And That Someone Is You

My sister got married on Saturday and it was great!  I decided to do a scrapbook page for her and her hubby as part of our gift to them.  I made this page way back in February but I couldn't post it until now!

A little background to the title and lyrics...their favourite band is Nickelback.  I think my sister has been to five of their concerts!  So, when I decided to do a page for them, I wanted to use lyrics from one of their songs.  I chose "Gotta Be Somebody" because I think the chorus suits them so well.  I chose these colours because their wedding colours were eggplant and turquoise (I know, the blue is a little off but this was my closest kit!).

Digi Supplies:  "Goodnight Mr. Moon" by Kristin Cronin-Barrow
felt hearts by Patty Knox

purple paper by Libby Pritchett

straight stitch brush by Jessica Sprague

Earth Day 2012

At school, my community service group is organizing a lunch time activity in honour of Earth Day.  We're doing it a day late since Earth Day falls on a Sunday this year.  Here's the poster I made for the activity:

Digi Supplies:  Collaboration Kit "Love, Laughter & Sunshine" from Sweet Shoppe Designs

I love being able to use my scrapping knowledge for things other than scrapping!

Explore

This is another layout from our road trip.  These pictures were taken on the island of Chiloe, where we stayed for three days.  This is the little bay where we saw two species of penguins and other marine life - too fun!

My layout is based off this sketch at Sketch Support (Two-Page #7):

This is what I came up with:

Digital supplies:  Kona Coast - Julie Billingsley

I made that ripple myself in PSE so it's not perfect but I'm quite impressed that I managed to do it (and I honestly can't remember how I did it *blush*).  This is one of those templates I did a long time ago and am just now finishing the layout up.

I decided to use a beach kit that is more for swimming, lay-on-the-beach kind of photos because I love the colours.  I figured with K's colourful sweater and A's red jacket, I could get away with it.  ;)   I really like all the little elements that are with this kit but I love how the little sand splash behind the star fish turned out.  My favourite, though, is that beaded border that I put along the bottom of the photos - isn't it pretty?

From Here to There

We have Easter holidays right now and I've been fairly productive in the getting the house sorted side of things so I decided to tackle another project of mine, which is our road trip from 2010.  I started this album long ago and I put it to the side because I was tired of doing trip pages.  I tend to get this way - I can't do much of one thing or I lose inspiration.

However, I did do something quite brilliant before leaving Jamaica, and that was to get the bones of these pages done.  I separated my photos into regions and then into activities so I knew which photos I wanted to go together.  Then I made up templates and added the photos into them.  So, the photo placement and any blocking was done.  What was left?  Choosing the papers and embellies, finding a title and writing the journalling.

This page was one of the ones I'd gotten ready.  I haven't been in the mood to design anything lately - I'm just too tired to be creative and have to think about it - so I thought I'd try this one-pager, very clean layout.  I really enjoyed doing it - finding the right papers and embellies is fun so it was the perfect thing for me.

Digital supplies:  Strawberry Fields - Misty Cato

I wouldn't want to do all my pages this way but I have to say that from time to time, it's nice to have the option of doing it.  I think I may add this to my arsenal of scrapping techniques, especially when you've got a ton of pictures that you want to scrap in a certain order!

Birthday Fun

Wow, have I been a stranger around here!!  I haven't done any scrapping in over a month and it's making me really sad.  I'll take care of that over the Easter break!  Life has been so busy with marking, report cards and day-to-day life that sadly, my hobbies have taken a backseat.

K is turning six this week - I can hardly believe it!  But our little girl is growing up into a beautiful big girl and we're very proud of her.  We had her birthday party this past weekend and I did use my digi scrapping supplies for K's birthday invitation.  She wanted a Hello Kitty cake so I thought I'd make her an invite too.  I'm really happy with how it turned out.

Supplies used:  "Storybook Princess" by Julie Billingsley, Hello Kitty images found through a Google search

We went bowling first and then came home to continue the fun.  It was great!  The kids and adults all had fun.  :)  Here are some pics from the day:

New Scrappy Space

I am absolutely beyond excited...the furniture for my new scrappy space is installed!!!  This is a dream come true and I'm so happy that I'll finally have a space for my stuff.  Derwin is the best - he knows how I'd love to have a space just for scrapbooking and he knows how much this hobby means to me.  So, he told me to decide what I wanted to have in the scrappy space and get it made.  Aren't I married to the best guy ever?!?!

