Pinterest inspiration

I pin on Pinterest and love the inspiration that I get from it. Sometimes I wonder how to translate that inspiration into a scrapbook layout. Here's one thing I did.

First, the pin from Kathleen Rogers:


SO adorable. However I found myself drawn to the cupcakes more than the flags. (Maybe I was hungry!) So I took the inspiration and created this layout:


I have the orange in the center (the pumpkin in the pin), circles (cupcakes) surrounding it, and "sprinkles" of mist all around the outside.

Here's the papers I used:

First, I used some red papers from Elementary, My Dear.

Next:


Trick Pony from Funhouse


Sunday Morning from Youthful Eggsuberance

A couple things I did to finish the page:


I stitched the circles down with a couple straight stitched, then I slowly swirled a few more stitches around the straight stitches.


And to add one more photo, I trimmed it into a circle, then cut a slightly larger circle out of the photos block to house it. I lay the journaling on top of it.

I enjoyed using this pin, not to recreate the actual craft but to take its inspiration to create an original layout. I hope you go use those pins to make a page!

OA Winner!

I used random.org to pick a winner, and here it is, #15:

Jenni said...

SO COOL! how awesome to go to their warehouse sale!!!! recently i am loving how are october afternoons are spent outside playing soccer!

October 29, 2011 12:54 PM

Jenni, email me at jennyrahnlarson at yahoo dot com with your full name and address and I will send it out to you this week!

October Afternoon Warehouse Sale (and a giveaway!)

Like most people in the scrapbooking universe, I have been a big fan of October Afternoon for a while. No matter what the line, I love it. Here's a page I made a month or so ago using an upcoming line, Sasparilla, to document our Road Trip out West this past summer:


(Most photos from my iPhone using Instagram.)

How delighted was I last year when I found out that their warehouse was in Minnesota and they were having a sale. That was a Mother's Day present I gave to myself.

A week ago, the universe put itself in perfect alignment: OA announced another warehouse sale, and I had the day off from work, as did my scrapping buddies, the Scrapping J's, Jennifer, Janet, me, and Sandra. (Her nickname is Jo-Sandra so she can fit in, LOL!) We went down and saw a line-up to get into the warehouse:

Darn fire code limited the number of people inside.

There were some new products since the last sale and some new pricing on old stuff, so we went to town (well, at least I did). The wait to check out was long, but that's known as a photo op for scrapbookers:


I withstood the cashiers' pushing me to spend a little more to get the Boarding Pass paper pack (I already had it, but I can't believe I had the restraint!). Here we were outside with our loot:


I had so much fun I want to share:

Here's some papers, stickers, and a mini-album that I got. If you would like to be entered for a chance to win it, please leave a comment on this blog post, telling me what you like to do on an October Afternoon. You have until Sunday, October 30 at 8 P.M. CST to comment.

Project 12 September

I've just collected my students' research papers, so I am in for a lot of reading this next month. We also enjoyed a visit by my parents and my son's birthday, so this place has been busy busy busy!

I did get a chance to work on September Project 12. Here's what I did (click the images to see them larger):

I followed the Becky Fleck sketch pretty closely. Since I've been so busy, though, I had to seriously hold myself back from adding the extra layer of hand stitching. It looked good without it, so I left it off.

I used Studio Calico's Glee Club kit, which is still available. I pulled the flowers from my stash. As usual, I added a photo.


I also realized I haven't posted last June's LO, which is annoying me for neglecting, so here it is:



I used Studio Calico's June kit Paper Moon for this; it had a lot of OA Rocket Age in it, which I loved. So fun to pair blue with such happy, warm colors.

More OA tomorrow...

Warm colors

Now that autumn is fully upon us here in Minnesota, I am fully ready to scrap the lovely rich colors of the season, not just on outdoors layouts, but anything that makes me feel warm and cozy.

Here's one of those subjects: my husband. We've been together for many years now, and he is my rock.

The other day I noticed we were both wearing similar shirts that reflected our interests, in his case his favorite activity, Dungeons and Dragons, and in my case the best TV show ever, Buffy the Vampire Slayer. That inspired me to take some photos of ourselves, which my husband tried to sabotage a bit (see photo three below).

I used a digital photo strip frame from Fei-Fei's Stuff to house all the photos we took, and then I made this layout:

I was inspired by this color combo:
The bit of rich blue makes the typical autumn color combo fresh to look at.

I used the following GCD Studios papers:

Bandana from The Great Outdoors

Garden Mix from Animal Crackers for boys

Trick Pony from Funhouse

Lovely Garden from Soul Food

And just for fun, I stamped and embossed part of my title and painted behind the die cut letters:


Enjoy using this cozy color combo to scrap something that makes you warm inside!

School preparation

When I think of back-to-school, I think supply shopping, clothes shopping, and open house; really, though, we prepare for school in other ways as well. This summer my boys started reading the Harry Potter books, with a little help at times from my husband and me. When I saw him reading to my younger boy, I pulled out my phone, took some photos, and made this layout:

I used the following color inspiration:


Isn't that photo beautiful? The shot paired with the colors made me think tranquility, perfect for these shots of these two together.

