I made it to the end!

Patterned paper is from My Mind's Eye, letter stickers are Making Memories, rubon stitches are from Daisy D's (and not too reliable, dang it! They rub off with an eraser if you put them in the wrong spot, but they also roll up on the cartridge instead of adhering.) and the font is Pea Amy.

I think will go put my feet up. Maybe read a book or something.

Waiting for Spring

I don't know what it is about this winter particularly, but I am sick to death of it! Usually I am much more tolerant, especially when the end of winter just brings me that much closer to 100 degree summer days and the accompanying sunburn. Anyway, I decided to do a page about it. The flower pictures are all from my backyard. The teensy stickers are from Making Memories.

2 more after this!

Then I will have completed the challenge I never thought I could do. Whew!
This is the page I thought I would do back on Day 3 or so. The pictures were matted, the journaling was written and I was completely stumped on a design. So I put it all in a storage thingie (BTW, these are the sturdiest I have found) and moved on to other things. One of the big benefits of commiting to a page a day has been the way I have to let something go when it's not working. Instead of beating my head against the wall when I get stumped, I move on. It's not my natural tendency, but it seems to be effective. So in addition to all the pages I got done, I'm very happy that I've learned some things about the way I scrap and that's going to help me with every future page. Cool, huh?

Pictures taken yesterday!

That sets a personal record. I generally let pictures age before scrapping them -- 2-4 years at a minimum is typical. But the girls were cute yesterday and I got some good shots, so it called for a page. I even printed the pictures the day I took them.

Striped paper is from that same Rob and Bob pack that I've been using and all the other stuff on this page is from Doodlebug. The flower is from a Halloween pack, but it went with my journaling strips. After I'd cut them and written on them, I realized I would have liked them thinner, but there was no way I could fit them through my rotary trimmer, so I left them a little thick. Better thick than crookedly cut. Oh, and the design is an honest to goodness scraplift from page 105 of February's Scrapbooks Etc. That's another first for me. I have never copied directly like that before.

BTW, my hat is off to everyone who uses their Sizzix letters. I picked the machine and a couple of alphabets up while on vacation because they were on dirt cheap clearance and I've always adored Fruit Smoothie. This was my second time using the Sidekick for a title. I suppose I could have gone faster if I hadn't been using as little paper as possible, but I didn't want to waste my glittery cardstock. I think it took about 45 minutes to cut those two words and I ultimately gave up on dotting the I's because the dots stuck to my fingers so badly. So I salute all of the Sizzix users in the scrapverse because you are much more patient than I.

Another second page

This goes with the mountain page from a while back. I decided it didn't need journaling after all, but it definitely needed the leaves. I should write to CTMH and complain that they just don't put enough aspen leaves in those jars!

If I had 365 penguins ...

This is a digital page that uses stuff from Kay Miller's Arctic Antics kit. I did something unheard of (for me, at least) and asked my daughter to pose a certain way for the photo. This had been a school assignment and I loved her crazy ideas (though I have my reservations about her willingness to invite polar bears) so I wanted the picture to show a little goofy thoughfulness. And it worked! I also used a transparency brush on the background of her photo to blend it with the black paper, which is a style I've never used before and wasn't terribly fond of, but I like the results.

The right side

The large numbers are Doodlebug stickers, the writing is done with Making Memories rubons and I used the other free digital template to put these pictures together. The top of the photos is square with the bottom, but I guess it scanned strangely.



We've moved on to the next phase of this germ, so tomorrow's birthday party has been postponed a week. Will this give me time to scrap or will I obsess over studying pathophysiology? Kinda betting on number 2, but I'll try to do something for the challenge.

Sick kids

make for super simple layouts. After a busy morning, I got one of those phone calls from the school, so I brought my miserable, vomiting 6yo home for the day. If I hadn't already printed these Christmas collages, I would not have bothered putting them together tonight. Luckily, I had already assembled them on Saturday afternoon. They were published in Scrapbooks Etc. back in July as an easy way to quickly scrap multiple photos. I was going to mount them on cardstock, but it was too boring, so I dug through my paper until I found this cute stuff from Die Cuts with a View. I'm going to post side 2 tomorrow.

Kinda simple

But it tells the story I wanted to share so I won't quibble about embellishments. The paper is from Close To My Heart and I cut the letters on the Cricut.

I got the idea for this design from one of Valerie Salmon's sketches. She has a lot of good, balanced designs that incorporate embellishments, which is good because I don't seem to think of them as I'm mentally laying out a page.