Making the decision was really hard.  I really wanted a big island-style table in the middle of the room to work at where I could stand or have a tall stool.  However, with the space that we have and how we share it with play space, I felt it wasn't the best fit.  I looked through all kinds of pictures to find what I wanted and then had my ideas ready.

This is the desk and shelf that I had made.  I wanted a U-shaped desk so I could be working on one side while the kids did their crafts next to me.  If they need help, they're right there so I don't have to get up and go to them.  I got the shelf made for above for all those embellies that fit into those pretty jars.  :D

This is the set of drawers I had him make for all my itty bitty stuff - bottles of paint, Stickles, stamps and inks, etc.  I'll be putting my chipboard, stickers, etc in here.

This is where I'll be keeping my papers.  I like vertical storage so I'll be keeping everything in the Cropper Hopper vertical containers in these slots.  I'll also keep the albums I'm working on here, if there's room.  The space to the left is the desk where the kids can do their projects.  There's an opening on this side and another on the other side so they both can be there.

And this is my customized Expedit-style shelf.  I got it made so it'll fit the WRMK d-ring albums so the squares are bigger than the Expedit units.  This is where my albums will go.

Now, it's just a matter of finding a new home for all my goodies!  How exciting!

Thanks Living February 15

The other monthly challenge that I've vowed to keep up with is the Thanks Living challenge.  I've been keeping my journal but I have to admit that I haven't been doing it daily.  I was so good at first but then slacked off.  I was doing it every week or so but now I'm back on the daily track.  Not only is it good for the soul, it's good for the memory and all those daily happenings!

So this layout came from one of my statements on February 15th.  I wanted to get a photo of the kiddos to send to Pascuala.  I have no idea why I thought of it but I asked A if he wanted to get his hair spiked.  He was so pumped about it - I even had to get the full-on shot (as requested by Mr. A).  K also got fancy for the picture and put on her bright pink lipstick - wowzers!  Fun times with my two munchkins are so precious and I love each of them.

Digi supplies used:  "Rawr" kit by Melissa Bennett; "Date Bits" by Misty Cato; "Thanks Living" download by Deena Wuest

Since this month's lesson was on visual hierarchy, I focused on the words to play around with it.  I took Deena Wuest's design for the title and recoloured it to suit the colours in my layout.  Then I played with fonts, colours and sizes in the journalling block.  With the block being that green, it made it a bit tougher to decide on colours but in the end, I'm happy with what I ended up choosing.  I decided to make key words bigger and change their colour to have them stand out and I made sure that my Thanks Living statement really stood out, which is why I "framed" the journalling with them.


I have a couple more statements that I'd like to scrap yet so I may have more of these coming.

One Little Word - February

At Club CK, Yolanda is hosting a monthly challenge for those of us who chose a word to guide us in 2012.  February's challenge is to choose one goal related to our OLW and scrap about it.

My word is PEACE and I feel I've done a decent job at maintaining it though I still have areas to work on.  This whole balance thing in life is proving to be very difficult!  ;)  One of the ways I plan to achieve peace is to do yoga on a regular basis again.  When I was doing it daily, I felt soooo good.  So this was the topic of my layout for this month.

Digital supplies used:  Sweet Shoppe Designs' 2010 Quarterly Assortment 3,
Julie Billingsley's "How Sweet It Is" (background paper)

I chose these colours because of my yoga block and strap - they're such vibrant colours so I thought I should choose papers and elements to go along with them.  This is definitely not my idea of yoga colours, nor colours that reflect peace, so I'm not 100% convinced that I like it.  I would have rather used zen-like colours and make my layout have a more natural feel but that just wouldn't have worked with the photos I had.  That's OK, though, I need to push myself to move out of my comfort zone every once in a while.

