Happy Being Me

This month on the Crate Paper blog, they've had their color challenge up again. This time the colors were champagne peach, emerald green, and charcoal. The fun thing about this challenge is that the color combination is one I wouldn't have come up with on my own. So I dug into my Crate Paper stash and came out with the colors I needed. I used an assortment of different lines including Peppermint (the white background), Portrait (the charcoal colors), Random (the emerald green), and Emma's Shoppe (all the pink colors). The photos are from a trip to Brown County with my friend and I hadn't yet used them on a page, so this seemed like a great opportunity.



I love these Polaroid punch outs from the Portrait line. I wanted them to be the focus of the page. The labels at the bottom also gave me some room for journaling.



I had a hard time getting this page to look how I pictured it in my head. I knew I wanted the strips of paper, but the colors and layers weren't as dynamic as I planned. So I started adding embellishments and it started coming together. I love this chipboard flower from the line, Emma's Shoppe. A few brads also made it on the page too. Can't make a page without buttons and brads.

Here's a close up of the title. It started as "being me", but I wanted it a little longer so I added the "happy" alphabet stickers. I also really liked how it brought in more color. This was the first time I had stitched through chipboard. Wasn't sure how well it would do, but I went slow and now I don't have to worry about the letters falling off. Plus, I just love the look of the stitching.

So Much Silliness

Scrapbooking everyday events are fun. It's where you can see the most personality come out. This page is about dinner at Steak and Shake a couple weeks ago. I carry my small camera with me everywhere I go so it's nice being able to capture random moments. It also opens up a whole world of paper possibilities. Since there's no real theme to the pictures, I can use whichever paper inspires me. This layout uses Crate Paper's Valentines line "Paper Heart". I chose to use the blue and yellow papers instead of the pink ones.



The title is a mix of October Afternoon letters and American Crafts Thickers. I love how the Thickers already have the stitch lines on them. I also had fun making the paper flowers with my Martha Stewart starburst punch. It's made up of six punched circles where two of the sides are folded up and arranged in a circle. Then I stitched them down to a flat circle to keep it all together. To finish it off, I got into my button stash and stitched it to the center with white embroidery floss.



Here's a close up of the paper flowers. I first saw them on a page by Amy Heller for October Afternoon. You can see the original page where I learned how to make these flowers here.

Bombdiggity: {adj} -A description of something that is better than excellent

Friday night I went scrapbooking with my Mom and was more productive at shopping than actually scrapbooking. I blame the fact on a brand new paper line. The new Dear Lizzy line, "Neapolitan" came in that afternoon. It's a really cute line. I bought several papers, a sticker sheet, a sticker book, the decorative wood buttons, and a cute little stamp set. It was all worth it though, because Sunday night I did a page using several of the pieces and some of my October Afternoon letters. It uses a picture from October 2010 when a friend and I were Downtown. It's a somewhat random picture so I wasn't sure how to scrapbook it, but I came across a fun quote on Pinterest and when you mix in fun papers you get a really fun page.



I had tried using my Cameo to cut out the title, but it had too many words and the letters were going to be too little. So instead I used my new grey mini market letters from October Afternoon. It took a little bit of time to get it all lined up, but I like how it adds to the layout. The cloud paper is a sheet of patterned vellum. It shows pattern really easily when layered on other papers so I backed it with white cardstock so the colors would stay vibrant.



Here's a close up of the decorative wood buttons from the Dear Lizzy line. The little blue one is from My Mind's Eye. For a little extra touch, I stitched them to the page with white embroidery floss. The little pink piece is from her sticker book. I like the little extra pop of color and how it adds another simple layer.

One paper line, Four pages

My goal recently was to finish up some 'in progress' pages that just needed the finishing details. I'm happy to report I was able to put three pages into my album last night. The funny thing is I realized two of them used October Afternoon's "Sidewalks" line. Then I flipped through my book a little further back and noticed a total of four in the past ten or so pages were from that line. I think I'm a fan. Even after making these four pages, I still have quite a few papers left from the line. It'll be fun to see how many more pages I can come up with.

