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,

Dreams vs Reality + RAK

Fresh off my post about Simple Scrapper's owner Jennifer Wilson, I thought I'd share my latest Simple Scrapper layout. It ended up being on the cover of this month's Spark Magazine!! You have no idea how excited that made me.

I've been published in a few different magazines. But getting the opportunity to share my work in Spark Magazine every month is such an honor. And on top of that, being on the cover! Let me telling you, I'm living some scrapbooking dreams y'all.

There may not be as many "traditional" scrapbook magazines out there, but if you join as a Simple Scrapper Premium Member you get a digital one chalk full of inspiration every month. And that's just one part of what it means to be part of Simple Scrapper. Y'all know I'm the biggest advocate for this community and it's no secret why. It's just that good. There's also an awesome new class coming up soon. You'll want to read to the end of this post find out more. **Hint: Giveaway info below**

Now on to the page, I used a Story Starter from February 2013 as well as a sketch from this month. If you've been following this blog for any length of time, you know how much I love circles! And this sketch called for a bunch 'o circles.

The layout is all about the hopes and dreams I had at twenty vs. my reality at thirty. I also share my hopes for forty. It was such fun journaling! I loved the little bullet points and making the lists.

I like making these big picture type pages. I like pulling together a grouping of unrelated photos, to illustrate the story. I also had fun printing a few of these photos in black and white and others in color.

I used tons of Studio Calico stuff on this page -- a lot of the embellishments came from the very beautiful Walden Add-on Baker Bridge. The background paper is from their Color Theory paper pack. I bought two packs because I thought they were such awesome neutral backgrounds.

I also had so much fun just putting this page together! It was the first time I had my new scrapbook space up and running and I was testing out how well I'd organized. I think I've finally figured out something that works for me! I'll be sharing my completed space later this month.

I can't tell you (clearly I can and do, quite often too!) how much I love being part of Simple Scrapper.  Creative team or not, I've always be inspired by the content and the community--and really, it just keeps getting better.

In March, Jennifer is putting on a brand new workshop called The Finishing Project. It's purpose is to help us tackle an unfinished project in just 4 weeks and also, to make a plan to tackle the rest. Having been a student of Jennifer's in the past, I'll bet that it's going to be amazing! You can read more about the class here.

Jennifer has generously allowed me to give away one spot in the class! 

For the chance to win, simply leave a comment below: I'd love to hear how many unfinished projects you have (Please also leave contact information so I can reach you if you win). The giveaway closes 11:59pm CST Wednesday, February 25th. I will randomly choose one winner and make the announcement on my blog Thursday, February 26th.  Best of luck!

cheers & besos,

Please note I am an affiliate of Simple Scrapper/Create More Media. All opinions, words and photos are my own.

Away Days

It's been two weeks since I've been on here. 

Two weeks since I've got crafty at my desk. 

One week of crazy hectic traveling.

...and it's not going to stop!

This was where I was last week for work.

Bouncing around from city to city and event to event. And only at the very end, did I get to do anything for me. Don't get me wrong, I enjoy the travel, not so much all of the meetings. But I like my job and am grateful it takes me to some really fabulous places. It just makes me so tired!

Lately its been keeping me from doing the fun stuff, like playing with paper and getting inky. And believe me, I'm just dying to sit down and scrap! I have some pages circulating around in this head of mine that I'm determined will see the light of day.

I hope you stick it out with me. I appreciate all of you who come visit my corner of the interweb!

cheers & besos,

Perfect Polka Dot

I have succeeded. I have finally found the perfect polka dot paper. It's soft, it's neutral, it goes with everything! It's from the new Dear Lizzy line and it's called Sea Breeze.

Here are two layouts I made using Sea Breeze as a background:

A page from Xi'an, China, with 3 4x6 photos. I couldn't come up with a more clever photo design, what with 2 horizontal and 1 vertical photo. I think the grid worked out. I splashed some Pickle Mister Huey on the background, used the stamp that came with my Daydream Believer kit for my journaling. Which I also think would make a great frame for a photo strip, btw.

I added some twine, buttons, and those great butterfly embellishments as accents on the page.

I was channeling my inner Scrappy Jedi with this next layout. I love Melissa's layered style and all of the white space in her designs.

