Memories Long Past

Lately, my pages have been made using memories long past.  It makes me wonder how much of the story has been forgotten.  Of course, it's too late to do anything about it now but the thought of losing our families history has motivated me to start playing caught up instead of catch up. 

I won't worry so much about the order that I make my layouts or trying to work from oldest to newest.  I must print the important photos from today and get those stories down before they are forgotten.  Looking at the photos of my Granny holding my youngest (something that I had totally forgotten about) kinda woke me up to the fact that my mind is not a vault and I can't remember everything.  So starting right now, today, I will put more effort into printing my photos on a regular basis and not relying on the photos that are already in my hands just because it is easier to use what is already printed than to print more. 

That being said, here are a couple of layouts that I completed using the old photos.  I finished some more pages this week that I will be printing photos for and posting later.  I have a pile of them that need some photos. 

First up, our family map reader.....

 

 

This was a great trip and I am so happy that I was able to record how much Quentin loves to be our tour guide when we travel. 

 

Next up is this lo about my MIL and niece. 

 

 

 

I have had that piece of Basic Grey die-cut paper forever!  Even though I have purged my stash a few times, I have never been able to let it go but let me tell you, it was super hard to use!!  I should have just framed it for my wall.  I have a few more sheets of the BG die-cut paper from other collections and hopefully they will be much easier to use.  How do you use challenging papers and embellishments that you love, but that might not fit into how you scrap? 

 

Thanks for stopping by and have a great Thursday! 

 

 

 

Near & Dear to My Heart

I don't know why but sometimes it seems as if some stories and the layouts that I create with them are closer to my heart than others.  Do you ever feel that way, do you know what I mean?  This layout

 

falls in the close to my heart category.  I had forgotten that I had this photo.  This little guy is the only one of my children that my Grandmother met as a baby and was able to hold.  She passed away several years ago so it was truly emotional for me to hold and see this photo.  I love how intent they are on one another and I wonder what it is that she is saying to him.  The moment was really brief.  In fact I didn't even remember the day.  Yeah.  That's why I scrapbook and it's why my husband takes photos. 

 

I actually used this sketch from Studio Calico to create this page.  I have had it in my to do pile since 2013 so was glad to finally get to use it.  As usual, my page looks nothing like the sketch:)

 

 

 

The next one is another photo that brought back a lost memory for me.  My two oldest when they were little.  We loved to do weekend adventures and my husband took this one of them at this park that overlooked the sea.  The picture is awful.  Truly just awful and no amount of doctoring improved it enough to make it lo worthy but, and this is a big but, it is not the photo that makes this photo special.  It is the little glimpse that it gives at the relationship these 2 kiddos had when they were little.

 

 

 

My daughter was so thrilled to have a "baby" and she adored him.  I love how he is leaning in to her and the smiles that they both have on their faces. 

 

The design on this lo was actually inspired by this digital page that I pinned.  Sigh, again looks nothing like it and I just loved that page.  About the only thing that is similar is the linear design and strips of paper beneath the photo. 

 

My thought on this is that inspiration can sometimes = 100% copy but it is so important to keep you in your projects.  And that's what I try to do.  I want to branch out and try new things so that everything I create does not look the same.  Same colors, same basic design, same techniques.  That's not for me.  But if I let myself be inspired by the things I see, things stay interesting.  Okay, enough of my babble. 

 

Thanks so much for stopping by and guess what?  It's humpday!!!!!

 

Have a happy one!

Trading Pages

How often do you see pages made by other people and you realize that they used supplies that you just ordered or things that are already in your stash?  I see that often and I always wonder about what I would do differently or how I would treat the different elements on the page.  So I decided to give the idea a try.  I recently purchased this sticker sheet that I just love and decided that I would do a project,  than get online and get nosy about what other crafties created with the same thing. 

