NSD - Wild Life Caught!

Happy NSD!!! What's NSD? Why it's National Scrapbook Day of course!! Over at Studio Calico they posted a bunch of challenges and stuff last night so I was able to make this layout for the Numbers challenge!!

Yes, this is a series of pictures of a Hawk in our backyard, chasing down a chipmunk and eating him! Poor Chippy! It was really captivating to watch and actually capture on film, I just happened to be walking by my window when I heard something going on and ran and got my camera! Unfortunately they were taken through the screen, but it was exciting!

I used the Central High kit by Studio Calico - originally I figured I'd do a green background, but my Pop Off the Page class told me to try a different color that didn't necessarily match, and went with the yellow instead! It turned out perfect, and I love how those numbers show up so bold on it!

Hope to have some more layouts this weekend and next week for these NSD challenges!! Have a nice day! :)

I Love Him!

Another layout for the Pop Off the Page 2 class with Jen Jockisch from Studio Calico! This time our challenge was to scraplift one of the layouts from the first lesson - so I scraplifted from Jen's layout, and it turned out a bit differently than I envisioned, but still so easy! Here my husband took it upon himself to wash and paint the windows in the house! He is extremely good at keeping our house in excellent condition, it would look so crappy otherwise!!

Originally I had selected some different color papers to layer, but after combining the black and white striped piece behind the photo and the greenish watercolor looking paper below the main photo, I realized I really wanted to stick to shades of black and fluorescent green! Once I figured that out, the process was a little slower, since I had to dig through my stash a bit to find the pieces I wanted to use, but still so easy! I love that my husband used such a cool color tape to mask off haha next time I should try to figure out my color scheme first, then have him use tape to match :)

To make the die cut, and other punched pieces from the fluorescent green, I knew I wanted to use my Hero Arts Neon green stamp pad, but without stamping… so I finally used these older Jenni Bowlin foam stamps that I've had for a year and a half now, and inked one up, then stamped it directly onto plain white paper. I cut the paper and ran it through my Silhouette to make the die cut! Then I used the same method to punch a circle and a notebook edge as well!

This is definitely a totally different way of scrapbooking for me, but really fun and simple to do!

Outdoor Pets!

Chris and I don't have any pets - no dogs, cats, or even a goldfish. But I love feeding all my outdoor pets including birds of all sorts and last summer, my ducks! They came over every evening, walking over to eat any leftover birdseed on the ground, but then they'd run over when they saw me come out back!

The class I'm taking this month at Studio Calico, Pop Off the Page 2 with Jen Jockisch began yesterday! I didn't take the first class and since I have NO IDEA how to create layers (I’m more of a full page, fairly "flat" scrapper), I decided to see what I could learn from this class and so far, wow, so good! It was SO quick and easy to create this layout, especially without much of an idea what I was going to do.

Usually I have to have an idea, sketch, or example to follow to get going on a layout, and for this one I thought I was going to just copy Marcy Penner's example layout she made for the class. But this took a whole different direction after I selected papers from my pile of scrap pieces leftover from this month's Spencer's kit by Studio Calico! I also didn't try to line up everything perfectly, added in a few extra pieces and watched it take a life of its own!

Therefore I am very excited to finish this class this month!!

2 page layout - Rochester!

OK so where do I begin!? I had a bunch of pictures that my husband Chris took me around Rochester, well more specifically, mostly the town of Greece where we grew up, so I could make a mini album for my best childhood friend who moved away in college (here is the mini album I ended up making with those pictures). I decided I wanted to make a quick 2 page layout of those pics I got for myself!

The inspiration for this side actually came from a magazine article I was reading while waiting with my husband at the Doctor's office last week, it was a WebMD magazine. I liked the idea of finding inspiration from ads etc from the class I took earlier this year with Nicole Samuels, Bright Ideas at Studio Calico. So I tried as inconspicuously as I could, to take a pic with my iPhone of the page - here it is:

It looked like a unique grid and when I went to get started on the page, it looked to me sort of like a newspaper with different sections.

