A Few Favorites

Still playing catch-up and wanted to quickly share these layouts - all made with MY SCRAPS AND MORE SKETCHES.  Tammi makes some sketches that, apparently, really work well with my way of scrapping because each layout came together effortlessly and quickly, and I love the results!  I used CRATE PAPER'S STYLEBOARD COLLECTION to create this first layout, which features a photo of the Huntress who is just full of all kinds of attitude but still just as sweet as she can be.

My next layout:

I used an oldy but goody FANCY PANTS collection - Trendsetter - which coordinated perfectly with this photo of Little Lula who, at age 4, is already a little trendsetter with her own style and buckets of personality!

Finally, another of Lula and one of her Lala Loopsy dolls going beddy-bye:

I used my February PAPER BAKERY KIT and some random bits and pieces sitting out on my work table to create this fun layout.

That's it for me today.  Hope your Saturday is full of happiness and spent doing the things you enjoy doing most!  Until next time...

Luck O' the Irish

There's a quick little story behind this project.  Someone asked in one of the forums I read if we took lots of pictures of our family members or loved ones on Valentine's Day or if we made any Valentine-themed projects.  I didn't, and that made me feel a little sad because I wanted to.  I meant to.  But time just slipped away and Valentine's Day was over before you know it.  So - I looked on my calendar to see what the next holiday would be, and I saw St. Patrick's Day.  

Believe it or not, I'm Irish.  Well, my great-grandparents were.  I've even been to Ireland where I kissed the Blarney Stone!  So I thought this would be the PERFECT holiday to prepare for.  I am getting a jump on it and have already started creating my holiday decor.  And I have pictures in mind and WILL be taking them on St. Patty's Day (no matter how much my kids moan and groan about it)!

I've got to tell you, I am LOVING my wall decor:

Here's why I love it so much (besides the fact that it is pretty darned cute!):

1.  I upcycled an old wooden planked piece of wall decor that was destined for the trash pile because it was tired, old, and broken; and

2.  I challenged myself to use fabric and paper on my project.  Each wood plank is covered in brown polka-dotted fabric that I sprayed adhesive to.  I also used burlap remnants that had been sitting around forever on my four-leaf clover; and

3.  I scrapped my stash.  I used papers from my outrageously large Fancy Pants stash.  The papers on my wall hanging are mainly from the Road Show Collection.  Yes, they are that old!  I loved that collection so much I just kept buying it.  It's finally time to use it up and make way for something newer.

To add even more texture to my four leaf clover, I glued a lot of buttons to one of the burlap sections:

The hat and jar/cup decoration were cut out using my Silhouette.  I used primarily the Fancy Pants Park Bench Collection for these.  They were quick little projects but cute nonetheless!  

This little hat could be used as a cupcake holder, a party hat, or the cover to a jar full of goodies.  Isn't it adorable?

That's it for me this fine Monday.  As they say in Ireland - Slainte!

Project Life Week 6

I told myself back in December that I would give Project Life a try.  And I did try it, right on cue, the first week in January.  Annndddd...my layout, or whatever you want to call it, for the first week was just awful.  Nothing felt like it was coming together correctly.  So I shoved it to the side and tried to forget about it.  I tried very hard. But - I really like the idea of Project Life or Pocket Pages.  My "regular" scrapbooking tends to focus on my thoughts about a person or thing, or I create layouts simply because it makes me happy to do so; I stopped chronicling everyday events on my layouts quite awhile ago.  I wanted to find a way to still keep track of those events and this seemed like a good way to do that.

I tried again, and what you see is the end result.  And you know what?  I LOVE it!  It took me awhile to finish.  I am a slow scrapper anyway, and I could not resist embellishing.  The end result, though, was well worth it!  This is what I started doing to help me along.

1.  I keep a daily planner so that I can write down different appointments and design team deadlines.  I started writing a sentence or two each day in my planner about something (or some things) that stood out to me.  This takes less than a minute, and I can refer back to it when I am creating my weekly project.

