I am a Honey Bee

All about my adventures with cooking, crafts, and travel

Kelly Purkey

December Daily Book (Before)

20111130-225458.jpgLast 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.’

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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

 

‘Miss C’ LO

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.

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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!

Birthday Sweets LO- Sketchbook 3 Day 2 Sketch

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!

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

Are We Done Yet? LO- Sketchbook 3 Day 1

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-Day 1-

I knew I would be signing up once I saw that Kelly Purkey was doing Sketchbook 3, another online class based upon sketches. This is my 4th online class taught my Kelly. I’ve been hooked to her blog and her classes since I took her first one.

Anyway, I was giddy to wake up on Monday (a first!) to welcome the first sketch that was waiting for me in my inbox. I had this photo reserved for a different sketch but it was not really clicking for me so it was just sitting there. But when I saw the sketch I knew this photo would work well for it. The sketch had 2 spots for photos and it was orientated a different way. Instead of worrying about using one picture, I just moved forward with the 1, but added the rectangular accent to balance the page.

I’m really looking forward to the rest of the class. 1 down, 11 to go.

Sketchbook 2: Day 7

It’s funny how so many things change in a year. This photo was taken for my 25 birthday- 1/10. Last year, if you would have told me what would be happening between now and then I would have thought you were crazy. But it seems that life is in fact crazy so you have to constantly roll with it.

Last summer I took a scrapbooking layout class from Kelly Purkey. I have posted my previous layouts (1-6) but I’m just getting around to finishing up the rest of the class now. Well, this layout has been completed for a while but I’m just getting around to posting it now.

I loved the sketch from day 7 because it was so simple. I liked the verticality of the page. Granted it could be rotated for a horizontal layout, but I liked it vertically. I also really liked how everything came to one this one line. I played around with mirroring the pictures along the line, having the large picture-less areas opposite each other. I made the title by cutting out numbers with my Cricut, lightly adhering them, spraying the paper with a glittery mist, and then removing the numbers later.

You can purchase the class sketches on Kelly’s blog.

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

Sketchbook 2: Day 6

I always joke that I am the planner and Price is the dreamer. It’s not to say that Price does not plan and I dont dream but most of our conversations are steered that I plan and he dreams. So I say that I am a wisher. My arguement is that my wishes come and go quickly. I wish I had a glass a milk. I wish I had a new pair of boots. I wish I could take a nap. I wish we could move right NOW. Well that last one is not going away until we do. But the point is that I dont invest much time in my wishes. Price is dreaming for a jeep so he spends time online looking at old ones in order to be 100% prepared if the day comes that he can get one. Totally cute.

The layout is based on the Day 6 sketch from the Sketchbook 2 class I have been taking. I focused on the components in the sketch, rahter than where they were. I looked at the qty of things and carried that into my layout.

“I am a planner. I am not a dreamer. But I love to wish. I guess there is no real diffference but I’m a planner so that holds me back somewhat. A dream has investment but my wisher is instants. Just a thought.

My thought when this photo was taken was thatwe could stay in Maine longer. My self portrait captures my relaxing moment under the tree in the yard. I wish I could lay there looking that the wind low the leaves around. In the end I jsut took a little nap on the plaid blanket. Maybe I dreamed in the end…”

Sketchbook 2: Day 5

I was really excited about doing this layout. I loved the sketch from Kelly Purkey’s Sketchbook 2 class. I know it is one that I will refer back to time and time again. While I liked all 3 examples of LO’s, Kelly’s was the one that best related to the photos I really wanted to scrapbook. I used her layout structure to create my layout. I’m so happy that I have completed another scrapbooking page within a week of taking the photos. I just could not resist these pictures that Price took of his nephews.

I loved this paper from Cosmo Cricut. It’s call Fitting In. I told myself to get more than 1 sheet when I bought it but I was (happily) overwhelmed with all the paper in front of me that I forgot. But I have a feeling I will send up getting another sheet or a few. I just see this working inot so many things. The back is really cute too!

Supplies- Cosmo Cricut- Patterned Paper, Sticker; Stamping Up!- Cardstock, rub ons.

Sketchbook 2: Day 4

Here is an example of why you should stop scrapbooking when you are tired.

I should have stopped when I started to loose focus. I was watching Extract (really funny movie) and wanted to finish the LO last night instead of wrapping it up in the morning. I only had the title left to do at 11.30, so I figured it was mangable and I would just finish it. I should have stopped then! I cut out the title using the cricut. I laid it on the page and it felt flat. I should have recut it with a darker paper (maybe a light grey?) but no I decided to make it ‘pop’ with some spray. Once I glued it down I hated it. So I just messed around with it more by accenting some of the title text with a black pen. At least that helped some of the 10’s stand out. I’ll probably go back and cover it to put a new title on there.

