Scrap Your Story :: growing love

UPDATE:  I'm linking this up to Paper Issues Feb. 7, 2015 Issue Hip to Be Square (I used square photos and some {aflairforbuttons} flair.

It's FRIDAY -- and you know what that means -- another challenge at Scrap Your Story Challenge blog! Ready to play along? This is a "theme" week -- and the theme is "favorite(s)".  You can interpret that anyway you wish, as long in your journaling or title we can see that you are sharing something that is a favorite!

I have the word "favorite" a couple of places on this layout.  First I used an Amy Tangerine stamp that I got at Target and stamped "You are my fave" all over a piece of patterned paper.  Then I used one of Amy Tangerine's templates to make a speech bubble with a heart in the middle.  The second place, also involved stamping.  This time it was an Ali Edwards stamp "SUPER favorite" that I stamped over some Elle's studio tags (all supplies are linked below). Most of the rest of the supplies came from the Lucky You Scrapbook Kit by paperissues available here. And of course there is flair from {a flair for buttons}!

This photo was taken on the anniversary of Mikaela's death. It was a difficult day for us all. My daughter Hollyanne came over just to be with us for a while, and I was ever so thankful. I journaled a bit about that, but also about how B. was obsessed with her baby belly! Either way, I wanted the journaling to be hidden. I'm really happy with how this one turned out!  Love that green/yellow combo! Hope you play along with us this week at Scrap Your Story Challenges!


Supplies
Crate Paper :: Party Day :: Happy
My Minds Eye :: Collectable :: Remarkable Smile Grin
American Crafts :: Dear Lizzy Lucky Charm :: 6x6 paper pad
American Crafts :: Dear Lizzy Lucky Charm :: Wild Hearts
Studio Calico :: Here & There :: woodgrain thickers
Glitz :: Color Me Happy :: 6x6 paper pad
Glitz :: Color Me Happy :: woodgrain paper
Glitz :: woodgrain washi tape
Jillibean Soup :: Sunshine Resin Sugar Picks
Studio Calico :: Sundrifter :: flowers and leave wood veneer
My Minds Eye :: Collectable :: Remarkable Day Decorative Buttons
My Minds Eye :: The Sweetest Thing :: enamel dots
a flair for buttons :: arrow 1 flair
a flair for buttons :: lovely words flair
TCW :: Minivine mask
Elle's Studio :: Day to Day tidbits
American Crafts :: Amy Tangerine :: stencils
American Crafts :: Amy Tangerine :: authentic phrase stamp
Technique Tuesday :: Studeio AE :: super fantastic
Heidi Swapp :: Color Shine :: Mustard
Heidi Swapp :: Color Shine :: Mint Green

Scrap Your Story :: love spring

It's FRIDAY and you know what that means -- a new challenge goes live at Scrap Your Story Challenges!  This week we are working with one of Christy's sketches!  Here's my layout:

The journaling is about how my wonderful family stopped and let me take this photo, even though the weather was bad, we were hungry, and on our way out to eat.  But I just had to get a photo of the grass...it is turning green.  I am thankful for that -- because I am ready for spring.  Aren't you?  Here are a few close ups:

If you follow me on instagram or Facebook, you may have seen that I was letting scrapbooking stress me out this week!  Ever had one of those days/weeks where you waste a LOT of paper because none of your ideas work?  I had that this week!  Ugh.  Good news...I pushed through and I really like how my layout turned out! I got several happy packages in the mail this week, and that helped.  :-) 

The patterned papers and tags are from April's Scrapbook Circle kit, "Happy Place" and I added a couple of things from my stash. Also, I used some awesome washi that I got from a Paper Issues embellishment kit (some of the happy mail that arrived on my doorstep this week)! There is a complete list of supplies used at the bottom of this post.

Here's the sketch (I basically flipped it horizontally):

Come play with us!!!  It's so much fun to see what others create based on the same sketch!

I will also be posting this a Paper Issues.  Their "Current Issue" is all about using instagram photos (which I love)!

Supplies:

Echo Park :: Flower Garden 12x12 Sweet Girl

American Crafts :: Dear Lizzy 12x12 Lucky Charm Paper :: Lucky Coin

American Crafts :: Dear Lizzy 12x12 Lucky Charm Paper :: This and That

American Crafts :: Amy Tangerine Yes, Please :: Capture Embroidery Kit
American Crafts :; Amy Tangerine Yes, Please :: Create Cardstock Shapes

Studio Calico :: Chevron Snippets Wood Veneer
A Flair For Buttons :: Lovely Words Flair

Heidi Swapp :: Clear Pop :: Clear Mint Alpha (love these)!
Tape Works Green Chevron Washi Tape (got this in the Paper Issues "Thrift Shop" embellishment kit)
Elle’s Studio Serindipity Lil Snippets Labels 
Scrapbook Circle exclusive tags

Scrap Your Story Challenge :: my lucky charms

YAY!  It's Friday!  That means a new challenge goes live on the Scrap Your Challenge Blog.  Each month we follow this challenge schedule:

Week 1: Use it (you will be given an item you must incorporate).

