Seven

I'm not a parent. Well, not to any humans. But I do have a nephew! His name is [Urijah] and if you've been following me for any bit of time, you've seen him on this blog. I love him to death! He's the only little person I've had the privilege of seeing grow up. On April 20th of this year he turned 7. SEVEN!!! Egads, where has the time gone?! I'm sure every parent...and even aunts and uncles have wondered the same.

I made a very special page to celebrate his birthday, using a sketch from the latest crop of [Simple Scrapper] goodies. And it was really simple and really easy to make! All it took was collecting some ink and a date stamp (used 3 on this page but whatevs) and going to town on some cardstock. 

I pulled colors from the shirt he was wearing in the photo. It had all of these bright little creatures on it. And then using a different ink pad for each year, I date stamped in bands across the page.

I also couldn't not use my [mega date stamp] on this page so I stamped directly onto the photo using white ink. I purchased those fantastic Bella Blvd heart enamels in every color (not joking, spent a tiny fortune on them!) so I dotted them around the page.

Below are close ups of the date stamping, which again, was so simple and fun to do!

cheers & besos,

3Muskateers

I know I declare this regularly, but I'm serious when I say this is my latest favorite page. Maybe even my most favorite page ever!

I had so much fun putting this together and I'm so glad I decided to film the process. Here's a process video of how it all came together =)

Products used: [Acrylic Sunglasses] [Marie Alphabet Stamps] [Jonah Alphabet Stamps] [May Kit] [Thankful Paper Collection] [Little Moments Paper Collection] [Little Moments Paper Stack] [Letters & Numbers--White] [Letters & Numbers--Light Gray] [Letters & Numbers--Teal] [Tim Holtz Distress Stain--Peacock Feather] [Color Theory Inkpad--Pink Lemonade] [Color Theory Inkpad--Inky Black]

Here's the original sketch which was a bit hard to see in the video:

And the original inspiration!

cheers & besos,

Family Portraits

This was the last and final page I made during the [InkieQuill] [ScrapStream] this past weekend. It was totally fun and super simple to make!

I was inspired by the shirt Joyce aka Matt's mama (as if you couldn't tell!) was wearing. It was stripped navy and had these great white flowers across it. So I pulled out some navy scraps from my scrap drawer and a few red washi tapes and stuck them down to my background paper.

I cut out some white leaves and placed them behind the photos, curling towards the edges of my page. My title was cut with the Silhouette using the print and cut feature. Although it didn't cut out quite right (i.e. what I was seeing on my screen didn't match the end result) I still went with it.

I added a few blue and red buttons and brads and some silver mist just along the sides and was done! I love it when a pages comes together quickly and easily.

As if you couldn't already tell, I had so much fun playing alongside Adele during the ScrapStream. I can't wait for the next one, which is scheduled for iNSD! This year I'll actually be able to join in on some NSD fun!

cheers & besos,

Never Bored

I've had this idea in my head for a bit now, and I'm so glad I got it into the scrapbook! This was the fourth page I made during the [InkieQuill] [ScrapStream] this past weekend. It's a super simple page using some of my newest stash: [Pink Paislee C'est la Vie 6x6 Paper Pad] [Pink Paislee C'est la Vie Washi Sheet with Foil Accents] [Pink Paislee C'est la Vie Printed Chipboard] [Illustrated Faith Created to Create kit]

I was inspired by Adele's art journaling, so I decided to use a stencil and some modeling paste just under where I knew the photos would go. It adds this great tone on tone texture and is just what this fairly flat and simple layout needed.

Pops of color, gold, enamel dots, patterned paper...check. check. check and check! All of my favorites in one super simple page.

cheers & besos,

Inspiration Inventoried: My Sweetheart

I decided to go ahead and put together a quick Inspiration Inventoried video for this page, which was my favorite from the weekend.

Here are a few of the links I mentioned in the video:

[InkieQuill]

[ScrapStream No. 3]

InkieQuill [Heart Embellishments]

Jen Schow's [A Little Piece of my Heart] layout

Elle's Studio [Heart Digital Cut File]

And here are the still images from the page!

cheers & besos,

ScrapStream

I had so much freakin fun participating in Adele aka InkieQuill's ScrapStream No. 3! It was like cropping with a friend. I got up to my own scrapbook mischief and made five pages. I created with no rhyme or reason. Just went through some of my latest photos, printed them in sizes I thought would work (some didn't) and made pages without kits or parameters. Like I said, so much fun! 

If you're interested in watching the not live ScrapStream you can see it here [Part 1] [Part 2] I'm definitely planning to re-watch the parts I was asleep for.

I think I'll blog about one of these each day this week! So check back to find out more :)

cheers & besos,

5 Favorites

I was in Nashville for work last week so I fell behind with my blogging. So sorry about that! But here's a page I made last month for Scrapbook Circle.

I don't often make no photo pages but I thought it'd be fun to make a list of my 5 favorites right now.

