May 2011

I'm still going with Project 12. I was rushed to finish April's. Here it is in case I didn't post it:

On both April and May, I stuck fairly close to the sketch, though I swapped out elements and added photos. I like the colors here, and I've been using my Studio Calico kits to simplify the process, but this month's kit was really colorful and bright, and my photos aren't really. Hopefully there's not a disconnect.

Here's my May page, which I liked much better, not sure why:


I cobbled together that plaid paper with scraps basically, until I found a few more pieces of it squirreled away at Archiver's. I was so excited to find that paper, I felt like the dodos in Ice Age: "The Laaast Melon!"

The white scalloped thing is a Fancy Pants coffee filter that came with the kit. I didn't know how to use them--I didn't like them misted, and they're too transparent to put over patterned paper. I was happy to lay a circle on top, cut with my ancient Coluzzle.

I also bought an Epiphany Crafts Button maker just so I could use those fancy button holders. Now I have to make at least 19 more of them to get my money's worth.


Whoop! Here's one more! That leaves 18.

An interesting thing about those waxy flowers: I remember Studio Calcio DT members at CHA looking for embellishments to match them for a kit. It made me happy to see what finally went with those toys, which I've used up completely.

Circles

I'm a fairly linear person--some would say anal. So my designs tend to be linear.

I tried to go that way with a goofy story, but it just didn't fit, so I decided to cut everything into circles. Inspired by a 10+ patterned paper challenge at Studio Calico and lots of circles I've seen on Layouts, I made this:


I used my Bazzill circle stitching guide to add stitches:


Just an all-out fun page to make. I smiled the whole time.

(Don't ask me how long it took me to make this page!)

Welcome, summer!

We had a wonderful first week of summer break. Here's the evidence:


Rowan sent his first email this weekend to his friend spending the summer in China. He told him about going to see the Green Lantern. While typing, he asked me how to spell "guess," "usual," and "went." I only chided him about having to ask about "went," but after all the tricky words with u's in them, maybe he thought it could be spelled "wuent." English spelling is tough.

Derick got himself a brisket to BBQ at Osseo Meats. Apologies to Vegetarians, but for Derick, grilling something all day long while having a beer and watching baseball is life perfected.

While Rowan was at taekwondo, Dominic and I went to meet Scott Baker of the Twins. He's way taller IRL than he looks on TV. And he pitched an awesome game on Saturday a few hours after we met him!

(That's Dominic's new swim shirt, a la Target. He would wear it every day if I'd let him.)


On Father's Day, Derick played Go Fish with the boys. Old fashioned fun.

For Father's Day, we went to eat brunch at Famous Dave's in Calhoun Square. They have an AMAZING Sunday brunch. We hadn't been for years, and it was still good. Sadly, the hash browns didn't seem to have brisket in it anymore, but they still had the huge fruit tray, a variety of breakfast meats, and (my favorite) waffles with apple butter, praline sauce, and whipped cream. Mmmm...

We had a bit of a wait, so we went across the street to Magers and Quinn and got a couple books for the boys. The one that hyped them up was this one:

The Book With a Hole. That's the title. If you have boys, get this book. Girls would probably like it too, but boys definitely would.

Dominic got balloons at Byerly's, just because he was wearing a Twins shirt. Nice.

This was an almost dream for Lola. Look at the size of the bones she found! Sadly, Mom (me) didn't buy it for her.

We found out this weekend that she had worms--the only down part of the start of summer--so we had to take her to the vet, which is why we were in the Bone aisle. It took a few times for her to get the medicine down, but she's feeling better, as you can see:


Just a thought: If you haven't done a page about your life right now, maybe try doing a little recap: things that make you happy, things that went well, things that are driving you crazy right now, and so on. I could easily turn these photos into a grid and do a quick page on my life right now. What memories!

I like big photos

Several years ago I remember seeing a Studio A article in CK where she touted the value of using big photos, 8x12 specifically. I was hooked. I especially loved how you could leave a bunch of yummy white space in the photo to put "stuff." Not sure what, just nice stuff.

Here's some of what I've done in the past:

This was one of my earlier big photo layouts. I loved adding the big cluster on the left, including the stamped "remember," which I stamped with Stayzon.

This one I did more recently. I found this photo unscrapped from last summer so I boosted the color, printed it big, and wrote about waiting for summer. Which I still am waiting for, thankyouverymuch.

This is my most recent big photo LO. The photo is technically bad--"muddy" is the term I hear used. But look at that blue! I used the Pioneer Woman Boost action to jack up the color and printed it big with the idea of putting smaller photos of my husband and me on it.

I didn't stitch at first, but the LO looked a little static without it, so I stitched to add some motion.

I get 8x12 photos from National Camera Exchange when I have few photos to print and Scrapbook Pictures when I have many photos to print.

Right now I have one 8x12 waiting to print. It shows my boys from behind walking down a fall path, lots of yummy white space to the left. I want to reflect on their relationship with this. I do that often, but I think that's OK.

