Easter Cards and Scrappy Resolution 2013 - March

I shared my 2013 scrappy resolution in this post.  Three months into the year and I'm still keeping up with it!  I'll admit that I did only use one sheet of paper from past March kits, but I have had a slow month creatively.

I wanted to make some Easter cards and went to Danielle Flanders' blog for some inspiration.  She had created an adorable Easter card with a bunny instead of the "A" in the word happy and I borrowed that idea.  I went through my past March kits and found a cute pink plaid patterned paper from Jenni Bowlin and used that as the base.

I made a few more with a little bit different design using some Crate Paper and Echo Park papers from my stash.  I used my Silhouette Cameo to cut the bunnies, flowers and grass.

Have you made any Easter cards this year?  Please share if you have!

Have a great week!

Scrappy Resolution 2013 - February

A couple of weeks ago, I posted here about my scrappy resolution for the year.  Every month, I'm going to create a layout or card (or both) using a previous Studio Calico kit from that month. 

This month, I created a layout using the Studio Calico Sunday sketch using products from the February 2010, 2011, and 2012 Studio Calico kits.  Here is the sketch:

My layout pretty much followed the sketch exactly - it made it really easy!

The colors of these BasicGrey and Crate papers made me think of this single photo I have from my first birthday.  I really tried to make the layout look fresh even though the products were older.  

I also made a few Valentine's cards with the kits.  I had remembered that Stephanie Howell had created some fun cards with the February 2010 kit, and lifted them.

I used my Silhouette for the border and they were super easy to put together.  They turned out so cute!  (Thanks Stephanie Howell!)

How about you?  Have you used any product from older kits lately?

Have a great week every one!

October Crate Color Challenge

I've been playing along with the monthly Crate Color Challenges from the Crate Paper blog for the last several months.  I'm finding that it is a great way to use up my enormous supply of Crate products.  It is also a fun challenge - the color combinations are a lot of fun, but not always very easy.

This month's challenge can be found here.  The colors are Dove Grey, Peacock Blue, and Gingerbread Brown.

The colors made me think about last weekend when we spent the weekend in Vermont.  We drove to Brandon and the whole town was decorated with "Leaf People."  It was a very fun, festive look.  I had taken several pictures of them and printed out a few for my layout.

I used paper from four different Crate collections - Pretty Party, Paper Heart, Farmhouse and Portrait.  The only non-Crate items are the white cardstock and the letters "VT" were both AC supplies.  I used my Silhouette Cameo for the title and for the leaves.

The winner will be posted on the Crate blog tomorrow.  Wish me luck!

Have a great week everyone!

Instagram Newbie

I finally got an IPhone a few weeks ago and the first thing I did was download Instagram.  I had a feeling that it would change the way I scrapbook, and judging by the last three layouts I created, it sure has!  All three of the layouts were created with Instagram photos.  Two of the layout have pictures of events that I normally wouldn't have pictures of because I wouldn't have a camera with me.  

This is the first Instagram photo I took.  I was in my scrap room when I downloaded Instagram and as soon as it was ready I took a photo of the first thing that caught my eye - it was a scrapbook page I had just finished.  The color palette is from the September Crate Color Challenge.

The next layout has pictures of the food truck that I often go to on Fridays and the grilled cheese from that food truck that I am in love with.  Mmmmmm!!!!  

I used the September Studio Calico kit, Central High, for this layout. 

The last layout I created was pictures from last weekend, the last weekend of the summer.  My hubby and I went to Harold Parker National Forrest for some mountain biking.  I never would have had a camera in the woods with us, so I am so happy I can now take pictures like this with my phone!  

How about you?  Has Instagram changed your scrappy world?

Have a great week everyone!

August Crate Color Challenge

The color palette for the August Crate Color Challenge was posted here just over a week ago.  The colors for the month are:  vintage linen, pear green, and sea glass blue.

I started by going through all of my Crate products and pulling out the papers and embellishments that I thought might work.  Then I peeked through some recent photos of mine and found one that I could use.  My husband and I spent four nights in Quebec City this July and I had taken this photo of the outside dining area of the restaurant that we ate at.

