Mom, I'm sorry I spilled water on your page...

I have a shared scrap space, specifically the living room. I store my belongings by the computer downstairs, but I don't want to scrap with my back to the room there, so I scrap on a lap desk in the easy chair upstairs. My most used supplies are located there.

Based on the word "Nest" from Big Idea Festival, I made a layout about my space at the suggestion of my friend Sandra:

These are some remnants from this month's Studio Calico kit Boardwalk.

Truly, I am envious of bigger spaces, but I love scrapping while the family is around, so that little phrase sticker was fun to put on.

This nice Bella Blvd. bloom looks great with the colors. I replaced the center brad with this one from Basic Grey.

Amazingly, I have only had two layouts damaged in the shared scrap space: I tripped and fell on a page and had to replace the background paper, which was bent, and my cat once licked a photo. Bleh. Only two times, and none from my boys...until this week.

I was working on my July Project 12 page (there's a link on the top of my blog if you want to learn more about this project), and I was almost done, so the page was lying on the ottoman. I reminded my son for the umpteenth time to take his Kemps ice cream bucket, which he'd put on his head after he took a shower, to his room.

He took the bucket, walked into the living room and started swinging it around in windmills, which spilled water all over the right hand side of the page.

Every photo was ruined, as was one square of patterned paper. This isn't a big deal, perhaps, except I'd stitched the photos down.

After my son went to bed with hugs and "I forgive you, but you have to sit by me and do nothing fun while I reconstruct this page" from mom, I snipped off all the stitching and prised off every photo.

The next day, with a very bored boy next to me, I reprinted the photos and readhered them. I also restitched, which required the removal of some chipboard elements and some manual cranking of the wheel to make sure the stitches went into the previous hole. So, it took me about an extra hour to finish my page, but I did finish it. Here it is:

I used July's Studio Calico kit Mind the Gap. I had run out of many embellishments, so I had to dig into stash.


Here's the re-done page two:


I had to replace the center map paper. Truthfully, the previous one was more orange, and I like this green-heavy piece better. Not enough to redo the whole page, but I'm being glass half full.

I used up my last orange Studio Calico banner stickers for this!


The felt stars and milk cap chipboard from Jenni Bowlin have been in my stash for a long time and worked well for this page.


Repaired page 2 details.

Something fun I'm doing with embossing powder lately: speckling one or two colors of one powder, tapping off excess, then adding the main color, saving this excess. Here I mostly used AC Leaf Zing, with accents of Apricot and Chocolate.

One of my mottos is "There are no mistakes in scrapbooking, only unplanned opportunities for creativity." The same is true in life, I guess.

Big Idea Festival

One of my favorite web places, Big Picture Classes, is hosting its free Big Idea Festival this week and next. The class has daily layout inspiration and some free downloads. I did this last year August and loved it, so I signed up again. The idea this year is a word a day; at the end, you should have a complete 6x6 album of words connected to your life. Love it.

I didn't want to use the templates, so I made 12x12 layouts. They won't get their own albums, but they will be put inside my already existing albums--my album or the family album, probably. Here's my first five words:


I used a photo I took using my iphone and the Hipstamatic app. The blues and greens were so intense, the photo worked perfectly with the Studio Calico Boardwalk kit. I misted lightly in yellow and green, then unscrewed the lid and blopped color down on the page too. I used the kit's zig zag stamp; I used it on a piece of patterned paper and embossed it, using it along with other patterned paper strips. After I made the LO, I punched circles, adhered, then stitched them onto the page.


The word "wonder" was hard for me. It became easier when I used it as a verb, which you can see in the journaling. The title came from the amount of time I've been with my husband. We started dating in 1996.

I dug into stash for this page. I misted the old October afternoon patterned paper with Studio Calico clover mist to make it more monochromatic. I also punched the circle border to make my own sort-of scallop border. I went a little mist crazy on this layout--the flowers were a little bright, so I misted them with SC Pony to mute them a tad.

Just for giggles, check out the photo on the left--that's Derick and I in 1996. I had rescued this photo from a frame--it was a tad damaged, which is why I trimmed it into a circle. The other photos are extras from other pages I made; these photos were rejected sizes.


Day Three's word, Less, is a lot like my One Little Word, Reduce. I used this page to focus on attitude. I used Studio Calico's July kit, Mind the Gap, which is still available too.

