Busy with teaching, and back with scrapbook pages

Hello! And sigh. This has been a busy year. As a teacher, I've moved from distance learning to hybrid, and now we've moved back to distance learning. I thought distance learning was busy, but hybrid...oof! I am grateful to have had the opportunity to get to know my students face to face, albeit masked.

In the meantime, I visited my parents in Maine, I finished tucking my garden in for the winter, I kept reading, and I kept scrapbooking. Here are some of my pages for Simple Scrapper:

This was a two-page pocket layout about my last-year's trip to Maine. Not gonna lie, looking through the Project Life Cards and pulling a bunch to use gave me joy. 

This next one is a layout celebrating my son's theater experience last year in Ragtime, a magnificent production. He played a few roles, including JP Morgan. He has a knack for getting cast as terrible people. Here are the separate pages:

Photo on the left a professional photo by Any Angle Photography.

Next a couple pages for November. Here is one commemorating the boys' game night with dad. Since the boys both have jobs now, it's a rare night that all of us are home.

Finally, a Thanksgiving layout. Last year was untraditional--I visited my parents in Maine while my husband took my boys to Buca's. I enjoyed reflecting on this special time with the ones I love in new ways, and it's important I remember that this year as well.

And those were some of the (few) pages I've made these past couple months! I am working on a cross-stitch project I will post when done, and I am getting to work on finishing my son's school years album, since he's a senior. *Gulp*

New layout in Scrapbook & Cards Today!

 Every time a submission call for a magazine goes out, I try to submit. So it was a great pleasure for me that one of my favorite scrapbooking resources, Scrapbook & Cards Today, solicited a page from me! 

The layout I made is a PageMap layout, a two-page design. It was tremendous fun to make, and I hope you will check out the entire issue. Bright colors, helpful hints, and bundles of inspiration. You can find the new issue here.

I'm busy creating Bitmoji classrooms for the most part right now and planning to move from digital instruction to hybrid instruction. At night, I'm trying to keep up with my 2019 albums as well as finishing up my eldest son Rowan's school years album. I have an approaching deadline: he graduates this spring. 😲 Holy heck. 

I have a vacation album completed that I need to edit and post. I'll be back soon with my pocket pages album!

Summer pages for Simple Scrapper

Last time I posted some pages I made this past summer, mostly of last year when I went places still. Sigh. Here I wanted to share some pages I made for Simple Scrapper. First, here were some pages for August:

This one is a page about a birthday trip to Penzey's Spices to buy ANY SPICE I WANTED. Best birthday present ever. I like the deep blue background, which is October Afternoon. I don't have much deep blue, mostly aqua, so that is a patterned paper hole I need to fill. Letter stickers are Pinkfresh Studio and ancient Making Memories. Journaling Card is Elle's Studio, as are the wood words. Doilies are Stampin' Up, which has very nice embellishments. And any time I get to dig into the Embellishment Jar of Antiquity, I feel good. Here's looking at you, brads.

I live within a few hours away from most of my cousins, but I don't see them much, so when I do, I take pictures and commemorate. My cousin Janel is a legit artist, so I journaled about her gallery that she hosted and I attended. I took the product inspiration from the painting behind us, which was hers. The paper I used is an older Studio Calico piece that is just this gorgeous and fitting perfectly. I picked some embellishments to go in a circle, mostly from Crate Paper, and stitched around as a frame (I drew circles first as a guide). I tend to stitch stickers down anyway, mostly because they are mainly Ancient and need adhesive help. Added some Stampin' Up sequins because.

Here's a story from last September, again when I was going places. My husband plays with a swing band,  Westwind Swing Band, and they played at a winery/orchard called Parley Lake Winery. This place was obviously created with scrapbookers in mind, for it is filled with gorgeous sculptures and scenery. I started by enlarging the barn shot to 8x12, nice for an exposition shot on a two-page layout, then printed the rest 2x3 to fit in all around. I used some new Echo Park papers and old embellishments. A note on that: I used some old flair and discovered a lot was started to unpeel, which made them unusable. These worked, but I ended up tossing a ton. So if you've been intending to purge old supplies, start with the flair. That should be an easy job.

