Photo of the Photo...

I'm determined to scrapbook as much of my 2008 travels as possible this year. I've even made it part of my scrapbook goals! This is a photo I took in Prague, a country I've barely scrapbooked about! Even though this trip was one of my most favorite trips ever in life.

I used the Scrapbook Circle February kit and was challenged by Tessa to use this great marble print. So many of the domes in that city were a similar color, so I thought it'd be fun to pair it with them.

Journaling Reads:
I took some really epic photos on this trip. But this one topped them all. It’s a photo of Mark taking a photo of Kevin taking a photo of Jon. I also love the couple embracing on the side. And the lady’s head is so perfectly framed in the dome. It’s one of my favorite photos that I’ve ever taken. It instantly takes me back to this trip with those boys. Absolutely one of the best trips of my life!

Tessa also is blogging about this over on the Scrapbook Circle blog. Head over there to read more!

cheers & besos,

Valentine's Advent

I have something fun and special to share today. It's a little different but also a twist on something traditional. For Valentine's Day this year, I decided to make my boyfriend a Valentine's Advent Calendar. 

You see, in each of these little envelopes I added a fun memory of either him or the two of us. My plan is for us to look at one of these every day and remember some really great times.

I used every single paper from (my favorite) January Scrapbook Circle kit. Getting the extra patterned paper was the best thing for my projects this month. I just loved them all so much! And of course, I loved them all together.

Each little envelope is decorated with odds and ends from the kits, lots of love and hearts going on here.

There's just something about tiny things that are so fun and awesome! The envelope is a wafer thin die that I bought from Studio Calico.

I can't wait for him to see it (and for me to see his subtle man appreciation) and get to reminisce about our fun trips and silly sayings. Come on February 1st!

cheers & besos,

Family Love

It seems a little unfair that I'm posting my latest project when I have half a dozen other layouts I should share. But whatever this is current and I want to get in on the Paperclipping Official/Unofficial Online Crop! Here's a page I made using a Simple Scrapper sketch from a few months ago. My favorite part is "family" on the photos.

cheers & besos,

Scrapbook Circle Blog Hop

**Giveaway is over but comments still open**

Welcome to our Scrapbook Circle Blog Hop! I'm so excited to be part of this year's Scrapbook Circle  creative team! This weekend we're hopping and hoping to introduce you to the new team as well as to the fabulous August kit.

If you've participated in a blog hop before then you should know the drill. If you just left Rebecca's blog, you're in the right place. If not, I hope you'll join us for the entire hop by starting at the Scrapbook Circle blog, here.

Let me start by saying hi! If you're new to my blog, my name is Jamie Leija (said Lay-ha). I’m a native Texan who loves to travel and scrapbook. I’ve lived in London, Thailand and Spain and have been blessed to travel to so many more places. Traveling and scrapbooking go hand in hand for me. I love that one hobby supports the other and that scrapbooking lets me relive and share all of those fabulous memories. I've been scrapbooking (as we know it) for the past 17 years. My first job in high school was for a local scrapbook store. I loved working there! And it helped me learn to love sharing this hobby with others. In college, I worked at Hobby Lobby (can you see the theme here :) and then another local scrapbook store. I've been published in Northridge Publishing's Scrapbook Trends, CARDS and Create publications. When I’m not scrapbooking or on a plane, I’m spending time with my kitten, boyfriend or adorable nephew.

If you're not new to my blog, welcome back! I'm on a design team now guys =)

Now that we've got the introductions in order, let me show you this month's kit! It's called Island Paradise. I had a blast cutting it apart and putting the pieces back together on all of my pages. As you can see, teal was the dominate color. It made its way onto just about all of my pages (ha! with the exception of today's page…). I loved all of the bold (like the Crayola Market set!) color combos that you can make.

Did I mention you could win one of five August kits by commenting as you hop from blog to blog??!! Oh yes you can! Keep reading for more info.

I also procured the Tiki Torch add-on. Those little foxes were just too cute!! And I of course HAD TO HAVE the wood veneer sequins. They combine two of my favorite scrapbook embellishments! Nice one Chic Tags :)

This month, a few of us on the creative team, collaborated with Page Maps for this blog hop. Here's the fabulous sketch Becky sent over for me to play with. Have to love a good circle sketch, right?!

And here's the page I came up with! I loved that blunt-end piece so much, I decided to make all of mine  straight edged like that. Aaaand I wanted to shrink it down just a smudge. 