And back to paper

I had written the journaling for this a couple of months ago. I woke up with this crazy idea to write down as many of my daughter's quirks as I could. While it's definitely not the most decorative page out there, I am happy with the result:

In case you're snoopy (I know I am -- I always like to read people's pages), here is the journaling:

27 November 2007

Dear Rose,

Even though you’re three now, you are still growing and developing at a rapid clip. Here are some of the funny things you do today that might be gone tomorrow.

You go to sleep with a little piece of scotch tape on one hand. It makes you happy. I don’t know why.

You like to nap in my bed on my outstretched arm.

You color on everything in the house, even though I know you know better.

You love the TV show “Word World” and watch it every day after lunch.

You are constantly pretending. You boss the rest of us around as pawns in whatever you’re acting out.

You love wearing lip gloss.

You still sleep like a little baby, with your arms up high over your head.

Your sandwich preferences go in spurts. First it’s a week of peanut butter and honey, followed by a week or more of tuna fish.

You think macaroni and cheese is the best kind of meal.

You hide from me and call me a burglar when I come home from school.

You are sweet and fun and I love you. Whoops, those are the things that don’t change.

XOXO

Love,

Mommy

Ahh, back to digital

This is only one side of the LO. I'm still fiddling with the group pictures. While I'm still fairly new to digital, I just love how quickly I can size and resize the pictures and elements. It's helpful for those pages when you just need to mess around with photos until you get the placement right. And unlike doing that on paper, it costs nothing to rearrange. Patterned paper and cardstock are from Michelle Underwood, Sarah Van Dyke and Serena Thomas all at Scrapbook Bytes. The circle journaling spot is from Kay Miller. I use the Franklin Gothic font again. It's got a little more flair than Arial and isn't as boring as Century Gothic. I seem to be using it a lot lately.

I can't believe there are only 10 challenge days left. I realized this morning that I could probably plan out the remaining pages so they'd come together quickly. But the kids were home from school and I played with them instead, so maybe that kind of organization will come later. Still, I'm shocked at how quickly the month has gone and how productive I managed to be.

I scraplifted myself!

And I am happy about it! I couldn't find the cute lined paper I used on my daughter's page, so I made do with plain white cardstock for my son's signature. He picked the paper and font color. It will get a matching page for the big class picture, but I won't bother posting that. The paper is from Rob and Bob (same package I used on the Smoochie page) and the font was cut with the Cricut Plantin Schoolbook cartridge.

A very old page

I started working on this around March of 06. Then they ended up in my scrap bag to be finished, er, ignored until tonight. Now they're done and can be put in an album for kids to enjoy. Yippee!

Not dropping out yet!

I had an absolutely great idea for a different page about this sweetie and as I was looking for the photos to go with the page, I came across these shots. I'm still going to do the other page and I've decided to go digital since there are lots more pictures than I remembered, but this was a fun intermission sort of LO. Papers are KI Memories from a Joann's pack and the sketch comes from the Brenda Arnall book Easy Patterns for Scrapbooking. I would have hotlinked it, but I can't find it on Creating Keepsakes' site. That's too bad. It's one of the better sketch books. Everything is measured out so you can cut and glue. It's also designed to have you cut the papers for several layouts at once. It's a clever idea and I intend to use it more.

Definitely falling behind

But here's what I came up with. Unless I figure out how to do this quicker, I'll have to drop out of the challenge.

This is all Doodlebug product. I love their stuff and buy as much as I can lay my hands on, but when it comes to using it succesfully... well, not so much. Still, I'm very happy with this page. Plus, you may notice actual embellishments on the page. Very proud of that! I journaled a bunch on an egg coloring page a few years ago, so didn't feel the need to say anything fancy here.

Day 16

I worked on the journaling for this page earlier in the day, so I really thought it would come together quickly. Ha! I finally found a way to arrange it in Cathy Zielske's first book, but it sure doesn't look like a page that took over an hour to design, does it? Maybe I should have named myself Slow Scrapper. The colors in this picture were a bear to work with. Nothing really went with it in the way I expected. I decided to throw colors out the window and just use something I liked, but none of those papers looked good either. Finally, I decided to try a little Chatterbox package that I've been hanging on to and it was something I could live with.

Halfway there! (and the improved autism page)

Here's the updated autism page. I really like the way the stars pick up the colors and loosely fill that boring white space.

