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!

National Scrapbooking Day inspiration

Everytime National Scrapbooking Day come around, I have such good intentions of participating in ALL the challenges from Two Peas in a Bucket... and it never happens.  It always feels like a cool accomplishment when I get something finished and submitted to a challenge. This year I only finished one, but the nice thing is I still have the sketches and inspiration for the others I was going to try. So it's not a total loss, I just won't get the virtual badges I was working towards. (Yes, I'm that big of a dork.) Pagemaps has some fun challenges going right now and I'm going to try to do more with the ones Two Peas always has up. I want to get back into the rhythm I had for awhile of submitting a couple a month. Any who, here's the one I finished last week.

 

I finally used last summer's Little Yellow Bicycle "Splash" line that I HAD to have. It really is a fun line and perfect for lake pictures. This is a page about my sister and I tubing. We thought we were pretty cool stuff... which we were of course. ;) Definitely good memories.

 

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. :)

Project 12: April

It seems like each month, the due date for Project 12 keeps coming sooner and sooner. I finally managed to get April finished (except for an insert I have planned about my birthday). It's funny this month how many pictures ended up having to do with my yard. It's the first spring in my house so I guess it makes sense.

 

The left hand side is basically all about my yard. The title spot is from a crazy storm we had with wind, rain, hail, and then a rainbow across my backyard. Then my dad and I made a trip to Home Depot to get supplies for some outside projects. The highlight of the yard topics though is my new riding mower, Maybelle. I may have screeched the first time Dad gave me a driving lesson on it, but now it's a lot of fun. The paper I used is October Afternoon's "Sidewalks" collection.

October Afternoon stickers for the title and journaling spot.

 

A mixture of Jillibean Soup and October Afternoon stickers.

 

The right hand page is all about a weekend scrapbooking retreat I went to. It was held at the same place where our lake cottage is so that's why I used the outdoors-y paper. The paper is October Afternoon's "Campfire" line. I still have my insert to do, but I have a good plan for it so hopefully won't take too long to put together. It's going to use another October Afternoon line.

I'm Lovin' It (da da da daahh da)

One thing it seems I can't express enough is how much I freaking love paper! One of the best feelings is finding papers that look great together and then when they perfectly compliment your photos, it's like all is right in the world. A little dramatic? Yes. Sound crazy? Absolutely. However, I know there are people out there who know exactly what I mean and that's a good feeling too. This page is one of those moments when paper and photos come together to make a fun layout.

I've had these pictures on my table for awhile just waiting for me to find the right paper. Last month new Simple Stories lines came out and I loved the arrows paper. I'm trying to get away from buying papers just because I like them and stick to buying papers that I know there's a plan for. I strayed away from that plan for the arrows paper and it ended up working out.

The papers are Simple Stories from their "24/7" line. I cut the title on my Cameo then added the usual suspects of mini markets, October Afternoon stickers, and enamel dots. I'm also happy to say the yellow and blue strips below and under the photos were cut from the barcode strip of the pattern papers. On double sided papers, the vendors will give a preview of what's on the flip side. So I cut and used those pieces to leave the rest of the 12"x12" piece intact. I told you, I love paper. Every little bit of it.

 

If you want to see my friend's page using the same pictures, check out her blog here http://justmylife-erica.blogspot.com/. Prepare to be impressed!

Once in a Lifetime Opportunity

In the not so distant future I'm going to be starting my last year in my twenties. I realize this isn't such a big deal to some people, but it feels a lot like a PRETTY BIG DEAL to me. It also tends to resemble a panic attack. I tend to feel like I'm not doing enough or not doing something well enough. It's not a matter of being lazy, it's that I expect a lot from myself. So the other week when I was awake at 2am worrying about my personal life and professional life, I started making a list. Not a list of things I wanted to do (although I do have one of those), but a list of things I have done. It made me feel better. Just because we haven't achieved everything we wanted to, doesn't mean we haven't done anything or we've failed. There's always room for improvement, but to give myself more credit (and a bit of a pep talk) it felt nice to focus on the good things I've done. Now I'm taking my list and scrapbooking it. Two birds with one stone type of thing. Look back on the fun I've had in my twenties so far and get some pages done.

