My Scrapbook Story

ABOUT THE STORY:
For the first time in the 10+ years that I have been scrapbooking, I finally made a page about it! Why it's important to me, what it means to me etc. and lo and behold I happened upon my title for the page! I recently participated in the Start Fresh event over at the Simple Scrapper (included with the membership), and loved it - from the planner to the workbook, the daily audio guides and ideas, and even the community. What surprised me on Day 1 was when Jennifer (Wilson) said we would be completing a layout over the next 5 days. I thought, now is as good a time as any!

LAYOUT DESIGN:
Originally, I picked this layout by Jill as my inspiration, I just loved the layers and typing.

MY PROCESS/PRODUCTS USED:
In the end though, I knew I had way too much journaling, and I wanted to showcase just a few papers. I also am not very good at layering. I had gathered some supplies for this layout, as in, I knew I wanted to use the Ivy Tower add-on kit from Studio Calico this month haha! And then as I was picking papers to do the layers, I realized I liked exactly what I had in my hands and laid them down. I painted my title in my version of brush script with black goache paint and then cut my strips from left to right 2.25", 2.5", 8" (the hello paper so it would stretch all the way underneath the vellum), and vellum at 6". I layered them a little on top of each other to give the impression of overlapping instead of laying them flat side by side. And that's pretty much it - I used the Traveling Typewriter font and printed on vellum.

START FRESH ANYTIME

Luckily if you've missed out on the awesome Simple Scrapper Start Fresh event (a scrapbook planning e-course), then I suggest you take advantage of this offer to purchase it separately from the membership! I love the membership because it includes this event PLUS the amazing Stash Bash event (which sounds like there may be a mini stash bash in February, plus the big one this July), on top of the monthly membership goodies - it's an awesome value!

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

Digitizing my word art

So I've played with word art before but hadn't yet ever printed it out yet. I wanted to use this verse I read yesterday to make a card and figured it would be a good time to try this out! Also I figured it would look better if I shrank the art down and made it tighter. Here's my original verse, painted with goache paint in Jet Black onto drawing paper (this was not even close to my first attempt):

After I got it into digital form (I just used a photo I took of it and edited it in Photoshop Elements 12), I cropped it to 4.25x5.5 inches to fit a card and printed first on white paper (will prob hang this in my scrap space or use as a bookmark) then printed it on patterned paper for a card!

Finally, I made the background transparent with the magic eraser and laid it on top of one of a piece of digital paper from Studio Calico for next month's kit! I changed the color of the brush script and really love how that turned out!

In conclusion it was really fun to do and try! Also as a side note, I took the Life Scripted class with brush script expert Kal Barteski awhile back but ended up using a slightly different technique to come up with this, as I found I want to make it closer to my own handwriting and style!

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.

XO

ABOUT THE PHOTO(S):
I decided to put these "mismatched" photos together into one layout for Chris' album since they were all random moments from July of Chris and Natalie that I wanted to scrap but couldn't make out of a full 12x12 layout!

LAYOUT DESIGN:
I used a sketch template from the SimpleScrapper.com that was based on a 2 page layout by Jamie Leija! I thought the 8.5x11 format would work perfectly for these photos, and ended up printing them 3x3.66 (since I had 3 photos to fit in 11 inches of height).

MY PROCESS/PRODUCTS USED:
It was very hard to cut into that awesome piece of paper from the Brighton Pier collection, designed by Kal Barteski for Studio Calico! But if I like that paper so much I'm bound to like it even better on a layout, so I went to town! I added some wood veneer pieces from the same collection. The paper fringe by Crate Paper came in last month's Penny Arcade kit and the gray tag was the packaging for the Knot & Bow ribbon from this month's Sandlot kit by Studio Calico that had JUST arrived on my doorstep! So yes, it was very hard to not dig into that kit right away instead, but Brighton Pier is still so awesome it had to be used :)

Congrats Wedding card

ABOUT THIS CARD: I made this card for my cousin who lives in Indiana and got married in Florida!! We ended up missing out on the wedding because of our needy 10 month old baby, but it looked like they had a blast!

PRODUCTS/PROCESS: First and foremost, I bought this digital stamp brush USA map from Studio Calico and stamped at 2500px, printed it, and cut it out! I added some gold hearts to the two states and adhered to a piece of card stock from last year's Double Scoop kit. I kept it simple and just added the Kal Barteski letter thickers from the Amy Tangerine Plus One collection by American Crafts!

I love how this card turned out, and love that I got to use that digital brush stamp file right away!

New Baby cards!

While my passion isn't making cards, I enjoy making cards for new babies because I can always center it around the baby's name - and that has so much meaning for all moms (and dads)! So here are a couple of new baby cards I've made recently - one for a boy and one for a girl :)

This first one was made for a girl (obviously) and I wanted to include her middle name because it has extra special meaning to her parent's. I really wanted her name to stand out, so I was thinking I wanted to use my brush script technique to do so.

To make it stand out more, I first wrote "Jesus loves" over and over again on the background. It was actually a blessing to write this and just think about that phrase - Jesus loves, over and over again! Then I painted on top with jet black goache paint. I had taken Kal Barteski's Life Scripted class at Studio Calico a few months ago. This wasn't my best version of her name, but I only had one shot at the final product!

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For this next card, it ended up taking about 15 minutes to do! I chose those letter thickers from Amy Tangerine's Plus One collection (a collaboration with Kal Barteski as well) and then decided to use papers from the same collection. When I opened my 6x6 pad of paper, I saw that I had leftover cut out pieces from this layout I created back in January and the lightbulb went off!

I adhered the papers coming off the card at an angle, then just trimmed the excess. I also had some leftover black stars from the Cuppa kit by Studio Calico laying out on my table and decided those would go perfectly and "sprinkled" them and adhered them (almost) wherever they landed. Quick and easy and the only people that would know I borrowed the design from a previous layout are you readers :)

Are Those Your Legs?

This photo of my daughter... just makes me smile and giggle because she is so chubby and adorable! Her legs just don't even look like hers here because of the way the jumperoo is pulling her little jeans!

I'm taking the Life Scripted class by Kal Barteski over at Studio Calico and finally put my brush script to use! It's really fun, but way harder than it looks... love it so far though, and so glad I'm taking the class! I made this big title and cut it out by hand.

I used the Sugar Rush kit by Studio Calico to complete the layout, as well as the pink plastic measuring tape piece from the Lemon Lush ephemera that's part of the new Lemon Lush collection also by Studio Calico! Thanks for stopping by!

Be the Love

Here's another hybrid layout I made with a template that's part of the newest Studio Calico class, Life Scripted with Kal Barteski! I can't wait for the class to get started in February!

I had a few pictures of Natalie rolling over onto her stomach and one of her getting tired out - I didn't print them correctly, so they came out a little darker, but how awesome is that Photo Black! It looks like I painted on top!

Chris and I have a million different nicknames for Natalie, so I just filled in a few and repeated them for the background. I added some black stars that came in one of last month's kits from Studio Calico, and kept it simple!