Those Summer Days

Our backyard neighbors are parents of a kid both me and my husband went to middle school and high school with, and we always see them in the backyard and end up chatting away. Their granddaughter, our school acquaintance's niece, likes to come over now when she sees me feeding the birds and ducks in the backyard and get in on the action as well. So a couple weeks ago, her and her friend came over, filled the bird feeders, then we all took a walk around the neighborhood together.

Just those laid back summer days before school starts back up and you're trying to squeeze out those last drops of freedom... remember those times? The girls saw a rock next to the sidewalk and immediately stopped to go climb it together. I never really thought about that rock before, even though I've walked by it a lot, and def never stopped to climb it... note to self: remember to stop and smell the, I mean, climb the rock!

So I finally got to do a girly layout! Most of my pics and layouts depict my husband doing something interesting, so I don't get to scrap as girly as I'd sometimes like - I own like a hundred doilies and have never used one!! Finally!

This layout was totally inspired/lifted from this layout by Teka! I loved those soft colors, muted by the vellum paper, and after taking this picture, I knew I wanted it to be a soft layout and try to exude that lazy hazy summery-ness to it. It was pretty easy and came together quickly, up until I decided to add the stitching at the end, but that's what the time after my husband goes to bed is best for :)


HOW-TO:

• I used up most of my colored and gray washi tapes and just started stretching them diagonally across a piece of white card stock paper
• I cut off the ends instead of folding them around the back, I guess I don't like the very slightly added padding that folding it makes
• Not sure if you can tell but I don't yet own any 12x12 vellum paper, but I still had some old vellum paper from Creative Memories, in 10x12, so there is a small seam towards the left of the page where I had to line up an extra 2x12 inch strip
• The cloud paper and the butterfly papers are from the Woodland Park 6x6 pad by October Afternoon
• The doily, the little flowers and the pink ribbon came in the Summer of '69 kit by Studio Calico, as well as the letters for the word "Those" in the title, which are Mini Market stickers by October Afternoon
• The letters that spell "Summer Days" are from the Sketchbook Amy Tangerine line by American Crafts
• The speech bubble is from Hello Forever
• I measured 1/8th" away from the edge of all 4 sides of my paper, then drew lines, punched holes 1/4" apart and sewed with white string (usually I sew 1/8" apart but that would've taken forever by hand)

Paesans

A couple more pics from Arthur Ave in the Bronx, aka the real Little Italy, from this past June! Paesans, heyyy!

So this layout came together about 50x faster than that last one... what's the secret? I don't know! I definitely had some inspiration from this week's Weekly Challenge over at Studio Calico, but I didn't realize the challenge had to use wood frames, instead I just scraplifted it!

I definitely could've added a few more embellishments (always) or done some misting or found a place to add some sewing but geesh, I just needed to get this layout done in one "sitting" while the ideas were still in my head!

HOW-TO:

• I used this month's Summer of '69 kit by Studio Calico
• The main piece of paper I used was "Backgammon" from the Paper Cottage collection by BasicGrey - Before I started this page, I fell in love with the side you see at the top of the page, the dark with the colored circles but ended up using both sides, the brighter side where the pictures went so they'd show up better
• The banner was easy enough, since it came already sewn like that, from the Clippings collection by BasicGrey
• The chipboard letters were also from BasicGrey
• Everything else except the Star on the stick from the No Limits collection Heidi Swapp came as part of the Studio Calico kit

Balcony Views

Ever have a tough time finishing a layout!? For no particular reason, other than I just couldn't get this one together quickly, this layout has taken me FOREVER! Even though it doesn't look like it's finished (to me) I just need to throw it in a corner (till I buy a new album to put my latest pages in) and tell myself repeatedly, "Breathe, it's finished." Haha, jk, I'm not that neurotic! Well, sorta...

Anyway, perhaps it's because this is like my 6th page or so of more or less the same, beachy pics from our trip to Miami Beach this past April. I really thought, scrapping these pics would be like going to the beach, you can't ever get sick of it... but I guess I was wrong! Oh well, this labored page came from a sketch for the 28 Days of Sketches 2 class with Lisa Day that is now over - good grief, 28 days and only used 2 of the sketches so far!

So I didn't really keep track of the supplies I used here, because it was one of those ones where I just wasn't satisfied by one collection so I pulled from all sorts of collections - can you spot them all?

HOW-TO List of Collections:

• Shoreline by American Crafts
• Nantucket by Pink Paislee
• Heidi Swapp
• PB&J by BasicGrey
• Plus goodies from both the Elmwood Park kit and the Summer of '69 kits both by Studio Calico including Pebbles, October Afternoon, and Crate Paper!

Washi Layouts!

For the third time so far, my friend Kara came over today and we scrapped the "same" layout, both scraplifting from this layout by Karen for My Mind's Eye! We both have a growing stash of washi tape that we needed to find justification for, so we went with this washi tape layout to make!!

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So first up is this layout, "The Three Mustache-keteers" by Kara Nettnin!! Hahaha, funny pictures!! These pics were taken for a 5K race here in Rochester, NY she and her two other friends dressed up for with those matching tank tops and rocked the policeman mustaches!!

For the main part of the title, Kara stamped the black mustaches with Staz On ink but still had to go over it some with black marker because of the unevenness of the textured paper. She used foam thickers for the title and added some sewing which made me laugh because it looks like mustache lines down the paper! Perfect!!

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Next up is my layout "This Way to the Bronx" again from the trip to NYC in June that my husband Chris and I took!

I used some supplies (the lined stamp, the Bronx cardboard letter stickers, and tabbed die cut) from the Summer of '69 kit by Studio Calico, and sewed on the "this" swatch with the yellow arrow. Kara let me borrow her Smash labeler to make the labels for the "This Way to the" part of the title!

Another day, another layout completed!! Wow, once you scrap this way - scraplifting the same layout with a friend, you don't want to scrap any other way!!

We Party Layouts!!

My scrapper friend Kara came over a couple weeks ago, and for the 2nd time we worked on the "same" layout - implementing the same technique to create a layout we both looked at online! Here's the layout by Shannon Tidwell we tried to re-create as our own!

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First up, is my friend's layout "We Party Rock" by Kara Nettnin! The pic she used are her two adorable boys at the lake a couple weeks ago!

We both just punched circles from card stock (instead of using chipboard) and covered with washi tape! Here, Kara used smaller circles spread out with a mix of washi tape - LOVE how it turned out!!

She used some foam thickers for the "We" part of the title, which really stood out against that yellow washi and other thickers from American Crafts to complete the title! Love the little washi flag and Amy Tangerine bit in there too!

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Next up is my layout "Arthur Avenue Market" from our recent trip to NYC last month! We visited the "real Little Italy" in the Bronx at Arthur Avenue! It was so cool!

I decided to stick to just a few colors for the washi tape, but added some punched circles from some Studio Calico paper (last summer's Boardwalk kit) in there too for some more detail since I used larger circles.

I made my own little flag, using washi to cover a rectangle and grabbing a toothpick from the kitchen!

We just had the best time working on the same layout together! I like doing the same techniques at the same time so we can help each other out more and Kara likes how easy it was to pack her stuff to come over with a specific list of supplies. Our layouts came out so different too! Scrapping alone just isn't as fun anymore!