Motivated (again!)

I ran into a fellow crafter at Stamp Asylum, my favorite LSS (Local Stamping Store... as close to a Local Scrapbook Store as it gets these days) and she remembered me from the class we took and mentioned that she follows my blog.  Er, um... well followed it when I was updating it.  She inspired me to get back to blogging.   I'm having difficulty logging in to my Google circle account (too many user names and passwords!) but will link to her blog as soon as I figure out how to do that!

I have been busy crafting - just not taking pictures and posting.  So, with the sun finally appearing in Texas, and some new motivation, I went outside today and took lots of photos of my scrapbook layouts.  My goal for this year is to use all of this technology to connect with some new crafty friends (and maybe inspire my old creative friends to come back to the dark side and craft with me!).

I used a kit from The Scrap Room and a few goodies from my stash.  I painted the wood veneer citrus slice and the arrows in bright orange, pink and yellow (Tim Holtz acrylic paints).  The words were cut from a Bella Blvd paper and I backed them with teal paper to  make them stand out a bit more.  Just a little bit of journaling and a few paint splatters and it was finished!

Hope someone inspires you today!

Leslie

A Series of Fortunate events

I can not multi-task (apparently no one really can) because I have quite a few layouts from February that, not only did I create, but I photographed and uploaded to the computer, but since I loaded them onto Flickr for the LOAD challenge, I forgot to put them on my blog as well.  Lately, I have been cranking out layouts, but haven't managed to photograph them, so they too have not made it onto my blog.  I can only handle one technology at a time, haha.  Oh well.  I have made progress on that front, so I guess I will just keep trying!

This layout was from the February LOAD challenge, which was to create a layout from a book title. My daughter actually helped with this one.  And although this is a very well know story among the family, it is not one that I had ever scrapbooked.  Love that this story (how my college roommate and I married brothers and live near each other and have kids that are cousins!) finally got a layout of its own.

I love using my kits from the Scrap Room ( www.scrap-room.com ) because they always seem to combine papers that I like together.  Although I admit on this layout I cut strips and used both the front and backsides of the papers and mixed and matched them, so it may not really be recognizable - which is another reason I like the kits.  They can be used with the included recipe card or used as a starting point and everyone's layout is going to be completely different.

I hope a "series of fortunate events" occurs for you today!

Leslie

A Do-Over!

For some reason this layout gave me trouble.  I think I got stuck on wanting to use the paper, embellishments, and ticket stubs (ephemera - the "fancy" scrapbook term for all the memorabilia we collect on trips) and couldn't seem to get it all to balance.  I actually re-did one of the pages after I had decided it was done because it was just bothering me.  Not sure if it really made a difference, but it made me feel better.  So now it is officially done and I'm not changing it.

Can you spot the differences?

I added the teal background on the left hand page and added touches of it on the right side.  I felt like it "tightened" it up and balanced it better.   Probably not a big deal either way, but it made me feel better to "fix" it.

Hope you can be balanced today!

Leslie

Connections

It's funny how once you start thinking about a word, it seems to pop up everywhere.  I've been thinking about connections and how it seems that we all have a drive and a need to make connections - with the past, with each other and maybe even future generations.

It's one of the reasons I enjoy scrapbooking.  I can connect with my own family and our stories, but I can also connect with other people and enjoy finding out their stories.

I'm taking (another) class from May Flaum on making vacation albums.  It's been a really great class which has sparked some fun ideas.  This is a layout which captured a lot of pictures from our day trip to Florence and came together pretty fast.  It's definitely inspired by one of May's layouts.

I was able to crop a lot of the photos without compromising the image and fit a ton of photos on the layout.  I'll probably add a little journaling along the bottom, but the title kind of says it all!

Hope you can make some connections today!

Leslie

The Best One Ever!

Okay, so it is not about the best scrapbook layout ever (although, I do like this one), it is about the best husband ever!  The other night he (out of the blue) stood up and grabbed one of my old scrapbooks out of the bookcase.  We sat together and looked at pictures from 2002 and 2003.  It was so much fun to reminisce over the pictures, the stories and the memories!  I read my little snippets of journaling and was reminded of so many experiences.  I was so glad to have the books.  And I didn't spend anytime critiquing my scrapbook "style."  I enjoy making the pages, I love looking through the books, and I really love sharing them with other people.  I don't love every layout, but I love being able to jog my memory with all of the stories and people that appear in my albums.

So this layout today is for my cute husband!  Thanks for reminding me why I love to scrapbook and for always giving me "encouragement!" and support.

Hope you can share your stories with someone today!

Leslie

Springtime!

The weather if finally getting back to a more "normal" range for this time of year.  Sunshine and warm winds.  My kind of weather.  I haven't been posting here because of spring break and upon our return, pure laziness left over from vacation mode!  I have been creating lots of scrapbook layouts and playing with some new techniques.  Now I just need to photograph them and post about it!

I created this layout for the LOAD (Layout a Day) challenge in February.  I think it was a color challenge - Madeline colors - blue, yellow and white.  I am going to use this as a cover page for our 2012 trip to Europe - 17 of us family members and extended family traveling together.  A great trip!

I am usually a two page layout person - except for title pages in my albums - but I do enjoy making single page layouts.  I find it easier to layer and cluster embellishments on a single page.  Limiting the selection of product to three colors for the challenge had me putting lots of different items together but it still felt unified because they were all related by color.  It was fun to pull out old items that had been in my stash for a long time (such as the buttons, epoxy stickers and flower chipboard pieces) and pull them together for a layout.  I love getting the pictures onto a page!

I hope you can think about sunshine today!

Leslie

A dog's life

I recently had to say goodbye to one of my dogs.  I knew it was coming sooner rather than later, but even so, it seemed sudden and traumatic.  She was my dog and she had eyes only for me.  So I am sad.  Especially at meal time.  She never missed a meal and made sure I was putting dinner out for all of the dogs precisely at 7am and 5pm.  I keep forgetting to feed the other three now that she is not here to remind us!

One of the layouts I did for the LOAD (Layout a Day) challenge in February (and I missed the 28 complete layouts in February by a mile... but I did maybe 14 layouts... a little more if you count a two page layout as 2... so I am really happy!) was about my dogs and how we ended up with four.  So glad to have this story recorded.

Our theme for this day was to be inspired by a fairy tale.  Okay, so I twisted it a little.  I couldn't really get into the fairy tale motif, so I made it a "Furry Tail" instead.  Having this challenge inspired me to produce a story based layout (starting with the story I wanted to tell rather than documenting an event that happened) and made me glad to document the reason we are crazy enough to have four (sigh, three) dogs!

Hope you can share a story today!

Leslie