The Hunt for Chestnut-ctober

 'The last three years, we have gone down the road to our pickin' grounds to see what we can forage from the underbrush. Poking about is so rewarding!" 

 

Reaching the Summit

Let's go Rainiers, let's go!

My mom took us to the ballpark last night to celebrate school's end, it was the ultimate in awesome, as she scored us seats in the Cheney Stadium Summit Club. Can you say all you can drink beers, & wine?! I kept it to a low limit but what fun to order. We found amazing seats, played a bunch on the playground outside the field, and just enjoyed the heck out of our start to summer.

School's In Session!

Oh, be still my heart, school's out for summer!

 

We wrapped up the year with a picnic in the park. I made a fabulous salad and ate three deserts. Dirt cake, how could I say no?! 

Now, what will we do with that bit of extra time Monday through Thursday...
Did somebody say, "more time for crafting?"

Pay it forward

I often tell people that my daughter's have both literally been crafting since the womb... from the cradle of my arms, I nursed Rainie through countless pages made with Close To My Heart's Studio J software. From a seat on my lap as I guided her hands into proper pen holding positions, Rainier has always enjoyed art and rates it as the number one reason she wants to go to school- despite our ability to pretty much spend all day long every day for weeks at a time doing just that without the need to visit a craft store.
Sunday's due date came and went even though I tried my hardest to craft myself into labor! I'll never forget the day she taught herself to stamp with a little wooden block and a scrap of paper on the ground. ..

As the girls have gotten older and their art has manifested into stacks of paper to precious to toss, I realize I may have "created" little craft-a-holics in the making! But, this note I received the other day erased all misgivings about the encouragement they continue to receive to Just Make It!, and made my day completely:

 



 

 

I Only Have Eyes For You

Waiting outside the school in the "parent pick-up" queue for the kids to come out, my eyes watching for the variegated grey stripes of her poncho, I suddenly lock eyes with the most beautiful girl in the school; my sweet Rainier smiles back at me and we share a secret: we are in love with each other <3

 

Scrapbooking the Dearly Beloved

We all have those special musical icons in our life whose music becomes the soundtrack our memories playback on. A song for every time and place, decade or direction we've taken; there are lyrics galore that we can identify with. Being a child of the eighties with the graduation year of 1999, it's no wonder I was instilled with a deep purple passion from the very start~ my first crush and favorite artist has always been the legendary Prince.

When the news broke last week of his death, I mourned the loss of a man who contributed countless hits to generations of listeners. Whether he was rocking a pop song or soulfully infusing a ballad with his sensuality, he clearly exhibited a genius approach to capturing the feelings of anyone, be they in love, following a loved one, or getting into the mood for some lovemaking. Or just dressing up in diamonds and pearls for a night of dancing! Prince also produced some of the most popular songs of my generation, including hits by Sinead O'Connor, Chaka Khan, and "Appolonia" of course! 
It wasn't just the music that kept Prince at the top of my World's Best... list. He seems like such a delicate little man, and his high heeled boots were killer (and probably my size). Prince is the only man I knew of to boast a G-string... thanks to my mom's best friend who had a life sized poster of him in little else hanging in her bathroom hahaha. Men were not advised to use her private pooper!  And he inspired many a pixie cut to be sure. But I think what is really inspiring in this day and age is that he seemed to just be a genuinely niceish person. Is it any wonder how much I love the color purple?

It was only a few years ago that my mom was able to fulfill her countlessly uttered promise to take me to see this beautiful man live on stage... it was completely surreal! Did I scream running to the stage when he sang Purple Rain to dance in the confetti falling from the ceiling? You know I did! AND I'm pretty sure he looked at me! Probably because I was crying and laughing with my hands stretched out towards him while hysterically crooning (I swear, I wasn't the only one doing this) lol.
 Did I love the white caftan hat he wore the entire concert? No, but I did adore the idea of his 'do beneath being nice and straight- turns out he was playing a later "cooler" concert in Seattle that night after his purple and gold confetti exit from the Tacoma Dome. And did I want that magical evening of bass, pop, an rockin' out to end? No, because, that guitar was absolutely incredible to hear wailing away a mere 100 yards away. However, I was VERY glad when the lights turned on and we were able to locate my missing phone within the hour :-) translation: no pictures
I am ecstatic to have those memories to share with my mom now that he is gone... and, with my heart too sad to do more than post pics of me posing with my 4th birthday's custom Prince cake on facebook and plan a night of Prince karaoke, I have only been admiring the creative endeavors of other mourners. I only wish I could say I had made one of these gorgeous layouts...

