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!