This last page shares something else that's kept us busy this summer, our new puppy Chewie, named after this character. Since we lost Lola last December, we've had a melancholy stay-at-home. Once summer hit, we started searching for a new dog, and this pup turned up. He looks like a breed, but he's a big mix. A big mix of cute, I might add. I chose an adorable photo of him and made this journaling heavy. Used up an acrylic alpha from Studio Calico for this. NOTE: when stapling, be sure to hit the letter.

Thank you for returning and seeing my Simple Scrapper pages! I'll remind you that this is a tremendous community filled with inspiration: sketches/templates, a monthly magazine, and classes.  If you need something to jump start your memory keeping, start here!

Summer scrapbooking catch-up

Hello! It's been a busy summer for me and my family, despite the stay-at-home order. We have done some home improvement (patio, painting, and deck maintenance), visited family, and remained crafty. In my case I cross stitched several projects, got one framed, read several books, gardened, and scrapbooked. Here's some of what I scrapbooked this summer:

This page records my husband and boys at last year's Gen Con, which sadly was cancelled this year. I used an adventure-like line from Echo Park that I got last year at Pine City Scrapbooking for this, mostly using the paper as embellishments, plus some random Studio Calico label stickers. The journaling card is Elle's Studio, and I love it. 

Another page made with papers I picked up at Pine City Scrapbooking, Simple Scrapper Great Escape, I believe, this time to commemorate our trip to the Vikings exhibit at the Swedish Institute in Minneapolis, a legit castle. I made a mistake with the letters: those are meant to be dipped in glitter, so they have a protective coating on them covering super super adhesive. *crossed fingers the protective coating stays put*

This was a layout that came about when I cleaned. I found the social story and a note from my son's preschool case manager, and I decided to make a page with them. I had one--ONE!--KI Memories big office pocket eft, so I dug through my saved preschool photos to put on the page and embellished and journaled on the pocket. 

Here's a two page layout of one of our last trips to the Science Museum to a stellar exhibit on the history of gaming. Strongly recommend. I took my favorite photos from the visit and made a s t r e t c h e d page with them. I couldn't remember many details, but that's why the Internet exists; like I did with the Vikings page, I went and researched the exhibit and included the most memorable or favorite details. NOTE: The background paper is one I love from Bella Blvd about football, I think, but the quotes are all about games and winning, so it worked!

This is a page I made for my 100 moments album, one I got the idea for and started working on years ago because of Big Picture Classes. Again I used papers from a trip to Pine City Scrapbooking, this time Authentique. I dug into my Iris container with school-themed products--it's getting light, and when my boys leave the house in a few years, I'll probably get rid of the rest of them. I use a similar color-blocking type design for each layout in this album.

That's all I want to share today! I'll come back sharing some additional pages I made for Simple Scrapper and for my own family later this month. Take care!

July Pages for Simple Scrapper

Hello! As I started scrapbooking again after school let out, I worked on my pages for next month's Simple Scrapper. I'm working on 2019 pages right now, so here's what I did:

Since quarantine, I have been doing a lot of pages about going out to new places. In this point, my husband and I visited a picturesque taproom near the park we sometimes ski at (Theodore Wirth park) called Utepils. This page is built off a busy piece of patterned paper from October Afternoon. I trimmed the plain paper out of the top to back it with wood grain; after I was done, I regretted not doing that on the bottom too! Too late. Instead, I added a strip of the wood grain to ground it.

This page made heavy use of the die cuts I'd taken out and not used on my last page, plus a few other things I had on the table. I call this technique "One whatever is left on the table." Here it worked!

Note: I did stitch down the title (I almost always stitch down small letter stickers), including the Thickers. It's possible--just use the side wheel (my name for it) instead of the foot pedal. Even so, go slow: I bent my needle on the T and had to take a break to get more needles. Sigh.

