How to Use Old(er) Supplies In an Updated Way! - Crashing the Stash

It's time for another episode of:     Crash Your Stash! 

Today I want to address using older supplies in what some might call an updated fashion.  Now I did have to really think about what there was about this page that made it "updated."  It sure wasn't any of the supplies I used...there was nothing newer mixed in with the old.  It was all old(er) stuff.  (And once again note, this is the stuff that I had previously packed in a page planner; it did not all wind up on the page.)

There is old Scenic Route, old My Mind's Eye, Basic Grey, and Echo Park papers.  A well used and older Thickers alpha set, and those little wood veneer stars (a classic, but certainly not new). 

The page layout is a tried and true one (3/4 of one print, 1/4 of another with a strip of another coordinating print in between.  Nothing so new or updated about that, right? 

It's the circle design.  The circle has come, well, full circle!  Way, way back in scrappy design, lots of folks cut photos into circles; then a few years later, the circle came back big time with the use of pre-cut, shaped papers. 

Now the use of a circle in page layouts has become popular again by way of adding it more subtly as a background design.  It might appear stitched, or by gluing small cuts of papers placed in a large circle, or even painted. 

My first attempt at making the circle pattern with the little wood veneer stars was a big old flop.  It ended up looking rather egg shaped, rather than circular.  So I picked it all apart and started over, this time using one of the oldest tools around, a pencil and a string.  Yup, I tied a small piece of string onto the pencil, held the string at where I perceived the center point of the circle should be and lightly drew the circle shape onto the gold paper. 

Once the pencil line was there to guide me, I added the title, then erased pencil marks there.  Next came gluing on the stars and once those were firmly in place, I erased more of the pencil line.  It's still not a perfect circle.  But it ain't egg-shaped anymore!  There is no way I, personally, have the patience to divide the circle up to determine where the center point for the title should go exactly.  Um, no, not me. 

This accomplished what I wanted; it added a circular background element, I used up some more of my older products, and got another Route 66 photo/page done. 

It's perfectly, imperfect.  I'm good with that! 

best,
Cheryl

How Many Pages Can You Get Out of a Kit? - Tallying Up the Pages!

So I've pretty much killed the Scrapbook Circle August kit.  I have no 12 x12 papers or even strips that are 12 inches in length.  No larger chunks of paper that could be used for photo layering, no cut-a-parts left.  I do have a few of the white puffy heart stickers, one of the leather badge embellishments and a good portion of chipboard alphas and seven completed pages! 

You can see more from this kit on previous posts, but here's the last three. 

I did use some plain white cardstock as a page background and a piece of older Basic Grey (even though I cleaned out a substantial amount of papers before we moved, I saved a stack of Basic Grey "antiqued" or mottled solid color papers because they make great backgrounds--I use them as though they were solid color cardstocks). 

And I did use some alternate alpha stickers for some titles, as well as some wood veneer pieces, a doily or two, a small sticker or tab, and vellum for layering.  I also made use of the stencil provided in the kit and paints, sprays and colored pencil.  (Loved getting a stencil with a great all-over pattern like this wonky triangle!). 

Oh, and I totally scrap-lifted a page idea from the Scrapbook Circle blog. 

Now, not having a working sewing machine did stop me from stitching all along these cut strips, and I did add the cut-a-part words from the provided strip of them; but the overall design---a straight scrap-lift!  I appreciate having creative and straightforward page ideas to peruse and the Scrapbook Circle blog does a great job! 

The September kit that is on its way to me is totally different in both color and in design.  I can't wait to get a hold of this next one!  Another good sign of a good kit club.  You finish everything off, and are feeling done and over it...and w.h.a.t.?  You glimpse the next coming kit and can't wait to get it! 

Seven pages done with the August Scrapbook Circle kit.  Hoping to get the new kit later in the coming week, fingers crossed! 

Nine pages done with the June Gossamer Blue kit.  The Gossamer Blue September kit looks divine as well and their add-ons are really hard for me to pass over this month--but I am not testing those, so am forcing myself to not look at them!! The unfortunate thing is that both Gossamer Blue and Scrapbook Circle have included the very same sticker sheet in their September kits.  H-mmmm, may have to start a give-away stack. 