Week 2: Theme (your layout and/or photos needs to show this theme).

Week 3: Sketch (flip it, rotate it, tweak it...as long as we can see the basics there).

Week 4: Technique (we will describe/show a technique you must include somewhere). 

This is challenge number three of the month so it involves a sketch! 

Here's Christy's sketch:

And here is my take on the sketch :

I don't do very many themed LOs, I'm more of a every day sorta memory keeper, but this photo from a couple of years ago needed to be showcased!

I found this four leaf clover overlay by Skyber Lowen while browsing the Silhouette online store and was inspired to use it as a mask. Then I decided that I wanted to create something that incorporated the Irish flag. 

First, I copied (and pasted) the 6x6 overlay and stuck them together to make a 6x12 cut. It took some time to get all the settings right but finally I got this:

Beautiful, right?  See why I had to use it??!!!!! Then I got out my mists and a piece of white card stock.  I used a couple different greens and tried to ombre it a bit, then I did the same on the other side with orange. OK, it's true, you caught me. Really, I just wanted to make a flag so I could get some orange in there...but it works for me. ;-) I ended up covering it up with the photograph, but there is a little overspray (very little) in the middle, so you can actually see the mask on the white part, but it still looks white! This is good to know in case I decide to do something like this in the future!  Next, I took out some Heidi Swap color shine (in two colors) for the splotches of paint in the lower left and upper right  corners. I like the shine, but I didn't want it on the whole page, plus this helped the dots of color stand out a bit more, I was thinking.  Then I let it dry for a couple of days. (mostly I needed thinking time)!

I decided that I wanted to try to bring out the gold in B's hat,  and I've been hoarding this Crate Paper Vellum with gold dots since December, so I decided it was time to use it! Next I found some awesome glittery gold card stock and I used that behind the photo. LOVE.  I was really digging all the gold so I found gold glitter and gold washi from my stash.  (The washi was in my stash, but can you believe I didn't have any gold glitter??? What is wrong with me!??!! Thank goodness I am only a few blocks from Target)!

I found some DIYthickers and added the gold glitter for a perfect touch!

I used some foam dots to pop the word "lucky" and added some lilybee design abcs for "my" and "charms". I love how the title turned out!

Speaking of love...I got this awesome flair in a happy mail package from Aimee Maddern! Wanna know a secret? I also got the green arrow washi. It wasn't part of the giveaway, but she used it in the packaging and I reused it! I know, right? ;-) I added some other washi, some enamel dots, and a fabric tag that I misted to complete the cluster.

for some reason some of these photos look like the orange could be red...there is no red...it's all orange

I hope you consider playing along with us at Scrap Your Story! This sketch was fun to use.

Coming soon : some news :-), a PL update, and some other funness. 

Later taters!

~ mini gift ~

A few weeks ago I took engagement photos for a friend and her fiancé.  It was stressful, but also quite fun!  I got a few good ones out of the hour and a half, and she was happy, which is all that really counts!

As a gift, I decided to stick a few of her favorites into a minibook.  I was going to use her wedding colors, but decided I would stick with fall colors since they were such a part of the photos.  One of my (and her) favorite photos is this one :

I bought two ampersand stamps from Elise Blaha Cripe (along with a few other stamps from her store) and used circles and ampersands throughout the book.  This was a bit of a challenge because there was no journaling.  I don't know them as a couple all that well (I mostly just know Amber), so I didn't feel like I know enough about the two of them to journal, and Amber isn't a scrapbooker, so I didn't want to just leave some journaling spots (not sure that would be a "gift", if that makes sense). So I found some "love" quotes and printed those out for the other side of the page.

Hambly screen print overlay on the front and back of the book.

Thanks for stopping by!

~ enJOYing the ride ~

I've been going crazy with the layouts lately!  All kinds of crazy.  First of all, I'm a double page, multiple photo gearle.  However, of the last nine layouts or so, seven of them have been one pagers!  What's up with that??  Next, I used to be lucky to get one or two layouts done per month (except July, when I am not working) and I've completed three in the last ten days -- the last two for the same challenge over at Club CK.  Crazy, right?  I know for some of you, that's nothing, but for me it's quite prolific!  It's like I got started and cannot stop (I have another nearly completed on my workspace)!  OK, here's my latest...and I made several mistakes that I'd love to share!

