Christmas is Coming!

"This year I will be done with my shopping early. This year I will be organized. This year I will bake cookies for all my friends and neighbors. This year I will enjoy the holiday and won't let the stress get to me." This is my new mantra- I vow to say it to myself whenever I feel Christmas becoming a chore. Oh how I secretly long for those childhood days when it was all filled with excitement, fun and magic. That being said I truly am one who would much rather give a gift than receive one. I just wish I could fold my arms and nod my head ala I Dream of Jeannie and have everything cleaned and decorated, bought, wrapped and baked.

To get myself started in the Christmas spirit I made a gift bag and matching card.
To make these I tried something new. I used an ink pad that has no ink. It's glue!
I then used an acrylic stamp with the glue the same as if it were ink. The applied glitter to the glue. You can use a fine lose glitter or you can purchase glitter sheets. This also works with flocking. I then used Stickles glitter glue and added bulbs to my trees. It's hard to photograph- but it's really worth the effort. Very pretty. The result is much more professional looking than in the photograph. I can think of a thousand ideas for this technique. Adding names to ribbons. Making decorative edges on To and From tags. I highly recommend trying this technique so you too can get some of the sparkle, shine and magic back into your Christmas. Last year I did a country Christmas, this year I think I just might be putting on the Ritz! Not one to usually go for "bling" I think a little glitz might be fun for a change.

Funky!

I have advice today. It's my birthday. I'm getting older and feel like this qualifies me to give advice. Be bold. Be daring. Take risks! Maybe it's just a scrapbook page- but, I went out on a fun, funky limb for this one and I love it! I stitched, I inked, I stamped. I used patterns and colors I never thought I would use. I cut and layered and then I layered some more. I say go for it! There are no rules when it comes to scrapbooking!!! Just have fun.

Oh MY GOSH she posted in her blog!!

I know- I know it's been way to long since I posted. Life went into warp speed for a while- but, things are back to normal (I hope). Anyway- I am getting caught up on my scrapping, it feels GREAT. Love this Granola line by Basic Grey. The combination of Blue and Brown seems to be my favorite lately. No the boys aren't in trouble- they spent a day volunteering to clean up a roadway to prevent all the litter and trash from winding up in rivers and creeks. This layout reminds me of something I learned recently. Whenever you are using a group of photographs it's important that one stands out and becomes the focal photograph of your layout, otherwise if all the photos are competing for attention your eye doesn't know where to look and everything becomes visually jumbled together. For this layout I chose Jake's face to be my photo focal point.

This layout left me a bit puzzled when it comes to color choices. What to do with the flourescent yellow that is in most of the photos? I decided to ignore it. What would you have done?

October

Is it just me or do you get excited when it's October 1st? To me it means the beginning of fall and all the holidays. I know that I am ready for fall clothes and fall foods and am secretly starting to think a tiny bit about Christmas. So fun.
I had a great time working on this layout. I love the pictures and I loved the paper..and the rubber stamps are so fun. Everything is by Cosmo Cricket in case you are wondering. I made the little bats, pumpkin and stars using the stamps. A little trick I used was using a hole punch to punch from my double sided patterned paper and used the little circles around the scallops. Perfectly coordinated and economical! For the journaling- I printed directly onto a photograph of pumpkin guts and then cut out and matted the strips.
The title wasn't standing out just plain black so I went around the edges and outlined using a white colored pencil- this looked to stark compared to everything else so I then went over the white with an orange pencil- I think it turned out pretty well. Thanks for looking!

Formation

Not a very complicated layout- but, I really wanted not to detract from the photo!
Always keep your eyes open for things that can be used as embellishment. The Boy Scouts of America strip at the bottom is actually from a Uniform shirt my son spilled paint on. I also saved the pockets, buttons and American Flag patch from the sleeve!

The arrows were plain chipboard that I covered with paper and then used a large nail file to sand around the edges. Taking time to do this simple step makes a world of difference!

When you have a ton of photographs surrounding a cetain theme (like I have for Scouts) look at all papers for patterns and colors that will work, don't just limit yourself to those designed for your exact theme. For example, the patterned papers used here are from the Basic Gray Mellow collection. Having papers like these will add a lot more interest to my son's finished album.

Hood Rats

Here's a tip for using leftover letters! To make the two different styles of lettering work for the title I made them work together by first adhering them to a piece of white cardstock and then cutting them out as a unit. I did this again with colored cardstock because I needed a little more punch- the result was a rather stylish title! I often wondered how people mixed and matched different letters so well.. I think this is the trick!

If you like the flowers they were fun and easy. I made them from pipe cleaners while waiting in the car to pick up my kids. I then punch a hole in the layout and stuck the "stems" through and split them like a brad... I think it turned out pretty cool!

Lake GoJumpInA

This Monochromatic layout features a paper line called Mr. Campy. It's by Cosmo Cricket and I swear they had me in mind when they designed it. These papers and the sticker were perfect for this layout which is about the tradition of the Camp Staff swimming across the lake (in full uniform) following their final formation of the summer. I made the title by printing onto cardstock and then giving it a light watercolor wash-then once it dried cutting out each letter. I like this layout because I think I told the story both in pictures and in words.