Random Embellishments=Super Fun Page

I don't get too many photos from my college kid, so when I found this one on his cousin's Instagram, I took advantage of the situation! They were at an Ariana Grande concert, tickets a Christmas present from his aunt. His pink shirt and the Paper Issues That Was Random challenge inspired the design.

Talk about random! I gathered everything pink that I could find. 

Some of the die-cuts relate pretty well: the Favorites cassette tape, vinyl record, music notes, the words Saturday, Lovely, and Sweet Treats. 

Others were truly random...but pink! A sock, flamingo, umbrella, coffee cup, button, suitcase and trees are prime examples. 

Sweet, indeed!

Summer Swimming

Taken with my (very old) phone, this photo isn't the best, but these are a few of Kevin's pals from summer swimming. Yes, everyone here is also on his year-round USS team, but swimming in the more laid back country club meets is a favorite activity every summer. Here, the kids are celebrating the summer's end with a party where they received their Meet of Champs awards. 

The heart embellishment on the page was created many moons ago with a Scraptastic kit. Dozens of colorful phrase stickers were chopped up and arranged on cardstock before cutting out the heart. Yep, these kids are always happy together, working at the sport they love.

While I was sorting through my photos, I came across one from Kevin's second season of summer swimming, and scrapped it with Echo Park's Summer Party:

It was meant to be a quick page, but then I decided to cut around those flip-flops at the bottom! =O

Towel...check. (SO glad that we get towel service thanks to Julie's employee membership.)

Cap...check. (He ONLY wears a cap for meets. Even then, he avoids covering his ears!)

Goggles with bungee strap...check. (Oh yes. That first season of swimming, he lost his goggles more than once. Now they are secure with a bungee strap AND he wears them UNDER his cap for extra security.)

Flip-flops...always! (Always in them, unless he's in the water. ;)  )

Just a few more months until another season of summer swimming begins! 

Happiness & Good Fortune

Colorful jewel-toned papers stand out on the scrapbook page that I'm sharing today. Every year I take a picture of our Christmas tree. Now I'm beginning to focus on particular parts of the decorated tree: special ornaments, trip souvenirs, and handmade decorations like this little bird's nest.

We have had this little nest forever. It's one of the first things to go in our tree every year, and is modeled after the one my mom and dad had in our tree when we were growing up. I'm pretty sure we made these in Girl Scouts: typed up the "Old Christmas Legend",  tore and burned the paper edges, then formed a nest of straw with a little fake bird tucked inside.

The legend claims that happiness and good fortune come to those who choose a Christmas tree with a bird's nest in its branches, abandoned by its inhabitants, I assume!

I love the mix of gold with all these vivid patterned papers, and had quite a time digging through my stash for these little gems!

Supplies: Papers-Bella Blvd., Jillibean Soup, Crate Paper, American Crafts, BoBunny, and others. Brads-Simple Stories, Carta Bella. Title Lettering: Jillibean Soup, American Crafts. Mist: Heidi Swapp. Other-gold heart sticker and silver fern.

You & Me

When my mother-in-law passed away a couple of months ago, I was happy to find this photo of her with Kevin, at Grandparents Day 2012. It's such a great photo of the two of them!

Just about everything on this page is from one Crate Paper collection or another.

It all began with a pack of Project Life cards, never opened, collecting dust. Opening it up, I found so many pretty pieces, and used these as layering bits around the picture.

Stickers, tags, flair, and chipboard pieces from other Crate Paper collections accentuate the page. It was nice to use so many hearts and flowers for once!

Photos like this are priceless; I'm glad I was able to preserve it in my scrapbooks. :)

Best Ever

It may at first seem a little ridiculous to even think that I'd ever use a scrapbook paper collection called "Snow and Cocoa". Snow is such a rarity in the deep south. But these papers and patterns are just SO PRETTY! Here I scrapped a Christmas cousins photo from 2015. As you can see, everyone is in short sleeves. Hahaha!

