A Birthday Page

I completed a layout that has been sitting on my desk since last weekend. And although I had the idea in my mind, I couldn't figure out how to exactly make it work together. I kept trying to make a certain patterned paper work with the theme and the colors work, but I also wanted to do something that I hadn't done in awhile. I didn't know what that was but then I read one of the challenges for the May31 challenge and it was so to opposite of what you are used to doing. And although it was about handwriting verses computer typed journaling. The thing that came to mind for me was cardstock verses patterned paper. I always use patterned paper, and I haven't done an all cardstock layout in forever. So it was the perfect time to do that. And so I did. Which then made me thing of ways to make that cardstock stand out.

So I pulled out some cardstock that matched ribbon that I got earlier this month at Joanns. And then began to pull colors from it to match my daughter's 4th birthday page. I love the end result. Although it almost matches another birthday page that I made a couple of years back but I love how I updated the look of the layout. So here is the page...

I used a lot of supplies although it may not look like it.
All cardstocks are Coordinations Cardstock,

Embellishments
Ribbon -American Crafts
Expoxy Dots- MME


Die Cuts
Spellbinders- Large Pinking Circle, Large Standard Circle,
Notebook border punch
Ballon diecut, Aligator Unicase Alphabet dies- Quickutz
Triangle, star punches- EK Success
All banners are handcut
Embossing folders from QK, Paper Studio, and Cuttlebug

Stamps
Circle Journaling lines-unknown
Cake stamp- Imaginisce?
Banner stamp- WRMK (Easter stamp set)
Dot Alphabet Stamps-KI Memories
Tiny Alphabet stamps-Studio G stamps
Spiral line stamp bent on block to create a string for the hanging banner

Stamps pads/inks are all Colorbox  Chalk inks; Aquamarine, Dark Brown, Butterscotch, Berrylicious

These are all the supplies that I could remember...now I'm off to spend some time with the family and try to get some birthday cards done for my kids that have birthdays next week. Smiles, Tracy

Sunshine and Happiness

This layout was a little hard to create. I really wanted the page to be bright and there really wasn't any papers in my stash that I wanted to use on the layout that seemed as bright as I wanted.

But then I saw the Echo Park a perfect summer collection and knew that I had to have it in order to get the page that I wanted. So I headed to my local scrapbooking store which is a little under an hour away and picked up the few papers that I wanted for the page plus some clearance papers for 49 cents. And those papers that I got on clearance were from a line that I wanted over a year ago that I just couldn't purchase at that time from MME. I love MME if you haven't learned from seeing so many pages that I create using their papers.

So here is the layout that I created.

I absolutely love the finished page. It is another layout that I completely had sketched out what I wanted to do and although I printed the photos to fit the sketch exactly, I ended up changing the smaller pics from being vertical under the big photo to being horizontal. And I like this a lot better.

The journaling reads: For our family of 6; living in 1000 sq ft was truly hard. The apartment was always dark and we had very noise neighbors all time of the day or night. But the one thing we all found happiness in was the pool. We'd spend hours at the pool in the sunshine swimming, splashing and playing together. It was truly the only reason we ever went back to the apartment besides sleeping. And its the only thing we miss about living there.

The supplies used were:
papers- Pink Paislee-cozy sweater 2011, Echo Park-endless summer big dots and chevron lines, recollections-yellow honeycomb paper
diecuts- circles handcut after tracing using large acrylic shapes from an acrylic sheet (I believe Fancy Pants), banners cut by hand, & sign cut from Blossom grand alphas, happiness cut from lawn fawn stamps/diecut set
embellishments- label-Jillibean soup, Enamel dots- MME, flair button- American Crafts (set I got from big lots), shinny bling- Micheals store brand, Doodlebug black rub-ons
Stamps- Lawn Fawn Quincy alpha, Catslife Press place stamp, Imaginisce sunshine stamp (snag em line).

