New York Scrapbook

I finally finished the 8x8 scrapbook from our trip to New York in March for my 40th birthday.

Title Page 

On the plane getting ready to leave.  "New York City, here I come!"

Central Park Zoo

Carriage Ride in Central Park

Empire State Building.  "This is where Buddy's daddy works."

Statue of Liberty

Bug-a-Boo at the Statue of Liberty

"I'm as beautiful as New York City!"

9/11 Memorial

Times Square

Surf & Turf at the American Museum of Natural History

New York slice and 1st cab ride

Playing in Central Park

Last page of book

Shutterfly Holiday Card

3x5 Folded Card

View the entire collection of cards.

LOAD 15

Halfway done with the month and I'm feeling a little burnt out.  It could also be that we only have 3 more days until we leave for Disney World.  

Anyway, here is layout 15.

Mother LOAD 14

Today's thought:
Today is Way Back Wednesday. On Wednesday, we're hopping in the time machine and going back, back, back in time! Maybe we'll revisit an old scrapbook trend, or maybe we'll pull up a color combo popular in, say, 1986 (fluorescence, anyone?). By doing this, we can discover a few things:

1. Most of us have some older stuff in our stash we haven't touched in a while.
2. The "old" stuff is old often only because we say it is.
3. Trends come and go in scrapbooking, just as in fashion and music.
4. There should be a number 4 but I'll be gole-darned if I can think of one! (Old age sucks).

Anyway, often we can make something "old" new again quite easily. This will help us stretch our stash, use what we have, and not feel so guilty about investing in fourteen rolls of Mrs. Grossmans' stickers.

Ready?

Today's prompt:
About six months ago, I was going through a major purge in preparation for (yet another) move. I eyed my binders full of acrylic stamps and was all ready to say goodbye to them. After all, I hadn't stamped for ages!

Crazy. I started as a stamper in the early '90s before I was even a scrapbooker (at least in the modern sense of the word). I went to stamp shows and mounted my own rubber stamps and made my own stationery. It was cool and fun. And then I started scrapbooking and stopped stamping.

I thought the two were mutually exclusive. After all, why would I want to stamp on a scrapbook page? I did it for a while in the early 2000s, but found it too fussy, complicated, and time-intensive. So it was time to let the stamps go in the interest of simplifying.

Until…

…until I took a class with Jennifer McGuire. She re-invigorated my love of stamping, reminding me how fun it was and how easy it could be to use stamps on scrapbook pages. It didn't have to be complicated and fussy. It could be simple, elegant, and creative!

So my new scrapbook room has storage for stamps-a lot of storage-because I have a lot of stamps.

I love that.

Today, you're going to stamp on a scrapbook page. Stamp your title, a border, an embellishment - whatever you like. And when you do it, think about the good ole' days.

I never really got into stamping, but I do have a few alphabet sets so I used some of those.

Mother LOAD Day 9

Today's prompt:
By now you probably have a pile of scraps on your desk (or under it!). Good - because today we're putting them to work. Dig into these little piles of goodness and find some scraps that you can put to work on your page. Maybe some small edges of patterned paper from Tuesday, or the pieces you cropped off your photo yesterday. Use what you find!

28 Days of Sketches: Days 12-15

Slowly but surely I am plugging my way through this class.  It has been extremely busy lately with school coming to an end and house projects but I've been able to get a little scrapbooking in and I was able to finish my Disney Princess Half-Marathon Theme Album.

Back to 28 Days of Sketches though.  Here is sketch 12:

Instead of journaling I added quotes about running, winning, challenges, etc. to the page.

I used sketch 12 as a companion to a flipped sketch 10 to create a double page spread:

Here is sketch 13:

I used the basic sketch and created a page for my needs.  I made a pocket page to hold miscellaneous memorabilia from the race and on the pocket portion is where I used the sketch for the layout of the photos.

Sketch 14:

I decided to go to my storage binders for a photo to do this layout.  I wanted to find a photo that had a story that could be told with the title and I think I found it.  When Sydney was only a month old I took some extreme close up shots of her making some monkey faces.  In this photo she was excited and waving her hands.  When I saw it later it reminded me of the final scene from "Meet The Parents" with Ben Stiller..."Can you deal with that?"

Sketch 15:

I changed a few things and flipped a few things in order to use it as a double page spread.

Sketch 15 is the companion page for sketch 13 to create a double page spread.

Since I was able to finish my Disney Half-Marathon Weekend theme album the rest of the sketches will use photos from my storage binders that have been waiting to be scrapbooked.  Can't wait to dig in.

My first Photo Album Scrapbook

Today is the last day of school and the summer is about to start (even if the weather isn't cooperating).  I thought I would take a break from my 28 Days of Sketches class (I'm still trying to catch up) and share my first Photo Album Scrapbook (PAS).

