Meeting Mayor Parker

Do you have any fun embarrassing stories your friends like to tell over and over again? I totally do! And this is a scrapbook page about one of mine.

I more or less accosted Houston's mayor on the streets of Portland last May. I was just so excited to see her!

Journaling Reads:
"Once on a sunny day in Portland, OR, MT and I were walking around the Pearl District. When I saw someone who looked like Houston's Mayor standing across the street. Instead of quality thinking to myself, "Mayor Parker?" I verbally and very loudly posed the question. She looked up at me as we crossed the street and I went to shake her hand. MT tells the story better; mainly because I kind of mentally blacked out at that point. I was so excited to see her! He says I walked up and said "It's Jamie!…my name is Jamie." He remembers she had this look on her face like she was trying to place me. Because clearly I was way too familiar and thinking we were long lost friends. I had actually seen her once at a reception. But we legitimately had never met. I have no idea why that was what popped out of my mouth but it made for a good story. It was so odd she just might remember me if I ran into her again. "Hey Mayor Parker, remember that time we met randomly on the street in Portland? I was the girl who accosted you on the street!"

I used the Let's Do This Scrapbook Circle main kit and the Elle's Studio stamp from the This Way add-on for this really simple page. A strip of patterned paper, a grid of photos and stamps is nearly all there is to this design. But I'm really loving the simplicity. And I'm also loving the white background. It's totally making my photos pop!

There's a 50/50 chance I may run into Mayor Parker in just a few weeks. She may even be on hand to officially open our new office. I'm so hoping for the chance to ask her if she remembers me.

cheers & besos,

Mac the Kitten

Happy Friday y'all! I'm so excited to share this post with you today. Mainly because, I was so excited to be a guest on the Paperclipping Roundtable again. I've been a fan for years and I feel so lucky to have been on the show. 

The last episode I did was on travel scrapbooking. This episode was all about scrapping your pets: PRT Episode No. 244| Scrapbooking about your Pets. I had a lot to say on this topic! More than we had time to get to, so I thought I'd do a post on the subject.

Here are the projects I spoke specifically about on the show. They just happen to be about my cat, but I've scrapbooked about our family dogs too.

As you can see below, I've scrapped about my pets a lot! So I thought I'd do a round up of topics you could consider, if pet scrapping interests you!

Ideas for pet pages:

• The story of how your pet came to live with you [Jamie + Business Meeting = Kitten?] [Birthday Present]
• The story of the day you went to get your pet(s) [Here we go]
• The story of how your pet got its' name or nicknames [Macclesfield] [Crackers]
• Your relationship with your pet(s) [I've never been a Mom before] [Love Again] [Maddie Tribute]
• Other family member's relationship with your pet(s) [Not a Cat Person] [Boy's Best Friend] [Let me Tell you about my Best Friend]
• Your pet(s)' personality [Solemnly Swear] [Worst Production Assistant] [To Know you is to Love you]
• Phases they're going through [Lately Mac]
• What it's like to come home to them every day [Lovely]
• Facts and figures about your pet [Measure of a Mutt]
• Be sure to include them in your Project Life or whenever you're scrapbooking your everyday life [Saturdays at No. 1152] [Project Life: December 2013] [Project Life: January 2014] [Project Life: August 2013] [Warm & Cozy] [Safety First/First Mutt]

If you're just interested in looking at pet projects, use this tag [Pets] to see all of the pages and projects I've shared over the years.

We didn't get to talk about it on today's show, but you'll notice that these pages don't feature anything thematic, aside from the one cat die cut I used. I'm not much of a theme scrapper really. I focus more on color and texture.

I thought I'd share other links you should check out, if you're interested in scrapbooking your pet:

• Original Paperclipping Forum post on scrapbooking your pets
• Shelter that put dogs in a photo booth for adoption pictures
• Jennifer Larsen's Hello & Meow layout
• Jennifer Larsen's Tail vs. Tree layout
• Jennifer Wilson's Project Life Mini Dog Tribute album
• Jill Sprott's Blog She scraps her pets frequently! This link is to one page that I loved but she has many many more
• #macthekitten on Instagram
• Video I made of Mac getting all up in my scrapbooking!
• My girlfriend wanted a cat meme

Be sure to download and listen to PRT Episode No. 244| Scrapbooking about your Pets. Thanks to Noell and Izzy for asking me back.

cheers & besos,

Being a Girl

Hiya! I have another Scrapbook Circle kit layout to share. I so love working with these kits! They have the best mix of the latest and greatest products.

This month, Tessa asked me to work with the My Mind's Eye confetti from the Let's Do This main kit. I lived the variety of shapes and colors and had fun laying out this pattern. I was inspired by this piece of wall decor that I saw on Em Henderon's (a lovely interior designer) instagram account. 

Arranging them in this sunburst pattern added more impact, I think. And just a few sequins went a long way. I was really strategic about where I placed them. What you see is what you get, I wasn't letting a single bauble get covered up by photos or paper.

I have to add that I did this page backwards. I started with the sequins and the stitching, knowing I'd add a 4x6 photo to the page. But I didn't have a photo in mind when I started. I just created the base! And then I got stuck. I wasn't sure what I wanted to scrapbook so I left it for a few days.

I asked my boyfriend to weigh in and he suggested making a page about my nephew. But my response to him was, "No, it's too girly!" But there was my answer.

I decided to make a page about some of the awesome parts about being a girl! Fun make-up and lipsticks, gorgeous perfume bottles and pretty dresses. Plus fun female role models!