Our beloved cat died this summer at the ripe old age of 17. I found this fabulous picture of her a few weeks later. I've been waiting to scrap it in a way that did her justice. As I've been working on this challenge, I've learned that I really scrap best if I freewrite out my journaling ahead of time. Once I've got an idea of how much space the journaling will take, I can work on designing the rest of the page. After I'd put my thoughts on her hunting skills down, this page came together pretty easily. Except for the little detail of running out of room and having nowhere to put the patterned paper that had inspired the entire color scheme! My cute little corner slot punch came to the rescue. And you don't need to be told that I hacked out the entire center of the background so I can use it on a future page, right? You're so smart!

Day 14

This is a digital page with elements by Kay Miller. I've been working out since September and wanted to document my good progress. I definitely prefer using a word processor for these journaling intensive pages, but I really didn't want to pay for a panoramic print of myself when I could pay about the same to print the whole dang page. Did I mention I'm cheap?

No Gingerbread pages yet

I want to make a busy double page spread about building a gingerbread house and I am trying to fit in good pictures of all 5 people involved. Oh, and I want to add some embellishments (since I have billions, but don't use them much) and some patterned paper so it's not too boring. I had the great idea to use tan cardstock, ink the edges with darker brown and run baby rickrack along for a cute gingerbread border. But the only baby rickrack I have in the sewing room is pink and my little offbrand scissors that would cut that design have a blade that's less than 2 inches long. So I'm waiting until tomorrow at least when I can hit the store and pick up some white rickrack. And then I'm sure I'll solve all my design difficulties. Ri-ight.

Moving along, I decided to pick up this page and give it a shot. Some people in the class have been posting half of a two page spread per day to eke out the required postings. I am sorry to say that I think I have fallen into this camp now. Tonight's page was designed as half a spread. But I think I want to add some journaling to the other half, so maybe it's not quite such a shady proposition.



I am feeling kind of smug because I have used ancient Making Memories definitions for the page as well as Provo Craft Slab papers. The cute little leaves are from Close To My Heart. I am always happy when I can use up some of my old goodies.

Cutting it even closer

I gave up on the gingerbread making page I was working on and did this instead. The journaling had already been written, so I just had to work on the design. It's from the Easy Patterns book. The paper is from KI Memories and the fonts are Garamond and English. Again. I think it's my new favorite script font.

Cutting it close

I didn't start this page until about 10:20 tonight. In the process, I reminded myself of a few cardinal rules:

1. If you think the page needs one more thing, it's time to walk away. It doesn't.

2. If you decide to add one more thing, it will go badly. (It did.)

3. Late nights are never the time to set snaps with the Cropadile when you haven't set any for at least 8 months.

4. If you really insist on adding one more thing, you'd better be darned sure you can cover it with something else when it goes badly. (Note the strip of patterned paper across the bottom of the page. Does it look a little wrinkly? Huh. That must be from the snap I tried to cover and when it didn't work, I had to peel the paper back and rip out the misplaced snap with reckless abandon.)



Paper is from Rob and Bob (handy packet available at Hobby Lobby) and the snaps are from Making Memories. The font is Arial.

Note to self

I got the idea for this page when I was cleaning this morning and found yet another of my daughter's notepad scribbles. It struck me funny, so I used it. Papers are from Close To My Heart and the alphas are American Crafts Thickers. Last night's page seemed too bland, so I really wanted to do something with more patterned paper. The scan is pretty bad because DIS can't stitch a plain cardstock background, so I just layered two images until they were pretty close.



I have since had the brilliant idea to cut stars for last night's layout and add them in some of the white space on the page. They are cut, but not adhered. I'll post the revised version soon.

I'm hiding this from the kids

I found this photo yesterday while looking for some Christmas pics. My son had a real thing for tape measures when he was little, but I only got one picture of him playing with it. So I sniffled my way through the journaling and decided I'll put it in an album just for me. I think this is the most time-consuming LO I've done for the challenge, probably because getting my son diagnosed was a fairly emotional time and also because I spent so very long on the journaling. And then I fussed with the font sizing and placement until I was satisfied. That took awhile. I still think the page needs something, but none of my embellishments really scream developmental disorder and I like my embellies to support the theme. I may take these pages shopping with me and see if I find anything at my LSS.

Day 8

I've had this page in mind since I took the pictures 3 Christmases ago. The paper is from DCWV and the font is Kunstler Script.



