Scrapbook Week Day 6--Choo Choo Trains

This is one of my favorite layouts ever!

I have a son who LOVES LOVES LOVES Trains!

This layout is made from using a bunch of strips of paper that I had as scraps and creating a background with those. After I adhered all those to the paper, then I just added pictures and the words CHOO CHOO TRAINS to the page. My friend Mickey has a cricut so she cut the letters out on her machine for me. The train along the bottom is the new Stampin' Up Train Set in the Spring Mini. The photos are backed with SU Chocolate Chip paper.

I love the colors of this and that I used up some scrap pieces of paper! You could adapt this to any number of styles or themes!

Its pouring down rain here today, so I hope you are all staying dry!

Scrapbook Week Day 4

Its raining its pouring....I wish I was snoring and taking a nice little nap or reading a good book....its one of those days where that you be the best thing to be doing!


**Don't forget to enter to win the blog candy here **
http://thebeautifulbasics.blogspot.com/2009/04/blog-candy.html
contast ends Sunday at 5pm CDT for some scrapbooking tools!

Here is another scrapbook layout. (click to enlarge)

This layout features some crafts that my son has done at school. The sunshine has cutouts of his hands as the rays of sun and the tukey is made from a hand print. Cute stuff!

I added the green box on the bottom to write in all the things that he loves to do and eat and just some little facts about him at this age, and then there is a picture of him at school at his table. These kind of layouts go quickly because the crafts become the design. I used die cut cardstock stickers for the frog and other embelishments.

Scrapbook Week Day 5--Memorial Layout

Scrapbook Layout--A Memorial to my Grandmother

Here is another scrapbook layout. This one is a memorial to my grandmother. Some people think its weird to scrapbook things from her funeral, but I wanted to remember her for who she was and the things she loves. I included the program from her funeral but the other items will all be about her. I have a picture of her when she was little and I need to find a picture of her they way I remember her. She was lively and fun and so vibrant! She loves birds and raised them, hence the birds nest and bird house. She also played in a ukulele band so I may try to incorporate that. I also want to write some of our memories on here. this page is not finished, but the basic layout is done and I wanted to share. I love the Spring colors on these pages and I love that it is all about the things she loved.

I miss you Maw Maw!

Heather

Scrap book Week:Day 2--Garden Page

Here is another layout that I did at my Spring Scrap booking retreat a few weeks ago. This one was showcasing the making of our garden (click on the pictures to enlarge). We worked on it pretty steadily for about 2 weeks and it was documented with lots of pictures so I chose this layout so that I could have quite a few pictures plus some squares to journal in. I love the flower overlay to make it pop.

Scrap booking Week Day 2--Road Trip Layout

Our first road trip scrap book page!

This layout does not have many pictures, it really just has information. This is the first page of a series of pictures from the first road trip my husband and I took together a few years ago. We drove from Texas to South Dakota and back and had a really fun time and saw much of the middle of this beautiful country of ours. I was amazed at how each state had their very own distinct personality. So, on this page, I took pictures of state signs and other items and just made an information page about where we had gone on our trip, then the following pages will have more specific information about our destinations.

Not all scrap book pages have to contain tons of pictures, I will show you some throughout this week that are packed with pages and others that have none....so stay tuned for some ideas!

For this page, I used some die cuts, some photo cut outs, like the state signs, and an actual old atlas for the map of the US. Then I put some blocks so I could journal about our trip. Remember to journal your thoughts and feelings, because in 10 years, you may not remember where that picture was taken or which states you visited on that trip!

Stay tuned for some BLOG CANDY later on this week! I will be giving away some fun stuff!

Have a good one!

Heather

Scrap book Week: Day 1

Howdy Folks....

This is the last picture I took before my camera battery died, so I am recharging them as we speak so I can post scrap booking ideas all week long.

This is a fun cover page that I am using for Landry's scrapbook. This actually started out as a name plate that goes in a frame and you hang on the wall but we ended up not using it for that so I glued it to the black and white polka dotted paper and made it the title scrap booking page for a scrapbook.

