Papertrey Anniversary Part 2

I'm sharing a few projects today for the PTI Anniversary festivities. First up is the Day 3 Bagged and Tagged Challenge.   For my tag, I die cut part of one of the tag dies (can't tell which is which anymore since I just have them all in one basket) and used a couple of the sketched shapes circles to match the gift bag. The tag is for one of my daughter's friends next week and I wanted to glitter it up with a number 9 glittered American Crafts Thicker.  The Happy and the 'TH' are from Big Birthday Wishes. 

This next project is a card for the Day 4: Build a Bouquet Challenge. I used flowers & leaves from a variety of sets - Ruby Rose, Ruby Rose Reprise, Mini Blooms, Oopsie Daisy, and Friendly Flowers. Wow, who knew I had that many floral sets. Sentiment is from Keep It Simple - Thank You. I added a bit of Smokey Shadow striped paper on one side and finished with a couple of enamel dots. 

And finally this last project is for the Day 5: Spring Into Action Challenge where we are challenged to use a stamp set that we haven't used before. I chose to use Wet Paint II which I think is primarily for scrapbooking and since I haven't scrapbooked in ages this set has just been collecting dust. From this set I used "This Moment Documented" to introduce my journaling block for this great photo I have of my daughter. The page design is inspired by one of the May 2014 monthly sketches with my Simple Scrapper membership. Been a long time since I've made a page and I'm loving this one. 

Have a good week. Thanks for stopping by! 

Dynamic Duos #90

As soon as I saw the color challenge at Dynamic Duos this week, I knew I wanted to make a scrapbook page instead of a card. The black and yellow were a perfect backdrop for photos I had related to a fun Harry Potter outing we had back in 2011.

I did also make a teacher appreciation card that featured yellow pencils but I can't seem to find it in the mess that has become my craft desk this month. PTI Anniversary challenges and the Layout A Day challenge have just thrown my desk into complete chaos. Good chaos mind you, but still a wreck! I'm hoping to find it soon so I can post it before the challenge closes.

Thanks so much for taking a peek!

Let's Get Ready for LOAD!

Welcome to the February Pre-LOAD blog hop! If you are visiting from Connie's blog (or any of the Pre-LOAD blogs), a warm welcome to you.

February brings Lain Ehmann's semi-annual LOAD (Layout A Day challenge). During this month long challenge, a big group of fun scrapbookers strive to make one scrapbook layout a day. Lain sends out inspiring video & photo prompts each day and you can create a layout using that prompt or just make a page on your own. Everyone posts their layouts in a special group on Flickr and we interact on our Flickr message board. If you are interested in joining us, check out Lain's blog at www.layoutaday.com.

This Feb 2014 LOAD challenge will be my 8th time participating. In anticipation of this Blog Hop, I thought it would be interesting to see how many layouts I made each time.

LOAD 2-09: 28 layouts
LOAD 10-09: 36 layouts
LOAD 2-10: 41 layouts
LOAD 10-10: 19 layouts
LOAD 2-11: 29 layouts
LOAD 5-11: 4 layouts
LOAD 5-12: 8 layouts
LOAD 2-12: 27 layouts

As you can see my output varies greatly through the years. Truthfully, success should not be measured in the number of layouts completed. In the early LOAD challenges, I tried hard to make a layout a day so I could win the overall grand prize. Its very easy to get caught up in the camaraderie of the message board and seeing everyone's great layouts on Flickr. But as the years went on, it became harder for me to participate fully because everyday life kept getting in the way. Those months that I made only a few layouts were disappointing at first but in hindsight they were the only layouts I made that year and for that I am thankful.

In preparation for this upcoming challenge, I thought I'd share my tips for successful LOAD -

1. GET YOUR HOUSE IN ORDER
aka catch up on your household chores, to-do lists, etc
Truth be told, when scrapbooking each and every day, the house gets ignored and things get put off. So its best to start off with a relatively clean house, well stocked fridge, and all the laundry done. Once you start scrapbooking, all these will fall off your radar screen for a while!