This is the first page from my "Done That" list. After graduating college (on the list) I went to Europe for two and a half weeks. One of many memorable "done that" items was water ski in Greece. The only other place I've water skied is on our lake in northern Indiana so skiing on the Aegean Sea was very, very cool.

The papers are by Studio Calico and I managed to mix in my favorite mini market letters from October Afternoon and My Mind's Eye enamel dots.

 

Later this month I'm going on a scrapbook retreat (over my birthday weekend) so it'll be the perfect time to work more on my "Done That" list.

Project 12: March

It's the second week of the month, so time to post last month's project 12 layout. Still loving this process and I feel like I'm learning to pay attention to more details. Getting lots and lots of practice at layering and I love it. This month I used Dear Lizzy's "Neapolitan" line. Most of the pages came from the 6x6 pad which worked great having smaller patterns.

 

The left page talks about our springtime snow fall and Indiana's typical crazy weather. (Is it crazy if it's typical?) Also added in a few spaces for one of my new favorite movies.

 

Right hand page is mostly about Easter and St. Patrick's Day. This page also gives you a visual if you've ever wondered what fifteen pounds of jelly beans looks like. Also reason #118 why my dad shouldn't be allowed in Sam's Club alone.

Last month I started playing with adding inserts and sewing pieces together for extra space. This month I did the same thing by sewing an extra 4x6 flap into the middle of the left hand page. I took a lot of pictures around my house of the snow and wanted to include all of them while still having space to journal. Adding the extra space was the perfect solution.

 

 

Dodge felt left out so he decided to sneak in for a peek. I kinda love that he matches my wood floors.

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.

Project 12: February

I was so excited to do February's layout, I may have started working on it before February was even over. There was only one photo that needed to be added in from the last week, so my plan pretty much stayed the same from how I wanted it. The papers for this month are from Crate Paper's Valentine line from last year. I don't normally use a lot of pink, so I took the opportunity to make a very frilly layout and talk about all the things I love right now. That's exactly what the 6x12 panel is on the left. Sometimes in 12x12 layouts I don't leave space to say everything I want to, so I'm trying to do more storytelling throughout my Project 12 layouts. 

 

 

 

Here's a detail of the left hand page. I mixed in lots of October Afternoon mini market stickers (my favorite!) for captions and titles.

 

 

Title card: detail picture of candy hearts with a Crate border sticker and October Afternoon letter stickers from their "Midway" line. Plus stitching, or course.

 

 

I made these little numbers with my Cameo. Wanted to use something other than stickers or just writing them.

 

 

Here's the right hand page. The "love this" frame was made on my Cameo too. It was a very scrappy month so I wanted to highlight that on this page. Two trips to scrap mania with my mom, an afternoon scrapping with friends, plus an employee crop. Not to mention all the new papers coming in from CHA. It's like a paper heaven right now and I love it!

 

 

Two fun family events happened this month too and I was worried I'd either have to cram too much in or have too much empty space so I used a 6X12 insert that holds 4x6 photos. The convenient part about 3 ring binder albums is the hole placement is standard on the page protectors so you can mix and match. I use We R Memory Keepers pages for the 12x12 divided sections, but this 6x12 insert is American Crafts and it still fits in my album. If I ever need to do an 8 1/2X11 page, it'll still fit too. So one side of the insert is for the hockey game we went to and the other side is for when my dad and I went to the PBR event. 

 

We've been going to hockey games for a long time, but I've never really scrapbooked them before so I used this insert to talk about my favorite parts of hockey games. This means three 4x6 sections wasn't going to be quite enough room, so I cut a panel from another divider and stitched it on top of this one for extra space. This gave me five sections to work with for this event without having to add a whole other page.
 

I'm really excited with how it turned out. It gave me the perfect amount of space to include everything I wanted to. Might have to think of more ways to do this in the future.