Some Summer Scrapbooking

Summer is my least productive scrapbooking season. I know we're doing a lot of fun things that fill up our days and nights, but I really miss the solitude (read peace and quiet) of crafting. It may take longer than usual, but I have managed to get a few pages done with the help from some very inspirational designers.

This is one of those pictures that wasn't very good, but the story was too good not to remember. Jack and Morgan's rooms are "Jack and Jill" bedrooms with an adjoining bathroom. Before I head to bed, I go peek in on Jack and have about a 50/50 chance that he's in his bed. He loves to sneak into Morgan's room and fall asleep in her bed. And so I carry him back to his room many nights. On this night, not only did I find Jack in her bed, but look at Morgan! I don't know how she even got into that sleeping position.



A fourth of July layout using some Lily Bee papers. Yes, I know that I'm missing some ric rac on the page and yes, it bugs me, but I am not a perfectionist...I am not a perfectionist...I am not a perfectionist (I'm really trying to convince myself.) I ran out and didn't have anything I liked quite as much.


This one was done with Basic Grey Luscious papers. We recently were at Gilroy Gardens and while it was perfect for Jack, it's not exactly an exciting destination for a 12 year old. But Morgan was a great sport, going on all the kiddie rides and making sure Jack had a great day.




This is a lift of Nancy Damiano. I don't think I used any of the same papers that she used in her original (and I used paper from 4 different lines), but it sure turned out pretty similar. This is a bicycle rodeo at Jack's school and Jack brought his Strider bike. It has not pedals on it and helps to teach balance so he can transition to a big bike and not need training wheels. He's a little speed demon on it.



This last one is a lift of Kelly Goree using Basic Grey Oliver paper. Yet another soccer layout from high school season

I have a few more to share soon.

P.S. Jenifer-How's my little niece's album coming along? :-)

June Scrapbooking

To say I don't scrapbook in order would be an understatement. Never have. Never will.
So here's a look at some of what I got done scrapping with friends earlier this month at that gorgeous house.

This was an Allison Davis sketch. I attempted to scrap these pictures quite some time ago, but was not loving the direction or the papers. This time around, I'm really pleased with this page.


Funny story, we were looking for a picture of Garrett at a certain age so I pulled out an older album and these pictures were in the album, but just there loosely, not scrapped. So I decided to bring them with me. I used another Allison Davis sketch and dug into my black buttons to make those little Mickeys. I'm sure my page would look nothing like this if I had scrapped it 8 years ago.

You see what I mean-I scrap out of order. This is the first page to Garrett's K-5 book. I used the page I did for Morgan as my guide.

This is a lift of a page by Karen Grunberg. Even though the pictures aren't great, I like that I was able to tell the story about what Morgan's been up to since quitting gymnastics. I like to tease her that she is growing through her Marcia Brady phase and trying out lots of things.

Another Allison Davis sketch (and also completed awhile ago).

I had this Kick This template for awhile. I was kind off put of by using it, but it's a nice and simple page and sometimes I have to remind myself that nice and simple if just fine.

Some new papers that I had no intention of using for a Jack page, but I think they worked just perfectly.

A lift of a Nancy Damiano. Chris saw these pictures and said, "oh, that's the tournament that Garrett got 3 place." pause "I think." I asked Garrett and he thinks it was 3rd-quite honestly in 20 years from now, it won't really matter. So I'm creating a little family history here and documenting this as a 3rd place win.

I saw a page somewhere and this was really inspired by it. I changed a bit to accommodate my pictures.

And another inspired by someone on the web.

A Real Scrapbook Retreat

A few weeks ago I went scrapbooking with my friends. For the majority of 8 years that we've been going to this tiny beach town, we've stayed at the same house. But the home seems to be falling in disrepair and we were growing weary of the severe ant problem, electrical outages, and an owner who did not seem to appreciate his repeat business that we decided it was time to find something new. And WOW, did we find something pretty fabulous.

Actually the home was so beautiful, it was pretty distracting from a scrapbook point of view. It was my least productive weekend ever.

