A summer of mini albums

I have scrapbooked some layouts this summer, but mostly I've worked on mini-albums. I have a few posts to share.

First are some mini albums I had started but not finished or continued.

The Halloween album I made this year, for example, I had made a mistake on the most recent photo. The ring holes did not match up, so I fixed it by printing a new photo and re-punching the holes. Here it is:

Next, I hadn't recorded the last three years of our family 5K's in the 5K album.

NOTE: I noticed doing this that I had the wrong dates on the album cover. I removed them and will fix it.

The trick about using SMASH! albums is working around the designs. Here's what I did:

I use a few graphic collections: KI, Echo Park, E.G.--to embellish these pages.

Next I added the last couple years of family photos to my Easter album. I should mention I JUST found an older photo I never included This one's not done.

Finally, I made an album with Write. Click. Scrapbook a few years ago about little things that make me happy. I left the last few pages empty, meaning to fill them up but never did. And so I finished it this summer.

I had run out of the brown foam stickers, so I used a similar-toned, similar styled Thicker.

And those are my completed and updated albums! Thank you for checking them out. I made a few more that I will edit and share later. Like I said, this has been the summer of mini-albums.

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.

Egg Fail

This year we continued a family tradition of making Star Wars eggs. I love this, both the dyeing and the decorating and the photos after. I always scrap a page I call "Jedi Eggs."

Last year, however, was problematic. The only Star Wars egg dye kit I could find had crayons to melt on top. OK, then. I made the eggs in advance for once and put them in the fridge, taking them out for the dyeing only to discover that the eggs had to be hot for the wax melt to work.

#@&%!

My only hope at this point was the internet: I went online and found a recipe for home made egg dye. I also pulled out a white crayon, surmising that I would be able to create a resist effect by drawing on the eggs before dyeing them.

Here's the result:

I used Fancy Pants Designs Park Bench Collection for this. It seems like a springy color collection, working perfectly with the colorful eggs. I added a piece from Down by the Shore because I thought I needed a more intense color, orange in this case.

Here's the details:

 

 I made the title with the Cameo, using the font Lobster, I think. I loved using the Cameo and can't wait to use it even more.

 

I stitched around the photo on the mat, a delicate effect I love to use.

The stickers all seemed to fit a bit thematically, as did the yellow quote strip on the bottom.

There's my white crayon bunny! And the almost black dye. Ah, well.

I also hand stitched these circle frames, which was harder than the square. These I had to hand crank the wheel rather than using the foot to stitch. My arm was killing me by the time I was done with three circles. Once I realized that after stitching one circle, I'd already committed to the stitching and had to finish it. I added some orange cross stitched just because.

The supplies:

Park Bench Bench / Park Bench Strips / Park Bench Blanket / Park Bench Fountain / Park Bench Flower Garden / Park Bench Sticker Fundamentals / Park Bench Label Stickers / Park Bench Button Set / Down by the Shore Brag Pad / Park Bench Decorative Tags

Thanks for reading about my less than perfect Easter moment last year. Hope you had a blessed, festive Easter weekend, free from egg fails!

The unpleasant experience of scrapping holidays

I know the title sounds a little gloomy, but I think it's a dirty little secret in scrapbooking, at least for me: scrapping the holidays does not enthuse me in the slightest. Those things that happen every year-- Easter, Christmas, birthdays, etc.--just feel like the same thing every year. The same products, the same photos. Bleh.

Still, I'm trying to break through. For one thing, my boys LOVE the holiday pages. So one solution I tend to do with the holidays is making pages for their albums.

I also have been trying to create pages without the typical themed product. Here's one I just did for Dominic's birthday:

It's not his party--I still haven't scrapped that--but I LOVE these photos. He's just so absolutely delighted that my aunt made him a cupcake and we're singing him Happy Birthday. I used Studio Calico's kit So Cal rather than using birthday papers.

Here's some details:

 

  

 

There's something celebratory and happy about the papers and embellishments, but it doesn't look too much like a birthday cake. Well, maybe a little.

I also did something similar with Easter this year. I took the typical egg and basket photos, but what stood out for me the most was the fact that I had to threaten to eat their chocolate bunny ears to get a good photo. So that's my page.

(Just a quick product note: I found that stamp ink pads and a sponge work better on these Heidi Swapp mistable letters than mist, which runs. Go figure.)

Again, no bunnies or eggs in sight on the product. (I have issues with Easter or spring lines in general. Spring in Minnesota looks NOTHING like that. It's actually kind of brown here. Certainly not pastel.) I used Studio Calico's 35MM for this one. (I'm a little behind on using my kits, in case you can't tell, LOL! Hopefully I'll be finished with all but one by the end of the summer. Right now I've got three I'm using.) The camera images seemed especially appropriate.

So thank you for reading about what I loathe to scrap and how I deal and scrap anyway. Now tell me this: how do you feel about scrapping the holidays? :-)

Running the Holy Week gauntlet

It's been a busy week. Not just for my faith, but also for teaching: conference night and midtri grades. We also had spring finally arrive:


Followed by snow:


Typical for April snow, it disappeared by the afternoon, much to the delight of my lacrosse players at school.

Holy Week is always challenging. Since both my husband and I sing in the choir and the Chorale, a smaller group, and my husband plays trombone, we attend every service Holy Week. This includes Easter vigil and every Sunday service. Don't get me wrong, this sustains our faith, but it is tiring, especially for the two boys, who also must attend. The best decision my husband and I have ever made regarding Easter was not cooking a meal, instead finding the best Buffet around. Today was Maple Tavern. Mmmm...

Another thing that sustained me this week:


A package from GCD Studio! This box was packed with goodness. It was so heavy I thought I would tear a spleen carrying it in, but tear a spleen in a good way. And look what was on top:


The mustache I fell in love with at CHA. My son Rowan begged for me to take it out of the packaging. Photos coming soon, as well as much varied scrapbooking projects.