I really liked the idea of writing my journaling in the "missing" piece but the background paper I chose was a bit too busy for that. Instead, I pulled the journaling out and integrated some fun bits and baubles in between the lines. I think the colors might be my favorite thing about this page (and the kit too!). 

I edited my photo using RadLab to create a funkier color scheme. I'm sharing them here since I printed them so tiny before. ALSO, I should add that that's not me! On the right, in the blue, that's my bestie Tara. We've been told plenty of times that we look like sisters. We aren't but I guess we look similar. Except I'm about 3 inches taller than her! Glad we got that cleared up :)

And now on to the [next] fun bit. A new blog to hop to and a chance to win a kit! Please leave a comment on this blog and all of the other's that you hop to, for a chance to win. The hop ends Monday, August 4th at 9:00 p.m. Pacific and the winner will be announced on the Scrapbook Circle blog shortly after.

Thank you so much for hopping along AND for stopping by! It's been lovely to have you and I hope you'll come back soon. I'll be sharing the rest of my pages throughout the month so be on the look out for them as well.

Next up is the lovely Jenni! Hop over to her blog to see more fun projects using this month's Island Paradise kit!

**Giveaway is over but comments still open**

cheers & besos,

I Heart Scrapbooking

Behold my latest creation! It just might be one of my favorites.

I've never made a page about scrapbooking, one of my absolute favorite things to do! I have dozens and dozens of pages about travel but non about this hobby. I made a mini book once that was kind of in the theme. But with the help of a Simple Scrapper Jumpstart video (No. 3 to all my fellow SS) and the NSD stamp set from Studio Calico, I had just the tools to do it.

I love the bottom right hand side of the page. It came together seamlessly. The top however, did not. And that black paper is a sign of me covering something up and hoping to get it right!!

I was so inspired by Nicole Reaves' Read to You layout. I was enchanted by those little books!! And so I made my own mini scrapbooks.

There was a lot of synthesis of ideas and products pulled from several places. I like that my brain makes connections that help me mesh them all together on the page.

And the Amy Tangerine stuff just makes this page fun! A few weeks back I made a big purchase from Scrapbook.com. I order from them rarely but they had all most of what I wanted in stock and on sale! So I couldn't pass it up.

cheers & besos,

NSD 2014

I'm excited I got to do some scrapping today, on this, oh so hallowed of days. This is the one weekend a year when I'm usually working. In fact, I should have gone into the office today. But I decided I would just do it tomorrow. I'm exhausted so apologies for the brevity of this post, but I wanted to share my pages somewhere!

All of these pages feature Simple Scrapper sketches. The first two are from the exact same sketch. I love doing that when I know I have something good. It doesn't bother me, especially since these pages will be going into different albums. I also machine stitched on all of them. I set up the machine this afternoon and just left it out. I wish I could leave it out permanently but that's not the case.

And with that, I fall in bed and go to sleep! Hope everyone had a fabulous NSD!

cheers & besos,

Mixed Media: Weekend

I have been hemming and hawing over here trying to decide if I should share this layout, or a bunch of layouts, or a giveaway that's coming up. But no, I just need to not think too much and post!!

Ok. Here goes.

How was your weekend? Mine was lovely. I spent a happy Saturday in a mixed media frenzy. I cranked out three pages using gesso, modeling paste, mists, neocolors, gelatos, stamps and stencils. I was only planning to make the one page but was so inspired to keep playing. Celine's video from her Mixed Media class are what got me started. To note: you can still sign up!

Here's the first page I made in a blue and green color scheme. It was my first stab at the whole thing. And I thought while I was at it, I'd try a new approach. I just went to town on the paper and didn't think about my end game. I don't often create a background page before deciding on photo placement and size. But since this was my first attempt, I gave myself permission to just play and see and how it went.

I ended up really loving the process! I discovered new fun techniques (like playing with Neocolors) and really just lost myself in the play. So much so that when I went to create a "normal" page after this, I just couldn't get it going!

Since I had enjoyed the artistic play so much, I knew I couldn't stop. Creating pages like this is a bit more labor intensive. So I knew that if I had the desire to do it, I'd better keep at it while the iron was hot!

The background paper is the real star of this show, so I kept the embellishing to a minimum. These are so soooo old rub-ons from Making Memories. I'm thinking Heidi Swapp must have worked for them back then. It looks like her handwriting, no?

