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,

Simple Scrapper-January 2016

Hiya! I have an equally exciting but possibly less surprising announcement. 

I've signed up for another year on the Simple Scrapper creative team!

I love being a part of Simple Scrapper. Jennifer's resources and toolkits are just perfect for this nerdy planner girl who likes to take time to think through what I want to accomplish, plan it out and then do it! 

I love the sketches. I like the story starters. I adore Spark Magazine! Some of my favorite layouts have come from these resources and some of my best planning comes from events like Refresh, when I stop to take a minute to think about where my focus should be. 

Here are the January pages I submitted for the 25th issue of Spark! 

I had fun with this cheeky page about my "puppy daddy". Really it was just an excuse to scrapbook cute puppy photos. She was so tiny! I don't even remember her being that small and it was just a short time ago.

I used two different Studio Calico lines and Elle's Studio stamps for the page. I think the color combo is my favorite part of it!

The second page was all about my daily personal hygiene. Which the older I get, seems to become more involved! I took a photo of all of the products I use (or should use) on a daily basis. It's a lot!

The Simple Scrapper sketch I based the page off of called for circles of patterned paper. But I decided to use photos instead. I event staged my own little photo shoot to get the images. I also have more journaling tucked underneath the main photos.

These two ended up being some of my latest favorite pages! And this last one was definitely not something I would have documented, were it not for the Story Starters for the month.

I'm excited to spend another year on the Simple Scrapper team. Next week is the first Refresh of the year. Click over to read more about the fun (planner nerd fun) we'll be having!

cheers & besos,

Being a Girl

Hiya! I have another Scrapbook Circle kit layout to share. I so love working with these kits! They have the best mix of the latest and greatest products.

This month, Tessa asked me to work with the My Mind's Eye confetti from the Let's Do This main kit. I lived the variety of shapes and colors and had fun laying out this pattern. I was inspired by this piece of wall decor that I saw on Em Henderon's (a lovely interior designer) instagram account. 

Arranging them in this sunburst pattern added more impact, I think. And just a few sequins went a long way. I was really strategic about where I placed them. What you see is what you get, I wasn't letting a single bauble get covered up by photos or paper.

I have to add that I did this page backwards. I started with the sequins and the stitching, knowing I'd add a 4x6 photo to the page. But I didn't have a photo in mind when I started. I just created the base! And then I got stuck. I wasn't sure what I wanted to scrapbook so I left it for a few days.

I asked my boyfriend to weigh in and he suggested making a page about my nephew. But my response to him was, "No, it's too girly!" But there was my answer.

I decided to make a page about some of the awesome parts about being a girl! Fun make-up and lipsticks, gorgeous perfume bottles and pretty dresses. Plus fun female role models!

I staged my own mini still life photo shoot with stuff from my apartment and printed the photos out in a variety of different sizes, that I then hid behind my main photo.  I ended up creating a flip book on my page. Scroll down and you'll see the front and backs of each of the "flips" (what I just named them).

I've done this kind of thing on a few different projects and love the interactive element it adds. (Other flip projects found here)

The other day I found myself wishing for clear washi tape, you know, one you can't see. Then I had a "duh doi" moment when I realized they make that. It's called tape, Jamie. About a million places sell it. That's what I used to make my flips. I could have easily gone with something decorative but like the cleaner look for this page.

At the bottom of the pile was a list of 10 reasons I am loving about being a girl (although #10 is kind of a throw away).

I so love how this page came together! And I'm happy I didn't take the easy way out. I could have just used the photo of me with my new haircut and called it a day.

It was more work to stage and take the photos, edit and print them all out. But now that's it's done and the extra effort was expended, I'm so pleased with the result.

Tessa blogged about this layout on the Scrapbook Circle blog today. You can read more here.

cheers & besos,

SACS

Last Simple Scrapper page to share for the month! I used an older sketch and a Story Prompt from the April edition of Spark Magazine. 

This month's theme was faith, which was a bit harder for me to scrapbook about.

I had a lot to say about my experience with a religious school, but you won't read any of it here. All of my journaling is hidden behind the photo.

I absolutely loved this older sketch from the Simple Scrapper archives, since it allowed me to highlight so many of the Studio Calico Odyssey kit papers (both fronts and backs).

Although, the sketch did call for me to trim the papers at the top, I opted to keep them as is. In my scrapbook they jut out of the top of the page protector and I like that.  I don't see them as anything different from a tab or some other topper.

cheers & besos,

Shopgirl

I have a dream. It's kind of a big one and one that I've had since I was a very little girl. One day, I want to own a shop. This is not going to happen today, tomorrow or likely even this year. But it's just one of those things I'm going to keep working toward (really it tops the list).

Because I'm a scrapbooker, I scrapbook these kinds of dreams. Here's the layout I made. It's a 100% Simple Scrapper brainchild. I used an older sketch for the design but the story was inspired by one of the January 2015 story starters. [You get access to these via the Premium Membership. Read more: here]

For the background, I hand drew lines and sprinkled in some inspirational words: "shopgirl", "entrepreneur", "owner", "girl boss".

I embellished with flags, buttons and sequins. And of course sprinkled in some gold.

The papers are from the Maggie Holmes Open Book collection. I have a deep and endless love for this collection. It's my absolute current fave. Isn't the chipboard girl too perfect?!

