Water Dog

I finally finished the 2nd page I made using my [2016 NSD Kit]! I know, it's been nearly two whole months. But I'm not going be too hard on myself. It's done and I like it :)

The colors are my favorite part! I'm loving this combo: teal, orange, yellow, gray, brown, white! I lined all of the paper along the side to create a color block.

The title is a [cut file] from [The Cut Shoppe]. I love how versatile it is! I backed it with cardstock in the color scheme.

We were at the pool just last weekend and Dixie had a blast retrieving the ball all over again. Except this time she was twice as big!

cheers & besos,

SaveSaveSaveSave

Skidamarink

Do you know this song? "[Skidamarink a-dink, a-dink, Skidamarink a-doo], I love you. I love you in the morning and in the afternoon. I love you in the evening and underneath the moon!" 

There may be nothing that transports me back to my childhood as quickly as this song. It was the theme for [The Elephant Show]. Something my brother and I watched religiously when we were little kids. I couldn't tell you anything about the show or what it had to do with elephants, but man is that song ingrained in my brain!

This month's [Simple Scrapper] theme is all about the 80's and one of the Story Starters sparked the idea for this page. I only have vague snippets of what my life was like in the 80's...in December 1989 I was only 5. So I made a page about the things I did remember: being baby sat by Great Aunt Lucy...taking trips to the "little store" for candy and treats...watching The Elephant Show on the big pillow...and loving craft and stationary supplies!

I really wanted to make the song the focal point, so I die cut it out of white cardstock and backed with this lovely watercolored patterned paper. It's big and bold and I like it!

I put together a small photo collage of images for each of the four things I had talked about in my journaling. And I used bright/bold colors in honor of the very colorful 80's! I think most everything is from Amy Tangerine's Sketchbook collection.

cheers & besos,

The Good Life

You guys, this month's [Elle's Studio kit and exclusives] are live! And they're all bright and colorful and summery and fun! Here's a page I made using the [monthly kit] with the [ice cream wood veneer], [stamp set] and [cut file]. 

I loved those little ice cream cones! I knew instantly that I wanted to use this old photo from my London days. I was 22 in this photo and seriously living The Good Life!

So of course, I wanted to use Taylor Swift lyrics on the page! I added them directly to the background and included my journaling around them.

This [month's kit] had these great circle die cuts, so I opted to make them into more ice cream cones by using the [stamp set]. There's no such thing as too much when it comes to ice cream ;)

To nab the goods, head over to [Elle's Studio]. The [monthly kit] is available for $9.99 today only, so if you know you want it, get it today :)

cheers & besos,

Family Portraits

This was the last and final page I made during the [InkieQuill] [ScrapStream] this past weekend. It was totally fun and super simple to make!

I was inspired by the shirt Joyce aka Matt's mama (as if you couldn't tell!) was wearing. It was stripped navy and had these great white flowers across it. So I pulled out some navy scraps from my scrap drawer and a few red washi tapes and stuck them down to my background paper.

I cut out some white leaves and placed them behind the photos, curling towards the edges of my page. My title was cut with the Silhouette using the print and cut feature. Although it didn't cut out quite right (i.e. what I was seeing on my screen didn't match the end result) I still went with it.

I added a few blue and red buttons and brads and some silver mist just along the sides and was done! I love it when a pages comes together quickly and easily.

As if you couldn't already tell, I had so much fun playing alongside Adele during the ScrapStream. I can't wait for the next one, which is scheduled for iNSD! This year I'll actually be able to join in on some NSD fun!

cheers & besos,

Inspiration Inventoried: My Sweetheart

I decided to go ahead and put together a quick Inspiration Inventoried video for this page, which was my favorite from the weekend.

Here are a few of the links I mentioned in the video:

[InkieQuill]

[ScrapStream No. 3]

InkieQuill [Heart Embellishments]

Jen Schow's [A Little Piece of my Heart] layout

Elle's Studio [Heart Digital Cut File]

And here are the still images from the page!

cheers & besos,

Play Outdoors

This was the 2nd page I made during the [InkieQuill] [ScrapStream]! I challenged myself a bit with this one. I have one box of embellishments that I rarely open up. It has all of my 3-dimensional and miscellaneous embellishments, lots of flowers but also things like the kite, leaves and oversize wood veneer. I decided that I wanted to try to use some stuff from that box on this page.

