Life is Busy

A little later than my normal Saturday post. But life has gotten busy. Since last Friday a lot has happened!

1: After two disappointing showings, I finally found an apartment!!! It is a great 1 bedroom plus a loft. And it is off the road, facing a nature conservancy! I move in a few weeks. They need to do some cleaning and replacing floors prior to me moving in. I took all these pictures on my iPhone for my sister. I just did it quick, so they are not great quality. Just enough to keep her from asking.

My future kitchen/dining/living area

What a view!

My future scrap loft! And I have an in unit washer/dryer!

2: Lots of shopping. I bought a mattress and bedroom set and a couch. Nothing like the real world of furniture shopping!

3: I had a fantastic night at crop night at my LSS

4: I've been battling the usual June sinus bug. So all I really want to do is lay on the couch and my head pounded for a week straight.

5: I went back to my summer job full time

6: We moved my aunt to a new condo.

So needless to say I've been staying busy. But I've got some projects in the works still.

Grandma's lilies that I lovingly transplanted and moved here finally bloomed. I guess the nasty bunny be gone spray did work. They haven't been touching them any more. Last year they ate them all at the stalk.

A few hundred heritage pictures showed up in my aunt's move. Needless to say I've got a new project. There are a few hundred pictures of family and family friends dating back to the late 1940's through the 1970's. Crazy to see my grandparents in their early days.

I finally put the finishing touches on Princess E's birthday album. I'm working on blurring faces so I can share more pages coming up.

I love how this final page turned out. I did a lot of sequins in this book. I did have to use the hot glue gun to get them to stay put. The round circles on the bottom were an idea I stole from my friend Janet. It was such a fun ending to the book!

Misting and Sewing

Another fun page out of Miss E's birthday album. I loved how this one turned out, so I decided to cover the kids faces since I didn't talk to their parents about sharing these pictures. I am just having the funnest time with this album. I love all the bright colors and fun mediums I get to use.

 

For this layout, I used the Heidi Swapp Sunshine Mask for the background. I'm still furious my local Michaels said it would be 1-2 more months before they would have these in stock. Thankfully I've been out of town enough that I raid all the other Mikes. 

I used the Teal, Primrose, and Chartreuse mists. For some reason the green looks like gold on the black paper. I also used the teal again with a Chevron Studio Calico mask on the blue paper.

 This little cluster was so fun. All the wild paper in this album is the Michaels Recollections line. Can you say Girly colors of cheetah print, zebra stripes, polka dots, and other fun stuff. I made the heart myself with loose glitter, and then modge podge to secure the glitter from my page.

 The sequins were leftovers from another page, so they made a fun embellishment to jazz up my banner. I decided no amount of glitter, bling, sequins, or anything else will be overkill in this album.

Finally I hand stitched, after punching with my Sew Easy, to form some border of where I misted. This page turned out just awesome!!!!

I can't wait to hand over the album to my little princess.

Card Crazy

I've been on a card making frenzy lately. Between end of the year thank yous and Father's Day, I've switched gears for a little while. Cards are not my "thing". Scrapping is really my crafty "thing". Without pictures, I have a hard time deciding what space to leave bland and how to arrange things. I am a total right smack dab in the middle type. But all these cards turned out pretty well.

 This first one here is for my dad. Both the navy cards are for fathers day. I used the same supplies but just switched up the embellishments. From a family of girls, I've got mainly girly embellishments.

I got a cool pack of embellies from Jo's back this winter. It was from the Basic Grey line "Hey Boy". It was a fun vintagy line. My dad grew up in his dad's car dealership, so this fits him perfectly. He takes such great care of my car.

 I was able to run my background paper through my Cuttlebug, with the chevron folder from Provo Craft. I'm finally getting into the chevron trend. The twine is from The Twinery. I punched varoius circles from scraps I had laying around. I still really like the two toned circles, that I ink embossed with an embossing folder. If you didn't see that technique, you can check it out here! Again the embellies are from Basic Grey.

The two alcohol ink cards are for my paraprofessionals who I work with. They are amazing women and do a great job with our students. The one above is my "normal". The swirly background die with the pool, sailboat blue, purple and raspberry inks. And I'm back into tying bows when all else fails for embellishments.

This last card was a wild try and at old attempt. I like the messy technique when you drag your paper through the ink on your emssy mat. Turns out I used a little too much of the orange. I was hoping for some more yellows, but it turned out fine. The stamp was from my LSS in their community use drawers. I heat embossed the sunflower before inking, and reversed it with an iron later!

Thanks for stopping by. Summer is in full swing. I'm working at my old summer job this year. This is the first summer with out any time of college class. I'm starting on grad classes this fall, so I'm enjoying my freedom right now.

