Golden Hour

This was such a fun page to make! The technique was super simple and thanks to this particular cut, it had a huge impact! I blogged this "technique" over on the Scrapbook Circle blog. Head over there for more on it and this page.

cheers & besos,

WITL-Tuesday

In tandem with my 31 at 31 page, I decided to do a quick Week in the Life as well. This is still in progress. I'm just really bad at pocket pages when I have to a whole series of them! The photos are printed and in pockets. I just need to add one journaling card and one decorative card for each day. That's it! But I can procrastinate with the best of them so not sure why this surprises me still.

Anyway, here's the only finished page I have for WITL. It's a few photos, a journaling card and a decorative card. I used the October Mix Tape kit from Scrapbook Circle. It's a super simple spread but I like the photo heaviness of it. I hope I find the momentum to keep going and not let this fall into the scrapbook project wasteland!

Tessa blogged about this on the Scrapbook Circle blog. Head over there for more about this spread!

cheers & besos,

Thirty One at 31

I have a tradition. Every year I write xx facts about me at xx year. You can see my past pages here: 28 at 28, 29 at 29, 30 at 30. This year I mixed it up a bit and decided to scrapbook this using a divided page protector. All of the products are from the Scrapbook Circle Mix Tape kit & Cassette add-on. I blogged about this over on the SBC blog. Head that away for more about this page (which I'm loving!)

cheers & besos,

Disneyland

I have a quick share for you today, it's the only Disney page I've ever made! I used a Simple Scrapper sketch as a start pointing and an older Studio Calico add-on. I'm still on the fence about how I want to approach these photos, whether a mini book or multiple pages might be the best format. But at least, for now, I have something documented!

cheers & besos,

2016 Planner

I am a very good planner. I love sitting down, writing out a plan, making checklists and adding timelines, highlighting and crossing things out. That said I may not be the best do-er. Which is kind of ironic. I aspire to be though! My partner will tell you I set unreasonable expectations for myself and my to do lists. I want to do it all RIGHT NOW! Mainly to get the satisfaction of crossing it out on ye old to do list...

I mention this because we've reached my favorite time of the year: planner season! October seems to be the time of year when all of the great new planner and planner products debut. This is just one of the many reasons why October is my favorite month of the year! But I digress...

Last week, I put together half of my 2016 planner system, using a combination of 2015 & 2016 Simple Scrapper planner pages. I totally mixed it up from last year though, and decided I'd try out the larger 8 1/2 x 11 format.

I spend $0 on this planner because I just used office supplies I had hanging around. An old kraft 1in. binder, divided tabbed page protectors and patterned papers from my stash [Two from the Mix Tape Scrapbook Circle kit, Pink Paislee Memorandum Cubicle & Journal Paper, Fancy Pants Office Suite Creative Agenda (fitting!)]

I divided this planner into 5 sections: Calendar, Planning, Lists, Creative Team & Worksheets.

Here's a peak at my Calendar. It's a mix of blog schedule, creative team deadlines, events and upcoming travel. I use a simple black and white paperclip as the marker to find this page.

I do a bit of embellishing but not very much: a few stamps and some washi. Simple simple! Here are the stamp sets I own: SC Agenda Class Set, Kelly Purkey Check it Off, Kelly Purkey Planners gonna Plan, Kelly Purkey Planner Icons. I will say this last set is my least favorite. I can never get a clean stamped image!

Here's a list of stamp sets I want to add to my collection: [Waffle Flower Calendar Stamp, Neat & Tangled Blog Planner, Clearly Kelly Travel Planner, Clearly Kelly Special Occasion Planner]

The Planner section is made up of lots of Simple Scrapper planner pages. This one below is actually from the 2015 set of pages. But I love it so much and use it so often, I printed it for my 2016 planner as well.

You really can't see it in this photo below, but any pages that are meant to be blank, I've printed out a grid (included in the Simple Scrapper pack) to take any additional notes.

The Lists tab includes all of the projects I want to start or finish, the story ideas I have, class that are in progress and key takeaways from various classes or podcasts, etc. (All included in the Simple Scrapper planner pages)

The last two tabs helped me gather up all of my reference materials, like the Simple Scrapper Story Starters I use every month as a Creative Team member. 

