A Week in my Life

Last spring I, like many other scrappers, participated in Ali E's Week in the Life challenge. I blogged about my week here, then I let the photos stay on my computer, lonely.

When I printed photos over winter break, I rediscovered them, so I printed them out to use on a layout. Most I printed in 3x3, but one wouldn't work--it was a close-up of my son and me hiding in the downstairs bathroom during the tornado safety drill. I envisioned stretching them across two pages, except I had too many photos. This is where I had to think outside two-dimensions.

Here's the page:




And here is what happens when you turn the photo turns:



You get an extra photo and the journaling!

I used this week's colors at the Color Room for this page, plus my handy dandy Bazzill stitching template, my organized-by-color Prima stash, and my lovely October Afternoon label stickers, which I keep because I plan on using every last one of them.

10 favorites of 2010

I've seen wonderful blog posts of people's favorite layouts of the past year. I thought it would be hard to pick, but it really wasn't. I browsed through the PSE Organizer and made a list, and surprisingly, 10 jumped out at me. (Actually 11, but one is going to be published--yipee!--so I can't put that one up.) Here they are, in no particular order:

For this page, "Favorite Photos of 2010," I used a photo template from LOAD February made by Barb Wong--Loved this idea and am going to do it again this weekend. Seriously, it does not take long to pick the photos. They just jump out at you. I also used my favorite Studio Calico kit ever for this, Whodunit.

The journaling on this page, "More than Tolerance," means a lot to me. Click on the photo to read it better.

I did the journaling summer 2009 for this, but used the color scheme for the Color Room and a leftover photo to put it all together. This page still makes me laugh.

Plus, I love to stitch. That really became apparent this year.

Speaking of stitching...

Another leftover photo that inspired this somewhat sentimental page. I used some of my typical design elements--strips of PP plus a border punch, and clusters of embellishments.

A rare non-photo page for me. Funny, the page was inspired by the typewriter sticker, which I got with a Studio Calico kit, I think. People on their MB wondered how to use it, so I followed where it inspired me to go. More clustering, and really fun journaling for me. Click the photo to read it better.

I did this page as guest designer for Sketchy Thursdays. Love the happy pictures and colors. Plus it shows how much I started shrinking my photos onto 4x6 paper and using them regularly on my pages.

More misting, more stitching, more use of PSE 4x6 templates I created. Plus more yellow. I love yellow.

I did this page, ispired by Karen Grunberg, during the August BPS free class. This page makes me happy. and a little wistful for summer...

This page is hybrid, which I started dabbling in more. The photo used a grunge texture overlay as well as the flourish brushes, all masking a blurry photo. I was inspired by a sketch at Sketchy Thursday. I like how I mixed lots of stuff--that's paint I used to stamp those dots, and I like the stitching flourish row.

After we went to Disneyworld, my husband pointed out that this photo looks eerily similar to a photo taken when his family moved to Hawaii when he was young (he's the tall lad on the left). I had to scrap this when he said that; how often does my husband tell me something I should scrap? I used a color combo from The Color Room for this.

So here's my favorite 10 layouts of 2010, a year full of mist, DMC, subtle did touches, and a heap of yellow. Have a happy new Year, everyone!

My own sicko scrapfest

I'm feeling a lot better today. Right now Dayquil and orange juice are my best friends. They are being good to me.

I am in two special issues for CK right now! I got both layouts back recently, along with copies of these mags/ idea books. I'm planning on posting about those tomorrow, but right now I'd like to personally thank CK for wrapping the layouts in bubble wrap:

This guy made it his mission last night to pop every bubble. Dancing on them helped.

Home sick today, I was able to take photos of some piled-up layouts I had completed, in the middle of the day during peak winter daylight hours in Minnesota. Here's what I've got:


These are some violin photos I took of Dominic and never scrapped. These are perhaps the only time I've ever gotten catch lights in the eyes, so they needed to be scrapped. I used this month's Studio Calico kit Napa Valley for this.

This LO is about the snow storm last Saturday that dumped about a foot of snow on us in Maple Grove. I used this week's Color Room Combo, along with Napa Valley again, plus some of my snowflake dies. I think I should have had at least one orange snowflake, but I'm trying not to be annoyed by that.

I used this week's Studio Calico sketch and Napa Valley for this. Don't read the journaling if you're squeamish.

Here's another 12x18 layout. I made this layout, not because I had terrific photos of this event; they're terrible, actually. When I was browsing through pictures getting ready to print, my sons saw these and started talking about the carnival, so excited by the memory that I had to print and scrap them. I used an older Studio Calico sketch based on a Susan Weinroth sketch.

Just a nice reminder that I scrapbook our memories, not just mine.

And now for the busy season

NOTE: If your name is Sharon Rahn or Melinda Larson, read no further; I will mention your birthday presents.

The school I teach in goes by trimesters, so we have 4 weeks left in this term. I am awash with very important papers to grade, while deflecting student questions about "HowcanIgetafewmorepoints?" and still creating meaning, motivational lessons.

