Be Brave

ABOUT THE PHOTO(S):
This was the best part of our visit from our friends - watching our girls in the inflatable pool! Natalie LOVED when she slipped in and it happened to be nice, cozy, warm water instead of hose water - she just sat back and chilled out, I'd never seen her do that before! Her friend on the other hand, LOVED the bottom of the pool that was bouncy and inflatable and she was bouncing on her little coolie the whole time!

LAYOUT DESIGN:
The layout was sort of guided by the 3 photos that I had printed 4x3 that I definitely wanted to include in some sort of progression as Natalie is sinking into the water.

MY PROCESS/PRODUCTS USED:
Originally I started with a busy background piece of paper and tried to add those three diecut titles (from the More Bright Ideas class from Studio Calico with Nicole Samuels, created by Geralyn Sy for In A Creative Bubble). The titles got lost on the busy paper so I die cut a black border to go around them, but it still looked a bit too crazy. Then this morning I read the latest article in Spark Magazine from the Simple Scrapper premium membership about white space and decided my page was looking too crazy and busy. I made white space by changing up my background paper to black card stock and allowing it to breathe! Ahhh! The titles now stood out great, so I just added minimal embellishments and some journaling. The paper to cut the titles was from the Printshop collection and the striped piece is from the Brighton Pier collection.

Today

ABOUT THE PHOTO(S):
Woohoo! Another layout done this weekend, that's 3 in 2 days, and this one I completed in under an hour after Natalie went to bed last night! This is Natalie and her little buddies playing at her friend's water table - she liked it, except when water got splashed onto her face haha!

LAYOUT DESIGN:
The design of the page was driven by my photos that I decided to print into 4x6 and see what I could do with them. I don't normally scrap so many photos, especially 4x6, but after getting way behind in my scrapbooking last month, I am trying to do a few layouts now with some more photos. I decided to lay them all to the right and then work with a 6x12 page really.

MY PROCESS/PRODUCTS USED:
I used the Sandlot kit from Studio Calico and in the back of my mind, I knew if I used that pink paper, that I wanted to put the "answers" across the words similar to Nicole Samuels' layout here, but what I didn't plan on was using the small alpha stamp from the Printshop collection to stamp the facts in tiny print across them - I love how that turned out! I was planning on filling in some small journaling onto the metal-rimmed tags but after I adhered them, I thought they kinda look neat as is, and decided to leave them alone!

You & Me

ABOUT THE PHOTO(S):
I finally got around to scrapping these photos from December! I had printed them out but ended up blowing up the one of me and Natalie to use in a single layout, so didn't have a place for these. I decided these will go in Chris' album instead, which is why I haven't worked on them till now - because I usually try to stay up to date on Natalie's album as my priority (sorry Chris)!

LAYOUT DESIGN:
Anyway, I finally got a chance to participate in a @Society52 challenge on Instagram! It is run by Sarah Bargo and Maggie Massey (a Studio Calico Creative Team member) - they post 1 challenge every Monday and a new spin on it every Thursday! This week's challenge was to use NO patterned paper, aaahhh!! And the spin was to add some black to it!

MY PROCESS/PRODUCTS USED:
I sort of cheated since I didn't start the layout till today during Natalie's nap time. I started and finished this layout across 2 of her naps, so it took me about an hour and 15 minutes - super fast! But I had already decided I wanted to do a grid and use the Printshop collection by Shanna Noel at Studio Calico, so I had a good head start. I did a very quick splash of Mister Huey's spray mist in Passport, dabbed dry, then I sewed in some lines an inch apart and filled the spaces. Originally I was going to place a title above the square photo, but went outside my comfort zone to make the "You & Me" vellum piece work as my title!

Love Your Little Coolie!

ABOUT THE PHOTO(S):
This was Natalie's first time in the pool... I couldn't get her shirt to stay down or pull her bottoms to fully cover her little coolie! She was so darn cute!

LAYOUT DESIGN:
I participated in a challenge to scraplift the person who commented on a forum post before you, so I scraplifted Studio Calico user @goldenblind221 and used this layout as my inspiration and starting point!

MY PROCESS/PRODUCTS USED:
I thought about hitting up my stash of Boardwalk papers (from Studio Calico's August 2011 kit) that I still have a ton of, since that's what her layout used, but I decided to make use of a 6x6 pad of paper, which made me decide to go with the Printshop collection by Shanna Noel for Studio Calico - one of my all-time favorite collections! I started with the piece in the top left corner and sort of went from there - it took awhile because I couldn't just hand cut them, so I drew lines and cut with my trimmer... I love how it turned out though!

Seriously

Stop it with the faces! These two girls are so fun and wild and crazy!

I used the background piece of paper from the PrintShop collection by Shanna Noel for Studio Calico and embellished with the new Amy Tangerine Plus One collection for American Crafts! I really love the foam phrases, and I loved that typewriter sticker, so glad I got to use it!!

This wasn't my favorite layout, but after adding the black foam hearts and "xo." sentiment in the lower right, as per suggestion by Natalie's Nanny - it is really growing on me! It definitely needed that little extra boost!

Mia Famiglia

I finished this layout this morning while Natalie napped (extra long) and unexpectedly on my day off! Happy Martin Luther King Jr. Day!

