This is how we HUG

My daughter and her friend toppled over as they were trying to hug hahaha! Kids are so funny, this picture just makes me laugh so hard every time I look at it!

I started with the Studio Calico Lisse Street kit, and wanted to use that background paper with the sunburst pattern, but after cutting out the floral bottom piece and making the title, it still lacked something. That's when I remembered this layout by Jen over at Studio Calico and figured it would be a great way to use up some alpha stickers! I love that I didn't have to add much more after I laid down all the stickers and it was fun going through them and placing them, sort of like a puzzle. The only part that was a little tedious was when I couldn't find letters to match the orangey color near the top, so I had to ink up some Heidi Swapp letters that were made to be misted or inked. I used Lemon Zest Color Theory ink and it turned out pretty close!

We Like Free

Finally, we found something free at Disney - Downtown Disney, the ferry boat to be exact! Chris was so excited... he said he wanted to ride it again, though we didn't get another chance to, but it was nice to just stumble upon and we just happened to have forgotten to bring Natalie's stroller with us anyway, so it worked out perfectly to get us to the other side and go to the Rainforest Cafe!

I participated in a scraplift challenge at Studio Calico and lifted this beautiful layout by Leah! It was a challenge at first, but then I grabbed some older supplies from the Planetarium kit (May 2013) and went to work! The hardest part was that I was planning to add some stitching like she did, but forgot and started to adhere everything before realizing I should've stitched first. So I went back and curled up some of the edges of the papers and added some knots with twine to them. I made it obnoxiously nautical themed since I don't know when I would ever get a chance to use those types of supplies again :)

Enjoy This

Not long ago, I had posted to a forum, asking the scrapbooking community to show me their most product heavy layouts, because I needed inspiration opposite to "minimalist" which seems to be sort of trendy now, but not my style and certainly not helping me dig into my stash of supplies! Megan shared this layout and so I used it as inspiration for my layout! I loved the vertical column along with the horizontal along the bottom, as well as her clusters of embellishments, not to mention unapologetic use of bright colors and non-white background paper! So here is what I came up with:

I used the next couple of photos from our Disney World trip and mostly the High Wire add-on kit from February's Cirque release by Studio Calico! I had snagged the kit in a last call sale where they had these kits for dirt cheap and sold out very quickly! I was so surprised how much was in this kit when I actually went to use it for this layout! Love those black cut out letters that you can use both the inside and outside block for and those copper foam phrases!

Anyway, it was fun to try to scraplift someone I might not have noticed otherwise! I would urge anyone to give it a whirl, you might surprise yourself :)

Smile

This was the 2nd best moment at Disney - getting to meet Merida! She was our first meet & greet, so we weren't sure how Natalie would respond, but she practically jumped out of my arms when it was our turn, and was saying "hug Merida, hug Merida!" She had never reached for a stranger before that, so I was surprised and excited for her!

This layout was a fun one to make - I took on this Pinterest challenge posted by Welobellie awhile back - here's the inspiration piece:

Basically I saw that and wanted to make some origami-like squares! I started folding and then flipped them over and adhered. Since I used such strong patterns, mostly papers from the Penelope add-on kit from Studio Calico for the Odyssey release, I placed it all onto a white piece of card stock... oooh! Anyway, I enjoyed the challenge and it was a great way to knock out another layout!

My Happy Place

OK this layout was the result of me running down to my scrap area and needing to just make a layout quickly to make myself feel better about last month's "last call" sale at Studio Calico, where I may have gone a bit over budget buying kits for super cheap prices! After making those purchases, I honestly also made 6 cards just to use some supplies and feel better... um yeah, those cards used up like 4 feathers, 2 wood veneer stars from a pack of like 30, 2 frames from a pack of 8, and a few sheets of paper, doh! Anyway, this one was fast and simple... didn't make me feel like I used up a lot of supplies, but did make me feel better that I finished another layout.

Secret: This might've been the 2nd happiest moment in my life, as far as crying from sheer joy... the 1st being my wedding day of course! Sounds crazy, but Natalie was kind of miserable with it raining at Disney World and her face getting wet and stuff. Then she saw Mickey and Minnie in the rainy day parade and her face just LIT UP and she pointed and was soooo excited to see them finally!! Just seeing her face go from misery to blinking in the rain and pointing and happy... ugh, my heart!!

Anyway, onto the nitty gritty! I used the Odyssey kit from Studio Calico and this Fairytale Card set by Life.Love.Paper, stars from the Waldorf add-on kit from Studio Calico's Park Ave release. I was also inspired to add a little text to my photo and print out my journaling from the Text Tricks class by Pam Baldwin for Big Picture Classes... I had only taken the first lesson by now, so this doesn't even showcase a smidgen of what I learned from that class, so I strongly recommend checking it out!

