ScrappyGoLucky- Darlene Servolini

Snow Blizzard Layout & Winter Blog Hop!

2012-01-27T00:00:00.000-05:00

Welcome to the second stop in the Winter Snowman themed Blog Hop for Michelle! She is celebrating her 1st blog anniversary and has set up a fun blog hop to celebrate.

You should have just arrived from Michelle (ScrapbookingSOS)!

Stop by Michelle’s blog to start from the top of the hop if you just arrived to join the fun!

Being that this is a winter themed hop I decided to scrapbook some photos of snow fun from last year! We had so much snow it was nuts! These photos show the 2 feet or so of snow that two huge blizzards brought us last year back to back on the East coast! Do you remember those storms? The snow was good for photos but not so fun after the fresh snow was destroyed (think slush and frozen patches everywhere!). :) We have yet to have a snow anything like this this winter but my daughter keeps praying for more snow. Haha.

I made this blizzard 2010 inspired layout with some yummy Bella Blvd. Winter Wonder collection. I won a Winter Wonder kit this month from their blog and it is fabulous I tell you!

I made three 4x6 photo collages and massed them together to make the photo mat containing 7 photos. I was surprised I could fit so many photos into one layout! I cut up the snowflakes using a neat snowflake pattern that I found online, added some Diamond Stickles on the snowflakes and snowmen stickers, and done.

The next stop on this blog hop is Divinity (Scrap-n-Patch)!

I hope you hop along and enjoy the journey!

Thanks for peeking by!

Make a Wish- Feminine Birthday Card

2012-01-26T14:00:00.001-05:00

I haven’t posted in weeks and it seems I have missed a few important holidays (oops!). So… Merry Christmas, happy New Year, and happy belated 25th birthday to me! :) How were your holidays this season? Any 2012 crafty goals set? I’d like to try for 100 layouts this year.

I have not been crafty at all in so long because I have been nesting like mad for about 6 weeks now. I was due to have my baby on the 21st of January (last Saturday) but obviously, this little one is feeling a bit cozy in here because Baby is still cooking! Hopefully I will have some new baby news to share with ya’ll within a few short days. :)

Anyhow, I had almost forgotten that I made this “Make a Wish” card for my best friend, Nicole, until I was organizing my digital folders into their right places again today. It was a simple but sweet card and I wanted to share it here.

I usually copy a simplified version of the front of my cards onto the inside of the card to have them “match” inside and out. So I used the same stack of paper and ribbon on the inside and out of the card and called it a day. :)

Stop by tomorrow or over the weekend to hop along to a fun Winter snowman themed 1st Anniversary blog hop, filled with lots of season-fun projects. Yours truly will be hosting in this hop! :)

Thanks for stopping by!

Maybe I can be a better blogger/crafter in the next few weeks, but who am I kidding? My newborn is going to keep me busy when he or she decides to come! LOL. Maybe next year. ;)

Rain or Shine- Nikki Sivils

2011-12-12T16:23:00.001-05:00

November seemed to be my lucky month for giveaways, as I won three scrappy giveaways within a week! They all came in earlier this month and I’ve been waiting for a chance to get to work finally. I used the kit I won from a blog hop by SketchesForYou, to make this “Rain or Shine” layout using Nikki Sivils, “It’s Raining, It’s Pouring,” line.

I looked throughout all of my photo stash and couldn’t find one photo that had a rainy day or puddles or anything, so I opted for a happy, sunny day photo and tried to make it work. The photo in the layout is actually one of my favorite photos of my daughter and I, and it’s the first time I scrapped it. :)

I used only Nikki Sivils elements throughout except for the red scallop punched circle scallop, under the umbrellas and rain coat (on the left of the photo mat), which was actually an old paint chip sample that I had on my desk for some reason :), and I also used American Craft Thickers for the title. I still have a few more pieces I could use to get one more layout squeezed in from the scraps, so maybe I can work on that this week. :)

I got the inspiration for this design from one of Julie Bonner’s wonderful layout. :)

Thanks for looking! :)

You Are My Sunshine- Ribbon and Scrap Paper Heaven

2011-12-06T10:57:00.001-05:00

Holy cow, is it December 6th already?! Where did the whole year go??? Christmas is just 19 days away??!!! I am so not ready! Haha.

I haven’t posted anything in nearly a month, and that it partially because I just have been so busy with schoolwork, holiday planning, doing the whole pregnant nesting thing, and just trying to keep my head on straight! So the other day I was feeling super stressed and decided I needed to play with paper for once this month. I made a quick thumbnail sketch and gathered random scrap paper and ribbon from my stash to make the above cutie page of my once 14 month old daughter in 2008. She is nearly 5 years old now. Oh, how time elapses!

I first choose my photo for the center of the sunburst, outlined on a white sheet of cardstock where the photo would sit and then I used about 25 or so pieces of ribbon and about 25 1/2 inch strips of scrap paper to make the rays on the sunburst (stemming from within the circle I outlined). I used hot glue to adhere my many layers down and I cut the finished sunburst off the white cardstock and tried to leave a little white edge all around for contrast against the final yellow background.

The clouds on the upper left are just cut out and outlined in black with sky blue chalk ink coloring. The butterflies, rainbow behind the clouds, and kite were all stickers that I’ve had forever in my stash so they found a home well here, I figured. I’ve had the song, “You Are My Sunshine” in my head for a few days—totally blaming that on my baby focused brain—so I knew I wanted to use that song as my journaling, which I wrote along the border of the yellow cardstock. :)

I’m pretty happy with the way this simple idea turned out. :)

Thanks for taking the time to look! Have a great day!

I Hope You Dance- Layered and Punched Layout

2011-11-08T10:15:00.001-05:00

I was listening to the radio about 2 days ago, when on comes the song, “I Hope You Dance.” This was the first time I actually listened to the lyrics and the words were so moving, I was instantly inspired to scrapbook with this song as my journaling. Indeed, this is exactly what I did. :)

I layered lots of paper for this layout and I used my Fiskars Apron Lace border punch for all the borders. I used some glittery Thicker alphabets and used some Diamond Stickles for extra glitter throughout the embellishments, even though the photos don’t show the sparkly-ness too well. Even though the end layout is actually pretty simple, this took me forever to get “just right” because I was being very indecisive about which patterned papers to use, what embellishments would end up on the final layout, and how to incorporate the song lyrics. I ended up making a small pull-out tag and printing the lyrics from my computer because my handwriting is pretty awful. ;)

I used Julie Bonner’s neat sketch for inspiration on the design. I love her clean lines approach to scrapping and sketching. :)

And I also used The Color Room #83 for color palette inspiration. I thought the colors were soft but somehow romantic so I knew it fit within my song dedication to my little one. :)

Thanks for stopping by all! :)

Scrapbook Room- Scrappy Tour

2011-11-02T08:50:00.000-04:00

After moving in August 2011, I had to downsize from an entire 3rd bedroom to just a small section of my laundry/pantry room to get my scrapbook supplies to fit and be functional. Luckily, this smaller space has actually helped me get more organized and make better use of my space. :)))) I am not completely “done” with my entire scrappy room but it’s nearly there, so I can finally share ~~a million~~ some pictures of the main section of my scrap space. :)

I love that I found these super adorable Jetmax modular cubes at Michaels and that they come in so many different varieties (I think AC Moore and perhaps Hobby Lobby sells something similar). Make sure you find them on sale or bring a coupon too! I collected a few of these months ago and have never looked back, organization wise. :) As soon as I set one up, I realize how many more I could use! I just added the last 5 cubes to my space a few days ago (as a graduation present to me!). :)

Luckily, I think I have all of my storage needs for now taken care of, so I can just reorganize my stash if things start to get crazy. For now, this space is a dream. I can find anything in seconds and I know exactly where everything is. If we end up moving in a few years again and I need to condense the space again, I can just stack the cubes into sets of 4, versus 3. :)

In the rest of this post, I’ll give you a small picture tour into my scrap space now.

I display little knick-knacks that I like at the tops of the cubes, including some of my college textbooks, smaller most-used items drawers, photo frames, candles, an altered Pampered Chef Tool Turn-About for holding my favorite pens/scissors/tools, and Crop-A-Dile.

Above my cubes you can see I stick my most recently finished layout on display. I think this keeps me motivated and it’s nice to look at too. :) I just use two pieces of tape behind the layouts to hold them in place as I have a small built-in coat rack that can support the weight of my layouts.

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Close-ups from Left to Right of Room

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My corner cubes are the first thing you see of my storage when you step into the room from the door. On these shelves you’ll find any altered projects I’ve made in the past. Some of the ones on display now are my DIY Rolodex, my altered paper cupcake, my Craft picture frame, and my Live Out Loud mini-album. Some of the other DIY projects in the room not included in this photo are, my DIY wedding money box (on top of my album cabinet), and fan wreath door sign.

I have labeled and organized all the drawers of my cubes by sort and then color, ie. “Alphabets- Pink or Red,” or “Stickers/Embellishments- Black, White, or Gray.” Below are some close-ups of my alphabet and sticker drawers. I tried to keep all of colors in stacks within the same drawer for easier finding and sorting.

Ok, so my Sticker drawers aren’t nearly as neat as the alphabet drawers, but even still, it is way easy to go into the appropriate drawer and pick out coordinating goodies for whatever layout I am working on.

After the row of cubes for my alphabets and stickers, the next row has slots for 8x12 sized paper, magazines, finished layouts, and drawers below for specialized “technique tools,” such as my embossing plates, paper quilling patterns, and my collection of mini-albums.

Moving on down the rows is my mini supplies, flower/button drawers, and big flower drawers. I put my buttons all sorted by colors (reds, pinks, and purples in one jar, blues and greens in another jar) and likewise for my mini or handmade flowers. Below these cubes (not pictured) are my ink and ribbon drawers, which need to be reorganized soon, but I have a plan for that! ;)

I organize my stamps and templates/masks in binders, and I keep them all in one cube at the bottom. I have them sorted by word stamps, image stamps, and clear stamps. The binders with the word and image stamps contain mostly all cling-foam backed stamps (I unmount any wooden block stamps for easier storage in the binders).

My clear stamps storage was non-existent before I put my handmade 4 inch stamp binder to use again. I used a glue dot or two (two or three glue dots for the bigger stamp sets) on each backing of my clear stamps and arranged the stamp sheet on an 8x11 sheet of cardstock and inserted that into a page protector (no more stamps falling out or getting lost if they un-cling!).

I used a sheet of cardstock for each page of my binder, so I could pull one entire sheet out and not have to be careful with the stamps on the back of the binder page. This allowed me to fit similar stamp sets right on the same pages of the binders (flowers/flourishes with flowers/flourishes). This worked especially well with the mini stamp sets.

Eventually, I will invest in transparency paper to stick the stamps onto instead of cardstock, because it just makes sense that the stamps would cling best to transparency paper. That’s on my “to do” as well.

My last set of cubes is the row of 4 drawers, where I keep my pens, pencils, punches, scissors, adhesives, misc. fiber, and the bottom cube contains all of my card drawers (finished greeting cards, stationary/paper, envelopes, and scrap paper packs).

My wire paper rack just so happens to be the same height as 3 Jetmax cubes stacked so that works out well in the grand scheme. :) I have labeled my paper rack shelves by color, as you can see a majority of my supplies are in this rainbow/color coordinated fashion. Rainbow makes me happy. :)

I take all of the papers out of any paper stacks that I buy and I organize the paper by basic color family, which I separate into two categories for my most commonly used colors (dark pink and light or bright pink , or dark green and light and bright green papers have their own shelves). I don’t mind getting the paper brands mixed up because I hardly scrap by brand anyhow. :) If I have a double sides sheet of paper, I categorize by the side of the sheet I like best (so if I could see myself using a pink polka-dot over the opposite side of green floral, I put that sheet of paper in the pink stash). Whatever color family I need is easy to find. Works for me. :)

The tallest structure on my scrappy wall is actually a cabinet that we used to use for canned good storage, but we no longer used since the move. Luckily, it was perfect for my scrappy needs and best of all it has adjustable shelves so I can reorganize as often as I’d like! :)

I chose to use this cabinet to hold my boxes of photos, finished albums or books, hold my “finished but not yet placed into albums” layouts, and at the bottom two shelves I have my 12x12 albums arranged by year (Pre-2000’s, 2000-2006, 2007, 2008… ect) and the rest of the albums are for specialty albums (Book of Me, Ally’s Baby Book, Scrap Therapy album).

The last little thing I will share is from the other side of my laundry/craft/pantry room. This side of the room isn’t “done” so I won’t share a photo of the whole room, but I must share my filing cube system. O:)

After years of struggling with scrap paper storage, it finally addresses my needs, so it gets the most use! :)) I forgot to label the outside cubes and place tabs on the inside contents but this is so functional for now!

I found some filing cabinet cubes by Recollections at Michaels one day and I HAD to buy two cubes as I didn’t know they existed! I bought a pack of 12x12 hanging files and I organized my scrap paper as I do on my paper rack above (by light/dark color), but I sort the papers by size too, so the smallest papers in the color group go up front, and the larger papers sit in the back of my hanging files. This saves me OODLES of time in flipping through my scraps and even helps greatly with putting my scraps away! It literally takes me seconds to find any piece of scrap paper to use or to put away all of my papers after a scrap session! I LOVE my filing system!

I think that wraps up my scrap room tour for now. When it is all finalized, I think I will post my first video of the “done” room. :)

Do you organize anything like my organization? What is your biggest organizational issue?

I hope you got an idea that you hadn’t considered before in this post.

Thanks for looking! God bless!

My Little Red- Black Halloween

2011-11-01T12:00:00.000-04:00

Happy All Saints Day bloggy friends! Halloween always calls for festive decoration, costumes, and of course, scrapbook layouts—so here is a Halloween themed layout I completed for the TrueXOXO scraplift challenge blog this month, as I am a guest design team member for November! Fun!

PS. XOXO is having a Design Team call this month, you could be on their DT. :)

This months challenge at TrueXOXO is to use black! I think the more black the merrier. Just check out all of the yummy inspiration from the other super talented XOXO girls for yourself! :)

I used some photos from 2008 of my once so little toddler. We both dressed as Little Red Riding Hood that year. :) I found this glittery rainbow-polka-dotted 12x12 sheet of paper (Martha Stewart paper pack), picked out a few scraps of cardstock, and went to town with black mists all over! I liked how the glitter dots in the background kind of resisted the mist and still let their glitterness shine through, although it’s harder to see that in these photos.

