Happy New Year!

It is that time of year again when I go and make promises or set goals for myself that I never seem to keep. So what will make this year any different?

Here I am and it's been months since I have even touched this blog. Where does the time go and why don't I ever have time for anything anymore?

Speaking of no time, I haven't scrapped and it kills me. I want to, I have pictures set aside and tons of ideas but just no time. And putting aside the time, I don't want to always dedicate my dinning room table to it because I have a hard time cleaning up. I just always say "well I am going to do it again tomorrow, why clean up" and then months later the mess is still there.

These past few months I made a bunch of Christmas ribbon tags (unfortunately I didn't take pictures of them) to sell at craft fairs and a local holiday shop. They were really cute... embellished circles with a punch of curled ribbon on top. A nice touch to a gift bag or wrapped gift but.... they didn't sell. I guess they weren't as cute as everyone told me they were :(

While I was making these tags, I thought I should get myself on Etsy. A part of me wants to because I like to create but then the other part of me doesn't because I don't think I am all that good. Yes Negative Nelly is in the room!

Putting all of this aside, I have to sit and make my goal list for this year. Goals for scrapping, organizing and the rest of my hectic life!

I will be back sooner than later and get everything in order!

Until then.... Happy Scrapping!

New Toys!!

I have been shopping here and there for supplies, common stuff. But just yesterday I went out and got myself something I have been eye'ing for quite sometime.

The Martha Stewart Circle Cutter!!

I cannot begin to tell you how excited I am to use this! I have an old Fiskars circle cutter but it does not work efficiently and I am hoping this does the trick!

I have been admiring how some people add thin circle borders to their layouts and couldn't figure out how they did it and now I know ;)

The instructions recommend using a glass mat. I didn't even know such a thing existed! But I did manage to find one at Michaels and picked that up as well.

I can't wait to get my hands on it this weekend!

Click here to watch the tutorial on YouTube.

2 Picture Layout: My Son

It has been pretty difficult to find time to scrapbook lately. With the summer comes, lazy days by the pool and lot's of party planning for my son's birthday. This year he will be 4 years old.

With that said, I caught a great picture of my son after a long day in the pool. We sat on the grass and had some snacks and he lay on the grass on his tummy holding his chin up with his hand....



2 Picture Layout:




I am so happy on the way this layout turned out. I had the 12x12 grass paper in my stash for the longest time and as soon I realized I wanted to scrap these pictures I went digging for this paper - the perfect paper! All the layered papers and embellishments are all 'outdoors-ie' and work out great. The paper tree is by MyKi, a site that sponsers Scrapnwin and is handmade and so very adorable.



I hope you like it!

Finally One for Me...

I always scrap my son and I mean ALWAYS. I finally did a page for me and it is not as girly as I wanted it to be. I plan on doing another one soon, very soon, with pinks and whites :)

I went with the baby blue and brown color scheme to match my dress in the picture. Even though this layout is simple I think it is elegant.

I did something for the first time on this layout. The blue scroll... it was a bare piece of chipboard and pressed the entire piece onto an embossing pad and then used blue embossing powder and my heat gun and embossed it. It came out awesome! I have embossed on paper before but this is my all time favorite material to heat emboss! It came out so regal. I added blue jewels to the ends for extra sparkle.

I hope you like it as much as I do!

3 New Layouts

I have been going really slow lately with my layouts. Futzing around I guess (not sure if I spelled that right!). I would look at my supply... pick out pictures... and then decide not to do it at that moment. And that went on for a month or two. Finally I got my groove back (well kinda) and I got these 3 layouts done.

3 Picture Layout:

Carnival

These are pictures from my son's first carnival, last year in 2008. I had a hard time finding a filler embellishment for the empty spot that I had on this layout for a few weeks... it was done but was still missing something. The best thing I could come up with was buying the mini swirl pops at a local Party City. I figured it went with the pictures of my son sucking on his first big swirl pop!

1 Picture Layouts:

Chocolate Pudding Pirate!

