Archive for the ‘Traditional Scrapbook Layouts’ Category

Considering chipboard albums have been so hot I guess I’m kind of late on the trend. This is the first chipboard album I’ve done. Actually, my girls helped a whole lot. So, I tried to make it a very simple design, using a purse album from Michael’s dollar bin.

First we applied the solid pastel papers with a sparkly Modge Podge. Then we applied the photos with some flower stickers and photo corners with a glossy Modge Podge. The frames were cut with the Cricut Zoobaloo cartridge but they ended up taking up too much room so we just snipped the corners off.

I’m wondering how long it will take for the Modge Podge to cure?! The “Sparkle” coats were still tacky enough that the pages would stick when we applied the photos with the clear glossy layer. Here the pages are drying in the laundry room over night. I was happy they were “dry enough” to give to Grammy the next morning!

It was a hit with Grammy, we still need to finish Granny’s! Both girls loved “painting” the glue! I’m looking forward to coming up with more crafts to do this summer. They like working at their little craft table while mommy is working at the big table.

As a scrapbooker turned card maker I had a revelation during the Olympics. Maybe it was just because we went to sleep with the TV on every night. But, I woke up one morning thinking, wow, card making for me is kind of like the Gymnastics Gala.

I only started making cards after purchasing the Cricut last fall. For Christmas my husband’s family all bought me cartridges. They had no idea what it was they bought me, but they knew it would make me happy. So, I’ve been making everyone birthday cards and now I think they are starting to get it!

Back to the Olympics, with every card my husband keeps saying, “hey you should quit scrapping and just make cards, you are really good at it.” (No sense telling him how many thousands upon thousands of you out there are also good at it and even better!) It kind of stung, but then I realized like the guys and gals in the Gala I pull out all the stops with my cards. (They don’t get judged so they tend to put on quite a show with their more risky moves.) My dh was right, my cards are kind of a quick fix in creativity for me.

My scrapbooking is the event that really counts, as a family historian. But, I have mountains of pictures to scrap, I’m two and a half years behind. My scrapbooks are aesthetically pleasing, and I do spend more time on my layouts than the average scrapbooker. But, generally they are not glitzy compared to my cards.

I decided even if my scrapbooks are in chronological order I don’t necessarily have to crop that way. I have a top-loading CM Milestones 12 x 12 album and am going to use it to store out of sequence layouts. This gives me the freedom to pick out pictures to work on as they inspire me instead of getting “stuck” with the next chronological event. I’m going to show my husband that I can do scrapbook layouts as good as my cards!

Last night at the Tulsa CK Friday night crop I worked on a layout of some special pictures I’d taken at Woodward Park this year while the Azaleas were in bloom. With about four hours invested I’m still not done. But, hey, some of my cards take that long! So, here is a sneak peak of a technique that I came up with for the layout. After embossing the blue cardstock mat with the Cuttlebug folder I applied baby blue Liquid Pearls selectively to the raised areas. I’ll coin it “Pearl Foiling.” Isn’t it smashing?! Lisa has all of the Adirondack Dimensional Pearls on order, they come in twelve fabulous colors and my possibilities for monotone “Pearl Foiling” will be wide open!

I spent a little more money at the show than I wanted, because I planned to patiently wait on all the stuff I asked Lisa to order for me at CHA. But there were some good deals I couldn’t pass up, including some future RAKs. And, I even won a Shutterfly gift certificate, awarded to me by Allison Davis, a member of the 2008 CK Dream Team! This is a picture I took of her afterwards. I didn’t take any classes but in retrospect I wish I had, she taught five classes…pregnant BTW!

Well, I could go on and on. I have a ton of pictures of adorable layouts. I really loved the “Together” collection from Chatterbox. They were displaying these rich monochromatic color stacks in chocolate, pink, red, blue, green, and white. My very most favorite layout of the entire show was in the Chatterbox booth. It is a romantic wedding layout, featuring their white stack, I wish I knew the name, it isn’t easily found on their website and it isn’t in the catalog I have.

