Heart obsession

I think it's been confirmed, that when it comes to paper crafting I have a wee bit of an obsession with using hearts.  It seems that nearly every page (or project) I do, includes one here or there.  Because of this, I have a hard time passing up any heart shaped tool or themed scrapbook supply that I run across.  So, I am LOVING this new heart layering punch from EK Success that I just purchased at my local scrapbook store.

I mean, what is not to love?  With the flip of a switch you can punch all of those different size and style hearts, pictured above, with only one tool!  Not surprisingly, I've already given this punch quite a workout.  In fact, I really tested it's skills and worthiness on the following page! ;)

Supplies used: Bazzill brown cardstock, Doodlebug Sweet Cakes patterned paper (red heart, pink heart and pink ledger), Doodlebug sugar coated cardstock (blue with brown dots), Doodlebug petite print ('5'), Basic Grey chipboard number, Technique Tuesday Studion AE stamps, Jillibean Soup word stickers, Doodlebug baker's twine, EK Success heart layering punch.

The border I created on the right side of the page, was simply done using both the positive and negative shapes produced by the punch and layering in a couple of hearts punched with the Doodlebug pink ledger paper, for a pop of color throughout.  Notably, I included exactly five pink hearts -- to represent each of my family members! 

For the title element, I covered a Basic Grey chipboard number with Doodlebug petite print patterned paper, used a Studio AE stamp set for the circle frame and word 'family', and a Jillibean soup sticker to finish it all off.

Here's another look at the hearts along the right side of the page.  I like the look that layering a punched item over the same color background provides. It's subtle and almost looks as if it's embossed, but still adds some interest and texture to the page.

Oh wait, that wasn't enough hearts for you?  Well, good thing because I've got more! ;)  Here's a two page layout that I just finished up for a design team assignment.  For this project I used the We R Memory Keepers Lovestruck line.  While it's typically a valentine's themed collection, I couldn't resist using it as an excuse to scrapbook some pictures of baby girl (and her big brothers too, of course!).

Supplies used: We R Memory Keepers Lovestruck collections papers and bottlecaps, K&Co smash tape, Technique Tuesday Studio AE stamps, Doodlebug baker's twine in bubblegum, Hero Arts pearl hearts,  DMC white tags, Cricut 'Kate's ABC' cartridge for title letters.

A closer look at page one:

and page two:

I dressed up the right side of the second page with lots of fun details - machine stitching, stamping, pearl hearts, diecut and punched hearts, and some K&Co smash tape.

On page one, I included the journaling on a tag tied with baker's twine.

I created the title by cutting out letters on my cricut with one of the patterned papers from the Lovestrck collection.  I added some additional text with Technique Tuesday Studio AE stamps.  In addition, I traced and cut lots of different size hearts, to include many of the patterned papers from the collection.  The bottlecap embellishments also coordinate and accompany the paper line.

 

Is that heart overload, or what?!  Something tells me, you'll be seeing lots more where that came from!  As always, thanks for stopping by!

Another sketch

It seems I'm becoming a bit of a fan of sketches these days.  Not that I haven't used them in the past, but they seem to be at the top of my inspiration list at the moment.  It may have something to do with the fact that they provide such a quick starting point for a page.  I don't have to make 'tough' decisions on where to place my pictures, title and journaling when the sketch spells it all out for me!  Any way I can speed up my scrapbooking process these days is MUCH appreciated! ;) 

Here is the sketch that was recently posted on Little Yellow Bicycle's blog for their monthly sketch challenge.  I always seem to have a stash of LYB, so I thought I would play along.

Here's my page.  As you can see, it's a fairly literal translation of the sketch.  However, I had fun adding some extra details and embellishments on my page that were not included on the original.  I guess that's what I like best about starting with a sketch -- there's still lots of 'wiggle room' to make a project reflect your own style and preferences.

Here's a close up of the title that I cut with my cricut, using the 'B side' of one of the LYB Babysaurus papers, and backing it with a slightly offset shadow of the same letters cut in gray.

A closer peak at the journaling:

And some additional embellishments at the top of the page.  I LOVE that flag sticker banner from the Babysaurus line.  And I couldn't resist cutting out a few of the cute little dinosaurs as additional page accents!

That's it for today -- I'm off to cook dinner for the fam.  I'll be back soon with another page I've been working on.  Thanks for stopping by!

