Too Tired for Complicated Pages

Ho, Ho, Ho, It's my "after Christmas I'm so tired I can't think straight" time of year. 

Time for an easy page layout.  It helps that the paper was so easy to work with.  Heidi Swapp's No Limits paper pack had this arrow border paper that needed little but to pile on some coordinating papers under my photo. 

I added a few things; stamped title, a (for real) Bingo card, some tags (Pink Paislee and Tim Holtz), several banner stickers (from Glitz) for who, what, when kind of journaling, a strip of paper and a length of washi tape for the photo to rest on.  After that, I fussy cut some of the circles from the circle patterned paper (I think that one was a scrap of old Cosmo Cricket), added some leftover pieces of border stickers, and  glued on some teeny gold star sequins.  But that's really about it. This was just stuff that was out on my desk and within easy reach.   Just what I needed right now, an easy, no brainer kind of page. 

I know I mentioned posting some of my gift card holders...the pictures I took were pretty awful.  My daughter did put them aside Christmas Day so I could take photos again and hopefully I do a better job this time and can get that post up in the next day or two.  (Cuz they really did turn out cute!) 

best,
Cheryl

Fa, La, La, La, la, Lots To Do

Don't usually do this, but thought I'd post a couple pics of life at my house... (or why I haven't been able to scrap lately) 

Just like so many others, over-booked, over-worked, over-it-all...this was my 12 days of Christmas

1.  Buy tree
2.  Put up tree
3.  Catch and pick up tree after it falls over
4.  Tie tree to bookcase until son can come over and help
5.  Go to Christmas parade
6.  Bake cookies
7.  Bake more cookies
8.  Bake more cookies
9.  Decorate children (I mean cookies) 
10.  Attend Bella's first Christmas program 
11. Pick up and watch grandbabies while daughter is traveling for work
12  Finally, decorate the @#*@ tree

 

 

 

 

 

 

Merry Christmas to all and to all a good night...

 

Stuff, Lots and Lots of Stuff (ephemera, stickers, and embellishments, oh my)

OK, so some scrappers can define their "style" by  describing themselves as a simple scrapper, or a minimalist, or being all about the patterned paper, or some such description.  But a defined style, me?  mmm, yeah, no. 

 As much as I jump around from subject to subject and year to year. I also seem unable to remain within one "style" of scrapping.  I can be perfectly enamored with lots of white space and minimal embellishments one week and the next be over the top for sticking on a stack of embellishments.  (Which is where we are at today; stuff, lots and lots of stuff.) 

When I saw some a couple of packs of very dimensional birthday embellishments at Michaels, I just loved them and snatched them right up. As it turns out, the paper rosettes, title banner, party hat and happy birthday sticker (part of the two different embellishment packs I grabbed) were re-branded Recollections, but are in fact part of the Party Day Maggie Holmes collection (no wonder I loved them).  I already had the ephemera pack (snared at Hobby Lobby weeks and weeks earlier) and sometime later I lucked into finding the Party Day paper pad on clearance. 

Now, with all this Party Day stuff collected I sat down to make Bella's party page.  Used two different background pieces, the diagonal red and pink stripe and the grid paper.  Prior to this I had stacked up and stapled together little piles of the flat ephemera, so I just tucked a couple of the piles in and around the photos.   I added the rosette and the party hat and then the banner title, which kind of gave me fits.  I mean that part should have been easy, peas-y.  But the title looked flat, so I cut out an extra sunburst layer for each of the letters and popped every other one up.  The sticker letters are from Echo Park, Little Girl sticker sheet and I think the party, play-fun day piece is from Heidi Swapp, but otherwise everything is Party Day.   

Where am I going with all this?  Well, there is a lotta, lotta of stuff on this page, lots more than I usually use.  So just when I think I have myself figured out style-wise, um, not so much.  I guess we'll just go with it and see where we end up. 

see where you end up, surprise!
Cheryl

Four-Square Page Design (and little boys and hats)

What is it about little boys and granddaddy's hats?  This is my Jacob man years ago at age three proudly wearing Boppa's felt cowboy hat. 

I wanted to use kind of a four-square design, and I wanted it to be casual and playful, so nothing is lined up, the outlining is done very loosely and I used three different alphas on the title square.  It's a really simple design, the four-square thing and worked out great for me because I didn't want to have to arrange and rearrange and rearrange again till I was happy with the photo placement.  It was 1,2,3 oh yeah, and 4 and I was done! 

Used Heidi Swapp No Limits papers and I think a piece of Echo Park's About a boy, as well.  Most of the embellishments are from the cut-a-parts in the No Limits pad or from a Heidi Swapp embellishment pack, but the viewmaster piece is from a Maggie Holmes emphemera pack, the Oh Boy is from the Echo Park sticker sheet (About a Boy or a Boy's Life---I can't remember which), and the little camera and dimensional star are from an Amy Tangerine embellishment pack.  The alphas used in the title are from the Echo Park sticker sheet, a Webster's Pages alpha set and the large textured red alpha are Thickers. 

