Old, New, Orange, Blue!

 When choosing papers for this swim team page, no holds were barred. I rooted through my stash, through papers I haven't seen in years, to find the colors I wanted...orange and blue...and lots of it!

But not everything is old! Below is one of my current favorites, a chipboard transparency frame from Crate Paper's Boys Rule collection:

And flair from one of my Scraptastic kits:

And those awesome bush script foam letter stickers from American Crafts:

I had fun mixing it all up on this page, and felt good about putting to use all the "older" product from the piles under my desk. I spy an old Basic Grey brad and even a bit of vellum! Nothing goes out of style in my scrapbooks. ;)

Summer Reminiscing

I'm so sad to see the carefree days of summer come to an end. Kevin is especially disappointed! Already things are becoming hectic, and I'm afraid it's only going to get worse. He has begun his twice a week 5:15 AM swim practices for high school. Add that to his everyday afternoon year-round practices, throw in a little homework (ok...well, a LOT of homework) and yes, things are going to get hectic. So let's do a little reminiscing with a layout and a few to-be-scrapped photos of Kevin from our summer vacation.

I scrapped one of my favorite pictures with the Sail kit from Scraptastic:

Ahhh...beach days are the best! 

Here are a few more pictures that will be finding their way onto a page someday:

Relaxing in the Papasan chair.

Heading out to ride the waves. 

Always silly.

Calm seas make for easy paddle boarding.

Taking it easy.

Life is great!

I'm not sure I can wait a whole year for our next beach week! 

Pinterest Inspiration

I had the Pinterest Monday blog post for Scraptastic this week, and here is the interesting pin that I found to inspire my projects:

 

My scrapbook page, Ice Cream Sundaes, drew upon the orderly arrangement of the colorful graphic, as well as the goodies inside those circles and stars.

I punched several circles, filling them with birthday-themed die-cuts and stickers from Scraptastic's Celebration kit (candles, an ice cream cone, a party hat). In a couple of spots, I forgo the circle for larger die-cut shapes (a cupcake and a present) then let balloons stand in for circles along the entire top row of the design. A mix of upper and lower case letters in my title adds to the playfulness of the layout. The two close-ups show how pop dots give dimension to the die-cut birthday symbols, lifting them slightly off the page.

After my layout was complete, I gathered together a few leftover circles, die-cuts and stickers and created a card using a similar circle/grid design. It is so easy when all the coordinating papers and embellishments are already out on my desk. Basing the design off my page, it took no time at all!

Now I'm craving a cupcake or ice cream sundae! How about you? Yum!

American Crafts: Faves from my Gallery

As my wonderful time on the American Crafts design team comes to an end, I thought I'd revisit some of my favorite projects from the past year. Some were assignments for the blog; others were gallery layouts of my choosing.

In no particular order, these are a few of my faves:

And to make it an even dozen, here's the last page I created for the gallery over at the American Crafts blog, Catching That Last Wave of the Day...pretty appropriate:

It's been fun!

Let Them Eat Cake...Pancake!

It's true. The August Celebration kit from Scraptastic and its add-on have a lot of thematic papers and embellishments geared towards birthdays and birthday parties. But here's what else you can do with the kit...and I think it's pretty fabulous.

Consider the patterned papers. The "b-sides" are some of my favorite! Many of the die-cuts and stickers also work well for non-birthday pages, especially the wordless tabs, labels, tags, and arrows. And the colors of this kit are drool-worthy to say the least.

Here's my layout loosely based on an awesome sketch that Susan Stringfellow created for Scraptastic's 4th Anniversary Celebration:

The white die-cut phrase was a leftover from a previous kit and the enamel dots were from my stash, but everything else can be found in the Celebration main kit or its add-on.

I pulled out all my leftover enamel dots and used the smallest to embellish the wood veneer gumball machine:

Funny how the "Let Them Eat Cake" sticker works with my page about PANcakes!

I'll surely create at least one more birthday page (we do have seven birthdays in this very house each year!), but my plan is to use much of the paper for other happy colorful pages and save the extra themed stickers from the kit for cards, as I'm always looking for birthday card sentiments!

Surprise!

We wanted to make this party easy on my not so mobile 90-year old Dad...so we threw him a surprise party at his own house! All the details were planned in secret with my sisters and brother. Everything was hush-hush. Then on the big day we all just started showing up...with food, decorations, and more food. It was quite the surprise.

