One Trick Pony

Do you ever feel that all of your layouts look the same?  As if you are following a recipe that has the same ingredients with the exception of one or two ingredients?  Sometimes I do.  I feel, especially if I am creating on a run, that I am falling back on the same colors and techniques over and over again.  And sometimes that is okay.  But sometimes, you really have to mix it up to keep it interesting.  That is why I love to scraplift or follow a video or buy a kit.  It keeps me interested.  It keeps me growing.  I realize that I am talking about scrapbooking and not some major life event but this is a big part of my life.  It is truly something that I enjoy doing and it keeps me sorta grounded.

I had a great weekend of crafting and so far a couple of days too.  I have been doing so many scraplifts that for a minute, it seemed as if I was losing my own style but I realize that you never lose something that personal to who you are.  You just put it aside.  

My pinterest boards are overflowing with things I want to try (in every area of my life) and lately, in order to justify the amount of time I spend on there, I have been recreating, trying, implementing my pins.  It's fun.  Seriously fun.  I created a layout based on one of my favorite scrappers designs.  Kelly Foster is so talented.  I just love her colorful style and pages.  This page was pinned when I first started with pinterest. 

The black with pops of pink and all that white space just spoke to me for this photo of my daughter and my best friends son.  They were born days apart (June 15th & 19th) so everyone thought they were twins for a while.  Except Drew was huge and Ariel was tiny:)

Enough of my jabber, here's the page......

 

I made the dots with gloss medium and than used a palette knife to spread the extra all over the page.  LOVE how it came out!  I couldn't catch the effect with the camera (it was so overcast yesterday!) but it looks like the shiny parts on resist paper.  YUM 

 

 

I've also been using my hoard so there is a ton of watercolor, old prima and washi tape on this baby.....

 

That's it for me today.  How about you?  How are you getting your craft on? 

 

Thanks for stopping by and have a great Tuesday!!!!!

 

Weekends Are For.........

Creating!  Lately, I have been spending all of my time on the weekends playing, sorting and just making stuff.  It has been fantastic!!  I know that with spring and summer approaching our family will be a lot busier and my weekends will be inhaled by camping, fishing, visiting, picnics, travel and a ton of other stuff that we manage to do. 

We have decided that this is going to be the year that we try some new adventures.  We are going to go rock climbing.  Rock climbing.  For the first time ever.  At 45 years old.  Deep breath, it will be a baby rock, I can do this.  That's not the only thing we will be trying but that is the scariest for me.  Maybe it will end up in the never doing that again category with white water rafting (absolutely terrifying!  Never ever ever doing that again!!) but I will at least try it.   

The point is that I will have to find other ways to get my creating in.  I have always failed at this.  When life gets busy for me, I tend to not create but this time I am going to do my best to keep it crafty.  What is looking like the best option is for me to get up a little earlier during the week or go to bed a little later.  Which is hilarious because I am normally in bed by 8 or so.  For reals yall, I am a serious early bird.  If you don't mind sharing, I would love to hear how you get your crafting done when life gets busy.

So back to this weekend.  As I continue to sort through my photos, I am setting aside some photos & memorabilia that I just can't wait to scrap.  I found my oldest son's sonogram photo and was so unhappy to see how damaged it had gotten due to my crappy storage method.  Box + precious photo = damage.  Ugh. 

I found this layout on pinterest a long time ago and was so inspired by it but never had the right photo.  The sonogram was perfect and I am so happy with how the layout turned out.  I even think my artsy mixed media skills are getting better:)

 

I really love this page!  The doilies, lace and flowers.  Those book pages and frames.  Happy place....

 

So happy that you took the time out of your busy day to stop by and visit me!  Have a great Monday!!

August 2015 Calendar Page

I am rolling on this calendar page project and I could not be any happier about it!  So far, June is my favorite page.  I am LOVING following this plan!  My pages just fall together and this slow scrapper can get them done in less than an hour.  That never happens.  Ever.