But look how cute just the red part was...it made a super cute little name plate for a door, just pop it in an inexpensive frame and its a fun gift for someone.

So...this is the beginning of scrapbook week...so stay tuned! I hope those batteries get charged so I can show you much much more!

Good night!

Heather

Scrapbooking: Using a Dobber

I love to use dobbers and create little shadows around the edges of the things that I make. I only discovered "dobbing" last year at my scrap booking retreat and I use it on practically everything now.

This is a mini scrapbook (its about 5X5 inches) that I made out of small brown lunch sacks. This is for my friend Sheena and her new little boy Kyler.

This is just a chip board "k" that I inked with a Stampin Up chocolate chip brown marker, which is my favorite color these days.

This first shot below is the cover without any dobbing.
This paper is one of Stampin' Ups Designer Series and I cannot remember the name, but I am sure Lindsey will read this and can enlighten us because she just knows all that kind of stuff.

This is a dobber, its this little round thing that is hollow that you can put on your finger, it has a fabric kind of end that you use to dob with.

First thing you do is put the dobber on the ink of a stamp pad. If you want just a little color then just barely tap it, if you want a lot of color, then really pound the thing!

Then you just "dob" the color in the area where you want it. I typically go around the edges of things and make shadows on the edge. It also brings out the edge of the paper which is a nice addition if you are layering your picture mats.

If you want a less visable shadow, then you can pic up the paper and just dob the very edge of the paper.

After dobbing around the entire edge, this is the finished product. I just liked the softness and subtleness of the shadow. Plus, I think it gives it a little more depth.

Then I took another matching sheet of designer paper that was slightly larger and adhered the "k" sheet to it, which really brings out the dobbing more, then I adhered that to the same polka dotted designer paper that I had used before, just slightly larger and dobbed around the edges. The ribbon that is used to close the book is adhered in between the layers of designer papers.

I think it turned out so cute!

Here are 2 of the inside layouts, just to give you some ideas. They are very simple.

I love it when things bleed from one page to the other, so I liked that Kyler's name went onto the next page.

This is what I call a "stats" page. It has lines for you to put the date, weight, etc of the baby. All the important stuff! And a spot for the picture or journaling on the right.


On the same day, I was making another little lunch sack scrapbook for my son's friend Marc. Mark was having a Harley Motorcyle themed birthday party. The "Wanted" part on the cover was taken from the actual invitation. The Invitation talked about the "Notorious Biker Marc" so I used that on the front page as well.



When you use these little lunch sacks, they have natural little pockets for you to use because it would be the opening of the lunch sack. So, I made little pull out pages with tabs for things like who came to the party, what gifts he got, etc.

Here is the page layout, and then to the right there is a tab that you pull out

and it looks like this once you pull it out.

And here are just a couple of the other page layouts to give you some ideas. Below, the truck is a stamp from Stampin Ups Load of Love set and then I just hand drew the Happy Birthday sign.


His Mom told me this was her personal favorite and my husband said she almost cried when she opened it! (Mark, the 3 year old had gotten distracted with another gift so she was opening them for him).

These are great gifts, and they are easy. They do take some time but you can save some money if you already have the supplies around your house.

Happy Scrapping!

Heather

Photos-Comparisons & Reference

I mentioned earlier that it is fun to take similar pictures of the years so you can see growth with a comparison. Here is one I took a few days ago compared to the one I took when he was a baby. In both we have the Kermit the Frog as a reference.

It can make for a fun scrap book page as your chronicle their history with the one object. you can do it subtley or very obviously, its your choice!

Have fun! Happy Holidays!

Scrapbooking--Digital Style

I have been introduced to Digital Scrap booking fairly recently and I really like the things you can do with it. I have some friends who use Digital Scrap booking solely and don't have a lick of scrap paper in their arsenal...its all on the computer and then they just print it out when they are ready to put it in the scrapbook. This is great because you don't have to worry about not liking something or doing something wrong because you can always just back out of what you did or hide that action and not show it on the final product. The downside is that sometimes people do everything digitally and never print it out because they forget or it is expensive, etc. So, you have to figure out what is right for you and go with it. I personally love to scrapbook and work with the paper in my hands and make my creations, however I use digital scrap booking "supplies" for other things as well and I can see how great it would be if I needed to mass produce some pages.