Because I used a bunch of misting, I wanted to use a bit of true orange, purple, and green colors in the embellishments throughout the layout. I found these adorable Halloween die-cuts, by K&Company on clearance a year or so ago and snatched it up quickly. I used some googly eyes and diamond Stickles to get extra glitter on the rest of the embellishments and fin.

Made with the sketch inspiration from Sketchabilities challenge #57.

Thanks for stopping by!

True Beauty, Inside and Out- Double Page

2011-10-31T09:32:00.001-04:00

If you are anything like me, you tend to shy away from double page layouts, as they seem to need so much more coordination and work! That was happily not the case for my latest double page layout because it really did make itself rather easily. Scrap paper and some chipboard pieces came to the rescue for this design. :)

I think the tricky part for me for making double page layouts is that I want both sides of the layout to stand strong enough on their own, with or without the other complimentary page. I still tend to work on double pages as if they were just one long layout but I try to add details that accent both sides equally, and that they keep the “visual triangle” present throughout.

Above is a photo of how the layout will look in my albums (I finally reorganized ALL of my scrappy layouts into appropriate yearly albums!), and below is a few close-ups of the scrap paper and chipboard work.

For the October 2011 Let’s Scrap challenge, I used an older April 2011 Let’s Scrap sketch and followed it pretty closely. I love that this sketch let me focus on my photos! :)

Thanks for peeking by! Happy Halloween! Have a safe day!

Portraits on the Beach- Ocean City, MD

2011-10-28T08:03:00.000-04:00

It seems my scrappy mojo is on a schedule lately; its here for 3-5 days straight (and I want to scrapbook all day) then goes AWOL for nearly 2 weeks or more (and I don’t even want to bother)! What am I suppose to do with that annoying mojo switch anyway!? On that note, I made this layout on my last scrappy high, and I thought I had posted previously, but I did not obviously, ‘cause here it finally is. :)

We went to Ocean City, Maryland for the first time, this last summer for the weekend, and we found a bit of time to go to the beach and lounge around before dinner time (we stayed in a nice hotel right off the beach). Just as we got settled in, we were approach by a sweet young lady that offered to take our pictures (she worked for a local photography spot) and we agreed. I really loved these 2 frames of us as a family of 3 (I was a few weeks pregnant but not really showing in these pictures) so we ordered these prints, and of course I needed to scrap them!

It’s still sort of surreal that in just a few weeks we will be converted to a family of 4. Yup, that totally sounds weird. I guess I’ll enjoy the current normalcy before all newborn-baby craziness comes through! Haha. :)

Thanks for stopping by! Have a great weekend and safe Halloween!

Love- Simple School Binder Layout

2011-10-27T08:27:00.000-04:00

I use a 2 inch binder for my school work, and I needed an updated binder cover to replace a 2 year old layout of my daughter (seen in next photo). She has grown so much in just 2 years and I really wanted to show off my big girl, as seen in the photo above (taken summer 2011), when I pull out my school work! :)

old cover layout~~~>

I had been scrapping all day and I realized I had all the scraps laid out already to make a new layout, so I did. Brown DCWV background, with various paper scraps, plus Basic Grey chipboard stickers, and three big flower blooms made this layout come together nicely. I rather like the minimum embellishment feel. :)

PS. I LOVE using up my older stash for layouts like this! :D

I used the Sampler Kit Club’s October sketch for some inspiration. I always need a start point! :)

What is your must have tool/embellishment when you scrapbook? :)

Thanks for looking!

You and Me- Mother and Daughter

2011-10-26T15:07:00.000-04:00

I browse through my favorite sketch challenge sites (I have a list of awesome sketch sites in my blog’s sidebar just for you if you need some links too!) when I need a kick start for scrapping. I knew I loved the clean design of SketchSavvy’s sketch and started straight way with this orange, blue, and purple color scheme. This layout came together so quickly! I chalk it up to good organization, of course! :)

I pulled out a bunch of scrap papers and an old kraft colored envelope and hot glued everything down. I totally don’t use adhesive runner anymore for the last two months, I have switched brands MANY times and I can’t find anything that is even close to being as easy to use and holds nearly as well as the permanent bond of hot glue. I’m not sure if the glue is acid free, but really I’m not too worried about that right now. The I-don’t-have-to-waste-$500-on-adhesive-every-month factor totally sold me!

As my new usual, after I got this layout’s design all pretty much done, I looked for my photo in my stash. I found two photos of my daughter and I from this summer, where we just so happened to be wearing purple and orange, can it be more perfect than that!? I swear by selecting photos post-design! REALLY! I included the second photo of us in the envelope. Maybe I’ll stick a letter for my girl in there too. :)

This layout came from the wonderful inspiration of SketchSavvy’s October sketch. :)

What adhesive do you use? Anyone know of a acid free glue stick company?

Have a great day! :)

Fall 2010- Nana and Granddaughter Love

2011-10-26T10:08:00.001-04:00

I am just nearly finished with setting up my scrap area finally, and while I was reorganizing my stash (in some new Jetmax cubes! :))) ) I found these festive fall/autumn leaf embellishments. I pulled them out for quick inspiration. Sure enough I made a bunch of layouts yesterday because my new organization made it all too easy and fun. I love organizing. Life is good. :)

I searched through my scrap paper stash to find some coordinating patterned papers for my layout, and choose one 12x12 sheet of background paper. When I had my design set up, I went through my photo collection and found this perfect photo of my dear MIL with my daughter last October (could the colors be more right!?), when we all went to Gatlinburg, TN to vacation for a week or so. We had a really great time. :)

This was super easy to put together as I got the inspiration from one of the many inspirational layouts on the October 2011 TrueXOXO scraplift challenge. I choose to scraplift Lindsey’s super adorable layout below. Doesn't it just scream autumn festivities with those beautiful colors?! I just turned the design on its side for my own take. Because I used Lindsey’s layout for inspiration I am also entering this layout in the Let’s Scrap DT challenge 118. :)

Check out TrueXOXO and scraplift your own take of one of their designs to be in the running for a guest design team win by the 31st of October! I was lucky to win last months challenge and in November yours truly will be there GDT member! :) You should TOTALLY stop by and check it out. There is a new challenge posted monthly on TrueXOXO. Very fun group of gals indeed. :)

Thanks for coming by!

My True Love- 5 Year Wedding Anniversary

2011-10-14T08:25:00.000-04:00

My husband and I celebrated our 5 year wedding anniversary this last May, a day after his birthday. :) We found out about my pregnancy about a week before this date. :) We went on a date to eat some Mexican food nearby (I did not want to eat anything else and was craving Mexican food all day! LOL). Actually, Mexican sounds pretty tasty right about now too! LOL.

I really enjoyed working with this color palette of black, red, and blue. I just so happened to have some rub-ons that coordinated perfectly with those same colors, so I used up the entire package of rub-ons throughout. :) I think I’d like to put this layout in a shadow box one day. :)

I got the inspiration for this from Pencil Lines Sketch #190:

Have a great weekend!!! :)

So Proud of You- Sassy Lil’ Sketches

2011-10-13T18:09:00.000-04:00

Apparently, I have been on a scrapping kick the last few days, in spite of how tight my schedule seems, thanks to a 15 credit semester! I love when I start cranking layouts out this! It seems that having sketch challenges really help me get some artsy stuff done. Why didn’t I think to do challenges on blogs before???

This layout is of my dear daughter on the first day she rode her bicycle, when she got the bike as a fourth birthday gift from her grandparents. When did she get so grown anyway? I took the photo on my manual film camera and developed the film and enlarged the print myself. I think the official size of this photo 6x7 and I think this is the first time I work with a big format photo. I think I liked the big photo idea and it was nice to switch up from the usual 4x6 prints. :)

I made this all out of scrap papers again! I LOVE my new scrap paper organizing system—I have just added 2 Jetmax hanging file cubes to my storage, which replaced an accordion style folder recently—and I can find, use, and sort through my scrap papers within seconds now. Since we just moved a few weeks ago my scrappy space is still not complete and I need 5 more cubes to be done with my scrappy space for now. :) When I get the rest of my scraproom set up as I like it in a few weeks, I’ll be sure to do a new little tour.

Curious: do you rather video or picture scraproom tours?

This layout was made with inspiration from Sassy Lil’ Sketches:

Thanks for stopping by!! :))

Bun in the Oven- 10 Week Ultrasound Pictures

2011-10-13T08:12:00.000-04:00

The bigger my belly gets, the more I want to record my thoughts about pregnancy as it unfolds. I have been keeping up with my beloved Belly Book on a weekly basis and it is really so crazy how fast time has elapsed already! I’m officially in my third trimester already (25 weeks along) —when did that happen!?

To try to keep up with the pregnancy scrapping, I made this layout of my 10 week ultrasound pictures that I had back in June or July. I have my newer 20 week ultrasound photos to scrap next. :)

I wanted to keep this very simple as the photos were so large and I didn’t want to clutter up the page. I used some Cosmo Cricket’s Material Girl collection for the background paper (it felt kitchen-y) and used a strip of my hand-stamped oven and mitt paper (by Raisin Boat stamps—Hot Mama) colored in roughly with some chalk inks. I did a bit of journaling around the edges too. :)

The sketch I used for inspiration is from Scrapbook Challenges sketch 98:

Have a great week!

New Mother- January 1987

2011-10-12T08:32:00.000-04:00

Being pregnant always makes me extra attracted to anything motherhood related. Newborn and pregnancy photos just melt my heart, even more so than usual. I found myself looking at this photo of my mother holding me as a newborn and I felt so overwhelmingly thankful and grateful that my mother has always loved me and my siblings so. Even in this photo of us, the look in her eyes is one of tenderness and love, after just hours of knowing me. I love you , Mom!

I started the layout without a picture in mind (I can’t seem to scrap well with a picture in mind anymore, it’s so distracting!) and when I had all my desired elements together, I flipped through my photo stash and I knew this photo was perfect for the design. :)

I distressed all the edges of the die cut paper and background paper because I didn’t want the layout to be so “flat” looking so I added a bit more texture with the distressing. I used my Fiskars Apron Lace punch, fussy cut the flowers out of patterned paper, and used glittered white Thickers and stickles for the flower centers. The journaling I added on the strips at the left reads, “Joann proudly holding her newborn baby Darlene at the tender age of seventeen.”

I was instantly inspired by Once Upon a… Sketch October sketch:

Hooray for sketch challenges (that I actually have time to complete!).

Thanks for stopping by!

HUGS!

Our Forever Sisterhood- Grid and Multi-Photo Layout

2011-10-11T15:29:00.000-04:00

Over this past summer, I went to visit my family in NYC for a few days and my sister and I had a fun and crazy shopping date together where we took about a zillion weird/funny pictures. Some of these photos are taken in dressing rooms, on the street as we were walking from store to store, and others when we got back from our shopping day and we were lounging around. I LOVE this girl and she makes me feel so young and carefree (I am mentally about 45 years old, not my actual 24 years, you know?). We always have a blast together and the older she gets, the closer our bond. How cool is that?! I <3 <3 <3 her!!!

I have always loved gridded layouts but I don’t ever seem to get them quite right when I try them myself! I played around with some scraps and decided this placement went well enough. If my sewing machine would actually start working properly again I might have actually sown through the background, not faux stitched, but whatever. It gave a somewhat effect of sewing, enough for me I suppose.

I found a Sassy Lil’ Sketches sketch that helped pull this design together:

PS. I have a strong feeling she will delete the tag I put on her Facebook of this layout. LOL. Oh crazy teens and how obsessive they are about what others think of just a single bad picture (or five). :D

Grow Baby, Grow On- First and Second Trimester Progression Photos

2011-10-11T07:57:00.000-04:00

I have been taking weekly photos of my growing belly since the day I found out about my pregnancy. I did this photo progression idea for my daughter and I still love to go back and flip through those photos. Isn’t it amazing how much our bodies can change in such little time?

For this two page layout, I edited the photos I wanted by week, added the number of weeks I was pregnant in the actual photo, and printed 4 (wallet sized) pictures on a single 4x6 print. This process is too easy when using the free photo editing program Picasa, by the way (I edit all my photos before printing with Picasa).

I found this super cute Creative Imaginations background patterned paper on clearance at Michaels one day, so of course I had to snatch a sheet of the first and second trimester papers (this was bought before I was even pregnant. I figured it would come in handy one day. ;) )

I picked out a bunch of green, coral-ish pink, and red-brown scrap papers and made frames for each of the wallet sized photos. I kept the scraps that I cut out from within the frame and made another layout too! Double page layout made of scraps made a whole other scrap only layout. Talk about frugal scrap paper scrapping! :)

Below is a shot of the double layout as it will look in my album and some close-ups. :)

I used the Sketchabilities sketch, number 56, and stretched it to make a double page layout that would fit all the photos I had. Here is a picture of the sketch:

Come back later today to see what I did with all those frame scraps! :)

Fun Summer Time- Clusters of Embellishments

2011-10-10T08:58:00.000-04:00

I’m sharing the second scraplift layout I completed for the XOXO blog, this time I scraplifted Emma and I actually own a November guest design team position with XOXO for this layout! How cool is that?

I gathered random neglected sticker embellishments and scrap papers throughout (the background blue paper is actually rescued “floor” from my daughters doll house! Hence a few wrinkles but super cute subtle pattern. Haha)This is totally busy for my usual tastes and I had to think a while if I even liked it, but it’s grown on me the more I look at it. I love when that happens. :)

Below are a few closeups:

Here is Emmas layout that I used for scraplift inspiration:

Thanks for stopping by! :)))

One Year Old- Monochromatic Layout

2011-09-30T08:22:00.000-04:00

The XOXO blog challenges us every month to scraplift one of the layouts of their design team, and this month I loved each of the DT layouts so much, I scraplifted two of them. :) I’ll share the second layout in my next post.

I decided I wanted to use an old doily that I had for ever and a few infrequently used elements and colors, and this was what I came up with. As has been my norm lately, I assembled the entire layout (minus the title) without a photo in mind, and I just looked briefly through my photo stash to find this gem—my now 30 (something? :) ) year old cousin, Kayla, on her first birthday. Isn’t she so sweet?

