A quick card!

Just enough time and energy for a quick card tonight.

Went out to dinner last night with one of my oldest friends and found out she and her husband are having a baby! How exciting! Getting home I decided I oaught to send her a quick card in the mail - just a bring a little joy and sunshine to her day.

Today I made it. I based the card upon a sketch from a previous CK magazine. I love to use scrapbook sketches for card-making too! Check out Becky Higgins' column in CK - each month she creates one card based on her sketch. Super cute! Anyway, pulled together scraps from my table...yes, these were all papers already out and cut up. Stamped this fun pregnant lady and colored in with markers. Added a doo-dad or two and done.

Supplies:

Paper - (white cs) Georgia Pacific; (teal cs) Bazzill; (teal dot) Reminsce; (pink) My Minds Eye; (yellow) Scenie Route

Other - (pregnant woman stamp) Amuse artstamps; (square scallop punch, scallop border punch, congrats stamp and markers - blue/pink) Stampin' Up!; (marker - yellow) Studio; (metal star) Colorbok - $1 at Joann's; (ribbon) Michaels; (oval and oval scalloped) Spellbinders; (corner rounder) EK Success

Hint: I love to buy my 8.5x11 white cardstock at Sam's Club. It comes in a huge pack - like 250 sheets - for under $10! Why spend more?!

Bits and Pieces

Another page with bits and pieces...this and that...fun and more fun! I love to search my supplies for perfect accents. It's like shopping again! I created this page based on another page by Elizabeth Kartchner...I love the way she incorporates shapes and color into her layouts. They always turn out so stylish and fun! Anyway, working on creating some pages for a scrapbook for my mom. Similar plan as for the mother-in-law: I'll create a page for major holidays and gift them to her.

I have about a million pictures from our trip to Las Vegas a couple of years ago, but didn't have the time or want to put in the effort to scrapbook them all. And since I wanted to make ONE page, not many, I decided to go for a more generalized concept - what a vacation should be. The journaling features many of the mishaps and adventures from this vacation in particular, but pretty much sums up all of our silly, dysfunctional Leland-family vacations.

I love the idea of the angle! It seems to add just the right flair. I also like to concentrate on 4-5 main colors for the page. As you can see the pictures didn't offer much inspiration. However, I remembered from the trip the abundance of the Southwestern colors: the blue sky and turquoise jewelry, the orange rocks and sun, the green evergreens in the mountains, etc and brought these colors in. I also just love my Spellbinders diecuts and notice that I use the circles and scalloped circles over and over...these sets are definately a GREAT BUY!

Supplies:

Paper - (turquiose) My Minds Eye; (white) American Crafts; (orange) Scenic Route; (green) My Minds Eye; (yellow) unknown; (orange) Stampin' Up!; (brown transparancy) Hambly

Accents - (chipboard circle words) Scenie Route; (felt flowers) Prima; (sun diecut) Cosmo Cricket; (deco eyelets) We R Memory Keepers; ("happy" plastic) KI Memories; (chipboard "L" and "4") K&Company; (chipboard "what a" and "should be") Heidi Swapp; (foam "family vacation") American Crafts; (cloud paper border) Sass-a-fras

Tools - (marker) Slick Writer by AC; (circle/scallop circle diecuts) Spellbinders; diecut machine (Cuttlebug)

It's a Colorful World

Gotta love these colors! How fun are these bright colors? I love the new line by Cosmo Cricket (Snorkel)...it's so bright and fun and summery! You can find it RIGHT NOW at Picture This too! Anyway, decided to start a holiday tradition for my in-laws by making a scrapbook page featuring one of the kids or grandkids for each holiday. My mother-in-law doesn't scrapbook, but I still think she appreciates the effort.

Found one of these pictures in a stack she printed for us and the other is one I took while babysitting. (This is my niece, Emily. Isn't she super cute?!) I was inspired by an absolutely adorable page made by Elizabeth Kartchner - check it out here. Since the colors in the photos were all over the place, I decided to use a paper with a lot of color too. Kinda bold, but I think it works.

Supplies:

Paper - (black scallop) Diecuts With a View; (white) American Crafts; (yellow hearts) Sass-a-fras; (stripe) Cosmo Cricket

Accents - (red buttons) Walmart; (green buttons) Oriental Trading; (teal buttons) K&Company; (yellow plastic buttons) ATD; (floss) Karen Foster Designs; (glitter chipboard flowers and butterfly) Paper Crush by Colorbok; ("happy" chipboard and "Emily" sticker letters) American Crafts; (lined stamp) Inque Boutique; (white embossing powder) Stampin' Up!; (journal box) Cosmo Cricket; (brads) Making Memories; (ribbon) May Arts; (rickrack paper border) Doodlebug

Tools - (border punch) Martha Stewart

Hippity Hoppity...

I'm not a huge fan of "theme" pages. Sure, I scrapbook the holidays and birthdays and events, but not the same way as others. As with my other pages, I try to stick to the basics as far as supplies go - patterned paper, flowers, flourishes, buttons, brads, etc. In reality, I'm actually kind of boring since I use the same things all the time. I guess using them in different ways and seeing the different textures and colors is the only way I get around this and keep things fresh and fun.

