It's Wednesday, right?

Wow, does time ever go by in a blink! We were down in Nanaimo for the {partial} week and although it was a "working holiday" it was great. SO wonderful to see David's folks - love my in laws!! Miss them terribly & I'm thrilled to hear them already chatting about plans to visit us down in Arizona this November - waaaahooooo! We got lots of what needed to be done - done. This is good. We're back in Vernon now, David is back in Fort Mac and now the plans of when to leave and how to go are in full swing. Life is good!
Here's another page in the album I did. The house that they stayed in looks FABULOUS! Check out that pool - amazing. She had a ton of photos of the wedding. I simply asked her to go through and put them into groupings for me as to which ones she'd like to see on each layout spread. I told her I couldn't make any promises as they were all 4x6 and many were difficult to trim down, so that helped immensely in deciding what photos to use. Here again SIMPLE was the key. I used the fabulous THICKERS, love those, on this page for the main title. I used black vinyl. The 'together' was just script print stickers I used to form a word. I'm going to be looking for creative ways to use up letters - watch for it! LOL. A couple chipboard expressions on page on, a rub on flower on page two....simple, simple.

Hope to get some cards stamped up this week as well - a few to get out in the mail so perhaps you'll see some cards slipped in here & there amongst the scrapbook pages. How's your summer going thus far? Enjoying the heat?! :)

.j.

Beer Tasting.

No, not me. :) One of the days they all went & tasted different beers....great that she was able to bring back a coaster (actually two) that I was able to encorporate into this page. I used my slit punch to create the scalloped edge on page two and used my circle nestibilites to create the rings. Simple. Simple. Doing a whole album in basically a WEEK I had to go simple! I matted nearly all the photos in black (using one of my all-time favorite scrapbooking tools - Perfect Layers!!) to keep it uniform through-out. This was a "rats I already put the pages IN the album and I'm too lazy to take them back out to take the photo!" HA. So, picture has a bit of a blah layer on it, this is why :) I thought too if the bride wanted to, she could journal under or around a couple of these photos to personalize them and add some of her own thoughts... would be cool.
.j.

New Week.

Hope you all had a great weekend. WOW was it hot!! LOVE it.

Crazy busy week for us as we head back to the island to clean up the hard and let go of the house! The sale is finalized on the 31st - waaahooooooooo! So I'll pre-post a couple while we're away and show you more of the album.

One thing that you'll notice is *missing* is journalling. I knew that was not something I could put in after a little tea time with the mother about their trip. Too personal, and I didn't know them. So, if they wanted to, they could go and write in afterwards..not sure where though? so I tried my best to let the photos tell the story....I thought it was so cool how they formed their initials with shells on the beach !!

Have a great week!

The wedding Album

So I have never made an album for anyone. Honestly, didn't do much scrapbooking myself, but for a few years ago, and even then, not much. I love it, and this has me TOTALLY inspired to get going on my own pages. I've been having fun. I've shown you the few pages I've done for myself {finally}, but now I will show you the pages from this wedding album I worked on. The hardest thing for me was that I had NO idea who these people were and ALL the photos were printed 4x6. Challenging! I typically like to use my printer and print a bunch of different sizes....cropping I find, at times, loses the scenery - which is needed {especially when your wedding is in Hawaii!!). So I'll share with you today my "title page". I was stumped. It was a tiny wedding (group of 11 of them - family & 3 friends), no wedding invitations, and nothing to necessarily document/save. So I took a collection of photos (at random) that I thought were cute and scenic and made a collage of sorts for the title....need to state too that I just used my point & shoot little camera to take these photos, so they won't be fantastic, but hopefully give you an idea of what I did :)

I used some stickers on the photos (top corners), a rub on at the bottom and the Hawaii & congratulations are stickers (that I do love!!) and a couple SU punched out flowers with white brads in the center....

K, it was 34 yesterday and we lived in the pool so today it's suppose to be about 31 so we're hitting the beach after lunch. Hoping to get this album DONE today...we'll see!

Enjoy your weekend!

.j.

Got Game?

We took the kids to play tennis for the first time. What fun! Lots of running to fetch balls over the fence, lots of laughter & lots of memories. The makings of a perfect day!

Here's the full layout....

This little close up shows a lot of embellishment & detail (I had fun playing & adding this & that, here & there) -- I added a polka dot rub on (SU) to the pink layer, rub on (SU) to another {cheap} metal tag -- and a little doodle of the dots by hand, below is a sticker on the photo 'treasure', and a few silver star eyelets. too busy?

Here are those yummy vinyl Thickers again. Behind I used SU's rub-ons (stars) to dress up the background a big.

Fun time,

.j.

Calgary Zoo

I had so many photos I wanted to use on this layout. I had to keep Ali Edwards' words in my head - YOU DO NOT HAVE TO SCRAPBOOK EVERY SINGLE PHOTO! Do you struggle with that? My Mom had asked if I was going to just do a small album on the zoo. Now I could have, I had that many photos, but there was NO NEED. I decided I would simply print the photos and put them in a flip album so the kids could go through and see all the creatures & moments and just do a 2-page spread in my album. Here's what I came up with:

The full spread:

I reprinted my photos to wallet size so I could fit a lot on my pages.

