Sketchbook365 January Challenge

  Hi, friends! Today I'd like to share a page I finished up this week about our family's generation-spanning love of the British cult classic TV series, "Doctor Who." I snapped this picture of my sweetie holding one of his most coveted possessions, his disappearing Tardis mug. My uncle had the 1980's version when I was a kid, and whenever we visit the farm in eastern Montana, we all get to arm wrestle for it. Now my kids get to look forward to the same kind of friendly competition. 

  Here's the sketch this month by Morag Cutts. Since I don't have any of my Christmas photos printed yet, I altered it for my own purposes:

And here's my take:

I altered the background with some stamping and sponging and a little spray mist. The journaling is on a kraft tag that pulls out from behind the photo layer.

I made the British flag out of a scrap from the paper collection (Teresa Collins) covered with strips of washi tape that I colored red with Copic markers. 

I used random strips of washi tape to add some interest to the background.

I'm still doing my best to journal somewhere on every single page. 

Thanks for stopping by today, my friends!!

Snow Angel

  It's snowy and cold here today, so it's the perfect day to share a layout I finished up over the Christmas holiday. We have lots of opportunities for winter photos here in Montana, and I love this picture of my daughter enjoying the latest snowfall.
 

  This layout is pretty clean and simple as I had a few scraps from last year's Winterland line from Fancy Pants that I wanted to use up. I created a border on my background page and then cut snowflakes from an acetate sheet to decorate the page. I used lots of Stickles to give them a snowy sparkle and layered on a few fussy cut elements from some of the papers I had left. The result is a page that will actually fit in a page protector (unlike so many of my others!) 

  Take time to play in the snow, my friends!

Magic of Oz Mini Album

  Hi, friends! Today I'd like to share a little project that seemed to be many weeks in the making. I ordered a few of the 12x12 papers in Graphic 45's Magic of Oz collection a long while back and started a paper bag mini album. I just got the canvas binding on this week and announced it done!

Here are a few pictures:

The cover! Always my favorite part of any mini album. I popped up and glossied lots of elements and made some red polyester poppies with my heat gun and the Tim Holtz Tattered Florals die. I used red Stickles on the ruby slippers and used my Copics to color Dorothy since I only had a sepia version of her left.

The first two pages featured the scarecrow. The large scarecrow pulls out as a tag, and a long scarecrow perches across the top of the photo mat. He's so cute!!

The yellow brick road page features all the characters.

The tin man's page ...

The Emerald City page has tons of tags and an envelope for extra photos.

The Wicked Witch! Ding dong ...

the Wicked Witch is dead! 

This was such a fun project to make! Graphic 45 and mini albums are a match made in heaven, and you'll see lots, lots more of these! Thanks for stopping by today, my friends!

Once Upon a Sketch January Challenge

  Hi, friends! Today I'd like to share my page for Once Upon a Sketch's January challenge. This challenge site is one of my favorite because of its focus on journaling and using scrapbooking to tell our life stories. The theme this month is "The Start of Something New," so I decided to do a page on my life's biggest adventure, the joy of becoming a mother of twins. 

Here's the lovely sketch designed by Nadia Cannizzo:

And here's my page based on the sketch:

For this layout I used Carta Bella's Beautiful Moments paper line and sticker sheet, a Leaky Shed chipboard frame, and lots of blooms from Prima, Recollections, and a few I made myself. I cut the title with my Cricut and Storybook cartridge.

Here are a few close-ups:

I made the pink flowers out of polyester suiting fabric by cutting various circle sizes and melting the edges with my heat gun. I spritzed them with ink and added some inexpensive pearls from the beading section at my craft store. Bad-a-bing!

I wanted to tell a longer story on this page, so I decided to place the journaling on the back. I've been trying to do this more and more with my layouts.

Thanks so much for stopping by today! While January can be a dark and gloomy time of year (at least here in Montana) I hope you find some little joys to carry you through! I saw a bunny out my window this morning which made my whole day! It's the little things, right? See you soon, my friends!

Harvest Memories 2012

  Hi, friends! I'm back today to share a super fun project I just finished up over Christmas break. I got a Bind-it-All from my sweet hubby for Christmas, and I was thrilled to get to use it right away!

  For this envelope mini album, I used the Harvest Lane collection from Simple Stories. This collection had tons of cute cut-apart tag pages that made really great mini album elements. The gals at My Creative Scrapbook paired it up with some really fun accessories in our November kit, and I had fun incorporating them into this project.

  Here are some highlights! (Forgive my urge to post an excessive number of pictures ... I just really had fun with this project!)

The cover! I love the little wood shapes that came in the scrapbook kit!

The cut apart elements made some really fun small inner pages with nice sentiments and interesting space for adding more photos and journaling.

I can't even tell you how much I love this little jar full of hearts! It decorated a nice vertical pocket with lots of space for goodies ...

Since this was an envelope album, there's lots of space inside each page to tell more stories.

Banners, banners, banners! Perfect!

The sticker sheet that came with the collection made embellishing really easy. Since wire-bound minis need to remain fairly flat, the sticker elements added a lot of visual interest without a lot of bulk.

Lovin' the nuttiness here! Pretty much perfect for our little family!

  I had more fun making this mini than I've had on a project in a long time. I realized while doing this one that I really like to start with all my photos first so I can organize and design around them. Lesson learned, and I'll be doing that in the future for minis I intend to keep. I know you'll be seeing many more bound projects in the near future!

  Thanks for stopping by today, my friends!!