Not A Traditional Thanksgiving

We spent Thanksgiving in Rome.  Rome!  The Italians don't celebrate Thanksgiving so I had to keep reminding myself of the importance of the day while we were there.  Not to be thankful mind you.  That I never forget.  But how unique it is that an entire country takes the time to focus a single day on being thankful.  And has been doing it for many, many years.  It's a beautiful thing:)

It is very hard not to be thankful in Rome, the city is so, so beautiful!!  Here are just a few photos that I took on my phone.  They haven't been touched up or edited so I cannot wait to see the after photos on a page.....

The half-shadow, half-light photos are so intriguing to me.  Many of the pictures that I took are in that style.  

Rome was mad expensive so the trip has gotten me to do a few budget reevaluations since we've been back.  

Keeping it Thankful!  My motivation is not to stop buying things just to save money.  My motivation is to stop buying things for the sake of buying things.  I want to buy things that I will use and that will be useful to me and my family.  Saving money is a bonus:)  

I narrowed my categories down to a few that will work for me and think that I'm going to focus on things that I: 

• Buy a lot of - Use a little of
• Buy a lot of - Use a lot of
• Buy a little of -Use a lot of
• Buy a little of - Use a little of 
• Buy just right (the sweet spot)
• How to get everything to buying just right and save a little cashola

If I can find a happy balance between buying and using, that's what I'll consider a success.  I've already started doing this in other areas like the kitchen and nail polish and it really has worked.  

Before we left, I did a few pages that I didn't get to post.  2 from Big Picture classes and a couple just because.  

Most of these pages are just meh for me.  Mostly because of the stress of getting ready for such a big trip.  That kind of pressure just freaks me out and I can't relax until we are all landed and settled in at the hotel.  This page is about my nieces visit this past summer.  Loved having these girls here and the time went way to fast..... 

We have lived all over the place and our kids have really been good about adapting and making the best of the changes.  New schools.  New friends.  New weather.  New environments.  Never close to family.  Never any complaints from them.  So grateful for all of their support......

Paige Evans Big Picture Classes Paige's Pages 3

I used my September 2017 Hip Kit to create this page.  I loved how Magdalena let her numbers fall off the edge and pool at the bottom of the page and did the same with my stars....

Big Picture Classes Magdalena Hanell Creative Titles

Fall in Rome.  I have no other words for this page than those.....

Thanks for stopping by and happy Hump Day!!!!

Layout Share

Oh photos.  The most difficult thing that I deal with as a scrapbooker is not that I don't like the pages that I create, but that I don't like the quality of the photos that I can get out of my editing software.  I know, I know.  If I improve my photography skills I won't have to rely so heavily on editing to fix my pictures.  Most of the time the photos are better but they still need to be tweaked.  And many of the photos that I use are from years ago from before I even began to scrapbook or owned a digital camera so those are really crap!  

Why am I talking about this today?  

This layout.....

and this one...

in addition to these 2 other pages.....

Would all make me so much more happy if I could get my dang photos to edit right!  The last 3 aren't so bad but the first one ugghh.  The photos came off of Instagram and they were impossible!  My friends, I will be taking a photo editing class soon.  For reals because this cannot go on.  Anywho.  

Thanks for stopping by and I hope that you have a fantastic weekend!

Totally Doable Scrappy Ideas

Sometimes I look at my supplies or my inspiration and the first thought that comes into my head is "I can't do anything with that" or "I can't do that".  Most of the time I'm dead wrong!  So much can be done with the supplies and inspiration in front of me that it's mind boggling!!  And most of the time it doesn't require a ton of time or effort, just a little imagination.  That's something we scrapbookers have by the ton:) eh.

Create a fun pattern with your fun patterns.  Totally inspired by this page by Stacy Cohen.  I decided to use the striped patterned paper as my base.  I popped the circles up and turned the stripes sideways to make them stand out.  I really liked her column design so stuck closely to that.  The edges of each circle are inked with black ink to make them more noticeable against the dark background of the paper...