I had a photo on here with me and the boys, but I wanted to have just a picture of me for this one, so I took it off and replaced it with this photo from my birthday. I had printed it in both color and black and white because I wasn't sure which I wanted. I'm glad I got some use out of this!

This page was fun to make. This was the photo I had planned on using for LESS yesterday, which is why I used a photo turn for both, to cover the hole in yesterday's LO and to cover the adhesive on this one, LOL! Another secret: I misted this paper, planning to use it on yesterday's LO, but it didn't look right, so I used it for today instead. Both pages used SC's Mind the Gap kit.

(In case you haven't noticed, I used the same pattern for three of these LOs. It might be uncreative of me, but I like the way it works for a one-photo page, and I think I used other techniques to make the pages look a little different from each other.)


Yesterday's word was Enjoy. I think the idea was to do a page about what I enjoy to do, but this photo has been staring me in the face all week. I LOVE it, so I decided to use it. They are wearing shirts my Club CK peep Alison M sent them, and they are acting goofy because I did what I learned to do from Write Click Scrapbook to get natural smiles out of my guys: I told them to get squishy. Telling them that always creates a hoot of a photo.

When I look at the photo, the journaling came to mind, so I used this for the page. I used Studio Calico's June kit Paper Moon for the page, which isn't available anymore, but the page is made largely with October Afternoon Rocket Age, which you can get.

One note about this paper: It has little punch out holes which were a pain to deal with as I punched holes to stitch. #%&!

I painted behind the journaling/title to make the letter stickers stand out better.

So those are my pages so far for the Big Idea Festival. I now have to mull over today's word, Nest. It's a tough one.

5 Vacation Faves

It's been a few weeks since we got back from our South Dakota vacation, and though I have yet to even think about scrapping this vacation, I did have to get something done: my 5 Vacation Faves album.

This is a tradition for me. On our way back from vacation, I ask each family member what their 5 favorite things from vacation were. I record them, then put them into a mini albu. Here are some past ones with a sample page from each I'm showing:


This one was from Disneyworld last year.


This was from Olympic National Park two years ago.

And here's what I did this year:


I used an OLD Autumn Leave file folder, lined it with patterned paper, and decorated the cover with Stuff. I used GCD Studios The Great Outdoors for the paper and wood grain chipboard letters and October Afternoon Campfire for the stickers.

Here's what the inside looked like:





I selected 4x6 photos with white space on the side, one of each family member. I then backed each 4x6 photo with patterned paper, stamped some journaling spots, and used the white space for each family member's list. Plus some goodies.

I can't encourage you enough to make a mini like this the next time you come back from vacation. If you do, please post a link to share!

Summer-in-water colors

The GCD Studios newsletter just came out, and one of my pages is highlighted! If you're not yet a subscriber, email Inthestudio@gcdstudios.com to get your own copy in your inbox.

This newsletter shares what may be my favorite color combo for summer:


Blue, red, yellow, and green, plus a little black for drama.

In particular, this combo made me think of my boys swimming because their swim clothes are blue and red. Throw in their pool toys and towels, and the colors are all there! I grabbed the following GCD Studios papers and product:

Vintage Audrey from Homespun Chic

Pink Sparkle from Homespun Chic


Scandinavian Holiday Stripe from Scandia Jul


Vintage Birdie from Homespun Chic


Vintage Buttons from Homespun Chic

Since we've spent a lot of time swimming at different places this summer, I put together this page, an overview of our summer in the water:


I misted the background with yellow and blue; the combo added a bit of green. I also misted the yellow, blue, and green patterned paper to saturate the colors.


I punched the papers and lay them on top of each other sort of like waves.

When I die cut a title, I like to cut it in two colors to add some depth.

If you have any photos of you and your family outside this summer, grab these colors and start scrapping!

Spaced out

My boys love outer space. I'm not blaming anyone for that (*cough DERICK LARSON!*) but their infatuation extends to all things Star Wars, planets, spaceships, stars, and so on.

For instance, when we went to Joann's today so I could pick up a Xyron refill, they asked for a meteor kit. How could I refuse? I got two. Only a half hour more and those meteors will be ready to roll into each other like marbles to try and make some craters. Hopefully the craters will not be in the house itself.

I mention this because I love October Afternoon's Rocket Age. I could seriously make 100 layouts with that line. Most of the line I got with Studio Calico kits in June, though I supplemented at Archiver's.

I make this page for this week's Sketch Support 2-page sketch with Rocket Age (click on images to see them larger):


I used a Jenni Bowlin Malted Milk Paint Dauber to go over the words "wonder" and "adventure" lightly so they wouldn't compete with the title as much.



