Something I never do...

But I did it with this layout.

I wanted to make a page about my son's penchant for riding his bike up to the water tower. He calls it his "Quiet Place." Lately, he's also started climbing a tree in our backyard, calling it his "Happy Place." With that, I took photos of the water tower, then of him in the tree, printed them, and made a page. This was the page that killed my January Studio Calico kit County Fair, the 18th page from the kit. (I got a few add-ons with that kit. I loved it.)

Inspired by the cute tree paper by Jillibean Soup, I cut the photos into circles. Here's the finished page:

 

Only...look at it. It doesn't really look right, does it?

I struggled to figure out what was wrong, finally settling on the photos. Was it the color? Should I print them in black and white? No, that wasn't it. The problem was the photos themselves, especially the left one. It looks great as a 4x6, but cut like it is, you don't get the real place that is Rowan's quiet place, right at the foot of the tower. I also had issues with the one on the right too. Too much tree, not enough yard. (And a clear idea of how high up he was!)

So here's what I did that I've never done before: I replaced the photos on this page. I went out again, took photos again, this time with more of the surroundings visible, reprinted them at National Camera Exchange with what was doubtless their smallest order of the day, and made this, the real finished page:

Doesn't it look so much better? Here's some details:

 

I misted the January kit's wood veneer letters with Mister Huey Sunshine. Can I tell you how happy I was to use a Q?

  

A close up of the new photos. I sanded the edge of them, something I like to do when photos are sitting on busy paper. It's like a thin, rough white photo mat. I used my ancient Coluzzle to cut the circles.

The journaling spot I cut from the sticky notes that came with the kit. I mounted it on white cardstock to make it less transparent.

 

The bottom map paper was cut with a punch that I may well have used up. It always gives me a rough edge, no matter if I use my punch sharpening kit or not. To mask the roughness, I use my distressing tool on it to make it worse. 

Thanks for taking the time to look at my process and my page! What's something you've never done when scrapbooking?

A new team!

I'm very excited to share that I will be a writer for The Scrap Review! You can see the announcement on this post. I am thrilled to be on a team of such talented writers and scrappers (honestly, some of my scrap idols are on the staff. Eep!). I look forward to sharing with you some of my reviews.

If you want to read some random and funny things about me, my scrap habits, and my favorite TV shows, you can find the dirt here.

Thought bubbles and speech bubbles: Autism Awareness

My son Dominic, who is 8, has autism.

This is not a post about his diagnosis, or his journey. Since April is Autism Awareness month, I thought I'd share some of where he is right now to spread awareness of autism, and hopefully to open up conversations with your neurotypical kids.

A few weeks ago he climbed on my lap to talk with me about trying to talk with kids at school. He was having a hard time, and he didn't know what to do. He wasn't really asking for advice. He's not there yet, but he's beginning to recognize that he doesn't "get" social interactions, which is heartbreaking for me. For him, he's still stuck in "What can I do?" when what he needs to think of is "What do other people need?" (I know that may sound defeatest, or even that I'm not supporting my son, but a good part of learning to function in society is learning to be attuned to other people. Which is exactly what people with autism have difficulty with.)

To help, I told him that he need to learn the difference between private conversations and public conversations. He could enter into public conversations; it's considered rude to enter into private ones. The trick is figuring out which conversations are private, which is not easy, since people hold private conversations right in front of others. (I'm blaming this on cell phones, which make us think we're the only one hearing the conversation, when that's true only of half of it.) My son's working on something similar in his social skills group: learning the difference between thought bubbles (what he can think, which is just about anything) and speech bubbles (which is limited--you can't say everything you think). Heck, I think we all know some neurotypical people who need to learn that difference! It's tough, especially for people with autism.

To remember this conversation, I made this page (click the image to read the journaling):

I used the Studio Calico March kit Story Hour, appropriately enough. Here's some design info:

  

I wanted to use a big ampersand, so I took an old Basic Grey chipboard one, traced around it, painted it, then outlined it. I then placed letter stickers  over it and sewed them down.  

 

I like adding stickers in a bunch, along with other embellishments (here, buttons, brad, and flower) to get at some of the ideas behind my page and add some emotion. Since this was a people page, I added red, which is my color for people in the Big Picture class Twelve.

 

I used the paper upside down, but I don't care. I needed the big design on the bottom, not the top, and the words/numbers were barely visible, so OK. More stickers and embellishments that mean something.