You know, I think it was only fitting that the announcement of the release of the next postal stamps being issued, made this same sorrow filled day, will include another beloved fixture in my life, Mount Rainier. And when I saw that the proposed image just happens to include a heavenly purple hue and majestic swirls of what I'll think of and call diamonds, I knew that a few of these stamps will need to be included when I finally do commit my loss to paper.
Scrapbooking our loved one's can be such a loving way to remember them, as well as one of the most difficult undertakings in the world of scrap. One of the reasons I've found not to complete (or agonize over such incompleteness) my scrapbook albums has been that, when the album is done, the event/year/trip is really over. And so, I will not rush into this memorial page honoring an influential individual, and instead I will "play in the sunshine," have some "starfish and coffee", and yes, "party like it's 1999."

My Sweet Rainier

Today my dearly loved daughter is 5... for me, this birthday has been the most shocking- perhaps because my memories are so vivid from after this age. Meaning, now everything I do can and will be used against me hahaha.

Someone's excited to be Five!

Your Name goes here ^

We decided to have a tea party on Monday, despite her birthday being on Tuesday, because school was out. Mom app'd up some invites and sent them to a few friends that we don't get to see all that often but mean the world to us.
Everyone arrived in Tea Time finery, and after much beveraging, healthy snacks that looked not so yummy to some, a photo scavenger hunt, and some good old fashioned chicken chasing (a tradition now), we had to say adieu. What a fun day, full of sunshine and the children's laughter.
After five years and nine months together, I know what a blessing, and example, God sent me in her unconditional love. Her observations make me take notice of life from a new perspective. Those bright blue eyes continue to captivate my attention, and as the strength of her hugs increases, so does my adoration of her growth.

Photo Bombing Dog

Get' Em, Kids!

    

 

New Traditions

Rainier has started a sweet tradition in this corner; meet the Christmas chair ♡ Adorned thus far with goodies she bartered for in exchange for her handmade cards, a few of which are also on display. Beneath is a gift I received from a MOPS mentor, a mug emblazoned with words of encouragement. I know it's not about the gifts, but I think Jesus would approve... #ReasonfortheSeason

Sunny Sunday

Sunday was bright and sunny at our house this week, I had a lot of time to play with the kids, who have been obsessed with gelato of late. In the afternoon Ray took Rainier out to work with him and Sunday and spent a lovely couple of hours crafting on the floor- can you spy what we created together? Watch for some dang awesome developments in my rise towards CraftDiva SuperStardom....

But first, yesterday I posted this (slanted) pic of a beautiful monochromatic scrapbook page I made at the end of Sunday. Using some pieces from the S.E.I. Alpine collection, I also mixed in some Creative Memories paper- after 10+years these thin, double sided, 11.5x12" sheets are still hard for me to use because they are so pretty! But paired with the beauty captured in these photos... a winning combo, and the short side inspired the square of color inside that gold cardstock mat.

See how I layered embellishments to bring focus around the page in a visual triangle? And that I included journaling before I put the page away in my album?! Lately I've been working on my classes for the cruises I'm offering next year, and those embellishment cluster tricks I've learned over the years are being set to paper- literally! If you struggle with journaling, you're not alone; I've found that if I don't put my pen to print soon after the page is complete, the space I've allocated will likely remain blank. No Bueno!
 

If you missed the review videos created for EmbellishKits.com this month, you can click here and the playlist should start up for you. Thanks for popping by!

Waiting in the Sun

All this year our weather has been unseasonable warm, which feels great but of course can confuse the early bloomers like daffodils and crocuses. What a treat to be able to spend so much time outside with the girls though. With our vacation on the horizon, it's good to get a little exposure on them too, and I'm always encouraging them to go out and swing awhile while I get chores like the dishes done inside. I guess I'm fortunate that they beg to help, I know most kids don't consider doing so, but I do kind of push them out the door, telling them t go chase chickens or that TaTa (or little dog) needs someone to play with.
Or, if Ray is home, he'll generously offer me some alone time, and I'll take advantage of the opportunity for a little spurt of unencumbered craft time, and can whip out a trio of cards like this one, created in about an hour while they walked around the back of the back yard. When you live on acreage, you have to be specific lol. Some of these will go into Pickers Northwest Antique Store and the horizontal card will head to Gig Harbor's Copy & Mail.
I don't usually use our dining room table, but the sun was shining on it so invitingly that I pushed aside the placemats and set up a mini studio of supplies, including crochet thread, that gold chevron trendy tape from Queen & Co, and a 6x6 paper pad that complimented a handful of scraps from my bin. Then it was onto the MME pinterest board for inspiration! My favorite is the one that looks like little polaroids... I'll be using that idea again for sure.
Interested in soaking up the sun while crafting, or just sitting in the dark of winter reading this post? Come craft with me in this cardmaking video I published last Spring:

Ornamental Insight

Gazing up, with eyes so bright, softly reflecting fluorescent lights,

I wonder do you know you still
make my heart skip a beat
 louder than the till
of merchants all about the mall we race through
Your hand in mine as we laugh with delight
at trying on shoe after shoe- only the right!
Then collapsing in giggles its out to the car,
and up the side street to a door left ajar.
And who inside but the smilingest face,
my grandma, our bestemor, but alas not a trace,
of the baby that today we've nicknamed with "Grace."
But soon she'll be coming, and the rest of them too...
more smiles, more laughter, under a Christmas moon.

Letters to Santa

 This week's Christmas festivities included a visit to Santa! While shopping at Michael's the day after Thanksgiving, Rainier started talking about writing her letter to Santa, a task she has learned about through the reading of the Berenstein Bears series. Explaining to little sister that, "we don't put a lot of things on our list, because Santa doesn't have a lot of time to read."

!!!

I don't remember reading that part but of course I thought it was a darling statement. There were many things in the store desired, but we also talked a lot about how useful certain items are, decided that we would carry an item around until we found if there was something we'd rather have. Great advice- if only I could follow it myself!  (I've tried going in without a basket, but that just results in arms overloaded with precariously balanced what nots. Inevitablely the pile collapses to the floor just as it's my turn to pay.)

Sunday was really struggling to let go of a little monster truck she'd snagged from a basket of kids toys. As much as I'd love for her to vroom it all over the house, without knowing where the toy was made, toxicity of the paint etc, she needed to leave it behind! Rainie comforted her by promising to write it in a letter to Santa. A little more than a week later, she still remembered how much her sister wanted that miniature four-wheeling machine, and included it as "truck toy."

Now, some of my readers know that we do a lot of card making in our house. I can't recall a time that we have written a letter as a family... so of course Thursday night she presented Santa with a beautiful card, printed in her mix of caps and lowers, and a cute sticker grouping on the front. She really amazed me with her talent for design balance.

So how many of the Michael's items did Rainier put on her list? Not a single art supply mentioned! The one and only item she wanted was the coral pink dress I did not get her from Kohl's that day. What a surprise! And now I am experiencing that long felt mother's guilt of, do I need to go and get it for her? It's the only item on her list! Or does she learn now that sometimes, we just don't get what we want.

While that is an important lesson, I'm pretty sure this mom will be finding herself in line with a pretty pink dress for a very thoughtful little girl this afternoon :-)

What are your thoughts? Do you remember "the gift that got away?" Ever wish for something so badly you could just not stand to consider that it might not appear under the tree (or on your ring finger!) Leave me a comment and let me know, what's on your wish list this year!

More Quick layout inspiration

Last night while waiting for my favorite show, Survivor, to load between commercials on the computer, I ran into my craft room and grabbed two sheets of paper, based on a layout I had admired earlier in the day, at left in this picture, featured in Northridge Media's, Create: Quick and Easy Scrapbooking. Its a little magazine with big ideas for capturing memories in a flash. All very do-able ideas I might add!
So last night all I had selected was that burgundy flourished background and the green and cream music notes piece, the reverse of which has a delicate grid with scalloped border going round the edge. Grabbed this pic of my mom and I at one of our favorite hang out spots, the Wine Studio in Gig Harbor. I thought it was a good match for the two papers because we love music and singing together and the only thing better than drinking wine for us is a little Karaoke! Aside from that, there was a lot of wood in the photo background and I like how the faint striping in the background mimics the racks of wine shelved in this place.
To mimic my example's kraft border, I simply cut along the grid lines of the green and cream print, then turned over the cut out piece, and curled the edges up for added visual interest and texture. You can just see a little of the background color along the edges and this looks extra shadowy in real life. There is something about the shabby look of those curled edges that I don't ususally include in my layouts... but when I do, I always think, why don't I do this more often?!
Another look I love is sewing on paper, but despite moving my sewing machine to sit directly in front of me while crafting, it continues to collect dust instead of improve the look of my paper piecings. My latest excuse is that it's too hard to plug in... funny though, I can plug anything else in down below that location, no matter how much I need to move or crawl, so yeah, that's not a great reason!
My aunt recently garage sale-d a bunch of kid's stickers, including a set that looks like it came in a Carnation packet or something. I decided they would be a better addition to my stash, and used them right away by adding the little sentiment stickers directly on the photo- in part to hold it in place, because it was bedtime for me!