The color choices on this one.  Well, I don't know how I feel about them.  I am getting down to the last of the papers that I selected for the project and feeling a little bit that my least favorite patterns are getting pushed to the back.  Even though I sorted them by what I was going to use when and with what, that plan has been changing as I create the pages.  I've been going through and rearranging so nothing is where it started.  And that's fine, just, you know its making me rethink things and there will probably be some stuff added to the pile to balance me out. 

My layouts for the album have been leaning to the flat side and that is unusual for me too.  Remember my comment about how cheaply made the calendar was?  It is coming back to bite me in the rump!  My calendar is actually starting to tear and I have to come up with a solution for that.  I think that I am going to washi tape the seams and reinforce them with some stiff paper as I go forward.  I have a long reach stapler so I should be able to put this humpty dumpty back together again.  Hopefully. 

At first glance, planning a project like this may seem difficult but it really isn't.  If you keep in mind the fact that a calendar project is not meant to hold all of the photos that you take in a month, at an event or during a special occasion but just enough to show a highlight of what was happening at that point in time. 

I scrapbook and make a lot of mini-albums so there are more detailed layouts and descriptions of what we are up to elsewhere.  The calendar is simply to hang in our office and bring us a little joy there. 

It can be difficult to create the pages without the photos but it doesn't have to be if you are willing to be flexible.  Like a yoga instructor or something:)

And last but definitely not least, I made a page about my nephews first year of soccer.  He is such a cutie.....

 

Thanks for stopping by & Happy Humpday Folks!

Recent Thrift Shop Finds

You can find some great stuff in thrift type stores if you are willing to dig a little.  I am not a patient shopper.  Don't really like to shop at all so I really just dig a little.   I am not a spend hours in the dinky dusty thrift store to find just the right piece kind of gal.  I get in, scan, rescan, get out.  The most time I will spend is about 2 hours in a really big store.  But, that being said, I can always find something great.  Lately, I have found some things just for me.  This wonky brass rabbit paper weight for the shelf in my craft room and a teeny, tiny book on relaxation for my bedside table.......

 

Love the little bunny!  He has so much personality.

 

And this crazy book about animal sex that I had no idea was about that until I got it home.  I thought that it just had some wonderful graphics and drawings...........

 

 

 

Crazy book right?  My first clue on the subject matter should have been the way the cashier guy looked at me (weirdo alert was all over his face) and the second should have been the title.  But I seriously was blinded by the beautiful graphics lol.  I get that way sometimes with the tunnel vision:).  But as I flipped through the book, I kinda fell in love the art....

 

 

 

On the scrappy front, I am still making 1 to 3 pages a day.  I made this page about my little dude and dudette (my niece).  They are teenagers now and still get along really well.  My son just rolls his eyes when I show him this type of photo.  He is so modest now that it is hard to believe that when he was little, we couldn't keep clothes on him:)  Anywho, the layout.......

 

 

I am still lovin that Amy Tan paper pad and have used about 10 sheets from it already!  The heart tabs at the top are fussy cut from one of them......

 

 

 

 

I also used a sketch for this page and it made it easy to put together....

 

 

The page doesn't look much like the sketch but that is the real beauty in them isn't it?  It's a map not an itinerary......

 

I watch a lot of youtube videos and always wonder how these super busy wonder women manage to find time to make pages and make videos.  They are so prolific and all of their stuff is beautifully made.  When I look at their work, I never get a feeling from it that it was rushed or thrown together just to create something to post.  You can see the love they have for what they do and it just demands respect because they put it out there for all and don't ask for anything but kind comments and your time. 

 

That's it for me today.  Thanks for stopping by!

Hello Today

My niece is very sporty.  She loves all things dramatic and all things physical.  She has the sweetest voice I have ever heard but I don't think she is a singer.  If I had to put my money on an occupation for her, I would say actor. 

I have been organizing my photos, a project that is way overdue, and came across one of her that I immediately realized that I had the perfect paper for.  So I scrapped it.  And I love it.  She is going to be thrilled to see her page when she comes to visit me this summer.  At least I hope so.....

 

 

Some details.......

