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!

Nice Day

ABOUT THE PHOTO:
This photo was one of Chris' favorites, so I decided to make it 8.5x11 to go into his album - we took Natalie to the mall and forgot to pack her shoes, so we bought her a new pair of sneakers so she could practice walking around the mall!

LAYOUT DESIGN:
I scraplifted this layout by Magdalena!

MY PROCESS/PRODUCTS USED:
I used the paper from the Poet Society kit, then used neon acrylic stars that came in the Process class kit with Catherine Davis from Big Picture Classes. I stamped the border and used the letters also from the Poet Society kit, so quick and easy, I got this done yesterday morning before Natalie woke up for the day!

That Clock!

I didn't have any plans to go back and scrap these pics of me in that labor room... but then I took on a challenge issued by Stacy Julian for the Art + Science of Scrapbooking class I'm taking at BigPictureClasses.com, which was to go through my papers until I found one that reminded me of a place or space and scrapbook that. This was going to be extremely difficult for me as I never scrap a place or space and I certainly don't start with a random piece of paper! I opened a random drawer to start and found the Cuppa kit from Studio Calico, with only that clock paper left from it. I thought, does that paper remind me of anything...that's when I thought, hospital... then I thought... THAT CLOCK!! Ahhhh!!

Sure enough I found these pics I made my husband take (haha a true scrapbooker right?) and the funny thing is, he says he doesn't even remember that clock, when that clock is just about all I remember! After 4 hours and 15 minutes of heavy pushing, I guess that clock sort of torments you haha. I started pushing around 1pm and I remember thinking at 5pm that I really hoped my baby would appear before 7pm! It was 31 hours of labor and I was TIRED!

I added my journaling around the border and kept the accents minimal. Oh I finished this layout just now in 20 minutes (after I printed the photos the other day)! Now if only today were Labor Day instead of Memorial Day, it'd really come full circle :)

P.S. Thank you to all who have served and are serving our country!! I am blessed to enjoy so many freedoms in this life!!

Snapshots of Life

OK so my photos are me and my husband each with our daughter... but the story is about us being ridiculous a couple weeks ago walking straight into each other in our house, having a full on collision! It was so funny!

I tackled my first challenge for the Art and Science of Scrapbooking class I'm taking over at BigPictureClasses.com! I had this story in my head that I wanted to tell, but didn't have any matching photos, so I found just some recent photos of me and Chris and went with it! I used Jennifer Wilson's layout as inspiration, but ended up using a couple of 4x6 journal cards which worked perfectly here!

I actually dug into the Roundabout kit from Studio Calico last year - a kit I hardly used because I was preggo and tired! I haven't really gone back to it either because it didn't really inspire me, especially with all the travel-themed stuff and I haven't traveled in a LONG time... but it worked great and I kept it very simple!

Jehovah Jireh

This is a layout I made regarding our decision to have me become a stay at home mom and leave my job of 9 years! It was a "tough" decision, well, not really once we were given the hearts to do so! I had posted this photo to my Instagram (minus the journaling). Jehovah-Jireh means "The Lord Will Provide" :)

I used a sketch template from the SimpleScrapper.com! Wow, using these sketch templates have really changed part of my process in scrapbooking - the part I hate that can take so much time: determining the sizes to print my photos! For 6 of the last 7 layouts now, I have simply chosen a template, opened it in Photoshop Elements, dragged my photos onto it and if I like how it looks, I print them the size from the template. Then I use the sketch with my perfectly sized photos and my layouts have been coming together even faster this way!

The paper is from the Office Hours (March) kit by Studio Calico, the letters are from last month's Bluegrass Farm kit, and the small BasicGrey letters are from another previous kit, as well as those cork chevrons. I pulled those filter papers from the May 2011 kit - yes that's right, MAY 2011, the month we got married!

NSD - First Layout!

Happy National Scrapbook Day! My husband is upstairs watching the baby this afternoon so I can participate and get some uninterrupted scrappy time in! Here's a photo of me and Natalie at my friend's surprise sprinkle shower - Natalie showed up at the end, missing a sock and super hungry haha!

I used a sketch from SimpleScrapper.com from April to complete this layout with my photo printed 3x4. Having the sketch template made it so easy to choose what size to print the photo and just start picking things out.

I used a 6x4 card from the Stitched class and stitched the arrows with gold thread. I used paper and pieces from the Bluegrass Farm kit at Studio Calico, as well as Office Hours kit, Pip Add-on kit, and some older Dear Lizzy collection plus a card cut up from February 2013 (Roundabout kit?). So it was definitely an amalgamation of supplies! Happy scrappy day!