The Worksheets section is also where I keep all of the fantastic handouts Jennifer Wilson creates. The one featured below is the Story Discovery worksheet. You can download it for free here.

I'm digging the easy breezy approach this year. If this doesn't work for me, I'll feel 0 guilt as I spent $0 on this project. I wanted to try something different and I'm glad I'm doing this in a low risk way.

But as I briefly mentioned earlier, this is only half of my approach. You'll notice aside from the over arching calendar, that there isn't a daily or weekly to do list. That's because I'm going to try out Bullet Journaling. I've tried so many printables and notebooks and just haven't found something that has worked for me. It's almost like I need to change things up...almost weekly, and with bullet journaling, I think I'll be able to do that!

I'm working all of this out now but will be sure to post an update on this method in the coming months. For now, I'm just happy to have this much sorted. I love how it's working out!

cheers & besos,

Made of Stories

I was listening to an episode of the Paperclipping Roundtable yesterday and was so excited to hear this topic being discussed. The episode was all about the latest story based layouts the panelists had made. I love the topic and was so inspired by the journaling Stacy Julian read.

I made this layout before the episode was recorded, but I thought I'd share a bit more about the layout and the story....which was in fact all about stories! And more specifically, all about how unique my story is, or at least my perspective. 

Journaling Reads:

I’m so happy to be a scrapbooker and alongside that, a story teller. I’m the only one who gets to tell my stories. And stories I have in abundance! I’ve had some amazing adventures and feel so lucky to have this hobby in my life. I firmly believe everyone has a unique story to tell. And what makes my stories unique, is that they are all told from my perspective. I am (and am proud to be) a highly educated hispanic female born and raised in the United States. There aren’t very many of us, highly educated hispanic females that is (only 4.5% of the number of people who receive Master's degrees). Even fewer still, hispanic females aged 31 who aren’t also moms. And to narrow it down even more, highly educated hispanic females who aren’t moms and who actually scrapbook! I’m not saying I’m a unicorn, but I definitely know I have a specific perspective all my own. Whether it’s documenting my adventures, recording crazy pet antics, or simply sharing my every day life, I'm so thankful to have a hobby to share all of my stories in a beautiful and creative way!

The launching off point for the page was the gorgeous stamp set designed by Neat & Tangled. It's in this latest Scrapbook Circle kit (Mix Tape).

Tessa has been blogging our projects using the stamp set over on the Scrapbook Circle blog this week. Head there for even more inspiration with this awesome stamp!

I wanted this page to be simple, and to feature random photos that I knew I would probably not use on other pages. Well...and also a photo of me, the story teller. That one might get used again bc I actually did my hair and wore some make up.

I ended up stamping the sentiment over and over again, embossing it with white embossing powder and then spraying over top of it with two shades of pink mist. Gasp! I actually used mist like it was intended to be used. It's been awhile since that has happened. I went for a subtle ombre and love how it turned out.

I totally love this simple page and this little story about stories. I'm digging the meta-ness of it. I kind of want to do another one and make it all mathematical, getting down to the nitty gritty on statistics even! But that is a story (and a page) for another day.

cheers & besos,

Best Gals

Hiya friends! Today I'm excited to share my latest Simple Scrapper page. This month our theme was all about personalities. It's been awhile since I've done a page about my bestie, so I thought now would be a perfect time to make a new page, featuring photos from this year.

Isn't she a cutie? We usually get confused for sisters. I guess I can see the resemblance. Both of us have that Asian look to our 100% hispanic features.

For this page, I used a big mix of products and a few papers from the Fancy Pants Office Suite 6x6 paper pad. LOVE that line! (See also At 30)

The page is based off of a Simple Scrapper sketch (No. 214 for all of the members). I love it whenever I'm able to incorporate journaling cards onto my pages. The & is from Studio Calico and the gold chevron is by Heidi Swapp.

For more info about this page and more layouts using sketches and story starters, check out the Simple Scrapper membership.

Jennifer just released the 2016 planner pages which I'm sooo excited about! I've printed them all out and have started assembling my book...which I'll blog more about later this month. It's probably worth noting that if you're a member you get the planner pages for free!

cheers & besos,