Cruisin' on the Lake

I'm excited to say... SUMMER IS HERE! Our boat is in the water, the cottage is open, and water-themed papers are in the scrapbook stores. I'm a sucker for summer paper lines. Echo Park, Simple Stories, Crate Paper; I love it all. We have over 60 years worth of lake pictures so I don't have too much guilt buying summer papers. Plus when you add up all the Florida vacations, Cape Cod vacations, and other trips; I have plenty of things to use those papers for. Crate Paper recently posted a challenge to make a "Summer Splash" project so I gathered some papers and made a lake page.

 

The pictures are of my Grandpa and Dad on the lake skiing. I love these old photos. It's funny to see the older boats since we've upgraded quite a bit since then. As my dad likes to say, "I have a boat with enough horsepower to get me out of the water." He's a bigger guy so I think the horsepower is 200 and something. We used to have a 75. :)

 

I'm in love with these chipboard slides. A ton comes in a package so I didn't mind using three on one page. I still have plenty left to play with. I'm already starting to plan which lake page to do next. YAY, SUMMER!

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.

 



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".

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.

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.

Ticket to Ride

I want to start out by saying one thing... I love Crate Paper. Love the colors, love the patterns, and I love the textures. The papers are so versatile for current photos and older photos too. Which is perfect for me because I love scrapbooking older photos just as much as newer ones. I have been lucky to know and be related to some amazing people. My Grandparents, Great Aunt and Uncle, and my parents are some of my favorite subjects. For the people who have passed away, it gives me a chance to bring back the memories I have of them and save it all in a book where I can look at it anytime I want. It makes it seem like they are still with me, which some days is the best thing in the world. I'm also lucky that I've found some really cool photos. This page has example of a fun older photo of my Aunt Janet... using Crate Paper of course.



The paper is Crate's Emma Shoppe line. The butterflies are from a couple different Martha Stewart punches. I had fun using all the different papers and added some texture with a border punch and also just by tearing the paper. I've found it's easier to tear paper if you keep your hands close to the edge. It gives you more control. The title came out of the book "Inspiration Station" and is a combination of American Crafts' Thickers and October Afternoon alphabet stickers. The page is a pretty simple one, but all of the little details layered together gives it lots of interest.

Here are a few more detail close ups.

Oldie, but a goodie

I haven't scrapbooked anything the past couple days because I get to go on a scrapbooking weekend in a few weeks (at Quaker Haven Camp!), so I've been trying to get organized. Right now I've got 17 sketches drawn up and I'm going through my pictures to figure out which ones I want to use so I can get them edited and printed. Next I'll go through my papers and get a folder ready for each page. Each folder will have paper, pictures, and embellishments so it'll be easier to get my layouts put together. For me, organization is the key to getting pages scrapbooked when I'm cropping somewhere other than my own house.

Here's a picture of my scrapbooking table. It's an older picture so there's more stuff on it right now. It's one of the best investments I've made. Absolutely love this table!

And here's how I store my paper. Sometimes I'll just stand there and spin it until I get motivated by a pattern I see. Most of it's sorted by manufacturer, some is in themes. (You can see a painting my sister made me in the left corner of the picture too. On top of the painting are some felted animals we've made. The birds to the left we made together. I made the weird looking big one and she made the smaller. She also made me the owl, R2D2, and Yoda. They're my favorite things she's made me.)

And just for more fun, here's an older page I did with Cosmo Cricket's 'Garden Variety' line... an oldie, but a goodie. That's my Grandpa and Dad in the picture.

Getaway Car

True to my word, here's a page about my Mom when she was little. I've had this picture for awhile, but I've been waiting to get my hands on Crate Paper's 'Toy Box' line. I almost had a heart attack waiting for it to be shipped, but I survived and managed to make my page. I love all the colors and mix of patterns.

This is one of mine and my Mom's favorite pictures. It's just so funny how my uncle's in his car and she's in her crib. Almost like they're planning a breakout... which is why I choose the title "Getaway Car". This page came together pretty quickly for me because I started with a sketch I made the night before. Sketches have been really helpful lately (whether they're originals I've come up with or ones from other places) and are part of the reason I've been able to finish so many pages this month. Here are some close ups of the sticker letters and punch out shapes.

I can't wait to make even more pages with the new Crate lines. I have all of 'Portrait' and 'Emma's Shoppe' to play with too.

Happy Birthday Uncle Ed

Most of the pages I've done lately have been ones about my Dad when he was little (partially because my Grandma took so many). So now I'm trying to make more of an effort to do pages about my Mom. I had remembered seeing a birthday picture of her and my Uncle Ed recently and when Basic Grey's 'Life of the Party' came out, I knew they would be perfect together. Plus, I had a sketch in mind that would look good too. The nice part is it turned out pretty close to how I pictured it in my head.



I've also developed an appreciation for spray mists, either Tattered Angels or Studio Calico's Mr. Huey sprays. The 'happy birthday' letters are the same ones I used on the "Boys of Summer" page (sprayed brown) and the same from the "Panama City" page (left their original white). I never really understood all the hype till now.

Here's a detail of the pennants I cut out from the different patterns. Pretty sure this is the third page in a row I've done that uses a banner of some sort. I jumped aboard the banner train awhile ago and never looked back.



Here's another little detail of the chipboard and folded ribbon made from patterned paper. I even put five little stars around the candle since it was my uncle's fifth birthday. (That's him in the picture.) You can also see a good close up of the machine stitching. The zig-zag stitch is the easiest to do since it doesn't matter as much if you're not going in a perfectly straight line. (Great for around circles.)



On a side note... I'm kinda proud of myself for two days in a row of posting. Maybe I can go for a three-peat.

Cosmo Cricket Challenge

When Cosmo Cricket posted a challenge where the winner gets published, I was all ears. For this page I used their new line 'Social Club'. The colors in the papers are a lot of fun and the blues and greens felt right for a page about the lake. Their sketch used one 5"x7", but I changed mine to use three photos which still measure out to 5"x7" together.

Here's a detail of the title. I used white Thickers and sprayed them with my coffee shop glimmer mist to turn them brown. They were the right size, but wrong color. (Which was easy enough to fix with the right tools).

On Cosmo's sketch, they had clusters of circles going along the top edge of the page. So for my layout, I punched circles from one of their patterned sheets and turned them into a banner. I stitched two lines first to place my circles on and then stitched one more time over the top to hold them in place. For more dimension, I folded some circles in half and added twine bows.

One of my goals is to eventually get published. I know tons of people submit, so even if it doesn't happen this time, I know I'm trying and still end up with a really cute page I'm proud of.

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.

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.

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.

Willa and Buck

Some of my favorite pictures to scrapbook are ones of my grandparents. I love the clothes and everything else that's vintage. Plus, there's something about seeing my grandma at a younger age that I never get tired of. So a few months ago, when we had a challenge at work to use Graphic 45 paper, I knew I wanted to use an older photo. Instead of having one large photo, I trimmed it in a half and used it as two separate ones and made it into a grid layout. By keeping the layout simple, I wanted to leave the focus on one of my favorite photos of my grandparents.