Yes, that's glitter on a boys' page. I painted the star with a couple shades of yellow, then used some Pink Paislee yellow glitter from an old Pixie Stix I have.

I stitched the title word to make it stand out more.

I'm finding that adding a few cross stitches here and there on the embellishments really finishes the layout nicely.

And another page using Rocket Age, this time about my son's birthday last year at Space Aliens restaurant:


Sorry, you can see me taking the photos in the middle of the LO! My bad.

I love the vintagey looking American Crafts alpha that goes so well with the vintage look of Rocket Age.


I laughed putting that sticker next to my son's photo on this page.


I added the gems to get a little spaceshipy, if you know what I mean. I was picturing the red lights on spaceships that blink on and off, kind of like the one BURN-E was trying to replace.

I added some gems to the title for balance. Oops, you can see where I removed one from the first A. Ah, well.

Terrific two-page advice

A couple weeks ago, I posted a giveaway of this sketch book by Allison Davis, Debbie Sanders, and Scrapbook Generations. I asked readers to leave a comment about advice they had on creating two page layouts. You all left some tremendous advice! I thought I'd share a few of the things I do, then give you your full list of comments.

1. I select photos and make a sketch. I use sketches by others, but most of the time I select photos and sketch what I want to do with the photos. Here's one I did recently. The sketch (sorry for the bad scan):


And the layout (click on images to see them bigger):


(Confessions: this was for my American Crafts design team application.)

2. I have a line span the two pages. I love strips of patterned paper, so having some connect the two pages works for me. Lots of people commented on doing something like this to create two pages.

In this case I had a lot of lines span the pages--lines of paper, painted images, photos.

3. I connect the pages with a line of photos. I'm a linear gal, so lining up photos across the pages is an easy choice to make.

This is a new one I made. Most of the photos are the same size, though I didn't smoosh them together like I usually do.

Here's some older ones with a line of photos:

Last year's Week in the Life. I don't have the luxury of space in my house to be able to create a whole album about a week, so I did a two-page spread with hidden photos. Easy to line up photos if they're all the same size.

I trimmed leftover 4x6 vacation photos for this LO.

4. I balance embellishments across the pages. Another piece of advice people commented on. I am a slave to the visual triangle, so I often use that on a two-page spread. I tend to put those embellishments by the title, the journaling, and the important photo.

I used the GCD Studios line Elementary, My Dear for this spread. In this case, I used the embellishment clusters on both pages to balance the pages.

5. I arrange my layout in a mini-block. This is a layout design I'm using fairly consistently on an occasional project I started at last year's Big Idea Festival called 100 Moments. I trim photos to fit into a block, and I fill space with patterned paper. I used patterned paper to "bookend" the photo block either on top on bottom.



Much of what I do was reflected in some way by what readers wrote. Here's a master list (Some comments doubled each other; I tended to only include the advice once, unless it had a slight nuance to it. Judgment call.):

1. Have fun and don’t worry about the layouts looking the same
2. Use a sketch or copy someone else!
3. Create a visual triangle spanning two pages
4. Mirror something from the left side to the right in opposite ends of the page span
5. Think of it and work on it as a big one-page layout.
6. Only use your favorite photos and use those to pick your embellishments
7. If using a one-page sketch as inspiration, mirror or flip it to make it two pages.
8. Use something—a large shape, a strip of paper—to span both pages
9. Use patterned paper to “jump the gutter”
10. Use an odd number of photos in various sizes
11. Arrange photos in a “c” in any direction to draw the eyes across the page
12. Select papers first, then photos, then a sketch. Use embellishments last to fill spots
13. Just do it!
14. Stick to one pagers—ha!
15. Start with a good story
16. Have fun
17. Make it flow from left to right
18. Make the eye-catching elements flow across the page like a backwards 6 (learned from newspaper design)
19. Combine two one-page sketches to make a two-page sketch
20. Do something symmetrical on both pages
21. Use similar color or embellishments on both sides to add continuity
22. Start with the photos and two pieces of white paper to work out the placement
23. Balance photos, colors, and embellishments
24. Connect the pages with a line
25. Scraplift the heck out of people!
26. Use a design element to tie the two pages together
27. Look at magazine spreads for design inspiration

And here's something sad: I wanted to add three more just to make it an even 30! That explains a lot about how I scrap, LOL!