The Basic Grey banners were the jumping off point for the page. They reminded me of something you'd hang on your gallery wall. So I made my own little gallery wall on a piece of white cardstock.

cheers & besos,

Photo of the Year

How many of you, my fellow scrapbookers, have felt thankful for this hobby? Have felt so blessed for taking the time to capture everyday moments? The mundane parts of life. The simple parts of life. 

I could not be more thankful for this photo, a seemingly boring photo. It's the only photo I have of my family of four--me, my partner, our cat and dog. We lost my cat just a few weeks later. So there's no chance of ever capturing our life like that again.

It isn't the greatest of images, but I don't really care. It's the idea behind it that matters the most. And that is why I consider it the best photo of the year.

For the page, I used the March Scrapbook Circle kit and this cut file from The Cut Shoppe. I manipulated it a bit in the Silhouette software and chose to only cut out the outer two "negative" rings. The patterns are from 4 sheets of patterned paper but I used the A and B sides of 3 of them, so lots of variety!

I kept my journaling and the embellishing really simple. Just a few typed lines and a smattering of foam hearts + the title and die cut. I wanted to include that Pinkfresh Studio house die cut because this is what life was like for us at home.

I'm so happy I set the timer and actually took this photo. I'm glad that I bothered to do it! Because there was ample opportunity and I just never got around to it. I'm making a resolution here and now. Get one everyday shot with the three of us in it, every month. Adding it to the bujo right now!

cheers & besos,

Me + You

My grandma is one of my most favorite people in the world. She's the sweetest, kindest little lady. Exactly how you'd picture or want a grandma to be: loving, patient, fun! 

One of my favorite memories with Nana is the time she took me, my brother and my cousin to the waterpark. They have these really high water slides that can be scary for an 8 year old. My brother and my cousin teased me mercilessly about how scary it would be, so I chickened out and left them to ride. 

I walked back to Nana and told her about it. And she assured me that they weren't that scary and said we would ride on it together. So there was tiny young me and my grandma, climbing up the several flights of stairs and riding the ride together. 

She didn't want me to miss out because I was scared. And by doing it with me, she helped me get over that fear. I spent the rest of that summer flying down the "scariest" of water slides and having so much fun!

I didn't really realize until know, that that lesson has helped me my whole life. Conquer your fear Jamie, because what's waiting on the other side of that fear might be a lot of fun.

I used the February Scrapbook Circle kit and the Circle Round up challenge to make this page. The products reminded me so much of my Nonie. She loves flowers and rarely passes on anything leopard print. So the second I saw the pink leopard print I knew I wanted to scrapbook about her. And lucky me, we took a few cute photos together at Thanksgiving last year.

The page was created for the Circle Round up challenge which is basically a recipe challenge, take a bit of this a little of that, add some sprinkles and you’re done.

But I think what I was most inspired by was the challenge image, it's a few circles layered on top of each other. I'm such a big fan of all things circles that I used it as the starting point for the page, hand cutting three large patterned paper circles to serve as the foundation for the design.

Journaling reads: 

"People say I'm like her. If that's even a little bit sure, I'll take it. She's the sweetest person I know; so very loving, generous and kind. You can't help but love Nonie!"

I photographed this page using the newly launched Shotbox. I'm still trying to figure out if I like it or not. Anyone else have one? I'd love to hear what you think and am planning to write a review in the coming weeks!

cheers & besos,

7th Anniversary

Well that passed quickly. Can't believe Matt and I just celebrated our 7 year anniversary! We actually marked the occasion this year, so I had to scrapbook it. We usually forget because the day we call our anniversary is right between both of our birthdays, so there's a lot of other celebrating going on.

The page was made with the Scrapbook Circle Start Fresh kit and the Shine Bright (sold out) add-on. I loved those big numbers! And I totally took advantage of them being transparent. I love them laid out on top of each other. It helps reinforce the idea of all of the years running together and of them building on top of each other.

Because so much was going on with the numbers, I kept the rest of the page very simple. Title, journaling, a single embellishment cluster and a bit of patterned paper in the corner to balance it all out.

I blogged about this, which introduces a new challenge, over on the Scrapbook Circle blog. You'll have to head that way to hear more about it. I'm so excited about the concept!

cheers & besos,

My Tribe

I hope everyone had a great holiday last week! Ours was very low key. But I'm still very happy to be home in Houston and off for the entire week! I have big plans to get some organizing done, do a bit of scrapbooking, some planning. It's gonna be good y'all.

I'll kick off by sharing a page from my Tell your Story Scrapbook Circle gallery. It's for the Lifting You challenge and you can read more about it over on the SBC blog.

I've had this "story" on my list for awhile now. There's was nothing in particular that sparked this memory for me, when I sat down to play with the kit. Really I think I just wanted to spend some time with these sweet faces for a bit of time. I miss everyone so much!

I lived with these people. I studied with them. I traveled with them. We spent so much time together in the year and half when we all lived in the same two cities. Sincerely, these were some of the best days of my life. And I just wanted to spend some time reliving those days.

Which really is the beauty of scrapbooking. It's not just taking the time to remember. It's almost like you're honoring the memory by documenting it. I love this hobby. It just makes me happy =)

cheers & besos,