U R 5

Hey there! I have something a wee bit different to share, a non-PL pocket page! Pssssttt....I loved it =) 

We celebrated Urijah's 5th birthday on Saturday. My parents and brother drove in from San Antonio to spend the day with our favorite little guy. Bless his heart, he was soooo sick! But he kept trying to have fun. 

I snapped a few dozen photos and whittled my scrapbook worthy selections down to these few. I thought the randomness of them all would be perfect in the pocket page format.

For these spreads, I used a whole amalgamation of Studio Calico Project Life cards and also some Silhouette cuts. The front side was a green and blue color scheme and the back side was black, yellow and red. I think the monochromatic color schemes are my favorite part!

To spice it up a bit, I used my gelatos to custom color this card the the big 5. I really liked the bright pop of color it added to the spread.

My journaling was printed on a shipping tag and tucked into this stripped paper bag. It matched the colors so perfectly! I also couldn't resist adding a skull and crossbones. This one was so cute!

I see your value pocket page. You made things quick and easy. You also forced my brain to think things through a bit differently. And that is always a good thing.

cheers & besos,

The Bean

Hey there! How you going? It's been a lovely lazy stay at home and do nothing but scrap kind of day. Exactly what I needed after the birthday party that was thrown at my house yesterday. It was only immediate family but still, lots of ruckus in my tiny little apartment.

Today, I needed to do some quiet scrapping. Just me, my paper and my pictures. Here's one of the pages I made.

I used (of course) a Simple Scrappers sketch and a ton of fun embellishments. At first, I wasn't so excited to use this sketch in particular. For some reason it didn't feel me. So I put it aside for a few days and just now got back to it. I gave up on another idea that just wasn't going to work for these photos in this configuration and I'm so much happier for having let it go!

Since I'm taking the SC Stitched class, I thought I'd add some fun colorful stitching to the page. I hand drew a bean and cut it out of vellum before I stitched down the shape and spelled out the title.

Then it was just a matter of making a line of circular embellishments down the side of the photos. That's the part that made it me!

It was really fun to just go to my travel drawer--and yes, I have one of those--pull out a ton of embellishment packs and some ink and just go to town.

Balance is always the number one design element in these kinds of things. I think I made it work out.

With that I'll leave you to your Sunday evenings. I'm off to watch some Game of Thrones and Madmen!

cheers & besos,

Stash Bash Fin

Hiya! Sitting on the couch, finally watching the 3rd Season of GIRLS and balancing a kitten on my lap along with the computer. It's a gorgeously sunny day here in Houston and the BF is off at the rodeo. That's what's going on in a nutshell. And now I'm sharing the last page I made for the Simple Scrapper Stash Bash.

This was based off of one of Jennifer's fabulous Jump Starts video. I used the Studio Calico Office Hours PL kit for the page, as well as the printables and some of the awesome die cuts from this month [Brit Cut, Tea Cuts]. They were too perfect for a London themed page and also why I wanted to scrapbook these pictures.

I loved playing along in the Stash Bash. Have to confess, I didn't put even a millimeter of a dent in my crazy out of control stash, but I'm planning to.

Here's just a quick recap of the layouts I made this weekend as part of the event. I can't wait for the full one in September!

cheers & besos,

Starting Points

I start pages a bunch of different ways.
Some times its because I want to scrap a particular photo.
Sometimes its because I want to play with fun product. (Or because I bought something and then felt guilty for not using it.)
Some times its for a challenge.
Some times its with a story in mind.

I started this one, because I wanted to use those awesome teepees on a page! It may have been why we made a teepee that day ;) But that page isn't about teepees. It's about Urijah and his play habits. With his autism, he tends to play alone, quietly in his own little world. It's part of what makes him, him.

I wanted to make a fun, colorful and playful page. The real jumping off point was that ombre washi. It's where I pulled the majority of my colors from and then I threw in some black and white. Loved the tribal look to that Glitz Design patterned paper. The background is very lightly stamped with one of their awesome rolling stamps. I couldn't pass up an opportunity to add more triangles.

