Awesome Nerds

It's raining here in Houston. But not half as bad as they predicted it would rain…and flood! Schools and businesses were closed yesterday and it barely sprinkled. I think everyone was in a panic after the flooding we had a few weeks ago. I suppose it's better to be safe and over cautious than sorry after the fact.

But because I worked from yesterday, and therefore didn't have to commute, I had a free hour to scrapbook on a weekday. That's really unusual for me. I come home so tired and drained. The last thing I want to do is sit at my desk. But yesterday I got to do that and here's what I made.

It's a totally just for fun page without any journaling. The photos are from Kim & Eric's 30th birthday party last Saturday. I might add just that somewhere but for now I'm happy with it like it is.

I used my Have a Little Fun Today Scrapbook Circle kit. The title is from The Cut Shoppe.

The wacky color combo just might be my favorite part! I thought the paper went so perfectly with Kim's green dress. But the pattern was so busy I only wanted to use a wee bit.

And since there were pops of red in the photos (Eric's shirt and the red lips prop) I pulled out the few red embellishments that were in the kit: the red acetate star and red flair badge. I wanted red in three different places so I outlined the heart in the title with red stitching.

I also wanted the title to be more pronounced, since the patterned paper by itself didn't have enough of a pronounced edge. So I messily (a word?) outlined the letters in pencil. I didn't use black on the layout and since the patterned paper had a really great gray in it already, I thought the pencil would be the better option over a black pen.

There were yellow banners hanging behind us in the photos, and they very nearly matched the yellow in the tag included in the kit. So I had to incorporate it onto the page and in the crook of that "e" seemed the best place. It filled in the negative space really well in the end.

Like I said early, there's such an odd concoction of color on this page, but I think it's why I like it!

The rest of my embellishing is fairly minimal. A few enamel dots and then this quote.

The quote was actually on the branding strip for the triangle patterned paper. I cut it off and was about to throw it away when I noticed the little hand with the feather pen. It was such a perfect sentiment for this page.

This was an awesome little deviation from my regular work week. I liked getting an extra just for fun page in and am going to figure out how I can keep it up!

It's helped that I'm logging my time this week, to get a better understanding of what I'm doing. The goal is to be able to really focus on doing what I love to do.

Anandi shared this book ("I Know How She Does It: How Successful Women Make the Most of their Time" by Laura Vanderkam) in the Paperclipping Forums. I purchased a copy and started reading it. I'm having a bit of trouble making my way through it, but I think the underlying messages are good. I checked out Laura's website and become more interested in her 168 Hours book and the free content she had available.

I'm thinking I'll do a separate blog post about this since I clearly have some stuff to say! I'll leave it at this for now. Here's me wishing you a lovely (and non-flooded) day!

cheers & besos,

Birthday Brunch

I made layouts! Oh man have I missed making layouts! Like I mentioned before, the whole Project Life thing has been taking up a lot of my creative time. So last weekend I was determined to make some good old fashioned layouts. 

Since it had been awhile, I was a bit stuck, creatively that is. So I turned to my Simple Scrappers monthly mag and just started playing around with the sketches.

I was really influenced by Jennifer's take on the sketch. I added in a doily and that vellum die cut because of her :)

I took my color inspiration from our clothes, choosing papers that coordinated with each of our outfits. It made for a wacky color combo. Both those always end up being my favorites!

I also got to use some of my new Studio Calico goodies. I NEED more of these oh so fabulous gold letter stickers.

The finishing on this was so simple. A few enamel dots, date stamp and just a tiny smattering of gold mist.

It's such a clean page and because of that, the photo really stands out. Love that!

cheers & besos,

Monochromatic Birthday

My birthday was last Friday! Oh my birthday...that whole day went by in a blur. I planned a fun party for my friends and asked if everyone could wear wigs! I thought it'd be fun to celebrate the last birthday of my 20's with something fun and crazy.

We took some great group photos of us in our crazy fun colored wigs. Obviously, I really wanted them to stand out. So I took on Jennifer's left-brained Color Challenge from Art + Science and only worked with neutrals. 

It was soooo hard! All I wanted to do was add in neon pink! But I refrained. And I think, the page came out the better for it. Instead, I used a lot of black and white elements plus gold and a touch of gray.

Us in those wigs definitely became the focal point!

Lately, I'm absolutely loving digital elements. And Two Peas is giving us some completely fabulous options! And of course, since black and white has become such a big part of my scrapbooking, I'm loving all of the October releases!

