Shotgun Doubles

At the end of last summer, my sisters, mom, and I (along with a few of the younger cousins) enjoyed a beautiful day in the French Quarter. After lunch we spent a couple of hours just walking around with our cameras. It's such an awesome place to practice taking pictures. I loved the colors of these homes in the more residential section:

This page was scrapped with the December "All The Lights" kit and add-on from Scraptastic.  The little camera was hand cut from a sheet of October Afternoon's Midway collection:

Again, my favorite part of the kit are these sew-it-yourself banners. This one is raised a bit with pop dots under each of the little flags:

 

The scrabble tile chipboard alphas are so handy and chock full of multiples of every letter:

Thanks for looking!

Remembering The Good Times

The journaling on this layout reveals something pretty amazing. I had not intended to scrap this photo, but when Kevin came across it recently, and remarked on it, I had to preserve the memory...of his memory! It seems like this meal at Chef Mickey's is the one thing he remembers from our trip to Walt Disney World over ten years ago. He was only 1 1/2 years old, but remembers eating Mickey shaped waffles. He claims that it is the very first memory of his life. How cool!

 

Another of those October Afternoon banners becomes my focal embellishment, its little snippets of illustration and text recalling a carnival or county fair. The colors (red, blue, and yellow) repeat those of my photo.

The condiment holder in my picture was inspiration for the Mickey silhouettes on my page. The Mickey shapes were created with my die-cutting machine by combining two different sized circles and welding them together. One of the Mickeys stands in for the "O" in Pluto's name.

 

This die cut title couldn't be more appropriate! When we took our family to Disney World back in 2001, we knew the four older kids would leave with some very special memories of our trip. I am delighted to know that Kevin also remembers a bit about our wonderful visit with the mouse!

Tickled Pink

Whenever a Scraptastic kit arrives at my doorstep, I inevitably pull out some of our family's Disney pictures from our 2011 trip...and hope to scrap at least one of them. It's the vacation photo stack that goes on and on and on! And yes, I did find a fun photo to go with all the colorful goodness in December's All The Lights kit. In the picture, a perfectly pink Piglet visits with two of my boys during lunch at the Crystal Palace. I love the smiles and Piglet's delightful pose. Everyone looks tickled pink!

Using a bunch of random sized strips, I arranged a colorful backdrop for my picture, and placed a journaling block abutting the photo. Then, I embellished. The sew-it-yourself banners are amazingly easy to put together, and have to be my favorite part of this kit. One of them stretches across the page just beneath my photo. Here are some closeups of the page:

 

Vintage Photo Treasure

Every so often, I find a real photo treasure. This is one of them. The little boy in knickers is Tommy's dad, the grandfather of my kids, and the women in the snapshot are his sisters. Midge, on the left, died in early adulthood, but we all knew and loved Aunt Rita. Next to her is the "boy-across-the-street" and, at one time, her beau!

 

Heather's sketch (below) was the inspiration for my page design. Although I used only one photo in landscape orientation, you can still recognize a couple of the sketch details: the three horizontal banners, and the three accent spots, where I placed my doilies.

A couple closeups:

 

Check out the Scraptastic blog for more examples with this sketch, complete challenge info, and a chance to win a Scraptastic kit. Thanks for looking!

December Not-So-Daily 2012

It's going to be a bit different than most December Dailies. For one, there's a good chance it will not be daily...a real good chance! Secondly, my format will be more like Project Life, 12x12 with page protectors. I bought a "variety pack" of 10 protectors to start. I figure that's 20 pages if you count back and fronts, and it will be pretty good if I actually accomplish that many!

Last week I began assembling all the fun elements that will be used in creating my December Not-So-Daily.  A few pages have been started: one element created, with paper scraps and additional embellishments at the ready. Whether or not more paper inserts for journaling/embellishing are needed will depend on the pictures I take and the stories I want to tell. And all that will be determined as the days progress.  As photos are taken, processed, and added, the order of pages will become self-evident as well. Here are four of my pages in progress:

1. The angel was one that I created for a swap some 9-10 years ago! I tore off her patterned paper wings and added a half doily instead.

