Black Friday tradition

The Mall of America is a special spot for my family, most especially because my husband and I first met there. Every year we go to the Mall of America on Black Friday. It's honestly not as crazy as it sounds! We went again this year; I'll post that story soon.

I took our pictures from last year and made a mini album using the following color combo as inspiration:

The desaturated colors are warm but not to showy, perfect for my bright photos.

Here's the mini-album:





I used paint on my stamps to make the images stand out on the black paper. I also used some gems and baker's twine to add some texture to the pages.

And here's the GCD Studios products I used:


Animal Crackers for boys Cube Leaf


Animal Crackers for boys Wallpaper Stripe


Animal Crackers for boys Fauna Stripe


Animal Crackers for boys Quirky rub-on letters


The Great Outdoors Trail Blazer


Chip Art Stars


Chip Art 5x7 mini album kit

Enjoy these muted hues, even when scrapping a bright and wild event!

Where do you get your inspiration?

Like most scrapbookers, I get most of my inspiration from the stories I want to tell and the photos I print to accompany them. I know there are other sources of inspiration; I just don't use them as much. I also get inspired by sketches, Pinterest, and occasionally by product, like here:

I had these photo strip stickers from K & Company for a while, but I didn't know what I wanted to use them for until I found some random photos my husband took of me and my boys around Christmas last year. I printed them in the right size, but still, no full inspiration until I saw the stamp with my October Studio Calico kit: You Are Here. That made me think of a phrase to finish it off: and it is good. The page was born in full.

Rarely, though, life itself gives me a page before I even get a photo. Case in point: this fall.

My son is preparing for his black belt test in taekwondo. As part of that, he needs to run a 5K. God bless my son, but no way did I trust I could just tell him to run and expect him to. He's a little like that dog in Up: "Squirrel!" Since my son had to run, I had to run, and I brought along my other son too.

It's been tough. At first, they complained the whole two blocks we started. Then I thought to play music on my iPhone. We ran happily to Queen, and later Green Day, but mostly Queen. Fat Bottomed Girls is surprisingly a great song to run to.

Slowly, we increased the distance until we ran 2.3 miles a week ago. We ran again today, going 2.66 miles, though Dominic ran an extra big block and did the entire 5k (3.1 miles). WTG!

As proof for Rowan's black belt, we signed up to run the TD 5K in Minneapolis this Thanksgiving. We are very excited for our shirts and the hot cocoa or cider after. Plus we want to see a turkey run. You never know.

This is definitely an event I want to scrap, so I asked my husband to take our picture after we ran last week:

I plan on calling the page " A black belt, a 5K, and Queen."

I'll post the page after I make it.

More pages

I spent most of this past week grading. I'm now half-way done with research papers, 20% done with memoir second drafts, and almost done with novel summative assessments. Since I was closer, I finished the journaling on the pages I worked on last weekend. With the exception of the Sketch Support page I did, here's the rest:

Here's one of the few two-page layouts I made this weekend. I had taken a bunch of random photos last spring and printed them here to scrap about what a happy, everyday weekend it was. Well, everyday except for Dominic meeting Twins pitcher Scott Baker.


One of two Halloween LOs I did. Fun hand-stitching using the Bazzill templates with this one.
Both of these first two LOs used September's Studio Calico kits, though the Halloween one used an add-one. As did this one:


This one is becoming my favorite. My pages were becoming linear at this point, so I started cutting circles. I like how I added the spider web in the corner; it makes the stitched circles look a little webby. I added last year's Making Memories circle stickers and pumpkins.

Click on this image to see the journaling closer. My mom fixes my boys' damaged stuffed animals, so we call her the bear doctor. What a woman.


This is a funny story--again, click the image to read it. It took effort to cut the patterned paper and assemble this, but I love this page.

Technically...I did not do this page last weekend. It's one of my 100 moments pages. It has been done and awaiting journaling and embellishments for a while. I took the opportunity this weekend. look at me, age 10! Thank goodness you cannot see my teeth, pre-braces.

Scrap-tacular weekend

(Sorry for the delay in writing; I have been inundated with grading papers. The piles are still there, but I've made a dent.)

In the midst of grading, I took a weekend scrap break to the wonderful Scrapbooking Company in Pine City. I went with my scrapbooking friends, the Scrapping J's (minus 2 who couldn't make it).This is us in front of the store. Attached in the back was a big room for scrapping surrounded by many 2-bed rooms, plus a master bath and a kitchen. The scrap space was delightful, as were the ladies who were also there that weekend. Here we are, in action:


Total, I made about 14 layouts. Here are the ones I totally finished (others I needed to add journaling or photos):

I got the idea for this page from Ella List It! Everyday. I sketched it out, scanned old photos, printed them in a uniform size, then dug into Stash. My favorite: the photo on top of my mom and my brother and me is mirrored by the same photo almost 30 years later of me and my sons.

This is one of two two-page layouts I made. I use the same title every year for this layout because we always make the Star Wars Eggs, and thanks to my husband's brilliant idea, we always do Jedi poses with them after. I used Studio Calico's Field Guide, plus a little Stash for this.


Another Easter Stash LO. The chipboard swirl was a random thing that was in my traveling Stash, so I used it. And can I say, this past year was one of the only GREEN Easters we've had? The year before it snowed. No lie.

This one...perhaps my fave. The J's had a late night challenge to complete a LO in a half hour. This was mine (confession: I added the hand stitching after). This challenge gave me a real sense of what it must be like to be on Project Runway. Seriously, I had started out with another page, realized I couldn't "Make it Work" in 30 minutes, so I decided to use a favorite design scheme of mine with this photo. I misted, I punched, I adhered, and then the insanity: I stitched. And of course, the bobbin ran out with about 2 minutes to go. I could almost hear Tim Gunn saying "Stop sewing and get on the runway NOW!"

And this is the LO I started and stopped. I used a really cool piece of paper from Studio Calico's Field Guide. I trimmed it, which made me a little dizzy, and adhered it. Then I thought I needed stitching, so I moved on to the above LO. I came back to this one later (around 1 A.M.) and finished.

When I finish the journaling for the other LOs, I'll share those too.