Simple & Easy

This layout was so simple & quick, it's nearly criminal. Gabby is one of my favorite subjects, and this is what I like to call, her "cueball" period. This poor kid had no hair for like a year!

To create this layout, I used an 8x10 black & white photo that I trimmed to 8x8. I simply mounted that on some black cardstock leaving about a quarter inch mat, in turn mounted that on a very muted patterned paper from the Silhouette Collection (and of course, there was a My Stickease™ tag & border sticker as well!).

Before mounting that on the more bold patterned paper, I used my cutting knife cut some flower flourishes from the center of the paper that would be covered by the photo itself. Waste not, want not! You can see that I used one of the flower flourishes in the upper right corner of the photo.

I lined up where I thought I should place the large photo (this time I chose just about dead center) & lightly made some tic marks on patterned paper with a pencil. Again, I grabbed the trusty cutting knife & this time used it to cut around some flowers that I laid on top of the photo.

After cutting out the flowers & flourishes I wanted to save, I used a border strip from the My Stickease™ Assortment about one third of the way down the page, see it?

Even though it looks like the strip goes all the way across, it's only a couple of inches on each end of the paper. I still have about nine inches left of that strip. Now, I can use that on cards, altered items, & other scrapbook pages!

Note: I did not completely liberate the overlaid flowers from the bottom-most patterened paper, I only cut where the matted photo was going to be.

The foam squares were used to adhere & pop the flowers off the page.

This layout took less than half an hour!

Busy, Busy, Busy

...but, I still made a teeny bit of time to scrap this double page layout.

I've gotten a ton of mileage out of this collection, called Evensong by Close to My Heart. This collection is what I used to for the Create N' Take during my Open House, I made Christmas Cards, altered Christmas tree ornaments, etc. It's really festive.

The title was made with the Large Chocolate Alphabet. I stamped it on Colonial White Cardstock, cut out the individual letters (and was able to use small scraps because of this!) leaving a bit of a white edge, I mounted it on some the New England Ivy cardstock from the Harvest Autumn Collection, used the EK Success Corner Rounder on each corner, then mounted all that onto the Colonial White Cardstock & trimmed it all out with the scalloped edge scissors.

I tried a bit of quilling, which I saw Sandy Genovese do on DIY network. It was incredibly easy. I adhered the quill with teeny drops of Liquid Glass. The cool part was that I used a skinny, leftover scrap of the New England Ivy cardstock!

At this point, I must admit that I've done none of my Christmas shopping.

Gotta run!

Perfect Day

This is a lovely collection from Close To My Heart called Perfect Day. I'm no product snob, so there are a couple of pieces on this layout of my daughter, Gabby, that aren't CTMH.

The tag is a sticker from the My Stickease™ Perfect Day Collection & the bookplate a piece of chipboard that is painted, inked, distressed & clear heat embossed to give it an awesome 3D effect. Here's a close-up:

I'm also a huge fan of taking something that was meant for one thing & using it out-of-the-box. I cut a square metal tag in half, creating a neat photo corner:

I used jumbo scalloped scissors from Provo Craft & some CTMH eyelets to create this photo corner. You also see some of my non-CTMH embellishments, like those adorable Heidi Swapp sparklies. Of course, Close to My Heart offers a clear equivalent, but I'm trying to use up some old supplies. Come on, we all have tons!

I love to add a lot of dimension in my layouts & accomplish this by using foam squares in places where a shadow will be cast. Love it!

I felt very inspired by the Perfect Day Collection, so I also created this double page spread.

My older daughter, who was only eight at the time took these photos of Gabby & me. There were several photo's that I really loved, but they weren't something that I would generally add to my scrapbook without a little tweaking.
While I liked these photo's, they weren't composed well, but in general the usable part of the photos were about the same size. Yay! I cut them all the same size (approximately 2"x3"), matted them, put them topsy-turvy down the left side of the left hand page, & added the photo corners from the My Stickease Assortment.

