London Anniversary

Does your journaling ever hamper your design? Let’s say you make a page, you love the look and then you have to figure out where to put the journaling. And everything you come up with just doesn’t look right?? OR, you make a page, know you’re journaling is going to go just here, then you start writing and the words pour out of you and suddenly that spot is no longer adequate to hold all of your thoughts? This doesn’t happen to me too often. I think the weakest point of my scrapbook game is my journaling. But when either of these scenarios happen, I have a trick I turn to time and again.

I write as much or as little journaling as I want. Typically typing it out and printing on plain cardstock. Then I make a pocket for it on the back of my page. It’s super quick and simple! Here’s an older page that I used this technique on: Hello There

For this page, I had a lot to say about my 10 year anniversary with the city of London. Enough to fill an entire 8 1/2 x 11 sheet. But there was no way it was going to look pretty anywhere on my nearly completed page. Which is why I opted to add a tab to the top of the sheet and make a pocket on the back of my page!

The layout is based off a sketch from the Simple Scrapper membership (Sketch No. 293 for all of my SS ladies!) I loved all of the March 2016 sketches so much! I made two pages using them, this and the Adult Today layout I shared at the beginning of the month.

I loved that the sketch called for blocks of patterned paper, my favorite scrapbook supply! These are three sheets from way deep in my stash: 7 Gypsies (top), October Afternoon (middle) and Basic Grey (bottom).

I could have put this design on a white sheet of cardstock and would have been totally happy. But I thought I’d switch it up and instead used this bluish gray. After all, London is typically pretty gray. I think it makes the photos and the paper pop more.

Red was my accent color. But I used it sparingly. It was at the top of that 3x4 journaling card (by Ali Edwards) so I matted it behind my photo. Then I stamped a red bus and added two triangle enamel shapes.

Aside from the overall design and the photos and the story, I think my most favorite part of this page is the tiny timeline I included as the “journaling”. It’s such a great way to show a relationship over time!

cheers & besos,

Friends?

Our puppy is a social butterfly. This is a conundrum for me and for Matt because we aren't the most social people. She forces us into all kinds of random interactions. But I guess there's nothing wrong with that. Although the introvert in my screams "dangit puppy!" every time...

She loves people and she especially loves other dogs. She whines and cries if we don't let her play (read: jump) on other dogs we encounter on our walks. Cadie, my parents dog, doesn’t take too kindly to other dogs she can’t control. And Dixie is too young and naive to realize that Cadie doesn’t like her very much. Dixie’s pretty sure they’re best friends!

I knew I wanted to scrapbook this story and feature a lot of butterflies! I purchased this design from the Silhouette Online store and cut out three patterned paper butterflies. I liked the cut for its simple lines and the fact that the negatives would have been easy to back with different patterned papers. Although I didn’t go that route on this page.

Green was my challenge. I don’t scrapbook with green often enough! Don’t get me wrong, I like green. But given the option, it’s the easiest to drop from my repertoire. I chose a shade darker than my photos (with less yellow in it) to make these photos pop off of it. I also added a white cardstock mat to make sure the photos differentiated themselves. It helped balance Cadie’s white fur and is also why I decided to back the butterflies with white cardstock.

I love contrast. I try to use it as much as possible on every page. So the black thicker title, black label, black journaling, black heart stamping and black ink splatters helped add contrast to the white matted photos, Cadie’s white fur, the white backed butterflies, white threads and white outlined swirls.

The finishing touches were all about adding texture. I had some white thread cut offs in my sewing box that I added behind a few of the butterflies. I’ve seen this trend on a few other pages and think it’s such a simple way to add really great texture.

cheers & besos,

Battle for the Chair

This was one of the first pages I made with the new Elle's Studio Little Moments collection. Which is rapidly becoming my most favorite ever! It's so perfect for so many stories, big and small. 

The page captures a truly tiny moment, one where my nephew and my puppy are doing battle for their favorite chair in our apartment. It's a tiny silly story that makes me smile :)

You can read more about how the page came together over on the Elle's Studio blog!

