Dreaming of Sunshine

It's the 10th today!! Which means, the latest Elle's Studio monthly kit is out! Along with a few fun goodies and the new design team projects!! Head over there to nab your loot, while the kit is on sale for $9.99. After midnight PST, the prices increase to $11.99. So save some pennies while you have the chance :)

Here's a divided page protector spread I put together using the kit. I don’t use divided page protectors in the traditional sense i.e. Project Life. Really, they’re just another tool in my creative arsenal. If it makes sense to tell the story in this format, then I will! I don’t think too much about it.

I chose a divided page protector because I really loved so many of the cards in this month’s kit. Four of them fit went really well with the story I was wanting to tell, and I threw a fifth in for fun and color!

Lately, I’ve been going through a bit of a hard time. I’ve dealt with anxiety and a bit of depression since I hit puberty. It fortunately, has not been a daily issue for much of my life. There have been months and years when it hasn’t been part of my life. But the older I get, the more these issues seem to decide to make themselves known. This last round of anxiety has lasted longer than any before. Obviously, it’s weighing heavy on my mind, so I can’t help but document it.

I thought the “dreaming of sunshine” card was such a great metaphor for my current situation. I’m truly dreaming of more sunshine, or in this case, a happier and more calming state of mind. I love that Elle included a card that highlights that not every day is “happy” or “the best!” The “This was not my day” card was great for adding my journaling. And I thought the “Weather Report” went really well with the set, continuing on with the weather metaphor.

One of my favorite products from this month’s release were the puffy stickers!!! The “real life” one was perfect for this page. It’s kind of hard to tell from the photo, but the “true story” is an acrylic word. This is one of the truest stories I’ve told in awhile, so I had to use it.

I added some thought bubbles directly onto my photo in white ink. It’s kind of hard to see them but I like that. It’s just some texture, and a bit of a visual cue as to what my head looks like right now. Crowded!

For anyone who’s concerned, I appreciate it. But truly I’m doing ok. Taking a lot of steps to get better. And really just moving forward and working towards a brighter April.

I’m still here. I’m still scrapbooking. I’m still making time to be creative!

cheers & besos,

Scrapbook Circle Blog Hop

Hiya! Welcome to the Scrapbook Circle 9th Anniversary blog hop! I'm excited that you're here. If you're new to my blog, hello and welcome. If you're not new, nice to see ya! Thanks for coming back =) 

Since it's such a fun time for Scrapbook Circle, we're in celebration mode! Hence this hop around to all of the Design Team's blogs.

You'll want to start at the Scrapbook Circle blog and go from there. (You may have come from Jennifer Larsen's blog. If yes, you're on the right path!) Be sure to leave some love (or comments) along the way. Each comment will be one entry into a random drawing where we will be giving away FIVE Hello Sunshine kits.

So let me show you what I made with my Hello Sunshine kit and the Hello Love add on. 

I love pulling out specific color stories from each kit. For this page, I pulled a lot of the green, blues and teals, along with my favorite neutrals: black, white and gray.

I also had fun editing this photo of Sarah and I in Ireland (Cliffs of Moher if anyone has been). I converted each photo (more on that later) to black and white and colored myself and Sarah back in. Here's the tutorial I always have to look back at, I never seem to remember how to do it.

I had Taylor Swift's lyric stuck in my head the whole time. "You took a Polaroid of us. Then discovered. The rest of the world was black and white. But we were in screaming color." I think she's thinking more romantically, but it can be used for friendship too. My friends color my world! 

 

So what you see isn't only what you get. I made this an interactive page, complete with mini photo book. I pulled photos from all of the place we traveled to together. Cambodia...

Indonesia…(of course I snuck some pineapples in!)

…Japan and most recently Palm Springs!

We've been traveling to fun places together for 7 years now. I can't wait for our next adventure (hint: somebody is moving to Crete and I may just have to visit her!)

I loved putting this page together and taking this walk down memory lane. Although it made me miss this girl something awful! But that's the beauty of scrapbooking, no? We get to celebrate all of these fantastic times from the past!

