Scraplift Sunday 1/5

While I still had all my Christmas papers and doo-dads scattered about my desk, I decided to scrap one of my favorite photos from Christmas Day. 

The inspiration for my page was MJ's original, our Scraplift Sunday for January 5th. 

I had already scrapped two pages with Pink Paislee's Together for Christmas collection, and wanted to change it up a bit. Since I had converted the picture to black and white, I had a lot of freedom in choosing a color scheme. 

As you can see I went a bit non-traditional!

The papers and envelopes on my page were older ones from my stash: Bella Blvd., Fancy Pants, Echo Park, and others. 

Using older stuff helps to make room for new, right? ;)

And speaking of new, new collections are starting to show up in the Paper Issues Store. 

When you shop, remember to use my code for 20% off everything!

52 Favorites-Weeks #1, #2, and #3

Paper Issues’ 52 Favorites challenge was something I’ve wanted to do for a while. It's a quick way to document those somewhat random moments in your week that might not make it onto a regular scrapbook page. Wanting something a little larger than a travelers notebook, I decided to make my own pages by cutting a pack of 81/2 x 11 cardstock in half. Then I used a Bind-It-All to punch holes. When the year is done, I'll gather up all the pages and add O-rings. Sometime between now and then, I might even make a cover! ;)

Week #1

Highlights in this first week of 2020 include struggling to put together a beautiful but difficult puzzle, making chocolate chip pancakes for Kevin and I, and finally having time to enjoy my Christmas gifts!

Two patterned paper scraps, washi tape, and colorful letter stickers were all I needed to pull this spread together. One week down, 51 to go!

Week #2

This week was defined by school resuming for Kevin and the start of my 7-on. My photos highlight the textbooks that began to dribble in from Amazon and the big breakfast I cooked on my last day of leisure. 

Circular scraps from an earlier project are used on the left, while paper cut outs from an older Bella Blvd. collection show up on the right. 

Week #3 

Most Sundays Tommy cooks for a dozen people give or take. This Sunday his stack of mini muffalettas looked so cute piled up on the plate. I wasn't fast enough however, as the stack was down to one layer by the time I pulled out my phone. LOL! 

I used a few more scrap pieces from Bella Blvd's Alex collection to dress up these pages. The hamburger die cut was perfect, as were the actual muffulettas! YUM!

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How about that?! Three weeks down and I'm keeping up, having fun working with this new-to-me format. Check out all of the inspiration in Paper Issue's 52 Friday Favorites challenge album. It's never too late to start!

College Tour

After Kevin's last exam in May, we hit the road again, in search of that perfect university. It was a whirlwind tour, four colleges in three days. Sooner or later, he'll have to choose between all the schools he's visited. Hoping for robust scholarship offers to sweeten the pot, and make the choice an easier one. Meanwhile he's started to amass a nice collection of T-shirts from his favorite SEC schools!

This page was created with the June main kit from My Creative Scrapbooks.

Epic Success Step-by-Step

The following tutorial was recently shared on My Creative's Scrapbook blog. It's an easy step-by-step for my page, Epic Success, created with My Creative Scrapbooks' Main kit for June.

As you can see, I drew inspiration for my page from the patterned paper below, one of the kit papers from the Fancy Pants' Family And Co. collection:

I loved those color-blocked stars and decided to make a similar star the focal point of my design. Using a piece of 12x12 paper, I sketched a five-pointed star to use as my template. Then, to make assembling the star easier, I numbered each segment and the corresponding side of the center section. 

After cutting apart the star, I traced each section on various patterned papers from the kit.

Here are my colorful star pieces, placed upon a grid-design background paper from my stash.

Next, I have a photo and a frame but, uh-oh, my picture was cropped too small!

That wasn't a problem for long...as I backed the frame with patterned paper, 

and placed my photo askew on top! It actually sets off the photo better than if it fit perfectly. ;)

Did you notice what has changed?! Before adhering the papers, I switched around two of the star's rays, so that a more solid pattern was on top. This strategic move was intended help my title stand out better when it is added to the upper portion of the layout.