I also adore the new swiss dots solid card-stock from Bazzill and all five of the new Basic Grey collections. I’d have to give KI Memories and Chatterbox a tie for my favorite layouts of the show. And May Arts had the most FABULOUS ribbons by a long-shot. I’ll caveat that we didn’t cover the whole floor.

For those of you that get to attend next time…if covering the whole floor is important to you I’d advise that you only enroll in classes on Thursday. And, try to avoid the make and takes until you have seen everything you want to see, they can get addictive and the lines can get long! But they sure are fun!

I’ve been to the Consumer Electronics show in Vegas, one of the largest in the country, this was a fraction of the size and I still didn’t cover the trade show floor! My problem was I’m interested in EVERYTHING at CHA and only in 1 in 10 or so booths at CEA, NAB or CTAM.

Thanks to everyone who followed my CHA coverage and participated in comments! I’ll post the winners tomorrow…maybe quite late.

I don’t know about you, but as a parent of small children I’ve done zoo layouts many times over. I loved the sophistication Prima will give to my zoo layouts and it will be nice to have an option other than stickers! I’ve seen a lot of cute animal stamps, like adorable Autumn Leaves stamps I own. But as one would expect, the “Prima Touch” adds an artistic flair of swirls inside the animals. And, they are sold as affordable singles at about three inches tall.

Since we all go to the zoo more than once per year we need more options, right? So next we saw the large 3 to 5 inch studded and the tiny one inch crystal animals. I think they are both going to go great with Basic Grey’s Granola line of paper.

Interestingly, I’ve seen a few of the tiny crystal embellishments at Michael’s. You can see the dragonfly I used here on my school house thanks card. When I asked Sharon Laakkonen, at Prima about it she said that they sell Michael’s product but only in limited quantities with nowhere near the variety that the independent scrapbook owners can buy.

Sharon is Prima’s Blog coordinator, she does a fabulous job showcasing their products, here she is pictured with Lisa.

Can you tell I like Basic Grey paper? This paper is all from the same packet. The die-cuts are from New Arrivals. I used Stamped for the title and distressed the edges with Tim Holtz’s Antique Linen but I used Vintage Photo to distress all of the elements.

Have you ever used Creative Memories circles to cut your pictures then couldn’t make a mat because there was not a larger blade? Well, I ran into this problem and found a solution. Maybe obvious to some! I set my pictures on the Cricut mat and determined what size circle I needed. Then be sure to set the machine to “real size” to cut the circle with a cartridge like Mini Monograms.

I used my Crop-A-Dile to place the ribbon (BTW, my sister has it on sale right now). I’m wondering if there is a way to get smushed eyelets out that I don’t know about? If so, please leave me a comment. I had the whole layout done, did the ribbon last and smashed an eyelet while setting it. Right now that eyelet is covered up by the “F”. While I thought I creatively solved the problem I’d like to fix it…without buying an new sheet of blue paper and re-doing the whole layout. I’m still trying to get the hang of the Crop-A-Dile. It is a TON better than all the hammering! It makes you feel pretty obnoxious doing that at a crop, now I could do it in silence and not be embarrassed. But, I still need practice holding it just right.

I like to have a lot of photos on my layouts and I thought this particular layout did the trick in terms of being creative and photo-packed at the same time!

I don’t have many scrapbook pages posted yet because I’m two and a half years behind and I’ve been in “get it done” mode when I have time to crop.

Anyway, these are from 2005, I worked on them at the last Cricut Crop in Tulsa. I didn’t get much done that day, I was too busy playing with my new computer and chatting. I think it was the fewest pages I’ve EVER gotten done at an all day crop. I thought they were good enough to share.

The paper and ribbon are Basic Grey. I used CDS for some of the diecuts and embellished with Perfect Pearls.

Going home from the hospital with “Raeleigh Christianna”…