I decided to cut one of the colorful papers into a large heart shape for my page. But I couldn't just let it be. The heart was begging to be fringed. It then made a beautiful backdrop for my photo, a sewn banner, a couple of acrylic snowflakes, "snow globe", flair, and title.

We never know what weather will greet us Christmas morn. Will this year be long sleeves, boots and sweaters...or short sleeves with the A/C blasting? We'll see!

Shine

I had yet to go through my camera photos of Kevin and his date when he came home with the photographer package from his school dance...so I decided to go with it, and created the page below:

It is really a pretty fun photo, with the Superdome in the background. We had noticed the dome was lit blue on the night of Jesuit's homecoming dance. Blue was the order of the day: school colors, Maddie's dress, Kevin's tie. I knew it was prudent to save all those scraps of blue, REAL blue!

On this page, I used two files from The Cut Shoppe: the Tiny Triangles background cut file, and Flocked and Feathered, for my (blue jay) feather accents.

Many of the papers and the star pin are from Crate Paper, the camera transparency is from a Shimelle line, and the cityscape flair hails from an old Scraptastic kit, all pulling together for this pretty special page.

Love Is All You Need

Here's a layout I put together with a less-than-perfect picture, a selfie that was supposed to also capture the Restaurant sign behind us. Instead I gave our hair a nice green neon glow!

I used American Crafts/Amy Tangerine papers, Maggie Holmes ephemera, and a wonderful title from The Cut Shoppe's Love Struck collection:

Here's are a couple of closeups: 

Pen-stitching reinforces the hand-drawn look of the flowers and frames.

By the way, I LOVE the fussy-cut flowers. I had them sprout from the title and reach up to fill that otherwise empty frame:

Thanks for stopping by my blog today!

Not All Who Wander Are Lost

Pair a favorite quote with a favorite vacation photo and the resulting page is a favorite too! Papers are a mix of two Crate Paper collections: Craft Market and Confetti, with several of the patterns showing up underneath the large letters. Some are sewn together; others are stapled.                                         

A little cluster of elements fills an awkward spot at the top of the page...

and layers of ephemera mat the photo at the bottom...

Every summer has a story, and unfortunately, the last chapter of ours starts this week.

Hard to believe it's almost over. I'm enjoying these unscheduled days and warm weather.

Just Plain Wonderful

Uh-oh, the pickings are getting slim. I'm almost out of photos to scrap from our 2011 trip to Walt Disney World. I've been scrapping them off and on for four years now! And it's going to be a few more years until we make it back there. Sigh!

Meanwhile, here's the latest, created mostly with Crate Paper's Journey collection:

In the journaling, I describe another drawback to the long wait for the Star Tours attraction. All that time moseying though the queue gives a person too much time for thought. Reading and re-reading the many caution signs had an unintended effect on my adult daughter. She chickened out before we made it to the front of the line!

Smile

Don't you love it when color schemes flow across collections? Pouring over the new Maggie Holmes Confetti papers, I noticed that the colors are remarkably similar to those of another new collection from Crate Paper, the Craft Market collection. Having similar muted pinks, teal, gold and more means that I can combine pieces from each. And that worked out wonderfully on this page, shared on the Scraptastic blog yesterday.

The ticket paper from Crate Paper's Confetti collection was just the thing, as we had begun the evening with a performance of The Music Man. After cutting out two lines of tickets for the page, I gave them a more realistic look by punching holes along the sides and folding the the pink ones to raise them slightly off the page.

We couldn't take pictures during the play of course, but we DID take pictures of the special treat we enjoyed afterwards. I snapped a photo of my husband shaking powdered sugar all over his mom's beignets. Layers of embellishments surround and frame the picture.

Journaling is tucked between the collage of pretty elements and a fussy-cut flower border at the bottom of the page. 

