Back from busyland...

A post from some of my friends on Facebook reminded me of my neglected blog, so I came back to  post about my busy month. Truly, I felt badly about being gone, but there was a lot tugging on my attention. Here's what I experienced in March and early April:

1. Grading. My school runs on trimesters, so we finish about the 10th and start the new trimester immediately. As an English teacher, this bogs me down for a variety of reasons. Last trimester involved a researched argument, and this trimester started out with a process paper, so every night I have been reading 10-15 student papers. There's a lull right now--I am only scoring theses and topic sentences--so I'm back!

2. Spring Break. For the first time ever, we shared a spring break with my SIL and BIL and families, so we met in Michigan and Chicago for some fun.

Truly a lark, but planning for this trip took some energy, as did the drive back, through blizzard conditions. Yowza.

3. Easter. I know this is a busy weekend for many, but as a church musician, I need to be at just about every service, from Good Friday to Easter Vigil to every service Sunday. This is why my husband and I decided years ago to always eat out on Sunday, which we did at Hell's Kitchen this year.

BONUS! We managed to get tickets to the Guthrie Easter night, one more wonderful memory making adventure:

4. Reading. This will sound crazy, but since I knew I would be unable to scrapbook much this month with my hectic schedule, I decided to put a dent in my To Be Read (TBR) pile. I've read January First, My Favorite Plant, Crimson Shore, Buried Prey, Empress Orchid, The Invisible Man, and The History of Love in the past month and a half. I'm hoping my bedside pile will be gone by September so that I can read some new books that have piqued my interest.

5. Scrapbooking. Truly, I have scrapbooked! In the next few days, I'll share pages I've made for Write Click Scrapbook and Simple Scrapper, plus some pages I made while on a retreat in Pine City, Minnesota. Here was my view from my scrap spot:

The Pine City Scrapbooking Retreat is a wonderful place, not too far from the Twin Cities. I went with a group of ten ladies and had a wonderful time. Here we are:

I will post pages and projects I made later this week.

There were a lot of other things that occupied my time--piano lessons, violin lessons, taekwondo, and I think there was a recital in there?--but I did some memory making and memory recording this past month. I'll share more this week.

March pages for Scrapbook Circle

Hello! The March kit for Scrapbook Circle, Oh Happy Day, comes just as winter in the Northern hemisphere is drawing to a close, and I am delighted with how much color it holds. I bought both add-ons and more paper, I loved it so much. Here are my pages.

First, a page about my son and coding, a page where I used a lot of the main and the add-on Beautiful Day:

I drew color inspiration from his Minecraft sweatshirt--no lie. Since the kit had lots of wonderful yellows too, I added that to punch it up (and because it goes with his hair).

The background had grey misting with some yellow dots, and I altered the speech bubble to house the title, which I stamped and stitched.

Then I made  page to commemorate the pond at the Landscape Arboretum Rowan fell in as a toddler.

I love the greens in this kit, plus this cool triangle paper, which reminds me of water. I sewed the banners down instead of attaching them with the wooden hangers they came with. I like how Rowan in his red shirt pops against all the green.

Next was a page that tugs at my heart. My grandmother died recently, and these photos were ones that she kept over the years. I made this page for my dad (she was his mom) for his birthday.

For this page, I used the papers from the add-on Beautiful Day, plus my favorite embellishment, the flair from the add-on Good Vibes. Lots of embellishments from the main as well.

For the title, I was trying a play on words: love notes/love noted. I think these photos are my way of noting how much she loved us all.

There's some amazing washi with the kits--the gold in Good Vibes that I used on the water page and my final layout and this love washi that came with the main. It was perfect for the page.

Finally, a page that highlights the printables that come with the kit:

When we traveled in Boston last summer, we took to imitating the statues we saw--there were so many!--and taking photos. I used the triangular printable as the border above the photos.

The title tiny letters come from lettering from an old kit--lots of gorgeous blues in this kit.

More washi and die cuts and flair from the add-ons!

Thank you for visiting and seeing the pages I made. I hope you go to Scrapbook Circle, check out the ideas there and these wonderful kits. In addition, this will be my last month with Scrapbook Circle. It's been an inspiring two years, and I've enjoyed my time with their products. I'm glad this terrific kit was my last to play with because it was truly inspiring.

March scrapbooking layouts for Simple Scrapper

Hello! I have about a month left in the term at my school, which means I'll be grading like crazy for a few weeks. As a result, I worked hard to scrapbook this past weekend, finishing my March pages for Simple Scrapper. Here they are:

In the dead of winter, I want to use a lot of color, and so I did, using new story starter and an old sketch to scrapbook about my son's changing dream job. Here's some details:

Then I used a new sketch and an old story starter to scrapbook a summer story of the boys enjoying the backyard fire last summer:

I love that picture of my husband in the middle! Nothing like a good grid design. I put some space in it so I could Here's a detail:

Thank you for visiting! Please visit Simple Scrapper to check out their fabulous inspiration. Right now there is a free class--a reboot!--called Photo Crush, where you work together to organize your digital photo library. Check it out!

