Reclaimed pages, post-hard drive crash: part 2

Here's a couple more pages I never posted that I thought I'd lost on my hard drive when it crashed but recovered, thank you Carbonite.

This was my page last month for Write Click Scrapbook on the theme The Great Outdoors. I picked my favorite photos from our camping trip to Banning last year, enlarged my favorite, used antique-y and colorful papers from Lily Bee on a neutral background, then did some stitching to add motion. I also stitched over the title and curled the edges to add some dimension.

I love this page. The photo on the right I have scrapped before; this print I took off the board of school this past spring; it was taken about 7 years ago, so it was time to update it. Heh. I had recently taken the photo on the left and thought it would be nice to pair the two. I put the photos on a neutral background, used scraps from an old kit of my favorite color (yellow) plus coordinating hues, and then pulled whatever was lying around that seemed to match.

To embellish, I followed an old embellishing formula of mine:

1. Start with something flat--a sticker
2. Add something dimensional--raised stickers and buttons
3. Finish with texture--stitches and thread

I think I gave this page to my father for Father's Day; I thought he would like the page of the boys growing up.

Thanks for checking out another couple of pages recovered from the abyss! I'll share more tomorrow, plus a super deal from Scrapbook Circle.

Reclaimed pages, post-hard drive crash: part 1

Note: Today is the last day for the chance to win one of five kits from Scrapbook Circle! It ends at 8 P.M. PST.  Please go here to read the rules and go on the hop--and be inspired!

About a month ago the hard drive of my laptop crashed. It's the place I've been scrapping and blogging almost exclusively, and it housed all of my photos from 2014, including my iPhone photos I'd downloaded from my camera. Insert swear words of your choice here.

Right now I'd like to give a shout out to Carbonite for a generally easy recovery. All but the last 100 vacation photos I'd literally uploaded the night before were recovered. Those, fortunately, I'd uploaded online that night to a photo processing store that was too expensive and difficult to use, so I don't want to advocate them--their name starts with a W--but I grudgingly must admit that I am grateful I was able to go back, burn a too-expensive CD of them, and put them back on my computer, backed by Carbonite.

In the process of this mess I had about 10-15 pages I'd edited to share, but I didn't have time to before the hard drive crashed. I'm going to share those pages this week. Here's the first two, one for each boy:

This page is one made with leftover photos from another page about our Spring Break visit to the art and science museums. I decided to use the leftover Rowan photos on a page about his favorites at the Science Museum. The best part? The journaling is his. I asked him to tell me all of his favorite parts of the museum, and he listed them all.

And this page was about my son's first foray into theater as Aslan in The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe:

I used bits from a fairly girly Studio Calico kit called Camelot. I wasn't sure about some stuff, like the pink tulle, so I overlapped it and sewed over it, trying to create sort of a side curtain for the page. It turned out OK. It bothered me that the letter stickers didn't come with a comma/apostrophe--I hate it when stickers interfere with my grammar!--so I used this star pin as an apostrophe. Bonus that the pin looks like the Wicked Witch's wand.

Thank you for checking out my first batch of recovered pages! More to come through the rest of the week.

It's the Best! New gallery at Write Click Scrapbook

Note: Tomorrow is the last day for the chance to win one of five kits from Scrapbook Circle! It ends at 8 P.M. PST on August 4.  Please go here to read the rules and go on the hop--and be inspired!

Hello! It's a new idea gallery at Write Click Scrapbook, and the theme is a big, wide open one: The Best! Here's my page:

I scrapped about our favorite new restaurant, The Freehouse in Minneapolis.We have been there several times since seeing their chef on a morning news show here in Minnesota. I used a kit by Studio Calico, plus some stash bits. Here's the details:

I've taken to stitching down a side of my journaling strips to anchor them to the page.

Kind of a boring title, I know, so I tried to make it more visually appealing by having the "h" break the plane into the other word. I stamped the word YUMMY with Stayzon black ink, which was a little spotty, so I filled it in with an American Crafts black Slick Writer pen. Protip.

I generally add a little something of the same to the opposite corner of an embellishment cluster for balance. And yes, that's a photo of my son at the bar watching soccer. He's drinking a Sprite.