2.  Whenever I take an Instagram or cellphone picture that I think I might want to use, I immediately email it to myself.  This not only gives me all the pictures I plan to use right in my inbox but I know by looking at my email exactly what day it was sent.  

3.   The first time I tried this back in January, I was using papers that had a weird beige cast to them rather than a true white.  The papers had no journaling cards and no solid patterns that would allow me to make good journaling spots.  For me, the color scheme and patterns made it very difficult to match anything up.  While my colors don't have to match perfectly, they shouldn't look "wrong" together - for lack of a better description.  This time, I used a collection that had lots of tags and cards; the colors weren't an off shade that made them clash with other collections either.  Things went much more quickly with significantly less muttering and gnashing of teeth!

I may backtrack and re-create the first five weeks later on, but right now I am just happy to be moving forward!

I primarily used FANCY PANTS Wonderful Day and Trendsetter collections to create my week's project.  Here are a few close-ups:

I used my Silhouette Cameo to cut the number six and the doily used on this:

I love big journaling spots like this that already contain a cute graphic.  Of course, I couldn't help layering an extra cloud sticker to the top of my card!

This tiny bag that is holding my journaling tag was simply glued to the top of my pocket.  The bag came with some scrapbook supplies I received in the mail, but it was so cute I couldn't throw it away.  I added a few gold rub-ons and tiny enamel dots to dress it up.  I love how the cheerful stripes of the tag show through the bag, don't you?

This is the right side:

It was important to me to include a few personal words of encouragement to myself as I am on a quest to start living a healthier life.  Because they were personal, I enclosed them in this sweet envelope that I embellished:

And that's my Week 6!  I have no idea if what I created was right or wrong or even if there IS a right or wrong with Project Life, but I am happy with the end result and that makes it right to me!

Just Because

Whew!  I am finally home after spending 3 weeks -  much longer than I would have ever imagined -  in the cold North!  And now that the crazy last minute grocery shopping and Thanksgiving Feast meal preparation activities have died down, I let out my belt a few notches and...scrapbooked.  Yep, I've got it bad.

With my brain just one calorie shy of going into food coma, I decided I would create a simple homage to my geekdom - no in-depth, insightful journaling needed.  To quote a wise (sailor) man, "I yam what I yam."  And that's all there is to it!

How did I make this layout, you ask?  Well...I started with this SKETCH by Fancy Pants. What can I say - it had a banner and I couldn't resist!  Due to my food-induced brain shutdown - I kept my layout simple and stayed very true to the sketch.  And, hey, that goofy smile on my face in the picture pretty much says it all...don't need much more embellishment than that, right?

Of course, I used my Fancy Pants papers from The Good Life Collection - it's one of my favorites, right now.  I made a few small circles with a circle punch and layered them with pop dots.  My stencil words were made with my Silhouette Cameo.

 

The tags for my banner were also made with my Silhouette Cameo (gosh, I LOVE my Cameo!).  I placed contrasting paper behind the arrow cutouts to make them stand out.

 

 

A little handwritten short-n-sweet journaling mixed with a few words in different font letter stickers = a nice long-ish title, don't you think?  Some paint splatter and a few machine-stitched accents, and my "just because" layout was completed!

 

 

And that's it for me.  What have you created - just because - lately?

Sketchy Fun with Fancy Pants

I have always had a special place in my heart for Fancy Pants papers.  First, because I love the name - Fancy Pants.  You can't say it without smiling juuust a little.  Second, because I was using Fancy Pants papers when things first kind of "clicked" for me with designing scrapbook layouts.  So, needless to say, when I saw a package of papers from the Good Life Collection at my favorite LSS, it quickly went into the basket without a second thought.

I love the mixture of bold bright colors and cool pastels in this collection.  And I loved the different patterns, which were just the right scale to look good when used on shapes cut by my Silhouette Cameo.  The only thing better than my Fancy Pants purchase was logging onto the Fancy Pants BLOG and finding out they had a sketch posted that I could use!  So....guess who squealed like a little girl, completely ignored housework for a couple of hours, and instead sat down and played with her papers, sketch, scissors, and glue?  Ahem...yes, that would be me.