An Experiment

Last month I did an experiment and had my husband Chris make a card for my mom (in this blog post). I finally got to scrap those pictures using Photoshop and a digital template made by Catherine Davis for the PROCESS class over at Big Picture Classes! Here's just the template with my photos:

I made this a hybrid layout by adhering that to a 12x12 piece of paper and embellishing from the Printshop line by Shanna Noel!

The best part is that I got a new printer yesterday, courtesy of Chris who did some research and set it up to wirelessly print for me, and bought me some awesome paper too! I got the Epson XP-810 and so far I just LOVE the quality!!

What a Fun Guy!

Last layout from September walking around the Green Acres farm shop and enjoying the beautiful fall day! I just LOVE the Printshop collection by Shanna Noel at Studio Calico so so much! Every layout has been just about my favorite! I've mentioned before that Chris has a saying for when a layout isn't his favorite or isn't the best, he says "Even Michael Jordan didn't shoot a triple-double every game," but when I went over to the other side of the basement (where he is setting up his home gym, yay), and showed him this layout, he said, "now that's a triple-double!" Wow!! Thank you Shanna, making it so simple to create great layouts!!

I really didn't do much so it didn't take me very long - just added some journal cards and embellishments from the collection in a sort of a grid style. But I got the idea for the layout from the Process class over at Big Picture Classes that I'm taking with Catherine Davis. One of the lessons talked about balance and I tried to keep that in mind as I created this.

At the end of the layout, I took a look and saw a little too much boldness at the top left corner, so I tried to even it out a little better by adding an outline to the piece of paper on the bottom right. Love when these come together so quickly and easily!

Stupid Face

I am definitely now a weekend scrapper, but now that I've gotten faster since Natalie was born, I think I'll be much better at taking advantage of it! I made 2 and a half layouts this weekend (plus 2 cards) so let's say I can get 3 layouts done a weekend, I should still be able to do 12 layouts a month... should hehe :)

I used the Printshop line by Studio Calico again for this layout of Chris and Natalie at Green Acres at the end of September! Um, what's wrong with me, I have like 30 layouts for the first 1.5 months of Natalie's life... at that rate I would have 240 pages or so by her first birthday!

Anyway, I used some pieces from the Process class kit by Studio Calico that I'm taking over at Big Picture Classes with Catherine Davis - namely the "I love your stupid face" card and the wood veneer ampersand! I was nice though and wrote some things I love about my husband on a piece of paper I cut out from the same collection. I used some letter stickers from this month's Cuppa kit. Thanks for stopping by!

1st Walk

Same set of pictures from the last layout - taking Natalie out for her first walk in her stroller along the canal! The best part was in our conversation, Chris said the stroller wouldn't collapse with the car seat adapter in it, but if it did, he would call Baby Jogger and yell at them "your stroller clam-shelled my baby!!" Hahaha, clam-shelled! That gave us such a good laugh after a lot of sleepless, crazy nights!

Anyway, I got the inspiration for this layout, loosely from the last sketch for the Stashbuster's Anonymous class with Aly Dosdall over at BigPictureClasses.com. After that I grabbed some scrap pieces of paper in various sizes off my table to arrange them on the page in different ways till I liked this arrangement, and cut the same size pieces from the papers I wanted! This might be the best way I figured out to cut specific size scraps that work for my page! Usually I just try to use a ruler and eyeball it, but having actual pieces of paper (without cutting into my good paper) to move around worked well and quickly!

For the embellishments I cut the clouds, banner, and flowers from that same piece of background paper from the Cut & Paste collection by Amy Tangerine for American Crafts! The rest of the embellishments and the papers etc were all from the Double Scoop Studio Calico kit!

I'm happy with how fast this layout came together! This month was the first time in awhile that I ordered the "More Patterned Paper" from Studio Calico and so glad I did, since I haven't had any issues with cutting into the papers for just a square or small piece etc, and especially because I tend to use a whole sheet at a time for an entire background since I don't usually use plain card stock for my backgrounds. Maybe I should do this more often! :)

Faces!

After Natalie's first feedings at the hospital, Chris and I asked each other, are we supposed to burp the baby after EVERY feeding? We just had NO IDEA about anything about caring for a baby! By Day 3, when I took these pictures, we were burping her regularly and noticed how cute and funny her faces are when she gets burped! She goes limp in the arms and just seems to really want to be burped!

I decided to dig into my stash and use up some of the original Amy Tangerine line by American Crafts! I did this after being inspired by the last challenge in the Stashbuster's Anonymous class over at BigPictureClasses.com with Aly Dosdall! I'm so glad I signed up for that class this month even though I knew I was going to give birth because I ended up having more time to scrap than I thought I would - thanks to the joys of newborn nap times and having off from work!

Oh man, her little monkey face is my favorite!! I liked those cloud stickers because they looked like little thought bubbles as well and went perfectly with the pictures!