I love this layout!! I love the picture! It was soo perfect and soo not planned! My son was eating chocolate pudding, made a mess and just as a snapped the picture he was raising his arm and the spoon was covering his eye! Totally perfect and totally priceless! I used the Storybook Cricut cartridge to cut the title and used Cats Eye inks to antique the edges. Printed my journaling and used star eyelets to set the journaling down.

Pool Side

This is an old picture from last summer. Actually the first pool day of last season. this page is pretty simple but do feel like it is missing something. The mat behind the picture is actually Crayola shapped papers I got in the dollar section of Michaels. They worked out perfectly for this layout - looks like a splash of water!

I hope you like them! More to come soon, promise :)

I Have been MIA!!!

I clearly have been missing in action. Life has been busy and hectic. I have been sneaking some scrapping in here and there and still working on that friends pregnancy album - it is taking me forever and I am loosing interest :-/

I also have 2 layouts that I started but haven't finished yet. I know exactly what I want to do with them but haven't had the energy to actually do it - I guess I am in a funk. But I did a few layouts last month that I have not posted here yet and will now. Enjoy!

2 Picture Layouts:

Coloring Easter Eggs:

Here I found the cutest Easter 12x12 paper but instead of placing my pictures directly onto that (I thought it would have been 'too much')) I centered a bright yellow card stock to bring out the yellow Easter Eggs and them matted the pictures with green cardstock that matches the green grass in the 12x12 paper.

I added green chipboard corners in different sizes for a little 'extra' effect. The Happy Easter stickers is from Soft Spoken and I used eggs stickers as letters in the word coloring in my title. I think it came out fantastic. And these photos are from Easter 2008.

The Outdoors:

I found this great line at Michaels called Friendly Forest Friends. The cutest line ever! I bought a bunch of the embellishment sets as we all the paper pack. It seems more Fall oriented but I was able to use it now.

As I finshed this layout I kept looking at it because I knew and still know it is missing something but can't put my finger on what. But I am the type of person, once I say I am finished with a layout, there is no going back.

The only exciting thing about this layout, well for me anyway, is the tree. It was a stamp part of this collection and I embossed it.

My first double page layout:

I have always been aprehensive about doing a 2 page layout. The thought of it always frightens me and I am not sure why. This time I did, a guess you would call it a modified 2 page layout? The 2 pages are the same theme and event but I didn't not combine them and have them bleed together - does that make sense?

I am really happy on how these came out. They are really colorful and show how much fun we had at the Circus this year.

The paper I used is from the "All About Boys" Stack by DCWV. There are really great papers in this stack - can't wait to get to use more of them!

I saved our tickets stubs and added them to page 1. I like adding that because all the details are there and I don't have to do too much journaling.

I had saved my popcorn box from the show and cut out with my Fiskars Circle punch, the Ringlin Bros and Barnum and Bailey Circus logo. You can see that on page 1. I put adhered it with 3d dots.

And on page 2, I also cut out the Circus name as well as the logo again.

Page 1

Page 2

1 Picture Layout:

His Gal Pal

I was told by a friend that this layout was too busy. It might be but I like it and I like how I coordinated all of it. But I am disappointed on how I placed my journaling circles on the layout. Once I got it down, I couldn't get it back up without ripping the paper.

Almost everyone one the below layout are from Fancy Pants Designs "All About a Boy". The transparancy is my favorite part. I have owned that piece for a long time but never knew how to use it and I think it looks perfect here :)

Happy Easter!

Just wanted to wish everyone a Happy and Blessed Easter!

I have been working on the unusual...

I haven't worked on any of my own layouts in a few weeks now...

A friend of mine asked that I put together a scrapbook for her of her recent pregnancy. I have stacks and stacks of pictures, memories, etc and I have had them for months. For months I have been staring at them and scared to start working.

I have done tons of my own layouts but never for someone else. I was scared. Scared that the layouts wouldn't come out good and my friend not like them.

Just last week, I forced myself to start and now I have 5 layouts done and it is coming out pretty well :)

I am not sure if I will be posting the layouts... not sure how my friend will feel about me posting her pictures... so this my be a private project but I am sure I will report back about it.