So this morning Rainie helped me select and lay out flowers and brads to finish off this gorgeous layout. My October product of the month challenge has been "flowers," but along with that I think the challenge for me has been "hot glue gun!" Not a tool I'm used to reaching for, but damn it does make adhering easy! It's all those strings at the end that don't make me so happy. It seems like they keep appearing no matter how vigilant I try to be about getting them off!I love the smiles my mom and I are sharing in this photo. She is my number one go-to hang out person; she has a different way of looking at and reacting to situations, we have a lot of fun and can find a reason to laugh about all of life's ups and downs. Part of the inspiration to add the flowers came from that quote by Emerson, "Earth laughs in flowers." Getting to preserve the memory of that fun night out with my own daughter completes my circle of happiness!

I love that in our house it is not uncommon for the three of us girls to be in the craft room at 7:30 in the morning making things together- while Rainie and I worked at getting everything in just the right place, Sunday was busy placing her own stickers on a little mini book she had crafted (by book, I mean a piece of paper, folded over)! After that it was on to painting, acrylics for Rainier and water for Sunday. We can't find our water colors, so just water works for us lol.

Thanks for stopping by to read today and keep watching for the next Card Magic: Part Three, which will have contest info and a whole lot of fun contained within :-) Catch up with Parts One and Two on my YouTube channel- subscribe and don't miss a thing! There is a purple button link to all my social media accounts at the top right of this post.

Fathers Day Gift-Cards

Traditional gifts for dad this year in the form of a shirt from me and another shirt with tie from Rainier :-) in the form of handcrafted paper cards, of course! I saw this idea while surfing the web (working) last Saturday. We made them Sunday morning and I think that helped them look so crisp and fresh.
My card is on the left and used a six by six My Minds Eye sheet as the shirt base. Its a subtle dark grey pinstripe which paired beautifully with these dark greybuttons from an Sei album kit. There was no + sign in the glitter thickers, but a couple snips later it is barely noticeably pieced together.
Rainier has been using scissors since a very young age and I'm so proud to see her advanced skills in how closely she followed the outline of the tie on her card. I drew a line around the outside, which she cut around, then she cut closer to the line again, and finally, cut the line off. On the inside of the card (which she makes first for some reason, and I always leave for the end), she stamped DAD and drew her sister's name as well as her own, and some other...sentiments.
Dad loved his card and we love dad!

Six by Six Series: Episode Two

I'm back today sharing some more from my Six by Six series, all about how to use those awesome miniature versions of our favorite paper collections.

A simple square torn right from the pad makes a great background- as long as your photo is smaller than 4x6... but this idea can be easily interpreted and used for a piece of paper that is about 8x8 inches.

 I have a lot of these because I'm a paper hoarder and often times will cut the back out of my scrapbook pages. What I mean is, that when I'm only using a sheet as the very background layer and the middle will be covered, I just cut that part out. I generally cut in about two or three inches all the way around from my 12 inch sized patterns, leaving me with about a 9x9 or 8x8 square to use on another project.

I'm bad! I even do it for really small pieces of paper. There is something about a beautiful print that gets to my paper cutting heart :-) So what then do I do with those tiny scraps of paper? Well, I've been known on (only) one occasion to go through them all and donate them, but I love to incorporate them somehow.

What I've been doing a lot lately is using them in little border clusters.  A couple strips of paper from the same 6x6 paper pad can help to balance the page, and of course the colors go effortlessly together.

See how I layered a couple pieces behind the top of the green photo mat, as well as under the title block?Check out the bottom left and top right hand corners of this page. This is a fun and funky way to bring some color to the corners of your pages and help the eye travel around.

For more funk, add in a sheet with similar colors from an entirely different collection. You can't tell, but this soft pink on cream is actually from Christmas collection!

If you are having trouble matching cream and white colors together, a simple swipe of ink on the edges will make it easier for the colors to blend together. The ink works really well at distracting the eye from "clashing" colors. Try it on an outfit soon!

I'm off to the library to upload a new video, creating a special card for the grad in your life with items from around the house. So come back and check it out!

I hope you're enjoying this series- I'd love to get your feedback through a comment! & Happy Crafting!

