Day One Layouts

I didn't have a scrap space for several months, because I was in the process of the first of two moves for me this year.  Fortunately, in my current home, I also have two big IKEA desks that I have put together for my home office/craft space and they will follow me this fall when I move again.  Going on Vacation really got me excited about playing with supplies again (and I am also feeling certain that I will fall prey to the new planner trend fairly soon).  So, I present to you a couple of  layouts that I have completed about our first day on the road.

Calico County

This restaurant is something of a legend in my family.  When I was in high school, we lived in Farmington, New Mexico and all of our extended family was here "at home" in Fort Worth.  Countless times we drove through Amarillo to Fort Worth and many of those stops involved dinner or lunch at Calico County.  It had been a good 20-something years since our last visit.  It was a required stop on the trip.

Supplies:   Carta Bella

Stagecoach Driver

My niece, Ellie, is very fond of having her picture taken.  We saw this little stagecoach and team somewhere in New Mexico at a filling station!  We went in to buy snacks and Ellie required that either her mother or me go back to the car and get some sort of camera in order to take her picture with them. It was a REQUIREMENT!

Supplies:  patterned paper, border sticker, and tin pin - October Afternoon; ticket embellishment - Jenny Bowlin; letter stickers and horse chipboard sticker - American Crafts;  stickers - October Afternoon, Crate Paper

Thanks for stopping by!

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

Time for another project using products in my DIY Kit for March!

Life Is Good

This is another little Instagram I took of my mom and my niece this past fall.  Just a sweet little moment that I am so happy I captured!

I'm generally not a fan of colored cardstock backgrounds.  It's rare that I use them, but this worked for me and I ran with it.

 

One thing to be said for this kit is that I have made heavy, HEAVY use of these buttons from OA's Farm Girl collection!  I'm kind of fanatical about making sure buttons are adorned with twine for the most part, but I tried very hard to let go of that for several of these layouts, including this one.

Supplies:  patterned paper - Echo Park, Jillibean Soup, Pebbles, October Afternoon, buttons - October Afternoon; stamp - Jenni Bowlin; stickers - October Afternoon; tape - 7 Gypsies;  Cricut Cartridge - Graphically Speaking;  garland - My Mind's Eye; other - flair badge

Thanks for looking!  More projects coming up in the next couple of weeks - 2 more layouts and a card!

 

Hey everyone! Welcome to my brand new weekly Monday feature, "Kit It Together". I'm sure most of us are plagued by growing stashes of scrapbooking goodies which can sometimes cause us to feel overwhelmed and leave us unsure where to start. Or maybe that's just me, so forgive me for speaking for all of us! ;) So, to that end, I'm going to start kitting up my supplies to create my very own "free" kit.

On the first Monday of the month, I'll be showing you a kit I put together with supplies from my own stash. I thought long and hard about what *I* would want in a kit I were to purchase. Here's what I came up with:
*8 sheets of patterned paper
*4 sheets of cardstock
*at least 5 different types of embellishments
*washi tape
*ribbon or twine
*a stamp
*large letter stickers
*small letter stickers
*some sort of sticker embellishment sheet
*3 - 5 die cuts

I've owned a Cricut for over a year and have not used it nearly as often as I would like. Because of that, it will be a long time before I can justify owning a Cameo. So, as part of my kitting project, I thought I would include some precut die cuts that I could incorporate into my projects.

Now that I've got that covered, what exactly do I hope to do with my own personal monthly kits? I intend to use it to create at least 4 layouts and 1 card. Anything more than that would be awesome. In addition to the kit, I may use additional white cardstock to mat photos, adhesive, and other tools (such as a Tiny Attacher) I'll share these projects with you each Monday for the entirety of the month.