Mix white and cream to create interesting layers and help dark photos stand out.  These photos had a lot of people, movement, bright colors, dark backgrounds.  In other words, a whole lot going on!   It was a party at an arcade so there were not going to be any good pictures coming out with my point and shoot camera so we had to work with what we got right?  My nephew had the best time though:)  He thought it was the best party ever.  I took my cue from the paper and used both white and cream layered together to create some drama and to help brighten up the photos a bit.  The bright colors and stark whites really helped......

Use large elements as part of the background and as part of the title.  My husband and I have been together for more than 20 years and while they have not been 20 perfect years, they have been very good ones.  I just love how this page came out.  The "0" of 20 was the perfect place for our photo and some clusters of embellishments to highlight it.  The rest of the title also fits perfectly underneath the photo.... 

You don't always have to fussy cut to create impact.  Pretend that you did by cutting paper into shapes and using leftover embellishments to decorate.  I have these terrible Christmas morning photos of my littlest opening gifts and our tree.  These photos are important because it was our first Christmas in this house all together as a family again after living in 2 separate states for 2 years.  It was simple to make "presents" with Christmas papers than top them with bows and other decorations.  They take some of the attention away from how terrible the photos are while still keeping the focus on the purpose of the page (long journaling on the back of the page).....

Thanks for stopping by and happy Tuesday!

October by the Numbers

Not a bad month if the numbers tell the truth.  Along with everything that I was able to create, I also made a decision about how I am going to keep the number of completed albums in my house from getting out of control.  Since I don't love all of the pages that I create and there are some that aren't important to our family story, I'm going to keep scrap boxes instead albums.  The boxes will hold those pages that I don't love but don't want to toss or pages that have been redone but that I still like the original pages and want to keep them too.  

I rescrap photos all of the time so I have quite a few that are on more than one page.  Most of the time, when I reuse a photo it's because I didn't capture the story in the way I wanted to so I'm okay with redoing the page and archiving the duplicate or in some cases, duplicates:)  No shame in my game folks.  There are just some photos that I LOVE and will use over and over again!

OK.  The numbers.  In October I happily managed to:

• Complete 46 layouts 
•                      Use 90 pieces of patterned paper  
•                      Use 29 packages of stickers & embellishments  
•                      Use 44 pieces of cardstock  
                     Use up 2 - 6X6 pads and 1 roll of washi tape. 

That is almost as much as what I did for 3 months!  I think I did good:)  Let's hope I can keep it moving through the holidays eh.  

Thanks for stopping by and Happy Friday!  I hope you have a fantastic weekend!!

Assembling Inspiration That Works

Variety is the key for me.  Even when I pin things, if I am going to use a pin as inspiration for a page, I have to print it out.  Weirdo alert:) right?  But it works for me.  I like the feel of paper in my hands and that habit probably won't change anytime soon.  

About a year or so ago I realized that all of my things were spread out all over my different spaces and that if there was an idea or something I needed to get my eyes on, it was not going to be found easily.  Office supply store to the rescue.  A simple white binder + a hole punch + a little discipline = a much better approach to my elusive inspiration accessibility issue.  

My system is crazy!  It starts with a list of starting points that get used the most and ends with me sitting down at my computer for about 30 minutes each week printing out and compiling what inspiration is going to get used with what product.  See.  Crazy:).  But it works for me.  I'll talk more about it (with some photos of it) and how I use it in my next few post.  

Last time I posted I talked about how I need a starting point.  The blank page just paralyzes my creativity most of the time but since creating the inspiration binder I've really been able to keep my mojo flowing and my hands busy with projects.  Like this one using a random cute photo of my girl.  Most of my pages seem to be about my girl but she is the only one of my kids that gets me regular photos!  I really like this shot of her.....

Stitching, filling big letters and white space are nothing new.  My Pinterest boards are filled with layouts using these techniques and I wanted to give it a try.  I love the black and white washi border, the RGBIVish paper behind my letters and the simpleness of the page.  

