8 1/2 x 11 Love

Bah! The colors in the photos are driving me nuts! They printed too dark and under exposed. I will most definitely be reprinting them here at home. So try not to let them distract you too much =)

I have a deep and abiding love for 8 1/2 x 11 sized layouts. There's just something about their proportions! I can't quite put my finger on it but they are definitely pleasing to my eyes. I wrote a post over on the Scrapbook Circle blog featuring the two 8 1/2 x 11 sized layouts I made with the You are my Favorite main and This was Fun add-on.

There are some master 8 1/2 x 11 scrappers out there. Off the top of my head I can think of Cathy Zielske, Mel Blackburn, Sasha Farina, & Marcy Penner.

Do you scrapbook in this size? Share some links in the comments if you're so inclined!

cheers & besos,

Summer Camp Challenge

I kind of can't remember the last time I was this excited to share a page! I spent a quiet Friday evening putting this together. 

Jennifer posted a fun challenge called Summer Camp in the Simple Scrapper Facebook Group. It was a re-run of a fun challenge/event the community did in 2013, before I joined. So this whole exercise was new to me. I had so much fun playing along!

Without giving anything about the challenge away, here's the direction I was given for my page:

Story Direction-Event or Trip
Page Background-White or cream cardstock
Paper Selection-No patterned paper
Journaling Style-Long column
Design Foundation-Asymmetrical clusters
Embellishing Rule-Mixed title work

I wasn't at all worried about not being able to use any patterned paper. And it definitely helped that my background was white cardstock. Because then I was able to create my own background with the help of mists and stencils and stamps!

It also meant that my photos and the colors I worked with really popped of the page!

Event or Trip was my assigned subject. I did one better and combined the two. The page is about an international music and dance festival we just happened to wander into when I visited Prague.

What better to scrapbook this adventure with, than my Ali Edwards "Go" Story Stamp & Kit. I loved all of the orange in it so I played that up as much as I could. I pulled out two journaling cards, just one of the chipboard pieces, the acetate geotag, plastic "go" and of course, the Story Stamps.

I used just about every last one of the stamp phrases and paired it with my Hero Arts Ombre Butter to Orange ink pad. It's subtle but I kept the ombre going when I stamped down in a long column on the left of my page. I sprinkled my journaling in with all of the stamping.

The embellishing included a lot of geotags and the stamped "awesome memory". I also mixed two sets of alphas and my own handwriting to create the title. The "go" could be considered part of the title, but really I see it more as embellishing.

I love playing along with challenges. The more restricted, the more I end up loving the pages. At least that's how it seems. This page is definitely evidence of that for me. I love love love how it turned out!

To my fellow Simple Scrappers, Jennifer posted the Summer Camp Challenge in the Facebook group on June 29 if you're looking for it.

If you're not a Simple Scrapper member, there's more info on it here.

cheers & besos,

Lovely

Gooooood morning! Or afternoon depending on where you are....or when you're reading this :) I'm up bright and early today. For no particular reason other than its Saturday and I don't want to waste a minute of it! That's kind of weird huh? Instead of taking the opportunity to sleep in, my body actually wakes itself up. But that means I'm more productive...or something.

Here's me being productive at 6am on Saturday. I didn't of course, just make this. But this page has been sitting in my draft folder for weeks and I'm finally taking time to share.

It's (obvs) another Mixed Media class creation. And all yellow!! For the layout, I followed along with another Simple Scrapper sketch from this month's Spark mag.

I even did some hand stitching. I wanted to make sure that you could tell this was a heart so I cut the shape out in vellum and stitched it to the page. I think it defines the shape a bit more.

And that's all she wrote first thing this Saturday morning. Now I get to figure out what to do with the rest of my day! Stay home and rest (I feel like I'm getting sick) or head out to the Highland Games taking place here in town? Decisions. Decisions!

cheers & besos,

Mixed Media: Mostly Ladylike

Pink & purple party over here!! I went for it. Girl-ed it up as much as I could. I don't often do that. No idea why I don't. But I'm thinking I need to do it more often because this was just fun.

This, of course, is another page I made from the Studio Calico Mixed Media class. You can see the Neocolors in action here on the sides, they're the brightest pink you can see.

I'm so glad I opened up the Crate Paper Vellum die cut pack because this "Most Ladylike" one was perfect for this page. I amended it to say "Mostly Ladylike" but I loved that it had a blue ribbon feel to it. Very appropriate for a picture from the rodeo, no?