First, let's start with the view-
Sitting on top of a hill, this is what we saw:



Now for the inside. Apparently this home was purchased a few years ago and allowed to be burned to the ground by the firefighters and then the owners started from there. I can only speculate that there was either an interior designer who is one of the owners or utilized before the plans were even made because the details (which sadly are hard to see in the pictures) were so incredible that there's no way your average DIYer could have had the vision (or the money-ha!)

The main floor bath. Notice the transom windows? Those were throughout the entire house.

The family room-gorgeous stacked stone fireplace. Many of the pass throughs between rooms were framed in rough timber. The walls were all board and baten like you'd seen in a Pottery Barn Catalog, the ceilings were planks of wood and enormous wood beams.


The kitchen, again very high quality cabinets, high end appliances. No upper cabinets. To the right was a butler's pantry where it was stocked with platters, appliances, more dishes, etc... and a sink.


The island was a really unique piece of furniture, it was definitely something that was picked up somewhere.

Master bath-again the details are hard to see. But that gorgeous armoire was a focal point. In the very corner of the picture is a door that leads to the toilet, it is mounted like a barn door. It is absolutely stunning. Again, it had to be picked up somewhere and incorporated into the design of the house early on.




The kids' room, 2 sets of bunk beds and a big tv and gaming system in there along with this pretty mural.



The downstairs family room. Not that I was looking, but amongst all this beautiful, antique furniture we found a little table with a Ross tag on it~lol.


I "borrowed" some of these images off the VRBO website. We are planning to stay at a few other houses, but I think it's really going to be hard to top this one.

A Little Scrapbooking

Haven't been sharing much of my scrapbooking lately. Right now, I'm getting ready to head off to a scrapbook weekend next week so here's a few pages from the last few months.

Sometimes I feel like I cannot scrap another soccer page. Luckily I came across this great paper by Teresa Collins that made this a quick and easy page.

Ironically tomorrow is Jack's last day of preschool. So when I look at this, I can't believe how much he's grown and changed this year.

Another layout from preschool. We were given a little yearbook this week. On the first page the teacher included a certificate with their Christian characteristic. Jack's was endurance. This page probably sums up how she decided on that-he plays with these trucks every day at recess and spends the entire time racing with his buddies around the playground.


Well I'd love to take credit for this page, but I was so inspired by Debbie T. I copied most of it. And since it wasn't my idea, I'll just say I love it. Everything worked so perfect with my pictures. These pictures were taken a couple months ago and fortunately we're seeing a little bit less of the tantrums and mischievousness.


And here's one (and yes, Mom these were taken and scrapped before you were here) that I guess you can say that I scrap the good, the bad and the ugly-and this would be the ugly-Garrett's room. I don't think that he'll qualify as the dirtiest room in America, but it is certainly the room in the house I'm most likely to shut the door and try to forget what is behind it.

Well, I have loads more, but that's it for tonight!

Life Lessons

Here's a page I did for Garrett's high school soccer season. I used Teresa Collins Sports Edition II. I happen to see this layout in the booth where I purchased the paper and tried to remember the design to recreate it.

The journaling reads:
I think this picture depicts some of the struggles you went through playing on the freshmen soccer team. You injured yourself before tryouts even began and it seems like you started the season in a hole-overlooked and under appreciated. It was very hard as parents to watch-it was clear that a strong and valuable player was spending way too much time on the bench. About midway through the season, when it appeared that nothing was going to changed, we chalked the season up to being a life lesson-
*not everybody will like you
*not everybody values skills equally
*despite the circumstances, you still work hard
*and just when you accept the circumstances, the game changes
And at that moment, you rarely sat on the bench and suddenly could do no wrong in the eyes of the coach.
*People are unpredictable

Here We Go Again

Here's a layout (a lift of Nancy Damiano) that I did last month on a scrapbook retreat. It's a page about Morgan's injuries that she's had a year's period of time:
A cast on the arm and two boots, one on either foot.


Well Murphy's Law, I knew if I completed it, something would happen.

Here's the lovely green cast she's sporting on her right arm for another couple weeks. If truth be told, I think there's some type of racket her doctors are pulling because once again it's a small fracture on her growth plate that doesn't show up on x-rays. No denying, she's complaining that it hurts and did for about 2 weeks before I finally took her to see the orthopedist (we did see her doctor who prescribed Motrin for the week). But c'mon, 4 casts/boots in 13 months?