This page was about a super, incredibly hot day at Disney.  By the end of it we were done with Summer and ready for some cool weather lol.  The kids didn't even want to go outside it was so freaking hot!  

I normally get my sketch inspiration from pagemaps but here in the last couple of years I've been branching out.  Pinterest makes it so easy to find and credit sketch sites that i've gotten away from Becky's sketches a bit.  I still print them out every month though and always will.  Loyal fan here!  The #over summer page was made with a Studio Calico Sunday sketch from 2013.  

This page was born because I wanted to use my colored pencils to color the edges of a scallop:)  Randomness.  Gotta love it:)  These 2 were so excited to spend an entire day in their costumes and they were absolutely adorable.......

I will go back and cover up that phone with some journaling or a banner.  Something.  My main editing software is still out for the count so my photo quality is not good if a photo has to be cropped or manipulated too much.  This will probably not change until my husband and I can agree on what type of computer to get next.  We are trying to decide if we should bite the learning curve bullet and just get a Mac.  

Is it wrong that I am in love with the Crate Paper Wonder Alpha's on this page and that is the first thing I think about when I look at it?  I'm sure that feeling will fade with time and the focus will go back to Q's decision to go to this college over all of the others he had to choose from.....

I seriously can't believe it's Wednesday already folks!  Thanks for stopping by and happy Humpday!!

Scraplifting 101

Scraplifting does not always mean that a layout is copied exactly.  Most of the time when I scraplift, it is through placement, technique or color scheme.  Sometimes an idea is so brilliant that it has to be copied exactly and that's okay but the reason that most people share what they do is to inspire others.  And this girls always inspired lol.  I have about 25,000 pins on my Pinterest board that I want to try:)

I have a serious "fear of the blank page syndrome" and many times will get stuck if I try to start with just supplies.  But if I have a plan to start with, it goes much easier for me.  Usually, my scraplifted pages look nothing like their parents.  And that is because it is truly about a color idea or a placement or maybe how someone used an embellishment or technique in a certain way.  

Of course, I do have my own ideas and use them all the time.  But I make so many pages and have so many pages to make that I really want to create as many layouts as humanly possible before I go to the big LSS in the sky.  Just sayin....

This page was just a simple L shaped design with clusters.  A classic design that requires no thought for me.  This design works with most papers and most embellishments.  No scraplifting required.......

This page was scraplifted.  The original is pinned here and is by Sasha Farina.  Her hand stitching is fantabulous and I have been wanting to get better at that.  Yeah no.  I ended up ditching the hand stitching attempt and just machine stitching.  But her placement, circles and embellishment clusters were exactly the thing for this layout.  She does not do mixed media and her pages are typically clean and simple so you can really see in the differences between what I did and what she did on the original page, how you can pick and choose which ideas from a page you will use and how.......

All of the supplies came from my August 2017 Hip Kit Club.  

I had never done a mixed media sketch before.  It was kinda fun.  This is the sketch I used.....

This is my page.....

The supplies are from my May 2017 Hip Kit Club.   

My final scraplift of the day.  This page is by Vicky Chrisman I think and I really liked how she placed the orange paper and the photo.  That's what I lifted.  I know right!  Not a lot but a perfect example of how just having a starting place can get you moving and result in what turned out to be my favorite page of the day.......

Used more stuff from my Hip Kit.  This time all the things came from August 2017.

Hubby had an eye appt yesterday so being that I am an amazingly fantastic wife.  Yes, I had errands to run;)  I got to stop at Michael's and pick up a couple of things.  Like this tape runner border thing that is very new to me but looks cute and easy to use......  

Has anyone tried it?  If you have I would love to hear your thoughts good bad or ugly.  

Thanks for stopping by and Happy Hump Day!

We saw so many cute ghouls and goblins last night and it was so nice to see kids out filling the night with laughter and life.  Hope you had a great Halloween too:)