Remember These Moments

Despite still being drugged up medicated from my recent yanking out of the wisdom teeth, I wanted to do a little something with all my yummy scrapbook supplies - including some recent American Crafts loot that I picked up.  They were getting lonely without me!  My creativity, however, needed a serious jump-starting.  I think Hydrocodone stands for hydro-can't-come-up-with-a-thought-of-you-own.  So, I found a challenge and a sketch to get me back on track.

 

First, the challenge (to be said in a totally exaggerated fake French accent - "zee shal-awnge"):  I decided to play along with the TWO PEAS CHALLENGE to write directly on your photo.  I normally would have cropped this photo of the Huntress a little closer; however, I realized if I left it uncropped, I had the perfect amount of space to write my journaling and complete - c'mon, say it with me ZEE SHAL-AWNGE!

 

Second, the sketch:  Good old PAGE MAPS is always a win for me.  I took one of the SEPTEMBER CHALLENGES, rotated it just for fun, and used one large photo instead of three.  I will let YOU figure out which sketch I used!

 

Close-ups?  Want to see a close-up or three?  Well, here you go!

Here is the writing on the wall, or...er...the picture....

Of course, I had to include this little doggy sticker since my daughter had been playing in the pool with her own little doggy...

And, finally, what do you do when you run out of room on your photo and decide that you want to journal even more?  If you are me, you create a pocket and insert a card that holds extra journaling.  Since I am me, that is exactly what I did!  See?

That's all for me today.  Hope you have a Happy Monday - only five more days until the weekend is here!!!

#supercool - Practical Scrappers

 

The Huntress, who is now a bona fide teenager is always posing like this - flashing a peace sign and giving a big, glassy-eyed fake smiley face.  I actually asked her one time W-H-Y she kept posing like that and I got a reply that went something like, "(shrugging her shoulders) I don't k-n-o-w.  It's just (rolling her eyes and acting like my i.q. is entirely too low to ever understand), like, how I like to pose okay?  I believe in peace.  Sorry you didn't have Facebook when you were a kid."  Seriously, that was what she said to me.  Although my teen is all about peace and love, I'm not quite ready to sign her up for the Peace Corps just yet.  After a little cyber-stalking, it seems that 93.999% of the Huntress' peers are all striking identical poses.  The other 7% are a little behind the times and haven't figured out that the duck face is so five minutes ago...

 

Now you know me.  I'm hip.  I'm trendy.  And by golly, I'm always up for embarrassing showing my child I've still got some coolness in me.  So, after hours of intense practice in front of a mirror, I think I have got the look down perfectly!  What do you think???  Oh, and I am sure it was entirely accidental that my teen de-friended me on Facebook...

 

Want to make a layout like this one (with or without the awesome pose)?  I used this SKETCH by My Minds Eye as well as papers from the CUT AND PASTE COLLECTION.

 

As part of a PRACTICAL SCRAPPERS assignment with the On Trend Team, I used a stencil and a black marker to create a bottom "layer" of pattern around my photo

 

 

I fussy cut patterns from one of my papers and sewed them on at an angle to mimic the stenciled pattern on my layout.

 

 

And, of course, my layout would not be complete without my super long title, complete with a hashtag!

 

 

That's it for me!  Have you embarrassed your child lately???

Sweeter Than Ice Cream - Pretty Little Studio

I am up today at the all new PRETTY LITTLE STUDIO BLOG featuring this layout of my Sweet Lula and using the scrumptious new Neapolitan Collection!  This collection features an assortment of ephemera and journaling cards in lavender, peach, pink, and mint green.  My last PLS LAYOUT was supposed to be themed around the pink items and today's layout is primarily lavender - or, at least, it started that way.  But, because I am who I am, I couldn't resist adding touches of pink and (more than a few) touches of mint green, too.  That's still monochromatic, right?  Maybe if you squint really hard and hold the layout sideways?  No????  Oh well, at least it's still cute! 

This is a simple layout in which I mainly used journaling cards to create my pattern.  I even made a pocket out of one journaling card so it could hold...wait for it...another journaling card.  That's right, why use only one when you can use two!

I also layered a couple of fabulous butterfly stickers on top of butterfly-punched paper to create these sweet dimensional butterflies on top of my pocket. (Want to know how I kept the stickers from sticking?  Head to the PRETTY LITTLE STUDIO BLOG for the answer!) And, of course, I couldn't resist adding a couple of bunting flags complete with sequins and a button sewn across them!

I love layering, especially with small, random bits and pieces - and this collection has so many wonderful bits and pieces!

So, there you have it - my not so "monochromatic" lavender layout.  Do you like to create monochromatic layouts or do you also find yourself sneaking in other colors, too?

Zombie Apocolypse - How We Take a Family Photo

Don't think I ever shared this layout on my blog (don't quite know how that happened) and I SO want to make sure it doesn't get left out because 1) it is made using Pretty Little Studio's Nature Walk Collection that I luuurrrrvvvveeee, and 2) because it has one of those extremely rare photos that includes ALL of our children - at the same time!

We tried to take a nice, normal photo like a nice, normal family.  We really did.  But did I choose any of the nice, normal pics to use for our family photo?  NO!  Instead, I chose the one where, right before I clicked my camera remote, I yelled out, "The zombies are coming!  Quick - what should we do?!"  And...this is what I got.  Yes, I am there doing my super stealthy ninja zombie move - it's apparently designed to kill zombies by making them laugh to death, or maybe that's laugh to a more complete state of undeath....whatever. But I love this pic, and I love our crazy family! *smile*

Want a few close-ups?  Here you go!

Happy Thursday, y'all!  The weekend is almost here!

PRETTY LITTLE STUDIO DESIGN TEAM INTRO

We are instroducing (and re-introducing) ourselves over at the Pretty Little Studio BLOG all this week.  And, to celebrate the start-up of the new design team, we will be having fun give-aways and discounts that you don't want to miss!  A-n-d...a few of us have even gotten brave and cleaned up our craft spaces a little bit so we can show it to you, including me!

 

I have really been working steadily to keep up with my little Instagram journal, and having containers at hand full of bits and pieces like these from Pretty Little Studio...

 

...ensures that I can get a page finished quickly without sacrificing any of the little details that I love to add.

 

I have told you before, I am a s-l-o-w scrapper but I am usually able to get one of these little pages finished in 30 minutes - even with my random daydreaming and getting side-tracked by a) Pinterest; b) a "Mommy, I have a question" from a child (or husband); or c) taking a break to beat the next Candy Crush level.  Here are two of my recently completed pages for your viewing pleasure:

 

I love that all of the different Pretty Little Studio COLLECTIONS coordinate so well with each other - such as the ones on this page from the Monsieur and Birthday Cake Collections. My little squares actually came from the packaging insert that contained all of my Monsieur Collection papers.  They were perfect for this small format!

 

 

That's it for me today!  Enjoy your shortened work week and can't wait to see you over at the PLS BLOG!