2 Big Girls @ the Park

So there is a new challenge on twopeasinabucket.com that I want to do. So today the first challenge was posted and I just had to scrapbook the photos of my girls playing at the park. The layout was inspired by the challenge to use banners and also to use flat stickers.

At first the flat sticker idea was challenging because all the cute playground stickers and kiddie playing stickers that I could have used are no longer in my stash. So I decided to look through the stash for quotes or wording that is saying what I want to be expressed on the page. Yeah the pictures are of the girls on the playground but really they are about both of my girls actually growning. Ani not being a big sister so much but instead a friend/playmate and Nya not needing help so much but instead gaining her own independence. It was really a hard park day at first it was a lot of no let me do it, and even more Ani it's ok for her to try. But after all that it turned out to be perfect. And that is what sparked the title to the page. 2 Big Girls @ the Park.

It is also the one layout that I did that reflects on the fact that although I was ok with having 4 children, that I no longer have a baby. And it almost inspires another page that I am thinking of doing in the future. I love the end results of the layout. It is so my style. When I sat down to do the page it came together really easy. Really and that isn't always the case for me and scrapbooking. Or it hadn't been that way for awhile. But I think that it was easy because there was a place for everything and my desk wasn't really cluttered and so my thoughts weren't cluttered. It was just so nice to get it done but the way that I wanted and it wasn't something that I just through together. It was perfect. I think that my best work has been with challenges involved. Even when I was the one hosting the challenge or teaching the class, the work just comes together better when there are deadlines, and some guidelines. I think it's because of how I think. I really do. Well I am off to finish thinking about today's challenge I hope that everyone is doing great. I have also decided that I am going to wait until the morning and take photos in the natural light because I just really like those photos better. It might mean that I miss the deadline for the challenge but I'm ok with that because I am scrapbooking and that's all that matters to me.

A Beautiul Foundation...Building our new home.

I love completed layouts. I am so excited because I have now completed 3 pages. I really feel like I have accomplished something when I look at my current scrapbook. I really can't believe how empty my 2009-2012 scrapbook album is. Well it's not empty, it does have the pictures, a sketch and journaling all inside sheet protectors but there aren't very many completed pages in there. Here is the last one that I have completed. I love that it really focuses on the pictures and I really do love my style.

So I am not current at all in my albums and really it doesn't matter because the journaling is already done and I just need to really have time to sit down and actually get something done. And I plan on working on getting more pages done this week. I have drawn out two new sketches that I really want to use soon so hopefully I will be able to finish up the remaining 2009 layouts that I need to get done. But knowing me I will most likely work on whatever I look at and it inspires me to do a layout. I do have to say that while looking through my album there were some pictures of the girls playing at the park that I completely forgot I had photographed but then I read the journaling that I had done that day and I really do feel like I should do those photos next. Well I gotta get myself in the bed. Good night and smiles, Tracy.☺

Today I wanted to stop in to check in because I have been so busy with trying to get things done that I keep forgetting to post things to my blog. I have made several drafts the last few weeks and I get all excited about getting the draft done so that I can just add photos and then I completely forget to post the photos. Well I decided that I am going to try not to do anymore drafts unless I have the photos edited and ready to be added to the layout at that same time. I hope that this plan is what I need to do to keep myself on task and posting to the blog on a more consistant basis.

Well I have been scrapbooking I haven't completed a page that I can share (because the other pages were to my kids scrapbooks of the school year and such. And it has lots of photos of other perople on there so I don't really want to share those pages.

But here is a photo of a layout that I have started this week. It is a two page layout and I really like how it is coming together although I haven't finished it at this point.

There is actually going to be another page to this layout. I am trying to decide if it is going to be before or after these layouts. But most of the journaling about building our new home will be on there. That experience is something that was amazing to us. We actually loved everything about it and wouldn't pass up the chance to build a new home again.

