Anti-trendy?

I usually go through this gut reaction to the latest trends. I get annoyed and then bored of seeing project after project with the latest trend. Then something clicks inside me and I give in. I go for it. I use that almost-cliche trend on a page. Well it is that time again for me. That click happened and I used that trend. This time it is banners.

First I did this card several posts ago.

And now… (notice I’m a krafty kinda gal?)

Recipe:
cardstock: The Paper Company
pattern papers: Stampin’ Up, Scenic Route, stash
stamp: Technique Tuesday
ink, punch: Stampin’ Up
pen: Ranger
buttons: Buttons Galore
ribbon: Cream City Ribbon
paper tape: 7 gypsies

Did you see those little ribbon curls through the buttons. I had this fabulous ribbon in my stash from a few years ago. I really loved it back then but for some reason it went missing in my stash and has been hiding. When I made this party page I knew I wanted some curled ribbon in there. And it dawned on me that I had this ribbon in my stash. Bingo! Oh this ribbon is so fabulous. It was originally provided by a company called Little Black Dress Designs. I’ve been looking for them but can’t seem to find them anymore. Must have disappeared in the economy bubble. The lucky thing is that I noticed on the packaging that the ribbon is produced by Cream City Ribbon.

The world is a small small place. Let me explain. In my quest to find wonderful scrappy products made in the USA (an obsession of mine) I found Cream City Ribbon. I book marked it in my favorites right away. And then I notice that this cool ribbon from my stash was made by the very same company I had found only weeks ago! Sweet! The cool things about their ribbon is that

it is made in the USA
it is made with cotton responsibly grown and dyed
it is individual threads that are adhered together so you can strip it, fray it and more
it is stiff so you can print on it, fold it, curl it and more

It is just fabulous stuff. I mean just look at these colors and projects

Go get yourselves some Cream City Ribbon and cook up some crafty soup!

Sketch Challenge

Hello everyone,

I recently found out about a blog called The Paper Variety which hosts weekly sketch challenges and offers prizes. Their about page says they offer Prompts, Projects and Products. A new challenge is posted on Wednesday and the submission is due by the following Tuesday. There are a few rules about submissions, but they really aren’t a big deal. The “big” rule is that it must contain paper!

Currently, it looks like a quite blog– a personal feeling blog– which is really what I am looking for. I’ve struggled with online scrap communities because I tend to feel lost in the crowd. In spreading the word about this site I’m sure it will increase traffic, which is good for their viability. That will make their community grow but I hope it doesn’t grow to be so big that it will lose it’s personal feel. Right now, I’m hoping to use this blog to have some fun and get to know some other scrappers. You might check it out too and see if it is something for you.

On to this week’s sketch challenge…

Sketch challenge

And here is my submission. This is my youngest daughter’s calendar layout for the month of December…

Recipe:
pattern paper: DCWV
cardstock, mulburry paper: Stampin’ Up
die cuts: Cricut (Storybook, Plantin Schoolbook & Heritage)
marker: Marvy
alpha: American Crafts, Cosmo Cricket

Now go cook up your own crafty soup using this sketch!

November layouts

Here are my kids’ pages for November in their scrap calendars…

I kept my son’s page super simple. The only thing new I tried on this layout was to do my typed journaling in a circle. I don’t think my copy of Photoshop Elemets 6 allows me to type text on a path. So I just did it manually. If you know of another way to do text in shapes then let me know!

I had fun with this wintry layout. I pulled TONS of snowflake goodies from my stash. There was no way I could use all of that I pulled so I narrowed it down to a few items and went with that. Some of my elements such as the sparkly “ICE” in the title and some vellum snowflakes didn’t photograph well. As I re-do my scrap room I’m going to try and incorporate a photo station so that I can get better pictures of my work. Since I know nothing about lighting it will be a challenge for me!

And last is this layout. Sigh. I don’t like this layout. I wasn’t feeling inspired at all in the beginning. I just slapped down some cardstock and pulled out my markers to add some pizzazz. Didn’t work. Then as I was debating my title I ran into this geometric pattern paper from Scenic Route. It was perfect for making a Lego-like title! Too bad I found it at the very end. Since I don’t believe in going back and reworking pages, I just threw my title onto the already formed page and moved on. I will create something else more eye-pleasing later. Don’t kick yourself for making something less than beautiful. Chalk it up to learning and move on!

