Actually when I first started scrapbooking I didn’t scraplift (copy the design or elements of an existing layout) at all. I just did whatever. Now that I have my own loose style I find it easier to look at other people’s work for inspiration and not loose my style in theirs. I pulled out my old Ali book A Designer’s Eye for Scrapbooking with Patterned Paper and picked out a couple of layouts to lift to get myself into the groove the other day.
This is a pretty straight lift from page 77. Photo turns, hello, totally forgot about these little lovelies.
I barely squeaked out the title with some fabric I had in my to be punched quickutz stash (I use a ruler box to store strips of cardstock, paper and fabric that are 1.5″—to fit my little xyron. Hope that makes sense, if not tell me, this helps me utilize my Squeeze so much more). I need to bring more fabric up and incorporate it into my layouts, I love the texture.
This is a looser lift from page 94. Super simple, but wanted to show lots of the girls playing together. I know they are going to love looking back at layouts like this when they are older.
I’m trying out a new neutral and so far I love it. I was in a big white/kraft kick but I like this slightly speckled off white.
Also glimmer mist, yum!
More mists. The photo of the layout was too wonky to try and crop it, sorry. Pretty impressive that my nails are painted though! Ha!
Fabrips from Studio Calico, love them!
Last one from today, and my favorite! I don’t know when I bought the Zing powder, but I hadn’t used it before, and it is so awesome. I forgot how much I love the look of embossing.
And of course brads.
Are you scrapping this weekend? I have some more layouts to share, but after I took photos I realized they needed something. Good thing I just got my sewing machine back from the shop!
Also based on my last bunch of layouts I don’t think I will ever use up my patterned paper stash, yikes!
This and That
-what a day around here. I had a very upset toddler who was not telling me why she was upset. This is rare, I usually get a lot of signing on her wants/needs.
-Finally in the evening we had the double combo of grandma coming over and getting her to eat (exactly what I had been trying to feed her, but better because grandma was doing it, of course) and some major poops. Have I mentioned we use these and love them? This is our out and about option (she can go with out it, but is more comfortable when the opening on a toilet is smaller).
-Tuesday has slept through the night a few times in a row now, but I can not seem to get used to it. Has this happened to anyone else?
-I can't wait to show you what I did with this and this. Hello heat gun, I've missed you.
-Of course that all depends on getting a certain toddler to let me take a picture. I had to pack my orders today with her on my back. I can't remember the last time I did that. The Ergo is still working great (Tuesday is probably a little over 20 pounds).
-I got a big order of summer time prints from Shutterfly. And I scrapped one of the contact sheets that comes with your order. I love it.
-I tried to use a Michael's coupon to get this, but I'm pretty sure it's impossible to get anything there I want with a coupon EVER (they either don't have it or it's on sale for a tiny bit—boo!).
-My mom closed up her pool today. Maybe the earliest ever, and she opened it late because of the nasty weather. So a very short season to swim. Tuesday was just getting comfortable.
-I want to build on that so I signed her and I up for swim lessons.
-Which meant I had to go buy a sport type one piece. Which I haven't done since I taught swimming… and was tan and very fit. At least swimsuits were all on sale everywhere.
-I finished watching The Gilmore Girls. My lovely neighbor had all seven seasons on DVD. Bj has heard this about a million times but, I wanted a montage at the end, damn it.
-Then I watched The Young Victoria which was waiting for months for me to watch it while I powered through Gilmore Girls. I'm sorry I made you wait Victoria, you were brilliant!
-Now I'm not sure what to watch while I scrap and clean, or fold laundry, or… (I tend to watch things in snippets on my computer here and there). I've even started up watching the news again. It's depressing. Anyone have a better idea?
-I actually took the garbage out and sorted the recycling/composting before getting on the computer… kitchen duties, you will not be so lucky.
-Time to eat more freshly made salsa.
Amber out.
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The Beach
We had a great weekend. Saturday we picked up Sarah and headed to the coast.
Tuesday spots the big water (her sign for water is a finger by her mouth… she can’t quite make the “w” sign).
For some reason the water was quite nasty, lots of foam, so she wasn’t able to play in it. But she sure had a blast in the warm sand.
She was covered in sand, but since it was dry it was pretty easy to clean up.
A great weekend.
I can’t seem to stop myself…
Just a few more layouts to share. My sewing machine has been getting a little tune up and will be coming home tomorrow, so maybe I’ll switch it up and sew this weekend. But for now…
An 8 1/2 by 11 landscape, totally mixing it up. Actually I stamped on a 12×12 piece of paper when I was going through my ink and the top was all messed up so I decided to salvage it this way.