Without further ado, here's my kit for March:

Contents:
Patterned Paper (1 of each)-
Echo Park (Vintage Fans - This & That)
Echo Park (Instamatic - This & That)
Jillibean (Red Salt - Soup Staples II)
Lily Bee Designs (Uppity - Persnickety)
October Afternoon (Wooden Crate - Farm Girl)
Pebbles (Nellie - Walnut Grove)
Pink Paislee (Clam Chowder - Nantucket)
Studio Calico (Garbo - Darling Dear)

Cardstock (forgive me, as I have no idea as to the specifics of the company or exact color name of each piece, so I'm going to assume they are either American Crafts - most likely or Bazzill and I'm going to make up my own names for them for now, anway.) -
1 white
1 kraft
1 dark olive green
1 sea blue

Embellishments -
Buttons (October Afternoon - Farm Girl Collection)
wood veneer (unknown)
Do-Dads (October Afternoon - 9 to 5 Collection)
2 flair buttons (A Flair For Buttons, Studio Calico)
circle garland (My Mind's Eye - Kraft Funday Collection)
washi tape (7 Gypsies)
ribbon (The Girls Paperie)

Stickers -
Chipboard letters (Basic Grey)
Small alphas (Studio Calico-Abroad Collection)
Accent stickers (October Afternoon-Schoolhouse Collection)

Stamp - Jenni Bowlin

Drop by next Monday for my first completed project. And please let me know if you are playing along by creating your own kit!

As always, thanks for reading (and sorry for the giant post)!

Fourteen Fourteen Fourteen!

I'm loving the new Crate Paper Fourteen line wayyyy more than I expected to.  I'm not one who feels they need a huge amount of Valentine's papers and embellies, but I really liked a lot of what I saw because it seemed rather versatile and like something I could use for less themey layouts.

I had this last photo of Lisa hanging about from a pile of photos taken at this same time in this same restaurant and really wasn't sure how to document it.  Then I realized she is looking at something other than the camera, seemingly unaware that I'm still shooting photo after photo of her and thought it would be a good photo for just a simple layout about how I feel, thus this one was born from the marriage of said photo and this amazing CP line:

I Just Love You

 

I'm not really a fan of the color green, but I think this shade is absolutely dreamy. 

 

I added a flair badge from Ormolu.

 

And one of the new Freckled Fawn wood veneers.  Wood veneers are one of my two favorite embellisments as of late.  The second are flair badges!

 

A stitched label and an "L" letter sticker from Basic Grey for Lisa's initial and done!

Supplies:  patterned paper, die cuts, stitched label, washi stickers - Crate Paper; wood veneer - Freckled Fawn; flair badge - Ormolu; letter stickers - Basic Grey, Jenni Bowlin, October Afternoon

Thanks so much for reading!  Have a great Thursday!

Fake Tattoos

In the olden days of my blogdom (just over a year ago now), I would randomly through a variety layouts up here in one post and leave a few little comments and be done with it.  Well, as my blogging style has matured ever so slightly, I like to zoom in on one specific layout and the inspiration or design therein.  However, I'm going to break from that today in order to showcase TWO...that's right, TWO layouts that I absolutely love. 
I had a bunch of photos I took this past summer when visiting my girlfriend in Ireland of a particular evening when we were just hanging out and for some reason I got a bee in my bonnet to tattoo her and give her a sleeve.  Okay, so I'm not a tattoo artist, nor did I have any tattooing equipment on my person...and frankly, I can't draw to save my life....but I am persistent!  and stubborn!  So I took a handy ball point pen and went to work.  And you know...I have to say, I'm very impressed with the fruits of my labor.  No....impressed doesn't go far enough.  STARTLED....completely startled at my fake tattooing prowess.  (I'm lying).

I Am the Most Amazing Fake Tattoo Artist EVER!

A layout created specifically to brag about my mad (fake) tattooing skills.  That skull and crossbones are pretty badass, dontcha think?

 

A washi border, some splatters, some awesome retro stickers...what more could a girl want?

 

I'm pretty obsessed with these chipboard alphas we've been getting in the Studio Calico kits lately.  They are made by Basic Grey and they are totally wicked.  Love them!  I also thought this little boy button looked cute here.  I have one niece, a sister, a mom, a girlfriend, and all the men in my current life are adults, so I thought this use of it was pretty apt!

 

It's taken me awhile to jump on the speech bubble train, but I've been using them a ton as of late!

 

Love wood veneers and love glassine bags from Whisker Graphics. 