There are lots of free digital scrap booking sites out there, I use http://shabbyprincess.com/ the most often for their free downloads and I just like the style of their designs. I use them on invitations, my blog backgrounds, and creating interesting backgrounds and borders on pictures. You need to have photoshop or photoshop elements or some similar program to be able to do digital scrap booking, but its a fun way to do things and play around with backgrounds and "looks" to see what you really want without damaging anything.

There are also other tools you can use when you need to touch up a photo. One of my favorite bloggers, The Pioneer Woman, has a section on photography and she offers tips and some tools for touching up your photos when you use adobe photoshop. Her photography section can be found here http://thepioneerwoman.com/photography/

Its also fun to do things like play with the color tones. I love the sepia tones and black and white photos, when done well, it makes the use of color superfluous because the black and white (or sepia) tones tell the story without muddy-ing the water with color. I think there is something very pure about it.

So, if you are interested, look around and see what you can find for free. There are lots and lots of free digital scrap booking sites and you will probably find one that speaks to your style more than some of the others. I mean heck, its FREE! You can't beat that with a stick!

I will try to play around with some photos tomorrow and post some digital scrap booking ideas for you...so stay tuned!

For those who were looking for a High Heels Workout tonight, it didn't happen...my scab on my knee is still not quite to the "easily bendable" stage and still causes me quite a bit of pain when doing crazy things like riding a bicycle. Tomorrow should be the day...and there is even a slight chance that later on tonight I will just grit my teeth and ride the bike anyway because I really feel like I need to work out...I am feeling rather bum-ish for the last few days...you know, like a bum. And, while I am feeling bum-ish, I don't want my bum to get any larger so I really need to do something! So, maybe I can at least do some sit ups or something....

Its December...enjoy the season!

Heather

Scrapbooking-Turning 2 is fun to Do

(And...last time...the layout is laying on a polka dotten blanket, don't let it throw you off.)

Turning 2 is Fun to Do!

Here is yet another page of pictures taken on his actual birthday when we had cake with family members. This is a simple design and really took no time at all. The papers are all Stampin' Up and actually what made it super simple was that I bought this is a layout pack from my sister Lindsey at http://stampwithlinz.blogspot.com/

She takes papers that go together and basically puts together the parts for a layout and then you just figure out where you want to adhere everything and mount your pictures and go. I really love how easy it is to do this with Stampin' Up because the colors always match...they are made to go together...so the red ribbon matches the red paper matches the red buttons...for me, it makes life so much easier because I love my reds to match---that is just the way I am---I hate it when the color is off!

Scrapbooking-Animal Print Ribbon

(Again, don't let the polka dotted blanket its laying on throw you off! )

Here is another page from the day at the zoo, only this one is about lunch at Cracker Barrell....oh, I wish we had a Cracker Barrell here!!!!! But alas, we do not so we go to the one up by one of my sister's houses an hour and a half away.

And while I think this is a simple page, I LOVE LOVE LOVE the giraffe pattern ribbon, I think it makes such a nice touch with the theme (Zoo Day) and looks really cute with the yellow and chocolate chip stamps and paper. Plus the pictures are mounted on Stampin' Up's Basic Gray, which is a great neutral color.

Scrapbooking--Big Pictures and Combining Pics

(This page is laying on a polka doted blanket, so don't let that throw you off.)

This is one of my favorite pages I have ever done. I loved how all these photos turned out from our day with the vintage trains. My son LOVES trains! I like to have some variance in my scrapbook pages and use different sizes of photos. The big picture in front of the train (The trains name is Puffy, by the way) is actually an 8.5" X 11" picture and I cropped it down a little bit. My sister helped me on this one because I literally sat looking at the photos for at least 45 minutes before I had any inkling how to get them on the page, so I put it away and worked on something else until I could get my professional scrap booking sister to come help me with the layout. I am really pleased with how it turned out!

