Geocache, anyone?

Hi! I'm so glad you stopped by today! As if you couldn't guess, I'm sharing yet another scrapbook page, and (gasp!) the base is actually a relatively new paper!!  I got this fun house paper by Bo Bunny from a crop I attended this spring.  Everything else is rather old, but hey, gotta have a little fun with new stuff too!

The other pattern paper is Sycamore Street (SU) and I used some foam letter stickers, and spotty scallop ribbon to finish the page off.

This page has the only photos I have of my girls and their cousin Geocaching.  He introduced the girls to this treasure hunting activity and they loved locating the 'treasure' containers, even if they only contained a piece of paper.  They've gone on several adventures together, but this time I was along AND had my camera ready.  Another wonderful memory captured and ready for the album.

Thanks so much for stopping by today!  As we get closer to Thanksgiving, I will probably spend a little less time posting.  Since this is the last Christmas my baby will officially be living here full time, I want to soak up every last minute!  I hope you have a wonderful day and encourage you to make some wonderful memories of your own!

Scrapbook Saturday-Trip Revisited

Hello! Today's pages are from a long ago trip to visit family near Chicago.  It was a great trip where we simply visited with loved ones and did a whole lot of nothing!  I was excited that it was finally light enough to get some photos of the wind farm that we passed on the way.

I used a lot of older supplies on these pages. I don't think there is anything on here less than 5 years old!  Both pages use Delicate Dots (SU) and I finished them with some older stickers and tags I've had in my stash.

Once again, pretty simple pages, but when you are as far behind as I am, simple is a good thing!

Thanks so much for visiting and have a wonderful weekend!

Throwback Thursday-Waterfall of Photos

Welcome to throwback Thursday where everything is old, even the special technique for displaying lots of photos at once.

Our family has always loved watching animals.  Whether it's at the zoo or in their natural habitat, animals always amaze us.  Because of this, we often have an overabundance of animal photos.  I have found that the best way to put all of these wonderful pics on a page is using the waterfall technique.  You can buy ready made kits, but I think it's just as easy to make my own.  I don't really have dimensions, but basically, you cut the paper to the width of your photo and make each layer a little longer than the next.  I stapled my layers at the top and folded a strip of paper to cover them.  

The animal print paper was the last of a safari pack from many, many years ago.  It felt good to give the scraps a proper spot.  I also managed to find a home for the zoo letters.  They are more for little kids, but I figured this might be the last chance I can put them on a page before my girls grow up too much!

Thanks so much for visiting and have a terrific rest of the week!

Harvest of Friends

Hello! Well, my fall break is almost over and I can't believe I have not finished the first scrapbook page... DH has been in the process of remodeling our bathroom (last room in the house to be finished!!), and I've been trying to keep the house somewhat clean and organized during this process.  Add in two college visits, filling out financial aid forms, putting up fall decorations, and cleaning up some of the landscaping and my week is about shot!  I'm not going to complain though because it has been  a beautiful week and it looks like Saturday is going to be rainy and nasty, so maybe I can lock myself away then!

We also went to a co-worker's home Tuesday evening for a carry in dinner, drinks, and a campfire.  It was a beautiful evening and everyone from our teaching team was able to make it.  We don't get the chance to spend time together outside of school very often, and it was so nice to relax, eat wonderful food, enjoy a cozy fire, and talk about things other than work.  Of course, we did a little of that too, but tried to keep it to a minimum!

It was such a wonderful night and I wanted to let my co-worker (who is also a dear friend) know how much we appreciated her sharing her home with us for the evening.  I had also been seeing a lot of cards using the beautiful flower from Painted Harvest (SU), and I really wanted to play with that set to see where inspiration led.  I pulled different details from several different cards, so I don't have any one person to credit for this creation.

I've also been watching some videos showing how to use stencils to mask off  most of the card.  I knew those stencils that came with Just Journaling would come in handy eventually! I've never used them with the stamp because I didn't like the way the edges looked after I stamped, but it worked perfectly for the oval sponging area!  I used Barely Banana and Pumpkin Pie for the two shades in the oval.  I think they would have looked better if I had used a blending brush, but I didn't want to dig out the one I have.  The new set of brushes from Taylored Expressions would have worked fabulously...but Santa didn't bring me any early gifts, so I'll just have to wait.  After sponging the oval, I got busy stamping and fussy cutting the flower, die cutting the twig, leaves, and friend. I added a bit of sponging to the edges of the fussy cut flower to cover the white, and also added a little ink to the leaves to add dimension.  A strip of ribbon, a button, and a little background DSP and it was finished.

This was probably the most supplies I have used on a card in a reeeeeeaaaaaaaaly loooooong time! Because of this, I'm adding a 'card recipe' to the bottom in case you're interested.  Lots of inks used to create the depth and shading!!  The flower alone is a combo of daffodil delight, crushed curry, cajun craze and early espresso.

I'm hoping to play a little more with the dies and stamp set I used today.  There are so many possibilities and it was a lot of fun just playing around with different ideas.  I've also ordered a new Tim Holtz leaves die that I'm picking up tomorrow from our LSS.  I think I may have a problem...LOL!  At least I haven't gone out and bought a bunch of papers!  I'm still sticking to my goal of using up what I have to finish some scrapbooks before adding anything new.  Waaaay too much paper taking up space in my studio at the moment!!

Thanks so much for visiting and I hope you find some time to play with your craft supplies and make something amazing!  Have a wonderful day!

