Who would have thought...Looking back at the beginning of the year

Now that Distance Learning is in full swing in Minnesota, I am busy all day long, setting up my classes, assessing student work, emailing (lots of that!), and Google meeting. As a result, I'm not scrapbooking as much. I'll share what I make as I finish.

In the meantime, I thought I'd go back to two pages I made for Simple Scrapper in January to start the year:

This page is actually really important right now. I looked back on the last year and some struggles we went through and reframed them as positives. I'm finding myself doing that a lot nowadays, of course, taking small sips of gratitude as the day progresses.

Craft-wise, I love the stitching template. It comes from a misting mask from Studio Calico, but you could achieve the same effect with a ruler and a paper piercer.

I used some flowers that I tore off a greeting card to use. I like the effect.

Next is a page about an event that broke my heart last year, the sudden death of my dog Lola:

For me, pages about loss are also pages about memory. I want to remember them, so I like recording the great things we experienced. In this case, my dog Lola in December stopped moving and eating, so we took her to the vet, where we discovered she was suffering from blood inner chest cavity, more than likely from a heart tumor. There was no end available that did not include terrible suffering, so we said her goodbyes. As she passed, I reminded her of all the terrific adventures she'd been on as a part of our family. The journaling here basically recounts what I said. That is what I want to carry in my heart.

Craft-wise, I ended my journaling with perhaps my favorite memory, one that the right hand photo shows. I think ending with the best memory is a good way to commemorate tough things.

Boo! Scrapbooking non-Halloween pages with Halloween products

I've mentioned this past week that of all themed products, Halloween is the one I have the most of. My boys are almost outgrowing trick or treating, so I have to seek other uses of the products. Here's a recent page I made that uses those Halloween products:

I hope you can read the journaling. I grew up in an old New English town with some very old cemeteries, and I learned to hold my breath when I passed them (so as not to let the ghosts in, of course). My boys have started doing the same thing. It's not as necessary in Minnesota, where the cemeteries are not as scary-looking, but when we visited New York a few years ago? Whoa. Lots of breath holding. Here's some details:

I tried to choose some vintage-y products, and ones with headstones or about ghosts, since that fit my story. And that flair? Comes from the Globe theater. It seemed to fit.

I sewed down a lot of elements since the stickiness was abating and it was hard to hold down the patterned coffee filters with adhesive alone.

Thank you for checking out my page! Come back tomorrow to see my contribution for November's Write Click Scrapbook.

Pages that are for the birds

The pages I did for Simple Scrapper next month interestingly both involve birds. Here they are:

This first page I did used a sketch from December and a Story Starter from August. I loved using so many Project Life cards on the page. (The grey card, by the way, is the one I cut from the photo real tree paper I blogged about last week.) Here's some details:

 

Again, I used a doily on a page! Whoa. I liked how the bright aqua popped on the yellow background.

 

I made this page cropping with a friend at Paper Made, a new scrapbook store in Apple Valley attached to the October Afternoon warehouse. It had a great scrapping space, and I loved their product selection, which was a lot of OA plus other stuff. That's important because of the shot above: making this page I remembered I had wood veneer feathers that I could (finally!) use on this page. But they were at home. So I went to the store and found a piece of OA paper from their Girl Talk line I remembered had feathers, cut out the feathers, and adhered them in a little tied bouquet. I like it!

Here's the next page involving birds, or a bird, actually:

For this page I used a story starter from December, the theme of which is Magic, and a sketch from June.

I had the interesting phenomenon of wanting to tell a story about which I didn't have photos, so this page is very journaling-heavy to make up for the lack of photo. I got the idea of selecting a landscape photo that looked a lot like the exact scenery I had been looking at when the bird flew in, so I searched through my photos at the time until I found one that looked similar. I printed it 8.5x11 and planned on using it on its own page.

I added the paper to the journaling-page, then the title, then stepped back. It looked unfinished. I wanted to represent the bird somehow, so I stitched the swoop, which I hand drew before punching holes and sewing. I knew I had to add something to the swoop and played around with different jewels before deciding on the stars and white jewels. And check it out: I finally used the wood veneer feather!

Thank you for checking out my pages and reading a little about my design process! I'm in the last week of the term, so I have a lot of grading, but I should be able to get back into the scrapping groove with the start of the new term!