I ended up with (3) 4x6 photos that I wanted to scrap together, groupings of my dad with his grandkids, his children, and our accompanying spouses. I went with a design that I like to refer to as building blocks. The three photos are placed one on top the other along one edge, with a border strip (or two). Then I start layering patterned paper. It's like stacking blocks, or with them askew...tumbling blocks!  There's a substantial base, but as you go up the papers become narrower, less cluttered with embellishment, and more of the background peeks through. 

But did you notice? My photos do the opposite! The busier photo on the top would have competed too much with the heavily embellished block on the bottom right. Consequently, I placed the photo with the fewest people in that bottom left spot and the busiest up top. Much better.

It is so fun to decorate a page when you have as many happy embellishments as there are in the Scraptastic Celebration kits-an embellishment gold mine. In fact, I had to restrain myself as not to overwhelm the eye.

Check back tomorrow for a non-birthday page scrapped with the same Scraptastic kit. It's a favorite of mine!

To Be Continued...

Here we go! The last few days of freedom are slipping by and we are trying to squeeze everything in. Everyday it's something.

Tuesday was the orthodontist, Kevin's "records" visit, the beginning of a long, arduous, and expensive process which hopefully result in one spectacular smile!

Wednesday was Used Book Sale Day, which had me leaving the house around 6:00, arriving 6:30, and waiting, waiting, waiting for the 8:00 AM opening. Yes, it's that important, because what I don't get used and at half price, he'll need to buy full price next week!

Yes...it begins next week...the new school year. Summer just wasn't long enough...again.

Here's a picture I scrapped from June, when school seemed so far away:



The patterned papers and Thickers title are from Amy Tangerine's Plus One collection, with beachy stickers, sheer die-cuts, and flair all from American Crafts' #Summer collection. I love how they work together on this page.

Don't you wish summer (and vacation from school) would continue just a little longer? I'm so not ready for this.

So Fun

It's been so long since we've had a little one at the beach with us! This year, along with the crowd of teens and young adults, there was my niece's adorable son...and we sure had fun taking pictures with him.  As I noted in the journaling on my layout, my sisters and I were like paparazzi around the little guy, trying to capture all those precious first moments in the water and sand.

Isn't he the cutest?!

On top of the woodgrain background, I used a die-cut circle design, backed by patterned papers, and topped with beachy icons, brads, buttons, and flair, from various American Crafts collections. The free die-cut file, created by my friend Susan Stringfellow, can be found on her Disney Scrappers site HERE.

I usually scrap beach pictures loud and bright, but in trying to combine beach and baby, I kept to a more subdued palette here...peach and aqua, with tiny pops of color. I think it worked well. 

Have a great day!

Sugar Rush

I'm not sure what possessed me that day; we must have been craving sweets! We came out of Krispy Kreme with a dozen of the most beautiful sugar-topped creations ever. Some had an almost tie-dyed look with swirls of color...greens, blues, violets. Some were covered with bright eye-popping sprinkles. And some were dipped in chocolate. Mmm-mmm...good! I had to take pictures and scrap them.

This page was created with Scraptastic's Either Way kit and add-on as an example for a color challenge that I posted during Scraptastic's Birthday celebration this past weekend. All of the games and challenges can be found HERE. Check it out as entries can be submitted on the appropriate threads through Sunday, August 10th for a chance to win prizes. The grand prize is a 3 month Scraptastic subscription!

The pinked-edge circles were punched from American Crafts lightweight glitter paper-a new favorite product. The glitter is embedded in the paper, not glued to the surface, so it never flakes!

I used the same concept to create this card:

And now that I'm craving donuts, maybe I should pick some up as treat to celebrate these waning days of summer vacation. Sounds good to me! 

It's a Birthday Celebration

Come play, scrap, enter and win!

Scraptastic is having a birthday, and we are having a 4th Anniversary Celebration, complete with games, challenges, and prizes. Don't worry if you can't join us this weekend; games and challenges will be open for an entire week. Everyone has until Sunday, August 10th at 11:59PM EST to submit entries.

In addition to prizes awarded for each game and challenge, one grand prize of a 3-month subscription to the kit club will be awarded to a lucky participant.

Here's a look at the kit and add-on that I'll be working with this month:

It may be a birthday themed kit, but I've got other things in mind for it! There's a sticker that says "Let Them Eat Cake". Well, guess what they're eating in the photos I've pulled...PANCAKES! ;)

Please stop by the 4th Anniversary Celebration and play along. You can use any supplies you have on hand! 

See you at the party!