Faces

I did this layout for a recipe challenge at Club CK.  Ashley asked us to include the colour yellow - check, chipboard - check, ribbon or floss - check, at least three buttons - check, letter stickers - check and glitter or Stickles - check!

The toughest part of this layout was trying to use letter stickers.  I never use them anymore but still have some in my stash.  I had no coordinating colours so I decided to put Stickles on the stickers to get them to match.  It worked out OK, but I'm still not a fan of letter stickers!  lol  I really couldn't think of a title for this layout - I just thought the expressions on A's face were so cute.  So, I journalled about that (on this super cute Jillibean Soup journalling spot) and then came up with a short, though boring, title based on that.  I needed to add something to the title area, so I put the stickers on a strip of ribbon, added buttons with yellow floss to either side and then a semi-circle of gems.  They aren't turquoise but they go with the background paper and I'm trying to get past my "everything has to match perfectly" hangup.

I used this little circle from the same Jillibean Soup pack and then mounted a small chipboard flower and then button on it.  I used foam to mount them all to give it dimension.

I love the journalling spot but it looked too plain by itself.  So, I decided to stitch a "border" around the scalloped circle.

15-Minute Challenge

For this week's issue challenge, Erika asked us to do a layout in 15 minutes.  Yes, 15 minutes.  If you know me, I am a sssslllloooowwww scrapper.  I take forever to choose the papers to go with the pictures, then the embellies and then putting it all together.  Paper layouts take me much longer than digi ones but I'm still not speedy with digi layouts.  I still like to play around with the elements and then the shadowing.

So this challenge was an anxiety-provoking challenge for me but I wanted to give it a shot.  I chose the photos and the digi kit ("Leaps and Bounds" by Julie Billingsley) ahead of time.  I chose them a couple days ago and then let it be.  I sat down and started the timer.  I decided to forget about layering - not going to happen when I'm pressed for time.  So I went with a simple photo block and then the starburst, the buttons and the title.  I fussed around with the alphas to space them evenly and then line them up properly - I couldn't let that go - it would have driven me nuts.  I see the blue button is a little off but oh well, it's not too bad.  I couldn't let this layout go without journalling.  Yes, I'm a journalling junkie but I have to tell the stories to go with the photos.  There are layouts that I don't feel need journalling but this one wasn't one of those.

And you know what?  I'm really happy with it!  I need to do this more often.  :)

March 2011

I decided that since I got pretty much caught up with our family monthly collages, I should not let myself get further behind.  So, tonight I sat down and did March of this year.  This weekend, I need to get April done so that I can get May done soon after.

You can see that March was a low-key month for us, which resulted in fewer pages than I think we've had since I started this.  However, April will be packed full with fun stuff.  So, here they are:

Who's at the Zoo?

Over at Skrap 'n Chat, Suzanne posted a challenge to find a layout that you did quite a while ago that you still love and scraplift it.  What a great idea!  So, I went through my albums from our Middle Eastern trips and found this one I did of Der's trip to Wadi Rum.  Love the placement of the pictures and the colours.

And here's the layout I did based on it.  I stayed very true to the placement of the pictures and the torn edges.  I did add a few embellies as I've now embraced embellishments more than I used to.  :)  I used Just So Scrappy's "Who's at the Zoo" kit.  Funnily enough, I didn't even know what the kit's name was until after I'd finished my layout!  I also used the torn paper templates from Anna Aspnes.

Jump, Jump, Jump!

I did this layout for the May Colour Challenge held over at Club CK.  Merry challenged us to use blue, green and orange.  I just bought the "Refreshing" kit by JennCK Designs and I thought it'd be perfect for this challenge.

I wanted some fun pictures to go with those colours so I chose these ones of the kids on the trampoline.  Once I chose the photos, I realized that they would work well with the sketch challenge in the Issue Challenge #2 (at Club CK) and with the Issue Challenge #1 for using imperfect photos.

All the elements are from the kit except for the fonts, which I downloaded (most likely) from DaFont.com and the border punches are from Julie Billingsley.  I made the butterfly trails using a straight stitch brush from Jessica Sprague.

I'm really happy with how it turned out - I wanted to give a fun, carefree feel to the layout and that's how it feels to me.