2. A row of crackled houses (chipboard cut with a Tim Holtz die; thanks Lara!) will adorn one of my pages.

3. I had to try my hand at this ornamental hand drawn tree, an idea borrowed from this Pinterest pin.

4. And finally, leftover letter stickers in various shades of green, red, and gold were collaged for a 2-inch page border. So fun!

I almost can't wait to start snapping pictures and filling in my days!

Fall Somewhere Else

Today I scrapped a photo from 25+ years ago, back in the 80s, when my oldest daughter was a toddler. We had not been on a vacation since becoming parents, and here we were road tripping it to Pennsylvania to visit Tommy's aunt in Philly. Maw Maw and Paw Paw were traveling with us. I guess we took two cars, as we didn't have a van at the time. Gas must have been relatively cheap! One day during our visit, we headed out for some sightseeing in the surrounding countryside. Somewhere along the way, we spotted this bridge, a covered bridge, right out of a Currier & Ives scene! Today I googled "covered bridge Pennsylvania" and discovered that this was the Knox Bridge in Valley Forge.

Fabric letters from American Crafts, and tiny letter stickers from Lily Bee Designs make up the title:

A few shiny mini-pearls from Doodlebug Designs enhance a sticker from Simple Stories :

And my favorite part, a patchwork heart wound with twine:

(This page was scrapped entirely with Scraptastic's Farmer's Market main kit and add-on.)

Car, Firetruck, & VW Bug

The Studio Backlot Tour at Walt Disney World's Hollywood Studios takes visitors through what is known as the "boneyard". The boneyard is a place where old vehicles go to await their rebirth...and another spot in a TV show or movie. A simple coat of paint can turn a wreck around and give it a new lease on life. The yellow car, vintage firetruck, and old VW bug were three of the vehicles in the yard. The old chopped-in-half Volkswagon actually runs!

 

Supplies are a mix of Simple Stories (paper, stickers, letter stickers), Crate Paper (stickers, letter stickers, chipboard accent), American Crafts (chipboard lettering) and Studio Calico (wood veneer).

Thanks for looking!

What We Call Fall

With the season-inspired Farmers Market kit from Scraptastic, I was determined to create a fall page, even though our fall photos show a season very different than that experienced by those of you to the north of us. This photo of my son in front of his school on an early fall day shows exactly what our fall is like around here...green grass and leafy trees. Thus my title was born:

Stacking the bingo cards provided a resting place for a few small embellishments.

TIP: The pop dots that give the green leaf a bit of added dimension serve double duty. The heart and flower pins are stuck into the foam dots, keeping them secure and protecting both pages and fingers from errant pokes and holes.

Flowers, little birds and a green tree are layered on and around the large letters of my title. They look particularly nice popped up with foam.

Funny thing, but in creating this page, I must have jinxed myself. We woke up to some frigid temps this past week. Not freezing mind you, but with lows in the 40s, high humidity and whipping winds, it was darn cold for us tender southern gals! I think I'm ready to hibernate until spring!

Layering, Stacking, and Overlapping

In assembling a collection of elements on a scrapbook page or card, it is visually appealing to layer, stack, and/or overlap the embellishments. November's Scraptastic kits gave me plenty of fodder for layering. Here is a page created with The Skies Are Grey main kit.

This layout shows just how much one single piece of paper can do: large strips back the photo, flowers are punched, hand-cut hearts are strung across the top of the page, and a few small strips form a banner over the journaling block...and all from one sheet of patterned paper! 

Notice how the flowers overlap each other, as do the hearts, banner pieces, and the tag, tabs and flag above the photo. Everything is layered.

A couple of Mickey-eared globes were cut from white cardstock and placed among the hearts.

Finally, flowers were punched from several of the patterns and arranged to form a pretty coordinating cluster. 

