6 Month Mom Layout

I am hesitant to post a scrapbook page because I never know the source of all of my materials. But I'll do my best to identify them and then if you want to know something more specific, let me know and I'll try to sleuth it out.

This photo on this page is from nearly two years ago but I just scrapped it recently. It was taken at a family party but I used it to record my feelings about being a mom and the first six months of my daughter's life. The journaling is short but captures what I think when I see this photo: "Still pretty new to the job and winging it most days, but the first six months of being Dalia's mom were some of the best of my life!"

I tried, with this layout, to break out of my usual line-it-up-perfectly mentality and create something a little grungier and more casual. I used a piece of  DCVW cardstock (the name of the stack is now escaping me) and cut around the flocked design so I could tuck the photo behind parts of the flower image. The patterned papers at the right were from my border scrap box, which mostly contains 12 by 1 inch pieces made from trimming down 12 by 12 papers to 11 inches for my 8.5 by 11 inch pages. I know the aqua and red flowered one is Basic Grey but I'm unsure about the others.

The title block was leftover from covering a chipboard frame with cardstock. I wanted to bring in a bit of pink to make it a little more feminine and coordinate with my daughter's dress so I used a pink "6" sticker that I outlined with a black pigment pen and then doodle around it. The "mom" sticker came from an old DCWV stack. The round letter stickers at one point were clear epoxy-type domes but yellowed while sitting in my sticker stash (that's how old they are!) so I never used them before, but the yellow tint seemed to work on this page. 

The date in the upper left corner is one of my favorite details of this layout. I combined a piece of a label and part of a border sticker with a flower sticker and a gem. I now see that I neglected to erase my pencil lines -- oops! That's what happens when you're trying to finish up before nap time is over.

Notecards for a 50th Birthday

I can't believe I have a friend who just turned 50 -- that makes me feel old! I know it is still a ways away for me, but it's a reminder that 40 is starting to loom very large. Anyway, my friend had a 50th birthday/Oscar viewing party and I wanted to give her a special present to mark such a big birthday. She is a creative type (although she'd probably tell you that she isn't( and she appreciates handmade things. She also always tells me how much she loves the cards I have made for her daughter's birthdays (which reminds me that at some point I should post the super-cute Angelina Ballerina card I recently made for her daughter's third birthday). Anyway, I figured she'd be getting lot of other presents so I decided to make her some monogrammed note cards that she could use for thank yous.

To keep things uniform and make it look like a set, I used one layout with three different color schemes and made two of each card, for a total of a half a dozen cards. The base cards are an 8.5 by 11 sheet of cardstock cut in half to make two cards that are 5.5 by 4.25 inches folded. I ran each card through my Texture Boutique using the Swiss Dots folder (love it!). Then I cut 5.5 by 3 inch pieces from three different patterned papers leftover from scrapbook pages I had made.

I then picked out coordinating cardstock from a mat stack my boss had given me for the holidays. I had never bought a small stack like this before, thinking I'd rather have larger sheets to cut down than be limited by their small size, but I found that I really liked the wide variety of colors and the ease of flipping through them to choose just the right one. They were also just the right size to make two border strips and punch two scalloped circles from with minimal waste. I used the EK Success Parisian border punch and a Marvy scalloped punch that is about 2 1/4 inches.

I had bought a large "D" stamp because my daughter's name also starts with D (I think it's Hampton Arts? The cheapo $1 ones they sell at Michaels/AC Moore). I stamped the D with Colorbox Fluid Chalk inks (my go-to inks) in Olive Pastel, Lime Pastel and Chestnut Roan on white cardstock and then punched each one out with my 2 inch Fiskars Circle squeeze punch.

I then ran all of the pieces through my trusty Xyron. I layered each D circle onto a coordinating scalloped circle. I wrapped a piece of white ribbon (from Target, leftover from my wedding four years ago) around each patterned paper panel, adhered a border strip and then placed the layered circles on the right side of each patterned panel, over the ribbon. I attached the patterned paper sections to the textured cards and then tied a piece of ribbon in a knot around the already attached ribbon. Finally I punched butterflies using my Martha Stewart punch. I attached them by cutting pop dot circles in half and putting on each wing. Then I topped each butterfly with a crystal gem.