I ended up using patterned papers from three different lines:  Pretty Party, Emma's Shoppe, and Portrait.  The embellies were all from Pretty Party, with two OA buttons and a couple of Prima crystals added.  I also added a little strip of Freckled Fawn washi.  I did just a bit of misting with Studio Calico's Mister Huey in Dewey.  I had kept the receipts from the restaurant, so I tucked them in behind the photo and stapled them with my tiny attacher.

The "flower 4-petal square" design from Silhouette that I used here may be my new favorite design.  I think it is fabulous for layering!

Have a great week everyone!

April Crate Color Challenge

Crate has become one of my favorite scrapbooking companies.  It all started with the Restoration Collection, which is one of my favorite and most used collections of all time.  Since then, I have also fallen in love with the Portrait Collection, Farmhouse Collection, Paper Heart Collection, and the Storyteller Collection.
The February and the March Studio Calico kits contained lots of Crate goodness.  I also bought the entire Paper Heart Collection from my local scrapbook store.  So when I saw the April Crate Color Challenge on the Crate blog, I had plenty of product to play with.
Here are the colors:

I created a layout with a recent photo of my cat Elliott.  It is hard to get a great photo of a cat, but I love how this one turned out.  I call Elliott the "BIG E" and I used both of his names on the layout in different fonts.  The three fonts were all cut with the Silhouette.

Have a great week everyone!

March 2012 Studio Calico - Story Hour

Each month this year I have been posting all of the layouts and cards that I create from the time my Studio Calico kit comes until the day the next kit comes.  Here is what I created this month with Story Hour.

I create a layout each year about the books that I read over the past year.  This is the 2011 version.  To take a peek at 2009 and 2010, you can see them both here.

I loved this paper from Crate Paper so much that I went to my local scrapbook store and bought another sheet or two of it.  (Hence, two layouts with the same paper from one kit!)  I loved the gray and the light blue together and I thought of this photo of my husband on our vacation to Iceland several years ago.  I love the look a bit of Mr. Huey gave to the background.

I did a little photo shoot of all of my family members a couple of summers ago when I was in Wisconsin visiting.  We took a quilt and hung it over a swing set in my brother's back yard.  I really hope to do this again this summer!

I love using creating layouts with vintage photos.  I have this stack of photos from my dad that is mostly distant relatives, but some of the photos are so great, I have to scrap them.  I had my dad research who the kids in the photo were and he was able to get the names and ages and where they were living.  The back of the photo said that it was September 1952 and that it was their first day of school.

I hope you enjoyed this month's layouts!  I have the April kit, City of Lights sitting on my desk, waiting for me to get busy!

Have a great week everyone!

Booth Family Photo Shoot

tQuite a few years ago, I saw a layout in a Creating Keepsakes magazine that had a great idea.  I think it was the 4th of July or some other summer event and they used a flag as a backdrop and took photos of each family member.  That idea stuck in my head and in 2009, I did a similar photo shoot.  My family is usually only all together once or twice a year.  When I went home that summer, I borrowed a quilt from my mom, hung it over a swing-set in my brother's back yard and did a family photo shoot.  I took photos of each individual, each family and then the entire family.  It was a lot of fun and I love that I have these photos!

The layout was created with the March 2012 Studio Calico kit, Story Hour.  I used the Silhouette Cameo for the letters "BOOTH FAMILY"  - the font is Dream Orphans.  I also cut the leaves out with my Sil and then hand-stitched the lines in the center.  The flowers were made by Amy Tan exclusively for the Studio Calico kit.  I really need to make some of these!  

Creating this layout made me realize that we haven't done this the past couple of years.  I really hope that we do a Booth family photo shoot again this summer!  

Have a great week everyone!

black sand beaches of Iceland

Six years ago, we vacationed in Iceland with my in-laws.  I still can't believe that I went there - it was so amazing.  We climbed volcanos, rode Icelandic horses, walked black sand beaches, went to the Blue Lagoon, snowmobiled on the tops of glaciers, saw the most amazing waterfalls.  I've been thinking lately that we need to go again!

I have so many pictures from this trip and this is the first one that I have scrapbooked - I'll have to get on that.  When I saw the gray Crate Paper from the Story Teller Collection in the March Studio Calico kit, I knew this was the picture that I wanted to create a layout with.  The photo is my husband on a black sand beach in Vik, the southernmost village in Iceland.