What I do with those holiday cards

I made this a long time ago, but I thought I'd share it in case it gives you ideas.

I love getting Christmas photos, but I hate throwing them away, so I tend to trim them and put them on a layout together. I was very bad last year and didn't scrap it until this year. Here's the page:

I find that putting the photos on a mass block is the easiest way to scrap them. Here I stretched them onto the second page when needed.

Here's the page I made this year. I got fewer cards with photos, so I was able to fit it onto one page! Of course, after I made this page I got two more picture cards; I will cut them into circle and lay them over the corners of photos on this page.

Thank you for visiting! If you hate throwing away Christmas photos, I hope this gives you another alternative. I didn't invent this, but I find it worth continuing.

The rest of the pages I made at my scrapbooking retreat

Hello! My post about the Scrapbook Circle February pages included some of the layouts I made at my January scrapbooking weekend. Here are the remaining pages.

First is a page about my One Little Word of last year, Play. I decided not to use PLAY in the title because I felt like I lost it at the end of the year. I wanted this page to be goal setting. Note: that photo of me with the Wookiee is possibly my favorite photo of myself from last year.

This page was the last one I made. I sort of gave up because I didn't know what I wanted; I just had the circle mat and the embossed title. When I came home, I hand journaled and added circular stitches and random buttons and epoxy circles. I think they make the page look a little quanlt but technical. Now I love it.

Another page about my eldest and his summer journey to beat me at cribbage. Delightfully, a die cut set I had included cards. Perfect.

I love this page. The photo was lovely so I decided to enlarge it. The background paper fit perfectly and I hand stitched the starburst to make it a little more energetic. I finished the journaling at home.

This was another page I finished the journaling at home. It's a little simple, but so was the story, so that's OK. I finally used some of the stars overlay I bought so long ago.

Another big photo page of my dog on a mountain top, surveying the Green Mountains of Vermont. She looks so jaunty! I had originally thought to post many pictures of Lola on vacation for this page, but instead I loved this photo enough of her to make it the showcase. I finished the journaling and the title at home.

Thank you for letting me share the remainder of my pages from my retreat! I hope it gives you ideas for scrapbooking. I am planning another retreat in April, and I hope to be as productive then!

What I love: Write Click Scrapbook February gallery

February is pretty much owned by Valentine's Day. If you've been here before, you know I dislike scrapbooking the holiday. Still, Love is in the air this month, so for Write Click Scrapbook this month, I scrapbooked about my family's love for play.

One good thing about February: scrapbooking love gives me an excuse to use up as much pink on a page as I can. (Note: I used the background paper upside down. I liked the triangles better that way, but the writing in the right is upside down. Grrr.)

I love those button flowers from K & Co. They are old. I probably bought about 5 packets of them. I'm down to my last packet now.

Thank you for visiting today! Please go visit Write Click Scrapbook to see how the rest of the team scrapbooked about what they love. Like my page, you'll see more that just romance.

February pages for Scrapbook Circle: Only You

Hello! I have enjoyed working with Scrapbook Circle's February kit Only You. In a perfect example of serendipity, my kit arrived the day I left for my January scrap retreat. Hooray! My first pages there were from this kit, then I finished them when I got home. Here they are:

One of the things I loved about this kit was how coordinated the papers were, not just for Valentine's Day, but for pure happiness in general. I used a sunburst template to cut my favorite papers and then sew them down on this joyous page about my boys and why they love each other.

The acrylic words in the main kit worked well for a title. I misted the background so they would stand out more.

The kit also came with some sequins. I used most on another page, but I dropped many that I kept finding all weekend. Every time I did, I glued them on this page, LOL! I also punched circles from scraps to add to the confetti joy.

Though there were many joyous papers, two fit together in a different way, so I used them on the following page about my sons' love of tinkering and their subscription to Tinker Crate:

I used a lot of embellishments from the add-on I got, Date Night. I liked how versatile they were.

The next page I made with what I had left over when I got home, another page about my boys. I like doing pages with numbers, so I used the numbers from the main kit to guide my journaling their story by numbers:

My eldest came up with the title. Thank you, Rowan.

Next a love and smooches page about my husband using photos from a trip to one of his favorite restaurants, the Happy Gnome.

This was the page I used the rest of the sequins on, making a shaker bag for decoration, using a clear bag that held another embellishment in the kit. More of the add-on appears on this page:

Finally, a page that took me a while to get to look exactly how I wanted it to look. We visited the Science Museum in Boston last summer and went to the Pixar exhibit there. I took my favorite posed photos from it and put it on the page:

I initially wanted to used square photos, then cut them into smaller circles, which worked better. I again picked my favorite papers to accompany the photos on the grid.

Until I added this gold frame, the grid was a little dull. Breaking the grid created more interest.

Thank you for visiting! I hope you go to visit Scrapbook Circle and check out the kit Only You and its add-ons, especially Date Night. I used up almost every bit and am left with only bits of yummy embellishments I can continue to use on other projects.