I used one card to write a message to the birthday girl then packaged the other five up by wrapping with some baker's twine. I put them in a fabulous feathered bag (that I wish I had taken a photo of!) and gave them to the birthday girl.

Starburst card (nothing to do with the candy, unfortunately)

So I haven't been blogging, but that doesn't mean I haven't been creating! As my daughter has gotten older, (almost 2 1/2! -- she'll tell you that she's a "big girl") I have been snatching bits of time here and there to make cards and work on her scrapbooks. The scrapbooks are important to me so that she'll have a record of who she is and how she got that way. The cards are important because they are a much lower stress way to exercise my creativity on a small canvas that doesn't necessarily need to be of keepsake quality.

Here's a recent card that I am particularly proud of because it was the first time I created a "starburst" effect with patterned paper (I am sure this isn't the correct terminology for this, but I'm lacking time to look it up). This is something I had seen all over the place in magazines and had been pinning on Pinterest for some time and which, quite frankly looked simple to achieve digitally but too hard to do by hand. I had been struggling with scrapbooking my daughter birth and early days, feeling that no design I could come up with would somehow be special enough. Voila, "starburst" effect layout. But I wanted to practice before I did it on a scrapbook page, so came up with this card design for a co-worker's birthday.

I made a standard 5.5 by 4.25 inch card with white card stock and put a dot in the lower left corner. I then cut a long triangle from patterned paper and lined the point up with the dot. I trimmed off the excess paper that overlapped the edge of the card. Then I cut another triangle and overlapped the first one, also lining up one point with the dot on the card. I repeated until I had covered the card with a rainbow of patterned paper scraps. I thought there was probably a scientific way to do this but I just eyeballed it and I think it came out pretty well.

The point at which all of the papers met was a little sloppy. I toyed with adding a sentiment there but nothing seemed quite right so I saved the sentiment for the inside (it just says "Happy birthday" -- nothing special) and instead added a large paper flower. I layered on a smaller pink flower and of course added a little rhinestone bling in the center (those cheap adhesive gems from Michaels or ACMoore that are like $1/sheet). I stamped the recipient's name with tiny alphabet stamps in one of my favorite inks -- Colorbox Charcoal chalk ink -- added a bit more bling and I was done.

The recipient loved it and put it in her special box of cards that I've made for her that she claims she is keeping for when I'm famous (for doing what, I'm not quite sure, but I appreciate her confidence)! I loved that I used up a bunch of scraps and I got to practice a new technique, all during my daughter's nap time.

One of these days I will have a little more time to make a video or at least take pictures during each step so I can show instead of tell how I did something. Maybe when I (finally) make the scrapbook page of my daughter's birth that making that card is helping me design!

On Writing [Probably Not So] Well

I’ve felt recently that something has been missing in my life. I can’t pinpoint when this started, whether it has to do with becoming a mom. I thought I missed doing something creative every day so I started fitting in scrapbooking, card-making or even just reading about these things, into my over-scheduled day. It often happened at midnight, making for one sleep-deprived mom, but it did make me feel more fulfilled. Yet I still felt like something was missing.

Then I wrote a letter to my city’s parking commission opposing a petition for permitted parking on my street. A really boring matter but I went through a whole process to draft this letter—finding my voice, developing a lead, crafting supporting statements, selecting just the right words…revising, refining. I became a bit obsessed. And it was then that I realized that what I miss is writing.

I’ve been doing research on social media for my job. When I’m asked to do something outside of my comfort zone, I like to spend quite a bit of time learning all I can about it, reading about what other people are doing, talking about it and thinking about the best way to begin before I jump in. I’ve spent days perusing Facebook pages, trawling the Twitterverse and blog-hopping my way around, following a multitude of topics. I’ve been reading a lot of other people’s words and it has gotten me thinking about my own.

I know there was a reason I started to blog. I thought it was to share my craft projects. Now I am realizing that my creative endeavors go beyond pages and cards. I used to keep a journal. I haven’t in years. I do journal on my scrapbook pages, but it’s not quite the same.

I know it’s naïve to think I’ll somehow have the time to start writing every day. I feel like I’m so out of practice that by the time I warm up and get going, there’s no time left to finish, let alone polish and perfect. I’m not totally sure where that leaves me. I guess it’s time to call the research phase over, jump in and see where it gets me. So I apologize in advance for any unfinished ideas, tangential ramblings or grammatical gaffes. This girl’s just got to write.

