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Wednesday, August 31, 2011

alien clones {a scrapbook layout using a kit}

Thanks so much for all of the kind comments on my last post. The Disney project was definitely a labor of love, but so worth it!
I also had someone ask a few posts back where I got my black clipboard that I use sometimes to photograph my layouts. I got that in a Creating Keepsakes Kit of The Month waaaaaay back in 2007. {I tried to find a link to the actual kit and that was the closest I could find.}  I haven't seen it available anywhere since then-maybe a Pea will be selling theirs? I do love my clipboard though, and I did put together every one of those layouts from the kit. {Which reminds me-I need to add pictures to those!!}

Since we are going back in time, I thought I'd share a layout from Halloween 2006. Because we are starting to think about Halloween at our house. In fact, a certain little almost 3 year old's costume is already purchased and hanging in my closet. {And oh for the love of cute, it's adorable, can't wait to share the layout of that!!} And oddly enough, I purchased one of the twins' costumes back in April, so I'm 50% done. Go me!

I've chosen to put all of my Halloween layouts in one album, and I love looking through it and seeing how the boys have grown through the years. I only have one year left to go before I'm totally caught up on Halloween . {2007 photos, where are you??}

In 2006, we were in year one of Power Rangers costumes. The following year, Jarron was also a Power Ranger but a different style Rangers. It's funny because when I got these pictures back, they looked more like Aliens than Power Rangers. Even Jackson as a Dragon looked like an Alien. And my nephew as a GhostBuster, looked more like an alien hunter.Which is why the title is "Alien Clones".


You don't believe me? Take a closer look...


Yup, Aliens alright! And that pumpkin decoration? Yeah, still working 5 years later-not bad for something we picked up at Big Lots for $5! :)

Supplies: Cardstock-Bazzill, Patterned Paper and Embellishments-Zany Zinnia Rocket Man Kit, Letter Stickers-American Crafts

Monday, August 29, 2011

walt disney world {a vacation album!}

It's a day I never thought I'd see. A day 4 years in the making. The day I finally posted my completed 2007 Disney vacation album to the Two Peas gallery! Woo-hoo!

I have to tell you this project was overwhelming to me for a number of reasons. We took soooo many pictures, I had no idea where to start. And it's not every day you get to spend 5 days at Disney World. In fact, it has been our first and ONLY trip to Disney, so recording those memories was really important to me.

I won't bore you with all 24 or so layouts {I only posted 20 to my gallery at Two Peas-feel free to check out the whole album there if you are so inclined :>} but here are a couple of my favorites:

This is actually my son's favorite in the whole album, which makes it one of my favorites too. His reaction to this layout and the smile on his face when he sees this page are why I scrapbook.

This one is my favorite:


I love that little house die cut sticker and the cool picture of the mouse pumpkin. {It's the little things, people. It doesn't take much to make me happy.}

A few things I learned while making this album:
-Consistency is key! I used the same font for the titles throughout. I have the Mickey & Friends font cartridge for my Cricut and just adjusted my size depending on how long the title was. {BTW, my Gypsy was a huge timesaver here-I took it with me to my kids' basketball and football practices and worked on titles. All I had to do was plug it into my Cricut and press cut. Huge timesaver!}

-I used the same journaling font and text box set up for all of my journaling. I used CK Journaling, which is a favorite of mine, because it was clean and easy to read. Didn't distract from the pictures or the title. I just changed the color based on the cardstock I was using for each layout.

-My family blog was a vitally important to my journaling. I kept a detailed blog about this trip on my family blog and I used it to help with the journaling-90% of the story was already done. I sometimes slack off on keeping that blog up to date and this exercise was a good reminder for me on how important it is.
 ETA: Just realized the Disney trip was on my old family blog that was up before we had Brody. Oops!

- I didn't buy all of the materials for this album at once because that would have been crazy expensive. I picked them up here and there when I saw them on sale or with coupons. BUT, and this is key, I kept everything together in a 12 x 12 box that was set aside just for this project. As I got closer to putting the album together I started putting together Cropper Hopper folders with pictures, cardstock, stickers, and memorabilia for each park. This made assembling that album much faster!

It feels so good to have this album done, this makes 3 vacations completely finished! I have a scrapbook night scheduled with some friends in 3 weeks-should I be good and work on our 2009 Wisconsin trip or jump right into this year's Florida beach vacation?? Hmmnnnnn....

Thursday, August 25, 2011

enjoy life {a scrapbook layout with 12 photos!}

It's well documented that I like to take pictures. I rarely do a layout with just one or two photos, because I think about all those other photos that didn't make the layout, sitting there lonely and dejected and I have to include them too. :)
But this layout, well...it's a little extreme, even for me.
We had so much fun at the park, just the boys and I, that I had to include all of the pictures. {And go me! Four boys under the age of 9 at a park by myself!}

I used PhotoSheet to print two 2X3 photos on each 4X6 print with white borders-no need for matting and super easy to trim! Love that little program.

All about enjoying life and having fun!