Thank you for reading about my page and about my son. If I can give you any words to raise autism awareness, it's this: when your child talks about a child at school that seems "weird" and says or does odd things, try schooling them a bit. Perhaps the child has autism and doesn't know any better, and will take years to learn how. Teach kindness and patience. Believe me, that means a lot.

Here are some resources that I've read and seen that I recommend:

1. Thinking in Pictures and Animals in Translation 
2. Ten Things Every Child With Autism Wishes You Knew
3. Temple Grandin. This film does a remarkable job of visually representing how some people with autism perceive the world.
4. Look Me In the Eye. This book's chapter on small talk is one that I know Special Education teachers of older students with autism use with their students.
5.  The Journal of Best Practices. Confession: I haven't read this, but I heard the author speak on NPR, and I look forward to reading it.

Cool stuff and pretty stuff

My boys watch Cartoon Network on Saturday mornings. The commercials, I mute. In the middle of some highly colorful ones for girls, Dominic broke out and asked, "Mom, how come boys have cool stuff and girls have pretty stuff?"

I actually think this is pretty profound. It made me think of McDonald's Happy Meal toys. For a while there, it seemed the boys got toys--stuff to play with--and the girls got fake makeup and jewelry--stuff to decorate themselves with. I'm honestly not a rabid feminist, but this bugged me. What are we teaching boys and girls through these choices? And to tell the truth, I would rather have gotten a toy than cheap plastic jewelry when I was a girl.

OK, tirade done...

Dominic's words made think. I have both pretty stuff and cool stuff! I decided to go make a page about both kinds of stuff. Here it is:

I used Studio Calico's February kit Daydream Believer. This layout killed the kit!

To make the grid: I laid out the photos and figured out how wide they had to be spaced to fit. I then used a ruler to lightly draw lines, which I then sewed on. I debated drawing journaling lines too, but I decided that it might detract from the grid.

I filled in non-photo spots with pretty stuff (and cool stuff!) from the kit. I stamped circles with this stamp set to journal on. The numbers on the photos correspond with the numbers in the journaling.

(Yes, my license plate says DETH STR. That is cool stuff.)

Fortuitously, I had a chipboard banner that said pretty, so that went on this pretty side, along with my last butterfly from the kit.

The title was stamped using a letter set from a kit add-on. I stamped the letter in yellow, then stamped over it with the outline stamp in brown.

I've heard rumors that this stamp set will go for sale later separately. If so, pick it up! Letter stamps are so versatile. And it looks like you spent HOURS outlining each letter.  Ha!

Winners!

Thank you so much for the nice comments! I loved reading about everything that makes you all happy.

Using random.org, here's the winner of the one page sketch book:

sillypea said...

Spring makes me happy - love to see things come alive! And LOVE the Sketch Support Sketches and the beautiful things you create from them!

April 14, 2012 8:35 AM

And the winner of the travel sketch book:

~Denise said...

Love the map on your layout!

April 14, 2012 7:42 PM

Sillypea and ~Denise, please email me at jennyrahnlarson at yahoo dot com to give me your address so I can mail you the books! Happy scrapping, everyone!

Sketch Support blog hop

Welcome! If you just started the blog hop here, go back and start and Sketch Support, leaving comments along the way to stay in the running for the grand prize!

I love using the sketches to get me started on scrapping. Two recent books, Travel Sketches and One-Page Sketches Volume Two have been particularly inspiring.

I used the sketch from the one-page book:

to make this layout:

 

Yes, it's a two-pager. I love that about the Sketch Support sketches: they are inspirational enough to give me ideas but flexible enough to allow for easy changes. Here's what each page looks like:

  

  

I chose a big, dramatic print for the left side and added a few pictures to the left like I did on the right to bookend the spread.

 

That's me with my bunny ears and on the beach. Many, many years ago.

 

I mainly used October Afternoon's Boarding Pass collection. The grey stripe is from Dear Lizzy Neapolitan. I also used a grey ink pad, Jenni Bowlin Weather Vane, to ink the edges of most of the papers, since the papers were of a similar hue and I wanted those papers to stand out when they were layered. I also added some stitching around the main photo. I couldn't get the corners straight, darn it, but that's not a mistake, that's just whimsy.