It's been awhile...

Whew, it's been a long time since I've posted, and that's due to a combination of factors. One of those being that I got an Android phone awhile back and the salesman had me set up a new Gmail account to forward my Hotmail email to, since apparently Microsoft and Google just can't play nicely together. In my excitement over the new phone I totally forgot that I should have used my existing Google account that was tied to my Blogger account. So I ended up with two Google accounts and all kind of confusion ensued. It seems there is no way to combine two and signing in and out to update the blog and check my email was too time-consuming. The blog was sacrificed until I figured out that I could set up a new blog and import the old posts into it. The blog address I am not as excited about, but it will do.

My other HUGE obstacle to posting was that I had a baby, and thus barely have time for crafting, never mind writing about it. But she's 14 months-old now and starting to sleep for longer stretches and I've got to get my crafty mojo back on! Unfortunately, she's only sleeping "through the night" according to the technical definition of six hours, and of course those six don't align with my own sleep schedule! So I can't promise that all of my posts will be 100% lucid...

I do, however, have to scrapbook my daughter's past year, a daunting task that I've just started undertaking. So there will be lot of pink in my upcoming posts! I've also been trying to get back on track with card-making, and today I've got some of those to share.

For my boss Kelly's birthday:

This is an example of a card that I created awhile back and then added to and personalized for the recipient just before sending. Having a child has made this a more practical approach for actually having cards available in time for a specific occasion. I often use coordinating leftovers from scrapbook pages to put together basic cards that can then be embellished later. 

Awhile back I was experimenting with digital scrapbooking a lot and had printed off some digital patterned papers. The patterned paper across this card is actually a printed digital paper that I wrapped sheer pink ribbon around and adhered to a white card base. The sentiment circle was  made to match in Photoshop, printed, punched out with one of my many EK Success circle punches (Love them! So versatile!) and attached with foam tape. The purple scalloped circle and hot pink cardstock were sitting on my craft table looking for a home after being rejected from a scrapbook page. The white label shape was an experiment with my new Martha Stewart anywhere punch. I was a little skeptical of my need for this punch but now that I have it, I love it and will definitely be getting more. I layered them up and topped them off with a hot pink gem. I put the card aside and a few weeks later when I needed a card for my boss's birthday, I decided to add some bright yellow to punch it up a bit. 

I had left an odd amount of open space at the bottom of the card because of the side of the already-cut pink cardstock. I punched a scalloped strip from a shimmery yellow cardstock I used recently on a scrapbook page and added that to the bottom of the card. I then cut out a strip of the same yellow carstock, ran it through my xyron, folded it in half, wrapped it around a corsage pin and notched the end. I added my boss's name with stickers and stuck the pin through the foam tape holding on the sentiment circle. I rounded the bottom corners to soften the look. A yellow dotted flower and a green gem later and the card was good to go. My boss has the card displayed in her office and told me that's she's gotten a lot of compliments on it!

For my "mom friend" Ashley's birthday:

This took me forever to get started on. I knew I wanted to feature the cocktails print patterned paper leftover from a scrapbook page that I'm working on about a girls night out, but just couldn't figure out what to match it with. I found a random scrap of hot pink cardstock on my craft table and decided to run that through my little Sizzix embossser purse (not the real name, but Mommy Brain has that escaping me right now). I got this new EK Success punch on clearance from Michaels that I've been using like crazy. Used that on diagonal-striped DCWV paper. Stamped "Cheers" sentiment with lime chalk ink on white cardstock and embossed with clear powder . Added a dotted outline with a pink Zig marker adhered with pop dots for some dimension. Stamped my friend's name with pink chalk ink on white cardstock, cut into a strip, notched the end to make a banner and edged with lime chalk ink. It needed a little something extra so I tied a knot in a snippet of ribbon and attached that under the name, and adhered with a glue dot a small yellow flower with a sparkly pink gem center.

Hopefully I can finish the two scrapbook pages that the scraps from these cards came from over the weekend and post them next week. I'm not going to be too over-ambitious this time in how much I'm going to be able to blog!

Three, Count Them, Three Layouts!

Life is getting in the way of my blogging but I am finally back with three layouts to share! I have been realizing that I really don't like using kits and I would rather break up the elements to mix and match. I used a variety of products on all of these layouts.

