Before and After

Last night I did this page titled "The Before and the After". I used Bo Bunny's "Sophie Collection" and it's about my daughter's ear piercing. I've made quite a few projects with this collection. I think it's so fun and girly!! I love these pictures of my daughter!! I couldn't wait to get to them. They just make me smile. I guess because of the obvious distinction between the two pictures, and I really just cherish the fun we had that day! It's a great memory for me, taking my very own daughter to get her ears pierced. She really only cried for all of 1 minute, I swear ;). I also made a 2 page layout on the rest of our trip that year to Universal Studios, but I'm not so happy with how it turned out...so no showcasing it here.

One thing I've been learning while working on Alivia's 1st scrapbook, is that I cannot scrap every picture!! I can, but I'll never get to do anything else!! It's perfectly respectable to have beautiful scrapbooks full of eventful or beautiful pictures that you love and also a box of the ones that were not "great" pics., or you just didn't "feel" like scrapping. But I believe that scrapbooks are so important. To tell the story. To remember the moment with information, not just a photograph to look at years later. Ihat's all I have to look back on my childhood - boxes or bins of pics. I'm sure that's what MOST people have, but I #1 love the hobby and #2 I wholeheartedly believe that my children, their spouses, and their children will thank me later. Trust me, I always say I have scrappers ADD, I WANT to scrap all my pics and fill the page with embellishments!! I've really reigned myself in in the past year or two!! But I also want to make cards, mini books, and just play with my stash and different techniques... So, for right now, I'm scrapping a majority of my pics, but not all. Maybe when my kiddos (now 5 and 2) are older and wont let me take pictures of them, well, then maybe I'll get to these other pics that I'm stashing right now. Have a Blessed Day!! Heather

The word "Scrapbooking Fiend" comes to mind!!

Yes, I've been a very busy scrapper (hee hee) lately! I'm at least half way through the stack of pictures I have for my daughter's 1st Scrapbook - and I feel like I can breathe again!! Ok, so, besides the 3 inch stack I've got to do for Alivia, I DO still have an entire photobox FULL (I really mean FULL) of "family" photos to scrap, NOT TO MENTION the 300 or so I haven't even printed yet, but I'm not overwhelmed any longer (probably becuase I'm concentrating on ONLY looking at the smaller Alivia stack right now - Baby Steps, Heather!).

But anyway, here are 3 more layouts that I completed last night. For the 1st - "Sweet Flutterby Girls" I used my new Lawn Fawn Stamps (Bannerific) again. I went into this layout only knowing that I HAD to use these stamps!! I used Basic Grey's "Olivia" paper and embellishments, my adored Martha Stewart butterfly punches and paper pieced the banner. I'm finding that I LOVE paper piecing!!

For the 2nd - "We love you OVERALL" I used Fancy Pants "Rusted Sun" line. Sigh...I'm addicted to these punched/folded flowers right now. Also, I heat embossed some chipboard letters with a dark blue embossing powder and made it kinda altered/messy. Fun fact - these pics all look warm and beachy, but they were taken in December. Plus side of Florida - it's almost warm (a little too warm right now, thank you).

For the 3rd layout - "Tag you're it" I used Fancy Pants again (unfortunately, I cannot for the life of me remember the name of the line). I got the idea from this month's Scrapbooks ETC. and just made it my own. I just always loved these pics of Alivia chewing on this toy's tag :D and when I saw the tag layout I knew I had to go THERE! I used Glimmer Mist (tuscan sun) on the tags and then paper pieced (I LOVE THESE OWL STAMPS!!) with coordinating papers from the set. I also LOVE LOVE LOVE these American Crafts thickers(green). I think they're my fave yet!! And it seems I can't survive a scrap session these days without my October Afternoon mini market letter stickers! I though the heart punch (fiscars) popped up with foamies and the tabs at the top (EK Success) added a little something extra as well. The buttons are Papertrey ink. Whew! Are you done hearing me chatter on yet?!? Have a great day!!

