Never Bored

I've had this idea in my head for a bit now, and I'm so glad I got it into the scrapbook! This was the fourth page I made during the [InkieQuill] [ScrapStream] this past weekend. It's a super simple page using some of my newest stash: [Pink Paislee C'est la Vie 6x6 Paper Pad] [Pink Paislee C'est la Vie Washi Sheet with Foil Accents] [Pink Paislee C'est la Vie Printed Chipboard] [Illustrated Faith Created to Create kit]

I was inspired by Adele's art journaling, so I decided to use a stencil and some modeling paste just under where I knew the photos would go. It adds this great tone on tone texture and is just what this fairly flat and simple layout needed.

Pops of color, gold, enamel dots, patterned paper...check. check. check and check! All of my favorites in one super simple page.

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,

Happy Place

I booked a trip yesterday. It's for work but it's also to my favorite place in the world, London! I'm so excited to be back. It's been over a year since I've been and I feel it calling to me. 

Because it's such an important part of my identity, I have no problem calling it my happy place. I have so my fantastic memories from this place.

I was very influenced by Fancy Pant's Happy Place line. It's how I came up with the idea to make this page in the first place. There's a ton in this month's Scrapbook Circle kit!

I think it's as equally important to document the places we love, as it is the people and the things. And I'm so excited to be heading back there in a few weeks. Until then, miss you London!

cheers & besos,

U & Me

This was the last page I made with my All You Need is Love Scrapbook Circle kit. I just couldn't work with a love themed kit and not make a page about one of my biggest loves, my nephew Urijah.

I pulled just an assortment of photos of the two of us. I'm now realizing we don't take many photos together and we totally need to rectify this! 

I loved the kit stencil and wanted to make sure I used it. I've never added modeling paste on top of Kraft before, so I really liked how this came out. It was a fairly quick and simple base to create.

I cut a bunch of rectangles and then punched hearts out of the middle. Then, cut both the heart and the rectangles in half and pieced them back together over white cardstock. You can see the white cardstock sticking out here and there. Believe it or not I actually was going for that look. It makes it feel a bit looser and more home made.

The title just might be my favorite part. I write all of the journaling on Urijah's pages to him. As always every "you" in the text is changed to "U". I like this touch. It makes me smile. The whole time I was working on this page I was hearing Mike Wozawski singing, over and over again.

cheers & besos,

Milestone Cards

Remember that rabbit with the pocket watch and the scant time? Yeah I have even less than he does it seems. 

Nearly 10:00pm and I only recently finished up my work day. It's that time of year! It's only like this for these 2 weeks every year, and even though I know its coming, there's still nothing that can prepare me for the outright exhaustion.

Which is why updates may be few and far between for these next few weeks. I have a few projects to share with you all. I have a bit of stockpile on blog posts. I'll get to them all eventually.

But for now, feast your eyes on these:

I channeled my inner Wilna to create these two milestone cards. The one above is for my parents 32nd Wedding Anniversary and the bottom is congratulations for MT's little sister who just got engaged.

I'm in love with this painted look and feel, something we learned all about in Wilna's Art Class Vol. 1 & Vol. 2! I used her Flourish and Love Words Cut files for these.

Ok, glad I made time to share. And now, I sleep.

cheers & besos,

Lovely

Gooooood morning! Or afternoon depending on where you are....or when you're reading this :) I'm up bright and early today. For no particular reason other than its Saturday and I don't want to waste a minute of it! That's kind of weird huh? Instead of taking the opportunity to sleep in, my body actually wakes itself up. But that means I'm more productive...or something.

Here's me being productive at 6am on Saturday. I didn't of course, just make this. But this page has been sitting in my draft folder for weeks and I'm finally taking time to share.

It's (obvs) another Mixed Media class creation. And all yellow!! For the layout, I followed along with another Simple Scrapper sketch from this month's Spark mag.

