Scrappy Blog Tour

The wonderful and talented Kay Rogers tagged me to participate in this scrappy blog hop--thank you, Kay! I'm a big fan of her work and am honored by her recognition.

What am I working on right now? 

Last weekend I was lucky to go on a scrapbooking weekend outside of town with some girlfriends. I brought back about 12 layouts and one mini album, completed or almost completed. I'm still finishing up some of those pages. Here's my favorite from the weekend:

Every summer I put this album together right away we get back from vacation.  I delayed this year, but I finally put it together. This was pretty quick to make; I'd printed my favorite photos of each of us from the trip to Itasca, then I brought a Crate Paper mini album from their latest travel line (The Open Road?). I added some Project Life cards I'd picked up from Joann's that deal with camping; since the patterns on the cards come from Pebbles' Lakeside line, I added some leftover products from that too. Finally, I added some buttons. Just because every project could use a button. Here's the inner pages:

How long does it take me to create a project? 

I'm pretty quick--maybe an hour? But stretch that out over a week, and that's usually my process. I start a page and do a little on it every day until it's done.

For more involved projects, I spend a couple hours.

What are my favorite things to create with at the moment? 

I have always loved stickers--I particularly love to remove the stickiness and then adhere them with dimensional adhesive. I also love buttons. Lately, I've enjoyed using Project Life cards and using my Cameo to cut titles (not so often to add cut embellishments, but I'm working on it!).

How does my writing/creating process work? 

Usually, I go through my photo files on the computer to download and edit once a month. That's when I print photos that I'll work with for the next month or so. If I'm designing for Scrapbook Circle, I'll take out the kit to use; if I'm designing for Simple Scrapper or Write Click Scrapbook, I'll use the sketch or prompt to inspire my product choice. In short, I'm photo driven for the most part, and I like to use kits and supplement with stash.

Occasionally, I start with product. In this next page, I had some Project Life cards that dealt with reading, which inspired me to scrap the list of notable books I'd posted on Facebook:

How do I become inspired and stay inspired? 

I find it helpful to record my family stories on Facebook, either with words or pictures or both. They serve as placemarkers for me so that I can remember them and go back and scrap them later. I love to create, so once my kids are in bed, I like to pull out my supplies and create a little before I go to bed. Surfing through online galleries and Pinterest also inspires me, though I don't scraplift; instead, I think looking through terrific pages inspires me to create.

What is my signature style? 

I'm pretty linear. I also love color. I love clustering embellishments, and I love stitching. I think my pages tends to have some sort of whimsy or playful element to them, although sometimes it might just be in the presence of a button. Here's a page that's pretty typical of my style: 

Thank you for visiting my pages on this scrappy tour! Now I tag three scrapbookers who have inspired me: Jennifer Haggerty, Donna Jannuzzi, and Cristina C. Scrap!