After working on a [page with a very clear direction], I was happy to just play around with some fun embellishments to figure out something that would work.

I started by trimming 1/4 in. strips of an old Studio Calico patterned paper and framing my photo with them. Then I dipped the photos edges in brown paint, something [Nicole Harper] use to do. Next, I decided to mat my photo with white cardstock, but didn't have the right size so I improvised with two scraps. They're intentionally jaunty.

When I printed this photo at 6x8, I envisioned writing my journaling directly on the photo in the grass. But I decided my title would look better there. I thought it needed something though, so I used some roller stamps and white and gold ink to stamp directly onto the photo. It's subtle, but you can see it much better IRL.

For the title, I decided to use these [whimsical letters] I purchased from [Just Nick.] No better font to cut out the word "play" from! I layered up all of the embellishments I pulled from my embellishment box in the bottom right hand corner of the photo and added my few lines of journaling just below.

Of all the pages I made, I think this one is least like my usual style. But I still really really like it! Tomorrow I'll share the heart page, so check back for more details about it!

cheers & besos,

Dixon

Hiya folks! Coming to you live from a flooded Houston. Our household is safe and reasonably dry, we have to venture out with the dog from time to time.  The rain has stopped at the moment but they're predicting more over the next few days. Which is a bit scary as we desperately need the water to recede. It's currently 6pm and they're still rescuing people from flooded areas! Here's hoping for safety!

But on to the scrapbooking portion of today's blog post. This was the first page I made while watching InkieQuill's ScrapStream.  That oh-so-fun event I participated in this weekend!

I had a flash in my brain the other day, an idea for a layout. I saw a word repeated over and over again in different colors on the right side of the page and photos in a column on the left. So that's what I made!

I used the Museo Slab font for the title. In the Silhouette software I repeated "dixon" in five different sizes. I placed them on the canvas where I wanted them to be and then outlined the whole thing. This, I cut out of white cardstock.

I pulled five different patterned papers in some of the colors of that stripe on the left side (an old Crate Paper) and cut out the individual "dixon"s. I tried to mix up the patterns and used a grid, a chevron (of sorts), a floral, a triangle pattern and a polka dot. Everything came out of my scrap drawer!

For embellishing, I stuck with arrows and hearts. Arrows because the character on the Walking Dead, Daryl Dixon, who our Dixon was named after, uses a crossbow. I pulled wood veneer and puffy stickers and then I hand stitched a few arrows using gray crochet thread.

I like how the page come together. Though it isn't as good as the idea had in my head. Either way I'm happy to see it in real life! Tomorrow, I'm sharing the "Play Outdoors" layout. Stop by for that!

cheers & besos,

ScrapStream

I had so much freakin fun participating in Adele aka InkieQuill's ScrapStream No. 3! It was like cropping with a friend. I got up to my own scrapbook mischief and made five pages. I created with no rhyme or reason. Just went through some of my latest photos, printed them in sizes I thought would work (some didn't) and made pages without kits or parameters. Like I said, so much fun! 

If you're interested in watching the not live ScrapStream you can see it here [Part 1] [Part 2] I'm definitely planning to re-watch the parts I was asleep for.

I think I'll blog about one of these each day this week! So check back to find out more :)

cheers & besos,

Awards Dinner

A new month means a new edition of Simple Scrapper’s Spark Magazine! And with it, monthly sketches + the design teams take on those sketches and 12 story starters + the design team’s take on those story starters. It’s a really great beginning of the month boost to get all of your creativity synapses firing!

I’m part of the design team, but believe me, this doesn’t diminish my excitement about Spark’s monthly release even a bit. I love looking through and see what everyone else came up with and reading Jennifer’s always helpful opening article. This month’s is about shopping and oh man, even though I’ve been doing this thing called scrapbooking for so long, I still learned something new. 