 

Supplies:  patterned paper - Studio Calico; die cuts, wood veneer, stickers, mists - Studio Calico; brad - Jenni Bowlin; glassine bag - Whisker Graphics; ribbon - The Girls Paperie; letter stickers - Basic Grey, Jenni Bowlin; tape - Freckled Fawn; other - tag


Ink

...And I had some more photos that really needed a scrapbook home, so I created this one focusing slightly more on Lisa and how good she looks with tatts.  hehe

 

More Studio Calico wood veneers, some Soho Garden Paper from AC and Sasparilla from OA!

 

Evalicious is one of my new favorite brands:  the "Love this" tag.

Supplies: patterned paper - American Crafts, October Afternoon; tapes - Cosmo Cricket, Freckled Fawn, October Afternoon, Studio Calico; wood veneer - Studio Calico; flair badge - A Flair For Buttons; die cuts - Evalicious, October Afternoon; envelope - Basic Grey; spray inks - Studio Calico; letter stickers - American Crafts

Thanks for reading!

Color Backgrounds

I tend to gravitate towards more neutral backgrounds in my work, but lately have been playing more with color.  Last month's Studio Calico kit, Sock Hop, had a great yellow paper that I decided needed to be used as a backdrop for a layout.

She's An Adventurer

It's been said here before that I take a million photos, particularly on my travels.  I've just begun to dive into the stack of pictures I have of the Torc Waterfall at Killarney National Park in Ireland, which Lisa and I visited in the summer of 2011.

I love this picture of her.  I think it's just too cute, so it made a great stand alone photo for a layout.

 

 

Supplies:  patterned paper - Studio Calico, Basic Grey; letter stickers - Basic Grey, Jenni Bowlin; die cuts, wood veneer, stamps - Studio Calico; brads - Echo Park

 

Thanks for stopping by!

Sketches With Color Challenge

Sketches With Color has a new challenge up on the blog!  This is my favorite color combo so far!

Here's my take on the challenge!

Waiting

 

Supplies:  patterned paper - Lily Bee, My Mind's Eye, Jillibean Soup; diecuts - Jillibean Soup, October Afternoon, Sassafrass Lass, Studio Calico; flowers - American Crafts, Basic Grey, stickers - Crate Paper, Echo Park;  vintage bottle cap - Jenni Bowlin;  brad, button - October Afternoon; washi tape - Freckled Fawn; other - rhinestones, twine, mist

Please drop by the blog when you can!  We'd love for you to join us!

This Christmas...

As I prepared to write this blog post, I had that Stevie Wonder song "This Christmas" going through my head.  I'm not a huge fan of the song, as I prefer my Christmas music to be of the 1940s Bing Crosby/Frank Sinatra variety (nothing against you, Stevie, you're wonderful!), but it made me realize that this Christmas will be very different from last Christmas.

Last year, Lisa was here celebrating with us from Ireland.  This year we'll be apart again.  Last year was very hectic and full.  This year should be somewhat quieter and calmer.  Last year I spent wayyyyy too much money on gifts.  This year I've pledged to be much more conservative.   Last year, I dropped my point and shoot camera and it's never been the same.  This year I am awaiting the new Canon Rebel EOS T3 DSLR that I just ordered which should be here on Friday (whoop!).  And last year, I stressed entirely too much over this little project called "December Daily" which I was doing for the first time.  This year, I have a year of experience under my belt and a much better plan of attack.

I am happy to report that my base pages are all made, my cover is decorated and my title page is complete.  I will be using no more than one 4x6 photo per day.  On some occassions, that 4x6 might be two 2x3 photos.  I want to be more reflective in my journaling, while not putting tons of pressure on myself to be perfect.  So...without further ado, I give you the base pages of my 2012 December Daily!

December Daily 2012

Cover

 

Title Page

Day One Base Pages

 

Remaining Base Pages

 

 

 

 

 

 I used a bunch of different paper and embellishment lines to complete these base pages.  The majority are from the Studio Calico kit, Studio Calico's Wonderland line, and Crate Paper's Sleigh Ride line.  You will also find some vintage KI Memories, Daisy D's and a couple of lines from last year:  October Afternoon's Holiday Style for example.  I have tons of pages premade in two sizes.  4x6 to fit the page protectors of my album and I don't have the exact measurement, but a larger size to fit over the chipboard inserts that came with the album.  I'm so excited and looking forward to December 1st!

 

Thanks again SO much for taking the time to stop by my little blog!  Have a great Saturday!