Another Weekend: Another 2 Layouts

I am pretty happy to say that this weekend I was able to get 2 layouts done. 1 each day. And being home with an active 3.5 year old, it honestly took me an entire day to get each layout done because of many interuptions.

2 Picture Layouts

Valentines Day 2009:

A precious time to capture. My son with his gal pal Catie on the day after Valentines Day having their own celebration with cupcakes.

I used some great supply on this layout. I received for Christmas a very large pack of handmade Velvet papers - GORGEOUS! I used the velvet paper as the back drop to this layout. I layered on top of that the Making Memories Artisan die-cut 12x12 paper and I used 3d-glue dots so it is raised.

I used my Cricut to create the entire title. I cut the hearts using my George Basic Shapes cart and used my Zooballoo cart to cut the letters. I highlighted the letters with Stickles in a coordinating color.

I was gifted during Valentines, a gift from a fellower myspace scrapper. Quick a few Valentines Day embellies which I was able to use on this layout. K&Company BW Sweet Talk banners and die-cuts. The die-cuts are not paper, they are a plastic like material, heavy duty and very pretty. On the banners I used an epoxy sticker for the first initials of the names and for the rest of the name I used rub-on letters that are 'mixed up' and it was fun putting that together.

I added a few heart brads here and there to finish it off. I am very happy the way this came out. I have done 2 other Valentine Day layouts when my son was a few months and I can actually say they are the worst layouts ever!

Easter 2008:

Easter of 2008 was the first Easter where my son could color his own eggs. He was 2.5 years old.

*first I want to say... I have an issue with photographing my layouts. unfortunately I don't know the proper way... the coloring is not great on this one. I didn't use the flash because when I did, it hit the center of one of the pictures causing the pictures to be all white. If anyone can give me a good tip, I'd really really appreciated it. **

The background paper on there is a gorgeous grass scence with Easter Eggs - simply gorgeous but also a bit overpowering to put pictures directly on it... at least in my opinion. I choose a yellow paper with little blue swirls on it and cut it down as the center of the layout. I added green chipboard corners, big and small for contrast. I cut out the title using my Cricut Zooballoo cartridge (I have a bunch of carts but I love the font on the Zooballoo). I used Sandylion Essential 'Easter Eggs' as the letter O in 'Coloring'.

The 'Happy Easter' sticker is from Soft Spoken. I also added light green and light yellow ribbon on the side, attached using my Making Memories mini stapler.

I hope you like them!

2 New Layouts

I was able to get 2 layouts done this past weekend. A nice lazy Sunday home with my son.... he played on the computer and did his own arts & crafts and I scrapped.

4 Picture Layout:

Surprisingly enough, I was able to get 4 pictures on this layout and still make it work without making it look cluttered. All the pictures were 4"x6"... I trimmed a few down, but barely.

I love the snowflake paper on the background and was able to pull out the different blues by the matts and the words. I added some photo corners to 2 of the pictures... I didn't want to over-do the photo corners.

The word SNOW is make of really thick chipboard... I am going to even say they are wood! I got them last year at Oriental Trading. I added Stickles dots to the corners and I think it looks really pretty. I cut out the words much fun using my Cricut and used the Design Studio as well to weld the words together. I used Pebbles chalk on them for some contrast and even outlined them with Stickles.

I didn't go overboard with embellishments, instead I just placed 3 brad buddies scattered.... pretty blue and white snowflakes.

The color scheme worked out really well with the supply I had on hand.

2 Picture Layout:

I had bought a Curious George paper back from Oriental Trading almost 2 years ago and never got the opportunity to use it until now.

I mean this is not the best layout I ever did... it's pretty simple.

I used 2 different papers.... one I used as a back drop to the pictures and matts. I finally learned how to use one of my Martha Stewart edge punches.... yes I couldn't figure out how to keep the punch straight and connected! I watched a video on scrapbook.com and it really helped me out, as you can see :)

I hope you enjoy these!