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!

Another Walk

We definitely have a lot of pics of us taking a walk, hence the title! We went for a walk along the canal last month when it was finally starting to warm up around here!

I used a sketch from Kelly Purkey's Sketchbook class over at Studio Calico to make this! I ended up making a weaved shape with the paper after it started off with just the vertical strips, but it needed a little contrast and extra color so I added the horizontal yellow strips.

I used this month's Camelot kit and older letter thickers.

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!!

Hello.

Sometimes it's fun to get out the nice camera and change the angle of your photos... this was fun to do with Natalie, because her cheeks and double chins are so cute and emphasized with this angle!

I was planning to use the first sketch from Kelly Purkey's Sketchbook class going on right now at Studio Calico, so I printed my photo 5x7 and was going to center it more and add layers underneath it. But instead I got inspired by Maggie Massey's take on the sketch and moved my photo to the very edge (top) of the page.

From there I decided I really wanted to use that pretty pink tulle that came in this month's Camelot kit by Studio Calico, so I added some light adhesive and laid it down then sewed over it with gold thread. I added strips down the page and then embellished a little on top - super easy and this came together all during Natalie's morning nap, another 2 hour nap yay!