I still have this month's Studio Calico kit on my table, Spencer's but really wanted a newspaper type background so I dug up last May's 35mm kit and found those thin sheets of newsprint by Bazzill Basics! Yes! So glad I saved that paper :)

I decided just to sew the lines with black thread and then used embellishments from Spencer's to finish it up!

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The same day we went to the Doctor's office, Chris wasn't feeling well (hence, the Doctor), so we picked up some magazines at the store so he could relax and if he gets one, then I can get one too! I knew we'd be going soon to the special Star Trek TNG event at the movie theater the following week (they played the Borg episodes, Best of Both Worlds) and so I geekily bought a Star Trek magazine! Again, I flipped through and found this stats page to be a similar grid design that I really liked:

I wanted to keep the newspaper theme though, but not be overwhelm the eye with newsprint, so I cut up some of the polkadot paper and added to cardstock to section it off instead.

To give it more of a newspaper feel, I sewed the black lines for the title to go in between and pulled out my Amy Tangerine black foam thickers to use for the titles of each section!

My favorite part is that when I was finished and showed my layout to Chris, he goes, "Nice! I like how you used the radiant technique!" to explain the bottom portion I made with the colored strings and brads haha! His perspective on scrapbooking is so funny!

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Here are the pages together:

Mothers Day card!

Yes it's probably a little early for a Mothers' Day card, except when sometimes it takes awhile for card ideas to come to you and you have 3+ to make (for mom, mom-in-law, and sis-in-law, plus I will probably try to make one for my Grandma too) - so you take what you can get, or at least I do!

My inspiration was this sketch from the Hero Arts monthly blog contest! I just love Hero Arts stamps and stamp pads - so I searched my stamp stash for a HA stamp to use, and randomly found a circles pattern stamp from the Spread Joy Christmas/holiday themed stamp set by Hero Arts and Studio Calico!

I bought some watercolor paper the other day so I stamped the circles on the watercolor paper with Tim Holtz distress inks in Wild Honey, Victoria Velvet, and Dusty Concord. Then I took some watercolor and a watercolor brush and went over the circles to fill them in with a touch of color!

I bought the layered flower from the Silhouette Store and just used a pencil to curl the paper up a little bit and make the flower 3-D. I found the perfect little flower brad to finish, some papers from the Amy Tangerine Yes, Please line and tiny letter stickers from Pink Paislee! Phew!

Canal Ducks!

Chris bought me an awesome bag for my bicycle last Christmas and attached it to the back of my bike last summer! I packed some bread for a bike ride along the canal path in Spencerport and we found some hungry ducks to feed!! What good is a bike ride if you can't expect to have to stop and feed some animals along the way!?

The idea for this layout came again from the Sketchbook 4 class with Kelly Purkey I took last year! I used sketch #12 because I basically just had a bunch of scrap pieces of paper to work with (this being my 4th layout with the Studio Calico Spencer's kit and also my 4th layout in 2 weeks!)

Again, I didn't think I'd have all that many embellishments of this layout, so I grabbed some older washi tape by October Afternoon, older foam thickers from Amy Tangerine Sketchbook line, and random October Afternoon buttons to complete the layout!

The chipboard pieces were part of the kit from BasicGrey and then I didn't feel it needed a whole lot more since the papers were the main point of interest for this layout! Woohoo, I'm feeling super productive in my new space so far!!

The Bills

Last summer we went to the Bills Training camp at the end of July. It was a very HOT day out, and we had just gotten back from the car show at Spencerport Canal Days, where I couldn't even make the walk between the car show down to the canal to get snacks and check out more of the festival! Somehow, Chris convinced me to then head right over to the Bills Training Camp, which I really didn't feel like doing, because I assumed we were driving all the way out to Buffalo (about 45-50 minute drive), when really it was just at St. John Fisher college - much closer! I didn't know it was there until we pulled in to park and then we just laughed! Chris was like, no wonder you didn't feel like going!