December Scrapbooking

I don't think I did that many layouts in December, but finished up several that were started in November.

Love this page, these Lily Bee papers are so easy to use and those corrugated flowers are something new in my scrapbooking stash that I've gotten a lot of use from. Created from a sketch I think I found on the Two Peas site.

This is a page that I really want to move my style of scrapbooking towards. While I always have my camera with me for the big, traditional events, it's these small, ordinary things I don't want to forget. So I hope to do more pages like this (which happens to be measuring the kids on a wall in a closet~something we've been doing since we moved in our house 8 years ago).

Another page using the Catching Fall papers from Lily Bee.



I've been looking at this thinking something is missing and I realized it's the title. Now to figure out what the title will be and where to place it :-)

A sketch, not sure where this came from.

This is a lift from Scrapbook.com These last 3 pages used paper from The Girls Paperie called Toil and Trouble. I really loved that paper and my friend was going to a well stocked scrapbook store and I asked her to pick up a few sheets for me, she picked up 2 of each kind. So I should be stocked for Halloween paper for the next few years.

This orange paper is from the Halloween line, finding it to be pretty versatile if I pair it with other papers. And pair it I did. I used 6 different papers from different manufacturers here. These are some Thanksgiving pictures. I had just read an article about "shooting from the hip" which is literally placing your camera at hip level (crossing your fingers) and getting pictures from a different perspective. I really like it shows our family prayer before the Thanksgiving meal.

This page is a sketch from a sketch site using Restoration papers. This sweet little girl is Jack's friend which took a bit of coaxing, but glad I had my camera in hand.

This month has been more about getting back into a routine and getting organized and hasn't left much time for scrapbooking. I'm headed to Dillon Beach with my friends next month for some scrapbooking so I need to start organizing so I can take full advantage of a weekend away.

October Scrapbooking

Not much to share for this month, but I do like what I did so that must count for something, right?

This was a lift using some Pink Paislee papers. Turned out to be quite a challenge because I wanted this to have a baby girl feel, but had a whole lot of red in the pictures. Anyway, this is older paper and think it worked perfectly for Morgan's album.

My Minds Eye papers. One of those obsessions I needed to document.

This turned out to be a favorite. I was inspired by the directions for the cathedral quilt found on this blog. There is more journaling behind the picture, but since I knew the crib would be coming down, I wanted one last picture of it. The papers are by Making Memories, some travel line, but I've been saving the paper for something special and I think that it fits well. Also, she used a punch to create the circles and I didn't have a punch so used my Cricut and had to adapt the size and play with it a bit. I'd suggest playing on scrap paper as it did take more paper than I was expecting.

A mix of papers, but the monster paper is Monstrosity by Sassafrass. I used it for some of Jack's party decor so trying to use of the rest of it.

The last is based off a Page Maps sketch. Pictures are from Morgan's 2009 gymnastics season. I used Basic Grey's Oliver which is definitely more masculine, but thought it worked perfectly.

Thanks for looking.

September Scrapbooking

I guess these are really scrabook pages from August and September.


Lily Bee papers


These are papers from Sassafras Indie Girl line. A class was offered through Scrapbook Nook and I made very few changes.

My Little Shoebox papers and a sketch from Allison Davis.

Sketch from ?? Papers from Fancy Pants Rusted Sun.

My Minds Eye Papers

A lift a page I saw on 2 Peas in a Bucket. The Girls Paperie papers which I bought knowing I'd be using them for some pages of my niece Arianna. This is the first page I've done with just her. And no Jenifer, I'm keeping this one :-)

Showing it without the glare.

My Minds Eye papers.

Bo Bunny papers. This is Jack at his very first movie (which also happened to be Garrett's first movie too-Toy Story 1 that is).

More Sassafras Lass Indie Girl.

Little Yellow Bicycle papers.

I feel like I have some big stacks of pictures to get to this month. Hoping I can be productive. At the end of the month the last local scrapbook store will be closing. I'm either going to have to make a 45 minute drive (which is going to be rare) to go to the closest one or do some shopping online (which I hate because the shipping is such a rip off). Apparently scrapbooking as a hobby is losing popularity, but nobody told me :-)