Alright-y, all done here. Next on your hop is Diana Fisher! Don't forget to comment here, there and everywhere for a chance to win one of five Hello Sunshine kits. Comments close at midnight PST on May 21. The winners will be posted on the Scrapbook Circle blog on May 22.

cheers & besos,

The Bean

Hey there! How you going? It's been a lovely lazy stay at home and do nothing but scrap kind of day. Exactly what I needed after the birthday party that was thrown at my house yesterday. It was only immediate family but still, lots of ruckus in my tiny little apartment.

Today, I needed to do some quiet scrapping. Just me, my paper and my pictures. Here's one of the pages I made.

I used (of course) a Simple Scrappers sketch and a ton of fun embellishments. At first, I wasn't so excited to use this sketch in particular. For some reason it didn't feel me. So I put it aside for a few days and just now got back to it. I gave up on another idea that just wasn't going to work for these photos in this configuration and I'm so much happier for having let it go!

Since I'm taking the SC Stitched class, I thought I'd add some fun colorful stitching to the page. I hand drew a bean and cut it out of vellum before I stitched down the shape and spelled out the title.

Then it was just a matter of making a line of circular embellishments down the side of the photos. That's the part that made it me!

It was really fun to just go to my travel drawer--and yes, I have one of those--pull out a ton of embellishment packs and some ink and just go to town.

Balance is always the number one design element in these kinds of things. I think I made it work out.

With that I'll leave you to your Sunday evenings. I'm off to watch some Game of Thrones and Madmen!

cheers & besos,

NYE 2008

Hi friends, I hope you are having a lovely week. Mine has been absolutely crazy. Work is at an all time high as we prep for a huge event we're having the second week of May. But I don't mind. I prefer this to slow dragging days.

Work is busy but I'm still managing to scrap on the weekends. My precious precious weekends! And I'm also back to paper based pages...with bits of wet media thrown in for good measure. 

I call this my ode to circles. There's a lot on here! The paper, the pictures the embellishments. I went for it! Mainly because it reminded me of champagne bubbles. Perfect since this is a page about NYE! The whole design is based off of one of this month's Simple Scrapper sketches.

I water colored around a few of the circles and colored with the silver Neocolor. Then I hand stitched "fireworks" and embellished with star sequins. Then I blinged it out even more with glitter Thickers and circles punched from AC glitter paper.

I did something a little bit different with the journaling. Since all of these photos were taken right next to the Baker Street tube station, I made it a tad more literary and a mite more factual.

This was a fun page to scrap since it was just cute photos of me and my friends. We weren't "doing" anything and so the design makes it more lively! Fab sketch Jen & Co. Yet another reason why I love me some Simple Scrapper.

cheers & besos,

Mixed Media: Mostly Ladylike

Pink & purple party over here!! I went for it. Girl-ed it up as much as I could. I don't often do that. No idea why I don't. But I'm thinking I need to do it more often because this was just fun.

This, of course, is another page I made from the Studio Calico Mixed Media class. You can see the Neocolors in action here on the sides, they're the brightest pink you can see.

I'm so glad I opened up the Crate Paper Vellum die cut pack because this "Most Ladylike" one was perfect for this page. I amended it to say "Mostly Ladylike" but I loved that it had a blue ribbon feel to it. Very appropriate for a picture from the rodeo, no?

I added in bits of stitching here and there just to add some dimension to an otherwise fairly flat page.

With just a few lines of journaling and a date stamp, the page was complete.

cheers & besos,

Great Grandma's Quilt

I have exactly one family heirloom. And let me tell you, it is wickedly awesomely cool. My great-grandma Juanita hand made/stitched this "quilt". (It's a bed cover, complete with ruffle. But I'll continue to call it a quilt.)

The detail in it is amazing, and the colors are so beautiful. It's folky and a tad in your face. But I think that might be exactly why I love it so much. 

It's also a part of my culture and my heritage. The colors even remind me of the Mexican flag. I'm so lucky to have it hanging in my house. 

The page I made is fairly simple: an enlarged photo, some smaller accent photos, title, hand stitching and a few drops of paint. That's really all there is to it.

The rest is all about the journaling. I conjured up all the lessons Jill talked about in Scrapbooking for the Soul; and really took my time writing and editing my journaling.