I used the following GCD Studios products:


Homespun Mod from Homespun Chic


Our Family Tree from Sweet Surrender


Lovely Garden from Soul Food

Die cut borders from Homespun chic


Metal Rimmed Glass Brads from Soul Food

I added some stamped, embossed borders of bookshelves to frame the photos:



I also added some paint, mist, and hand-stitching to draw attention to the title:


Thanks for looking at my page; if you're making some school pages right now, try doing some of the things your family does outside of the classroom that involves learning!

October visit

Every October my parents come to visit from Maine. Their visit is at an end, and they head home tomorrow. We will miss them.

I made the following page for my mom to take home with her (next month is her birthday):


I used a favorite photo of my mother's that I took at the State Fair this August. I also used September's Studio Calico kit Glee Club. Lots of happy colors on this one.


I played around a little with punches, specifically the EK Success Swiss Cheese punch, which I haven't used enough:


I also punched little bits of patterned paper using a 1/4 " circle punch to fit in some of the holes; other holes I filled with gems or brads.


Just for fun, I added some random cross-stitches, which are a current favorite accent of mine. I also "in-lined" the letter stickers with a Zig Millenium fine gauge pen to make the letters stand out more.

I've been working hard on two things: some design work for GCD Studios, and grading papers. I'll show you some other smaller projects I've worked on this month in the next week.

Coming soon: A trip to the October Afternoon Warehouse Sale, plus a giveaway!

Mom, we broke the tree...

This summer my boys were doing what they so love to do, climbing a tree. They came to me with a confession: "Mom, we broke the tree." I went outside and sure enough, a branch was bent. We cut it off, and then I saved the smaller branches to make a swag.

First, I pulled the leaves off (I waiting until they dried so it was easier). The I grouped the branches together, taped them together, and covered the tape with patterned paper strips, specifically GCD Studios' Ponderosa from The Great Outdoors and papers from Elementary, My Dear.

Next, I die cut leaves out of more paper from Elementary, My Dear. I cut three leaves from each die: two in different kinds of patterned paper and one piece of cardstock. I used glue dots to adhere the leaves together, applying them with a little pace in between so that I could stitch them together later. After I'd stitched them, I folded the leaves up to make them dimensional:

Next I broke out my hot glue gun, which I used to attach the leaves randomly across the swag. I also used my hot glue to attach a hanger to the back.

My wall is prettier that my door, so that's where this project resides. Here it is:


And a close up:

I tied little bows with linen thread around the swag for a little whimsy.

Thank you for letting me share this project with you--I hope it gives you ideas for using your paper products to add some swag to your house this fall!

Boo 2010

My favorite Halloween line at CHA was probably Fancy Pants October 31st. LOVED it. Truth be told, though, I have a ton of Halloween product, so when I saw it at Archivers, I actually held back and didn't get it.

When I got a published layout back this week*, how delighted was I to also receive this very collection in the box. I kept it out to scrap my remaining Halloween photos from last year. Here's Boo 2010 (the story is amusing--if you click on the image, you should be able to read it.):


Since the box came with lots of embellishments, I used them much more profusely than I normally do--chipboard, rubons, glitter cuts, die cuts, plus some jewels, brads, and stitching from my own stash and supplies. One teeny regret: using all the magic and witches' hats. Guess who's going to be Harry Potter this year?

I raised several elements on dimensional stickers just to add more texture and depth.

The paper corner was smooshed, so to hide it, I folded it over and put a wee bit of blue behind it. The flourishes are a cool rubon, as is the bit of magic.

* The layout is published in the online and print magazine Scrapbook and Cards Today. It's around page 58 in the Reader Gallery. This was my first page in this magazine, so I was truly honored to have the page selected, and I'm thankful my son's teacher gave me permission to submit the layout!

Thinking about summer...

*Apologies for the delayed post. Following family tradition, the internet fritzed while my husband was away on a business trip. I got it working on every computer except the one with my photos on it. Today my husband returned, as did the internet.*

I can't believe I said this on October 2: I told my son to go put on his swimsuit and play in the sprinkler. It was that warm, despite at least two frost warnings this past week. October is lookin' good.

I suppose it's OK then, that I am working on some summer pages. Here are some recent ones (click on any image to see it larger):


This was for last week's Sketch Support single page sketch. I wanted to use two pages, so I stretched it to two. I used Studio Calico's Boardwalk kit. The flower paper included just scraps, so I did some fussy cutting and sewing to make them look fancier (and nicer!) than the scraps actually were.


Here's one from August:




This was my Project 12 layout. I used Becky Fleck's sketch. As usual, I added more photos. Again, I used Boardwalk. Loved the bright colors in it. Definitely a page about summer!

I have another two page LO about the state fair that I'll share in a couple weeks; I used a terrific two-page sketch from Sketch Support for it! And hold the presses--I got 17 photos on it. Woot!

A smaller one, this one too from the state fair:

When I saw all the photos I had from photo stands (not sure what the official name for these things is), I decided to put them together on a page. This was the last page I made from Paper Moon, June's Studio Calico kit, plus some spare Sassafras flowers. I got 18 pages out of that kit plus three add-ons. Love love love that outer space kit.