Supplies | Patterned Paper: (Crate Paper Craft Market-Hand Painter Paper), (Maggie Holmes Confetti-Fete Paper, Gala Paper, and Festival Paper); Embellishments: (Crate Paper Craft Market-6x12 Sticker Sheet, Colored Chalkboard Stickers, and Ephemera Pack), (Maggie Holmes Open Book-Full Heart Paper), (Dear Lizzy Watercolor Words).

A Tribal Gathering

This time of year the travel collections for scrapbookers seem to be everywhere. And that's not a bad thing! They are beautiful, colorful, fun, and make me think about traveling...and then the fact that I don't, not really. Sigh. 

It's a short-lived disappointment as I go through my photos trying to find something that I can scrap with the beautiful papers of Crate Paper's Journey collection. The tribal designs got me thinking, "I have a tribe. My family!" And the following page was born:

When I serendipitously captured the boys from my "tribe" gathered around the coffee table, I had no idea what they were discussing. I doubt they even remember. But it's the strong sense of togetherness that I wanted to capture. Sons, nephews, uncles, boyfriends...all sharing in conversation. Looked to me like the Great Tribal Summit of 2014!

I continued with the Native American tribal theme by piecing and stitching an arrow:

A dreamcatcher and USA map were fussy-cut from the journaling card paper and embellished with enamel dots and an arrow, pointing to the "summit's" locale.

I borrowed and multiplied Susan Stringfellow's idea for patterned paper teepee's SEEN HERE, and strung a banner across them with stickers from Crate Paper's Craft Market collection. It's pretty cool how colors and color schemes seem to flow across a manufacturer's collections like that!

Supplies from the Scraptastic STORE: Patterned Paper-(Crate Paper Journey Collection-Wander Paper, Quest Paper, Let's Go Paper, Tribal Paper), Embellishments-(Craft Market Accent Sticker Sheet, Simple Stories Life Documented Enamel Dots), Alphabets-(Pebbles' Happy Day Woodland Chipboard Thickers, WeRMemory Keeper's Chipboard Thickers).

So, yeah, I may not be the world traveler I'd like to be, but that doesn't mean I can't find some pretty creative uses for the travel collections out there!

Quilt-Inspired with Crate Paper Kiss Kiss

I could have went a whole other direction when scrapping this photo of my teenage son. He's shirtless, wearing an orange and blue tropical-print swimsuit, and sports the tan he had already acquired from two weeks of summer swim practices and a few days at the beach. Yes, I could have gone with bright, summery papers. But then it hit me how well his sun-bronzed look went with some of the papers and gold embellishments of the Kiss Kiss collection from Crate Paper. The subtle prints, subdued pinks, and patterns infused with tan/brown were perfect. Even better, the number 14, intended as a reference to Valentine's Day, could also stand for his age. 

Here's the quilt-inspired layout:

I chose gold Thickers to give my page a title:

Journaling cards, labels and stickers are layered around my photo:

But it all started with the quilt-inspired background of diagonal stitching and pieced squares:

Sixteen squares (like the one shown below, minus stitching) were assembled and adhered to the page.

A banner punch made it so easy! Here's how I did it:

Four punched pieces were inked and arranged on each of 16 3x3-inch squares. Creating the squares separately, I was then able to move them around until I came up with a pleasing design. Next, I lightly adhered the squares to the cardstock background and machine stitched through the centers of each, attaching them permanently and adding to the quilt effect.

See, it really wasn't that complicated!

The entire Kiss Kiss Collection from Crate Paper can be found in the Scraptastic Store. Check it out.

UA Homecoming

This page was shared on the Scraptastic blog Thanksgiving Day, just as everyone was lolling around, under the influence of all that tryptophan. I thought I'd share it here for those just recovering from that and/or the Black Friday madness. ;)

~-~-~-~-~

Roll Tide Roll! As this is my son's senior year as a student at the University of Alabama, and his last football season there, I was hoping it would be memorable. And now that the Crimson Tide has moved into the #1 Spot in the BCS polls for collegiate teams, I'm hoping for more. Another national title perhaps!? What a send-off that would be!