Running in circles

I love circles. When I get bored with scrapping and feel like I'm making the same page again and again, I cut things into circles. Here's my latest circle page:

I used Simple Scrapper's April sketch for this. I took inspiration from the sketch to use a few circle photos and embellish with patterned paper circles.  Here's the details:

It might be hard to tell, but my journaling is circular too. I used these photos because they show me and my brother at my grandparents' lake house when we were young. I wasn't sure what I wanted to say about these photos, but I used a Simple Scrapper story starter to help my ideas gel. If you read the journaling, you'll notice I start with the details from the early photos and draw them into my life now. As an English teacher, I think of that as coming full circle: detailing the original story and circling to now and why they are still important to me.

I hope that gives you ideas for how to scrap older photos, especially if you don't remember many of the early details!

Detail then reflect

I'm back from the dead! Not the dead really, but the dead time where I do nothing but grade at the end of the term. It's an honor and a privilege to assess student work, but wow, it takes time. I submitted my final grades and look forward to finishing up projects I began and planned last month!

Here's one I finished last night:

I used Studio Calico's February kit for this. When I get a lot of pink in a kit, I make a page about me. I may add some yellow to the strip  below the photo, just because I love yellow.

I began the page last month at a scrap retreat I went to up north (COLD), but I had to finish the journaling at home. This is one of my 100 moments pages. It was REALLY HARD for me to scrap this photo. Not my best moment in history, but it is my history, and it was a story that influenced me, and so I scrap it.

I tried to apply what I am teaching my students now who are writing a reflective essay: detail your story, then reflect on it. Say what happened, then say why it was important and why you want to remember it. When I'm stuck in journaling, this technique helps me a lot.

I also want to honor my dad. We are not too similar--the apple fell far from the tree, and we have to have a common agreement not to mention anything political so as to keep the peace--but I honor the sacrifices and gifts he gave me growing up, so I record them in scrapbooking. I want people to remember my high points, so I try to do the same for others in my life.

Now that I will not be collecting papers to grade for about a month, I look forward to scrapping and sharing more of what I've made and am making lately. I have pictures waiting for me at National Camera Exchange of the Big Melt that's going on right now, and I look forward to playing with paper and embellishments and stories again.

Scrapbooking Olympics at Write Click Scrapbook!

If you haven't already, plan on spending time at Write Click Scrapbooking during the Olympics, because we're having our own! So far this week: biathlon, skeleton, and freestyle. Today: Pairs.

I am paired with Amy Sorensen on our team, The Write Stuff. We took inspiration from each other's pages as we scrapped a new page. Here's one of the pages of Amy's that inspired me:

I love how she journals in little chunks, playing around with fonts. That's not something I normally do, so I decided to try it out on a page about my son and all the wonderful things he says. Here's what I did:

(It was a little late when I took the photo, so it looks a little blue. I'll try to take a new shot later today.) I made text boxes for each quote and played with font size and type. I then printed them on a transparency, cut it out, and adhered them with vellum adhesive. Here's a detail:

Thank you for checking out my page! Go check out the other pairs at Write click Scrapbook today and for the rest of the next week to get inspired!

Random pages

A few weeks ago a went on a scrapbooking retreat with some girlfriends. There's a scrap house you can rent for the weekend in a city called Nowthen (no lie), and we decided to scrap together before the polar vortex would keep us inside for days.

When I go to a crop, I go with a goal and a dream. My goal for this trip was to use up my last Studio Calico kit before my new kit came and to finish at least one page for Fancy Pants Designs. I basically met both goals: I finished all but two pages from my kit and made two pages for Fancy Pants.

I have already shared the fishing pages and Thanksgiving page I made there. Here's some of the rest of the pages I made:

To do the title on this page, I lay some old American Crafts letter stickers down, inked around them using a sponge, then removed the letters.  I like the frosty look.

I was happy to work with such bright colors in such gloomy weather. This last one was a funny story. The title comes from what my son wrote on the computer. Here's a close up:

Hopefully, you found the description of the butterflies as dramatic as I did. :-)

Thank you for letting me share these random pages from the crop! I will share the Fancy Pants pages later this week--they're about wintertime, and this week the weather should be warm enough to handle it, LOL!

Scrapbooking the times: New Gallery at Write Click Scrapbook

The month has begun, along with the new year, and with it comes the new Write Click Scrapbook gallery! The theme was "The Times," and this theme inspired me to write about my musical tastes throughout my life. Here's the page:

I cropped it bigger to show the clothes pins on the left. (Just a note: I'll hang this on my wall for a while; I have a rail sort of like what waiters and waitresses in diners put orders in. That's where I'll hang it.) When I put it in an album, I'll either remove the pins or cut hole in the side for the pins.)

