London Scrapbook

I was flipping through my London scrapbook and thought, "ok you need to film yourself looking through this and talking about some of the pages." It's been on my to do list for ages, so I thought I'd finally do it!

Please excuse my head. Again, big time amateur videographer! But you get the picture.

And for the parts of pages you couldn't see, here they all are below:

cheers & besos,

Summer 2013

I blinked and suddenly we're almost to the end of September. And officially, done with summer. I had a fabulous summer this year. Can't you tell? 

I've had this summer wrap up page on my "to make" list. And one of our Art + Science class challenges (the left brained ideation one) is to create a page off your list. So here it is!

I hate to admit this, but I only sporadically watch the fabulous daily TwoPeas videos (a shame really). But the latest one from Lilith Eeckels totally had me inspired to scrap. Two of her prompts are featured here: leave it as is (or nearly) and get nature involved.

This past week I've been doing some purging and organizing, I took the plunge and now have most of my paper organized by color! I did a small exercise, where I made a pile of my most favorite have to use papers. And also included papers that I thought would be perfect for my list of projects. This yellow paper is one of the latter:

 The bright yellow circles just screamed summer & sun to me. And I thought they made perfect frames for a few circular photos. So I printed a smattering of summer highlight photos and punched them out with a circle punch.

The facing page is this fabulously awesome Pebbles background. I loved the words and didn't want to cover any of it up! So as Lilith suggested, I left it nearly as is; just added in bits of patterned paper scraps and a few puffy stickers. Viola!

I had fun embellishing this page, finding circular and none circular elements to balance the photos. Love that badge!

 And I wanted to be sure to use the Summer 2013 stamp from a Kelly Purkey set. Now's the time!

I dropped a few colors of mist onto the background, because I knew the colors would look fab on the white parts and be hidden by the blacks (a trick I did for this page as well)

The last part was to include the year, so I pulled out my Thickers and made it bright and colorful.

I'm thinking I'll probably add an insert page to include journaling and a few large photos. Probably one of these Becky Higgins ones for a bit of variety.

Oh summer, you were good to me. I had some fun, saw some cool places and hung out with friends. And thanks to Project 12 & all of my online learning, I'm almost all caught up!

cheers & besos,

Hello 29

Well I'm not there yet, just a few weeks away. But I wanted to share this page I made as part of Hello Story...which is almost over and makes me so sad!

This was for our numbers week and is a very close imitation of Ali's layout, except I condensed it down into one 8 1/2 x 11 page. 

Like last year's page, I made a list of 29 things about me at 29. I used a recent photo of myself and pilled a bunch of my favorite product onto the page.

Here's my list:

1. My boyfriend is Matt. 
2. My favorite color is yellow. 
3. My favorite sweet is Riesen. 
4. My little brother is 28 (eek!). 
5. My Mama is 50 & my Papa is 51. 
6. I have a kitten; her name is Mac. 
7. I live at 2121 Tannehill in Houston. 
8. My favorite city in the world is London. 
9. My nephew is 4, he lives in Katy with his Mama. 
10. I drive to the transit center and ride the bus to work. 
11. My favorite book is East of Eden by John Steinbeck. 
12. I’ve been listening to Taylor Swift on repeat in my car. 
13. My favorite TV shows are New Girl and The Mindy Project. 
14. I'm lately obsessed with neon, Project 12 and my new iPad. 
15. My best friends live in Fort Worth, Japan and New York City. 
16. Traveling is my favorite thing to do, I've been to 25 countries. 
17. I have new work playmates. Keely has been so fun to have around. 
18. Looking forward to visiting Louisiana, DC, Ohio and possibly Nashville. 
19. I’m applying for new jobs. It’s time for me to move on to a new challenge. 
20. I work at the British Consulate-General as a Business Development Manager. 
21. I make cards and scrapbook pages and am hoping to join a design team this Fall. 
22. My favorite movies are Pride & Prejudice (Drama) and I love you, Man (Comedy). 
23. Visited Wales, Edinburgh, Aberdeen, Chicago and Los Angeles for the first time this year. 
24. My little Jetta is on her last leg, which makes me sad. And nervous! I can’t afford a new car. 
25. I have all of my grandparents still, Nana & Popo, Lipa and Grandpa. I wish I saw them more. 
26. This year is my 10 year reunion for high school and 5 year grad school reunion. Time has flown! 
27. Only 2 of my besties are married (Sarah and Kim). Kim got married this year; I was a bridesmaid. 
28. My favorite season is Fall. I love this time of year, my birthday, the holidays, scarves, boots and tights! 
29. Currently reading, the 5th Game of Thrones book. Recently read Bossypants (twice!), The Corrections, and Life after Life.

