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!

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.

Two-page layouts: really big and really small

This is the final two-page layout I made this past month. This one I knew I would be pairing a big photo with small ones. The big photo involved my son at the starting line of a cross country race. Without a big photo my son would have been lost. Here's what I did:

Like the previous layouts, I had saved autumn die cuts. I then picked out some autumn hued papers that matched the die cuts and then spread it across the page. Here's the details:

Like before, I used Elle's Studio die cuts, plus elements from my Ali Edwards kits and Stampin' Up! Project Life kits.

Here's an interesting note: I had originally designed the page with the pages reversed, but my son said he preferred the pages reversed, and so I did it. It's his memory, after all.

Thank you for visiting while I share these two-page layouts I made this past month! Soon I'll share my Simple Scrapper pages for March. They are some of favorite ever. I can't wait to share them!

Two-page layouts: Products, memorabilia, and a grid

For the past month, I have scrapped several two-page layouts. I shared one the other day. Today I wanted to share the next page I made.

Like the last layout, I started with autumn die cuts I had pulled as I sorted and color-coded my die cuts. This time All of my photos but one were the same size, so I picked a couple pieces of patterned paper from my scraps as background and set the photos up as a grid. Here it is:

This commemorates a trip to a local orchard with a cider house. While we were there, we enjoyed the sights and tastes, but the boys particularly loved the scavenger hunt for the gnomes all around the barn. Each gnomes had a shaped punch (scrapbooking tools--hooray!) that they used on their game card, and the completed card earned them free apples. Nice! I made sure to put the cards on the page.

Here's a closer look:

To enclose the memorabilia, I adhered the die cut with dimensional stickers to tuck the cards behind.

About the gnomes: they came from Pebbles die cuts, I believe. When I saw them, I set them aside to use on this page. The apples I cut from Bella BLVD and adhered with dimensional stickers. Lots of die cuts from Elle's Studio too.

Thank you for visiting! I hope this gives you some inspiration in scrapping an event photo layout. Back soon with another two-page layout!

Halloween in April: mini album acorss the years

Hello! Spring is definitely here in Minnesota, but I tend to scrap off season, so I decided to tackle some mini albums that were unfinished.

First, I added this past year's photo to the family Halloween album. I thought it would be easier to make this mini with my Bind-it-all so that I could  add new pages every year for as long as my boys dressed up.

I dug into my Halloween Iris container for this mini, mostly using October Afternoon with a little Elle's Studio and Authentique.

This first page was blank. I can see myself journaling a bit on this when they have grown up, but for right  now it's empty.

When I make a mini-album, I tend to use the same pattern for each spread. Here I liked the idea of the boys' photo taking up a full page, then the facing page having a pattered paper background with an embellishment cluster and the year. This next spread is my favorite photo I've ever taken of the boys:

Sometimes being a brother is better than being a superhero.

Here are the rest of the pages:

 

 

(One thing: You'll note that Dominic comes up to Rowan's chin. Since then, he is up to his eyes. Wow. He is growing so fast right now. When he finishes dinner, he asks for a snack.  I'm trying to avoid buying shoes and pants right now because he is growing so fast.)

I left the last page blank. If they get costumes next year, I'll use this as the page with the embellishments and the year. If not, this will be the end.

And the just plain back cover.

That is my mini! I have become enamored with making stuff that highlights the boys across the years. When I finish the next one, I will share it. That one involves baseball.

Reusing designs

Sometimes I reuse designs. There, I said it. I know we put pressure on ourselves to create something brand new every time, but sometimes, it's easier to reuse designs that have worked before.case in point: Instagram vacation:

A couple years ago I printed lots of Instagram photos after our vacation to Maine and put them on a layout. Here it is:

This past summer I did the same. I thought of trying something new, but I liked the design and decided to use it again.All the photos on a strip at the top, some embellishments to the left, big title. Here's my new version:

Same thing. I did the journaling differently, and I had one fewer embellishment cluster, but basically the same. I used Fancy Pants Designs Happy-go-lucky for this page, a collection that looked terrific with photos from Glacier National Park. I might, in fact, make this design a tradition. I love Instagraming our vacations, so it makes sense to use those photos on a two-page spread.

How about you? Do you recycle designs? And how do you feel about doing it if you do?

