LBD: My People

I have another LBD video and page to share with yall! I used the June 2013 Little Black Dress kit which was sadly announced to be the last one :( I'm bummed. But happy to have had the opportunity to work with them as long (or as short) as I did.

I'll let the video do the talking for this page, about the people I depended on the most, those first few months in London. 

Here are the stills and the close ups!

cheers & besos,

Opera House

Officially done with scrapping Oslo photos! Here's the last page but it's not really about Oslo.

Ok ok, so the photos are from Oslo, in front of the Opera House, but the journaling is about missing these guys. "We took these photos in 2008. So as I scrapbook them in 2013, I love getting to see their sweet faces. I miss each of them so much. It was a fabulous part of my life, to be a part of their daily lives."

I thought this chevron was the perfect base for a page featuring that awesomely angled opera house. And the blues and grays were perfect for it as well. From pastels to primary, I guess I couldn't get enough of my straight color themes. But that's ok.

I sprinkled in some ribbons, washi tape, patterned papers, journaling cards and teeny bit of cardstock. And embellished with enamel dots, a chipboard star and some flair.

Since the background was so busy, I kept the design quite straight and even. Even thought I guessed at it, I pretty much split the page right down the middle.

And another country gets checked off my list. I'm thinking this summer, I'll start going back through some of the other countries I've "finished". Just for fun!

cheers & besos,

Playing with Pastels

Happy Monday yall! I hope you had a nice relaxing weekend. Myself? I packed up some stuff and went to scrap at Archiver's on Saturday. It was a so so experience. I was really hoping to socialize but the crop was so small and everyone else came in groups. So I tinkered away on my own.

I wasn't really motivated and lacked a bit of mojo. It's hard when you're use to scrapping on demand (i.e. my room is all set up to scrap whenever I feel like it and all of my tools are out and available at all times) to suddenly go, ok now you HAVE to scrap. But I powered through. Mainly because I was inspired by some of the new products I purchased on the day.

This was the last page I made at the crop. I went for it because I new the layout I wanted for the photos.

I love Melissa Stinson's tight & clean & photo and color driven style. If you look at her work, pretty much every layout is a sketch worthy page. For this layout specifically, I was inspired by her Snapshots from the Aquarium layout.

I placed my photos, journaling and patterned paper strips in the same way that Melissa did, but I roughed it up a bit by crinkling paper edges, dropping mist splatters and adding sketch lines.

Honestly, I don't know how the pastel color combo came to be, just that I picked up that sheet from the Atlantic collection and thought it went well with the yellow of the palace and blue of the sky. Then I shopped the aisles at Archivers and came back with some Amy Tangerine Yes, Please, an older Ready, Set, Go sheet, a Dear Lizzy Lucky Charm and a spool of ribbon.

I did just tiny bits of embellishing by adding some flair, a chipboard camera, a Thicker title, and when I got home, some white heat embossed words.

It's a little funny to have this guy trip forever immortalized with a pink page. But they'd be good sports about it I'm sure. And now, I'm just excited to have made a 12x12 double page! And to have all of Oslo scrapbooked now. I'll share the final page tomorrow. Until then...

cheers & besos,

Amsterdam Complete!

It's done! One more country to cross off my list. I made 11 pages for Amsterdam!

That's a lot for a 3 day trip!

I have to say, I think this is my favorite layout I've done in awhile.

It's the colors. The colors!

I love the gray/yellow/pink/blue color combo. All of it (bar the blue cardstock and bike paperclip) is from the Boardwalk kit.

I heat embossed, using white embossing powder, with the awesome map Studio Calico/Hero Arts background stamp. I seriously bought the add-on only for that stamp. And it was perfect for this page about the streets of Amsterdam.

And how can you not love this awesome bike paperclip?! I got it from Paper Source. (BTW, it's really dangerous to live within 8 min walking distance of this place...and a Sprinkles cupcake!)

And this next page was so fun and super easy to do. The paper already had the lines and all I had to do was add some tape.

I mixed and matched my letter stickers and a Sassafras border sticker to create the title. I love how it turned out! It so makes me think of the crazy lasers and things that they have going on down at da club :)

Tow more pages for my Europe pages and two more for Shimelle's challenges! And now I get to go play with the bestie as she's coming for a visit.

See yall next week!

xxbesos

Shimelle Challenges

Since I was hauling boxes and painting walls in San Antonio this weekend, I missed out on Shimelle's online crop!

Lucky for me, the challenges are still open for participation (until midnight Sunday GMT). They were just the pushed I needed to finish my Amsterdam photos.

The half page challenge is the inspiration for this page. I've had this lattice die cut paper for at least a year. It vaguely reminded me of the lights in this page.

I used it + my Studio Calico Boardwalk kit to create this and the next page . I loved the teal in this kit and it went perfectly with the sweater I was wearing and the scarf Kori was bundled up in. Did I mention it was cold?!

I just love this big graphic black shape against the Kraft background.

This next page just happened to work out for the red, teal and white challenge. Although I didn't originally plan on doing this one. It just worked out that those colors were in this month's kit!

I used this sketch found via Pinterest as the basis for the design.

I misted the fabric banner with Barnwood Mister Huey and the thickers that came with the kit, as a stencil for my title. The cream color was a bit off on the layout, so this was my solution.

And what I love about these photos is how random and varied they are. Looking at them just made me miss these 2 so much and hence the idea for the page theme!

xxbesos

XXX

Did you know that XXX is not a symbol for promiscuity and debauchery, but actually an old world trade symbol for the city of Amsterdam?

Or so I'm told...

Back in the day, freight bound for Amsterdam was for some reason or other, tagged with an XXX. And because of Amsterdam's red light "reputation" it then became the symbol for all that aforementioned promiscuity...

Just a random tidbit (that I haven't actually googled to verify) to initiate this post on Amsterdam pages :)

Here's my favorite photo from Amsterdam.

It's of my two besties, Christian & Kori. It was a cold and rainy November, when we visited A-dam. So when we weren't trying to see the city, we'd duck into a bar to wait out the rain. Which was actually awesome, considering we'd only met the month before and were still getting to know each other.

I love that the bartender got the stained glass in the background.

And that it has Amsterdam on the bottom!

As far as the page, the details are what does it for me. I discovered that I had a windmill stamp stamp (hehe!) in a variety pack from Tattered Angels.

And I had been saving this cool bottle cap from a few months back, that went perfectly with the green in this page.

Oh, and I forgot to add that this is a Sketchbook 3 sketch! Day 7 or is it 12? I think...I'll need to look it up. But that's definitely 14 layouts from the class now :)

And now to the infamous red light district...

Dum, dum dum....

This is the only photo I took. And to be honest, we didn't spend too much time there.

There's not much going down on the street. You'd have to walk into the places and being in a big group of girls, we weren't really down to do that.

It's still a beautiful spot.

All of Amsterdam is really!

So the layout was based almost to the T, on an older Sunday Sketch from Studio Calico. I thought it was perfect for my red light theme!

Also to emphasize the circles, I used my bubble stamp to add some texture to an otherwise plain sheet of paper. I cut out two larger circles and backed them with some of my favorite red paper scraps. And added a random assortment of brads and buttons for texture and depth.

I think the reflection of the lights on the water are what makes this photo. It would definitely be missing something without it.

So there you have my not so sordid adventures in Amsterdam. Still a few photos form this trip left to scrap. Check back soon for more!

xxbesos