Card Recipe: Paper-Orchard Harvest DSP (SU ret), whisper white, always artichoke, early espresso, Ink-early espresso, crumb cake, cajun craze, always artichoke, daffodil delight, crushed curry, pumpkin pie, barely banana, Stamp Set- Painted Harvest (SU), Accessories- early espresso ribbon, Well Written dies (SU), Funky Floral dies (TH), oval stencil from Just Journaling stamp set (SU)

It's a potpourri of pages

I often like to come up with creative titles for my blog posts, but today all I could think was "these don't go together at all...".  It reminded me of the big bags of potpourri that used to be so popular.  The things didn't necessarily make sense together, but the scent was nice.

So today is a potpourri of pages.  They don't fit a theme, but I'm sharing them all the same! LOL!  The first page features some lovely Halloween pictures of the DDs.  I pulled out a Halloween paper pack that I've had forever and a day, and had never used it!!  It had papers, borders, journaling blocks, and cut out embellishments.  As you can see, I used a little of all of those.

 Page two is from my nephew's confirmation.  He is now a senior in college, so that makes these pics rather old as well.  I kept things simple with some papers from Woodland Walk and some letters cut with my Cricut. I fed them into my Xyron sticker maker so I wouldn't have to mess with gluing those little letters down.

The last two pages were also pretty simple.  A little more Woodland Walk, Cricut letters, and the last of the photos of our huge hickory tree.  If you want to zoom in on the pics, you'll see the lovely snake that just didn't want to abandon it's home.  My brother and I both felt bad about having to kill it, but when it struck at my brothers leg, he decided he wasn't going to risk getting bit.  

Well, I hope you enjoyed my potpourri and my snake photos didn't scare you off (or gross you out, sorry...).  I'll be back later this week with more pages.  Thanks so much for stopping by!

Scrapbook Saturday-Pretty Pages

Hello! I have another quick post to share today.  We are officially on fall break and DD#2 and I are going to sneak some college visits into our week of relaxing and enjoying the beautiful fall weather.  But today is about getting a few more pages in the albums and I'm hoping to finish 2011 and 2012 by the end of next week.  Wish me luck!!

If my new pages go together as quickly as these did, I shouldn't have any trouble with that goal.  When I have the right pages, all I need are a few embellishments and some photo matting.  I'm not even sure where the first page came from... I'm thinking it may have been a gift from a crop since I don't remember buying it.  I added a few stickers and some pearl centered flowers and that was pretty much it.  The pink tab next to the second photo is actually a journaling block I tucked in behind the photo.  I haven't used this technique in a while, but I love how it keeps the pretty paper uncluttered. 

 The second page was equally easy.  I wasn't sure when I would ever use the alphabet paper, but this back to school photo worked perfectly.  I added a quote from a sheet and a journaling block from a Project Life kit I bought a loooong time ago. 

I really hope my pages don't get too boring for my blog viewers!  I really have a lot of memories to record in albums and time doesn't seem to be slowing down to wait for me to catch up!  I will probably take one day to work on cards since I'll be needing some birthday cards soon, and I really need to work on my Christmas cards if I'm going to have those ready in time. 

Well, I really need to do something productive like laundry and cleaning today, so I better end this with a thanks for stopping by and have a fabulous weekend!

Throwback Thursday-Digging through the embellishments

Today's throwback features several embellishments I have had for a very long time.  These were the cut out pieces that come on a full sheet of cardstock.  I'm not sure what to call them, but you fussy cut them and then used them on your pages.  I have about 5 sheets of them and decided it was time some of them found a permanent home.

This page contains photos from a family reunion many years ago.

It is amazing to see how all of the kids have grown since then!

This page also contains older photos.  I think this may have

been the last time our girls went swimming with their daycare 

friends before they stopped going there.

I also managed to use some bits and pieces of pattern paper and some older cardstock bases, so these truly are throwbacks in every way!

Thanks so much for stopping by and have a wonderful day!

Scrapbook Saturday!

I'm back as promised with a couple of pages!  I have been making some time to get more scrapbooking done.  Even though things have been a bit crazy, I am enjoying the downtime I give myself every week.  It has been a lot of fun going through pictures and I've even managed to organize and use some of my neglected and forgotten supplies.

Today's pages used some old papers, old stickers, old embellishments, and old pictures! The only newer thing I used was a page I bought about a year ago that was perfect for cutting into borders. I used several on these pages.

These are from DD#1 12th birthday party.  She and several friends had a pizza party and each guest created a scrapbook page for her at the party.  I put all of the pages in a smaller album for her, but never got the pictures printed until recently.  Not only did I finish that album, but also the two pages for her annual album!  It was fun playing with my supplies and remembering all the fun of that day. It is hard to believe that this same beautiful soul will soon be 21...  Don't do the math and remind me of how far behind I am!  

I hope you have enjoyed my pages and maybe are inspired to complete a few pages of your own.  Thanks so much for stopping by and have a wonderful weekend!

Leftovers never looked so good!

Hello! I haven't been able to post for a while, but have been creating quite a lot lately!  I will be sharing lots of scrapbook layouts soon, but wanted to share some fun cards I made using scraps that were in a pile on my table.  They all came together quite quickly and now I have extra cards and less scraps!

I didn't write down the supplies I used for these and I hate to admit that I'm a bit lazy today, so if you would like to know what I used, please ask in the comments and I'll share that info with you!  I hope you enjoyed my 'leftover' cards and who knows, maybe you'll be inspired to make some leftovers of your own!

Thanks so much for visiting and have a wonderful day!