Here are a few close-ups:

 

This little row of paper dolls was cut out using my Silhouette Cameo.  As you can see, I thoroughly enjoyed sewing and misting everywhere on my layout.  And where I didn't sew, I doodled.

 

 

My sunburst was also cut out using my Silhouette Cameo.  I surreptitiously took the pictures during a wonderful conversation between Sweet Lula and me.  I loved capturing all the expressions on her face almost as much as talking with this little girl, who has an active, fabulous imagination!

Finally, I added some twine, another fussy cut flower, and a banner because...well, why not?

That's all for me.  Be sure to check out the Fancy Pants blog and give the sketch a try yourself.  And, if you want to share your take on the sketch or see other people's ideas, be sure to check out Fancy Pants on Facebook.

Until next time...

Getting Ready for Halloween (and a non-related rant)

This morning the weather here in Tejas is a breezy, beautiful 63 degrees with a high expected of 75. Brrrr!!!!! Okay, maybe I'm exaggerating as to the "coldness" of our cold front (that's right, the weather man is calling this a cold front for us), but it sure does feel incredibly wonderful and fall-like for the first time this year!

My thoughts are currently focused on Halloween which, to me, is the kick-off to the holiday season! The Hubs and I are both big kids-at-heart and love to dress up and put out Halloween decorations and tell ghost stories.

Apparently, my Goblin-and-Ghoul-Loving Gene was passed down to my second daughter (in the layout above), which should come as no surprise since she was born less than 5 hours before Halloween! I am not ashamed to admit that I am always stalking her Facebook page for photos, and when I found ones of her fiance and her playing with the masks in the store, I immediately saved them to my computer just in case she were to wise up and take them down. I'm pretty sneaky like that!

I used my Fancy Pants Oct 31st collection that I am working with this month for Let's Capture Our Memories and a sketch I found on Pinterest - which is quickly becoming my go-to site for anything and everything.

I am a HUGE fan of Fancy Pants Designs, and their Halloween collection certainly does not disappoint! The papers are beautifully detailed and range from vintage to little kid cute, allowing the creative freedom to scrap just about any Halloween-themed thing you can imagine. And the rub-ons and stickers included in the collection really let me layer my layout to my heart's desire! See?

Of course, I also had to make a couple of Halloween cards. I am on a handrwritten correspondence kick these days (an art that seems to be quickly dying out), and what better way to send a handwritten note or letter than inside a pretty handmade card, right? Right!

And that wraps it up for my Halloween projects for the moment. Now, on to my rant...

I NEVER thought I would hear myself saying, "In my day we just didn't do things like that..." but here I am getting ready to do exactly that! I guess that phrase comes along with crow's feet and hairs that keep wanting to turn gray...sigh.

Yesterday, I was at the grocery store picking up a couple of items for dinner. As I went through the check-out lane, the cashier made absolutely no eye-contact with me and said not one word during our entire transaction. Nothing. Nada. Now, I know she wasn't mute and was capable of speaking English based on a question that she answered for the customer ahead of me. But when it was my turn in line, there was no friendly smile, no "how are you," not even a "did you find everything." There was NOTHING. And this was not an isolated incident. I am encountering this same lack of...anything...from the store employee at more and more stores.

Now I worked in a grocery store throughout high school so that I could earn enough money to buy a car (and clothes, and make-up, and cassette tapes). I actually had to ring up grocery items and memorize the correct department keys, not run bar codes across a scanner. And, I certainly had to speak with and be friendly towards every customer whom I checked out; I would have been fired if I had not.

Don't get me wrong, I certainly don't expect to engage in a long conversation with the cashier. But is it too much to expect a "hello" and a friendly smile? Is courtesy no longer part of the job description?! Should I say something, or should I let it go and simply mourn the passing of time and standards? What would YOU do?