Lots of Embellisments

I remember the olden days (okay, like a couple of years ago), when I was always saying to myself, "gee, I really don't have many embellishments" and finding things to stick on a page was always quite a stretch.  Lately, I am finding the opposite is true.  I'm drowning in embellishments and can never decide where to stop adding them on, because I want them all on EVERY DARN PAGE!

Driving In My Car

Last spring, my mom, sister, and I took my niece to the Mayborn Museum at Baylor University in Waco.  This is such a cool place!  So many hands-on, interactive things for the little ones, as well as a collection of old buildings outside.  I think this little day trip started the trend of me taking 500,000 pictures of Ellie driving various play vehicles.  I find I'm scrapping a lot of similar pictures lately.  lol

Supplies: patterned paper - Studio Calico, Simple Stories; flags - Basic Grey; die cuts - Elle's Studio, Chic Tags; tag - American Crafts; buttons & bag - Fancy Pants; arrow paper clip - Freckled Fawn; cork arrows - Studio Calico; ticket - Jenni Bowlin; letter stickers - October Afternoon; journaling card - Pebbles; other - star sequins (from a Studio Calico kit) & polka dot brad (either Echo Park or My Mind's Eye)

Thanks for stopping by!
Deedee

New Sketches With Color Challenge

Hey everybody!  Now that I'm done with work for the summer, I can actually spend more time posting to the blog!  We just had our June 15 reveal at the Sketches With Color blog.  Another gorgeous color combination and beautiful sketch!

My take on the sketch is a little more streamlined, simply because I'm more a "graphic" scrapper.  The flourishes in the sketch are gorgeous, but I would never be able to make it look right!  LOL

Another London Eye Photo

When my ex and I went to London a couple of years ago, I went a bit snap happy with the camera (as did she) and took soooooo many pictures.  I then got prints of all of them.  I'm still working on bits and pieces of that trip...at least of the photos that don't make me too sad.  I've already done like 3 or 4 layouts of the London Eye, but found this lone straggler amongst my pictures and had to use it for yet another layout.  

This is a complete mish-mash of manufacturers and products, but I'm pretty happy with how it turned out!

Supplies:  patterned paper - American Crafts, Basic Grey, Lily Bee Design, Studio Calico; letter stickers - Crater Paper, Lily Bee Design; cork arrows - Studio Calico; stars - Basic Grey; brad - Cosmo Cricket; die cut & chipboard sticker - Crate Paper; tab & adventure stickers - Lily Bee Design; washi stickers - Basic Grey; spray ink - Mister Huey's (Studio Calico)

A couple of notes:  I think I might have mentioned this before - I got a Canon Rebel TS3 just before the holidays last year and while my actual photos look SO much better, I find I have a mush harder time photographing my layouts with it than with my old point and shoot.  Any suggestions would be much appreciated!

Also...this isn't so much a note, as it is a brag - we're leaving on Friday for a week at Walt Disney World, my very favorite place!  I'm going with my parents, my sister, and my almost 3 year old niece.  It will be her first trip, so we're all super excited to see the place through a child's eyes after numerous all-adults trips over the past few years!

What's your favorite travel destination?
-Deedee

Some Thoughts on Scrapping For Myself

I've really fallen away from my blog lately.  I think there are many reasons, but the biggest one is the reason I want to focus on today.

I first discovered this hobby in 1999.  I was hooked from the start.  Like most, I've gone through patches where I wasn't as invested and other times where I've been downright obsessed.  When I rediscovered the online scrapbooking community in late 2011, my obsession took to new heights!  I quickly learned the manufacturer of 99% of products just by glancing at them..."oh, that's definitely an October Afternoon paper...those enamel dots are without a doubt MME...I love those Studio Calico cork stickers..." and so on.  I feasted on blogs, online videos, and scrapbook forums.  Most of you can probably relate.

I decided soon after getting involved in the online community - Two Peas, Studio Calico, Pinterest, blogs, etc - that I wanted to start trying to get published and to work on design teams.  While I'm on a great design team right now, there have been many others that I've applied to and been rejected (for lack of a better word) for.  Despite over a year of submitting to various publications, I've never once had anything picked up.  And frankly, it made me angry.  And worse, it made me doubt myself and made me begin to resent this hobby.

I am not a big name scrapper by any stretch of the imagination and there are many big names out there that have more talent in their pinky fingers than I have in my entire being!  And those that may be lacking in talent, tend to make up for it in charisma.  I lost sight of what this craft was in my pursuit of greatness!  I lost sight of the creative outlet this has always been for me...I lost sight of the fun I have doing it...I lost sight of the fact that I'm perserving these memories, if not for my future children (if I ever have any at this point!) or my niece, then for myself.  I've cared far too much what other people think of my creations and what things are trendy or current or "cool".  I've worried too much about fitting in and being admired.  And honestly, I've spent a fortune the past couple of years trying to keep up.

I mean, really, it's so silly.  This is just a hobby.  An amazing and fun one, if you ask me, but all the same, it's just a hobby.  Our work is never going to be hung in famous galleries in NYC or shown on the runways in Paris...so, it's time to start scrapping for me again.  Because I love it.

That said, I am going to do my best to start posting regularly again.  I want to post things that I find interesting or enjoyable.  I want to pick back up with series I started and let taper off.  I even had a few big things in the works and was putting so much pressure on myself to be perfect, that I let that all fall to the wayside too.

Anyway, I just felt a real need to speak my piece on these things.  Maybe there is someone out there thinking and feeling the same way.

Thanks for reading.
Deedee