Full of Grace


This layout is actually based on a Becky Fleck sketch (www.pagemaps.com) although I didn't follow it too well. I did this page at a crop and of course I didn't have all of the supplies I would have liked. I didn't intend for the background to be black but the pink I had picked out didn't really match even though it came from the same kit as the pink flowered paper. The journaling spot is actually a clear sticker but I had to adhere it to some white CS so you could read the writing when I ended up with the black background.

Directions: Cut pink flowered pp. Punch circles from purple dot pp and attach to back of pink pp so half sticks out. Attach to black CS. Adhere purple border sticker below circles. Overlap purple pp on pink then attach photo on top. Write journaling and attach to white CS. Cut out, ink edges and attach. Use border punch on strip of white CS. Adhere letter stickers and attach with two brads and photo prongs. Thread ribbon through buckle, wrap around background and attach ends to back. Embellish buckle with flowers, attaching one with brad and place a gem in the center of the other one. Add heart sticker. Attach letter stickers to tab for date, embellish with gem and adhere. Rub gold ink pad around edges of pad.

Supplies: Black & White DCWV cardstock, K&C. purple dotted paper, ? pink flowered paper and photo prongs, Making Memories velvet letters, ? gold letter stickers, American Crafts journaling spot, KI Memories tab, border sticker and photo corner, Stickopotamus heart sticker, Me & My Big Ideas chipboard flower, Prima flower, ? chipboard buckle, Martha Stewart border punch, gold brads, black SlickWriter, sheer ribbon from grab bag, black Staz On, gold Colorbox ink pad, purple gems


Silly Lollipop Foot = Tease

This is such a silly picture of my niece putting a lollipop in her mouth with her foot. I use a rebus style title since I had the foot sticker and then saw the lollipop sticker at Target (now I have a whole sheet and no idea what I'll use them for...) Iwas glad to mix some old patterned paper with some new paper and finally use one of my Making Memories clear flowers that I got from the Two Peas clearance.

Supplies: White carstock, DCWV pink cardstock, Pocket Full of Posies pp and Spring Stack border sticker, Frances Meyer Dizzy Dots pp, Making Memories journaling stamp and clear flowers, Stickopotamus foot and lollipop sticker, KI Memories word stickers, white Uniball gel pen, Fiskars Scallop Sentiment border punch, Broken China Distress ink pad, foam tape, Studio 88 gem

Directions: Scallop edge of white CS and attach to pink CS. Cut pps to fit next to photos. Stamp dotted paper with journaling spot and write journaling with white pen. Add border sticker. Top with clear flower using foam tape. Add gem to flower center. Arrange stickers to create title.


MIL

This layout features me and my new mother-in-law. I liked how we were both wearing similar shirts and wanted to echo that with the background paper. This page was pretty straight-forward to create but I did smudge the journaling. Hopefully it adds to the grungy feel of the page.

Supplies:
My Mind's Eye Bohemia pp, gray cardstock, K&Co. chipboard letters, Prima flowers, Chatterbox Fabulous date tag, photo mat and word art, Studio 18 gems, K&Co. brad, Daisy D's journaling spot, white Uniball gel pen, Fiskars Upper Crest border punch, foam tape

Directions
Cut patterned paper (pp) to 8.5 by 11. Edge gray CS with border punch, cut to about 1/3 of page size and attach across middle. Arrange photo, journaling spot, tag and flower on top of mat and attach all. Poke holes along top edge of gray area and around photo corner and draw lines between holes to simulate stitching. Attach chipboard letters above gray section. Attach "thoughts" word art below photo area with foam tape.

Quick update, nothing to show

Bad blogger I have been, but not a bad scrapper! I have done six pages since I last checked in, which is like a record for me! Some were done at the all-day crop I went to three weeks ago but some I just worked on in the evenings. It has been taking me two evenings on average to complete a layout so that could be 182.5 layouts in the next year... Yeah, right!

OK so I have done the pages but I have no proof since I keep forgetting to bring them into my office to scan them and my photographing attempts at home are awful. I'm out of town for the weekend so I will likely get no more pages done, so next week I will definitely scan at least one or two and have something for "show and tell."

Meanwhile, it's almost 5:00 on Friday and I need to finish up my actual real work so I can get out of here. Let the weekend begin!