Scrapbooking "Off the Grid"

I love it when I see a magazine feature or advertisement or card in a shop that inspires me, don't you? Picked up some "vintage" scrapbooking magazines from a friend last week and yesterday afternoon a layout featuring a grid of 16 squares with rounded corners caught my eye. Funny, this layout was actually a lift of another scrapper's layout! So I guess its a pretty good design in terms of its adaptability.

On my desk's to do list this last week has been some photos taken last December, over at my wine-loving friend Becca's. Every year she bakes, like, a hundred cookies and her family decorates them all in one night. This is like a dream event for me! But how could I go and leave my little ones both at home... we don't exactly promote sugar ingestion in our home, but this is the kind of traditional holiday gathering that I grew up with.

Rainier and I met my mom over at Becca's and ended up bringing our own cookie dough along for the fun. Delicious, healthy, and easy to make, these cookies even appeal to regular cookie eaters :-0 Just take a banana, mix it with some nut butter, oatmeal, a dash of vanilla and I think that's it! You can add cocoa for extra yum. There may be more to it, I haven't made them since December so I'm a bit mucky on the particulars.

Sprinkles of raisins, currants, and almond slivers had my toddler in decorating heaven along with the other kids there that night. Including some very large kids home from college, haha! I was feeling very MOM like, with my glass of wine, overlooking all the festivities... but you know as soon as a seat opened up, it was ON for me to get my sprinkle on! I felt kind of bad because we wouldn't be eating them, but we thought of a great way to pass on the goodness; send them for fellowship after church the next day :-)

Matting my photos really helped them to stand out against a very busy background. Adding some cooking themed stickers for embellishment made the layout a lot less serious and I was able to pass on the few not used for Rainier to use on her own project. You'll be able to see this entire layout, with a cool use of a negative die cut, in the next issue of DieCutCrazy.
Can't wait that long for some die cutting inspiration? Check out the April edition, now available on your Apple device and as a PDF as well! And, you can see another grid style scrapbook layout opposite this page:

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!

You're So Silly!

That's what I feel like saying to myself when I get down creating two scrapbook pages in less than a couple of hours; "Anna, Why don't you scrap from pre-made kits more often? Anna, Why don't you create kits that include paper and embellishments that can work for more than one layout? Why don't you make it completely color coordinated- or include something from every color! You're so silly to work as hard as you do at finding things that 'go' together, when all these random bits and pieces 'go' just fine (and look just as good)! Why don't you take more candid photos of the kids being goofy?"

Oh, on the last one, I don't take more photos because that really would be silly! I already take about 35 a day, and I do want my kids to recognize my face, not just the camera lens and the blinking red light :-)

Aren't these pages fun? I love the expression here on Sunday's upside down face. Now, what do you think, place the photo so her face is right side, or use it from the angle it was taken? Leave me a comment below on your opinion.

One of the first songs my daughter learned at story time is "Brown Bear..." and even though my title is long, I'm glad to use up all those little letter stickers.  It's worth all the lining up and hoping they'll stick just to be able to capture the lines of a song that we sing a few times a week at this age.

This last week, Shimelle revisited the childhood memory revisiting topic. I love how a tiny prompt can invoke so much of what scrapbooking for me is all about, those all important memories. When it came time for my journaling, I chose to tell the story of how much I loved going to this same zoo and aquarium when I was in grade school instead of just the usual, we had a great time and it was sunny, type of sharing I tend to feel comfortable with.

And the 25 year plus memory recall didn't end there.  Later in the week, I recalled how much I enjoyed getting my hair washed in the kitchen sink by my grandmother when I was little. I was trying to get my daughter to let me do the same for her, but she thought that was so weird (already, at three, I'm Weird?) I was telling my mom, you just don't realize how much you will enjoy telling your children about those small moments in your childhood when you are still the child. I'm so glad my craft allows me to really focus on passing down those stories of my generation to my two girls!

Sketched Translation

Just thought I'd give you a glimpse into my creative process with a look at how I translate sketches into scrapbook pages. This page by Becky Higgins is more simple with colors and linear alignment than my style tends to be, but I was still able to use her layout as inspiration to create my Winter Wonderland Sledding, double page layout last weekend.

Just like Becky, I added a photo strip to the right and journaling on the right. There are a few other similarities, can you find them?

Turning to sketches for inspiration makes it even easier for me to capture the memories I want in my albums. Give it a try; the next time you're thumbing through a magazine, and pause to admire an article, advertisement, or other design, try incorporating some of those ideas into your own creation!


P.S. Do sentiment stickers count as letters?! Cause suddenly I'm not doing so well with my February product challenge :-)