Our New Family

This was our first family photo after A was born.  We didn't get one done right away - it sort-of fell to the wayside while getting used to life with a family of four.  We did get it taken within his first week of life though.  ;)  I wanted an elegant look and came up with this:

I used these epoxy stickers that my friend, Diana, gave me at our crop a couple weeks ago.  The go perfectly with the flourishes on the paper.  I backed them with navy textured cardstock and then mounted them on foam dots.

I used another of these stickers along with three glittery brads along the side of the photo.

And some Stickles to highlight three flowers on the paper and some lace as trim underneath the photo.

Birthday Boy

Since I had started scrapping A's second birthday, I figured I should finish up those pictures.  Since the last layout had so many pictures, there wasn't room for "proper" (in my mind! lol) journalling so I made sure there was room on this one.  I always want to tell the story and give the details behind a layout, if there is one.  If I don't, the layout doesn't seem complete!

I used Julie Billingsley's "Funfetti" kit again for this layout.  Aren't those balloons fun?!

My Sweet Boy

While doing little boy pages, you don't get to use girly stuff.  So, I was very happy to scrap these pictures of my little baby boy and me.

I added this stitched flourish near the title as I felt it needed a little something there.  I only used three of the six threads for the embroidery thread so it wouldn't be as "chunky".

I did my journalling on the tag tucked underneath the scallop and then added a Stickled heart.

For the little flower borders on the top and bottom, I chalked them to get the right shades and then added pearls and gems for the centres.  Love how these turned out!

I based my LO off of Kim Watson's "The Places You Dream Of", which I found in the CK gallery.

A pretty big milestone

Thanks to okanogangirl's Layout Lottery challenge over at Club CK, I started keeping track of my layouts since January 1st.  And I am now at 200 layouts done for the year.  That is mind-boggling because I am a slow, slow scrapper.  Over the past year, since I joined two different scrapbooking message boards, my productivity has gone up dramatically.  I find I'm so inspired by my fellow scrapbookers and by the challenges that are given to the members on both forums.  For me, challenges are great motivators and make me excited to do different or new things on my layouts.  Challenges can get overwhelming if you try to do them all but if you just choose a few, I find them completely inspiring.

I think, though, the biggest reason for my increased productivity is that I've started digital scrapbooking.  I love paper scrapping but I'm very slow with it.  With digi, I have access to my pictures, the supplies I want and can work on anything I want at the drop of a hat.  I don't have to plan ahead with digi like I do with paper.  In the last few months, I've found a great balance between digi and paper.  If I'm finding that I'm not inspired with my paper layouts, I can switch it up and do some digi layouts and vice versa.  I feel like there's always something fresh so I'm never bogged down.

In discovering Cathy Zielske's monthly templates, I've found a way to keep up with our family happenings.  It's so easy to clip my photos to the clipping masks in her templates, write up what has happened that month and voilà, we have our family activities recorded.  They aren't the most creative but I finally have a sense of keeping up to date.  I plan on using them every month from now on.  That way, we won't forget those things we've done.  And I can still scrap the individual activities on fun, creative pages later but the details won't be forgotten.  I love these templates and am so happy I'm using them.

I have to say that I am very proud of the fact that in less than 5 months, I have created 200 scrapbook pages.  It'll be very interesting to see how many I'll have done at the end of the year.

Birthday Bash

At Club CK, Erika's issue challenge this week was to do a birthday layout.  I wasn't planning on scrapping A's birthday photos yet but since this was a challenge, I decided to do it.  That's one of the things I love about challenges.  They get me using photos that I may not necessarily scrap at that point in time.

Here's my layout:

I based my layout off of Janet Phillips's template "2 Many Photos 34".  Can you tell I'm loving these multi-photo layouts?!  :D

I used Julie Billingsley's "Funfetti" kit from Sweet Shoppe Designs.  She is by far my favourite digi designer.  I have so many of her kits and they suit my style perfectly.  And look at these fun elements in this kit!  The banner, the candles, the cupcakes, the balloons, the bows and ribbons and buttons.  They're all so fun!

I liked the layout but there seemed to be a little something missing.  So, I used some digital mists that I picked up from Design House Digitals from Gennifer Bursett.  I'm not a huge mist person but I like the subtle look of it on this layout.

