I've Got the Blues

Happy CHA! It's exciting to see all the new paper lines that'll be coming out... it's also going to be a lesson in self control. Seriously, who needs to purchase three different Christmas lines in one year? Been there, done that. So this year I'm going to do better. *crosses fingers* I already didn't buy any 4th of July papers, I went last year without buying Halloween paper, and the goal is the same for this year. Anyhow, circling back around to CHA; Two Peas in a Bucket has challenges up now to go along with CHA. I saw the posting Wednesday night and I'm proud to say I finished a page last night for the first challenge of "use one color". I'm a sucker for water paper and most things blue so it seemed like a good jumping off point. Plus, we took a trip to the Dunes over 4th of July so I had some nice beach pictures.

The paper is Echo Park's "A Perfect Summer" and a piece from October Afternoon's "Midway". For the challenge you could use neutrals too so I mixed in kraft stickers from Crate's "Pier" line and the little wooden sailboat from Studio Calico.

Usually everything gets inked with my Chestnut Roan chalk ink, but this time I brushed a white paint dauber along all the edges. The paint reminds me of white caps and then the splatters make me think of ocean spray. Isn't it amazing sometimes how much thought goes into our pages?

 

 

Project 12: June

I'm back on track with Project 12! Other projects not so much, but one thing at a time. I'm making a special 6x8 book for all the summer festivities so I used this June spread as a way to highlight the basics. The other book will have more detail and journaling. This month had game night, garden surprises, and two weekends at the lake. The paper used is Echo Park's "A Perfect Summer" line. A lot of the sticker embellishments are theirs too, plus my usual October Afternoon letters. (Might have to get more soon, my "e's" are getting low in certain colors.

 

Here's the left hand page and some detail close ups. It talks about game night and around the house stuff.

 

Here's the right hand page. Left portion of it is a weekend at the lake with my parents and the right portion is when my friend and her family visited the lake. These are just a few of my favorite pictures. The 6x8 book will have a lot more photos.

 

For the two bottom slots, I did 4x6 collage photos so each one shows three 2x4 photos. That way I could show more pictures. Keeping it simple and focusing on the pictures.

 

Project 12: May

My week of no computer has come to an end. It's fixed and back so now I can post my May Project 12 layouts. I had them done in time for the Gossamer Blue contest, but couldn't get them posted. It was the first time I didn't have it up by the due date, but I had it finished so I figured that's what matters.

 

I've noticed there's definitely a trend going thru my Project 12 pages... outside pictures. Lots and lots of pictures of my yard. This month I was able to throw in some pictures from a night out with friends and lake pictures. The papers are a combination of Echo Park's "Photo Freedom volume 1" and their new "Here and Now" line.

 

 

Here's a close up of the left page. It's all about starting my garden and working/playing around the front yard.

 

 

The right page talks about summer starting and opening the lake cottage. I like that this month gave me more opportunity for writing. An upside of using premade 3x4 cards.

Twelve pages down... one million to go. (Maybe not a MILLION, but you know what I mean)

 

 

This is what 12 finished pages after a scrapbook retreat looks like. The weekend at Quaker Haven was probably the best birthday I've had in awhile. I was with one of my best friends, her mom, and my mom. Plus on my birthday I received text messages and phone calls from some of my favorite people. The weekend was cold and rainy most of the time, but the lake really needed the rain so I didn't mind at all. Truthfully, it was like an extra birthday present. Nothings better than being at the lake scrapbooking so I'm already looking forward to the fall retreat.

Here's a quick rundown of the pages I finished over that weekend. Figured I'd show them in one big swoop, otherwise I might never get them all posted.



1990's Spring Break page using Echo Park's "Paradise Beach" line.

 

Page using My Mind's Eye.

Disney page using My Mind's Eye "Boy Crazy" line.

Universal Studios page using Basic Grey's "Bowties".

Another Universal Studios page with "Bowties".

 

Page about my mom when she was little using Echo Park's "Sweet Girl" line.

Simple Stories line from last summer.

October Afternoon's "Cakewalk" line.

October Afternoon's "Midway" line. LOVE these papers!

October Afternoon's "9 to 5" line.

Crate Paper's "Pretty Party" line.

I'm really proud of how this page turned out. It's a mixture of paper lines because I knew I wanted it to be yellow and blue, so I went "shopping" thru my papers. It uses some Crate Paper "Random", Fancy Pants, My Mind's Eye, and vellum from a Dear Lizzy Line. The splatters are from Heidi Swapp (her gold spray) and then more gold embellishments from Dear Lizzy and American crafts were added. It just plain makes me happy. :)

Hello Retirement (Dad's, not mine)

Last year after 41 years of teaching at the same high school, my dad retired. When he started he was just a few years older than his students and ended up teaching a lot of their kids (that's two generations). So when he retired, it was a big deal. I'm not going to scrapbook all the photos from his party (most of the pictures will end up going in divided page protectors), but a few special pages will be made. Here's the first special page I've done. This bull is famous in the township. We knew we HAD to have it outside for Dad's party. I even had my picture taken with it, which has been a dream of mine since I was in elementary school. It's a Wanamaker thing.

 

Here's a few detail pictures. The paper is Echo Park's "Note to Self" line.

Circa 1923

The upside to being sick is lots of sofa time for plotting. I'd like to say my plotting involves discovering the next great ice cream flavor, but in reality it revolves around paper. I was planted on the sofa flipping through photos, sketches in my notebook, and looking through a paper line I knew I wanted to use. The nice thing about planning is that the page ended up being finished in the same amount of time it took to watch "The Wedding Date". Which is pretty fast for me. (There's still a page on the corner of the desk I started two weeks ago and haven't finished.)

 

This page uses Echo Park's "This and That" girl line and a photo of my Grandma when she was younger. It's been a little while since I've done a vintage page about her.

 

 

Here's a close up. I love using cork on pages.

 

 

Next on my "To Scrap" list are some vintage pictures from the lake. Definitely ready for spring, so hopefully some fun lake pages will cure these winter blues.

Fun with Echo Park

I love scrapping vintage pictures. It's fun seeing photos of my parents and my grandparents when they were younger, especially my grandpa because I never met him. So finding pictures of him is always a treasure. It gives me a good reason to ask my dad questions about him and it makes me feel like I know him a little. One thing I've learned is that he'd stop whatever he was doing if my dad asked him to do something. If they were at the lake and dad wanted to go skiing, Grandpa would take a break from his project and they'd head for the boat. (My dad will do the same thing for us too.) 

Here's a page about my grandpa using Echo Park's "Note to Self" line. It's nice and masculine, plus looks good with the black and white photos.

 



 

 

This is another page using Echo Park paper (their "All About a Boy" line) more recently. While we were in Universal Studios we went to "Harry Potter World" (that's not it's actual name, but that's what we kept calling it) and my sister bought an awesome Sorting Hat. We had fun when we got back to the condo and took pictures of everyone in the family wearing it. Tara and I had extra fun doing our own little photo shoot while drinking the pumpkin juice she also bought at Harry Potter World. She got a little carried away using my fancy camera for the first time. "This is fun! It just keeps clicking." So I ended up with enough pictures of me for my own page and I'll do another page with Mom, Dad, and Tara in the sorting hat. 

 

 

 



 

And here's a Christmas page using "Season's Greetings". We always make sure to take pictures with our stockings Christmas morning. It's my favorite part of the day.