Fight or Flight

A Mother LOAD challenge recently was to create a layout using our standard process.  If you read this post you know that I typically start with photos.  But what happens when you don't have a photo for the story you are scrapping?  You create one of course!

This layout has a lot more going on than I usually do.  But I like it!  Notice another difference than normal?  It's another 12x12!  I'm trying hard to adopt the idea of using 12x12 layouts on occasion.  And I'm having fun trying new things!

The layout design came from this page by Donna Jannuzzi in Ella's Stretch your Sketches challenge.  Mine looks nothing like this...HA!  Pretty much a literal lift, but that makes it a fast page.  And when you are scrapping during nap time, fast is a must!  :)

The whole page is about when a fish landed at my son's feet and he freaked out!  Then he jumped in the lake...to get away from the fish...  I missed the whole thing (was taking my youngest to the bathroom at the time) but I had this picture from earlier with him on the dock.  So I just added in some shapes and text to show the fish and the jump.  How fun is that?!?

I knew from the moment my son jumped in the lake that the title Fight or Flight just had to be on this page!  I really enjoyed using the two sizes of letter stickers for this title.

To add to the fishing theme I added a fishing pole.  For the line I used some twine from The Twinery.  Then I found some fish stickers from about 5 years ago.  Knew I was saving them for something.  :)







So here's the story...recently my husband and son participated in a fishing derby.  My son caught his first fish!  And he was very excited, but he didn't really want to touch it.  :)  Then he decided to fish off the dock with some other kids.  One of them caught a 15 in fish, which broke the line.  The fish landed at my son's feet and was flopping around.  He FREAKED and jumped in the lake to get away from the fish.  Thankfully he jumped toward the shore and was able to touch.  Even though I missed the event I can completely see it in my head.  Hilarious!

Have any fun fishing stories?  Ever scrapped a story that you didn't have a picture for?  What size layouts do you prefer to scrap?  I'd love to hear your thoughts!

Gum Fun

I am more and more drawn to scrapping about everyday stories.  I'm behind the times...I know.  :)  I've almost decided to just use photo collages for event scrapping and save my creative time for layouts like this!

This story has been on my mind for awhile and I knew it had to be scrapped.  My son only recently got to try gum for the first time.  For the last couple of years every time someone else had gum he would say, "No gum for Tea-ton" (his version of his name at the time)  He would say it so longingly.  Absolutely adorable.  And now that he has actually tried gum I knew it was time to scrap the story!

My layout inspiration came from this one by Brenda.  I pinned it on Pinterest recently as a heritage idea.  But the layout design seemed perfect for this story too.  (if you haven't heard of Pinterest it is my favorite place to play online!)  This layout is done in 8.5x11 and I wanted to make mine 12x12.  So I stretched the sizes a bit to make it fit.  Otherwise the layout is the same.  I did sketch it first so I could be sure on dimensions before I started cutting, but that's just cause I'm picky that way!  :)

When you think of gum often shades of pink come to mind.  Since this is about my son I didn't want to do that.  Instead I used these shades of blue yellow and green.  I think it still gives it a gum flavor (tee-hee).

This is a photo from my son's birthday party.  The actual first time he tried gum.  However this part of the story is more about his hesitancy to try new things.  Which absolutely applies to the gum story but it gives a broader picture to his personality.

 My color palette came from the cute striped pattern paper.  Makes it so easy to pull other papers when you have an inspiration piece!  To make the title I downloaded a free font called Bubblegum from dafont.com.  In PSE8 I typed my title and clipped some digital paper called Pretty Pattern from Creativity by Crystal.  It's hard to see the pattern in this pic but if you click on the photo and enlarge it you can see it better.

Originally I was going to put some kind of gum SVG here.  I couldn't find one I liked and then I remembered the gum wrapper bracelets I made as a kid.  I thought I could make a flower out of that.  Trouble was I couldn't really remember how to make them.  So I did a search and pieced together the directions.  And this is my final result!  I like how different and fun it is!  Not to mention the fact that it is made from recycled materials!  Trash to treasure here I come!  :)  I'll post a gum wrapper flower tutorial tomorrow!