Adorable

This is another layout I did on NSD.  I originally had it with just the triangle of embellies but it looked so bare on the left-hand side that I added the buttons and hearts.

I never used to use buttons but since starting A's baby book, I've sure become a fan.  I love the look of them and think they add so much to a page.

I've been really trying to figure out how to do embellishment clusters.  Jennifer Larson did a great blog post not long ago about how she does her embellishment layering.  It's wonderful advice but I still seem to struggle with it.  On most of my layouts, I see what I can do to do the clusters or layering and nothing looks right so I just forget about it.  However, on this page, I decided to mount these stickers on cardstock, cut them out and then add some foam to give them a more 3-D look.  When doing that, I realized that I could actually make a cluster out of them.  I kept two of the hearts flat and raised up the moon, boat, duck and one heart.  To fill in the gaps, I added a couple buttons.  I don't think it's perfect but I'm pretty happy with it.  My first successful cluster!  :)  Oh, and these stickers are super old - they're from a random baby sticker pack and I thought they were cute so I used them.

I decided to use dimension here too by layering circles and using foam again and then topping them off with a sweet little metallic flower.

Sweet Little Baby

This is one of the layouts that I did at the crop on NSD.  I did everything there except I added some Frosted Lace Stickles on the stars and moons to add a little something to the layout.  I love sleeping babies so I grouped some pictures of A that we took over the first couple weeks.  This patterned paper is old - we're talking several years old - but I thought it was perfect for the layout.  I used a vellum saying that I have for babies for the title and just mounted it on blue cardstock.  I put two different ribbons on the top and bottom to frame the photo mat.

I love this quote and think it's so very true.  

Oooh, what colour?

Over at Skrap 'n Chat, April issued a cake challenge - to use layers, icing (lace, ribbon or trim) and white for a wedding cake.  Since I've been on a kick with Easter layouts, I thought I'd do one of them for her challenge.

Once again, I used Just So Scrappy's "Cottontail" digi kit (like for the other two Easter layouts).  There is so, so much in that kit!!  You could do a whole album using the papers, alphas and embellies from her kits and not have much repetition.  Just fantastic.  And I used an Allison Davis sketch - I love, love, love her sketches.  I need to invest in some of her sketch books.

So, the obvious is the white background.  :D  I did lots of layering with the borders, paper and flowers.  I used a loopy border "punch" (from Julie Billingsley) to add some fun to the design and I made the Easter egg border using embellies from the kit.  I decided to fill up some of the white space on the sides with some cute flowers and I love how they turned out!

Easter Layouts

For this week's challenge over at Club CK, Susan asked us to scrap photos of our least favourite event to scrap.  I can honestly say that I don't hate scrapping any event but I do find it somewhat intimidating.  I think it's because of the sheer volume of photos that we have for events.  I've already done our Halloween pictures and most of our Christmas pictures but hadn't touched Easter for 2010 so I decided to do them.  I was browsing on Sweet Shoppe Designs on Saturday and discovered Janet Phillips's template for many pictures - they're fantastic!  They're all in a grid format and they look great as is though you could embellish your page as you like.  Here are two of my layouts for this challenge using the following templates as my guides:

I didn't embellish this layout at all.  With the Easter egg background paper and the fancy alpha for the title, I felt it was enough.  I love how it makes the pictures stand out!

And here's the template I used:

And this one of Easter morning:

One this one, I did add a few embellies, just to add a visual triangle.  I'm still not great at doing the visual triangle but I'm trying to get better.

This is the template:

I really do recommend Janet's templates if you've got lots of photos to scrap.  She's got so many different ideas for photo placement.  I've found a new love!

Happy Anniversary!

Today, D and I are celebrating our 10th anniversary.  Wow, 10 years together!  When I think back on everything we've been through, it's been quite an adventure.  I decided to make D an album celebrating what I love about him.  I found pictures to go with every idea and then journalled about it.  I loved doing this album and I can't wait to see it printed out!

While I won't share the whole album, I will share the cover.  I used Julie Billingsley's digi kit, "Love of My Life" to do the whole album.