I staged my own mini still life photo shoot with stuff from my apartment and printed the photos out in a variety of different sizes, that I then hid behind my main photo.  I ended up creating a flip book on my page. Scroll down and you'll see the front and backs of each of the "flips" (what I just named them).

I've done this kind of thing on a few different projects and love the interactive element it adds. (Other flip projects found here)

The other day I found myself wishing for clear washi tape, you know, one you can't see. Then I had a "duh doi" moment when I realized they make that. It's called tape, Jamie. About a million places sell it. That's what I used to make my flips. I could have easily gone with something decorative but like the cleaner look for this page.

At the bottom of the pile was a list of 10 reasons I am loving about being a girl (although #10 is kind of a throw away).

I so love how this page came together! And I'm happy I didn't take the easy way out. I could have just used the photo of me with my new haircut and called it a day.

It was more work to stage and take the photos, edit and print them all out. But now that's it's done and the extra effort was expended, I'm so pleased with the result.

Tessa blogged about this layout on the Scrapbook Circle blog today. You can read more here.

cheers & besos,

Not so Charming

Hiya! Last week on the blog, I shared a ton of Simple Scrapper projects. This week, I'm focusing on Scrapbook Circle. I made a ton of pages and cards with this month's kit!

Scrapbook Circle sponsored this month's Paper Issues challenge which is all about prints...and charms...and castles. I made this page about my not so charming prince. I mixed a ton of patterns from the April Let's Do This kit; and I made sure to use the castle stamp I picked up from Studio Calico ages ago.

cheers & besos,

SACS

Last Simple Scrapper page to share for the month! I used an older sketch and a Story Prompt from the April edition of Spark Magazine. 

This month's theme was faith, which was a bit harder for me to scrapbook about.

I had a lot to say about my experience with a religious school, but you won't read any of it here. All of my journaling is hidden behind the photo.

I absolutely loved this older sketch from the Simple Scrapper archives, since it allowed me to highlight so many of the Studio Calico Odyssey kit papers (both fronts and backs).

Although, the sketch did call for me to trim the papers at the top, I opted to keep them as is. In my scrapbook they jut out of the top of the page protector and I like that.  I don't see them as anything different from a tab or some other topper.

cheers & besos,

Looks at Me

…and here's another Simple Scrapper Creative Team page, using one of the latest sketches, which will be available in the April edition of Spark Magazine.

I used two photos of me and Matt. They were taken about 6 years apart. Both are phone photos taken in the reflection of my boyfriend's classes. I scrapped the first photo ages ago--blogged here in 2009.

I used the Studio Calico Odyssey kit for this page. I love how the bright colors pop against this white background. And I can't get enough of Kal Barteski's script. So this date stamp (all date stamps are my besties!) had to come home to me.

It's a fairly simple and straightforward page, but the slight tilt gives it some character. Loved that the sketch incorporated this!

cheers & besos,

Travel Anxiety

I have so many creative team projects to share with you this month! This is a Simple Scrapper creation using a sketch from the (soon to be released) April Spark magazine, and an older Story Starter. 

To note: Simple Scrapper just upgraded to a new fantastic website! Hence the bit of the delay. Promise this month's Spark will be worth it! And hey, there's also an awesome new website!

I used the Studio Calico Odyssey kit for this page about my travel anxiety. There's lots of journaling there for you to read. The gist of it is that I've been a million and one places but I still have anxiety about traveling. I'm thankful it isn't so bad as to stop me. But it's one of those pieces of my story that you might not guess. Especially considering how much I travel!

I wanted to highlight something I do fairly often on my pages, especially lately it seems. I love to layer photos on top of each other and make my own mini flip books.

For these photos, I matted them on a transparency and created the flip book using that awesome yellow washi. I wanted to make sure that you could tell there were other photos behind the main one. So I staggered the images a bit, so they were peaking out.

Probably something I shouldn't highlight but I'm going to do it anyway, is the mess ups I made. I did a bit of stamping around the top of the page and instantly regretted/hated it! So my solution was to just cover it up with scraps of the same paper (thankfully I had some!).

It's one of those things that adds just a bit more texture. And while the background image is "off" in a few places, I don't think it's too distracting. Or another way to look at it, it's not half as distracting as the stamping I did!

I added one more strip at the bottom to give it some balance. And also, because I knew I wanted to print that sentiment and at this point, there was no way the whole layout was going through my printer.

cheers & besos,

Finished Project

First order of business, announcing the winner of the Scrapbook Circle goodies giveaway. Random.org picked commenter number two, who was Sandi! 

Congrats Sandi! I will e-mail you shortly.

Secondly, I finished my Finishing Project!!! I'm so excited to have completed this. And only 18 months after the event :) I'm actually not bothered that it took so long. I'm just happy that it's done! 

I couldn't have done it without Jennifer's fantastic class and all of the great prompts and worksheets. They totally helped me clarify my vision and keep me on track. 

To see where I started, check out this post. I so naively thought I wasn't far from being done because my photos were printed and I'd picked a few background papers. 

As you will see, the book had quite a transformation. I re-ordered a few things, re-printed several photos, added in tons of inserts. I repeated several of the designs on multiple pages (See last few photos on this post).

It wasn't easy. It's just so hard to pick up momentum that you've lost. I had to fight my way through most of this (although some of it was easy) mini book. That's not to say it wasn't fun. It was just a mental hurdle I needed to overcome.

I'm extremely proud of myself and this little mini. If you have any questions about products or techniques I'm more than happy to answer them in the comments! For now, I'll let the photos do the talking. But beware, there are a ton!

cheers & besos,