The Burren

I love sketches and challenges and scrapbook recipes. But sometimes, I love just sitting at my desk and playing. That's exactly what I did with this page. I went looking through my Ireland photos to see what I wanted to work on and these immediately stood out. They weren't the most beautiful photos (I mean its Ireland for goodness sake!) but at soon as I saw them, I was flooded with memories. 

I knew when I sat at my desk that I wanted to do some stamping and these diamond stamps were my weapon of choice. Can you see what I was going for here? I wanted the diamonds to mimic the rocky cliffs. I used a variety of gray inks and some gray and silver embossing powder to achieve the look.

I really liked the monochromatic look and feel. It makes the blue in the photo really pop! For embellishing, it was just a few blue pieces here and there. I also doodled some diamonds with my pencil.

I hid my journaling behind the photos on a tag I made out of patterned paper. It's full of all the stories that happened in the 10 minute time frame when these pictures were taken. I also added an extra photo in the back. If you read the journaling you'll figure out why it's hidden.

It was so therapeutic to just sit at my desk to play. Add bits here and there and remember this day, this moment, this time with my friend. 

cheers & besos,

Lorelai Gilmore

Happy New Year all! I hope you had a lovely NYE. Mine was a quiet night with an absolutely amazing dinner. MT and I got all dressed up and ate ourselves into a coma. We took some great photos...that I haven't even uploaded to my computer yet. But I'll get to them eventually.

Meanwhile, I've been crafting up a storm but haven't been able to finish anything until today. My December album, yeah that's done. It's in the book! I'm in the process of editing all those photos for the blog. But in the meantime, I wanted to share a page I made today. I came up with this idea just yesterday. And I love how it came out!

If you don't know Gilmore Girls, then you don't know that Lorelai Gilmore is enamored with snow. We share this. Growing up in Texas, I haven't had much opportunity to see it. So anytime I do, it's a big deal. Matt snapped these photos of me when we were at his parents in Ohio last week.

That fabulous blue hat (got it for Christmas this year) really makes these photos pop! So blue is where I took this page. I pulled out blue and silver stuff and used paint, paper, glitter tape, glitter and a doily to back the Silhouette cut I created.

I'm fabulously happy with my first page of the year. It's really and came together so quickly. Just love it when that happens, don't you?

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,

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,

Not just Special

Have you guys been watching the 2Peas videos? Man do they have some awesome content! I'm loving the daily uploads. 

If I wasn't on a procurement freeze, I'd totally spend all my money there. They just market their products so well! So buy from them since I'm not. They're awesome!

But anyway, this page was directly inspired by Kristina Nicolai-White's In the Mood to Scrap video. Her prompt was to use punched circles but I drew inspiration from other places.

I hand wrote my journaling and added some hand drawn lines.

I liked the look of her title and even though it isn't exactly the same as hers, it's still reminiscent.

And the backing paper for the cut title had a little confetti vibe to it. Too bad you can't see much of it. 

I used stars and even hand cut one for a more organic look, like Kristina did with her heart. 

And as to the journaling, I was inspired by Glitter Girl's latest adventure. This is a favorite photo from Urijah's birthday last year, but the journaling is about his special needs. It's the first time I've ever scrapbooked about his autism diagnosis. Obviously it's a big part of his life and I think it deserves to be documented in his scrapbook.

cheers & besos,

Queen Card

Happy Birthday Mrs. T! 

It's MT's mama's birthday today. So I made her a card for him to send. I used an old Simon Says Stamp card kit that I hadn't touched (I know!!) and made it a bit shabby chic. It's not my usual style, but I still liked how the card turned out.

I gravitated to the crown patterned paper and a gray/pink/white/cream color scheme. And just layered some elements on top of a doily, before paper clipping (and also adhering them) to the top of the card.

The dimension is what makes this card for me. I only glued the one corner together, the rest I left to hang loose a bit.

I printed the sentiment out on vellum, bordered punched the bottom and washi taped it to the card. And for some extra texture, I wrapped baker's twine around the card and finished it off with a bow.

cheers & besos,