I used chipboard from my stash, already colored, and used them for a colorful title: Calgary Zoo, creative aren't I! LOL.I used my cuttlebug die for all the circles, and the threading water punch for the scallop along the bottom. The design paper had polka dots, so I went with it! :)

I used SU's punch for highlighting a couple of the favorite creatures - prairie dog here... ...and the red panda here.

I'm looking forward to scrapbooking the adventures as they arrive....

.j.

Father's Day Page

We celebrated Father's Day a week early this year. It was great to scrapbook recent photos... I'm loving this *new* way of doing things! LOL.

The quote on top: "Anyone can be a father, but it takes someone special to be a Daddy!"

That big Happy Family on the bottom photo is actually a beautiful rub-on. The arrows directing the eye to follow Simply The Best are punched out using my cuttlebug and arrow plate.

Don't want to spend a fortune on metal edged tags? Check out your local Staples or Walmart. I got a package of about 25 for $2.50! Sweet deal. I just take off the metal ring on top, and replace it with lovely ribbon! And, yes... I finally added a touch of my own handwriting!!

I love Thickers, and these ones I got for Christmas, vinyl. HOW COOL IS THAT?! I used a sticker to go on top of a SU metal edged tag and loved adding a few dew drops, they're so yummy and I need, need, need more colors!!


We also went & played tennis this day so I did a page that co-ordinate with this page, but didn't treat it as a two-page spread. I'll share that page with you soon...

Enjoy your day,

.j.

Simplicity Stuggle.

I struggled a bit with this page. I wanted to force myself to have some empty spaces. I found a layout in CK that I liked and used as a foundation to my pages, but then didn't know where or how to do my journalling (hmmm....one l or two?). It is in fact on the back of this page. Not good. I know, no one will really ever PULL out a page, but it's in there. Journalling is one of the things I struggle MOST with. Just not sure where to place it on a page, how much to say... I'm a rambler :). Bet you already figured that out! ANYWAY.... here's the spread:
Base is a rich regal blue textured paper from Stampin' Up! I used a rub-on (SUPER STAR) for the photo of Joshua running in the top corner. I also used a rubon from SU on little Sarah as a dressed up clown to add a little whimsy. The title is made from "Thickers" (love them and must buy more). Along the bottom I added little bits to a couple of the photos: stickers and rub-ons. What a fun day that was, the homeschoolers put on an amazing event!!

Here's a close up. I used a few buttons along the title bar, the date is on a little piece of vellum, and I used the threading water punch (fiskars) for the scalloped edge.

Hello Monday.

.j.

Found.

I finally found some time to scrapbook last weekend, what a treat! I loved this photo of the girls I took at the park randomly a couple weeks ago. Yes, it's the same photo, I just enlarged one to a half page size and then put the smaller one in the corner. I love layering and then adding embellishments until it looks and "feels" good :)
I had this paper that came with a few punch-outs. I didn't use them all as some of them said things like, my girl...not my girlS! :) But I did use the beautiful wordage, the 3 small circles on the side of the smaller photo (using pop-up dots). The smaller photo is also popped up a bit with stampin' dimensionals.

The brown leafy is a rubon from Cactus Pink letters I had. The circle/crown was in the punch out package that came with the paper. Love how easy it was to co-ordinate everything :)

I used my slit punch to make the scalloped edge below the enlarged photo, another little brown flower rubon from Cactus Pink and then the big flower is chipboard from Stampin' Up! I covered it with Basic Grey papers (oh I love their yummy papers!!) After trimming the edges, I took a sandpaper block and sanded all the edges smooth - prefer that look than the "trimmed" look.

It always feels good to get scrapbooking again....even in a very cramped space! :)

Is anyone else scrapping these days? What are you working on?

.j.

Simple Scrapping.

I finally dusted off a few supplies & scrapped a simple little 8x8 page of one of my favorite photos of the girls. I think it's just natural & simple so I kept the page the same way. A few touches of ribbon, a little chipboard and ribbon & that's it. I did add a bit of journaling on the back of it (mostly so I can remember). I really need to incorporate more journaling, but like everyone else hate my handwriting & don't know how to work the printer well enough to print DIRECTLY on my page. I do often print it, crop it and mount journaling, but I do tire of that look as well. So hopefully it was the start I needed to get going. I have a few more laying out on the table that I would like to finish up.... and I haven't forgotten that blog candy -- hopefully by the end of this week. Stay tuned ;-)
.j.

Stamps: Totally Tabs
Paper - Creamy Caramel(SU), Rosies & Posies(Imaginisce)
Ink - Noir Palette, Craft Rose Red(SU), Craft Baroque Burgundy (SU)
Other - ribbon (SU & We are Memory Keepers), Chipboard (SU), Tab Punch (SU)