On Grunge and Ink

It's the last day of school for my 4th grader - hard to believe he is already going into 5th grade. We never have big summer plans or vacations, but always plan on doing fun things around or near home. This summer Kyle is looking forward to archery. He recently decided to take this up and I had more pictures to scrap. What an intense look, huh? You can see in the second photo that he is merely accommodating his mother by looking at the camera, if ever so briefly. WorldWin sponsored the Scrapbook Playground in June and I was thrilled to create a archery target (thanks to google searches so I can find out just what a real one looks like!) with their bright colored cardstocks and my trusty circle cutters. I do believe I have just about every brand of circle cutter available, and I can honestly say I use them ALL! It seems they all make circles of various sizes so I can play around with all of them to get the right amount of spacing in my layered circle design.

Also, lead Fisk-a-teer, May, sent me an awesome set of punctuation stamps by Fiskars - the set is called Etcetera. As soon as I laid eyes on the large punctuation, namely the bracket and exclamation point - I knew I wanted to create an archery layout. I had fun creating my own archery themed background paper with these stamps. These stamps were the catalyst to get me going on scrapping this page. Kyle loves it - and that is why I scrap!

I also used my stamp pad to add lots of grunge for an all boy-effect. I guess you either like grunge, or not. I was showing my work to a non-scrappy friend and she thought I had an ink accident. I explained I was going for a grungy look, and let's just say she did not like that look so much. (LOL) What about you - do you like grunge or are you all about clean lines and crisp designs?

Sometimes life can be that way. One minute life is nice and steady...everything is going cleanly and it is clear sailing. Next minute, something happens and life gets a little smudgy, perhaps even scarred. Or, if you are like me, the past can be a bit grungy, and it has thankfully turned around into a pretty crisp and clean path. The great thing is is that no matter where you are now, or where you have been - God's grace is sufficient for all. He takes the grunge of my past, the grunge of my now, and the grunge of my future and wipes it all clean through Christ who died for my sin. I can have fun getting ink on my hands and my layouts, and rest assured that my heart is clean when I ask forgiveness for my failures. Salvation is just about as easy as inking the edges of your cardstock - life can't get any better!!