Baby Gifts

My sweet friend Susie is having a baby soon! Here name is Lauren and everyone is very excited for her to come :) We had a baby shower yesterday, so I made some hand made handicrafts as part of her gift.

First, is the baby shower card. It's very simple & sweet. I love my new Jenni Bowlin birdie punch and this was the first time I used it. I cut 4 little birds and glued a highlighting color to the back of each to give them a bit more dimension. I also pop-dotted them off the card. It helped balance the dimension of the Thickers.

And then as a gift, I used an embroidery hoop as a frame for my decoration. It was so hard to find a wood one, let me tell you! I wanted an oval but had to settle for a circle.

I dug into my stock of the original American Crafts Dear Lizzy line and had to purchase nothing but the hoop for this project. That line is perfect for a little girls room & luckily Lauren's colors are pink with touches of green. 

The pink polka dot base is some of the fabulous fabric paper. I hand stitched her name with green embroidery floss and decorated with some chipboard shapes, felt flowers, glitter buttons, crochet flowers, badges, brads, ribbons! Galore!

Ok Lauren, now hurry up and get here! But don't pop out before 11 July. Your Mommy promised!

cheers & besos,

Amy Tangerine Cards

So I've had the gorgeous Sketchbook line from Amy Tangerine since it came out. But it's just been sitting there unused! It's fun, it's bright, it's happy. But I can't figure out which photos would work with it. For the time being, I decided to make some cards.

For this one, I used one of the newer Jenni Bowlin punches and went to town on some scraps.

I even decorated the inside!

The green in this collection is gorgeous, deep and grassy. And I like the solids aren't flat, there's a lot of dimension in them as well.

Plus, I love all of the little details and these fun canvas flags.

This collection made throwing these cards together in a snap! Love it's bright happy vibe =)

cheers & besos,

Enlarged Prints

Every once in awhile I place a Persnickety Prints order. Mainly, I have them print odd and enlarged sizes because most everything else can be done here at home with my handy little PictureMate.

This month, I printed an instagram shot at 8x8 and a few of my Italy shots at 5x10. And I just wanted to quickly share two pages I made using these lovely enlarged prints.

For Memorial Day this year, me and a group of friends headed down to the beach house for a weekend of relaxation and togetherness. I made sure to get a group shot of all their lovely faces (and of course Joey being silly) and was pleasantly surprised at the quality of the instagram shot. Good to know that these can be blown up!!

I used the So Cal kit + Newport & Venice Beach add-ons and die cut some of my patterned paper scraps into those cute little tags (Papertrey Ink die cut).

Then, I added tape around the edges and letter stickers for the title & subtitle.

And finished it off with those awesome speech bubble stamps from the Venice Beach add on. Love that I got to highlight the majority of them. Having all these people in the photo helped with that!

Here's another layout I did with one of the 5x10 prints. It's a scraplift of this fabulous layout by naomiatkins, that I unearthed from the Studio Calico gallery.

Like Naomi, I played with sunbursts and doilies. But I also added some buttons & butterflies and that cute little pennant flag.

There was a bright patch of blue sky in the upper left hand corner that I covered up with a die cut tag and some letter stickers. The brilliant blue was clashing with the soft colors of the layout!

I even scraplifted Naomi's lovely title. So simple and sweet.

It's always fun working with enlarged prints. But the photo has to be really special for me to want to focus an entire page on just the one. Both of these qualify, the first because it showcases everyone who came out on Memorial Day. The second, because it's a great proof of visit shot with lost of context. Plus I look kind of cute :)

Do you scraplift enlarged photos? Would love to have you share in the comments, a favorite page if you do!

cheers & besos,

Ponte Vecchio

This page has to be my favorite of the bunch. Well my favorite of this latest batch. It's funny that both of my favorite Italy pages are of me and my Mama. 

(BTW, this layout is the other one and also one of the most favorite pages I've ever done.)

She's just so cute & lil! (If anyone gets that Parks & Rec reference high five!) I loved the colors in these photos and wanted to highlight all of the glorious tones and shades as well as make that blue pop!

cheers & besos,

Nose

Just a quick share today. I had fun with some oversize pennants, a couple of butterflies and a smattering of buttons. 

Would you believe I'm not even half way done with my Italy pics? Even after 7 pages! There was just too much to see & do! But I'm trudging through. I'm determined to finish Italy this month!!

cheers & besos

So Cal Cards

I made cards! It's been so long since I've made a batch and I'm loving these ones. I just had fun with the So Cal kit and add-ons.

Purple, pink and blue aren't colors I typical work with, but I love them together. And the Newport add-on had them all! 

I played with the stamps and some Prima Fluid chalk ink. (Seriously, those things are like butter. I like 'em a lot!) Then I just started layering: a doily, then a punched scalloped patterned paper, those gorgeous canvas butterflies that look fab when misted, the stamped sentiment and then a pin, jewel and baker's twine to finish them off.

Where the last cards were all about rounded edges and soft layers, these ones are all about angles. The Pink Paislee chevron was my starting point and I built from there.

I really like these stamps, but struggle with stamping them. The reliefs are just too shallow and I end up getting ink on them too. Does anyone else have this problem? It's driving me nuts!

Anyway, I'm resolving here and now to make more cards. I do actually like making them, even if I struggle with designing them more than I care to admit =) Everyone could use a good card once in awhile. And handmade cards, make them feel that much more special.

cheers & besos,

DUOMO Florence

I'm back with another double page layout to share! This time it's 8 1/2 x 11 size. And although I did base this off of a Double Take prompt, it's so far from the original, I'm not sure that it counts! :)

I used the Venice Beach add-on from this month's So Cal kit. I don't usually ignore the colors in my photos so much (that blue!) but I think it worked out okay in the end.