Leisurely Drive

For those of you who have been reading my blog this past year, you know that I've been working on an album from our big road trip in 2010 through Argentina and Chile.  I have to admit that I have totally put it to the side.  Life has gotten far too busy and I've just gotten back onto the scrapping train and I've been more motivated to do paper scrapping than digi.

However, one of my friends from Club CK put a challenge out to scrap a layout from your southern hemisphere wanderings.  What better motivation than a challenge, right?  :D    So, I went into one of my folders from our trip and I pulled out the pics I wanted to use.  I headed over to Sketch Support to find a two-pager that would suit my pics and got to work.   Here's what I came up with:

Based on 2-page sketch #12, Sketch Support

"Vintage Dreams" digi kit from Little Dream Designs

Stitching from Cathy Zielske

Scalloped border from Julie Billingsley

Santa's Little Helpers

I decided to tackle some of the Christmas pictures from A's first year.  We have a few of them since we celebrated an early Christmas, just the four of us before we left Chile, and then we had two other celebrations in Canada.

I bought a Christmas stack from DCWV about three years ago and have hardly used it so I decided to break it out and get at it.  My friend, Jennifer DeWolfe, sent me a great bunch of goodies this past summer and in it was this awesome pom pom trim.  I'd never used it before but I think it looks great with these papers and colours!  I decided to add a little bow and ribbon to the trim too.

I didn't have any cardstock the shade of red I wanted so I brought out the inks and did it that way.  Gotta love being able to customize things to your needs!

I cut the title out with SCAL and popped it up (I've been doing that lots lately!) and then I decided that I needed a little something between the title and the ribbon so I decided to stitch in some lines.  Why not make it peppermint colours?  lol

Splash!

One last layout from my scrappy weekend!  There were so many more challenges that I wanted to do but alas, I ran out of time.  Boo!  lol  This was a great challenge for me - to do a layout about a little one doing something typically girly or boyish.  I was going through our photos and I found these pictures of A when he was just over a year old throwing rocks into the ocean.  We were on a trip to Uruguay and our hotel was right near the water so one morning, we took the kids to the beach to throw rocks.  Both of them loved doing it so we spent a good hour there while my mom was getting ready for the day.  I love these pics of A doing one of the things that he's always loved to do.

I used Julie Billingsley's kit "Leaps and Bounds" for this layout.

Yuck!

This layout was for yet another challenge - can you tell what my current obsession is?  lol  The challenge was to use onomatopoeia in your title.  I went through some of the pics of A's first year and when I came across these ones, I knew what title I wanted.  So funny!

When I decided to use these pictures, I knew I wanted a fun font for the title.  I hadn't yet used my new stitching template for letters so I decided to pull them out.  I love using them!

It seems as though buttons have become one of my go-to scrappy supplies since working on A's books.  I look to ribbon and then to buttons.  I also tried out my new blending tool for inking on the bottom scallop border and I must say, I love it!  So much easier than the other ways I've done inking.  And yes, you saw it right...I used Smooch spritz again on my layout.  Not sure why I'm going to it so often lately but hey, whatever does it for you, right?  lol

And gems!  I never, ever thought that one of my go-to scrappy supplies would be gems because they don't seem me but I use them often.  When I can't find that just-right embellie, a gem seems to fit the ticket.

Fun at the Fair

Last week's issue challenge at Club CK was to use the colours on the cover of the current of Creating Keepsakes.  I love the combo of purple, teal and brown so I was really excited about it.  I had started a different layout but then realized that it was a sketch from Sketch Support and wasn't my own design and for this challenge, I like it to be of my own design because Erika gives us such great feedback.  So, I'll save my other one for later and I did this one instead.

I used the kit "Bumble Blooms" from Julie Billingsley.

Smiley

This was another fast scrap layout.  Yep, two in one weekend!  It's hard for me to believe that I managed to do two in two days.  Wowzers!  We were to use at least three patterned papers and to have either a star or yellow on the layout.  So, I went with this kit and these pictures.  These are some of my favourite pictures of A - he's just so happy and his smile is priceless.

I used Melissa Bennett's "Artistic U" digi kit.