I had a lot to say about this heirloom, and since its a hand made quilt I really wanted the journaling to be handwritten. But I couldn't make it all fit! So I had to compromise a bit by mixing in an "aged" typewriter font while leaving spaces for some handwritten words.

Journaling Reads:
There is a thread that connects me to her. 

I know bits and pieces about my great grandma. I know she had cotton colored hair and a love for red nail polish. I hear she was a tiny sprite full of gumption. They tell me she loved to travel and would just up and leave without telling anyone. She would go visit this friend or that one. I also know she made things with her hands. Beautiful things such as this quilt. She hand stitched every leaf, every flower, she created la Madre out of thread.

I feel this in my bones: because of her, I make things. Except my medium is paper and glue. I love creating things out of nothing; weaving patterns together, playing with color and technique. 

I'm thankful to have such precious reminder of how akin I am to her. She was a tiny ancestor who I only briefly met. But we are probably more alike than I know. The thread that connects her to me is heART.

cheers & besos,

Ohio Ornaments

It's true. I love my Pinterest boards! I'm so visual and Pinterest is so visually awesome. I love looking at my boards, pinning projects for a later date, looking for inspiration.

I went through my boards the other day and decided to re-pin all the projects and recipes and layouts I have used [see it here]. Of the 4,003 images I've pinned, I've only used 59 of them! Doing the math fairly quickly, but that's barely more than 1%!!!

And the thing is, I love the things I pin. I want to use them. So this month and next year, I'm planning to do just that. Starting with this project:

State Ornaments: [Pin] [Original Source]

Aren't these adorable? I loved the Pinspiration and thought these wee lil hoops would be the perfect little stocking stuffers for Matt's family. We'll be in Ohio for Christmas this year and I'll be able to hand them out (in person!) then.

I went with Ohio State colors on this one, topped off with a silver ribbon. Stocking stuffers can now be checked off the list!

cheers & besos,

Jubilee: Go See Do

Do you ever just completely lose your mojo? Just aren't feeling creative even one little iota? That happens to me sometimes. Its been happening to me the last few weeks!! (Which is not helpful as I'm putting together my Christmas cards...)

My head just wasn't in the game for some reason. I was watching crafty videos. Browsing galleries. Trolling Pinterest. But nothing!

Then I just made something. A layout...and a sacrificial one at that. It wasn't my finest piece of work but it also wasn't the worst. And with it out the of way, I was able to create this layout. 

Creativity is like a muscle, the more you use it the stronger it gets. 

Studio Calico's Jubilee kit came in the mail today (well yesterday, but I picked it up today). There's just something about receiving new goodies in the mail, and especially scrapbook goodies! I spread everything out to pour over it and then went to iPhoto to pull photos I thought would work. 

These snaps from my trip to Chicago this summer were the most inspiring to me. So I started there. I added a few of the brushes to the main one, along with text filling in some of the details.

I didn't know what I wanted to do with this page other than that I'd like to try out this design. Sam's (aka WaiSam) layout was what I had in mind. But I also had Jina Jean's layout pinned, which is where Sam's inspiration originally came from. All I went off of was separating my page into three bits, lining things up along the top and bottom edge and adding a simple title in the middle. 

I didn't look at either of their layouts until this page was finished. I didn't want to be very influenced. I just knew I wanted to try out this design!

This ended up being a no patterned paper layout, but I didn't mean for it to be! I even intended to use some of the Project Life cards. But once I started stamping and filing things in, I kind of ran out of room for any paper.

The title was the very last thing I added to this page. I made sure to cut out some of the fabulous designs that came with the kit & the class. I cut them all out of white cardstock with the intention that I would mist or paint or ink them. But of course I never do! There's just something about a crisp white.

Also, I only adhered the top loop of the "g" down so the rest would be floating. I like the dimension it adds.

Stamps, gelatos, sequins, printables, wood veneer, cork stars, mist splatters, hand stitching. I threw it all at this page. Circles are the primary design element since there's some great polka dots painted on these guys. [Link to article on the exhibition]

And, I didn't want to box out the page too much. Plus, I like circles! And there are some great circle stamps in the kit.

