2 squares of corrugated forrest green paper... I inked the edges of ALL of these
* Using the large foam letter stamps and several types of small letter stamps, I stamped " H 2 O" and "water" "melon" while the squares were in the "diamond" position
* I cut 2 of the pictures of JackJack leaving them unmatted and edges uninked (In hindsight, I would probably ink the edges of ALL the pictures to give them a more "finished" appearance)
* The picture of him standing I left as a rectangle, matting it twice with the dark green handmade textured paper and the red handmade textured paper, inking the edges of BOTH mats with balck ink
* As a last minute amusement, I cut little "bites" out of the photo mats with decorative scissors for a little
* I cut out Jackson from one of the pictures & w/ my FAVORITE adhesive, Glue Dots, I put him in the bottom right corrner
* As with PAGE 1, I edged the perimeter (except the left edge so as to keep uninterrupted fluid movement between the pages) with black grosgrain ribbon with white dots...adhering the ribbon was an exercise in futility... after NUMEROUS trial and errors, I met success with FABRIC TAC (Walmart or Michaels), my sanity preserver, SERIOUSLY, as it is easy to manage, holds tight, dries clear& relatively quickly. :)
The most difficult aspect of this entire layout, for me, was determinig what element should be what size, placement, & spacing. I quickly found out, as the Greeks did when building their amazing temples, that you sometimes have to "fool the eye"... when I was creating the diamond mats, I thought I could just cut the mat the exact size of the picture...not so, as it didn't look quite right to me... so, I went back and cut an infintismal amount off of each side, making the picture a tad smaller than its corresponding mat...voila! :) A happy scrapper :)
Thanks for looking and enduring my obcessive compulsive attention to minute detail...
Please take care and God bless!!!
tia :)

I leave "finished" pages out for days , weeks, and even months (in a protector to keep dust, curious and ALWAYS sticky 5-year-old fingers, and any other destructive force from destroying my treasured creations)...
Such was the case with this layout....it always looked like it needed something more...so, I pilfered through ALL the old photos my beloved paternal Grandaddy gave me and happened upon, like a winning lottery ticket, a picture of my Daddy's Big Stone Gap (Lee County Schools) Band Bus in which he spent a great deal of time. I KNEW at the moment of discovery that this was the "Missing Link"...
Thanks for looking!!!!

This layout won *** FIRST PLACE*** at the 2005 Great American Scrapbook Convention!!!! :)
One of three winning layouts...out of five submitted...

This is a bittersweet accomplishment as this was created only a few short months after this "Georgeous" 28-month-old , George Bampton Little, was run over and killed by his beloved Daycare Provider, who had cared for and cherished his every breathing moment from his first day with her at a tender 6-weeks-old until that horribly unimaginably nightmarish day, April 28, 2003 at 8:30am, one day shy of his being 29-months-old... He was our ONLY nephew, brother to our ONLY niece, Tori...Tori was born 8 weeks early, she was sweet and tiny and such a tender blessing arriving after 36 hours of labor on Nov.1st, 1996...prouder Aunts and Uncles would NEVER be found...she was the very center of our newlywed existence :) We were there with her when they heard "The Murmur"...that led to trips to specialists and terrifying news that this tiny creature was hanging on to life by the tiniest thread...she was to have a 3 hour surgery on her miniscule heart, the size of an almond!!!! She had several defects, the one that would inevitably take her precious life if not corrected was a kink in one of her main arteries, slowly starving her tiny body of precious blood...no wonder she slept ALL the time and was INCREDIBLY difficult to rouse just to get her to barely feed...
So, at 5 1/2-weeks-old, the docs took our little wonder in their mighty arms, put her on a ventilator, deflated her left lung, and cut out the kink, resecting the artery allowing precious blood to course throughthat tiny 5 pound body...
They said she'd be in the hospital 30 days...she was out in 11 days!!! :) She hasn;t slowed down yet!!! :) She's brilliant, active, and you'd NEVER known how close she came to the unthinkable...
This was initially done in an attempt to begin "to heal" the unfathomable ache deep in our souls...
There are friends, in a vain effort to comfort, who said,"Just be glad it wasn't Jackson"...
Just because he didn't come from my body doesn't mean we didn't treat him as though he wasn't OUR's...
We had SOOOO many hindrances/difficulties in our Hurculean effort to conceive AND maintain a pregnancy...actually, conceiving was VERY easy for us, it was staying pregnant with which my body had SERIOUS, life-threatening issues...
Teresa, George and Tori's Momma and Gregory's older sister, and I were joyously pregnant at the same time...
She was due Dec. 29, 2000 and I was due April 26, 2001...what a GLORIOUS time!!!! until October when a blood clot insidiously formed in the ambilicus and maliciously, hatefully, heart-wrenchingly killed our tiny baby...Unless this has happened to you, you have NO CONCEPT of the unexplainable shame, seething anger, and unconsolable grief/guilt that comes with the undeniable fact that YOUR OWN BODY killed your baby!!!! Not easily overcome, nor consoled, nor understood...
Needless to say, there was a TREMENDOUS amount of raw, bare emotions that needed an outlet...after my 16th surgery, the miscarriage's subsequent Emergency D & C, the hormones surging thru my system, I ended up with SEVERAL evil cysts on my ovaries that HAD to be removed on the day before baby George was born...
To our great dismay, we missed the long awaited arrival and textbook perfection entrance of one LARGE George Bampton Little....on his Due Date :) Thus, Georgeous' perfect arrival, healthy and whole, was exaulted by our entire family and beloved friends!!!! He was smart as a whip, tall for his age, healthy as a horse. The only time he was sick, required a week long stay a few weeks before he left us...
To our great yet guarded joy, we were pregnant , once again, in January of 2001...just a few short weeks after my 17th surgery...I didn't even have my stitches out!!!! Until that time, we took steps to ensure that if anything happened to us, George and Tori would be the sole beneficiaries of our "fortune" ha ha...we're teachers...what fortune??? :) So you see, George and Tori were as if they were our very own children...After Jackson was born, people were amazed at how laid back we were and so adept at caring for him, being first time parents and all...we always told people that Jackson was in our eyes, our third child... :) So, George's death was more than just the loss of a nephew, it was the loss of a part of us...

This was created using a new Definitions Line of paper...

This is Tia's inspiration for Childrens stories:

A wonderful light in all of our lives