Meanwhile, I added a few die-cuts around the photo frame and at the bottom of the star,

and placed several puffy banner stickers along a hand-drawn "clothesline" of sorts:

Finally, a long title was added using a Fancy Pants chipboard sticker, Jillibean Soup tiny letter stickers, and Fancy Pants chipboard alphabet, all three a part of the June Main kit. Pretty epic!

A bit of journaling, and a couple more stickers, finishes it off. Sweet!

I love when patterned papers and/or kit accessories spark an idea for me! What inspires your page designs? 

1st Apartment with My Creative Scrapbooks June kit

Another has flown the nest! It's an exciting time for him, but we were apprehensive when he said his apartment was in the city. Gulp. And then we helped him move some furniture and saw that it was a carriage house of sorts, nestled in the back yard of a nice family home in a fine neighborhood. Thank goodness!

I LOVE old houses, and this apartment is so cute. I had to take a picture of him standing on the front porch. 

The papers and embellishments in My Creative Scrapbooks' June Main kit couldn't be more perfect.

Houses, hearts, tabs and things compliment my theme, while a modified grid design makes assembling the page super easy. Two photos and two patterned papers were cut into squares. A third paper, cut rectangular, takes the place of what would be two of the bottom squares. There is where I begin my title... 

I finish my title with a colorful assortment of chipboard letters stretched across the page. Almost everything you see is from Fancy Pants' Family and Co. collection, all a part of My Creative Scrapbooks' main kit for June. 

We Are Family with My Creative Scrapbooks June kit

Can you believe it? I'm still finding photos that I want to scrapbook from our Disney trip...WAY back in 2011! So when the June Main kit from My Creative Scrapbooks landed on my doorstep, I knew it would do just fine. In fact, better than fine. Here we are:

Two of the patterned papers were cut into long horizontal banners and layered with a punched scallop border. The die-cut title shows off well when overlapping the printed paper. Puffy hearts, tabs and chipboard pieces accent the page.

Two papers were fashioned into tags, with puffy banner pieces performing as hole reinforcements. Small alphabet stickers add a subtitle to the one of them.

I'm not sure we were all together EVER on this trip. Chris was off with his fellow high school grads, and Brendan was sleeping in...as usual! So this is about the closest thing to a "family" photo that I could ever hope to have on this Walt Disney World adventure.

The Big SIX-Oh!

I love using my digital cutter to enhance my scrapbooking. Today I'm sharing a page whose background was created using the All Heart cut file from The Cut Shoppe. The subtle, neutral background was certainly a great foundation on which to build this colorful, celebratory page. My husband and his twin were celebrating the birthday, and a big one at that! 

Supplies: Patterned paper, journal cards, chipboard stickers, buttons, flair and tag-Fancy Pants, mist-Mr. Huey's, cardstock-Bazzill, Alphabet-Jillibean Soup, enamel dots, and the following cut file :

As you can see from the completed page, I only cut the outer two rows of hearts. Before beginning the cut, I opened up the original All Heart cut file in my digital cutting program and eliminated the inner rows which were not going to be visible anyway. It saved time and wear and tear on my blade by paring down the necessary cuts.

The big SIX-Oh! I think we're going to start counting backwards now. ;)

Mardi Gras Times Two

Scraptastic's Let Me Go kit came shortly after I had photos printed from this season's Mardi Gras parades. How perfect! Included in the kit were papers from Fancy Pants' As You Wish collection, and there couldn't be more beautiful colors to highlight my pictures.

First up is a selfie (yes, I did!), taken just after the Thoth parade. The weather was gorgeous, the crowds were heavy, and we had a great time with a large group of family members. But, the smartest move we made that day was to leave the parade just a teensy bit early and beat the traffic out of there. Tommy and I made a break for it several floats before the end. To further speed things up, Tommy left me alongside the road near the zoo, resplendent with chairs, ice chest, and large bag of beads. Meanwhile he high-tailed it empty-handed to retrieve the car, parked blocks away across the railroad tracks on the Fly. Getting bored waiting, I attempted a selfie. Yep, I got half a head, no head, out of focus, and finally a halfway decent shot. Hee-hee. Here it is:

A few brightly embossed vellum pieces (one using the iphone stamp from a previous Scraptastic stamp set) were tucked in among the postcard, die-cuts, and stickers, embellishing where the patterned paper meets cardstock. An umbrella embellishment, leftover from the page to follow, was glued and stitched in place. In this case it represents the sunny day need for shade and/or the second line celebratory atmosphere of the parade season.

