For the love of kiddie pools

Most of the pages I've done lately have been old pictures I've found in boxes. It's interesting to see the differences between when my parents were little and when I was little. Even more interesting though, are the similarities. Awhile back I did a page about me playing in a kiddie pool when I was little and recently found pictures of my Dad playing in a kiddie pool. There were four different pictures, but I just used the three that were the funniest/silliest.



The papers are from My Mind's Eye 'Stella and Rose' line. Black and white photos are fun to work with because you can use whatever colored paper you want and not have to worry about it clashing. For this page, I though the yellows and blues seemed boyish and fun together. The postage edged paper started out as a 12" x 12" paper. I trimmed it down and patched it back together to be a mat for the photos. I even went wild by tilting AND overlapping the photos. The "summer fun" came from the Slice cartridge 'Vintage Findings'. I'm trying to remember to use my Slice more often since I can get different sizes of letters from it. So using it on this page seems like a small victory.



And just for fun, here's the page of me in the kiddie pool. It uses Fancy Pants papers from last summer. I also have a picture from this past summer of me hanging out in a kiddie pool that needs to make its way onto a page. Weekends I couldn't make it up to the lake; I'd fill the pool, add a beach chair, and read a book while eating some crackers and easy cheese. Just another day of keepin' it classy.

They call him "Race Bannon"

One thing that makes me happy is knowing my grandpa, Dad, and myself all ran track in high school. (Plus, Dad was my hurdle coach.) I've also always been very proud of the fact that my dad was a good enough runner to get a scholarship to Butler all four years. So track stories have always been important to me. That's why when I found this picture mixed in with my Grandma's box of photos, I knew it had to be made into a page.



I got a bit of help with the layout from a Crate Paper sketch on their blog and the papers came from their 'Restoration', 'Snow Day', and 'School Spirit' lines. The picture of Dad is from 1965. He got a good chuckle when I showed it to him. Followed by, "Where did you find this picture?". It's fun when he even likes the pages I do.

Here's a detail of the banners I cut out from a 12x12 sheet of the 'School Spirit' line. You can also see the star cut outs. For extra embellishment, I added buttons to the center of the stars and stitched them down with embroidery thread. It's the little touches that really add a lot.

Oh, Paper... I love you.

I love the fact that something simple like pretty paper can make me feel so happy. It literally makes me do a happy dance. This happened the other day when the My Mind's Eye paper line 'Stella and Rose' came through the store. I'd seen it all online, but there's nothing better than seeing it all together in person. I bought it Tuesday and was doing a page with some of it on Thursday. It may have been the first time I've done an entire page in one sitting. It was helpful having a sketch I'd thought up earlier, but sometimes partial pages will sit on my table for a week before all the details get nailed down. The colors are kind of worn so I used an old picture of my mom and her older brother from 1954.




It's a relatively simple layout because I was more focused on adding interest with the color combinations. I really like the blue with the accents of orange. It makes the photo stand out nicely. Don't my mom and uncle look cute? (Especially with their hats.)



Here's a close up of the details. I cut the chipboard doily in half because whole, it was really large and I also liked the idea of the half circles. The "All Smiles" sticker seemed perfect for this page and of course I added brads because no page is complete without them.

I love everything about...

For some reason, participating in challenges and having a deadline to finish projects makes me feel important. So when I see new ones posted online I'm excited to jump on board. My most recent layout goes along with a My Mind's Eye challenge where they give you a sketch and a theme. The theme for this page is "I love everything about...". A few weeks ago I found a great picture of my Grandpa hugging my dad when he was just a baby, so I figured this was a good page to use it on.

The red paper and star patterned paper are from My Mind's Eye 'Alphabet Soup' line, while the green paper is from the 'Fine and Dandy' line. I also got crafty with the corrugated stars by making them myself. I had kept a piece of cardboard from a package I'd ordered online recently and used an Exacto knife to cut away one of the top layers so I could see the inside. I used my Quickutz star die cuts to trace the shapes and then cut them out by hand. To add a little interest, I used my white paint dauber over the top and inked the edges with brown ink. I like how they turned out, especially since I saved around $5.00 by making them myself.

I usually have a hard time figuring out where to put my journaling. For this layout, I wrote it around the outside edge. It reads... "Even though I never got to meet him, I love everything about my Grandpa. From stories I've heard, pictures I've seen, and the kind of guy my Dad grew up to be; I know he was amazing. I never learned why his nickname was "Buck", but I know he was nice, hard working, and loved his family. So it always makes me happy to hear he would have loved me... and spoiled Tara and I rotten." I like having a page explaining how I feel about my Grandpa... makes me feel closer to him.