Maestro

This layout was for a fast scrap, meaning we had one hour to get it done.  It's so tough for me but I'm getting better at doing it.  I decided to use these pictures of A on New Year's Eve when he decided to play us some songs on the piano.  It was so cute and I just loved the little hat he was wearing.  One of the things I loved in this kit was the painted bubblewrap circles that I used as a journalling spot.

I used Julie Billingsley's "Rambunctious" digi kit.

Burrito Baby

This layout was for a challenge to do most of the layout above the middle of the page, have some bling on it and to doodle.  I hate my doodling - I always think it looks so ugly.  However, I decided to go for it.  I used my new-to-me "Animal Crackers" kit and I love it.  I used SCAL and my Cricut for my title and I really like how the font turned out; I used "Smiley Monster".  

Am I happy with the doodling?  Nope, not at all.  I think my stars look ugly.  But I love the rest of it so I'll get over it.

The Cutest Superman Ever

I decided to scrap these photos of A's first Halloween.  I absolutely loved the kids' costumes and these pictures make me smile.  So, I wanted to do a great job with them.  I love the colour palette and it was fun to try a couple new things.

I won these transfers from a challenge from Club CK last year and hadn't used them yet.  Since I was actually paper scrapping some Halloween pics, I decided to give them a try.  I used the embossing powder that I also won in that prize package (can you believe that it matched the colours I'd already chosen?!).  I'd never embossed before so I had to get creative on how I'd heat the powder.  I used my flat iron for this one.  It worked OK but it warped the paper.

For this one, I had gotten some advice from scrappy friends to try a light bulb so I tried it.  It worked better, slower but no warping.

And then I used some blue glitter for this one.  I hadn't used it before either.

The circles by the title didn't start out as circles.  I thought I'd try out my new Sew Easy scallop stitching head but I didn't realize that I'd pierced the holes the wrong way.  :(  Oops!  I had to make it work so I pierced holes on the other side to make it look like rings.  That's why they aren't perfectly round.  But that's OK - it's part of the scrapping process.

I *heart* U

Another layout for last weekend's challenge.  We were asked to put everything "crooked" on the page and to include something soft on it.  If you know me, you know that crooked and I don't work well together.  In fact, if something's crooked, it's because it was a mistake and rarely intentional.  So, as much as it killed me to do it, I tilted it all.  I actually like the photo mat with the pics tilted.  

I'm loving using pop dots for my title - it just adds great dimension without having to use Thickers.  I don't have a big stash of them so I rarely have the right ones.

The soft part on my layout is the felt circles on the embellies.  I felt the journalling needed a little bit of attention so I pulled out this bling "line" (for lack of knowing what to call it!) to underline the first line of journalling.

And yes, I misted AGAIN on a layout.  It's just seemed right for these last few.  Huh, maybe I'll become a fan yet.  ;)

Miss You card

Another challenge for last weekend's crop was to make a card using sheet music and black somewhere on it.  I'm so not a card maker but for some reason, this one spoke to me and it was the first challenge I did all weekend - so strange but so nice for once!

I've had this patterned paper in my stash for years, seriously 8+ years.  *blush*  I still really like it but I'd never known how to use it.  So, I just needed a kick to use it!  I love the green trim for this card so even though it doesn't match perfectly, I still like how it looks.  The two flowers were white and I chalked them to make them the right shade.  I thought the little stitched swirl would add the right finishing touch to the card.  And I know exactly who I'll be sending this one to!

So Happy Together

This past weekend was an amazingly awesome one, in terms of scrapping.  There was an online crop over at Skrap 'n Chat and it's my one-year anniversary of being active on that message board.  It was last year's crop where I jumped in and got so much creative inspiration.  Well, my fabulous hubby told me to reserve the day Saturday and scrap my heart out while he took the kids.  I managed to get seven - yes, 7!!! - challenges done!!!!!

This layout is for a challenge to use hearts on a layout in a creative way.  I decided to use this sweet picture of K and A for this layout.

I cut out these hearts and layered them and then added a button on top for good measure.

I found this little blingy heart in my stash and thought it added a little cuteness to the title.

And then I thought of doing a heart border using my Cricut.  I love it!