For this page, I incorporated some fabi printables and a freebie die cut from a few months back. (Snag it now!! They're available again for just a short while)

My Cameo cut the freebie die cut perfectly and I used it as a mask with some Heidi Swapp Gold Lame Color Shine (my favorite!). It didn't mask very well in certain parts, so I drew around the shapes using my black pen--on the white parts--and my white pen for the darker parts at the bottom.

I also finally got to use my new Pebbles Alphabet Stamp.

Oh, and about the background paper, I created this background of black and white photo strips in PSE and printed it out on white orange peel cardstock. All the photos were edited using Rad Lab. Heck all of my photos are edited using Rad Lab!

I had fun making this page. I had fun this night! Be prepared to see this photo and others like it over and over again. It was just so fun =)

cheers & besos,

Hello Today

Morning yall! Wow, I never expected this much of response for the giveaway! Thank you all for commenting. It's going on until Sunday, so if you haven't already comment while you have the chance.

This morning, I just wanted to do a quick share of a fun page I made over the weekend. It's not for any challenges, I didn't use any kits, I just grabbed some stuff from my "new goodies" drawer and played.

I'm loving the look of stacked photos these days. And thankfully, these photos had enough "dead" spaces for me to layer them on top of each other. And I got to cover up our messy brunch table.

I used more goodies from The Pier collection by Crate Paper. I love it so much!!

I loved how the photos looked on this neutral background color. It made them pop AND meant I could add color with my embellishments. I had fun clustering these around the page.

Just a sprinkling of gold Color Shine and I was done with my page.

Thanks for stopping by! Happy Monday everyone =)

cheers & besos,

LBD: Brunch with Lauren

Happy Friday yall!! Oh geez...that was a too much enthusiasm. After last night's escapades I kinda can't believe I had the energy to muster even that!! =)

But I digress....

Today I wanted to share another Little Black Dress Kit layout with yall!

I used a sketch from my old Bright Ideas class for this layout. I had a lot of photos I wanted to share on one page. So lining them all up along the edges was the best way to go.

I left a few of the "boxes" open and added some patterned paper and die cuts for embellishing. The tea cup is in reference to Ms. Lauren's favorite song. She howls with laughter whenever we sing "I'm a little tea pot short and stout..." and move her arms to the words in the song. It's the cutest thing!

I added some of the great fringe for more texture. In pink of course, since we're all girls :)

I created and die cut my title using the Silhouette and added some glittery Thickers atop for dimension.

And with just the littlest bit of stamping, I was done!

cheers & besos,

Travel Birthday Cards

It's class time!!! I'm so excited about Camp Scrap guys. This morning I woke up and read all the handouts. And today, because I got out of work a bit early, I came home and watched the videos. 

Day one and I'm having fun! So much fun I made a few cards. They weren't really inspired by the class or the videos. I really just wanted to make something after seeing May craft a few of her projects. She was just so excited, I couldn't help myself. Infectious (in a good way) would be the best way to describe May =)

So here we go!

Kim & Eric (the ones that just got married) are off for their honeymoon on Monday. It was a bit delayed, mainly because they're teachers and wanted to wait for summer. But coincidentally (or perhaps not) it's also their birthdays next week. (Seriously, could they not be the cutest couple?!) I made them a few travel themed birthday cards to celebrate!

Kim's card is airmail themed. I just wanted to use that tape really! I pulled some stickers and chipboard and then grabbed a London themed post it tab to stamp her birthdate on. I like including people's birthdays on their cards or on the envelopes. It adds a ton of personalization with literally no effort.

And since Eric is Mr. Outdoors, I so wanted his to be boy-ish and rugged. I knew I had to use that compass. It just screams ERIC to me. I also got inky and used my stamps and mists to jazz up the card base.

I love how these look together. I had so much fun making them. And I've discovered that I like making cards with people in mind rather than just random creations. I think they come out so much better!

And I so love these two people. They are the cutest and the most fun. I hope they have a blast on their honeymoon. They deserve it!

That's all for today folks. But I'l be back soon with Little Black Dress kit pages and a few videos, I started one of my summer projects and I'll be talking about what I'm planning and how I'm working through this class. See guys, a totally great summer!

cheers & besos,

K&E Card

I can't believe I'm only just now getting around to sharing this. It's only been, what 3 months!!!

Here's the wedding card I made for Kim & Eric. It came a few days after the wedding, but I think it's all the better since I got to use a photo from the big day.

I created an "E" card (ha, pun!) in Silhouette and die cut it from Kraft cardstock. Then I printed a photo onto vellum and glued it to the backside of the "E". I made sure to choose an "E" that was thin so that you could still see the photo well enough.

The insides of the cards are always the hardest part for me! But I think I managed this one. Love that when the card is closed you can see the words peeking through the vellum.