I chose to use black and white photos because I had a specific color palette I wanted to work with.  Since these pics were taken on 3 different days none of the colors coordinated at all.  So black and white they became.  This page has 4x6 pics and the left page has a 5x7.  As I already said my main photo was from his actual first time trying gum.  The second photo was not taken with this story in mind at all but it goes along.  However, only my family will see the connection because my son's phrase "No gum for Keaton" was typically said while we were in the car.  I don't say that in the story but WE would know why that photo was chosen.  The third pic was staged because my son's reaction to gum now is so predictable.  In fact I said, can you come take a picture for me, held out a piece of gum and he automatically started shaking his hands just like this.  So funny!

The inspiration layout had these little strips of paper across the top.  I thought they were a great way to use scraps (which is very Earth friendly too)!  It wasn't until after I put them on the page that I realized they looked like strips of gum.  I love it when I stumble on perfection!  :)

I had this little bit of wrapper chain left over and decided to use it to embellish the right side.  By itself it wasn't substantial enough so I added some patterned and white paper as a mat.  Which was also a nice way to bring a bit more yellow onto this page.

I love when a story comes full circle.  My son, who has been longing for gum for so long, has now decided he wants nothing to do with gum.  To highlight a few key parts in the journaling I like to give the words their own line, increase the font, bold or change the color of the text.  Or do all of the above as I did here!  :)

What funny stories have you scrapped lately?

Christmas Countdown

UPDATE: Scraplifters Anonymous has moved and changed names. You can find this same post at http://scrapinspired.com/2010/11/christmas-countdown/, along with lots more scrappy fun stuff on my new blog ScrapInspired.com.

Christmas is my favorite holiday, BY FAR!  Every year I start to get really excited as the time to decorate draws closer.  In my home we always decorate the weekend after Thanksgiving.  This year I stumbled across the cutest Christmas countdown project I've seen.  And so easy!  I created the entire project, start to finish (including drying time) in under 2 hours.  Love that!

And I so love this!

I saw it over at Eighteen 25 where they are blogging about advent countdown calendars all week!  It was so adorable I knew I had to make my own!

I bought a clipboard at Michaels.  It was so easy to take the clip off which allowed me to cover the entire base.  But I think that the original one looks cute too even though the paper only goes up to the clip.

I cut the paper to size, rounded the corners (with my corner rounding punch), and used a hole punch on the paper for the screw holes.

I've never used Mod Podge so I did a bit of google research before starting.  I saw several recommendations to spritz the back of the paper with water to keep it from getting wrinkles or bubbles.  So that is what I did.  Lightly sprayed the back of the paper with water, then spread a medium layer of Mod Podge on the clipboard only.  Then I lined up the paper on the clipboard and used my fingers to spread it as flat as I could.

I allowed the clipboard to dry for 20 minutes before coating the top with a sealer coat of Mod Podge.

I printed the title at a font size of 50 in a text box sized 2.75 by 4.75.  I used the free font Elise from KevinandAmanda.com.  I added some sparkly brads and gradient jewels just for fun.  FYI, I did Mod Podge the mat onto the clipboard.  When I tried to Mod Podge the title, the ink smeared everywhere (even though it had been drying for 30+ min).  I had to pull off the white paper, reprint, and glue it down again.  This time I didn't Mod Podge the top of the title.  :)

I've been dying for the chance to use these adorable svgs from SVGcuts.com.  This is the reindeer from their Christmas Cuddly Friends collection.  SO CUTE!  I love using SCAL (Sure Cuts A Lot) with my Cricut.  Who needs cartridges when you can get svgs as adorable as this?!?  I pieced that reindeer together and then Mod Podged it to the Clipboard.  Once it dried for 20 min I coated the top with Mod Podge as well to seal it.  After it had dried I added a gradient gem to his nose.  Love it!!