Because this was a scraplift it was so easy to put this all together! I am always so surprised when I love a layout as simple as this because it’s so easy to get wrapped up in the “what is it missing?” state of mind. I think the only thing I would add to the layout is some blingy swirls but I don’t have any on hand right now, so this is pretty enough for me. :)

Here is Queen Kats layout that I lifted:

Aren’t scraplifts fun?

Have a fantastic weekend!

The Sweetest Thing- Everyday Layout

2011-09-29T08:05:00.000-04:00

I took a film photography class last Spring and I loved my experience in the darkroom and all the neat ways I was completely involved in the entire process of developing and printing my prints. I had done it years ago in high school and I was so excited to try it again. If getting my film developed commercially weren’t so inconvenient, I would totally be doing lots more film work! In any case, this was one of the photos I shot of my daughter one day—just being her cute self. :)

I stumbled upon a photo the other week of the colors gray with a hint of orange, and so I used that for the inspiration of the colors on this layout. Neutrals are always fun with a hint of color, no?

I really liked how easy it was to make this layout come together and I really loved the sketch for this design as well, courtesy of Handmade by Suzanne.

Use a new color combination on your next layout, you might just love it! :)

It’s a Servolini Thing

2011-09-28T07:48:00.000-04:00

Here are some more photos from our Disney vacation this summer. These are of my husband and my dear nephew (when did he get so grown anyway?!) rocking out with a Paper Jamz guitar, when we were just lounging around. :)

I intentionally used “girly” hued colors of the pale teal and pinks, because I wanted to pull the colors from the clothes in the photos out into the layout. I tried to make the papers more masculine feeling with distressing and black inks. The color seems a bit off in these photos, because the background paper has a sheen to it that doesn’t photograph well, but you get the gist. ;)

Thanks for peeking by! I always appreciate it! :)

God bless you and may you have a wonderful week!

BFF’s- Darlene and Thania

2011-09-27T07:37:00.000-04:00

Thania is technically my aunt but she’s younger than I am by a few months, so we grow up very close together until she moved to Puerto Rico when we were about 6 or so. I miss her being so close and it is always a treat to hang out with her!

This past New Years Eve (2010) we were able to spend the last minutes of the year together for the first time in years! New Years Eve is my ultimate favorite holiday and this last year it was especially wonderful. I had nearly ALL of my favorite people around me as we celebrated in my dad’s house, and I was crying so many happy tears before midnight. I don’t ever want to forget that night. :)

This photo of us captured the bond we have always shared despite our physical distances, and I treasure this moment. :) The background paper is actually hand stamped (Raisin Boat’s Tag You’re It).. and yes, it took about an hour to stamp 200 times! Haha.

I am really enjoying using my stamps in this DIY background type way. Have you done this? It is super fun! :)

Grand Kids and Grand Parents-

2011-09-26T08:32:00.000-04:00

We all went on a week long vacation to Orlando, Florida this summer with my little sister, my husbands parents, brother, sister in law, and my little nephew. This was teh first family vacation that all of the Servolini’s got to go on all together, so it was a treat. On our last day of theme parks, my dear in-laws wanted to take their grandkids to the “It’s a Small World” water ride, and we all joined them too. In the photo above, we are waiting in line for the ride when I convinced them to take this quick picture— this is one of the few photos of my in-laws and their grandkids together in one photo, so it is special. :)

I’ve had this blue die-cut paper in my stash for over a year now, and I always want to use it on something but the right photo hadn’t come up yet. I mixed matched a bunch of different paper lines (K&Company, Basic Grey, and SEI(?)) and used just a few pops of coral/red. :)

Have you scrapped a special family event lately? :)

Jennifer’s Bachelorette- Pink, Black, and White Layout

2011-09-23T08:34:00.000-04:00

My girlfriend Jennifer invited me to celebrate her bachelorette party with her, so naturally I agreed! We had sushi at this A-MAZING sushi bar in downtown Baltimore, called Ra, and then went out for some drinks ~~at a strip club.~~

I always have my camera handy so I was sure to take some photos of the group of gals that she invited and of course, they needed to be scrapped! I knew this lingerie patterned paper was perfect for this occasion and so I cut out some of the lingerie to use with pop dots and as embellishments.

We had a fun night. Makes me want to renew my vows so I can actually have a bachelorette party… wait am I even eligible for a bachelorette if I’m already legally married? Oh, well! There goes that idea. ;)

Thanks for looking! Have a wonderful weekend!

Cavity Bugs x2- Dentist Filling

2011-09-22T08:22:00.000-04:00

I know you’re suppose to start taking your children to the dentists when they’re about a year old, but I guess I’m a bad mom because my little one didn’t go to her first official dental appointment until she was 4 years old! Turns out that she had 2 cavities by her age of 4! Seems like I’ve learned my lesson in being proactive regarding dental screenings!

This photo is of her getting her cavities filled. They gave her some laughing gas to take off the edge of the filling procedure and she seemed fine the entire time but I thought she looked so funny with that elephant looking mask on, so she volunteered for some pictures and now here they are scrapped. :)

I made the tooth background with mists and a handful of handcut tooth buds. I tried to make a gradual dark to light pattern from top to bottom and I included one of the misted teeth near the title—who likes just throwing things away anyhow?

Thanks for stopping by and checking me out! :)

Summer, Sand, Sea- Beach Layout

2011-09-21T08:09:00.000-04:00

This summer we went with my husbands coworkers on a boat ride that took us to an island beach somewhere a bit away from us. My dearest daughter was playing with some sand and making some kind of sand “cake” so of course I had to snap some shots of her in her first summer 2011 bathing suit occasion!

I really mixed and matched all kinds of paper lines (some SEI), and I used mostly the October Afternoon Seaside collection for the embellishments throughout. I’ve been extra into negative space and clusters of embellishments lately. Lets see if I can keep it up? :)

On another note, I can’t get over how behind I am with blogging! I have about 12 layouts to share that I’ve made within the last 6 weeks. It’s gonna be a long night writing all these posts! :)

Thanks for stopping by! :)

Cake Pops- FAIL!

2011-09-20T07:59:00.000-04:00

I have seen Cake Pops all over the place online and even during my last visit to Starbucks I found them! My 4 year old daughter insisted on having one, so I told her we could make our own, even better then from the store. Yeah… Umm. Not so successful actually. They are much trickier to make then I could have thought!

I thought it a good idea to make a strawberry cake and white chocolate coating for my dear 4 year old friend Ava, who has been sadly diagnosed with brain cancer this summer, and is home for now a few more weeks before she goes back to the hospital for more treatments of chemo and radiation. :( Prayers for little Ava Caggino are much appreciated.

These came out VERY rich and they would not coat smoothly as they are online! I was pretty bummed with the end products but I think I have learned a few tricks to get the right next time, should I ever have 3 hours of boredom available. :)

This is what they are suppose to look like (click on the photo to take you to the recipes)!

My attempt wasn’t even close to the perfection of these above but oh well, I’ll just share my fail anyhow. :) Here is a video I will more closely be following by Bakerella. Haha.

Have you tried these tasty treats? Have you tried making them before?

Make me feel better by saying yours came out similarly to mine the first time too! ;)

Baby Abroad- Pregnancy Announcement

2011-09-19T08:39:00.000-04:00

May 16, 2011, I found out that I was expecting a new addition to my family! I am elated about this news, yet terrified about the risk of miscarriage. I read somewhere online to enjoy everyday you are given a pregnancy and indeed, I am going to just live in today and in the now. There is no sense in worrying myself about the possibility of miscarriage that may or may not happen, so I will just smile and be happy with what I have right now—a BABY growing more everyday! :) I am super excited to say I am over half way through my pregnancy, at week 22 now. :D

The 4x8 spot on the layout is for the announcement greeting card I sent to my family to let them in on my secret. ;) I included a photo of my original pregnancy test and a little something that I wrote up. It reads:

“Huge blessings from Almighty God,
Can come in small packages.
Call it a pea-in-the pod,
That was made with love from our marriage.

When will it make its debut?
Will it wear pink or maybe blue?
A new addition is on the way,
Welcome our Baby #2-- Hooray!

Expecting Baby Servolini
January 21, 2012”

I couldn’t wait any longer to actually scrapbook this little one inside me, so I had to scrap the announcement at least until I get the first glimpse of my precious one! :)

By the way, just a thought for any expectant mothers reading as well. I bought a fantastic pregnancy journal for my first pregnancy and wrote in it every week, as well as took a belly picture every week, and I just LOVE to look back through the journal and remember the emotions. Not to mention how nice it is to have a detailed account of what I felt/worried/was concerned about for baby #1, so I have a reference point for this belly too! So, needless to say, I just bought the same book for this pregnancy. I highly recommend The Belly Book by Amy Krouse Rosenthal, it’s so quirky and fun to keep up with. :)

How did you announce your pregnancies to your families? I would love to hear your stories! :)

Thanks for stopping by!

Basic Grey- Book of Me- Like the Back of My Hand

2011-09-18T08:44:00.000-04:00

If It’s Groovy had a challenge to make a layout featuring a photo of your hands with a message on it. I figured this would be a good a time as ever to write a bit about my hands and how they have always been one of the things I am self conscious about—they’re so wrinkly and “old” looking, and they have been for as long as I can remember. So here I wrote a bit about my feelings in regards to my too lined hands, and figured if my children inherit this wrinkly hand gene, its totally OK, because my grandmother has always had her hands this way too, and I think of the unlikely way we are very alike. :)

I took some pictures of the front and back of my hands, made the images black and white, and used random fonts that I have downloaded to write onto my photo before I printed it off the computer. I think I liked this photo-title idea. I should do this more often. :)

I used a bunch of mixed Basic Grey collection pack paper and embellishments throughout, as well as, some scraps of a We R Memory Keepers embossible designs (Vintage Blue), and some DCWV Hippie Chic epoxy stickers for the flowers.

Thanks for stopping by! :)

Raisin Boat Stamp Cards

2011-09-17T23:27:00.001-04:00

I have been completely AWOL on my blog for over 2 months now, can that be right? Yikes! I didn’t even realize I had old posts that I drafted forever ago that I never aired, so I’ll be posting those here in a few days finally! And I have been scrapping like a mad woman lately, so I’ll air some new stuff as well. :)

Amongst one of those drafted posts is this one here, featuring adorable Raisin Boat stamps (they were gracious enough to sponsor us for 2 months when I was on the IIG DT) and rental stamp company (I think of Raisin Boat as the Nexflix of scrapbooking stamps!) and their stamp prices are super reasonable for purchase as well! Check them out. :)

Below I have cards that I made with some of my favorite stamp sets:

Thanks for looking ya’ll! :)

Have a wonderful day! :))

A Father’s Love- K&Company and Graphic 45

2011-07-15T08:29:00.000-04:00

I was so smitten with the scalloped flowers from my last post that I did them again in this layout of my husband and daughter. :) Who needs expensive premade flowers anyway?

The gist of this layout was about done when I realized it was all so boring because it was just layered paper. I pulled out an ink dauber and a distress ink pad and went to town on all the edges of my papers. This was such an easy way to get my papers to pop some more on their own. I used a Coordinations cardstock sheet for the background and I sanded some of the texture off a bit before finalizing everything.

Now I have a special father-daughter bonding photo in my scrapbook album for my daughter to look at when she gets older. :) I might even have the hubs write in his own hand on this layout for an extra special touch. :)

This is a scraplift of Louise Williams, Caught In The Act layout.

Thanks for peeking by!

Ana- Brown Monochromatic Heritage Layout

2011-07-14T08:20:00.000-04:00

As I was browsing through my Google Reader, I learned that July’s challenge on Scrapbookers Anonymous was to use a color that you have most trouble using normally and to try to make it a monochromatic layout. Just minutes before stumbling upon this challenge I was feeling a bit inspired and so I challenged myself to use as many buttons as possible on one layout (as I have a million buttons in my stash!) and other mostly ignored embellishments. So was born a monochromatic brown layout featuring many brown/tan buttons.

I used some scrap fibers and ribbon under my rows of buttons, and used just a few chipboard pieces for the bird, title frame, and scalloped row at the very top. I even found some use for some old rub-ons, blingy charms (near the bird), and an old handmade tissue flower. Did I mention I didn’t use any other patterned paper besides the background paper? Yay for using up my stash, one layout at a time. :)

What else are you going to do with your hard-to-use paper or embellishments? Use them up on one layout! :)

Vice Abuela- Vintage Heritage Photo and Layout

2011-07-13T08:12:00.000-04:00

I have really given up using browns and neutral colors so much in the last year or two. I think I was overusing these colors as my defaults so much that I just got bored of them, and have really just been letting my brown and tan stacks just collect dust on my paper rack.

For this photo of my paternal great-grandmother, Catin, I thought the browns/tans would be perfect, but I just had to add some color in there with a bit of coral and green-blue. :) Keeping some pops of color didn’t make this feel like such a snore for me, as I must be using loud colors to be happy with a layout usually. We are our worst critics ehh? Haha.

The smaller flowers near the bigger coral one are handmade with a 2 inch scallop punch, that I made using a similar method as this video tutorial from Scrapping Away. I thought these were too easy and fun to make, especially when you distress each of the “petals.” :)

This was an attempt to scraplift Lesley Langdon Creative’s beautiful layout.

Thanks for looking! :)

Mother and Daughter Duo- Graphic 45

2011-07-12T09:45:00.000-04:00

I could not be more grateful to have the wonderful people I have in my life, my parents. I would not be half the person I am today without my mother and father’s guidance, moral ethics, encouragement, and love that they always showed me with. I love you both tremendously!

In lines with this thinking, I realized that I never really made a layout of my mother and I, and I just so happened to have some great pictures of us enjoying a night out together about a year ago that were just begging to be scrapped. I was glad I could finally make some art with my self portraits of us. :)

I used some Graphic 45 for the die-cut shaped paper and upper left brad on flower, and a sheet of GCD Studios green background from their Margarita collection pack. Just a few random pieces of this-and-that went in, and out came my finished layout.

Have you scrapped about your favorite people lately? :)

Cutie Patootie- Pink Paislee

2011-07-11T09:31:00.000-04:00

These photos were taken in our backyard, when we lived in Lousiana, as my girl was about to have some kiddie pool fun time. I just love the way she is sitting and the candidness of the shots. :) I captured such an ordinary moment this day, yet the photo on the right has easily become one of my top favorite photos of her. :)

Staying true to my simple style, I used a few journaling tags from Pink Paislee’s 365 Degrees collection and the remainder of a die cut sheet of paper on a dark blue background. The title was simple to come up with too—she is after all my cutie patootie as she always will be.