What starts you down the road to making a page? Is it a story? A photo? Some fun product? I'd love to hear =)

cheers & besos,

50 Wishes Card

Egads! This month is slipping away from me! I feel like I'm losing all kinds of time. Just busy really, hopefully it'll slow down for a few weekends. And then come September, it'll get crazy again! 

So needless to say, I'm falling behind in blogging and classes and scrapping in general. I'm not so bothered, it means I'm making the memories I'll get to scrapbook later when it slows down!

This was meant to be a post for yesterday. Yesterday, because a certain adorable Mama turned the big 5-0. 50! I can't believe it really. She's a young mama, still full of gumption and spunk! I love her to bits.

For this year's birthday card, I wanted to include 50 hearts. Some of them got covered up with the bigger heart, but you get the picture. [See 2012's Card Here, See 2010's Card Here]

I used printables and digital brushes from my SC Toolbox class to create the card.

For dimension, I printed and punched a larger die cut, added some washi and glitter tape and then letter stickers and finally some enamel dots.

I played around in PSE and discovered how to add a gradient or ombre effect. Fun! I printed it out on vellum and taped it inside the card.

Happy Birthday lil Mama!!! I love you bunches and bunches!

cheers & besos,

LBD: Urijah Pages

Morning yall! I'm soooo tired! I've been running on all cylinders for what seems like quite awhile now. Busiest time at work right now and I'm still studying for that huge exam. Needless to say, I'm beat. But this exam is nearly over so I'll have my weekends back after this one. Wah hoo!!

But this morning I wanted to share a few more Little Black Dress kit pages. 

Sound good? 

Ok!

I managed some Christmas layouts with the "Don't Worry Be Happy" kit! Well they're Christmas layouts of sorts. Christmas adjacent if you will. The photos were taken during Christmas but you can't actually see the Christmas tree right next to the chair. So instead of focusing on the fact that these are holiday photos, I decided to  de-Christmas-fy them and just use my pretty kit :)

These pages are 8 1/2 x 11 (obvs) because Urijah's 2-3 year scrapbook is that size. I wanted a challenge! And it has been interesting working everything to this size. But for his 4-5 year scrapbook, I think I'll go back to good old 12x12. 

Anyway, on to the pages...

This was my take on the black cardstock challenge. I wanted just the slightest black edge to help define this page. And then I had fun playing around with a primary color scheme, especially since the photos are fairly neutral in color.

I used my Silhouette (this month's LBD) to cut the title (Fonts: Deftone Stylus & Arial Black) and after that just added some flags and my journaling. This came together so quickly and I love that I got to share this story.

This page is the last kit layout I put together. It came together so unexpectedly well too! I knew I wanted to have the photos tilt across the page like that. I knew I wanted there to be strips of patterned paper above and below. But the checker board came to me on the day and I think it makes the whole page!

I also want to point out the title! I die cut it out of black cardstock (Font: Bebas Neue) and then painted an ombre effect on it. I just free handed it with gray and the white paint. It added the perfect touch to distinguish the letters from the background.

Oh and the background is the B side to the My Mind’s Eye Lost & Found 3 “Ruby” Red Floral Paper. It's cream with a red design and then I smothered it in red mist. You can subtly see the design in real life but not so much in this photo.

And the pictures! I nearly forgot to mention them. I'm getting better at this whole Photoshop Elements thing guys! Well really, I'm getting better at goggling for and watching videos about how to do cool new things. I had fun converting these photos to black and white and then bringing Urijah and his bike back in color. The backgrounds were just too distracting and I'm happy to have de-emphasized them.

Ok, that's enough writing for 6am. Time to start my work day. Catch yall later!

cheers & besos,

Ombre Watercolor

Ombre is the design trend of the moment it seems. So naturally, I had to try my hand. I heat embossed a Tim Holtz stamp, using white embossing ink. Then used Mister Huey to watercolor on the tag. The blue turned out more green than I expected. I imagine because the original tag had a lot of yellow in it. But I like this new color none the less.

Never one to leave an inside neglected, I layered some tape and a punched butterfly to the inside and finished with a stamp. Que romantic!

cheers & besos,