I printed the numbers in the font Clingy (also from KevinandAmanda.com) at size 230.  I used 8.5x11 sheets of cardstock, put the page in landscape mode and added two columns.  I made the right and left margins as tiny as they would go then centered my text.  That way I could just cut the page down the middle.  I did end up cutting 1 in off the top to leave more room for my title and reindeer.  I used my corner punch to round the bottom corners as well.  If you'd like to download my word file click here. UPDATE: You must visit my new website and use the link from there to access this file. I'd love to see you over at www.ScrapInspired.com!

For a bit of color I took a red ink pad and ran it along the edge of each number card.

On the 10 card I added a cute little Mrs. Claus from the same collection as the reindeer.

On the 1 I added Santa, from the Christmas Cuddly Friends collection as well.  They are all so cute!!

To top it all off I tied a bit of ribbon to the top of the clipboard.

And here is my final product.  I can't wait until Dec 1st when I can put it out!  I am so in love with this Advent Countdown Calendar!

Try one out!  If you do leave me a comment with a link! I'd love to see yours!

Kids Live Here

Awhile ago (like back in May!) I posted some pictures I took of my boys playing outside at our new house along with a Photoshop tutorial on recomposing an image.  This weekend I FINALLY got around to scrapping those photos.

Once again I have a photo of my inspiration page but can't find the original post.  I do know that it was done by Autumn Baldwin over at Write.Click.Scrapbook.  Wish I could link you up to the actual post, but since I can't find it I'll just link you to the website.  So totally love that place!

The original layout was done in 8.5x11 and I wanted to use 12x12.  So I just stretched the sketch.  I actually used the same size photos (4x6 and 2x3), just added one more and had more space around the mat.  That allowed more of my cute little stars to show through.  This is also a digital layout, but totally easy to translate into paper!

The green block I used to mat all my photos was too large to fit through my printer.  Since I really liked the look of the type on the background paper I used a scrap of the green paper and ran that through my printer.  You can still obviously see that it is a separate piece of paper, but I like how it blends in with the background.

To coordinate with the stars on the paper I did a bit of stitching.  I chose to attach the star to the paper and then stitch.  Which worked ok, but did get a little bit tricky when needing to turn the paper.  In hindsight I probably would stitch the star first and then attach to the paper.

Because I maintained the photo sizes from the inspiration layout I had a lot more extra space for a title.  I originally intended to just use the title directly on the patterned paper, similar to the original design.  When I put it on the paper I discovered that the background had such a large design on it, the title got lost.  So I decided to back it with a blue square.

I cut the title on my Cricut using SCAL (Sure Cuts A Lot).  Once I added the blue paper I wanted to give it more oomph.  So I pulled out my new bracket punch.  I liked the negative space left by the punch but wanted something more.  So I inked the brackets and layered them onto the frame.

To give some added depth I popped the bracket up.  Whenever I use pop dots I keep the sheet they come on and  use it for things like this.  I cut some small strips from the edge of the pop dots paper and used those.  The dots themselves would have been too big.

I love that my boys now have a fun place to play outside, and I love that we have this layout to remember our first month in the new house!

Let's Go to the Movies!

When my oldest son was 3 years old I decided to try taking him to the movies.  The local movie theater showed kids movies in the AM for only a buck.  For two more dollars you could have drinks, popcorn, and candy.  I was so excited to have this time together seeing a "real" movie.  Unfortunately my son was not so excited.  He loved the snacks and the time with Mama, but every time we went he decided 15-20 min into the movie that it was too scary.  :)  One of our outings I brought my camera and took some shots of the two of us together.  

These shots were your standard, hold the camera away from yourself and shoot.  By creative cropping you can't really tell that my arm is holding the camera.  It did take lots of clicking to get any good shots.  Holding a D-SLR like that is not the easiest thing in the world.  :)

I loved the yellow patterned paper and thought it went well with these photos.  Usually I back pictures and papers with white.  This time I chose to use black.  I think it really allowed the photos and paper to pop.

I chose to utilize a photo strip on the right page because it reminded me of a filmstrip.  The movie embellishments were the perfect accent to this page.

Whether we saw the movie or not, I loved the special time I got to spend with my oldest son.  I'll take that kind of movie mishap any day!

5 and Fabulous!

