Bliss- A Scrap Our Stash Pagerize this Challenge

  When I first saw Karen's page, I was drawn to the bright colour and the use of diagonal lines. It's a little like an X. She has made such a fun and eye catching  page. One which immediately draws your eye to the main photo.

Scrap Our Stash's Pagerize This #9

  As I went through my photos, I realized I did not quite have smaller photos in my current "to scrap" stack that matched her strip down the side. So Instead, I chose to use a larger 4x6 photo and some blocks of patterned paper in their place.

K and Co. poppyseed papers
Title cut from a K and Co. Border
Basic Grey Brads
Crate Paper ribbon
Sei InkBlue ink
Bic Mark it in Playful Purple

I used circles, the title and the journaling to help keep the X shape in place. Though my main photo is in a different place then hers, the main deisgn of the page still draws you eyes right to the main photo. To keep the page fun, I added some splashes of violet glimmer mist and doodled some faux stitching with a purple marker.

The Exciting Adventures of Raft Man and Noodle Boy

 Often times, many families have something they enjoy doing together. For us, that's playing in the pool. This also means we end up with photos of the same type of event over and over again. If you are like me ( Obsessed with photos of your family) this may make it hard to narrow down the best photos for scrapping. Often, I just like to scrap them regardless of how many pool layouts end up in my albums. After all, it's about enjoying the process of scrapbooking while telling a story, right? A title like this one helps set this group of photos apart from other similar photos. It makes for a more specific story and highlights the relationship between my husband and my son. I did not come up with the title. My silly son and husband did while they were playing in the pool. I was more than happy to "borrow" it for these pages.

Scraphappy.org February Sketch
SEI papers, chipboard and Alphas
Making Memories brads
Bic Mark It pen in midnight navy

  One would think with as many water themed pages as I make that I would have all of the perfect embellishments to complete a page. Sometimes though, I wish I had a little something different. When I was making the companion page for raft man and noodle boy, I wanted some waves. I don't have any wave stamps which for some reason is what I felt it needed. It's not in my budget to go buy stamps right now and quite frankly, if I did, I would have to order them on-line. I really didn't want to wait for them to be shipped to me. I will admit, that I almost caved and bought a stamp set from K and Co.

  Common sense grabbed a hold of me. Because the image I wanted was fairly simple, I decided to see if I could doodle a wave similar to the stamp I had wanted to purchase. I got a piece of scrap paper, and used a pencil to doodle some waves. I was happy with the overall results and then made the brave step to doodle it on my layout. If you feel less brave than I, try doodling on a scrap piece of paper, then cut it out and use that on your page.White erasers also come in handy. They don't seem to leave marks on your paper.I am not quite sure if the doodle goes well with the page, but I did enjoy the little experiment and plan to try it again in the future.

Sassy Lil Sketch April 7, 2011

If you have any sun themed/ fun in the sun type projects to share, there is still time to submit them to Scrap Our Stash for the April challenge.

Mad Libs...the Scrapbook version

 Mad libs are so much fun! I used them to help teach my son the parts of speech. What child wouldn't want to do school work when it's mad libs? So, when the chance came to play a scrappy version of the game I just could not resist trying it out. To play the scrappy version, you send in a list of paper colours, embellishments and a one word title. The hostess mixes up everyone's items and then sends a list back to you. I received the colours green, blue and purple. My embellishments were ribbon and brads. The title word was "happy". At first, I was very stumped. The colours seemed to me to be too strong if I used them as Jewel tones or too feminine if I used them in lighter tones. I began to flip through my papers searching for the right ones. I finally settled on K and Co.'s Poppyseed line. The colours were perfect and the hint of charcoal in them gave me the idea to use a Black and white photo.

K and Co. poppyseed papers
title and birds cut from K and CO. borders
Crate paper ribbon
all papers inked with SEI ink blue ink
Playful purple Bic Mark it
Basic Grey Brads
Scrapbook Challenges Sketch 250

  I love the results of the colour combo, so much that I made a second page. Stay tuned to see it later on.The base card stock is actually a little more white, but shows as a light purple in my photo. I love it when a hard challenge comes together in a good way. I often find I love the page because it's so different from what I usually make.

