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.

Finishing pages (finally!)

These next two pages technically come from my scrapbooking weekend in October last year. I didn't finish them--journaling was left to do--so I used winter break to get it done. Here they are:

This page commemorates my boys' entrance into gaming with my husband. I picked green colors, a la dragon. I had been thinking of doing strip journaling, but the yardstick is textured, and I don't like printing on textured yardstick. Instead, I dug through my die cuts stash, which is organized by color, and added the three circles on the bottom, two for journaling and one for decor.

The ticket comes from a local restaurant we love called Space Aliens. I kept the ticket thinking I could use it as an embellishment on a perfect page. And so I did.

The next page is a two-page layout for my son's birthday last year. It's simple and depending heavily on lines and color. I added the strip journaling on the right.

The title comes from Jellybean Soup. I LOVE those letters and use them when I can.

To draw attention to my son on the gangplank, I stitched a circle around him. Lots of circles on this page too.

Thank you for visiting! I will share Christmas layouts, some new pages, and my next Simple Scrapper pages soon.

Going back in time: Scrapbooking photos across years

Hello! The school year is over. Aside from preparing for the next school year, I am filling my time with gardening, reading, and scrapbooking.

One thing I have done this past month involves scrapbooking photos of my boys across the years. First: I had printed some photos of my boys recently posing next to the statues of Harmon Killebrew and Kirby Puckett outside Target Field. It dawned on my that the boys' heads are now OVER Killebrew's bat where they used to be BELOW them. At that point I realized that, since Target Field opened in 2010, the statues have been our growth charts. And so I made this page:

I used a sketch and story starter from Simple Scrapper to help me with this page. I picked bright primary colors because they make me think of baseball. Here's some closer shots:

The two die cuts--the magic is real and the journaling spots--are from the June Simple Scrapper downloads.

Next is a page that I made for Simple Scrapper for July. I had printed these photos of my boys in trees at the Minneapolis Peace Garden, but I didn't know what to do with them. The story starter for July gave me the idea to pair them with older photos of them in trees. Just like trees, these two grow, but not out of this favorite hobby.

The photos were a little dark, especially of Rowan, so the Jellybean Soup frames helped draw attention to them. The basic chipboard pieces from Ali Edwards were the perfect embellishments for this layout.

And then a page about my son and his years of playing violin from kindergarten to today. The recitals at first were in a lounge at an apartment, then for years they were at his teacher's home. Recently they returned to the teacher's apartment, where we can see his growth by the phone on the wall behind him. I printed photos from the past and now to highlight the growth.

Again, I chose bright colors, and I dug into my October Afternoon die cuts to create some bright clusters. The title is from old American Crafts foam letters--and yes, I had run out of an S, so I cut apart an 8.

Thank you for visiting! I have another post to share soon about the boys in my life, including my husband, particularly as we approach Father's Day.

Scrapbooking big photos: go big or go home

When I was printing photos for our trip to South Dakota in 2011, I found a couple photos of my boys that I loved. The boys took up a small part of the landscape in each photo, which left me a lot of white space to scrapbook in. I had a story to tell for each, so I printed them 12x12. Here's the first:

I'm planning on using October Afternoon's Sasparilla line for our vacation album, so I dug into those products for this page showing my son playing with a lasso, I believe. (It might be the jump rope he made. This was the Ingalls homestead in De Smet.) I put some strips at the top, sewed some bandana stickers down off it like a banner, and did a title/journaling cluster in the sky, using stickers and die cuts.

I like to de-sticky the stickers with my embossing buddy and add them with dimensional stickers, overlapping other elements.

I also added a small cluster to draw attention to my son:

Then I had a page of my other son, at the Badlands N.P. I believe, though it might have been Custer State Park.

You'll notice I did the exact same design. No shame. It works! I used bits and pieces I found in my embellishment basket for this, in large part Jillibean Soup and October Afternoon.

Secret detail: The arrow had split in half, so I glued both pieces down together and laid the epoxy heart on top to mask the break.

Thank you for visiting! I print my 12x12 photos locally at National Camera Exchange, but rarely there, because it is expensive. (I print from them several times a month from 4x6 to 8x12, both of which are affordable at the small orders I print often!) More commonly I order from Persnickety Prints when I am also printing a rare size I can't get locally--like the 8.5x11 photos I use in my vacation album. I encourage you to look through your photos the next time you are at your computer, print an evocative one big, and give it a go!

