Simple (?) layout

Simplicity has never been my forte when it comes to scrapbooking. I generally follow the theory that more is more. Here's a page that uses only five supplies! I'm not sure if I should be proud of myself or concerned that something is missing. It really does feel a little... plain to me. What do you think?

The background is pattered paper from Cosmo Cricket. The flower is a large die cut from K & Co. It inspired the entire page design because it is so big and bold. The title sentiment is also from K & Co, popped up with foam tape. I keep running into sales on K & Co. products at Michaels and AC Moore and I can't help but stock up! The final supply I used was just a pigment pen to add the date in the lower right corner. One of the easiest, peasiest pages I've done in a long time! Really, is it missing something? Maybe in the upper left corner?

Couple Friends

Two posts two days in a row, whoo-hoo! Go me.

This is a page I did over the weekend. I was doing some cleaning and came across my friend Jackie's wedding invitation from 2005. Looking at the invitation got me thinking about how I regret not having gone to her wedding. One of the main reasons I didn't go (besides it being 7 hours away and on Labor Day) was because that weekend I moved in with my husband, who was just my boyfriend at the time.

But another reason was because the guys hadn't even met each other yet and she was really little more than a girl I met on Craigslist that I scrapbooked with. I guess there was no way then to know that we would all become such good friends! I do feel fortunate that we all hit it off since I know it can be hard to find couple friends where both girls and both guys get along. I'm not sure that I captured that message as much as I would have liked but I guess it's an idea for a future layout.


I started with the invitation, which was printed on white cardstock, and built the layout around it. Then I saw the small aqua friend tag (top right) that came in a large coordinating kit I recently picked up at BJSs and it became the basis for my color scheme. I recently bought a bunch of Basic Gray paper off of the clearance rack at AC Moore (25 cents apiece!) that coordinated with the aqua. I selected two sheets from the Blush collection for the top and bottom of the layout.

It took me forever to find letter stickers that worked until I remembered these from K&Co. They were on a sheet with fall colored letters that surprisingly contains an entire alphabet in each style. I wanted to emphasize the ampersand and again it took awhile to find the perfect one. First I thought chipboard but I couldn't find anything the right size. Finally I found this aqua ampersand on a sheet of pastel colored letters (not sure of the brand as I had removed it from the original packaging).

The K&Co journaling tag, from the Wild Saffron collection, just randomly seemed to work as I sorted through my recent purchases. I liked that it used both the aqua and the red from the papers and it was (almost) big enough to tell my story. When I wanted to add just a bit more, I saw that the red label (also K&Co Wild Saffron) would be perfect, plus there are so many of them in the package that I don't know how I'll ever use them (a good problem to have I suppose).

I've been thinking about paper flowers lately, having recently bought some Primas from eBay (50 various sizes for $2.50 -- good deal?) and a whole can of white Primas from Two Peas that I am still waiting for. I am trying to find a better way to store them, as right now I have them in a small divided box, separated by type, which I will obviously outgrow. I also think I'd like to sort by color.

So while I was looking at my current stash, I saw the large gridded cream and aqua flower, which I have several of, and it seemed like a good opportunity to pair it with the dotted aqua flower that came in the same set. I thought a brad would be good in the middle but then I saw the K&Co Wild Saffron felt embellishments and liked that I could incorporate the red and a bit of yellow. I thought the bottom needed a bit of pink to bring in the pink of the top patterned paper so I used a small pink paper flower with another felt embellie. I attached the flowers with Glue Dots.

I put the friends tag underneath the top flower a bit and added "Couple" using small Making Memories ledger stickers. Finally I added some hand stitching to bring in some more brown and help ground the letter stickers. I made the stitching holes using a template that I made by piercing through a sheet of plastic packaging and then sewed some zigzag stitch using two strands of DMC embroidery floss. The top right corner seemed bare (I seem to have a problem with that) so I lightly traced around a random die cut swirl that was on my desk, pierced holes and back-stitched.