This page took me about 1 1/2 hours. And that's pretty typical. I mess around with the accents and photo placement a gazillion times before adhering anything down. And usually I end up with a completely different page than when I started. For example, I started the page above with a yellow/white pattern and 3 6x4 inch photos. I knew I wanted the accents and photos to be arranged in a circle, but things just weren't coming out right. So, I cropped a photo and added another (after noting there was room since the photo was smaller). I also realized the yellow looked best right behind the pictures since they are a tad bit dark and found a brighter red/pink background instead. I was all about the felt flowers no matter what. I added gems and plastic swirls to form the circle. And I love these letters because they are fuzzy - matched the flowers and just felt Easter-y. Sure liked how it came out!

Supplies:

Paper - (red/pink dot, light yellow dot, red dot) Scenic Route; (yellow pattern) K&Company

Accents - (paper border) Sass-a-fras; (straight lines of gems) Hero Arts; (curved lines of gems) Heidi Swapp, (red/pink/plain yellow felt flowers) KI Memories; (yellow flower w/ gems) K&Company; (plastic swirls) Bo Bunny; (rhinestone brads) Making Memories; (5-stone brad) Creative Imaginations; (felt letter stickers) Doodlebug; (journal box) My Minds Eye

Tools - (marker) Slick Writer by AC; (scallop and plain circle diecuts) Spellbinders; (border punch) EK Success

No more snow! We want SUMMER!

Been too busy lately BUYING to actually do a scrapbook page...thinking about doing a little creating tonight though. From a past photo session I pulled this page - a classic. I love the design - so simple, so easy, so fun.

You could really create a page similar to this one but with more photos, less photos, two pages, etc. I think it would make a super 2 page layout too...one page full of pictures and patterns (wall-to-wall with no white space) and then one page like the one above. But anyway, just wanted to share this to remind everyone that summer will come...eventually. Love those late summer afternoons and evenings - BBQ's, drinking with friends, enjoying a camp fire. Such good times.

***Laura's quick tip: Something I learned a LONG time ago - to add quick dimension and texture, just add a little ink! I buy those round yellow sponges (i.e. from Michael's art department) and cut them into wedges. Snap the lid shut on your ink pad and press in to create a small pool of ink in the lid. Flip it open and dab the sponge in it and rub/apply to page. Love this!

Supply Listing:

Paper - (white) Bazzill; (patterned) Mod by Autumn Leaves

Accents - ("BBQ" title) Sticker Studio; (ink) Archival Ink by Ranger; (date stamp) Stampin' Up; (pen) Slick Writer by American Crafts

P.S. Didn't realize until now there were NO embellishments on the page. Just punched circles and photo corners from the patterned paper. Seriously...how easy is that!

I Wanna Rock!

A little rock and roll...Okay, I was never a real fan of classic rock (I am getting there though). My husband, then boyfriend, IS. And he's totally obsessed with Styx! In many ways, it closely parallels my obsession with Keith. But anyway, we thought of making a fun weekend out of concert trip to Chicago. Stayed in the suburbs, but drove downtown for the big show. It was pretty neat - right on the lake. Thank goodness it was fairly warm out for a fall night! We had a blast and even though the pictures didn't turn out the best I wanted to make a scrapbook page.

As you can see, I used mostly smaller pictures. You'll note that even if your picture is fuzzy as a 4x6, it may be clearer as a wallet. I also wanted to include some memoribilia on the page: the ticket and a bumper sticker I bought at the show. I found a cool Basic Grey paper (the garbled green/blue) that I thought just rocked..and was perfect for such a page. Kept the colors matching for the rest of the page...I appreicated the ticket was in blue (which matched) and the pictures and sticker in neutral colors (which match anything). Most of my journaling is hidden on two tags "tucked" into the page. This is a perfect idea when you want to journal more but just don't have the space! I just really liked how this one turned out. A keeper.

Supplies: Paper - (grey pattern and blue/green garbled) Basic Grey, (black cardstock) Rooney Printing, (white cardstock) Georgia Pacific Accents - (file tab) KI Memories; (ribbon - stripe & stitch pink/black) American Crafts; (black stitched) May Arts; (sm star eyelets) Doodlebug; (sm letter stickers, silver brads) Making Memories; (ghost stars) Heidi Swapp; (staples) craft supply

My Little Family...

My little family... Sometimes I feel a bit left out with all the pages everywhere of "real families" - mom, dad, and junior. But scrapbooking as single person (or as a married person with no children) can be fun too! I mean we're still a family right?! Below I included my little family (minus the current addition...Chowder, my new kitten). Again, this page was inspired by my favorite artist...Ali Edwards. See her version here. This page offered me the opportunity to try out some of my newest purchases...the EK Success curvy cutter, Martha Stewart border punch, and Cosmo Cricut diecut letters. I also incorporated some classic Basic Grey papers and used my Wishblade for a quick, custom title!

Some of my favorite things...mini bio's about everyone in the family. It may be a bit cheeky to write from the cats' perspectives, but I think it's cute! Also, love the personalization the page offers....in an instant you can see who and what it's about. Plus using the dates gives you a time reference. I definately think it would be fun to update/recreate this page on a yearly basis to show how people and things have changed in your life. Maybe look for a 2009 one to come....

Supplies:

Paper - (white) Bazzill, (patterned) Basic Grey

Accents - (chipboard scrolls, corners) American Crafts; (chipboard tag) Heidi Swapp; (gold snap) Making Memories; (diecut letters - 'FAM" & initials) Cosmo Cricket; (rub-on branches) Heidi Grace; (staples) craft supply; (ink) unknown

Tools - (diecut machine - lettering "MY" and "08") Wishblade; border punch (Martha Stewart); (circle cutter) EK Success Curvy Cutter