I even did some hand stitching. I wanted to make sure that you could tell this was a heart so I cut the shape out in vellum and stitched it to the page. I think it defines the shape a bit more.

And that's all she wrote first thing this Saturday morning. Now I get to figure out what to do with the rest of my day! Stay home and rest (I feel like I'm getting sick) or head out to the Highland Games taking place here in town? Decisions. Decisions!

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,

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 cont.

Second page for the Stash Bash over at Simple Scrapper. I pulled some old product, used a new Wilna die cut file from Two Peas and a bit of modeling paste for this page about my nephew. The prompt is from last month's SS Spark Mag.

One more ticked off my list. One page to add to my scrapbook. Lots oh goodies heaped onto a page!

cheers & besos,

December Album

It's December! How is it December?! No seriously, where did the year go? They say the older you get the faster they go. That must be true bc I feel like I blinked and here we are nearly at the end of 2013.

December is one of my most favorite months of the year. I love Christmas and the holidays. The cold weather and twinkly lights. I love it a ton but don't do much to scrapbook it sadly. But this year, I'm determined to be better! Any scrapbooking is a good thing. Really ANY! So even if I only make one page, it already puts me in the accomplished category. 

I've had this cute lil handbook for a few years now. It was part of the 2011 Studio Calico December Daily kit. I decorated it back then (see it here) but was never happy with how it looked. So I re-did parts of it and am so much happier with the results.

I left the black and white chevron fabric paper. I LOVE black and white and this one is fabulous and modern. Paired with a green bow in a most fabulous shade, I think it looks lovely.

I cut a design with my silhouette and use it as a stencil to add some molding paste for a truly fabulous texture. The cardstock I used was red and it bled a bit when I applied the paste. But I like the subtle color it adds. And if one day I don't like it, I can give the whole thing a coat of white paint.

Thank you Wilna for teaching this technique in Art Class Vol. 1! (I'm so behind on classes that I won't let myself buy Vol. 2 until I've worked my way through my backlog) This was by far and away my most favorite chapter. This stuff is just so cool!

Here's a few views of the edges. It's one of the original things I did to decorate this book. I loved the idea of just the simple red line around the whole album.

And here's a look at the inside. It's painted with Martha Stewart Glitter paint. I like the paint but it coats really thin. You're looking at at least 5 coats! But the shimmer is just so fabulous.

You see, I loved parts of this album design before. And now that I've re-worked the cover. I love the whole thing! I can't wait to start adding pages to this (now) gorgeous lil mini.

It's December =) Hooray!!

cheers & besos,

Gordoughs

Hi hi hi!! My first free weekend in forever has been so lovely. We went to a party on Friday but after that, we had nothing planned. And it's been heavenly. I cleaned and scrapbooked and later today have a friend coming over for a cat date. Huzzah!

So I was able to get caught up on classes this weekend and make a few pages. This is layout is inspired by a Toolbox prompt and also the Mama Elephant Photo Inspiration challenge. Here's the inspiration photo, isn't it fab?

I love the white with the pops of color. I only ended up using the pink and substituted white for silver, but you can see where I was going with it =)

This is a mixed media piece inspired by my Toolbox class. As soon as I saw Celine's video, I knew the foil look would be perfect for this page about me and Tara at Gordoughs. We had to take a photo in front of the airstream! Airstream...foil tape, the perfect representation!

Mama Elephant stamps are rapidly becoming some of my favorites! And I LOVE the Bling set. I mean, the set had a $ sign it! How could I not use it, seeing as Tara's nickname is T$ [read T-money]. I heated embossed a few of the sentiments in white on vellum and stapled them to the foil part of the page.

Lastly, I broke in a pack of Elle's Studio die cuts. It was one of their exclusive kits and I'm so happy they made their way onto a page! They were the best shade of pink, a perfect match for Tara's shorts and also for the photo challenge.

I have one layout done and few others prepped and ready to be put together. Loving that I have time to scrapbook again!

cheers & besos,