You Can Do Anything

Hi everyone!  I am here today with my official last post for The Memory Nest.  My 6 month term is up. It was a very difficult decision, one that I went back and forth on for a long time.  Because of her and her awesome challenges and blog I have scrapbooked more these past 6 months than I have in the last 3 years.  I forgot how much I loved it.  Leslie the owner is AMAZING. I love her to pieces. I will still be entering challenges and doing whatever I can to help her out.

One of the reasons I love scrapbooking so much is because it pushes me. It forces me to take a really hard look at what I want to tell my children. It's all about the story to me. It took me well over a week to do this layout...the picture made me so sad. It transported me back to a place I didn't really want to relive. After leaving it for a few days I realized it don't have to tell THAT story...I chose to focus on how far he has come. It's all in the journaling and this page is all about the journaling. I used the title and a quote to tie it all together.

The alphabet border stamp is from Hero Arts/Studio Calico, the title, stars & quote were cut from my Silhouette.  The sticker ( I promise) is from Glitz as is all the patterned paper.  Wood embellishments are from Recollections at Michaels.

As a scrapbooker we are storytellers. It is ok to tell sad, unhappy memories...life is not perfect. I want my children to understand that. I want their books to reflect their real lives.  This layout is to show him how far he has come in school and in life and how very proud I am of him. He read the journaling last night. He then looked at me and said "it's really cool mom...and just think...in 2 short days I will be a Junior. All that hard stuff is behind us & by the way...I don't think I am doing so good in Geometry" lol That's my boy!  Sneak that in while I am vulnerable!  lol

Have a great day. Please stop by The Memory Nest to see what the other girls have created.

cheers!
mmichelle

The Funniest Story Ever

Hi everyone!  I am here today with a layout for the color challenge over at The Memory Nest. I was SUPER excited when I saw these colors. I knew instantly what I wanted to use for this challenge...Echo Parks "All About a Boy" designed by Lori Whitlock. It's no secret I am a HUGE fan of Lori's and these papers just make me swoon. I actually think I need to go buy another paper pack...and if you know me...I usually use a line once and get bored with it. Not this one! It's just too fun!

Here are the colors:

I had no idea what I was going to scrapbook and then Wednesday night the best and funniest thing happened while I was out for all of 30 minutes. My boys recounted the story to me and dh when we got in and I have been laughing about it ever since. I even used some quotes from the voice mails I received from my panic stricken son.

While I captured some of the story with the journaling quotes I still needed to tell the whole story. It's a long story and I didn't want to go to 2 pages. The easiest way to do this is to hide the journaling. I trick I learned a long time ago and utitilize it ofen.

That panel on the front with the subway word art is the perfect spot to hide journaling. it lets you get a lot in there. I have two 4x10 journaling spaces in there. I used some old hinges from Making Memories that I had to hold it all together.

The cover of the journaling needed decoration so I used this really cool patterned paper from the kit and cut the design out of my Silhouette. I cut it again out of gray and mounted them together using spray adhesive and then attached it to the front after everything was done.  The gray paper gives it nice dimension and a shadow effect.

 The title for the page was also cut out of some of the patterned paper. I created the title myself in my Silhouette software. I welded it together, cut it out and then edged it with a white gel pen. I also cut it out of gray like the subway art above.  Some of the letter stickers from the kit made a nice finish to the title. I love that hexagon shape.

A close up of that tag strip. the tags are from the Silhouette store. They too are by Echo Park. I just can't get enough of their stuff!  The hahaha is a print and cut from the Silhouette store also. I printed them on photo paper and I use Soft Gloss so they have a nice little sheen to them.

I used border stickers from the kit (starts), I die cut the notebook paper (Kerri Bradford) and used a Lori Whitlock tag that i added a gear sticker to the hole and added another print and cut to that.  The book mark is also cut from my Silhouette and I used a Technique Tuesday stamp with Colorbox White Frost on it. I kind of smeared it so I traced over it with my white gel pen. I like how it looks shadowed.