I started researching about the beach a bit online because I couldn't remember that much about it.  The beach was actually named one of the ten most beautiful beaches in the world one year.  It is pretty amazing that I got to go there.

I used my Silhouette for the title and for the blue doily behind the photo.  Everything on the page was from the Studio Calico March 2012 kit.  The mist is Mr. Huey in Calico White.

Thanks so much for stopping by!  Have a great week!

   

Books Read 2011

This may not be my favorite layout, but I think it is a fun topic to document.  For the last three years, I have created a scrapbook page about the books that I read during the year.  Here is the layout that I created for 2011.

I used the March 2012 Studio Calico kit, Story Teller.  I love to read, I just don't get as much time as I would like to do it.  This year I actually read a lot more than usually because I started using public transportation for the last five months of the year.  I had a good hour and a half on a train every day and if I wasn't napping, I was reading a book or a magazine.

Here are my layouts for 2010 and 2009.

I'm not taking the train as much anymore, so I haven't even finished a book yet this year!  The one I am reading isn't great, so I'm having a hard time finishing it.  Any suggestions of good books that you read recently?

Have a great week!

Paris mini album

I'm so excited that I finally finished my first ever mini album!  I had finished all of the pages before Christmas, but I hadn't started the journaling.  I bought the album at a scrapbook store in Paris and I decided that I was going to create the album of our trip there.  I knew that I would need more pages than the album had, so I decided that I would buy some postcards and type the journaling on the postcards and include those in the album.  I love the large postcards that I found and I think that they look great in the album.  I love that I was forced to do a lot of journaling (five post cards worth!) as I normally don't do a lot of journaling.  I kept the color scheme fairly neutral, using mostly Crate Paper's Portrait collection.

I used my brand new Silhouette Cameo for the Eiffel Tower, the map of France, and the 2011, and a few other items.  

Me in front of the scrapbook store!  I love that I found this store thanks to the Studio Calico message boards.  No matter what question you ask, someone can usually help you out.

I used a combination of black and white and color photos.  

I included a lot of ticket stubs, receipts and pamphlets.  The pamphlet for Notre-Dame was a horrible green color, so I scanned it and printed it on a neutral color.

The page on the left is probably my favorite page of the album.  I just made a grid of nine 2"X2" photos of some pieces of art from the Louvre.  So simple, yet I love the way it looks.

I used bits and pieces of lots of things from my scrapbook stash and from my Studio Calico kits.  I loved having no rules for this album.  Some of the products that I used was old, but I didn't care as long as I was happy with the way it looked. 

I could have created a whole album of photos of my nephew and husband eating sorbet!

I used the font "1942 Report" for my journaling.  I can credit Studio Calico for that, too.  I use that font all the time now after reading about it on a message board.

I had to use a washi band-aid on this postcard.  I got a little excited about trimming the postcards for the album and made a boo-boo.  You would never know that it was a mistake though - it looks so cute!

I love this business card and silverware wrapper from a restaurant that we ate at.  I didn't have to add much else to the page to make it adorable!

Thank for taking a peek at my first mini album.  It was a lot of fun and I'm sure that I'll be creating more soon.

Have a great week everyone!

Sneak peek! (Just to prove that I am working on something!)

I've spent all of my scrapping time over the past few weeks working on a mini album of our vacation to Paris last summer.  I finally finished all of the pages last night - the front cover plus ten pages.  Now I have to start on the journaling.  I bought five oversized postcards in Paris and I'm printing my journaling on the back of those, so I have a long way to go!  I don't want to share the album until I get the journaling done, but I thought I'd share a sneak of the work that I have done so far.  

This is a peek of the front cover:

I actually bought the album in a scrapbooking store in Paris - Le Temple Du Scrap.  I just had to make a trip there as part of my vacation!

This page is from the Louvre:

I tried to include as many ticket stubs and other little items as I could in the album.  

I'll be sharing the entire album soon - TFL!!

Have a good week everyone!