I added in bits of stitching here and there just to add some dimension to an otherwise fairly flat page.

With just a few lines of journaling and a date stamp, the page was complete.

cheers & besos,

Mixed Media: Weekend

I have been hemming and hawing over here trying to decide if I should share this layout, or a bunch of layouts, or a giveaway that's coming up. But no, I just need to not think too much and post!!

Ok. Here goes.

How was your weekend? Mine was lovely. I spent a happy Saturday in a mixed media frenzy. I cranked out three pages using gesso, modeling paste, mists, neocolors, gelatos, stamps and stencils. I was only planning to make the one page but was so inspired to keep playing. Celine's video from her Mixed Media class are what got me started. To note: you can still sign up!

Here's the first page I made in a blue and green color scheme. It was my first stab at the whole thing. And I thought while I was at it, I'd try a new approach. I just went to town on the paper and didn't think about my end game. I don't often create a background page before deciding on photo placement and size. But since this was my first attempt, I gave myself permission to just play and see and how it went.

I ended up really loving the process! I discovered new fun techniques (like playing with Neocolors) and really just lost myself in the play. So much so that when I went to create a "normal" page after this, I just couldn't get it going!

Since I had enjoyed the artistic play so much, I knew I couldn't stop. Creating pages like this is a bit more labor intensive. So I knew that if I had the desire to do it, I'd better keep at it while the iron was hot!

The background paper is the real star of this show, so I kept the embellishing to a minimum. These are so soooo old rub-ons from Making Memories. I'm thinking Heidi Swapp must have worked for them back then. It looks like her handwriting, no?

A smattering of patterned paper and a Two Peas flair + tape, an enamel shape and some stamping around the photo are what did the trick.

...and I made it through there relatively unscathed. I have no idea why the hemming and hawing over the what and the when was taking up so much space in my brain! I have to remember to just let go and dive in sometimes.

With that said, I'll be sharing the other pages I concocted through out the week and I have a fabulous giveaway coming at you as well! Check back for that.

Ok back to real life. Off to shower before Game of Thrones starts!

cheers & besos,

Stash Bash cont.

Second page for the Stash Bash over at Simple Scrapper. I pulled some old product, used a new Wilna die cut file from Two Peas and a bit of modeling paste for this page about my nephew. The prompt is from last month's SS Spark Mag.

One more ticked off my list. One page to add to my scrapbook. Lots oh goodies heaped onto a page!

cheers & besos,

The Note Mini

Is it Friday yet?! I'm sooo ready for the weekend. This has been my first full week back in the office in a few weeks, so this weekend is particularly warranted. I'm excited because we're driving over to Austin for it! It's my bestie's birthday and we're going to celebrate that and her new job and spend it as a last hurrrah of sorts, because she's getting ready to move.

So lots going on & I'm stoked!

I should wait until Saturday to post this, but I was just so excited I couldn't wait! Since it is her birthday, I had to make her a gift. I think being my best friend, puts her in the top spot as recipient of Jamie projects. She's had a lot of homemade gifts over the years. [See those here and here and here and here and here. See I wasn't kidding!]  But I think this year's gift is my favorite.

I made her a mini book! It's of all of our inside jokes and silly ramblings. Way back in college, we thought we were sooo cute, or cool, or something crazy like that. So we started a Note on Facebook and kept a running record of all of our inside jokes that year. And beyond really. We still comment on it from time to time. It makes me smile and laugh and giggle and outright snort with laughter at times. I love it so much! 

Since you never know if Facebook is going to update and get rid of the whole thing, I thought it best to make a mini book of some of the stuff in there. This whole project is at least 6 months in the making. I had the idea and bought the stuff for it ages and ages ago. But then never sat down to actually do it. Thanks to Celine's Mini Book class, I made it happen!!

I love it so much. Not only for posterity reasons but also because it's pretty. I'm so proud of it. And the fact that I actually did it. I tried some new things, used nearly an entire row of washi, and reminisced the whole way. Oh, and I'm so beyond happy that I made one for myself! They are very nearly identical, so I'm only showing you hers. But I knew I'd want one for myself and I'm sooooo happy I made sure to do it.

So enough with words. Here are the photos. And I'm warning you THERE'S A  LOT OF PHOTOS!! Tons of little details. But the formula is pretty basic: pretty paper on one side, 6x6 black and white photo stitched on the other side, vellum with quotes in between. Speech bubbles were my main design element and that first pattern you see is from Amy Tangerine's Ready Set Go line and it inspired the color choices. 

cheers & besos,