Scrapbooking and Crafts

December Daily Book (Before)

November 30, 2011

Last year I started to prep my December Daily album but I bailed at the last minute in participating the documenting my month. My fall was less than stellar so I didn’t feel like celebrating everything going on. I talked myself out of it ‘what do I have to document?!? I feel crappy and it’s not like I do anything exciting. I’m busy with work- great I’ll take a photo of my desk every day. I don’t have kids so there are only so many things I can take photos of.’

Well this year I am so damn determined to stick to it! I dug my kit out where I left it and ripped most of it apart. I did a new cover quickly last night. I started to play around with the pages inside it but decided that I should make that my 5 minute creative outlet every night and go with the flow.

I am going to use my Fuji Instax camera for the process. It’s going to be hilarious going to yank this massive play school like camera out of my bag every time to take a picture… Pricer will cringe. I have to admit that I’m totally stealing Kelly Purkey’s idea since she did this last year for her Dec Daily album. Looked amazing so I’m going to give it a try this year.

Can’t wait for tomorrow!!

You can follow tweets about other crafters and scrapbookers doing this with the hast tag #decdaily

Donut Love LO- Studio Calico 8.28 Sunday Sketch

November 16, 2011

– 8/28 Studio Calico Sunday Sketch-

The Sunday Sketch featured on 8/28 worked so well for what I had in mind for this layout about our visit to Doughnut Plant. Besides that I loved the doughnuts, I loved that they decorate the shop with plushy donuts, in both their round and square shapes, on the wall. I wanted to recreate that look on my layout.

Using scraps of patterned and solid papers I got to work punching them out with a square and circle punch. Then I used my crop-o-dile to punch the hole in the center to create the complete donut. After I arranged them I put a few of them on foam spacers to add a little dimension for the page. In addition to the donut accents, I added a sticker strip that I felt would also relate well to the donut shape.

I want a doughnut now…

And Point! – LO

November 3, 2011

I tried to keep this layout fun and light because it features a fun time for us, well specifically Pricer. Once, when we went into the city we stopped by the Today Show to see the morning taping of the show and when we were there Price got to take a photo with Linny. If you didn’t know, Linny is a Today Show staple, he is outside EVERY DAY in the crowd. Crazy! But we love getting to see him point to the camera after the break return at 7.30.

As ‘simple’ as this layout is with just 1 patterned piece of paper for the backgrounds and photo, I tried to have fun with the embellishments. I used chipboard pieces that I painted and inked. I used the tag to create a spot for the title, that I made with alpha letters. I stamped and used used a brad. All of these things were pretty small so they didn’t overwhelm the page. My favorite thing I put on there was the heart shaped paperclip. Adorable!

‘Miss C’ LO

October 26, 2011

My niece Cara is turning 1 in a less than a week. I love her to death. She is just so adorable. It has been amazing to see her grow so much from this adorable little newborn. Over the year I have seen her every few months so I have the chance to document her growth. I took these photos at the end of August. I can’t wait to see her next week to see how much she has grown.

I am so addicted to my Studio Calico kits that arrive every month in our building vestibule every month. (Price is less excited… ‘great more stuff’) I love the kits but I really love getting to see awesome design inspiring layouts from the design team. I looked back on layouts from Stephanie Howell and Kelly Purkey for each of them for inspiration.

When I saw these layouts I knew that I wanted to keep them in mind for future inspriation. I loved the use of these butterfly chipbaord peices that Stephanie used in 2 of her layouts. Kelly used airplanes in her layout but I was looking at how they radiated from a central point on her page. Keeping the looks of all these layouts in mind, I got to work to create this page about Cara.

I am not a butterfly person. I actually was bummed when I first saw these since I have gotten quite a few butterfly things over the year since I have been subscribing to SC. And yet, Stephanie’s layouts sold me on actually using these Sassafras ones.

If you happen to like what is including in the Field Guide kit, including the butterflies, I suggest you hop over to Studio Calico and buy a kit, while it is still available!

Love Cousins- Studio Calico 10.2.11 Sunday Sketch

October 22, 2011

I loved the simplicity of this this sketch. The strips could be anything which I found really appealing. Strips of paper could help used up your scrap stash. Ribbons would be cute. Rows of embellishmens like buttons. I have so many little bit and pieces in bins and, as Price would point out, floating around everywhere so it’s a good way of using things up.

At my dad’s birthday party this summer I spent most of the time taking photos of my niece and 3 nephews. At one point Cara was laying on the floor so we had the boys lay down next to her so we could get a picture if all of them. Simply distract a 10 month old with an iPhone and you can get her to stay still long enough for a photo.

I dug through my scrap box so I could get some strips of paper to work with the sketch. I decided to use the patterns since there was not adominate color in the photo. Since there was no common color I decided to just make the randomness of the patterns to make the layout work.

I had these adorable chipboard embellishments for such a long time. I just had to get them but didn’t know what to ever do with them. I pulled them out because of the colors and I figured the animals would be a cute add on for the kiddie page. Plus it would work well with the faux bois patterned paper.

Just Enjoy the Show LO- Studio Calico 4/10 Sunday Sketch

September 28, 2011

I am actually looking forward to this fall and winter. That is a bizarre statement from me but at this point it comes down to having the free time to craft and scrapbook. It’s really evident that I didn’t so much scrapbooking over the summer when you consider this sketch was first published in April. Whoops!

I like sketches when the titles run vertically, becoming an element with the photo. I thought that running the title vertically might make it appear smaller than a big block of text in the middle of the page just staring at you. I think it worked in this case. I regret the choice of thickets I used with the rest of the page colors and elements, but it is what it is at this point.

The Fourth on the 3rd- Studio Calico 7/10 Sunday Sketch

September 5, 2011

Everything came together perfectly for this layout. I loved this Sunday Sketch once I saw it. I loved my instant photos. I loved the Studio Calico ‘Boardwalk’ kit when it arrived. I saw that paper and my heart skipped a beat. The hexagon/honeycomb gets me every time.

Scrapbooking these instant photos reminds me that I need to order more since they were my last 2 photos. Must put that on the to do list.

I made a mistake when I was writing the jouraling. I, as usual, had a ‘Nicole has shitty handwriting and you can’t read that word’ error so I had to make the choice of starting completely over or to grab another piece of paper and fix that one bit. Since I was in no mood to look for that olive green in my scraps bin, I picked a different green and made it work by mixing it into the journaling.

Boardwalk is still available. Buy it. Love it. Scrap it.

Month: 7- Studio Calico 4.3.11 Sunday Sketch

August 8, 2011

This Studio Calico Sunday Sketch, and the layout that generated the sketch, was something that I really enjoyed working with. I liked the large blocking of the papers that was mixed with smaller images. I feel that a sketch like this can generate a lot of different layouts because the focus, and creativity, could relate to the photos, the journaling, or the large title.

I love taking photos of my niece, but as in most cases with babies, the photos might not come out very well because of all her movement. Instead of just filing these photos away on my computer because they were not picture-perfect, I decided to use them. However, instead of using large 4×6 photos, I used smaller 2×3 photos that I made even smaller by trimming them. The fact that Cara is moving, and therefore blurry, shows how animated she is. That itself is part of the story.

This sketch allowed me to capture the beauty in my niece without letting the ‘flawed’ photos limit me. It also allowed me to play with the color yellow. No, there is not yellow in the photos but as I was going through the papers I had at hand I came across this sheet. I felt the background brown went well with the color of the sofa Cara was sitting on. From there I started to grab more yellow/neutral paper and embellishments.

Ian Axel LO

July 29, 2011

Hello stickers. Not until this page was done when I realized how many sticker elements I used. Alpha stickers, labels, and 3 long ‘banner’ embellishments. The mix of types of stickers doesn’t make it seem like ‘sticker overload!’ The tickets are even craft paper like so it gives off an appearance that it is a paper embellishment I taped down.

I admit that it has taken me some time to let loose and not go THEME THEME THEME on my pages. When I first started scrapbooking my page would have been musically inclined being that it is about a concert, but I have realized (?) that it not ciritcal to be literal. Ian was wearing a blue shirt and Chad was wearing jeans so I wanted to pick up on the blue in the photos so I picked a paper to use, then I picked accents that went with that tone. For example, the yellow and cream on the paper was picked up in the yellow arrow tag, blue and yellow shaped sticker.

Summer Lovin LO- 6.26.11 Studio Calico Sunday Sketch

July 22, 2011

I looked up when was the last time I posted a scrapbooking layout… April 25th! That is so damn horrible. I can’t believe it. But sadly that is the way things go. I have to prioritize packing all my stuff in May so craftiness was shoved aside. Then June was all about unpacking. But alas, packing is (almost) complete so I have some free time now to scrapbook.

Getting to create a space for my scrapbooking (to be blogged about at some point) took some time but it feels right. I feel comfortable using the desk station. I really see a lot of scrapbooking occurring there. I have already whipped out a few pages, one of which I am sharing now.

This layout is from a photo I took on the first day of summer. Out of all the photos we took this was the one that i loved the most. It was such a great night with Price that I wanted to feature him. (Plus the picture of me were crappy). The layout the sketch is based off of used a portrait photo but I just used a landscape one because, as always, a sketch is a jumping off point.

I love having all my supplies right at hand now. Because everything is in my face I took care in examining my supplies and using a wider variety than I typically would. I used quite a bit of supplies form my Studio Calico kits, such as paper and alpha stickers, as well as Stampin’ Up! paper and brads. The flag sticker is from Sassafras and the grasshopper ‘paper’ is the back of a business card from SC.

Birthday Sweets LO- Sketchbook 3 Day 2 Sketch

April 25, 2011

CKC Manchester 2011 is coming up this Friday. I’m really, really excited about taking the day off and going!! I went last year and had a great time. Three of us went had a great time taking classes and shopping. One of the things I picked up shopping were these vintage looking stickers from Melody Ross. I fell in love with them, althought i had NO idea what i would scrap with them. Well, once this paper arrived at my door step from my Studio Calico kit, I knew I would be using these stickers soon. I loved the paper the minute I saw it, even though it is not something I typically gravitate to.

Such ‘girlie’ looking pages are not something I create often. But I pulled out all stops for this one using a floral paper, pink glittery thickers, butterflies, pale colors, a papery ribbon. Boy oh boy, who knew I had so much of this ‘girlie’ stuff!

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Hello Buffalo LO- 10.3 Studio Calico Sunday Sketch

April 21, 2011

I’ll admit that I was a bit intimidated with this Studio Calico Sunday Sketch. This is not the kinda of thing I gravitate to. umm hello? Flags? I thought it was all a bit kitschy but I dove on it and instead of nixing the flags I worked with it. I put the title on the flags so they seemed a bit more significant than just embellishment flags. I think that they work on the page but I wish they would made them a bit smaller. Live and learn

One of my new favorite things when it comes to scrapbooking is getting Price involved. Whenever my Studio Calico kits arrive I go through the papers, I just love paper. After I have made my pass through them I hold each one up and flip from A side to B side and ask which he likes more. Typically, we like the same. I just find that interesting and pretty cute.

In the case of this layout, I had a few different papers in mind but I was unsure of which one. So I laid out a couple different options and reviewed them with Price and he helped out. Besides that it’s nice that he is ever so slightly involved in my hobby, it’s nice that he helped out on a layout that was focused on a day that he planned for us.

Thanks for visiting. Please leave me a comment to provide some feedback. I appreciate all the comments I receive.