I'm hoping to put together a list of goals for my last year of my 20's soon. First on the list though, throwing myself a fab party! That's coming up next week. And I'm excited!

cheers & besos,

Peas & Carrots

I scrapbooked! And man did it feel good. I've been working on pocket pages for Project 12 and Week in the Life. But those take me soo much longer! I feel like they require much more planning & printing & photo editing. Basically, they aren't my strength, which is why it takes me twice as long.

So today, I decided to scrapbook. As in make a layout. 

   

I've been watching my Big Picture Classes videos & reading my handouts for Hello Story and Art + Science. They had me itching to jump into the Art + Science prompts and back into Hello Story. And of course, after taking Jill's Scrapbooking from the Soul class, my journaling has forever changed.

This page is a conglomeration of a few prompts. First, its for the right brained process challenge from Art + Science. Which was to think of a story I wanted to tell, find photos and discover the title & journaling. 

This was a bit of a challenge, which surprised me. The creative bit wasn't a challenge, but rethinking the order of things definitely was (i.e. the process...hence the challenge!). Originally I had a different title in mind. I kind of couldn't help myself! But the further into the process, my journaling & title evolved into something different.

Another part of this challenge was to include a pocket. I tucked some ephemera, a journaling card and typed notes into a vellum pocket I stitched directly to the cardstock.

Here's the view of everything pulled out from the pocket a bit.

I had a lot to say about these photos. So much, I included 3 different journaling spots!

I originally stapled a bit of scrap cardstock to the receipt, just to add stability. But it ended up being home for journaling about this past Saturday and how mama & I love to visit Hobby Lobby together. And how we bought a bunch of stuff to make a project.

Note how messy my handwriting is for this bit. I "wasn't on my best behavior" so to speak. I knew it wasn't going to mess up the design since it was in the pocket, so I just wrote. Didn't worry about the spelling, not so much the grammar either, just a stream of consciousness.

I loved this patterned paper with the page. I unearthed it from my scrap pile and thought the colors worked well with this fall-esque themed page. But knew it would be too busy to print my journaling on and I didn't really want to cover it with vellum. So instead, I added a label sticker indicating the journaling was on the back side.

I used a pointy finger stamp. Remember when those were so popular? I had them in a few different stamp sets and think this was the first time I ever used one. Since this is also slipped into the pocket, I don't want someone looking at this later down the road, to not notice the journaling on the back.

Here's where I incorporate the latest Hello Story prompt which is also about opposities. How my Mama & I are very different, but a little the same.

This last tiny journaling card is just a guide to the photos I used on the page. It was a mix of photos from a few different places and occasions. I also included the dates. I think it makes it look a little like a library card & I absolutely love that! Especially since one of the things Mama and I have in common is that we love to read.

Oh and about the background paper. That's also part of Ali's prompt, which was also about contrast. I repeated "for the love of fall...for the love of pumpkins...for the love of orange...for the love of skeletons and crossbones" over and over again using the best white gel pen in the world!!! It is a lift of a background paper she made and used on one of her page prompts.  I obviously loved it so much I wanted to lift it. But I love how my page is different enough from hers and that it also feels very me. 

I love love love the colors in this! Probably because I love fall. I love the gray mixed with the orange and the green and the warmer tones in the photo.

And that title, it definitely came last. I think I had originally wanted to title this page "For the love of Fall..." to talk about how much Mama and I enjoy this time of year. But after writing the journaling, I thought peas & carrots would make a better one. And, I couldn't help but get excited that the colors so perfectly matched my page!

Me and Mama, we're a lot different. But a little the same.

I'm loving taking classes lately, in case you can't tell. I'm learning so much and totally enjoy being a student. What about you? Have you taken any classes lately, that you love? Share in the comments!

cheers & besos,