Everything But the Kitchen Sink Challenge #21

After seeing Kelly Marie's (Lawn Fawn Blog) sketch, I had to try this EBTKS Challenge. It's taken from her washing machine - too funny!! I had to make a Birthday Card for my son's friend Tommy anyway, so I figured I'd jump off from there. The little boy I made it for is turning 5 and his dad drives trains, so I think this'll be perfect for him! I used the Basic Grey "Oliver" paper and element stickers along with my new Lawn Fawn Stamps (woo-hoo!!!) The banner is from one of their newest stamp sets -Bannerific, and the Happy Birthday sentiment is from Lawn Fawn's Bake Me a Cake set. I just love these stamps and if you haven't gotten any yet, you're REALLY missing out!! They're so fun, and Kelly Marie is so great about blogging (and facebooking) inspiration for them!! So that's my take on the sketch! Enjoy & have a great day!

And a THIRD post today...wow!

Well I just wanted to get two additional layout on here. These are two of my faves. The "Swing" layout I got from the Good Grief blog. I loved, not only the layout of the page, but mainly that tree!!! I love that tree and I'm sure I'll be making more in the future for SOMETHING!! I usd Cosmo Cricket's "Nutmeg" line for everything except the black (bazzil) cardstock and the (Fancy Pants) grid paper. I love how it came out! i love that page so much! The second page has some of my faveroite pics of Alivia!!! Her chewing on those sweet baby toes was priceless!! I also used one of my fave companies...OCTOBER AFTERNOON's "Ducks in a Row" papers. I have gone back to my LSS a FEW times to restock on this line (and made several gifts/projects with it!) I'd been wanting for a while to try out these flowers. made by punching 4 scalloped circles and then folding them into fourths and using gluedots to secure them. I'm also (obviously) addicted to my Martha Stewart butterfly punches and October Afternoon's mini letters (LOVE LOVE LOVE)!!

Second post today! Woo!!

I thought I'd share a few more layouts I've made within the past two weeks. I do have two children, Christian is 5 and Alivia is 2, but my daughter's scrapbook kind of fell off the radar for a while. I guess I was mentally blocked?!? That is really the only explination I have. When my son was a baby (which is when I got hard-core about scrapbooking) I was only doing scrapbook pages. Before that, I did a scrapbook for my niece, Paige who is now 9 (It's a 3 ring binder with notebook paper, stickers, markers, etc...). I knew nothing about Creating Keepsakes (or any other if the awesome publications out there), blogs, or anything else scrapbooking related, for that matter. I just did what I liked. Now there is so much inspiration out there - that my daughters scrapbook is vastly different from my sons...definately different from my nieces...anyway... So, over the past year, I started stamping (I THINK I'VE GONE TO THE BAD PLACE WITH STAMPING), making cards, making a ton of mini books, and gifting all kinds of craft goodies. This had kept me really busy (and it didnt help that I felt completely OVERWHELMED by the amount of pictures I have printed now that I have 2 kids - and a niece who is with me most of the time). So technically, I was mentally blocked from scrapbook pages! I've started to tackle the stack I've set aside for just my daughter. With my son I had two (really thick) books just for him (of his 1st two years) and then I staretd the "family" scrapbook. It includes EVERYONE and EVERYTHING. With Alivia I "plan" to do a book or 2 of her 1st year only... we'll see how that goes. Anywho! So THAT is why mostly what I'm posting centers around my daughter right now (although several have my son in them).

Thanks God for naptime ;)

So, yesterday, while Alivia napped and Christian colored I hit the LARGE (very large) stack of pictures from Alivia's 1st year - that until recently (I dont know why) I'd been avoiding like the plague!! I have to appologize becuase my photo editing sucks - I KNOW! I'm using paint and it really blows! I bought "my mom" the new Photoshop for Christmas, but she hasn't showed me how to use it and I'm just too scared to figure it out on my own... so until then, sucky pictures! Sorry.

More scrappiness for ya!

This is another page I've recently done (last weekend). It's not my absolute faveroite as I did this one after about 5 layouts and I was kinda tired and unmotivated by that time, but I'd really been wanting to make the flower Dear Lizzie gave a tutorial on her blog http://elizabethkartchner.blogspot.com/. I like the flower better than the page. it's all I can post becuase I sent the rest to CK in hopes of publication (fingers crossed). I love these Dear Lizzie papers from American Crafts - especially the fabric paper. LOVE LOVE LOVE!!