SMILE - The Rubber Cafe

When I opened my April Creative Cafe KOTM, 

my eye went directly to the rose stamp (included) and the floral paper from the beautiful 

Echo Park paper pad.  Each month when I create with the kit, I line my cards in a row and let Roman decide which I should post first.  He chose this as the first one, but the next one, he says, is his favorite. You will have to check back next week for that.  However, this one is MY favorite.  I could make all different color roses and change the papers, oh my, I could go one forever!

Be sure to head over to The Rubber Cafe blog to get the directions to create this card.

Leroy

On July 3rd, this year, we adopted my sisters cat Max.  We quickly changed his name to Leroy Brown.  (her last name is Brown)  He is bad.  Like really bad!  But we can not help but love him.  He lays around like a porn star (sorry) and goes where he wants, chews what he wants (like iPhone cords) and bothers us at least 3 times during the night.  Right this minute, I can here him scrabbling around upstairs.  He goes on these rampages throughout the house, scaling over chairs, beds, people.  I have not seen anything like it.  I am surprised the pictures on the walls are still straight!  But, he is really really cool.  

So, over at @society52 on Instagram, the weekly challenge is to scrap your pet.  (Thursday, they throw you a twist!)  Also, over at Creative Scrappers, they have sketches, and this one is based off of sketch #254.  I thought this would be the perfect opportunity to introduce to you, the craziest cat ever, Leroy.

Here is the sketch....

Instead of arrows, I opted for hearts.  This awesome cut file is from, The Cut Shoppe by Ashley Horton.  The flair is from A Flair for Buttons, the hearts, washi and stamp are all from Freckled Fawn Oh Deer Me Kits.  The fantastic papers are from Fancy Pants, True Friends.

On May 12th, our family lost one of the best cats ever, Milford.  We had him for 9 short years.  We received him from Santa on Christmas eve when he was 10 months old.  I can not describe to you how cool this cat was.  He was a Bengal cat, so he didn't shed.  People that are allergic, where not as allergic to him.  He loved water and his best friend Flo.  It was one of the hardest decisions I had to make, but it was the right one.

We miss him every day.  Roman still includes him in his nighttime prayer:o(

READ - anytime and anywhere!

During the school year, Roman had to read 15-20- minutes a day.  I used to have to set a timer to get him to stop so he could journal about what he read.  Or, so we could start doing math and have our nightly fight!!  I would often times find him in the silliest places.  Under the wierdest things.  

This summer, if it is a book of his choice, he would read and read too.  With this layout, I thought I would highlight his favorite reading spots.  

  I found an awesome cut file over at The Cut Shoppe and started pulling papers from this months Studio Calico KOTM.  I added random enamels and some of my favorite flair from A Flair for Buttons. 

I took the negative of this heart and covered it with washi tape, backed it with foam and added back to the center of the heart.

Hardly any paper was used for this layout exempt the backgrounds, the cut sheet and a touch of the black and white stripped papers from the SC Kit.  It is mostly the embellishments that make this page.    See you soon.