Troubles in Scrappy-land

This week, I've hit a few bumps in my scrappy road.  I was on such a paper scrappy high that it's not a surprise.  ;)

I did this LO for Dawn's February challenge over at Skrap 'n Chat:

Oops - I see I took the picture crooked!  *blush*

The challenge is to use purple as your background colour and I knew this picture would be perfect for it.  Not only is purple Auntie's favourite colour but her shirt was purple too.  My original plan was to put five eyelets down along the bottom of the blue border.  However, my Crop-o-Dile wasn't big enough to put the eyelets where I wanted them.  Shoot, now I need to get me a Big Bite!  ;)  Plus, when I put the eyelet in, I squished it and then it jammed in the Crop-o-Dile.  I learned from one of my Peeps (over at Club CK) that you can't squeeze it too hard or it will wrap up around the Crop-o-Dile.  Lesson learned.

So I had to change gears.  I added the fibre, which I like a lot and then the two buttons on the purple strip.  My favourite part about this LO is the stitching around the circle.  I used blue and pink thread and I love the look it gives it.  I knew it needed something up on the left side and ended up deciding on the button and ribbon but I'm not 100% happy with it.  And I had to put something in the circle so I added the date tag but it's not the look I was going for.  However, I'm trying to take Karen Grunberg's advice to simply "embrace imperfection".  So, I'm calling this one done.  :)

I did this LO as a combination of two challenges.  It was for Tash's "Life is Like a Box of Chocolates" challenge at Skrap 'n Chat and Susan's weekly challenge at Club CK. 

For Tash's challenge we needed to include a photo that shows love, some hearts, foil and a drizzle of chocolate (brown).  I wasn't sure how I could make it work but I like how the heart in the title stands out because it's brown.  I couldn't find foil per se so I used that shiny gift wrap that you can get instead.  And I love these photos of Aidan and Derwin - you can see how happy they are with each other.

Susan's challenge is a recipe challenge.  This was my first time doing one but it was lots of fun.  The choices were:  hearts, a border punch, pink or red cardstock, bling or glitter, a journalling tag, a piece of ribbon and handstitching.  We had to use 5 of the 7 options.  I obviously used red cardstock, a journalling tag and lots of hearts.  :)    I don't have much red patterned paper, especially for boys, so I went with a strip of cream and red for my border but it turned out fine.  I used stickles on the foil hearts and I handstitched the "kisses" and the xoxo along the left side.

I was reflecting this morning on how many challenges I have going on right now.  There are so many great ones out there that I'm feeling a bit ADD trying to get to them all.  However, they've been so inspirational and motivating.  I need to find a good way to manage them all - right now, I'm using the sticky note system and it's OK.  I know I won't be able to get to all challenges right now but I'd still like to do them so I think I'm going to start keeping a notebook of the challenges so I can always refer back to them. 

This will be it for a few days on here as some great friends of ours are coming to visit us this weekend.  We haven't seen them in nearly two years and they'll be heading overseas for another posting in July.  Have a scrappy weekend!

This Kiss

I've been on a mission working on some paper LOs - feels so good!  I'd been out of the paper world for so long and then couldn't get motivated.  That all stopped when I did my all-day online crop with my friends at Skrap 'n Chat.  There is so much inspiration over there - tons of challenges and lots of encouragement.  So now I've got my paper mojo back! 

I did this LO the other day and I love it.  It's one of my favourite pictures of all time and I wanted to make a LO to showcase the photo.

I really like the simplicity of it with a couple feminine touches.  The lace is hard to see (under the title) but it adds a nice little touch.  The stitched flourish was cream but it didn't stand out enough for my liking so I chalked it to give it a bit more definition. 

Journalling Challenge

I know that many people have trouble journalling for one reason or another, but I've never minded it.  Over the last year, I've come to love journalling and treasure the stories and details that I record in my scrapbooks.  I've also changed up my journalling a lot and I do different kinds of journalling for every LO.  So, I decided that for the month of February, I'd do a weekly challenge over at Club CK and Skrap 'n Chat to hopefully inspire my scrappy friends to try different kinds of journalling and hopefully come to like it if they're one of the people who don't like to do it.

Week 1's challenge was to give advice to someone.  This is a way to impart some words of wisdom to someone.  Whether it be advice to your children, your SO, yourself, another loved one, your pet or maybe even the leader of your country or a celebrity, make a LO giving advice to someone.  And here's my LO for it:

Week 2's challenge was to do a layout on "What I love about you".  It could be your significant other, a child, a pet, a mother or father, siblings or friends.  I suppose it could even be about something you love that isn't a person.  Try and let the journalling drive your LO.  Write your journalling first or at least have it in mind when you choose your papers, embellies and your photos.  I'm going to make a mini-album on this topic for my hubby for our 10-year anniversary this year so I don't want to post the LOs here just yet.

Today is Week 3. 
For some people, journalling is hard.  Maybe because you don't like your handwriting.  Maybe because you can't find the right words to say what you're wanting to say.  Maybe because the sentiments that you want to express are private and you don't want everyone to see it when they look through your album.  Maybe journalling just doesn't fit into the design of your page.  So, give hidden journaling a try!

This week's challenge is to incorporate hidden journalling into a LO.  I did it the eays way and journalled on a tag that I put behind my photo.  You can put it in an envelope on the page and decorate the envelope.  You can make flaps and hide the journalling under there.  You can even journal on the back of your LO.

Here's my LO for the week:

And here's what's written on the tag:

I'll put up other journalling challenges as I've really enjoyed doing them.  I hope I can inspire you to do some different kind of journalling your layouts!

Inaugural Post

So, this is it.  I decided to take the plunge and make my own scrappy blog.  Not that I have any techniques or new and innovative ideas to share but it will be a good place to post my creations.  I figured it was time to stop flooding our family blog with my layouts and to have a place only for my scrappy stuff.

I hope that, in posting regularly, I will continue to grow in my scrapbooking and try out new things, whether it be techniques, products or styles.

Why "Scrapping Therapy" as the title?  Because that's what scrapbooking is to me.  It's a way for me to de-stress, unwind and allow my creativity to flow.  Choosing the pictures, deciding what papers to use, choosing or creating the embellishments and telling the stories.  All of it inspires me and challenges me.  Scrapbooking helps me to be more balanced and more reflective.  It just plains makes me happy!  And if that isn't therapy, what is?!

So, welcome to my blog and I hope to see you around often!  :D

And here's my latest layout: