Pokemon Collector.

August 25th, 2010

I showed a layout recently where I had used drawings by my daughter on the scrapbook page (you can see it here if you missed it) and I had planned to show you this page the next day and completely forgot.  So here you go:

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It’s a great way to incorporate your kid’s artwork (or schoolwork) into a scrapbook page in small ways. 

This is really one of my favorite pages because of the photo.  I think the photo was taken 3 years ago, but the change in her face from then to now is amazing.  She LOOKS so much older now.  (Lord help me.)  Anyway, back then there was this total Pokemon obsession, and if I had $1 for every Pokemon drawing, every Pokemon figurine or trading card that has been around my house I wouldn’t be writing this blog right now, because I’d be a rich woman living on the beach somewhere.  I took one of my favorites of her drawings and just adhered it to the page straight out of the notebook, didn’t even have to shrink it.  The journaling I put on here really wasn’t very long or detailed so I plan to someday make another page that tells about how she totally obsessed this kid was and I know someday she will be shocked by that because she’ll have totally forgotten about Pokemon, right?

SCARY!

August 23rd, 2010

Is she scary?  That’s her scary “I vant to bite your neck” vampire face. 

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Yes, if you’ve been reading my blog at all in the last week you’ll see I’m on a Halloween kick.  I don’t know why! 

This is a design team project that I did for Practical Scrappers.  This week our thing to do was use lace cardstock.  I don’t buy lace cardstock because I think it’s ridiculously expensive, but I can make my own with the Pazzles machine so that’s what I did!  I made this spiderweb paper and cut it down to 8.5×11 because that’s what size pages I make.  I love how this turned out!

See the adorable straight pins from Making Memories that are stuck into the ribbon knot?  They are a bat and a ghost.  Love them! 

If you’re a scrapbooker, you can go to Practical Scrappers here and enter in your own page using lace cardstock for the chance to win a prize pack.  You have all week to enter.

Pawsitively Purrfect.

August 19th, 2010

I showed you yesterday a horizontal scrapbook page that would be the companion to this one.  If you missed it, you can click here to see it.  I’m so glad to get another photo out of my pile from 2003 to be scrapbooked! 

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See the kitty cat at the top with the yellow background?  That’s actually a playing card!  I got a whole set of them in the $1 area at Target a few years ago. 

Here’s the other page that will go next to this one in the scrapbook:

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Can I just say it again?  Cutest kitty EVER! 

:)

She’s the cat’s meow…

August 18th, 2010

Here’s a page I made the other day for Practical Scrappers.  They ask that the design team use at least one of our sketches during the month.  I used the August 13 sketch done by one of our sketch designers, Sasya.  She’s cute as a button and very talented.  Her blog is in Russian but she also tries to write it in English for us (part of what makes her so cute). 

Here’s the sketch:

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 And here’s what I did based on that sketch:

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This was another one of the old photos in the stack on my counter to be made into pages that I talked about yesterday.  If you missed the page I showed yesterday, you can go here to see it.  I got on a roll that day and actually made 3 pages so will share the last one with you another day.

P.S.   Isn’t she a pretty kitty?

:)

Here Kitty, Kitty….

August 17th, 2010

I’ve been working hard lately on getting a stack of old photos made into scrapbook pages.  One of them I worked into a page for this week’s challenge at Practical Scrappers where we had to use stitching.  Um, yeah….I couldn’t sew something if you held a gun to my head, okay?  So I totally faked it!  I used my Signo white gel pen and DREW stitching around the background paper under my photo. 

Here it is:

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Don’t look too close, now!  :)

Signs of Summer.

August 10th, 2010

Our design team assignment and challenge over at Practical Scrappers this week is to use summer themed products. 

Once again (because of Stacy Julian) I was able to go directly to my 2005 photo albums and flip through June, July, and August to see what “summery” photos I had filed in there.  This took me 5 minutes, tops.  Thank goodness for Stacy and her Library of Memories philosophy.  I’m not saying you must take her Library of Memories class (although it is wonderful).  I learned so much from her book Photo Freedom, and that book (along with her book The Big Picture) is what originally got me started organizing my photos in a better way.   Here it is:

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Anyway, so here is my page for this week’s challenge.

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Here’s a bit closer look:

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One of the big things we promote at Practical Scrappers is using up your scrapbook supplies that you already have, not necessarily running out to buy new stuff to meet our challenges.  And boy, did I ever do that with this page.  That vellum rainbow is probably close to 10 years old.  I can’t even remember where I bought it! 

I mixed it with new stuff too and it’s great.  The sun and flowers are Fancy Pants kraft cuts and the ivory colored letters in my title are from The Girls Paperie (love these!) so you can definitely combine old and new and it’s okay! 

Read Me A Story.

August 5th, 2010

Our sponsor for this month at Practical Scrappers is Sassy Studio Designs.  As part of the design team, I was asked to make some projects using their digital stamps.  The nice thing about digital stamps is you can resize them and make them big for a scrapbook page or smaller for a card. 

I chose the “Magazine” stamp because I knew that I had this specific photo of my daughter that could go with the stamp.  She is 5 years old and is reading a bedtime story to the cat!  It was the cat’s first night at our house.  She was supposed to just be “borrowing” the cat from grandma and grandpa for the weekend.  Um, so the cat never left.  Five years later she’s still here.  (That grandma is a pretty sneaky lady.)  Anyway, here’s what I made using the stamp:

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I tied it in with our First Anniversary Week at Practical Scrappers (we’ve got a different challenge going on every day this week), and I used my #1 favorite product, which is sparkly stuff! ha ha  You’ll see a circle of gems (from Heidi Swapp) around the kitty cat and I used Stickles on the girl’s hair and shorts.

You can check out Sassy Studio Designs here.  They really are kinda sassy too!  I was just checking out their website myself and oh, they have the most awesome Alice In “Sassyland” digital stamps.  Absolutely darling!  You can go directly to those by clicking here.  The white rabbit and Cheshire cat ones are adorable!

Double Digits.

August 4th, 2010

The beginning of August marks the 1-year anniversary of Practical Scrappers where I’m a part of the design team (and loving it!).  We were asked to contribute a scrapbook page incorporating the number ONE or a FIRST something….first birthday, first tooth, etc.  I chose to use the number one because I already had a page planned out in my head of my daughter’s birthday in May when she turned 10.  I have literally been thinking about this page in my head for months and already knew what the title would be. 

Then the sketch for the week of July 2 came out on Practical Scrappers and I decided to use it for my page because it has two big numbers in the middle of the page!  Perfect for what I had planned in my head. 

So here’s the sketch.  It was done for Practical Scrappers by Pia, one of our design team members.  Her blog is here.  

And here’s my page based on the sketch:

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(Papers are BoBunny.  Red cardstock, letters, and ribbon are American Crafts.  Mini Bingo card is Jenni Bowlin.  Bling circles are Heidi Swapp)

Come on over to the blog and check out what others have done for the anniversary here.

There really wasn’t enough room for my journaling, which tends to be quite lengthy if you know me, so I plan to make an accompanying second page and turn this into a double page spread.  I don’t know about Summer, but this birthday of hers really sort of hit me hard.  She’s double digits now.  TEN.  It’s a lot for this mother to handle.  Maybe it’s because I’m about to hit 40 and I’m feeling a wee bit old?  ha ha   I don’t know! 

If you want to participate in the anniversary party, come over to Practical Scrappers.  I think there are some prizes!

Like father, Like son.

July 31st, 2010

Here’s something I did just recently for a design team assignment at Practical Scrappers.  Our challenge was to use animation or cartoons somehow and I had saved these little drawings Summer did of her dad and her brother playing basketball.  Years ago when she drew them I scanned them and printed them out onto white cardstock because I knew I wanted to use them someday on a basketball layout.  The time finally came and here it is.  Her drawings have been decreased in size (they were originally a full 8×10 page) and they’re a bit smaller than a playing card. 

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and closer views:

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Here’s a closer look at Summer’s drawings (she was 6 years old):

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On a side note……This is also a good way to incorporate your child’s artwork into your scrapbook pages.  I have another page where I did that and just realized I never showed it here on the blog before.  I will post that one for you to see tomorrow.

She’s A Hoot

July 28th, 2010

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Part of my job as a design team member over at Practical Scrappers is using products from our monthly sponsors to show others how they can be used in projects.  This month the sponsor is Digi Doodle Stamps (digital stamps), and I chose this owl on a branch (it’s called Hoot Owl) because when I saw it the title I used immediately popped into my head.  I knew I wanted to pair it with a goofy photo of my daughter, and it wasn’t too hard to find one.  ha ha! 

When she saw me working on this, she came over and said “What am I doing in that picture?”  (She was only 3 years old so she doesn’t remember) and I said, “just being silly.”  And she was like, “But I don’t have any clothes on!” and I said, “Well, you’re wearing rain boots!”  I forgot to mention I would be showing this on the blog.  Maybe I’ll just keep that tidbit of information between you and me…..

See how I used Stickles to make his pretty eyes sparkly?

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(I learned today that Stickles might make your ink run just a bit…perhaps it wasn’t dry enough…but I’m just gonna pretend I don’t see it)

For the word HOOT, I had glued 2 little googly eyes onto the O’s to make them look like eyeballs, but Summer came up with what I thought was a great idea so I did it her way.  I took the googly eyes off and then colored the inside of the O’s with yellow marker and drew a little nose under them so that it looks like the owl’s face from the stamp. 

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I honestly can’t decide if I like it or not (and it’s just TOO BAD now, right? ha ha).  What do you guys think?  Is it weird looking?  Or is it cute?  Opinions please!