I used to love the scrapbook magazine articles that gave 3 scrappers the exact same products to create with.  It always amazed me how they came up with totally different ideas and how the products looked so much different depending on how they treated them.  I guess that this type of things is still done a lot, especially with kits and such, but I wanted to do it on a smaller level.  Just one sticker sheet and one page.  I should have it finished by Friday or Monday at the latest and will do a post about my results. 

I am still busy in my craft room and I must have babies on the brain because 50% of my layouts are about babies.  My babies this time.  I can't get enough of doing pictures about my daughter when she was a baby.  I guess cause she was my first and such an incredible child.  I was so very, very lucky that she was my first! 

 

 

This layout about my youngest was an idea gone wrong.  Of course it will go into my album but man on man did I have a hard time with it.  The picture didn't come out right and the present idea just fell flat in the end.  The layout is okay but I think that I will try again on another page to get it right.  To get it to come out the way it looks in my head....

 

 

 

Thanks for stopping by and I hope that you had a fantastic day!

The Face

My son makes this weird face whenever the camera turns in his direction.  It made its first appearance in the first grade.  Pretty mild, we had no idea what was coming with this thing.  Over the years it has gotten more and more "facey" and less and less picture sharing friendly.  Our family is pretty outspoken about quirks so we hear "why is he making that face" a lot.  He's in the 10th grade now and still does it.  Sigh. Let's just hope that by the time he gets married, the face has been replaced.  

 

 

 

I absolutely love watching scrapping videos and have probably seen about 2 bazillion.  Two peas were my favorites but I am also a fan of Nichol Magouirk, Studio Calico, Jen Gallacher, Jen McGuire, Elena Morgun, Victoria Marie, Banning Lane, and about 40 or 50 other scrappers lol.  Anywho, this weekend, I decided to try to follow one using my own supplies.  It was soooo fun.  I loved it.  And it was easy.  I did Jen Gallacher's latest Make it Meaningful video. Here is a link to hers.  Here is mine......

 

 

 

To title or not to title?  The decision is much harder than it should be.  The page is so bright & colorful that it really doesn't need one.  Hmmmm, I guess I'll just have to wait for the photos to decide.  Is it weird that I made this without photos? 

 

I changed the elements up some, of course, for several reasons.  To make it more mine, to accommodate the supplies that I had on hand and to use my favorite techniques but you can still very much see her influence.  I love that she is willing to share her creativity and so appreciate her talent.  How about you?  Do you ever scrap along to videos or do you just watch them and keep it moving? 

 

I plan to add the photos later on today.  I'm thinking I will put 3 on this page.  One in the frame, one on the star envelope and one to the left of the frame above the star envelope.  I have no idea which photos I am going to use but am sure that I can find the perfect ones on Facebook. 

 

Wow!  Seriously, it's Monday.  Again.  Just kinda speechless about how fast time is flying by but I hope that you have a fantastic Monday anyway!!!  Thanks for stopping by:)

Photo Storage

So my very technical method of storing photos

 

is not working out.  At all.  As you can see in the photo above, my photos are getting damaged.  On top of that, who wants to look through this mess?  I sure don't which is one of the reasons that I have been putting it off for so long.  But, I finally got my rear in gear (see how I kicked that rhyme in? that's the 80's in me) and started sorting them.  I realize that I have been talking and talking about this for well over a month but seriously, we had 8 boxes that looked just like this.  Let's not even talk about how I was storing my oversized photos and portraits.  geesh. 

 

 This project is humming right along.  These are my last 2 boxes and I have just been grabbing a handful of photos to sort each day.  By the end of this month, I should have them all sorted and I think that by the end of summer I will be done with this. 

 

Michael's has Project Life page protectors on sale so I bought a bunch of them (the big box of 60 was about $10).  Hobby Lobby had the We R Memory Keepers, which I prefer, on sale for $7 for 10 protectors with the different sized pockets.  I bought their last 3 packs and can't find them anywhere else locally.  Which is the reason that I switched to the PL ones.  Hopefully they will be as durable as the WRMKs ones. 