Just when I think my ideas are starting to peter out, I come across pictures or notes in my scrap area that get me jazzed up all over again. I'm really glad I tried this challenge. Already, I've completed more than I expected to get done during Spring Break. And it's only January!

The end of week one

Another digi page. This one has cute products from Heather Ann Designs. I have other Halloween photos partially cropped, but I'm still waffling about color choices, so finishing this oldy but goodie up seemed like the smarter move.

And Day 6

This is the school page that I cut letters for on Friday. My daughter picked her own patterned paper and a different color of cardstock than what I wanted. The more I involve the kids in the design of their pages, the more I have to smile and bite holes in my tongue. I think I was able to pull it together enough and she will always have the pleasure of knowing it was exactly what she wanted. I'm going to put her class picture on an opposing page, but there's really no point posting it on the web since I would have to wipe out all those cute little faces. Just trust me that it will be the same color background and maybe a photo corner or two out of the green print. Picturing it in your mind yet? Okay, great.



BTW, yesterday's and today's pages were both ones that I started mulling over earlier in the week. I am happy to note that I have not done anything more for any other pages. So I guess I've dropped out of my "come up with way more ideas than you can execute" funk. Whew!

Day 5

I posted this over at the Big Picture gallery, then fell asleep while watching a really cool special about winter at Yellowstone Park and forgot about posting over here. So, here's yesterdays' layout. The picture design was a scraplift of someone else's page in the class, but it's taken me forever to figure out how to gussy it up a bit. Finally, I came up with the terribly avant garde technique of dotting little circles with my ZIG writer. It broke up the overly linear look and goes with the purple stripes on the alpha stickers. That's the first time I have ever used both the fine and broad points of a ZIG marker on a page. I feel so talented!

Still going

This one's a digital page that I made using a template from Sarah Van Dyke. The papers and embellishment are from Ursula Schneider. The font is called English and must have been a freebie because it didn't have any initials at the beginning of the name.

You might think that I am losing steam because I'm slapping together digital pages, but you would be wrong. :) Today I pulled out my little Xyron PCS and cut letters for a school page, rooted through embellishments looking for something pool-oriented and put together a kit for a Halloween page. Hmm, I guess that means I'm ready for 3 pages on Day 4 of the challenge. Wasn't this what I wanted to avoid? Oh well, I am sure that after school starts back up again, I will be too deep in the throes of chemistry or pathophysiology to think much about scrapbooking choices. Those pre-thought-out pages will come in mighty handy around the 25th!

Third time is a charm

I'm starting to get a little frightened. Yesterday I set aside the page I was working on to do something completely different. Today I put aside 2 LOs to make this one. Does this mean I will go through 29 perfectly good ideas and partially completed pages before I make one from scratch on January 31st? I hope not! I guess I'm dealing with some bottled up creativity because I keep having ideas I like. This usually happens when I haven't had time to scrap. I feel like my ideas are contents under pressure.

Woohoo #2!

I had a page in mind that used the scraps from yesterday's page. But it just wasn't coming together for me. This afternoon, as I helped my daughter knit a scarf on my knitting machine, I tried getting some macro shots of it. They came out well, so by the time I had kids tucked in and was ready to scrap, there was no way I was fussing with that 4th of July LO! Here's what I did instead:



The font is MB Buttercream from Melissa Baxter at Scrapbook-Bytes.com and the little flower brads are from Hobby Lobby. I have really gotten into Hobby Lobby's store brand embellishments this year. They are reasonably priced and unique.

I've got my photos cropped and ready for tomorrow's page. I'm starting to get kinda buzzed about how much I'm accomplishing. :)

A Layout a Day?

I really like Big Picture Scrapbooking classes. I've only taken the small classes that don't require a huge commitment, but I've gained something from all of them. I also hang onto the PDF handouts and pull them out when I'm needing a little kick in the behind.

Still, I mostly ignored their Get a LOAD of this! class ad because it seemed completely nutto. I start school in 12 days and that means no more scrapping until May. Then I decided to join the class (it's free!) and check it out. And I'm hooked. I went through my scrapbook bag and tallied all the pages I have planned. There are nearly 30 there, so I decided I'd give this a shot.

The teacher is very casual about it and says that previously started pages are fair game. So in that spirit, here's what I finished for Day 1:



I used a sketch from CTMH's Cherish book and Doodlebug papers. The font is PC Youngstuff.