Sketchy inspiration

Sometimes just the littlest thing can spark inspiration for a new scrapbook page.  A few days back I stumbled upon this sketch on the My Mind's Eye blog, by Anam Stubbington: 

The colors in the sketch reminded me of MME's Love Me collection, which I had just recently purchased a few pieces from.  That was all the motivation I needed to pull out a sweet picture of baby girl and her daddy and get to work on this:







Here's a closer look at the journaling and grouping of flags.  I used lots of diecuts from the 'Love Me' accessory sheet and simply punched holes in them and strung them onto some bakers twine to create this fun little grouping. I even dug into the depths of my scrapbooking stash to unearth and use a few eyelets (gasp!) on the flags. 

 

It's hard to tell in the full size picture that I machine stitched large circles on the page background, to subtly mimic those in the sketch.  Here's a closer look at the one in the upper left corner:



For the title I dug into my chipboard stash for the 'love' word and grabbed some 'naked' American craft letter thickers for 'new'.  Since both started out as raw chipboard, I was able to paint them to properly coordinate with my page.  I finished off the title with a circle diecut from the 'Love Me' accessory sheet, to fill in the center of the 'O'.

I'm having so much fun scrapbooking with pink for a change.  Can you tell? ;)  As always, thanks for stopping by!







Little cupcake

Now that baby no. three is eight weeks old (how is that even possible?!?) and I'm slowly easing my way back into scrapbooking, I was beyond excited to put together the very first page for her book.  We have so many sweet pictures of our Emerson from those first sleepy days, but the one featured on this page is definitely one of my favorites!  Love those cheeks, sweet little lips and the sleeper she is wearing -- a favorite, that she is sadly already much too big for! sniff, sniff! :( 

As you can see, her cupcake outfit inspired me to use that cute little 'Doodlepop' cuppy cake sticker and further dig into my Doodlebug stash. In fact, there's not much on this page that isn't from Doodlebug!  I'm really enjoying the fact that Doodlebug now creates 2 sided papers. Would you believe that all of the papers I used here (minus the hot pink embossed cardstock, which is from Bazzill), were all leftovers from their recent holiday lines?  The blue design is actually the 'B side' from their recent Santa's workshop collection and the soft pink ledger paper is the from the 'Sweet Cakes' line.  The title consists of American Craft Thicker letters that I inked and further embellished with green Doodlebug glitter.  And then of course, there are a sprinkling of DB gems throughout the stitched hearts on the page.

I even dug deep into my scrapbook stash, to resurrect an orange DB flower, which I folded in half, added a button to, and attached with some DB twine.  I am also loving those Jillibean soup label stickers lately.  I can't seem to call a project complete unless I've tucked one on it here or there.  This page features three -- I've since added baby girl's name and the date on the bottom label shown.

This orange block of paper is another DB themed paper -- it's actually the 'B side' to one of their monster mania papers and the blue grid is from their line of basics.  Again, I added a DB button, gemstones and some more of their beautiful twines.

Who knew it was so much fun to scrapbook GIRL pages?!  I've already got an idea and pictures in mind for the next one -- now if I could carve out some time to complete it.

In the meantime, I'll leave you with a recent picture of our little girl.  It seems she's been taking notes from her two older brothers and recently discovered the joy of thumb sucking. :)

Project Life 2012

Back in 2010, I purchased Becky Higgins newly launched Project Life kit.  I dedicated myself to taking one photo each day for all 365 days of that year, as well as doing a bit of journaling for each of those photos.  Admittedly, I'm still not quite finished with it. I did take all 365 photos and filed them away in the album, however I still have 8 weeks or so of journaling to catch up on.  Surprisingly, not too bad - considering I was trying to keep up with creative scrapbooking, as well.  While I absolutely LOVE the end result of that project, it was quite a task to tackle and sometimes felt like a chore to have to come up with a photo for each and every day.  So, in 2011 I decided to take a bit of a break from Project Life and do my own abbreviated version.  Needless to say, my version was not nearly as successful and therefore, not as comprehensive of a look at our life in 2011;  and in addition, nowhere near as complete as 2010's album.  So, after admiring my friend Lori's Project Life album for the year 2011, quizzing her on her 'revised' approach, and seeing Becky's new designs for Project Life for this year I knew I had to commit to it again!  Initially, I was drawn to the Cobalt edition and thought for certain that I would order that one, however after lots of consideration I knew that Clementine was for me!  The week after Christmas, I received my core kit in the mail and got right to work on the title page.

