MARISA's VERY FIRST LAYOUT-I'M SO PROUD

I am so proud. This Saturday Marisa asked if she could scrapbook with me. Usually she just makes cards and tinkers around but this day she specifically wanted to create a page. I gave her pictures I had in my old stash (glad I keep an old stash) and some paper I could part with and she got busy on the scrap table as I worked on the computer. In the time it took me to do one journaling block she had done 5 pages. She's already a better scrapbooker than me. :) These are all the pages she completed. And the best part, during her scrapbooking she said "This is so much fun. We should do this together all the time." I think she's finally at the age where I don't worry with her in the scrapbook room with me. I'm very proud of her first few layouts. The journaling squares on this page say: "When I was 2, I was sick on my birthday", "Then I got older and things changed", "Then I had my 1st brother and things got out of control". Her words exactly. I will certainly scrapbook her 1st scrapbooking layouts!

Journaling tabs say: "My brothers cool and cute and sweet".

Journaling says: "Violets are red, Roses are Blue. I think Alton's really cute!" "Alton must be really, really sleepy". "Hey mom, that's a close up-Wow!"

This layout we actually did together. She picked the pictures and I helped a little with the picture positioning and adhering stickers. Ted was so proud of our masterpiece. It was so nice to do something creative together with no arguments or problems. I hope she continues to enjoy it. The journaling says: "Mommy & Me are Friends" "Daddy's Girl's".

Halloween Dress Re-Hearsal

The paper used in this layout came from my KOTM club (Scrapbook Deals 4 U) and the circle from more of what Kim gave me. I wanted to use non-traditional halloween elements as none of the stuff I found worked with clown hair! I think the colors and buttons I used worked out well. Journaling says: "This year on Halloween day I went to Florida to see the New Kids on the Block concert with Sue instead of going with the kids trick or treating. Ted was going to take them door-to-door so to ensure their costumers were going to work & to feel like I wasn't missing out, we had to have a dress rehearsal. We had fun taking the pictures but I know it's not the same as me being home for Halloween. Hopefully NKOTB won't plan any more concerts over a holiday! Sheesh!

Marisa's 6th Birthday

Finally I'm done with school layouts for 2008 and am finishing up the fall layouts including Marisa's 6th Birthday. Kim, do you recognize the paper in these pages?? Thanks to you for the elements of this layout!

More school layouts

Marisa's 1st day of Kindergarten with the bus picture taken on her 2nd day of school as I had to document the story of her missing the bus on her first day.

Yet another 1st Day of School Layout

This layout is for the family album to show Alton & Marisa's 1st day of school. How did I go from doing one layout to now 3 for the 1st day of school? Hmmm...may have to re-think this. But for now I don't mind because I love the 1st day of school.

These are layouts with pictures from the 2008 school year.

School Layouts

An old CD holder

Ted had a few old CD holders that were made of this nylon fabric and had a zipper lid. I thought it would make a great storage container and then remembered seeing the new ribbon holders with all the holes in it at the scrapbook store. So I got my hole punch out and made plenty of holes and stuffed my ribbons in. I like the end result and loved even more that I utilized something that was going to just be thrown away.

Up until 3am

Alton's first day of pre-school layout. It seems the school layouts are a bit easier and quicker to produce.

With Ted out of town and a coffee ice cream late at night I was up scrapping until 3am. I'm a little disappointed that this is all I accomplished but I've struggled with this layout for a while so to see it completey done is very satisfying.

Not new layouts...just new to be blogged

These layouts were done at that 24 hour crop I did back in Sept. I finished the journaling on them a few weeks ago and am finally posting them. Both of these layouts were done using the sketches from the Sketch Book created by Scrapbook Generations.

I'm on a roll....

I guess I'm making up for lost time without posts. :) Here is another layout that I did at the 24 hour crop that I recently completed the journaling on. I had bought a book of sketches from our local scrapbook store and this is another layout using one of those sketches. Using sketches is a great way to speed up the process and I'm letting go of the idea that it is cheating, or cutting creative corners or doesn't count as my idea.

Marisa Layouts

Do you ever struggle to scrapbook photos you just love? For me the hardest photos to scrapbook are those I love the most. I guess I'm afraid to mess them up or not really capture them in the best way I want to. Well these are a few of those photos. To see them in completed layouts makes me very happy. I wanted to add more elements to the 2nd layout to add dimension but couldn't find anything so I left it as is. I'm pleased because I think I captured what I wanted to in these layouts.