A smattering of patterned paper and a Two Peas flair + tape, an enamel shape and some stamping around the photo are what did the trick.

...and I made it through there relatively unscathed. I have no idea why the hemming and hawing over the what and the when was taking up so much space in my brain! I have to remember to just let go and dive in sometimes.

With that said, I'll be sharing the other pages I concocted through out the week and I have a fabulous giveaway coming at you as well! Check back for that.

Ok back to real life. Off to shower before Game of Thrones starts!

cheers & besos,

Stash Bash V.5

Layout No. 5! I'm really excited about how this turned out. I'm also so happy I got to use those great Kelly Purkey stamps. The embellishments have nothing to do with these photos. But they help with the theme of the page, which is all about my cousin Emily. 

All of the paper I used was from my scrap drawer, and a lot left over from my Birthday Brunch page. And in case you haven't picked up this is another page for the Simple Scrapper Stash Bash.

I think I have one last layout in me. Getting back to my desk!

cheers & besos,

Love Again

Morning y'all! Happy Monday =) I hope everyone had the best of weekends. I know I did. It was relaxing and quiet. Exactly what I needed.

I started out on Saturday by making a decision. I wasn't going to worry about checking things off my to do list. I wasn't going to sit down to force myself to finish my February project life. I was just going to go with the flow and not feel guilty.

Oh man, was it awesome! I also went totally old school with my scrapbooking. Old school in the sense that, I didn't try to scrap something from my list. Instead, I browsed through my photos and picked a few I felt like scrapbooking. Then I just did!

Here's the first page I did. Just for fun! I started with a Simple Scrappers sketch from this month's Spark mag and a prompt from last month's Spark mag. And then I just went for it. I happily used some scraps from my SC Antiquary scrapbook kit and from there took the cue and went for the ice cream embellishing. 

I kind of really like that my page is about one thing and my embellishing is about another thing. The theme of everything is love but in two totally different ways. I'll liken it to a song being about one thing and the music video having a different concept. Weird analogy I know! But just popped into my head for some reason.

There's a lot of embellishing on this page. But I'm not bothered. I like the mix of ink and enamel dots, ice cream stamps and stars.

So happy to have made more layouts. And really, just a little too happy to not be doing pocket pages. I always love them when they're done. But for me, they just take a whole lot of time! Which is why, for the month of March I'm taking a break.

I know I'll get back to this project in the next month or so. But for now, I just need some time away from pocket pages.

So expect more layouts from me this month. With 3 done this past weekend, I think I'm off to a great start!

cheers & besos,

Work Trip

Happy Saturday every body! Man, I have just not been on top of this whole blogging thing. I've had this layout done for over a week now but just haven't sat down to blog about it.

Oh well, I'm doing it now!

It's a layout =) Huzzah! Y'all know I've been missing working on those. So a couple of Sunday's ago, I churned out 3 pages. I used another Simple Scrapper sketch for inspiration. AND, I got more mileage out of this UK die cut file from my Bright Ideas (old Studio Calico class) files.

I'm a very lucky girl, in that my work sends me to places like the UK for business. This trip in particular was a whirlwind wheels up, bag always packed kind of week. I rarely slept in the hotel two nights in a row. I tried to instagram at least a photo or two in every city I was. 

For the page, I used a fabulous natural background paper from the new Studio Calico Color Theory paper pack (I bought 2!) I also added some contrast using a black and white striped paper for my die cut.

2 layouts shared, 1 more to go! I'll be back in a few to share that with you. In the meantime, I'm taking it easy this weekend. Putting away the old to do list and just planning to do what I want to do and now what I have (or should) do.

Here's to just living the life!

cheers & besos,

OLW 2014

I picked a word. Or maybe it picked me. I don't really know. I don't usually pick words because I never stick with them. But this one just wouldn't leave my mind once I thought of it, and I figure its a good point of focus for my year.

This year my one little word is open.

I had fun making this page using a Simple Scrappers sketch and the Studio Calico Antiquary kit that I picked up for cheap on the 2Peas For Sale or Trade Board.

I just joined Simple Scrappers and I'm so excited about it. I took Jennifer's Art + Science class at BPC and just loved her organized teaching style. She has me excited to play this year. You might just
consider joining in.

Oh and if you're wondering about my December album, I decided I want to film a quick video talking through the pages. So much easier than writing it all out. Look for that in the next few days!

cheers & besos,