Here's a look at the title page for our 2012 Project Life album.  All of the papers and journaling cards I used are directly from the Clementine edition kit, but I couldn't resist adding a few of my favorite dimensional things like: My Mind's Eye buttons, Jillibean soup label stickers, machine stitching, and various punched and diecut pieces.

I placed a current black and white picture of each of my three kids in three of the four 3x4 openings along the center.  This left one open space for me to include a 3x4 card from the kit that I embellished with: a punched heart, sewn button, machine stitching and a bit of journaling.

In the left bottom 4x6 opening, I cut the 'everyday life' 4x6 card to 3x4 and zigzag stitched it to another 3x4 card included in the kit.  I added a punched heart and Jillibean soup label sticker with 2012 stamped on it.

 

The bottom right 4x6 opening holds the black and white polka dotted card included in the kit, to which I added: a diecut hear, American Crafts thicker number, button, and a sewn strip documenting our families names and ages for the year.

In the upper right 4x6 slot, next to a recent family photo, I again used a 4x6 card included in the kit, that I embellished a bit.  I sewed a button to the center of the clock face, added some machine stitching around the preprinted flag, and again added a punched heart and Jillibean soup label sticker, as well as a 'flag' I cut from one of the clementine journaling cards.

Since I just couldn't get enough of working with the Clementine designs, I decided to go ahead and tackle the album's ending page.  Here is a look at the (nearly) completed final page.  At the end of 2012, I plan to take and include a family picture in the top left 4x6 opening, but until then, it will remain empty.

I cut up one of the 4x6 cards, and used and stitched the word 'memories' from it, along the left edge.  I embossed some American Craft thickers with black embossing powder, to add the word 'Us.' to that same 3x4 card:

I couldn't toss away the lovely turquoise patterned damask that was leftover from the 3x4 card that I mentioned cutting up above.  So, I punched three hearts with the leftover design, adhered them in a vertical line, stitched through the centers and added a button to the middle heart:

I loved this 'postcard' style card that was included in the kit.  I simply ran it through my printer to add the necessary journaling.  I would still like to add a little something in the upper right corner of this card, where the 'stamp' would go -- but haven't come up with the perfect idea yet!

In order to make Project Life work for me this year, I plan to let go of the rules that I implemented for myself in the past, to make it both more doable and easy.  Instead of following the 'picture a day' approach, as I had in the past, I plan to compile it more on a monthly basis.  Some months may have multiple two page spreads, with lots of memorabilia, typed journaling, enlarged photos, etc; while other months may consist of only enough pictures and info to fill a two page spread and limited journaling, scribbled down as I go -- and I'm okay with that.  I know that in order to complete it, I have to let the project be flexible and conform to my days -- either busy or not.

I plan to set up my album using the Design A pages, unfortunately I didn't snag them before they were out of stock.  I'll also be ordering the photo pocket variety pack of pages, to mix in here and there throughout my album.  I can't wait to get started on this album and will be sure to share my progress as I go along!

I acutally scrapbooked!

So, things have been a wee bit crazy around here lately.  It could have a little something to do with this sweet thing:

And of course, Thanksgiving, Christmas, pneumonia (me), colds, asthma (TJ), kids out of school, holiday travels, a third birthday, sleep deprivation, etc, etc.  So, I'm sure you can understand my absence from the blog.  While I'd like to say that I'll be on here a bit more regularly - I can guarantee that won't be happening until I get that sweet little smiley face on a bit more of a schedule and sleeping longer at night.  Until then, you can be assured that I'll be spending and enjoying lots of time snuggling her, and of course, caring for and refereeing her two older brothers! ;)

Since surfing the Internet, only requires one hand, I've been somewhat successful at still checking out some of my favorite blogs for scrappy inspiration.  In doing so, I spotted this cute sketch on the Doodlebug Design blog, yesterday:



Something about that sketch and a stash of the new Doodlebug 'Santa's Workshop' collection, spoke to me and required that I scrapbook immediately!  Lucky for me, I had one kid at school and the other two blissfully napping.  Sure, I probably should have been catching up on some housework, thank you notes or laundry, but, well, none of that is going anywhere is it?!?

I made quick work of the sketch and my supplies and whipped up this page:

A closer look at the border of banners/flags along the bottom (I had so much fun dressing up those flags with buttons, stitching, twine and stickers):

And the page title (LOVE the little 'Doodlepop' poinsettia sticker here and what it adds to the title!):

That's it for today -- thanks for stopping by!