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.

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.

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.

Scrapbooking the youngest

And here's the final pages from my scrap retreat last spring, this time my youngest. Here they are:

Because I was in the market for a new car, we went to the Mpls. Auto Show. While there, Dominic enjoyed a race car simulation. I had to scrap it!

 

Next us a page showing Dominic reading. He goes through phases where he gets obsessed with reading. This time his teacher, whom he loved, loved Harry Potter, so he went back and finished the series.

And another birthday page, this time for my 14-year-old. I had a lot of fun using products and cards from my Kelly Purkey kits, which I started subscribing to this year. These products worked well for the theme.

Thank you for visiting and seeing the belated pages from last spring's retreat! I look forward to sharing the pages I scrapped from my fall retreat (at a much faster rate than last spring!).

Blogging again...Finally!

Well, this was an unintentional break I took. Nothing disastrous, nothing monumental, just life taking over a bit and making it harder for me to scrapbook and post. So what have I been doing these past six months?

1. Reading. I set an ambitious reading goal for myself this year--42 books. I read about 15 this summer. Some of my favorites were The Hate U Give, Disclaimer, and Luckiest Girl Alive.
2. Traveling. We didn't do a big family vacation this summer, but we did do several small trips. My first was a big trip to Maine with Dominic, where we helped my parents sort through and cull things in their basement, garage, and RV. Last winter my father had a series of strokes, and though he is less incapacitated, my mother is now his full-time caregiver, so I wanted to make their lives a little easier to manage. This trip helped make that happen. Later in the summer we also went to Maplewood State Park in Minnesota, then later in the summer we went to Holland, Michigan, to spend time with Derick's family. We rounded out the summer with a state fair trip.
3. Participating in a summer musical. Derick and I spent many, many hours late last spring and this summer rehearsing and singing in the choir in the Hunchback of Notre Dame, put on by a local group called Bunce Backyard Productions. It was terrific. The music was wonderful, and we met some terrifically fun and talented people. That occupied a lot of our time this summer!

Some other, smaller things included recovering from injuries that are included in the category of "getting older"--a sprained back, microtears in the meniscus of my knee, and tennis elbow--and getting used to not having my work computer to do blogging and writing on (we changed devices this fall). Right now I am writing on our   V   E   R   Y      O   L   D       and   V     E    R    Y      S      L      O      W   Mac that we will be replacing later this year. Thank goodness.

When I logged into this computer I found several blog posts that I had started but not finished. Heh. I'll be getting back to posting those. (Confession: I thought I had posted them!) Until then, here's some pages I did for Simple Scrapper this very busy summer:

Thank you for visiting today! I hope to see you visit again as I get back into the groove of sharing what I create, even on a slow device.

Strong Magic: March Simple Scrapper pages

The pages I made for Simple Scrapper this next month were some of my recent favorites. Here they are:

This was a recent photo I'd kept up in my scrapping space, it was just that much of a favorite. I made this page to share with my parents. I used a Kelly Purkey kit for this page, and I built off of the stars them with sequins. Here's some details:

I used a kit from Kelly Purkey for this called My Universe. The colors are not typically male, but they are bright and cheerful, which matches the spirit of the page.

The stitching I did after I'd drawn lines with a ruler. I'll try to share a tutorial with photos later this month. It was super easy.

I added star stamps from the Kelly Purkey kit. I stamped in Versamark, then when it dried, I lightly outlined them with a thin pen for more definition.

The next project is sort of my mission statement when it comes to entertainment. From Princess Leia to Buffy to Eleven, I love shows with badass women.

I took some screen shots then printed the photo on a 4x6 piece of paper, trimming it before I put it on the page. Then I selected warm colors for the page, reflecting my passion for these stories Here's the details:

Thank you for visiting! Please visit Simple Scrapper--lots of exciting story starters and templates to use this month!

Same page different boy

Not too often, but occasionally I make a page about the same subject with both boys Here are the pages I made regarding a virtual eality game they played at the Mall of America. First, Rowan:

(You can sew through chipboard! Just use the hand tool.)

Here's the page I made about Dominic:

I used Ali Edwards kits for both boys, just different ones.

Here's some hints I learned about making two pages about the same subject for different people without making the exact same page:

1. Do them on separate days.
2. Select one aspect of each story you want to focus on, and choose product to fit that subject (the kits I picked were themed FUN for Dominic and LENS for Rowan; those fit each boy's story).
3. Choose background/dominant colors first to reflect the emotion in the pages.
4. Show the pages to your subjects and allow them to give you feedback and ideas.

So those are my pages about the same subject! I hope it gives you ideas to scrap the same idea but in different ways.

Happy layers on a scrapbook page

The school year has started out. We're not too busy with writing yet, though it's coming soon. Mostly we've been enjoying the start of Dominic's last year in middle school and the start of Rowan's first year in high school. Here's a page I made recently about the two of them and a stint in Dinner Theater:

They'd seen the show for several years and dreamed of being in it, so I want to remember each year they do it. Since it's so dark at the show, I only included one shot of the finale number, which was well lit; the one of the boys I took after.

To lighten the photos, I picked a light background paper and happy-colored Project Life cards to layer over it. They weren't enough, so I added a couple strips of scrap paper. I put the photos on top, then embellished.

Before I stuck everything down, I added some mist for some texture. Here's some details:

I don't have a lot of the Illustrated Faith line, but I was happy to use it on this page.

Some old and beloved Basic Grey layered flowers worked well for contrast on this layout.

After I was finished, I realized how symbolic, albeit inadvertently, the background paper with crosses was. My son the stickler, however, said, "They're pluses not crosses ,Mom." He obviously won't be the English teacher. Sigh.

Thank you for coming today! I hope this gave you ideas about adding colors and layers to capture the feeling on the page, even when the photos aren't stellar.

Fixing mistakes when I scrapbook

This may just be me, but it seems like at lest half the time I spend scrapbooking involves figuring out how to fix my mistakes.

Sometimes I have to redo the whole page--my son swung a water bucket over my already-stitched-down photo grid, which I had to rip stitches from, reprint, and redo. Other times I need to replace individual elements--a photo, an embellishment, some paper. Still other times I switch out my original plan--remove the damaged item and replace it with something else. Most of the time, though, I end up masking the problem, like I did with this page:

I forget what had happened--I had dropped something with adhesive on it onto this photo, and the adhesive stuck quite visibly. Fortunately it wasn't over anything important, like his face, so I planned an embellishment cluster to mask the adhesive. Sometimes design follows principles; other times design follows OOPS. Here's the completed layout:

I used a lot of Project Life materials from Ali Edwards for this. The trim along the top and bottom is actually a 4x6 PL card I tried into strips and stitched down. If you look close in the middle, you can see that the right and left side letters don't match, but I picked like colors on both sides of my strips to make the mismatch harder to see.

I stitched the title down because I didn't trust the vinyl letters to stay.

I love this Venn diagram card, which sort of inspired the story I'd tell with these photos.

Thank you for visiting! I hope I gave you some ideas for fixing mistakes that don't involve redoing the whole page. Go ahead and share some of you most frightful crafting disasters.