bubble blowin’

I love Monday mornings! For a long time I went to MOPS on Mondays, then as my kids got older (and my life got crazier), I stopped. At first it was really tough, but then I realized it was my only time with just ONE child! Holy Cow! So Mondays became special Abbie & me time.

I took these photos of Abbie blowing bubbles one Monday in March, and just got around to scrapping them last weekend. I used a one page sketch for Sketch Support (seen here) and stayed pretty true to the design.

I did change the size of the photos from one 3x4 & one 6x4 to two 4x4s. I couldn't get any of the photos I had of this morning to work in the 3x4 size. A very quick & easy change in PSE.

I broke into my May GTKC for the 2nd time with this layout. I’m really loving all the patterned papers in it! I created the curve in PSE by using the custom shape tool & drawing a flag across an 8 1/2 x 11 sheet of paper. I got the curve to the size I wanted & then printed it on a piece of scratch paper to make a template. So easy!

I swapped out the stars in the original sketch for circles (to represent bubbles). I used my 1 1/4”, 1” & 3/4” punches and then inked the edges in brown.

The letter stickers were in the kit too, from Bella Blvd. I like the font (even though the stickers weren’t laying down & sticking as well as I wanted them too!).

cupcake gift card holder

My sister’s birthday was in early April, and I finally gave her a gift a couple of weeks ago…whoops! I never get to the mall anymore, and she wanted a Nordstrom gift card. Then I remembered that they sell them at Safeway…where I go a few times a week!

So I figured I better dress up that gift to make it worth the wait!



I used this sketch of a cupcake from the Sketch Support website, and was inspired by this gift card holder on the eighteen25 blog. The best part? I made a couple of gift card holders & used up my scraps of patterned paper I got last spring for Olivia’s birthday layout :)

It slips over the entire gift card pretty easily, almost too easily. I could've taped it somehow, but I decided not to so my sister can re-gift it if she wants to.

at five years old

I recently shared an interview I did with Brandon using an interview format from Cathy Zielske. I had originally planned on using that same layout for my interview with Olivia, but then I saw this cute “at three and a half” layout from Susan Weinroth & immediately change my mind and made this:

The first thing I did to my layout was take the journaling I’d already typed up from the interview layout and put it in a paragraph form. I kept the questions in bold & answers in regular (using the font PT Sans that was from the digital template). I separated each question with the “|” (it’s the uppercase of the back slash, just above the enter key) and then added the date at the end. I printed it all on some aqua Bazzill that I had leftover from another layout & adhered it to the top of the page.

Then I added my three photos & started to play! I broke out my May GTKC for the first time & had fun picking out prints :)

After my photos were in place, I spelled out “at five years old” with the mini letter stickers, and just above that I added some patterned paper I punched out with my cloud, butterfly, and 1 3/4” circle punch. I inked the edges and adhered them, then added a staple for the butterfly body.

I added those same pattered papers in strips below the photos, and included two border stickers from Crate Paper. I’m very impressed that they were actually 12” long; it seems like so many other border stickers aren’t quite long enough. I love the film strip border sticker! I was going to use it by itself, but it looked so blah without anything behind it.

Something was still missing so I pulled out this cute little custom embellishment from my kit. I love how it’s just a fun funky design & I think it adds that perfect oomph that I needed.

let’s go brandon

First of all, it’s Memorial Day. Thank you to all the men & women who have graciously served our country.

And to honor them, what is more American than baseball?

I take a ton of pictures at each of Brandon’s baseball games, thanks to the burst mode on my camera. It’s so easy to snap ten in a row & hope that one is him hitting the ball. When I looked at the photos from Brandon’s last game, I thought, “hey wouldn’t it be fun to have a story-board style layout of these photos?”

I found this sketch in one of my Allison Davis sketch books. (love them!)

Then I pulled out my March GTKC & found some papers that would work nicely, as well as some brads to embellish it. I wanted to keep it fairly simple, so the focus is on Brandon swinging the bat.

february 2011

 

Here is the February sketch from Scrapbook & Cards Today:

And here is my interpretation:

I stuck pretty close to the original sketch, really only changing up the embellishments. I had fun mixing & matching patterned papers from the February GTKC.

I just found out this fun strip of paper is called a “bar code strip.” I call it, “that edge you usually cut off & throw away, but fancy”. Sassafras always has some funky ones, and I knew I wanted to use this strip at some point. When I realized the sketch had a strip of ribbon/paper, I knew this banner edge would be perfect!

On the lower left hand side, I clustered a few embellishments in the corner. I love the 1940’s feel to the patterned Cosmo Cricket paper & didn’t want to cover it up.

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.

project life 5/1–5/7

 

(playing catch-up)

May Merriment: Flowers

Some days I took pictures of flowers, some days I didn’t.

 

It was Olivia’s birthday party today, so no flowers Just the gang of giggly girls!

 

Olivia had her kindergarten assessment today, so afterwards we went to Starbucks for breakfast.

 

(photograph a flower with a wide aperture)

a rose in our front yard; f/1.8, 1/2500, iso 400

 

Giving my car a very much needed wash!

 

(photograph a backlit flower)

I cut some roses from the front & set them in the window by the kitchen sink. I love how they look in the olive jar vase!

 

Kindergarten Mother’s Day tea. We all had to dress in our fanciest clothes for a special surprise day, put on by the kids.

 

Helmets all lined up on the bench, ready to play ball!