I also wanted to say that I love scrapbooking in my new space! I love it because I have done lots of things at my area but I love being able to walk away and see that it doesn't look an absolute mess. It is so nice to open a drawer pull out what I am using and then put it back. I didn't have huge piles of things sitting ontop of things and it just worked better. Now I do plan on working on cards soon and I do think that I might make a little more mess but I still think that it is still an awesome space, take a look...And yes I still don't have the top drawer handles on those drawers because I can't decide which style I like the best since I know I don't want them to match all the other handles.

The space is still coming along...

There are a few more things that have been scratched off my list since my original post showing my space. And I am so glad that the handles have been added to the bigger cabinet drawers and I have to find some drawer pulls that I really like to add to the other 5 drawers without handles at this time.

The other thing that has been completed is that my paper storage have been cut to fit into the expedite. And I love the look of them all lined up and organized. I went through all of them and pulled out patterned papers that I knew that I would not ever use. And of course gave most of it to the girls and add a little stack for my garage sale.

The space is honestly more comfortable. And I watch tv in it rather than scrapbook at this time and I am hoping that will change shortly.

Well here is a photo of the inside of one of the 11 drawers that are on my desk.

 This drawer is for my adhesives, cutting blades and stamping supplies. I just wanted to add when I say adhesives I mean all things stick ability. This includes washi tape, epoxy stickers, magic mesh , and hot glue all the way to runners and liquid glue.

I did put the bulk of my refills that were unopened  in the cabinet on the very top shelf. It was good to have all those things in one spot instead of 2 little drawers so now I know that I have well over 24 refills of ATG so I don't need anymore of that for awhile but I need hot glue gun refills so that I can work on some decor item repairs.

Well I gotta go to bed.

For those who have been wondering what I have been up to...

Well alot. I have been working major overtime at my new job and lets just say it has been extremely stressful to be at work for those long shifts. I have never had an employer require mandatory overtime that means we have to work 14 hr shifts.

But enough about that...I have some very exciting news. I am so happy to say that I'm sitting in my new scrapbooking space right now as we speak about to share with you all what I have accomplished in a 3.5 weeks. I love what this room has become for our family. Its so nice to have a space that we all can enjoy now together. So here is the photos of my new space...a little disclaimer, it is still in progress. It is not complete. There are handles still to add to drawers, a shelf to hang, new Stampin Up stamp storage cases to convert my cd cases to, and clutter to get off the top of my stamp storage and put away somewhere??

But here you go....

And I can honestly say that I love this space. It actually is not my style but it's both hubby and our style put together. And although I liked the idea of painting furniture, nothing could provide me with the storage that I needed except for IKEA kitchen cabinets. I designed my space before going there, how many drawers, what each drawer would hold and so on. And I was pleasantly surprised when my hubby put it all together. I was perfect, except there was an issue with my stamps. What to do with my stamps, well I already had wanted the SU dvd type cases because they were bigger, and could hold more which meant that I could easily increase my stamp storage by changing the container that held them. So step #1 get rid of black spinny thing and get the IKEA CD/DVD tower. Perfect! Step #2 order the SU cases and get at least 8 sets to complete my goal of condensing my storage. And then step #3 be patient, and wait until they get here...I'm working on the last step right now. LOL.

But once they are here and also my order of new stamp pads, I can get my stamp pads hopefully in the tower with my stamps. I am hoping because I don't want to purchase anything else for this room. I need to start on other rooms of the house but because Hubby made me pinky swear to stay focused on one room at a time, I gotta do it. But next is my entryway and the 1st bathroom. I know I just said one room at a time, techinally the hallway isn't a room.

I hope everyone is having a great weekend. I plan on having a day at the park tomorrow with the kids since we have been in the house so much this last week. Besides remodeling, I was also really sick.



Oh can you share any ideas that you have about how you got your Cropper Hopper paper holders to fit in the expedite. I would really love the info. Because mine don't fit at all.