The first time I had ever seen a PAS was while I was reading the second volume of my Scrapbooking Bible, "Photo Freedom" by Stacy Julian.  She had used a standard 2-up photo album for a trip she had taken to London, England.  I remember reading the first page of the section and thinking, "I could never do that.  Especially, not for a trip to London.  My trips to Ireland and Italy required three 12x12 albums each."  

Then I turned the page and saw some examples of her London PAS.  It blew my mind.

This is not what I was expecting to see.  This was fun and creative and really easy and pretty.  I read on to learn what this amazing concept was all about.  Stacy said,  

"For some reason, most of us have the idea that using a photo album to store and share photos is a cop out, like it's a lesser form of scrapbooking because it doesn't require as much time or creativity as making layouts.  Wrong!  Not only are photo albums OK to use, they can become your best friend.  If you let them, photo albums can relieve you of the burden of hundreds of pictures that you really don't want to use on layouts - and they can help you easily document your memories during times when life is especially demanding.  If you're feeling burdened by hundreds of baby pictures of your now 12-year-old, compile them into a photo album scrapbook, and enjoy the wonderful feeling of losing that baby weight!"

Isn't she wonderful!!  I was one of those people.  Not any more!!  I decided right then that I was going to embrace this idea of Photo Album Scrapbooking and I was going to try one.  I searched out more information and examples and found a wonderful entry on Stacy's blog.

I chose to use our vacation to Lexington, MI as my first PAS.  I was nervous but excited to start this new creative challenge.

I headed to Target to first purchase my album which I figured would help determine the color scheme for the book.

After finding awonderful green album with it's striking blue elastic closure it was time to gather my patterned paper, cardstock and embellishments.  One of the most awesome parts about this is that I was able to shop my own supplies.  All total with the cost of having the photos printed,  the album itself and some adhesive I think the whole project cost around $15.00.

Obviously most of my supplies were lake themed.  Lots of blue, green, white, yellow and water.

I quickly learned that it was okay to cut photos and use patterned paper as embellishments.

Dealing with vertical photos was interesting but I realized that it was okay to split them.  It looked pretty cool actually.

Sometimes it was just as effective and cool looking if a divider only had paper in it.

I loved working on this PAS.  It was so much fun and easy and freeing!!  I'll admit I was skeptical and when I started it was extremely challenging to literally change the way I feel and design my scrapbooks but this was amazing.  I plan on doing more albums in this style.

I have hundreds of photos from a trip to California a couple of years ago and I plan on doing a PAS only in 12x12 format using divided page protectors.  Can't wait to start that project!

28 Days of Sketches: Days 3-5

I'm starting to catch up with my 28 Days of Sketches assignments.  This is such a great way to work on my Disney Princess Half Marathon theme album.  I'm really getting a lot done using these amazing sketches from Lisa Day at Big Picture Classes.

Sketch 3 is a really simple design.  The white space can be left empty or filled with patterened paper.

I chose to fill the white space with patterned paper.  I also decided to go to my storage binders for a photo to scrap instead of using my Half-Marathon photos.  I love the photo that I chose.  It is one of my favorites.  I really like the way this page turned out.  I love the colors and the patterned paper.

Sketch 4 was originally an 8-1/2 x 11 double page spread.  I made it a 12 x 12 double page spread by making the photos larger.

I also flipped the pages and used a map instead of photos on the one page.

Sketch 5 is a very simple sketch with a lot of white space, putting the emphasis on the photo and story.

I loved the white space in this layout.  The only thing different is that I flipped the design.

28 Days of Sketches

I recently signed up for another awesome class at Big Picture Classes!  My latest adventure is a class called 28 Days of Sketches by Lisa Day.  This class is going to be great.  I love working from a sketch and since I haven't actually done a page in a while this is the perfect opportunity.

Today's sketch is a really great one.  It utilizes several photos and is easily adaptable to a double page spread.

I changed the sketch in my page a little in order to fit my particular photos.  I also added some embellishments and made it a double page spread.

I love this simple sketch/layout.   I will definitely be using it as a base again.

Day Four-Disney Princess Half Marathon Weekend

Today is the real reason I put myself through that Half-Marathon.  Today I get to spend 3-1/2 hours at the spa getting a facial and massage.

Before the afternoon at the spa though we are going to breakfast at Chef Mickey's at the Contemporary Resort.

This is one of the most popular Character Dining experiences and I can't wait to see how Bug-a-Boo reacts to Mickey and Friends.

She did great but she was still really shy with the characters.  It was funny because just like with the Cinderella meal she would get really excited as they were coming to the table and then really excited when they left the table.

When we got back to the hotel I went to the spa and it was amazing.  I met Prince Charming and Bug-a-Boo at the pool and we went up to the room to get cleaned up.  Waiting in the room was a package.

My wonderful husband had bought me the Dooney & Bourke letter bag that I had wanted as a Congratulations gift.  I love him so much!!

Tonight we'll head over to Downtown Disney one last time and then tomorrow morning we are off for home.

What a weekend!!