I am loving the white on white (or color on color) layouts that I’ve seen around, and I thought it was perfect for the quiet ton of this picture.
Like I’ve said before, I love brads! I also love my Quickutz, I’ve had most of my fonts for years and years (I use the old Squeeze tool) and I always find it so handy to have a fond in any color I want whenever I want. I think I’ve shared this tip before, but when I have long piece of scrap cardstock I cut it into just under 1.5 inches (so it will fit through my xyron) and keep it in a pencil case. That way I have strips to choose from without having to cut into a new piece of cardstock. I go back and forth on digital die cutters (slice, cricut, silhouette). Anyone one have one? Do you like it? Do you still use a manual die cutter?
Memory Keeping and Art Making
Tuesday and I had a day up in Portland today and on the drive back while she was sleeping (yeah!) I had some time to do that daydreamy thought thing. I sometimes have thoughts that maybe scrapbooking is a waste of time and supplies… like when I go on a fun scrapbook supply buying binge. Why don’t I just put the photos in the book and write a caption? I mean it would be so much easier and less time consuming. But in my musings today I decided I like spending the time on it all, and I like the supplies. But the main thing for me is that I DO print out all of my decent photos. I have them in boring black faux leather albums that we can flip through whenever we want. For me the scrapbooks elevate certain photos and stories, and I love that.
It got me thinking back to my first scrapbook. I talked my dad into giving me the same amount of money that a pre-made senior scrapbook would cost. With it I bought a Canson spriral book, one of the early CK issues and some supplies. I still love this thing (even though it has a few pages with post it notes where finished layouts should be!). I’ll share a few pages (the cover I modge-podged with a class project from my New Mixed Media class):
The opening pages. Our school colors were orange, brown and gold… really.
I need to do another one of these pop culture pages, so fun to look back on now. I still can’t believe I’ve kicked the Diet Coke habit after 15 years!
Random stories that didn’t take up a whole page (I should do this again too!).
Ah the free time of a teenager, I think I’ve been to three movies in the last year.
I’d love to see links of your first scrapbooks!
Ok a few more recent things, I vered off the kit a bit, but I got a lot of layouts out of it, so try one out!
Tuesday and her love of beets. 🙂
Sweet girls 🙂 I just traded out the pictures in the frames in our bedroom after a few years (refreshing!) and wanted to scrap them, as they are some of my favorites.
A simple one about Tuesday’s first trip to the fair last year.
I think this might be my favorite one (finally found the layout I got inspiration from it is here). I love me some brads. And those old Doodlebug letter stickers… and the subject matter of course 🙂 I am going crazy scrapbooking lately, in addition to these I did three more, plus all the kit ones plus three tonight!
So happy scrapbooking to you!
Enjoying
Labor day sales
Yummy backyard dinners
Good company
Scrapping favorite photos
And cute little girlies
Tuesday with Carmen’s daughter Chloe.
Scrapping with the Kit
I’ve made a bunch of layouts with my kit and I’m loving the quick scrapping.
This was my warm up layout. Do you do this? Usually they end up being my least favorite. I had a super crazy bad warm up layout after a few months off of scrapping. It was so hilarious. I sent a picture of it to my scrappy friends and they got a good laugh. I don’t fret too much though, I still stick it in the scrapbooks. This is not really that bad, I just feel like it needs something, ideas?
I decided just to leave the pictures of my layouts with the counter top in the background. Way easier than trying to get it straight on, is it distracting? If so I’ll have to come up with some better way to take photos of them (I hate scanning and stitching). Anyway super simple layout, but I am loving the simple.
Wonky photo-merge but you get the idea. A two page layout, what?
One of my all time favorite brads. I love brads so much.
A mushy layout about Bj. I was testing all my old ink pads and saved the paper (I’m trying out new neutral colors of cardstock, this one is a recycled type with little flecks, I like it).
This was in January, can you believe it? Time flies…
When Nora came to visit we went to Cooke Stationary and I got a box of these lick and stick notarial seals for fifty cents. Every time I go there I wonder where they get these crazy old supplies. Love them. I also love my new bubble boarder punch… a lot.
Last summer, the little baldy.
Went to the blog for journaling. Hey blog, you are so handy.
Any my last layout, my favorite so far. I had totally forgotten about this crazy weird face she was making for a while!
Sarah got me this awesome tape that I have lusting after for my birthday. A perfect touch for this simple layout.
