Tiny Treasures - Pretty Little Studio

Today is a new Technique Challenge at the PRETTY LITTLE STUDIO BLOG, and you-know-who is up with this layout.  It's a color pop challenge with an inspiration photo that made me want to turn on the Christmas carols, make some hot chocolate, and start crafting.  Can you guess what color I chose for the "pop" on my layout?  If you said red, I did it correctly!  *smile*

I chose to create a simple grid pattern on my layout using Twas the Night Paper and Bookmark Journaling tag from the WOODLAND CHRISTMAS COLLECTION.  I really wanted my red accents to, well, pop...so I kept my background a very simple white.  To provide a little extra dimension, I made my grid on a smaller square of white cardstock which I then glued in the center of a 12 x 12 piece of white cardstock.

I am in love with the Red Circles Vellum paper included in the Woodland Christmas Collection.  I keep cutting those vellum circles out and sewing them on my papers.  I love how you can see the text of my paper through the vellum circles.

The little redbird die cut (also from the Woodland Christmas Collection) HAD to go on this layout.  Many of my Christmas ornaments have been collected over the years and are treasured by me, even though the majority of them weren't expensive at all.  They consist of things like a glittery snowman, handmade by my girls when they were teens and (I thought) too old to care about homemade ornaments; an angel made from felt and a popsicle stick by my oldest when she was in grade school; a stuffed goose, which my second daughter bought for me on a school trip to Washington, D.C. in the 5th grade rather than getting anything for herself.  And redbirds - I have several old-fashioned redbird ornaments on my tree - some chipped, but still very much loved - because they were my grandmother's favorite.  And I just know that she looks down and smiles that sweet smile I remember when I put my redbird ornaments on the tree each year.  There are handmade beaded ornaments given to me by my mother-in-law, a superman ornament that I bought for my husband the first year we were married, a Starfish ornament purchased in Charleston years ago as a promise to myself that things would get better  - the list and the memories go on.  

So, where was I?  Oh yes!  Pretty Little Studio!  Color Pop Technique CHALLENGE!  Come play!!!

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!!!

Christmas Day the Instagram Way

Hello everyone!I hope you had a joyful Christmas, full of good memories-in-the-making.  We had a very hectic-busy-crazy-actionpacked pre-Christmas weekend - with children coming home to roost for the Christmas holiday.  Lou and her guy came breezing through our front door first, all tanned and relaxed from their honeymoon cruise.  Then all the other his, mine, and ours slowly trickled in until we had children and pets and noise and activity filling every single nook and cranny of Casa de Chaos.  That picture at the top of this blog?  It's missing two working sons, some crazy yapping doggies, a couple psycho cats - and a partridge in a pear tree.  I baked, and last minute shopped, and wrapped gifts, and sang Christmas carols, and even sang in the church choir on Christmas Eve. 

 

Why am I telling you all this?  Because I want you to see how someone who LIVES for scrapbooking and photographing those special moments could have been so sleep deprived (and maybe a teeny-tiny bit high on sugar from all the "test bites" I had to take) that I forgot to check my camera battery - on the main camera, on the good point-and-shoot camera, and on the back-up point-and-shoot.  And guess which camera had a completely dead battery Christmas morning?  If you guessed not just one but all three, you would be correct!

But, hey, it was Christmas morning - and I was happy and all of my family was happy.  So rather than stress about it - or attempt to make everyone hold off on opening gifts until a battery charged ('cuz you know that wasn't going to happen) - I whipped out my phone and Instagrammed all the highlights. And that was okay. 

I got the new son-in-law happily modeling his new boots...

 

...while wearing the "very manly" pajama pants (with images of doggies wearing antlers) that just happened to match his father-in-law's and brother-in-law's pajama pants (courtesy of the BEST mom in the world a/k/a ME!)

 

 

Don't worry, the hubster wasn't upset in the least about wearing matching pajama pants (because, hey, they were "manly" pajama pants, after all).  But I think he was a very teeny little bit put out that now he has two people in the family who are taller than he is.  See?  Look at his feet.  He is standing on his tippy-toes because he wants so badly to be the tallest!!!

Then there was Jesse - who has the best sense of humor.  And, apparently, a thing for my Kalliebeth's sparkly, glittery hat.

 

He r-e-a-l-l-y likes to include himself in pictures.  Not a shy bone in that boy's body.  Can you tell?

 

This was the first year that the Childe got more clothes than toys for Christmas.  Considering the fact that she was trying to wear everything all at once, I don't think she minded too much.  What do you think?

 

Like her big sister, she likes sparkly things, too.  Fortunately, Jesse drew the line at trying on her sparkly skirt - but I suspect it was only because the skirt was too small to fit him properly!

 

Even my big girls let me get a pic of them in their matching pajamas without grumbling One.Single.Time.  It was truly a day of Christmas miracles - ha!

 

 

After a few hours of festivities and feasting Christmas morning, many of the adult kids had to start heading back to their homes or off to see other relatives.  Of course, I made sure that I snapped "just one more pic" before each of them left.

 

 

Until finally, finally, only the youngest two birdies who haven't yet flown the nest were left.  They were in their rooms, quietly playing with their new loot.  I turned around and the hubster was clearly "resting his eyes" for a minute. (Notice the little ball of fur squinched down next to him - apparently one of our doggies needed to rest her eyes, too!)

 

 

...and with that, I finally sat down, took a deep breath for the first time in days, and closed my own eyes for a minute or two.