My first born turned 5 today.  How can that be?!?  Sadly he has been running a fever for the past couple of days so we had to postpone his party until next week.  He feels tons better today though so we celebrated, just us, with brownies, ice cream, candles, and a present (taken from my stash of Easter basket toys).  It was quite a success!

So in honor of my sweet boy here is one of my favorite layouts of him as a baby.

One fine October day when my first born was about 7 months old I decided to take him outside for a photo shoot.  I just put out a blanket and sat him down.  I had a lot of fun playing with angles and the focus.  How nice those days were when they would just sit and let you photograph them.  Those days are LONG GONE!  :)

I pulled my colors for the page from the outfit he was wearing.  I love the mix of the green, pale blue, and brown.  I thought that mixing color photos with sepia tone ones would make a nice contrast. To make the color photos really pop I matted them several times with a wide border of this cute leaf patterned paper.

I was so excited when I found the quote "Tall oaks from little acorns grow" in one of my vellum quote books!  It went so perfectly with my tree shots.  As I was digging through my sticker stash I found these nature stickers.  I loved the rustic bark-like look they gave the page.

My boy has grown so much in the last 5 years.

He is kind, helpful, nurturing, and so bright!  He is my joy and my heart.  I can't wait to see what this new stage of life will bring!

Building a Birthday

Since my son just turned 3, I was way behind on scrapping his 1st birthday!  My big issue was that during the party my camera died and I had to use my Mom's to finish taking pictures of the event.  Then the camera went home with her and the pics ended up on her computer.  Not that this is much of an excuse since my Mom lives about 12 min away.  Yet every time I went to scrap this event I realized I STILL didn't have the photos.  Then this past January as I was prepping for my yearly weekend crop I decided that now was the time to get the photos and finish my son's baby book.

We had a construction theme for the party.  I chose this green paper for a background because it reminded me of grass.  The photos are pretty colorful but with such simple paper I really wanted some more design to the page.  I thought this was the perfect opportunity to use my scraps.  I pulled some of my favorite blue, orange, red, and green scraps and cut them into 1x3 inch strips.  I then offset the strips in a brick pattern to make a band across the page.

Most of the photos are 3x5 with a couple of 2x3s tossed in for balance. The main birthday cake photo is a 4x6. I had bought some construction stickers and a title that said Birthday Memories. I wanted to use the Birthday part but the Memories word just didn't fit. I found the candle sticker and thought that would make a great 1. So then I started trying to figure out how to make the st for 1st. There was an 's' in memories so that was easy. I then cut up the M and the i and created a 't.' It's not perfect, but it works for me!

I had fun using construction words in my journaling.  This page is very simple, but so me.  I really enjoyed finding a way to use up some of my favorite scraps and FINALLY finishing this page.  I felt like I really "built" a wonderful page to celebrate a wonderful day! (tee hee)

Baby Room Decorations

My sister's baby shower was today.  She is on bed rest so we had to cancel her original shower two weeks ago and drive it to her today (she lives 2 hours away).  I have spent quite a bit of time lately on her gift and REALLY wanted to post it, but had to wait until after the shower...so she couldn't peek!

I started by making a baby name collage for each baby...btw she is having twins, a boy and a girl!  I got the idea from Amy's blog.  She makes awesome baby name collages.  Can you find the one I patterned Belle's after?

The colors in the twins room is pink and brown for Belle and green and brown for Aiden.  The patterns on the quilts are very retro.  I tried to recreate that feeling in the collages.  The space on the right fits a 4x6 photo.

Using a tip I got from Amy's blog I cut the letters with my Cricut out of cereal boxes and then out of paper.  It's a way to make your own chipboard.  It allowed me to pop up the letters to give it depth.








My sister also wanted something to hang on the walls that was a little more child like.  So I made her this set of pictures using the Cuddly Animals set  from SVGcuts.com

And here they are framed.

It was such a joy for me to be able to make something for my niece and nephew.  Neither my sister, or I, could find what she was wanting anywhere online or in stores.  Being able to make your own artwork is fun, price conscious, and even better when it can be a gift!