Now is when my scrapping s l o w s down. Still, I got some pictures set up for a few layouts--Project 12 October, a layout about me and my husband, and one about this past weekend I plan on calling "Mount Leafmore." I also need to get on the ball with using a Groupon my husband got me--two photo books for cheap! It's only good, however, for 2 more weeks.

*

I should have started on it earlier. Now I'm panicking a little.

Still, photobooks are perfect for a mini-album for both my SIL and my mom, both of whom have birthdays this month. They both went to Disneyworld with us last summer, so this is a chance to put together a quick digi album. Thank you, Marnie Flores at write click scrapbook for your recipe on how to quick-assemble a digi photo album. I shall be following your directions religiously this week, hopefully with minimal cursing and maximum keeping up with my grading.

To sign off, here's a page I did with some rediscovered photos from my son's birthday, using this week's color scheme from The Color Room.

Monarch Fair

Every fall my boys' elementary school studies monarchs. They raise them, research them, and produce the monarch fair, which we attend. Here's the photos from earlier tonight:

OK, they put up tents to simulate the cocoon. Here my guys are getting "squishy" for the photo. I think it was Candice on write click scrapbook that recommended that idea for photography. My boys never pose pretty, but this looks like they're having fun, so OK.

Here Rowan found a friend who is also from his taekwondo class. She's a winner.


Rowan found his diagram on the board. It's on the lower left.

Rowan punching a cocoon. He's a boy.

In between ice cream headaches.

Dominic with his art.

This was around when I went into sensory overload: the book fair. I just dutifully followed the boys around, they handed books to me, I bought them. I didn't even look at the prices. Sensory overload worked in their favor.

Here's my LO for the week, appropriately about being a mother to boys. Since Derick has been away all week, it's been just me and the boys. I had journaled this a while ago, and this color scheme worked great. Now I need a nap.

Journaling that matters

In some of the stories people posted on the Ella giveaway post, I noticed some people with some painful memories to share. This memory isn't painful, but since my MIL died this year, the wound is fresh, so scrapping her always includes a little melancholy, even when the memory is happy.

Inspired by a section in the new Ella book Journaling That Matters, I decided to scrap a conversation my MIL had with her husband and daughter shortly before she died. The conversations epitomized her personality, which is what made her words so memorable. Here's the layout I made with her words:


I used last week's color combination from The Color Room, and the base is from some paper I got from Creative Imaginations from a layout I had published in Scrapbook Trends.

Random thoughts

1. Rowan can now reach the cereal on top of the refrigerator. Milestone!
2. I have been LOVING watching the story of the Chilean miners. The guy who led them in cheers when he got to the top? Awesome. Every time I think about this story, I cry with happiness.
3. I love the insanely beautiful weather we've been having. A year ago, right about now, it was snowing and the leaves were falling off the trees green.
4. I just got a page picked up for Scrapbook Trends. It's maybe my favorite page I've made recently, so I hope I don't sound pathetic when I say how thrilled I was that it was picked up. It seriously made my day.
   
5. It's impossible for students to focus on other students' presentations when box elder bugs are crawling all over the room.
6. The Nobel prizes have been awarded over the last couple weeks, which sparked a thought in me that I followed to create this layout. I used the Color Room colors this week and a Sketchy Thursdays sketch:

Home with Sicko

When I got home from Open House last night, Dominic was running a temp of 102. I stayed home with him today, where he spent most of the day doing this:


Poor guy. Earlier, he said his only symptom was his eyes couldn't stay open. Too true!

We had to make a Target run for sick stuff, and he decided that a blue raspberry ICEE might make him feel better. It did for a while.

While he napped, I decided to scrap some photos of him riding his bike a year ago and now to show his progress. I used this week's color scheme at the Color Room for it.

Here's how the layout started:

Nice, but a little blocky. I thought I needed to do some layering of round stuff to break that apart.

When I layer I try to do so in two stages:

1. Flat stuff (stitches, stickers, patterned paper, stamps, mist, paint, die cuts, etc.)
2. Dimensional stuff (buttons, flowers, chipboard, brads, etc.)

I had already layered some patterned paper. I thought some stitching then chipboard would be good, so I lay a template down to check it out:


I always layer the flat stuff first, then move to the dimensional stuff. First, I did some machine stitching:

Then I hand-stitched, layered a sticker and some chipboard and ended up with this:

When I cluster layers around a page, I tend to put them next to important things, in this case the title, the focal point photo, and the journaling.

Hopefully Dominic will be alert enough later on today to enjoy his page.

Start of School

We're two weeks into school, and it's a mixed bag for the boys.

Rowan is very excited for his new teacher and appears to have developed a new passion for reading.

Dominic is up and down; he'll be excited and happy, telling me everything he's done that day, super excited for his first day of homework, then crushed to discover the next day that he has more homework--it's not a one-time deal! Ah, well. Once the transition gets more routine, I'm sure we'll go back to excited.

Here's a few pages I did for the boys using BoBunny's Learning Curve, which I adore:



Dominic's unhappy day 1 LO also made use of The Color Room's color scheme and the Sketchy Thursdays Sketch.