Here's how the clubs stack up so far:

Scraptastic                   Kit #1    9 pages          Kit #2:  4 pages
Studio Calico               Kit #1    5 pages          Kit #2:  4 pages
Gossamer Blue            Kit #1    9 pages
Scrapbook Circle         Kit #1    7 pages

More to come!  Yippee!  More to come! 
Cheryl
 

Easter Pickles?

Yep,  there she is all dressed up for Easter and slurping away on a pickle.  Nope, didn't want candy, no eggs, just pickles. 

Had to add a touch of pickle-green because...you know it's all about the pickle... and the little girl. 

Had a bit of a "pickle" (hahahaha I crack myself up)  trying to layer some papers under the photos.  I tried using my white tissue paper, nah, just didn't look right.  A big old hunk of cardstock was just too block-y looking.  So as I was picking through some things to be packed and thinking about what else to use as layering papers...a piece of embossed dotty paper slipped out onto the floor.  Eureka!  I snatched it right up slid it under one of the photos.  Liked it so well I grabbed another plain piece of white cardstock to run that through the Sizzix, this time using a swirly embossing folder, then cut each embossed piece in half.  After bending and crimping up the edges a bit, I had just the right layering papers.  . 

Also added a couple of punched border pieces in yellow and a doily.  The little green banners are from Basic Grey ( I snagged a bunch of these in various colors, patterns and sizes, several months ago from Tuesday Morning).  They are kind of a pain to remove from the packaging ---as they are sewn onto a piece of cardstock--- it is do-able---the stitching is quite strong!  Anyway, after cutting up the banner, I placed it in three places to aid in developing a visual triangle. 

The doily print paper is from Basic Grey (Nook and Pantry) and the background paper is the B side of an Authentique paper.  Other embellishments include a couple of buttons, a couple of wood veneer butterflies, and another piece of one of those Basic Grey banners--this time in yellow.  The chipboard letters used in the title are also from Basic Grey. 

So really that's it. Not a lot going on in this one.  Not a ton of layering.  It was indeed all about the pickle... and the little girl. 

best,
Cheryl

Working Around Holiday Colors!

My grandkids are infamous (ok only infamous in my mind) for dressing in non-holiday coordinating colors during said holiday.  Hot pink during Halloween, magenta and orange during Easter, and this (an older photo series of my now 19 year old grandson) holding up a bright yellow vest received at Christmas. 

Sometimes I can just ignore the colors and go with the standard holiday color combos.  Sometimes, I make the layout about something other than the holiday during which the photo(s) were taken.  But sometimes (blast it all),  I really want those non-coordinating photos, just as they are and on a page about whatever the holiday is/was.  So there (she says, stamping her foot and pouting.) 

So here is grandson No. 1 holding up his very bright yellow vest... and I wanted this done as a Christmas page. 

It was that clear, bright yellow that threw me off.  I am forever scrapping things that are years old.  But I have a few Christmas photos that have never found a home due to the colors that people are wearing (or holding...).  This time, I used a white and beige-y print background page and chose papers (scraps) from an old My Mind's Eye Christmas collection that had a yellow tone to them.  Plus, the red that is printed on the papers is a subdued red.

While I am not excited, jumping up and down over the page,  I am not displeased with it.  The only thing right now that may still change is the title.  The red is also subdued, but the dotty pattern on top of the print is kind of a bit much.  But I'll let it be for a few days and look at it again.  Sometimes that clears things up for me.  Just to walk away and re-visit. 

Papers are all My Mind's Eye, tabs are from Basic Grey (25th and Pine) and the border pieces are all from a K&Co. pack that I am on a mission to use up. 

Flat Layouts---the saga continues

And here we are again with another "flat" layout...and it has title placement issues to boot!  Poor baby.  And again, I remind myself (and others) that the story is told, it is not an ugly page, and the recipient loved it.  Mission accomplished! 

That being said.  Let's start with the title.  Once again, when I look at the page on the computer screen, I see that I would be happier if I had cut the title slightly smaller and placed it below the photo, right on the navy print layer.  Bah... live and learn.  Always learning! 

Then the flatness.... I have an ongoing battle with myself.  I love giving some dimension to a page, using pop dots and dimensional accents. But, in this case, my practical side won out.  I simply had to make some of the pages for this project flat.  I simply did not want to venture into a third album for this project. 

Papers for the page were from Authentique (the B side for that nice distressed background), old Creative Imaginations, Basic Grey, and more pieces from Authentique.  I cut the title using my Cricut and three different cartridges to make a wack-a-mo looking title for this crazy bunch of wack-a-mo boys.  Stickers were from Lily Bee, Simple Stories and Basic Grey. 