I am pleased with the final product, but it's not exactly what I had in my head (this photo makes it look a bit crooked, but it's really not).  I wanted a bit more white space, and the placement of the title was going to be a bit different.  I started with this awesome layout (by corrie over at You, Me & Crazy) that I pinned just a week ago.  As soon as I saw it, I knew I would lift it, and I knew which photo I would use!

Most of the papers came from a Scrapbook Circle Kit :: Daydreamer (tons of Amy Tangerine), and it's all linked below.

I started with the yellow paper and added my mask and ink. Then the confetti.  After the glue dried, I took the spray bottle apart and used the end of the nozzle to put some bigger dabs of ink on the paper and let it dry for a long time (I'll get back to that later).  I cut the middle out of the pink backgroud paper because I knew I wanted to us that behind my photo.  Next I went to glue the yellow and pink paper together.  When I pressed it down, I messed up the paint.  Badly.  I tried to mess it up a bit more, thinking it would make it look like I meant to do that, but that didn't work. Mostly because I had purposely painted and glued in the diagonal, and much of the paint had smeared horizontal.  I almost cried!  But then I decided to just cover it up.  I got out the little Amy Tangerine banners (misted them a bit, cut them a bit, etc.) and then hid the worst part behind them (on the left).  I had to adjust my title a bit and then put more banners up at the top to balance it all out, but it ended up working.  I added some hidden journaling, clipped it on with a fun little clip, and it was done!  The last mistake I didn't notice until all of the photos had been taken and I was putting it in the album.  I had completely forgotten that I had used part of that pink paper already -- SOOOO it's not 12x12!  Argh!  (let's just keep that our little secret) Eh.  I just went with it.  I've been doing that a lot more lately, which is likely why I have been getting more layouts done!

Here are a few close ups:

My favorite parts: the title and the holes that I punched in the photo. Thanks for reading!

~ hide and sneak ~

Yep, you read that correctly.  B. says, "Hide and Sneak".  She's cute like that.  She also confuses the game often. For example, she hides, but then when you say something like, "I wonder where B is hiding." she will say, "I'm here!" and jump out!  Then she tells you to hide (but tells you where to hide)!  After counting (sometimes correctly, sometimes not), she doesn't yell, "Ready or not, here I come", she says, "Here or not, here I come"!  So, we have a few things to work on.

In early May, only a week after Mikaela's funeral, it was beautiful outside and we were trying to find our new normal.  On that particular evening she was loving the hide and seek.  She was hiding behind the trees, and then telling us to hide behind the trees.  There was lots of running and screaming just because it was fun.  At one point she was hiding behind the tree and "shushing" those around.  I caught it with my iPhone.  It's not the best photograph, in that it's quite blurry.  But it's also the BEST photograph, and had to be documented.

Glitter Girl challenged us over at 2 Peas to create clustered embellishments, so I tried that.  Erika at Club CK challenged us to use numbers on a layout, so I tried that! Scrapbook Circle's Challenge is to use speech bubbles, so I did that!  AND, if that wasn't enough, Paper Issues is Fall'n for flair (and I never need a challenge to use flair), so I did that!  Whew!

embellishment cluster

numbers

speech bubbles

more speech bubbles

Have you ever had a layout that you like the parts better than the whole?  This one is like that for me!  And, you guessed it, much like the last layout, it's the title (blah) and journal spot (not even close to being straight) that I'm not happy about.  Also the colors in the photo below are off -- the colors are really orange, blue and white (inspired by a coffee mug that I purchased a Target)!  The closeup photos are closer to the right colors.  :-)

I like the paint spots (really gesso spots), the misting, the colors and the washi (especially the washi over the speech bubbles).  This patterned paper was actually pretty light, and I made it blue by misting quite a bit.  Also the orange behind the photo was white.  I tried to ombre it with mist (apparently "ombre" is now a verb).  Sorta worked, but I had to use a lot, and it was difficult to find any adhesive that wanted to stick (even after letting it dry for over 24 hours)!  I used mostly the Scrapbook Circle September kit :: Talk of the Town, but everything is linked below except the hello stamp, found at Target, and the striped washi, which is recollections.  

On Thursday expect another post.  My first "currently" post (challenge by the great Ali Edwards).

Happy Fall!

~ b's new boots ~

B's new boots (full name is blurred)

This one came together so quickly (and I never get to say that)!  As soon as I saw these photos that my One True Love took with his phone on B's birthday, I knew they would make it to a page!  I didn't want it to be about the birthday -- this is all about the boots (but I did stick a '"no. 3" in there, all sneaky-like -- I also hid the journaling in the striped bag behind the photo)!

