I finally scrapped...for me!

I received the best birthday present in the mail earlier this month. A great friend (who really knows my style well!) sent me a box full of Crate Paper's "North Pole" patterned papers, coordinating stickers and some ribbons. That day when I was out shopping, I came across some coordinating chipboard shapes and picked up four additional sheets of the paper line and some matching cardstock.

And the beautiful collection of supplies sat. And waited. For me.

Most of December I was busy juggling work and home life while also trying to work in making our Christmas cards and the many handmade gifts I planned before I started working! So, when I did have time to scrap, I wasn't able to scrap for me - I was too busy working on gifts.

The boys took their teacher gifts to school on the last day before Christmas break, I put my cards in the mail and pulled out my scrap supplies.

I am pretty much down to scraps with the North Pole papers, but was able to finish 16 layouts with it. !!! Did I mention five of them are double-pagers? ;)

Here are a few that I'd like to share.

This LO might seem a bit busy, but I like it. It took a while to finish! The multi-colored dots are the border of a die cut paper. I didn't want the cream center, so I cut it out (that took quite a while!) and then backed it with the big ornament paper which was then matted on the stripe. These photos are from THIS YEAR!!! The boys helped put the tree up over Thanksgiving weekend.

Last year we all got in on the cookie making/decorating, although I seem to be missing from the photos - imagine that! This LO is for Kevin's album. I mixed Little Yellow Bicycle mini alpha stickers with some puffy alphas by Making Memories.

I LOVE everything Charlie Brown!!! I have quite an assortment of Peanuts decorations. We keep them on the table by the front door and Kevin gets excited about putting them up every year. It's always so fun to walk by and see that every so often he mixes them up. These photos are from last year. This year, I cracked up when I walked by and saw Charlie Brown tackling poor Linus. Kevin has quite the imagination! I added some Jenni Bowlin Christmas tickets to this one. (Thanks Lisa for sending them!!!)This is actually one of the last layouts I finished (but I'm not going to take the time to upload them in order - sorry). The top edge of the dot paper is scalloped. Again, I added some JBS tickets that a friend, Lisa, slipped inside my Christmas card.

This is the last LO I finished today and I just love it. The pictures weren't really special, but I love how it all came together. The cream in the center is what I cut out of the center of the diecut paper in the first LO I posted above. I roughed up the edges. Then I drew a red border. It was missing something, but I didn't have enough paper left to mat it, so I cut strips of the stripe and slid them under the cream paper. Then I added strips of paper here and there. I taped a piece of rickrack over one paper strip and accented with some chipboard, too. Maybe it's the mixed alpha that makes me so happy.

My boys are growing up! This year they put their trees up ALL BY THEMSELVES! I got a good shot of Kevin with his tree. We had such a bad experience with rude Santa at our local mall last year that I was hoping to avoid a visit this year. However, when we went to Louisville to eat out for my birthday, we happened to pass Santa in a mall. Kevin begged to see him and we waited in the short line. It was a good experience for all of us.

To document Kevin's part in the school Christmas program, I added a star over his head in the photo so you can find him! Kept this one simple. Finally, I love this simple one. It could have been titled "Jesus is the reason for the season." I love my nativity scene(s) - yes, I have several. The boys always like to set the largest one up under the tree. This year it was all Kevin sitting it up for me. I was able to get a good angle for some pictures. I didn't do it on purpose, but I like how the right hand side of the page resembles one side of a Christmas tree the way the embellishments and alphas line up.

Yes, I have more North Pole layouts to share, but I'll save them for another day. ;)

Have a wonderful, safe New Year's Eve!

More Personal Scrapper December LOs

This week I have been under the weather with either a sinus infection or a cold. When I've been able to hold my head up, I've worked in a little scrapping time. I managed to finish off the rest of my December kit from Personal Scrapper to work in a few more layouts before my time as guest designer ends.

The first LO I made is for Blake's album. It documents his 3rd grade Christmas pajama party. He was mad that I didn't crop out the teacher in the one photo! This layout is actually a scraplift of a LO for a challenge posted by Erica, the owner at Personal Scrapper. I went back through my photo boxes and found some photos from 2005 needing to be scrapped for Kevin's album. I pulled out some alphas from my stash - Fancy Pants naked chipboard ("santa") that I sprayed with Candy Apple Red Glimmer Mist and blue Thickers. (I love Thickers!)

This 2-pager finished out Kevin's 2005 Christmas pics...

