NSD Challenge 5: Color challenge

Okay, here is a color challenge for you. Use fuchsia combined with navy blue and gray. Any type of project. Go!

Remember to post your project to your favorite online gallery and leave a comment here with a link to your post. I’d love to see your project!

This is a little gift bag I created to stuff with mall goodies for my friends who are coming over to scrap for NSD!

Recipe

cardstock, ribbon: Stampin’ Up
die cut machine: Cricut (Storybook, Tags Bags Boxes & More)
glitter products: Stickles, Glimmer Mist

NSD Challenge 4: Old photos

Okay, go through your photo library, be it pre-printed or digi. Look for something that is more than 2 years old. Doesn’t matter what it is. Just pick the first thing that grabs your attention. It grabbed your attention for a reason. Tell that story.

Remember to post your project to your favorite online gallery and leave a comment here with a link to your post. I’d love to see your project!

This pattern paper had the words “all boy” printed throughout it. You can still use paper if it doesn’t fit your theme, but covering up unwanted elements.

Recipe

pattern paper, arrows, journaling tags, rubons: from stash
alpha stickers: Piggy Tales
buttons: Sassafras
marker:

NSD Challenge 3: Use a grid

Okay, take photos, paper, embellishments and journaling blocks and put them in a grid. Use whatever size you need. Don’t stress over it. Just toss them on the page and line them up. You may find that just picking a size and throwing the items onto the page can save you time and stress on how to design your page.

Remember to post your project to your favorite online gallery and leave a comment here with a link to your post. I’d love to see your project!

Recipe:

all elements from Piggy Tales

NSD Challenge 2: Scrap You!

Okay, I am a believer in saving your own story. Scrapping about you is just a more visual extension of the diary/journal. Others will want to read it, maybe now, but definitely later. Imagine the things you wish you knew about your mom, dad, grandma, great-grandpa etc. Write about those things. Take pictures of the moments you wish you had from loved ones who have passed on. Those are the things to save about yourself!

Remember to post your project to your favorite online gallery and leave a comment here with a link to your post. I’d love to see your project!

Recipe:

pattern paper: Vintage Plum (out of business), Luxe (cupcakes)
alphabet stickers: Scenic Route
color pencils: Stampin’ Up
journaling tags: from stash

NSD Challenge 1: Not a scrapbooker

Okay, this one is for some of my friends who may be reading this. Those of you who don’t think you are scrapbookers. I challenge you to do a scrappy thing. Print some 4×6 photos. Make some 4×6 cards out of some pretty paper, any paper. Write some notes on that paper about your photos. Slide them into a photo album that has individual 4×6 photo pockets. Done. Now don’t you feel like a scrapper?

Remember, photos only tell part of the story. Add your words, it makes the story more complete and preserves it for the future. You never know who may look at your photos down the road!

Remember to post your project to your favorite online gallery and leave a comment here with a link to your post. I’d love to see your project!

Recipe:

cardstock: from stash
journaling tags: Luxe

National Scrapbooking Day (NSD)

Saturday May 1st, 2010 is National Scrapbooking Day. Every year in May scrapbookers and crafters celebrate the hobby. Many online sites have activities to follow along with for the day. I’ll be playing along with My Pink Stamper and Club Creating Keepsakes with their activities. I will also be having a couple of friends over for some in-home scrapping fun. And, I will be posting challenges and my project to match the challenge throughout the day on Saturday. I have 8 challenges planned, so I hope there are readers out there who would like to play along. If you decide to do a project based on my challenge, I’d love to see it. Post it to a gallery such as Flickr, Picasa, Club CK or another favorite and leave a comment on the challenge post with a link to your gallery.

Do you have a favorite online site that is hosting NSD challenges? I’d love to know about it. Leave a comment on this post and let me know about it!

Entering Contests

These past couple of months have been the beginning for me of trying to get my work out in the public eye. In an earlier post I said I was able to have one layout featured on a popular blog. That is a start! I’ve also tried to get a short design team position as well as entering a card making contest. Neither adventure turned into anything, but it sure was interesting trying. Here are some of the projects I used for the two contests.