Thank you for checking out my page! Please visit Write Click Scrapbook to see the rest of the fabulous pages this month, and come back all month for further inspiration.

Scrapbook Circle and PageMaps blog hop!

Welcome to our Scrapbook Circle Blog Hop! This month Scrapbook Circle has a new kit and a new team, and we're celebrating! You could win one of five August kits by commenting as you hop from blog to blog, meeting the team of Scrapbook Circle. If you just left Sarah Zenger's blog, you are in the right place. If not, please join us for the entire hop by starting at the Scrapbook Circle blog, here.

For those of you who don't know me: I am Jennifer Larson, a high school English teacher who is a wife to an RPG gamer and a mother to two Minecraft-Lego-Star Wars crazed boys.I was born in Maine but have lived in Minnesota since college. I started my crafting life as a cross-stitcher when I was a child, then fell into cardmaking in 1998 and scrapbooking in 2002. In addition to scrapbooking and cross-stitching, I love to read, run, and garden. Plus, Buffy the Vampire Slayer is the best TV show. Ever.

Here's my page that I'm sharing for the hop:

I used the two-page sketch from August Page Maps for this layout:

I kept the orientation much the same, but I replaced some design elements with goodies from the August Scrapbook Circle kit, Island Paradise. I used bits from both embellishment add-ons: the Bungalow add-on I dipped into for the flair, and the Elle's Studio die-cuts and  Basic Grey chipboard I used from the Tiki Torch add-on (my favorite!).

To be eligible for the chance to win an Island Paradise kit, please leave a comment below and continue on to the next designer's blog, Diana Fisher, and enjoy the layouts through the rest of the hop! Remember, comments for the hop end Monday, August 4th at 9:00 p.m. Pacific.

One more page for Scrapbook Circle August!

I had time to finish one more page for Scrapbook Circle's August kit Island Paradise. Here it is:

And some details:

You can see here I used some of the Bungalow add-on; the circle stickers broke up the linear page. Ditto the wood veneer sequins (love!) from the Tiki Torch add-on.

I used the die cuts from Bungalow to add journaling and sentiment and the chipboard from Tiki Torch to add even more sentiment. I'm sentimental, I guess.

A little bigger view of the shot above, using similar products from Bungalow and Tiki Torch to complete the page.

*You'll notice that none of my pages I've shared this week were about an island paradise. Two were about camping, one my backyard, one a parade, and one robot camp. The one I'll share tomorrow is about a weekend in the cities. The colors here are bright and happy, perfect for happy times off the island as well as on.

Come back to Scrapbook Circle August 1-4. There will be a blog hope with a kit giveaway!

Memorializing lost pets with scrapbooking

A month ago we lost our cat due to old age. I have taken a lot of pictures of her this past year, so I put them together on a page to remember the sweetest moments with her. Here it is:

I used a Simple Scrapper sketch for August here. Most of the photos I had taken on my phone, including the bottom one, which was my last photo of her. I used products from my July Studio Calico kit, picking products I thought reflected affection. The days of the week paper I picked because she sat on my shoulders every day, loving to cuddle with me as I scrapped.

It was cathartic scrapbooking this page, remembering my cat as she was when she was healthy. We are not near to getting another cat--I need time to mourn--but I do love looking at her darling face.

Scrapbooking the weather

I have been a weather junkie for a while. It might be something about Minnesota, but I love watching the weather and making plans accordingly. This year I scrapped the weather, first with the polar vortex:

And this month with June's (almost) record setting rain:

And the details:

I used an older November sketch and an August story starter from Simple Scrapper for this page, as well as using up an older Studio Calico kit and this month's kit with this page. I also went high on themed products: Months ago I had bought the weather veneer, having no clue when to use them. They sat in my stash for months, so when I made this page, I went to town on the rain and clouds. Lots of fun picking a title too, as there are MANY song titles that fit: It's Raining Again, Raindrops Keep Falling on my Head, Who'll Stop the Rain, Buckets of Rain...Sigh.

Thank you for checking out my page! I'll share my second August Simple Scrapper page later this week.