Finishing up my kit contents, I completed "yes!" for Blake's album. These shots are from last Christmas at my parents' house. That's my youngest sister, Molly, in the photo with the boys.

Check back tomorrow to see what else I've been working on! ;)

Christmas gifts...handmade with love

When I found out this summer that my younger sister Lindsey was having a baby girl, I was excited. When I saw this 8x8 felt album by KI Memories on sale at Tuesday Morning, I scooped it up knowing I'd be able to use the PINK for a girl some day soon. On a later trip to Archiver's, they had 8x8 paper packs of a Christmas line by Fancy Pants that used A LOT OF PINK. When I saw them, I instantly thought of the little felt album I had at home and for the price, knew it was going home with me.

Finally, two days before Christmas, I STARTED the Christmas album for Reese. Surprisingly, I was able to finish it on time, too! I wasn't sure if Lindsey would add a photo of Reese to the cover or not, so I went ahead and inserted a piece of one of my favorite patterns into the front frame. The paper pack I had purchased included two sheets of each pattern. I took the style I was going to use for my title page and cut the trees out of one of the papers. I then adhered them on top of the same pattern with pop dots for my cover. The chipboard Thicker title and some bling accents finished the page.

The remainder of my pages were kept simple to allow for easy photo placement. I used my scallop punch on some pages, hand cut a few accents from the papers and adhered them with pop dots for dimension.

The pages here appear in no specific order...

I should probably apologize for the poor photographs. I took these pics right before I wrapped the album!

I even offered to add the photos to the album when Lindsey decides which ones she'd like to include in the album. Another neat thing is that the pages can be rearranged to fit her photos, too. I also made several ornaments this year (13 to be exact). I kept a set of the boys for me, but forgot to get photos of the others before I either gave them away or wrapped them up! To make the albums this year, I took mini acrylic albums by Clear Scraps that I purchased at Archiver's. There were six "pages" per album and they were already punched with a hole for the binder ring. I purchased the albums in Stars and Snowflake shapes. I took photos of the kids in both of our families and punched the photos with circle punches. I also punched out circles of patterned paper to back the photos. I wrote the year on the patterned paper.

On the side with the photo, I accented the shapes with silver and red Stickles and finished them off with a ribbon. They make a great keepsake.

Sweet Baby Girl Album

When my brother-in-law asked me if I'd make an album for his sister-in-law for Christmas, I have to admit that I took it as a big compliment! His brother adn sister-in-law are expecting a baby girl, but didn't have a name picked out.

I kept the album really simple and tried to work with a size that would allow for uncropped 4x6 prints. I used a tabbed Scenic Route chipboard album that was already "covered" in grid paper to keep things extra simple on my end. I chose the Basic Grey "Oh Baby Girl" paper line and added "girl" in pink chipboard Thickers, some ribbon, buttons, and flowers. The chipboard album I used, was only four chipboard pages. To expand the album, I took solid Basic Grey papers and folded them in half and adhered the two sides together to make a stiffer page. The large flowers you see are actually folded around the solid pages to accent both sides of the page. I used a BG tag for every page that they can use to journal about the photos they choose to include in the album. My sister and brother-in-law were very pleased with the results and told me the recipient was also. :) The whole project took me just over two hours to finish.

Guest Designer at Personal Scrapper

I was excited to be asked to guest design with the December kit from Personal Scrapper. I've been a member of their monthly kit club for almost four years and active on their message board for over three.

There was a bit of a delay with delivery for some of the kit supplies, so I didn't receive the kit until Monday and I knew Erica was working on her idea sheet Tuesday night. Monday night I was able to finish four single page layouts.

First, I used a beautiful sheet of patterned paper with a wintery feel to make a snow page. These shots were from FebruaryThen it was on to Christmas photos. I love these shots with my Grandma Smith.I've scrapped this photo of Dad's barn with the star on the silo for Blake, but hadn't yet scrapped it for Kevin, so I matched it up with the kit papers. I loved watching the boys with their own little gift exchange last year. They put a lot of thought into their gift buying for each other. When I got in from work on Tuesday, I completed a 2-pager.
All of the the Christmas photos are from last year. I still have some kit left and plan to continue working with it until it's gone! I did something a little different for me with this kit, I used patterned paper for the base of all of my single page layouts. I rarely ever do that!

Christmas cards are calling my name...

I'll post some other projects when time allows. ;)

Trick or Treat?