2. PREPARE MEALS IN ADVANCE
This is part of the getting things in order but its important enough to warrant its own number! The week before LOAD I double up on the dinners I made, freezing the extra for the following month. I fully stock my fridge with everything my family needs so there's no need to run to the grocery store more often than necessary. I also have ingredients on hand for easy to put together casseroles and crock pot meals which I rely on heavily during LOAD month. Here are some of my favorite make-ahead or crock pot recipes that my family loves:

Super Short Ribs
Pork Stew in Green Salsa
Slow Cooker Taco Soup

3. STOCK UP ON NECESSARY SCRAPBOOK SUPPLIES
Yes, its quite possible to run out of adhesive and your basic cardstock colors so make sure you have plenty onhand to keep you going for the whole month. Nothing ruins your groove more than to run out of your tape runner refill mid-layout. Also organize your supplies as best you can so you know what you have and where you can find it.

4. LOOK THROUGH YOUR PHOTOS
I store my photos in the Library of Memories way (a la Stacy Julian) which means photos to be possibly scrapbooked are in storage binders and other photos filed in Category Drawers. Before LOAD, I like to spend some time looking through these photos which will remind you of why you scrapbook and what stories you would still like to tell. Make a list of page ideas as they come up. This will be helpful when you may be running out of steam toward the end of the month. And just looking through your photos gets your mojo up and running. Warning though, this could also be a time-sucker as you get carried away with the photos and memories.

5. MAKE MINI PAGE KITS
When I am going through my photos and I see specific ones I definitely know I want to make a page with, I pull them out of their storage binder. I will immediately pull out matching cardstock, patterned paper, and any embellishments I know I want to use for them. And I make a pile so I have sets of paper,cardstock,photos right on top of each other. This is VERY helpful to me so when Lain's prompt comes in the morning, I can pull out the page kit I put together that may apply and get started right away. I might not end up using the exact papers I pulled out for the photos but at least its a starting point. For me, picking supplies out takes the most time.

6. REMEMBER THE PAGE DOESN'T HAVE TO BE DONE ALL AT ONCE
For me, it is hard to find a long chunk of time during any given day to do an entire layout during one sitting. So I break the process up into pieces. So ideally in the morning, I read/watch the day's prompt and mull it over while drinking my coffee. Next few minutes I have will be to quickly pull out pictures and papers to match (or pull out one of the mini-page kits I assembled above). During the course of the day whenever I have time I will think or quickly jot down journaling and photo placement for my page. And then at the end of the day I will put together the layout (i.e. glue down) I have already assembled in my head or physically during that day. Then its a quick photograph and posting in the gallery.

7. HAVE FUN
What I love most about Lain's LOAD challenge is the great people who participate, the endless supply of inspiration Lain provides, and the interaction on the message boards and comments on each other's layouts. So if you are committed to participating, try to engage fully with what's going on in the Flickr group. The whole process is a LOT more fun that way!

And lastly.....

8. KEEP THE END IN MIND

I'm quoting a phrase frequently used by Becky Higgins. Remember why you are doing this. When things get rough during the month and you want to quit or skip a day, remember your goal. There is an amazing feeling of accomplishment when there's a stack of completed layouts (no matter how many) ready to be put into albums.

And believe it or not, making a layout a day gets easier as the month goes on. You just get in a groove, you stop worrying about the perfect paper or embellishments, and you just create. And then you wonder how you managed to squeeze all that scrapbooking in and where all your time goes!

I'm so happy to be a part of this Blog Hop. I hope that I've been helpful to those who are new to LOAD. Just writing this post has gotten me excited for next month and I realize that I need to start getting ready. February 1st is only a few days away!!

Cara's blog is up next but here's the entire hop list in case you missed any!