Hope you enjoyed my Pink Paislee creations. :)

Hello Beauty- Pink Paislee

2011-07-08T09:23:00.000-04:00

I can’t say I don’t miss those smaller toddler days in my bebe’s past. She was seriously a beauty, Ok so she still is totally adorable. I don’t think I’m even being a bit biased. ;)

Here my little darling is at about a year and a half old, learning how to play with her aunt’s cell phone. Oh, they learn too young don’t they? Haha. Few sheets of Pink Paislee’s patterned paper. a journaling die cut, and some corkboard made this finished for me.

Do you ever scrap older photos of your children and wonder where the time has gone? They’re making us old! Haha.

Classy- Pink Paislee

2011-07-07T09:18:00.000-04:00

When I captured this shot of my daughter adjusting her princess heels on Christmas morning 2010, I was hit with a few surprising emotions; joy that she was so grown, sad that she was not so small anymore, and yet so filled with pride and love that she is mine. I am so beyond blessed—God is truly good. Really, how much more perfect can love be? :)

I knew I wanted to scrap this photo of her in a simple kind of layout. This Pink Paislee paper was exactly the background I needed for her photos. I matted her photos on tags from scrap paper, and added a title (I used some Shimmers Blingz to get the ghost letter S) to finish this up.

I love easy layouts, don’t you? :)

I Believe in Us- Pink Paislee

2011-07-06T09:11:00.000-04:00

This layout is a bit out of my comfort zone as I usually practice the “less is more” rule, but using all the bits and pieces remaining from my desk made me want to make as many things as possible work for me on one layout.

Once again I used Pink Paislee’s 365 Degree collection for this layout and I used it in a way that it would it a Fall themed page. It was nice to use all of my scraps and see them play happily on one layout, I have to admit. I think this one is even my favorite out of my 365 Degree layout set.

Maybe I should use more embellishment clusters again, as my style has changed a bunch, and I used to like to do this before. Hmm. We shall just have to see what I come up with I suppose.

Below are two close-ups of my above layout. :)

Lemme know what you think. :)

You Love to Imagine- Pink Paislee

2011-07-05T09:04:00.000-04:00

When I won that NSD 2011 prize package, I was so overwhelmed! There were so many sweet new goodies to play with I almost didn't want to mess them up! So what I did after a few days of just looking at them sit pretty, I started my mission to mass make some Pink Paislee's 365 Degree collection layouts.

Above is a layout I made using their die-cut paper (scalloped lined paper), and a few of their die-cuts and alphabet stickers for embellishing. Even though the 365 Degree collection isn’t necessarily a Christmas themed line, I made the colors work for me when I thought to use this Christmas morning 2009 photo of my little girl. :)

She is my world. :)

Have you used non-themed paper for any holiday layouts? Send me a link! :)

Doll Fever- Pink Paislee

2011-07-04T08:58:00.000-04:00

After winning an awesome prize package from Scrapbook.com on NSD 2011, I decided I really needed to use some of my goodies up before they were forgotten in my stash. Haha. I made 7 layouts with about 12 sheets of 12x12 Pink Paislee and embellishments from their 365 Degree collection. :)

This was such a simple design for me to finish, it was just literally made with just a 3 pieces of scrap paper for the borders and photo matting, and some alphabets. TOO easy right?! I liked the simplicity of it, even though I was able to use 5 photos in this layout. :)

Less is more, no? :)

Happy Fourth of July!

Caught You

2011-07-01T20:50:00.000-04:00

My little Ally is seriously something else. If she is too quiet for over 10 minutes, you know she is just up to something, and here is the proof! I caught her red handed drawing out this huge mural on her bedroom walls with markers! This was the first time I really saw her doing something like this on this scale, so I thought it was funny and sweet. Haha.

I used a Brick stamp by Raisin Boat, with brown-red tinted acrylic paints and went to town stamping on white cardstock. I colored some of the brick “lines” in some of the varied colors I’d used for the streaks of color outside of my main frame, and used some scrap stickers to finish this page off. :)

Thanks for looking! :)

This Girl Rocks- Rub On Madness

2011-06-30T20:51:00.000-04:00

My girl is a sassy thing if I’ve ever seen one! She sure knows how to work her smarts and wit to get what she wants all right! Oh, what will I do with her as a teen? ::shakes head:: None the less, I am enjoying her as my sweet, cute, and lovable daughter at all of her stages. :))

I decided that this photo of Ally was so adorable that it demanded a layout of its own. :) She reminded me of a little rock star so I ran with that theme in this Raisin Boat background Distressed stamp (made with black and dark pink mists as the ink) and used many rub-ons (some from Glitz and Jenni Bowlin) in this layout on the star, border, title, and even some on the photo (which I thought looked like a neat chest tattoo. HAHA!). She does, after all, really ROCK! :)

I got this inspiration for this layout from Amy Oxford. PS. Has anyone seen Mrs. Amy anywhere on the net? She hasn’t updated her blog in months and I hope she is OK!!!

Thanks for looking!

Novia- Heritage Layout

2011-06-21T12:36:00.001-04:00

First off, I have been a bad blogger, OK, you caught me, terrible blogger. I haven’t written a thing in over a month and I have told myself I would every day to no avail! I have about 13 new layouts to share with ya’ll in the next few days, and this heritage and romantic themed one, will be the first I share—being that I made it for two challenge sites, and I haven’t participated in any challenges for, like ever!

I was inspired by both of these challenges, so I used the Color Combos Galore palette #197 for the colors and theme, and used the sketch from Creative Scrappers sketch #160. I think these two challenges are a match made in heaven! :)

I used mismatched paper lines for the patterned paper and used scraps to cut out the rose flowers. I actually assembled this entire layout, minus the title, without a photo in mind! Once I had this assembled I looked for 2 minutes through my old heritage photo stash and found that this photo of my grandmother in her teens that matched perfectly to the elements and colors already on my layout. :) I love when that happens.

Below are the inspiring challenges. :)

Thanks for looking! :)

Doll Face- Serendipity Squares Background

2011-06-16T23:42:00.000-04:00

Serendipity squares? What in the world is that??? Well, my dear bloggy friends, serendipity squares are just too easy and fun to make. Just use any scrap paper in your choice of colors/patterns and glue. Tear your papers in any fashion you like and paste down on a 12x12 sheet of paper. Sounds too easy? IT IS REALLY! And this month on If It’s Groovy, the challenge is to make a serendipity layout. Fun!

I’m pretty happy with the way this layout turned out, and the layout pretty much made itself once I had the background done. I just used 4 sheets of different yellow, red, and blue paper and Modge Podge glue to get it all to stick down. I found that I used about 4x4 inches worth of each paper to make the background. I think I will totally use this technique again when I have scraps laying around. :))

Don’t forget to join me for the fun challenge of making your own serendipity squares layout on IIG. :) I’d love to see what you come up with.
Thanks for stopping by! :))

Birth Through Four Years Old in 20 Scrapbook Pages

2011-05-24T17:56:00.001-04:00

I started an 8x8 album for Ally that progressed from birth through her fourth birthday, and used photos from each month of her life so that I could literally see how see changed in subtle ways from one month to the next or from year to year. I miss her baby-ness so much and she just keeps growing up so fast! This will definitely become an album I will add to annually. :)

To begin this project, I selected one photo from every one of my daughters “__ month old” digital folder, as I keep pretty organized digital photos, and choose 4 photos from different months and made photo collages, with the free photo program Picasa, on a 4x6 sized print (since it seems only practical to use one 4x6 sized print on a 8x8 layout). Basically, I had about four collaged layouts per year plus one page of her 4x6 birthday picture for each of her years thus far.For her annual year old photos (ie. First, second, third, or fourth birthday), I printed those on its own 4x6 sized prints. After printing my collages, I cut them up into individual photos, as I went along the layouts, and scrapped them.

This 8x8 size was so hard for me to work with because I felt that I didn’t have enough space to display all of my photos in a pleasing way and still have a chance to use embellishments on each layout. I tried to use coordinating papers and embellishments or colors for each double page spread to unify the spread as well.

This album gave me a chance to use up some more neglected embellishments and not-so-favorite patterned paper. :) Below are the layouts in the order they appear in the album.

Thanks for looking!

Mellow- Yellow Monochromatic

2011-05-23T08:26:00.000-04:00

Our challenge this month for If It’s Groovy was to use our lucky color as inspiration for a monochromatic layout. My lucky color just so happened to be yellow—maybe because I am so optimistic and cheerful (hence the yellow? Haha).

I used orange-ish Glimmer Mist and a Crafters Workshop circle template for the scalloped background on the yellow paper. I also used scraps of single yellow flowers, brads, buttons, some plastic petals and stems, and butterfly for embellishments. I hadn’t made a monochromatic layout in so long so this was fun to put together.

I found that doing this monochromatic layout helped me make a bit of a dent in my yellow nicknacks, so perhaps I can make some more monochromatic layouts so that I can keep getting my stash used up finally!

Won’t you give this lucky color challenge a spin? :))

Live Out Loud- Mini Book Album

2011-05-20T08:10:00.000-04:00

I have never really completed a mini album before this week. I usually get started on one and get bored, tired of the same theme, or get too flustered by the time consumption of it all to even go back once I take a break. This time, I was determined. I finished 14 pages of a mini album in about 6 hours! Woo Hoo!

I was challenged by scrapbook.com to make a mini album, staring myself for a National Scrapbook Day challenge that ended last Saturday. I took the challenge on and found that I actually enjoyed the process this time and I was not bored or tired of looking at the pages. How could that be given my history with mini’s? Here is my secret—I used products that I actually loved and made me happy to play! Sounds simple enough. Why didn’t I think of this sooner? ::slaps self::

I found this naked mini album at Big Lots and I knew I had to pick it up for this challenge. While I was there I found some other super cute patterned papers and some embellishments that I thought were perfect, so I snagged those for myself. :)

After I chose 4 sheets of 12x12 paper, I went in my stash and picked out every piece of embellishment that would match my theme or colors. I made all of the embellishments that I picked out work on this mini! Yay!

Below are some photos of the assembled mini—some have the journaling already, others don’t have them pictured. Here is a list of all the products that I used throughout the entire album:

Mini book Chipboard Frame- Tapestry- Peek-a-Boo Album

GCD Studio- Eye Candy Paper Collection

Raisin Boat- stamps- Tag You’re It

Pink Paislee- 365 Degrees punchouts

Colorbok- transparency frames

Basic Grey- Eva Chip Stickers and Kioshi element stickers

Momenta- Pastels PFY Flourish

Little Yellow Bicycle- Clear Cuts journaling pieces

American Crafts- Remarks- Whisk and Flair- adhesive badges

White Blossom- Designer Epoxy stickers

Cosmo Cricket- Tiny Type and Material Girl stickers

Paper Pizazz- Fabric Stickers- Girl Quotes

Target- ribbon on rings

Miscellaneous- journaling tags, brads, and flowers

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I hope you enjoyed this project—I did! :)

God Bless!

Organizing Digital Photos and Files

2011-05-19T08:27:00.000-04:00

Any person who takes digital photos knows the pain it can be to track down that one picture you have in mind but cannot find anywhere on your computer because they are lost or misplaced in a cluttered file. How frustrating is that??! My solution for digital storage? Major organization!! :)

Above and below are screenshots of my digital photo organization system (click on any photo to get a close-up). I started this format of storage in 2008 finally, back when my husband used to just name files “Darlene's crap,” where he would dump random files and include no further details about any photos so I had to search through 100 folders to find one picture—of all the nerve right!??! So one day when he was out of town, I forced myself to sit down and organize our entire hard drive of photos!

I started by copying every photo file that I could find on my computer onto my external hard drive (I highly recommend one, if you don’t have one!), or you could place them all in one central folder and use subfolders, and I went to town creating folders that were appropriate for the photos.

I made a folder for the years of 2005, 2006, 2007, and so forth, some folders named by person (IE. Ally; Darlene; or Chris—where I would put photos of that person if it was like a mini-photo shoot exclusive of them) and basically dragged each of my photos into the right folders. I then went a step further and made subfolders with the months of the year (ie. 1January; 2February; 3March, ect.—I put the months number before the folder name so that the months are always in order if I auto-arrange the files by name).

Then I placed all photos that occurred in the same event or day in one folder, with a brief but specific folder name (ie. Ally eats cupcake in pink shirt; beach day with Ms Jade and family; Chris and Darlene on third anniversary, ect). And finally, I took those subfolders and put them in the appropriate monthly folder.

All of my photos are organized in the same fashion for example:

Pictures> 2011> 4April> Easter Sunday;

Pictures> Scrapbooking> 2011 Album

Pictures> Alexis> 0-1 Years old> 3 months old> Ally’s first time rolling over

…and so forth. This system works so wonderfully for me as I keep up with it often and I add folders as needed to the basic Pictures thread.

I also try to put newly uploaded groups of photos into a folder the same day.

I also use this same system for my documents (ie: school; bills; records, ect.) and even music files. I love that I never misplace files because it is usually so neat and organized in my digital storage!

Of course some programs organize your files automatically when it would search your computer, but why not organize your photos in a way that makes sense to you and save yourself the headache if your program crashes and then all of your organization really goes ka-put. The sooner you start organization, the easier it is as time progresses—I would know thousands of photos later! :)

How do you organize your digital photos or files?

Hope this was helpful to anyone struggling with digital storage! :)

Six Flags MD- Double Page Layout

2011-05-18T08:46:00.000-04:00

Here is the second layout I completed for National Scrapbooking Day this year on scrapbook.com. This challenge was to use 3-5 photos of an event that was considered travel or vacation, so here was my double page interpretation—a fun day at Six Flags with my family. :)

I used American Crafts Pebbles (Twitterpad line) for my papers and color blocked mostly on textured blue cardstock for the background. I also use Jenni Bowlin banner stickers and some handmade embellishments that I originally made for my old banner and sidebar elements when I first started this blog over a year ago. I’m glad to have a layout to finally put those embellishments! :)

I am totally doing well on cleaning out my stash by using my things on my layouts! Woohoo! :) I still have a long way to go before I can officially bring anything but paper into the house (I mean really, can a girl actually have too much paper??!!) but I am surely making a little dent. :))

Thanks for stopping by today! :))))

Family Bonds- Heritage Photo Using K&Company

2011-05-17T23:27:00.000-04:00

Happy belated National Scrapbooking Day! :) I played along online this year at scrapbook.com and I had such a good time! I got two layouts (one was double page layout) completed during their challenges and I was lucky enough to actually win a $135 prize for the challenge that called for hand making your own flower! How sweet is that!!!