Too many curvas

One of the challenges for this month's power crop over at Skrap 'n Chat was to scrap about a "Royal Pain", anything that didn't work out the way you thought it would, something that causes you some physical pain or just a mishap.  I decided to scrap about our drive up to the ski resort, Farellones, in Chile.  It was so pretty but there were so many sharp curves that I was feeling dizzy for most of the trip.  Ugh, the beginning of my lovely motion sickness (though I've never been sick, just really not feeling well).

I used the kit "Jazzy Jeans" for this layout.  Though, looking at it now, I think there are some changes I'll be making.  It seems like I've not been super happy with the last couple of layouts I've done - I wonder why.  Hmmm...

Sketch It to Me Blog Hop coming up

I'm going to be participating in another blog hop organized by my friend, Amanda.  It will be happening at the beginning of June.  This time we've all been given the same sketch and we're going to be making two different projects based off that same sketch.  It'll be fun to see what everyone comes up with.  Hope you'll join us and play along!

Home

At both Skrap 'n Chat and Club CK, there's a challenge this week to scrapbook about your house.  Since it is at both places at the same time, I decided I needed to do the challenge.  So, here's my layout about our house in Kingston.

I used a Sketchy Thursdays sketch (for Scrapbook Circle) and Eva Kipler and Melissa Bennett's kit "Crazy Good"  and Libby Weifenbach's "Flower Templates" from Sweet Shoppe Designs.  Here's the sketch:

I'm not 100% convinced that I like the papers I used for it.  I'm going to sit on it for another couple days and see if it grows on me.  If not, I'll be using a different kit.  That's one of the beauties of digital scrapping - you can always change it if you don't like it!  

I redid it this morning and I think I like it better.  I don't know - what do you think?

Sundaes

After school today, we went over to one of K's friend's houses for a celebratory surprise for the ballet exam today.  Their mommy had gotten all the goodies to make ice cream sundaes, which neither of our kids had ever tried.  Well, it was a huge hit!  Both A and K were entranced by all the cool stuff that they were able to put on their ice cream and loved it!

Guess what will be the topic of a layout in the near future?  :D

Catching up

I've been MIA from here for a few days, not because I haven't been scrapping but because I haven't finished up a project!  lol

On Saturday, I celebrated (inter)National Scrapbooking Day with some new scrappy friends here in Jamaica.  I met Diana through Ella since she is an Ella Friend and this was the first time we actually scrapbooked together.  She has some friends that she scrapbooks with and after I suggested we do something for iNSD, a fantastic scrappy day came into being.  It was such a fun day spent with friendly and creative ladies and I had a great time.  I certainly hope we can do it again.  :)

Over the weekend, I took advantage of some of the iNSD sales for my digi scrapbooking.  Persnickety Prints was having a 25% off sale on 8x8, 8.5x11 and 12x12 prints so I took advantage of it by finally printing off my December Daily album and my Thankful album from last year.  I also bought a ton of print credits, which allowed me to get the sale prices and I can print off my pages once I have them all uploaded.  Awesome!!  I have to say that I am so very pleased with PP's customer service - Chari is always right there to answer any questions and help you out if you have any issues.  I recommend them wholeheartedly for your printing needs, whether it's digital scrapbook pages or just your 4x6 prints.  The quality is outstanding.  If you order 100+ photos from them, it's only $0.19 a print and you get professional quality print and very fast shipping.  I ordered my prints on Sunday, around 11:00 and by 2:00 that afternoon, they were shipped!

I also found a couple digi kits that were super cute from Sweet Shoppe Designs, my absolutely favourite digi scrapping store, so I picked them up.  I also found a template for a few different styles of banners.  I already had a template for one style but now I can use all kinds - woo hoo!

And I actually have been scrapping too.  On Saturday, I did five pages for A's baby album.  However, I still need to cut the titles out and print out the journalling for those pages.  I also have been working on a special project for D for our tenth anniversary.  I can't share any of those until later once I've given it to him.

Today was a big day for our little K Bear.  She has been preparing for the last few months for her exam for the Royal Academy of Dance.  She's been practicing a lot and has done really well with remembering her dances so I'm sure she did well.  She wasn't nervous at all and came out from the exam and was happy as a lark.  She said to me, "Mommy, I tried my best for everything!"  And that's all we ask of her.  We're so very proud of her.