Few More Holiday Layouts

I have a few more holiday layouts I've added the final touches on. One from Easter 2008. I cut the eggs out of patterned paper and pop dotted them to stand off the page a bit. I also completed a double page layout of the kids going sleigh riding. This is one of my first layouts where I went with untraditional colors and images for the theme. Yes, it was winter embellishments but in the past I would've only used blues and whites. To have color on this page excites me so much because it took me out of my normal process and allowed me to use colors I love with pictures I love. I used a sketch for this layout and the papers and embellishments all came together so I had no problem with matching, but it's baby steps. Baby steps away from matching everything to my pictures. More to come.

Life's Greatest Treasures

This was a simple layout, simple in style but it took me a little while to make up my mind about certain elements. I started with a sketch but then went completely on my own. It is a little matchy, matchy BUT I think in a good way. I at least added dimension (the flowers) which is something I'm trying to do more and more of (it helps to have 3 ring binders). I also cut the bottom flower out of patterned paper. Something else that was new for me to do. I realize I am so behind in learning and adding new techniques to my pages. I have just always stayed very basic with my layouts, but I'm slowly venturing out into new things...one layout at a time. :)

A little more Christmas....

I have completed the rest of my 9X9 Christmas layouts to 12X12 and thought I'd go ahead and post them. I ended up with a lot of Christmas layouts altogether, but I am pleased that I actually have them all done, journaled and placed in the right spot in their album. Of course this doesn't include 2008 which I just printed 165 photos to scrapbook. Yikes!

Christmas Layouts

I had posted a Christmas layout on my blog yesterday but just removed it because I completed more layouts today and wanted to show it all together. Christmas usually produces the most pages in my album and I thought devoting a whole 9x9 album to this holiday was the way to go, but it is hard to display all my Christmas photos in any other layout size but 12x12 so I am converting all my 9x9 Christmas album pages to 12x12 and puting them all in my Holidays Album. I still have a few more to convert but am glad to see that it does not take too much time to change them. As I've been focusing on Christmas I thought it was a good time to take pictures of other layouts I've done on this holiday. Here are the layouts I completed recently with journaling even added!

Here is a sampling of my conversion from 9x9 to 12x12. Not very creative but it was a quick fix.

Alton's ABC Album - COMPLETE

This is what I've been working on for the last few weeks (months). At one of the scrapbook store garage sales I bought someone's project they started that contained: cut out letters, a few layouts and other finished elements for an 8X8 album. I bought it to make Alton his own album that showcased his personality for each letter of the alphabet. It was going to take a long time to piece this album together until I found an 8X8 album from Hobby Lobby that had 12 completed pages in it with the same color scheme. It didn't take me long to do the album once I got started. I of course started to get burned out around letter "l" and changed my gears from being creative to just getting it complete. This is where I struggle: Taking time to make it a true treasure vs. just getting it done. Sometimes I sacrifice my creativity because I can't stand a project being incomplete. Will my kids ever notice - no, but will I always know I could've done better? Yes. Oh well. Anyway, A-Z, each letter showcasing a bit of Alton's personality from age 1-3. It was a good way to catch up without doing layouts of events which I normally do. Marisa has her own 12X12 album showcasing her personality but of course when I showed her Alton's ABC album she asked, "Can you make one for me too?". Ugh. We'll see....

Project 365 - January is DONE!

I actually have pages done in my Project 365 Album! It took me a while to learn all the pieces, create a plan and then find my style for implementation. The first page is the title page and I just stamped a title and the year. I started off by sticking the clear day of the week stickers and hand journaling. I quickly learned that I disliked both - the clear stickers weren't easy to see and I didn't like that there is a "T" for Tues and Thurs and "S" for Sat & Sun. So, I decided to use the black day of the week stickers on my actual pictures and use the stamp for the date and used a stamp for the letter of the day of the week. THEN...I experimented with putting the journal cards on a piece of paper and feeding it through my printer. Wah-lah! A great solution for my messy handwriting. The formatting gets a little off sometimes but it's soooo much neater than my own handwriting. I have missed days but I'm finding creative ways to make it work. I have the pictures all in for February and just need to journal. I think I've found my groove. Yaaayy!!