And this was just taken the other day...our Mr. Jackson, a.k.a Bubba Lu (he's almost three)--and yep, he's sporting Boppa's woven cowboy hat! 

So funny to me---Jacob and the hat 15 years ago and Jackson now.  Little boys and granddad's hats, some things don't change, do they?  I may even use the same layout design to scrapbook this!

best,
Cheryl

More is Better

Sometimes serendipity takes over... "more is better" not only applies to my page title but is also pretty descriptive of the page design. 

I was watching a video on ohsnapgonzo's you tube channel and she was working up a layout with all these strips of paper and I thought it was so very cool that she was not seeming to worry about color coordinating anything, but was just going for it, gluing all the strips across the page and curling up some of the edges.  Plus, what a wonderful way to use up scraps! 

So here's my take on the strip piecing technique. 

The Jacob man insisted (way back when--I think he was 4 here) that he could indeed wear both pair of sunglasses...so he did.  More is better, he said. 

And with all the paper layers on this page...more is also better....  Plus it was just a lot of fun to grab a stack of strips and start gluing 'em down.  Now I think this technique would look really good with stitching across the strips.  But with no sewing machine, I opted to draw in some sketchy black pen lines on some of the paper strips.  And since there is so much going on with all the various paper patterns, I trimmed the whole thing down and centered it on a black piece of cardstock and kept embellishments to a minimum. 

I also spied another layout done using the same paper strips kind of technique, but this one arranged the strips by color, in a rainbow fashion. I think I have this layout pinned in my scrapbook folder on pinterest. 

But I thought I would try the technique on a more monochromatic page.  And this time, I only did a half page with the strips, varied the width of the paper strips more, inserted some scalloped border punched pieces plus a couple of stitched border pieces (those were from Basic Grey).   

I will definitely be using this method again.  Loved using up all those bits and pieces!  (Yeah, I know, it's getting a little weird how much I am into the using up the scraps thing.  Just. Cannot. Seem. To. Stop.   Note:  I also do not seem to have any shortage of scraps with which to amuse myself. )

does this require a 12-step program? 
Cheryl

A Little Glitter Here, A Little Glitter There, Lots of Glitter Everywhere!

An ornament making frenzy going on here this weekend. 

I did take some photos, because making ornaments has been a big part of my Christmas'es for a long time and I've never scrapbooked that.  Silly Nana.  We'll work on that, amongst other things. 

Here's just a sampling... 

Nope, not cookies (for whatever reason we've never even made Gingerbread cookies for Christmas...we make White Chocolate Dipped Molasses Cookies, but not Gingerbread Cut Outs.  
These are salt dough ornaments, these and the snowflakes--I just added cinnamon to the gingerbread-y looking ones.  And then "frosted" them with puffy paint and glitter glue, adding a final dusting of fine white glitter.  Small gingerbread men, large ones, snowflakes, snowman faces (not pictured--maybe later), trees, and hearts in two sizes.   

This is what they look like, just out of the oven.  Have to add some Distress Stain from Tim to get rid of the white edges and deepen the color a bit. 

These are the plain salt dough ornaments, embellished with the glitter glue, puffy paint, and loose glitter. 

Then it was one to glitter swirled glass ornaments.  Can't take any credit for this idea either...there was a gentleman that made these for a local craft fair a couple of years ago and I just loved them (bought several for my daughter).  Anyway, I thought I'd give them a try. 

Yikes, these are really bad photos!  (More subject matter for the what to do with poor photos line of posts, I guess.) 

In years past, I've usually made ornaments which required sewing...  I may still try a couple of hand sewn felt stockings or mittens...but just to use as package décor.  I don't think my hands will allow me to make too many of those. 

Oh, and just wait till I show you the gift card holders!  Not today though...today I am headed to my daughter's house for the making of the Christmas cookies (or at least the start or the cookie baking extravaganza). 

get your glitter on, girls,
Cheryl

Scrapping My Stash (again, or still)

More Christmas projects are forthcoming... but taking a break from the holiday foof-la for today, I am posting a scrap your stash sort of page. 

I think I may now have used all of the bluesy, greenie stack of scraps.  (Is it weird to get excited about using up stuff?  Cuz I kind of do...) 

I thought the colors went well with the water in  the photos and it was ok ... but it needed something a little bit more, so I outlined all the paper strips.  Still needed something more.  I used some white and green acrylic paint and applied it with two different size cardboard tubes.  TP and paper towel tubes--they were handy--it worked!  I used a torn piece of blue text patterned paper as a ledge to "sit" my photos on and added some washi tape.  Title alphas are Thickers.  The arrows and the Love Life sticker are all from Heidi Swapp, tickets and tags are from an Amy Tangerine sticker book, admit one and evidence labels are from 7 Gypsies.  The only other thing I added were some dippy-dots of Lime Stickles. 