Daddy's Girl

OK, really bad blogger I have been. But it was kind of starting to feel like work, with how nice it was outside there for awhile (finally!) and I said that I was out when it started to be too hard.

However I have actually done some scrapbooking lately and I thought I'd share one today. It uses an old photo as I am in a quandary about photo printing. More on that later. First the layout:

This one is me and my dad, as you can see by the cute little Studio G stamp that I used for the subtitle. This is an OLD photo, from 1994, that is in one of the four icky magnetic albums that I am trying to redo. Yes I know I should pull all of the photos out to minimize further damage, but the idea of having to store all of those photos in some organized way or risk having to resort them is too much for me to handle. So I am s-l-o-w-l-y redesigning these pages.

I knew I wanted to use this cute bird background paper from the DCWV Glitter Summer Stack (or is it spring?!) and the cordinating DCWV chipboard flower, which I ended up topping with a blue foam circle and clear gem to minimize the hot pink. Then I found the red vinyl stickers in my stash that I bought last year from Michaels' holiday clearance, figuring they didn't really scream "Christmas." I thought the black Making Memories rub on letters were a nice constrast.

It took me awhile to settle on the b&w polka dotted paper, which has been in my stash forever. I used my newish Fiskars Upper Crest border punch. The photo mat is a randomly a page from a yellow lined hotel notepad that was on my desk. The ribbon was already cut in my ribbon scraps bin, it's $1 kind from Michaels. I added the green dotted Making Memories leaves for a little contrast. The subtitle lable was the only item I used from the large K&Co kit I got at AC Moore, even though I planned to use more of that kit on the page. I stamped it with Staz On using the aforementioned Studio G stamp.

Finally, I though the upper right corner seemed a bit bare so I back-stitched with some black embroidery floss. That made the center seem a little bare so I added the sentiment sticker, the negative from punching the black dotted border and some cross-stitches. Ta da! Nice father-daughter moment captured.

So as to my photo printing quandary, the printer I have does not play nice with Vista and I have no way of knowing how much ink is left. I also think it is just not printing as nicely and I have started wondering how long the pictures are going to last. I thought it was more economical to print myself, and also more freeing since the pictures can be any size. I was also doing a lot of digital scrapbooking so it made sense.

But I am starting to think that for longevity's sake I should get my photos printed professionally. I want to use more of my paper scrapbooking stash and I think this will encourage me to not just default to digital. Also it is taking me so long to think up layouts with different sized photos and I think I am falling into the trap of thinking I need to scrap every photo. Maybe it would be easier to go back to having mostly 4X6s?

I am thinking about checking out www.scrapbookpictures.com but I'm open to suggestions.

Cleanup Weekend

Busy weekend, although very little crafting. I sat down to craft on Saturday afternoon, thinking I would finally make my husband a birthday card (his bday was Sunday). But my craft table just seemed such a mess that I couldn’t get started, plus I had picked up some new goodies at AC Moore on my way home from work on Friday and I wanted to play and find a home for them.

Highlights of my purchases: the Fiskars scallop sentiment and upper crest border punches, which I have been wanting forever! Well the scallop sentiment at least. I have the threading (or treading, I’ve seen it both ways) water punch and I love it but wanted one without the holes. I would have actually like one with a little bit bigger of a scallop and I think possibly the Stampin’ Up one may be, but the Fiskars one was right there at the store with no waiting, no shipping charge, and at 40% off, so it is now mine (I think I paid about $9.50 each?). I can use my Fiskars Cloud scissors for larger scallops anyway, which I have finally mastered now that I realize I need to draw a pencil line to follow to exactly line up the cuts. Eye-balling it just doesn’t cut it.

I also got some Basic Gray patterned papers off the clearance rack, 25 cents apiece. I really love their papers but the collections are so expensive! One day I’ll use a 50% off coupon and get a whole set, but for now I am happy to combine bits of the patterned papers with cardstock I already have.