Above is the winning layout that I made featuring my paternal grandmother, grandfather, uncle and my own father (boy on right). This photo is so pretty isn't it? I am SO lucky that my grandmother let me scan all of these! :)))

I used K&Company papers, Glimmer Mists, Crafters Workshop template (for scallops), Diamond Stickles (that you can’t see well), Prima bling for the flower center, scrap papers, and vintage-ish ribbon that I made a rosette with. I think this is at least the third time I use Moma’s sketch! :)

And finally here is the prize that I won this year from scrapbook.com—including Pink Paislees 365 Degrees collection, Copic Spica Pens, Diamond Stickles (MY FAV!), two albums, and more! How fun is that!!?? I can’t wait to play with my new goodies!

Thank you for stopping by my small space! :))

Have a great day. God bless you. :)

Mommy and Me- Layout of Daughters Artwork

2011-05-16T08:10:00.000-04:00

When my 4 year daughter approached me and asked if I wanted to draw a picture of us two, and I had an instant idea. I thought to scrap a drawing of us that she would then draw! I figured, why not? :)

I cut a sheet of paper into two 4x6 pieces for the both of us and I told her we could draw our pictures on them. She went to town as she always does and when she was done she helped me embellish the layout by gluing her favorite elements where she wanted while I did the rectangle strips under the “photo.”

I pulled out some Sassafras paper and some scraps of other miscellaneous paper lines and embellishments. :) We literally took less than 20 or 30 minutes from start to finish and she was so excited to be scrapbooking with Mom, not just alongside of me. :))

She always has an exciting story to share that goes with her pictures and this was no exception. I journaled at the bottom right about what she said the picture was.

“Left is Ally with long golden hair. Right is Mom with dress. Castle in the background is for royalty (us) and the Kind (Dad) is waiting for us. There is a TV inside the castle in the living room. What an imagination!”

My girl is the best. I love her! :))

Thanks for looking! Stop by again soon! :)

DIY Wedding Card (Money) Box and Guest Book Tutorial

2011-05-15T08:54:00.000-04:00

A girlfriend of mine was getting married and I offered to help in which ever way possible. Besides volunteering for the wedding arch that blogged about in yesterday’s post, she told me she wanted a pretty card/money box for the reception so I gladly offered to make it in the same style that her wedding cake was! That was a fun touch. :)

I am so totally late in posting this as this wedding was back in March and I am just now blogging about it in mid May! Haha. Life has been busy, what can I say? ;) Most weddings are held in the Spring/Summer anyway, so maybe this DIY tutorial will benefit someone having/planning a wedding this year after all! :)

After a bit of researching online for wedding money/card boxes for hours and one really good video tutorial later, I decided I had enough inspiration to begin. We bought a set of 5 varied paper mache hat boxes from Joanns craft store, 2 rolls of embossed gift wrapping paper by American Greetings I think (you could also use fabric but I feel more comfortable with paper. With fabric it seems to be easier to see the hot glue underneath so I just found gift wrap that worked for us), 3 rolls of ribbon (brown and champagne were her colors and leopard print was her accent), and lastly some string and loose pearls. I already had a hot glue gun so I was ready to create after buying these few things. :)

We also got a plain premade Guest Book and I customized it with the same ribbon on the card box, which I adhered with hot glue and a handmade matching rosette flower in front (I just slightly scrunched the brown ribbon right under where I glued the flower down). :) Super EASY! :)

Here are the close-ups of my rosette flowers. I think I rather liked the pearls in the center too. Added some class to the animal print. :)

I won’t say that the next card box part is easy but it it wasn’t too hard to get finished. Not to mention that a custom card box retails for over a hundred dollars easily on Etsy.com, and we got this done for less than $30! So if you have a few hours and want a beautiful handmade money/card box, give this a whirl.

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1. Decide which sized boxes you want to stack together. Here are 10, 12, and 14 inches (if I remember correctly) for each box layer above. Feel free to use these directions for as many or as little box layers as you like.

2. Unroll your gift wrap paper flat and try to roll your box on the paper the long way to get the length you need to go around the entire outside of the box layers, as if you were trying to gift wrap a circle shaped gift.

3. Cut your paper to the size you just measured out for the box, leaving about an inch or two extra for the width of the box.

4. With the lip of the box off, hot glue your gift wrap to the paper mache box at the ends of the paper as evenly as you can. I would try to get the seams to match up on each box layer and make sure your boxes have the seams facing the same direction as you stack them later (so the seamed part will be the back).

5. Cut many slits in the side of paper along the box, about an inch or so apart as this will get tucked into the box or underneath the box.

6. Use glue gun to glue down all of the slits, either into the box or underneath it, as pictured above and below.

7. Starting at the existing seam (where the paper meets), glue down some ribbon along the bottom side (closed side of box).

8. Glue down some string pearls if you wish along this ribbon base too (remember to stay with the same seam lines).

9. For the lids of the boxes, do a similar process, as described in steps 2-6, to cover the lids of each box. (not pictured)

10. To get the tops of the lids covered, trace the shape of your box onto your gift wrap and cut closely along the traced circle shape. (not pictured)

11. Glue the coordinating circle shapes smoothly onto the tops of the lids, except for the top lid. (not pictured) Keep the circle for the top lid nearby you will need it in a few steps.

12. Assemble as many box tiers and lids as you would like and place them on top of each other, with all of the seams for each box in a line. This will be the back of your card or money box.

13. Measure and trace a 1-2 inch x 8 or so inch rectangle on the inside of the top box lid (this should accommodate the size of a standard card). Any smaller than this size might give you difficulty when trying to place cards in. I made this rectangle a bit closer to the front of the box versus the center of the lid because I wanted to add a ribbon bow at the top behind the card insert.

14. Cut out the rectangle you traced from the inside of top lid with a craft knife and practice with a standard greeting card to check the snugness of the hole for the cards. You want to have the hole a bit bigger than the card itself just in case someone brings a larger card. Trust me on this one. Adjust the size of the rectangle if you think it is too small still, if you need to.

15. With your top lid template in place, use that to trace onto the lids and bottoms of each of the other boxes. You don’t exactly need to measure here actually. Just make it at least just as big as the top lid rectangle, but you might find it easier to cut the holes much bigger so cards don’t get “stuck” in between layers (just not too big so that the tier above it will have the hole underneath it visible from above).

16. Get your top lid gift-wrap circle and now glue this down on top of your top lid as smooth as possible, on top of the card hole.

17. From underneath the top lid cut a straight line down the center of your card hole rectangle, from edge to edge of the hole, and cut a small slit across the height of the card hole on both sides too. (see above).

18. This is the last step of the hard part! Fold in the excess paper from the card hole onto the inside of the top lid and glue down (so that you cannot see the raw edges of the paper mache box at all).

19. Now just assemble some embellishments, such as flowers, or more pearls or bows where you want and stack the boxes on top of each other.

20. Step back and enjoy your handmade card box! :)

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Of course you can adapt this to any occasion, so feel free to use this tutorial with any colors/theme you want! Also watch the video tutorial to see a live and slightly different way to do this. Please let me know if you have any questions or comments! I’d love to hear some feedback. :)

Thanks for looking! Hope you enjoyed!

DIY Wedding Arch- Rosettes and Netting

2011-05-14T22:49:00.001-04:00

Wedding planning can get pretty hairy and pricey FAST, so when I created this wedding arch for my girlfriend, we recycled items items that were extra from her centerpieces—rosettes, fabric flower blooms, and green leaves. The actual arch was something the brides mother already had so the only cost was the netting in two colors and two baskets for the end pieces of the arch. This DIY arch was simple and pretty if I do say so myself! Haha.

I draped about 8 yards of champagne colored netting on top of some lights (came with the arch frame) and bunched about 6 yards of some brown netting on the front of the arch. I made some flower/leaf embellishments to go along the nettings bunched spots and placed an unused rosette wreath at the very top of the frame.

These were too easy to assemble—only some hot glue, scrap fabric material, and extra centerpiece materials were used. Use what you have on hand if you want. Just cut a circle about 2 inches wide from the scrap fabric and hot glue about 2 or 3 bunches of flowers onto the circle. Then place about 5 rosettes in the flower bunches as you see fit. Lastly place two leaves on the back of the fabric circle and attach the embellished flower bunch to the arch with floral wire or any other way you see fit.

Below is the closeup of the flower bunch. :) I think I would even wear a smaller version of this in my hair! Haha.

For the bases of the arch I used a basket, twigs, more extra rosettes, and leaves to fill the basket and cover the ends of the metal arch frame. The bride thought it would have been cute to put two lovebirds sitting in the baskets but we didn’t remember to buy those birdies! Haha. I told you weddings get crazy, especially little last minute things!

This arch looked so elegant during the wedding ceremony yet it was too easy (and CHEAP!) to make instead of renting a premade arch at your venue. If you have the time, do it yourself! Nothing is better and more satisfying than custom handmade things! :)

Ah, weddings. How sweet. :) Check me out tomorrow for a post on how to make a custom DIY card/money box!

Thanks for visiting me! :)

A Day in the Life- Glitz Hoopla and Blog Hop Winner Redraw

2011-05-04T15:13:00.001-04:00

Bella BLVD is having a SWEET Mothers Day contest—they are giving away $150 in Bella BLVD products to one mom who is super busy in life and still manages to find time to do what we love—scrapbooking! :) All you have to do is scrapbook about your weekly routine-- simple! :) I totally took a spin on the wild side (literally—zebra strips and circle shaped piercing and faux-stitching!) and created this layout in less than one hour because I was so inspired by the challenge. :)) Don’t you love when that happens?

My life has felt super hectic lately and this challenge was right up my alley. As soon as I read the Bella BLVD post, I got to work straight away (yes, it was already past 1AM when I began!) and pulled out a photo of myself from my 24th birthday a few months ago, and decided I wanted to use my last two Glitz Hoopla papers and some embellishments to get the ball rolling. I pulled out some Glitz rub-on’s, transparency paper (for Humpty Dumpty on the bottom right), Fiskars Apron Lace border bunch, and some mists for the design. I made a quick sketch myself (which doesn’t usually happen but as I said, I was inspired!), ripped out some loose-leaf from my school binder (I knew I wanted a school-ish element), and started spritzing Smooch Spritz all over my papers.

This was literally the most fun I have had JUST scrapping in a while. I did not worry myself about how it would turn out, I just did what my heart desired and made it work. :)) I even made some journaling up on the fly and get this, I didn’t even edit it on my scratch paper before writing it in my layout! AND I did not care that I was totally being messy and sloppy! ::GASP:: I told you I was being wild and crazy for this one! Haha.

I’m feeling like sharing my 2AM journaling rant for my “I Am Woman. I Am Pooped!” layout, so here it is,

“March 4, 2011, Scrapbook Room.

As I write this it is now 2:13 AM on a Tuesday night. I have become struck by late night inspiration that hit just over an hour ago. Yet tomorrow, my day will be as busy as today was. I have to do a presentation for class, study for finals (next week!) and get my car windshield fixed, since a rock made a nice little crack in it today.

This is aside from the dishes, sweeping, picking up a million toys, cooking, tidying up around the house, and most importantly, trying to keep Ally stimulated and entertained throughout the day—Yes folks, this is everyday life in this household. Rinse and repeat for Thursday, Friday, and Saturday. I feel as though I never have enough time to relax so these quiet moments after bedtime for Chris and Ally are the only relaxing moments I have all day! This is why this Supermom is up at 2:20AM, still trying to have some down time. It’s a tough gig, but someone's gotta do it, and actually, I wouldn’t have it any other way.”

Oh, I never heard back from my previous No Housework Blog Hop winner so the new winner random.org picked is comment number 74 which is…

SILVANA!!!

Congratulations! Please send me your address to Yadee87(at)aol.com

Thanks a bunch for reading! Hope you enjoy your day! :)

Fun- Brothers on Beach Heritage Layout

2011-04-28T08:51:00.000-04:00

I had a few sheets of vintage-like papers in my stash from my Scarlet Lime subscription kits from months ago and when I found this photo, and the October Afternoon Seaside Wild Cards, I just knew these all had to come together. The reds, greens, and white were so perfect for this photo of my two uncles and the sweet beachy-ness theme.

Again, I used the same Seaside stickers and embellishments and I really liked the way this was very easy to put together once I had my products and sketch decided. I even used the scraps from yesterday’s “Enjoy” layout for the die cute shape. How cool is it when you can use the scraps for a whole new look on a different layout? :))

Here is the sketch I used for some inspiration from Moma as well:

I liked scrapping my vintage photos in non-traditional colors. It was so fun for me to use “my colors” on an old photo! :)) Do you find yourself using specific colors on a layout depending on the era of the photo you are scrapping?

Thanks for looking!! :))

Enjoy- Retro Heritage Beach Layout

2011-04-27T08:37:00.000-04:00

I am so lucky to have these gems in my photo stash! These photos are from MANY years ago when my dad and uncles were just carefree kids. I found some October Afternoon Seaside embellishments in a RAK from Queen Kat, and finally found a photo to use for these goodies.

I used some vintage-ish papers from Sassafras and some inks around my handmade die-cut frame for the layout. I used an old sketch from scrapbook.com and lastly some Thickers, which I inked the color I wanted.

Aren’t the vintage inspired embellishments perfect from this type of fun, heritage layout? I hope so! Haha. :)

Glitz Hoopla Collection- Ally’s Fourth Birthday

2011-04-26T08:17:00.000-04:00

My daughter celebrated her fourth birthday just a few weeks ago, and I had so many cute pictures of her I knew I would have to make a double page layout to fit the memories I wanted to scrap. I printed out 4 4x6 prints and found a sketch and some Glitz Hoopla goodies that I loved to make it all work.

I used beautiful Glitz Hoopla rub-ons, patterned papers, stickers for most of this. I used 2 sheets of 12x12 paper, 2 8x10 sheets, and scraps of paper, and tons of my stash of Glitz Hoopla to make this double page layout work.

I tried to use the same patterns on both sides of the layout so that they looked as if they belonged together in an album even though the backgrounds for each page is different, the elements unified the look, I thought.