Every year we look forward to Halloween and I'm always happy when the boys want something creative or different for their costumes. This year, Kevin found one of those arms that they sell to hang out of a trunk as a decoration in Michael's and he was running up and down the aisle acting like his arm had been cut off. I literally saw the lightbulb come on as the idea for his costume popped into his head. Quickly, I was agreeing with him and we decided the old button up shirt that was used as Dr. Frankenstein's lab coat last year could be converted into a shirt with the arm cut off...and bloody.

A couple days before Halloween, Kevin and I were in a party store and he saw fake mustaches. Well, he had to have one. On Halloween as I was getting him dressed, I looked at my little man with the mustache and busted out laughing. He looked like Ron Burgandy (Will Ferrell's character in the movie "Anchorman")! I had to cover up "Dr. Frankenstein" that was written on the shirt already, so for an inside joke with my family, I pulled out a "Hello my name is" sticker and added "Ron." I cracked up during the night when people passing out candy would call him "Ron."

For this layout using the Fancy Pants' papers from the October Personal Scrapper add-on, I used a quote from "Anchorman" for my title: "I don't know how to put this, but I'm a pretty big deal."For those of you wondering about Blake's costume...well, he was the "guy that cut off the arm," as he liked to tell everyone. Blake loved wearing the mask this year and having a blood-stained shirt. I think the "bloody" knife was his favorite though.One of my favorite shots from Halloween was the group shot of my family's trick-or-treaters. Joining Blake and Kevin were my nephews Dane and Luke who were a pirate and a parrot; my niece, Reese, who was the cutest pink monster ever; and my sister Kaitlin. Kaitlin was dressed up as a Transformer (Megatron?). For those of you who don't know, Kate is 21. And, when I list her as a trick-or-treater it IS because she went around trick-or-treating! I think it would be an understatement to say, "A good time was had by all."

I have so many pictures from Halloween, but not enough time to scrap them!

Croptoberfest Part 4

At Personal Scrapper, we had until November 6 to complete and upload the LOAD challenges. I finished my final two layouts and uploaded them today. Here are the remaining layouts I haven't yet shared.

October 22 challenge: Use something 6 months old or older and some of your oldest photos
I used Basic Grey Offbeat papers that I've had for quite a while, Doodlebug paper frills, and an OLD Li'l Davis 2005 dated clip and K&Co gold Navy embellishments. These photos were the oldest set in Kevin's "to scrap" photo boxes - from June 2005.
October 23 challenge: color combo challenge
This challenge really had me stumped until I noticed someone else using papers I had. That was my jumping off point. The only color missing was the yellow and I pulled that in with the ER pass. In just over a month, I was in the ER with Kevin for his concussion, a sister who was in a head-on collision (she's ok!), and a sister who had emergency surgery to remove her appendix! I'm tired of the hospital!
October 24 challenge: Use Halloween colors on a non-Halloween LO
These skulls were perfect for scrapping Kevin's concussion for his album. October 25 challenge: any 2-pager
We had options for this challenge, but I took the 2-pager route. I enjoyed using my October add-on from PS using the Fancy Pants Halloween line. Kevin pretty much carved his whole pumpkin by himself this year.

October 26 challenge: scraplift anything

This started out as a scraplift of a LO in the October Scrapbooks, Etc. magazine. I took a 2-page LO, made it a single page, and rotated it.

October 27 challenge: use stamps

This was a challenge because I rarely ever use stamps. Here I used them as a border along the bottom of this page. October 28 challenge: scrap something on your "to do list"

I had these photos pulled and thrown in my "kit" bag to use with these products. Plus, this marks one of my Design Team projects off my list for Scrappin' {Sports} Stuff.

October 29 challenge: use cardboard on your layout

I used a piece of cardboard, covered it in paint and stamped it ON my layout. This page documents the brands that Blake both requested and received for his 11th birthday last month. October 30 challenge: use a collage

I used Shutterfly Studio to make this 8x10 collage of Blake stealing bases during all-star season. Again, I used products from Scrappin' {Sports} Stuff. I love how this one turned out!October 31 challenge: use "sweet" in your title

I scrapped Kevin's crazy hair. One night after showering, he made "Elvis hair" and went to bed with it wet. The next morning, he woke up with wild hair. I love the colors of this page. I also have one more layout that didn't fit into a challenge. I used the October PS add-0n. This page is for my personal album and it shows the pumpkins that Tom and I carved this year. I loved my mini "double" pumpkin. That little thing was hard to clean out though!

Now that Croptoberfest is over, I hope to concentrate on my Scrappin' {Sports} Stuff commitments over the weekend. Stayed tuned for those projects!