Summer Fun 2012

  Hi, everyone! I'm thrilled to share my latest mini album with you today. Do you ever just finish a project and squeal with delight because it turned out exactly the way you hoped it would? (Okay, I'm a big enough perfectionist that this doesn't happen that often.) It sure did this time around!

  I have to say that I'm becoming a bigger and bigger fan of Simple Stories. I don't use divided page protectors in my scrapping, but the bits and bobs in their collections make awesome mini albums! I use the cut apart pages for tags, mini pages, and journaling spots, and the variety provided in each paper collection makes coordination really ... well, simple.

  For this summer-themed album I used the Summer Fresh collection from Simple Stories, lots of Prima Essentials flowers, buttons from Little Yellow Bicycle, and a few handmade denim goodies. As I always do with my mini albums, I'm about to hit you with way too many pictures. I just can't help myself!

The best part of any mini is the cover, right? This is an envelope mini with five interior pull-out pages. I coil bound it with my Bind-it-All and tied lots of ribbon to the binding for my cat to eat. (Yes, I did say for my cat to eat, which is why all my minis go in a cabinet he hasn't learned to open yet.)

This little faucet handle from Tim Holtz was just TOO PERFECT!!

Here are some of the interior pages:

This page has a flip book with a few photos inside.

I use the cut apart elements that come with the collection as mini pages with room for journaling on the back. (This is Gia's fair face. I'm sure she'll be happy I shared it with you. Love you, sissy! That's why you're in all my minis!)

This page has a vertical strap where all these tags and goodies tuck in. Lots of room for journaling here ... I even had the girls do some of it in their own handwriting. PRECIOUS!

I had to have a good boohoo on this one ... This is the last photo I have of my Grandad. :(

This photo wallet clips onto the page with room for six more photos and journaling.

I love these little mini pages!!

  Thanks so much for stopping by to share in my papercrafting joy today! Now I get to unveil the mini for the family, which is always the best part. :) Have a lovely week, my friends!

Welcome Home

     Wow, the weeks are flying by! Life is so busy for us in the spring with all of the girls' activities, piano recital, festivals, and group lessons, but we're enjoying every moment. The highlight of our week (maybe the whole year) was a surprise gift to see the touring Broadway show, "Beauty and the Beast." What an absolutely spectacular, whimsical, and just plain fun evening!

   I haven't had much time to craft lately, but I did whip up a housewarming card for a friend who just purchased her first home. I had some Dear Lizzy scraps left over from March's My Creative Scrapbook kit, and so I got out the Create a Critter Cartridge again.

   This happy little mailbox was just too cute, so I combined him with some of the sticker elements and a mix of papers from the collection. This collection has been another favorite, probably because the combo of pinks and robin's egg blues just call to me!

   It is an absolutely GORGEOUS day here in Montana after a few weeks of snowy, blowy weather, and my yard needs some prep work today. I hope things are sunny wherever you are!

Create a Critter

  I got the adorable Create a Critter cartridge for my birthday last year and haven't done more than a few projects with it. I LOVE it, but sometimes going to that "cutesy" place is hard for me. I decided to YouTube some inspiration and found some really nice projects. I was particularly inspired by Jana Eubanks' 25 Ways to Embellish Cricut Cuts:

  I created two cards this week using Create Critter and tried to use a few of Jana's ideas. On the first I used chalk and patterned paper:

I love using my scrap box to create Cricut projects! The inside of this one reads, "I Hope Your Day is Just Ducky!"

The second uses stamping, doodling, chalk, and copics:

The inside of this one reads, "Oh, Snap! I Missed Your Birthday!"

I do love the puns!

Hope you are having a lovely weekend, and I hope Jana inspires you to move a little outside your box too! 

The Joys of Casing

  Sometimes I just want to sit down and craft, you know? No experimenting, no designing ... just gluing and inking with zero thinking. :) That's the kind of day it was in my craft room, and lucky me, the design team at My Creative Scrapbook is AMAZING, and there's sure to be more than one layout every single month that I can just case and use with almost no alterations at all. 

The first is a lovely layout by Shell using the March kit:

Here's my case:

The second is by Helen Tilbury also using the March kit:

And here's my case:

Thank you for all of your inspiration! I really enjoyed my afternoon of gluing and cutting thanks to your hard work!

Everything Eleanor and a Little Prima

  Hi, friends! I haven't made a single card for my stash in so long, and I'm really running low, so this morning I pulled out a card base I made ages ago that's been sitting on my craft table for seriously 3 weeks. I used some scraps from my Prima Zephyr collection to make the card base and then got totally stumped.

  After a little experimentation with various stamps, I decided on some Copic action with my Everything Eleanor stamp set. Here's how it came out:

I can't claim it's my favorite ever, but at least it's done and off the table and ready to thank someone. :)

Hope you all have a lovely weekend!

Cute Little Bird

  What a unique problem I had this morning ... I couldn't photograph my latest layout outside because it was too SUNNY! Hooray! People always joke that there are only two seasons here in Montana, and one of them lasts nine months, so when that spring sunshine peeks through the clouds we all throw on our shorts and  sunglasses and head outside!

  The March kit from My Creative Scrapbook was so cute that it isn't spending any time in my stash before being cut apart and loved on. I had to use it NOW! The springy colors in the Dear Lizzy collection are so perfect for some baby pictures I found that I've never scrapped, and I'm sure you'll soon be seeing lots and lots of layouts with this kit.

Here the March sketch from My Creative Sketches:

Here's my take on the sketch:

Doesn't the sweetness of this collection just make you a little giddy? 

