Supersized Scrapbooking

I love scrapbooking supersized photos. They take up pretty much the entire page, and to me that makes it just that much easier to figure out background papers, and embellishment clusters.

In this Superbowl inspired layout, I used a black and white photo of my co-workers dressed up in their Seahawks gear on Blue Friday. I work Saturday mornings, so I printed this photo from an email and took it with me to demo scrapbooking during my Michael's shift. I'm sure my co workers didn't expect to be showing off their style in such a dramatic fashion!

I also uploaded this layout to my TwoPeas gallery, which you are welcome to peruse here.

Mixing up the fonts and using like embellishments really brings the focus to my title and groups of blings, which you'll notice fall in a visual triangle. These are tips I've learned since following one of my favorite scrappers, Shimelle. Check out her tips on scrapping your supersized photos here.

Now, there was a commercial airing close to the Big Game, with the catchphrase of, "its only crazy if it doesn't work." As in, whatever your crazy game day must do activity is, its only crazy if the team loses. Stinky socks, a certain bean dip, or perhaps, as in my case, Scrapbooking !

So no, it is not crazy because we did indeed win :-]

A peek at whats to come

Here is a peek at just one of the 15 cards I've made in the last few days- one stolen moment at a time :-)

Last Call at Java and Clay

Tonight was incredible! I was really excited to be sharing with a friend the good- no, great- no, AWE-SOME news that the new owners of Copy and Mail It in downtown Gig Harbor is going to start selling my handmade cards! Right on, right!?

Anyway, I arranged to meet my girlfriend downtown at the El Pueblito, a local Mexican restaurant owned by the family of one of they boys we went to school with. I found my way to the bar, where a jam packed karaoke make out dance session was in progress. Feeling a little uneasy at the display of groping I was witnessing (who am I kidding, I was just jealous not being up on the mike), I walked up the street to one of my favorite hang outs, Java and Clay.
My family has celebrated Rainier's birthday there the last two years, and we are always greeted warmly, and made right at home at one of their well lit tables. Clean up is left to the associates who are also really friendly and keep us well beveraged.

First thing I saw when I walked in the door; beautiful works of art, wine glasses, and red velvet cake- Yum! The artists were gracious enough to allow me to photograph their works for you to see, and Kelly, the owner, expressed sincere interest in selling some of my nautical, Gig Harbor, coffee or tea drinking themed cards... yahoo!

After sharing these bits of excitement with my friends, I figured I'd better head home and make something before my head exploded from the ideas generating in there. Noticed the antique shop owner, Ken was still working so I stopped to inquire if he was interested in selling my more vintage, foofoo cards in his shop, and YES HE IS!

Wow, now I've been feverishly creating as many beautiful treasure cards as I can while still remaining vigilant in my child rearing... I even weeded one of our garden beds while the sun shone the last two days :-)

I feel even more confident that I'm on my way to fulfilling my craft diva superstar dreams!

Crop Hoppin!

The Michaels store I teach at has begun hosting regular Crop-ins, and tonight my mom, daughter, best friend, and her grandaughter all gathered with me in the classroom to build a few layouts and chat about life.
When it was time for dinner, my little crafter Rainie and her grammaD headed back to Tacoma for a sleepover, and DF and I headed up to hang with the croppers ensconced within Burien's own Mimi's Scrapbook store.
We've been there a few times before, but never to crop. Under new management, the place had the same spacious shopping area, now filled with the familiar paper trays sold by our own Toadilly Scrappin last summer when they closed their doors.
I managed to stay away from all the beautiful sticker sheets and paper packs,  embellishments, stamps, etc long enough to complete these two pages featuring my favorite Rainbow singing in the rain last fall.
My mom has a talent for capturing us at our best- and a quick shutter on her iPhone, coupled with clear quality mega pixels, usually provides me with plenty to scrap!
I love my new goodies, these captured moments now laid out on pretty paper, and fully intend to head back up to Burien soon, as they offer a 15% discount on purchases made by within-30-day returning customer purchases.
A truly Delightful time spent with my favorite scrappers, as well as some new aquaintences!

Wait! Don't throw that away?

I admit, I have a problem throwing away little bits of pretty paper. So I'm not surprised that I was inspired to create my own version of enamel dots with this tiny punched circle from a cricut cut tag I used.