The finishing touch was typing out the journaling and tucking it into this little Kraft pocket.

I so loved how this came out. Maybe because of the deeply personal story I was telling. Maybe because of all of these gorgeous supplies. Really, I think it was the combo of the two. And to think, I might not have even scrapbooked it were it not for the Story Starter!

cheers & besos,

2009

Hey y'all! I'm back home!! So excited to be here after a whirlwind week of travel. I'm also so excited to share this page with you. It's one of my favorites that I've made in awhile.

I have a lot to say about this page and not much time to say it in. So here goes:

I made this page as part of the Super Simple Scrapbook Challenges class over at Big Picture Classes. I'm loving this class! But I haven't had much time to actually play along. This is for Challenge #1--build a block and fill it in.

I went to my box of new supplies and pulled out patterned papers in red, blue, yellow and gray (from a Studio Calico kit) and cut them into strips to anchor alongside each photo.

Most of the embellishments are stamps from the October Ali Edward's Story Stamp. That month was all about telling real stories, maybe the not so shiny ones. I didn't really intend to tell this particular story until I pulled out the stamp set. I thought I'd write about Matt's and my 6 year relationship and all of the highs and lows of it. Instead, I chose to tell the story of 2009. The hardest year of my life and when these photos were taken.

Journaling Reads: 
2009 was the dark year. It was the unhappiest year of my life. I was depressed. I was lonely. I was missing my amazing life and my fantastic friends. I was missing my boyfriend. I was angry with my parents and unhappy about being back in San Antonio.

I had just finished living my dream. I had been living abroad, having crazy new adventures every week and visiting exotic places every month. I had a ready group of playmates that were equally filled with wanderlust.

But in just a few short weeks I went from having the life I always wanted, to coming back to a place that had nothing for me. No jobs, no friends, no adventures.

And it took a very long time for me to dig myself out of that. I was anxious and unhappy. There were times when I didn’t want to leave the house for days.

I was in the craziest headspace when I decided to visit Matt in Thailand. I went for a week and felt miserable the whole time. We barely left the apartment because I was so agoraphobic about being out in the city. Doesn’t look like it does it? While pictures may be worth a thousand words, it doesn’t mean they tell the whole story.

Things turned around in 2010. I slowly emerged from my haze and made my way back into the land of the living. I found a job (two at once even!) and moved to Houston. I got to live in the same city as Matt for the first time in over a year and a half.

Although I wouldn’t ever want to live through it again, I am thankful for 2009. It was the year that Urijah was born, when I became an aunt. And if I had been working and hadn’t been home I never would have got to spend the time that I did with Uncle Joe. We lost him that September.

2009, you were undoubtedly my worst year of life. But I do thank you for what you did give to me: a beautiful nephew and much needed time with my family.

I typed it all out and tucked it into a mini paper bag that I added behind my central block. You can see it just peaking out on the left side there.

I think what I love so much about this page is the awesome colors and the real story that I shared. One that I really never would have it I hadn't picked these photos for the Super Simple Scrapbook Challenges class or if I hadn't pulled out the Ali Edward's Story Stamp.

See! This is why products and classes are awesome. They help you get to points you might not have otherwise. 

This page right here, it's all about why I scrapbook.

cheers & besos,

Make Magic

I have the first of my Simple Scrapper creative team assignments to share! The December theme is all about magic. Let me tell you, it was so inspirational. I had a lot of ideas for magic and the story starters helped me narrow it down to something I was so excited to write about. The magic of creativity! 

Part of our assignment was to use an older sketch and I adored this one with paired with the Walden PL kit. I made a each of these into mini "books" using washi tape, since this is all about the magic of creativity and scrapbooking.

Journaling Reads:
"For me, creating is magic. And scrapbooking is my favorite creative outlet. It starts with an idea, a foggy thought and grows into a tangible thing.  A page and later a book, something you can pick up, touch and hold."

"Scrapbooking feeds my creativity. It keeps my brain synapses firing. It pushes me to think differently, come at a problem from another angle. It stretches my imagination and means I get to build with my hands. How often do we get to do that anymore?"

"I don’t do it often enough, but I absolutely love looking back at my scrapbooks. Getting lost in the pages and the adventures; looking back at my life and cherishing the wonderful memories I’ve managed to cultivate.  Scrapbooks have the power to stop time. Memories forever preserved in glossy photos paired with pretty papers."

"I love that every page I make surprises me. I love knowing there are creative projects and pages inside me already and all I have to do is sit at my desk and let them come out. My next favorite layout is percolating somewhere in my brain, waiting for the right photo, right story, right sheet of pretty paper. I actually think about this a lot. For me, that’s so exciting!"

"And these scrapbooks all lined up on my shelves, not only do they hold my stories, they also hold their own particular brand of magic. My magic. The magic of a life I’ve concocted. The product of my creativity spun out across the page, each layout a time capsule."

I had a lot of fun playing with this color combo and the star elements. I especially love those a transparency stars from the Poet Society PL kit.

Heidi Swapp's Cherish stamps were also so appropriate for a page about scrapbooking.

For my fellow Simple Scrappers watch out for this one in the December Spark magazine. Catch y'all on the Facebook group!

cheers & besos,