For the second page, I kept it really simple. I just added some strips of paper along the bottom - those strips are the bottom tabs I tore of a bunch of different sheets from the same line of papers and stuck them down there. I really just wanted to fill in the space since I didn't have any more journaling to add.

That face, those cheeks... She's too cute, but of course I think that because she's my daughter!

Family Visit

The next day, after I had Natalie, we had our family come visit her in the hospital! She was so good for everyone, just slept and got passed around. She's still like that (even 2 weeks later haha), so good for our company!

I got the idea for this layout from Challenge 10 in the Stashbusters Anonymous class I'm taking at Big Picture Classes with Aly Dosdall - I just stamped a bunch of Amy Tangerine stamps on the center banner piece and embossed with White Zing embossing powder.

The background paper is from the Valley High kit by Studio Calico, and the label and title letters are from the Front Row kit. I wrote out my journaling, then cut it into strips to adhere underneath.

I didn't have to embellish much, since the stamps and the patterned paper really filled the page. Another quick and easy layout - I completed 2 layouts yesterday, wow!

Sleepy Baby

My baby makes such funny faces - I love this one that she did right away on her first day of life, her little yawn face! And she has such a nice, full content face after she's eaten.

I got the idea for this layout from the Stashbusters Anonymous class I'm taking at Big Picture Classes with Aly Dosdall. I punched out pinked circles from patterned paper and built a background, then added my pictures on top, along with the sticker that was stuck to Natalie's bassinet.

I used paper from the Valley High kit by Studio Calico, but the wood veneer letters from Marks & Co. kit. I added the ribbon by adding adhesive to the back of the length of the ribbon, then creating the ruffles and adhering each ruffle separately with a glue dot.

This layout was fun to put together and didn't take long at all, so for me a very satisfying layout!

Introducing my daughter Natalie!!

Wow, what a whirlwind the last 12 days have been, 12 days ago I started going into labor and 11 days ago my daughter arrived - all 7lbs 15oz of her, Natalie Jordan! By day 2 till about day 7, I thought, I will NEVER EVER have time to scrapbook again! (Chris also thought this about taking bike rides.) But day 9 came and just to feel normal again, I ventured into my space while Natalie napped and Chris biked, and I scrapped my first page of my daughter - something I've always wanted to do, even before we decided to have any children! It felt great, and then yesterday I scrapped another layout - and today here I am posting them... just have to be better with your time!

Onto this first layout, I had some memorabilia from the hospital - her little footprints as well as our hospital bands. I put this together really quickly, because I was so scared she was going to wake up and I'd not get another chance to scrap for awhile! I used the Marks & Co. kit from Studio Calico and stamped and embossed in silver.

The only part that didn't come in the kit were the Journal letter thickers from Amy Tan's sketchbook line. The long white letters filled that space perfectly!

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For this next layout, I wanted to complete the other side with a couple more from the same group of pictures - my little one getting weighed and measured and cleaned off. She was so good for them, and didn't fuss or cry after that initial cry out the gate. That seems to be her personality so far too, she's not fussy and only cries if she's hungry. She's so amazing!

OK so anyway, I got the layout idea from Challenge 7 of the Stashbusters Anonymous class I signed up for at Big Picture Classes with Aly Dosdall. I cut the letter background at the top with my Silhouette - purchased from the Silhouette store.

I used paper from the Marks & Co. kit again but added in paper and embellishments from Amy Tan's Yes, Please line.

Some simple and quick layouts but I am excited to get a good start on Natalie's baby album!

Fireworks!

So we took another road trip in June, this time a straight shot down to Pennsylvania to get some fireworks for Independence Day! We got up really early and left so we could get there by the time they opened, around 9am. We bought a ton of stuff (neighborhood-friendly) at Sky King, but the best part was on the way home Chris saw a sign for a Bob Evans, so we went there and ate brunch before heading home! We love Bob Evans, or as I used to call it "Bob Bevans" when I was little!

Onto the layout... I signed up for a class over at Big Picture Classes called Stash Busters Anonymous with Aly Dosdall! I used the first challenge to complete this layout, and used some very old paper from over 2 years ago! I used the American Made collection from My Mind's Eye. I also found the corresponding diecut sheet, so used that for a few of the pieces.

Mainly I used my Silhouette Cameo to cut the stars from card stock. The cut file I used was from the Cut It Out class offered by Studio Calico, and was a full background pattern of stars, so I only cut part of the file out, then hand cut out the pieces I needed for this layout. The gold glitter thickers by American Crafts were from Studio Calico's March of 2012 kit, Story Hour (I think), the mini red stars were from...? And beyond that I kept it fairly simple since the paper already had such a bold pattern on it!