I’ll share a few close-ups of the finished works:

Thank you for stopping by today!

Hope you enjoyed my post and have a wonderful week. :))

Daddy’s Little Girl- Sassafras

2011-04-25T14:36:00.001-04:00

My little girl loves her daddy so much. She is so cute posing with him on this day at the duck pond last Summer, so naturally, I had to snap some shots of them two. :)

I used mostly scraps of Sassafras paper for this simple design, with just a touch of Basic Grey chipboard and cute various brads to make it all work together.

I convinced the husband to write the journaling in his own handwriting for once—this way my daughter has a record of his handwriting and his words for her as well, amongst the many layouts I have handwritten on for her. Maybe this small way of being involved with my craft will make him a more likely participant of the scrapping hobby. Wouldn’t all wives want their husbands to show a bit more interest? Try sneaking in the “just journal whatever you want here” line and see if you get through. :))

Thanks for looking!

Alligator Tears Layout (and a Blog Hop Winner!)

2011-04-15T15:03:00.001-04:00

The scrap bug has totally bit me this week. I have gotten about 10 layouts done this month (I’ve just been averaging about 2 a month- blah!) so you can imagine my excitement when I was so inspired and willing to scrap again! Hello, Scrappy Mojo! :)) Now I just have to get them all blogged—which is its own battle, if your like me! Haha.

I was instantly inspired by Jana Eubank’s sketch and I knew I had to work something with it immediately—featuring a photo of my daughter having a temper tantrum!

I haven’t played with browns or neutral colors in so long as I usually opt for bright in-your-face colors for the past year. I cut a 2 inch strip of Brown cardstock and cut diagonally to make my banners—way easy and fun—and used Jenni Bowlin banner alphabet stickers for the letters in the title banners.

I have so many embellishments in my stash that never get enough use because I forget about them or I just make my own embellishments with patterned papers. Is it just me or do we always hoard embellishments and never use but maybe one item out of the packaging! Haha. In light of this, I am challenging myself to use 2 or 3 sets of embellishments on each layout I do from now on. Hopefully, I can get all of my supplies used so I can make more room for NEW goodies! Anyhow, I used some Glitz Hoopla collection for the transparencies at the bottom and top left of the photo and used scraps for the patterned papers too. :))

Here is the sketch I used for inspiration :)

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Now without further ado- The Blog Hop winner announcement:

Thanks to all of my wonderful new and old blog friends for coming by my blog during National No Housework Day and leaving me some fun and sweet comments! Thank you so much for peeking by my little space! :))

I left my giveaway open until last night and I picked a winner just a minute ago. The lucky winner of my mini-album and accessories was Karelj!!

Karelj, send me an email at Yadee87(at)aol.com to claim your prize within the next 7 days! :))

Thanks again to all of you who played along in our Groovy hop and for those who became new followers of many members of the hop! :))

Hope you enjoyed my layout and giveaway! I might have another one up my sleeve soon, since I made over 100 followers this last week—so keep an eye out for that giveaway. :))

Have a beautiful day!

No Housework Day Blog Hop- Basic Grey Giveaway

2011-04-07T00:00:00.001-04:00

Welcome to the National No Housework Day Online Blog Hop! If you have arrived not knowing until now about the hop, that’s not a problem...just go back to If It's Groovy to get the full details about the hop that is running from April 7-10. :)

***Stay tuned to get the chance to win some Basic Grey goodies from yours truly!***

You should have just arrived from Misty’s blog if you’ve been following along the hop. :)

As Deb, IIG founder says best, “we celebrate this national holiday by scrapping today and into the weekend with projects that remind us of housework or getting away from it!!! Take the day off, put up your feet and let's hop!”

Above is my project for No Housework Day! I altered a plain 4x6 picture frame with Cosmo Crickets Material Girl line, and it reads something I thought up, “Hmm, which comes first, housework or crafting? Well, that was easy… Craft!” :)

Shouldn’t we all live by this? When inspiration strikes, we better get on it! Housework can surely wait! :))

As I was searching for a phrase to use for my own project, I came across some really funny quotes that I’d like to share about housework.

Dust is a protective coating for fine furniture. – Mario Buatta

Please don't feed the dust bunnies. ~Author Unknown

If your house is really a mess and a stranger comes to the door, greet him with, “Who could have done this? We have no enemies.” – Phyllis Diller

Welcome to our house. You can touch the dust, but please don’t write in it. – Author Unknown

The only place where Housework comes before Scrapbooking is in the dictionary! :)

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To celebrate the day and in spirit of the No Housework Day Blog Hop, I am hosting a giveaway prize of some Basic Grey goodies, as pictured below! :)

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How to Win:
1. Leave me a comment and tell me about which is the household chore you procrastinate about most and why. Do you have any household altering projects you’ve made recently? Please leave your blog link here so I can hop over to your space as well! :)
Easy requirement right? Too easy!
Here are three other *OPTIONAL* requirements to increase your chances of winning:
2. Become a follower. Not being a follower will not interfere with your chances of winning (but how else would you know if you won?). I’d love to give these goodies to a follower, new or old, that visits my space. :) If you are already a follower, send me a comment letting me know.
3. Share this blog hop post giveaway on your blog/Facebook/Twitter/E-mail/favorite forum with a link back to this blog/post. Share at as many sources as you would like and send me additional comments for each different place you leave my link for multiple entry chances to win this giveaway. This especially means a bunch to me. :)

4. Become a follower of If It’s Groovy and follow the other Groovy gals that are participating in the hop this weekend.
Please, leave a separate comment for each requirement you do.
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This giveaway will be open, for about a week, until midnight of April 14, 2011 to all US addresses only (since it’s a small RAK). I’ll use random.org to announce a winner the next day, April 15,2011.

Good luck! :)

Please head over to see Jean-Marie’s blog next in the hop lineup!

Thanks for stopping by today! I hope you enjoyed my ~~long~~ fun post. ;) Have a ball along the rest of the hop! :)

Little Tiny Pup- Sassafras Bungle Jungle

2011-04-02T14:09:00.001-04:00

My puppy Zoey was so much smaller just weeks ago. She is getting big.. and thankfully less needy, fast! She used to constantly bite toes, claw up the carpet, and chew on everything! Thank goodness those slightly annoying stages are over, although she was and is awfully cute, if I do say so myself! :)

I had this really adorable photo of her from when she was about 3 months ago, and I knew I had to scrap it. :)

I used some of my Sassafras Bungle Jungle line for the papers and colors on this layout and used Sassafras whimsies cards and alphabets. The chipboard throughout is from Basic Grey.

Maybe I should add some journaling about her puppy behavior after all, now that I think of it! :)

I used Jana Eubanks sketch this time. Her sketches are awesome! :)

Thanks for looking! :))

Circle Chipboard Layout- Jump

2011-04-01T22:38:00.001-04:00

I am taking a photography 101 class in school right now, relearning about shooting 35 mm film with a manual old school camera. It has been nice thus far, challenging without autofocus, but still interesting. :) I shot this sequence of my daughter jumping at the park, and I thought they were fun enough to scrap in a motion like way. :))

I used Basic Grey background paper and title alphabet, Recollections (Michaels brand) yellow patterned paper, Junkitz chipboard circles, and crushed velvet purple paper (by Doodlebug Designs). I handmade the title tag with some scalloped scissors, and outline it with a black pen. :)

Thanks for Liz Chidester for the sketch inspiration for this design! :))

Thanks for looking!

K&Company Vintage Romantic Layout- Tio Luis

2011-03-30T01:17:00.001-04:00

This month for IIG we had a new and fun adventure. We were to select an inspiring person to scraplift. We were challenged to use flowers and bling on a masculine layout, and this month we selected Misty to lift, and oh, was it fun! :)

For the bling, I used some rhinestones that I’ve had forever and some diamond stickles to fill in the flourishes. :) And for the flowers on the top right (Kaiser Craft rub-on) and bottom left paper flower, I used some scraps from my stash. :)

I used some K&Company papers to make a vintage and romantic layout of my late uncle Luis from my maternal grandmothers side. I never got to meet him, but this photo was just too perfect to not scrap! I will fill in some journaling later on about his life/occupation/pass times as my grandmother fills me in. :)

Will you take the flower and bling challenge on a masculine layout too?? :)

Altered Frame Box- Love Notes Keepsake

2011-03-18T12:57:00.000-04:00

A few months ago, I posted a Play-It-Forward post on my blog, offering a handmade gift to the first three people that signed up. Jami Lynn signed up shortly after. I racked my brain for so long trying to think of what to make. She just got married recently and I thought, “why not make her a keepsakes box for her love letters or special memorabilia?” And so I did. :)

I bought a plain wooden frame box from my local craft store and picked up a stack of DCWV paper (Linen Closet Stack) to decoupage the wood with. I used Mod Podge glue to adhere the papers down, layer by layer. I printed out some of Jami’s favorite photos from her wedding and engagement photos and made those the featured photos on the front of the box. I also used some new ribbon by Jillibean Soup (Bean Stalks) to tie to the outside of the box. I printed off the verses of Corinthians 13 4-7 and secured them inside. This was very fun! I hope she gets some use of of this project. :)
How do you store your keepsakes or memorabilia?
Thanks for looking!

A Letter For You, Daughter

2011-03-07T08:33:00.002-05:00

This month on If It's Groovy, we are celebrating the Absolutely Incredible Kid Day® Challenge. Make a layout featuring a letter you wrote to a child you love and submit it to If It's Groovy for chances at a voucher to a scrappy store! Here is my take. :)

My little girl is getting so grown, too quickly. These pictures of her are from Summer ‘10 and I think she looks more like she is 5 years old, versus just 3! I cannot believe how fast time is really passing. She is making me old! LOL. ;)

I made a collage on a 4x6 print and arranged them in a way that I could admire them all in one spot. I used some Pebbles Treehouse papers and a big bunch of random flowers, brads, and even used a clear acrylic tag near my title. I made a folded pocket to hold a handwritten letter for my girl to read when she gets older.
I never paid much mind to people when she was still a baby, and they advised that I treasure the smallest things, even down to the sleepless nights, because one day I would miss them, and boy do I miss those days of her babyhood. One day, maybe when she is a mother herself (YIKES!!), she will realize how very dear she is to her mother, and how she always will be. :)

Thanks for looking! Have a beautiful day!

Drivers Training w/Dad- Basic Grey Olivia

2011-03-04T08:07:00.000-05:00

My little girl really is something! She thinks she is all grown up, I guess, and Daddy dear supports her every whim! Ally gets her Dad to take her driving around the block.. she was only 3 years old here!She will be a pro by the age of 16 at this rate. What am I to do with them two??? LOL. In any case, this was just too cute a moment to not snap pictures of and scrapbook!

I kept it really simple and used just a Fiskars Apron Lace edge punch for the blue paper, some K&Company border stickers, and my Basic Grey Olivia stack of paper and alphabet stickers. I used some green and pink buttons and twine for a bit of texture and done.

Thanks for stopping by! :))

Christmas 2010- Echo Park- Life is Good

2011-03-02T07:50:00.000-05:00

We went to Mississippi during the holidays this last season to visit my husbands side of the family. One day I had a thought, I hadn’t scrapped any photos of my nephew, Christian! I hadn’t scrapped any photos of Christian and my daughter , Ally, especially alongside of their grandparents and so I made it my goal on Christmas Morning to take some photos of them all finally. I printed out my favorites in black and white and used some Echo Park (Life Is Good) papers that I just got in a giveaway package by the dear Queen Kat (thanks again!).

I handdrew and cut the shape of the papers and made two of the same sketch layouts with the same paper line, so that I could make them coordinate on a double page spread. I usually have a hard time with double page layouts, but this one wasn’t too hard to put together, maybe because I was loving the colors (although they aren’t every ‘Christmas’ like)? :)

I also used some Basic Grey chipboard and flowers, Sassafras alphabets, and American Crafts (Dear Lizzy) ribbons throughout both sides of the layouts.

Lastly, I used the sketch by Inspired Blueprints, sketch 57.

Thanks for looking!

Have a great day! :)

Bee Sweet- Halloween Bee Costume

2011-03-01T16:24:00.001-05:00

I was browsing Joann Craft Store a few weeks ago, and I just HAD to get this cute Heidi Grace background paper (Sugar Rush) ~~and a few duplicates of the background paper as well~~ to make a Halloween layout one day. :) I found on The Color Rooms color palette #47 a push to use my pretty paper, although I found that I didn’t quite stick with the colors in the end result. Oh, well!

After selecting my papers, I went looking for a photo (this is my newest thing: I choose all of my layout elements and THEN look for a suitable photo that matches, totally backwards from the usual “picture chooses colors and design” cycle). I found some of my daughters Halloween photos from 2009, so I ran with that.

I used mixed water and white acrylic paint to get the background paper a bit more muted because it was originally really distracting and extra busy, but I still wanted to showcase the colors and theme somewhat. Anyhow, I layered on some Halloween themed characters that are made by K&Company and put googly eyes on the cat, spider, and bat at the top. I also colored in some candy corn banners with crayons, which was a fun and easy way to make a banner with my desired colors. :)

I got this sketch from Studio Calico. :)

Thanks for looking!

Valentine’s Day- Nikki Sivils- Sugar Cookie Collection Layouts

2011-02-14T14:30:00.000-05:00

Happy Valentine’s Day friends!!! :D

This month, If It’s Groovy is being sponsored by Nikki Sivils! Nikki was so generous with her products! I was able to make 5 layouts with 8 sheets of her paper only!!! That was pretty exciting to me when I realized how far I could “stretch” my stash! :)

I really loved the fun yet funky style of the Sugar Cookie line! This line was sooo cute and the colors are truly yummy! These layouts seemed to make themselves. I had most of these assembled in one short night, shocker! :) I only used some clear glitter glue for extra sparkle and glitziness on some of the elements, as well as some border punches. :) And voila, done! :)

Everything you need to make as many layouts as I did is in one kit of the Sugar Cookie line! Learn where to snag a set of this collection at Nikki Sivils's site!

Make sure to play along with If It’s Groovy’s heart challenge this month to be in the running for this Nikki Sivils collection as well! :)

Thanks for looking!

Have a wonderful, love filled day!