Kelli www.useitscrapbooking.com/
Dani scrapperonthestreet.com
Valerie myrainbowcoalition.blogspot.com/
Karen photoskeptalive.wordpress.com/
Danielle ecoscrapbook.blogspot.com/
Connie clickychickcreates.com/
Sherrie littlebitofeverythingme.blogspot.com <----- You are here
Cara www.vincens.typepad.com/ <----- Your next stop
Heather noexcusescrapbooking.com/
Kim gma654.blogspot.com
Christy myscrapbookevolution.blogspot.com/
Lisa E lisae-design.blogspot.com/
Lisa H lisahausmann.blogspot.com

Thanks for stopping by. And thanks to Lisa H. for organizing this all.
See you around the Hop and look forward to all the fun with you in Feb!

Thanks Stacy and Becky!

My oldest daughter turned 10 last week and honestly, it hit me like a truck, much harder for me than turning 40 last year did. How could my little chubby baby be 10 yrs old? How could I have a kid who's been around for a decade? How could I be that old? My little baby is gone and is replaced by a very tall, curious, amazing kid.

In celebration of her birthday, I made her favorite red velvet pancakes in the shape of the number 10 (our family tradition) and handmade 55 chocolate covered strawberries for her birthday celebration at school. I had planned a fabulous party for her and her friends at our local roller rink that weekend. But somehow all this fanfare still did not seem enough to celebrate this milestone in my little girl's life. I still needed her to know how much she means to me, show her how proud I am of her in a way that no card could convey.

Then it hit me. I'd make her a scrapbook. So that afternoon before she came home from school on her birthday, I made her an album which highlighted pictures of she and I from her birth until now. Pictures of us on vacation, playing together, everyday sort of pictures. It literally took me less than an hour to put together thanks to Stacy Julian and Becky Higgins. Seriously, less than an hour. Thanks to my category drawers (Stacy's Library of Memories) I was able to pull together pictures of us from the last 10 years. And thanks to Becky Higgins' Project Life mini albums and kits I had on hand, I created this beautiful album for her. Simple, clean design. Just slipped the cards and photos in.



On the first few pages, I wrote her a letter about how I felt when she came into our lives, how's she's changed me, how much she's grown, and how special she is. Since this was so intensely personal, I replaced those cards with blank ones for these photos. Just wanted you to get the idea of what it looks like from these pictures.



The other 'journaling' part of the album included "Things I Want You To Know" which is a collection of quotes and advice I want to share with her. The kind of stuff I want her to know about life and people as she gets older but hard to talk about in just everyday conversation.





And the best part of this album is that it still has plenty of room for additional journaling and photos that I will add each year on her birthday.



I loved how it turned out!

So I gave it to her that afternoon before her sisters got home from school. I wasn't sure what she'd think of it. I asked her to open it up in her room. She was up there for such a long time, I thought she got involved with something else. But when she came down she had tears in her eyes and she just hugged me and said it was the best present she's ever gotten. I did it. I let her know what I was feeling and thinking in my own special way.

So THANKS Stacy for giving me the tools so many years ago that enabled me to get my hands on exactly what I wanted when I needed it once my inspiration hit. THANKS to Becky for your fabulous kits and albums that made my idea look so fabulous.

I hadn't scrapbooked in months and I think this is just the jump start I needed to get going again.

Thanks for sharing my excitement with me!

National Scrapbook Day Recap

Wow, what a great weekend of scrapbooking! I played along at the Creative Crop at Big Picture Classes and on the Echo Park Blog. They both had some great challenges that had me going all day.

Despite the fact that dear hubby was working most of the weekend and the girls and I had a birthday party, softball game, and our last Sunday school class of the year, I was still able to create 3 cards and 9 layouts. And I had a great time making them, though with less sleep! Thank goodness the challenge deadline at Big Picture gave me until Sunday night.