I just love how this title came like this. I didn't have to do anything to it!

Maybe you noticed that I really love the paint, ink, distress, heat emboss technique because I did it again here using the brackets from Dimensional Elements Fresh Shapes chipboard. Here you can see the shine that the embossing powder creates!

I love that you can stamp on the CTMH twill! I'm also a huge fan of knots in ribbons, as you can see... I created unity in both pages by carrying over the knotted ribbon.

My Peeps!

I had the most amazing time!

I'd never been to a Renaissance Faire, and boy have I been missing out. What a great experience. Unfortunately due to time constraints, I was only able to stay a few hours. I'm going back with my children after my cruise. They were very excited about it. I bought some really cool stuff, including THIS HAT!

That afternoon was just what this Mom needed! I cannot wait to go back :)

I woulda missed the boat!

Holy smokes! I have been so busy... (aren't we all?) that I would have missed my boat!

I am going on a scrapbooking cruise this week. I thought I was leaving on Sunday, but the reality is that I leave on Saturday. Oh. my. word.

Yeah.

I leave in a few days. I have nothing packed, nothing planned. I do have my passport & my auntie lined up to watch my children in my absence!

Well, my Open House went really well! It was obvious (to me, anyway) that my guests had an awesome time! I made some really cool checkbook covers for the first five people who RSVP'd & they were a hit! Some of those that didn't RSVP (or RSVP'd later) really wanted one for themselves. I admit, I want one for myself. LOL When I get a spare second, I'm going to go ahead & make myself a couple.

I had designed this cute Create & Take.

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It seemed to be a hit. It was really cool to be teaching a simple project like that everyone could do. It was also fascinating to give a set of instructions to a dozen people & you'll get 10 perfectly legitimate interpretations of said instructions. THAT is very cool. I'm learning that teaching is just as much learning as it is teaching. How friggin' Yoda was that?! It was either Yoda or Jessica Simpson.

I wanted to have this acrylic album done [Photo], as well as this cute circle mini album [Photo], but it was one of the few things that didn't get done. I did get a couple of cute pages into a new album. [Photo] [Photo] [Photo][Photo]

My party was so much fun that I wish I could be a hostess more often. Whoever said that it is always more fun to go to a party than have a party obviously never had a scrappin' party.

I took not one single picture of anything... but, my guests had fun!

I'm going to gloss right over that it's been nearly three weeks since I've blogged. :)

Do you ever...

...feel like you're trying to put 10lbs. of "stuff" in a 5lb. bag? I often feel that way! I'm a "list maker", I do it constantly. I come from a long line (a long list, if you will) of list makers, I've made my oldest daughter into a list maker, too. My youngest daughter is only 4, but I'm already working on her :)

I'm glad that I've been able to cross some things off my list. I've been learning a lot about CTMH, thanks to my tireless upline. Questions, questions, questions... but she never tires of them. Whew!

A great thing that I've been able to cross off my list is some give-away's that I'm planning for my Open House next Tuesday. Here's a sneak peak:

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I remember as a teen watching MTV, and Poison was doing an interview before a concert. It was either Bret Michaels *squeal* or C.C. DeVille were standing in the empty arena & he said every night the band always wondering if anyone would show up. I guess performance anxiety will happen to everyone...


...and it was happening with me! I started to get a little apprehensive about attendance, or lack thereof, at my Open House. I have some wonderful friends that are coming to support me, even if they aren't crafty. Since some of the attendees aren't necessarily crafty, I'm including already-done gifts, some kits that need assembly, as well as some "raw" materials like adorable acrylic stamps & pens, etc.

Thank goodness for supportive friends!!

My First Home Gatherings!

Yay! I have my first Home Gatherings! I'm super-excited! I'm also hosting my Open House on Tuesday the 16 of September from 6:30-8:30pm. If you think you might be in the area, shoot me an email for details!

Here's my calendar of events. Would you like to schedule your own night of scrapping fun?