I also like the large picture on the second page. I did not have another picture that I had had blown up so she suggested I create a big picture by combining some pictures into one. I love the way everything looks and I am so pleased that our pictures with Puffy can now be highlighted in such a pretty way! I also can't wait to go the the Great Plains Transportation Museum on our way west for Christmas...I should mention that we are going north then turning left to go west, otherwise you would all wonder why I thought Kansas was west of Texas. :)

Have a beautiful day and make a beautiful page in your life!

Heather

Scrapbook page-A Whimsical Page of our Zoo Day

Here is another page in the saga that was my son's birthday. We had his party at the zoo(Saturday), then we took everyone out to eat(Saturday for lunch), then we had cake on his actual birthday(Monday). This page is fairly random...this is a conglomeration of a bunch of pictures from teh zoo of people and animals...and people in a tee pee! I cut out the blades of grass and then just snuggles some animal pictures in there. I cut the picture in the tee pee to look like they were in a tee pee with a paper tee pee that I cut out behind the picture. The butterfly pictures were wooden boards set up in the park that the kids could go stand behind and put their faces up to it for pictures.

No, nothing is to scale...otherwise that is one HUGE flower and butterfly! but, I like it none the less. This is a little more whimsical that I usualy do, I am usually pretty organized in my scrapbooking pages but I thought I would take a more artistic approach on this one and I am pleased with the results. Its kind of a silly page but it was a silly and fun day for all, so that is okay!

Craft-Lunch Bag Scrapbooks as teacher gifts

(Don't let the white and pastel polka dotted blanket throw you off.)

Here are some more of those lunch bag scrapbooks that I talked about earlier in the year. I am making these as teacher gifts for my son's teachers. I made 8 of them....it did take quite a while and I was really glad when I was finally through. I think next time I will take on an easier project, but if I only had to make one or two, it wouldn't have taken much time at all.

I bought these lunch bags in bulk at Sam's. I think they were around $6-$7 and there is 500 of them. While I don't plan on making a gazillion of these, I thought I could use the lunch sacks for other things so I just went ahead and got them. I used 4 bags but I think if I had to do a bunch, I would only use 3 bags next time. The beauty of this project is that the pages and layouts are so small! The paper I cut to put on the page is only 4.5"X 4.5". So, you could easily do this with scraps. Plus, I tried to do the pages in bulk, so I would try to make 8 pages of the same page at once. Like I said, I spent quite a bit of time on this, but I think if you did it in stages, you wouldn't notice it as much. for instance, if you cut out all the squares one night, then stamped the embellishments the next time, then added brads and such another time, etc.

I think his teachers will love them and HEY, at least I am DONE!

So, grab some lunch bags and make a scrapbook! A variation on this is to only use the lunch bag as the scrapbook cover and then cut card stock that is 9"X 4.5" and make them the pages. You can staple or sew down the middle for the binding or punch holes and use ribbon as a "binder." Once again, the possibilities are endless!

Craft-Lunch bag Scrapbook-an new one

Yep--Still awake!

Here is another lunch bag scrapbook that I did, I took pictures this time before I gave it away. This is one we will be doing for our super craft day our church. I mainly used Bella Rose Designer Paper from Stampin Up and then just a few accents here and there. Its not overly fancy because...well, it was after midnight and I think my fancy juices just plain ran out! But anyway, I needed to get it done so it could go on display tomorrow at church, so its done for now. There will also be a more "boyish" version where I will use Muirfield Designer Series Paper from SU and that will replace the reds and pinks with blues and greens.

This is the cover

One layout--it is supposed to look like presents/gifts and you can put your picture in the middle or journal.
Another layout..have you noticed I love the color chocolate chip?
I think these colors are tres cute!
Just cut the paper in a diagonal and voila! (See, I told you my creative juices were running low)
And the back cover...

I wanted it to be Christmas-y for those who wanted to use it for Christmas but also versatile enough that it could be used for something else. Was I successful? Well, I think so but like I said, its 2 am...what do I know?! I may totally hate it by sunrise!