On this next page, umbrellas represent the continuous rain we experienced on Mardi Gras day a week later. That's me and my sister, decked out in orange ponchos, trying desperately to stay dry at the Rex parade.

It was SO cold...and the rain never let up. There were a lot of other "crazy ones" out there, dressed in rain gear and holding umbrellas...thus the five on this page. Here's a closeup:

A stitching template from Amy Tangerine and American Crafts was used to add handles, and glittery gold enamel dots top each umbrella. These were easy to piece and not at all as hard as it looks. Fun stuff!

I hope I don't need umbrella embellishments for next year's Mardi Gras pages. ;)

Embellishment Love

Today I'm sharing my first page with this month's Scraptastic travel-themed kit. A favorite part of every Scraptastic kit has to be the plethora of embellishments, so carefully chosen to compliment the colors, patterns, and theme. April's kits are no exception, and I can't say enough about those selected for the Let Me Go kit. I used die-cuts, a cork shape, stickers, chalkboard flags, gold glitter enamel dots and exclusive flair and stamps in a few carefully placed clusters on the page below.

Creating interesting clusters are easy when you combine elements with different sizes, textures and shapes.

Here are two more cluster close-ups:

With the assortment of decorative elements in each Scraptastic kit, you can embellish any number of pages. Here's a peek at the page I'll be sharing tomorrow:

  

I see stamping, mist, stitching...and lots of color!

Team Building Fun (w/faux mist)

The Sharks' Swim Team party began with a feast of fruit and veggies, cupcakes and sports drinks, and, of course, pizza. After the food, came the fun. One of the most popular games in the X-arcade turned out to be this large electronic floor game. It was like playing dodgeball, trying to avoid the blocks of color that would bounce off the sides of the game area, and it was very reminiscent of those ancient Pong games! The kids really had a blast, especially when the coaches joined in. It was tricky to get a photo in this low light arcade, and sharpness is definitely sacrificed, but overall I love this photo:

Supplies include papers from Echo Park, KI Memories, Simple Stories and Jillibean Soup, brads from Echo Park and Basic Grey, an envelope from Fancy Pants, stickers from Doodlebug and Cosmo Cricket, and mist from Heidi Swapp. Fun mix of elements!

I love how the words on the bingo card and sticker so seamlessly blend together with the rest of the title to form the phrase,  "Best Ever, Laugh Out Loud, Team-Building, FUN"! And check out the splatters below:

After splattering drops of blue mist, I wanted to add another color, but didn't have anything in my "mist stash" that would work. I DID have a brand new bottle of Liquid Pearls and it was a perfect shade for my layout. I dabbed on various sized droplets and left them to dry. Easy-peasy! Bonus: I could actually PLAN where they were to go. The trick to making them look like "real" splatters is to vary their size and place them in odd configurations...just like you'd see with typical mists, inks, or paints. Pretty cool! I'll have to remember this one!

Love You

Reaching way back into my photo stack, I found this adorable picture of my youngest son, now 13 years old. He was (and still is) so cute! This photo was so typical of our everyday...play, play, play. We certainly enjoyed our daily routines. In this particular photo, Teddy Bear is the recipient of little Kevin's love and smothering affection. Literally smothering.

Little bits of red are brought into the page, with the large brad at the top...

and the "everyday" strip beneath my journaling:

The little house shaped wood veneer reminds me of my own house! To give it a little color, I swiped a Tim Holtz inkpad over the veneer, a favorite and super easy way to color the embellishment, while leaving the wood-grain visible.

The house veneer and flowers were from my stash,  but everything else is from Scraptastic's June kit and add-on, Carry On.