Lesson learned.

Sketchbook 2: Day 3

Price is such a good sport. I bugged him 2 nights in a row about this simple layout. I started it late on Monday night because I just had to get it going then. So when he we  he was ready to get to bed I called him back to show him my work-in-progress layout. Poor tired Pricer is trying to get to bed early (to be at work at 6) and I want to stay up all night scrapbooking. And then I started working on it again on Tuesday night and had him checking it out again when he just wanted to drink a beer in peace. He is such a good sport about it considering my scrapbooking table and storage unit ended up taking over the office and now there is a table in the dining area. At this point he has as many rounds of golf and cigar smoking owed to him.

Anyway… I am absolutely loving this Sketchbook 2 class!!! It is helping me stay current with my scrapbooking. Like having 3 weekly assignments. I’m going to fall a bit behind since we are going to spend this upcoming weekend in Maine but I’m okay with it. Our long weekend in Maine will result in lots of photos and ultimately more scrapbooking! So I took this picture on the 30th when my mom came up to Boston for a weekend visit. We had a fantastic time shopping in the North End and in Coolidge Corner, going out for dinner at Euno in the North End, having a grilled dinner in the backyard, 2 trips to Haymarket, making smoothies, and another great meal at Bouchee. We were basically go, go, go so these are the best pictures from that weekend. This was such a fantastic meal and time I just had to document it.

I enjoyed playing with this sketch a lot. The sketch had spots for 2 photos and 2 small circles (focal points) Instead of just 2 photos I used 5, but I reduced the size of 4 of them to fit into a 4×6, mimicking the 2 photo look. Also I did not use 2 circles in the layout. I still wanted to use a circle but I made it 1 larger one. Instead of treating the 2 circles as just 2 circles I used their spots as focal points, which allowed me to put my text embellishments there.

Sketchbook 2: Day 2

Day 2 of the Sketchbook Class from Kelly Purkey and Studio Calico brought along another great sketch. I loved this sketch! It was fun to do this layout out. Esp since Emily was over (we watched the Informant!) and we went through a lot of my papers to pick out what to use for this paper and just discuss my addiction. Piles of blue and green solids were pulled out, as well as patterned papers as well.

I might redo the title for this. Still not decided. Or I might add something to it. Always a work in progress.

Sketchbook 2- Day One

I took an online scrapbooking class earlier this year from Kelly Purkey. Her blog is a daily stop for me 1) she does amazing work 2) she travels all over and I have wanderlust! So I (jealously) enjoy all the photos she posts of her adventures traveling. Well I loved her first class so when she offered another class I decided to sign up. The big difference was that I commited to myself that I woud stay on top of the ‘assignments’. And so far so good, I’m just slow to post them on the blog.

So the premise of the class is that there is a layout sketch that she and 2 other Studio Calico design members base their own layouts on. This is a way of getting 12 new sketches with 36 layouts to be inspired from. Everyone participating is really talented. Plus I love getting to learn about other scrapbooker’s blogs this way too.

I really enjoyed the first sketch because once I saw it I knew what photos I would use for it. There, instantly, I knew. In June Price and I went to DC for little vacation. It was so much fun. We have always clicked but it always comes through when we are on vacation. Well, this had to have been the hottest times to go in June. So when it is 100 and feels like 105 you try to go inside as much a possible, one such place was a cupcake/yogurt place. 2 of my favorite things ever!!!



A Happy Distraction

I’m back into scrapbooking. It really seems like it has been forever. Granted all of my stuff has been out in the living room and office but with the flood drama and our stuff being stacked up on other things I have been in the mind-set to be creative. Instead we just veg on the sofa and watch Mad Men and Weeds DVD’s and various shows on TV, like LOST! Oh can’t get enough of LOST. Anyway, while watching last night Pricer had to deal with pausing it so I could run back and forth from the living room table to the Cricut in the office to cut out letters. Of course , I was not sure what color to use so I did it twice in different colors so it took twice as long. So scrapbooking is becoming a happy distraction from the rest of the crap I’ll dealing with.

 The layout above is one that I completed before all the chaos but was too forgetful to bring it in to scan it. I made this to highlight our 5th anniversary (1/2). I took an online class from Kelly Purkey called Beginnings, which really influenced this layout. I typically like things straight horizontally and vertically but I loved her layout so I had to steal it for this.

I focused on color for this layout. Picking the paper from the bold colors on the shirts and then coordinating the blocking paper from that.  I think this layout is missing something. Not sure if it needs something in the center or I just don’t like it now it is done so I can’t let it be. I may revisit it later on. It would not be the first time I redo a page. Or it may grow on me.