Balcony Views

Ever have a tough time finishing a layout!? For no particular reason, other than I just couldn't get this one together quickly, this layout has taken me FOREVER! Even though it doesn't look like it's finished (to me) I just need to throw it in a corner (till I buy a new album to put my latest pages in) and tell myself repeatedly, "Breathe, it's finished." Haha, jk, I'm not that neurotic! Well, sorta...

Anyway, perhaps it's because this is like my 6th page or so of more or less the same, beachy pics from our trip to Miami Beach this past April. I really thought, scrapping these pics would be like going to the beach, you can't ever get sick of it... but I guess I was wrong! Oh well, this labored page came from a sketch for the 28 Days of Sketches 2 class with Lisa Day that is now over - good grief, 28 days and only used 2 of the sketches so far!

So I didn't really keep track of the supplies I used here, because it was one of those ones where I just wasn't satisfied by one collection so I pulled from all sorts of collections - can you spot them all?

HOW-TO List of Collections:

• Shoreline by American Crafts
• Nantucket by Pink Paislee
• Heidi Swapp
• PB&J by BasicGrey
• Plus goodies from both the Elmwood Park kit and the Summer of '69 kits both by Studio Calico including Pebbles, October Afternoon, and Crate Paper!

Pro-Tech Family Day

I finally finished this 12x12 layout I started awhile back... but oh well it is finished now! Back in July, my husband's company had a family day, so all their families came and got a tour of the shop, ate burgers and hotdogs under a tent, watched some of the Blue Angels practicing overhead, and then to top off the day, they had an ice cream truck pull in and give us free dessert!

The left side, with the big banner was an idea I took from this older project by Nancy Damiano. Then I remembered I had those little chipboard banner pieces to match the theme!

I put together the right side first, and didn't have to do a whole lot with it, since the paper was so detailed. Just added some buttons here and there and taped the picture to a piece of Bazzill cardstock. Easy!

HOW-TO:

• The paper is from the Anthology Collection by Studio Calico
• For the left side I cut a rectangle out of some shade of gold-ish Bazzill cardstock, and on the back I drew a line up the center, drew a dot about an inch or so up the line, then cut with scissors from each corner to the dot to get the middle as evenly placed as possible
• The chipboard banner pieces are from Maya Road
• I used the Yellow & Black sticky keys from the Boarding Pass collection by October Afternoon for all the letters
• For the right side I stamped and embossed a zigzag border stamp from Studio Calico and cut it out by hand
• The buttons are from the Lost and Found collection by My Mind's Eye