Winter CHA 2013: Inspiring pages and products

Here it is, the morning of the second day of CHA. I thought I'd post some wonderful projects I saw yesterday; I'm also pinning them on a Pinterest board CHA Winter 2013 (on Pinterest my name is Buffyfanlarson; that's also my Twitter handle if you'd like to follow my progress around the room today and a bit tomorrow). Here's some of what I saw and loved yesterday:

I started at Echo Park, and this is the wall that epitomizes the style of many eye-catching booths: white walls, clusters of pages, fewer decorations. There are some amazingly decorated booths, but the ones I am gravitating toward are the clean and simple ones. Typical of me.

 

I loved the products and projects at Webster's Pages. I don't use them typically because they are more ornate than I scrap, but the projects in the booth did a good job showing how to use them for a clean page. The one above made good use of the Silhouette to use doses of the paper.

This next one has lots of stuff, including trim, but look how clean it is! It uses a spring/baby collection called New Beginnings--look at that adorable animal paper on the bottom!

 

And there are two things to note below: the page did a terrific starburst with patterned paper, but some are covered with overlays for extra texture and interest. Nice! Finally, those little coin purses are made with overlays. AMAZING.

I loved the new stuff with the new Fancy Pants brag books. They are bound differently to make it easier to remove covers and pages, a problem I noticed with my current Smash book; the fact that Fancy Pants addressed this concern is nice. and look at the creative way this Brag Book makes use of the template as a peek-a-boo into the next photo. For people without a Silhouette, or just anyone who likes to keep scrapping easy, these templates are cute and versatile.

 

Here's also an inspiring circle page from Fancy Pants:

 

Simple Stories Urban Traveler pages. The collection is AMAZING and the pages are inspiring. This booth was also where I ran into past Ella friend, current friend, Donna Januzzi! Though it was fun to travel the show earlier, it was more fun with friends.

 

 This is the Silhouette booth, another clean wall. I love these projects, especially the one on the lower right. Wouldn't that be a good gift for a new parent?

  

And this framed page speaks to everyone who has a little monster in her life. Heh.

 

Lily Bee's booth was amazing. This gorgeous page with the banners as a photo mat was inspiring. I also love how it uses  patterned paper as a background, not just white paper. Inspiring!

  

This one's hard to see--it was on the back of a ladder, and the twine is not part of the page. Still, patterned paper background and a cluster of papers at the top makes for a very pretty page.

 

Here's another look at a clean wall, this time Basic Grey.

 

They had two collections I loved, Hipster and Bowties. Perfect for moms of boys. If you look closely at the above page, you'll see something new to me: felt rubons. It made for an incredible title.

Bowties also connects with a feminine collection, Knee Highs. Bowties is boyish, Knee Highs is girlish, but you can use them both together if you have photos with both genders. Nice.

Look at the amazing stitching on this Knee Highs page:

 

After being on the Elle's Studio design team for the past six months, I was so happy to see Elle Price and her booth!  News: she has three paper collections coming out with her new tags, and Donna and I decided we especially need to get Day to Day, a bright, fun collection. Here's some pages:

  

  

  

We R Memory Keepers had many amazing products I'll write about later, but this page made me swoon. Again, a busy paper used to make a clean page:

 

I tweeted about this yesterday:

Bella Blvd FTW.

There is some amazing stitching on this Bella Blvd page, and the banner card underneath is terrific.

I'm not a feather person, but this page used feathers well:

My Mind's Eye had their typically beautiful products. I loved this grid layouts:

 

And this next page from Crate Paper used an already out collection, Fourteen, but the fussy cutting was incredible. I'll go back to Crate today to take some photos of Maggie Holmes' new collection.

 

Right around the Becky Higgins booth We ran into listgirl, Christine Newman! We have plans for some of the Becky Higgins collections. they were inspiring.

Studio Calico had their usual lovely layouts demonstrating their products. Here were some of the most inspiring:

  

Living under the rock I have apprently been, I did not know that Studio Calico was releasing patterned brads! They are used terrifically here. Check out the colorful stitching.

  

Speech bubbles are huge at the show, as are mustaches and arrows. Here a misting template with speech bubbles was used to create patterned paper by outlining.

  

Sometimes die cut tags can be used for alternative uses, like as a photo frame...

  

---or as a date in a pocket. Check out the awesome photo frames here too.

 

Finally, lots to love on this page, but in particular I loved the vellum photo pocket with the subdued title and the stitching over them both.

I'll be back at the show tweeting, posting on Pinterest, and otherwise sharing the inspiration I see!