Back from vacation

Sorry for the hiatus; I spent a wonderful two weeks driving to Maine and back with the family. We stayed on the UP, in Buffalo with family, then with my parents in Maine. A lot of my on-the-road photos look like this:

But mostly this:

We went camping in Acadia National Park, then drove back with an overnight at each of the first three places. This was a vacation where I used my phone to take LOTS of photos, and some of them are my favorites. Here's the shot that is the new wallpaper for my phone:

The only day of rain was our first day at Acadia, most of it while driving. Jordan Pond and the Bubbles were fogged out while we hiked around it, but it cleared when we finished, so I took this photo.

Our most exciting moment, next to hiking 8.5 miles round trip up and down Cadillac Mountain, was blowing a tire 30 miles from home on I35. Some Minnesota Nice good Samaritans stopped to help us put on the spare before it rained, and Tires Plus outfitted us the next day. And I'd like to give a shout out to my husband for reminding me to take a picture. Here it is:

 

(Just in case you wondered, if it sounds like a helicopter is following you on the highway, you've blown a tire. Pull over.)

I have spent the last two days downloading photos, making a mini album for Write Click Scrapbook, mailing a layout to Scrapbook Trends for publication, and making something for Elle's Studio. Once I make another couple things, I'll post some pages that I just about finished before vacation.

A page I made about Derick and I appeared on a post by Diane Payne at Write Click Scrapbook while I was gone; please visit some of these wonderful Summer dailies and get inspired!

Here's a post I wrote for The Scrap Review with my top five CHA picks; I wrote it while I briefly had a signal in Buffalo and Maine. (No signal in Acadia, though I would randomly acquire signals while hiking, alerted to them by text messages. I was so amazed at the random signal that I would stop and text just because!) I do plan on sharing the other 20 picks I had (heh), so if I get a chance tomorrow, I will.

Summer bucket list: checking it off

I made a page of our summer bucket list a few weeks ago; you can see it on the cover of Scrap Street Magazine this month.

After I made the page, I decided I wanted to check off our list along the way, so I made this mini album, mostly sans photos (click the images to see them larger):

 

The album is a chipboard mini from 7gypsies; it had many chipboard squares--I guess the entire album was supposed to be on the chipboard, but I am just using it for the covers and filling it with cardstock pages.

I painted the cover and cut the paper to fit (about 4x4), inking the edges in a contrasting color. I stamped a journaling spot on each page and used either rubons or stickers for the title on each page. As we accomplish each item on our list, I will print a photo (2.5x2.5) and adhere it to the page.

To embellish, I used a lot of leftover supplies I had, mostly American Crafts. Their bright colors work well for summer pages, I think.

So most of the album is blank right now, which is OK. And we may not accomplish everything on the list, which is OK too. Still a good memory for summer.

Do you have a summer bucket list? What do you wish to do? Will you record those memories in a mini album or in a layout? Please share, and if you haven't thought about a summer bucket list, there's still two months!

A new team!

I had a wonderful scrapping weekend, spending the day at Archiver's with friends. I "finished" 9 pages (I still have machine stitching and computer journaling to do on a few), and I killed a kit (i.e. finished the product in it) so I feel good.

Another reason I feel good:

I am a member of the Elle's Studio Design Team for the next 6 months! Very excited. I just got the package of product today, and I'm having fun thinking of how I'm going to use them.

Scrapbooking on the photos

I love white space, particularly on my photos. When I use photos on my page with some empty space, I tend to overlap that space with title/journaling/embellishments, not to fill the page, but to ground the photo. Here's an example:

I did this page for Thinking Through Design, using Studio Calico's City of Lights kit. I love the photo; it just seems so poignant. When we had the whole beach to ourselves, the whole summer in front of us, my son, knelt at the edge of the water and started building in the dirt. It was just so him.

I try to take photos that are asymmetrical--my pages tend towards asymmetry in general, but with asymmetrical photos, that leaves white space to play with. Here I added the title and journaling to the right, which drew attention to my son.