Last year my daughter went to a daycare that is really close to our house.  This year she goes to a daycare that is really close to work.  On Fridays at work we can leave about an hour earlier than the rest of the week, which is AWESOME!  Last year I used to come home and work on processing photos or scrapbooking for an hour or so, and then go pick up B.  This, because of the daycare change, that's really not realistic.  Soooo....a work friend and I decided that we would take advantage of our Fridays and bring some things to work and have our own little mini-crop!  This past Friday was the first of these days and that is why I got this one done so quickly.

A while back I started a notebook to help me with the memory keeping process. The whole idea of it was to write down the stories that I wanted to tell.  Often times I put the date of the photos, a description and then the text that I think I will use.  It's evolved into a place to practice a technique (here I was practicing doodling), get a sketch idea down (I ended up using this one, but flipped it because my arrow stamp went the other way), practice my journaling, and I also document all the supplies that I use so it's easier to blog.  

Even though it came together much more quickly than usual, it was not without it's problems/mistakes.  When I used the mask a second time, I was left with a giant blob of mist at the top (hate that) and I felt like you could really see the line where I extended the masking.  But I went with it (after I pouted a bit).  This is a good thing for me.  It think that sharing my disappointment on instagram helped!  In the end, I added a bit more to the giant blob and just decided to roll with it.

One of my favorite parts of this layout is the flower on the journal spot above.  I used an exactoknife and cut the bottom part so that I could put the flower over the photo.  Love that!

I added a few items, but most of the supplies came from the August Scrapbook Circle Kit :: True Stories. Among the added items is this lovely flair button from aflairforbuttons. All items are linked below.

I searched high and low for some alphas, including JoAnns, Michaels, and our LSS.  Boo!  I couldn't find a thing I liked (however Michael's was having a 50% off sale that was a surprise to me; a lovely, lovely surprise.  There were purchases, just not alphas for this.).  So, I actually used my cricut (I've been so addicted to thickers that I haven't used it in a while), cut out the letters, added a bit of 3D tape and called 'er done!  The letters standing out like this...well, it just makes me happy (I also did the same with the arrow)!

This is one of those layouts that I love -- it was fast, the ideas came to me easily, not too many mess ups that I couldn't live with, and I like the final product.  My Soul Mate saw it as I finished and he also gave his nod of approval.  Bonus!

~ wigglin' water sprinkler ~

First of all, I am a winner! In a previous post I shared a layout that I did for the June Sketch it Out Challenge over at Club CK.  Well...I won!  It's a random drawing, but still exciting and fun.  I would encourage anyone reading this to participate in the many creative challenges that Club CK offers. Plus I cannot go on without offering a CONGRATULATIONS to Ashly Horton for being selected as a 2012-2013 Club CK moderator! Congrats to her and the others chosen!  Club CK is a great community full of fun, creative, and caring people from all over the world.  And it's FREE. Did I mention that there are tons of creative challenges that push you to try and do new things?  Fun times!

Moving on....I based my most recent layout on another sketch by Ashley Horton, for the Club CK *July* Sketch It Out Challenge! It was so much fun the first time, why not do it again?  One of the 'issues' I often have with sketches, though...I LOVE TWO PAGE LAYOUTS and they are almost always a single page.  So...the main 'new thing' that I tried for this time around was to stretch the sketch (say that out loud, it rhymes) into a two pager.  Also, I have really been wanting to try an extra large photograph.  My last post had a rather large photo (6x6) but this one is even bigger.  Fun!  While there are several things about this one that I am not exactly satisfied with, and there are several mistakes, it was still fun and stretched my brain.  It is most certainly not to late to try this sketch out yourself!  Join us over at Club CK's *July* Sketch it Out Challenge!  We are fun people! 

For this layout I started with yellow card stock and the March Scrapbook Circle kit, Best.Day.Ever (it's sold out, but you can get other great kits there, so check it out).  I added several items from my stash (all linked below) and here you go (also I hope you can tell in these photos that I used orange (no red)):

Ok. Wanna help???  I was thinking I might put something like "fun" or "summer" or "June" after the word 'hello'. Maybe below, just to the right?  What do you think?  Should I leave it the same or add a word?

One last thing:  I love these photos I took this weekend!

And I love your comments!  :-)

..::non-manifesto progress::..

stamped on washi :: zig zag stitch in the middle of straight stitch :: circle stitch :: paint on a layout :: spray mist :: masking :: stretch a sketch ::