BOOM

ABOUT THE PHOTO:
Every year for the past few years, we've been able to light off some small fireworks for the 4th of July. Last summer's 4th of July was awesome since it landed on a Friday - it seemed like our whole town was lighting off their own fireworks, we just heard booms and crackles all night long! Chris finally lit off a couple of mortars - I had never experienced those at home before, and just loved them! They are like mini fireworks, not just a quick whistle and sparkle, but a real firework!

LAYOUT DESIGN:
Anyway, I had this photo of Chris printed out and sitting on my table I think since August ahhh! I finally decided to change things up a bit and scrap a July photo in February... oooh I'm a big risk taker you can tell! I knew I wanted to use the printed background paper from the Studio Calico kit Poet Society for this photo for awhile, but that all I had planned.

MY PROCESS/PRODUCTS USED:
I just reached for the big black letters again from this month's Cirque kit and tried to spell BOOM except didn't have enough O's. I thought, I will use a Q and cut it up or cover it up, but then I got the idea to cut my photo into an O too, so I just placed the O on top of my photo and traced, then cut it out! Next I used the leftover silver metallic paper to punch some pinking circles from, then found the last bit of that dark blue constellation paper also from the Poet Society kit. I thought I was done, but the other night I had spilled little red stars and sequins all over my floor from my December Daily/Christmas stash, which made me remember that I had them and figured they'd go perfectly scattered up top as well! Finished with a label from Hello Forever for my journaling and done!!

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!

You + Me

ABOUT THE PHOTO:
Chris and Natalie on 4th of July, awww...

LAYOUT DESIGN:
After my long, unintentional hiatus from scrapbooking, I took the 30 minutes this evening while Chris took Natalie for a walk to speed scrap this layout, making today a 2 layout day, wow!! In order to do quick and easy, I basically copied this layout by Allison Waken for Studio Calico!

MY PROCESS/PRODUCTS USED:
I used the Brighton Pier collection for this 8.5x11 page because it will go across from the last page I made for Chris' album with the same collection by Studio Calico, and it was the collection that Allison used in her video! I used the XO stamp from Amy Tangerine's Plus One collection and stamped over the photo with Jet Black Staz On ink.

Life Is an Adventure

I got this "funny" picture of Chris while we were out at dinner a couple weeks ago! It's only funny because he was looking at me while I was trying to take his picture, but it was so dark so I told him to get into the light, so instead of just leaning back, he looked up at the light because he wasn't coordinated enough to not look away also haha! We laughed so hard, and that was our "moment" - every time we go out to dinner, we always end up laughing really hard at least once, so this was it this time! He is so funny and makes life so interesting!

Anyway, this is my 4th layout with the Copper Mountain kit from Studio Calico - actually 4.5 if you count the one I made that also mixed in pieces of wood veneer from my stash. That's a lot considering I ONLY bought the main kit this month and NOTHING else, not even the added colored card stock. I didn't think I'd get to do a whole lot after last month from doing December Daily plus trying to use up the Blue Note kit.

Since I didn't have a whole lot of options, I decided to punch some pinking circles to fill in that space after I had my photos where I wanted them. I knew I definitely wanted to use that piece of background paper but other than that not much of an idea. I called Chris downstairs to help me and showed him a screen of Copper Mountain layouts I had saved as inspiration - he saw this one by Melanie Louette and said he liked the "banner" that said Life is and adventure. I decided to use a piece of white card stock and that phrase on mine too! I used my big alpha roller stamp to stamp the "& a lot more fun" underneath that. This layout ended up being so much better than I thought it was going to be! This will go in a new album I started that is just for Chris!

Experiment in scrapbooking!

This is the first card my husband ever made!! My mom had given him a really nice birthday gift, so I wanted to send her a special thank you card and jokingly told Chris that I would pick out some basic supplies and have him make her a card... well somehow he agreed, so here's how it went!!

Here are the supplies I ended up picking out, sort of like a mini kit - I chose 4 sheets of paper, 2 types of wood veneer, 2 washi tapes, 1 glitter tape (black though), 2 sets of letter stickers, 1 set of puffy stickers, and some basic tools:

I set it up in the kitchen while he was at the store so when he came back he had his own workspace - he really liked that! Later he sat down, and it was so interesting to watch him, because his process was so unlike mine! He immediately grabbed a piece of paper and looked like he knew EXACTLY what he wanted to do! I was so intrigued! First thing he did was grab his patterned paper like a seasoned pro!

I didn't show him how to use anything or make any suggestions for ideas, and I tried not to hover too much! Then I heard him say he broke my tape gun.

Not to despair, it just takes a couple times using it to get used to it. So I got it working for him again.

The next part really surprised me, because one of the papers I picked out had these speech bubbles, and I was going to suggest he could cut some out to use but decided not to say anything, just to see what he would come up with on his own. So it was so cool when I saw him start to cut out a speech bubble without any prompting - such an advanced technique!!

After that, I didn't get any more pics of his process because I had to get the baby, but I saw him adding the letter stickers inside the speech bubble - what a funny guy, he didn't just write "thank you" but "I say thank you" hahaha!! In my head I just hear that phrase spoken with a British accent after someone gets handed their afternoon tea, hilarious!

Then I saw him select a washi tape and he tore one edge and cut the other, then did two strips that way! He says he knew to do it that way from seeing how I've done it, but I wouldn't have thought to do the two rows like that - really cool!

The only part I helped him with was how to use the mini glue dots to adhere the wood veneer arrow in place, and done!! So interesting!! Here it is again:

Afterwards, when he had finished the card in like 15 minutes I asked him how he made it so quickly, and he replied, "Decisiveness my friend" haha which is something I do not have! I am really indecisive, which is part of what makes my scrapping take really long if I'm not forcing myself to make decisions quickly. Then I asked him what his favorite embellishment was, and he said patterned paper, which is the perfect answer - because it seems to be the common bond amongst all us scrappers! In fact, I was just listening to this week's Paperclipping Roundtable earlier in the day and they had joked that paper is like the gateway drug for scrapbookers!!

Final thought: Chris said he could see why I like to scrap! So I would call this experiment/adventure in scrapbooking a big success!!