Becky

Hiya! I don't know what was in the air this week, but I was seriously missing my friends. All of the out of state (and city too!) ones. And that's quite a few. Thankfully, I still get to see them. Although nowhere near as often as I'd like. 

But last month I flew out to Milwaukee for James' wedding and got to spend some time with these lovely girls. Michelle lives in Boston. Becky lives in NYC. I'm down in Texas. (The boys not pictured are in DC and Connecticut). Yep, we're all spread out. Which makes our time together even more cherished. 

So I had these pretty pictures of us and decided to do a page about my bestie Becky. The tall blonde on the right! The page design is based off of the May Scrapbook Circle sketch, although shrunk down to an 8 1/2 x 11. (Click through to see the sketch and find more inspiration for it!)

I used the May Hello Sunshine kit + Hello Love add on + watercolors + The Cut Shoppe Funky Florals cut file. My inspiration was the awesome print from my dress. So there's circles and bright colors and you'll notice leaves outlined in black and colored in brightly. Hence my decision to cut these great leaves out of black cardstock.

When it comes down to it, this is a fairly simple page. Dressed up a bit with watercolors and spray mist droplets. I love it! I love that the background is so neutral and that makes the photos pop.

I'm not sure when I'll get to see this group again. I never am. But I'm thankful that they're as committed to keeping up this friendship as I am. And that we still make a point to get together at least once a year. It's not much but I'll take it!

cheers & besos,

First Thought (Her)

….and for your viewing pleasure the other half to First Thought (Him). I'm so glad I asked him this question. Apparently, he remembers me from before I remember him! I love that neither of us had a stellar first impression of the other. Although I was admittedly much nicer than he was!

This was another page I made using a prompt from Nicole Samuels' More Bright Ideas. I heat embossed white flowers onto my background and then watercolored over it. Then it was just a bunch of layers down the middle.

I also busted out one of my Studio Calico dies. This one is meant to be stitched. I loved the kraft with the white thread.

cheers & besos,

Dorm Life

It would seem I'm into double page layouts using 4x6 photos lately! This is the third one I've made in the last few weeks =) 

This particular page is for the Art + Science right brained ideation challenge. I had to go through patterned paper to see what reminded me of a place or a space.

For me, that yellow polka dot reminded me of the bulletin board I painted for my dorm room. And then I found that teal floral and it pulled a lot of the colors together. I love the mix of patterns I got to use!

I designed these four little 2x3 cards in Silhouette using just fonts and icons. They're to represent the canvases I painted for this room and hung above my bed. Can you see them in the first horizontal photo above?

I also added tape around the edges. That's to remind you of the bulletin board I painted and the jumping off point for the page.

I made sure to capitalize on the negatives from the journaling spots and included them around the page.

I'm so excited to have these photos scrapbooked. They brought back some good memories from college. I made a page of my freshman dorm back when I was in college. I will have to take it out and snap some photos so you can see the difference!

Until then, Happy Monday! For me, it's a 2 day week =)

cheers & besos,

Mother's Day Cards

Happy Mother's Day to my Mama, my Grandma's and MT's mom too! I made a few cards to send to these lovely ladies. They combine printables, cut files, die cuts, heat embossed sentiments, watercolors, twine and enamel dots! They came together so quickly. Really Wilna's printables did all of the work =)

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,

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,

Blue Valentines

As promised, here are those blue valentines, one each for my Papa, my Popo and Grandpa by the River.

If they look similar to the pink ones from yesterday, then they should. I used the same basic supplies, only added a bit more mist to the one with the big die cut heart. I also handily used the positive space from that one die cut to add the “you”.

I have to tell you, washi tape continues to be one of my most favorite supplies. Its just so versatile, and of course, PRETTY!

cheers & besos,

Starting Points

I start pages a bunch of different ways.
Some times its because I want to scrap a particular photo.
Sometimes its because I want to play with fun product. (Or because I bought something and then felt guilty for not using it.)
Some times its for a challenge.
Some times its with a story in mind.