This first one I posted just recently, but I wanted to show it with the others. I love how they all have the same pretty colors, but each one also has it's own feel because of the different patterns used. The first is very sweet and girlie.

The next one I did about my Grandma. Every summer at Quaker Haven Camp, they'd have "Keen Age Camp" and Grandma always looked forward to it. I'm pretty sure she went every year. We have a stack of group photos of the campers and it's always fun going through and playing the game of "Where's Grandma?". I love how fun and cheerful this page turned out. It helps show how much fun Grandma had up at the lake with her friends. It makes me smile thinking about it.

The third page is about my Grandpa. I like how this one has a fun, vintage feel without being super girlie. So it suits being used for a page about my Grandpa being silly.

This last one is about my mom and Uncle Ed playing at their Aunt Lulu's house. It's another sweet, happy page. It was fun using the floral paper since it's a pattern I don't usually know how to use. It fits well with them being outside in the photos. I was also excited for a reason to use the geese stickers. They were a perfect fit. I also got to use my Silhouette Cameo for the title. I have to admit though, I picked out the font partially because of the font's name (just like paint colors). It's called lobster so I couldn't resist. I did really like that it was a cursive font. I just had to 'weld' it and it cut out in one long piece, minus the "P".

Snowcones, hockey fights, and mascots

Earlier this week, I saw My Mind's Eye had a new sketch challenge up on their blog so I decided to play along. Some of my favorite pages have come from doing their challenges. It's nice because it gives me a jumping off point, but then I usually try to see how I can spin it. For this one I simplified it a bit. I also combined two different My Mind's Eye lines, "Fun Day" and "Fine and Dandy" for a little bit of color.

Here's their sketch:


Here's my page:

The theme this time was "new" so I made my page about this year's New Year's Eve. Mom, Dad, and I went downtown for the Indiana Ice hockey game. It was a fun night. I had a snow cone, was bugged by the mascot while waiting in line for said snow cone, and saw a good fight. It was a quick fight, but the Ice player landed a few really good punches and to me; that's what counts. Plus, to top it all off the Ice won. So now it's nice to have a scrapbook page to remember the night by.

Here's a close up of the title and one of the little wood banners MME came out with. You can also see where I used vellum again to mat the photos. I used a zig-zag stitch around the circles because it's easier to to sew than the straight stitch when you're trying to turn the paper the whole time. It gives you more wiggle room for errors.

These little embellishments are from the "Fun Day" line too. The felt came in a border pack they have. I thought it was another cool texture to add in. Of course there's one of the brads and some chipboard buttons. My absolute favorites.

Isn't She Cute

As promised to my Mom, a page about her. Trying to even up the scrapbook ratio between Mom pages and Dad pages. It also gave me the opportunity to use some of my cute girlie paper. This time it's October Afternoon's "Sidewalks" line. I even used a combination of 12x12 and 8x8 paper. The floral pattern and the strip below the photo is from the 8x8 pack. It's perfect because the patterns are scaled down so it's easier for me to use.



I love pictures of my mom when she was little. Her hair is usually in curls and she's always in cute little dresses.



Lately I've added vellum to a few pages. I matted the photo with it and then pop dotted the whole thing to the page to add an extra layer. I like how it adds more texture without adding more color. The edge is roughed up too to help make it more noticeable.



Here's a close up of the cute chipboard banner. I also added little bows from pink and yellow bakers twine for more detail and texture. Everything's inked too, of course.