This was the last day of school, Junior year.  Some sort of dress-up day...not sure the look they were going for (Daisy Duke?), but they were funny! 

As for me..still have to be happy with a page that makes the recipient happy. 

and better yet, still learning
Cheryl 

Every Layout Does NOT Have To Be Perfect - GASP!

I am a big proponent of keeping it real.  It gets me into trouble sometimes!!!  But I wanted to include pages that probably would not be blog worthy on a designers blog or a company blog... They are pages that are complete, they tell the story, they are not ugly.  But they are perhaps, more plain...perhaps more flat (without all the popping up or dimensional embellishments). 

This is one of those pages.   More importantly though, the recipient of this page (and others) loves this page.  His face lit up reading it.  And that makes me smile. 

Jacob got this page in his graduation albums and just the memory of his face when he was reading it makes me so happy. 

I used the "B" side of a My Mind's Eye paper for the stripe... and the large photo corner-y triangles were cut from old scraps of Basic Grey (haven't a clue as to the name of the collection anymore though).  The dotty paper is also Basic Grey, The navy print is Authentique.  I added the arrow from a Jillibean Soup ephemera pack and the camera was cut from a Dear Lizzy paper.  His quoted phrases, I hand printed onto a grid patterned paper, cut then out and outlined the boxes. 

In seeing the page on the screen now...some of the quotes could/should have been popped up.  But in reality, when you are assembling a massive amount of pages into albums, not all of them can be dimensional folks.  And in my memory of his face reading the page, it is just right. 

keeping it real (or trying to)
Cheryl

Not So Traditional Baby Page

OK, I know baby photos are typically all soft and ethereal or cutsie-patootsie (technical term, cutsie-patootsie--you know all bunnies and toys and such).  But Jackson was seated in a child's leatherette wing chair, looking rather like Winston Churchill...um, just did not really lend itself to said cutsie-patootsie. 

So I went with a distressed (Paper Loft) background paper and layered up the photo with coordinating papers in blues and browns, some tags, wood veneer butterflies, tiny paper clip and several small red accents (the baker's twine, the tiny red game pieces...love me a tiny red accent or two or three!!!). 

The tile letters in the title are Thickers, the other alpha is from Basic Grey, the Clippings collection.  I also added a little more stamping, the "love your face" and the arrows. 

Bubba-Lu is what we often call Jackson.  He's a big boy.  Always been a big boy.  Hence "Bubba."   A while ago, at lunch, I prompted him, "Come on Bubba Lu, let's eat", when his sister admonished me, in her ever so prim and proper 4-year old voice, "His name is Jackson Daniel."  To which he knitted up his eyebrows, pursed his little lips, leaned over the table and replied, "I a Bubba-U!"  Cracked me up!   Had to get this on a page.  Yes, Jackson, we do indeed call you Bubba-Lu. 

Love you, Bubba-Lu.
Nana

The Why's and How's of One Photo and One Page Layouts

I was talking with a friend the other day about why I have so many one-photo pages and many more one page layouts.  When I started scrapbooking years ago, it was for me.  But as time went on, the albums became for my adult children, then for my oldest grandson for graduation, and yes still for me.  So now when I view a stack of photos--I kind of mentally plot out--- this page about Jackson will eventually go into his album(s).  The page I did about Bella and frosting ( "Frosting!") will go into her album(s) and the photos I have of them both with frosting in hand (and in mouth and on face, etc.) will stay with me. 

Gotta give a little equal love to my youngest grandie, Jackson.  Just like his sister, Jackson has decided that frosting is a very good thing! 

Used some old Basic Grey Life of the Party papers, as well as some ephemera from Jillibean Soup, Maggie Holmes, and a couple of tab stickers from Simple Stories SNAP!.  The alphas used in the title are super old Heidi Swapp (yeah--I still have several packs of these...loved them then, love them now.  I'll be sad when they are gone.)  I punched a little star or two or three, and used some of my homemade enamel dots.  That's about it.  This page went together much more quickly than did Bella's frosting page---mainly because I had been hunting about trying to find just the right color and size alpha for the title on that page. 

 Best!
Cheryl

Snow.  It's a four letter word... for a reason.    And guess what was blowing about the other morning when I woke up at the ungodly hour of 4:00 a.m.  It didn't last or accumulate, but there it was. 