 

 

 

It has taken me years to find a plan for the hundreds of photos that we have printed and stored in boxes.  When our families come to visit, one of the things that they like to do is to look through my albums.  So all of my photos will go into albums, just like my pages.  But not the magnetic albums of yesteryear, I will be using pocket pages.  The only titles or decorations will be one 4X6 card giving the date range.  Much easier to tackle than labeling all the photos.  I might put a card on the back that has the name of the people in the photos but that is about it.  I realized that I was starting to forget who was who so labeling will be important.

 

Photos that are too large for the pocket pages will be framed and hung on my walls or scrapped.  My goal is to have no photos left in boxes!  If you have a suggestion for me, I would love to hear it.  Or even if you just want to share the details of your methods, that's welcome too.  (you can leave a link to your blog or gallery if you'd like:))

 

Anywho, thanks for stopping by for a spell! 

 

  

I'm Done

and I am leaving you!  You have burned me for the very last time.  The other times have not been so bad, but this last time really, really hurt!!  I may have been responsible for what happened but still I am angry at you and I blame you.  So trust me when I say that I am leaving you for a much cuter, younger and smoking hot model.  One that is dressed up real classy in purple and white damask. One that gets hot much faster than you and has a drip guard so that he won't hurt me, even when I am doing something stupid like gluing a flower stem in the air over my lap when I am wearing shorts.

Yes folks, I am talking about my glue gun.  Double yes, I really did do that stupidity described above.  I was so upset and that burn really, really hurt.  I realize it was all my fault but the conversation that I had with that gun.  Oh man.  Good thing my son was upstairs or he would have had me making it rain on the swear jar.  Good thing that glue gun is not real or he would have left me waaay before I had a chance to leave him. 

Sigh, the hazards of crafting.

Thanks for stopping by and in the interest of preserving my dignity, please feel free to share your crafty mishaps with me.  Misery does love company doesn't it?

 

 

HAPPY SATURDAY GUYS!!!!!

Monster

I found this quilt on pinterest and I just absolutely fell in love with it.   I think it is the cutest thing so I was very inspired to make this layout about my great-nephew.  My sister (his GM) calls him monster.  I don't know why bc he is a really, really good kid. In fact, he is the only kid I have ever seen that is never up to no good.  If he disappears and it gets really quiet, he's probably somewhere thinking or watching. 

He adores his GM and doesn't at all mind be called monster.  Here's the layout.......

I had a bit of trouble with it.  When it was finished, it didn't seem finished to me so I just kept fiddling about trying to get it right and nothing worked on it.  What really drew me to the quilt was the black lines and bright monsters so in the end, I decided to just go with it and keep it simple but I did add a little stamping and the wood veneer word bubbles with the enamel dots on them.

In other news, we woke up to snow this morning!  Utter delight!!  In fact, it is still coming down outside my window as I write this post.  So, so peaceful. 

Have you ever found a quilt or other really large item that inspired a scrapbook page or album?  I would love to hear your thoughts and how you were able to "downsize" your inspiration piece enough so that it made sense on a scrapbook page. 

Thanks for stopping by and HAPPY FRIDAY!!!!!!

Hippity Hoppity Easter's on it's Way

And I am ready!  For once I actually got an eBay layout done and ready to post (it'll post tonight around 6) well before the actual holiday had come and gone.  Yeah me!!!

 

I used artwork from Laurie Furnell to do the paper piecing.  It was way more tedious than I thought it would be because there are soooo many tiny parts.  In the end, the layout is festive without being overly fussy and I really like that. 

 

Well that was my short break from geometry, back to it.  Wish me luck......

 

Thanks for stopping by and have a great day!

It Was the Best Scrappy Weekend Ever!

I was supposed to have just one rainy Saturday all to myself scrapping away in my hidey-hole but when we woke up Sunday, it was cold and mad windy.  So the husband uttered the most lovely set of words known to scrappers - Let's  just stay home.  Oh all right, if we must (doing an inside happy dance smiling ear to ear whooping yodeling type of thing). 

So Sunday I got to scrapbook too.  Bliss.