 

I will be back with new projects in a few days, so stay tuned!  Until then, hoping your Christmas was all that you dreamed and wishing you a Happy New Year - full of peace, love, and crafting! 

Playing Along with October Afternoon

I spent the better part of my day creating layouts for calendar pages for one of my daughters, so after I had that all wrapped up, I was more than ready to try something fun for myself.  A quick perusal of the World Wide Web took me to October Afternoon's BLOG which is full of fun challenges, including a 9 to 5 Sketch Challenge (using a sketch made by Jill Sprott).

I didn't have any pictures of my family members that I wanted to use for this challenge, and my kids flat out refused weren't available for me to take some quick photos, so I decided to create a layout about something I enjoy doing in my spare time (when I am not scrapbooking).  What is that, you ask?  I'll tell you.  It's reading on my Kindle, in my favorite comfy chair, with a hot cup of coffee by my side.  It's one of my favorite ways to relax in the evening.

I followed the sketch pretty closely, but I decided to layer my photos and random embellishments on top of the grid pattern - something that seems to be pretty popular right now.  I placed pop dots under all three of my photos and a few of my embellies to add dimension.

Journaling was kept simple.  A little handwriting that incorporated my title into what I had to say.

And that's it.  I am really liking all these "office collections" that are coming out lately.  I think for a "real challenge" I may bring a few items back from my office and try to incorporate those into my next layout!  How do you feel about these collections?  Love them, hate them, or indifferent?

Sketch #134 - Come Play with Us!

It's that time again over at LET'S CAPTURE THESE SKETCHES - a new fantastic sketch and a lot of wonderful inspiration by the design team members.  This layout is my take on Sketch 134, with a series of photos of my youngest showing me her newly acquired front somersault skills into our pool.  She doesn't yet have the rotation fully complete but, as often as she practices, it won't be long!

I used Echo Park's Hello Summer papers (totally loving that collection!) and embellishments.

I placed pop dots behind several of the (completely, totally adorable) stickers to add a little dimension.  The pinwheel sticker is attached to an ordinary tootpick and had a tiny button glued to the front - so easy to do and such a cute end result!

I doodled on just about every piece of paper and embellishment to make everything stand out.  Love the effect, and it was a lot quicker than machine sewing.  This little bird was fussy-cut from a scrap piece of paper.  Instead of worrying about cutting out his teeny-tiny legs, I simply cut them off and then drew them on my paper with a marker before gluing the bird to my page - much, much easier!



Some simple journaling and my layout was finished.

That's it for now, but be sure to stay tuned for some more fun crafty news later today!

HAPPY MEMORIAL DAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Echo Park Sketch Challenge

I have been enjoying a few days of "me" time (which has been pure Heaven!), and I actually had enough spare time to play along with this fantastic Sketch Challenge over at Echo Park's BLOG.    I love Lori Whitlock's Hello Summer collection and have been waiting for the opportunity to break it open and play with it.  And this seemed to be the perfect time!

After spending a good 30 minutes sorting through the papers because I had such a hard time limiting myself to choosing just a couple of the uber-adorable sheets of paper, I decided on the patterned papers you see with an orange background.  And after being absolutely, positively sure I had exactly the papers I wanted and gluing everything down, I came to the conclusion that, while cute, the orange background didn't give me quite the crisp summer look I was going for.  So....I ripped and cut the patterned papers away from it and put them against the white cardstock that you see.  Perfect!  Sadly, the lovely orange paper from the Hello Summer collection became a casualty - there wasn't enough left in good condition to save - but I think the end result made the sacrifice worthwhile!

Of course I HAD to fussy cut these wonderful flowers from the paper they were on and use them in a cluster.

I also fussy cut these little bees, and I doodled on just about every piece of paper and embellishment on this layout!

What kind of journaling would a dog have about summer?  Well, I think it might look a little bit like this...

That's it for now.  Stay tuned - Let's Capture These Sketches, Lori Whitlock projects, and Practical Scrappers fun coming soon!!!

A Challenging Weekend - Part Two

My cousin asked me to create a layout about his daughter, who just turned 16, using the picture of my choosing from his Facebook albums.  (We don't live close to each other so Facebook pics seemed the easiest choice, especially since I stalk them all the time anyway!)  I found this wonderful picture of her swinging as a small toddler and knew that I had found THE picture.  Next I needed a good sketch to get my mojo started.  BIRDS OF A FEATHER just happened to have the perfect sketch posted for the May challenge, so I decided to...ahem...kill two birds with one stone.

I used Simple Stories papers, which were perfect for fussy cutting.  Most of this cluster is made of SS bits and pieces (with a little Pink Paislee and Basic Grey thrown in for good measure).

 The journaling and title came to mind as soon as I saw the picture.  It's part of the Chorus to"WHEN YOU COME BACK DOWN" -  a fabulous song by Nickel Creek that is a long-time favorite of mine.  How did I make the journaling strips?  I simply ran a piece of scrapbook paper through my printer and printed the lyrics on it, then cut the paper into strips and glued them on my page.  I outlined the edges of my strips with black marker so they would stand out a little better against the background patterned paper.

The banner was so easy to make.  I punched out circles, folded them in half, and glued them onto Baker's Twine.  I glued down some pretty wooden buttons (by Prima) on top of my half-circles to add a little more visual interest. 

I figure I've done a pretty good job because, once I finished, I was reluctant to pack my layout up and ship it off - lol!  Here's hoping that this layout will make someone's sixteenth birthday just a little bit sweeter...

Until next time...keep it crafty!