Mixed Media project

My husband and I were lucky to sneak away to our condo in VT for Columbus Day weekend.  The weather was amazing - near 80 degrees and sunny every day!  When we spend a weekend up there, I generally have a lot of down time, which I enjoy immensely.  I read book and magazines, nap, take walks, head to the fitness center for a swim or a hot tub, and cook a lot.  I would love to spend the time scrapbooking, but I could never be organized enough to figure out what I need to bring with me. I have, however, been able to work on mixed media projects.

I am a complete newbie when it comes to mixed media.  All of my inspiration comes from Kelly Rae Roberts.  I bought her book, Taking Flight, and there are a lot of interesting techniques in there.  

For this project, I first covered a 12x12 canvas with layers of old dictionary paper, using multi-medium to glue it on.  All of the patterned paper is from Crate Paper's Pink Plum collection.  I cut out the shape of the skirt on one of the pieces of patterned paper and then layered the other pieces on top of it.  The legs are just Making Memories paint (the color is cantaloupe.)  The flowers on the blouse were cut out from a border sticker in the Pink Plum Collection and the "Life is Pretty Wonderful" title is a rub-on.  I use a Stabilo pencil to outline it and add any detail, such as the belt.

The orange dots were made with a combination of Studio Calico's Mr. Huey in orchard and multi medium.  I "stamped" it with bubble wrap.  Initially I tried to stamp Mr. Huey directly onto the dictionary background, but because it was covered in a layer of multi medium, it didn't dry (at all, it really just pooled.)  I posed the question of the Studio Calico message board and Davinie from the SC design team suggested mixing the multi medium with the spray mist first and then stamping it.  Since the multi medium dries clear, just the color shows up.  It worked perfectly!

Thank you Davinie for the tip!  

Have a great weekend everyone!

Brenda

Your Smile Makes Me Happy!

I don't normally use a lot of Prima Marketing products in my layouts, but when I saw the beautiful trim in the layout below at my LSS, I had to have it!  I just had no idea what I was going to do with it.  I took it out the other day and noticed that the packaging that the trim came in was just as beautiful, and I decided to use it in my layout as well.  

I had a hard time trying to come up with a picture that would coordinate with the ribbon, but then I remembered a family photo shoot from a couple of years ago.  We hung a quilt of my mother's over a swing set and then took everyone's photo in front of it.  I love the way the photos turned out.  I made a mini album with all of the photos for my nephew who was going into the army.   I can't believe I never took photos of the finished album after all of the time I spent on it! Anyway, I thought that a photo from the photo shoot would go perfectly with the Prima trim.

The product packaging is the beautiful strip to the right of the trim.  I used Crate Paper patterned paper, rub-on, and sticker; Sassafrass and Studio Calico letter stickers; Making Memories Slice for the large butterfly; and my favorite Martha Stewart butterfly punches.

The photo is my niece Olivia (again! - can't help it, she is very photogenic!)  I just love her smile in this photo!

The rain has started pouring here in front of Hurricane Irene predicted for tomorrow.  We brought in all of our lawn furniture, bought bottled water, and have meals planned tomorrow that don't require electricity.  Hopefully it won't be too bad.

Stay safe, and have a great Saturday everyone!

Crate Paper June Sketch Challenge

I've been having a difficult time coming up with ideas for layouts the last few weeks.  Actually, I've come up with lots of ideas, but they all involved my Slice which has been at the Slice hospital for the last few weeks.  It never made it home - died in surgery - but a new one arrived at my door this Thursday.  Yay!  In the mean time, I thought I'd try out the June Sketch Challenge from Crate Paper to help my creativity.  Here is the sketch:

I loved the sketch - it was very easy to work with.  The only thing I really did to it was to turn it on its side.   I used papers from the Pink Plum Collection and from my most used line ever, Restoration.  

I used my new Slice for the leaves and for the word "autumn" and the letters "V" and "T."  I ended up cutting the letters out and then using the cut out as a mask to mist the letters.  That wasn't what I had planned, but my new Slice did not like the thickness of the Crate paper, so I had to do what I could.  Here's a close up of the stitching:

In Killington,Vermont they decorate hay bales in the fall.  There are pigs and panda bears and caterpillars, etc.  The center photo is of hay bales decorated as an owl.  It was the best creation that we saw last fall.

Have a great week everyone!