And then I slipped it into a purple envelope (one of her bridal colors). They loved it! Eric thought I had made it for me. Kim explained, "No amor, it's for Espinoza..."

It may be 3 months later, but I'm still so happy for my friends. Congrats again you guys!

cheers & besos,

LBD: 8 1/2 x 11 Layouts

More Little Black Dress kit pages, for your viewing pleasure today. Here are two 8 1/2 x 11 pages I put together. Don't adjust your screens, that second page is meant to be tilted. Loved getting to work with the bright fun colors in the Miss Maggie kit.

cheers & besos,

First Video

My first video! I did it! And it was fun =) Not easy but still fun. Bear with me guys, this was my first ever video. I was having to learn iMovie this morning as I went along. But luckily it's pretty straight forward. And as I say in the video, apologies for the shaky cam! I'll work on it for next time.

Here's the Shimelle sketch I based my page off of:

...and some close-ups of the finished layout! 

Let me know what you think!

cheers & besos,

LBD: GIRLS Mini

I mini booked! It's been so long since I've hand made a mini start to finish. This was a little labor of love.  I worked on it in little bits over about two weeks.

I used my Little Black Dress kit, my Silhouette Cameo, Primrose Color Shine, 1 sheet of white cardstock and a sheet of pink to create this mini! I even designed all of the cuts and made my own mini printables for each of the pages.

My inspiration came from the show GIRLS. It's an HBO show that I really liked Season 1. Season 2? Meh, not so much. Essentially it's about 4 recent grads living in Brooklyn. There's a lot of Sex & the City references but there's really not much there beyond the fact that 4 female friends interact. I'm not sure that I'd recommend it to ya. The content is a bit riske. But maybe you like that, I don't know.

But anyhow, they have a really great show opener. It's literally just the world GIRLS in a great deco font on a plain background. So simple and classic! I found a few articles about it, you can read more here.

I wanted to create a mini about my own GIRLS. This one features my top 5 ladies. After Mama who is clearly numero uno, they really aren't in any particular order. They're all my besties though!

The mini book is a match book. I was directly inspired by Kristina Nicolai-White's video on Two Peas. I'll warn you, this post is very photo heavy. But aren't all mini book posts? I want you to see the details! So I'll stop typing now and let you feast your eyes on my latest and last Little Black Dress kit creation.

cheers & besos,

LBD March Layouts

Hey there! I'm so excited to share my first pages for the Little Black Dress Kit club, using the A Chance for Luck kit. I've just shared all the bits and pieces you get from this kit and now I want to show you my layouts!

I loved the monochromatic look of the papers so I used a bunch on this page about me. I shared 5 things about life right now in March 2013.

1. I am a new member to the Little Black Dress Kit club! (I should probably have added design team member in there. But as I was doing this at 1am I wasn't actually thinking straight!)
2. Wishing I could sleep more. This year has already been a whirlwind. Off to San Antonio for work this week. (Ha! See item one)
3. So loving anything metallic right now & am wearing my latest favorite dress in this pic.
4. Losing weight! Down 10 lbs since the new year & hoping to lose much more.
5. Planning my holidays for the year. I want to make it to Australia but will definitely by visiting the Pacific Northwest with MT this summer.

I used my Silhouette to cut out these tear drop shapes. They're fairly similar to the silver pattern on my dress. But these I backed with all the great grays & neutrals. I dappled some gold Heidi Swapp Color Shine (which btw I absolutely adore. I bought all the colors!!) And added title on top of a piece of wood veneer.

This is for my monthly black cardstock challenge. I don't use this rich hue enough in my scrapbooking. So I'm hoping to share a monthly page using this overlooked neutral.

The next page features one of my favorite families. My friends Susie & Gus welcomed baby Lauren last August and they are the absolute cutest. I love this photo of the three of them. I snapped it at Kim & Eric's wedding last month.

I had fun with the background paper and did some painting with pink mist. Then I outlined the hearts and added in a few of my own. There's so much love in this little family love had to be the theme.

I used that kraft butterfly I was talking about, instead of hoarding it like I wanted to. And I used some wood veneer, a Silhouette cut and a little kraft envelope to anchor the photo and create a title.

This last page is just fun. I loved the Studio Calico patterned paper, with it's neutral gray color and its diagonal stripes. They were just begging to be filled in with pops of color and a bit of texture.

I used some patterned paper strips and a few of the great trims. I like all the color on here since we're all wearing different colored clothes in the photos. I added just a bit more dimension with the gorgeous gold buttons and the red brads that came in the kit.

Next, I'm sharing the two cards I made. Check back in just a few for them =)

cheers & besos,