Egg Fail

This year we continued a family tradition of making Star Wars eggs. I love this, both the dyeing and the decorating and the photos after. I always scrap a page I call "Jedi Eggs."

Last year, however, was problematic. The only Star Wars egg dye kit I could find had crayons to melt on top. OK, then. I made the eggs in advance for once and put them in the fridge, taking them out for the dyeing only to discover that the eggs had to be hot for the wax melt to work.

#@&%!

My only hope at this point was the internet: I went online and found a recipe for home made egg dye. I also pulled out a white crayon, surmising that I would be able to create a resist effect by drawing on the eggs before dyeing them.

Here's the result:

I used Fancy Pants Designs Park Bench Collection for this. It seems like a springy color collection, working perfectly with the colorful eggs. I added a piece from Down by the Shore because I thought I needed a more intense color, orange in this case.

Here's the details:

 

 I made the title with the Cameo, using the font Lobster, I think. I loved using the Cameo and can't wait to use it even more.

 

I stitched around the photo on the mat, a delicate effect I love to use.

The stickers all seemed to fit a bit thematically, as did the yellow quote strip on the bottom.

There's my white crayon bunny! And the almost black dye. Ah, well.

I also hand stitched these circle frames, which was harder than the square. These I had to hand crank the wheel rather than using the foot to stitch. My arm was killing me by the time I was done with three circles. Once I realized that after stitching one circle, I'd already committed to the stitching and had to finish it. I added some orange cross stitched just because.

The supplies:

Park Bench Bench / Park Bench Strips / Park Bench Blanket / Park Bench Fountain / Park Bench Flower Garden / Park Bench Sticker Fundamentals / Park Bench Label Stickers / Park Bench Button Set / Down by the Shore Brag Pad / Park Bench Decorative Tags

Thanks for reading about my less than perfect Easter moment last year. Hope you had a blessed, festive Easter weekend, free from egg fails!

Happy Birthday, Dad

My dad celebrated his birthday this week. Since we live half a country away, we celebrate via phone, photos, and mailed presents, but I hear he had a good day. We're planning future fishing with him and the boys. Here's the card I sent him:

I used Fancy Pants Swagger line, scraps from a page I recently made. Here's the full supplies:

Swagger Button Set / Swagger Success Paper /  Swagger Powerful Paper / Swagger Humorous Paper / Swagger Sticker Fundamentals / Etcetera 6x6 pad

I know male cards and layouts are hard for many people. For me, since I have all boys, I tend to make these the most, so I love this orange/grey/green combo. And I hate to say it, but with males, they don't really need a fancy card. Anything homemade, and they appreciate. Perfect for my simple style.

Scrapping small photos

One of my friends from my scrapbooking group, the Scrappin' J's, has been my son Dominic's Sunday school teacher for a few years. recently that ended, which made my son sad. I had taken a terrific photo of them together a couple years ago and decided to put it on a page.

The problem? It was an Instagram photo, so to get the best quality, I printed it small. (Note: I know I can go places online to print them higher quality, but those are cost effective only when I print larger orders, and I wasn't ready to put together a bigger order. I am doing that now, and when I get that order back in a week, I'll share with you!)

My issue with small photos: I want them to look substantial on a page. If I'm only scrapping one on a page, I need to do something to make it stand out. And though I love white space, I didn't want the small photo to look like an island in a vast ocean of white space either. Here's my solution:

I used an envelope and patterned paper to create a photo mat and anchored it to a strip of white woodgrain cardstock running vertically on plain kraft cardstock.

To add interest to the white woodgrain, I added some patterned vellum from Studio Calico's Darling Dear collection and curled the ends of the vellum (I used barbeque skewers from my kitchen, if you're curious what I rolled the vellum with). The vellum didn't stand out much, so I slip some yellow-on-yellow patterned paper underneath.

I knew I wanted a scalloped edge to the vertical paper, but I decided to make a stitched scallop edge using my Bazzill stitching template rather than punching a scalloped border.

 

As usual, I grabbed bunches of stuff from the Studio Calico kit I had out and clustered it around the photo, again to add some substance to it. I love the Freckled Fawn wood veneer speech bubbles with words in them. I've almost used them up!

The clock sticker from October Afternoon I'd planned on using on another page and never did. I de-stickered it using my embossing buddy and added it to this page using dimensional stickers.

 

Thanks for reading about my page and how I dealt with a small photo. Now how about you: what size photos do you normally scrap? Do you scrap small photos? Big ones (I love those too)? Mainly 4x6?

Write Click Scrapbook sneaks!

I'd like to share some sneaks of my April page for Write Click Scrapbook! Here they are:

This first sneak is the best one to show what the April Gallery's theme is: can you guess it?

 

This sneak shows a cluster of embellishments near the title--the ticket says "needing," in case you can't read it (my friend Janet told me it looked like "weeding," LOL!).

The final sneak, including an older photo of me, standing in front of our now-gone crab apple (a freak July windstorm took it). I wanted to show how I used the geotags as photo turns, and the cut-out vegetable tags from October Afternoon Farm Girl. I bought the paper, thinking to use it to scrap my sidewalk contaner garden this summer, but I put it to a different use on this page.