So with the cold beginning to set in, I found these photos of Miss Isabella taken at last year's homecoming game.  (The story... very small town, no baby sitters available--because, duh, it's homecoming... so daughter of mine hurries home, hurries the kids through dinner, potty, and re-bundles them up to bring them to the big game...never thinking to check feet for socks~!  After all, you send them to daycare with socks on...pretty much thinking they will come home that way...) 

So we notice midway through the game when Bella is sitting on my lap, that she has no socks on.  And it was c.o.l.d. 

I used a piece of paper for the background that came in a pack of Lucky Charm paper from Dear Lizzy.  It happened to be one of those designs that I kind of shook my head thinking I might have to just ignore the design and use it for the pale pink color.  But it happens that it worked out really well for this page!  I used some water colors for the purple and hot pink background to coordinate a bit with Bella's coat.  And the title took care of itself; used a Thickers set in purple that I never thought I'd be able to use up!  But I ended up having to piece a few of the "e"s together because I ran out, so I'm thinking I've pretty well exhausted this set! 

Photos are matted on vellum and a purple and white polka dot paper that had no branding on it whatsoever; I've had it for years.  Glad to finally use it!  Rub on leaves were from Basic Grey, added a purple felt flower and dark maroon button, the Just Believe tag from Heidi Swapp, a couple of strips of another pink dotted paper and a branding strip from the Lucky Charm collection, some bits of washi tape and some pink and purple sequins and called it done.  

Happy Saturday everyone! 
Cheryl

So, no prom layout today (not to worry, I do have several more...like I would really only do two layouts of our boy on prom court--she says with a nana smirk--he doesn't get off that easy). 

But I do have a page I did specifically for Jacob and his cousin Samantha.  Samantha is my niece, my sister's daughter.  Technically that makes she and Jacob, what--second cousins, I think.  They were born only months apart and they have always been like two peas in a pod. They have an uncanny ability to pick up right where they left off, no matter how long the time in between visits. 

I cut apart a bunch of tickets and little tabs from a Maggie Holmes paper (out of the $5 bargain pack---really getting some mileage out of that one!!!).  I also used up some stickers that were left on an old Crate paper sticker sheet (Emma's Closet was the line).  Then it was just snippets and strips left from other projects that were lying about on my desk, a doily, a little washi tape, and some pretty pastel buttons.  Cut the giant ampersand out with my Cricket and used one of my favorite Thickers alphas (just love these--they're foam and tall and skinny.  Per-Fect!)  Background paper is the B side of an Authentique paper -- white, but distressed--love that. 

This came together fairly quick and it is one of my favorite layouts.  I did a different take on this photo for my album(s), since this page went into Jacob's album.  But I may have to take that one apart and try to recreate this one, I like it so much better.  (yeah, that's what I need to do---a b-jillion other photos that need to be scrapped and yes, let's take apart a layout that is done and do it again... I'm such a dork.) 

Cheryl

woo, hoo!  Back in the saddle again...I'm back in the saddle again... 

My cold hopefully is nearing its end.  A real bugger, this one was.  I'm at least not going though a half a box of tissues every day.  And I got my little ole' laptop back today!  Plus, we had a home showing last week and an open house today and have another showing tomorrow afternoon.  And.... all the deep cleaning is done, the purging, and staging has been done and all I should have to do from here on out is stay in maintenance mode.  Thank goodness. 

So here is a layout to celebrate! 

Another homecoming page done for Mr. Jacob's graduation album. 

Papers are from Basic Grey, the  Plumeria collection.  The colors were good with Jacob's plum colored dress shirt, but I didn't want so many flowers...  To downplay the florals printed in the corners, I dry-brushed a bit of white craft paint across them and then added a few strips of coordinating papers with torn edges.  Matted the photos in one of those same prints, roughed up the edges of that paper and then laid this atop a base of irregularly cut rectangles and squares, also with roughed up and curled edges.  Cut a couple of banners and tucked those in, did my journaling with white4 pen around the photos.  The title (not too original, I'm afraid) was from the Plumeria alpha set  that came with the collection pack. 

This was the collection of papers that I had pieces laying about on my desk that ended up on the layout that was posted last Sunday. 

And even though his mom re-cut his hair (to get rid of that stripe cut down the center of his head for game night), you can still see where it was shaved down the middle---hence the red baseball hat in the first photo and that big cheesy grin with a thumbs up (gosh I love this kid, can you tell?).  Also gotta love the background of the teen room complete with  pile of clothes leaking out into the doorway...