Journaling Reads:

I don't know what it is about this chair but beasts and children alike seem to love it. Mac claimed it when she first came to live with us. It's in taters thanks to her claws. Urijah loves to hang out on it whenever he comes to visit. There are orange cheeto stains that can attest to that. And Dixie has now taken a liking to it. I don't know if it is because it's close to the window or just comfy, but there was a puppy nephew battle for chair supremacy when Urijah was last over. Dixie was even more interested in it than she usually is! She'd sneak over to sniff Urijah, then she'd place her paws on a corner until finally making the leap up to try to edge him out. He fell out of it once or twice as they were both struggling to gain control. I'm not sure who won in the end but it was funny to watch them duke it out. February 13, 2016

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,

Superpower

It's Elle's Studio release day! And this kit + the new Little Moments collection are available for purchase. I was very excited about both! I love love loved all of the stars in the kit + the acrylic stars for sale this month. 

The colors made me think of my new favorite t-shirt. It's a bookshelf in the shape of Texas, my home state! Those colors plus the stars made me think I should scrapbook this idea that's been on my list for FOREVER!! I scrapbooked about my other superpower years ago, so it was time for my to scrapbook about this one.

Reading is my number one escape from reality. I can become totally engrossed in whatever I'm reading. The world around me disappears and I'm there right along with the characters or the author.

I think this has a lot to do with being an introvert. We spend a lot of time in our own heads. I can easily become lost there and not realize that I haven't spoken for hours or actually verbally contributed to the conversation at hand. I think there's another scrapbook page in there somewhere....Although I've made something similar before (seen here).

One of my latest favorite things has to be these amazing alpha stamps. This is like the perfect font! Classic and simple, you kind of can't go wrong. Be prepared to see these on everything I do for awhile now.

Do you have a superpower? I'm sure you do! Best scrapbook it girl. I'd love to see (and hear if you'd like to comment) about your superpowers!!

And if you're interested in scrapbooking your superpower with the Elle's Studio kit, it's available for $9.99 until midnight PST! After that, it's $11.99 until they're gone.

Also, be sure to swing by the site to see the Little Moments collection. Everything is available so you'll get first pick of this fun line. There's a special bundle price for a limited time, so if you want everything snag one of those while you can!

cheers & besos,

Cheers

I love meeting scrapbookers I know online, in real life! Last year I got to meet the Jennifer S. Wilson and at a different time, I met up with Alexa Gill. 

Alexa was visiting from the UK, so we met up for Mexican food at this awesome tequila place here in Houston (El Big Bad for anyone interested). We snapped a photo together so of course I had to scrap it! [See the page I made about meeting Jennifer here]

This patterned paper from Amy Tangerine's Better Together line was so perfect for a friend page and a meet up page. I let it do most of the work and added in just a few embellishments and my title and journaling.

Anyone else interested in a meet up? Because I love to talk scrapbooking! I hadn't realized it until then, but I don't have anyone else to talk to about the industry. At least anyone who would know what I'm talking about. E-mail me if you're from around here or if you're planning to visit!

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,

Adult Today

This month's edition of Spark Magazine (part of the Simple Scrapper membership) is out! I have two layouts in the sketches section. I love love loved the sketches this month! This first layout is about my first big purchase, a new to me car.

I started with a cream background and knew I wanted to use some bright and cheerful patterned paper. And then I simplified things for myself by only using paper from one mini paper pad (Pink Paislee Atlas), so all of the colors coordinated perfectly.

My Silhouette Cameo did most of the heavy lifting for this page. I used a font called Avenir which has become my go to for everything lately. It must have come standard on my Mac because I know I didn't pay $358 for it!!!

I tried to use as many car things as I could...which only consisted of two wood veneers and a stamp. Because how often is there a need for a car on your page?!

I stitched around each of the squares to give them a bit more texture. Ignore the wonkiness, I'm not the best seamstress. But I like the effect!

One of many things that make me happy about this page, is that I used "adult" as a verb. I feel like that's such a thing in pop culture right now and I'm glad I was able to capture in a small way.

cheers & besos,