sunny days

A few weeks ago I grabbed my camera when we went to the park, and I had fun snapping some fun pictures of the girls while we were waiting for their brother to get out of school.

I was inspired by a sketch that came with my April GTKC, and I lifted the circle idea from Brenda Johnston’s layout based on the sketch. I printed an 11 1/2” circle from Photoshop Elements onto the back of the patterned paper so I had a line to cut my circle.

I knew I wanted to incorporate yellow into the layout because of Olivia’s bright top. And then I found this fun cloud paper from My Mind’s Eye (the reverse is the yellow print on the cloud).

After adhering the photos & paper, I wanted to add some embellishments. I had two “blank” areas (the upper right and down by the title) that needed some attention. I just got myself the cute cloud punch last week, and this was the perfect time to break it in! I love how Susan Weinroth stitches her clouds onto her layouts, so I pulled out my new sewing machine too.

I used a single line of stitching on my upper clouds and three separate lines on my lower clouds.  I didn’t stitch on the clouds near my journaling because I thought it would just be too much there.

the great egg hunt

 

I think this is a first for me: scrapping an event within a month of it occurring!

I decided to submit a few layouts to the Sketch Support Creative Team call, and the above layout was based off of the two-page sketch. I thought I should scrap something current and I already had an idea in mind for my Easter page.

I used a ton of fun goodies from my April GTKC. Most of it was Jillibean Soup…I love how fun & springy the blossom soup collection is! I added the date to the cute little date sticker, and didn’t like how it looked. Thank goodness for the word stickers! I just covered up the original date with “remember” and re-wrote it.

I changed up this area here from the original sketch. I didn’t include the stitching because it was just too much, plus I couldn’t fit the circles & butterflies the way I wanted to. I also didn’t use stars, like the sketch shows. I see the “embellishments” of the sketches as an idea if you’re stumped, but mostly there to guide placement.

the perfect color

I got a bunch of fun pictures of my kids dyeing Easter eggs this year. They all got really into it. I told them to get good color that they needed to leave the eggs in the dye for a longer amount of time, so they kept checking on them until the color was just right :)

After we dyed them, we let them dry, and then we used a spin-art contraption to get them to look tie-dyed. I didn’t get any pictures of that because it was a bit messier & I didn’t want any more dye on me (or my camera!) than possible.

To scrap my photos I used this one-page sketch from Sketch Support. As soon as I saw the sketch I knew I wanted to use it right away, and I only had to wait to get a few fun photos to use for it.

The original sketch has a cloud & sun in this upper area where I have butterflies, etc. I had a couple of cloud die-cuts from my April GT kit, so I was hoping I could make something work…I think I did!

You can see I popped up my word stickers too. They wouldn’t stick well to the butterfly or the background, so this was my easy alternative, plus it gives a little more dimension to the cluster.

I used my scallop edge-punch for the border on the photos here. I’ve found that if you trim your paper to 3/4” then you can punch it & it becomes 1/2”.  The word stickers are from Jillibean Soup’s Blossom Soup line (along with the star background paper).

march (project 12)

 

Since getting over the flu, I’ve been so full of energy. Mostly I’ve been cleaning & de-cluttering, but the other day I finally got around to scrapping again.

Using this sketch from Project 12, I came up with this layout:

 

I finally broke into my April Kit Club stash that’s been very neglected until now, and it’s got such fun stuff in it…lots of Jillibean Soup and these adorable pre-cut clouds.

 

I punched the butterflies out of the butterfly print paper from Jillibean…crazy, I know. But I’m pretty rotten at cutting them out by hand, and I wasn’t sure how I was going to snip the antennae. I still didn’t have any antennae, but all I had to do was squeeze a punch to get this butterflies. I stitched them on with one big stitch in brown to complement the body.

 

I added three butterflies total, because I always add embellishments in threes (well, usually). I’m not going to pretend to be a design guru, but I like how everything is (mostly) balanced to my eyes when I use three.

april 2010

I finally finished! This layout has been sitting on my desk for over a week because I couldn't think of what to write. Thank you Brenda for another great layout!

For my journaling I used the font Gill Sans and 2Ps GG Love Me for the flower accent (lowercase q). The title letters were blank chipboard from American Crafts that I inked to the correct color. Both the ink & letters came in the kit from Green Tangerines.

Here is an example of the paper cutting I was talking about last week. I traced around the edges of the butterfly & clouds with a pencil & then cut along that line. I wanted them to be outlined by the original background paper, so I couldn't cut along the lines of the image.

I punched the circle flowers out with my 1 3/8" circle punch & cut around the turquoise flower.

I love this sketch & kit. And the paper really is a more summer line, so I'm glad I have quite a bit leftover for another layout.

Flashback Friday...brandon may 2006

I'm waiting for my photos to arrive from scrapbookpictures.com so that I can get my Week in the Life album put together.

Until then...

From May 2006, when Brandon was about 14 months old. I don't think he was walking yet here (and Olivia was a newborn!). Look at that hair!

March layout #1, Green Acres

I finally got some time to play with my new Green Tangerine's March kit. I picked it up over 2 weeks ago! But I didn't have any photos printed at the time, or any layouts planned out. So it was sitting in a box on my desk.

I'm so happy to have gotten these pictures scrapped. We went to Green Acres nursery a year ago to pick up some veggies for our garden. I wasn't sure how I wanted to scrap them for a while. Then I got most of my 2009 album finished & still needed a one page layout from the spring. Perfect!

It's a bit dark here, but it's navy blue cardstock for the background.

The sticker strips are from Cosmo Cricket's Garden Variety line, and the yellowish paper is from Crate Paper.