I used Studio Calico's October kit Antiquary for this page. I love the plaid pattern the most, I think. If you know me, you know I love circles too, and circles seem to be a good themes for scrapbooking the times. Trends keep coming around, you know? I stamped a frame for each photo and printed a small photo of myself from each decade that I'd found, scanned, and edited.

And the details:

Thank you for checking out my page! I hope it gives you ideas for scrapbooking the times we live in.

And the winner is...

Using the random number generator, here's the winner of Grammar-Free Journaling:

csewy-csescrap13 said...

I do journal on my layouts but I'm not always happy with the finished product....could use a little help! I feel it is one of my weak points in my scrapping!

August 7, 2013 at 10:57 PM

Congratulations! Please email me at jennyrahnlarson at yahoo dot come and I will send you the information you need to join the class!

For everyone else, don't forget you have a coupon code you can use for this class: you can use the coupon code WRITERIGHT to get $5 off the class Grammar-Free Journaling. You will need to use the code by August 21, 2013 to get $5 off this class.


Happy scrapbooking everyone! I will be posting some cards I made on Monday.

Big Picture Classes coupon code--and a giveaway!

If you know me, you also know that I am a huge fan of Big Picture Classes. One of the most pivotal moments for me as a designer was taking the class Design Your Life, which sped up my process by making design decisions more automatic for me. And taking last year's class Twelve made me think about the stories I record more purposefully, helping me to become a fuller storyteller, if that makes sense. And right now I am having fun getting started in i.Scrap, recording my story in ways I haven't thought of before.

Those are only a few of the classes I've taken. I've enjoyed many more, so I am pleased to be able to offer a coupon code for the following class, Grammar-Free Journaling with Angie Lucas! Here's some details:

Grammar-Free Journaling with instructor Angie Lucas

Learn a dozen creative and useful strategies for telling awesome stories in completely new ways—no paragraphs required! Be free. Be Grammar Free.

Starts 8/15/2013 $35.00

Class Description

●      Who's teaching this class? Hi, I'm Angie Lucas, word nerd extraordinaire, and I'll be your Grammar-Free Journaling instructor.

●      Is "grammar-free journaling" a thing, or did Angie Lucas make it up? Okay, okay, I made it up. The idea is to tell truly compelling stories in creative new formats using the fewest words possible—and to stress less about paragraph flow, sentence structure, transitions, and the rules of writing.

●      What does Angie Lucas have against grammar? Absolutely nothing! I'm willing to bet that I love grammar even more than you do. But just in case you don't like it, I'll show you 12 useful strategies for skipping the grammar altogether.

●      Who is this "Angie Lucas" anyway? I'm the new Editorial Director at Big Picture Classes, a professional writer and editor since 1998, the founder of Ella Publishing Co., the former managing editor at Simple Scrapbooksmagazine, and an average pianist (which is not at all relevant to this workshop).

read rest of description here

New to Big Picture Classes learn about us and set up a free account here

I have worked with Angie through Ella Publishing (now affiliated with Big Picture Classes) and enjoy listening to her every time she is on the Paperclipping Roundtable, so I know this will be an incredibly helpful and fun class that can transform your journaling and give you more options when you scrapbook.

First the coupon: for all my readers, you can use the coupon code WRITERIGHT to get $5 off the class Grammar-Free Journaling. You will need to use the code by August 21, 2013 to get $5 off this class.

And now the giveaway! Leave a comment on my blog, telling me what you think about journaling on your pages--what you tend to write, how you feel about journaling, how you tend to do it--and I will draw a winner Friday, August 9, 2013 at 8 P.M. CST. Check back after that to see if you are a winner, and grab the coupon code to sign up for the class anyway, which is sure to be both fun and helpful.

5 Vacation Faves 2013

Every year I make a mini album of vacation immediately after coming home. I ask everyone in the family what their 5 vacation faves are, and that becomes the album. This year I started keeping last year's albums on the coffee table, so Dominic in particular couldn't wait to assemble his favorites list.

Here is this year's mini album:

I used Pebbles Lakeside collection for the bulk of the mini, plus some October Afternoon letter stickers in two collections (there are not enough 1s and 2s in just one collection) and a random 5 from my Thickers collection. The mini itself is a pocket album from Graphic 45. (It was pretty hard to tie the album shut--only one string, and one end was bound to the cover.) I unbound the album from the rings and removed one envelope page (I only needed 4 plus covers) then rebound it after I'd adhered all the patterned paper and used my fingertip exacto to cut out holes for the rings. I planned on putting the journaling in the pockets.

Each page contained a photo of each family member. I cut them into circles to make them fit in the album (plus, this year I forgot to have a photo taken of me solo, so I cut out the other people in my photo. May I be forgiven that.). I added some embellishments around the photo and one to the facing page.