The page I'm sharing today is about a longtime football season tradition, homecoming, and one of the ways the UA students celebrate. In the Greek community, sororities and fraternities team up to create expansive house decorations. In this particular year, my son's fraternity helped put together the winning display. Hours upon hours of rolling up and glueing tissue paper went into this magnificent scene.

Here's the scrapbook page commemorating their impressive display:

All papers are from the Open Book collection...except one. Because a scrapbook page about the University of Alabama football wouldn't be complete without a bit of black and white houndstooth, I brought in a paper from American Crafts Haunted Hallow collection. Ahhh...perfect! Also from Crate Paper's Open Book collection are chipboard stickers, ephemera, and fabric brads.

Here are a few closeups of the page:

SUPPLIES: Patterned Paper (Maggie Holmes Open Book-Chapters Paper, 3x5 Paper, Full Heart Paper, Memoir Paper, Clippings Paper, and Slideshow Paper), Stickers (Maggie Holmes Open Book Chipboard Stickers), Brads (Maggie Holmes Open Book Fabric Brads), Die Cuts (Maggie Holmes Open Book Ephemera), Chipboard Alphabet, Letter Stickers, and Button.

Roll Tide Roll!

Make A Wish

The process for this page was very different than my usual. First I sketched out a basic design, knowing that I had all these fun embellishments from Scraptastic's Shake It Off kit. Then I put the main papers together: a neutral patterned paper background, with two smaller patterned papers arranged on top. One is given a zigzag edge; the other is a smaller strip with a label-holder title. I even began adding embellishments along the (almost) center line.

But what was missing from this process???!!!

The photo!!!

Yes, I had the look I wanted, but couldn't narrow down which picture to add. I had an old photo from my sorority days, a group shot from a dinner party, and the 87th birthday picture which you see below. It was just one of those layouts where every photo seemed to draw life from the page, and I had a hard time choosing! But birthday it was. (Ooops...I took this photo before I added the journaling. The sun came out and I jumped up with my camera to get a few pics before it retreated again. Imagine a little journaling card the color of the leaves tucked to the left of the photo.)

Butterflies, wood veneer, library cards, pockets and tags were just some of the "ephemera" added to the top of the herringbone patterned paper: 

A "triangle of green" draws the eye around the page...from the fun embellishments, to the words and photo, and down to the title of the page, stamped and framed in a wood veneer label holder:

Make A Wish. I ultimately decided on the 87th birthday photo because it WAS such a momentous occasion. Yes, we had pulled off another surprise party. Last year it was for my dad; this year for Tommy's mom. I can only pray that good health and longevity is passed down to me and mine!

Sunday Best

The following was shared on the Scraptastic blog yesterday, featuring a collection from the Scraptastic Store:

Flipping through the patterned papers of Maggie Holmes' Open Book collection for Crate Paper, one of the patterns caught my eye and actually had me do a double-take. It resembled the wallpaper that I remember from my grandmother's house! Although I didn't end up using that particular pattern on my layout, the scenario is what prompted me to scrap the picture below. My grandparents, mom, and her siblings were posing for a rare portrait next to their home, all decked out in their finest clothes...their Sunday Best:

A smattering of mist in aqua and yellow dresses up the white cardstock background paper. Various patterns are layered beneath the photo and their predominant colors (aqua, pink and yellow) are echoed by the vellum accents layered along the left hand side of the page.

Fabric brads from the Open Book collection complete the little cluster below:

Sheer letters, leftovers from an older Scraptastic kit, are paired with sparkly Thickers for the title:

SUPPLIES: Patterned Paper (Maggie Holmes Open Book-Chapters Paper, Years Paper, 3x5 Paper, Memoir Paper, Clippings Paper), Stickers (Maggie Holmes Open Book Chipboard Stickers), Brads (Maggie Holmes Open Book Fabric Brads), Vellum Ephemera, Thickers, sequins, mini-pearls, and mist.

I love when pretty papers can bring to life a black and white photo from long ago! 

