Hello Today

ABOUT THE PHOTO:
My mom, stepdad, and I took Natalie to the farm last fall and she was just being so sweet. She was so gentle petting the goats and looking for me to tell her that she could pet them, I just wanted to capture some of her personality traits.

LAYOUT DESIGN:
I finally got a chance to use an awesome sketch template from the Simple Scrapper's Premium membership archives. Loved this one!

MY PROCESS/PRODUCTS USED:
I decided to grab some older products for this one, starting with some papers from the Bluegrass Farm kit by Studio Calico, because I knew they'd go well with the photo. I found some fairly neutral/white papers to journal on so they'd stand out some and used a Faber Castell soft brush pen to add to my journaling a little bit.

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

Instagram Snapshot

ABOUT THE PHOTO(S):
I decided to use a Sketch Template from Simple Scrapper's Premium Membership and make a layout of my last 12 Instagrams as sort of a feed capture right now!

LAYOUT DESIGN:
The sketch template made it easy to get going on this, but I changed it up a little with my placement of the Instagram captions.

MY PROCESS/PRODUCTS USED:
I used very little product in this - a piece of paper from the Pine Hill add-on kit from Studio Calico, letter thickers and 4x6 papers cut up from the Walden main scrapbook kit, and thin washi tape that was part of the Bluegrass PL kit from Studio Calico back in April.

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

Better Eat Fast

Not sure what we were thinking, but on Easter Sunday, after church we decided to stop at Chili's for lunch... WITH NATALIE! So we weren't prepared, aka we brought one toy which fell to the ground pretty soon after we sat down and she wasn't yet snacking on anything, so um... yeah we inhaled our food and were in and out so fast, I wouldn't remember we even went unless I had this photographic evidence!

This layout came together very quickly, about 45 minutes or so not including the time I spent earlier in the day pushing these pics and papers around until I finally decided to use one of this month's sketch templates from the SimpleScrapper.com! I had printed out the pics 3x4 so decided I could still use the sketch that had just one 4x6 on it and put them together!

Then I just went to work and used papers from last month's Bluegrass Farm kit and this month's Camelot kit, by Studio Calico - with the exception of the background piece of paper since I needed something not too busy and am now out of fully intact pieces of paper from either kit, so I grabbed that one from last year's Antiquary kit! The embellishments are from Bluegrass Farm and I have now used up all of those fabric badges woohoo! Feels great to be using up more of my kits now that I am buying less and trying to save money! Finally, I did a quick outline in pen around the edge since it just needed that little something!

Take Note

Here are a couple more pictures right before Natalie turned 8 months old and since I didn't have any good pics from the actual day, I decided to make this layout her official list of things she can do at 8 months old!

I used a sketch template from this month at SimpleScrapper.com to print my photos at 3x3 and 4x3 and complete this layout! I specifically really enjoyed Kim Kalil's layout as inpsiration from p. 24 of Spark Magazine from the Simple Scrapper as well!

I used papers from this month's Camelot kit by Studio Calico, but the wood veneer and the patch are from their Bluegrass Farm kit from last month. I also used some older fabric washi tape I think I purchased from TwoPeasInABucket.com or maybe directly from Freckled Fawn? I cut the little mason jars from one of the patterned papers this month and the journal card came with the Process class kit with Catherine Davis over at BigPictureClasses... phew! Now that I am a stay at home mom and really need to cut back on what I am spending on scrapbooking supplies, you will notice I am trying more at mixing in my stash and older products or mixing up items from different kits! It has been really nice actually to do this, BUT sometimes takes up more time! Because I have SO much paper, I am going to try to stick with the same kit for papers and then pull embellishments from wherever.

I am really enjoying my membership at the Simple Scrapper! It has helped me be thoughtful of how I am spending my time and really trying to utilize it better overall. For example, today I posted to the Facebook community page, a photo of my twine all entangled in knots when all I needed was that small piece for the wood veneer. Instead of spending 20 minutes right then detangling the knots like I really wanted to do, I decided I could do that later and should spend my time while I had it (while my DD was napping this morning) to work on my layout and maybe I can detangle while she is awake later or something! It helped a lot and today during her second nap I finished up this layout and now am finishing up this blog post - yay!!

Mommy & Me

Our first workday at home together was awesome - Natalie slept 2 hours in the morning and got the day off right! She had some tummy time and practice rolling around on the floor, ate some foods around 11am, and got out for a lovely walk at lunch! She was in a great mood and didn't cry once! It was the perfect first day together!

I used a sketch template for this month from the SimpleScrapper.com but had some trouble deciding what papers to use and after having adhered most of my grid down onto white grid paper, I cut it up and re-adhered to the green background. That is my style - patterned background paper... try as I might to use plain card stock, and I always struggle to make it look complete to me!

I added some of the Amy Tangerine Plus One puffy stickers and some older wood veneer birds and called it a day!

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!

Sprinkle

Last month, my friend had a surprise sprinkle shower for her sister-in-law and our other friend, for her 4th baby! She was so surprised, she cried and then made everyone else cry and it was so beyond sweet! The whole shower was so lovely, especially because everyone pitched in to help do something for it! My friend who hosted it, made an awesome cake with a little "Baby" banner, a clothesline decor with onesies, and mason jars with name tags! She decorated in soft colors - "shabby chic" and then someone else made a diaper cake, I made a "Baby Girl" banner, someone brought a bouquet of roses made from strawberries, another bouquet of real flowers, lots of desserts and treats, and well - I printed up a lot of pictures for this one, to show how "Pinterest-y" the party was!

I used a cut file by Paige Evans for Studio Calico to cut the frames. First I cut just the outer edges from that woodgrain paper, then I cut all the frames from the yellow polkadot paper. I had sized down my photos in Photoshop Elements and placed them generally where I thought they would go - luckily able to open the cut file as .png in PSE. Then I printed them all on a 8.5x11 page so I wouldn't waste photo paper. After that I placed the yellow polkadot paper frame over each photo, and cut basically around it without having to be too fussy because I would just place the whole thing underneath the woodgrain paper. I actually finished the entire page (not including printing the photos) in under 3 hours yesterday, in 3 increments during Natalie's naps!

I just love how this page turned out! My husband, of course used his basketball analogy, and said this page is a triple-double! Thank goodness I didn't get the "even Michael Jordan didn't shoot a triple-double every game" speech :)