I knew I had these three pictures and wanted possibly to use some frames that came in this month's Spencer's kit by Studio Calico. I really built the idea of this page in my Silhouette software first. After realizing I probably didn't have a whole lot of embellishments to choose from for this particular layout, I decided to make use of the papers that went with my color scheme - Bills colors: blue, red and white (can't you just picture those zubaz pants?) and made 4 long panels, about 2.75"x9.5" and cut banners from the ends.

I knew I wanted a strip along the top of the banners, but didn't want just another rectangle and reached for the stamp from this month's kit - that diamond pattern, stamped and cut it out to add just the right touch I was going for! I used black pen to draw in where the stamp didn't saturate the paper completely (one great thing about stamping with black). I added some Amy Tangerine foam thickers for some dimension and did the rest of the title with my Smash labeler.

I found an image of the Buffalo Bills logo and traced it with the Silhouette and cut it out for my main embellishment and finally added some journaling along the bottom. Quick and easy, owe this one to the Silhouette!

Game Day!

I am just loving my new workspace, even though it's in the basement, it is great to have a space that is separate from where I work during the day! These pics were from a Rochester Red Wings game we went to last summer with our church crew! We got last minute tickets and had just bought a Mazda Miata, so drove it to the game with the top down - oh what fun memories!

My inspiration came from the Sketchbook 4 class by Kelly Purkey that I took last year! I used the sketch from her layout for Sketch #9 because I knew I would just want to add a bunch of pieces to this layout and keep it fairly simple.

The stuff I used is a mishmash of stuff from the past! Starting with the piece of background paper - it is a piece of Pebbles paper that I think came in my very first Studio Calico kit I ever bought (and also my favorite to this day) - Lawn Party from May 2011!! Most of the little pieces are from October Afternoon's 9-to-5 collection, except the pennants are from BasicGrey, the Sat badge is from Studio Calico, the letters are from last year's City of Lights kit, and the wood veneer hello is from...? One of the past SC kits. The orange speech bubble and Saturday sticker are the only "new" items, from this month's Spencer's kit by Studio Calico! Phew!

I was able to grab (find) all these random items because of my new scrapbook area - it is much better organized so far, and I am able to dig through my stash much more efficiently, where before I had to have things out in front of me to remember to use them! Hopefully this will translate to being much more productive now (at least until the baby comes)!!

Hello Baby!

This is my first layout for my baby!! I've had 2 ultrasounds, the 9 week dating ultrasound and the 20 week anatomy scan and gender reveal ultrasound - we are having a little girl!! So far so good and wow, I finished a layout for my baby well before I am due - best not to get behind quite yet!

I just loved that cork board paper and this layout by April Foster! I knew I wanted something colorful to go along with the black + white ultrasound pics, so I also printed out my pregnancy test pic in b+w as well and added lots of color! I used the Studio Calico kit Spencer's to complete this layout, with just a couple small pieces of paper from the Crate Paper storyteller line.

Maybe I am most excited that I can post to my blog in the evening now! Why couldn't I before? I needed daylight to get decent pics of my pages, but my husband has now moved my scrap area into the basement and I told him (not that he didn't notice) that I would need A LOT of light! He done GOOD! I have 2 huge overhead lights now, plus a torch lamp, but the overhead lights were enough to get some fairly well lit pics... wow!

OK now to finish watching the Syracuse final four game... ahhh!! Go Cuse!!

Bridal Shower card!

Some friends of ours are getting married this spring and the bridal shower is tomorrow! So I made this simple card for it...

It came together really quickly after I found my inspiration from this card by Amber!! I added the sewing to my frame because I wanted it to pop up a little without using just pop dots.

I backed with some Silver POW paper from American Crafts and misted over the Heidi Swapp hearts with Mister Huey's Cameo before wiping off the excess. Quick and easy!!