A Sort of Gypsy Life

  I was a very lucky kid. I came along in that time of life when my grandparents were able to travel. They loved having me with them. That meant lots of weekend trips to explore nearby camp grounds...at least one cmaping trip a month if not more. On the last day of school for summer break, they would pick me up in their RV. We'd drive as far as we could that day and then spend the summer exploring the United States. They only brought me home again when I had to go back to school.

Ella Publishing 4-18-11 sketch

I used October Afternoon papers from my April Counterfeit kit. The RV die cut is by Lil Davis Designs. it's been in my stash for 8 years! It's a good thing to finally use it on a page. I dressed up some Maya road chipboard with burgandy paint and diamond stickles. It's a sort of retro camping page with a little gypsy flair.

Scraphappy.org April Sketch

I really had a lot of great experiences with my grandparents. I wish I could travel more. I'd love to share some of the places I went with my son. As it is, we enjoy every opportunity to travel when our budget allows. I only wish it allowed more.

Inspired by Art

  Art can provide some wonderful inspiration. From colour palette to them, the possibilities are endless. Recently, I found a wonderful challenge spot called Artastic. This will be the 2nd time I have played along with their challenge. This month's painting featured my favourite time of year...

Autumn Wonder by Debbie Adams

                                                      
and I just so happened to have some fall photos that need to be scrapped. Last Fall, We took my son to Disney's Board Walk to trick or treat with some friends. I was able to get some great shots of the kids with Mickey Mouse in front of a cute fall theme backdrop. I wanted to make a whimsical page with a fall theme, rather than use the bright colours usually associated with Disney. I also did not feel that Halloween papers would be right for the photo. I looked to my April Counterfeit kit for inspiration. The October Afternoon papers gave it just the right cozy, fall feel.

Pagemaps sketch done for Sketches4all
misc. buttons
all papers October afternoon except for red/cream( Scrap within reach)
tree trunks- cosmo cricket earth love paper
Basic Grey Alphas

I used a buttermilk cream acrylic paint over brown bazzill cardstock. I chose to dry brush a bit, so that the brown and the texture of the paper showed through. I alternated faux sticthing and real hand stitching to add to the country style Fall theme. I hand cut the trees and the clouds for the whimsical look I desired.

Sketch Inspiration #216

The hardest part of these pages were the rolled borders. Since I did not have double sided patterned paper, I adhered to pieces together back to back. This made the paper quite stiff. So as I rolled it, I used glue dots to hold it in place. I then chose to hand stitch over the rolls to ensure they would not come undone.
  As you can see, my layouts don't resemble the painting very much. Inspiration does not need to be an exact reproduction. In this case, the colours from the painting and the trees are what made their way to my pages. So next time you see a piece of artwork, consider all of the possible ways in which you can interpret it.

Such a Glorious Feeling

 That phrase really stuck out at me when I saw the movie poster featured at From Screen to Scrap's challenge blog.
                                                      
It is always a wonderful feeling to have the rain cool you off on a hot day. I make it a point of taking my son for walks during the rain so we can enjoy it( barring thunder and lightening of course). I have wonderful memories of puddle stomping with my Grandparents and I hope my son will carry on this tradition with a child of his own someday.
  Given that this is something we do often, I will admit that this is not my first page about walking in the rain. In fact, I made the companion page to the layout I will share today several months ago. So I carried the paper and colour scheme over to this page with the fancy pants papers, glimmer mist splatters and red buttons.

The title is made from some older Creative memories letter stickers with glossy accents added for a "wet look". Since this is a companion page to another, I really didn't want the title to stand out too much. The red allows it to pop out of the journaling while still being a part of it.

April's Counterfeit Kit

  I know...I am a bit tardy to the party this month. However, I have a good excuse! AND...I have photos to prove it. Though you may not see the photos until a bit later. We have been traveling. I am glad to say we are safely home. As with any adventure, there is bound to be uncomfortable situations. There was no lack of those due to what a person must endure when one flies nowadays. Where were we flying to and from? Aspen, Colorado. My wonderful husband took us along on his recent business trip. My son and I enjoyed the snow and the mountains. My husband did manage to slip away now and then for some family time. Getting there and back was not fun, but that's another story for the scrapbook.
 Anyway, the only thing bad about traveling is that you can not take your scrapbook supplies with you. AT least not easily. So I missed making up my kit this month. I finally got the chance in the past day or so and now I get to share it. This month's Counterfeit kit challenge threw me for a loop. The vintage colors and some of the designs were hard for me to replicate from my stash...especially given the photos I am hoping to scrap this month. I tried my best to keep with the bird theme. There are some birds in there, but some other forest creatures came along too. It seems now may be a good time to get out some older camping trip photos as well as some of the recent ones that go with these papers. Maybe some fall photos will get scrapped as well.