Scrapbooking these pages of our family vacation take me back to those wonderful days at Walt Disney World, Mickey's perfect world.

Happy Anniversary

Don't look now, but I made a card! With my parents' anniversary fast approaching, and all sorts of wonderful miscellany on my desk from Scraptastic's When Skies Are Grey kit, it was a no-brainer.

A variety of fun elements are casually layered beneath and on top of a doily from the kit. 

 Watercolor crayons and a water brush were used to mix a coordinating shade of blue paint. Liberally washed with this color, the Heidi Swapp Color Magic Resist tag picked up the blue nicely, leaving a white quatrefoil outline.

I can't remember the last time I gave a handmade card; hope they like it!

Zombies Are Trending!

Seriously, they are everywhere! I found this one hanging around our porch on Halloween night:

This past summer, when my 19 year old was home from college, he got me hooked on the TV show, The Walking Dead. I hurriedly watched all of season 1 and 2 on Netflix, and now look forward to Sunday nights when I can catch the current season's episodes. Who would have thought?!

Sorry CSI, Criminal Minds, Blue Bloods, etc.,...but my true love is sci-fi.  Another apocalyptic type series that I just can't miss is Revolution. Kevin has been watching it with me, and we were really bummed to find that the Saints Monday Night Football game preempted the newest episode! Horror!

5 Stockings

More of these Echo Park papers were layered up for yet a third page with the This & That Christmas collection. I love all the vintage looking images of Santa, and the stockings on the mantle. 

Speaking of mantles, I wish ours didn't have a beveled edge. We have lost so many stocking holders to the ceramic tiles beneath. I had so carefully chosen my favorite Santa figurines to hold the seven stockings, one for each of the kids, and another two for Tommy and I. Now we are down to four. The five kids' stockings get displayed, four on holders and the fifth on a nail. Actually, the nail is a pretty good idea...and a safe bet for stockings that might otherwise pull down a ceramic Santa with them!

This page was a snap to put together. I didn't even fuss with letter stickers for a title, but used cut outs from the papers instead.

A few stickers round out the decorations.

And there you have it...a simple and quick bit of layering and I'm done! Ooops...now that I've photographed it, I am remembering that I wanted to add twine or ribbon to the green tag. Oh well...envision that addition if you will!

Our (Christmas) Tree

One of my favorite types of patterned paper are those with tickets, tags, receipts, and other cut-out-able artifacts. I used several on a page about my Christmas tree. The journaling block, North Pole receipt, and Festival of Trees ticket, were all part of Echo Park's This & That Christmas collection. On top is a Santa image, punched from another of the collection's papers and adhered to a chipboard circle. Peeking out from these beneath these layers are two more of my favorite paper embellishments, a viewmaster reel and bingo card. I love those little random pieces. They add fun details without the bulk.

Here's my completed page with three little trees randomly cut from various patterned paper:

This year I thought I'd like to take a few pictures of my favorite ornaments. But gosh...where to start?!

Another Try At Pool Pics

A week after my first attempt at shooting indoor swim meet photos, I had the opportunity to try again. The same venue late in the afternoon offered little to no outside light, but I gave it a shot anyway. I paid particular attention to focus, but still most of my photos were not sharp enough to satisfy me. This was not an easy task!

Thankfully the team's next event will be a Halloween party, outdoors around their practice pool. I hope the weather will be nice so that I can capture some better photos with natural light. 

Here are a few of my pictures from today:

 

 

   

And here's my swimmer. He knocked time off of most of his events, and swam 50 fly for the first time in a meet! Way to go Kevin!

Christmas in July

Christmas-time was hectic and the gingerbread house kit bought last December never was assembled...until I spotted it one hot July morning on the top shelf of the pantry. Putting it together was a fun diversion for a summer day. I snapped a photo quickly, knowing it wouldn't be in this condition for long. Sure enough, bit by bit, it was devoured.

Most of the papers are from Echo Park's This & That Christmas collection, with a few scraps from other papers thrown in for good measure.