So glad to be blogging again. 

Happy Sunday all. 
Cheryl

I didn't disappear...I've been under the weather and so, it appears,  has my laptop.  I left the poor infected baby with my daughter this past week who has been doing her best to rid it of a particularly stubborn malware.   Hopefully we'll have this situation licked soon. 

In the meantime, I thought I better use this small window of opportunity to get a layout posted... 

Another page of my eldest grandson's graduation album here.  Jacob and Jessica at the Powder Puff football game last year at homecoming.

I used some snips and left over pieces from the page I did of him ready to go to the dance (um, yeah I don't scrap in chronological order so... just happened to have the pieces laying about on my desk.)  Also used another piece of denim printed paper from Authentique, and several cuts from Basic Grey's Clippings line.  Added two wood veneer words (from Studio Calico), and a couple of stickers from the Clippings kit, a staple here and there and the title (which was also the alpha from the clippings kit).  The last thing I did was add the penwork  around the photo and paper layers and the journaling.

Even with his goofy buzz cut, he was still a pretty darn good lookin' kid (not that Nana is biased at all...)!    

ok, back to the Packer game, now...
Cheryl

Having acquiesced to the fact that the weather now has a definite chill in it, football is in full swing, and the leaves are even beginning to change, I might as well go all the way and post a pumpkin pickin' layout! 

She was all dressed for Sunday afternoon football here in Wisconsin and I had such a hard time getting papers/colors to work with the Packers colors and yet make it about picking out a pumpkin.  (Packer colors are a wee bit hard to ignore, so going with just orange wasn't going to cut it! And, rather than fight the colors and the theme(s), I figured I had to try to find a way to make the colors work together. 

I was working from my stash on this one.  Pulled out some Basic Grey, an old travel collection called Wander, for the colors.  The B side of the papers had some of the dark hunter green and gold, but it wasn't so in your face, green and gold.  The distressed background paper; yep, another oldie, from the Paper Loft this time.  I kept several of their papers when I did my big purge--because they had such great distressed looking papers--just loved those. 

Once the papers and photos were arranged, I went digging for embellishments and picked out several pieces from a pad of Simple Stories Snap collection, a couple of orange felt flowers and some wood grain buttons.  The little October tab is from a Crate Paper ephemera pack and I also used a wood veneer camera, plus a couple of banner and label type stickers from My Minds Eye and Jillibean Soup.  Title letters are from October Afternoon and Cosmo Cricket Tiny Type. 

And there she was, our little Pumpkin Pickin' Packer, out on Sunday afternoon to pick out her pumpkin then home in time for the big game, or a nap, whichever. 

Cheryl
(who is kind of getting a taste for some pumpkin bread, go figure)
  

O.K. I give Mr. Weatherman... It's fall.  I wimped out and turned the heat on.

And since I am giving in to fall, today I am posting a football layout done for Jacob's graduation album.  It was from last year's homecoming game.  His mom gave almost all of the senior boys on the team their requested goofy buzz cuts.  (Hence that shaved stripe down the middle of his head.) 

This was also their last football game of the season and the senior boys last football game.  After the game, we all waited by the gate and welcomed them all off the field.  That's his Uncle Matthew in the background, Jacob is holding little Jackson and then that's stepdad Nick in there too. 

This is a totally scrap-lifted layout from Tonya Gibbs at Psychomoms Scrapbooks Blogspot.  http://psychomomscrapbooks.blogspot.com/search?updated-max=2014-06-05T03:00:00-04:00&max-results=7&start=21&by-date=false 

I used the backside of an old Creative Imaginations paper for it's royal blue tone-on-tone pattern for then I dug around looking for masculine patterns in blue tones.  What ended up on the page was quite the mish mash of old Basic Grey (Boxer and Vagabond), Creative Imaginations (can't remember the name, but it was a 4th of July, Americana print), Echo Park (A Boy's Life) and Authentique. 

I heartily recommend watching Tonya's video as she created her layout.  While I used different papers, I really followed her layout almost to the letter.  Loved, loved, loved this layout and the video.  It would totally work for scrapping any sport; baseball, basketball, soccer, volleyball...and of course football. 

Goodbye summer, hello fall. 

One of my grandson's classes found he and his classmates designing and building an eco car.  This class and others like it in the area, design, build and then race (time trial fashion) their cars at the Road America race track. 