So if you have never printed a lovely photo in 8x12, I challenge you to do so and scrap it. Using this big size makes you think differently about the way you design and embellish a page; indeed, it changed the way I take photos. I now tend to leave white space to the side, just in case I want a big print.

Meet Lola

It's been a year and a half since we had to put down Roswell because of her liver disease. Her death left a hole in my heart, but gradually we knew it was time to look for another dog. Several things happened that serendipitously led us to this little girl being cuddled by Dominic:


1. Passing by a local Petco, I noticed that they would be hosting a pet adoption June 11, the day after school got out. The timing was so perfect it felt like it was meant to be.

2. Derick found the name of the rescue group, Homeward Bound, and we had perused the avilable dogs to find ones we liked. A day or two before the 11th, Derick asked me to look again, since new dogs were coming in. I saw a dog whose picture I hadn't noticed before, a Shepherd mix named Daisy. She looked jaunty with ears askew. I liked her.

3. As we waited for the dogs to be brought into the store, I met Daisy as she was walked in. She was obviously a sweetheart.

4. We test drove two dogs, taking them outside for a walk and trying to play with them. They were nice, but neither wanted to play, which was a problem for my boys. While we were outside, I saw a couple with Daisy, so I thought we'd lost our chance with her.

5. When we went back indoors, Daisy was back in her cage. I told Derick she was the one, so we took her outside to play. And she played. She was a love.

Dominic came up with the name Lola, named after a girl in his class who I hope never learns we named our dog after her. (Rowan had come up with the boy name, had we adopted a boy dog: Killebrew.) I like the name, though every time I tell people that her name is Lola, I then proceed to hear this song for an hour.

Lola is about 5 months old, but she's already mostly house and crate trained. Now we're teaching her her new name and some basic commands. Right now she's mastered "Go get your toy," which we need because her definition of a toy is much larger than our definition.

We had a funny moment this afternoon when she trotted into the room with Derick's hiking boot hanging out of her mouth. I took it away, she left, and she returned with the bathroom rug. I took it, and she came back with the kitchen rug! I then took out a tennis ball and played fetch until she was tired.

She's a love, though. When we got her home, we gave her a bath:

Doesn't she look so forlorn? All the good crusty doggie smells were taken away from her coat!

Here we tried our first walk. She's not a natural with a leash. That will take time.

After we came home, she lay on my legs and fell asleep. I didn't have to heart to move her.

I'm enjoying thinking about these next few weeks of summer, taking her to the park, taking her camping, and teaching her that her name is Lola.

Winner!

Using Random.org, I drew #46.

And the winner is :

Laura T. said...

These days, I tend to be using a lot of borders on my pages.

June 7, 2011 2:41 PM

Laura T, please email me at jennyrahnlarson at yahoo dot com with your address and I will send your box of goodies out to you!

Vertical design and a giveaway!

A while ago I wrote about how I tend to use the same design when I am using 2 vertical 4x6 photos. Confessions: I do the same thing when I use 2 horizontal 4x6 photos! Here's some evidence:

I did this one yesterday inspired by the sketch at Studio Calico for 5/29. Here's what I do: I stack the two photos on top of each other and separate them with strips of patterned paper (there I am, stripping again, LOL!). I tend to put the title near those strips.

More recent evidence:

I added more clusters with this one, plus misting, but it's the same design. I used a lot of stickers instead of paper, this time from Webster's Pages Spring Market collection.

This one is older. I trimmed the photos to cut down on distracting backgrounds and mounted it on a mat. I'm thinking this too might have taken design elements from a Studio Calico sketch?

It doesn't always have to be 4x6 to use this design idea:

Anyone else like Project Runway? I decided to make a page about this obsession of a show. Plus, I kept getting dressmaker's dummies in kits (I hate to sew), so I decided I had to figure out a way to use them.

Here I'm using the idea, but I stacked two 4x6 pieces of patterned paper and lay the one photo over it.

And now the giveaway!

I have some lovely Studio Calico and October Afternoon paper and products to send one reader. Leave a comment telling me something you tend to do on your pages, and I'll draw a random winner on Wednesday June 8th (ETA at 8 PM CST)! Be sure to check back this week and see if you won.

Think small

The article I wrote after CHA for the Ella ezine just went live this week! You can get to it by following this link. I also want to direct you to a friend who contributed, Alexandra. Her blog is always so inspiring to me. I have probably bought more products after seeing her use them than any other blogger.

I used Studio Calico kits or products for all of the layouts. The following was from the December kit Metropolitan:

Rowan is standing on a snowbank which makes him taller than my FIL, who is about 6'5"!

This next one used Who's Who (January):


These two used February's Candy Shoppe (though the first also used Countryside):


This is what my garden looks like now, BTW.

I can always count on these two for a goofy face.

And this last one used Studio Calico's newest lines Countryside and State Fair. Thanks to April, Greg and SC for sharing these gorgeous lines!

I love these butterflies...

Tomorrow I am planning a RAK, so stop by again for a chance to win some of what you see above!