 

  

Dominic's photo was tricky: I wanted to include the cup, which was actually a can we used as a cup while backpacking. To do so made the circle extend beyond the photo, so I trimmed a circle from the patterned paper and used it to complete the circle.

And the journaling I made on cardstock with my favorite Hero Arts journaling stamp; I backed it with a really cool piece of camping paper from Pebbles and made it into a tag by trimming two corners.

ETA: This journaling card belongs to one of my boys. I didn't swim in my underwear. :-)

Thank you for looking at my mini album! This is one of my favorite projects that I make, I think because I get everyone to provide the journaling so it's not just from my perspective. I encourage you to consider this kind of journaling, even if it's not for a mini, even if it's for a topic other than vacation.

Hobbit riddles, scrapbooking, and My Precious

My husband has been reading The Hobbit to my boys. They love it, and Derick does terrific voices as he reads.

When we were in Maine last summer, my son Rowan said something that reminded me of a riddle from the book--you know, then scene where he encounters Gollum underground and they have a riddle battle over whether Gollum gets to eat Bilbo or escort him out of the cave. I laughed at what Rowan had said and asked him the winning riddle in response:

"What is in my pocket?"

The answer, in case you haven't read the book, is the Ring, AKA Gollum's Precious, which he doesn't know he lost and Bilbo found. The scene is quite dramatic.

Rowan, however, hadn't gotten to that part of the story, so when I posed my riddle, he said triumphantly, "Your iPhone!" We laughed and shared the reason why with him.

Ever since, when he sees me messing with my phone, he hisses at me, a la Gollum, "My Precious!" What a card.

I had to memorialize the story, so I made this page:

I used Studio Calico's September kit. I like how basic the product and design are, which highlights the story.

I used a lot of circles, since the story deals with them--the Ring. The striped green circle was a leftover piece from my Write Click Scrapbook page for next month's gallery. It was so pretty, I didn't want to throw it away. I'm glad I got a use out of it on this page.

Sometimes the perfect embellishments are the most literal. When I saw the kit had a pocket in it, I knew I had to use it on this page.

On a side note, I love this picture of me, weird though it is. You can see how I regained my waist after I lost 12 pounds running this summer. I made a page commemorating the running. I'll share the page after it goes up next week on Thinking Through Design.

A Black Belt, a 5K, and Queen

A couple weeks ago, I wrote about inspiration. After jogging with my boys to train them (and me!) for a 5K, I came up with a title for a layout. I then took a photo (well, my husband did), and I printed it out and made this page:

I used Studio Calico's Handmade kit for this.

The journaling came directly from my blog, a first for me. It made it so easy to just copy and paste. Wowza.

I stitched some photo corners around the photo, something I have really liked doing lately:

As usual, I did a little stripping. The top strip of paper I hand cut from this piece of October Afternoon paper. I stitched over it and added buttons just for fun.

I had a Fancy Pants chipboard flourish that had been lying around for a while, so I decided to use it as a misting mask. I didn't want dramatic mist, so I used yellow and Mister Huey's Shine. I also punched some patterned paper circles and stitched them down with cross stitches, another thing I've liked doing lately.


Thanks for looking at my project! I'm very pleased with how it turned out, even though I'm red as a lobster in this picture while my boys don't even look like they ran at all.

What have you done lately that you are proud of but haven't scrapped?

Adding journaling strips

A couple weeks ago a reader asked about the journaling strips I add to my pages. The page I'll explain my technique on is this one:

When I was still building the page, I had a small spot on the right that I thought would be good for journaling strips:

I measured the spot, then opened up Word and typed, keeping an eye on the rulers on the right and left to ensure I kept it within the allowable space. (When measuring, make sure to leave a little space on each side to account for the space you'll have to leave when you cut them out and space them as strips.)

I then highlighted my journaling and set the spacing at 1.5, not double. This is the perfect amount for cutting journaling strips. (Note: I generally am not a font fanatic. I use Times New Roman.1.5 is perfect for that, but some big fonts need double spacing. You can eyeball it.)

I then print and cut:

My trimmer has a line so I can see just where the cut is.

I then spread them out on the page to see how I want the strips arranged before I glue them down.


After gluing, I usually draw lines around each strip for some more definition. I probably got this idea from Jen Jockisch:


And that's how I do my journaling strips!

Now for today's discount: Courtesy of Ella's Spring Training, you can go to Ella and get the following ebook, UR2 Cre8ive, for $1.00 off:


Use the code SPRCREATIVE when you check out. Code is good through 5/15/2011.