May pages for Simple Scrapper

Now that spring has arrived, I'm draw to clean lines and open space on my scrapbooking pages. I practiced that with these May pages for Simple Scrapper. The first celebrates the first time my son flew his birthday drone:

Dominic's grandpa, a retired Navy pilot, has always given him flying remote toys, which he loves. This one we took out to a local park on his birthday to fly. It was windy (check out my husband's beard!) so it was difficult to maneuver, but it was fun.

Because I love stitching, I placed the photos in such a way so that I could draw a "flight" line between the photos to create some motion. The paper airplane I cut out from the vintage piece of Cosmo Cricket paper I found in my stash.

(Side note: my older son picked the patterned paper and the stitching colors. He's got an eye for color!)

The next page involves my dog's secret stash that is hidden behind what we call the magic door:

We keep Lola's food in the front closet, which we have to go into for many things. Any time we do, she is RIGHT THERE, tail wagging, all pert and expectant. She's not a poser, so I couldn't take a good photo of that look, so I found the cutest, most longing look I could find from past photos to scrap.

I'm not sure why, but I think of blue-green-orange as nice pet colors, maybe because they go well with Lola's brown coat. The orange buttons in the title fit that color scheme, plus solve the problem of my having run out of O's. Sigh. Since this page was about magic, I added some sequins sort of as fairy dust across the page.

Thank you for visiting and checking out my pages! Please visit Simple Scrapper to see all that membership offers--monthly sketches and digital templates, story starters, and a digital magazine!

April pages for Simple Scrapper

I've been in a two-page layout kind of mood lately. Lots of photos, so I dedicated myself to getting them on a page. Not all of them, mind you, but enough to tell the full story. Here's what I did for Simple Scrapper:

First is the page I made about our trip to St. Croix State Park to go camping. I focused on the weather, which was memorable and hopefully will never happen again. I didn't fit nearly all the photos I wanted to, but I'm happy with the effect.

Next is the page about our trip to THE candy store in Minnesota. So colorful and sweet.

(I won't tell you how much money we spent in here, but my tall son is holding the receipt on page two. I still have it. They had to hand punch the amounts. Wow.)

 

So that is the month of April! I am just sending in an order of photos and am super excited to start creating again.

March pages for Simple Scrapper

March has arrived! This is when my grades are due, and after finishing grading research papers and before finalizing my grades for the trimester, I wanted to share this month's pages for Simple Scrapper.

First is a page that uses a new story starter and an old sketch:

This month's story themes evolve places, so I wrote about one of our favorite places at a local attraction, the Minnesota Landscape Arboretum's Hedge Maze. This, by the way, is my first panorama photo I took on my phone. Woot!

Next is the new sketch and old story starter:

We like visiting my husband on our days off from school. Partly we miss him and want to visit, but mostly we want to eat in St. Paul. Yum! I used some products from the Ali Edwards Story kits for this page.

Thank you for visiting! Now that my grading is done for a while, I am looking forward to digging into the photos I've had knocking around for a while. I also look forward to printing vacation photos from Glacier and Maine--I am almost caught up with those albums. Hooray!
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New year, new memories: January pages for Simple Scrapper

Hello!  It's been a cold start of the year here in Minnesota. This week should be warmer, but them it will chill down again in time for me to leave town with some friends. Until then, here are some pages I made for Simple Scrapper January:

This page uses a January story starter, which is about friendship.  I wrote about friendship as a military kid, which could be challenging because of moves. Since I grew up in the 70s and 80s, I picked warmer colors, which reminded me of the seventies.

The sketch for January inspired me to scrap the mammoth rain storm we got in Maple Grove this fall--10 inches!  I had taken a photo from a weather app from my phone and printed it for the page--it showed the epicenter of the storm over my house. I took many photos of the aftermath the next day, but I only picked one for the page from my favorite walk, now flooded over, and I recorded the story of the night before:

Thank you for checking out my page! I just finished a page about Christmas, so I'll share that later this week. 

Scrapbooking Christmas: December pages for Simple Scrapper

A confession I've made before: I don't really like scrapbooking Christmas. I feel like every page, every year is the same. That said, I've enjoyed getting back into documenting Christmas now that our family has developed some of our own traditions. Here's two pages I made using sketches and story starters from Simple Scrapper:

This first page uses a new sketch and an old story starter. It's my favorite thing to take some snaps of the morning and record our calm time together. I loved pulling out vintage products for this.

