Creating Keepsakes

I'm excited to be published in Creating Keepsakes' July/August 2013 magazine. You'll find my layout on page 34 of the idea packed magazine:

You can pick up your own copy of the magazine here by clicking here, or you can find the digital copy here.

2 Page Aquarium Layout

When the Simple Stories came out with their I Heart Summer collection, I picked it all up.  It's the quintessential summer collection.  I'm starting to use it to scrap photos from our trip to the Omaha Zoo.  Since I have lots and lots to scrap, I kept this one pretty simple.

 I used the fun fish print for our aquarium photos.  I kept with the natural feel and added some cork accents from Little Yellow Bicycle. 

Now...on to create some more! Thanks for stopping by.

Fun Away and at Home

I have 2 layouts today. One uses some of my extra Basic Grey and Lindy's Stamp Gang products from the blog hop and features a little bit of fun we had while away from home.  The other uses up some of my Simple Stories papers and features some fun we had at home.

There's a great pedestrian bridge in Omaha, NE that spans the Missouri river. Halfway across the bridge is the Iowa-Nebraska state line, so of course we had to have some fun with that (look, we're in different states!  Look we're in 2 states at once...and so on).  I layered up some Basic Grey Carte Postale papers, and colored my chipboard letters with mists from Lindy's Stamp Gang. 

These pictures just don't do these letters justice.  These babies shimmer like crazy in real life! They're so pretty.  

 I also scrapped a little fun at home.  We had a blast making a mess mixing shaving cream and corn starch. If you have kids, I highly recommend you try this (outside! it's messy).  You end up with the weirdest feeling mixture, and a good hour of entertainment.

I kept this layout pretty clean and simple.  The background paper is from Basic Grey's Fact collection, but all the rest of the papers, stickers, and journaling cards are from Simple Stories 24/7 collection.

As you can see, I did a bit of layering with the stickers and added some strategic stitching to finish things off.

Thanks for stopping by!

Blog Hop with Glue Dots®, Basic Grey, and Lindy's Stamp Gang

I am beyond excited about the team up for today's blog hop!!! I mean who doesn't love working with Basic Grey and some gorgeous mists from Lindy's Stamp Gang? In fact, I'm so excited that instead of making 1 video tutorial, I made 4...yup, I got a little carried away. I made 1 project for today's hop, but there are a number of little techniques used, so instead of making 1 really long video, I split it up into 4. That way, later if you just want to re-watch 1 technique, you don't have to go searching through a really long video for it. 

If you're like us, you tend to take lots of mini trips in the summer (and maybe even a big trip). Over the course of those trips you collect mementos that may, but usually don't, fit well onto a scrapbook page. My solution for that is to create an envelop mini album that has pockets to stash things like maps, concert tickets, and the like.

This album, built from envelopes, has a handy little pocket built into each page to slip your memorabilia. I used Basic Grey's Carte Postale (this is my new favorite travel paper, it's rich in color and full of really fun travel themed patterns) and Lindy's Stamp Gang mists to embellish the pages.

You can check out step by step instructions on building your own envelope album from envelopes and Glue Dots® Continuous Line in this video:






To create the cover of the album, I used an inking technique using Lindy's Stamp School Mists (which are soooo shimmery and rich in color!) and Basic Grey's Carte Postale paper.

You can see a step by step on sponging with mists in this video:




I made an inside page to hold a map from a zoo trip, and embellished it with custom colored chipboard stars.

The video below shows how you can use Lindy's mist BEFORE adding water (Lindy's mist are shipped dry, and you add the water when the get to you) to paint custom embellishments.




Finally, for this last page I used Lindy's Stamp Gang Mists to create a custom colored journaling tag by misting onto my craft mat and smooshing the tag into the mist.

Here is the last video I have today on that technique. 

Thanks for sticking with me through that long post! There is just so much to love about Glue Dots®, Basic Grey's Carte Postale, and Lindy's Stamp Gang Mists.  Thanks for stopping by, and don't forget to check out what the rest of the designers have created. There are some really amazing projects for you to check out, and some more great video tutorials.

Hop Along With Us:

Glue Dots (you'll find the a contest entry form here!)

Erin

Samantha  (you are here)

Smitha

Lindy's Stamp Gang

Jessica

Kate

Sharon

Basic Grey

Ann-Marie

Jana

Kelly

More Layouts

My kids spent a week with my parents, before we joined them for the 4th of July.  Let me tell you, you can get a lot of scrapping done when the house is quiet!  I spent most of my time doing "catching up" scrapping...you know, working through those photos and papers you set aside just for a little bit (as you'll see in the last layout, it may be slightly longer than a little bit, too).  Here are 2 catching up layouts I made from end of the year photos using My Mind's eye's Collectable Collection:

 The Kindergarten Graduation program was so much fun, and the colors in collectable (not to mention the die cuts) really highlighted the photos well.  I also really love MME's wooden buttons. They're nice and sturdy without being too thick. 

My youngest finished Preschool, and his teacher took this fun "Last Day of School" picture to send home with him (she's a scrapbooker too!).

My favorite detail  is this journaling card from Collectable with the "write it down" pencil on it. It's perfect for a school layout, and even better paired with my son's name that he wrote himself (one of the largest accomplishments of the year). 

And finally, here's that slightly older layout. I do a separate not-so-mini mini album for Christmas, but this extra little photo deserved it's own layout.

I was taking my eldest's photo dressed up for his school Christmas program in front of the Christmas tree (for the Christmas Mini Album) when my youngest stepped in front of the camera for the perfect photo-bomb. It couldn't have worked out better if I planned it that way!  This layout uses This and That Christmas from Echo Park. 
Thanks for stopping by. Make sure to stop back tomorrow, I'll have some great video tutorials as part of a blog hop with Glue Dots® and 2 other awesome companies (ooh, and there's a giveaway, too!).  

New Bulletin Board

I'm pretty excited to share this project that I just finished!  Maybe it's because I got to use both the belt sander and the staple gun, or maybe I'm just happy with how it turned out.
I needed a new bulletin board, so I made this one from an old barn window I picked up.

I'm kicking myself for not taking before photos, but I did think to snap one after I got it all sanded, but before I painted it.

I used a whitewash instead of a straight paint, because I wanted some of the wood grain to show through.
Each pane is filled with a thick piece of cork covered in burlap (I used the staple gun to attach the burlap to the cork).  I wanted to add a little something extra, so on 2 of the panes I used Lindy's Stamp Gang Flat Fabio Mist (meaning it's color without shimmer) in Danny Zuko's Denim. I used this fun mask from Studio Calico for the design.

Now I've got to get my husband to hang it on the wall so I can start using it!

Fern & Forest Spring Mini Album

I've spent a lot of time in the last few days scrapping.  One of the projects I finally finished was a burlap mini album full of fun spring pictures.

I used Fern & Forest Boy from Little Yellow Bicycle for all of my paper and almost all of the embellishments. The only non-Fern & Forest embellishments came from LYB's Naturals collection. 

 As you can see, Fern & Forest Boy is a super fun boy line! Thanks for stopping by.