And so I think I'll call an end to my lack of mojo. Thank goodness!! I'm loving this page. I'm loving my new kit. And I'm loving that I'll have some down time this week to make some pages =)

In case I don't update before then, have a Happy Thanksgiving to all of my fellow USA-ians.

cheers & besos,

Love you Wild

This page is best viewed in bits and pieces. Maybe not all at once. There's a lot going on here I'll admit.

I had these cute photos of Mac that I wanted to scrapbook but didn't know quite what to say about them other then, "hey! here's a cute kitten." Somehow along the way, I figured out that I wanted to talk about how she's my first baby. The first little thing that I've ever had to take care of on my own (without mom or dad). Hence the title that I created with the help of my Silhouette.

My Silhouette got a lot of action on this page. For some reason, I got it in my head that I wanted to use ovals for this layout. It's a shape I don't normally scrapbook with so I decided to try it out. I searched "oval" in the Silhouette online store and came up with these designs. Cut them out of my favorite white cardstock (white Bazzil orange peel in case anyone is curious) and then layered them over my photos and one of the Wildflower journaling cards.

I really had no intention to include any deer on this page about my kitten, but the sentiment on the journaling card was too good to pass up. I had to include on this page about my wild little kitten whom I do love dearly.

There's yellow in the photos but not much in the collection. So I painted a rough square in the middle with this vibrant yellow color. I like that you can still see the arrowhead design through it.

I didn't realize it at the time, but afterwards considered that I had channeled my inner Wilna for this page. Roughly this particular page of hers.

The final bits were adding gold washi as landing for my journaling spots. I printed them on more of that orange peel cardstock and hand sewed them to the page with a few stitches of embroidery floss. I thought they needed some color.

This was another idea I've had floating around in my head. Tacking something down and letting the rest of it float. I'm talking about a lot of envisioning and picturing in this post. I think its the product of being away from my creating desk for so long. I had time to imagine these pages beforehand.

I added another deer at the bottom, anchored by a strip of gold washi tape. If not now, when else would I use it? Along with her name and the date. Viola!

Like I said, a lot to take in and a lil crazy. But I love it all the same. I also love how versatile this collection is. I didn't use many pieces; my background paper, a journaling card and that sticker. And yet it still mixes flawlessly with the rest of my stash.

Don't forget to comment if you wanna win it! Just a flower and your e-mail will do =)

cheers & besos,

Handstitched Cards

What's with all of my married friends being born in pairs?! Kim and Eric are born in June. Susie and Gus (and now Lauren) have August birthdays. So it's more coordinating cards from me! (See K&E's travel birthday cards here)

Lately, I'm loving a neutral background with pops of color, mixed alongside a bold graphic design. So I custom made a boy and a girl version using paint, mist, black and white washi and stamps.

For Susie's card, I was inspired by the Mama Elephant Photo Challenge again. I love the white with the pops of pink and black. And instead of the yellow as in the inspiration photo, I used gold.

Tim Holtz Distress Paint is pretty awesome. The dauber makes it so easy to smear across a stencil. This pink is Picked Raspberry. It's so vibrant IRL (and in this photo thanks to RadLab). 

To back the sentiment, I used a few date stamps and gold brilliance ink to create a text block. I wrote the word "happy" on a scratch piece of vellum and poked holes where I wanted them over the text. Then I stitched through with black thread.

For Gus' card, I knew immediately that I wanted to create an argyle pattern. He's a sock guy and so that pattern just seems him to me. I used my Silhouette to cut a diamond out of scratch paper and then used it as a mask for the blue blocks (that's Distress Paint in Salty Ocean).

I traced more diamonds with a pencil and poked another round of holes. This time I stitched them in teal and finished the card off with tape and a die cut that was misted with Heidi Swapp Color Shine in Bronzer.

The "Happy Birthday" stamp is by Papertrey Ink, a set I had totally forgotten about but still completely love! Might need to place another order with them sometime soon, they have the best stamps!

Happy belated birthday Gus! And happy early birthday Susie! The month of the Cruz celebrations is almost complete =)

cheers & besos,