On to week three for school!

Thank you, Genius Bar

My computer is home and much, much quieter. Thank you, Apple Geniuses. I'll gloss over the fact that a part broke within its first 6 months...

I scrapped this week anyway, then had to put a bunch of pages aside, having no computer with which to journal. I could have hand written the journaling, I guess, but I had a lot to say and not much space, so I thought the computer was warranted.

I've finished about half of what I started. Here's what I did:


First were a couple cards, a sympathy card for a friend and a birthday card for my Grandma. I hate making sympathy cards; I guess I should make them in bulk when they're not needed, because I hate having to make one when one is needed.

The birthday card uses one of my favorite new things, a Stampin' Up! Embosslit die, which cuts and embosses on my Big Shot at the same time. Niiiiceee!

I ended up with over 12 pages out of my August Studio Calico kit, plus still lots of stash stuff left. This page came from some of the last stuff: I used number cards, letters, and gray paper. Also used The Color Room's color combo from last week. Which I missed the deadline for because of my computer. X%&#!


I have given up taking good pictures of my boys during their swim lessons (weird lighting and lots of motion), so I strive for a good shot after lessons on the pool deck. This year Dominic excelled, passing level two with flying (or swimming, as the case may be) colors. Since it was such an exuberant event for him, I pulled out some exuberant product: Fancy Pants' Rusted Sun line. I like that I used no real embellishments on the page, just patterned paper (OK, and letter stickers and a date sticker), but still managed dimension.

I love that gap-toothed grin...

This was a page using this week's Studio Calico sketch. I've been meaning to do the page since I got the kit. It came with clothes chipboards, including dresses. Nice. I have boys, and I hate dresses. This may be scrapping for the sake of scrapping, but I made a page about my loathing of dresses.

I covered the chipboard dresses with the paper whimsies from the kit, trying hard to avoid the flower centers ending up as a bullseye on the crotch of the dresses. That was tough. I then strung them on a clothes line and added some elegant dressy ladies which I would never otherwise use.

So, progress has been made in finishing up a glut of pages. Still finishing the August Project 12 layout and the page which, if my husband sees, may lead to his divorcing me.

Supply challenge

One of the best things about organizing my supplies is the rediscovery of old stash. I find that inspiring, and I try to jot down those creative ideas in my notebook before they float away. I did this with the following page a few months ago:

I had felt guilty about not using my rub-ons much lately, so I sorted through them and found a frog holding a balloon. My son had received a frog Pillow Pet for his birthday, so I had the inspiration for my birthday layout. (I won't even mention how ancient those cloth brads are--but mixed with current stuff, they don't look so old!)

I remembered those rub-ons when I worked on my Color Room layout for the week. The colors matched the left-over rub-ons, which went with a recent photo I'd taken of my sons and their friend, so I put it all together into this:


I tend to be an inspired-by-story-and-photo gal, but I find getting inspired by product sometimes leads to greater creativity (and more satisfying layouts). This process of inspiration-by-product meade me ponder: I think we ALL want to use up some old stuff. We bought it, so we hate throwing it away, but it's hard to go back to old stuff when that new stuff is so...delectable.

To help dig into the older stuff, I'm dedicating myself for the next few months to using my stash. Not all of it, of course, but I tend to shop in stores for inspiration more than shopping in my stash--and limiting myself helps increase my creativity.

So here's my categories of stash:

• felt/fabric
• stickers
• die cuts
• stamps
• ink-mist-paint
• buttons and brads (I have tons of these)
• patterned paper (ditto)
• ribbon
• chipboard
• overlays and acrylic
• flowers
• metals
• digi products (the worst organized part of my stash)
  
• tools: rulers, die cut machines, templates
  
• punches
• rub-ons
• glitter/gems
• mini-albums
• pencils/markers/chalk

That covers pretty much everything I have. So how am I going to use it?

1. Each layout I look at my list (it's in my idea notebook), I think about one product that might be good for that page, and I look through that product in my stash for inspiration.I limit myself to just one product to search through in my stash, and I try to pair it with my imagined page.
2. If I get inspiration for another project during my search, I take out the product, leave it out, and jot down my idea. Here's an example: I saw these remaining animal rub-ons and thought I'd use the pig on my Chinese zodiac sign; the stars I'll use as a mask for a 4th of July LO; I can always use a pretty white rub-on flourish; and the dresses (which are new from my Studio Calico kit) I thought I'd use on a LO about how I NEVER wear dresses. Much to my husband's chagrin.
   
3. I also consider my page in process and think of how I can use similar products that I haven't used recently. Case in point? Substitute eyelets instead of brads:
4. If I feel mojo-less, I organize one supply to get inspired by product. It usually works.
5. If I have a product I want to use for whatever reason but I don't have an idea for it, I leave it on my table. I'm a tidy person--not Poirot tidy, but it offends me to see this orphaned product so much that my creative juices inevitably get flowing just to get that sucker off my table.

So I encourage you to look at this list, pick one area that you want to get started on using, and use that product! If you do, please leave a link--I'd love to see what you did in getting inspired by your stash.