Journaling Reads:
"We spent a sunny day in Italy, walking the streets of Florence. The Duomo was by far the most impressive sight in the city. It's gorgeous red bricked dome against the blue Italian sky was everything you could imagine. We soaked up the sun and enjoyed the scenery."

I really loved working with the neutrals in this kit & adding the pops of orange and blue. And I absolutely adore those Heidi Swapp travel pennants! They're beyond gorgeous in real life. I didn't even mind the glitter!

cheers & besos,

Panda, Bella & Mario Andretti

This was a quick and easy page I put together, using a lovely sheet of Tim & Beck from the Studio Calico So Cal kit, some letter stickers & one stamped image.

The paper did all of the work!

cheers & besos,

Pisa, Italy

Choosing photos continued...

Last week I walked through how I choose photos to print. This week, I wanted to share what actually made it on the page. Apologies in advance for the wonky colors!!

I took 10 photos in Pisa and only printed 6. Of those 6 only 5 made it onto the page. The photo with my favorite composition got left off, mainly because it was horizontally oriented. If I do a re-cap or summary page, I'll more than likely include it there. So I'm not bummed that it didn't make it onto the page. And later, if it really bothers me, I'll just go back and make another Pisa page :) Simple as that.

Used my new Studio Calico So Cal kit for these photos, the main kit only. (I really wished they'd photograph the B side of the papers as well, I had no idea we'd get some green!) The colors work so well with the images.  I'm happy with my choice to scrapbook Italy this month :) It's only been 4 years!! My Mama was like "Still?" after I told her I was scrapbooking Italy. Seriously woman, you have no idea...

This double page layout was inspired by the Double Take class Nic Howard & May Flaum just finished teaching at Big Picture Classes. I'll do a review of the class a bit later, once I've gone through the prompts a bit more.

Journaling Reads:

"We started our Italian adventure by flying into Pisa. It was the best introduction to Italy. As soon as we got off the plane there was no mistaking we were somewhere new. Italy transports you. Driving into the city, we got our first glimpse of the Tower over the orange & yellow buildings.

The Tower was huge and yup, just to confirm, it's definitely leaning. We decided not to brave the stairs but of course paused to take pictures. Thanks Mom & Pop, for bringing me on your anniversary trip! I had fun playing tour guide."

Get ready for more Italy pics! The fun has just started :)

cheers & besos,

Choosing Photos

The lovely Pegg left me a comment a few weeks back asking,

pegg has left a new comment on your post "Southern Gate":

Wondering if you just scrap highlights from your travels? How do you deal with all your other photos from your trip? I struggle with this! 

I wanted to share with yall a bit about how I go about choosing photos, especially photos from my travels.

For me, it just depends on the trip. Sometimes I have a lot of memories that I want to scrap and thus make more pages (China) or I might even make a mini book (Bali). Other times, just a photo or two from a trip will do (Belgium).

But I typically pick images that highlight the story the best, likely one or two focal photos and then incorporate some detail shots in after. There's no way I could scrap all of the photos from any given trip, and half of them are bad anyhow! :) 

And I never really sit down and say, "Right I'll work on all of these Cambodia photos until I'm done." I scrap what moves me. I've done quite a few pages for Istanbul, but still want to do more. There were so many things I wanted to capture from that trip.

So let me show you how I go about picking photos. I'll use my Italy pics as an example. My parents and I were there for 5 days in 2008 and over that time I took some 297 pictures. So a lot but not abundantly over the top. Of those 297 images, I pulled about 80 to scrapbook. In Pisa, for example I snapped 10 photos. Of those, I pulled 6 to actually scrap. But then we'll see how many actually make it into my scrapbook.

Here are my thoughts behind picking photos I printed.

Photo 01: Didn't make the cut. It's a random photo of the city that doesn't really show much. It could have been taken anywhere really.

Photo 02: Printed. This was my first glimpse of the Tower. I liked the context it showed and the relation of the Tower to the rest of the city.

Photo 03: Printed. The Tower in all it's glory. I had to include it!

Photo 04: Printed. My parents just looked too cute. Love that I captured proof of their visit!

Photo 05: Printed. Another proof of visit photo :) Me and my Papa. He's sitting or leaning on something because believe me, he's much taller than I am!

Photo 06: Didn't make the cut. I didn't print this one because 1) I don't like how I look really in it 2) I already have 2 "tourist" photos. 3 would have been too many.

Photo 07: Didn't make the cut. This is just one corner of the larger building that I know nothing about. It doesn't hold any significance for me so I left it out.

Photo 08: Didn't make the cut. Same as above. Couldn't tell you what this was & really it's nowhere near as interesting as the Leaning Tower!

Photo 09: Printed. I liked the different angle and being able to include the statue in the foreground.

Photo 10: Printed. I liked the composition of this photo & differing perspective it offers. It gives you much more context.

And that's it! Only 6 of the 10. I'll more than likely try to incorporate these into a double page layout and finally use some of those Double Take prompts! The photos will be printed in varying sizes depending on the ones I want to highlight the most.

I pulled these to scrap with my So Cal Studio Calico kit, which should be here next week! So excited to play with it and the 2 (count 'em) add-ons I ordered to go with! I think the kit will do wonders for my Italy pics, especially these overcast images. Can't wait to play and then to show and tell!

I'll ask the question of you all, because I know we all do things differently. How do you handle vacation/travel photos? Do you scrap them all? How do you pick and choose? I would love to hear!

Thanks Pegg for the great question. As always, I'm happy to answer anything yall throw my way. As well as I can of course :)

cheers & besos,