are you sitting down?

In case you didn’t think you’d see another scrappy post around here…well…I’ve got one for you.

My favorite store is opening soon and I can’t wait!

In celebration, I sat down to plan two layouts tonight…

I’m thinking some new Jillibean Soup papers are calling my name…

Watch this space soon for the actual layouts!!

 

Kristen

a layout to share

Wow…it feels like it’s been a while since I’ve shared an actual layout!

And it’s a single pager to boot! Look out…

Cosmo Cricket (one of my favorites…) hosted a National Scrapbook Day sketch challenge using this sketch:

So I pulled out my newest Cosmo Cricket Goodies from the Joy Ride line and a picture that I took during my Week in the Life project…and I went to town…

 

I love how it turned out!

 

I love the little details that the sticker sheets from the same line add.

 

By the way…they did a little sneak peek of their newest line this week…did you see it? Check it out here: DeLovely I love how the colors are such a departure from their muted lines in the past.

Yum!

Kristen

a week in MY life…day 4

Tonight, I spent some time organizing this project, scrapbooking and editing pictures…hubby is out of town and I always stay up way too late!

Last night I edited pictures from the first three days, cropped them to fit my baseball card sleeves and then put them on larger canvases to print at Costco. Today I picked them up and started trimming them down.

I am keeping all my bits and pieces in this box so they stay together. After this picture I decided to grab some baggies and separate the bits and pieces, plus the trimmed photos by day. I’m all caught up and ready to start slipping things in and journaling (I’ve been keeping a running list of things we do in the journal I showed you earlier in the week).

Rather than share with you pictures from today, I thought I’d share the results of a bit of scrapping time.

I found this sketch over at the My Mind’s Eye Blog. Don’t you just love their products? Well, with this sketch you can win a whole bunch of it! Check out their blog for the details.

And tonight I finished up my take on it:

  Sorry for the photo…I had to take it inside at night.

The pictures I wanted to use were vertical so I turned the sketch on it’s side.

The sketch had a lot of scalloped edges…not my thing for a boy page, usually. But I had this cool edged paper from the Abbey Road Stomp line so I trimmed and used it instead.

The challenge was to use the song Dream Big by Ryan Shupe and the RubberBand as inspiration. I’m a music girl and am inspired by music all the time. I had never heard this song. It’s so worth a listen. The words are so great!!

I took a line from the song because it reminded me of these pictures: “When you laugh be sure to laugh out loud
'Cause it will carry all your cares away”

These pictures are from the day that J had an MRI. He was so calm (probably didn’t know what was happening) and while we waited for the nurse to come put in his iv that would deliver the anesthetic he grabbed a surgical glove and started playing around.

The journaling reads: “Even while waiting to receive and iv full of sleepy juice for your MRI, you find a way to make me laugh out loud and my cares float away for just a moment. I love you for that.”

By the way…the MRI was in July 2008 and other than stuffed up sinuses, all was clear. The events following this picture (iv, reaction to anesthetic) were not so fun…but receiving a clean bill of health as far as the brain scan went was all worth it.

I’ll be back tomorrow with more Week in the Life stuff…

Kristen

March Layout #2

My kiddos’ spring dance performance at school. I was so happy to figure out some camera settings that allowed me to take pictures in the multipurpose room with poor light. Too bad T was way in the back. J decided not to dance, but he lined up with his class, wore his costume and walked across the stage at the end. That kid kills me!

This was actually a based on a Becky Fleck sketch I found here…

Kristen

pirate’s life…

This layout was done for Green Tangerines (the store) a while back. When they closed it was included in a stack of layouts I got back and I was reminded how much I loved it!

Simple, easy, but recorded a part of our lives at the time…look how little my big guys were!

You can see that I stitched across both layers of solid cardstock.

This was adapted from a sketch by Mackenzie in January of last year. You can see what she did with it here.

I love those October Afternoon journaling cards…

and the sticker sheets that went with this monster line as well…I can’t remember the name of it, do you?

Lots of fun words to play with…

  And of course…both mini letters by Making Memories and Thickers by American Crafts to round it all out!

What story do you need to get down on paper today?

Happy Monday!

Kristen

challenge…layout #6

Wondering what I’m talking about? Check out my challenge post here.

Yahoo!

Six layouts in 11 days. So I didn’t quite meet my 10 day challenge…but I’m not sad about that at all.

My desk is cleared off.

I spent the day and night scrapping with friends on Saturday…one of my last chances to scrap at my LSS (it’s closing at the end of the month). Green Tangerines has the best crop room ever! Sigh.
It was a rough day emotionally…but I had a good time with some friends. I ate a lot of junk (I paid for it on Sunday!) and talked a lot. Didn’t get a ton done, but I’m okay with that. I DID finish up my last December kit layout.

So here is the last sketch:

You’ll remember that I’ve done it before.

Doesn’t it look way different this time?

This is all December kit as well…yummy!

That’s why I love sketches! You can use them over and over and over!

Those fun hat pins again…now that I’m looking at this picture it reminds me that I need to trim off those sharp points. What do you do with your pins on layouts?
 
I’m in love with these fabric Thickers! Isn’t the sequined ribbon fun? I layered it on top of some Crate Paper that I had scalloped (thanks for the borrowed punch, Brenda!) and then the striped Crate Paper too. Love that North Pole line!
  There were quite a few Jillibean Journaling Spots in the kit…but I didn’t have a number that would go with the layout…so I just added my own little title to it using the October Afternoon letters.

And yes, I realized I cheated and didn’t use all 4x6’s like I said. As I sat down to plan this…I didn’t have enough horizontal photos from Santa Cookie Baking…so…I just resized two vertical photos to 3x4 and layered them together to create the 4x6. So I spent maybe 5 minutes on Photoshop doing that before sending them off to be printed. I admit it.

