Pie Perfection

OK, this is the last of the Naples/Canandaigua trip, and the actual reason we decided to make this trip in the first place - Monica's Pies!! Chris had heard about this place, famous for her (concord) grape pies and even having been featured on the Food Network before! So we packed a cooler and took home a grape pie... except, it was so delicious, we ended up driving the hour and a half back the following weekend just to pick up 2 more pies, this time the frozen ones, to have for dessert with my out of town family after my baby shower! It was the perfect dessert to share with them!

This layout isn't my favorite... I guess I tend to really like layouts that look nice but come together quickly. It took me awhile to make the pie charts, and in the end I think it would've looked better on a different layout with more contrasting papers and brighter patterns, but oh well! I made the pie charts using this tutorial by Nicole Nowosad! Her method made it pretty simple to make them.

I knew I wanted different colored labels for the pie flavors so I made my own custom labels by typing them on my typewriter, cutting them out into rectangles, putting the corners to the edge of my circle punch, inking the outer edges with Hero Arts ink, and then using a pen to draw the inner line!

I used papers from the Marks & Co Studio Calico kit and embellishments from past kits. My due date is this Saturday, so let's see how many more layouts I get done before our daughter is born!!

Love This Place

Another layout from our road/day trip to Canandaigua and Naples, NY - this time we headed to Naples and found this awesome place, the Arbor Hill Grapery & Winery! We ended up hauling home a bunch of wine jellies (amazing!), sparkling grape juice (the best!), sauces, and even some concord grape gummy bears and licorice!

This layout came together quickly again! I got my inspiration this time from this great layout by Amy Tan! I had some random ephemera from Arbor Hill to include, so it was easy to see how that layout could work for what I had too.

The hardest part for me was cutting up that gray chevron type paper backing the stitched "Love" word... I cut into a whole new 12x12 piece of paper just to get that! OK, breathe...

I used the newest kit, Marks & Co. by Studio Calico, except the washi tape was from last month's kit. The main portion I am proud of is the little reddish-orange asterisk at the top! The pack of asterisks only came in blue, gray, and yellow... so I stripped the front off one of the asterisks, then first painted it with white watercolor paint (like a primer, as Chris so nicely pointed out)! Thinking in those terms I could've used some gesso, but the watercolor worked fine. Waited for it to dry, then added that reddish-orange watercolor on top, waited for it to dry. Then I wanted it to look shiny like the others, so I added some glossy accents and let dry! Now it looks like it came just like that!

Scenic Route

UPDATE: This layout made it onto the Studio Calico staff picks video for the month: Click Here to see :)

This was a fun layout to put together, and another fast one for me! This was the next layout on our little road trip to Canandaigua and Naples, NY. After we finished lunch and walking around Canandaigua, we headed to Naples to hit up the Grapery at Arbor Hill and Monica's Pies... a couple more layouts to come!

Yesterday I wanted to scratch out one more layout with last month's Studio Calico kit, Valley High, before my new kit Marks & Co. arrived! I had been "saving" the circles from Pink Paislee, thinking it would go best with some photos of me and Chris, but decided I should just use it... which is what made the layout come together quickly! I cut it into two pieces so the photos could go where I wanted them, and to make it more interesting to the eye.

I gave myself permission again to use items from my supply outside the kit, which worked great - especially those travel wood veneer from Studio Calico! I am really starting to appreciate diecut and sticker labels. I dug that one label from February's Front Row kit!

I didn't want the title too big, since it wasn't all that important, so kept it smaller with those BasicGrey letter stickers. Just love how this layout turned out!

German Lunch

Yesterday, I didn't do anything productive all day long except catch up on some napping, so when I went to scrapbook after 4pm, I wasn't expecting to actually complete a layout, but that's what I ended up doing!! This was one of my faster layouts (about 2hrs total) and can I tell you how much more I love when the layouts are super fast!? I was able to get this done by using this free video of Noell Hyman's flexible templates (from Paperclipping.com) after Shimelle Laine posted this challenge to use Noell's template, after she was a guest on the Paperclipping podcast, the Paperclipping Roundtable! Catch all that!?

Chris and I took a mid-pregnancy (I was about 29 weeks along) road trip to Canandaigua and Naples, NY! Of course Chris did his homework beforehand and found us this awesome little German restaurant where we could stop for lunch in Canandaigua! The food was sooo good! I had a Schnitzel sandwich and Chris had the Double Brats! The decor in there was so cute and the waitresses were all dressed in German outfits. So random, but so fun!

Anyway, I was scared of not having "enough" supplies to choose from if I used this last month's Studio Calico kit again (Valley High) because I only bought one add-on kit this time... but it worked out perfectly - I decided not to have qualms about grabbing anything extra from other kits/supplies, so it came together really quickly and I didn't lack for supplies!

After I chose the papers and cut them, I wanted to add another paper border strip under the photos, but ended up making a border from those October Afternoon label stickers! Love how that turned out, and I also grabbed some much older letter Thickers for the main part of the title. Quick and easy and finished by the time Chris got home from the gym, woohoo!