A Bunch of Characters

I love Disney World. So much that there may have been a bit of panic during our family Christmas when my uncle mentioned they had closed the Tea Cup ride. First response was, "There's no way they can close the Tea Cups! It's a classic!". The next action was going to Google to find out if he was right. Unfortunately he was right... sort of. Turns out, it's closed temporarily while they're expanding Fantasyland. So the good news is that it'll reopen fall of 2012. The reason for panic was because the news sent me into a flashback of when they closed the Figment ride back in the 90's. Yes, I may have cried. It was my favorite ride. Plus, it had a fun song where the only lyric I can remember is repeating "Imaaaginaaaaation. Imaaaginaaation. Imaaaginaaation. " over and over again. The worst part of the Figment story is that once it reopened, I have to say the "improvements" were a let down. I still love Figment, but I'm not a fan of the new ride. Luckily, with the tea cups I don't think there's a way to mess it up. You sit in the tea cup, you spin the wheel to see how close you can get your Dad to getting sick, and you stop spinning. Pretty straight forward. So in order to preserve my many Disney memories, I've started scrapbooking them. The long term goal is to have an entire Disney album or for it to fill a large chunk of my "family vacations" album.

Here's a Disney page I finished last night about the trip I took in 2003 with my parents. I really like the look of a subtle Disney page. It doesn't use the traditional black, red, and yellow papers with mouse ears all over. I went for bright, colorful patterns and stitched my own set of Mickey ears to help frame the photos.



It was a bit of a challenge getting the ears right. They're not perfect circles so I couldn't use my circle templates. I just sketched, erased, and re-sketched till it looked right.



The title is with my Quickutz font "Lemondrop". It's a fun one. I really like the little Mickey buttons too. Still says "Disney" without being all in your face about it. You can also see the picture of my Dad and I with Woody and Buzz a little better. If I remember right, there was a bit of a line to have our pictures taken with them. Definitely worth it though, of course.

Building Memories

I'm proud to say this page was finished in just one sitting. I was sitting at my table till 1:30 a.m., but it still only took me one night (and a little bit of the morning). Considering the fact I didn't start it till around 10 p.m. it really didn't take me as long to do as some other pages have. The layout is pretty simple because the main feature is the scalloped ribbon border around the photos. I used the new Sew Ribbon punch by We R Memory Keepers that Santa brought me. It took a little bit of measuring to get the corners to match up, but I like how it turned out.



The paper is from October Afternoon's line "Farmhouse". Most of the line is gray and yellow, but I liked the look of the blue on blue from the two papers.



Here's a closeup of the ribbon border and the photos. The photos are of my Dad and Grandpa building our lake cottage. My Dad said the first picture is of when they were building the upstairs floor. They dug the basement out of the side of the hill and then added the rooms upstairs. Since it's on the back of a hill, my Grandma was still looking up while she was taking the picture. That's why it looks like they're on a roof. When he saw the picture, my Dad made the comment "That has to be the upstairs floor. He would've never let me on the roof." The second picture is when they were laying the wood down for the upstairs floor. A little fun fact is that we still have receipts and records of what building supplies they bought and how much they cost. Even better is that it's all in my Grandpa's handwriting. Those will definitely get scrapbooked sooner or later.

Official Taste Tester

New year, new scrapbook pages. So far this year, I've been trying to finish the pages I started weeks (or in some cases, months) ago. I either couldn't settle on which paper to use or come up with the right title. This is one of those pages. I knew I wanted to use Crate Paper's "Farmhouse" line, but it took awhile for it to come together how I wanted it to. So the other night I sat down and made myself finish it. The fun part about finishing pages is showing them to my dad so he can see the pictures. His response is almost always, "Where did these pictures come from?".



No matter how many times I go digging through boxes of my Grandma's photos, I always find ones I've never seen before. Like the ones on this page. At first they were cute because my dad is standing on a kitchen chair helping my Grandma. Then when I looked closer, I realized my dad was eating in each one of the photos. He's either licking the spoon, munching on an ear of corn, or eating straight from the pot. Meanwhile, my Grandma's head is bent over the food working hard. I love these photos. It makes me kind of thankful my dad was an only child. I think if he had siblings these simple moments might not have been captured.

Here's a close up of some of the photos and the title. It seemed appropriate to title it "Official Taste Tester". I feel like it makes you look closer at the photos to see what's going on and helps tell the story.




The title is a combination of October Afternoon letter stickers and the Quickutz font "Paper Doll" which I used cork to cut the letters from.