Next is a page where I record our evolving Christmas tree topper tradition, using one of my favorite old sketches and a new story starter:

Again, I loved digging into my Christmas bucket of supplies to find the perfect fit. It felt good to use up my old Making Memories ribbons for the starburst on the right. Here's some details:

Thank you for visiting! Please check out the terrific membership available at Simple Scrapper, which will keep you scrapbooking, inspired.

August pages for Simple Scrapper

I've been doing more than scrapbooking past vacations. Here are my pages from August's Simple Scrapper:

The theme is EXPLORE. I used my travel products to scrapbook my mother's and my trip around the Twin Cities, most especially to the Midtown Global Market and the Bachelor Farmer Cafe. (Interesting note: the Midtown Global Market is in the old Sears building, which was empty for years. My husband used to call the previously empty building the Gates of Mordor. From the middle photo, maybe you can see why.

I used a sketch to celebrate something I love: visiting Twin Cities' restaurants. Mother's Day we went to Revival, which cooks amazing fried chicken.

I used a lot of scraps on this page. And can I tell you how much I love using ledger paper for the background? Plus: check out that PIE!

Thank you for seeing my pages! Please visit Simple Scrapper and see all the inspiration that is there. Remember: Every month a full sized digital magazine filled with layouts, sketched, and story starters awaits each member.

January 2016 pages for Simple Scrapper

Hello! The new year is upon us, and I wanted to share the pages I made for Simple Scrapper. Here's my first, which uses an old story starter and a new sketch:

If, like me, you took photos of the eclipse that were poor, this sketch was a nice one--lots of white space to demonstrate the theme with a good piece of patterned paper since the photos didn't capture what I wanted.

This was a little bit of a kitchen sink page. I picked up do-dads and scraps I had lying around that seemed to fit. and how happy was I to use these glistening Thickers I had gotten long ago that fit the theme?

And then my next page, which used an old sketch that I stretched to two pages with a new story starter:

I tend to do a page like this every winter when my soul languishes for color. I mixed Pink Paislee and October Afternoon mostly for the bright hues to match the photos.

Thank you for visiting my blog! Please go check out Simple Scrapper for ideas this new year to make your scrapbooking more inspired and manageable.

November pages for Simple Scrapper

Hello! October is amazingly almost finished, so I wanted to share my upcoming pages for Simple Scrapper. Here they are:

This first page uses a new story teller and an old sketch. I recorded a conversation I had with Dominic about his favorite, mac and cheese, and why cavatappi is the superior noodle. I enjoyed digging into my stash for this page.Here's some details:

October Afternoon's Saturday Morning collection had some perfect accents for this theme.

Next is a two-page spread using a new sketch and old story starter recording my boys' trip to the Arboretum to see the Lego exhibit:

Again, I enjoyed digging into stash for this, and using lots of bright colors. The red paper is classic Scenic Route, for those of you that remember that line, RIP. Sigh. I also used October Afternoon's Summertime collection for appropriate reasons. Here's the details:

Thank you for visiting! The inspiration from Simple Scrapper this month is plentiful and varied. Go check out what they have to offer!

Scrapbooking the books and the Bakken

Before school starts again, I want to share the pages I made for Simple Scrapper's September gallery. Here's the first:

The story starters for the month involve books. I have to tell you that I am so excited by them and will be using them again and again. This page involves my night stand and setting a goal to finish the books I had on them. I have to admit, I worried about the title, fearing it looked too much like "One Night Stand." LOL. I used an older sketch for this page. Here's some details:

I mostly used October Afternoon's Public Library collection for this page. I thought the colors and themes were perfect.

I wasn't sure if I should put the actual books I've read and plan to read in the next year. Aesthetically I worried it looked too cluttered. I left it on there, though, because I know writing things down makes me more likely to achieve my goal.

The next page uses a current sketch to record my son's magical experience at the Bakken Museum Summer Camp.

I flipped the sketch to match the orientation of the photos, realizing too late that this made the page look awfully similar to the last one. Oh well! Here's some details:

I used more October Afternoon Public Library and Daily Flash Milk Money, plus a gorgeous old piece of Bella Blvd computer paper.

Since the Bakken celebrates electricity, I was able to pull out every light bulb embellishment I own and get some serious thematic use out of them.

The title is supposed to be a play on the phrase "Release the Kraken." And the yellow Thickers, which are old, I had to adjust since I was out of e's and n's. I squooshed a c into an e, and I trimmed an M to make an n.

Thank you for checking out my pages! Please visit Simple Scrapper and check out their membership. You'll find lots of inspiration in the form of story starters and sketches/digital templates. As I said, this month would be a good one to join because of the amazing story starters.