Weekend Fast Scrap: Circle Crazy

I am hosting the weekend fast scrap at Skrap n Chat this weekend. If you are not familar with SNC, it is a scrapbooking forum based out of Canada. It is a small, tight knit, group of ladies. It is drama free and a ton of fun. A friend of mine is organizing weekend Fast Scraps this summer. A fast scrap is a set period of time to create a layout. There are different types of challenges; for example sketch challenges, a recipe challenge in which you follow certain things to use, or a technique challenge.

My challenge is a combo of a recipe and a technique. In 90 minutes you must create a layout using circles as a focal point. So a minimum of five small/medium circle or one larger background circle. Along with your circles I want to see misting on a similar color cardstock as your mist color. And then two pieces/colors of bakers twine.

If you would like to play, you can register at Skrap N Chat. Find the challenge under "Member Challenges", load your layout to your gallery, and then link to the thread.

Here are some creative layouts I have found as inspiration.

Basic Grey Sketch with Circles

Paradise

Third Grade


Together is the Best Place to Be

Mama's Boy

Happy Creating! Can't wait to see what you made!

A peek at my projects

Doesn't this paper scream 6 year old girl

I've been a busy gal lately. End of year at school means report cards, progress reports, end of year assessments and more. We are also moving classrooms, which means EVERYTHING is going in a box. Throw that and lots of family stuff together, and my craft time has been a little less.



Back in April, my two cousins and I threw a birthday party for my goddaughter. She turned 6, and had a dozen little kindergarten friends come over for her party. We rented a photo booth! It was so much fun! Part of the photo booth is getting two copies of the prints, one for the guest and one for the person's party.

So I took all the copies home, and put them into an album for my goddaughter. We were also able to order copies of individual pictures. So I have lots of fun stuff to scrap. I'm just showing some glimpses since I don't feel it is appropriate to show all the kids faces.

I'm in love with all the different mask's on the mark. The Hexagon mask is from Heidi Swapp and the Chevron is Studio Calico

Needless to say pink, glimmer mist, glitter, and peace signs describe all these little divas.

Mustaches were a hit of the party. Needless to say I scooped up the remaining ones for the album.

Lots of peace signs

All smiling girls in the photo booth

I sewed a pocket for the last page to hold all E's cute cards.

Check back on Saturday, I will be hosting the Weekend Challenge at Skrap n Chat. I'm still trying to decide if I want a sketch, recipe, or technique challenge.

Your Story Matters

 I picked up this super neat canvas while I was up in Door County over the weekend. This really describes my philosophy on scrapbooking. Your story matters. I want to tell my stories through my scrapping. My philosophy on embellishments are words first, stuff second. I don't want to overpower my page with the stuff, and have that "stuff" take away from my stories and pictures. I am not a scrapper who puts lots of stuff on her pages. I really want my memories to be preserved for my future family. I bought this canvas to sit on my scrap desk and remind me of my purpose of scrapping.

What else have I been up to? Not scrapping .We celebrated a wedding this weekend, welcoming a new member into our family. We also went to Door County for the day. We had such a long winter and a cold spring, that the blossoms will still gorgeous. I got my tulip fix. I tried to grow tulips this year, but it didn't go so well. 

The tulips outside the world famous White Gull Inn

Party rocking with Princess E-she really wanted a "rock star" pose. I didn't know what to do

Hopefully I will get back to the land of scrapping soon. We've got 2 weeks and a day left of school. I am moving classrooms next year, so right now I'm in the middle of progress reports, report cards, packing, and all the other fun stuff that the end of the year brings.

Mother's Day Cards

As I'm getting ahead on auto posts, I'm amazed that I have my cards done ahead of time. I'm normally the person up late creating the perfect card the night before the occasion. I happened to be at a Friday night crop at my scrapbook store, and they have open use of their stamps. You just have to provide your own ink, powder, and cleaner. So it works out perfectly to make cards there every few weeks, instead of buying a ton of stamps. I would say scrapping is my main hobby, and people just expect cards from me as a result.

If you haven't already figured it out, alcohol inks are my go to for cards. They are fun and different. I don't know too many other ways to do cards.

 This first one is for my Grandma. I used purpe, orange, and yellow-a three pack from Jo's. I learned that sentiments need to be big and bold when using alcohol inks, so I traced over it with a glitter pen.

 This next one is for my mom. Blues and purples are my favorite colors to use together. I again used the resisting technique to pull off the embossing powder and reveal the stamp underneath.

 I used this saying in both cards, I'm not sure who makes it, but I found it in the drawers at Creations Galore.

 This is my current storage solution for my card making supplies. Little shelves from Home Depot. I like that my Distress Ink Pads have a nice accessible place.

My little basket of new goodies. I keep my Washi Tapes, Twine, and some other fun stuff right in view on my desk. I swap stuff out depending on my projects and seasons.