The date stamp here is from Studio Calico and the arrow is part of the sticker kit. I stamped a Hero Arts telephone on the tag that had the voice mail quote in Soft Stone.  The orange dot paper is Bo Bunny.

I pop dotted some of the tags but not all of them. I also layered each one on gray cardstock like I did all the lettering.

 journaling

journaling

Thanks for stopping by. Be sure to check out what the other girls did over at The Memory Nest. I hope you choose to play along. You don't have to scrapbook...you can make cards too. In fact, I am off to make some boy cards with this paper line.  Have fun!

A Perfect Summer Mini Album

Hello! I just want to warn you this is a very long post. ;) I don't know about you but after seeing Echo Park's A Perfect Summer I was so excited to scrapbook summer pages. I was thrilled when I found out it was the paper pack that was going out in the Scrapmaster's Paradise Kit for this month. I knew exactly what I wanted to do with it when it arrived...I wanted to make a mini album. I did incorporate a lot of Echo Park's Hello Summer by Lori Whitlock into it too. The good thing is that Lori designed both lines and the colors worked PERFECTLY together. YAY!

I used an old Basic Grey "Mini" chipboard album that measures 12 x 6. It holds 14 pages plus front and back cover,

I had so many pictures and so many pages to do I wanted to simplify it. I decided to take this album step by step. Here are the steps I followed:

1. Choose photos
2. Make Storyboards in Photoshop Elements for all the photos This is a great way to get a lot of pictures into one album without having to cut all the pictures down and worry about not getting them all the exact same size. I created clipping masks to make it much easier. Here is a great tutorial for those that don't know how to do it.
3. Sketch each layout out. I actually did this as I created the storyboards. It was so much easier to know what I wanted each page to look like with photos as I went along.
4. Cut down 15 pieces of cardstock to 6x12 (just cheap stuff. use it as a base so you can stitch each page without it going through the other side--I didn't add one to the back cover)
5. Cover those pages with the patterned papers you want and then sew them all at once
6. Add photos
7. Embellish

It actually went pretty fast. It did take me two weeks but I was really sick in between it all.

Here is the album:

This is the cover.

 A close up. I did a lot of sewing on this and a lot of pop dots

 Page 1

Journaling. Sticker title is from Echo Park's Sweet Summertime

Just add water sticker is from an old Scenic Route line (I tried to use older product up), banner at top is from Hello Summer by EP

Love the little journaling cards that Lori Whitlock adds to her paper lines. I always pray there is a paper on the other side that I am not too crazy about. ;)

Journaling to above page

Totally love all the letter stickers that came with A Perfect Summer and Hello Summer. A great way to add just a little bit more writing.

A simple sticker can really draw your eye in.

An example of how well as Story Board can work. The top and bottom rows are all the same size. The middle row is smaller, longer photos. Ones that showed what fun they had but not the greatest pictures.

A story board with photos all the same exact size. That sticker sheet got huge use in this book. It's almost all gone. I have enough left for one more layout I want to do. ;)

Dot paper is from Hello Summer as is the bird. Sun is a rub on from a set I picked up years ago.

American Crafts foam letters and a couple Jillibean Soup tags helped this page of pictures I wanted to include but didn't really fit anywhere.

This becomes the title page for the next section of photos which is obviously us at the beach. ;)

A close up. All I did was tear and ink kraft cardstock and added some American Crafts thickers.  All stickers are from The Perfect Summer sticker sheet. Cloud paper is either EP or Jillibean Soup. I forget...I apologize. It's older.

Another story board with different sizes. Stickers are from Hello Summer, paper is from The Perfect Summer, rub ons are Cosmo Cricket. I cut out the "No" pare of the rub-ons and used letter stickers instead.

I used the new We R Memory Keepers Lucky 8 Punch to create the large sun (click it and you can see it better). More letter stickers. I think they are my new favorite tool. So fast and easy.