October Afternoon Campfire 6x6 pad with matching chipboard,embellishments and stickers
Cosmo Cricket's Earth love in relive and repeat
Scrap Within reach carnival ride
Basic Grey Basics( for that ledger paper look)
K and Co. Diecuts with flowers, birds and various insects
Making Memories Passport alphas( canvas stickers)
Basic grey Life of the party micro mono alpha stickers
K and CO. Actopus to zed wood alphas
American Crafts rub on alphas-brown purkey
Maya Road felt badges- birds of a feather
Maya Road Crochet lace- cream
Fancy pants ribbons and ric rac trim
Maya road chipboard birds and alphas
Artsylicious splendid treasures in chocolate( felt leaves, flowers and buttons)
Bazzil chip- garden flowers
Maya Road Postage stamps-sheer
7 Gypsies postcard and insect cards
Making Memories tag

It's sort of an eclectic kit, but I still hope to put it to good use this month. Now I am off to print some recent photos and find my camping pics. Stay tuned for some new layouts....

The Wave Machine

   For me...sunshine means getting outside to play in the pool! Living in a warm climate means that I have tons of poolside photos to scrap.So, I was very excited to see that Scrap Our Stash's April challenge revolved around the sun. I started off by pulling out my pool and beach theme project folder. It is bursting at the seams with paper and embellishments perfect for scrapping water based activities. However, the more I looked at the photos I had chosen for this project, the more I knew that these were not the right papers to use this time.
   Sometimes the story behind a page takes precedence over a traditional theme. This two page layout was just such a case. In the photos I had picked, my husband is pushing a raft up and down in the water to create waves for my son to play in. My son has come to refer to this as the Daddy wave machine. So rather than use traditional papers with a sun or pool theme,I decided to make things look a little more mechanical.

I chose a metallic silver card stock as the base. Splattering it with Sapphire blue glimmer mist gave the appearance of water. I staggered the photos in a diagonal line across both pages... giving it the appearance of movement, like waves moving up and down.I painted some Maya road gear shaped chipboard pieces with silver acrylic paint. I used a tuxedo black bic mark it to outline the cogs and gears. This gave it a little more detail and helped them stand out from the page a bit more. To make the word " wave", I hand cut some letters from the cover of a paper pad, then wrapped them in foil. I used Stream alcohol ink( from ranger) to give the turquoise color. I visually anchored the photos to the page using strips of recollections paper. and hand stitching. To make the appearance of waves in the machine, I used a template to trace a wave border onto a piece of blue textured carstock. it's been in my stash for awhile and was actually the only thing I used out of my project pack.

I used the same border template to make the journal strips. I traced it on a scrap sheet of white card stock, then moved the template down a bit and tracing the border again. I do recommend journaling before you cut out the strips. It makes it easier to write.

Phrases Can Be More Than Meets the Eye

  Every so often, the kits I choose come with a pre-made word or phrase that I find difficult to use. These will often then sit, unused, as I don't have a clue what to do with them. In this particular case, I had the word "girly" in the form of a rub-on. There is nothing really girly in my house ( other than me and my female cat). Everything else is well...very much male dominated as I have a son, my wonderful husband and 2 other male pets. So the question was " when will I ever use this?!?"

Crate Paper Seasons rub-ons

The answer arrived while making my latest page. It's probably not new to some, but it's new  for me. I could simply cut the word apart and use sections of it in the title!

Scraphappy.org March Inspiration Scraplift of Maggie Holmes'
" I Absolutely love your Laugh"

Using the rub-ons and a variety of letter stickers made the title more interesting and allowed me to use up an otherwise unusable item in my stash. I invite you to also think a little more out of the box with the words and phrases in your stash. You just might like what you end up with.