I don't often use memorabilia on my pages, but this layout responded to a prompt that said to make the memorabilia a dominant embellishment. Challenge accepted! This was an outing at the end of the year to see an Agatha Christie play, so I used the program and the tickets as the main focus. (This is the second photo I took of the layout; in the first, I didn't notice that the tickets were crooked. I had the photo edited and ready to go. Drat.)

I selected cozy products, from the background paper to the embellishments, to match the coziness of Agatha Christie books. And since it was a mystery, I used file folders all over.

Thank you for visiting! Please check out Simple Scrapper--there are many scrapbooking and storytelling resources, which can be so helpful in these times when we spend so much time at home. This visual community is valuable.

Re-using old designs

It has been a busy month for me! I collected student papers virtually, commented online, then finished  assessing the papers and submitting my grades. To make it more exciting, my district required me to go in for 4 of the last 9 days of school (while I was in the height of grading, of course!) to clean up EVERYTHING in my room and pack it away to make room for a deep scrub this summer and to help collect student materials. All this after I broke my toe. Gah.

I did some reading, some gardening, and some cross-stitching here and there, but I mostly graded. Now that school is out for the summer, I will have more time. Here's my inaugural summer page:

It is a traditional page I make every year that comes as the last page of my album. I pick my favorite 9 photos from the year and put them in a digital template.

The general design is always the same; the decorations differ. Here I started with an OLD piece of My Mind's Eye paper that was an ombre green/blue design; then I selected the Studio Calico muted cloud paper from my craps to serve as the title block. I used some new better stickers I got from Elle's Studio plus my standard chipboard letters from Jillibean Soup. (I ran out of O's, so thank you, button Stash! That's the best letter to run out of.)

At this point I took out my die cuts, which I organize by color in an office hanging-file folder case, pulled bunches in a few colors that seemed to fit the same muted tones, then played around fitting them in. I borrowed heavily from old My Mind's Eye and Elle's Studio dies.

Since I was doing a color challenge with my CKMB friends online this week, I challenged myself to add color in different mediums too: I stamped the numbers in orange on the right, I used orange thread in my machine instead of white, and I broke out my misting templates and added some painted flourishes.

So that's how I manage re-using old designs: Same structure, selecting basic papers, and then playing with product and techniques to make it fresh.

June pages for Simple Scrapper

Hello! I've spent the last weeks painting our flood-damaged downstairs and commenting on student papers. Now that I've finished, I've been scrapping. Here's some of my pages for Simple Scrapper:

This page was my representation of this month's sketch. I made this page as a rainbow promise for what we look forward to after Quarantine. My husband said "Sports" and my boys said "School" (!) and "Theater."

Creater comment: I fussy cut old Sassafrass paper for the background, then stitched it, and stamped two-tone stamping on the tag with an old Studio Calico stamp to enhance the theme.

This page celebrates my son'd performance at the State Theater on Hennepin Avenue because the school's production of Tuck Everlasting was honored by the Hennepin Theatre Trust. I used lush colors and ornate embellishments to reflect the theater.

Thank you for visiting! I'm almost done with my final overdue vacation album. I'll post pages of that when I finish! Take Care!

Working with themed products on a scrapbook page

Hello! We are DAYS away from getting replacement carpet, which means this weekend I will be able to access my crafting supplies again. Phew!

Since most everything was packed away, I've been limited to what's on hand, which is mostly scraps. Still, I hooked the Iris containers that hold my camping and travel supplies before they were packed. Here's one page with limited supplies that I made about a mountain biking trip my son made with his aunt:

I started with the background paper, which is so gorgeous I didn't want to cover it. (I know what the collection is! But I had to pack up the Iris containers when I was done, so there is no hope for figuring it out until I put everything back this weekend.) Instead, I pulled a 6x6 paper made and put some circles to mat the three photos (I cut the google maps photo into another circle!).

Everything else on this page came from the travel or camping Iris containers, except for the title, which was tucked away in my wood veneer collection and was perfect for the page.

I liked being limited by what I could use. It spurred my ideas. Not that I'm sad to get my good supplies back, but there is something to be said for only being able to use what you can reach.