So there's my sneaks! Come back to Write Click Scrapbook to see the full gallery on April 1st--no joke! :-)

How do you spell "portcullis"?

I have scrapped more Lego pages than I can count. Ever since Rowan and Dominic started the Lego Club, I've put together pages of their club days. Recently, Rowan has asked me to take photos of his creations. Since this seems to be because he wants to remember them, I complied. Here's the latest:

I used Studio Calico's February kit for this page.  Since I had only one 4x6 photo and a couple 3x3 photos, I set them together on a bigger mat and embellished around them. Here's some details:

 

Confession: I teach English, and I don't know how to spell Portcullis. I do now--two "L's"--but when I laid the title down at first, I only had one "L". When I journaled, Microsoft Word helpfully informed me that there were two "L's" so I had to correct the title. That's why the "I" doesn't want to stick. I'd moved it. 

%#$@!

I added the Glitz banner to sort of reflect the sweeping chains I picture on a castle drawbridge. Keep in mind I am no expert on castles.

  

Lots of fun embellishments in this kit, so I layered and clustered them across the page. I am a slave to the visual triangle, which I did with the embellishments.

 

Thanks for sharing this page with me! Tell me--do you scrap your hobbies or your families? Do you do them multiple times like I do?

I'm wearing my Fancy Pants today

Last week I got an email with some wonderful news! Here it is:

I will be a member of the Fancy Pants Design team! Ever since The Daily Grind and All Fall came out a few years ago, I have been a big fan of their collections, and I am thrilled to work with their products this coming year.

Here's one of the pages from my application, using Fancy Pants October 31st collection:

Since I love to layer embellishments, as you can see on this page, I look forward to working with Fancy Pants. So much fun!

Thank you for sharing the news with me!

March minis (and a giveaway!)

I have been working on mini albums this month for Write Click Scrapbook. I love mini albums. There's something wonderful about telling a whole story in its own book. It makes the story feel that much more important.

I have to admit that I have not made a mini in a while. I was stuck because I was thinking that I didn't have many complete stories to tell. Then I had an epiphany: How about a mini of stories that are still going on? And so I made this mini album:

 

 

I used a small Smash book for this. Interestingly, the patterned pages worked perfectly for a 5K album. I added some pockets to put my 5K number in. The pockets were Studio Calico limited edition Cameo cuts; I bet there's others out there. I resized them to fit the numbers.

For this month's gallery at Write Click Scrapbook I made a mini album to celebrate spring.

Seriously, Spring doesn't fully come to Minnesota until about mid-April. So sad. In addition, spring is sort of messy and smelly here. I live near old farmlands and the yard waste place. When the ground thaws, do not inhale. To remember the bright spots of spring when we have 3 foot drifts like we do now, I made this mini. Last year I thought I'd want to make it, so I took a lot of typical spring pictures. So much fun to finally put them together.

Finally, I was fortunate enough to scrap with a Little Black Dress kit for Write Click Scrapbook this month. Since the kits are vintage, I decided to print some photos of my childhood and scrap them. Here's some of what I did:

You can see the whole album at Write Click Scrapbook.

And for those of you in the mood for a giveaway chance, please visit Write Click Scrapbook today for a chance to win the kit I used for the last mini My Life. It was utterly beautiful and totally fun to use.

Meet Stone

Here's an unusual pet for you: our new bearded dragon named Stone.

 

I never thought we would own a reptile, but last summer my younger boy became interested in owning a snake. We checked out books from the library and he read up on them; we went to local pet stores and investigated; at the Renaissance Fair we went to the Herpetological Society and asked about owning reptiles, and here's where we caught a break: Dominic fell in love with the bearded dragon, not the python. (BIG sigh of relief from Mom.) We learned they make great pets, and Dominic started working hard until he earned the money for the tank and lights. Then for his birthday, Grandma and Grandpa bought him Stone, plus crickets for dinner.  

Here's the pages I made to celebrate Stone's homecoming:

  

I kept the design really simple to show off the photos, which weren't high quality, but they showed everything important; Dominic at the store, where he first met his pet, then the tank in his bedroom, and then Stone in his new home. I enlarged that photo. It was a pretty good one, even though I had to contort myself to take it in the tank.

 

I never thought a bearded dragon would be entertaining, but it is. For one, it hunts its dinner. Plus, I think he can recognize me, maybe the frequency of my voice or the weight of my footsteps; when I enter the room to feed him, he leaps from his basking log and waits for me, alert. I swear it's almost like he's wagging his tail.

Here's the details:

 

I had a lot of wood veneer arrows from my last Studio Calico kit, so I used them to draw attention to our newest family member.

 

Here's the journaling. It was a big story, bigger than the space I had, so I stretched it across the pages.

Thanks for sharing in the story of our new pet! Tell me: do you have any pets? Any unusual ones? And do you scrap them?

Winner!

Thank you for everyone who entered the giveaway. Random number generator selected 7, which is listgirl! Listgirl, contact me at jennyrahnlarson at yahoo dot com and I will get you the ebook info! Then you can start scrapping your cat Noodle. :-)