The page is about work, how I've finally filled in the big shoes I had to fill. After 1.5 years it's all come together. Figuring out the work environment, the sector, the government. And although I'll never be an expert on any of these things, at least I know now that I don't have to be. That no one expects us to have all of the answers at the top of our head. And that my friends, is a huge relief!

It's a bit hard to tell, but the shirt I'm wearing in this photo is purple. So I played with a purple/gold/silver/tan color scheme.

I did some splattering with Purple Maya Mist and layered small strips of paper, ribbon & stickers on the ends of the page.

See, perfect neutral right?! It can be dressed up, dressed down, the skies the limit! I will be purchasing more of it and it's cousin, Hazy Horizon, in the very near future.

Do you have a favorite neutral patterned paper? I'd love to see it! Link it up in the comments, won'tcha?

cheers & besos,

Big Girl Shoes

Oh, a layout! Finally! I feel like it’s been awhile since I posted one of these, what with all the other projects going on.

It’s actually very old. Well, old in scrapbook terms. I started on it back in September. It was nearly all done then, I just had a few things I knew I wanted to add, but didn’t have the tools or the time to finish it (I was transitioning, half of my stuff was in Houston and the rest was in San Antonio).

The core of the layout was there, the gorgeous Dear Lizzy ticket stubs, the ribbon, the journaling, title, layout, photo. I just added the dangly tag, featuring a Slice cut stiletto shoe, punched the edges to make it look like a ticket, and added the outside line.

But enough of the layout, I want to talk about the details. I was so inspired to meet Dear Lizzy herself, back in August. She was so cute and sweet and kind, just exactly how you’d imagine her to be. She’s such a girly girl and I love that about her. And her girliness definitely makes its way into her projects and products. The ticket stubs from the Enchanted line just ooze “sugar, spice and everything nice” but most notably, emblematic of something at the very core of every little girl, her hopes and wishes and dreams.

I was so inspired by the lady and by her products, that I couldn’t not scrap one of my own dreams. One that actually became a reality.

It seems like I’ve been working toward this goal forever, well actually it’s been 20 years in the making. I started school when I was 5 and worked my butt off to get the kind of job I’ve always dreamed of doing. And while it isn’t perfect, nor exactly like the dream, I’m on my way to making a career out of what I’ve worked and studied for all of my life.

Traveling and me have been compadres for many years now. It’s the one thing that I love to do above all others. It’s the one thing I’ll save up my money for. It’s the one thing I dream about. It’s the one thing I long to do. Especially since I started college, I wanted to find a career that involved traveling. International business was what I choose to study. I even have my MBA in International Business Practice to boot. For all that hard work, and all of the waiting, and all of the freaking out at the recession, last September I landed a job doing exactly what I always wanted to do, working in international business.

It isn’t perfect and it isn’t my “dream dream” job but it’s exactly where I want to be and is exactly what I want to be learning, from the ground floor up (and believe me, I’m at the ground floor). I feel so very fortunate to be using the degree I paid all that money and spent all that time for, not very many people are as fortunate as I.

Thanks Dear Lizzy, for pursuing what I’m sure are your dreams, so that I could scrap my own!

Oh, and a note about the title, it comes from an Ingrid Michaelson song. I’m crap with song names, but I do know it’s on her Girls and Boys album. It was the launching off point for a layout about my big girl job.

Cheers!

Unconventional Resources

Some of you might have noticed the new look to the blog, along with a different name. I haven't officially changed the name of the blog or anything, just trying something new. But I found the name to be particularly appropriate, given my current job, which deals with the energy sector. Of course I'd move to Houston and get a job in energy! There doesn't seem to be anything else going on here.

Since starting work nearly three months ago, I've learned far more about the industry, than I thought I would. Including what unconventional oil refers too. I won't bore you with the nuances, it's really pretty dry. But at least I'm still learning, moving forward and starting my career. I don't know if I'll stay in energy, but I'm happy to have some experience under my belt.

Seeing as I started a new job, aged another year and moved to a new city, I figured it was time for a new scrapbook. I'm planning to use this as my cover page. What else is new? The 8.5x11 format and the fact that it's an entirely digital page. There's nothing fancy about it, but I had some fun with the text and added a Winding. Love those lil buggers!

So here's to a new beginning, and finally settling into it all!

xxbesos

j.leija