Circa 1975- Cosmo Cricket

2011-02-09T08:13:00.000-05:00

My grandmother brought me a huge stack of old vintage photos from her house a few month ago in a big unorganized box. I was so excited to see all of these memories of my family, that I started scanning and editing all of my favorite photos (there were many favorites!). I didn’t want to pile them back in a huge unorganized box, so I bought her a memo photo album, organized them by year and occasion and gave the finished album to her for Christmas. She loved it so much. :) She started to write little descriptions of each photo right away. Her memory is like none other! Anyhow, amongst of my favorites was this gem of a photo.

It’s a picture of my great grandmother in the center, late uncle on the left, and my dad on the right side of the photo. The hair styles and fashions crack me up. My dad and uncle look like a hippies with that hair! They probably were. :) I thought these colors and patterns were perfect for Cosmo Crickets- Material Girl Stack because of the neat vintage-ness of the papers.

I got the inspiration for this design from Louise Williams. :)

Thanks for looking!

Our Family of 3- Paper Pieced Heart Layout

2011-02-07T15:43:00.001-05:00

I didn’t realize that I was doing this all paper-pieced layout of my family until I had already started. My daughter said, “Mom, I want to make some paper dolls!” and she was so excited, I thought why not, and pulled out some scraps. The body shapes of my paper dolls always is so blah, so I decided to spice it up a bit with the help of one of Ally’s toys, Barbie dolls!

I used a Barbie, Ken doll, and baby Kelly doll to trace the outlines of their bodies and get the main template for the bodies of each of my family members. Once I traced the body shapes, I made everyone paper clothes to fit their bodies and layered them onto the dolls. I outlined the layers in a black pen and drew simple faces on the three dolls. Ok, so the doll that should be me (on the left) looks nothing like my actual body, but a girl can dream right??? LOL

I freehand drew and cut out the red background heart and the black scallops on the outline of that as well. On the red heart, I used a nail file to distress the paper and give it a matching look to the blue background (Basic Grey- Olivia Stack). This technique of distressing was a easy and quick way to change the look of a plain cardstock or paper. :)

Who says you need to use a photo on your layouts to scrapbook? :)

Thanks for looking! :D

Summertime Valentine Heart Doodles- Summer Sweet Heart

2011-02-04T08:14:00.000-05:00

My daughter was such cutie pie in the summer of ‘08 with her little bathing suit and her tender baby love. :) I so miss these days, when she was so small and so sweet. I found this picture of her and knew I had to scrap it with this sweethearts theme… after all, she is my sweetest sweetheart. :)

I used a glittery Martha Stewart paper collection (clearance at Walmart) and used only 2 sheets of paper, because I utilized the front and back patterned designs to make my embellishments throughout. I doodled all the hearts on the blue background paper, cut out glittery patterned paper buttons, and cut out all of the hearts freehand from the same background paper (I cut out a square that would be covered by the center matting).

I tried a new technique with the 3D-ness of the scalloped circles. I used some old Basic Grey chipboard as the adhesive for the 3D effect on the scallops and hearts-- this worked even better than using expensive 3D dimensional tape! Next time your low or out of dimensional tape, look through your chipboard for ones you don’t like or won’t ever use, and create instant height and dimension on your projects. :)

Just because it’s February doesn’t mean you have you scrapbook all red, white, and pink colors—try other colors with a heart theme to get into the Valentine mood and see what you can come up with. :)

Come share your heart(ful) creations with us for February’s Have a Heart Challenge on If It’s Groovy.

I got the inspiration for this layout from the sketch by The Paper Variety.

Thanks for looking! :D

Vintage Flower Design- Mother’s Beauty

2011-02-03T08:24:00.000-05:00

This is a photo of my mother back in the early 90's. Isn't she just beautiful? She is all dressed up in a lace-ish gown so I thought a vintage layout might compliment the photo.

I used graphic 45's paper for this except for the background (DCWV brand?), the butterfly is from Basic Grey chipboard, and I also included my own handmade red paper roses and leaves to the design. Not included in this photo is a tag that reads the title "Natural Beauty" in the front and a description of the photo in the back. :)

Thanks for looking! :)

Have a great day!

Basic Grey- Olivia- Summer Time Friends

2011-02-01T07:57:00.000-05:00

Summer seems so long gone! There are so many inches of snow out of my window as I type, and yet I was so compelled to scrapbook these photos of my daughter and her favorite summer friend in these fun and light colors. Who says you only need to scrap the seasons you’re in currently? :)

I used my newest stack of Basic Grey’s Olivia papers and a Basic Grey lollipop flower to make this layout. I also used a pale pink Coordinations background paper. I used the Coordinations paper to dry emboss the first half of the title, which I sanded to bring out the lighter color underneath show through. I really liked this fun dimensional look without adding anything to the actual page.

I doodled around all each of the elements (I think that’s my newest scrappy phase), cut out hearts from the patterned paper, and used a few accent buttons for more dimension. I feel like a layout isn’t complete without some dimension! :)

I made up this sketch a few weeks ago, and just got around to using it. I think I rather fancy it, and I am sure I’ll use it again soon. :) Aren’t brackets so fun? :)

Am I the only one who is ready for Spring already?? LOL

Thanks for looking!

Basic Grey- Olivia- Grandparents Love- Nana and PawPaw

2011-01-31T08:14:00.000-05:00

My daughter is so blessed, and wow is she a blessing to all who know her. She is so tender and sweet, and she simply makes my heart smile. She has this effect especially on her parents and her grandparents. They each just light up when she is around. :)

I made this layout to celebrate the love that her Nana and PawPaw have for her. :) I hope she always knows she is beyond loved!

I won a giveaway of goodies, to my great JOY, from the lovely Leeanne Ridley, from Artful Delight, which included Basic Grey’s Olivia Stack, a Cosmo Cricket Stack, as well as many Pebbles double sided papers, and stamps and embellishments! I was so excited to play with my new goodies, she was soooo generous! Thanks again Leeanne! Here in this layout, I used those new Basic Grey goodies. :)

I tried that stitched through heart technique I’ve seen all of the place for the first time on this layout and I really enjoy the 3D-ness of it! :) Lastly, I doodled all around the layout to get some added contrast to the pink-ness. :)

Thanks for looking!

DIY Simple Fan Wreath Door Sign

2011-01-29T15:16:00.001-05:00

One night recently, I was up just browsing through scrapbook.com’s public gallery, when I realized exactly what project I wanted to tackle next—a door sign for my office/scraproom. I followed the image link and found this darling idea on Melanie's blog post. Isn’t this wreath idea the cutest? I just knew I had to make one for myself, immediately!

I took some pictures of my own during my process to share. All you need is paper, stapler, staples, ribbon, and a creative centerpiece for the finished sign. Easy peasy!

1. Choose 5 sheets of coordinating 12x12 patterned paper.

2. Cut each sheet of paper into 4x8 inch sections (you should have 4 of these strips per paper- with a square of leftover scrap).

3. Decide the order you want the papers to touch in for the sign.

4. Pinch one strip of paper in the bottom corner and staple (I did about 3 staples on each of the bottoms).

5. When you have a set of 5 pinched-papers stapled, you can then staple them from their sides to attach them together (I use about 3 staples along each side of the inside of the strips).

6. Once you have one set attached by the sides, staple a few times the bottoms of the set together (where you previously stapled the pinched bottoms of the strips). This makes it more easy to finish the next steps.

7. Repeat steps 4-6 again for each of the remaining 3 sets of pinched papers.

8. Finally, staple the sides of the sets of paper to each other, to form a circle (just as in step 5). That’s it for the basic wreath!

9. Lastly, decide what you want to add to the center to cover the seams of the staples in the center of the circle and adhere with your preferred method (Hot glue gun works well).

10. Use a ribbon (of your desired length) to attach to the back of the wreath so that you can hang it up, and enjoy!

Thanks to Melanie again for her innovative design! :)

Do you have a sign to welcome you and your guests to your space?

Thanks for looking!

Annual School Photos- Enjoy the Journey

2011-01-27T08:48:00.000-05:00

I had just a few of my annual school photos in my photo collection, and I had wanted for a while to make a single layout to display them all, and see the changes and growth throughout the years. This is the simple and easy design I came up with.

I used coordinating Pebbles (Twitterpated) papers for this layout and used lots of doodling throughout just because I thought it was fitting with school photos. The title came to me at the end, “Enjoy the Journey” because you’re only young once! :)

Thanks for looking!

Edges of Scrap Patterned Paper as Embellishment Focus- Ball Pit Fun

2011-01-22T08:02:00.000-05:00

One day recently I was playing with papers while brainstorming ideas for a new layout. I found this interesting squared off design happen on accident, and I realized I liked the look of overlapping papers as part of a layout sketch. I took out my pencil and jotted down my invented sketch in my head, in my sketches notebook for future use.

I used all scrap papers for this layout of my 2-3 year old sister years ago, and even used up scrap alphabet Thickers. :)

I cut 5 sections of patterned paper into an “L” shape for each layer and I distressed all of the edges prior to layering one “L” onto the next. With the fourth layer, I pleated the paper and stitched it down for a bit of interest in paper texture. For a fun look, I used a black Crayola crayon to doodle stars and edges on the layers. I lastly added some hand-cut stars out of the remaining paper scraps and added my title. Totally simple and fun layout. I think I will use this sketch again for another design in the future.

Do you use sketches before you scrapbook/card-make or just play with the elements until you get your desired result?

Thanks for looking! Have a great day!

DIY Handmade Rolodex with Foam Board and Double Sided Patterned Paper

2011-01-13T08:08:00.000-05:00

Earlier this week, I was trying to find a suitable sketch for a picture I had in mind. I went to my sketch notebook, and found nothing appealing, then I went into my second sketch/writing notebook. My second notebook is where I had to flip back and forth between pages to find anything at all since it was so randomized—there were either blocks of text for past journaling layouts, diary entries, ideas for titles, or hard to find sketches.

Finally, I resorted to looking through my third sketch notebook, at which time I decided, “why the heck am I going through 200 pages of randomness in an unorganized fashion (totally not me!) when I could just make my own dream sketch keeper?” The light bulb kicked on, I knew my next project would be a sketch organizer. I needed one obviously since I couldn’t find one good sketch within three encrypted books!

I found in my scraproom a little spiral standing book, The Power of a Praying Parent, which my best friend gave me, that was exactly the format I wanted to use for my sketch organizer. I had to figure out a way to replicate that format, so I make a mock up of how I thought the books structure was built, and I got it right! All I needed were a few things I had laying around to get started. I will share with you how I did it. Click on the photos to enlarge them. :)

Supplies:

Foam Board ( at least 10x12)

Double Sided Paper

Clear Drying Glue

Craft Knife

Paper Trimmer

Hole Puncher (or Crop-a Dile/Big- Bite)

2 inch Circle Hook Rings (look in window treatment or bathroom curtain aisle)

Optional: Post It- Filing Tabs

I crafted this up entirely, frame and all, myself. I used foam board from Michaels and cut with my craft knife about a 5x11.5 inch strip of foam off. I scored the foam board at 4 inches, 1 and 3/4, again at 1 and 3/4 inch, and lastly at 4 inches with a bone file, to make the frame-- the smaller scores are for if I wanted to fold the book down some for portability one day.

I found a 12x12 double sided paper that I liked in Basic Grey’s Kioshi line and cut it into a very slightly-bigger strip of 5x12 inches. I covered both sides of the scored foam board with Tacky Glue (I’m sure Modge Podge would work well here) to adhere the papers (use the opposite sides of the paper on each side of the foam board). I wrapped around the edges of my foam board slightly to cover the naked foam board as well.

I decided to make a cover page to my rolodex, but that is optional, so I just cut out another 5x4 inches of foam board and covered with scrap paper from the same Basic Grey line in the same fashion as described above.

Next, I decided how many rings I wanted and punched my holes. It was easy for me to decided how to punch my rolodex because I have a 3 ring whole puncher in my stash, but just make little tick notes where you would like your rings to be if you don’t have a tool and punch out with a paper punch, or crop-a-dile (my Big-Bite worked wonderfully). Make sure to use the same hole marks throughout the entire project.

I found some 3x5 inch index cards in my school supplies and began punching coordinating hole into my index cards. I punch about 150 cards and set them aside.

I wanted this to be organized so I made dividers with fun patterned paper, at about the same size as the index cards, for each section I desired (One photo sketches; Two Photo Sketches; Three+ Photo Sketches; Two Page Sketches; Card Sketches; and Quotes section). I plainly embellished my dividers (you can be more creative if you like) with SEI Jocelyn page titles and used Post-It Durable Filing Tabs on the fronts and backs of the dividers, so that I can see my categories from the front of back of the book, as I flip through it.

That’s it! My do-it-yourself rolodex is complete.

The last thing is to add the 2 inch rings, index cards with dividers, and cover on top, and viola I was done finally! I realize this may be a bit more work then just going out and buying a rolodex, but really, this one is so special because I made it and it matches my needs perfectly. :)

Now I just need to transfer all of my sketches. ;)

How do you organize your sketches/inspiration?

Hope you liked this! Thanks for looking!

Princess Castle- Paper Pieced and Embossed

2011-01-12T08:11:00.000-05:00

I spent entirely too many hours on this layout. LOL. It was a simple enough idea at first, but making the castle look as I wanted while in the making… not so simple—either that or I just like to make things harder than they should be. :)

I made a sketch of a castle layout I imagined one day, for future use, knowing that I wanted a princess theme layout for my daughter who swears she is a princess all day! So when I went to planning the actual structure of the castle, I found a little drawing of a castle in the background of one of my patterned papers and decided that I wanted to replicate that look, but bigger—so I made a huge castle. :)

Certainly, I had to cut out my daughters princess photos and place them in the two windows on either side, the front gate to the castle, and of course, as a trapped princess in the tower of the castle (she had a goofy sad face in that photo so it was totally fitting!). :)

For the background paper, I used one that had a blue faded to yellow pattern (I would have never used it for anything, so this was it’s only chance to shine and I think it did nicely) for which I tried to separate the sky from the ground level with freehand clouds, freehand (inked) trees, and a freehand rock barrier in the background.

I used pink cardstock as the base of my castle and paper pieced all the purple tower covers and scalloped blue edging. I then made windows and doors out of paper and cut my photos around my daughters frame. I used a light purple patterned paper, that I had in my stash for way too long, for the title, clouds, windows, and door. I also used the same darker purple cardstock from the towers covers to make a door frame for the gate, and for the window sills.