It doesn't look like much, but you wouldn't believe how proud I am of this little shiny dot and it's friends!


They were really easy to make, I just  added a blob of Close To My Heart's Liquid Glass to the top and let it dry overnight on a shred of wax paper. I wanted to be sure it was really dry before I touched it because sometimes I get over eager and ruin things!


This isn't a project I would necessarily recommend, as it was a tad tricky getting the paper to come off the glue tip without spreading sticky all over the place, but it was fun, and now I know how to make a very coordinated little blingie for any layout that "needs" it. And since you bothered stopping by today, now you do too!

No one in the World...

You may recall seeing the kit for this layout in my Special Edition: Packing for a Crop videos. The SEI flocked background was out of my comfort zone, but I think you'll agree, it really pops without competing!

I added a Glitz Designs sticker (thanks Cruise and Crop) as well as a Basic Grey brad (Big Lots, Ill be back!) to a globe die cut for a simple little anchoring embellishment cluster.

You know Im (a horder) into recycling and repurpousing... take a look at your packaging materials like I did for the fussy cut flower group on the left hand side.
A long title and a long row of bling, a journalling card cut in half to stretch behind my photos, and pictures of a little girl who makes my heart sing... I gotta say, love how it turned out! But...
Where are the stamps?
Heh heh gotta get crackin on incorporating my March theme product :-) pretty good reason to craft today, dontcha think?

Recent Plantings

I don't exactly have a green thumb, but even I could plant these lovely additions to our front yard.

For Rainier's birthday earlier this year, we returned to Gig Harbor's Java and Clay to paint more heart plates to add to our dishware collection. My mom and grandma were there with us and it was a four generation fun time!

You can't really tell how your painting will end up after the firing process. Of course, us talented girls created masterpieces- that slid noisily to the floor one morning a few weeks ago. To the CONCRETE floor. Only one survived, and I just couldn't bring myself to throw the shards of the other three into the garbage.

Mimi suggested we "plant" them outside, and that's just what we did in between rain squalls yesterday afternoon.  Now we have our little love blooms outdoors, where we can still see  them when we are getting in and out of the car!
They are pretty enough that I'm considering repurposing  the rest of our dishes!

Be Still My Heart!

Well in the first year or two of having my blog, I would have thought nothing of a week or two between posts, but now that I'm in the habit of sharing my life with THE WORLD, I actually felt bad for not having put anything up on here since Valentine's! Sorry, world, I know how interested and disappointed you must have been!
All joking aside, I've been terribly busy and had to (gasp) put my crafting on the back table this last month as I pursued the direct selling business sides of my life. On top of that, I was finally able to replace my phone's cracked screen- if you saw it you thought it was horrible and unsafe and remarkable that it would still work. When you replace your phone and all of the pictures were saved on the phone, guess where they stay?! Great lesson in downloading though :-)
I did create quite a few scrapbook pages in the last couple of weeks and I was really inspired to try some new things with my "letter stickers and paper" product challenge. Surprisingly inspired, actually. I had forgotten how easy it can be to simply build on top of a plain background for instance, or how a subtle texture like embossed polka dots can take that plain background to a whole new level of fun!
and my dear little Letter stickers, how I love thee! I love to mix and match your fonts, I love to create letters that I'm lacking out of letters that I won't use i.e. a 'g' turns into an 's' with a simple snip of the scissors, I love to use as many of you as I can to build extremely long titles. My pages were sometimes on the receiving end of no less than five different brands, types, and colors of tiny alphas! So that's something I'll be continuing to play with. Side note: my fixation with filled in letters seems to be waning slightly. But only slightly.

To start of my March on a bright and positive note, guess who is learning to craft by osmosis?! Little Sunday has demonstrated both stamping, with a scrap paper beneath her project for surface protection, as well as sponging edges, glue sticking, sticker application, and tape runner use. All in the last week, and completely unprovoked by me. YESSS! Another successful conversion hahah!

I love the sound of crying to craft in the morning...

So now, on to my March product of the month to work with (drumroll, please)


Stamps!


Check out the new issue of Die Cut Crazy, and may be the creative forces be with you!