Smile

This was the 2nd best moment at Disney - getting to meet Merida! She was our first meet & greet, so we weren't sure how Natalie would respond, but she practically jumped out of my arms when it was our turn, and was saying "hug Merida, hug Merida!" She had never reached for a stranger before that, so I was surprised and excited for her!

This layout was a fun one to make - I took on this Pinterest challenge posted by Welobellie awhile back - here's the inspiration piece:

Basically I saw that and wanted to make some origami-like squares! I started folding and then flipped them over and adhered. Since I used such strong patterns, mostly papers from the Penelope add-on kit from Studio Calico for the Odyssey release, I placed it all onto a white piece of card stock... oooh! Anyway, I enjoyed the challenge and it was a great way to knock out another layout!

My Happy Place

OK this layout was the result of me running down to my scrap area and needing to just make a layout quickly to make myself feel better about last month's "last call" sale at Studio Calico, where I may have gone a bit over budget buying kits for super cheap prices! After making those purchases, I honestly also made 6 cards just to use some supplies and feel better... um yeah, those cards used up like 4 feathers, 2 wood veneer stars from a pack of like 30, 2 frames from a pack of 8, and a few sheets of paper, doh! Anyway, this one was fast and simple... didn't make me feel like I used up a lot of supplies, but did make me feel better that I finished another layout.

Secret: This might've been the 2nd happiest moment in my life, as far as crying from sheer joy... the 1st being my wedding day of course! Sounds crazy, but Natalie was kind of miserable with it raining at Disney World and her face getting wet and stuff. Then she saw Mickey and Minnie in the rainy day parade and her face just LIT UP and she pointed and was soooo excited to see them finally!! Just seeing her face go from misery to blinking in the rain and pointing and happy... ugh, my heart!!

Anyway, onto the nitty gritty! I used the Odyssey kit from Studio Calico and this Fairytale Card set by Life.Love.Paper, stars from the Waldorf add-on kit from Studio Calico's Park Ave release. I was also inspired to add a little text to my photo and print out my journaling from the Text Tricks class by Pam Baldwin for Big Picture Classes... I had only taken the first lesson by now, so this doesn't even showcase a smidgen of what I learned from that class, so I strongly recommend checking it out!

We Are Really Doing This!

The title is what I said to Chris riding the monorail on our way to Magic Kingdom for our first day at Disney World! Except it started with "I can't believe" haha! Little did we know the craziness that would ensue that day, but there will be more to come on that :)

I used another sketch template from Simple Scrapper's Premium Membership and look at that, a real button/pin that we got when we purchased our tickets! I didn't remember until after I planned this layout that I wanted to use that button here, so when the layout started looking a bit busy, I left the white card stock open towards the bottom to try to provide some eye relief, even though I filled it with journaling.

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

Go See Florida (because, palm trees)

I had these photos printed for my next Florida/Disney trip album, but honestly I didn't have any plans for this layout and instead just started by laying down the photos in an arrangement in front of me. I guess it's kind of crazy, but then I remembered I made this card back in 2012 - mostly thinking about the strips of paper down the middle and thought that could be an easy way to fill in this page!

I grabbed some Kraft card stock and sprayed with white mist... love the look of white on Kraft! Then added some different strips and washi from last month's Odyssey kit (and Penelope add-on kit) by Studio Calico and the extra washi strips I had purchased from the shop! I added the circle at the top and then decided, hey I will turn that into a sun, so I hand cut the strips of paper for the rays and added my journaling between all the strips below - super easy and again, I love how this one turned out! Not my usual approach, but worked out for this one!

Hello Vacation!

Here's my opening page to our Disney Vacation album! Maybe it's not the most representative of Disney, but I mean, how cute is my daughter!! :)

I used mostly the Odyssey kit from Studio Calico, except the background piece of paper... I really needed some pink somewhere in the background paper to bring out the pink in her bathing suit so I did 2 things when I worked on this layout:

1. I realized I would need more pink than the main scrapbook kit offered because of my daughter's clothes for a lot of the photos, so I made a mid-month order with Studio Calico to buy the Penelope add-on. While I waited for that to arrive, I...

2. went back through my previous month's Cirque kit and landed on that Ashley Goldberg paper and used that! I love that it has a bit of purple in it too because the Disney album I bought has some magenta and purples inside it, so this page looks great as the first page, coordinating with the album and the photo!


Anyway, thanks for stopping by! I have a bunch more layouts to share this week, and then I plan to resume my normal blogging schedule, more up-to-date and more photos!

April Simple Scrapper Layouts!

I am behind on posting these layouts, but the April Premium membership materials are available at SimpleScrapper.com and I truly enjoyed working with them! You can ask 5 different members at Simple Scrapper, what makes the membership worthwhile and you can get 5 different answers! I think the number 1 value is just the help Jennifer Wilson (owner) gives you to use supplies, make time for scrapbooking, and overall simplify everything from photos to finished albums/projects!

But what really made me sign up originally as a member last year were the sketch templates! I didn't know much about what they were, but simply put, they are sketches provided as a regular jpeg file that you can simply open and use to get your layout started AND they come as layered templates that you can open in Photoshop/Photoshop Elements, and use them in their complete digital format to create a digital, hybrid, or regular layout! As a regular paper scrapper, I didn't know how much I would love that they came as layered templates too until I opened one one day, and dragged in my photos to get a feel for how a layout would look before I printed my photos to size and then worked with physical products after that. I LOVE getting to see how my photos might work or even what color papers might work first.

Anyway, so this first layout I used a new sketch template to create this travel layout, for a trip we took to Disney World at the end of February!

I made the travel words paper myself, by printing it out onto 8.5x14 (legal size in the US) and then cutting it to 12inches across!

---

For this next layout, I began with this month's story starters that are about faith and spirituality. The story starters are a great part of the membership as well, often I end up documenting something that I wouldn't normally if I didn't challenge myself to use them each month! Since I am a Christian and a Mom, so I got a chance to document my daily intentions with Natalie - namely, trying to start everyday by reading the Bible and praying! She says the cutest little prayer now too, simply, "thank you Jesus, amen!" haha!

I also used an older sketch template and again, it just makes it so easy to piece together a layout by starting with the sketch templates! And guess what, the membership provides 5 new sketch templates every month! That's 60 a year... that's a lot of inspiration and layouts to make!!

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