If you have ever thought of publishing your work, don’t be afraid to try. The worst thing that happens is that you spend a little time and money on your work and they say no. Its not the end of the world!

Here was one of my entries for a Cricut-based blog’s short-term design team. I took a shape from the Storybook cartridge and turned it into a photo frame by cutting and gluing multiple layers of cardstock together. The final layer had the frame cut out of it and decorated with pattern paper.

The card making contest had 5 themes to enter. Here are three of my 5 entries…

Photo printers

My scrapbooking life changed a few years ago when I purchased a new tool. Now I don’t think I could live without it. It is my portable photo printer. I hadn’t purchased a photo printer before this because I had a hard time finding the size I wanted and because the cost per print was much higher than what I was used too paying. I wanted to be able to print 4×6 and also 5×7. Most didn’t do the larger size. This printer is an HP Photosmart A616 and I love it. Not only did I get those print sizes that I wanted, but this particular printer can do 4×12 panoramic prints as well.

Printing at home costs more per print, but I find in the end it actually costs me less. This is true because I only print the photos I really want when I want them. No leftovers, no unused photos, no duplicates lying around. I use Photoshop Elements to crop & correct my photos before I print and if I am using small sizes I can arrange multiple photos on one sheet of paper. This means less cropping trash going into the garbage.

I found that this printer was freeing because my photos were actually holding me back from scrapping. I would have a pile of digital prints that I had to wade through. I had to decide which ones I really wanted to print. I had to wait until I had enough favorite saved up to upload to a printing site (or burn to a CD for in store printing). Then I got this pile of photos back and felt overwhelmed that I had to scrap them all right away. It was just too much for me. Having my own printer & editing software meant I could have my photos in whatever size I wanted when I wanted them. It actually made it easier for me to create!

I don’t know what printers are on the market today, but if you have been thinking about a portable photo printer go searching and see what you can find. You just might find what you are looking for.

Online class

I’ve known about Big Picture Scrapbooking for a couple of years now. I took some classes last year and really enjoyed them. When I got their newsletter recently I saw a class that I just had to join. And I am making my kids do it with me. The class is called Everyday Adventures and it is based on the book How to be an Explorer of the World by Keri Smith. It is supposed to be exercises in seeing the extraordinary hidden in the ordinary. I’m curious to see where it leads us.

Our pre-class assignment was to make Goggles of Enhanced Perception. So here we are decked out in our goggles.

We created our own journals to record our findings for the 20 exercises throughout the class. The kids decorated small spiral bound notebooks. I made mine from scratch using brown cardstock, white & black markers and watercolor pencils from Stampin’ Up. The chipboard accents are from my stash, covered with white embossing powder and inked with alcohol ink (Tim Holtz).

And here is my Day 1 exploration. The assignment was to sit and make a list of 10 things you hadn’t previously noticed about the place when you first sat down. I sat in my doorway and did the assignment while watching my kids ride bikes. I decided to draw all my decorations instead of using the basic scrapbook supplies I thought I would use. I am not a skillful drawer but I think it turned out very pretty anyway. I may just keep up the hand drawn accents throughout the journal.

Scrapping a secret

So I recently scrapped a secret. It was interesting to make a page and not give away what was happening! The story is this… My friend has become a cat/kitten foster parent. She got her first batch of kittens several weeks ago. We had a chance to go and visit the mama with her little babies. My daughter has been wanting a cat for a while now, but due to some problems we’ve had with pets in the past we weren’t sure we were ready. But my husband and I were talking about the kittens and were coming to the conclusion that we could adopt them and try the pet thing again. So as my daughter was cuddling these little cuties it was in the back of my mind that they may be coming home with us. We didn’t tell our kids any such thing because we didn’t want to get their hopes up in case we changed our minds. As I was making this layout we still had not decided whether or not we would take them. All my journaling had to play around what I was really thinking and feeling in order to keep this secret.

Have you ever scrapped a secret or surprise? You should give it a try, it is an interesting experience.

Supplies:Pattern paper, alpha stickers, rubons (Piggy Tales); vellum, inks, punches (Stampin’ Up); stamp (Technique Tuesday); die cutter (Cricut with Storybook cartridge)