September & October

I’ve been sitting on these photos for a while. I wanted to finish off my kids scrap calendars before I stared posting my final layouts. But I’m still not done. So I’ll just go ahead and post what I have. Besides it is a long enough post with what I have that I don’t really need to add more!

Oldest child… September. This layout came from a class that I took at a Creating Keepsakes Convention. I have a bunch of finished pages from classes sitting around that I haven’t figured out what to do with. I love taking the classes every year but every year I know I don’t really use the pages. I work by fitting my layout to my photo/story and have a really hard time fitting a photo to a pre-made layout. (Especially when the colors are not my favorite, as is the case here). I added a few extra touches and a jumbo vertical title to this page to accommodate my one photo, instead of the multi-photo layout it was designed for. I do think the color scheme makes the flowers work for a boy layout.

Oldest child… October. I kept the journaling minimal on this one because most of the story is written over his calendar companion page for both September and October. (If you are new to my blog you can see how I do my calendar pages in an older post and then this year’s version.) Because the page is about his Lego robotics team I played with wire to represent a electronic circuit type look.

Middle child… September. You guys have seen this one before when I talked about the technique of cutting a mask using the cricut and a page protector. So here is the rest of the story behind this layout. I had one photo that fit with a story to tell for the month of September. And this isn’t even a good photo. It is small, and it is only the back of my daughters head sitting with her friends (and the backs of their heads!). But it was a story I wanted to tell. So I went with it. With such a small photo I knew I would need a minimalist layout so the photo wouldn’t get lost. I really like how it came out.

Middle Child… October. Okay I admit it. I just wanted to play with my Martha Stewart bird punch. I fell in love with the punch when I saw it used on someone else’s project. I went out and bought it and it has been sitting in my drawer. Hmmm. What to do with it? So I made my title fit a birt theme and went with it. Sometimes I just like to play with product and that is okay too.

Youngest child… September. This story has it’s own story! My daughter’s first preschool didn’t work out. So we tried a second preschool, which we just quit because it didn’t work out for another reason. And so we are on to another care situation. We’ll see if I need to make a scrapbook page about that one too.

Youngest child… October. This is another layout that I did not create. It is one from the convention. This was another month that I didn’t have a great photo for. Hmmm. Think I gotta get my photo act together a little more.

Playing catchup

As you know I spent a long span of time not doing much in my craft room. That left my kids scrap calendars way behind. And one of the very reasons I do these calendars is so that I DON’T fall behind. Go figure! At any rate, my goal is to get everything caught up by the end of the year and I am well on my way. I have gotten through October for my youngest child and September for the other two.

Here are July and August layouts for each of my three kids. Each of these layouts had their own spark of inspiration. You can see a note on each photo about what inspired the page (other then the photos/story of course) Hope you find some inspiration from them in some way.

*inspiration: The leftover “Friends” rubon from a rubon set along with my Cricut Light Meow cartridge.

*inspiration: The postage stamp frame (aka Technique Tiles) from Technique Tuesday and the fact that I ran out of the letter “e” in my alpha set!

*inspiration: leftovers from a monthly kit and some beautiful buttons that I haven’t put away yet.

*inspiration: I just loved this little piece of burlap I had from some kit. Got my mind rolling in a “nature” way and I searched my stash and found some great nature stickers and seashell themed chunky shapes. Sorry the title “Creature Love” didn’t photograph well at all.

*inspiration: In searching for an energetic paper for this layout I found this star paper and it led the way to the rest of the page.

*inspiration: I scraplifted this one from Creating Keepsakes magazine. There was a layout in there with borders built with circular elements and I just lifted that idea.

Day 7 Back-in-action

Okay. It is day seven. It was my goal to give you a straight week of projects to welcome myself back to my blog. I hope you are enjoying. My goal is to post things about once a week. But you all know how life gets in the way sometimes. I hope to not go for months without posting again though!

So my final post for this run… Cutting a mask with the Cricut! For those of you who don’t know, a mask in an object that you lay over your project in order to prevent that portion of your project from being inked.

Sorry the picture is bad. Just trying to get photos fast to share with you. This is supposed to be a photo of a 6×6 page protector. I used a scrapbooking page protector as opposed to a regular office 8.5×11 page protector because it is slightly thicker. The page protectors are inexpensive and readily available. To create a mask, trim off the three sealed edges. This will leave you with two sheets of plastic. Place one on your Cricut mat and choose a shape to cut. I set my blade to 6, pressure 3 and speed 3. You may need to experiment with your settings. Here is what my mask looked like after I cut it (it is inked already for greater visibility).

