If Scrapbooking was an Olympic Sport!

If Scrapbooking was an Olympic Sport.. I think I could be a medalist!

We have two teachers having baby showers tomorrow, so.. you know it.. two scrapbooks!

First is the one for baby boy.  The desired color scheme was blues, greens, khaki and white.  I was thrilled when I found this paper!  In fact, it came in a little paperpack, so I bought two of them to get 12 sheets of matching cardstock and made the pages. The bonus here is that there were boy stickers with the paper pack!!

In the above picture, I used a ton of eyelets and put them in the polka dots at random intervals.

Can you see the buckle on the left picture? I love it!

These brad things are self adhesive. I love them. So easy!

The safety pins are holding on elastic!  It is really fun in person! I can just see this page about a Growing Boy!! Wouldn't that be super cute :) ?

The second album was for a baby girl.  The colors here were brown and turquoise.  This was harder!
But, I found a pattern that was great and went from there.  

 I love the whimsy yet elegant look of these two colors together with the silver!

 More of those self adhesive bradlets!

 The embellishment here is glittered clips!

 Ribbon on these!! I can't make an album without using ribbon!!

And finally, more sticky buttony things!

And there you have it. My favorite baby gift! Total time spent? Two hours. And no, I didn't make all the pages from "scratch." I used my Close To My Heart layout books for most of the pages, but I make a habit of ALWAYS using scraps to make more pages, so a few are my own spur of the moment designs.

A Few HandMade Quick Card How-to's and tips!

WARNING!

IF YOU ARE NOT A CRAFTER,
YOU WILL WANT TO SKIP THIS POST!!

For the rest of you, here are a few how-to's
and tips for fast and easy handmade cards using scraps.

Here are few pictures of the finished cards. I made 12 cards using only the scraps from a set of pages I made. I don't think they look like cards made from leftovers!

In order to get the quantity of scraps for the cards, I had to make some pages :) Here are the pages. I used one paper pack (it had 12 pattern papers and 10 cardstock plus I used an assortment of base pages.) This made 26 12x12 pages, or 13 layouts. For more information on how I do that, search page patterns in my search bar!

1. After taking pictures of my pages and ooh and ahhing over more picture ready pages, I started with my stack of scraps. Sort the scraps into groups according to WIDTH!
2. Any piece that has a width of 4" or more I put back into my bag. I consider this to be too big to waste on a card. I might use it later, but it's a keeper for a scrapbook page in my opinion!
3. Now, I take my pile of 2" scraps and sort those according to pattern and color. This is the pile I start with when making cards.

4. Once sorted, I pick up a 2" piece and glue it onto a card base. No real thinking goes on here.  I will cut it to size in one direction, but I really do just try to only make one cut per piece of paper at this stage of card making. By doing this, in a matter of a minute I have card bases ready to go!
5. Now, add a pop of interest by using up first the remainder larger scraps and then go to the 1/2" and 1" stacks to tie two different patterns together or for just a fun band. The key at this stage is to make a nice looking card, but to not spend more than a minute on the layout. We aren't making award winning card designs here. We are a making a dozen cards in flash!

6. With the 12 card bases ready, I then look for a few stamps to use and try my best to keep it to only 2 or 3 different stamps and inks.
7. I stamp the sentiment on the card sometimes, but I happen to be really, really bad at placement and smudging. So, I have learned to stamp on another piece of paper and glue. Besides, I think it looks nice when the sentiment is layered. :)
8. Finally, I spend most of the time embellishing the cards. Over the years, I have made LOTS AND LOTS of heavily embellished and thick cards, but they then don't fit in the envelope very well and it's expensive to mail them.  So, I try to just embellish with flat things or try to keep it somewhat simple.  As you would guess, I only use what's readily available.  I'm not going to go out and buy coordinating ribbon for my cards! That would ruin the free factor!
9. So there you have it. My completed cards. Because I can only do a couple of things at a time and have to referee children, or cook or clean or whatever, I can't tell you how much time was spent making the cards, but probably no more than 2 hours total if I had to guess to make 12 cards! Not bad!! And even better, my premade card box has been refilled!

And here is one last look at the set of stuff.

12 cards.

26 pages

and a bag of scraps to use when I put pictures on my pages.

Papers and Stamps: Close To My Heart

Scrapbooking Made Easy, it's all in the Method!

As you all know by now, I'm a busy woman.

So I have had to figure out how to streamline some things along the way.

One of those is basic scrapbook pages.

By streamlining the method of creation, I have more time for my favorite part...

EMBELLISHMENTS!

So while you may be tired of my preaching easy scrapbook pages, I just can't stop myself :)

To start, choose 10 patterns and 12 pieces of cardstock that go together. 