I really wanted all three of these photos on the page... Jacob was the driver and how often do you get to drive on a professional raceway!  (On a side note, he was the only one that actually fit into the car...but still)

I used a piece of blue-gray paper that looked kind of like numbers carved into stone (an old Paper Loft design--even after purging so much paper, I kept several from this company because they work so well on masculine layouts).  I also used a leftover piece of denim printed paper and layered both of these onto a warm gray cardstock.  The title letters are from Creative Imaginations and Lily Bee.  The tire tracks are from Little Yellow Bicycle;  it was a vellum border sticker that I tore in several pieces.  The other pieces like the "reduce speed" and the red dotted square are fussy cut from a Basic Grey patterned paper--umm--it was called Wander I think, a  travel line from several years ago. 

Outlined the page and did the journaling in a white gel pen and then added a series of white dots by the title. the cut outs and then at the lower corner.  I thought of the white dots almost as an embellishment--meant to help lead the eye down and across the page.  And there you have it, very simple, includes multiple photos and it's flat... and you now what?   I'm good with that!   I do really like looking through an album and seeing different types of pages, rather than one set style over and over again. 

Ahhh, Wednesday, we can start counting down to the weekend now. 

Have  a scrappy good day!
Cheryl

Switching things up a little bit and hopping back to a summer themed layout of Jacob and his cousins again.  These kids truly could make a party out of doing the most mundane little things.  They were a delight to be around and made every day we spent together so much fun.  Now that they are all next to grown up, I hope they remember these days as I do, with much love and a big ol' grin on my face. 

I reverted to one of my go to formats when I have multiple photos, which is to put a focal point photo on the lead page and stretch the others straight across the second page.  I know that even though I use this format again and again---none of the pages will be one right after the other, nor maybe even in the same album. 

Because the placement of the photos is one that I use a lot, I wanted to distribute the papers a little differently.  Chopped those puppies  up into three different sizes of little squares and tucked them all in across the top rather than layering strips of patterned paper across the bottom (which is more the norm for me).  This left more white space open at the bottom of the layout.  To balance the title on the first page of the layout, I layered some paper, a tag, journaling block  and stickers on the right side. 

Most of the papers and the stickers are from Basic Grey, the Picadilly collection.  The exceptions would be the red polka dot paper (Basic Grey, June Bug line), the green rectangles at the top of the page (scraps from an older My Mind's Eye paper), and the yellow border sticker (Crate Paper).   Alphabets are from Webster's Pages and Cosmo Cricket.  Other than drawing in some stitch lines and my journaling, that's about it! 

Happy Monday!  I don't know why, but Monday's have almost always been my favorite day of the week.  It holds such promise for everything that I want to get done.  This week that means another load of stuff to Goodwill, to unbury the kitchen table from all the stuff that seems to accumulate there, a job interview on Friday (for a job I'm not r-e-a-l-l-y sure I want, but not sure I have a choice at this point; it's not the job, but the logistics) and the arrival of my Stampin' Up order, not to mention the pages and cards that are started, but not yet finished! 

I was having a difficult time finding the right tone of blue to scrapbook this page of Jacob with his Great Grandma Elaine (everything I looked at had an aqua cast to it and didn't look quite right), when I happened to spot my box full of handmade and specialty papers.  These were all purchased years ago for collage and mixed media projects.  But it was the blue paper that was calling out to me---here I am; I'm the right color blue---see me?! 

After I loosely cut a hunk of it for use on the layout, I started layering papers under the photo and yes, I even took out the old sewing machine (not really working quite right, the poor old thing).  But it did behave long enough to sew through a couple of the layers. I wanted the photo on straight, but the layers to be on a little wonky and crooked.  Besides the blue handmade, I used a white waffle textured handmade and a couple of pieces of Basic Grey and My Mind's Eye for layering and two doilies.  The alphabet strip sticker is off an older Creative Imagination's sheet.  Flowers are Prima.  I didn't want to use gems or buttons for flower centers on the medium size flowers you see, so I scrunched up smaller flowers and glued them to the centers.  I like the dimension it gives them.  Some light blue buttons also found their way onto the page

The challenges with this page were not over yet, though!  The letter "L" in the woodgrain look Thickers set that I liked so much, didn't look like an "l" when I laid it down.  It looked like a capital "C", so I chopped part of it off.  And I stuck on a few of the little asterisks (they kind of look like flowers) to bring a bit of brown into the flower-y areas. 