So I posted them in the order I scrapped them. I find it interesting to see how I move through my pictures/stories and supplies. Because I am not using a ton of patterned paper right now I have lots more goodies to work with in the kit. So I’m going to use it for a bit longer. I’ll let you know if I come up with anything else blogworthy.
Hotness and a vintage layout
At my birthday party a few of us were talking about the dorm I was in my sophomore year. It was a cool old dorm with huge bathrooms that had separate toilet/sink & locker/shower & bath rooms. In the main area of the bathroom, the sink & locker area my friend and I started a wall of hotness. I made a layout from some of the guys I kept:
Journaling “I do not think these really hot guys need much of an explanation, but I will humor my future generations, besides what if I have all boys? My sophomore year the girls in my hall decided to deck out our bathroom. Anyone could put up a new picture, bu tthe ones on the door required consensus. It constantly evolved and in June we all took home our favorites.”
I made this years ago but had to scan it in for you Erin and Carmen! Mmm door worthy guys. 🙂 I love the pictures of the bathroom. It reminds me of my friend Ceara’s bedroom in high school, though she had a bit more George Clooney in there 🙂
In other scrap related news I decided to go through my stuff and make myself a kit. I have been oohing and ahhing over Studio Calico’s site for some time now, but I have too much stuff already so I though making a kit of my own things would be best. Here is what I came up with (with some editing from Sciarrino):
Some yummy goodies. I’ve already made five layouts with it, crazy! They are pretty simple, but I love them just the same. I’ll share a few tomorrow. For now I’ll leave you with one NOT made with the kit:
An older picture of Tutu napping with journaling about what it takes to get her down for the night. Sweet little baby.
Turning the focus in
Ok I have to admit to a little chill in the air, despite my reluctance to let summer go. Of course when this happens and more time is spent inside I start thinking about tweaking things here and there. My living room is the next on my list.
It looks pretty good here with lots of light coming in. The rug is newish and we love it, it’s from Amy Butler updated: we’re having serious problems with this rug. I do not recommend it, we are still working with the company to get our issues resolved. I was waiting for the rug before figuring out the color for the table and other things, like curtains. I think I want to have the table painted that lighter blue color and do curtains in a similar shade, but I’m having trouble finding some dark enough blue that don’t look too heavy. I want them to be full length (the ones I have now were made with something I had on hand, hence the short size). Ideas? Thoughts?
To the right of this picture is the little phone cabinet:
I have the table moved into my craftroom right now so Tuesday and I can work on projects together. I think I’m going to leave it as is, but I need to clear coat it so it’s easier to clean.
I did already do one little thing:
I re-did the nook above the fireplace to make a little art gallery.
When I was thrifting with the girls I said I thought a little collection of glass candlestick holders would be fun. They said I could find a whole collection in the one Goodwill we were at, and they were right.
Are you starting to turn the focus inside? Any little projects around the house you want to share?
30
1. I went to the fair and hit up the photobooth like I do every year (2003-2005, 2006, 2008, 2009).
2. I chopped off my hair.
3. I am with in 1 pound of my pre-pregnancy weight (124 lbs).
4. I have been working out at least 4 times a week.
5. I actually like it.
6. I even worked out today, ON MY BIRTHDAY.
7. I also ate more of my birthday pie so I made up for it.
8. I haven’t had a diet coke in 24 days.
9. I don’t miss it…
10. much.
11. I’m drinking this instead (diluted 1/2 with water) when I need something besides plain water.
12. Last weekend Sciarrino helped me make a scrapbooking kit with my own stuff and I’ve been having a blast playing with it.
13. I like Twitter more than Facebook.
14. This resulted in a take no prisoners “friend” cut.
15. I need to take more pictures
16. and video.
17. Especially of my ever-changing wonder named Tuesday Lee.
18. I really want to sleep through the night again.
19. But not more than I want to comfort Tuesday… ah motherhood.
20. I’m so excited to be in my 30s.
21. I feel more like me than I ever have before
22. and I like me.
23. I love that I’m watching less TV and don’t miss cable at all.
24. Now the few things I watch seem even better and more special.
25. I’m glad we don’t have pets… the dogs on the corner are so annoying.
26. But fresh eggs from a chicken would be nice…
27. Wait, when’s the last time I used an egg?
28. I love summer, but a snuggly winter is calling my name.
29. After staring at this screen for a while the whole room seems darker and I start thinking about new lights.
30. Wow thirty is a lot.