The Scrappy Blog Tour

Hi everyone! If you're a scrapbooker, you must have heard of the Scrappy Blog Tour that's weaving its way across the scrappy blog world. Well...like the ALS Ice-Water Challenge, I thought if I just laid low and stayed quiet long enough, no one would take notice and it would pass right over me! LOL...just kidding! I am extremely honored to have been asked to participate by my uber-talented scrappy friend, Monique Liedtke. 

Monique has recently joined the Scraptastic Kit Club Design Team, and has all sorts of other credits to her name. She is so very creative, with a gallery full of colorful and beautifully designed layouts, cards, and paper craft projects. Check out her blog, and find her work over at Studio Calico.

Monique has given me several questions to answer. I hope you enjoy reading a little about my process, style, and favorite products!

1. What am I working on right now?

Right now, I'm putting together a fourth project with Scraptastic's The Girl kit for September. I've decimated my favorite patterned papers in the kit, with just bits and pieces left. To get those lovely little bits onto this page, I'm having to be a bit creative!  

After that...who knows?! I'll look through my most recent envelope of photos to see if there's a story that needs to be told...before I forget too many of the details. ;)

2. How long does it take me to create a project?

A long time. A very long time. The sun rises, sets, and rises again. Seasons change. Really...I am a ...s...l...o...w... scrapper.

It generally takes me 2 days to complete a project, often in fits and spurts. I mean, hey, I have things to do (carpool, grocery shopping, cooking, cleaning, a part-time job, swim meets, etc.) AND I get distracted easily! I'll run to the computer to find a cut file or quote and end up lost in cyberspace...or Pinterest. Yikes!

3. What are my favorite things to create with at the moment?

Ahhh...there are so many, and yet no one thing shows up consistently on my pages...except patterned paper. That has to be my most fave supply of all! But here are 5 more that I love to add to my layouts:

BINGO CARDS, JOURNALING CARDS, TICKET STUBS

(And other paper ephemera)

CHIPBOARD FRAMES

WOOD VENEER

ROUND THINGS

(Bottlecaps, die-cuts, brads, labels, buttons, flair, and enamel dots)

WASHI TAPE 

4. How does my writing/creative process work? 

I usually start with product...a paper collection or kit that draws me in. Then I go through my ever-growing stack of photos. I'll try to match up favorite photos or those with stories I'm dying to tell, and work my way from more recent to anywhere in the past. Since I didn't start to scrap until after my 5th child was born, I've got lots of photos from which to choose! 

5. How do I become inspired and stay inspired?

This is an easy question! Every scrapper who posts to galleries, blogs, etc. is a source of inspiration. They inspire me to attempt new techniques and try on different styles. I am also immensely inspired by the products themselves. Who doesn't want to tear into a brand new kit or use those cute flair? And whenever I'm at a loss of where to start, I peruse Pinterest, careful not to get overwhelmed. Quilts and art can also be that spark.

6. What is my signature style?

Ooooo...and now a hard question! Scrappy friends say they can spot my pages a mile away, but I'm not sure if my style has a name. I like to call it organized collage. I love to layer and cluster, adding bits and pieces of ephemera here and there, but I am also drawn to straight lines, grid designs, and orderly pages. Even when I'm being "messy", I like it "just so". Imagine that! 

This is a favorite from this past year:

Here are a few more that give an overview of my style. What would *you* call it?

If you've stuck with me so far, I thank you immensely! 

"TAG!...You're it!" And now it's my turn to pick someone who inspires me to continue with this Scrappy Blog Tour! I've asked Susan Stringfellow and she has graciously accepted. I've known her for years, and am always in awe of her constant stream of creativity! Seriously, it never stops...so I'm very interested in hearing her answers. 

Check out Susan's blog next Monday morning for a peek into her scrappy process. It should be fascinating! Meanwhile, stop by her inspiring sketch blog and find her work in these galleries: Scrapbook.com, Scraptastic, and Disney Scrappers.