Apparently, challenge was the name of the game with this page---because although the blue Primas are perfect in color in reality---they photographed with this slight peachy tinge to them---I'm guessing it was my flash (it was pretty overcast the day I took the photo of the page) -- but by this point, I wasn't going to haul it back outside and re-photograph. 

Whew, done.  So there, she says, triumphantly sticking her tongue out at all those little challenges trying to get in her way! 

I said I jumped around a lot when I'm scrapping.  Today's layout is about Jacob tree hunting and the reindeer at the tree farm.   He really isn't sobbing in that last photo--but running and yelling "Boppa, I found the perfect tree."  He found l-o-t-s of "perfect trees." 

Now, the problem I had with these photos was that many Christmas papers are SO Christmas-y that the colors didn't go with the browns and greys of the reindeer and Jacob's blue jacket looked just obnoxious.  I did find these Basic Grey papers (from their Wassail line)  that color wise seemed to work, but I was still trying to be careful not to overpower the photos with too, too many prints.  I had to use at least a few---duh...

For some reason, I had a bunch of this paper--enough that I must have had at one time, a project in mind.  Haven't a clue anymore, just what said project was... H-m-m-m  That's happened more times than I care to admit.   Anyway,  I cut the trees from one sheet and turned them upside down, added a teeny punched snowflake or so and the baker's twine to make the banners. 

While all the papers are Basic Grey, the decorative fabric brads are from an older K&Co. line, the chipboard alphas are old Heidi Swapp, and the border sticker at the bottom is from just a stray sticker from my stash. I also used my favorite EK border punches the small scallop and the dotted embossed scallop.

Gotta get me some coffee now and get ready for work.  Later all! 

More "catch up" pages for Jacob!  Took these photos at the Lake Hodges dam museum in California.  My dad used to take us up to the over site area when we visited to show us the progress in the building of the dam.  Jacob, at four, was thrilled with these massive tires for the monstrously big trucks used in the building of the project. 

I don't know why they never got scrapped before now.  I've had them printed for ages and had the paper for years.  Just never put them together.  But when I pulled out this old line from Basic Grey (the old Vagabond collection), the grungy blues, greys and tans were perfect. 

I layered up two of the distressed "solid" blue papers along with the dotted pieces, the check, the stripe and added a punched border strip and a strip of tickets from Prima I think. 

Alphas are Thickers and Webster's Pages. The large banner sticker is from Glitz; the alphas on that are from Cosmo Cricket.  Journaling is on a pull out piece at the far right side and I stuck a small clip on this.  I cut a few banners and stapled those on, and added a black flower.  Debated on the flower after it was on--thought maybe a gear shape or two would be better, but I've decided to leave it. I think it's a tiny bit of whimsy and softness.  Anyway, it's staying.

Now I have a big pile of empty page planners and I think I will take some time today to go through photos and papers and fill them up again. 

Happy Monday!    

Just a little more girly goodness.  I'm not sure why I had this one stray photo of Miss Izzy, whether it was one I got from Kim or the only one snapped this particular afternoon or what, but since there was only one and I have no idea what was going on that day, I made the layout about her clothes.  Her mommy takes great care to dress her so very cute. 

She had on these bright striped leggings to go with her flippy little skirt and flowered shirt and I just have to laugh when I see her bounce down the hallway with that little skirt shwishing back and forth.  That's my journaling. 

The layout is much the same as the Jacob and the bunny layout posted a week or so ago.  But looks very different because of the photo size and different colors.

Papers and letter stickers were pretty much all from Echo Park's Life is Good and Little Girl collections, even the banners were cut from these papers.  The piece that was different was the small piece of purple that I matted the photo onto--that was way old, Fusion from Basic Grey (I never get rid of my Basic Grey papers) and tucked in a clip from Making Memories Take Note embellishment pack.  Then sprinkled some paint in opposite corners, punched a few hearts to scatter in there amidst the paint sprinkles, and added a bit of Stickles glitter too.    Still needed a little something, something--so I added a very decorated fabric brad from  K&Co.

Hope your day is full and fun today!  I have off all day and will be spending it in my little scrap room (well after I get the dogs out, the dishes done, and the floor vacumned---oh yeah, I think the garbage needs to go out too...  well I'll spend almost all day in there, sigh).