Aloha Stampers!

No, I haven't made any recent trips to Hawaii. Actually, I haven't made ANY trips to Hawaii - recent or not! But my friend Leslie has! She just got back from a family vacation to Hawaii and after looking at the pictures, I'm completely jealous! Since I'm such a great friend (wink, wink) I thought I'd make her a little something to show off all of those great vacation pics! (This project took me a couple of naptime stamping sessions to complete - that's why you haven't seen me since last week!)

This is a little tin that I found on clearance at the local craft store. There was a piece of scalloped cardstock glued to the front of the tin, but it didn't match my color scheme. I pulled it off and replaced it with a piece of patterned paper from the retired Jersey Shore collection. The letters are chipboard - the "m" is covered with a piece of patterned paper and backed with a piece of cardstock so it really stands out against the background. The "a" and the "x" were inked with my Whisper White craft pad.

Inside there is a little circular accordion book that folds up to fit perfectly in the tin. I decorated both sides of each circle with various designs of patterned paper and each circle has either a place to mount a photo, a place to journal, an envie for little keepsakes, or some sort of Hawaii-themed image. Here are some pics of the inside:

My Baby Brother

With the little one on the way, I'm really trying to get better about scrapbooking. Normally, my biggest obstacle is actually taking the pictures (and getting them printed). So now I carry my camera with me everywhere I go. I've also picked up a few scrapbooking magazines and layout books for some extra inspiration. I came across this layout in one of the magazines and I just had to try it out! My baby brother (I only have one brother and he is 27 - not quite a baby, huh?) is getting married and my mom had pulled out some of the family pics for a little slideshow at the Rehearsal Dinner. I got my hands on a couple of the pictures and had copies made so I could practice some of these super-cute layouts!

The base of this double layout is 8 1/2" x 11" Soft Sky cardstock. My "masculine" patterned paper is somewhat limited, so I pulled out my scraps from the retired Wintergreen collection from the Fall-Winter catalog. A couple of the patterns are real Christmas-y, but the others are pretty versatile. Since I used a variety of different pictures with different color schemes, I used the patterned paper for my color combo inspiration - Soft Sky, Always Artichoke, and Certainly Celery. I still struggle with journaling on my pages and I didn't want to mess up this page by flubbing up my words, so I stuck another picture in the area which was originally reserved for journaling.

All in all, I'm pretty happy with the way this turned out! Here is a close up pic of each of the pages in this double page layout:

Another Mother's Day Project

For the moms in my life (my mom and my mother-in-law), this was their first Mother's Day as grandmothers-to-be. So as a little present, I started a scrapbook for each of them. This page is the title page of the book - when they are tired of carrying their copies of the ultrasound pics around, they can mount them on this page. Then once Aubrey is born, I'll do a double page layout each month showing how she grows and changes over the first year of her life. Not everyone will always be present for every milestone, but they will have a little keepsake from all of those special moments.

I wanted to keep the layout of this title page kind of simple. The base of this scrapbook page is Whisper White. I used two pieces of patterned paper, one from Berry Bliss and one from Certainly Celery Designer Series Paper to create borders down the left side of the page. Of course I had to add a scalloped edge!

I stamped the title and her name in Pretty In Pink. The photo mats - cut down to fit the ultrasound pics - are Certainly Celery cardstock. Of course, nothing is complete without ribbon, so I mounted a piece of Certainly Celery 5/8" grosgrain along the bottom of the page. I have a TON of the large flowers from the Pretties Kit left over from my Stampers 6 workshop, so I added one in the bottom left corner.

The grandmothers-to-be loved the albums! I can't wait to fill them up with all sorts of memories throughout her first year!!!

Vacation time

I had some vacation days left and with the end of the year quickly approaching, I just HAD to take them (the company I work for has a "use it or lose it" policy when it comes to vacation days). So...I'm off work this whole week! I've caught up on all of my chores, so that means I get to spend some uninterrupted time in the craft room. Considering that I haven't even started my Christmas cards, I think I'll be stamping my little heart out!!

Here is one of the projects from the Stampers 7 workshop that was this past Saturday. This scrapbook page features a faux metal tag embossed with the scribbly-Christmas tree from Solemn Stillness. I'm getting better about making scrapbook pages, but I'm still bad about taking pictures. When I sat down and put this page together, I envisioned a cute picture of my hubby and I picking out our Christmas tree and another of the tree once its fully decorated. I'll make an extra effort to carry my camera with me when we go tree shopping and hopefully the finished page will look as cute as it does in my head right now!

Another Stampers 7 Project

Here is a 8 1/2" x 11" scrapbook page we'll be doing this weekend at the Stampers 7 workshop. I mentioned before that the theme is Advanced Embossing and on this project I used the Embossing Resist technique. At the bottom of the page, I embossed the Bold Snowflakes with clear embossing powder and then I sponged over them with my white craft pad. This left a real soft look that reminded me of snow!

The title is stamped in my fave alphabet set - Jumbo Outline Alphabet. The first two words are stamped in Bashful Blue and then colored in with a VersaMarker. "snow" is stamped in Bashful Blue, Pretty In Pink, and Wild Wasabi. I punched out photo corners (which I'm now TOTALLY addicted to!) but I'm waiting until I mount my photo before I glue them down.

Keep checking back for more projects from this weekend - there are still a couple that you haven't seen yet!