I hope you have had success with your goals this week too…link up your results…I’d love to see them!
Stay tuned this week…I’ll share some other things I got done on Saturday.

Oh, and I’ve seen a little sneaky peaky of the next kit from Green Tangerines…oooooh…yummmy….can’t wait for my box to be on my desk…
Kristen

a little cosmo cricket fun

Do you follow the fun people at Cosmo Cricket? I just love their blog. Lots of fun eye candy and the people are quite entertaining.

Anyway, lately they have been posting sketches and asking for people to play along…so I did!

Here is the sketch Julie posted:

 

A single pager?!? Gasp!!

Okay, so yes, I’ve been mainly posting double pagers lately. But I do occasionally do single pagers too.

I toyed with the idea of stretching it into a double…but then I remembered that I had these pictures of Tyler after he lost his first tooth last month.

All papers and elements are from the Boyfriend line of Cosmo Cricket. I trimmed the ‘smile’ from their Elements sheet as well as punched the “say cheese” as well.

I was lucky enough to snag the last bits of CC at Green Tangerines yesterday. See? I’m really not over them closing yet! I seem to mention it constantly. :(

Have a great week!

Kristen

challenge…layout #5

{Wondering what I’m talking about? Check out my challenge post here.}

Nearly there…5 out of 6 layouts complete!

Here was sketch #5

And my take on it:

 

Just a few random pictures of traditions we celebrated leading up to Christmas 2008. All product is December kit stuff!

Fun fabric tags (I trimmed this one a bit), mini tags and hat pins…

How are you doing on your challenge?

Today is my goal date…but I think rather than working on that last layout, I’m going to spend some time planning layouts for a scrappy day at Green Tangerines (sniff sniff) with friends tomorrow.

I’ll work on that last layout too…and I’ll post my results on Sunday or Monday. Check back tomorrow for the last of my Oct/Nov cards…and I’m sure I’ll make some with my December scraps, too!

So I didn’t quite meet my deadline…but it’s okay. I had so much fun being intentional about my scrap time these last 10 days.

Kristen

challenge…layout #4 and sketch #6

{Wondering what I’m talking about? Check out my challenge post here.}
Okay, so here it is finally. Wondering what held me up? Keep on reading and I’ll explain.
Here was sketch #4

And here is my guy in his Christmas choir glory:
 
Yep…that’s nearly 300 of our closest friends up on stage with him. Bayside doesn’t do small. :) All of the product is from the December kit.
check out those cute tiny little tags, frosted envelopes and fabric tags… I did some stitching on this one…felt good to get my sewing machine out.  The star sticker strip is by Hambly, as is the kraft paper with the white grid.
More stitching and I used a tiny scrap of the Crate Paper stripe to add a bit of interest…I like how it turned out. Those are Thickers, of course and some mini letters from October Afternoon.

Isn’t this hat pin fun? I took wire cutters and cropped off the pointy edge… And here’s the layout by Jennifer Johner in the Nov/Dec issue of Scrapbooks, Etc that was my inspiration. I LOVED it and just expanded it into a double!
Check out Christine’s version of the single here.

And the last of my challenge sketches…the last of the 4x6 photo sketches. You might recognize it…
If you find yourself perusing the GT Flickr account you may remember seeing this layout from the February kit:
It was also mine.  I liked it’s simplicity so much that I decided to use it again. That’s what I love about scrapbooking…re-using and idea never looks the same. You’ll see that I actually took the 4x6 blocks on the right and made them 2x3 blocks. Easy Peasy!
Okay…now…the news that made me sad…
My LSS, Green Tangerines is closing at the end of this month. This place has such a huge part of my heart. Not only is it the coolest store I’ve ever been in, the people are amazing. Kelly and Paula, the owners, are two of the nicest people I have ever met. My heart is just aching over it. Never mind the fact that I will have NO scrapbook store near me now…what?!?!
The good news is that the Green Tangerines Kit Club is continuing, with a whole bunch of NEW things in store for 2010.
So I’m sad and excited all at the same time…sigh…
Can you forgive my lack of creative mojo the other night when I found out?
Now that it’s all sunk in, I’m working on layout #5 and 6 and I hope that I can still finish them up in time for my original ‘deadline’. Check back tomorrow to see how I’m doing.

Kristen

challenge…layout #3 and some goodies

Wondering what I’m talking about? Check out my challenge post here.
Just a reminder…this was the sketch I worked from for layout #3:

And here is what I came up with:

It’s an annual tradition for us to go to Bishop’s Pumpkin Farm. We loved including my brother-in-law and his family this year!

sorry about the picture quality…not sure what happened there…and this family picture: I promise I’ll stop using it here on the blog. ;)
stitches are rub-ons by Hambly

 glazed brads by Basic Grey …aren’t they great?!

American Crafts felt Thickers and little letters by MLS…
 
argyle paper was actually a custom embellishment tag that I trimmed down..
  I wanted to do something different with my journaling so I hand wrote it on a separate gray scrap and then trimmed it down to strips. I adhered it with glue dots so it raised just a bit. I like the look of the tone on tone…subtle, yet striking.
And now that the third layout is officially done…I went and picked up my new goodies!
 
Yummy creams, grays, greens and reds. I think the polka dot paper by     is my favorite. And do you recognize the striped paper by Crate Paper that I used on my Christmas card this year?
 
Love the idea of all the shades (and textures!) of white Bazzill in the kit. The lace snowflake paper is from KI Memories.
 
Sigh…this isn’t helping my mini letter addition. Or my fabric Thicker addiction! Can’t wait to try out that journaling  tape by Collage Press.
  Once again, rockin’ custom embellishments paired up with some fun stuff (I spy journaling circles by Jillibean soup!)
Can’t wait to use these!
Kristen