Short blog post, I know.  But I have to get back to ornament making (and that is a page in the making, come to think of it!) 

best!
Cheryl

Gettin' My Merry Mojo On (and makin' a mess)

Recently I got to spend a weekend in my favorite fashion.  In my jammies, making cards.  Usually I start with some sort of a notion as to what I want the card(s) to look like.  Not this time.  I just got out some favorite supplies and started playing (and making a mess--not a little pile of scraps and some punches sort of mess---I'm talking a big, old, can't find your phone in it,  honkin' mess---ha!  it was great!). 

This was the first batch.  A bit of paper, part of a doily, die cut Christmas icons (covered liberally with Stickles---cuz all Christmas cards a better with something sparkly, right?) and some twine, ... and this is what happened.  I made about a dozen of these. 

On the next batch of cards, I wanted to use the cut-a-parts from a pad of Pink Paislee holiday paper and see if they could help me put together some quick and easy cards.... and they did!  All I really had to do to spruce them up a bit was layer the cut-a-part on a coordinating paper and add a dimensional embellishment (or two). And since there were two sheets of the cut-a-parts in the pad I got multiples of this set done too. 

And last I took out one of my favorite Christmas stamps, picked out some coordinating Distress inks and added a die cut greeting, some punched stars (and yeah, I still managed to get a little glitter glue going on too). 

Ahhh, jammies, paper and punches and glitter glue (and a whole lot of coffee).  It was a great weekend (I'm pretty sure even the dogs were kind of sparkly by Sunday evening.) 

It was such an awesome mess...

get your merry mojo on,
Cheryl

It's Beginning to Look Like Christmas - Without Christmas Papers! Say What?

I've said it before.  I don't have much in the way of Christmas papers.  It's not that I don't scrapbook Christmas, I do.  We just do not seem to have Christmas colors going on in our photos and they never have seemed to look right on traditional Christmas-y papers. 

In more recent years, lots of paper companies have designed papers using non-traditional colors, so they are out there, yeah!  But I've gotten kind of used to making things "merry and bright" without the use of Christmas themed papers.  I have some....see,  Oh, Deer! that I did use Christmas paper (Wassail from Basic Grey) on.  But more often than not, I've used whatever papers are on hand, combined with Christmas embellishments, sayings, punches or dies to create that Christmas feeling. 

I used old, old, old My Mind's Eye papers on this page, along with stickers from a short-lived, but extra sweet company called Girl's Paperie.  The vellum stickers are from Little Yellow Bicycle (a bargain, purchased on clearance at good old Hobby Lobby for $1.07), the Joy To The World title was made from little scrabble style letters from EK Success (and those are years and years old, you don't even want to know how long I've had those things hanging around), the glitter brads were from Making Memories, the star shaped buttons are Prima, and the ribbon is actually a piece of seam binding, scrunched and taped into place.  I added some random dots of dark red Stickles glitter glue and some outlining around the edge of the page. 

The photo is from my daughter's Christmas card circa 2006 and I only just got this scrapped---what can I say---this is how I roll--I scrap what I want, when I want and never in any particular order! The holidays can be overwhelming for lots of us...why make it any harder on yourself?  Scrap, craft, sew, bake, whatever you do, do what you love.  It makes things loads easier.  And just know, you do not have to have the perfect holiday papers to make a perfectly joyous holiday page. 

best
Cheryl

Updated Uses for Old Supplies

My bad.  Haven't blogged in a whole week.  Since Thanksgiving we've done the small town Christmas parade with the grandkids (and kids), had a house showing, spent another evening with the grandies because mommy had to travel for work (meaning Nana picked them up from their respective schools, fed them, checked school papers, and had Miss Isabella do her "homework"  -- loved this!).  So much busy-ness going on here. 

The kids here last night were "stamping" with some little Scooby and friends rubber stamps (I've had these since Jacob was little---they've more than paid for the $1.75 they cost me some 15 years ago!!!).  And it was how excited they got over this that made me think of the following page and the using old supplies thing. 

The papers were mostly older Cosmo Cricket and there is an overlay (old 7 Gypsies--from before photo overlays were all the rage).  New additions to update the page a bit was the use of washi tapes, the little cluster of tabs (punched, fussy cut and stickers) and the more updated use of two alphabet styles in the title.  Did a little outlining, added the chipboard star/circle piece (that was part of a pack purchased at Tuesday Morning for a whopping $.99 several months ago), and did my journaling using the lines of the background paper (since I cannot write in a straight line for love nor money!). 

Old supplies can sooooo be updated depending upon how they are used.  (And old supplies, or toys, are new again in new little hands.)  Jacob absolutely adored Scooby Doo and all the Scooby cartoons and movies and I'm glad to see that (old) Scooby is still well loved by my (new) youngest grandies.  I sense another Scooby layout sometime in my future! 

best,
Cheryl