Another example of white space (and my love for asymmetry!):

This page I made for my parents using some leftover photos from last summer and my boys at Mears Park in St. Paul. I used Simple Stories' new collection Summer Fresh, which is a perfect collection for boys. I sprayed with Studio Calico mist (custard?) then lay the photos on top of the messiest part of the mist, which left just a nice splash of color beside it. Even though the photos didn't have a lot of white space, I did a lot of overlapping with stickers to ground the photos a bit. Finally, I added the title to the white and a little bit of stickers to the left to form a visual triangle, leaving the rest of the page open to draw more attention to the photos and title.

And for some news...

This last page was my submission to the Write Click Scrapbook's talent search, and I am proud to say that I was one of two people selected as a winner! I have loved this site from the beginning, and I can't wait to work with such talented people.

And more news:

Please go to Scrap Street Magazine and enjoy this online publication--and my layout Summer Bucket List 2012 is on the cover of July! Sweet. We've already done 4 of the things on the list, which is great, and I also have made a mini to keep track of what we accomplish off the list. I'll share that next week.
Enjoy the weekend, and may your weather be cooler and less humid than mine. :-) Get out and take some pictures, and leave some white space in them.

Hand-stitching

Long before I started scrapbooking, I cross-stitched. For anyone who does this, you know that it can involve a variety of stitches, not just cross and back stitches. I like to work these stitches into my pages pretty regularly, not least of which because it is one of the most economical ways to add embellishment to a page: a skein of floss costs less than .50 a skein, even less if you buy in bulk (or cheaper kinds of floss, which I don't do. I'm a DMC snob.).

Some people resist hand stitching because they think it will take a lot of time and talent. I want to put you at ease.

First, here's my basic stitching supplies:

• A squishy mat I got at Michael's for a few dollars (cheaper equivalent: bottom of a mouse pad)
• A paper piercer capped with a cork (cheap equivalent: a push pin)
• Very sharp scissors (only use them for ribbon or floss)
• Templates--one from Stampin' Up!, one from Bazzill, and a ruler from Tim Holtz with holes every 1/8 inch (cheap equivalent: a ruler. You can measure every 1/8 inch yourself to punch. Or hand draw patterns and punch holes to stitch every 1/8-1/4 inch.)
• Needles of various lengths and widths in a magnetic case I got at Joann's (make sure the needle eye is fairly large but the needle itself is not too thick.)
• Floss (not shown)--I use DMC. Though I have every color for cross-stitching, I found it easier to buy ROYGBIV in bright and subdued hues, plus neutrals, to keep in a case with me so I can easily take it to crops. When I need a color I don't have, I shop my Floss Stash.

When I stitch, I tend to do it last as finishing accent. Here's what I did with a recent page:

 

I decided to add a few kinds of stitches to this page: some cross-stitches  on the top and bottom, some outlines stitches on the stamped images, a stitched photo corner, and a stitched title.

I do all my piercing at once, then stitch all together. The paper piercing tool about five minutes, the stitching total about 40 minutes. That sounds like a lot, but it's something I can do easily watching TV, or waiting for the water on the mac and cheese to boil. Most of the time on this layout was used  in the title:

 

(The Brothers stitching was done by machine.) To do the title, I hand wrote the word, paper pierced about every 1/8 inch, then stitched.  NOTE:  Don't stitch closer than 1/8 inch. 1/4 may be preferable. Too close and you will shred your paper.

I did the cross-stitches in the same color:

                           

But the stamped stitches I did in a burgundy that I pulled from the patterned paper:

 

And here's the final page:

Photo by my friend Jennifer of Junglefish Photography.

I used mostly Amy Tangerine from American Crafts for this page, pieces of last year's collection I hadn't used up. I think it's colorful, but muted, which works well on a boy page; I matched the DMC to their muted hues.

The misting used Studio Calico's Orchard and Classic Calico; it's pretty darn intense and splotchy under the photo, but I covered most of it, leaving just the lighter flecks around the photo, plus one strip of intense orange. That way my coverage looks more controlled.

I'll share a few more pages with stitching through the rest of the week. Plus news. :-)