Who would have thought...Looking back at the beginning of the year

Now that Distance Learning is in full swing in Minnesota, I am busy all day long, setting up my classes, assessing student work, emailing (lots of that!), and Google meeting. As a result, I'm not scrapbooking as much. I'll share what I make as I finish.

In the meantime, I thought I'd go back to two pages I made for Simple Scrapper in January to start the year:

This page is actually really important right now. I looked back on the last year and some struggles we went through and reframed them as positives. I'm finding myself doing that a lot nowadays, of course, taking small sips of gratitude as the day progresses.

Craft-wise, I love the stitching template. It comes from a misting mask from Studio Calico, but you could achieve the same effect with a ruler and a paper piercer.

I used some flowers that I tore off a greeting card to use. I like the effect.

Next is a page about an event that broke my heart last year, the sudden death of my dog Lola:

For me, pages about loss are also pages about memory. I want to remember them, so I like recording the great things we experienced. In this case, my dog Lola in December stopped moving and eating, so we took her to the vet, where we discovered she was suffering from blood inner chest cavity, more than likely from a heart tumor. There was no end available that did not include terrible suffering, so we said her goodbyes. As she passed, I reminded her of all the terrific adventures she'd been on as a part of our family. The journaling here basically recounts what I said. That is what I want to carry in my heart.

Craft-wise, I ended my journaling with perhaps my favorite memory, one that the right hand photo shows. I think ending with the best memory is a good way to commemorate tough things.

Same scrapbook design, different looks

I scrapped a couple pages recently that I love but made me laugh. Here are the pages.

First, I scrapbooked my SIL coming out to craft and visit last January. It took me a long time to put the page together, but I started with the circular family history page, then picked a teal piece of cardstock then a strip of patterned paper to separate it. After that, it was easy to figure out how to tuck and layer the photos and embellish.

The scalloped chipboard I picked because they were lying around near me, and I though the color contrasted enough to look good. In the same drawer were the only remaining Prima flowers I had, and lo! They worked. I finished the page with leftover label stickers, buttons, and sequins.

(Design note: the embellishment cluster in the middle of the page exists because I accidentally dropped a photo with adhesive on it on top of the photo and had to cover the smudge. There are no accidents, just unplanned opportunities for additional creativity.)

Next is a page about an outing with a friend of mine:

(On a side note: I'm enjoying scrapbooking outings a lot right now. Scrapbooking allows me to travel!)

I had these photos, then picked the yellow paper to match the house and the woodgrain to match the brick. After I laid it out, I realized I'd basically made the same page! How is it different?

1. I only had three photos so laid it out sideways instead of vertically.
2. I used embellishments to frame the photos instead of setting them up in a visual triangle.
3. I added a Journaling tag instead of journaling across the page.
4. I used a less dramatic title.
5. I used more colors!

Still, the general layout of the pages is the same. Even though I didn't consciously strive to use the same design, the photos and papers led me there, but other decisions happened that made these pages unique.

Thank you for stopping by! Please use these pages as jumping off points for completing your scrapbooking layouts.

Two-page layouts for Simple Scrapper

The last time I posted, I shared some single pages, smaller ones. Today I'm sharing something that's maybe a little trickier but perhaps more satisfying for me, two-page layouts.

On the design team for Simple Scrapper, we seldom get two-page designs. Still, it's one of the members' most favorite inspirations, so I try to use two-page designs as much as I can.

This first was a glorious, two-page sketch. I didn't have to do much--I subbed the journaling blocks for photos and added an embellishment/journaling cluster. It was a lot of fun digging through my word stash for the left side.

Next is a manufactured two-page layout, recording the story of our epic winter last year, which may have been the start of memes overtaking photos on my phone.

I say manufactured because I put together two single-paged sketches to create this spread. To do this successfully, you need two contrasting sketches, then pick something to unite the pages: Color, embellishments, paper (see my curves and snowflakes).

Instead of contrasting two sketches, you can also do what I did with a layout I recently posted: take one sketch and stretch it over two pages.