October layouts for Simple Scrapper

Hello! The end of the month leaves me tired and sick. Sigh. I did manage to scrap over the last few weeks, though, some of my favorite pages in a while. Here are two pages I made for October's Simple Scrapper:

This first page uses a new sketch and an old story starter. I record a recent realization of mine: my son is slowly becoming a leader, specifically as he mentors younger children in church, taekwondo, and school. Here's some details:

I used a lot of Crate Paper and Jillibean Soup. I liked to pick out ephemera with phrases that fit the theme.

Next is a page about my beautiful grandmother and her sweet personality:

I used an old sketch and a new story starter. I also used pink! A color I don't use much, but both she and I were wearing it, and she is so pretty, I thought the color would be perfect.

I kept putting more embellishments on, then taking them off. I finally decided the pictures and words were enough.

My son came up with the title.

Thank you for checking out my pages! Please visit Simple Scrapper and explore--the perks of being a member will get you scrapping more creatively and productively!

July pages for Simple Scrapper

Hello! June is winding down, and I wanted to share the pages I made for next month's Simple Scrapper. First, the layout I made that used one of the new sketches for July:

I LOVE this sketch (based on a digital template for those of you digital scrappers). The blocks on the right make it so easy to add more photos if you want. It also solved a dilemma for me: I wanted to scrap my son's play, but my photos were not great (taken in the audience in the dark). This sketch gave me the idea of using his professional head shot on the left and the stage shots, printed smaller, on the right. Here's some details:

Next is the first of two pages I made using July's story starters.I loved the theme for this month, so much that I made two pages from the story starters.

The theme for the gallery involves music. This is a song that takes me back to studying abroad in Germany, hence the picture. (That's me on the right with a bob.) I used the June Scrapbook Circle kit Have a Little Fun Today for much of this page, plus a few Project Life cards and some Jillibean Soup letters for the title. I also used some great Gossamer Blue On My Desk puffy stickers, which if you look close you can also see on the above layout as well. The song in the title you can see here:

It's a terrific song,  with poignant lyrics that perfectly encapsulate youth and growing older and looking back. Here's some details:

The next page I also used a story starter from July, this time a song that brings me back to a moment of joy. Yes, I made another page about Star Wars:

I was inspired by this old photo of my elder son in a cart, which reminded me of the story I journaled about. The last Studio Calico kit was called Galileo, so some elements in the scrapbook kit and Project Life kit were perfect for a Star Wars page: the planet, the "D is for"card, on which I wrote Darth Vader's theme, and the Father's Day paper, which contained the word "Vader," which I circled every time I saw it. The puffy stars came from stash and fit the theme. Here's the details:

Thank you for checking out my pages! Remember, Simple Scrapper releases layered digital templates every month, plus 10 thematic story starters, in addition to fostering a community built around scrapbooking purposefully and easily. If you haven't considered joining, please check it out! I found next month's products particularly inspiring, and I'm sure you would too.

Mini-albums at Write Click Scrapbook

Today is the first of the month, so it is time to see the new gallery at Write Click Scrapbook, and since it's March, it's time for mini-madness! Here's mine:

This winter has been so, so cold, I spent a lot more time indoors than I normally do. More time on Facebook as well, so I got sucked into taking a bunch of quizzes. I wanted to remember my results, ergo this mini. I took screen shots of the quiz results (if you don't know how to take a screen shot, this is a good page that says how), resized them to fit these envelopes, backed them with bright papers, and made this mini. Here's the inside pages:

My results, in order: Portland, Oregon, Hermione, the 90s, turtle on a skateboard, Jasmine, King’s Landing, a Hobbit, Brave, Katniss, Crazy Harry, Carson, Scar, Tyrion, and Princess Leia.

Since making the mini, I've taken more quizzes, and I had so much fun, I may make a second mini. (My favorite recent result: I should go out for a drink with Sirs Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellan.) I got a lot of these envelopes at Archiver's before it closed, thinking then they might make a cute mini, so I could even use the same style. One note about the products: I used all Jillibean Soup products. This was a part of my application to the JS Design team, and though I didn't make it, I am a guest designer! So excited. I love working with bright colors in winter, which feels like it will last until May.

Thank you so much for checking out my mini album! Please visit Write Click Scrapbook to see the rest of the inspiring minis. Even if you don't make mini albums, I think you'll fins some amazing inspiration in topics, design, and techniques. Have fun!