Here are my layouts for the Creative Crop:

CHALLENGE #1 - Feature a photo with a fanciful frame.

CHALLENGE #2: Grab a photo from a few years back and a photo from today and tell a story about the way things are different or the same.

CHALLENGE #3: Use photos and/or page accents to create a page that talks about reflection, literally or figuratively.

CHALLENGE #5: Using iPhone photos.

CHALLENGE #6: Use this Sketch!

CHALLENGE #8: Add a mini flag to your layout.

CHALLENGE #10: Use any cast-off object on your layout.

CHALLENGE #11: Scrapbook a favorite memory from your childhood.

CHALLENGE #12: Utilize kraft in two different ways on a project.

For the fun on the Echo Park blog, I completed 4 projects and posted about them on my blog already. The exciting news today is that I won the prize for the Echo Park sketch challenge - YIPPEE! I'm getting a prize package of border punches from Fiskars. Fun! So cool to see my layout featured on their blog...it was a great surprise today.

Thanks for taking a look at the fruits of my NSD labors.
I had a blast! Now I should go clean up the disaster in my scrap space.

Echo Park Sketch Challenge

For Echo Park's Challenge #4 using a this sketch, I had to search through many pictures to find ones that would be good for a layout that included a banner. I have never really caught on to the banner trend but really like how this page turned out and how easy it was with the banner stickers included in my Walk in the Park collection kit. LOVE Echo Park's kits because they include everything I need to make great pages so no need to hunt for separate embellishments.

I blurred the journaling a bit for posting. Love how bright and happy the layout is. Thanks for taking a peek!

Echo Park NSD Challenge #6

For Echo Park's Challenge #6 Project Playground, I used Kandis Smith's project "Style Essentials Ready Made Layout" as my inspiration:

I had never heard of Kandis Smith before today but I really like her style since I was drawn to two of her projects today.

Here's my interpretation on her layout using the Walk in the Park collection which seemed PERFECT for this layout about my girls.
I even made little banners using the stickers in the collection using a lovely idea from BPC's Creative Crop.

I'm really having fun with Echo Park today. Thanks for stopping by!

Color Inspired Layout

Today's prompt for Lain's Layout a Day "Scrapbooking Outside the Box" challenge was to use holiday colors for a non-holiday layout. As I was looking through my pictures for inspiration on what holiday colors I could use for this challenge, I came upon these pictures of my husband and daughter that I love. I noticed that some of the girls dresses were a deep purple and red which made me pull out the color palettes for this week's Papertrey Make It Monday challenge for color inspiration. Love it when it all comes together so quickly! I even used the Rule of Threes Nichole talks about in the video.

True, I didn't complete the requirements for today's LOAD prompt but the beauty & fun of LOAD is that you don't have to! All you gotta do is make a page.

I used a textured grey paper as my background. Closeup of my Rosie Posie embellishments....a first for me to use my PTI stamps on a layout!

My inspiration colors from PTI:

Thanks for stopping by!

Last LOAD Layout

I did it! Here's my 29th layout I completed this month for the LOAD challenge. Design was inspired by the Sketches in Thyme #70. Subject not very inspired but frankly I'm exhausted from the creating 29 layouts plus tons of cards this month.

What I've learned from participating in Lain's LOAD challenge is that it is VERY possible to do something creative every day. It just has to be a priority and other time wasting things need to take a backseat. I'm thrilled that I was able to complete the challenge and LOVE all the layouts I've made this month. True, some I like more than others but I'm happy that all will be joining my scrapbook pages. I cried this month making some of them and laughed at photos when I looked back at some pictures from my childhood. I am aiming to spend more time creating each day though definitely not to the extent I did this past month.

Thanks for stopping by to take a peek.

In the Homestretch of LOAD

Just an update on the layouts I've created for Lain's LOAD challenge. I'm exhausted but so happy to have so many layouts done this month.

Day 24

Day 25

Day 26

Day 27