 

I color code my albums.  Somewhat anyway.  I use blue or black leather for my layouts but this pretty green leather album will be used for my photos.

 

 

It looks really bright right?  But it's not.  It is a really pretty shade of green.  WRMK's albums are just lovely.  Very sturdy and they hold a lot of pages.  The ones that I purchased years and years ago look just as good as the ones I purchased last week and that makes me happy.  Plus, the rings don't slip so I don't have to worry about my pages falling out.  Which is annoying and does not make me happy :(. 

 

On the scrappy front, I have been spending so much time creating layouts and putting off journaling (and on some of them not even adding photos.  I have a stack of about 15 layouts with no photos.  What!) that I had to take some time to start adding the journaling.  And that is just what I have been doing.  So I've only been making a page a day.  But that is still really good for me.  

 

I do have one layout that I would like to share today.   It is about how awful of a sport my little guy was.  Bad combo in my house.  My husband does not believe in going easy on a newby and my oldest son, well once he finds out that something bothers Q, he will do it just to be aggravating. 

 

 

 

 

Well that's it for me.  Thanks for dropping in and have a great weekend!!!!!

 

Keeping it Real.

I created a layout yesterday and I just hate it!  I really do.  I have already recreated it a couple of times but am still so unhappy with it.  The colors aren't right, the paper is really, really warped and the composition is off.  So what now?  It's going into my album.  Warts and all.  Maybe one day I will come to love it.  Maybe my kids will love it.  But it stays.  The memory is what matters and this was a great day in one of my favorite cities.  So here is the layout in all of its bumpy, ugly glory.......

 

On the other hand, these layouts I am really happy about.....

 

 

The photos on this page were taken at Kings Dominion and my people were not happy about having to stop and take photos for me.  They were all about rides and food lol.  I like the simplicity of the page and how the elements just gelled.  And I used a little bit of everything on it.  Brads, enamel dots, scraps, stitching, rub-ons, washi tape, etc but the stuff just all works together so nicely ........

 

 

 

This layout is about a trip we took to the "beach" here in Maryland.  It was not any kind of beach I have ever been to and we have not been back.  There were a ton of horse shoe crabs in the water so the boys were all in.  Not me.  Once I saw one of those crabs I was done with it.

 

This photo is typical of my boys, even now.  They get along really, really well and they played together all the time when Aaron was still living at home, despite the age difference.  These pictures make me happy because you can really see the difference in their ages but how happy they are to play together despite it.......

 

 

On both of these pages, I journaled on the back of the page.  Both have some journaling on the front but there was a lot more that I wanted to say so I flipped them over and had at it.  It's not pretty but it really feels like a note to my kids about what was really happening in the photos and any back story that may not be as obvious. 

 

 

That's it for me today.  I cannot believe that it is Thursday already!  Seriously where has this week gone? 

 

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

 

 

Not So Great Photos

but a fantastic memory.  When my kids were little, they loved Chuck-E-Cheese.  What kid doesn't?  So we ended up there at least once a month.  Quentin & Destiny loved that little car that spits out a photo after you ride it so I have a handful of these blurry, black & white photos of them.  I decided what the hell.  My scrapbooks, a very good memory, they are going on a page.  The photos make me smile every time so that's got to be worth something right? 

Can I say that I just love how bright and colorful the layout is.  Man those pictures are making me even happier now!

 

It's simple and doesn't have a ton of stuff but I am finding that if I use bright colors, I need to use less embellishment.  If I use very soft or monochromatic colors, more stuff looks good on the page.  Could that be a new rule of thumb?  Maybe.

 

I don't have much today so I will leave you with wishes for a very happy humpday and a photo from an evening well spent.  If you have not done this, I highly recommend it!  There were giggles, lots of singing and some really bad jokes flying around:)

 

 

 

Thanks for stopping by..............