I already had the little windows cut out from the piece of paper from the Printshop collection by Shanna Noel but wasn't really sure what to do from there. I was planning to back each little window with small pieces of paper, but was feeling like that would take too long, so used another sheet of paper from the same collection to back.

I embellished with Amy Tangerine's Plus One collection. Love these pictures of "mia famiglia" hehe :)

An Experiment

Last month I did an experiment and had my husband Chris make a card for my mom (in this blog post). I finally got to scrap those pictures using Photoshop and a digital template made by Catherine Davis for the PROCESS class over at Big Picture Classes! Here's just the template with my photos:

I made this a hybrid layout by adhering that to a 12x12 piece of paper and embellishing from the Printshop line by Shanna Noel!

The best part is that I got a new printer yesterday, courtesy of Chris who did some research and set it up to wirelessly print for me, and bought me some awesome paper too! I got the Epson XP-810 and so far I just LOVE the quality!!

December Daily Day 4

I love this project! Where else would I get to scrap this random pic I took yesterday morning when Natalie woke up and I found her crazy and sideways in her crib, "walking the rails" because she just learned (on day 3) how to roll onto her side!? She kicked one of her socks off on the rail and fell to the floor under her crib, and the other one she kicked off in the crib!

For this left side, I just printed a snapshot of my text to Chris. I added a little bow from the Printshop collection by Shanna Noel at Studio Calico - so cute!

Originally I had a black piece of paper for the right side, but I flipped it over to the other side and liked the way that looked with my photo better. Then I had this random piece of reddish color paper in the bottom left on the left side that I tossed because it no longer went with the color scheme, so I just picked one of the leftover 3x4 pieces I have and used that instead.

So I can't believe I haven't fallen behind yet, which sounds silly on day 4, except I'm barely scratching by! I've only prepped through day 9 and it seems to be taking me longer to make these spreads than a 12x12 page haha! I guess I'm just not used to the handbook size, but also half the time is spent selecting, editing, and printing the photos to the sizes I like. We'll see how long I last, but hoping if I do get behind I can play catch up on the weekends!

What a Fun Guy!

Last layout from September walking around the Green Acres farm shop and enjoying the beautiful fall day! I just LOVE the Printshop collection by Shanna Noel at Studio Calico so so much! Every layout has been just about my favorite! I've mentioned before that Chris has a saying for when a layout isn't his favorite or isn't the best, he says "Even Michael Jordan didn't shoot a triple-double every game," but when I went over to the other side of the basement (where he is setting up his home gym, yay), and showed him this layout, he said, "now that's a triple-double!" Wow!! Thank you Shanna, making it so simple to create great layouts!!

I really didn't do much so it didn't take me very long - just added some journal cards and embellishments from the collection in a sort of a grid style. But I got the idea for the layout from the Process class over at Big Picture Classes that I'm taking with Catherine Davis. One of the lessons talked about balance and I tried to keep that in mind as I created this.

At the end of the layout, I took a look and saw a little too much boldness at the top left corner, so I tried to even it out a little better by adding an outline to the piece of paper on the bottom right. Love when these come together so quickly and easily!

Hello

I love this layout! A couple reasons, but I'd been mostly dying to cut those teepees with my Silhouette, that were part of Shanna Noel's digital cut files from Studio Calico last month!

Once I did that, the rest was pretty easy - I just used the Printshop collection again, also by Shanna Noel, to complete the layout. The stars and circle are vellum stickers and pieces, and I used a white "hello" rub-on directly onto the picture which turned out awesome!

My favorite part of this picture is that I got a chance to journal about how both Chris and I remember getting our pumpkins from Green Acres (in the pic) when we were little, and how I love how, because we are from the same hometown, we have a lot of shared memories, just not with each other. But it's so cool to reminisce together even though we didn't really know each other!

The Good Life

I did this quick layout last night after Natalie went to bed for the evening - and now that I'm back at work, it was my first time scrapping all week! Ahh!!

I reprinted this picture of Natalie next to the hotdog vendor at Green Acres farm in black and white because the colors were super bright of the vendor truck and I really wanted to use the new Printshop collection by Shanna Noel for Studio Calico that I just got in the mail!

From there it was pretty simple and quick to get going with the new line - love those transparent titles!! I was also inspired by this layout by Catherine Davis!

True Story

This layout will sit opposite the last layout, of Chris and I taking Natalie to get our pumpkins - sorry Natalie, you didn't get a pumpkin this year! But she did get to go see them if she wanted to wake up for it haha!

OK this was my 11th, yes 11th layout I made with the Antiquary kit by Studio Calico and officially the most amount of layouts I've made with one kit and officially I am a bit tired of Antiquary even though I really loved it, especially the parts of the Printshop line designed by Shanna Noel for Studio Calico that were part of it!

Anyway! I cut the background from my Silhouette, which was one that I had purchased from Studio Calico quite a few months ago - I went this route because I knew I could get away with little embellishments and really I didn't know what embellishments to use at this point, so I just punched some circles and slid them randomly underneath the background portion and adhered! I added those little typed sentiments and one more die cut from In a Creative Bubble for Studio Calico. I didn't need to add any journaling on this page since it was all on the last page - so another layout done in under an hour while Natalie napped! I am just loving the feeling of getting a layout done so quickly!!