I should have done this part first, but I didn’t think of it until near the end—I heat embossed flowers and brambles with embossing powders, in clear for the towers, and white for the flowers on the top of the tower covers. I decorated lightly some of the clouds with Diamond Stickles (my favorite!) as well as my title, and used pink-ish fabric paint for the blue scallops of the castle. I outlined everything that I paper pieced with a black pen and journaled about my daughters story and princess phase in the center (I was trying for a brick look for the text). Lastly, I mounted the castle onto the background with scrap foam board that I had laying around for much more dimension then 3D tape.

I had a really nice time making this layout because I got to really set out of my norm. I never cut photos out, and here I did, four times! I would like to do this again soon. :)

Have you ever cut out your photos and made an interactive looking design? Please share with me. I need some more ideas! :)

Have a great day!

You Are My Everything- Personality Traits

2011-01-11T08:03:00.000-05:00

Hello bloggy friends! I have surely missed blogging, really I have. I feel as though I have no time for anything because I have a hundred tasks to juggle, and as soon as I get one ticked off my list of “to-do” there are still 99 more things left to do, and rinse and repeat. Is it just me or did the holidays and being out of town on vacation for nearly a month really throw everything out of whack??? I am ready for 2011 to calm down already. It’s not too late to wish you a wonderful, healthy, prosperous, happy New Year for 2011 is it? In any case…

Happy New Year!!! :)

I borrowed some time from another task to actually just scrapbook this last weekend, yay! I was inspired by Amy to make this design. I loved her torn background look on her layout (see below), so I made my own take on it to showcase my daughters wonderful personality traits and all the 101 things I love about her. :)

I dry embossed the pink Core’dinations paper, peeking through from under the pale blue and black background, by putting my paper face down on my mousepad, rubbing my multi-purpose stylus in a small circle motion in many areas, and finally sanding the bumps from the right side up—that created the polka dot pattern. :)

I also used pleated pink ribbon to mat my distressed journaling heart on by using my new hot glue gun with precision tip—so now glue wont go everywhere it isn’t suppose to go!

The hubby bought me a new glue gun for Christmas because I had briefly told him how bummed I was that my mini-glue gun broke just a few days before we went on vacation to Mississippi. That was unexpected, by the way, because I thought he never listened! LOL.

I must share, the husband also bought me my most craved item of the year, the Twilight Saga in hardcover! I honestly squealed when I opened the gift and I literally hugged the box set of the books!!! LOL. I cannot believe how amazing the book is for the second time, now that I am re-reading the first novel! I know I will read and re-read these novels for years, seriously. If you haven’t already, and even if you have already, read Twilight (again!)! :)

Ok, scrapbooking hat back on now. :) Thanks again to the amazingly talented Amy for her design that I scraplifted. :)

How were your holidays? Did Santa bring you anything?

Have you made your first layout of the year yet?

HUGS!

Simple Arrows and Patterned Paper Strips- The Only Girl in the World

2010-12-15T12:59:00.001-05:00

Hello dear crafty friends! :) I have been ultra busy with this last school semester and finally, my last day of class was last night, so the Fall’10 semester is OVER!! Yippie! To celebrate, I finished a layout I had sitting on my desk for a few days. I should get to cranking some more layout before class resumes in 2 weeks! :)

I used all scrap paper and scrap alphabets for this except for the textured brown background. I even brought out my lonely decorative scissors from hiding for the arrow on the top left. :)

I am not a huge fan of the yellow acrylic paint I used on this brown cardstock background, but I hate to just waste paper, so I used it as my background anyway. I figure, next time I can use this as inspiration and I can do it better. :)

I didn’t know what to title this layout, so Rihanna’s song came to mind (maybe I just listening to it on the radio???) and I thought I would incorporate that as well. The journaling I wrote referred to how I love her more than any other girl in the world. :) I love my babe!!! :)

I got the inspiration for this design from the wonderful Amy’s scrapbook.com layout, below. Hers is way cuter but, oh well! :)

Have you tried painting on your layout? What application works best for you?

Thanks for looking! :)

100 Post Giveaway Winner Announcement

2010-12-13T08:04:00.000-05:00

My 100th post giveaway is now officially closed. Thanks to all who participated!!! :D I was so happy to ‘meet’ new virtual friends and receive comments about how/why my blog friends got started up with the scrapbooking hobby way back when. :) In exchange for those comments I will send off this RAK to one special winner. I might have to do another giveaway soon, as it was so much fun-- and lets face it, everyone loves free happy mail! :)

Without further ado, the winner to my 100 post giveaway, chosen by random.org is comment number 4, which is…

Scraptastic Mel x !!!

Congratulations! Send me an e-mail (Yadee87@aol.com) with your address so that I can send your goodies out soon!

Thanks to all who played along! If I haven’t already, I’ll make my way to your blog to sprinkle some love soon. :D

Have a great day!

High School Graduation with Banners- Surmount

2010-12-09T08:04:00.000-05:00

I had these photos of myself from my high school graduation that I never really got a chance to scrapbook. I didn't quite know what to do with the multiple pictures because I normally use only 1 or 2 photos on a layout, so I decided my best bet would be to do a double sided layout. This worked like a charm! I picked a sketch and went to town with some pink, gray, and black patterned papers.

I ended up making my own lined background paper for this layout using colored pencils and a ruler. The lined background paper was fun to do and a nice way to make a plain white cardstock pop a bit. I made my own banners from strips of scraps in a triangle shape and stitched through the banners. The word "surmount" is one that I searched on the internet for a long time for. It means to overcome an obstacle or to conquer. I would sum up my high school years as definitely full of obstacles, so using a new word for me as the title was fitting. :)

I found the sketch for my design from the wonder Sketch Savvy blog.

Do you enjoy scrapping double-sided layouts?

Have a great day!

Color Washed Border Strips- All of Us Showing Love

2010-12-02T08:04:00.000-05:00

I have had these same border strips in my stash since the beginning of my scrapping history back in 2008- don’t we all have border strips just laying around? I was inspired by the new strips backgrounds that I have stumbled upon in the blog world, and decided to repurpose my not-my-style border strips to something beautimus. This was my attempt.

I took all of the border strips I could find in my stash and tried to arrange them in a way that flowed well. While in the planning stage of this project, I came up with this zig-zag pattern strips for a sequence of 3 or 4 lines and a straight edged break between the next set of wavy lines, and repeated this pattern to the bottom of a 12x12 sheet of cardstock. Once I had designated where each strip was going to lay, I carefully pulled the strips from off the cardstock and slid them off to the side in the order they would appear.

The next step is to adhere the strips down to the cardstock, making sure to leave some space between each strip. For this step I was not using my head- clearly!- because I ended up using almost an entire refill of tape runner on the cardstock, instead of doing it the easy way and using a glue stick. In any case, the tape runner worked just fine for keeping the strips down. :)

I trimmed the excesses off the edges of my 12x12 paper and that was nearly the effect I wanted, but it was too busy for my own tastes. I took it one step further and I took out some white gesso and white acrylic paints to paint over the entire 12x12 sheet and all the nooks and crannies. I painted in a horizontal and vertical pattern, leaving a slightly color-washed strip background- the colors are very very subtle in real life. I was pleasantly surprised with the finished product. :)

Certainly, you can use this technique on a smaller sized base or just cut the cardstock out into whichever sizes you need for a card, or some other project as well, but I found it to be ideal for a layout as a background.

I decided to keep the design very simple on this to balance the background’s texture. I used a single scrap blue tag laying around, some old chipboard, a bit of tulle, and some fabulous handmade buttons by the talented Amy.

Have you re-purposed an old embellishment of stash finding lately? I’d love to see how! :)

Thanks for looking and have a great day! :)

Handmade DIY Baby Shower Decorations and Favors

2010-11-30T08:07:00.000-05:00

My girlfriend was planning a baby shower so I chimed in and offered my help for decorations and party favor making. We decided on altered candles for party favors and I made my first diaper cake for the mother-to-be, as a gift.

Making these DIY projects myself was really not that hard—and we saved easily over $100 off retail prices for similar decor! I would argue that if you have the will, anyone can make altered candles and a diaper cake—and with all that extra money saved from buying pre-made stuff, you can purchase yourself a little something instead. ;)

Above is a photo of the assembled table with the diaper cake in the center and altered candles, on a cupcake holder, on either side of that. I think I really fancy these colors, aren’t they so cheerful and cute?

The diaper cake was very easy to put together but it was time consuming—it took about 2-3 hours to completely assemble the three tiers of diapers. I researched “diaper cakes” on Google and found many cute ideas for future diaper cakes, as well as, basic instructions from, DIY Diva, on how to make a diaper cake myself. Instead of using many rubber bands to hold the cake layers together, I used regular scotch tape to roll the 100 tiny diapers and secured them together with 3 varied ribbons—one for each tier.

I included an "ingredients” card at the top to describe what I used to ‘bake’ the cake and placed a few various baby items snuggly along the ribbon sections. I also used a scrap piece of foam core board as the base of my diaper cake, and hot glued the scalloped characters in the center of the ribbon ties (in the middle of the cake) to coordinate with the scallops from the candle favors.

Total cost for this diaper cake, including all diapers, baby stuff, and foam core board, because of Black Friday sales, was $18!!! I have seen diaper cakes run from $60- 150 each—I saved myself a bunch of money and my cake was uniquely my own. I’ll use receiving blankets for the ‘cake layers’ next time for a different look.

These candles were inspired by Beau-coup’s website for baby shower favors. We bought 24 HEMSJÖ block candle’s from Ikea ($2.99/ 4 Pack), green and blue tissue paper, and printed and punched out cartoon characters.

I altered each candle with the tissue paper by first cutting each strip of tissue paper to find around the candle length and width wise. I used heat tool (heat gun) to simply place the tissue paper onto the candle and ‘melt’ it right onto the surface of the candle. There are instructions for how to tissue paper alter candles at Split Coast Stampers, if you are interested in more details.

The cartoons were made with my 1.5 inch circle punch and 2 inch scallop punch. I made small holes in the center of the scallops and looped a ribbon through each one to attach the cartoons to the candles. I had the idea to place the finished party favors on my cupcake stand and it worked like a charm! :)

Similar custom candles could have cost us MUCH more per candle, as opposed to the $26 spent total for the party favors. Who needs pre-made supplies or decor anyway!!!

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Have you ever made a diaper cake or another DIY project that you love? Send me a link, I’d like to look! :)

Thanks for stopping by! Hugs!

P.S. My giveaway is now open, so check it out: 100th Post Giveaway

100th Blog Post and First Blog Giveaway

2010-11-29T08:07:00.001-05:00

**********Giveaway now closed***********
I started up this blog up back in mid-March, and I did so even hesitantly. I did not think I was talented enough to have my own blog or creative enough to have many followers, but I took the blogging plunge anyhow. To my great amazement and satisfaction, I have grown even further in my crafting and style because of blogging and sharing with my virtual buddies (I totally love you guys!!!). I cannot believe how much I love blogging and how much it pushes me to do what I enjoy doing more often—scrapbooking!
This post marks my 100th blog post on ScrappyGoLucky and I thought I should celebrate by hosting a small giveaway for my blog buddies! Who doesn’t love happy mail of scrappy goodness in exchange for a simple comment??? :)

Included in the RAK is:
5- 12x12 Double-sided sheets of We R Memory Keepers White-Out Collection (Promenade Line)
12- 12x12 sheets of Martha Stewart Crafting paper (Picnic)
1- 12x12 sheet of Deja Views (Orange Swirl Border)
3- sets of Martha Stewart clear stamps (Alphabet, Dinner Party, & Heart and Flower)
1- set of Hampton Art clear stamps (Craft Affair- Just Because)
2- sets of Studio G mini-clear stamps (Happily Ever After and Love Vine)
1- medium acrylic block (for use with the clear stamps)
1- gently used Fiskars embossing border punch (All-A- Fleur)
2- rolls of Martha Stewart craft seam binding (ribbon) in Pink Clay and Cloud
2-sets of Bead Party Peel-and-Stick Bling (Flowers and Butterflies)
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How to Win:
1. Leave me a comment and tell me about how/why you got into paper crafting. What is your personal favorite project or layout (of our own creation—or mine) to date? Leave a link here of your (or my own) project if you wish to share. :)
Easy requirement right? Too easy!
Here are two other *OPTIONAL* requirements to increase your chances of winning:
2. Become a follower. Not being a follower will not interfere with your chances of winning (but how else would you know if you won?). I’d love to give these goodies to a follower, new or old, that visits my space. :) If you are already a follower, send me a comment letting me know.
3. Share this giveaway post on your blog/Facebook/Twitter/E-mail/favorite forum with a link back to this blog/post. Share at as many sources as you would like and send me additional comments for each different place you leave my link for multiple entry chances to win this giveaway. This especially means a bunch to me. :)
Please, leave a separate comment for each requirement you do.
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This giveaway will be open, for about two weeks, until midnight of December 12th, 2010 to all US addresses only (since it’s a small RAK). I’ll use random.org to announce a winner the next day, December 13th, 2010.
Thanks for playing along and helping me celebrate 100 posts!
God bless you! :)

Just Married- Pleated Silk, Roses, and Swirls

2010-11-27T00:12:00.000-05:00

Although my Mom and Dad are now separated, they did get married back in the 80's and stayed together for over 16 years. I felt that it was my duty to document what once was between them. I didn't know exactly how to title this layout as it wouldn't have fit under another more romantic phrase such as "I thee wed" or "happily ever after" so I went simple and decided on a safe title, with no implications, "just married."

I tried to use a romantic color scheme but not too frilly and this is what I came up with. I used scraps of paper from my "surmount" graduation layout, and for that added something, I pleated silky ribbon, with added pearls to cover the stitching in the center, and handmade silky ribbon roses. I used a handmade hat pin that a friend had given me as another element of pizzazz.

The swirly dots on the bottom left corner are actually on transparency paper and made by another friend with nail polish (she used an existing rhinestone bling to trace onto the transparency paper the swirl design) from which I closely trimmed the excess transparency from.

I think I am rather fond of the contemporary romantic feel of the patterns and colors, and also, the positive memories it brings me to look at these photos and have a reminder of a happy time in my parents marriage. Have you scrapped a wedding layout in non-traditional colors?

I hope this inspires you to scrapbook a memory that you no longer find relevant today, but perhaps one day, you can look back and smile at what once was.

P.S. Be sure to be back on Monday for my first giveaway announcement. :)

Happy Saturday!