I started this one, because I wanted to use those awesome teepees on a page! It may have been why we made a teepee that day ;) But that page isn't about teepees. It's about Urijah and his play habits. With his autism, he tends to play alone, quietly in his own little world. It's part of what makes him, him.

I wanted to make a fun, colorful and playful page. The real jumping off point was that ombre washi. It's where I pulled the majority of my colors from and then I threw in some black and white. Loved the tribal look to that Glitz Design patterned paper. The background is very lightly stamped with one of their awesome rolling stamps. I couldn't pass up an opportunity to add more triangles.

What starts you down the road to making a page? Is it a story? A photo? Some fun product? I'd love to hear =)

cheers & besos,

Forever & Ever

They did it! Kim and Eric got married last week =) I'm so so happy for both of my friends. 

The lovely couple met in high school but were only friends then. They stayed friends through and after college. And nearly as long as I've known Kim, I've also known Eric. He's such a great guy. I love how much history they have together. And also too, how much history my circle of friends has with him. Eric may have been Kim's friend first, but it didn't take very long for him to just be another of the group.

I'm not gonna lie it was a bit scary when they first started dating. I loved them both so much as individuals and didn't want either to get hurt. Thankfully, all my worries were unfounded. Because here they are today, married!

I made this fairly simple page with the help of a Bright Ideas prompt. The prompt was to go big, with either your title or your photo. I opted to do both!

This is the first time I've ever edited a photo like this. But boy, was it so easy to do thanks to the help of this quick video.

I die cut the title using my Silhouette and backed it with some watercolored cardstock. It was so quick and simple, but completely high impact.

And after all of the months of planning, the wedding has come and gone.

To Kim & Eric! May they have a lifetime of happiness together.

cheers & besos,

Iconic NYC

Happy Hump Day! Thanks to Monday's holiday, it's been a short week for me. But I'm already ready for the weekend it seems. Mainly because I want to get back to my scrap desk and play!

Here's my latest creation, a recap page of my trip to NYC in November. I used five instagrams and some watercolors + general sparkle to make this page.

I couldn't figure out the best placement for 5 4x4 shots on 1 12x12 canvas so arranging them around the page was the best I could come up with. But then that made for a bunch of awkward leftover spaces. So I decided to draw boxes in each of them and then fill them in with watercolor. Problem solved!

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I used a ton of stars for this page. These chipboard ones I embossed with silver metallic zing. I pulled every one of those tiny 3D ones from my last SC kit and then I added some sequins to each cluster.

I even busted out my old label maker and labeled each photo/iconic site.

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The colors in this middle instagram were throwing me off, so I added vellum over top. But first I stamped this awesome Kelly Purkey stamp over top and embossed it with white Zing!

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I used some glitter Thickers from Amy Tangerine's Sketchbook line. I love this font! And I thought the glittery letters were perfect for this page about NYC.

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I even did some painting with my mists. This bottom box was painted with silver metallic mist. It looks so much like concrete it's not even funny. The picture doesn't really let you see the shine but it's there I promise.

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And finally, I inaugurated this cityscape stamp into my scrapbook. It's been sitting in my drawer 'o stamps for at least a year and has never seen the light of a layout. Well, today it's day has come =)

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Guys, I can't tell you how much fun I'm having digging through my stash. It's liberating! And I'm wondering how in the world I wasn't doing this before.

Later this week I'll update yall on how how Product Free 2013 is going. I have to make 1 tiny confession and ask your thoughts on another. Check back for that!

Until tomorrow, enjoy hump day yall!

cheers & besos,

Ombre Watercolor

Ombre is the design trend of the moment it seems. So naturally, I had to try my hand. I heat embossed a Tim Holtz stamp, using white embossing ink. Then used Mister Huey to watercolor on the tag. The blue turned out more green than I expected. I imagine because the original tag had a lot of yellow in it. But I like this new color none the less.

Never one to leave an inside neglected, I layered some tape and a punched butterfly to the inside and finished with a stamp. Que romantic!

cheers & besos,