Here the left side was the sketch; I sort of mirrored/tapered it on the right side. Again, similar colors and products.

Thank you for stopping by! Hopefully this gave you ideas for scrapbooking two-page layouts.

Some more small stories on 8.5x11 paper

Hello! I spent some time recently finishing some 8.5x11 layouts, one about each boy telling a small story in his life. Here are some other smaller format, smaller story-layouts I made recently.

First is a page I did for Simple Scrapper in March, using a couple photos and some big PP banners to share a story about my son's last year in Dinner Theater at church. This was super each to come together once I picked the bright colors. The speech bubble sticker had been handing out in my workspace for a while, so I put it on the page just because it seemed to fit. There's a benefit to not always putting stuff away!

This page commemorates our transition to a new car. I'd taken a photo of my last car before we traded it in, and then a photo of my new car. Again, the FAMILY die cut and journaling card were lying around, so design-wise I started with those and picked homey colors and products to fit.

Another small story, this one my son's final piano recital. It follows basically the same simple design as the previous page. Big strips of PP form a nice base for the page, then strips of journaling stitched down and embellishments that lead the eye across the page.

The story behind this page made me laugh so I had to print the photo behind it and share the story. I don't know how to take pictures on Androids, but my son does, and so we did. This was a perfect page to use these huge die cuts.

One of my favorite photos of my cat. She is an occasional lap snuggle with me and only me. The color scheme led my design for the page.

Finally, a page about my husband. I had this Me Right Now journaling card I loved, but I'd just made a similar page about me, so I didn't know how to use it until I found this unused photo of my husband from Father's Day. I was at my January Scrap retreat at the time, so I called him and asked for his answers and wrote them own (it was also fun to see how many of these I predicted correctly!). A basic strip design with my husband's favorite color, British racing green.

Thank you for visiting again! I hope this gives you ideas of stories to tell of designs to try.

Scrapbooking across two pages

Hello! I've been putting together some two-page layouts with lots of photos. I thought I'd share some of them.

First, here's a page about my father-in-law's funeral two-years ago:

Here I did what I typically do when I have a lot of photos: I print them in standard sizes, in this case, 3x4. It made the most sense to line them up across the page, so I did. That left two spots for the journaling. For embellishments, I took inspiration from the flowers next to the flag and I used my Stampin' Up! punches with scraps to make the flowers.

Next is a page about a camping trip last year:

When I scrapbook a trip where I took some good vista shots, I print one big with the idea I'll use that on one page, then fill the other with smaller shots. I did that here, but you can see the photos don't fill the space in an even grid. I struggled with that for a while and thought about reprinting the photos as squares to make an even grid, but the orientation of the photos just didn't work. Taking a shot of the whole family manes I have to print it horizontally! Instead, I added a line of embellishments in between. I'm happy with the result. Most of the camping supplies come from my Camping Iris container, and most were Simple Stories, though the lovely coral paper was Pebbles.

Finally, here's a page I did for March Simple Scrapper:

This is one of my favorite sketches from Simple Scrapper: a triangular grid of Project Life cards. However, I'd printed my photos as wallets, smaller than PL! So I trimmed the PL cards to match the wallets. The background paper is one I love from Lawn Fawn. I have bought so much of it. It makes me happy.

Thank you for visiting! I hope this gave you ideas about incorporating multiple photos on two-page layouts.

Making progress on pages I was stuck on: Scrapbooking blocks

I am still finishing up sharing pages I started then didn't finish in my scrap retreat in January. These two I was stuck on. I made them, then wrote the journaling, then made no progress,. I'm not sure why I didn't with this first one. It was pretty well complete without journaling. Here's what I ended up with:

To be honest, the only thing, aside from the journaling, that I hadn't finished was the date. Lo, my son had kept the box of the Switch and the receipt--we trained him well!--so when I asked him to find it, we were set. I used an Ali Edwards Story kit for this, plus scraps. I've been using my scrap bin quite a bit for patterned paper.