Here’s a page I put together featuring one of this month’s sketches. It’s actually a really simple page once you break it down. But since the event itself is formal, I dressed it up by doing two things:

1) I used black cardstock as the base. I think this might be the least used color in terms of layout backgrounds. It definitely changes the feel of the page. Since this event happens at night and is considered black tie, I thought it would be the perfect backdrop for these photos. The colors just pop off of it!

2) I added metallics. I kind of went crazy with them! Using my Silhouette, I cut out the stars from the black cardstock and backed them with this great silver glitter paper. I also dropped some Heidi Swapp Color Shine in Silver. Lastly, I used some funky shiny sequins left over from a Studio Calico kit, as accents.

Stars were a big part of this design, mainly because they feature in the room decor. You can kind of see them in the ’14 photo, behind my colleague’s head. Seeing them every year always makes me excited, so I wanted to replicate that by using stars on the background, in the patterned paper and with the embellishments.

This page, along with a recent favorite layout, are featured in the April edition of Spark Magazine. Head over to Simple Scrapper for more info. I’m super pumped because tomorrow is the beginning of one of our quarterly events, Refresh. I’m ready to sit down, figure out my plan for the next 3 months, organize, recharge and get crafty.

cheers & besos,

Friends?

Our puppy is a social butterfly. This is a conundrum for me and for Matt because we aren't the most social people. She forces us into all kinds of random interactions. But I guess there's nothing wrong with that. Although the introvert in my screams "dangit puppy!" every time...

She loves people and she especially loves other dogs. She whines and cries if we don't let her play (read: jump) on other dogs we encounter on our walks. Cadie, my parents dog, doesn’t take too kindly to other dogs she can’t control. And Dixie is too young and naive to realize that Cadie doesn’t like her very much. Dixie’s pretty sure they’re best friends!

I knew I wanted to scrapbook this story and feature a lot of butterflies! I purchased this design from the Silhouette Online store and cut out three patterned paper butterflies. I liked the cut for its simple lines and the fact that the negatives would have been easy to back with different patterned papers. Although I didn’t go that route on this page.

Green was my challenge. I don’t scrapbook with green often enough! Don’t get me wrong, I like green. But given the option, it’s the easiest to drop from my repertoire. I chose a shade darker than my photos (with less yellow in it) to make these photos pop off of it. I also added a white cardstock mat to make sure the photos differentiated themselves. It helped balance Cadie’s white fur and is also why I decided to back the butterflies with white cardstock.

I love contrast. I try to use it as much as possible on every page. So the black thicker title, black label, black journaling, black heart stamping and black ink splatters helped add contrast to the white matted photos, Cadie’s white fur, the white backed butterflies, white threads and white outlined swirls.

The finishing touches were all about adding texture. I had some white thread cut offs in my sewing box that I added behind a few of the butterflies. I’ve seen this trend on a few other pages and think it’s such a simple way to add really great texture.

cheers & besos,

Photo of the Year

How many of you, my fellow scrapbookers, have felt thankful for this hobby? Have felt so blessed for taking the time to capture everyday moments? The mundane parts of life. The simple parts of life. 

I could not be more thankful for this photo, a seemingly boring photo. It's the only photo I have of my family of four--me, my partner, our cat and dog. We lost my cat just a few weeks later. So there's no chance of ever capturing our life like that again.

It isn't the greatest of images, but I don't really care. It's the idea behind it that matters the most. And that is why I consider it the best photo of the year.

For the page, I used the March Scrapbook Circle kit and this cut file from The Cut Shoppe. I manipulated it a bit in the Silhouette software and chose to only cut out the outer two "negative" rings. The patterns are from 4 sheets of patterned paper but I used the A and B sides of 3 of them, so lots of variety!

I kept my journaling and the embellishing really simple. Just a few typed lines and a smattering of foam hearts + the title and die cut. I wanted to include that Pinkfresh Studio house die cut because this is what life was like for us at home.

I'm so happy I set the timer and actually took this photo. I'm glad that I bothered to do it! Because there was ample opportunity and I just never got around to it. I'm making a resolution here and now. Get one everyday shot with the three of us in it, every month. Adding it to the bujo right now!

cheers & besos,