We Are Really Doing This!

The title is what I said to Chris riding the monorail on our way to Magic Kingdom for our first day at Disney World! Except it started with "I can't believe" haha! Little did we know the craziness that would ensue that day, but there will be more to come on that :)

I used another sketch template from Simple Scrapper's Premium Membership and look at that, a real button/pin that we got when we purchased our tickets! I didn't remember until after I planned this layout that I wanted to use that button here, so when the layout started looking a bit busy, I left the white card stock open towards the bottom to try to provide some eye relief, even though I filled it with journaling.

The Premium Membership at Simple Scrapper provides skills and shortcuts to help you simplify and find more meaning in your memory keeping.

Go See Florida (because, palm trees)

I had these photos printed for my next Florida/Disney trip album, but honestly I didn't have any plans for this layout and instead just started by laying down the photos in an arrangement in front of me. I guess it's kind of crazy, but then I remembered I made this card back in 2012 - mostly thinking about the strips of paper down the middle and thought that could be an easy way to fill in this page!

I grabbed some Kraft card stock and sprayed with white mist... love the look of white on Kraft! Then added some different strips and washi from last month's Odyssey kit (and Penelope add-on kit) by Studio Calico and the extra washi strips I had purchased from the shop! I added the circle at the top and then decided, hey I will turn that into a sun, so I hand cut the strips of paper for the rays and added my journaling between all the strips below - super easy and again, I love how this one turned out! Not my usual approach, but worked out for this one!

Hello Vacation!

Here's my opening page to our Disney Vacation album! Maybe it's not the most representative of Disney, but I mean, how cute is my daughter!! :)

I used mostly the Odyssey kit from Studio Calico, except the background piece of paper... I really needed some pink somewhere in the background paper to bring out the pink in her bathing suit so I did 2 things when I worked on this layout:

1. I realized I would need more pink than the main scrapbook kit offered because of my daughter's clothes for a lot of the photos, so I made a mid-month order with Studio Calico to buy the Penelope add-on. While I waited for that to arrive, I...

2. went back through my previous month's Cirque kit and landed on that Ashley Goldberg paper and used that! I love that it has a bit of purple in it too because the Disney album I bought has some magenta and purples inside it, so this page looks great as the first page, coordinating with the album and the photo!


Anyway, thanks for stopping by! I have a bunch more layouts to share this week, and then I plan to resume my normal blogging schedule, more up-to-date and more photos!

LOVE

I am working over the next week or so on catching up my blog with my real life posts, therefore here's a layout I made a couple months ago using Studio Calico's February Cirque scrapbook kit!

I just had this little selfie, and decided to turn it into a title with the big alpha letters. I sort of struggled with this layout, but once I decided to use my journaling to fill in the rest of the page, I like how it turned out!

April Simple Scrapper Layouts!

I am behind on posting these layouts, but the April Premium membership materials are available at SimpleScrapper.com and I truly enjoyed working with them! You can ask 5 different members at Simple Scrapper, what makes the membership worthwhile and you can get 5 different answers! I think the number 1 value is just the help Jennifer Wilson (owner) gives you to use supplies, make time for scrapbooking, and overall simplify everything from photos to finished albums/projects!

But what really made me sign up originally as a member last year were the sketch templates! I didn't know much about what they were, but simply put, they are sketches provided as a regular jpeg file that you can simply open and use to get your layout started AND they come as layered templates that you can open in Photoshop/Photoshop Elements, and use them in their complete digital format to create a digital, hybrid, or regular layout! As a regular paper scrapper, I didn't know how much I would love that they came as layered templates too until I opened one one day, and dragged in my photos to get a feel for how a layout would look before I printed my photos to size and then worked with physical products after that. I LOVE getting to see how my photos might work or even what color papers might work first.

Anyway, so this first layout I used a new sketch template to create this travel layout, for a trip we took to Disney World at the end of February!

I made the travel words paper myself, by printing it out onto 8.5x14 (legal size in the US) and then cutting it to 12inches across!

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For this next layout, I began with this month's story starters that are about faith and spirituality. The story starters are a great part of the membership as well, often I end up documenting something that I wouldn't normally if I didn't challenge myself to use them each month! Since I am a Christian and a Mom, so I got a chance to document my daily intentions with Natalie - namely, trying to start everyday by reading the Bible and praying! She says the cutest little prayer now too, simply, "thank you Jesus, amen!" haha!

I also used an older sketch template and again, it just makes it so easy to piece together a layout by starting with the sketch templates! And guess what, the membership provides 5 new sketch templates every month! That's 60 a year... that's a lot of inspiration and layouts to make!!

The Premium Membership at Simple Scrapper provides skills and shortcuts to help you simplify and find more meaning in your memory keeping.