Wednesday, August 24, 2011

mu {a scrapbook layout}

Since my boys went back to school yesterday, I thought I'd share a school-ish layout with you.
Our twins love to read and do a lot of reading. Jarron did so much reading that he won a contest for the Fairfield District and got to go to a Miami Redhawks game!
I took quite a few pictures at the game-this layout is just of the game itself and the sights players, cheerleaders, that sort of thing-there's another one that I did of him getting his award at halftime on center court that I'll share at some point.

Even though I broke it into two layouts, I still needed more room for pictures. So I created a fun little fold out area and added lots of 2x3 pictures. Jarron loves this layout!

{You can't see it, but the journaling is on the first page of the foldout.} Yet another fun use for my Martha scoring tool! Love that thing.

I'll be back tomorrow with a layout featuring over a dozen photos! {I'm not even kidding!}

Supplies: Kraft Cardstock-The Paper Company, Red patterned paper-KI Memories, Red diecut paper-KI Memories, letters-Accufit diecut system, Red cardstock-Bazzill, Black pen-Sharpie

Friday, August 19, 2011

the lakes brothers {a scrapbook layout}

I'm not a big fan of vintage papers or embellishments. I'm much more of a modern, clean, and simple scrapbooker.
But when I found a Jenni Bowlin kit at Tuesday Morning for super cheap, I thought I'd pick it up-I might use it for something. It's a more modern vintage look.
This weekend I had a few hours while the kids were watching wrestling with their dad {don't ask} so I did a little scrapbooking.
These pictures were originally intended to be framed but when I saw them I knew I wanted to tell the story of our boys. Of the special bond they have as brothers. It's amazing to me they way they interact with each other. They can argue and fight at home but they are such a unit to outsiders. They stand together always. Amazing.
I felt like the B&W photos had kind of an old fashioned feel, so I wanted to mimic that with my papers and embellishments.
 I struggled with the title-I knew I wanted to use the "name" sticker, but wasn't sure if I wanted to spell out Lakes Boys {what we, and everyone else typically call them} or Lakes Brothers. I felt like Lakes Brothers really told the story more.

I also wanted to capture the idea of how lucky these boys are to have each other-because they really, really are. This "lucky" bingo card and some twine were perfect!
 A little old fashioned-modern vintage. 

Supplies: Cardstock-Bazzill, Patterned Paper-Jenni Bowlin, Embellishments-Jenni Bowlin, Twine-We R Memory Keepers, Letters-My Mind's Eye Lush

This is our last weekend of summer, our 3 oldest go back to school next week-we might just end up at Kings Island again. :) But first tonight, we'll be meeting our son's first grade teacher and touring his new room.

Have a great weekend!


Monday, August 15, 2011

red white kaboom {a scrapbook layout with glitter, so much glitter}

I love the new Target back to school commercials. My favorite is the teacher who is listing supplies and at the end says, "Glitter, so much Glitter." Ha. Ha.
I don't normally use a lot {or any} glitter on my layouts but this layout of our 4th of July festivities last month seemed to scream for it.
We went with some friends to a fireworks display in our city, called "Red White Kaboom". Such a blast (ha ha-get it-blast?)

Here's a close up of the left side-

And the right side-
All of my embellies and the alpha came with the glitter already applied. Much more convenient that trying to do it yourself.
Besides the fun of working with the sparkily stuff, I was also super excited to fit 11 pictures on this layout! Woo-hoo!
Supplies used: Kraft Cardstock-The Paper Company, Red and White Alpha Stickers-Doodlebug, Gold Alpha-American Crafts, all other embellies-K & Company, blue marker-Sharpie

Have a great Monday!!

Tuesday, August 9, 2011

The One with Things I Love Tuesday

Well, hi there.
How about we do a little post about things I love..and since it's Tuesday. We'll call it "Things I Love Tuesday". Fun, right? :)
First up, this planner that I ordered from erincondren.com. Full disclosure here-I bought a monthly calendar from Tiny Prints by this designer earlier this year and loved it. The only problem was a corner of my laminated cover started coming apart. I contacted the nice folks at Erin Condren.com and they made it right-how cool is that? So with my credit, I bought the new 2011-2012 Life Planner. So excited to get it! When it arrives, I'll post pictures and give a little review.
Mine will look like this but have our family name and a cute picture of the boys. :)

I'm loving the new products that Becky Higgins is releasing this October. I love the idea of Project Life, but know I can't commit to taking a picture a day (I last until about March and then fall off). But I like many elements of the kits-page protectors, journal cards, the page dividers-and now Becky is making all of that available a la cart! So cool! I'm definitely getting the 6 x 12 page protectors-I just started doing some pages in this size and haven't found a good source for these just yet.

I finally ordered the Ella e-book that had been in my cart for far too long-Celebrating the Everyday. Can't wait to spend some time looking at this. I think I've mentioned how much I love Ella Publishing before-it really fills the void the Simple Scrapbooks has left behind for me. This book is by Elizabeth Dillow, who happens to be one of my favorites scrappers-love how she ties the story into every page she does.

I didn't keep up much with the CHA new releases but I did see the new Basic Grey lines. (I {heart} BG!). And I think Picadilly might be my favorite.

That's all I've got for today. :)
What new products are you loving today?