I was able to complete 4 layouts and get another one laid out.  Some of you are like 2 days and only 4 layouts!  What was she doing!?  I have to tell you that I am a slooooowwww scrapbooker.  It sometimes takes me 3 days to do one layout.  I know right, crazy.  But I am and always have been super slow because it takes me a long time to commit and start actually gluing stuff down. 

Two still need photos but that's okay.  Most of the time, I complete the layout and than decide which photos to use.  Weird but I know but I can't be the only person out there that does this. 

My goal lately has been to use what I buy and what I already have (stash).  Finding balance between the two, especially when you have hoarder tendencies, is hard but I have been managing to get some stuff used.  And you know what?  I am happier using this stuff than I was waiting for just the right project to put it on.  The right project seemed to never come but getting it on paper actually reminds me of why I bought it in the first place. 

The first layout is of my sweet little nephew.  Oh man I am crazy about this kid!  He makes me so happy.  I call him my little love sucker.  He is dangerous though.  Being around him really makes me want to have babies.  A lot of them........

Anddddd, I finished July's calendar page.  So, so happy with it.  Not sure what is happening but my style seems to be migrating to a more simple look.  Not sure if it is what I want to stick with as I'm normally an everything but the kitchen sink kind of girl........

 

And finally, this is the layout that I started.  I really don't have much to do before this one can be called done.  It's going up on eBay.  I always have holiday layout ideas to create for eBay.  The problem is 1) I am a slow scrapper and 2) I procrastinate.  Big time.  To the point where I will complete a Halloween layout just in time for Christmas :)lol.  Here is a look at the beginnings....

 

 

This week is going to be very challenging time-wise so I am glad that I got a good weekend of scrapping in.  My son, who is normally very independent with his work, is having a tough time with both English and Geometry (he's homeschooled).  So I am having to really walk him through exercises, examples and practice worksheets to get him understanding. 

Happy Monday guys and thanks so much for stopping by!

Beauty and the Beast

I was sitting in my favorite spot, gazing out the window when it occurred to my that my home is kinda like beauty and the beast.  My Christmas cactus was flowering again and the blooms were so beautiful........

but right next to it was.........

CLUTTER!

That seems to be a running trend in my house, favorite things right next to the clutter of winter inside life.  Magazines, homeschool papers, packaging, books, pens & pencils, and just plain ole junk.  Sigh.  It is an uphill battle around here and short of replacing my husband and kid there is nothing that I can do about it.  Oh well, c'est la vie.  If anyone knows where I can get a good set of blinders, I would love to hear about it:)

It is supposed to rain all day today (yeah me) and my plan is to scrapbook all. day. long.  My husband is cooking dinner tonight so I don't even have to take a break for that (woohoo).  I've got some inspiration cooking, a sketch all queued up and a stash kit hummin and ready.  Oh the joy.

 

Love me some pagemaps........

On another note, I found the most hilarious thing for my eBay store.  I love coffee cups and will buy them all day long.  I have hundreds of them.  Of course a few always manage to make their way into my personal collection but since my mug cabinet is full, I have to be more choicy these days about what I keep.  I have to really love it.  And take into account that my family is 100% onboard with my obsession and will bring me funky cups too. 

Anywho, apparently folks were not as politically correct in the 80's and were pretty direct about what needed to be said.  These cups crack me up!  I love them!! But they are going up for sale in a couple of weeks.  :(

That's it for me but I would love to hear from you.  Are you winning the battle against clutter in your house or have you just kinda given up and handed it over to the natives?  Thanks for stopping in and have a happy, scrappy weekend!!!!!

June Calendar Page One & Done

I find it hard to believe that not only did I finish the basic page, I put some photos on it.  I am working on putting the photos on February and March and hope to share those next week.  I am kind of undecided on which images to use as I have so many to choose from.  That is not a surprise and I talked about how adding more photo mats to months that more photos are taken was built into my plan. 

Can I just say that I am really loving this project?  June's papers are so, so pretty and the layout came together better than I pictured it in my head. 