Close up of sticker title

journaling

I added an ice cream sticker over the one on the journaling tag to make it pop more. I had to add some of my handwriting. I try to incorporate it in everything for my kids.

Family get together.

journaling

 More thickers and letter stickers just make for a simplistic yet effective title

While we did a lot more than fish while camping I only had one page left and wanted to at least get it in.

That's all for today.  If you want a kit from Scrapmaster's Paradise head over HERE. You get a heck of a deal for very little money. I ended up with a great album full of memories from one kit!!! 

If you have any questions don't hesitate to ask.

Have a great day.

Michelle

Sisters

Hello. Today I am sharing a layout that I created for The Memory Nest's Sketch Challenge. The sketch comes from the uber talented Becky Fleck of Page Maps. I absolutely LOVE Page Maps and I am not ashamed to say that I use them almost every time I create a layout. I may not follow it exactly but usually if I see a photo size I like I make my pictures that size and use it as a starting point.

Here is the Sketch:


and here is my layout:


I opted for only one picture for this layout. I also let the paper just speak for itself without over embellishing. It was all about the story for me on this one. The paper line is Carta Bella, Beautiful Moments.

Please stop by The Memory Nest to see what the other DT members did.

On a personal note I would just like to add that being from Boston and living here my whole life I am deeply saddened by yesterday's events at the Marathon. I had a loved one there and thankfully she made it home safely. Please take a moment to think, pray or just hug a loved one. It's a very solemn day here. The roads are like a ghost town today. It's eerie.

May God Bless each and every one of you.

Best,
Michelle

You're Beautiful & You're Mine

Hey everyone, I am here with a scrapbook layout today. I used this month's monthly scrapbook kit from Scrapmaster's Paradise & Company. I love this month's kit. It feautures the Bundle of Joy collection from Echo Park.

 I kept the layout fairly simple. I love the papers and really wanted them to be the shining start of this layout.

 I layered the butterflies with 3 different colors and added foam adhesive in between to give them dimension.

 I used the stickers to create a cute little scene with hearts, owl and butterflies.

 I die cut the titles with my Silhouette. I cut it in both gray and a patterned paper from the collection.

Very simple, easy page. This paper line is absolutely gorgeous in person.

I hope you have a wonderful weekend. All the papers can be found at Scrapmaster's Paradise & Company

Snow Fun...

Hey everyone, I am here today with another layout for The Memory Nest. This week we were asked to use We Are Memory Keepers Winter Frost paper and stickers. It's a gorgeous paper line with greens, browns, blues and cream. I really love the colors of this line. It also happens to have all the colors that are in the Color Challenge going on over on The Memory Nest Blog. It's perfect to get those winter pages scrapbooked before we all turn our attention to Spring.

*Note: My laptop crashed. I couldn't scan in my layout like normal and Windows 8 on my daughter's laptop won't take my scanner software. I photographed it right before we ran out of daylight. Sorry for the bad picture.



I created the background by cutting a bunch of different shaped and sized snowflakes out of my Silhouette. I lightly glued them down, added some Modge Podge to the top and then put a piece of tissue paper over it. I then used Picket Fence Distress stain over the top of it to give it a "snowy" look.

I also printed the Dr. Seuss quote on patterned paper and then cut it into banners. I added some really old snowflake eyelets that I had and a little snowman. :)

The stickers with this paper line were so cute I just had to build a little scene using them. I cut the igloo out with my Silhouette. I painted it with pearlescent watercolors. It has such a nice shimmer in person.


The title was part stickers and partly cut from my Silhouette. The snowmen are also stickers in the set. The sled, boots and mittens were also cut using my Silhouette and colored using my Copics :


Quick simple journaling brings it all together. I really do love the look of that wrinkly tissue paper.


If you are interested in this paper line or stickers just head over to The Memory Nest. She has it all in stock. Make sure to check out the other DT girls on the blog. They are sure to please!

Have a wonderful day. I will be in and out sporadically this week until my laptop is fixed.

Happy Tuesday!