Plus you will need base pages of white or cream depending on your color scheme.

 Here are my chosen pages.
Notice that my pieces of cardstock are really papers with a dominant color and a small pattern!!

The next step is to choose a set of page layouts that you like.  

Most of mine templates are taken from Close To My Heart's template books.

In fact, all of the layouts for this set come from Imagine.

To be honest, one of my very strange quirks is that I LOVE to take the layouts and place them on paper
and see how many layouts I can make with a little paper as possible. 

So while some of you might groan, I live for graphing paper!!

Once I have my cutting guides ready, I cut the paper.  The biggest part of the learning curve is to

 NOT STRESS over which page is which!

It's all part of the game.

As you cut your paper, label each piece in pencil and then when finished sort into piles.

Below you can see my pieces sorted with white between each grouping.

The first time you do this, it will take some work. 

You won't like some of the pages. 

In the midst of trying to figure out what to do you, you will be taking my name in vain!

But when you figure it out, well...

Then it is FUN!!

All of the above layouts were pieced and placed in the span of about three hours.

That's 18 12x12 pages.

That's enough to fill a gift book.

Plus, I had a good bit of scrap paper to use for journal blocks, embellishments and so forth.

So, if you haven't tried this type of scrapbooking, try it!

In fact, I'll teach you how.

Stay tuned for more details....

Catching Up

Where have the last couple of weeks gone?  Man, it has been a whirlwind.   Here is a brief recap:

• The end of the school year!  Yippee!!
• On Memorial Day we hosted a mini reunion for my theatre buddies from Hardin-Simmons University.  It seems like just a couple of years ago we staying up late working on plays and sets!
• Maddie had a big doctor’s appointment at the Pain Management Clinic at Dallas Children’s Hospital.  It was a good visit.  They have a very comprehensive approach that includes a team of six healthcare professionals evaluating and then the team discusses what they want to do.We are still waiting to hear about a test that was done. 
• Swimming Lessons.  Maddie is doing great.  Lexi is exercising her independence in saying NO! Lexi won’t put her face in the water. Lexi won’t blow bubbles. Lexi won’t go down the slide.  It is driving us all nuts!  I am hoping that maybe today Lexi will decide to be a little more compliant. 
• We listed our house.  The need for a fourth bedroom is greater than our love for the house :( So if you know of anyone that needs an awesome and yes unusual 3 bedroom house in Stephenville, Texas.. send them our way! You know our house has to be on the market for it to look this good with 3 little kids!!
• My monthly scrapbooking class.  We made summer pages.  I have a couple of kits leftover, so if you would like 3 double page layouts for summer the cost is $20 for the kit.  $25 if I make the pages for you.
  
• Today Lexi starts VBS with a friend and Maddie starts Volleyball camp.

Man, I’m tired just thinking about it all!!

A Thank You Gift: Handmade Recipe Book

I don’t know about you, but it seems like I am always needing a thank you gift!  This time I needed something special for someone who went the extra mile for me.. and she happens to love to cook, so I decided to make a little recipe book that she can place her favorite recipe’s in for her teenage daughter.

I hope she likes it.  I had fun making it.
To make the cover, I took 2 pieces of chipboard and cut them a little larger than my 8x8 page protectors.  (Well, to be honest, the first piece of chipboard I only cut a little larger than my 8x8 pages.. then I remembered that the page protectors were larger..eek.  Thankfully I had an extra piece of chipboard!)

The first page:

Appetizers:

Soups and Salads:

Main Course:

All of the pages that have only one card are Flip Flap pockets that stick to the outside of the page protector.. isn’t that so cool :)

The Dessert Page:

Side Dishes: 

The End:

I hope she likes it…

Sisters

 

I love this fun wall hanging of my girls!  It’s in Lexi and Kylie’s room and adds just a fun flair to an otherwise pretty boring brown wall.  I did have to hang it rather high as it is above Kylie’s dresser, otherwise known as her changing table.

 

Each letter is 9x9 and firmly attached to a piece of chipboard then I punched a whole in the top, attached a ring to it and slipped it onto the twine.  I like that can move the letters around so that different pictures get equal playing time. (And that’s important with 3 girls!)

  

Another thing that I took into consideration while making this was future usability.  Knowing that I wouldn’t want to keep it on the wall forever, I made it a standard size so that I could slip it into an album later.

We also bought fabric for curtains this week.  More Cowgirl stuff (oh my!).  Lexi picked it out of course and the colors match the sister banner, so what could I say but Yeehaw!  I am hoping to make curtains over Easter.  We’ll see :)