I changed the title to something simpler than what I had planned but you know.  You can't have everything:)  Here are some of the details.....

 

How perfect is that saying?  Unbelievable that I still had it!!!!

 

<3 block="" much.....="" p="" so="" this="" title="">

One of the best things about how much creating I've been doing (other than getting my memories recorded) is how much of my stash I have been using.  Holy Moly I haven't scrapbooked this much in years!  I've been completing and sharing about 5 layouts a week.  It feels so good to rediscover products that I purchased bc they were so gorgeous actually come out of the package and get used.  Seeing my photos again also reminds me of why I got into scrapbooking in the first place. 

My husband takes hundreds of photos and before the days of being able to easily keep photos on your computer, we had everything printed.  I have boxes and boxes of photos.  Lately I have been scanning and printing my favorites before I organize them into their 4X6 sleeves.  It's been bringing lots of smiles and a few happy tears lol.  Let me tell you, this girl feels truly blessed!!

Anywho, one of the pictures that I came across was of me and my husband at a party.  We were dancing and someone snapped a pic of us.  All time favorite of us!  I was able to get it scrapped for the first time using a scraplift of Kelly Foster.  I love her style and really enjoyed trying to recreate her style.  Here's the layout.....

 

 

It took a loooong time to create!  There was a lot of drying time, and the techniques took a lot of time.  I didn't follow her videos, just kinda did my own thing to recreate the look, feel & placement of her layouts.  I really, really love her pages and had such a good time trying to put my spin on it.  I literally woke up thinking about creating this page:)

 

What about you?  Is there a scrapper or artist whose work you would love to recreate on your pages but are kinda nervous about trying to recreate bc it's not really your style?  Or do you just love from afar but stick completely to your own mojo?  I will definitely be doing this again but maybe not as much paint and ink and stuff.  I did enjoy though:) 

 

Thanks for stopping by aaannnnnddddd

 

****HAPPY FRIDAY****

Fearless

That's how I see my oldest daughter.  When she was in high school & college, she could not figure out what she wanted from life and as a result, spent a lot of time being frustrated with her life.  I think she was just a little fearful that she would not be able to find where she fit or that she would settle on the wrong thing. 

One day, she comes to me and says that she is going to live in NYC and work in the fashion industry.  From that day forward, every decision she made directly contributed to that goal.  And guess what?  She did it.  She was quite fearless about it too. 

She found a job before she had found a place to live.  Literally a few days before she was supposed to start, she got a call from an apartment that she was wait-listed on to tell her that a space had unexpectedly opened up and asking her if she could move in immediately.  Did I mention that the apartment was within walking distance of Times Square and that it cost less than $1000 a month?

That was the beginning.  She has been living in NY for a few years now and has since moved to a better apartment, more permanent job position and is more sure about her future.  I don't know if I would have been able to do what she has done when I was her age but I am sure proud of my fearless woman.

 

Can I say that I am crazy about how these hearts came out.  I saw a couple of layouts on pinterest that gave me this idea.  One had all the hearts stapled to the page behind a single, large photo mat and the other had all of these pieced together circles.  This is not scraplifted because it is nothing like either of the layouts that I saw, but they definitely sparked an idea. 

 

I did journal on this page but I had a lot to say so I put it on the back.  I do that a lot.  Another habit I have is to wait to put any information on my layouts.  Usually when I finish with a page, I am done and ready to move to the next. It is awful to not put any information on a page so what I normally do is stack the pages up and go back later to add information.  When I'm watching movies or TV, I will just pull out a stack, add the information that I want and put them in my albums.  Works for me.

 

How about you?  Do you add journaling and basic information as soon as you finish or do you go back and do it later? 

 

Thanks for stopping by and have a great Thursday!!!!!!!!