I punched my floral paper with a Martha Steward punch around the page and then cut out the center with my AWESOME new Stampin' Up cutter to make a frame. I had tons of fun experimenting with the different layers of patterned paper behind my photo! I embossed the little squares for added texture and spritzed the background with Blushing Bride and the Prima mask included in the kit.

These little Prima wood pieces just make my heart skip a beat. :) My new pinwheel die from Stampin' Up had to make an appearance on this springy page too!

The little clipboards from the paper collection make perfect journaling tags! This one slips behind my main photo.

I hope you have a lovely weekend, my friends, and I hope spring has sprung wherever you are! (Even if it's only temporary!) :)

Once Upon a Sketch March Challenge

  Hi, everyone! I spent a lovely Saturday morning playing with Once Upon a Sketch's March challenge with the theme of "The Weekend." I had enough paper and goodies left from my Prima Zephyr collection to do one more layout, and I found this bright and colorful photo of my daughter with nice coordinating colors. Sometimes things just come together!

Here's the sketch:

Here's my take:

This photo was taken during the weekend of our local summer arts festival. We were sitting and watching my other daughter and my sister walk with the Corgi Club. Watching the Sweet Pea parade is one of our big summer highlights every year.

I turned the sketch sideways for my interpretation because my photo was vertical and quite large. I layered on a Prima chipboard piece, flowers, and wood pieces from the collection along with some doilies from my stash. I stapled on some cute little banners and Stickled some of the flourishes around the page. My journaling is on the back side of the page to give me plenty of space.

This collection puts me in such a summery mood. I have to admit that when it first came in my My Creative Scrapbook kit of the month, I felt a little out of my element. I tend to have a hard time scrapping with blue, and this collection had tons of it. In the end I found that I created some pages with it that I like very much ... probably because I felt no need to covet it and just felt free to experiment. 

Here are my other Prima Zephyr creations:

Just goes to show that it's good to challenge ourselves, even in our scrapbooking. Have a lovely rest of the weekend, my friends!

XOXOXO

  Hi, friends! Yesterday I spent a fun crafty afternoon with my sister and the girls, and we each accomplished a page for a challenge we were working on! Amazing! We hardly ever travel during school breaks, so for us these little respites are so renewing and rejuvenating. The snow is almost melted in the yard, the weather is warm, and it almost feels like spring here in Montana!

  I decided to work on a layout for a new challenge blog I've started visiting called "Scrap Your Story." The challenge this week was animals, so I pulled out this cute picture of Sophia with our cat, an adorable, extremely naughty Devon Rex named Neo. (As in Neopolitan ice cream, although he's usually referred to as "crazy kitty" or just "NO!") Despite his hard-headedness, he's been a fun addition to our family.

 I used the Crate Paper "Paper Hearts" collection for this layout, along with some vintage sheet music, the punch outs and sticker sheet from the collection, Prima flowers, Tim Holtz playing cards, Liquid Pearls, and Recollections gem flourishes. The journaling is hidden on the tag above the photo. I used my tiny attacher to staple some little banners in the upper right corner, and curled up a few edges of my background paper with spray ink. 

 I hope the animals (human and non) in your life bring you joy today! Thanks for stopping by, my friends!

A Fine Spring Day

  Hey there, friends! Today I'd like to share a springy layout I made this weekend. I'm so ready for warm sunshine and flower planting, and this cheerful Country Garden paper from Bo Bunny just makes me so happy! I took these photos last year when we were decorating eggs for our family egg hunt. The girls were totally into making characters for some reason, so they made a variety of animals, along with Indiana Jones, and then Sophie dropped an egg on the table and cracked it and a whole herd of zombies were born. My girls are so goofy!

I distressed the edges of my background paper with a spray bottle and backed my main paper with some little pops of color. I layered my photos over journaling tags and created my title with stickers and rubons. (I see now that I don't have my stickers quite straight. Argh!) I painted a chippie from Leaky Shed bright green, and added some butterflies I fussy cut from the paper collection. I originally hand wrote my journaling right under my title, but I totally messed it up and had to add the horizontal green and orange strip to cover it up. This layout had a few walk-away-and-take-a-deep-breaths, that's for sure!

My journaling now lives on a little yellow tag that pulls out from behind the top photo with room for a wallet size pic of the girls' zombie creations. (*Sigh and grin*) My sweet little girls.

I haven't done a single chore all weekend, so I better get at it before the day is done! Have a lovely week, my friends!

Once Upon a Sketch February Challenge

  "Do All Things With Love" is the theme at Once Upon a Sketch this month, and I decided I wanted to change things up a bit. I almost always scrap about my kids (my most loved people), but this time I decided to do a page about me and my special relationship with the instrument that's become my hobby then my career, my therapy, and really my whole life. 

  I started playing the piano when I was eight, and I knew right away that it would be a lifelong project. I went on to study piano at university and have been teaching privately for almost 15 years. I spend at least two hours with this view almost every day, and it's a huge part of who I am. 

  This page is specifically about my love for my "signature" piece, and what it has come to mean to me. I used papers from Crate Paper, some ruffled up Tim Holtz tissue tape, Prima and homemade flowers, and vintage piano music. My sewing machine is still broken, so all the stitching was done by hand. (I miss you so much, sewing machine!)

I wanted this page to have sort of a shabby chic, French country color scheme, and I used Gabrielle Pollaco's tutorial on paper ruffles to create my blue border.

My journaling is hidden in a pocket at the top of the page.

Here's the lovely sketch for this month created by Nadia Cannizzo:

Thanks so much for stopping by today, my friends!