This page was a bigger conundrum. I'd put together the photo block plus the four clocks of colored paper under it. After I added the journaling, I looked around for something to finish it, and lo, serendipity: We are remodeling the downstairs after a flood, so most of my scrap stuff is upstairs right now. I saw a strip of green paper that looked like lawn, and that gave me an idea. I used them as strips of "lawn" to frame the title, then dug into my decorative brads, which were again right next to me because of the remodeling. After some stitching, I was done. And I love this page much more than when I started.

Thank you for stopping by! I made a few more pages--most brand new!--in my stay-at-home state. I'll share them soon in the next week.

New layout in the Spring Scrapbook and Cards Today!

It's been a week for me working at home. I've created two weeks of online learning for my students, and I'm working on weekly lessons of extended online learning for them. So far I've completed 2 of 8 weeks, and I hope to finish another 2 weeks by the end of the day.

In the meantime, I wanted to share some exciting news!

It's been a while since I submitted layouts for publication, so it was exciting to have a page published in the spring edition of Scrapbook and Cards Today! You can read the issue here.

I am doing a lot of cleaning and crafting as I'm staying at home, so I'll post some pages soon with photos of my creations!

Scrapbooking small stories

Hello! I just finished teaching the second trimester and am wrapping up my grading. As such, I am BEHIND on scrapbooking. What made me more behind was our water heater breaking and flooding our downstairs, which led to packing things up and moving them to get ready for new carpeting.

Gah.

I did scrapbook some pages for Simple Scrapper. Here's my sketch layout for April 2020:

This was the very embarrassing story of ordering romance novels, only to have them delivered to a student's house. Yikes. The cover is the coda to the story.

For this page, I recorded my friendship with my teaching colleague Chelsie. I had fun digging into my stash to pull fun, colorful, girly products to decorate the page. The discovery of the owl sticker was a bonus find for a page about us English teachers.

Thank you for stopping by! After I finish grading and packing up the downstairs, I'll be editing photos of my vacation last summer to scrap my final vacation album left unscripted.

Scrapbooking the year: 2018

I recently went on a scrapbooking retreat. I do every January, and this year I completed my 2018 albums for the family.

Last summer I did a big reorganization/purge of scrapbook pages. I took every page out and organized by year, tossing those that were not meaningful. (Some I put aside to redo, either to make more concise or to reduce business.) I'm in the processor making labels and tags for the cover and bindings, and I plan to buy some albums to replace ones I have to make the look more uniform and to occupy less shelf space.

Long story, but last fall I went though my photo files from 2018 and ordered photos to finish telling my stories from that year. I made the pages at the scrap retreat. Here are some of the ones I've finished so far:

This one was perhaps my favorite, an amalgam of all the weekend outing photos I took of me and my husband. I love the bright colors in it.

This is a layout of a vivid maybe not great memory. Home opener series in sub-freezing temps. I couldn't make it to the end of the game, ergo chilly colors. Hopefully you get the title.

More and more I'm liking to print photos I love then figuring out what to do with them. I had photos from a few girlfriend weekends at The Manor, so I put them together onto a page. I'm loving using Project Life cards either in full or punched out.

This is a similar layout but more poignant. We recently lost our dog to a sudden and terminal illness. I took three character shots I'd never put on a page and scrapbooked her personality.

This was the first page I made at the retreat. I used up an old Ali Edwards kit for it because I loved the colors.

This page is an example of one I've been making more of recently, one put together with photos my husband or son shares with me. This was from the time I was in Maine helping my parents with my younger son. Here's what my husband did with my eldest while I was gone. Printing photos in standard sizes like 4x3 made this page easy to put together.

And this is what I was doing while I was in Maine! I used an About Me PL card for the page and picked pretty papers.

Here's my youngest around the same time. Not really a story, just my favorite photo I took while I was in Maine.

Finally, a page about my eldest in one of his last piano recitals. He still plays but is too busy for lessons.

Thank you for visiting! I have some 8.5x11 pages to share next time. I've been doing more of those for my smaller stories.