So here's a little about me:

• How long have you been scrapbooking? I have been scrapping for 10 years, since I was pregnant with my first son.
• Why did you start scrapbooking? Archiver's had just opened in my town, and I took a scrapbooking class to do something with the photos from my first 4 years of marriage. After I finished with them, I was hooked.
• What is your favorite time of day to scrapbook? After my boys go to bed.
• How often do you scrapbook? A little bit every day!
• Where do you scrapbook/what does your space look like? I scrap in an easy chair in my living room on a lap desk. I like it. I can be near the family when I create.
• When I'm not scrapbooking you can find me...in a high school teaching English, in my garden, jogging, or reading a book.
• What is your favorite thing about using sketches? When I don't have to stress about design, I am free to play around with other creative elements like paint, mist, stitching, and so on. love that.
• What is your favorite sketch from Sketch Support? This two page sketch from June last year was awesome. I found it easy to adjust for the photo sizes and numbers that I needed.

Now for the giveaway!

If you want a chance to win a copy of One-page Sketches volume two and Travel Sketches, leave a comment telling me something that makes you happy, just because it's always good to think about that! I will leave comments open until 8 P.M. CST Monday, April 16, then I will select winners!

After commenting here, visit Allison's blog to round out the blog hop--you're almost there!

Thank you for visiting my blog--I hope you make this a regular stop!

Family rituals

 One topic I have been scrapping about with the class Twelve is ritual. There are formal rituals--weddings, baptisms, graduation, etc.--and informal rituals. I have a certain bedtime routine that is almost ritualistic. Same with my morning coffee. And the dog walk or jog when I get home.

One family ritual I scrapped recently is the family walk. Every Thanksgiving we follow the meal with a walk. Since last fall, when we quit the gym and lost the regular family swims on the weekend, we have been going for family jogs or walks most weekend. With this past charmed winter, we were able to do that even in the middle of January.

 

  

  

This walk I brought my camera. Rowan didn't want to go, but once we got to the lake, I took the boys down to look at the ice, and Rowan was so fascinated he forgot to be upset. Later, he found a big stick a la Gandalf, and that really cheered him up.

When we walked by Elm Creek, we started looking for bobber trees, trees riddled with bobbers that people snagged when they had been casting for fish a little too close to the woods.That was a mini treasure hunt.

To scrap this page, I used this week's sketch from Sketch Support. I kept pretty close to the sketch. Since it was a January walk, I picked subdued colors. Since this winter was basically snowless, I picked yellow as the dominant color, the color of the straw fields we walked by.

 

 

I added snowflakes to suggest winter, plus some flourish stitches for movement. I painted the flakes yellow to suggest warmth, and I added bits of woodgrain stamps to the flakes to dirty them up a bit.

What's one family ritual you should scrap?

Designing with Sketches

I'm a little behind sharing some of my Sketch Support pages, so I thought I'd share them with you.

Here's what I did a couple weeks ago:

 

The sketch was one page, but I had a bunch of 2.5x2.5 photos left over from last summer, so I put them together onto a two page 8.5x11 layout.

I have to admit: when I laid the photos onto the white background, I had to take a photo and tweet it.  The combo just looked so cool!

I used my January Studio Calico kit for the page.

  

  

When I made the banners (which I did just by eyeballing it), I decided to add some random green buttons, since I had a lot with the kit.

 

 

Sometimes, if I want typed journaling, I print it in the same color as the background paper. In this case, I also inked it with Jenni Bowlin Chicken Feed ink.

And here's what I did this past week:

This was based off of a card sketch. When I saw it, I though of an 8.5x11 inch page and thought it would be perfect for a page about myself. And so I made it. I used the same kit for this page.

When was the last time you made a page about yourself and what you love (aside from family and God)? I challenge you to do it right now!

Patterned paper bits

This is my last GCD Studios post. I had a wonderful year with the team, and I am so excited to share the wonderful products in this line.

I'd like to share a technique I used recently to dress up a page with lots of patterned paper bits.

The spring here in Minnesota has been so gorgeous, I felt the need to scrap some spring photos. I pulled an unscrapped photo from last year--remember last winter and how welcome spring was?--and paired it with with the lovely Bonjour line. I was inspired by these papers:

The blues and greens are lovely spring colors that I can use on a page about my boys. The colors made me want  to pull out some mists and use them too.

First, I set up the layout of the page. I grabbed a template from Pink Paislee to make the background:

Next, I misted over the template in light blue.

I wanted to use two other colors of mist, but only inside the template. To cover the paper above and below the template, I taped some wax paper to it, then misted with green and brown:

Next, I added some patterned paper strips. I also wanted to add patterned paper to the misted circles, so I used the misting template to trace and cut a scrap paper template. I used this scrap paper template to trace and cut out small pieces of patterned paper to glue over some misted spots.

Finally, I added some other shapes and brads just because.

Here's what the final page looked like:

I hope you enjoy using your templates to add a fresh mix of patterned paper to your page in little bitty doses!