Another purchase was that Ranger Teflon craft mat. Not really sure I needed it and I am positive that I had bought almost the same thing to use with my Melting Pot, which I haven’t used in, well, so long I can’t remember. But I can’t find that other mat anywhere and this one is much bigger anyway. What I am really hoping I can do is heat emboss right on top of it without melting my cutting mat underneath. There’s already a bendy spot on my cutting mat from an earlier unfortunate incident with the heat gun (and a melted spot on the carpet) so I am a little nervous about trying this but the instructions say it can be done with no adverse effects to your work surface. We shall see.
Update: I tried this and it seemed OK. Yay!

I had rearranged my punches last week, moving my giant scalloped circles from a tray on my desk to one of the large drawer in the Iris cart next to my desk that my Ribbon Ring allowed me to free up. Really don’t know what I was thinking, filling that drawer with rolls of ribbon, what a waste! (If you haven’t yet seen the Ribbon Ring, check it out! Love mine). I also moved my large circle punches, large scalloped circles and miscellaneous large punches (like the EK Success Whale of a Punch ones) into the same drawer, freeing up the top drawer of the Iris cart. I’ve decided to treat is sort of as a junk drawer but with little containers that I had picked up at Target storing various embellishments by color. These are mostly one-off embellishments that I made and had no other home.

Now my back-up Fiskars trimmer that I mostly use for scoring these days after getting my Making Memories cutter can no longer fit in the top drawer. Right now I have it on top of the MM trimmer which is on top of a large file box full of letter stickers underneath my desk. Not sure if this is going to work out but I couldn’t think of anywhere else to put it. It seems too large in the center of my Making Memories carousel organizer. I did move one of my rulers there, the 12 inch metal one, and put a push pin into the window frame to hold the 15 inch one. I also cleaned my entire craft table, sorting the scraps (for the most part) and putting everything back in its home. All of this so I could lay down the Teflon mat.

I never did make my husband a birthday card. I think he had a nice birthday though. On Saturday night I took him to a Polish restaurant we had never been to. He has this thing for goulash and has been talking about it forever so even though it seems like winter food, we decided to try out this new place.

YUM! If you are ever in Boston, try Café Polonia in South Boston! It’s right on the Dorchester line. I wasn’t sure about the neighborhood so was happy it will still light when we go there, but it seemed fine, and parking was easy, with plenty of resident spots that non-residents can park in for two hours. Mike started with beet soup and I had soup pickle-cabbage soup which was unexpectedly delicious. Then he had goulash with potato pancakes and I had the Polish platter, which was three pierogies (I had cheese, cheese and potato, and cabbage. The cabbage was so good!), kielbasa, Hunter’s stew (cabbage and meat, and surprisingly good!) and stuffed cabbage (not like mine or my mom’s, but still enjoyable).

Funny, I had bought a head of cabbage and 3 lbs. of ground turkey at the supermarket on Friday and was thinking about making stuffed cabbage. I think now I’m going to make unstuffed cabbage in the crockpot this week. Tonight we are having roasted chicken with vegetables. So easy and yummy! And cost-effective. It’s a big 6 pounder and was on sale for 79 cents/lb. We’ll have plenty of leftovers for sandwiches and such and I will probably make chicken broth/soup with the carcass. It’s probably a little warm for matzo ball soup but I am betting I can still tempt Mike with it. Mmm, the chicken is smelling so good, I can’t wait until it’s done!

On Sunday Mike and I went up to his parents house in NH and had a big lobster dinner. Well his mom and I had salmon but Mike and his dad are allergic to it. I also had two lobster tails. This is turning into the summer of lobster! I think it’s the fourth time we’ve had it. The best was when Mike cooked the giant 4 lb. lobster a few weeks ago. So good, although I’m still finding bits of lobster shell around the house!