Ch-Ch-Ch-Changes

So my husband and I have been talking lately about life, babies and how babies affect life.  You know, the stuff you gravitate to over a glass (or bottle) of wine.  We are both amazed, no flabbergasted at how fast the years together have just flown by!  It is unbelievable to us that we have 3 kids wonderfully grown and gone (we are some proud parents friends!  Our kids are doing amazing despite all the mistakes we made and we could not be more grateful to God or happier about how well they are all doing!!) and 1 that will be leaving in a couple of years.  Astounding.  My dad keeps asking me what I am going to do when my little one leaves.  Ho Ho's and soap operas Dad.  Just sayin.  Remember Josh & Reva.  I bet I can find plenty of them on netflix........

We are excited.  Very Excited!  Not because having kids put our lives on hold, they didn't.  We really loved watching them grow and don't feel like we missed out on a single thing in life bc we had kids.  On the contrary, they made our lives incredibly fun and interesting.  They still do.  We get to vacation in 3 different states due to them:)  We're excited because we get to experience being a couple during a time in our lives where we are stable, happy and relatively free of the stress that comes from growing up.  Buying houses, paying for college, building savings, building careers, that kind of stuff.  We have more time and we appreciate each other so much more than we did when we were in our 20's.  The communication thing has gotten much better.  You get mad so quick when your 25 teehee.   

Anyway, my point.  Life will not be over for us.  We don't miss having our kids living with us.  gasp shock judge.  Every kid eventually has to find their own space.  Create their own life.  Walk their own path.  Our kids are doing a fantastic job and we are happy to see them thriving in their own homes.  We visit.  They visit.  We are still a happy family.  I still document their lives through my pages.  Our family did not go away bc our kids left home.  It has changed, certainly, but not for the worse.  It is great to be able to talk to them as adults because now I can be their friend.  When they were growing up, no.  Just no.  I feel much closer to them now because we can really talk without the pressure of responsibility (me for ensuring what they are doing is responsible and them for censoring what they tell me in case I don't find it acceptable).  This is a layout of me and my daughter in NYC.  The photos are awful, which illustrates what I am talking about bc they were taken on her iPhone when we visited her and she texted them to me.  It makes me smile whenever I look at it though.....

Just like our daily lives have changed, how I document has changed as well.  I am no longer able to take photos of them all the time.  I rely on facebook (still getting used to instagram and have been forbidden to clog up my girls account whatever that means), emails and texts to get the photos that I need for my pages.  We still get the big event photos as hubby and I make it a priority to celebrate their milestones with them but the everyday stuff is not so easy to come by. For my June calendar page I plan to use the family photo that we took in 2012 and individual photos of each of us this year to create a compare & contrast story for this month.

June marks the halfway point and it is very exciting to be closing in on done.  My album has not gotten too fat so I count that as a big success.  My original plan is still working out well for me too.  The pages are cohesive and will make sense when they are in an album together.  A few of the supplies that I plan on using.......

June's title will be something like "My How We've Changed" instead of summer or June.  I decided to not use a month or season in order to shake things up.  This will eventually be an album page and the month is on the actual calendar so no need to have it on the layout too.  I'll have to alternately title a few more pages to keep this from looking like a lame duck but that's fine.  Other than the title, I stuck to the recipe.  It is still making me happy and making it easy for me to get the pages done.  Normally at this point, I would have shoved the album in a to be completed drawer but this one has a good chance of becoming finished. 

In fact, here is the January page with a photo..........

I plan to use pictures of all of us in this album but since we don't all live together anymore and we don't see the kids every month I've had to include more photo mats.  Using individual photos taken in different places could be a challenge but the alternative is leaving our older children out of the family calendar and that is not an option for me.  By changing the photos to sepia, black and white or even a sketch the colors should become less of a focal point.  I could even use paper that has a lot of different colors (hello floral that I could not let go of) with black, kraft or white mats to keep the photos front and center.  I am also sure that my kids would be game for me making a photo request:) if it comes to that. 

Whew!  Sorry for the long post.  I guess that's what happens when you take years off your blog.  You get all wordy lol.  So tell me about how your photo taking, documenting habits have changed as your family has grown.  Do you feel that your layouts reflect the flow of your life?  Do you have a plan that you plan to stick to forever, no matter what?  I would love to hear your thoughts........

Thanks for stopping by and have a great day!!