Fun at the State Fair

This past summer, I got to go to the State Fair with my friend Erica and her kids. It's the first time that I really remember going so we took tons of pictures... 155 to be exact. (Luckily Erica scrapbooks too so she understands taking pictures of everything and her kids are used to having the camera pointed at them.) So with all these pictures, I new there'd have to be multiple pages. Instead of making a couple two page spreads, I've done individual pages for each of the picture sets I wanted to use. The "Ice Cream" page from earlier in the year was one, and I've finished two others. One is about the rides and another is about the Fair food we had. The last one I have to do is a general Fair page. It'll kind of be like a title page for the series and will have pictures from the midway and a cute one of the kids... but that's all I'm gonna say so I don't spoil the surprise. Plus, that's as far as I've gotten with the planning.

Here's the one I did about the rides. The background green is by Basic Grey and the rest is SassaFras Lass. "Rides" was diecut with my Quickutz and then I wrapped some orange and white bakers twine around the letters to add some more color. The tickets by Maya Road are a fun detail too. Those are stapled on with my Tim Holtz Tiny Attacher... aka Tiny Tim. I think the picture of Erica and the kids on the swing ride is one of my favorites I've ever taken.




This is the most recent one I've finished, it's about the fair food we tried. The papers are from Crate Paper's 'School Spirit' line. It's a pretty simple layout, so I embellished it with the stars and buttons. (Hooray for clusters!) A little fun fact... the orange scalloped piece just under the title is the left over portion from the punch at the bottom. I like that it reminds me of a tent canopy.



P.S. If you get a chance to try deep fried Oreos... they're pretty tasty!

Christmas at the Zoo

In my effort to do something Christmas-y everyday in December, I took Mom and Dad to 'Christmas at the Zoo' one night. It was my first time going, so the top priority was to take lots of pictures (especially when you know it's gonna be a scrapbook page, that way you can make sure there are plenty of good ones to choose from). The coolest thing was how they had all the different lights in the shapes of animals. And being the good sports they are, Mom and Dad even posed by some of the lights for me. Definitely a good night of family fun.

With all the pictures I wanted to use, it was perfect for a two page spread. The left hand page started from a sketch in my 'Page Maps 2' book and then I just carried it over to the right hand page so they'd match up. The papers are from Crate Paper's 'Snowday' line (shocking, right?). This line is perfect since it's obviously Christmas-y, but also because the bright colors of the paper really helped the colored lights in the photos stand out. I tried having them on the cream base alone, but it looked really flat. That's one of the hard parts of taking and using photos for me... it doesn't always look as good as it did in person, or how I remembered it. So by matting the photos or pairing them with different papers, it can really help the colors stand out.

Here's a little detail of my title. All the little pieces are punch outs from the line and the 'zoo' I die cut with a Quickutz font. The string of lights were absolutely perfect and it was another chance to practice my clusters.

Another proud point... these pictures are from less than two months ago and they're already scrapbooked!

Their Own Ski Show

Have I mentioned how much I love October Afternoon? It seems lately most of my pages have used either Crate Paper or October Afternoon. This past weekend I finished my first page using October Afternoon's "Seaside". I love papers that are water themed since my family has had a lake cottage since 1950 when my grandparents built it. So the first page with this line is one about my dad and Aunt Kathy skiing. Not sure how old the photo is, but my dad's at least in his early teens.



I really love how this page turned out. It sat on my table for at least a week before I could finish it. Sometimes I worry a page isn't going to turn out how I picture it in my head so I postpone sewing everything down and adding all the details. So Sunday I bit the bullet and did my stitching, added the title, and my ever-present brads... and I'm glad I did. Now it's hanging on my cork board where I can enjoy it.

I also wanted to add I'm really excited about something I just noticed on October Afternoon's website. They have a whole new selection of Mini Market stickers. Those are the type of alphabet that I used for the "Their Own" part of the title. They usually come out with one set per paper line, but now there're 15 different sets to choose from. Luckily they aren't very expensive because I might just have to buy them all. I never thought I'd be addicted to letter stickers. Brads... yes. Paper... of course. Stamps with pennants on them... are you kidding me? But not letters.