This material is thinner than a commercial mask but it much cheaper, just the image you want and easy to make. Use it like you would any mask. However, if you find it is curling a bit, then add some re-positionable adhesive to the back. I laid mine on the corner of my project and sprayed with Glimmer Mist. This left the tan, uninked shadow of my image behind. I then spayed my mask a little more, turned it over and stamped the image over my misted section. This gives two distinct versions of the same image.

After allowing it to dry I finished my layout. Enjoy!

RECIPE
cardstock, flower punch, ink: Stampin’ Up

pattern paper: Scenic Route
spray ink: Tattered Angels
die cuts: Cricut (Storybook cart.)
marker: marvy
from stash: stamps, silk flower, crystals

Day 6 Back-In-Action

Whew. I almost didn’t get a post in today. But I am squeaking it in here. I had planned on submitting the following layout to Creating Keepsakes Magazine as a “scrap lift” from a previous issue. But I can’t seem to remember what issue and who the original layout was by. So I will just share it here with you! The original layout featured a large focal on top and lots of detail photos on the bottom of a vacation layout. I seperated out my detail photos based on categories such as people and nature. It was a fun layout to do and goes to show that sometimes scrap lifting can be very inspirational and prevent brain-freeze when dealing with so many photos! I’ll have one more day of back-in-action posts for you tomorrow!

RECIPE (sorry I don’t have everything)

cardstock, tab punch: Stampin’ Up
large alpha: American Crafts
small alpha: Cosmo Cricket
bracket punch: McGill
pattern paper, camping stickers: ?

Day 3 of back-in-action

Here is another layout from my calendar layouts. I had been wanting to do a layout split down the middle and this subject fit perfectly. It shows two opposing emotions. Flowing the title down the middle both separates the two emotions AND brings the two images together. I also had an ulterior motive for placing the tile as I did. The pattern paper under the word “courage” is actually hiding some distracting elements in the photo to the left. It is a good way to use an photo with problems.

Day 2 of my back-in-action posts

Here are some more older projects that I have worked on. These are from my kids’ calendar scrapbooks. I wrote about this style of scrapping in an earlier post. You can see here how I incorporate my calendar record keeping into a companion page to go with the main layout. In my current calendars the right hand page is always my calendar (blanked out here for privacy).

I have found some things I didn’t like about this approach to my calendars. First, I used too small of a format of calendar for my older kids. I thought I would need less room to record their lives since they aren’t growing and changing as rapidly as the little one. But I ended up really cramming journaling onto a small page. Apparently, I have just as much to say about them! I used a larger calendar for my youngest and now I know I would like this larger size for the older kids as well. Secondly I felt like making an entire companion page for the calendar became boring. I felt like I was wasting supplies just to glue a calendar down to a pretty page. Finally, I did not keep a general family calendar, which I have done in the past and I missed it very much. I missed recording tidbits of life for my husband and I as well as larger family events.

My approach for the coming year is going to be different. I am going to make the larger size calendar for everyone, including a family calendar. I am not going to make companion pages. Instead I am going to build pockets in behind the main layout with a tab at the top to pull out the calendar. This will save materials and space in my albums, but still preserve all the information. I will report back in the new year to see how I like the changes to my system!

More stitching

Okay, so yesterday I talked about stitching and alphabets. Today it will be stitching, color and style combos. When I made this layout I had only planned on cutting the large circle background, flipping the circle to use the back of the pattern paper and then stitching around it. I was inspired to try this from similar techniques I saw in magazines. I did my circle and then just kept going.

What ended up happening with this page was trying a bunch of things I don’t usually do. I have got bright colors going on which is not typical. I pulled out some really old stash (alpha stickers) and used those up. I’ve got those rubber sticker accents that I would never have bought had they not come in a kit subscription. And I’ve got those glitter accents (from the same kit). I wouldn’t have bought those accents, let alone paired them with bright colors and rubber accents. But I think it works. Yesterday I gave you the cliche “never say never.” Today I think I’ll use “beauty is in the eye of the beholder.” I think the elegant silver swirls are working with the funky pink rubber letters. Does your eye behold beauty or chaos?

Recipe

CS: Bazzil
PP, rubber stickers, alpha stickers: KI Memories
glitter swirls: Jolees
felt accent: Quick Quotes
die cut: Cricut (to cut circle)
marker: Marvy